Chapter 74

In the car going from Saint’s stadium back to their home base, the four players were resting. For a while, no one said anything. Old Qiao was looking through his mobile phone. From time to time, the ‘kacha’ sound of him taking screenshots could be heard. After almost half an hour, Old Qiao put down his mobile phone and rubbed his eyes. He asked, “Can we start?”

Yu Sui opened his eyes and frowned slightly.

Zhou Huo had just finished posting an apology to the fans on Free’s official blog. He asked, dazed, “Start what?”

“Oh, you don’t know.” Old Qiao said slowly, “An old FS custom. A necessary part after losing a game, the blame meeting.”

“What blame?” Zhou Huo had received a lot of dazzling comments as soon as he posted on Weibo. He was already filled with anger to begin with and despite always being sly and slick, after a few hours of enduring the sprayers, he couldn’t quite stop himself from tensing up when he heard this. He tried to relax his tone, “Although I’m not very good at playing this game, I do know how to watch it. If I still don’t get it, I can listen to the commentaries. It’s not some grave sin to lose a regular season game given that kind of situation, right? So what’s with this? So now, we’re not allowed to lose?”

Zhuo Huo was usually in charge of the team’s official Weibo. Since the first game, when Free was somewhat at a disadvantage, the sprayers had already been sending him private messages. Some of the things they sent were simply too vile to read. The brainless sprayers didn’t take into account that Saint had been hiding a strategy targeted specifically for Free and that the players were humans, not machines. In short, if you lose, you will be sprayed.

The thing the league lacked least were brainless sprayers. Free finally lost a game. For those who already found Free displeasing to look at or for those who were haters of the individual players, they had finally hit jackpot. They were faster to comment on the team’s official blog than the team’s fans.

While Zhou Huo thought that it was fortunate that he was the one in charge of the official blog, he still couldn’t help feeling angry. At this moment, when he heard Old Qiao’s “blame meeting”, the anger he’d been holding back for so long time finally couldn’t be controlled. He added, “If there are matches, there will be losers. Who was it that stipulated that our team couldn’t lose?! We just lost a game. Does that render our previous winning streak null? How is that possible? This is just a regular season game! I don’t understand. Why is it that they don’t make this much of a fuss when other teams lose but when our team loses, it’s like some unpardonable sin? Does our team take more league money than other teams or something?! Do we owe anyone something? Our players are awesome. Is wrong for our team to perform well? Is such a team not allowed to lose anymore?!”

After Zhou Huo finished speaking, it was so silent in the car, you could hear a pin drop.

Zhou Huo was usually someone who talked human to humans and talked ghosts to ghosts. This was the first time he was so emotional and everyone in the car was stunned.

“Uh...” Old Qiao looked at Zhou Huo carefully and hesitated, “Mr. Zhou, we weren’t very familiar with each other before, and I don’t know your work background well. Are you...”

Old Qiao asked more carefully, “Forgive me for being presumptuous, but is this your first time running a super top tier first league team?”

Zhou Huo: “...”

Zhou Huo aggrieved, “I used to be the deputy manager for NSN and there are no teams more well-known than NSN.”

Zhou Huo admitted but was not reconciled. “I have a general understanding of games and my expertise is in team operations. I admit that I haven’t had the chance to manage matters regarding to the matches.”

“It shows.” Puppy took off his headphones and did some stretches. “Welcome to the realm of the gods. You’re right though. Our team is doing well and that it is our original sin. It’s fine. Hurry it up.”

Old Qiao glanced at Shi Luo, and then looked at Yu Sui with an inquiring look. Yu Sui leaned against the backrest and said after a moment of silence, “Read them.”

Chen Huo took off his headphones and said helplessly, “Come on, come on.”

Zhou Huo was still completely in the dark. He looked around at everyone, “Come on with what?”

Shi Luo opened the his sharp eyes, He ran his fingers through his short hair and looked at Old Qiao, a bad expression on his face.

“Let’s start. Puppy’s is the most poisonous. So, I’ll read Puppy’s first.” Old Qiao looked at the forum screenshots he took and read aloud without any emotion. “He shows off his skills on live broadcasts, but when it’s time for a match, he sprains his ankle. In this first match, he let a newbie pinpoint his position. And shouldn’t he already know that he should provide support immediately? Was he waiting at the rear to visit graves?”

“Puppy was originally a stable marksman but now he’s just getting old. Now he’s just good at hiding. Well, the older you get, the more conservative you play. It feels like he’s just using Free as a retirement team.”

“Puppy is nothing but a fart. How many years has he been blowing hot air, lying low and not charging in? How many years is he still going to keep blowing hot air? What use is he to anyone just lying low?”

“Back then, after he was sold to Sacred Sword, there’s a reason why Puppy was the first one to be put up for sale. You know what kind of players Sacred Sword only keeps.”

“Puppy really is the worst player in Free, right? I must say...”

“Wait.” Zhou Huo interrupted Lao Qiao, dumbfounded. He said, “What are you doing?! In other teams, when they lose a game, the players will block out all forums and social media. But you’re even reading them out for them?! Whoever heard of their own team messing with their own players?”

“That’s right.” Old Qiao’s face was as usual. He asked in reply, “If not? What if they go online, unexpectedly catch sight of this and get demoralized? What if they find out about it just before the next game? Who’s going to take the responsibility for them suddenly falling apart just before a game? ”

Zhou Huo was speechless. After a while, he said, “That still can’t...”

“How do you think...” Old Qiao paused and asked, “they were able to quickly shake off their negative emotions after suffering that setback during the first game. How were they able to do it?”

“How do you think the big-heartedness of us villains was developed?”

Zhou Huo was speechless.

He suddenly recalled that scene during the early days when the team was just established, when everyone said they had no need for a psychological counselor. Zhou Huo’s throat suddenly tightened.

Old Qiao calmly said, “They say we’re a team of old generals, but the oldest player is actually only twenty-one. Where can you find someone already so mature at such a young age? A few years ago, we were still a team of minors and the oldest one in the team was only seventeen years old. When we encounter any sort of unexpected situation, we need to adapt as quickly as possible. For that we rely on having a strong heart.”

“How do you get a strong heart?” Old Qiao shook the phone in his hand, “Half of it is that you’re born with it. The other half comes from practice.”

“Are you still afraid that they’ll be carried away by the rhythm of the sprayers?” Old Qiao laughed in spite of himself. “There are indeed some players whose mental quality is not so good. After being told a thousand times by sprayers that they s*ck, they really do lose confidence in themselves. They turn over-cautious and really do begin to s*ck. But don’t worry.These guys aren’t going to fall so far as to be swayed into playing like sh*t by these sprayers. So just put up with it.”

Zhou Huo felt choked with emotion. His instinct was too protect his family’s players but he endured and didn’t speak any more.

What Zhou Huo was good at was the team operations. It was true that he was an amateur when it came to matters related to the game. As a manager, he didn’t have the right to intervene in how the coach trains the players.”

Based on what Old Qiao had said, this was the team’s usual mode of training; all the more reason why he can’t butt in on the matter.

Zhou Huo gritted his teeth and controlled his anger. He turned his head and gave a meaningful look at the team videographer.

Old Qiao continued, “Next is Chen Huo...”

“Is brainlessly charging ahead the only thing Chen Huo knows now? During the second round, all he did was charge in and charge in. Did Angel Sword cheat with his wife or something?”

“Although I’ve only played a few games, I have watched a lot of games. Anyway, I didn’t see any tricks in the either of the games. I just saw Chen Huo rushing up there like a donkey, like he was just letting off steam because he knew they’d lost.”

“In the early stage of the second round, Free really was having Saint consume their economy, but I always thought that Chen Huo was just charging in regardless. He wasn’t thinking about their economy at all.”

“Consuming their economy, my ass. Chen Huo has always impulsive. I bet no one wanted him charging in. He just did that because he wanted to.”

“They still didn’t win in the end so what’s the point? Stop trying to say that Angel Sword just got lucky. Luck is also a kind of strength, isn’t it?”

“So in the end, is Chen Huo just that incapable of playing carefully?”

Old Qiao looked through his screenshots and said, “That’s the last for Chen Huo.”

Chen Huo sneered, “This year’s sprayers are no good. They’re just saying the same thing over and over. Not a one of what they said even gave my heart a twinge.”

“Then, we have Shi Luo’s...” Old Qiao paused and looked at Yu Sui again. He hesitated, “Should I read it?”

Shi Luo said coldly. “Read it.”

Yu Sui didn’t speak, silently acquiescing.

Old Qiao took a deep breath and slowly said, “I’m just saying it as it is but isn’t Shi Luo a cancer on the team? During the second game, his expression was the worst.”

“With Shi Luo’s mentality, are we sure he can go to the World Championships? After losing the game, his face went so dark, it was downright unsightly.”

“He made that face to show to his fans. Otherwise, how would his female fans feel sorry for him? Their little Shi Zai is the big sister fans’ favorite, after all. Ever since he was sold by Whisper back then, he’s attracted all the female fans to his fan club. He relies on all the female fans feeling sorry for him to up his popularity.”

“I don’t know how long a player who relies on his face to gather fans can endure.”

“Although Shi Luo didn’t make any mistakes in the second game, who could say for certain that if he had a better mentality, he wouldn’t have been able to perform even better? It’s not like he couldn’t have performed better!”

“The other three people adjusted their emotions very quickly. Evil couldn’t do it. It’s not that I’m being mean but just one look and you could tell that he wouldn’t be able to endure playing in the World Championships.”

“I have a reasonable theory. Whisper brought Evil into the team for the sake of their past relationship, but...but...”

Old Qiao glanced at Shi Luo, coughed and said, “There’s nothing more after that...”

Shi Luo said, “Finish reading it.”

Shi Luo was the youngest one on the team. He had never experienced this kind of psychological training in FS and Old Qiao was still a little soft towards him. He continued to grit his teeth when Shi Luo insisted, “Whisper bought Evil into the team for the sake of their past relationship, but is he actually of any help to the team as a whole?”

“F*ck! Any help?! The f*ck!” Zhou Huo finally couldn’t bear it. “Last season’s number one striker on the national server. You tell me if he’s ‘of any help’?! Tell me! No, I can’t take it anymore. Send me that screenshot. I’m going to use a side account to tear him a new one! F*ck, give me that screenshot!!!”

“No one’s saying that the sprayers are right.” Old Qiao said helplessly, “Isn’t this to desensitize them? Why would you want to argue with these brainless sprayers? I have something more outrageous and ridiculous here. I don’t think there’s any need to read it Shi Luo. Do you want to hear it?”

Zhou Huo said angrily, “No!”

Shi Luo took a breath.

Since getting into the car uptil now, Shi Luo had been thinking of one sentence over and over.

‘Yu Sui has experienced this all before.’

The suffering he was going through, Yu Sui had gone through before. The blame he was bearing, Yu Sui had borne before.

His boyfriend had single-handedly endured this long ago.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Whisper was still very young at that time. He was alone, without Shi Luo, without their current teammates, only that f*cking Ji Yanhan.

And what about Shi Luo himself? He was older now than Yu Sui had been at the time; with a team that he belongs in, with teammates he could trust and a boyfriend who has always been trying to comfort him...

What burden could he not take on?

When his boyfriend was his age, he was already able to match against that bastard Ji Yanhan.

It would be a disgrace to him if he were to be affected by this little bit of senseless chirping.

By repeatedly thinking about this, Shi Luo had already been able resolve most of his negative emotions.

It’s disgusting to listen to these sprayers’ garbage but it was really effective for exercising his mentality.

His team was full of heartless big-hearted players, all of them freaks who could adjust their state quickly during a game. There was no way he was going to allow himself to be any less than they were.

Shi Luo really wasn’t afraid of anything now. He looked at Old Qiao and said, “Continue reading. Anyone who can’t stand it is a candy-ass.”

“Don’t read it!” Zhou Huo’s face turned pale from anger. “I’m going to slaughter these bunch of dumb-ass bastards. What right do they have to scold my players like this?! They’re not paying for their wages!”

Shi Luo frowned and said coldly, “Read, I hear what they said that could have been more outrageous.”

Old Qiao looked back and forth between Zhou Huo and Shi Luo, and finally he looked at Yu Sui.

Yu Sui looked down, “Read it.”

Others don’t know the relationship between these two but Zhou Huo knew it very clearly. He was brimming with anger. “Yu Sui! Amazing! No one’s as hard-hearted as you.”

Yu Sui already gave the go ahead so Old Qiao didn’t care anymore. He flipped through the screenshots and continued to read. “Evil didn’t make any mistakes so people should stop spraying? What about his mentality? Can’t he be more like the other three? Can’t he just play it cool even when facing a loss? Smile a bit? You know, act more like he’s actually from a first-line team? His mental quality is simply not good.”

“After the second game, you could immediately tell that Evil had mentally collapsed. It wasn’t at all reassuring. The most dumbfounding thing was that he still had Whisper wait for him. What’s wrong with this young master?”

“Looking at Evil’s sullen face makes me angry. Whisper even had on this worried look as he looked at his back. I don’t know if anyone else noticed but these two are always conversing with their eyes. Damn, I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Anyway, I am now growing more and more convinced by those female fans. Shi Luo and Yu Sui might really be together!”

Shi Luo choked abruptly. He turned his head and covered his mouth with the back of his hand, coughing a few times.

Zhou Huo: “...”

Yu Sui’s expression also looked unnatural for a moment.

Old Qiao spread his hands and said candidly, “You want to listen to these infuriating things? This is complete nonsense.”

“F*ck them...” Shi Luo’s lips moved slightly. He muttered silently to himself, “Dumb*ss sprayers, they wouldn’t know beauty if it hit them in the face...”

Zhou Huo’s anger instantly dropped by half. He moved a bit uneasily and said, “It’s fine, you...just read the one for Yu Sui.”

“I was about to read it. You were the one who interrupted me, weren’t you?” Old Qiao said, dissatisfied, “Yu Sui’s.”

“Although Yu Sui didn’t make any obvious mistakes, he unexpectedly didn’t anticipate Saint’s prepared tactics. So isn’t it only right that he be sprayed? And why didn’t he leave immediately after the game? He actually went to wait for that young master Luo! This damn secret couple! Bah!”

After reading it, Old Qiao looked at them, a dazed expression on his face, “You... why aren’t you angry anymore?”

Yu Sui, one of the people involved in the illicit relationship, said sincerely, “The sprayers were so good. There was reason and evidence, I didn’t have the gall to be angry.”

Old Qiao nodded and felt a little bit relieved. “Keep this kind of mentality. It’s OK, you’ve heard it now and we’ll be at the base soon. Everyone, do what you need to do.”