Chapter 2: CH 2

Soon, the opposite ID darkened.

Rong Yi also closed the page and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his slightly feverish fingertips.

He opened the live broadcast page and saw that the barrage list was already exploding.

“I said how could the opposite Yin be so strong, it turns out to be Brother Yin!”

“Why is Brother Yin in the global server? Didn’t he always play on the American server? I haven’t seen any domestic players rank higher than him.”

“Xiao Yin terminated his contract with the American server this season and is said to be returning to China! He’s already playing on a global account.”

“Yin’s Yin is really unique. I’ve only heard about it before, but now I’m truly impressed.”

“Does Yi Shen1In Chinese, “Shen” (神) can mean “god” or “divine,”not want to add a friend?”

Rong Yi picked up the water cup on the table, remained silent for a while, and then said, “I’m not that familiar with him, so I won’t add him.”

He continued to play ranked games.

The time slot he chose today was not ideal. It was too early, so the same few people kept playing against each other. In this game, Xiao Yin was on his team. He was probably in a rush to gain points and chose to play his signature hero, Yin.

He had played Yin for two hundred games with a win rate of 97.4%.

As expected, it was easier for top professional players to gain points than to drink water.

Several strangers on the team were also guessing, “Brother Yin? Is it the real Brother Yin?”

“Help, I can’t believe I can still get matched with Brother Yin in my lifetime! Just tell us what you want and we’ll do it! We can play anything!”

Rong Yi got the mid-lane in this game, but he didn’t turn on his microphone. After playing for a while, a message popped up in the chat box.

【Yin】:”Was the mid-laner last game the opponent’s support?”

Rong Yi glanced at the message, took down the enemy jungler, and replied with “yes,” before immediately falling silent.

【Yin】:”Can I add you as a friend?”

Honest and polite, it seemed that he didn’t recognize Rong Yi.

The teammates were going crazy: “Brother Yin! We also want to be your friends! Look at us, Brother Yin!”

After pausing for a moment, Rong Yi explained calmly, “I play professionally and don’t duo queue.”

This is indeed a rule in some strict clubs. When he was in RS, it was strictly forbidden to team up with players from other teams, and he couldn’t play unfamiliar heroes or positions during his live streams, in order to prevent tactics from being leaked and micro-play studied.

【Yin】stopped talking.

Looking at the figure of our teammate who kept killing and fighting, and after hesitating for a while, like any ordinary fan, he typed, “But, I can probably lie down in Yin’s friend list, right?”

【Yin】replied with an OK emoticon.

Afterwards, Rong Yi sent a friend request, without filling in any verification information.

Xiao Yin quickly accepted the request.

After the request was accepted, Rong Yi stared at the avatar and green online status on the opposite side, and was idle for a while.

No one spoke on either side.

After a while, he suddenly remembered something and said to the live stream, “Something has come up, let’s stop here for today.”

Today, his streaming time was not normal, and the fans were not surprised. Rong Yi ended the live stream smoothly and quit the game.

He opened his social media app.

A professional player’s contact list always has an endless stream of 999+ messages. He scrolled down and finally found one message.

[Commentator Lin Yi]: “Easy cub2, Yin Shen is going back to China this season, do you know?”

It was sent a few days ago and had been buried under other messages, so he missed it.

Lin Yi was one of his few long-time friends. They started playing together in the league from the beginning, and he was eight years older than him. Although he retired early, his awareness was still sharp, and he became a commentator, which was also very stable.

While sipping on his milk tea, Rong Yi replied: “I just found out.”

Lin Yi: “What? Did he come to find you?”

Easy hesitated for a moment and was conflicted before replying.

“No. Just ran into him in a rank match.”

“He just came back to China recently and started a new global server account, so he’ll have to rank up again,” Lin Yi said. “He brought back some old teammates, and we’re all guessing that he’s preparing to form his own team.”

Rong Yi looked at the lines of text and didn’t know what to say.

“After you figure out where you want to go, do you want to join him if he’s recruiting?” Lin Yi said, “It’s been years…he’s been on a championship team before, so he probably doesn’t mind.”

“Now that you’re on the market, RS has set your base price at 20 million yuan. Who would dare to buy you? RS just wants to push you to become a free agent and force you to retire,” Lin Yi said. “If you could join Xiao Yin, it might be a good thing.”

“I’ll think about it,” Rong Yi typed quickly.

“Don’t be childish. Adults can overcome any obstacle,” Lin Yi said.

“Okay.”

Rong Yi squeezed the bag of Shuhua milk and continued to scroll through his contact list.

Many people had already told him about this, but he had never known because of the termination of his contract with RS. He was the last person in the world to find out that Xiao Yin had returned.

For those who had been in the industry for a long time, they might have heard about the conflict between him and Xiao Yin, but the new generation of players were completely unaware.

He and Xiao Yin were not in the same era. Although they were the same age, he was younger when he started his professional career. When he won the first domestic championship with RS, Xiao Yin was still in a foreign youth training camp.

At that time, the RS manager asked him to go out and scout for talent, and he immediately found Xiao Yin in the world rankings.

As soon as he picked out his target, the next step was naturally to make contact.

At that time, Xiao Yin was on the opposing team and close to terminating his contract.

It wasn’t until after meeting Xiao Yin that Rong Yi belatedly realized his own sexuality–and ended up sleeping with Xiao Yin while drunk.

After they slept together, Xiao Yin found out that Rong Yi was an RS scout. And after that, news of Xiao Yin’s chaotic personal life spread everywhere, including photos of the two of them in a hotel room.

Rong Yi didn’t show his face in the photos, but Xiao Yin’s stern face was clear as day.

Rong Yi tried to explain, but he knew he was in the wrong and that Xiao Yin, in his youthful arrogance, didn’t want to hear it. Xiao Yin broke up with him and left for overseas after terminating his contract.

The two never contacted each other again.

Sometimes, Rong Yi himself would be taken aback.

It turned out that he had…been in love before.

Even though things went off course from the very beginning.

Rong Yi searched for information about Xiao Yin.

His team had already been established, though the name was not yet finalized. It was said that they had a system and network of connections brought back directly from foreign training camps. However, they still needed players. At the beginning of any club’s establishment, recruiting players was always the most important thing. Otherwise, Xiao Yin wouldn’t have returned to China during the offseason.

Clubs like this don’t openly recruit. Anyone with connections will go privately first. In other words, if Xiao Yin had considered him, he would have contacted him earlier.

Rong Yi calculated his remaining savings: three thousand yuan. It would last him two months until he found a job.

He definitely wouldn’t go to Xiao Yin’s club. He couldn’t delude himself like that.

Rong Yi went over the few clubs he had contacted in his mind, then finally went to find Lin Yi. “Brother, can you help me out and see if any clubs are looking for players for their training teams?”

Lin Yi was so scared he called him on the phone. “Interviewing for a training team? Are you retiring? You’re only 22, there’s no problem playing for a few more years. Easy cub2Easy崽” is a nickname in Chinese that combines the English word “Easy” and the slang term “崽” (zǎi). “崽” is often used to describe someone who is mischievous or playful, but can also be used in a derogatory way to imply someone is immature or inexperienced. In this context, “Easy崽” likely refers to someone who is easygoing or carefree, but also a bit inexperienced or naive., it won’t happen.”

“I’ve made up my mind, brother” said Rong Yi. “RS and I had a falling out, and I’m not interested in joining a new team. You know me, I can’t show my face, and maybe working behind the scenes would be more suitable for me.”

Lin Yi fell silent.

“As for my personality, I’m not really suited to being in the spotlight, so I was wondering if you could help me keep an eye out for any opportunities. If there’s nothing suitable, then never mind.”

Lin Yi finally spoke, slowing down his words. “Alright…I’ll help you look.”

Rong Yi packed up his things and put together a box of unopened items to sell on a secondhand website. He was used to living on the move and didn’t feel the same unease that most people would in his situation. He put on his headphones, lay down on the couch, and randomly selected a replay of a game he had lost. He closed his eyes and listened to the commentary as background noise.

“Setting aside the team’s margin of error, Easy’s reaction time and ability to seize opportunities are truly top-notch. I think he’s at least T0 level in the league.”

“In this encirclement, the enemy’s jungler cut in and retreated almost simultaneously. We often say that no one can dodge D’s flash-Q, but Easy can.”

“Oh no…RS didn’t keep up, the team’s coordination broke down! They’ve had a lot of these breakdowns this year.”

“To be objective, Easy’s command and offensive abilities are quite strong, but the other players on his team tend to be more cautious. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a problem. In team fights, you have to take the initiative, and if the timing passes, you just have to let it go. Selling an assist is something that happens often.”

He didn’t even need to think about it, he just knew how the audience comments crowded the screen.

“‘To be honest, Easy’s command can no longer keep up with the team.’

“‘I don’t understand! Does the support have to start a team fight here?’

“‘The commentator is being polite. If ESAY were not the captain, nobody would have called him toxic! In this version, Easy has been dragging the entire team down!’

“…

Rong Yi closed his eyes and took a nap. When he opened his eyes, Lin Yi had already sent him several reliable pieces of information.

“‘Several teams in the training group are short of people, and the broadcast team at the League Event Center is also short of people. Recently, several broadcast teams couldn’t switch to the game highlights and have been criticized for a long time.’

Rong Yi became interested: ‘What’s the salary for the broadcast team? And what about the training group?’

“This sounded like a good fit for him.

Lin Yi hesitated for a moment: “The salary for behind-the-scenes work is very low, not comparable to that of a professional player… Two thousand and five hundred yuan per month. Can you accept that? I’m not trying to embarrass you, I just feel that it could be a transition…”

“No problem. I’ve worked at a bubble tea shop for eight hundred yuan a month.” Rong Yi interrupted him and quickly asked, ‘When is the interview?'”

The interview time was tight, but it was clearly the result of Lin Yi’s hard work to help him get it.

That day, Rong Yi packed up and headed straight to the League Center building.

He had never been on camera before and no one recognized him along the way. After he entered the interview, the interviewer took a look at him and confirmed, “We are the backstage team, not the media team?”

“I’m in the right place,” Rong Yi said.

The interviewer looked at his resume and said while looking at it, “Is that so? Your appearance… is a bit of a shame that you’re not on stage…”

The interviewer didn’t manage to finish the words “too bad”.

Rong Yi obediently sat in front of him.

The interviewer flipped to the last page of his resume and finally raised his head, asking incredulously, “Yi Shen, are you here to play or doing some live broadcast task?”

Rong Yi said sincerely, “I’m serious. I hope you can consider me.”

The two interviewers looked at each other, seemingly unsure how to handle the situation. It was Rong Yi who prompted them with the full process, “You can ask me some questions about my work experience, and so on.”

Ten minutes later, the interview was over.

Rong Yi looked at the faces of the two interviewers and optimistically asked, “Does that mean I have no hope?”

The interviewer wiped his sweat and said, “This… Even if you really want to come, we don’t dare to mistreat talent like this, the league will tear us apart.”

Rong Yi understood, “Okay, sorry for bothering you.”

He had never thought of this before. If RS wanted to force him to retire, he could simply never join any team again. However, if he stayed in any job related to e-sports, someone would eventually dig up his past, causing negative impacts on all aspects.

In this sense, staying in a position related to professional leagues is a bit extravagant.

Rong Yi came out and sat in the rest area of the league building, quietly searching for other news.

People came and went around him, but no one paid attention to him. Perhaps someone saw a striking young man in this direction and would take a few more glances, thinking he was a waiting signed anchor.

On the other side, the elevator door opened, and a line of people walked out of the internal special channel within the caution line. The leader was a very eye-catching male who was tall and slightly lowered his head to accommodate the person next to him as they spoke. He was cold and aloof.

“In fact, Yin Shen, you don’t need to come in person for this registration process. A simple greeting would suffice.”

The league officials were laughing so hard that they couldn’t close their mouths. They were enthusiastic and said, “But since you have free time today, did we mention the sponsor? We said before…”

“Yin Shen?”

Xiao Yin’s footsteps suddenly stopped, his gaze falling somewhere, but it was unclear where he was looking.

The organizers glanced in that direction, only to see a very ordinary rest area.

There was a young man leaning back on a side sofa, apparently resting his neck. He had his eyes closed, and his thin white fingertips were holding a phone. He was only a silhouette, appearing delicate and weak.

His breathing rose and fell slowly, the contours of his body clearly visible.

“Never mind, please continue,” Xiao Yin said.

After turning the corner, Xiao Yin spoke again, “May I ask what that work area was for just now?”

He had a light and deep voice, and his tone carried a strange hoarseness.

The organizers didn’t understand, but a young assistant next to them said, “It’s the interview area for the league’s backstage team. Did Yin Shen think that the person just now looked familiar? I checked, and it seems like it’s Easy, the former captain of RS.”