You're Beautiful When You Smile

CHAPTER 92

Lu Sicheng kept clicking his mouse and asked without even looking up: "Why did you turn the stream off?"

Tong Yao took her cell phone down from the selfie stick and threw the phone onto her desk as she sat down in her own seat: "I've said what I need to say. Besides, everyone on my stream was clamoring to watch you, what the hell's with that?"

Lu Sicheng indifferently replied: "Oh. Then, let them watch. Tell them they have to donate for each look, you'll get rich that way."

Though he didn't hear any sound coming from the person next to him, he didn't think too much of it-- --Through the corner of his eyes, he could see Tong Yao stretching her neck to check her surroundings. Seeing that everyone else had their earphones on and were concentrating on their own games, she shrank back and whispered: "I won't let them look."

The mouse clicking suddenly stopped. Lu Sicheng lifted his hand on the keyboard slightly and turned to look at the person next to him: "What?"

Tong Yao: "......"

Lu Sicheng lightly chuckled, lifted his hand to pat Tong Yao's head, and used a tone of voice like a father whose daughter had finally come of age: "The stupid Siberian roe deer finally knows how to protect its food."[1]

Tong Yao blushed: "So what, so what?"

"Nothing." Lu Sicheng put his hand back on the keyboard: "As the dog food which is being protected, I'm quite honored."

Tong Yao: "......"

......

On Saturday, both YQCB and ZGDX had competitions to go to. YQCB's match was at one o'clock in the afternoon. As their players got ready to board their bus, they saw the players from ZGDX next door were also noisily getting ready to board their own bus.

"Why are you going there this early?" Ai Jia pulled Tong Yao by the edge of her backpack towards him: "Isn't your match right behind ours?"

"We're going there early to watch you guys play." Tong Yao said: "After the Demacia Cup, we'll officially face your team. Now YQCB is ZGDX's number one rival."

"Officially face......but you guys aren't going to play the Cup?"

"We aren't." Lu Sicheng's voice came from behind them. He grabbed Tong Yao and her backpack back from Ai Jia and pushed her onto the bus as he lightly responded: "It's ZGDX tradition to have the secondary team play the Cup. It's the same this year."

-- --Every year, after the first round of competition of the pro league's summer competition and halfway through the second round, the competition would be in recess for a week. During that week, a nationwide competition called the "Demacia Cup" would be held with participants from some pro league teams and some secondary pro league teams. It was one of the few large official competitions other than the pro league ones......Since the competition was in a rather formal format, many teams would set the championship as one of their major goals in the year.

However, ZGDX had made it a rule that the players of the A-team would not play the Cup. Usually, ZGDX would send its secondary team or substitute players to play the Cup. ZGDX used this major competition for training and evaluating future A team players. The players of the A-team would only go to the game to watch the competition.

Tong Yao had checked the calendar, a week after the Demacia Cup, her team would go against YQCB-- --Compared to the team that they had skirmished against back then, YQCB was no longer that relegation team. They had totally transformed and became a formidable opponent.

-- --It was a decision the entire ZGDX team had made after some discussion to go early today to the arena to watch YQCB's match against Huawei.

Tong Yao got on the bus and sent a message to Jinyang asking her whether she was going to the arena or not.

Jinyang answered in the affirmative-- --

[Nighttime angler-the crazy fisherman: Sure. I'm going. Why not? Not only that, I'm going to sit in the first row. I'll let those disbelievers see exactly how long my legs are.]

Half an hour later, Tong Yao arrived at the arena. She sat with Jinyang at the section reserved for YQCB fans. It so happened that fans of both YQCB and ZGDX were all sitting on the right side of the audience. Many ZGDX fans had already arrived and sat some rows behind
Tong Yao. When they saw Tong Yao sitting down in the same section with them, they all felt like they had hit the jackpot. They first took out their cell phones to take pictures, then went over to ask for her autograph.

This was the second time Tong Yao had come in close contact with ZGDX fans in the audience.

But last time, she was sitting there not as a professional player, yet now-- --

"Our match is the second one today. The Hub is out of the way for most people, thank you, everyone, for coming all this way to support us."

"I'm here with my friend, uh, uh, it's Ai Jia's girlfriend......Are there any YQCB fans, raise your hands? Ah, hahaha, I see the LED boards for Pope right next to the ones for Cheng Ge. I know what you guys are trying to do-- --"

"Sure, I can sign it for you. Certainly, I can......It's alright to take pictures together too. When you post the pictures, make sure you photoshop them. Don't just photoshop yourself, that would be a crime. Come, come, one, two, three......"

Before the start of the match, Tong Yao was surrounded by fangirls.

As she was happily chatting with the fans, Tong Yao heard the sound of high heels hitting the ground behind her. The sounds felt familiar. She stopped and turned to take a look. Then she met a pair of somewhat familiar eyes-- --The young lady was slightly bending over to get to her own seat with a few ZGDX support banners in her hand. Obviously, she was giving away those banners at the back rows earlier and was just returning to her seat now.

The moment she saw Tong Yao, the young lady also was taken aback. Tong Yao quickly remembered who the young lady was. Tong Yao's mouth curved up, showing a wide smile: "Ah, it's you!"

The young lady was the one who Tong Yao had met during the finals at the spring competition. She was a fan of Ming god and at that time, she said she wouldn't be following esports after Ming god's retirement. Tong Yao didn't expect to see her here-- --The young lady also recognized Tong Yao and bashfully smiled, pointing at her own wrist without saying anything-- --Tong Yao looked over and saw a fluorescence bracelet on her wrist, with clear markings on it: ZGDX, Smiling, Fighting!

Tong Yao: "......"

Tong Yao widened her eyes and couldn't believe what she had seen. Bright colors flashed in Tong Yao's black pupils!

The other girls who were with the shy young lady also came over to hug the latter's shoulder and chimed in, giggling all the while-- --

"Such a big surprise. We would never have thought that the new player of our favorite team is sitting right next to us!"

"You even dissed those men who looked down at girl players at that time, hahahahahaha! We were wondering at the time who that girl was, you were so sharp that we almost became your fans back then."

"It turns out you're the new mid of our team. Wow, when we saw your picture in the official announcement, our chat group exploded. We all couldn't believe our eyes!"

The young lady with banners in her hand went to sit down at her own seat with her friends. She gave one banner for the summer competition to Tong Yao and said in a small voice with a smile: "It's still free this time."

Tong Yao looked at the banner, then lifted it up to cover her face giggling all the while.

Tong Yao's eyes had narrowed to a slit. She felt indescribable joy and besides thinking "she hadn't left; it's wonderful that she still loves this circle", all she could think was "I also have fans, ahhh"-- --

Tong Yao: "It's nice that you stayed."

"En." The young lady lowered her head and smiled bashfully: "I stayed because there's a new player who's worthy of being liked and followed."

Tong Yao: "......"

Tong Yao used the banner to cover her face which was now as red as a tomato, then abruptly turned back to sit down in her seat. Jinyang mocked her reaction and Tong Yao kicked her under the chair. Then Tong Yao pulled out her cell phone to send a WeChat message to her captain-- --

[ZGDX, Smiling: I've met some fans out here! There are so many, ahhh, and my personal fans! A young lady who was going to give up on the esports circle came back because of me, with a supporting bracelet for me on her wrist! I took pictures with them! I gave them my autographs! The support banner for the summer competition looks really great, even my name is on it! ! ! !]

[fhdjwhdb2333: Oh, I saw it.]

[ZGDX, Smiling: Nonsense! What did you see? How can you see it?]

[fhdjwhdb2333: Look up.]

Tong Yao paused and, like following an order, raised her head to look at the stage. On the stage, the players of Huawei and YQCB were already in their seats. But behind them, right at the door which led to backstage, a tall figure stood there leaning against the door frame with arms across in front of him, lazily looking at the audience.

The cell phone in his hand was still showing the chat page on WeChat.

Their eyes met in the air.

"Gee, your hubby's worried about you sitting here under the stage? He even comes out to check on you?" Jinyang whispered to Tong Yao's ear: "Damn, he's so considerate. My guy only knows how to chat with his teammates and laughs like a retard-- --"

Tong Yao didn't hear whatever Jinyang said afterward.

She saw Lu Sicheng raise his hand to wave in her direction across the stage.

"Damn, even Cheng Ge's out!"

"Shit, are we getting a buy one get one free promotion? Smiling's sitting here and Cheng Ge's out as well. So lucky today, ahhhhhhhhhh!"

"He's waving at us! See it, see it! Heaven, is my hair messy, how about my makeup?"

"He's too far away to see anything, but your eyeliner is smudged, want me to redo it?"

"Where, where......"

A commotion started behind Tong Yao.

Amid the noise, Tong Yao pulled her hair behind her ears, then rubbed her slightly burning ears.

[ZGDX, Smiling: I see you.]

[fhdjwhdb2333: I even waved at you. If you still can't see me, are you blind?]

[ZGDX, Smiling: Speak nicely.]

Tong Yao looked up again and saw Lu Sicheng was looking down at his phone and typing. Then he turned to walk backstage.

[fhdjwhdb2333: I'm going in. Don't run around and flirt with others when you're out of my sight for just one second.]

The door to the backstage slowly closed behind his back.

[fhdjwhdb2333: Not even with the women.]

[1]: Siberian roe deer are known to be very curious and often die because of it. So there's a saying in Chinese, especially in Northeast of China, where they refer to stupid people as stupid Siberian roe deer.