893 Little Thing

As Xiao Shiqin’s words fell, Cui Li and Chen Yehui couldn’t help but glance at each other.

These two weren’t idiots, and immediately understood the reasoning behind Xiao Shiqin’s arrangements. At the same time, they also realized a flaw in the methods they used to deal with Ye Qiu before: they always wanted to take him down with one move.

Just like how they wanted to go in game now to compete with Ye Qiu and ruin their plans; was it really necessary? Hearing Xiao Shiqin’s words, both of them realized that no, there was no need for them to invest so much time and effort.

The change in their expressions was all taken in by Xiao Shiqin, but he still added out of politeness, "How does my suggestion sound?"

"It’s good." Cui Li nodded first, before saying to Chen Yehui, "Guild leader Chen, could you make the arrangements on your side?"

"Of course." Chen Yehui didn’t argue any further. His debate with Xiao Shiqin was silently forgotten.

"I’ll do my best." Xiao Shiqin smiled.

"Then I’ll go ahead with the preparations." Chen Yehui left first after saying these words.

Cui Li once again sighed internally at how valuable Xiao Shiqin turned out to be. After a round of encouragement and praise, what was next was to deal with the personal feelings of the team members.

Apart from the first successful ambush, in the other two ten player dungeons that they had run, they were beaten by Happy, who managed to complete it before they did. In addition, there was a wide gap between their scores, causing everyone to feel defeated and down. They were currently all sitting silently in the training room, spirits low. Cui Li had arrived with Xiao Shiqin and the first thing they saw wasn’t the group of pro players, but Su Mucheng standing outside the training room chomping on a pear.

They hadn’t called Su Mucheng to come along when they were dungeoning, yet she was still here; was she here just to laugh at them?

Cui Li didn’t bother with her, simply nodding in greeting. It was Xiao Shiqin, who was behind him, that slowed down to chat.

"What are you doing here?"

"Eating a pear."

"Why are you eating a pear here?"

"I’m not allowed to eat inside!"

Xiao Shiqin didn’t know how to respond. She knew that wasn’t what he meant, but she still gave him such a shallow response. She was messing with him! Xiao Shiqin had been informed of Su Mucheng’s situation by the club. It was sad to know that she would be leaving after this season. However, Excellent Era had assured him they would find an equally skilled replacement that made up for her absence in the team; this made Xiao Shiqin relieved. After all, he didn’t need a pretty girl here to be eye candy, but a strong teammate who could work with them. It didn’t matter if it was Su Mucheng or someone else.

"What are you guys rushing around for?" Then, it was Su Mucheng’s turn to ask, chomping on her pear as she craned her neck to look inside the training room.

"We’re dungeoning!" Xiao Shiqin said. They hadn’t informed Su Mucheng of their plans, so they didn’t know if she knew or not. If he had been in-game just now though, she probably realized that they were dungeoning.

"Oh? How’s it going?" Su Mucheng asked.

"You’re asking even though you know exactly what’s happening, aren’t you?" Xiao Shiqin responded.

"Yup!" Su Mucheng nodded with a smile.

"I think we’re done talking…" Xiao Shiqin was speechless, entering the room. As for Su Mucheng, she stayed outside since she hadn’t finished eating her pear yet. It was a rule at Excellent Era that food wasn’t allowed in the training room and, after Ye Qiu left, the training room also became nonsmoking.

In the room, Cui Li, who had personally come to deal with this mess, was talking, bringing praise and encouragement from the club.

"Not bad, everyone," Cui Li’s smile seemed strangely sincere, to the point where it was extremely confusing to everyone present.

Not bad? Running a ten-player dungeon and not being able to beat Happy’s record, you call that not bad?

"We just casually ran a few dungeons, forcing Happy to use all their ability to win back the records and preventing them from obtaining rewards by repeatedly breaking their own recordings. You all did very well." Cui Li wore an expression of approval and Excellent Era’s pro players continued to be bewildered. This made Cui Li wonder to himself: was his overt praise a little too much?

But there was nothing further to it. He had already spoken and couldn’t take back his words, so he could only steel himself and continue with the praise, "Now there’s nothing more that we need to do; we can let Happy go and struggle to break those records now that they’ve set one with the best of their ability! We should continue to focus on training, on the competition, which are far more important than something like dungeon records. Next time, we can go and run some dungeons, and hopefully put pressure on Happy just like we did today."

Cui Li’s speech came to a close amongst lost glances exchanged between the players. Seeing the lack of response, he couldn’t keep it up any longer. He took a hasty glance at the time before saying, "Oh, I think it’s almost time for daily training. I’ll leave now to avoid distracting you all."

Cui Li turned, giving Xiao Shiqin a meaningful look, naturally asking him to continue soothing tempers. Su Mucheng was still chomping on her pear when he exited the room. He ignored her and left.

"Uh… So, let’s start training, everyone…" Xiao Shiqin was a little anxious, lost as to what he should do. How bold of manager Cui, just coming up with a round of reasonless praises without any sort of hook, praising everyone until they were all completely and utterly bewildered!

And Xiao Shiqin had to be the one to clear up this mess. He smiled with an airy sort of joy, saying in a cheerful tone, "Surprised?"

Everyone nodded like mad. It was really too surprising.

"Haha, me too! I wanted to ask for some more time to research these dungeon, because we aren’t as familiar with them as Happy. Yet Manager Cui turned out to be very satisfied with what we accomplished already. Do you know why?" Xiao Shiqin said.

Everyone shook their heads in silence.

"It’s because none of this was about winning or losing from the very start. All we had to do was come over and leave a record. Because with this one record, we’ve already managed to cause a lot of trouble for Happy. As for winning and losing, we only need to worry about that during the competition itself."

Xiao Shiqin took careful note of everyone’s expressions as he talked and noticed that his words had taken their hoped for effect. Xiao Shiqin had given them the reason they hadn’t managed to run the dungeon faster than Happy; the following words told them that it wasn’t that they couldn’t or didn’t do it, but because it wasn’t worth their time. Finally, everyone recovered from the confusion of Cui Li’s praise and entered a state of understanding.

"So that’s how it is," someone said.

"Of course that’s how it is," Xiao Shiqin smiled, "We’ve done enough dungeoning for today, so let’s prepare for training!"

"Ok!" Everyone agreed, returning to their desktops for training. Su Mucheng had finished her pear by now, and walked into the room.

"Not bad!" Su Mucheng commended Xiao Shiqin.

"Don’t cause trouble for me!" Xiao Shiqin had only just begun to relax when he had to put up his guard once more.

"You’re too nervous." Su Mucheng smiled. "You’re probably quite stressed, huh?"

"Of course, our opponent isn’t so easy to deal with," Xiao Shiqin said.

"What plans do you have for now?" Su Mucheng asked.

"Hm?" Xiao Shiqin’s alarm was written on his face. With Su Mucheng’s current attitude towards Excellent Era, anyone would be suspicious of her stance. Xiao Shiqin was certain that Su Mucheng would continue to do her best on the field, but it was off the field that he was worried about.

"Seems like you guys have some big scheme going on," Su Mucheng commented.

"Not really." Xiao Shiqin shook his head. "I think what you said that day at the meeting was very true. If everyone could look at it from a better angle, then everything would be much easier. It’s unfortunate that Ye Qiu’s influence on Excellent Era is too strong, causing them to be incapable of facing these problems with a cool head!"

"It’s not about his influence," Su Mucheng said.

"Huh?"

"It’s because they have guilt on their conscience," Su Mucheng said.

"…"

"That’s why they rush to use Ye Qiu’s failure to prove themselves and cover up their own shortcomings. They aren’t afraid of losing, but they’re afraid of losing to Ye Qiu. It’s too scary for them because their hearts are knotted with guilt," Su Mucheng said.

"…"

"Let’s do some training!" Su Mucheng didn’t continue the conversation, returning to her seat and beginning her daily training like usual.

Xiao Shiqin stared at her dumbly. Su Mucheng didn’t turn her attention back to him. Instead, it was Sun Xiang who left his seat and went over to him.

"Captain Sun," Xiao Shiqin greeted. The emotions within this greeting were rather complicated. Sun Xiang was their captain, but Xiao Shiqin acted and was treated more like a captain than he was. For Sun Xiang, captain was more of a title than a real position

Even so, they got along rather well. Sun Xiang not only didn’t seem to mind, but seemed very satisfied with this status quo. Xiao Shiqin had a really hard time understanding this seemingly prideful prodigy. After all, how could an arrogant person bear having such a superficial captaincy?

"Hey, about that!" Sun Xiang spoke up.

"About what?"

"Are we really not going to dungeon anymore?

"Yes!" Xiao Shiqin said.

Sun Xiang frowned, disappointed.

"Our efforts should be placed more on the competition and training, right? A little thing like dungeoning, we have time to do that any time. We can go if we’re bored or it’s necessary for us to go check on it again," Xiao Shiqin said.

"Yeah, it’s just a little thing." Sun Xiang nodded, before suddenly pausing as if he suddenly realized something.

"Little thing? Xiao Shiqin?* Hahahahaha!" Sun Xiang suddenly started bawling with laughter, pointing at Xiao Shiqin.

The fuck, I think your focus is little off point! Xiao Shiqin had thought Sun Xiang had a sudden enlightenment, but all he had noticed was this homophone.

"Little Thing, Little Thing!"

Thus, this situation came to a close with the result of Xiao Shiqin obtaining a new nickname. However, Xiao Shiqin was the vice-captain, so how many would really dare to use this nickname to his face? It was only Sun Xiang who had no fear and, from that day forwards, Xiao Shiqin had become Little Thing to Sun Xiang.

"Heheh, Little Thing…" Even Su Mucheng sometimes used this nickname given by the person she didn’t like.

Xiao Shiqin wanted to cry.