CH 3

A meeting room in the headquarters building of the Chinese Gun King E-sports Alliance.

Yu Mingxiang put away her phone and looked at the alpha next to her, eyes full of joy. “Vice-chairman Qi, he agreed!”

Qi Heng laughed heartily. “I guessed he would agree! He has been paying attention to Gun King for several years and there are still people in China he can’t rest assured about. You played the emotional card well. Everything will be fine as long as he comes back.”

Yu Mingxiang frowned and spoke with some worry. “However, the conditions proposed by Ah Yu is that he must have absolute coaching power. He has the final say in terms of how the national team is selected or the lineup arrangement of the starting and substitute players. Will the above people agree? This involves a lot of interest disputes, right?”

There was a hint of coldness in Qi Heng’s eyes. “I will find a way to do this. There are too many problems in the national team and it is time to take care of them. In the last season, sponsors spent money to let their star players enter the team. The result? The game was a mess and it was too shameful.”

Yu Mingxiang: “……”

The person who ‘spent money to enter the team’ as Qi Heng said was the main sniper of the previous national team, Mo Hantian. He was the winner of the Best Newcomer Award in the domestic A-grade League and his professional league registration was ‘Devil.’ This meant a demon king in English. Fans also called him the ‘Sniper Demon King.’

Mo Hantian was an alpha and was only 18 years old. He was handsome in appearance and had tens of millions of Weibo fans. He had countless financial backers behind him and the club was willing to spend a lot of money to package him. After receiving a huge amount of sponsorship, the league said they wanted to ‘establish the good image of e-sports players’ so they made him the ‘Gun King Image Ambassador’ and filmed a lot of advertisements.

Mo Hantian was in the limelight for a while. His posters were everywhere in the streets and he was more popular than top stars. As a result, he was smashed in the World Series. It wasn’t that his skills were bad but that his mentality was too poor. He was held up by fans every day and became arrogant. He thought he was really too good and his mentality collapsed after losing two games.

The Chinese team struggled in the world group stage because their sniper point couldn’t be held.

Of course, Coach Zhang bore the blame in the end.

Coach Zhang also had a hard time. He was unable to control the players at all and was scolded by the netizens to the point where he had to resign and apologize.

Most of the e-sports players were young and energetic, especially the star players with tens of millions of fans and countless comments and likes on their casual daily posts. After being praised for so long, their mentality would drift and they even forgot their original intention behind playing e-sports.

A strong coach was needed in order to control this group.

The coaches in the previous seasons were too mild-tempered and many coaches themselves weren’t very good at e-sports. Some of the professional players didn’t express it but they would think in their hearts, ‘You are so bad at the game. How can you guide me?’

If they hired a foreign coach, there was a language barrier, a high salary, the good grades would be credited to the foreign coach and they would also be ridiculed by the foreign media.

Therefore, after a private discussion between Qi Heng and Yu Mingxiang, the person they thought of was Jiang Shaoyu, the captain and coach who personally brought out the strongest dark horse team in the history of the league. His name was still engraved on the professional league’s Wall of Honor: ACE-Wing.

He had left the e-sports circle for 5 years but he still had a great influence and was the idol of countless old players.

He might’ve retired for many years, but judging from his rank in the international server, his gaming ability was even higher than some of the domestic professional players. His presence as a coach would be enough to convince these professional players.

The only worry was that he didn’t have any club background. The ACE team itself was a grassroots team and the position of the national team’s coach involved too many interests. It would be difficult to hire him out of the blue.

Yu Mingxiang called first to get Jiang Shaoyu’s approval and the rest would be left to Qi Heng to handle.

Yu Mingxiang thought of the past where Jiang Shaoyu led ACE to win the championship and took a deep breath, declaring confidently, “I have a hunch that if Ah Yu is the coach of the national team, the next national team will likely become a dark horse in the World Series!”

Qi Heng smiled. “I think so as well. Don’t worry, I will find a way to deal with the next difficulties. If it really isn’t possible, I will ask my old friend to come forward as a sponsor and we will have more of a right to speak.”

It was approaching early morning in China. The two of them discussed the next plan and left the alliance headquarters one after the other.

Qi Heng passed by the Wall of Honor on the first floor and saw a photo from 5 years ago stuck on the wall.

The boy in the photo had cold eyes and a stiff expression as he held the trophy. It was as if he didn’t like being surrounded by people and having a photo taken.

Qi Heng sighed lightly. Jiang Shaoyu had once been his strongest opponent.

ACE and BM met in the finals that year and it was extremely fierce. In the crucial decider, their teammates had died and only the sniper was left on both sides.

The two of them switched bunkers along the way as they moved quickly, carefully searching for the other person’s position. The streets and alleys with a complex terrain were full of obstacles. If they weren’t careful, they would be shot by the opponent. Eventually, the two of them found an opportunity at the same time but Qi Heng fired 0.1 seconds slower than Jiang Shaoyu. Jiang Shaoyu shot him in the head.

Qi Heng had always been brooding about this and wanted a rematch next season.

As a result, Jiang Shaoyu retired. There was no longer any way to tell the winner or loser between the two of them.

At that time, Jiang Shaoyu was only 18 years old and Qi Heng was already a 21 year old veteran. He retired soon after and went to work at the league headquarters, slowly climbing to his current position of vice-chairman. His authority in the league was limited but he was also the only senior member of the league who was an e-sports player. He could still speak up in some matters.

After Jiang Shaoyu left, the Gun King game started to hold the World Series.

In recent years, the A-grade League in China was very lively and many talented rookies had emerged. However, the performance of the national team in the World Series every year wasn’t satisfactory.

Qi Heng was eager to change this chaotic situation.

Jiang Shaoyu was a dangerous move.

Without destruction, there could be no construction. He hoped that Jiang Shaoyu’s return could completely break the current deadlock.

Qi Heng looked up at the photo on the Wall of Honor and whispered, “I believe that you will be able to create a miracle again. It isn’t in vain that I have always regarded you as the strongest opponent. What do you say?”

California, the USA.

The snow on the streets hadn’t completely melted. Jiang Shaoyu’s car drove very slowly and it was already 11 o’clock and close to noon when he arrived home. He opened the door and a cute, brown puppy rushed toward him affectionately.

This puppy was adopted the year that Jiang Shaoyu came to California. He was a brown toy poodle that was like a stuffed doll with curly hair. His tail wagged behind him every day and he was very cute and sticky. His eyes were like two black beans and Jiang Shaoyu called him Jiang Doudou. (Dou=beans)

He had been in California for 5 years and Doudou grew up with him. Now he was exactly 5 years old.

Jiang Shaoyu picked up Doudou, touched his head and went to feed him.

Jiang Shaoyu’s uncle worked in California. After retiring, Jiang Shaoyu went to California to join his uncle at his father’s arrangement. In the past few years, he had been living idly in his uncle’s house. He went to the hospital to see a doctor regularly every week, played games, walked the dog and lived a leisurely life.

If it wasn’t for Yu Mingxiang’s sudden call to him, the original plan would be to take Doudou in the RV for a trip when the weather improved. Now it seemed his travel plans would have to be put on hold.

He had to manage his affairs here as soon as possible and return to China with Doudou.

Jiang Shaoyu had this thought and first called his uncle to explain the situation. Then he called Dr. Zhou.

Zhou Yang asked with concern, “Ah Yu, what’s the matter?”

Jiang Shaoyu said, “Dr. Zhou, I want to visit the hospital again tomorrow. Can you prescribe more inhibitors for me? I need a year’s dose and I will ship it back to China.”

The omega inhibitor he was currently using was a short-acting injection. It was one injection per day and each injection had a volume of only 1 ml. This was much stronger than the common once a year injections on the market. The syringe was specially made by the manufacturer and the needle was very thin. An intramuscular injection was very convenient to do.

This was developed by the team of experts who treated him based on his pheromones and he couldn’t buy it from other hospitals. Therefore, he planned to take a whole year’s worth of inhibitors back at once and send them to China by plane.

Zhou Yang was very surprised when he heard this. “Returning to China? Why do you suddenly want to go back to China?”

“I have to deal with some things.” Jiang Shaoyu asked, “Does the hospital have any stock remaining of the inhibitors I use?”

“Yes, a batch was delivered just last month.” Zhou Yang paused before adding, “I can’t stop you if you want to go back to China. However, you had better find an expert in pheromones in China. Bring your medical records to them and be sure to have regular check-ups in the future.”

“I know. There are doctors I am familiar with in China.” Jiang Shaoyu was silent for a moment before saying seriously, “Dr. Zhou, thank you for your care in the past few years.”

“You’re welcome,” Zhou Yang said with a smile. “Come to the hospital tomorrow afternoon to find me. I will take your inhibitors out of the pharmacy in advance. If you need any other help then just tell me.”

“Okay. I will come to the hospital tomorrow at 3 o’clock to get the medicine.”

Jiang Shaoyu hung up the phone and sat in front of the computer. He opened the Internet and booked a ticket to return home next week. Then he turned around and went to the kitchen to cook.

He ate something very simple every day at noon. He boiled some noodles, cracked a poached egg and served it with a few green vegetables. Recently, the side effects of the inhibitor had made his stomach very weak and he couldn’t digest it if he ate too much.

Jiang Shaoyu quickly cooked the noodles and sat at the table to eat slowly. Doudou accompanied him while nibbling on the meat bones in the bowl.

The simple life of one man and one dog had passed like this for 5 years.

Unfortunately, this peaceful life was finally broken.

Jiang Shaoyu looked at Doudou and said gently, “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you behind. I’ll take you back to China with me next week. There might be many people living with us in the future. You have to be good. Don’t jump up and down and demolish the base of the national team.”

It wasn’t known if Doudou understood or not but he barked twice.

Jiang Shaoyu had a cold temperament and was indifferent to others. He would only show some tenderness to his puppy. This puppy was very close to him and presumably saw him as a father?

The corners of Jiang Shaoyu’s mouth curve up as he lightly rubbed the puppy’s head. He quickly cleaned up the dining table and returned to the computer. He opened the official website of Gun King, found the ‘China Region Server’ and clicked to download.

He was going to return to China to be a coach so he must first understand the current game environment and popular play styles in China.

In the past few years, he had been playing on the international server and the game interface was all in English. He hadn’t logged into the Chinese region server for a long time. At this time, he saw the Chinese prompts on the download interface and it felt more close and familiar.

The game had dozens of GBs so Jiang Shaoyu let the computer automatically download it. He turned around and went to his bedroom to pack his things. By the time he packed up his belongings and returned to the computer, the game had already been updated.

Jiang Shaoyu recalled all the side accounts he used in the national server and remembered that one of the accounts was registered by email. He entered the account and sure enough, he successfully logged into the national server area.

The screen flashed in front of him and a blue system prompt with a sense of technology popped up.

[Welcome ‘Casually’ back to the battlefield! It has been 1815 days since you have left and the mercenary corps has issued you a return benefit. Please check your mailbox!]