After Ji Wangshu finished his introductory speech and had all the boys introduce themselves, he leaned back and prompted. "Why are you here today?"
He let the question hang in the air for a few minutes, yet the room was so silent that if someone dropped a needle on the ground, someone would be able to hear it down the hallway.
Li Hao and Xiao Yi looked at each other and shared an unspoken agreement that although they knew exactly why they were there, they'd say nothing. That only left Mu Yichen, Chen Qiang, and Tang An, two of which were in league with each other and didn't feel like starting the conversation.
Mu Yichen sighed, straightened himself out, and said. "To attend family therapy."
Li Hao began clapping. "Exactly!"
Chen Qiang looked away with a speechless expression.
Tang An sat peacefully, looking as composed as Buddha himself.
Xiao Yi fought against the side of his lip but ended up smirking anyway.
Chen Qiang shook his head and said. "Well, we need to talk things out."
Ji Wangshu looked toward Chen Qiang as if he were the only sane person in the room and asked. "What do you need to talk about?"
Chen Qiang took a deep breath and looked toward Xiao Yi with an apologetic expression. "We used to be friends with him, Xiao Yi, but he deceived us into thinking he betrayed us for nearly five years and we just found out. I don't think any of us, including him, truly coped with what happened."
Mu Yichen agreed and sat forward. "It's not that we don't understand why he did what he did, we do, but it's still hard for us to handle since we spent five years thinking he stole our money, screwed us over, and abandoned our past friendship."
Tang An also added. "I think, we all feel at least a bit of hate toward him. It was built up over the five years, we resented him for so long."
Ji Wangshu listened to their concerns and fell into thought.
In reality, Chen Qiang didn't tell him why he was booking an appointment in the first place and he had no interest in esports so he had never heard about what happened in the past. Hence, he stopped trying to guess what happened and asked directly about it. "What happened in the past to drive you to this point?"
To everyone's surprise, Xiao Yi answered. "I ended up telling them that I collaborated with the company that owned our esports team to shut down, took their part of the prize money, ripped their player contracts up in front of them, and told them to get out."
Mu Yichen coughed.
Xiao Yi added. "I also looked at them straight in the eye and told them that I was done with them and they should start preparing backup plans because I wouldn't be helping them…"
Mu Yichen coughed again.
"And that I couldn't care less about them, they could die on the street if they wanted to."
Mu Yichen stared at him.
"Also, I regretted bringing such useless trash into the esports industry and if they could prove me wrong one day, I'd eat my keyboard in front of them…"
Xiao Yi blushed as he looked at the wall.
Chen Qiang coughed.
"I also said I didn't want to see them again in this lifetime."