For the next two hours, Shi Luo endured his thoroughly red left ear and slept, keeping his posture completely proper and motionless.
Sometime after, Zhou Huo came over to help the camera crew take a half-minute video to be used as material. He sighed and whispered to the sleepless Yu Sui, Evil is sleeping really well today. He didnt play with his phone, eat snacks, or toss and turn.
Looks like hes honestly trying to catch up on sleep.
Yu Sui was playing Tetris on his phone. He sneered when he heard that, but didnt expose Shi Luo.
After about two hours, the plane landed smoothly. After picking up their luggage, they all headed straight to the competition venue.
You dont need to be nervous about playing against Ten Thousand Mountains. Just play normally and well be fine.
After arriving in the competition venue lounge, Old Qiao turned on his tablet and called up Ten Thousand Mountains information. He said, Their style of play is a bit reckless, but theyre not reckless the same way you are. After all, their personal ability is inferior to yours.
Theyre impulsive and easily make mistakes. Their overall rhythm is a little bit violent. You just need to catch their mistakes and keep amplifying them.
Aside from Shi Luo, these people didnt know much about the current players in China. When the three of them went abroad, there wasnt even a Ten Thousand Mountains Club then. Puppy raised his eyes and lazily said, Violent? Hearing this word, Im starting to get a bad feeling.
Are their players violent?
No. Shi Luo opened his peripherals bag and took out the keyboard and mouse. He whispered, Theyre pretty even-tempered, especially their captain.
Old Qiao nodded. Yes, Ten Thousand Mountains captain is famous for being good-tempered. If I remember correctly, Xiao Jun, Ten Thousand Mountains captain, is friends with you, right, Shi Luo?
Shi Luo untangled power cords and shook his head. Not friends, exactly...just our paths crossed a bit.
Yu Sui was also taking out his own peripherals. After hearing that, he looked at Old Qiao. Whos...Xiao Jun?
Hes a player who came from the secondary league just a year ago. You dont know him since you were abroad. The game was about to start and Old Qiao didnt have much time to explain. He simply said, Anyway, hes a good guy, very willing to endure hardships.
But that doesnt matter, you just need to play well. Just now, I said theyre pretty violent in their play but dont let that mislead you trying to figure out if theyre playing violently or not.
Zhou Huo, who had just checked in, returned to the lounge and heard them talking. Whos violent? Ten Thousand Mountains isnt violent. Before we came, their manager even sent me a message and told me that Ten Thousand Mountains welcomes Team Free.
The people of Chongqing are very warm and hospitable. They said, If you dare to come, well dare to lose.
Chen Huo couldnt help laughing. Now thats just too non-violent! Have a little pride, why dont they!
They themselves know that their level isnt high enough so theyre just staying upbeat. Zhou Huo smiled, Their club is really good.
Every time they play against other teams, after the game, their coaches would come over to give their greetings and also to ask the other team to share their perspectives. They ask if you could share some of your opinion with them.
Chen Huo was completely relieved. That f*cking fight with Bison before cast a shadow over me. Not to mention, weve come to our opponents turf. If they decide to start something with us here, it wont be easy to clarify things.
Everyone cracked a few jokes and chatted a bit. When it was time to prepare, they took their peripherals and went up on stage.
Ten Thousand Mountains performance last season landed them somewhere around the middle of the domestic league. They hadnt changed their lineup this season and their level has improved slightly from last year. However, it wasnt by much. Free made quick work of them, like a butcher handling a cleaver.
They werent able to play the entire best of three, Free concluding the match in two games.
After the match, as Zhou Huo said, Ten Thousand Mountains was very humble and friendly. Early on, they were already waiting outside Frees lounge backstage. They waited until Free finished their interviews and asked if they could talk for a bit and receive some advice.
Naturally, they wouldnt pay attention to this were they in an international competition, but being that they were both teams in the domestic league, there was no need to shy away from it.
None of Frees players minded, Zhou Huo though was more than willing in order to give his new team a good reputation to wash away their image of being villains from before. He hurriedly called out to Chen Huo and Shi Luo, the two strikers, to give them a few pointers. Chen Huo loved being flattered.
With hands in his pockets, he happily went to pass judgment.
The rest of the team went back to the lounge to pack their things. As though Yu Sui just remembered what Old Qiao said before the game, he asked as he entered the room, What kind of friendship does Shi Luo have with Ten Thousand Mountains Xiao Jun?
Yu Shen. Puppy, who was sitting to the side, paralyzed, couldnt help joking, Youre gonna burn a hole through them if you keep staring like that...Slag men like you shouldnt be the least bit concerned about these kind of details, right?
Straight as a ruler straight-man Old Qiao, who still hasnt noticed what was going on between Yu Sui and Shi Luo, asked, completely at a loss, What staring? What slag man?
So, there are some things you young masters really dont know anything about. I knew a little bit since I spent half a year in the secondary league. You made your debut in the fairest, strictest and most glamorous first league teams.
Youve played in international competition that have layers and layers of strict inspections. There are some dirty things you geniuses cant even imagine. Old Qiao said helplessly, Actually, its the same in any industry. At the bottom...exists the most hateful but also the most pitiful.
Yu Sui had listened quietly through the whole things. He looked at Old Qiao, So in the end, how did those three bastards run into trouble?
Old Qiao took a couple of sips of water and said, They played against the NSNs second team and Shi Luo.
Half an hour later, Chen Huo, like the moon surrounded by the stars, followed Shi Luo back to their lounge, his face the very picture of satisfaction. He gave an insincere apology, Aiyaya, Im sorry, sorry. It would be ungracious not to accept your kindness!
Ten Thousand Mountains is so humble and such good students! All of them even had notebooks with them. I was really embarrassed to just leave after saying a few words. But you can rest assured, we never mentioned a word about our core tactics.
I just gave a few pointers to their striker. It couldnt be helped. Shi Luo hardly said anything. I had to be the one to represent the kindness of our team, hehehe...
Chen Huo rubbed his chest and said with satisfaction. It feels great to be surrounded by a group of small players!
Shi Luo was keenly aware that something was wrong with the atmosphere in the lounge and he frowned slightly. Whats the matter?
Its nothing. Nothing. Puppy got up and smiled, We just got hungry waiting for you guys. Lets go eat hot pot. Weve all been waiting for this.
Old Qiao sighed and then got up. Yeah. Lets get going and eat hot pot.
Old Qiao urged everyone to go out. Zhou Huo, ever smooth and slick, went outside to socialize and came back content. Seeing that everyone was all ready, he hurriedly called the driver and invited everyone to go to the hotpot restaurant where they had booked a table in advance.
In the private room of the hotpot restaurant, everyone started ordering freely. Shi Luo liked the spicy soup here. He had his head bowed as he seriously contemplated his orders. Yu Suis stomach wasnt good.
Now he just eats from the clear soup whenever hes at a hotpot restaurant. Since he ate so little, he didnt care what they ordered. Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo, thinking about what Old Qiao had said in the lounge. His heart was filled with an indescribable feeling.
Puppy thought him a little too narrow-minded but Yu Sui wasnt narrow-minded, otherwise he wouldnt be alright with how sticky Wawa was with Shi Luo. Yu Sui didnt mind whoever Shi Luo was friends with. What he cared about was what happened to Shi Luo during the two years he was gone.
He wanted to find out everything, bit by bit.
Two years ago, Yu Sui had left in a hurry. The thing Yu Sui had been most worried about was Shi Luo. Two months before he left, Shi Luo was the kind of kid who could get into a fight with another player. He hadnt yet fully integrated into this industry.
He hadnt yet gained the basic awareness and knowledge of the rules that came with joining a normal and healthy club. Yu Sui was always worried. He even doubted whether Shi Luo was suitable for this kind of career and whether he could get by on his own here.
It turned out that Shi Luo could.
17-year-old Shi Luo, had just been in the industry for a few months. He was young and reckless. He had just been betrayed by his former captain. After changing his job, he had fallen to playing in the secondary league, where it was all too easy to turn corrupt.
But Shi Luo didnt.
Shi Luo was very young at the time, but he was Whispers personally appointed substitute. He was a player who came out of the e-sports holy land, Team FS, where he debuted. He was born with extraordinary talent.
While waiting for their turn to get up on stage, Shi Luo saw Xiao Juns teammates playing and saw through what they were doing with a single glance.
At that time, the game was a wheel fight. When it was NSNs second teams turn to play against Xiao Juns team, Shi Luo refused to open his peripherals bag. He refused to play. He refused to play against the opponents who were playing a fake match.
If Shi Luo had still been in FS and still in the first league, this kind of thing would naturally be solved by the official staff. But this was a small arena without even any spectators, in a match for a league where dragon and fishes were jumbled together.
Shi Luo could have actually easily gone with the flow. He was just a newcomer. He could just pretend that he hadnt seen it. He could just play those two games and leave with the win.
Gu Gan had already contacted IAC for him at the time, and Shi Luo knew very well in his heart that he wouldnt stay in the mud for long and that he would be able to return to a first league team immediately. It didnt matter how disgusting the situation was just then.
However, Shi Luo took a few bewildered NSN newcomers and resolutely refused the match.
The young master said that they wouldnt play, so they wouldnt play.
Old Qiao had stayed in the country at the time and had transferred to another first league team. Only afterwards did he learn about this upsetting matter. It was a long time before he saw Shi Luo again and he took this chance to ask him about it.
When he transferred to IAC, Shi Luo had become a lot quieter than before. Even when he faced Old Qiao, that old familiarity was gone. When he was asked this, he said slowly,
That man told me that that was a high-voltage wire.