Book 1 — 36

Book 1: Chapter 36

During the brief ten minute intermission, Grunt just stared at the computer screen with a very serious expression in deep thought. Solo on the other side also wasn’t paying attention to the noise in the arena. He took off his glasses, took out eye drops from his pocket, put in couple of drops into his eyes, and rested while lightly rubbing between his eyes.

Solo sat with his head raised up which made the SP logo on his left chest especially eye-catching.

His fans had always taken offense about his ranking on Battle.net. Grunt had entered the top ten list long ago while Solo’s name wasn’t even on the list.

But with this single round of battle, the excitement would keep his fans up for an entire night.

Ai Qing was thinking about turning around to check on her sister whose concerns were focused solely on Grunt. She didn’t expect that Ai Jing had already walked over to the side of the stage, calling softly out to Grunt. After a while, Grunt walked to the edge of the stage and knelt down to talk to Ai Jing.

Their eyes were looking at each other from beginning to end.

Grunt quickly laughed as Ai Jing spoke. He squeezed her hand and got up to walk back to his seat.

Many people were surprised to see a face that looked so much like Ai Qing. They looked over to Ai Qing who was still sitting in the first row and realized that these two were sisters.

“That’s your sister?” Baona who sat to her left asked her.

She replied with an ‘en’.

“Your sister is Grunt’s girlfriend?” All to the right also couldn’t help asking.

“En, I guess so. I’m not exactly sure either……”

Xiaomi inhaled through his teeth. “Quite interesting. You twins fall for a pair of natural enemies.”

She kept quiet.

Her sister still stood next to the stage with her eyes fixed on Grunt. Ai Qing seemed to see herself from the past.

At this time, the commentators were getting ready for the next round. Solo finally opened his eyes and put his glasses back on.

This round, Grunt used Zerg and Solo was Terran.

When everyone thought the first round had reached the peak of today’s competition, the second round’s rapid tempo reached another wave of climax. This was a best of three games, this second round would be Grunt’s last chance to win. Maybe due to the unexpected loss of last round, he chose to use an aggressive strategy this round.

There were skirmishes everywhere, along with large battles.

A game of ultimate skill, the two commentators took turns to explain but still couldn’t keep up with the tempo of the battlefield.

Thirty minutes later, Grunt suddenly typed two letters “GG.”[1]

GG. Good game.

For professional players, GG meant the end of the game, like throwing in the towel.

For Ai Qing the amatuer, it looked like Grunt still had a chance to turn things around……Baona stood up with smile and applauded with the audience. “Looks like Solo likes him a lot. He had played an exhibition game like a WCG final, without holding back.”

When the background picture turned back again to 3D animations, Solo and Grunt stood up at the same time.

Solo fans in the audience were in such a high that they kept calling out his name.

Amid the commentators’ excited voices, Solo suddenly reached out his left hand to pat Grunt who had just walked to his side and said something to the younger player with a smile.

With all the cheering and screaming, not even the commentators could hear what exactly he had said.

“What did Solo say?” All asked her puzzled.

“How could I know.”

Actually, she had seen it clearly.

She understood him well enough, she knew what he said from just the shape of his mouth.

‘See you at Blizzard Cup.’

That’s what Solo had said.

Unlike WCG, ESWC international competitions, the Blizzard Entertainment, the company which made games like Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, hosts an all star invitational game every year.

They only invite the top ten professional players globally. The top five players from GSL, the WCG final champion, the IEM6 champion, the IGN Pro League champion, the DreamHack winter competition champion, the MLG champion……

In other words, only the champions of every major international competition would be qualified to be invited.