Lili stood up above Yixing and Huobai in the conference room. It was only a few days after Yitian's accident, but they already lost three mock matches and fell one place down the leaderboard.
"How is that possible?" Lili asked, totally baffled. Was that because Chao was so good? Or that they were both good? Better than the rest of the team?
"I can't do the same work as Chao. He loves making strategies, but it's too hard to keep focusing on everything. I can't keep up with watching our enemy and my teammates at the same time," Huobai said, totally disgusted with himself.
He thought he could easily fill in for Chao because he was good at everything he did. He could play chess too, and when he played with Chao, they were neck to neck. But now, he saw that Chao was far better than him and it ate him alive.
"Why don't you divide those responsibilities, then? How could you lose so many times? Did you change your strategies?" Lili asked, shaking her head when she went through the data on the laptop.
She halted her steps and zoomed in on the results. Yixing knew what she saw there and winced. It was far worse than that. They couldn't keep up with the new arrangement.
"How the heck could your individual result descend like this? So rapidly?" she asked, let the hand holding the tablet fell down, and looked at Huobai and Yixing with widened eyes. None of them answered. They only shrugged their shoulders even more.
Lili sighed and went through the next statistic. Her mouth was slowly falling down when she saw one report and the recording of it.
"You lost my knives?" she asked, totally shocked. Huobai looked straight at her, but he couldn't keep eye contact with her. He was so embarrassed that even his dominant side just felt ashamed. Yixing looked through the glass wall at Shanshan, whose weapons they were.
"How could you lose a weapon?" Lili asked once more, now less shocked, but sterner.
"No idea. We didn't even know it could be done. But Shanshan was captured by someone from Lan da hai, and he used some special skill of disarming his opponent. So Shan was disarmed and easily killed when he got resurrected: he had to run all over to the place to pick up his equipment," Huobai explained when he couldn't take it anymore.
"Could he take his weapon? Steal it?" Lili sighed and rubbed her eyes. Then she looked at the tablet again as if she hoped it was only a dream or a hallucination.
"No, he did not. Shanshan has it still in his storage as ghost equipment. That means it's still in his possession. But lying somewhere around…" Huobai answered again. Now, Lili ran her hand through her hair. When she did that, her watch that was on her wrist started ringing and she glanced at the pair of noobs to keep quiet.
"Yes, hello, honey. How is it going?" her voice changed to a sweet one when talking with Lei and Yixing chuckled. Lili glared at him to shut up, her gaze freezing the atmosphere.
"Not bad here. The doctor said he is getting better and better. But Chao is getting worse and worse. He still refuses to go to sleep and when he sleeps it's an hour, not more, and he wakes up with nightmares. Even if we sedate him. He will wake up with nightmares…" Lei sounded defeated and Lili was sorry she couldn't be there for him.
"And how is your part of the world working?" he asked, and Lili halted for a few seconds before answering.
"Honestly, not so good. But we will work it out together," she sighed and glanced at Huobai and Yixing, who were quickly nodding. Lili could hear Lei's sigh.
"Do you want me to send Dylan there?" Lei asked, and both guys were shaking their heads. Yixing had a pretty frightened expression. It was so hilarious that Lili almost chuckled.
"It's okay. We can manage some time. But could he come every evening to check them out? I need to go somewhere," Lili said, and she remembered something she had to do.
"No problem. I will tell him to come by after he takes the paperwork to the company." Lili nodded to the agreement before she remembered he couldn't see her and answered him.
"Do you want a driver?" Lei asked, concerned, but Lili just giggled.
"No, it's okay. I can take a taxi. Or walk," she dismissed the idea of having a personal driver here because she would feel weird.
"I'm a bit scared to let you out alone. Especially when I'm here. Please, don't you want to ease my worries?" Lei used the pleading voice she hated so much. Because Lili loved it and never could she say no to Lei when he spoke in this voice. She sighed and then agreed.
"Oh, do you have someone who speaks English? So, he can help me translate?" Lili asked when she finally realized the advantage of it. Lei just chuckled.
"I will talk to Jiaer. I need to go now and buy food for my stupid, strong-headed brother," Lei sighed and Lili smiled.
"He may be stupid, but you still love him." She could hear Lei closing the door behind him and smiled.
"Yes, I love him, but sometimes I would kill him how stubborn he is…" Lili laughed and turned around to see Yixing and Huobai grinning at her. She rolled her eyes and turned back again.
"You are saying it as if you weren't stubborn. Who was the one who was just now stubbornly saying I need protection?" she struck back and Lei could be heard smiling. But there was a lot of noise around him, so it was hard to distinguish.
"Well, I need to go back. We have a meeting. See you soon, my treasure," she said, and he answered her the same. Then they hung up.
"You will never ever say something you heard here, or I will have Dylan be here every day and night, training you instead of me. Now, you have four hours to get your personal score back where you all were. Or I will personally go and meltdown all the flashy equipment you have. Just to remind you how it was when you were starting." Lili walked out of the room with the tablet and sat up high on the balcony, having a nice view of everyone.
Huobai and Yixing slowly got out of the room and stood up before everyone.
"We need to try harder, or we will be stripped of our equipment…" that was all they said and the game house was filled with collective groaning.