FOG [e-sports]

Low-key was humble but not without character.

“This really is the first time I’ve ever seen a team set up a practice match and once they see they couldn’t win claim a power outage cut their network connection.” Zhou Huo was at the end of his patience as he edited his Weibo post. “Weren’t they just afraid that if they lost the next match it would affect their players’ mentality? F*ck! After they sent medics from two teams in our region cycling through the resurrection stone?! Didn’t they think that would affect those people’s mentalities? What the hell!”

“Do they really regard our region as pushovers? They haven’t even won the championship yet and they already couldn’t wait their turn, coming here to step on people’s faces.” Even Old Qiao, who has never liked inviting trouble said, “Post it, post it. Is only their mentality valuable? Others’ are worthless?”

“Exactly!” Chen Huo was indignant. “Although I don’t like teaming up with Wawa very much, I say it as it is and he’s not a bad kid. After being abused by them like that, I don’t even know if he’s managed to recover yet.”

“Not yet.” Shi Luo held his mobile phone in one hand and slowly swiped through his circle of friends. He said in a low voice, “He’s been abused into a confused daze.”

Chen Huo looked at Shi Luo. “Why do you say that? How is he?”

Shi Luo looked down at Wawa’s friends only posts. He read without a trace of emotion, “After waking up at noon, I took a very long shower, letting the water of the Yangtze River wash over my body as best as possible. But Sacred Sword’s stink doesn’t seem to wash away from my body. I still feel so dirty, so dirty. Crying emoji, crying emoji, crying emoji.”

Chen Huo sighed, “Look, just take a look at that. Sigh. I feel sorry for my baby.”

Puppy shook his head. “Such evil people... His ability to withstand pressure definitely isn’t strong enough. But Shi Luo, I have a question that I’m really curious about and I can’t help but want to interview the victim.”

Shi Luo looked up at Puppy.

Puppy’s face was full of curiosity and desire to learn. “Are we too shameless, or are you too rigid? Will you medics die if you try to be more flexible? In that kind of game, you know you can’t turn the situation around, you know the opposing team has malicious intentions, so you guys should just surrender.”

“Yeah!” Chen Huo said thoughtlessly. He let go and said, “In that first game, if you had just kept up with our hand speed and was as quick as we were to surrender then you wouldn’t have lost one more head. Sigh...”

Shi Luo glanced at Chen Huo, and a moment later said, “The stubbornness of youth.”

To the side, Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo.

After speaking, Shi Luo shook his head and quickly changed the subject. “Let’s do the game review.”

“Alright&#k2026;I won’t bicker over this. I’ll do the game review too.” Chen Huo sighed, “Among the renowned medics in our region, only our team’s Whisper hasn’t been done in yet. In order to protect our most amazing Yu Shen, we’ll have to train and train.”

Yu Sui didn’t even look up and said lightly, “Do I even have use for your protection? Who was it that forced me to play to the limit today to save his fool dog’s life?”

Chen Huo smiled guiltily and went to watch the game replay by himself.

Old Qiao nodded and said, “I’ll have to watch these two practice game videos a couple of times before I can conduct a game review. Else, I might not be able to catch all the problems in one go. You can look at the video recording and focus on your own situation first. To be honest, even if we really played that third game, our chances of winning weren’t all that big. There are still a lot of problems. The strong enemy is out, so pay attention.”

“Yes, we have to make the best use of our time. You have a regular season game against Ten Thousand Mountains tomorrow. It’s a home game for Ten Thousand Mountains.” Zhou Huo felt much more refreshed after he scolded Sacred Sword on Weibo. He clapped his hands and said, “We have to fly to Chongqing in the morning so go to bed early tonight.”

Ten Thousand Mountains was one of the few teams whose bases weren’t in Shanghai. Their base was in Chongqing. Because the match tomorrow afternoon would be played in their home court, Free would need to arrive in Chongqing at noon to report at the competition venue. They were in for an early start tomorrow.

“Okay...” Puppy had a headache at the thought of getting up early tomorrow. He went back to reviewing the game with a bitter expression.

Old Qiao photocopied his notes from the practice matches and handed them to everyone. He then went to the next door meeting room to review the game. The players busied themselves reviewing tape or playing the game.

Sacred Sword’s approach playing against Free today was very obvious. They used Free’s aggressive style to play with their economy, seeing who would spend their money first. In the second game, Yu Sui already did his best, but without the use of that clever scheme, they still used more of their economy than Sacred Sword did. Yu Sui logged onto the custom server to do economic deductions. It took two hours and afterwards, he marked down the peak economic consumption points and saved them as a file.

Yu Sui rubbed his eyes, got up and left the training room.

On the small terrace on the second floor of the base, Shi Luo was lying against the railing, smoking.

Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo from a distance, and remembered when Puppy asked Shi Luo just now why he didn’t surrender immediately. Shi Luo said that it was the stubbornness of youth.

Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo’s back. Just then, there was a moment when Yu Sui suspected that Shi Luo had deliberately said those words, alluding to their past.

Shi Luo never liked mentioning the past, but Yu Sui has recently had a vague realization that as long as he was present, Shi Luo wouldn’t be so avoidant about it.

It wasn’t that Yu Sui was sensitive. As early as two years ago, when it comes to making his heart ache, Shi Luo was never one to disappoint.

But thinking this way was unavoidably too malicious. It was obviously himself who had killed Shi Luo so many times back then.

Yu Sui sneered at himself. It was obviously he who committed the crime, and now he dared to suspect others of deliberately unearthing old matters.

Shi Luo sensed someone behind him and turned around to see Yu Sui.

The two looked at each other for a second. Yu Sui didn’t try to avoid it and simply walked over to the terrace.

For some reason Shi Luo was reluctant to face Yu Sui. He avoided looking at him by lowering his head and fiddling with the thorns of the cactus on the terrace. He had nothing he wanted to talk about but tried to find something to fill the awkward silence, “I...didn’t play very well today.”

Shi Luo lowered his head and said to himself, “Although Chen Huo unavoidably makes mistakes, he can keep up. I still can’t fully integrate into the team’s overall rhythm. But this is something that can only be broken in gradually. I already talked to Puppy. After our match with Ten Thousand Mountains we’ll start teaming up, try to work on our cooperation as much as possible, then...”

Shi Luo’s words went in Yu Sui’s left ear and out through his right. Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo and was almost certain. What Shi Luo said just then was said for him to hear.

What’s more, he regretted saying it.

That’s why he was so embarrassed now, trying his best to avoid talking about it.

Yu Sui acquiesced that right now, Shi Luo was trying to keep the peace by changing the subject. Inwardly, he warned himself to accept this kindness. He mustn’t cause trouble for himself by mentioning past matters.

Right now, everything was proceeding smoothly. Sometimes, it was necessary to feign ignorance. Not to mention, everything that happened then had been his fault. Bringing it up and rehashing the matter was of absolutely no benefit to himself.

“Then I should also practice a lot with Chen Huo.” Shi Luo was practically just talking to himself out loud. “Then, I’ll try as much as possible to fix this problem of going out of sync with your three before the payoffs. Of course, that’s assuming we’re able to enter the playoffs, but this problem shouldn’t be that bad...”

Yu Sui watched Shi Luo trying his best to find a graceful exit from this awkward situation. Inwardly, Yu Sui said to himself, ‘to fuck with keeping the peace’.

“Shi Luo.” Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo, “During that practice match two years ago, when I killed you so many times, why didn’t you surrender?”

Yu Sui frowned slightly, “The stubbornness of youth...what did you mean by that?”

Shi Luo pursed his lips tightly and stopped talking.

“I originally...” Yu Sui paused, “I originally thought that you and Gu Gan were the same, stubborn to the point of obstinacy and would rather break than bend. But you also surrendered in that first game just now.”

Shi Luo put out his cigarette. He continued to tug the thorns of the cactus. After a while, he whispered. “... I did that on purpose.”

“At first, I wanted you to recognize that it was me, so I kept at it and kept at it. Although I changed my usual military uniform skin and changed my ID, I felt that you would definitely recognize me. Shi Luo looked down at the cactus, “After all, I was the medic you personally taught. We were teammates for a few months. I didn’t believe you wouldn’t recognize me.”

Shi Luo paused and continued, “Unexpectedly, you really didn’t recognize me. Right?”

Yu Sui didn’t want to lie to Shi Luo and didn’t feel inclined to explain how bad his state was at that time. He simply admitted it, “Yes, I didn’t recognize you at all.”

“I realized that. So I competed with myself at first. I kept getting up, thinking that if I could just go two meters forward. I had to make it in front of your character to let you take a good look at who it was. I wanted you to recognize me.” Shi Luo stubbornly said, “But you cut me down until I couldn’t move. At that time, I was competing with myself as well as with you. I couldn’t understand. How could you not recognize even me?”

Shi Luo laughed at himself: “F*ck, it was so unreasonable.”

“But I quickly stopped being unreasonable. If you couldn’t recognize me then you couldn’t recognize me. By the twentieth time that you killed me, I had already accepted that fact. But I still kept getting up, letting you kill me.”

“Twenty times still wasn’t enough. I let you kill me a few more times.” Shi Luo raised his head and looked at Yu Sui, his black eyes looked the same as they were two years ago, “If I didn’t die so many times, when you find out later that Evil was actually me, it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

“I did it on purpose.”

“That’s how messed up I am.”

“I told you about how my cousin’s family schemed against me. I made you blame yourself about inadvertently helping them in their plan. I did that on purpose.”

“I let you know how unreliable my dad is, and told you that I would continue being an anchor if you didn’t let me play professionally. I did that on purpose.”

“I told you about how my mother abandoned me and showed me not the least bit of concern for so many years. I did that on purpose too.”

“You have too many friends around you. You’re so powerful and too busy every day. It would be the same to you whether I was in your life or not... Back then I was such an idiot and I was too inexperienced. I couldn’t think of any other way to attract your attention, to get you to care about me.”

“Of course, this method might not work very well.”

Shi Luo looked at Yu Sui, his eyes were clearly provocative, but the redness around its rim ruined that effect. “Yu Sui, did I succeed?”

Shi Luo asked, “Did you feel distressed when you were in Germany and you found out that I was Evil?”

“I...” Yu Sui took a deep breath, his voice a little hoarse, “After I went to Germany, I only had a stomach problem once.”

“It was on that day I found out your new ID.”

Shi Luo’s eyes trembled slightly. After a while, he whispered, “Then I won, huh.”

Shi Luo cleared his throat and tried to calm himself down, “When Puppy asked me that today, I fell back onto old habits and said that. I was using that method to try to get your attention once again. Don’t worry, I know I’m not a child anymore. Later, I’ll try my best to pay attention and not...”

“No need to change. Just do as you want. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo, “I’ve already accepted this.”

“I have since two years ago.”