Chapter 108

The team tyrant had arrived and Puppy could no longer earn his dirty money. Puppy looked sadly at the live chat swooshing by and sighed.

It felt terrible having so much traffic without being able to swindle them of their money.

The team tyrant turned on his computer and started playing. He also started a live broadcast and the popularity of the Puppy’s live broadcast room instantly went down by more than half. Unfortunately, Shi Luo’s was still doing his no-webcam no-mic technical live broadcast. Shi Luo’s fans bitterly kept watch for a long time and ended up without even hearing his voice. They were left with no choice but to go back to Puppy’s live broadcast. They watched Shi Luo doing his live broadcast and used Puppy’s to listen to the sound of the Free training room in the background.

Puppy has long been accustomed to simply being a means to their ends. Unperturbed, he watched the popularity of his live broadcast take a dive and then gradually pick up again. He said leisurely, “Alright, go on. Leave...Don’t come running back here to watch my shanghuang.”

The fans gave Puppy some small gifts to comfort him.

None of them queued up for a match. After the short break, the players needed to get back the feeling in their hands. Winning or losing in the game wasn’t important. The point was to get back the feel of doing high-intensity training. For seven hours, save for going to the bathroom, Shi Luo hadn’t even taken a smoke break. He played round after round of continuous high-intensity practice. It was only at six o’clock in the afternoon, when it was about time to have dinner that he exited the game. He hadn’t even opened his mic. He was also too embarrassed to show himself eating dinner just to fill up his lacking live broadcast time and so he chose to just close the live broadcast.

It just so happened that Zhou Huo wanted to talk to everyone about business. So, instead of letting Puppy and Chen Huo bring up their meals to eat in front of their computers, everyone went to gather downstairs in the dining room.

Zhou Huo took advantage of everyone gathering to eat to sit to one side and explain matters one by one, “Tomorrow night at nine o’clock will be the group drawing for the World Championships. If you want to watch it, Old Qiao will arrange your training schedule so that it doesn’t clash.”

Old Qiao nodded while eating, “I know.”

“Aiya, it’s finally time to draw lots.” Chen Huo let out a whistle. “This is the most exciting. Come on, Sacred Sword...”

Shi Luo raised his eyes. Sacred Sword had its share of Shi Luo’s old resentments from when their team was dismantled. At the beginning of the season, Sacred Sword ran through the medics of the local division, creating new resentment. He too wanted very much to meet with Sacred Sword in the group stage.

“I, on the other hand, am looking forward to meeting the Japanese team, the Thai team, and the Philippine team...” Zhou Huo gave a panicked smile. “What for? What’s wrong with leaving the hard bones to chew on later?”

“That’s not good.” Shi Luo frowned, “I want to play against them in the group stage.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want anyway.” Zhou Huo said, “We’re not the ones making the draw. The organizer of this year’s World Championships is the European Division and it will be the officials of the European Division who will be doing the draw.”

Zhou Huo bowed his head and looked at his notebook, “Now... now every team that has entered the World Championship is performing magic. NSN’s manager has been bathing and burning incense since a few days ago. And every day he washes his hands with flower water...”

Yu Sui let out a hiss, “...Has he gone crazy?”

“He hasn’t gone crazy. He’s just hoping to get a good draw; he wants to be grouped with Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia...” Zhou Huo looked at his team of villains who were already raring to give things a go in the group stage. Expressionless, he said, “I’m also thinking about whether I should order some flowers to wash my soul tonight...Get us some good luck.”

“Don’t.” Chen Huo’s expression was defiant. “Can you please not be embarrassing? At any rate, we’re the first seeded team in our division, alright? Isn’t it beneath your dignity to be so worried about the group stage? There’s no need for your luck.”

Shi Luo wanted to play against the Sacred Sword since a long time ago and he too became a bit superstitious. “Don’t order flowers. Don’t even wash your hands tonight. Let your luck at gambling go a little rotten.”

Zhou Huo: “...”

Puppy swallowed and sighed, “In order to run into Sacred Sword early on, Shi Shen forced the team manager to be blessed with shit. Shi Shen’s the one you gotta look out for&#k2026;”

Yu Sui put down his chopsticks. In an instant, he was already full.

Old Qiao let out a burp with a smile. The food was delicious.

“I’m not talking with you guys about this...Later, give me your passports before you go back to your live broadcast tonight. I’ll handle your visas.” Zhou Huo flipped through his notebook, “I’ve got nothing else that has to do with you players. Next...just train without any worries. Everything is being handled by a team. So if you have any questions, just tell me right away.”

Everyone nodded and those who had finished eating went upstairs to their dorm rooms to get their passports to give to Zhou Huo. In less than half an hour, dinner time flashed past. Everyone returned to the training room. Those who needed to do their live broadcasts, did live broadcasts. Those who needed to queue up for a game, queued up for a game. After seven hours of training, at one o’clock in the morning, Zhou Huo came upstairs and urged them, “Don’t tire yourselves out too much. With the cooling and changing of the seasons, there are a lot of people who catch a cold at this time. You’ll get sick easily if you’re too tired. If you’re down for even just a day or two, the gains really aren’t worth the losses. Can we shorten the training time by at least an hour? Can live broadcasts finish at one o’clock in the morning? Over at NSN, they sleep at midnight now.”

Zhou Huo’s last sentence was addressed to Old Qiao. Old Qiao was playing as a sparring partner for Shi Luo. Without raising his head, he said, “Shortening it by an hour...It shouldn’t be impossible. Yu Sui?”

Yu Sui hadn’t been wearing headphone and he paused when he heard this.

Old Qiao said consolingly, “We’ve increased the training intensity, which means that the time is also compressed. It isn’t any less hard work. It should be okay to go to bed an hour earlier.”

Yu Sui said, “Alright. But it won’t be a hard rule. If you want to sleep at one in the morning, you can. If not, then it’s up to you.”

Puppy had been broadcasting for a whole day and this was very welcome news. As soon as he heard it, he quickly shut down the broadcast and shut down the game client where he’d just queued up for a game. He stretched and walked away. Not long after, Chen Huo also finished his game. He got up and looked at Shi Luo’s screen. Then, he went to look at Yu Sui’s. Afterwards, he too walked out of the training room.

“Okay.”

After another half an hour, Old Qiao also exited his gaming client. He walked over to Shi Luo and told him a few points he kept missing during training. He then rubbed his brows and laughed in spite of himself, “I’m never as tired being someone’s training partner as I am with you... ...Your hand speed really is fast. My eyes can’t keep up with your reaction.”

In terms of reaction ability, Shi Luo was now at the same level as Yu Sui. There were also faint indicators that he had the potential to even surpass him. Old Qiao was quite satisfied. Looking at Shi Luo’s eyes that didn’t have even the slightest trace of being bloodshot. He sighed, “It’s good to be young.”

From dinner up to this moment, Shi Luo had been playing for more than seven straight hours without any interruption. This was not even counting the afternoon training. Old Qiao had only started playing for Shi Luo from 9pm, which meant that he had only played four hours. And yet, he was already going to collapse. Old Qiao rubbed his shoulders and neck. “But still, you should take it a bit easy. I actually don’t approve of strikers training to the death like this. It takes too much of a toll on your body. This occupation already has the youngest retirement age and you still...”

“It doesn’t matter.” Shi Luo exported the training video from the game just now. He said absent-mindedly, “I don’t need to play for so many years.”

Old Qiao was taken aback. He glanced at Yu Sui and understood. He rolled his eyes, “Then it seems like I was f-ing unnecessarily concerned.”

“Next time I’ll have to find another sparring partner for you so we can take turns.” Old Qiao was feeling really tired, “A single training partner really isn’t enough for you.”

The training partners they usually searched for the team were high-level retired players. An hour costs 1,000 yuan. Old Qiao felt distressed about how much money the team spends every day. If possible, he usually volunteers himself, this free labor force. Normally, he can serve as Chen Huo and the others’ training partners for a while. Tonight, spending time as Shi Luo’s training partner had really driven him to the edge of his limits. He picked up his coat and hand on his lower back, he left as well.

“Calculate the time.”

Shi Luo was watching the training video. When he heard Yu Sui say something to him, he took off his headphones and looked at Yu Sui, “What did you just say?”

Yu Sui said, “Calculate the time that Old Qiao spent as your training partner and send it to Zhou Huo... Let Zhou Huo settle a training salary for him. Tell him it’s Zhou Huo’s idea.”

“Old Qiao...” Yu Sui said slowly, “His family used to have a lot of debts and he’s spent too many hard days. He’s so used to saving money that he’s developed a neurosis. He penny-pinches in everything. Even when go out to eat, he even has to take home the paper towels with him. It’s to be expected that he saves on his personal expenses...but he also wants to save for the team...His salary as a coach is at the normal market price but if he could, he’d also take on the job of training partner, data analyst, psychological counselor, trainer, training room sanitation...and we’re not short of this little bit.”

Shi Luo looked at Yu Sui. Raising his eyebrows, he said, “Why didn’t you tell him this just now?”

Yu Sui started another game, “Hurry up.”

Shi Luo laughed and calculated the time. As instructed by Yu Sui, he handed to Zhou Huo the issue of giving Old Qiao a salary as sparring partner.

After he sent the WeChat message, Zhou Huo quickly replied that he would take care of the settlement and Shi Luo put his phone aside.

The longer you spend time with him, the more you get to know the secret gentleness of Slag man Yu.

Everyday, he likes this person a little more than before.

Shi Luo liked high-intensity training. And though Yu Sui disagreed with him regarding this matter, he wouldn’t forcefully intervene in Shi Luo’s plan for his own career. The only thing he could do was rub Shi Luo’s shoulders and arms to help him relax his muscles as he whispers words of love to Shi Luo every night before going to bed.

Old Qiao liked taking home the paper towels from restaurant to receive some petty gains. Once in a while, he would forget and Yu Sui would remind him, “There’s still a pack behind the plate that hasn’t been opened and I’ve also paid the bill already.”

Yu Sui never liked to force or correct others; no matter how improper taking paper towels seemed to him.

Shi Luo suddenly understood why Yu Sui was such a good club owner. Instead of taking the tyrant route, he took the slag man route instead.

All of Whisper’s gentleness was based on respect.

Shi Luo lowered his eyes and let out a sigh.

Yu Sui turned his head and glanced at Shi Luo, “What are you sighing about?”

Shi Luo looked at his monitor with an expression as though he were nursing some grievance. He shook his head and said ambiguously, “It’s nothing.”

Yu Sui frowned. His game wasn’t over yet and he couldn’t afford any distractions so he could only continue to focus on his game.

Shi Luo picked up his phone, his heart full of hatred.

He wanted to make a post on Weibo.

He wanted to post using his side account.

He wanted to make a record of just how good Slag man Yu was.

Shi Luo put down his phone and picked it up again. After a several twists and turns, he said nonsensically, “I’m going to curl up... I’ll be back later and I’ll play until 2 before I get off”

Yu Sui was about to break the opponent’s resurrection stone and nodded lightly when he heard him.

In this match, Yu Sui had two professional players from other teams. They played very well and after a short while, they won the game. After breaking the opponent’s resurrection stone, Yu Sui replied with an emoticon to the other players who greeted him and then exited the map.

Yu Sui picked up his phone with a smile on his lips. With practiced ease, he opened Shi Luo’s side account.

He refreshed the page but there were still no new posts.

Yu Sui wasn’t in any hurry. He refreshed every ten seconds and on his twelfth refresh, there was a new notification for Shi Luo’s side account.

[The gentlest person I have ever met, Whisper. 】

Yu Sui naturally understood that Shi Luo was referring to the way that he had quietly raised Old Qiao’s salary, but... the fans didn’t necessarily think that way.

Yu Sui clicked open the comments section.

[A new post! A new post! A new post!]

[The post is a bit short, but Zai Zai’s writing style is really good. The first part is Chinese, the second is foreign. The first part has eight characters and the back has seven. Taken together, it represents your love! ]

[Before, I was blind and I actually insulted your writings for being so inexplicable but now this delicate writing is like a breath of cool air. It’s incredible. When can I attain this kind of immortal writing? ]

[The first eight characters represent that our team will be lucky in the draw tomorrow, and the last seven letters mean loving you every day, seven days a week! Now that I’ve felt Shi Zai’s love, I can sleep warmly tonight. ]

[A short sentence with limited characters; a historian’s peak of poetic perfection; a rhyme-less Li Sao. Read and engrave in one’s memory. ]

[This sentence. The writing is so good that it is even worthy of being engraved on a stone in front of the Free base! In the future, it will be praised by all people. This! Is! Not! An! Exaggeration!]

[This content. At this time. Tsk...]

[I’m blushing? (? ???ω??? ?)?]

[Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, Holding back my curiosity, I’m dying! Praising his writing and he doesn’t care! Just click! Why is Slag man Yu so gentle? What did he do to you? ? ? ]

[I know you’re not Shi Shen. So, you can give us a little more details. Remember, you’re just a bloodsucking little hussy. So, don’t worry! ]

[I also know that you’re not Shi Zai. So, you can just post as you please. Make it sexier! ]

[Oh, it’s useless to count on you. @Puppy, go! Go to Yu Shen’s room to give us an all night live broadcast. We’ll raise the funds to give you 100 million yuan. ]