# Chapter 1
At two in the morning, the base of the FOG division at IAC Esports Club in the Magic City was brightly lit.
The practice match had just ended, and it was free time. The team members were either showering or ordering takeout. Only Shi Luo remained at his station in the training room, grinding ranked games.
It wasn't that Shi Luo was particularly diligent—it was just the end of the month, and he still owed the streaming platform over twenty hours of live broadcast time.
Shi Luo, Evil, nineteen years old, skilled beyond his age, and unfortunately also easy on the eyes. In his two years since debut, he'd become one of the top domestic esports stars, the face of IAC's roster, their cash cow, their pillar.
The pillar himself didn't particularly enjoy streaming, but according to his contract he had to stream at least thirty hours per month. So without exception, at least twenty-nine of those hours were always streamed at the end of the month.
After the practice match ended, the club manager had come to nag him again. Unable to put it off any longer, Shi Luo finally started catching up on his "homework."
Barely two or three minutes into the stream, his viewer count had already surpassed three million. Danmaku filled the screen, dense and layered, practically impossible to read.
【As expected, he started streaming, hhhhhhhhhh……】
【Haha哈哈哈又到了美好的月末，Here comes the monthly forced content time for God Shi.】
【It's the 29th, time is running out for player Shi Luo.】
【It's the 29th, time is running out for player Shi Luo. +1】
【Every end of month is when my husband keeps me company day and night, let me calculate—you still owe me 25 hours! Are you happy? Are you having fun?】
【Look at me look at me look at me! After the qualifiers next month it's transfer season again. Will my husband stay at IAC this season? Are you transferring this year?】
【Oh right, transfer season is coming up again. I've heard all the teams will be making big moves this year. Waiting for an industry earthquake.】
【IAC's owner doesn't care about esports at all, just wants money, only knows how to hold the players back. Husband, transfer early so we fans can rest easy. Transfer please!】
【Stop bringing drama. Every transfer season you people lose it. Can you all just chill?】
With the transfer season approaching, fans in the community were restless. The danmaku inexplicably devolved into arguments, but Shi Luo wasn't affected in the slightest—he hadn't even opened the danmaku window.
Shi Luo opened the FOG game client, logged into his smurf account, and clicked to queue for a match. He was in the game within minutes.
FOG, translated domestically as "Into the Fog," had been out for over six years since its public launch. Its popularity had grown year by year, and it now held steady in the top three most popular games globally.
FOG was a 4v4 competitive game. In each match, the player and their teammates were dropped at one end of a map shrouded in thick fog, while on the other end waited four opponents. The four players in a team had different abilities and roles based on their classes. The ultimate goal was to gradually clear the fog on the enemy side of the map, leaving them with nowhere to hide, then eliminate all opposing players and destroy their rebirth stone. The first team to accomplish this won.
Each team consisted of three classes: two Assaulters, one Sniper, and one Medic. Shi Luo's class was the Assaulter—which, as the name implied, meant charging into the front lines for blood-soaked engagements.
Shi Luo always used a smurf account when streaming. The account he was on this time, he hadn't played much this season, so his rank was extremely low, which meant the teammates he got matched with were accordingly mediocre. Shi Luo couldn't care less though—rarely did he ever get a random teammate who could keep up with his pace. He was used to soloing. As long as his teammates didn't feed too badly, he could win. If they fed too hard… well, that just counted as weighted training.
Like in this match.
The other Assaulter on the team gave up a kill to the enemy right at the start. His movement was erratic, he had zero game sense, and to top it off he was randomly spraying bullets and exposing their position. Not even ten minutes in, this guy had contributed absolutely nothing while having fed the enemy team three kills.
In low-rank matches, you could get matched with any kind of clueless teammate. Shi Luo didn't mind—he'd already picked up two kills from the enemy team and upgraded his gear. He could 1v4 on his own. It didn't matter if his teammates went AFK.
But the teammate who'd been feeding kills clearly didn't have such a zen mindset. After dying for the fourth time, he went AFK and started typing toxic messages in team chat.
【贼猛贼强】: [What's wrong with the Medic? Having a fever dream? Not throwing shields, not healing, what's the point of you?]
【贼猛贼强】: [Watched me get killed and never came to help, what are you even doing? Can't play? Then quit! Get lost!]
【贼猛贼强】: [Are all the boosted players who can't climb just playing Medic now? Carrying by being carried?]
Shi Luo was currently in a close-range 1v2, and after taking out both enemies, he glanced at the team chat interface.
Can't play for shit, but his mouth runs fine.
The Medic on the team wasn't exactly sharp, but compared to this absolute bot named "Zei Meng Qi Qiang" (which roughly translates to "Super Fierce Super Strong"—edging god), they were miles ahead. They'd been shielding Shi Luo promptly earlier; there was nothing wrong with their gameplay.
The Medic was probably young or just had a good temperament. After being flamed for half the game, they finally typed a response: [I'm not carrying. I was helping the other Assaulter earlier.]
This sparked a chain reaction. The bot Assaulter seemed personally offended, and the team chat pinged relentlessly again.
【贼猛贼强】: [You can only help one Assaulter? You only have one hand? You disabled?]
【贼猛贼强】: [Can you even play? If you can't, stop being dead weight!]
【贼猛贼强】: [What a bunch of idiots. Can't even carry this deadweight. Can't carry him to a higher rank!]
This guy couldn't play for his life, but he could type damn fast. The Medic teammate didn't know how to flame back, managed to defend themselves a few times, then stopped typing.
Shi Luo stared at the team chat interface, his fingers paused over the keys, but in the end he didn't type anything.
This was why he disliked streaming.
Opening a stream slowed down his internet and affected his gameplay, but the worst part was that the league had rules: active professional players were prohibited from any negative behavior in-game, including but not limited to flaming other players.
With so many people watching his stream, the chat logs were ironclad evidence. Getting punished was a foregone conclusion.
It wasn't worth getting punished over something like this.
Shi Luo updated his gear and continued moving forward alone.
When this "Super Fierce Super Strong" saw that no one was responding to him, he spitefully threw out one more line: [Damn, three trash Medics in one night, lost three games in a row. All Medics are trash. Trash. Trash!]
Another chat notification pinged. Shi Luo squinted at the chat interface. One second later, he pushed his mouse aside and started typing.
From the moment Shi Luo typed his first line—"Don't flame the Medic. Come on, let's settle this"—the stream's danmaku exploded.
【Pff, I knew he couldn't hold back.】
【Was the former #1 flamer in the Chinese server just a joke to you? He's been a pro for years and supposedly reformed, but you really thought he forgot how to flame?】
【Flaming against Evil? Looking to die? Who can out-flame him hahahaha……】
【This guy really knows how to step on every landmine. Does he not know that God Shi was a Medic main back in the day? How could he tolerate someone flaming Medics?】
【Haha, Shi Luo is using a smurf. This guy has no idea it's him.】
【It's been so long since I've seen the young master flame. Missed this. Look at that pro-level typing speed, that massive vocabulary, that灵活运用 of profanity! Sigh…… So satisfying.】
【Wait, a pro player is flaming? Is he not afraid of getting punished?】
【There will definitely be punishment. Waiting for the club's official announcement. Sigh, ten thousand yuan, just like that.】
【My god, he's still going? What kind of demon typing speed is thishhhhhh……】
Shi Luo's face remained expressionless as he typed at lightning speed.
It wasn't fine-based-by-the-word. Whether you cursed once or a hundred times, the fine was still ten thousand yuan. Since that ten thousand was already gone, why not flame this absolute trash a few more times?
This "Super Fierce Super Strong" obviously couldn't keep up with Shi Luo's typing speed. Within a few minutes, he was completely overwhelmed. When Shi Luo finally got tired of flaming, he picked up his mouse and continued the match.
At such a low rank, having one less teammate helping wasn't really a problem. Shi Luo and the other two teammates were swift and precise as they destroyed the enemy team's rebirth stone. A big "WIN" popped up on the screen.
In the chat, the other two teammates thanked Shi Luo profusely. Shi Luo didn't respond. Just as he was about to click exit, the "Super Fierce Super Strong" who'd been AFK for almost twenty minutes suddenly slithered back with a petty comeback: [So what if we won? The enemies were just trash! I hope this kind of Medic never gets matched with me again.]
【贼猛贼强】: [Can't play Medic? Then go learn. Watch pro players' gameplay more often, like Whisper's.】
【贼猛贼强】: [Look at how that Medic plays. Can only help one teammate? Don't make me laugh.]
【贼猛贼强】: [Good timing too—Whisper's coming back to China. When he does, go watch his stream. Heh, hope we never meet again!】
This "Super Fierce Super Strong" gave himself a pathetic victory speech before exiting the match. The other two teammates immediately comforted each other, telling each other to ignore him. Shi Luo stared at the chat logs, dazed.
A few minutes later, Shi Luo cancelled his next queued match and stood up to head downstairs.
In the first-floor lounge, team manager Zhao Feng was scrolling through WeChat. When he saw Shi Luo come in, he sighed and said, "The complaints have already reached me. You were flaming randos again? I've told you this before—if you play on your own time, flame whoever you want. But during streams,忍一忍忍 whenever possible. It's broad daylight out here, they came asking me about it, what was I supposed to say? I can't even cover for you even if I wanted to. You……"
Zhao Feng nattered away on WeChat, but when he looked up and saw Shi Luo's face, he froze: "What's wrong with you? You look terrible. I—I wasn't even saying anything that harsh……"
Shi Luo's expression was dark and阴沉. Without a word, he turned to go back upstairs. Halfway up the stairs, he turned around and came back.
Zhao Feng watched him nervously: "What on earth is wrong?!"
Shi Luo stopped, his voice cold: "Yu Sui is coming back to China?"
Zhao Feng choked.
Zhao Feng nodded cautiously: "Yeah, he might've already arrived by now."
Shi Luo's lips moved. After a long moment, he said slowly, "No one told me."
"Who would dare tell you? We all know you two…… Sigh, I was planning to tell you! But I've been busy lately. It's almost transfer season, there's so much going on, it just slipped my mind." Zhao Feng's confidence grew thinner and thinner. He put on an apologetic smile: "For your sake, we didn't even consider signing him. Does it really matter whether I told you or not?"
Other teammates entered the lounge. They sensed the tension in the room and exchanged bewildered glances between Zhao Feng and Shi Luo.
Shi Luo also realized he'd lost his composure a bit. After a moment, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and he said, "It's nothing. Coming back is coming back. Just thought I'd ask."
With that, he went back upstairs, as if nothing had happened, and continued streaming.
In the first-floor lounge, Shi Luo's teammates were completely baffled. They wondered aloud, "What's going on? Who's coming back?"
Zhao Feng shrugged: "Whisper. Yu Sui. He's transferring from the European server back."
The team's Medic jumped: "Whisper!!"
Zhao Feng shot the Medic a look to keep it down. The Medic hastily covered their own mouth, then whispered, "Whisper's coming back to our region?! Which team's he going to? Oh my god, transfer season this year is really going to cause an earthquake."
Zhao Feng shook his head: "Where he's going, we don't know yet."
The youngest Sniper on the roster had joined later and didn't know the history: "God Yu? Former #1 Medic in the Chinese server, current #1 Medic in the EU server, three-time World Championship champion…… Who's not heard of him? So what? What's the big deal about him coming back? What does it have to do with Brother Shi?"
Zhao Feng sighed: "It has everything to do with it."
"Two years ago, Yu Sui was still the strongest player in our region. Shi Luo was just an unknown ordinary high school student."
"Shi Luo never intended to go pro in the first place. It was Yu Sui who personally signed him into his own club, said he'd sign him for life, and then personally……"
"Sold Shi Luo, all polished up, to another club."