Volume 2 - CH 37

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 2: You’re Beautiful

Chapter 37

She jumped down from the massage chair barefoot.

There was a very large heated swimming pool on the second floor.

The massage rooms surrounded the swimming pool with openings facing the pool. From her view point, she could even see two lovers lying on the chair kissing affectionately in the room at the other side of the pool……

She had no choice but to turn her back to the swimming pool, facing him.

“I watched your final match today.  It reminded me the first time I watched a StarCraft competition.  Was it in 2000?  Boxer[1] was playing.”

Boxer was born in 1980 and he was a first generation esports player, WCG Hall of Fame member, and a pioneer of esports.

That was…...the person who started the collective esports dream.

Unfortunately, back then, she just watched with classmates occasionally.  She didn’t quite know what it was.

She didn’t understand it.

And she had no interest.

“Boxer ignited the esports dream for so many Koreans.”  Ai Qing sighed lightly.  “Wu Bai, Could you help me record the play-by-play of tonight’s game?”  He walked towards her. “Ok.”

When did she start feeling the pressure from his height and the pressure of his absolute skill?

He was still dressed in the black K&K uniform.  The sports jacket wrapped around his tall body.  He walked towards her, barefoot, step by step.  He was the one who had just won the championship under the watchful eyes of tens of thousands of fans and tens of millions of internet viewers.  But she didn’t feel threatened in any way……

No. This was an illusion.

Shouldn’t you be the one who knew best?  Ai Qing.

He represented the absolute skill and exerted absolute pressure on all his opponents.  Only when he appeared in front of her, he turned into the one she first met in the national finals that year.  He was only that quiet young man whose eyes always followed her.

He noticed that she was distracted.  “What’s wrong?”

“I’m thinking about a question.”  She was always honest and she never lied.

It was only a question of the degree of honesty.

He gave a relaxed chuckle.  His hands were inside his sports pants pockets.  He watched the far away lovers who had progressed from hot kissing to quiet touching.  He started to think.  If Ai Qing turned around right now, her face would become red right way, not knowing where to put her hands and feet.  She would pretend to be calm as if she hadn’t seen anything.  She would pretend to suddenly become talkative, but naturally she could only think of topics related to video games in order to hide her panic.

……

He enjoyed the imagination in his brain.  He felt this was the best reward after the competition.

The reporters, fans, the trophy he had won, and the large prize money to be deposited into his bank account, none of these were comparable to his satisfaction at this moment.

Ai Qing grew curious about what was making him so happy.

She followed his eyes just in time to see the man open the woman’s top.  She was stunned.  He couldn’t be happy because he was looking at this?  Or did all men like to------as she thought about it, her face began to rapidly grow redder by the moment.  She wanted to step back and walk around the man in front of her.

All of a sudden, she missed her footing.

She heard the great sound of splashing water.  She held her breath by instinct the moment she fell into the swimming pool.  The all pervasive water wrapped her whole body.  After a rapid fall and before she could float back up, she was already held in a hug by two arms from behind and carried her out of water.

Through the dizziness, she heard the man holding her speak in English to someone afar, “It’s alright.  It’s just my friend playing around.”

…...She didn’t have time to think why she had such bad luck.

He had picked her up.  “Your clothes are all wet.  Others can see through it.  You just sit here and wait for me to get a towel for you?”  He stood at the bottom of the pool and laid

her down on the stone stairs inside the pool which led to their room.  She sat up.

The water impeded his movement as he was hurrying up, he fell down on the stairs in the rush.

His knee bashed the stairs and his eyebrows twisted up from pain.

“Are you alright?”  She nervously moved to look at his leg as he knelt down on the stairs.

Dt shook his head.  “It’s alright.”

The skin might have scraped off, but it didn’t hurt his bones.  It wasn’t a big deal, just a regular fall, he thought.

But as they were talking, they both noticed that their current strange posture was…...his hands on the ground supporting him were beside her.  One of his knees knelt down on the stone stairs in the water. She was right in front of him, within reach of his arm.

The water on his body kept falling down on her arms and chest.

She sat in the water and he knelt next to her.

His wet, dark short hair, his stunning and delicate Asian features, and the black sports shirt wrapped around his body from the water, all these were like a swirl.  The sound of his heart thumped in his eardrum.

There was the sound of people diving in the distance.

He finally forced himself to move his face away from hers, restraining himself from kissing her.  He said in a very low voice next to her ear, “Give me a chance, Ai Qing……”

[1]: Boxer is one of the original Starcraft professional players and perhaps one of the best Starcraft players in history.