"Is the cat gripping your sleeve with its teeth or held onto your leg to prevent you from leaving?" Xiao Rui was at a loss.
"All of the above." Lu Sicheng briefly replied, then added after giving it some thought: "If that Su Luo wants to come to the base, then just let her come. It's good if I can make it clear to her in front of the base so I don't have to drive. I just washed my car. It's too much trouble to drive."
"En. There's no love affairs in esports." Xiao Rui nodded: "Our goal is the championship."
Lu Sicheng gave him a look and mumbled: "What does that have anything to do with this." He then stood up from the sofa. As Xiao Rui continued to make a fuss, "Yo, what do you mean by that, Captain? Are you planning to have some sort of pink relationship with someone?" he had already returned to his computer. That was also the moment Dabing grew impatient being held on top of Tong Yao's face and struggled to free itself. Its paws stepped over Tong Yao's face and the cat ran off towards Xiao Rui. Xiao Rui had been feeding Dabing canned cat food lately, so now Dabing had started to treat him as its new daddy.
Xiao Rui picked up Dabing and was about to open another can.
"Don't feed it canned food all the time. Dabing has become a picky eater now. When we go home for vacation, I'll ask club to reimburse us for all canned food expenses. You're committing a crime."
Tong Yao sat up on the sofa and wiped her face. Her voice was still unsteady. She sneaked a peak at Lu Sicheng's direction while speaking. He was looking down at his computer, either playing some games or replying to someone's message.
Tong Yao looked back at Xiao Rui.
"Speaking of committing a crime. I saw your Dabing committing a crime one day at midnight." Xiao Rui came closer and whispered to Tong Yao: "That night, as the captain went to the bathroom, your cat jumped onto his desk and started to scoop the fish. It was a mess, water everywhere on the desk and cat fur floating in the fish bowl. When the captain came back, I thought he would kill the cat and was already on my phone ready to call the police. Who knew he'd just simply picked up Dabing to set it on the floor, then quietly went to change the water in the fish bowl and wipe his desk clean, and never said anything about it."
Tong Yao: ......
Tong Yao was deeply alarmed by the story, she grabbed the cat's paw and forcefully slapped on it a few times.
Dabing squealed as if it had been unfairly treated by Tong Yao.
Tong Yao said with a frightened look on her face: "I haven't wronged you! You're almost dead!"
"One time Little Fatty fed the fish too much fish food and two of the fish died from overeating. During the training sessions for that week, Cheng Ge refused to use heal (*a Summoner's skill that ADC carry which recovers health to allied champions nearby, possibly saving their life.)He just watched his support die then turned around to walk away. It was so painful to watch that." Xiao Rui suddenly paused: "What do you think suddenly changed Cheng Ge into such a loving person?"
Tong Yao dropped Dabing's paw and looked up: "What?"
Xiao Rui: "About Dabing, Cheng Ge is especially patient with Dabing."
Tong Yao paused for a while: "Really? Maybe it's because our Dabing's good looking."
Xiao Rui: "Gook looking or not, didn't he keep calling Dabing the little furry beast. Hmph, Bing Baby, when have you become so popular?"
Dabing sneezed.
Tong Yao: ......
While Xiao Rui was holding Dabing up and rubbing his face against Dabing's, Tong Yao stood up from the sofa, rubbed her burning earlobes, and went back to her computer. She logged on to the game and planned to play a couple of ranked matches to calm herself down. Seeing Tong Yao sit down next to him, Lu Sicheng stood up to go to the bathroom.
Xiao Rui called out to Tong Yao from the living room: "Tong Yao, send the file of this month's rank statistics on Cheng Ge's computer to me. It's the exciting time each month to calculate the salary deduction."
"Oh." Tong Yao answered, then leaned over to grab Lu Sicheng's mouse. Before she could reach it, she looked up at the computer screen and discovered that Lu Sicheng was chatting with CK's Top.
Good Luck Come Good Luck: ...Cheng Ge, did you deliberately lose the 1v1 this morning?
......: Why would I want to lose deliberately?
Good Luck Come Good Luck: Yang god said so.
Good Luck Come Good Luck: If not, then how could you have lost!
......:You want me to analyze the reason why I lost? Do you also want me to write an 800 word essay of self-criticism and confess to all my mistakes?
Good Luck Come Good Luck: Come on, you're not being fair. The whole world thinks that you've lost the match on purpose!
......: I didn't.
......: I miscalculated the distance to the minion lane and she grabbed the chance.
Good Luck Come Good Luck: It doesn't look like the kind of mistake you would make.
......: I'm not a supernatural being that doesn't make mistakes. Besides, why would I lose to her on purpose?
Good Luck Come Good Luck: .....................I don't know about you, but I would only be this gentle when I fall for a girl anyway.
......: Our Mid wouldn't understand a profound trick like this. After she won, I figure all she's thinking about now is how to replace me as the team captain. To be gentle to her would be merciless to me.
Tong Yao: ......
The chat stopped there.
A peaceful male voice sounded right behind Tong Yao: "Have you seen enough?"
Tong Yao shivered and dropped Lu Sicheng's mouse. She bounced back onto her chair and sat up straight. With her back leaning against one of the arms on her chair, she spoke incoherently: "Xiao Rui let me send a file to him, the one for salary deduction. He said it's on your computer, he let me send it."
Tong Yao watched Lu Sicheng bending over and holding the mouse to minimize the chat window. Then he located the file on his computer. While he was doing all that, Tong Yao was silent at first, then asked: "So did you lose to me on purpose this morning?"
Lu Sicheng pulled out the file and started sending it to Xiao Rui. He turned his head and asked in a flat tone: "What do you think?"
Tong Yao thought about it: "I don't think so."
Lu Sicheng: "En. You aren't a little girl who needs to be coaxed."
Tong Yao: "Oh." Then she lowered her head, pulling her hair behind her ears. At the same time, the corners of her lips couldn't stop from curving upwards.
Lu Sicheng: "As if you would understand this kind of trick. To you, it would be just like casting pearls before swine."
Tong Yao: ......
Her curved lips twitched a little, then flattened again.
Tong Yao: "I can understand it. I have a girlish heart."
Lu Sicheng: "Like hell you do."
Tong Yao: ......
Tong Yao started to play a ranked match. She played two matches. In each of the matches, she would imagine every Mid champion she faced had Lu Sicheng's face. Then she would easily smash the enemy no matter how high their level was. After two rounds, she was squarely ranked at Masters on the Korean servers. She pushed away the keyboard and stood up to stretch. She decided to go take an afternoon nap.
Tong Yao went back to her own room and laid down on her bed. Before she fell asleep, she checked Tieba which was full of discussion about her duel with Lu Sicheng. Most of the people thought that Lu Sicheng had lost the match on purpose, only a small group of people believed otherwise. Their reason was quite straightforward; why would Lu Sicheng let her win?
Only a very few noticed Lu Sicheng's mishap and complimented Tong Yao on her excellent play. However, comments like these were lost in the heated discussion.
Tong Yao grew bored of reading the posts after a while and threw her cell phone down to go to sleep.
A few hours later, Tong Yao was awoken by Little Fatty's incoming text message. She confusedly opened her eyes and discovered that it was already dark outside. Little Fatty informed her: That woman's here.
Tong Yao jumped up with a start to sit up on her bed, but fell back down on the bed again because the sudden movement made her dizzy after sleeping for so long. Three seconds later, she remembered that the front door of the base was right under her window. She struggled to get up again and sneakily opened the window to look down. Just as expected, that long legged woman was standing right outside the base. Lu Sicheng stood in front of her with his back to the base, they were talking to each other.
All Tong Yao could see was the lit tip of the cigarette between Lu Sicheng's fingers.
As far as she could remember, he hadn't smoked for quite a while now.
After watching for a while next to the window, Tong Yao saw the two in front of the base were turning to head out. She almost called out to ask them where they were going. She stopped herself since she had realized it wasn't her business to butt in. She pressed her lips tightly against each other and closed the window.
......
In the front yard of the base, Lu Sicheng had made it clear to the person in front of him that they weren't a good match for each other. He suggested that it was getting late and he could see her home. Su Luo sensed that Lu Sicheng had no intention to continue with the conversation and had to inform him that she had driven herself here. She had parked her car outside the residential community. Lu Sicheng thought about it and then said: "Then I'll see you to the gate."
Su Luo was quite irritated: This man was perfect inside out. How could he not be hers?
Su Luo realized that the distance between the ZGDX base to the parking lot outside the gate would be her last chance to try to change his mind.
"Lu Sicheng, is it because I made a too high-profile appearance when I went to see your competition last time and you're unhappy about it?" Su Luo said: "I truly wasn't doing it on purpose. I just answered the people who asked me questions. I had no idea that you're this famous and those people would analyse what I said."
...... Lu Sicheng paused a bit: "It has nothing to do with that."
"Your fans have made a big fuss about it. I'm really sorry about it." Su Luo said with a frown: "They even located my Weibo account and some of them left really ugly messages saying that I'm shameless pretending to be your girlfriend."
"Sorry."
"Why are you saying sorry? It's not your fault, it's your fans." Su Luo stopped for a while then continued: "I don't quite understand the things in your esports circle. But if we have the chance to move forward, I'm willing to learn."
"It has nothing to do with that." Lu Sicheng extinguished the cigarette. Actually, he had only smoked a few puffs this whole time. Now, he just tossed it into the trash bin. "I don't know whether Lu Yue had said some silly things to you, like the rules of this circle. But you don't have to pay attention to what he said. The fact is that if I really want to develop a relationship with someone, I would take good care to protect her. She doesn't have to learn anything."
Lu Sicheng paused: "Therefore it has nothing to do with any of that."
"Then, is it because you're afraid to hurt your fans' feelings?"
"This isn't the entertainment circle. I'm just a game player, not a monk entering a monastery."
"Then what exactly."
"We're not a good match." Lu Sicheng simply replied.
The two had already reached the outside of the gate, probably because they were both tall and had long legs. It was a busy street outside the gate and they could hear the music coming from bars. Under the street lights, Su Luo turned to look at the man who was only half a head taller than her. Half of his face was hidden in the shadow with stubble on his face. But it didn't hide the fact that he was a handsome man.
The matter of fact tone when he said "she doesn't have to learn anything" made her heart skip a beat.
"How do we not match? Our looks? Intelligence? Family background? Or our height?" Su Luo laughed and used her chin to point at a couple in front of a bar not far away: "Even they can be together."
Lu Sicheng turned to take a look. He saw a big, tall man pick up a girl that only went up to his armpits onto a motorcycle. The girl was still wearing a high school uniform and the man only wore a tank top, showing his muscular arms and the tattoos on them. He ruffled her head and took out a helmet to put on the girl's head.
The girl smiled, reached her arms around his neck and pulled his head down so she could kiss him on his lips. Afterwards, she put on the helmet.
Su Luo: "That girl could be his daughter."
Lu Sicheng turned his eyes back: What's wrong with that?"
Su Luo was lost for words for a while, then gave Lu Sicheng a strange glance.
Su Luo: "What kind of person do you like exactly?"
Lu Sicheng: "......Someone who plays better games than me."
Su Luo chuckled: "Wasn't that just a publicity stunt?"
Lu Sicheng: "No, it's not."
Su Luo: "But does that person really exist? I heard that you're very good at games. No one is better than you."
"I never said it has to be the League of Legends. It can be someone who plays Tetris better than me. However, if it's League of Legends, I would marry her without a second thought." Lu Sicheng said with an expressionless face: "Good bye."
Su Luo: ......
Su Luo finally left. She couldn't change Lu Sicheng's mind in the end. She apologized and he said she didn't have to. She said she would work hard to get use to his profession and he told her it was unnecessary. She suggested that they matched very well from head to toe but he had made no comment-- --
He was as stubborn as a stone that even lightning couldn't split open.
Su Luo drove away, annoyed. When she passed the gate she had just left, she could see Lu Sicheng was still standing there. She lowered the car window and was about to wave him goodbye. Suddenly, the man turned around and looked straight into the community.
Su Luo paused for a moment. Her intuition told her that he was looking at someone back there.
But her car had passed the gate and in the end, she didn't see anything.
......
Under the dim lights, Lu Sicheng could see a figure getting closer. Finally, she stopped in front of him out of breath, huffing and puffing. Lu Sicheng moved his lips and looked down at the person who only came up to his shoulder. As he was about to speak, she gestured for him to shut up.
Then she bent over with hands on her knees and took a few deep breaths.
"Did you pass your high school PE class?"
"A girl who can play games well, looks cute, and has a good personality is already hard to find. Now she has to pass PE class as well." Tong Yao pulled the collar of her shirt up to wipe the sweat on her chin. "Don't push it."
"Which one of the series of requirements you just listed has anything to do with you, except the 'play games well' part?"
......
"What are you out here for?"
"Little Fatty said he's hungry." Tong Yao straightened up: "He sent me to get you to buy the crayfish."
"You can't make a phone call?"
"My phone is dead." Tong Yao checked behind Lu Sicheng: "Where's your blind date?"
"She's gone." Lu Sicheng took out his car key from his pocket and pat the person next to him on the head: "Let's go, go buy the crayfish."
"We have to walk back!"
"No one asked you to come out here."
Lu Sicheng turned as he was speaking. After a few steps, he noticed that Tong Yao wasn't following him. He stopped to look back and found her standing at the same place looking a short distance away. Lu Sicheng looked over and saw the high school girl and the man with arm tattoos were still at the same place, speaking intimately to each other. Something made the man so excited that he picked the girl up like a toy from the motocycle.
Tong Yao looked at them for a while before turning her head to see Lu Sicheng there. Both of her eyes were shining as if they said: "So cute."
......Lu Sicheng sneered: "That's cute to you?"
Tong Yao turned around and jogged to catch up with Lu Sicheng: "Aren't they good together?"
"What's so good about it?"
"You don't understand anything."
"Oh."
Inside the community, the light from the street lamps elongated their shadows on the ground. When Tong Yao fell behind Lu Sicheng, his shadow totally covered hers.
She looked up at the broad shoulders in front of her with unfinished words visible in her eyes.