519 A Reason for You

Wei Chen’s thoughts slipped back to the beginning of the Alliance unintentionally. There was happiness and excitement, but that era eventually left him with boundless regrets. 

Wei Chen had to admit in his heart that losing to Yu Wenzhou was not the sole reason why had stepped down, but it had been a large part of it. Otherwise, with his level of skill, even if he lost his status in Blue Rain at the time, he could still have easily drifted along in another place for a year or two. However, in Wei Chen’s eyes, drifting along was not an extension of his professional career, so he decided to end it. 

He couldn’t tell his past feelings to the friends that surrounded him now. He always made himself look like a big shot in front of them. Ye Xiu was not as close as those friends were to him, but he was one of the people in the circle who understood Wei Chen’s situation back then. 

“What about you? What are you doing? Returning right after retiring and all of the ruckus. Just what are trying to achieve?” Wei Chen retaliated at Ye XIu after much melancholy. 

“Hey, after some consideration, I decided to stir up some noise again. I don’t want to end up like someone, all lonely and blue after just a few years.” Ye Xiu returned.

“F*ck off f*ck off f*ck off f*ck off f*ck off!” Wei Chen shouted out five “f*ck off”s in row. 

“How about it? Let me bring you along for the ride. You can go back to those old times, too.” Ye Xiu offered. 

Wei Chen maintained his silence. The other had the intention, and he was not at all without such desires. Recently, he often dreamt of returning to the Alliance. Honestly, it wasn’t like he had never given the idea any serious thought before. Nevertheless, the decisiveness of him leaving became the biggest obstacle of return. He had left so smoothly that he could not bring it to slap himself in the face in front of everyone now. Just like this, as time moved on, the distance between him and the Alliance grew and he found it harder and harder to gather enough courage to go back. Fortunately, today, there was a force pushing him to do so. In Wei Chen’s heart, the desire of returning has never being as strong. 

“Don’t lose this opportunity. You even have the perfect reason this time!” Ye Xiu urged. 

“What’s that reason?”

“Your silver weapon is being held hostage by me! In order to get it back, you have to return. For someone as shameless as you are, that’s a good enough reason, right?” Ye Xiu explained. 

“F*ck off!” Wei Chen cursed. 

“You can do it!” Ye Xiu replied. 

This short phrase became another wall for Wei Chen. He was like a hesitating wanderer, insecure about his own strength. 

“What do you think of me right now, compared to the me of the past?” Wei Chen asked. 

“Your technical skill and speed can’t be compared to the past, but your shamelessness hasn’t changed. I’m really happy to see someone so familiar.” Ye Xiu answered. 

“A few years ago, it was Yu Wenzhou who was learning from you in secret. Now you can reverse it. You can crush him by surprise. What about it? Doesn’t it sound great?” Ye Xiu added. 

“Mm, it sounds good…” As Wei Chen thought about it, his heart was filled with yearning. 

“Then what are you waiting for?” Ye Xiu questioned. 

“What I suddenly thought of is that according to the regulations, you dirty b*stard still has to wait for at least an entire year, which means you will definitely miss the next season and will have to join the following season after that. Do you expect me to return at the old age of 32? Am I supposed to be grandpa to everyone?” Wei Chen spoke. 

“32? You’re that young? Aren’t you like 40+ now?” Ye Xiu doubted. 

“You f*cker!” 

“We need time to get used to each other anyways. I’m assuming you don’t want return and just run back like a clown, right? Speaking of which, did you win any championships back then?” Ye Xiu continued. 

Wei Chen was speechless. For the first three years, all of the championships in the Professional Alliance were snatched away by this guy’s Excellent Era. Who didn’t know that? And now this guy was pretending to be ignorant? So who was truly the most shameless person in the Alliance? 

“You mean to say that the goal of your return is to be the champion?” Wei Chen asked. 

“Besides that, what other goal would a pro player have?” Ye Xiu retorted. 

“Good! This is a nice goal. Hahahaha, children of the Alliance,  quiver in fear! This senior is coming back!” Wei Chen sent the message with a laughing emoji. 

“You’ve decided? Are you sure?” Ye Xiu checked. 

“Stop blabbing!’ Wei Chen snapped. 

“Then we will have to face a real and important issue.” Ye XIu stated. 

“What?”

“With your shamelessness, how can I believe that you aren’t lying to me just so you can get your silver weapon back?” Ye Xiu clarified. 

“Ah… That really is an issue.” Even Wei Chen himself had to agree. 

“Let him come to our place. Once we have the real person, there wouldn't be any more problems, would there?” Chen Guo, who had been watching the two’s conversation the entire time, added. She didn’t expect Ye Xiu to attempt to drag someone who had been away from the pro scene for so many years into his team. Still, after seeing Ye Xiu actually succeed, she immediately started to brainstorm ideas to help them out. If they were going to end up on the same team, then they would have to gather in one place eventually. 

“Where are you?” Ye Xiu asked consequently. 

“Siqi City.” Wei Chen replied. 

“I’m asking about you in real life, not your character...” Ye Xiu was speechless. Siqi City is one of the major cities in the Heavenly Domain. 

“Oh, I’m at City X.” Wei Chen replied. 

“Come to our place. We can talk things out here.” Ye Xiu said. 

“That will happen sooner or later, but I can’t leave just yet. That's what irresponsible youngsters do. I have a few things to settle before I come.” Wei Chen was already educating others. 

“Well then, you can attend to your business first, but until then your Death’s Hand stays with me.” Ye Xiu agreed. 

“If you f*cking lose it, kill yourself and wait for me to bury your rotting corpse. “ Wei Chen threatened. 

“Okay. If you have some materials, you can offer them up now.” Ye Xiu went on. 

“Ai. With the situation right now, it’s so hard to find some for yourself. I truly don’t have a lot. There are some low level and dungeon ones, but I’m really short on the rare materials too.” Wei Chen explained. 

Ye Xiu knew that this was the truth. The current times were vastly different from the time when the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella had been invented. There hadn’t been any professional clubs back then, and there was no large-scale research done on silver class weapons. It was unlike current times, when every big club had a large demand of rare materials. Each club kept a close eye on the market and bosses that produced these materials. In the present environment, it was truly very hard to obtain rare materials. 

“What do you have? Let me see if there are any that I can use. I am stilling trying to reach level 50.” Ye Xiu added. 

They were chatting on QQ, outside of the game. In a moment, Wei Chen sent over a few screenshots of his own storage. Ye Xiu glanced over them and realized that, just like Wei Chen said, there were some common materials, but the rare ones could be counted on one hand. As for the three super rare materials that Myriad Manifestation Umbrella needed to reach level 50, Wei Chen had none. 

Ye Xiu gave Mo Qiang money for the materials, but from Mo Qiang’s tone, it appeared that even with a few thousand yuan, they might not even be able to secure them. There was nothing they could do. Rare materials like this didn’t even have a market, so there was no set price. The prices were set when the buyer bumped into a seller, who actually had to sell it. 

“Obsidian, aquamarine, and silk paulownia, can you get these three?” Ye Xiu asked Wei Chen helplessly. 

“These are all from normal server’s wild bosses! These things are really hard to obtain, you should know this yourself.” Wei Chen knew what those were. After all, he worked on his own silver weapon for many years now. 

“These are the three that I am having trouble finding. I can’t advance to level 50 without them.” Ye Xiu lamented.

“F*ck. It’s only level 50, yet you already need three super rare ones? That’s some expensive silver weapon you got there. Truthfully speaking, that thing is a bit unworthy. It’s true that I put a lot of time and effort into making my Death’s Hand, but I could treat it all as an investment. When I don’t need it anymore, I can find a team and sell it to them, but for your strange weapon, regular teams have no use for it. Unspecialized...talking about long term, there is no future for it. I am pretty sure that more developed teams would never invest too much into it, so your weapon is basically a dead end…” Wei Chen said. 

“En, that’s true speaking of long term. However, if we look now, the power of an unspecialized with this weapon is unmatched, you see…” 

The two began chatting about Glory in all seriousness surprisingly. Chen Guo, on the other side, felt a bit uncomfortable. However, her discomfort did not last for long. Soon, the two’s opinions disagreed and trash talking started right away. 

“Trash!”

“Garbage!”

“Nonsense!” 

“Is there anything other than sh*t in your brain?”

In that crazed trash talking, Wei Chen’s language was incredibly inappropriate. If this was in a competition, there would be red lights everywhere. He would be killed by the rules in moments. Chen Guo watched the two's argument for a while, knowing that she couldn’t interrupt in any way, so she could only put on her headphones silently and log into the game. 

In the game, the three of them had already left the Milo Ancient Ruins. They didn’t see with their own eyes if Wei Chen’s message actually summoned a lot of players. Chen Guo asked her friends in the guild. According to them, some people said they wanted to come and see. No matter what, the three of them were no longer there. 

In a level 55 wilderness, Ye Xiu was either cursing or discussing with Wei Chen while leveling up. Qiao Yifan’s One Inch Ash needed to level up as well and Qiao Yifan played dedicatedly. Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze was more like a mercenary because her character had more attack power. 

Qiao Yifan… would that child be a part of the team? Watching him setting boundaries, placing them, and killing monsters, Chen Guo wondered. She knew that he was still part of Tiny Herb, a member of a champion team. It was just his position on the team that was unremarkable. After this season, his contract would end and he would probably have some difficulty maintaining his position.