Volume 1 - CH 26

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 1: The Storm is Coming

Chapter 26

The number of online viewers rose rapidly.

It was close to the max.

Ai Qing, as the host, made a prompt decision to close the game room.

Then she saw people commenting in the stream chat.  “Why’s the room closed?  We were still outside.” “Damn…..Luckily, I’m already in.”  “Oh my god, everybody is here tonight.”......

More and more fans began to recognize the ids of the players.

<Secret Room Storm> has four large servers, American, Chinese, Korean, and European.  The top ranking 100 players in each server had their id names displayed in red.

Obviously, almost 60% of all top players were here tonight.

It just so happened that all the best professional players for <Secret Room Storm> were all congregated in Seoul preparing for the one week long exhibition tournament.  So the news that China’s largest club, SP, would live stream tonight had spread quickly among them.  These professional players staying in the several nearby resort villages were all free and bored tonight.  They had all logged in to have some fun.

If professional players were here, then their fans of course wouldn’t be absent either.

So……

This was the live stream with the highest number of people since the <Secret Room Storm> servers went online.

“90% of people I know are here.  The people I don’t know…...there’s a lot of them, too.”  Following was speechless.  He looked at Ai Qing. “What do we do?”  She lowered her head and checked her mouse and keyboard one last time. “Just play a good game.  I will draw the players randomly.  Be careful.”

“At random?!  You’re fearless.”

Random meant that other than the two of them, all other eight players would be picked by the system randomly from the top online players who had the highest points.

This method was normally fine because it was a way to interact with fans, so they could just play casually.

But it was totally different tonight.

Random meant picking top eight players with the highest points among these famous names…...to play a competition game.

Ai Qing gave an ok signal to Following to play without holding back.  “SP’s die-hard fans are watching us.  We can not lose.”  After all it was SP’s first live stream of <Secret Room Storm> tonight and they couldn’t screw it up.

She turned on the system selection afterwards.  Would Dt be among these hundreds of professional players?  Would he join for the fun here?  She quickly toss that idea out.

That genius…..there was little chance for him to join this kind of live streaming event.

Starting tomorrow, all the clubs from China would officially play.  Would he be in the K&K line-up?  Or did he continue to hide from the exhibition tournament until the formal competitions?

She was thinking a little bit too far and became somewhat absent minded.  Following thought she was planning strategies.

Soon the system began to pick players, the black live broadcast bar started rolling names out one by one.  The appearance of each name pushed the atmosphere up one more level.  Unfortunately, none of the names that came up were from the Chinese Server until the last one. When 97’s name popped up, they finally had a name from the Chinese Server.

Ai Qing glanced at the list of names.  She set 97 to her own team, then she picked another two from the American Server.

Meanwhile, these five players were connected to a voice chat.

“Ah? Ah? Is it me?”  97’s disbelieving voice passed through the earphones.  “Ai Qing, Ai Qing, you really picked me?  We are certainly a family.”

Ai Qing cleared her throat.  “Can you speak English?”

Their team had two players from American Server in addition to the three Chinese players.

“Ah?  No…...Ah, it doesn’t matter.  Dt is right next to me.  He can translate simultaneously.”

……

“Dt?”  Following who was listening in became very interested.  “Was he the one who ganked me a bunch of times yesterday?”  He still remembered the scene from the grievance round yesterday.  It was a tragic process in which he revived, died, revived, and died…..

“Ah, that’s right.  How are you.  I am 97.  I was lucky to have killed you yesterday too……”  97 answered with a grin in his voice.

“......Likewise.  Likewise.”  Following didn’t take the bait.  “You also died by my hand quite a few times too.”  

The two Americans in the same channel were listening to Following and 97’s “flattering” and “chatting” to each other in Chinese, but they were all joking around.  Though they were in separate competitive clubs, they were all professional players and mostly respected each other.

The game loaded.

The game screen quickly appeared and they began their character selection.

Ai Qing’s fingers slid over the keyboard back and forth for several rounds:  “Thank you.  Dt.”

“You are welcome.”

He had a Scandinavian accent when he spoke English.  Even if he didn’t have much emotion, his trailing voice was subconsciously upturned.  She found that to be a little bit cute. The last time she had heard him speaking English was in Singapore in ‘07.

The game started countdown shortly and Ai Qing stared at the screen.

The screen turned black for one second.

“Good Luck, Apple Dog.”  Dt suddenly said.