FOG [e-sports] Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The teammates looked at each other in blank dismay.

Zhao Feng s.h.i.+fted in his seat to a more comfortable position, and slowly said, “I’m going to tell you about this now so that you’ll understand the situation. You’ve got to know things clearly so you won’t say anything to set him off.”

“Before starting his pro career, s.h.i.+ Luo had been doing well in school, exceptionally well. s.h.i.+ Luo didn’t want to go down this path so he would occasionally do some live broadcasts. Of course, his family didn’t agree with him.”

“s.h.i.+ Luo hasn’t contacted his family up til now. No one knows if it’s because of this that he’s had a falling out with his family. No one dares to ask.”

“His live broadcasts were quite popular at the time. It ranked high on the Chinese servers. He was soon discovered by several clubs. s.h.i.+ Luo was still playing a medic at that time. There’s always a shortage of good medics. There had been a lot of clubs who contacted him and he refused everyone, including me. At the time, what he told me was that he didn’t want to play professionally. But then for some unknown reason, he joined Whisper’s team.”

“Because of this, he offended several clubs. He’d said that we were wasting our time and that he’d never ever play professionally only to go to Whisper, huh …”

“You all know what happened after that. Not long after that, who knows what got into Whisper, he rebelled against the domestic league, took his team and left. It made him infamous…” Manager Zhao Feng glanced upstairs and pursed his lips. “We shouldn’t be talking about this so listen up.”

Zhao Feng loosened his grip. “At that time, the European region was forming their Galactico Team. They were missing a first cla.s.s medic and Whisper suddenly decided to go to the European region to develop. Those he could take with him, he took with him. Those he couldn’t, he sold their contracts for a high price and that was how s.h.i.+ Luo was sold to the NSN team. ”

The people in the room were rendered speechless.

After a long while, a team member whispered, “… s.h.i.+ Luo was used purely as a money-making tool.”

One person asked bewilderedly, “At that time, Yu Sui’s team was already the strongest in the country. He’d even won the world champions.h.i.+p. So, why?”

“Who knows? Everyone has their own aspirations. The contract fees over there are indeed higher, and their business operations are also very well-developed.” Zhao Feng continued slowly, “Because those top-level players left two years ago, our region suffered a lot. We missed the World Champions.h.i.+p for two consecutive years. Whisper, though, had done well for himself. He became the runner-up in the World Champions.h.i.+ps during his first year in Germany. The next year the Galactico Team finally clicked, and they won the World Champions.h.i.+p. He is indeed amazing. He can find glory anywhere. ”

The team’s sniper curled his lips in contempt. “He ran off to play for an enemy region. What’s so glorious about that?”

“Hey, don’t be so narrow-minded. As clubs, we’re in competing regional divisions. We’re not enemy countries. These matters are of little interest, but …” Zhao Feng made some allowances, “Be that as it may, everyone still wants for these types of players to stay within our region. Look, how many fans does Whisper have right now? This is maybe just the ten or twenty percent that remained. Back then, when he suddenly moved to another division, he truly made a lot of fans angry. For every thousand that wanted him dead, ten thousand would curse him. Seeing how he still has this many die-hard fans, you could tell just how good he was then. ”

A member of the team glanced upwards and whispered, “If he weren’t amazing, he wouldn’t have been able to get s.h.i.+ Luo to reject so many of the clubs for him. Hey, isn’t it that s.h.i.+ Luo offended a lot of clubs? Then how did s.h.i.+ Luo end up on another team? ”

“You can still sign people who’ve offended you ba.” Zhao Feng couldn’t help laughing. “When faced with profits, who would care about something like this? Back then, he was a medic known as” Little Whisper “. When they heard Whisper was selling his contract, there wasn’t anyone who wasn’t interested. Captain Gu Gan of the NSN team has always been good friends with Whisper, and Whisper sold s.h.i.+ Luo to the NSN team. ”

The other striker in their team muttered, “… s.h.i.+ Luo must hate Whisper.”

“Probably … but who knows? Nothing good was being said about Whisper back then, but s.h.i.+ Luo never said anything about him. No one could say anything about Whisper in front of him. Any mention of Whisper would get him angry.” The manager shrugged. “Then s.h.i.+ Luo changed his job to a striker. NSN was very good about it. He wanted to change so they let him. He wasn’t forced to play a specific job. But NSN had been lacking medics and they had no shortage of strikers. NSN also didn’t want to waste his time making him watch the dispenser, so they decided to sell his contract to me. ”

Zhao Feng smiled shrewdly, “Of course, I got the better end of that bargain. Who could have thought that s.h.i.+ Luo’s development as a striker would totally go against the natural order? In less than half a year, he had reached the top of the domestic servers and became our team’s chief striker. If Whisper had known, he would have regretted selling him for only three million yuan.”

Everyone laughed, and one of their teammates sighed. “No wonder s.h.i.+ Ge had such a big reaction… I only heard that s.h.i.+ Ge had spent several months with Whisper’s team, but I didn’t expect so many things to have happened.”

Zhao Feng followed with a sigh, “What I know is also limited. But it was really chaotic two years ago. Our league has had a lot of trouble in recent years because of the capital shocks. The enmity between these players now probably arose then.”

After listening for a long while, the medic on the team probed out, “Manager, now that Whisper’s back, won’t he come to our team?”

Zhao Feng looked pensive, and patted the medic’s shoulder with a hearty smile, “What are you afraid of? It’s almost impossible. Look at your s.h.i.+ Ge, do you think he’d ever get along with Whisper?”

Everyone laughed and talked about other gossip.

On the second floor, s.h.i.+ Luo sat back down on his seat and he clicked the “Continue” b.u.t.ton on the game client and waited for his next match.

The live broadcast was still open, and the barrage was still in a heated discussion.

[He’s back. He’s back.]

[It can’t be that he only just found out Whisper’s coming back, right? Did he leave just now because of this?]

[There’s so many people in his team, and so many people in the league. Did no one tell him?]

[Probably no one dared to tell him…]

[Which team will Whisper go to? Can’t he come to IAC?]

[Impossible. If he did, come the next day, they’ll be carrying a corpse out of IAC headquarters. s.h.i.+ Luo and Yu Sui, one of them would definitely be dead.]

[Ha ha ha ha, come to IAC. That’ll be fun to watch.]

[What do you want Whisper to do in IAC? Can the new fan just shut up?]

[I’m not in the mood to bring up the past, okay? So don’t provoke people.]

[Just asking, but are there any CP fans here? Just now this knife stabbed into me. I’m losing blood, I need my sisters to quickly pull it out and comfort me. TAT.]

[The barrage just turned strange. Just what’s going on?]

[That’s unexpected. He was only away for five minutes. And now, he’s able to play like usual. My son is all grown up. I’m so proud.]

[Looks like he’s not completely unaffected. I think I heard the sound of a lighter. I’m calling it. Evil’s smoking ‘cause he’s off camera.]

s.h.i.+ Luo didn’t say anything and he entered the match. He took a deep drag of the cigarette and then snuffed it out against the ashtray. He then continued to level up his side account.

When playing at this level, Luo s.h.i.+ didn’t need to think. He could rely on muscle memory to get him points. He played five games in a row and won five games in a row. In each game, he was the MVP. s.h.i.+ Luo’s mom-fans were endlessly gratified. The little whelp has matured and he was now a steady and stable player. Although he’ll still engage in a bit of spraying, he was no longer so easily affected. Take a look at this calm and light att.i.tude, look at this unfazed manner, look at his steady playing!

Naturally, there was no shortage of black fans in the chat room of popular players such as s.h.i.+ Luo. There were always repeaters in the barrage. Going on and on about how s.h.i.+ Luo only knew how to abuse players in low-level matches like these.

The haters would often send it out on the chat and when s.h.i.+ Luo was waiting in the queue, he looked at the barrage interface and happened to see one.

[You only ever use your side accounts when you do live broadcasts. Guess you only want to show off on low-level matches. If you’ve got what it takes then use your main account.]

s.h.i.+ Luo was immune to this low-level insult. He glanced at it and continued to wait in the queue. Unfortunately, the system automatically canceled the queue when the queue timed out. s.h.i.+ Luo simply logged out of his side account, and logged onto the main account on the domestic server provided by the league to every pro player.

Naturally, there was a cheer in the live room.

His main account had already reached the top of the national rankings so of course, the queue was slower. s.h.i.+ Luo clicked on the ‘ready’ b.u.t.ton. He leaned against the back of his gaming chair, a cigarette between his lips, waiting patiently to enter the game.

While waiting, s.h.i.+ Luo looked at his in-game character, and became a little lost in thought.

Luo s.h.i.+ was indeed affected by the news of Yu Sui’s return to China.

This wasn’t anything to be embarra.s.sed about. There’s no point in denying it. After two years, his former captain, his former model for his in-game job, his once ultimate goal as a professional … and the person he once hated the most has returned to the local scene. Wasn’t it normal for his mood to be a bit volatile?

s.h.i.+ Luo had long expected Yu Sui to return to China, but he didn’t expect it to be so soon.

s.h.i.+ Luo was very clear on the number of years on Yu Sui’s contract. If he remembered correctly, there should still be three months remaining in Yu Sui’s German contract.

s.h.i.+ Luo gently tapped on the keyboard and said silently in his heart: three months in advance.

But it also made sense. Since Yu Sui was back, he was definitely going to continue to play. The new season begins in two months. Yu Sui needed to sign with a new team before the start of the new season. Afterwards, he’ll use around a month to get used to playing with his teammates and adapt to the domestic league’s rhythm. That way he’ll greet the new season in perfect shape.

He had arranged everything very thoroughly.

The live broadcast was still on so it wasn’t convenient to use the computer. s.h.i.+ Luo picked up his phone and entered a few keywords to search for related information.

The news of Yu Sui’s return to China came out three days ago in the hottest e-sports forum in China. The news spread so extensively. The matter everyone was still arguing about was Yu Sui’s “rebellion” against the domestic region. However, right now, there was a shortage of medics in the domestic league so they were still happy to see him return. Other than that, there was little concrete news. Over and over again, it was said that Whisper has reportedly left the European region and will return to register in the domestic region.

When will he return, which team will he join afterwards… There was no useful news.

s.h.i.+ Luo set his mobile phone aside, and countless team names appeared in his head.

Except for Team Saint, which utilized medics as its core, any number of teams were possible.

Including the team he plays for — IAC.

What Zhuo Feng said was nice to hear. For his sake, they wouldn’t sign Yu Sui. When s.h.i.+ Luo heard this he wanted to laugh.

Either for the club’s overall business value, or for the team’s performance, or just for the buzz it would generated, as long as it could bring realizable benefits to IAC, Zhao Feng and the other senior executives wouldn’t take into account what he felt about the matter.

For these purely commercial clubs, he was nothing more than a player that could bring in relatively more money. s.h.i.+ Luo had already seen through these trivial matter two years ago. Now, these embarra.s.sing and beautiful words were just truly laughable.

Yu Sui, this money tree, has now returned. Zhao Feng must have contacted him and now it was simply a matter of whether he could get him to join or not.

If he really were to join then…

s.h.i.+ Luo’s lips moved, he unconsciously looked at the computer screen. The match hasn’t started yet.

s.h.i.+ Luo glanced down at the barrage. The barrage was discussing which team Whisper would join, and the a.n.a.lysis was surprisingly logical.

[Let’s leave the bottom teams out of the discussion. They wouldn’t be able to afford it.]

[We can also take out Saint. That team lacks medics the least or it could be said that they’re not lacking in first-rate medics.]

[IAC can also be excluded, right? Although IAC’s medic is pretty average, if Whisper goes to IAC, then this year’s transfer period won’t just be the earth-shattering, it will be apocalyptic.]

[Yeah, let’s leave it. If Yu Sui goes to IAC, I’m worried that s.h.i.+ Luo will sneak into Yu Sui’s dorm room and kill him in the middle of the night = =]

[NSN might be possible. Yu Sui has a good relations.h.i.+p with their captain. I just don’t know if NSN is willing to spend that much money.]

[When we take everything into account, the Bison team is the most likely. The club owner is very rich and can afford Yu Sui no problem. Though it’s kind of a shame to have Yu Sui match up with those strikers on the Bison team.]

[Ha ha ha ha ha! In any case, the Bison team’s owner is filthy rich. He could just buy s.h.i.+ Luo too.]

[Yeah, hahahaha. He could buy them both and as long as they can keep from killing each other, next year’s World Champions.h.i.+p will be in the bag.]

[Although I want to have s.h.i.+ Luo transfer to Bison, can’t you stop always pulling s.h.i.+ Luo and Whisper together? I’m sick of people trying to make this into a thing.]

[Please don’t add fuel to this. The fans would go crazy if these two went to the same team.]

s.h.i.+ Luo stared blankly at the barrage, and calculated the possibility that he and Yu Sui would be on the same team next season as the fans thought.

Yu Sui comes to IAC.

Or maybe he and Yu Sui would both be bought by Bison.

Then the probability is …

Before s.h.i.+ Luo could come up with a formula, he finally entered the game.

Those at the top tier would always run into people they know. The other striker on s.h.i.+ Luo’s team was NSN’s team captain, Gu Gan.

s.h.i.+ Luo spent a short two months at NSN. During that time, Gu Gan had taken good care of him. Unfortunately, NSN was teeming with strikers, and the team couldn’t take on anymore. After s.h.i.+ Luo changed to a striker and could no longer stay at NSN, it had been Gu Gan who contacted his current club to give s.h.i.+ Luo a more suitable transfer contract.

Because of the care he’d given him at that time, s.h.i.+ Luo has always respected Gu Gan.

When s.h.i.+ s.h.i.+luo entered the map and saw Gu Gan’s ID, he immediately greeted him.

[IAC-Evil]: [Captain Gu ]

Maybe Gu Gan didn’t notice but he never gave a reply back. s.h.i.+ Luo didn’t mind and he made a mark on the map and started to probe his way forward. The team chat unexpectedly gave a notification beep. s.h.i.+ Luo inclined his head and took a look.

[NSN-GU]: [Yu Sui is returning to our region, did you know? ]

s.h.i.+ Luo looked at the screen and typed after a while: [I just found out. ]

s.h.i.+ Luo glanced at the barrage, and was just about to type a reminder to Gu Gan that he was doing a live broadcast, when the notification for team chat beeped again.

[NSN-GU]: [He came to my team. ]

NSN, the team which lacked strikers the least.

s.h.i.+ Luo stared silently at Gu Gan’s message for a long time.

Thinking of the fans’ clear and careful a.n.a.lysis on the barrage just now, s.h.i.+ Luo suddenly couldn’t help laughing. Then he couldn’t stop himself from having a laughing fit as he held the keyboard.

Yu Sui was going to NSN. There was now no possibility of them being on the same team.

The fans can now rest a.s.sured.