Volume 1 - CH 22

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 1: The Storm is Coming

Chapter 22

“It’s me.”  Ai Qing, amused by the entire situation, raised her right hand.  “I am Gou Gou.  Apple Dog.  Hello.  Inin.”

She treated it as a formal self introduction.

Everybody laughed.

Inin was still not clear about the situation, but he still smiled bashfully.  “Ah it’s you.  Are you the StarCraft 2 player?”

Everyone laughed out again.

Ai Qing laughed too and shook her head.  “No.  I’m the game commentator.”

“Ah.  Game commentator.”  There was admiration in Inin eyes.  “I thought you were a professional player this afternoon.”

“I was in the past.”

“In the past?  What a waste.”  Inin completely forgot what he was originally there for.  He continued to ask out of curiosity,  “Are you retired?  Why did you retire?”

Now even Solo began to feel the conversation shouldn’t go on anymore.  In order to prevent Inin from asking any more unexpected questions, he stood up and spoke,  “Everybody, they are the members of our A team for <Secret Room of Storm> which we have kept a secret for a long time.  Though two of them were once my past teammates, trust me------”

Solo paused slightly and smiled lightly, then he looked around all the game experts and professional players present.

“Their ability has already been tried and tested before.  They are all experts among experts, and the last member of A team will be chosen by the four of them.”

What this meant was that the four newcomers were the evaluation officers?

This was really surprising.

All old members of SP more or less showed some displeasure on their faces.

The newcomers became the main event A team right way and the evaluation officers immediately without any history of winning.  Though they all absolutely admired Solo, it didn’t mean that Solo’s old team members were definitely the best.

There were always new generation players replacing members of the old generation as time passed by.

Even Ai Qing felt it to be somewhat inappropriate.

But since Solo had said so, it meant that he had already reached an agreement with Baona.  She didn’t have any say over SP male team personnel assignments.  Even for the female team, she had also reached an agreement with Baona that she would not be the manager or coach after they went back from Korea.  She would only focus on doing commentaries.

She didn’t express anything during dinner though she had some doubt.

When the female team members began whispering, she stopped them with a glare.

Fortunately All could tell the current atmosphere, so he was not as arrogant as usual and obediently followed Solo’s arrangement.  He was assigned to the table with old members for dinner.

The four newcomers were all dispersed to sit at four different tables.

Though the old members were not happy, on the surface everyone acted cordially.  Especially for Inin who was arranged to sit at the table with female members.  Everybody kept asking him questions, and they felt this newcomer young little brother was really too cute.

Besides, though StarCraft 2 was not so popular in China, it didn’t mean that they didn’t like this game.

Frankly speaking, because StarCraft 2 required very high level skills, didn’t mean that they didn’t enjoy playing it.  No public popularity meant no market and no market naturally meant no one paid any attention to it.

But to professional players, they were still very respectful to StarCraft 2 players.

APM was not something ordinary players could brag about.

“Inin.”  Someone remembered the conversation between him and Ai Qing and could not help ask,  “How could you tell that our boss was a professional player?  Why did you even say that she was a StarCraft 2 player?”

“Wasn’t she a StarCraft 2 player before she retired?”  Inin was still tangled with that question.

“Of course not.  She played Fankong Jingying[1] ten years ago.”  That girl saw Inin didn’t quite understand, so she added,  “It was Counter Strike, but nobody plays it now.  Then she played DotA.  What else did she play?”  She asked a girl next to her.

“And racing.”

“Oh, yeah.  Racing.  Anyway she never played StarCraft 2.”

“Ah……” Inin was thinking and frowned.  Then he asked them seriously.  “Then how did she know Dt?”

[1]:  Counter Strike in Chinese.  She first says it in Chinese and realizes that Inin might not understand Chinese so uses “Counter Strike” in English next.