# Chapter 2
The teammates exchanged uncertain glances.
Zhao Feng shifted into a more comfortable sitting position and said slowly, "I'll get it all out in one go today so you all understand the situation. Better to be clear on things so no one accidentally says something that'll rub him the wrong way."
"Before going pro, Shi Luo was an excellent student at school—seriously excellent. He never intended to go down this path in the first place. He just streamed occasionally. Of course his family opposed him doing this."
"Shi Luo still hasn't contacted his family to this day. I don't know if that's because of the fallout with them over this, but nobody dares to ask."
"His stream had already gained quite a reputation at that time, and with his high ranking on the server, several clubs quickly noticed him. Shi Luo was still playing healer back then, and good healers are always a scarce resource. There should have been quite a few clubs reaching out to him. He turned them all down—including me. What he told me at the time was that he didn't want to go pro, but later for some reason, he joined Whisper's team."
"Because of this, he made enemies of several clubs. He went from telling us resolutely that he'd absolutely never go pro, telling us not to waste our time on him, to turning around and joining Whisper's side. Hah..."
"The rest you all know. It wasn't long before Whisper had some kind of change of heart, defected from the region, led his team out, and ended up with a ruined reputation..." Manager Zhao Feng glanced toward the upper floor, then pursed his lips. "Can't say it that way. Let me put it nicely."
Zhao Feng spread his hands. "At the time, the European region was putting together a Galactic Fleet roster, and they were short a top-tier healer. Whisper suddenly decided to develop in the European region, took whoever he could from his team, and sold off the rest at high prices. That's how Shi Luo got sold to the NSN team."
The room fell silent.
After a long moment, one teammate murmured, "...Shi Luo was basically just used as a money-making tool."
Someone spoke up in bewilderment. "Yu Sui's team was already the strongest in the region back then, and they'd won Worlds. What was the point of all that?"
"Who knows? Everyone's got their own path, I suppose. That side did offer a much higher signing bonus, and their operations were very polished." Zhao Feng continued unhurriedly. "Because of that top-tier player exodus two years ago, our region took a huge hit. We missed Worlds for two consecutive years... Meanwhile, Whisper kept doing quite well for himself. He went to Germany and made Worlds Finals his first year. The second year, once the Galactic Fleet had gelled, they took the Worlds championship outright. You've gotta admit the guy's brilliant—no matter where he goes, he shines."
The team's sniper clicked his tongue. "Running off to play in a rival region? That's what you call shining?"
"Hey, don't be so narrow-minded. We're competing between club regions, not nationalities. Bringing that up is pointless. But..." Zhao Feng said sympathetically, "That said, of course everyone would prefer players like this to stay in our home region. See how many fans Whisper has now? That's only about ten or twenty percent of what he used to have. When he suddenly switched regions, he genuinely infuriated all the fans from our region. Thousands cursed him, tens of thousands condemned him. If you think about it, the fact that he still has this many die-hard fans just goes to show how incredibly talented he was back in the day."
One teammate glanced toward the upper floor, speaking quietly. "He must be incredible for Shi Luo to have refused that many clubs for his sake. Wait, wasn't it Shi Luo who made enemies of those teams? So how did Shi Luo end up joining another team?"
"You can still sign someone even if you've made them angry." Zhao Feng laughed helplessly. "When money's on the line, who really cares about that? Back then, he was known as the 'Little Whisper' healer. When word got out that Whisper was selling him, which club wouldn't want him? NSN's captain Gu Qian had always been on good terms with Whisper, so Whisper sold Shi Luo to NSN."
Another assault player on the team muttered, "...Shi Luo must absolutely hate Whisper."
"Probably... Who knows. Whisper's reputation was terrible at that time, but Shi Luo never said a word against him. Other people still couldn't say it in front of him, though. The moment Whisper came up, he'd fly off the handle." The manager shrugged. "And then Shi Luo switched to assault. NSN was decent enough—they let him switch classes without any hard requirements about what he had to play. But NSN has always been short on healers, not assault players. They didn't want to waste Shi Luo's prime years watching him warm the bench, so after internal discussions, the higher-ups decided to sell him to us."
Zhao Feng smiled shrewdly. "Of course, I ended up getting the better deal. Who could've guessed that Shi Luo would be even more insane at assault? He climbed to the top of the server in under half a year. After another half a year of refinement, he became the region's top assault player. Whisper would probably regret it to death if he knew—he actually sold Shi Luo for just three million."
Everyone laughed. One teammate sighed. "No wonder Shi Luo reacted so strongly... I'd only heard that Shi Luo had been with Whisper's team for a few months before. I didn't know there was this much history."
Zhao Feng sighed along with him. "I only know so much myself. But things were really chaotic back then, two years ago. Our scene has been battered by capital in recent years, and a lot of mess happened. Most of the grudges our players hold against each other now trace back to that period."
The team's healer, who had been listening all along, tentatively asked, "Manager, now that Whisper is back, he won't come to our team, right?"
Zhao Feng looked thoughtful, then patted the healer's shoulder and laughed heartily. "What are you worried about? Almost definitely won't happen. Do you think your Shi Luo-ge can coexist peacefully with Whisper?"
Everyone laughed, and the conversation drifted to other gossip.
---
On the second floor, Shi Luo sat back down in front of his computer station. He clicked the "Continue Queuing" button on his game client and waited for a random group queue.
His stream was still on, and the comments were still passionately discussing.
[He's back, he's back.]
[He doesn't know about Whisper coming back to the country just now, does he? Was that why he left just now?]
[There are so many people on the team, so many people in the scene—didn't anyone tell him?]
[Probably no one dared...]
[By the way, which team do you think Whisper will join? He wouldn't come to IAC, right?]
[No way. If he really came to IAC, there'd definitely be a body carried out of the IAC base the next day. Shi Luo and Yu Sui—one of them would definitely die.]
[hahahaha come to IAC, I want to watch the drama.]
[People who want Whisper in IAC, what are you thinking? New fans, can you please shut up?]
[I'm too lazy to dig up old grudges, let's not make people unhappy.]
[Weakly raising a hand, is there a shipper in the room? That knife just now made me take continuous damage, I desperately need my sisters to pull it out and comfort me TAT]
[I can't understand the comments anymore, what happened?]
[He was only gone for five minutes and now he's back to queuing normally. My baby has grown up, I'm so proud.]
[He's not completely unaffected though... I think I heard a lighter click. Reporting, Evil's secretly smoking again since his camera's off!]
Shi Luo didn't say a word. The ranked queue finally popped. He took a deep drag from his cigarette, stubbed it out in the ashtray, and continued grinding his smurf account.
Playing in this tier, Shi Luo didn't need to think at all. He could just climb on muscle memory alone. He played for two hours, queued five games, won all five in a row, and was MVP in every single one. Shi Luo's protective fans felt deeply satisfied—little baby had grown up, become steady. Although he'd still trade insults with people, he wouldn't get easily provoked anymore. Look at this calm and composed demeanor, this unruffled bearing, this operation that remained steady amidst chaos!
Of course, a stream belonging to someone with Shi Luo's popularity was never short on haters. The comments kept repeating the same talking points like a broken record, trying to stir up drama about how Shi Luo could only pub-stomp in low-rank games.
The haters posted the same thing every few minutes. Shi Luo glanced at the comments while waiting in queue and caught one:
[You stream every time on a smurf account, only daring to let people watch you show off in low-rank games? If you've got the guts, come show off on your main account.]
This kind of cheap trolling, Shi Luo had long become immune to. He glanced at it without a reaction and kept waiting for queue. Unfortunately, the queue timed out and was automatically cancelled. Shi Luo索性 shrugged off the smurf, logged into the server account that the league assigned to each pro player.
The stream, of course, erupted in cheers.
The main account had already reached the top of the server rankings, so queue times were even longer. Shi Luo clicked to queue and leaned back in his gaming chair, placing a cigarette between his lips, quietly waiting to enter the game.
During the wait, Shi Luo stared at the character model on his game screen, lost in thought for a moment.
Shi Luo had indeed been affected by the news of Yu Sui returning.
There was nothing shameful about that—nothing that needed to be denied. Two years had passed, and his former captain, his former guide into the pro scene, his former ultimate career goal... and his former most hated person had returned to the region. Was it really so abnormal to have some emotional turbulence?
Shi Luo had anticipated that Yu Sui would return, but he hadn't expected it to be so soon.
Shi Luo still remembered Yu Sui's contract length. If he wasn't mistaken, Yu Sui should still have had three months left on his contract with the German side.
Shi Luo tapped his keyboard lightly and thought to himself: Three months early.
Though this was understandable enough. Since Yu Sui was back, he definitely intended to continue playing. The new season would start in two months. Yu Sui would need to sign with a new team before the season began, spend about a month integrating with new teammates and adapting to the home region's pace, then enter the new season in peak condition.
He'd planned everything out so meticulously.
The stream was still running—it wasn't convenient to use his computer. Shi Luo picked up his phone and typed in a few keywords to search for related information.
The news of Yu Sui returning had broken three days ago on the hottest esports forum in the country. The story had spread everywhere. Most of the debate centered on Yu Sui's past "defection" from the region. However, since the home region was currently short on healers, players were generally glad he was back. Beyond that, there was very little substantive content—just repeating that Whisper had apparently left the European region and would soon return to register with the home region.
When would he return? Which team would he join after returning? Not a single piece of useful news.
Shi Luo tossed his phone aside. Team names cycled through his mind one by one.
Saint, which built their entire strategy around a healer-centric playstyle, was unlikely. But all the other top-tier teams were possibilities.
Including his own team, IAC.
What Zhao Feng said sounded nice—that he wouldn't sign Yu Sui for Shi Luo's sake. Shi Luo wanted to laugh just hearing it.
Whether for the club's overall commercial value, for the team's competitive performance, or simply for the buzz it would generate—as long as it could bring IAC monetizable benefits, Zhao Feng and the other higher-ups wouldn't consider Shi Luo's feelings one bit.
A purely commercial club, and Shi Luo was nothing more than a player who happened to make decent money. Shi Luo had seen through all this nonsense two years ago. Talking this kind of awkward pretty words now was simply ridiculous.
Yu Sui was like a money tree returning—what reason would Zhao Feng have *not* to reach out? It was just a matter of whether they could close the deal.
And if they actually did...
Shi Luo's lips parted slightly. His gaze unconsciously drifted to the computer screen. The game still hadn't queued in.
Shi Luo followed his gaze to the comments. The chat was also discussing which team Whisper would join, analyzing it quite convincingly.
[Let's not even talk about the bottom-tier teams. They can't afford him.]
[We can rule out Saint too. They're the team with the least shortage of healers. Or rather, they're the only team that isn't short on top-tier healers.]
[We can probably rule out IAC too? Sure, IAC's healer situation is whatever, but if Whisper came to IAC, this transfer window wouldn't just be an earthquake—it'd be the apocalypse.]
[Please don't. If he really comes to IAC, I'm genuinely worried Shi Luo will sneak into Yu Sui's dorm in the middle of the night and stab him to death = =]
[NSN's kind of possible. Yu Sui has a relationship with their captain. Just don't know if NSN's willing to spend the money.]
[Comprehensive analysis, Wild Bull is the most likely. Their owner's loaded, they can absolutely afford Yu Sui. Just letting Yu Sui play support for Wild Bull's two trash assault players would be such a waste though.]
[hahahahaha but Wild Bull's owner has money to burn, they could just buy Shi Luo too.]
[Right haha, buy them both.]
[As much as I'd love to see Shi Luo transferred to Wild Bull, can you people stop tying Shi Luo and Whisper together every chance you get? People stirring up drama are so annoying.]
[Please stop jinxing it. If those two end up on the same team, the fans will genuinely lose it.]
Shi Luo watched the comments expressionlessly. Following the fans' logic, he calculated the probability of ending up on the same team as Yu Sui next season.
Yu Sui coming to IAC.
Or Shi Luo and Yu Sui both being bought by Wild Bull.
And the probability of that...
Before Shi Luo could work out a formula, his game finally queued in.
High-tier ranked always meant running into people you knew. In this match, the other assault player Shi Luo was queued with was NSN's captain, Gu Qian.
Shi Luo had briefly stayed with NSN for two months. Back then, Gu Qian had taken very good care of him. Unfortunately, NSN was overflowing with assault players—there was more than the team could hold. When Shi Luo switched to assault, he couldn't stay at NSN any longer. It was Gu Qian who helped arrange the connection to his current club, getting Shi Luo a relatively fair transfer contract.
Because of that kindness, Shi Luo had always respected Gu Qian.
The moment Shi Luo loaded into the map and saw Gu Qian's ID, he sent a greeting.
**[IAC-Evil]**: [Gu-zhang.]
Gu Qian either didn't see it or was otherwise occupied—he never responded. Shi Luo didn't mind. He marked the map and started pushing forward. After half a minute, Gu Qian still hadn't caught up. The team chat notification chimed. Shi Luo glanced over.
**[NSN-GU]**: [Yu Sui's back in our region. Did you hear?]
Shi Luo stared at the screen. After a moment, he typed: [Just found out.]
Shi Luo glanced at the comments. Just as he was about to type a reminder that he was streaming, the team chat chimed again.
**[NSN-GU]**: [He's coming to my team.]
NSN—the team with the most assault players in the entire league.
Shi Luo stared at Gu Qian's team chat message in silence for a long while.
Thinking about all those seemingly well-reasoned analyses in the comments just moments ago, Shi Luo suddenly couldn't help but let out a laugh—and then, unable to stop himself, he leaned against his keyboard and laughed.
Yu Sui had gone to NSN, completely eliminating any possibility of being on the same team as Shi Luo.
The fans could rest easy now.