Volume 1 - CH 40

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 1: The Storm is Coming

Chapter 40

Ai Qing walked back to her own room, swiping her card multiples times before the door opened.

She walked inside and heard loud splashing from the bathroom. The door of the bathroom was open, filling the entire room with steam. Feeling something amiss, she dropped her backpack onto the floor and walked in barefoot.  She saw Ai Jing standing underneath the shower head with her her clothes on; soaked from head to toe.  With her back facing Ai Qing, Ai Qing could see her shoulders throbbing.

Was she crying?

It was a very familiar scene.

She stood there. Whether it was the instinct of being a twin or the scene reminding her of something from the past, Ai Qing couldn’t move.  She could only watch silently.  She feared that she might crush what little remained of her sister’s self-esteem.

Until Ai Jing’s hand touched the shower handle, Ai Qing snapped out of her daze and backed up two steps.

“Grunt got back together with his first love.”  Ai Jing didn’t need to turn around to know that she was there.  “It’s that girl.  The girl he learned to sing <You’re Beautiful> in order to make her happy.”

James Blunt’s <You’re Beautiful>.

More than four years ago in Chengdu, Ai Jing had been in close contact with Grunt.  Actually, it was this song that had deeply moved her when he sang at KTV.  At time, Ai Jing had asked him if he liked James Blunt?  Grunt’s answer was,  “My ex-girlfriend really likes James Blunt.  She liked to hear me sing it, so I just learned it.”

If her sister hadn’t mentioned it, she would have already forgotten that event.

Details about the time they met would only be remembered clearly by the people who really cared.

To other people, the conversation would be meaningless.

Ai Jing seemed to have finished crying.  She took off her wet clothes piece by piece and turned on the shower head again.  She lathered the white soapy bubbles all over her body.  “Yesterday, he called her in front of me and told her that he would marry her when his competition winnings amounted to four million.”

Ai Qing replied with an “oh,” having little else to say.

“Ai Qing, you know?  I just have too strong a hero complex.  Definitely.  Whenever I want to pay attention to other men, I just keep thinking of him.  I remember his face in competitions, how sharp and direct he answers questions after competitions.  I thought of…...every time when he called me, the kind of passion I felt whenever he talked about Solo……”

Ai Jing’s voice was slowly getting lower.

Ai Qing took out a large blue bath towel from her own luggage and passed it in to her, but she still hadn’t found the words to comfort her sister.

The two sisters were different from what people may think.  Rather than talking to each other about everything and emphasizing with the other, they hid their real feelings and never talked to each other deeply.

Nonetheless, she understood what her elder sister was trying to say.

When a girl was stumbling in the video game world, a hero had suddenly appeared before her.  He cut all opponents down as if he was mowing the lawn with skill and ease.  He did it mercilessly without sympathy.  He only put her behind him to protect her…...or to put it another way, he always adjusted his play style to fit her.  He would pass a sharp sword to her when she wanted to kill and he would stay behind to cover her when she wanted to retreat.

This kind of heroism in another world was strangely attractive.

Especially when this hero had carried the national flag after winning the world championships so many times.  The attraction was irresistible.

Ai Jing quickly rinsed clean, then she wrapped herself with the bath towel and walked out quickly.  She looked at Ai Qing with red eyes.  Suddenly, she ran to Ai Qing and forcefully buried her face on Ai Qing’s shoulder, “Come on, say something. Anything. Just don’t comfort me. I will cry again if you try to comfort me.”

……

Well……

“Do you remember that I told you about the grievance round between Solo and the Korean WarCraft king Nani in 2008?”

The muffled voice of her sister came from her shoulder, “I remember….. Your Solo really enjoyed the limelight.  He beat Nani using a membrane keyboard.”

“Their bet was that the loser had to sing on a yy voice channel and give the battle.net ID “The Best” to the winner.  And the winner would answer a question in public.”

“Why did you never mention this?”  Her sister raised her head with red eyes taking great interest from this new information,  “What was the question?  What did they ask Solo?”

What was the question?

That day it seemed that all onlookers had agreed earlier that they would ask the same question:  Other than your daugher and mother, which woman do you love the most?

There were hundreds of thousands online viewers posting their guesses.

The host who was in charge couldn’t hold up any longer.  He fell inline with the online viewers teasing him.  Was it the name of a type of animal or a girl whose face became red whenever she smiled?

……

“Other than your daughter and mother, which woman did he love the most.”  Ai Qing sighed.  “Isn’t it tacky? It was really just about gossip.”

“......What did he say?”  Ai Jing behaved as if she was on the scene.  Suddenly she felt nervous.

She felt especially nervous.

“Su Cheng.”

Yes, Su Cheng.

He said this name in front of hundreds of thousands of online viewers on a yy voice channel.

All the viewers who had posted Apple Dog immediately came to a stop.  The host who had begun teasing him was also stunned into silence.  The name Su Cheng was so alien because nobody knew who she was.