Book 1 — 17

Book 1: Chapter 17

“Do you have any plan to continue competing? Nowadays, a lot of tournaments have awards for female teams.”

“No plan.” Ai Qing shook her head. “Didn’t you retire too?”

“Yeah,” the commentator sighed. “I officially retired last year. I work at a bank now. All my free time is devoted to doing commentary for various competitions. Sometimes, for specially good competitions, I’m always sure to be there even if I have to pay for the trip out of my own pocket. My esports dream, I figure I won’t wake up from it all my life.”

“I have always felt sorry for all of you.” The commentator was becoming rather emotional. “Everyone of you looked like you had such bright futures, but then you all disappeared.”

“Luckily, Dt is back.” She looked over to the contestants area not too far from where they stood and discovered that Dt was walking towards her.

“Yeah.” The commentator also turned around to take a look. “We have too few world champions. If we can have more world champions and more gold medals, then esports will be definitely become more mainstream.”

Dt was taking his time to walk over and stopped right next to them.

The commentator delightedly patted his shoulder. “After news about today’s Guangzhou competition is out, all the predictions on major forums will absolutely have an upheaval. Without Grunt, you’ll definitely be the champion here. After you get signed up with a club, you’ll be a pro. Keep it up.”

“Thanks.”

His answer was very simple and the eyes under the rim of his cap were placid.

Ai Qing was afraid that the commentator had felt embarrassed, she cleared her throat and half jokingly said, “Dt always acts cool. After we won the championship in Singapore, a bunch of the media tried to interview him and asked many questions. They asked him what he thought about the sponsors, how he felt about the competition, how he thought about his opponents, all he answered was two words --- ” She imitated the way he talked and lowered her voice. “Not bad.”

Even Dt curved up the sides of his mouth after hearing what she said.

“Gotcha, gotcha. I’ve met people who talk even less.” The commentator laughed. “I have to go for the raffle. You guys talk. I have to go back on stage.”

He turned around and ran up to the stage afterwards.

People were continuously coming back from lunch. When they passed by the two, they all looked at Dt with surprise. It’s hard to be as calm as he was, without giving even the tiniest reaction to the attention.

Ai Qing tilted her head, trying to look at his eyes from under rim of his cap. “How do you feel about this morning?”

“Not bad.”

He answered without thinking.

The two looked at each other for 3 seconds, Ai Qing was the one who first bursted out laughing.

Dt tilted his head, and waited with some embarrassment for her to stop laughing. Then he casually looked over at the stage and asked her a not so important question. “Have you eaten?”

“I just ate. Ate a lot of snacks outside the stadium. Guangzhou’s snacks are really good.” She sounded like she hadn’t had enough.

“Are you full?”

“I thought I was full. But for snacks, you feel you’re full at the time but later on you find out that you’re actually still hungry.” Ai Qing remembered that pitiful lunch box he just had and also asked, “Are you full? The sponsors are so stingy, they just gave you guys boxed lunches.”

He didn’t really care. “It’s alright.”

Music began to gradually quiet down signaling that it was almost time for the afternoon competition.

She pouted her lips to remind him. “It’s starting.”

It’s the final rounds for the last 16 players in the afternoon.

Two matches were going on at the same time. They were broadcasted live on two large screens.

Due to commercial sponsorship, two commentators were continuously doing quiz shows on esports facts during intervals between the game rounds. The questions were most related to computer hardware and the awards naturally were famous players’ autographed pictures.

The little boy behind Ai Qing got the chance to answer two consecutive questions, but failed to come up with the correct answers. He was punching the chair dejectedly. She felt this boy was very interesting and since he had very nicely told her about Grunt in the morning, she turned around and said, “Next one you try to get picked to answer, I will tell you the answer.”

“Really?” The little boy looked at her surprisingly.

Ai Qing winked. “Yes, believe me. These questions are all piece of cake for me.”

The little boy hurriedly took out a notebook from his backpack and passed a pen to her. “Can you give me your autograph? Though I don’t know who you are, but I’m sure you are awesome.”

……

This was the first time Ai Qing signed an autograph under this kind of circumstance……

Considering that he was only 12 or 13 years old, there was nothing to be angry about.

She awkwardly took over the pen, quickly signed and returned it to him.