775 Why We Compete

Little Ming left without another word. The mood in the practice room was quiet. No matter how reasonable Ye Xiu’s words were, they weren’t suitable for the public to hear. It wasn’t good for the relationship between pros and fans! Saying a few words in this private space didn’t count for much, but the people in the practice room weren’t the same people. They all came from different backgrounds and had different views. Everyone had their own distinctive feelings towards what Ye Xiu had told Little Ming. 

Chen Guo was one of the ones who felt rather sad. After all, she had once been a fangirl. She couldn’t help but feel the same way that Little Ming did and could feel her heart shatter into pieces. In reality, at her age, how could she not realize that the sweet words said by the pro players and Clubs were mostly PR. Her beliefs actually leaned towards Ye Xiu’s opinion. It was just that she had been a fan for so long and shied away from the truth, hiding behind her own lies. Now that Ye Xiu had suddenly seen through it, Chen Guo even had the urge to ignore his words.

As for Qiao Yifan? He had once been a pro player. Unfortunately, an invisible person like him never had any fans! For him, he would be unbelievably excited to have a fan and be brimming with expectations for the future as a result. Fans were a form of approval. He longed for people to notice him. As for returning the fans’ support, he hadn’t even reached that step yet!

He had heard numerous stories of encouragement in the scene. For example, how some pro player lost and felt very disappointed, but because of the encouragement from fans, he stood back up, or how some unknown pro player like him was only able to keep going because of the support from the few fans that he had.

These kinds of stories seemed to happen for quite a lot of people. Not for Qiao Yifan though. In his most difficult moments, the fans weren’t the ones who gave him the confidence and motivation to stay. A pro player had. The words spoken to him weren’t any moving words of encouragement, but a very professional tip.

Would support from the fans be a reason for his motivation? Qiao Yifan had never experienced it before, so he didn’t know. However, he knew that although the pointer given to him by God Ye Qiu had only been a few words, it would save him from walking down many twists and turns on this career path. If he didn’t receive the pointer from God Ye Qiu and continued playing as an Assassin in Team Tiny Herb, where would he be now? Qiao Yifan somehow got to this question. The relationship between fans and pro players? He didn’t really think about it much.

The person sitting next to him, An Wenyi, who had a level of maturity and rationality surpassing that of his age, was actually the first to speak: "There was no need for you to say that." 

Then, he added: "Even if it is the truth."

"If he didn’t say the truth, he’d probably die, right?" Chen Guo spat out, after having her heart crushed. She recalled how many times over these past few months of living together that the truths told by Ye Xiu made her choke, but compared to those joking truths that made her angry and helpless, this time, the truth was heartless. It was a truth that many people wanted to avoid looking at. Yet this guy actually laid the truth bare in front of you, not letting you look away. It was too merciless.

Exactly. Wei Chen also said, "He was just a fan. Did you need to do that?"

"You guys are too naive!" Ye Xiu suddenly said, "I wasn’t saying those words for him, but for you guys!"

"What?" Everyone was startled.

"When you guys become pro players with numerous fans behind you and you see their support and encouragement, you’ll know they’re happy, but when you don’t see that support anymore, will you waver as a result?" Ye Xiu asked.

"That’s... quite deep?" Chen Guo was a little flabbergasted. For a moment, she couldn’t accept that Ye Xiu would actually say something so deep. Even though she knew that he could be profound from the very beginning, who told Ye Xiu to destroy her image of her idol the very moment he became her employee?

"This isn’t a trivial matter. It’s very important. Everyone needs to be clear about why you compete. This could decide what type of path you end up walk down and how far you go." Ye Xiu said, "Playing to please the fans is okay, but if you want to become a champion, then relying on that sort of motivation will be very difficult. What the fans like may not be what is correct. What suits you best depends on you because you are the pro player."

"Correct." Wei Chen suddenly added to Ye Xiu’s words and said in a serious tone: "If you want to win, do what you think is most correct. None of this needs to be considered."

"That’s what we say, but abandoning all else to win and resorting to extremely underhanded methods shouldn’t be done either. We’re still people, after all." Ye Xiu said.

"Yes, it shouldn’t be done. You should only give up on humanity when you have no other choice. For example, to win three championships." Wei Chen said.

Everyone turned their heads to the side. Everything had been going well, especially Ye Xiu’s last point. It was another truth. As a pro player, how could winning but losing yourself in the process still be considered an achievement? But then Wei Chen’s answer made it another insult war. The topic immediately became meaningless.

The other two had already begun attacking each other with their past win records. Unfortunately, the results put Wei Chen at a disadvantage. Just when Wei Chen was about to lose, Ye Xiu suddenly changed topics: "In short, why you want to become a pro player and why you compete are easy, yet also difficult questions to answer."

Switching topics just like that! That’s too stiff!! Everyone screamed in their hearts. They couldn’t take it seriously, but they still remembered Ye Xiu’s words. Those questions were easy, yet difficult to answer! At this moment, everyone admired the simple-minded Steamed Bun. While everyone was taking these words seriously, Steamed Bun had gone over to the computer who knew when and was happily playing a flash game. He didn’t listen or think about anything Ye Xiu had said. It was best to just not bother trying to think too hard about it.

"Tomorrow at this time, everyone needs to turn in an eight hundred word essay describing why you want to become a pro player." Ye Xiu ordered.

Everyone looked at him with doubt. They weren’t sure if he was serious or not! Wei Chen had already started arguing: "Look! His abandon-everything-resort-to-underhanded method has come out!"

"It truly is a difficult task for an illiterate who doesn’t know how to write certain words. It’s no surprise that you think it’s underhanded." Ye Xiu calmly replied.

"F*ck you. If this senior can type out eight hundred different words on the screen, will you eat your monitor?" Wei Chen shouted.

"Type ahead. I’ll check the character count in a bit." Ye Xiu said.

"Tch. You think this senior will fall into your trap?" Wei Chen said.

The bantering started again. Everyone turned their heads. As for that eight hundred word essay, forget about it. Just pretend like it was never mentioned.

Day after day passed. Little Ming’s emotional response to that day made Chen Guo feel a bit uneasy. She really regretted organizing a friendly match that day. At the same time, she also paid more attention to the neighboring team that would also be participating in the Challenger League. Players like Little Ming, who were just participating in it for fun, could be dismissed with a laugh, but the teams that were serious about entering the pro scene were major villains! This was Excellent Era’s home field. Ninety percent of Glory players, who came in and out of Happy Internet Cafe, were Excellent Era fans. Many of them were loyal fans like Little Ming.

She had been so pleased, she lost her sense of measure. Chen Guo didn’t forget to examine herself. She also realized that it wasn’t suitable to reveal her team like this. Chen Guo had been running the Internet Cafe for many years. She had seen all sorts of fans walk through the doors. If their battle with Excellent Era reached a certain level of intensity, while Team Excellent Era might not step out of bounds, it was hard to say if their fans wouldn’t. In order for their team to win, what couldn’t fans do to the opponent? Chen Guo wasn’t powerful enough to protect everyone. It was indeed dangerous if they became the villain! 

Luckily, Little Ming didn’t spread word about his experience that day. The days afterwards were calm. However, Little Ming, who almost always showed up every day in the past, never came again from that day onwards. That included his friends, who he had teamed up with. Chen Guo knew that her team would be enemies with Excellent Era. As a fan of Excellent Era, how could Little Ming be willing to sit in the enemy nest? 

One day, when Chen Gregular uo went out, she passed by Grand Internet Cafe. She just happened to see Little Ming and his friends exit from there. Chen Guo knew that she had lost him forever as a customer.

This was just the first wave. Once news of Team Happy spread and information was dug out, Chen Guo reckoned that it wouldn’t be possible to hide any longer. When that time came, everyone would know that Happy Internet Cafe’s team would be competing against Excellent Era. How would it affect her business? Would these fans rally together and boycott Happy Internet Cafe? Would her business suffer a sharp decline?

Recently, she had only been enjoying herself. She had completely ignored that a lot of tricky issues existed! Little Ming’s visit woke her up. They were currently enemies in Excellent Era’s territory! It’s said that a strong dragon cannot repress a snake. The snake thinks that it’s better, so it barges into the dragon’s territory to push the dragon down. Facing Excellent Era, their pressure wouldn’t only be from the team’s might, but the pressure from outside the stage would be terrifying as well. It seems like I need to come up with a good plan!