The weekend after she signed onto ZGDX, Tong Yao flew to Shanghai. Before boarding, she did two things while waiting at the gate-- --
The first was to WeChat her friend, Jinyang, informing her that she was going to Shanghai to play professionally. Tong Yao was going to be the Mulan of the esports.
The second was to post on Weibo telling her streaming fans that she was going to Shanghai to watch this year's Spring Tournament Finals. She made it clear who she was rooting for: Go Team ZGDX!
Soon after her Weibo post, the official Weibo site of Team ZGDX reposted it with the comment [Thanks for the well wishes, Smiling. Looking forward to seeing you]. The unexpected interaction excited Tong Yao's fans, quickly creating a giant comment chain-- --
[My goodness, when did you get hooked up with the team of the competition sponsor, ahhhhhh!]
[You're really going to watch the game! I'm going too! I want to go and guess which one is you!]
[So happy Smiling likes the same team as I! Promise me to get an autograph from Cheng Ge, alright?]
[Is the competition sponsor buying a ticket for you? Make sure to ask for business class since they have money. Ah...]
Usually when she had free time from school or was on vacation, Tong Yao would live stream, either playing games or simply chatting to earn some spending money-- --Unlike other stream hosts, she never turned on the camera. Yet, since she was a girl at the 'Challenger' tier on both the Chinese and Korean servers, she had gathered quite a following-- --about thirty to fifty thousand fans. In a normal day, her post on the Weibo would receive several dozen replies at the most. At the moment, probably because the official ZGDX site had shared her post, her post about going to watch the game in Shanghai received more than 300 comments in less than ten minutes...
[Posting on Weibo just about going to a game. You have no life! Why don't you go compete yourself if you're so good? You don't even turn on the camera when streaming, are you afraid of exposing yourself!]
Tong Yao, "..."
Because she never turned on the webcam, there was always a rumor circling around that someone else was playing for her, especially after the scandal where another 'Challenger' tier female streaming host had someone carry her through her ranked matches…...that was the reason why there were so many malicious comments as well...
It seemed like he was having a lot of fun.
Tong Yao twitched her lip and stared at this comment for a while when she heard the boarding announcement. She grinned and replied with a smiling face on the spot with [That's right! Don't you know women like to post on Weibo for the smallest of reasons? That's what makes it cute.] Then she calmly signed off the Weibo.
Her phone started vibrating, an incoming call-- --
The caller id was Jinyang.
Tong Yao could guess what Jinyang would say, so she pretended that she was too busy boarding the plane to notice it. The phone hung up after ringing twice, but before Tong Yao could breath a sigh of relief, a message from her arrived-- --
[Answer the phone! Don't pretend you're not there. I saw your Weibo! You were talking smack with someone just 35 seconds ago!]
Tong Yao, "..."
Tong Yao, afraid of losing her friend after she got off the plane, called back and listened patiently to her friend's ranting-- --
"To hell with the Mulan of esports! !"
"Dammit, my boyfriend plays esports and now my best friend's going to play as well. In the future when I'm watching a game, other people asked me what I was watching and I reply that I'm watching my boyfriend and my best friend. They would think I'm insane! !"
"Where are you? Are you really on the plane already! Get the hell off! I'm going to hijack it! !"
Tong Yao spent a long calming her friend down, especially since she was sensitive to the words "esports player." They talked until the flight attendant nicely reminded her that the airplane was about to take off. Just as she was getting ready to hang up, the agitated one on the other end suddenly quiet down-- --
Tong Yao knew what was coming.
As expected, she heard her best friend speak the next second, "You aren't playing professionally because of Jian Yang?"
"...No." Tong Yao said, "I play for the 800,000 yearly salary."
"Tong Yao!"
"Aiya, I'm really not! I haven't talked to him for a long time…...besides, people on his Baidu fan page say that recently Yang god has a new girlfriend, a pretty streaming host-- --"
"What? Aren't you a streaming host?"
"Pretty, streaming host."
"Don't be like that. Though I despise Jian Yang, that jerk, I haven't heard anything about a new girlfriend from Ai Jia. They said CK wouldn't allow love affairs..."
"Anyway, I'm not going to look for him."
"Then, that's ok." The one on the other end seemed to want to make sure. "A good horse will never turn around to graze on an old pasture. I remember you said just a couple days ago that if you had a chance to do it again, you would never date a professional player ever."
"I know, I know."
"If you have to date one, then I'll go to your wedding only if it's Cheng Ge."
"............then you don't have to come to my wedding." The face of Cheng Ge flashed in her brain and Tong Yao replied, "Cheng Ge has a face which doesn't like any human beings."
Jinyang burst into laughter at the other end of the phone.
At this time, the flight attendant came over a second time to remind Tong Yao to turn off her cell phone.
Tong Yao hastily bid goodbye to her friend and put away her phone. She looked out through the window as the airplane gained speed to take off. She saw a silly face yearning for the LoL League stare back at her in the window with the blue sky and white cloud in the background.
"Be modest." She murmured while patting her face. "Be cool."
...
It took about two and half hours to fly to Shanghai.
After she got off, the lady sent by ZGDX to meet her took her directly to the hotel where all the players would be staying for the finals happening the day after tomorrow-- --
Tong Yao was nervous for a while thinking the lady was going to introduce her to her future teammates. She found out when they were almost at the hotel that it wasn't the case. The manager of the team just wanted to treat her properly since she was travelling on her own, so they booked the same hotel for her.
As for the meeting with her new teammates, it had to wait till after the retirement announcement of their current mid player, Ming god.
"That's good. That's good." Tong Yao kept nodding. "I also feel it'd be a bit too rushed to meet them."
The lady laughed at Tong Yao's reaction. "I thought you couldn't wait to meet Cheng Ge and the others. The other trainees who came to our base before were like that."
"I do want to meet them." Tong Yao said matter of factly. "But I haven't washed my hair today."
"..."
"Not even yesterday."
"..."
Tong Yao laughed embarrassingly. They were close to the hotel at the time and could see many reporters holding long-focus cameras swarming outside. The outside had so many people bustling about as if a superstar was going to show up there-- --
The lady shook her head. "Who knows where the media people learned about Ming god's retirement. They all want some scoop..."
Tong Yao, "Oh."
The lady glanced through the rearview mirror at Tong Yao who didn't seem to have much of a reaction. She raised her eyebrows and proudly said, "Those stupid people don't know that the biggest news is sitting at the back seat in my car."
"Don't, don't, don't." Tong Yao giggled as she shook her hand. "The big news hasn't washed her hair."
As they spoke, a Benz van emblazoned with the China Telecom logo sped by and parked in front of the hotel ahead of them. When they parked their car, the doors of the van were open and several staff wearing the team's uniform walked out first. They cleared a path through the media for the young men who followed them off the van-- --
They all looked very young. The oldest one was no more than 25 years old. The first one to get off was a chubby guy, wearing the black and red, short sleeved uniform with a "ZGDX" logo and black loose sports pants…...He gave a good-natured smiled and waved to the media.
Several people came out after him. When the last one got out of the van, Tong Yao noticed every camera turned to face one man-- --
If the first few who walked in the front could be referred to as "teenagers", then this last one had to be referred to as a "young man"-- --he was a head taller than his other teammates. Though he wore the same black and red uniform, he wore a jacket over the uniform…..He put his hands into his pockets with earphones in his ears. He had a high nose, single eyelids, thin lips and looked somewhat harsh when his face was at rest.
Yet, he was handsome.
When a teammate turned around to talk to him, he took one earphone off and listened attentively…...his lips slightly curved from what he heard-- --it was an expression which couldn't really be referred to as a "smile" on his expressionless face.
Tong Yao, "..."
Tong Yao had seen his picture on Weibo when someone shared his public team photo. People all mused, "He's good looking enough to be a star, why play esports." Now that she had seen the real person, the real person was a spitting image of the picture-- --
Had he gotten cosmetic surgery while training in Korea? How could he topple the stereotypical image of an internet addicted teenage boy like this? Look at Tong Yao, even she knew that it was more fitting for an internet addicted girl's image to not wash her hair-- --
"Wow, take a look at that forced smile on Cheng Ge's face. I figure we lost the skirmish to the Korean team again today."
The lady, who just parked the car and came over, sighed behind Tong Yao…...There was no response from Tong Yao as her eyes were fixated on the back of the man who was walking slowly away after his teammates with a slightly hunched back-- --
This man was the ADC player, "Chessman", of Tong Yao's new team and the same person whom her best friend idolized with fervor, "Cheng Ge."
The real name of "Chessman" was Lu Sicheng. "Chessman" in Chinese meant "the chess piece." Yet, his importance to the team was hardly as minor as his ID suggested. Ever since he started playing professionally, half of the top ten most memorable game highlights of each season were of him. Numerous times, he'd turn the tides of a game and led his teammates to the victory-- --
He had represented the Chinese region for two consecutive years as the ADC player at the All-Star competitions. He had tens of thousands of fans and it is said that his annual salary had at least one more zero than Tong Yao's 800,000. He was tall, handsome, quiet, stable and had superior decision-making and leadership skills. His existence in the team was a reassuring force to his teammates...
While other players would be trolled from time to time on their Baidu fan page, only Chessman, after playing professionally for many years, was like a clear steam; everyone loved him, there was no one who didn't like him.
Though it was said that he had a bad temper, a handsome man with a bad temper usually would be referred to as having "character"-- --
Lu Sicheng could be said to be the heart and soul of ZGDX.
Yes, to be more exact, it would still make sense if the "ZGDX" was replaced by "the esports community of China."
Before she came here, Tong Yao had imagined thousands of times what it would be like when she met such an influential man for the first time. By now, she could only say-- --she wish she could perform well in her future professional career so as not to make that handsome face frown. She simply couldn't imagine what kind of mean words would come out of that usually harsh face.
"Is it just me or does Cheng Ge look kind of mean."
The lady answered, "...correction, he doesn't just "look" mean."
Tong Yao, "..."
Now she was very scared.
While Tong Yao was lost in her own thoughts, her future teammates had already entered the hotel.
"Let's go in, too."
The lady sympathetically patted Tong Yao's shoulder and led her into the hotel. She got the room key from the front desk, put her luggage into her room, went to report to the manager, then she was free to do whatever she pleased.
Tong Yao checked the room and found there wasn't enough drinking water in the room. She went down carrying her purse-- --she had noticed a supermarket was nearby on their way to the hotel. She found the supermarket without any difficulty and luckily, there was one bottle of water left. Tong Yao picked the bottle and found it quite heavy. There weren't any cart nearby...
She also wanted to buy some ice cream and fruit.
Since she would be earning 800,000 a year, she decided to treat herself better by getting some other stuff first then come back to pick up the bottle…...however, there were a lot of shoppers around. To avoid the chance that some other shopper would take the bottle away before she came back, she came up with a creative solution-- --
She tiptoed up and hid the bottle sideways on the back of the top shelf.
No one should see it.
She clapped her hands with satisfaction and checked again that the bottle was well hidden before walking away
What she didn't expect was-- --
Soon after she left, a tall man came out from behind the shelf. He had one hand in the pocket and underneath his unzipped jacket there was the red logo that read "ZGDX". He stopped in front of the shelf where the bottle was and used his other hand to take down the supposedly hidden bottle with little effort
He turned around, paid, and walked away.
...
When Lu Sicheng opened the door with his room card, a guy with red hair, who was playing a mobile game, raised his head abruptly and cheered when he saw the bottle of water in Lu's hand-- --
"Next time, you go yourself." Lu Sicheng put down the water.