[Lu Sicheng is totally different from what people say about him. There's no way that you're ever going to our wedding, not ever.]
[A unbelievable male chauvinist.]
[He laughed at me about hiding the water on the top shelf in the supermarket. Other people do that? Right?]
[He also laughed at me when I couldn't reach the floor button in the elevator. I simply had too many things in my hands at the time! And I simply forgot to put the stuff on the floor that time. He sneered when I tried to explain! What's there to laugh about!]
[Bad mouth, sharp tongue, likes to fool people. Yesterday, he pretended to be streaming, though he was indeed streaming, he didn't turn on the microphone! I played mute for an hour because of it. What's even more annoying is that he also lowered his voice to talk to me as if he was afraid the microphone would catch it! Dammit, he didn't even turn on the microphone ahhhhhh!]
[Little Fatty, Old Cat, and Old K are very nice people though.]
[The team manager is even nicer to Dabing than I am. He even bought a cat leash online so he can take Dabing to fight other cats in the community.]
[Lu Sicheng pinched my earlobe and said that I have a soft ear. Tsk.]
[I'm so stressed everyday and the club even wants me to stream. I'm so nervous. Do I need to put on makeup for streams, do I? Should I buy a beauty camera? Lu Sicheng will laugh at me if I buy one. He will probably tell all the fans that I have the beauty camera while I'm streaming, ahhh. Screw it, I should still buy it.]
[I bought it.]
[Gee, yep, I suddenly feel uneasy. It definitely sounds like something Lu Sicheng would do, announce to the world that I use a beauty camera.]
Sitting on her bed, Tong Yao, in pajamas, was chatting online with her best girlfriend.
She speedily sent out one message after another. She didn't realize that her messages had already occupied the whole screen. After sending out the last message denouncing Lu Sicheng's last offenses, she frowned slightly, looked up at the ceiling, and started to muse whether she had forgotten anything important: there must be more than that......
It took a long while.
Finally, Jinyang responded. Tong Yao hurried to check her message. Jinyang's response to her long list of complaints was short and to the point, there were only four words plus a punctuation mark.
[You are in love.]
Tong Yao: "..................."
Tong Yao: "??????"
Tong Yao was so shocked that, with a shake of her hand, she threw her cell phone away.
The phone made a loud noise when it crashed onto the floor. Dabing who was lying on bed, about to fall asleep, jumped into the air. The ajar room door was pushed open from the outside. The man who she had mentioned over and over in her chat pushed the door open and coldly asked, "What happened?"
Tong Yao asked in shock as she was picking up Dabing, "Why didn't you knock on the door!"
Lu Sicheng: "Why didn't you lock the door?"
Tong Yao: "I forgot!"
Lu Sicheng: "I'm too lazy to knock."
Tong Yao: "......"
The man took peek inside and realized what the noise was about when he saw the cell phone on the floor. He muttered, "I thought you fell from the bed." He walked in, picked up the phone for Tong Yao. A message came in on her phone right at this moment, he lazily glanced at the screen and paused before he spoke again, " 'You care about him, you silly kid.' I agree with the silly kid part, but who do you care about?"
"......"
Tong Yao threw down the cat, jumping forward to grab the phone from his hand, then rushed to the bed sitting under the blanket, alarmed.
It only took her three seconds.
Lu Sicheng was in the same position as he was three seconds ago, dumbfounded. He looked at his empty hand, "Are you going crazy?"
"Why did you peek at my WeChat!"
"It popped up by itself."
"Do you have eyes under your chin! How could you see it if you didn't lower your head? !"
Tong Yao sat cuddled inside the blanket, showing only her puffed cheeks and a pair of rounded eyes. Somehow, it reminded Lu Sicheng of squirrels. He sarcastically curled up the corner of his lips, "No need to thank me."
He turned around, ready to leave.
As Tong Yao stared at his back, she realized that he did pick up her phone for her. She squeezed a late "Thank you" through her teeth. Lu Sicheng didn't seem to buy it, waving his hand behind his back.
It was then that she heard the voices and footsteps of Little Fatty and Old Cat. She was surprised, "Why is everyone sleeping early tonight?"
The man stopped at her doorway, "Our skirmish with YQCB is scheduled at noon tomorrow. I told them to sleep early."
"......"
Tong Yao was amazed: You told them to sleep early and they're actually doing it? They really listen to you, ah, team tyrant.
The footsteps got closer, Lu Sicheng naturally closed the door behind him. The muffled voices of a conversation seeped through the door. It seemed that Little Fatty was asking Lu Sicheng why he was coming out of Tong Yao's room. What was Lu Sicheng's answer?
Oh, she fell from the bed and hit her head on the nightstand with a loud thud. It startled me.
Tong Yao: "......"
She grabbed her cell phone to locate [fhdjwhdb2333] on WeChat and sent out a private message. "You've smeared me again, I heard it. Won't be helping you win tomorrow."
About ten seconds later, his reply was: make sure to take your medicine before bed, rid yourself of your insanity early :)
Tong Yao: "......"
Some people could use 'smile' as 'hehe' perfectly.
She copied his reply and sent it to the person who had really gone mad and needed medicine, Jinyang. She added a 'throwing up' expression. Afterwards, Tong Yao turned off her cell phone, got into her blanket, yawned with satisfaction, and got ready to sleep.
The skirmish would be tomorrow.
Tong Yao stared at the ceiling for a while, turned, suddenly she kicked her legs, covering her mouth to giggle.
By the heavens, I'm actually a real professional esports player!
......
The outcome of being overly excited was that she didn't sleep well that night. The next morning, she couldn't even face the black circles around her eyes in the mirror. She turned on the faucet...... took a shower to wake herself up. When she went downstairs, she was surprised to find Lu Sicheng already awake, sitting on the sofa reading a book with a cup of steaming coffee near his hand.
Tong Yao thought she had travelled to a parallel universe.
My goodness, this internet addicted old man can actually still read a book.
Tong Yao went to sit down across from Lu Sicheng and saw the title of the book in his hand, <Strange Pilgrims> [1]. Even the title was so profound that she couldn't get it. She moved her eyes away and pretended to casually strike up a conversation, "You're up early?"
[You are in love.]
The man across from her raised his eyelids and glanced at her above the book, "CK had games today for the mid-season competition. So I got up early to take a look."
Tong Yao thought about it, "Oh, did they win?"
"They crushed the Taiwanese and the North American teams." Lu Sicheng spoke without much emotion, "But, was crushed by the Korean team as always."
"Oh."
[You care about him.]
Tong Yao: "Ahhh, shut up!"
Lu Sicheng: "?"
Tong Yao: "...... Nothing, really."
Tong Yao used her hand to rub her face. Finally, she couldn't stand the broken record in her mind that repeated Jinyang's words and stood up to go to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of icy milk. When she returned to the living room, all the other teammates had also woken up and come down...... Lu Sicheng was back at his own seat and the opened book was placed on the coffee table face down. Dabing was standing right next to it, stepping on it with the paw. Tong Yao went over to pick up Dabing while glancing at the book again. She had to try hard to hold back the urge to pick it up and take a look.
Though she knew that she had absolutely no interest in the book, the reason why she wanted to pick it up was......
Tong Yao felt like she had been bewitched.
She was fine just yesterday, now she wasn't feeling like herself after being teased by Jinyang. It had elevated to the point that she wanted to touch everything that the man had touched......
It was a terminal disease.
Tong Yao dragged her feet to her computer with the cat in her arms. Lu Sicheng spoke without raising his head, "Get ready for the skirmish, drop the cat." Tong Yao followed his order exactly, dropping the cat and sitting down at her seat. Her teammates were all ready to go by then. Little Fatty was still chewing on a piece of bread, both of his hands, however, were typing on the keyboard to log onto the server.
A little while later, the data analyst Ming god had also come down with the team coach Ah Hou.
With just a command from Lu Sicheng, everyone was busy getting ready. This was the first time that Tong Yao had recognized that there was actually a 'captain' on this team.
After they made contact with YQCB, Xiao Rui told them the rules they had agreed upon and the game room name and password. Everyone joined the room with ease and found the five players from YQCB were already in the room waiting. The line up in the room was according to the position of the players in the game from top to bottom: Top, Jungler, Mid, ADC, and Support.
The fourth one's ID was: yqcb、pope.
It was Pope.
....... Ah, that Pope.
Tong Yao gave a silent sigh of amazement, then was back to herself, focusing on her direct opponent, the third ID: yqcb、aica, the Mid Ai Jia of YQCB, the boyfriend of her best friend, Chen Jinyang; the dad of Dabing's good friend, Ah Mao; the silly kid who told his girlfriend to see him on stream when she wanted to see him.
However, Ai Jia wasn't a silly player. Tong Yao had watched him play before with Jinyang. He was a very stable player. Before YQCB was downgraded to play relegation games, he had once earned the title as the 'Mid Inhibitor Turret version 2.0', just like one famous Korean player. His specialty was playing defensively and brutally punished anyone who overextended. Basically, he was the kind of player who could better restrain Tong Yao's aggressive playstyle.
When Tong Yao played, she liked to attack, challenging the opponent, whenever the opportunity arose.
They entered the banning and champion select phase. The first thing the opponent did was to ban Tong Yao's favorite champion, Leblanc. It was a move that acknowledged her skill. Lu Sicheng turned his head to glance at Tong Yao, "Not bad, it's a good use of a ban."
Tong Yao twitched the corners of her lips. She didn't shoot back since she was somewhat nervous. She quietly watched both sides ban champions, then it was time to select.
In addition, after reaching level 6, his ultimate "Destiny" can effectively support other teammates.
The Card Master used to be the a favored champion in the Chinese region. Lately, fewer and fewer Chinese Mid players knew how to use him effectively. This champion gradually disappeared from the competitive scene.
That was the reason why everyone was so excited that Tong Yao had selected him.
"Do you know how to play it? Don't force yourself to take it if you don't"
"Then what? Bring Yasuo so I can win this for you?"
"......"
Tong Yao's rhetorical question successfully shut Lu Sicheng down. Lu Sicheng locked in as 'Ezreal' against the champion known as 'The Spear of Vengeance' played by Pope. The champion selection had ended. The match began!
At the beginning of the game, the opponent's Kassadin wasn't very active, concentrating on farming. Compared to Tong Yao's Card Master which was much more aggressive, Kassadin was constantly under a lot pressure.
However, the situation was totally reverse at bot for her team. The opponent's combination of Bot's Kalista and Support's Thresh was strong enough to pressure Lu Sicheng. They didn't talk much at the early stage of the game, just quietly harvesting minions and focusing on dealing with their own opponents. Once a while, Lu Sicheng would remind Tong Yao, "Don't go in too deep. You'll get killed when their Jungler comes over later."
At this point, Tong Yao had already reached the enemy's outer turret.
Tong Yao responded by retreating a little bit. When she saw her opponent seemed to take a breath of relief and walk out of the turret, she instantly picked the gold card and rushed over to land a flurry of attacks. After a round of colorful cards thrown at the enemy, she
produced another gold card to hit him again.
The announcer spoke: "First Blood!"
"Nice!"
"A kill!"
"What speed!"
"Little sister's awesome!"
Amid the praise of her teammates, her advantage at the Mid was already established.
When both sides had reached level 4, Lu Sicheng paused to let the Jungler Old K go to bot and hide inside the bush along the lane. Tong Yao glanced at him. He seemed to have sensed it, "It's Li Junhe's peculiar habit to tower dive before level 4."
Tower diving is when a player enters the firing range of an enemy's turret, endure turret fire long enough to kill the opponent underneath, and hopefully make it back out alive.
"I had been correcting his bad habit for a year, but I know for a fact that he won't change it."
Lu Sicheng lazily explained. Just as he had expected, right afterwards, the enemy's Support started to place wards in the bushes to light up the area preventing Old K from hiding in them. But Little Fatty didn't give him much chance to keep those wards safe. Everytime, he planted one, Little Fatty would be there to destroy it.
However, it didn't stop Pope, at the next second, together with their Support to dive under the turret!
The first turret shot hit the Support. The Support dropped a lantern (which allows his teammate to quickly fly back to Thresh when they click on it) and began to pull back.
Right at the instant when Pope jumped under the turret, Lu Sicheng threw all his abilities at Pope.
At the same time, the Jungler Old K jumped out from the bush where Little Fatty had cleared all the wards!
Pope realized that he was in trouble and tried to click the lantern to retreat. Lu Sicheng and Little Fatty immediately threw a lot of wards near the lantern to block it, so as Pope couldn't click on the lantern right away, the turret wailed on him. Lu Sicheng watched him lose health until only a sliver was left and was ready to deal the finisher...
Suddenly, everyone's computer flashed 'connecting to server'!
The server was down!
"...... Shit!"
Lu Sicheng was stunned at first, then struck his keyboard. He stood up irritatedly and walked over to pour himself a cup of coffee...... He leaned against the table in silence, frowning. Xiao Rui hurriedly went to the window, opened it, then shouted through the window, "Hey, brothers next door, we're offline!!!!"
A little while later, a shout came back from the house next door, "Brothers next door, we're offline too! The VPN couldn't handle it, probably!"
Tong Yao: "......"
Tong Yao stood up and looked over at Lu Sicheng, "Annoyed?"
"En." The man lowered his eyelids and sipped his coffee irritably, "The welcoming gift I prepared for Li Junhe's arrival to China is gone. What do you think?"
"It doesn't matter. Your team's Mid got a big welcoming gift at her first skirmish." Tong Yao raised her arm to act like Popeye, "I'm so happy. I feel like I can beat everything now."
"Look at you showing off after bullying Kassadin in the beginning." The man behind the coffee cup rolled his eyes. "Wake up."
"Little Fatty and they all said that I'm the best Twisted Fate in China."
"They lied."
"......"
"They've been single for 20 years. Finally, they got a chance to sweet talk a girl, they don't even care that the girl is only a kindergartener."
"......"
This was a person who wouldn't let others be happy when he was not happy himself.
Tong Yao also rolled her eyes and walked away. Though her first skirmish ended on such a strange note, it didn't hinder her from showing off to Jinyang with a text message: [Friend, your ex has become a rag as I used him to wipe the floor.]
The other side immediately replied with her approval: [Friend, I know, this loser is telling me in tears right now..... I feel that our friendship has strengthened! Go, esports Mulan!]
Tong Yao held the cell phone with a silly smile on her face.
It was a drastic contrast to the black faced Lu Sicheng.
......
That night.
Tong Yao's euphoria didn't last long.
She soon discovered that the VPN outage from earlier in the day had put Lu Sicheng in a bad mood the whole day. The atmosphere in the base remained oppressed to the point that nobody dared to breathe too deeply.
It was particularly quiet at the normally bustling base. Even the talkative Little Fatty was curled up in his chair, watching his harem anime with his earphones on...... Tong Yao glanced at Lu Sicheng who was sitting at his own seat watching the news. It looked like he had lost any interest in playing games. The listless Tong Yao sat down at her seat with Dabing in her arms, "Mr. Captain, is there any way to amuse you?"
The cat struggled out of her arms, then squeezed hard as a pond loach trying to get into Lu Sicheng's arms. Surprisingly, Lu Sicheng didn't reject Dabing, he even stroked the cat's furry head. Tong Yao's lower jaw almost dropped to the floor: Damn, he's really depressed now. He's even stroking the cat!
While Tong Yao was dumbfounded by the scene, manager Xiao Rui moved over, "Tong Yao, tonight..... oh, my goodness, what are you doing, Cheng Ge?"
Another person who was shocked by Lu Sicheng's unusual behaviour.
"Stroking the cat." Lu Sicheng answered with no expression on his face, "Do you want to touch it?"
Xiao Rui, "...... sure."
Lu Sicheng: "You can't."
Xiao Rui: "Tong Yao, do a stream tonight, with the camera on."
Tong Yao, caught in the crossfire, was taken back, "He torments you, why are you tormenting me?"
Xiao Rui: "This is a food chain. Nature is always cruel like this."
Tong Yao: "......"
The order from the manager was the order from the boss. Tong Yao, as a paid employee, couldn't fuss over her own issues anymore. She excused herself to go upstairs to put on some light makeup and comb her hair. She came back down with the beauty camera she bought last night and started to set up......
After she managed to set up and adjust the beauty camera, the official Weibo had already sent out the news that she was going to stream tonight. Tong Yao logged onto her new streaming channel on Panda and discovered that there were already about 20,000 to 30,000 people inside. Usually, the stream platform would blow up the number of online viewers, so the system actually showed that there were 300,000 viewers...
She instantly reached the top of the list!
[Waiting for the steam!]
[Didn't expect a full house!]
[It's coming! Jackpot! The biggest jackpot yet!]
[It's time to see whether the little sister is actually a man, like me!]
[The most mysterious person in history is about to show her face. How should I pretend that I don't mind that she actually looks ugly. Anxiously waiting!!!!"
[Stream, stream, where's the stream you promised]
[When's the stream start?]
Bullet comments flew across the screen.
"Ahhhhh, so many people......"
Tong Yao started to feel uneasy as she logged onto the game and the stream app. Her best friend, Jinyang, sent her a message to let her know that she was also in the chat. She asked Tong Yao to make her a moderator so she could ban anyone who said Tong Yao was ugly.
[I'm only afraid that I can't block them in time, don't blame me then.]
Tong Yao replied, "Damn you, beat it." she held her breath as she turned on the camera, a small camera showed up on the lower right corner of the screen. Following that, with the anticipation of thousands of people, a short haired, little chubby, round-eyed girl appeared on the screen...... The background was the base of the LoL division of the ZGDX club. The Support, Little Fatty, of ZGDX calmly passed by behind her with a popsicle in his mouth.
Tong Yao was nervous to death as she pulled up the microphone, "Hi, good evening, everyone."
The bullet comments abruptly paused.
Then, the comments went crazy!
[Ahhhhhhhhh, my wife, shit!!!!]
[Nice voice.]
[Damn, little sister looks as pretty as I've imagined!]
[That day I said she's a young girl just by seeing her hands and you guys didn't believe me!]
[Ugly.]
[...... You really are a woman. The world has gone upside down.]
Tong Yao briefly glanced at the bullet comments; there were all kinds of comments on the screen, praises, curses, and even ads. After a while, she became too scared to watch them, just like an ostrich. Ignoring the comments that were goading her to speak, she hurriedly turned to the game, "Let's play a game, play a game. Starting from this month, I'll stream every month. If you want to support me, please subscribe to me......"
Just as the words left her mouth, she watched the number of subscribers shoot up.
Tong Yao's heart almost jumped out of her chest. With a slightly blushed face, she wave to the camera with a smile with her slightly sweaty palm and said, "Thanks." Then she logged in. When the familiar game screen showed up, she finally cooled down, entered the game with ease, and queued up for a ranked game......
Once she started playing, she would be too focused to notice the bullet comments anymore.
In any case, if the bullet comment assistant wasn't turned on, she wouldn't see it in the game. If she couldn't see it, then it didn't exist. Hahahahahaha!!!!
Tong Yao smirked at her genius. Then, she saw the depressed man next to her suddenly move a bit. He clicked open a certain web page, the bright light reflected on his handsome face. He unexpectedly started to talk, " 'My goodness, they've found a school kid to play professionally!' "
"..........................................................?"
Tong Yao abruptly twisted her neck to look to her right. Yet, the person sitting to her right was unaffected by her ferocious glare.
" 'Take Leblanc, I want to see you play Leblanc......' "
" 'ZGDX is hiring child labor, I'm going to report you.' "
" 'Smiling, your hands are so pretty!' "
" 'Tong Yao, it looks like you're only 5 feet tall.' "
" 'My god, I love you. It's cute to watch a school kid playing professionally.' "
......
"This guy said that his wife isn't Aragaki Yui anymore, it's Smiling now." Lu Sicheng turned his head to look at Tong Yao and slowly said, "My personal opinion is that this fan of yours needs to see the eye doctor...... and if the brain doctor isn't busy, he should go see him at the
same time."
Tong Yao: "......"
Tong Yao: "What are you fucking doing? !"
"Didn't you say you wanted to amuse me?"
Lu Sicheng pointed at the screen of his computer.
"I've found it."
[1]: The Chinese title is <梦中的欢乐葬礼和十二个异乡故事> translated into English as A Merry Funeral in Dreams and Twelve Pilgrim Tales. Ain't that a mouthful? The book is written by Gabriel Marquez a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Strange Pilgrims is official English translation of the original Spanish title.