Chapter 66

A group of players were making trouble together. The Chinese League inevitably needed to take an interest in the matter. Zhou Huo had been prepared for it for a long time. He narrated in full the causes and consequences of the entire matter. In passing, he helped the other teams explain. One, the players did not violate discipline and two, none of them broke any rules. Pushing back against the sprayers on a public platform was something the individual players decided on. Moreover, they were forced to fight back. In itself, they hadn’t violated any of the regulations of the league.

However, the league officials still issued official notices to Free, Saint, and the Yi Zhan clubs, asking the clubs to regulate their players’ behavior, prohibiting the clubs from influencing others, and admonishing them. They asked that the club management cooperate with the league to maintain the positive image of the players as much as possible.

When all was said and done, the players hadn’t violated any rules, and the officials couldn’t impose any punishments. The only thing they could do was to give these useless warnings. It was probably because he had been spending too much time with Yu Sui, this group of wicked people, that Zhou Huo, when replying to the league official, lost his temper and no longer answered them in his usual sly manner but instead did so frostily. In summary, they will comply with what needed to be complied with but insults that they shouldn’t accept, they still won’t accept.

After pressing the ‘send’ button and dealing with the league officials, Zhou Huo felt refreshed. He felt so young, so amazing. If he dyed his hair while he could be like Shi Luo and be an invincible sprayer.

After having a small meeting with several base-side staff members, Zhou Huo relaxed and let everyone go and rest. He checked the time and it was already past one o’clock in the morning.

Zhou Huo came out of the first floor conference room. He walked around the first floor but saw no one. He only ran into Old Qiao who was coming downstairs and waiting to for the takeaway delivery. Zhou Huo asked, “Where are the others? Asleep?”

“I don’t know, I just washed my clothes.” Old Qiao rolled up his cuffs, “It’s kinda embarrassing to have Auntie wash my pajamas and underwear. They’ve been piled up for a week, and I just finished washing them. What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter? I’m so happy.” Zhou Huo straightened his neckline and smiled, “It’s so cool, I feel like I’m several years younger. Do you think they’re sleeping or playing? I’m gonna report on the conclusion of this matter then I’m going to head to bed afterwards.”

“I don’t know, they were still in the training room before I went to do laundry. Chen Huo and Puppy were on their computers. I don’t know what they were doing. Yu Sui and Evil were on the sofa.” Mentioning this, Old Qiao frowned, “Why does it feel like... ...Yu Sui and Shi Luo are always together nowadays? How did those two get closer than anyone else after they reconciled?”

A secret smile flashed in Zhou Huo’s eyes, “They have a good relationship. Shi Luo has that kind of temper. When he hated Yu Sui, he could almost trade punches. But when they’re good, they’re almost attached at the hip. Sigh... This is youth.”

“Whatever.” Old Qiao shook his head indifferently. “When I was in FS, he only stuck with Yu Sui too.”

The doorbell rang. The delivery had arrived and Old Qiao hurried to open the door. Zhou Huo went upstairs to find everyone.

Having dealt with everything that should be dealt with, Zhou Huo wanted to tell the players that this matter was officially over. But when Zhou Huo went to the second floor, he still couldn’t hear any voices. There was no sound outside their dorm room. When Zhou Huo opened the door to the training room, he saw that all four of them, without exception, were all in their seats.

No one was doing a live broadcasts, no one was playing anything else, they were all doing their own training as usual.

Originally, Zhou Huo had been carried away by these players. He felt very good and he even felt like he was back in his rebellious period. But seeing them like this, he was suddenly rooted on the spot. For a while, his throat felt a little tight.

Just two hours ago, the fans on the forums were still ridiculing these people, saying that the whored with Internet celebrities, slept with fans, took their pay without putting in the effort and that they were party animals, the next one worse than that last.

Many of the normal players had no idea about the actual situation but they still believed it. They felt that these players with an average age of just over 20, could easily get millions in annual salary just because they just had a little bit more talent than others. They could make money by just playing games. Didn’t they have it so easy?

Shi Luo and the others were all used to being sprayed, and they are also used to spraying back. They had no problem fighting back against those moronic sprayers. When it comes to having a poisonous tongue, they wouldn’t lose out to anyone. But not a one of these players would ever sell misery.

None of the players ever tried to defend themselves and explain that it wasn’t easy to get this millions worth of salary.

They had to give up on their studies and they left no way out for themselves.

They sacrificed their youth, their health, time they could be spending with their family. They sacrificed the best years of their life for dating and finding love.

They received all sorts of problems from the outside world, they experienced monumental pressure in matches and competition within the circle was fierce.

They have to endure a lot of hardship, have to work hard, and they want to win more than anyone.

If they didn’t have such a strong desire to win who could possibly, after being splashed with dirty sewage and still being unable to completely wash clean of it, temporarily suppress the anger in the hearts, to make use of and not waste even these scant two hours to train.

In any case, ordinary people like Zhou Huo couldn’t do it. He wasn’t really in it. At the moment, he was still angry. He wanted to fight with those sprayers for eight hundred more rounds.

But these players did it.

They’ve sprayed and they’ve cursed. They’ve made the best use of their time to adjust their emotions and seeing that there was still time, went back to train for a while.

Even though the coach had already said that they could rest; even if it was only for an hour or two.

Standing outside the training room, Zhou Huo’s spirit that Shi Luo had fired up, calmed down. For the first time, he felt that the villains in his team had more professional ethics than anyone else.

In the end, Zhou Huo chose not to enter the room and disturb them just to say that the league officials have deemed the matter closed. He took a few photos of everyone from outside the door.

The league officials had dealt with the matter well. Zhou Huo’s original intention was that after he had informed everyone, he would release on their official Weibo a post beating up all the sprayers as a wind up for this incident. But now, it seemed that his priorities that been too small.

Zhou Huo logged into the Free’s official Weiboo and released a post with an attached picture.

[We take things seriously — from f*cking over sprayers, to honing our skills to win.]

As soon as he posted on Weibo, there were instantly more than a thousand comments. Fans who really liked Free were proud and elated. Fans who were initially worried that Free players would lose fans because they’d sprayed back no longer entertained imaginary and groundless fears.

These players that they’ve liked for so many years would never disappoint. They could say the foulest most toxic words and still play the most serious games. Those two concepts weren’t mutually exclusive and they didn’t need sprayers pointing fingers.

This crisis gradually subsided after a few days. Although it was their bad luck to be splashed by this rank sewage that they couldn’t completely wash off of, after this battle, Zhou Huo’s management team has finally completely broken in with and gotten used to Free’s players.

Zhou Huo was no longer so obsessed with managing the popularity of the team, and he no longer insisted on maintaining the perfect image of the players.

“This way’s good too. None of you are idols anyway. You’ve got a bit of a bad attitude, so what? We’re like this but the number of our fans is still crushing everyone else’s.”

At noon, Zhou Huo was holding a meeting with them over breakfast. He said, relaxed, “With us serving as an example, the other teams have also toughened up. I heard that the ROD has now fully adjusted his condition. He said it during the live broadcast yesterday. He’s looking forward to playing with us in the playoffs. He’ll be sure to wash away his disgrace.”

“Not bad, not bad.” Puppy said lazily. “Young men, you see, have to be sprayed a few times in order to develop their mental quality. This time he was targeted by the sprayers, next time he won’t succumb to pressure so easily in matches. ...This time we totally helped out NSN to train their troops. They owe us one.”

“Just a reminder. ROD is the same age as you, one year younger than Yu Sui, and one year older than Shi Luo.” Old Qiao said as he sighed, “It’s us who are still so tragic. Of our four active starters, the oldest being only twenty-one, but already so numb to everything.”

Chen Huo took a bite of the pickled cucumber and then sighed, “What has this world done to us...”

“Don’t talk with you mouth open.” Shi Luo frowned, “Don’t drip acid everywhere. You’re disgusting.”

“Look. Can’t a man feel sorry for himself without getting sprayed?” Chen Huo touched his face, self-pityingly, “Don’t disgusting people also deserve to be doted on?”

Yu Sui slowly took a sip of porridge, “No, they don’t.”

“Old Qiao is in charge of training. Your coach is a professional. The team that does the data analysis of the teams for you are also professionals. I can’t interfere in these matters so I won’t talk about them. But in short, for very inexplicable reasons, we’ve beaten NSN, who we were expecting to be the second toughest team to play with in the regular season. Next is Saint. There’s not a lot of days left. You’ve already been given this season’s data analysis on Saint. Angel Sword is still the first milktank medic in the league. Their style of play is actually quite against us. Focus on what you need to focus on. Supplement what you need to supplement. I’m not going to talk much about things I don’t understand.” Zhou Huo took a notebook and wrote things down. “You don’t need to worry about team management. There’s just one thing I’d like to ask your opinions on.”

Zhou Huo put down his notebook and looked at everyone, “Sacred Sword.”

“I have no idea what’s gotten into the f*cked up team but they keep targeting us and won’t let go. All told, I’ve already scolded them twice on on our official blog. There’s definitely bad blood between us now. But then, from the very start, it was already impossible to live peacefully with them anyway. Zhou Huo asked everyone, “I just wanted to ask you, as former Sacred Sword players, if I try to turn the tables and try to crush their spirits instead. Is it possible?”

Old Qiao glanced at Zhou Huo, surprised, “Well, this is amazing. Have they infected you now?”

“Yeah, they’ve infected me but I’m also fed up with that sh*t team. It’s fifty-fifty.” Zhou Huo asked, “In any case, I can understand their games without an interpreter. I can also go over there and keep an eye on their forums. No team remains undefeated. Would it be of any use if I taunt them a bit when they suffer a setback?”

Yu Sui shook his head, “It’s useless.”

Puppy followed up, “Impossible. One is because of the cultural difference. They really are more open over there. The other reason is because their business philosophy is different. If a player’s mentality collapses, he will be replaced immediately. It wouldn’t interfere with the team as a whole.”

“It’s not weird that they’re targeting us.” Chen Huo stared at Yu Sui as he chewed on the pickles. “Yu Sui didn’t renew his contract. This incident alone offended them already. Then Puppy and I both returned to China. They probably considered this as Yu Sui’s doing as well. Their team’s upper management has a lot of grudges.”

Zhou Huo frowned, “Is it only their top management who’s disgusting? Their players are also disgusting. You do remember when they sent Angel Sword and Wawa cycling? Their players posted screenshots of them cycling our medics on Twitter. What kind of sick joke is that?”

“I know about this.” Shi Luo took a bite of some bread fritters. “When we get to the World Championships and we run into them, we can challenge them to a match to delete their accounts.”

Yu Sui’s eyes lit up faintly and he looked at Shi Luo and smiled.

Chen Huo though took in a sharp breath and looked Shi Luo up and down.”Evil, we’re not going to be taking it that far.”

Shi Luo yanked and wiped his mouth, “I’ll do it myself, you don’t need to participate.”

Zhou Huo looked bewildered. He turned to Old Qiao beside him, “What is this account deletion match?”

“It’s black talk.” Old Qiao smiled, “You can easily tell it came out of some seedy internet cafe...”

Old Qiao put down his spoon and explained to Zhou Huo, “An account deletion match is something that was played by some players a long time ago. If for various reasons, there’s deep seated hatred in the game between two players, the kind that can’t ever be resolved. One would invite the other to a life or death match. If you win, that’s great. But if you lose, you have to delete your account.”

“It’s not easy to maintain an account. Setting aside how much it costs to buy skins, many of the skins are already out of print. Now, you won’t be able to buy it even if you’ve got the money. There’s also your accomplishments during each season, recorded match by match. Those are all solid medals.” Old Qiao looked at Shi Luo, “Not to mention the value of a pro-players’ account. You wouldn’t even be able to count how much money they’ve spend on their accounts. They basically spend for their little wives with their eyes closed. Very few players spend only a few thousands on their account. And if you don’t want to consider this then what about the emotional attachment?”

“Individual accounts keep track of every friend they’ve added as well as every in-game chat they’ve had with their friends. The friends of a pro-player are basically pro-players as well, many of who have probably retired. In game chat records are never deleted. Then aren’t all these memories? There’s also the records of each game. When they retire in the future, they’d take a look and these will be all the mountains that they’ve scaled.” Old Qiao recalled those moments before he retired and sighed, “A few months ago, when we’d just established the team, the league officials were so willing to help Yu Sui, they would have given him anything he asked for. But Yu Sui hadn’t asked them for anything save to reinstate the accounts we’d decommissioned before. Why do you think that is?”

Zhou Huo froze in place. He looked at Shi Luo, and gave a hollow laugh, “Then... There’s really no need to go that far.”

“It doesn’t matter. I already wanted to challenge someone earlier, but at that moment...” Shi Luo paused and didn’t say anything further.

Zhou Huo didn’t react and asked curiously, “Who did you want to challenge?”

Yu Sui’s eyes moved and turned to look at Shi Luo, “Me.”

Shi Luo looked around and said nothing, silently acquiescing.

Chen Huo laughed and slapped the table, “I would have completely forgotten if you hadn’t mentioned it. The very first medic in our division to have ever been cycled is our very own Luo Luo. Sigh, I’m not trying to rile anyone up, really. But Shi Luo, you really should have challenged Yu Sui before you changed jobs back then. I would have been happy to have either of your accounts deleted!”

Yu Sui stared fixedly at Shi Luo. “...Why didn’t you send the challenge?”

Shi Luo glanced at Yu Sui. He was silent for a while and then said vaguely, “Both of our accounts were new at that time. It would have been meaningless to delete them.”

Yu Sui knew that this wasn’t the answer which meant that it wasn’t for the other people around the table to know. He didn’t try to pursue the question. With proper business discussed and out of the way, everyone scattered. Shi Luo went to the terrace to smoke and Yu Sui followed.