# Chapter 5
Shi Luo didn't end up going to the team dinner. He returned to the base alone, ordered some takeout, took a shower, and headed to the training room.
No one from the dinner had come back yet. The training room was empty, and Shi Luo sat down at his computer desk by himself.
Shi Luo never really participated in team group activities. He had no friends at IAC. It wasn't that others ostracized him—it was just that Shi Luo didn't like mingling with people. It was a purely commercial team; the higher-ups had no interest in getting personal with the club's players. Everything was just surface-level politeness.
Compared to the hassle of navigating teammates, Shi Luo preferred training alone. When he occasionally got annoyed and wanted to chat with someone, it wouldn't be anyone from the team.
Like now.
Shi Luo sat at the computer and opened Wa Wa's livestream.
In the stream, Wa Wa had his camera on, crying his eyes out while venting about Shi Luo.
"THIRTEEN KILLS!!"
"On the very first game of the preseason opener, I got THIRTEEN KILLED!"
"What's thirteen deaths even mean? It means that in this entire match, I only did ONE thing! ONE THING!! Running from the spawn point to the front line!! Running forward, getting gunned down by Evil, and then repeating that process over and over!"
"I was like a cheap bot script!! Respawning, feeding, respawning, feeding, respawning, feeding!"
"For real, my mental's gone, ow—my chest hurts..."
Shi Luo picked up his mouse and clicked a few times.
In the livestream camera, Wa Wa was clutching his face and crying. He glanced up when he heard a special sound effect, sniffed, and said, "A donation? Thanks to Dad Shi for the three meteor showers—wow! Three!! Thank you, Dad Shi, for the donation... Wait, wrong!"
Wa Wa shouted angrily, "SHI LUO!!"
Shi Luo smiled.
Wa Wa ground his teeth: "Already there are people saying I must've taken money from IAC to throw the match!! And you still donate?!"
Shi Luo chuckled and casually donated five more meteor showers, each worth three thousand.
"Okay okay, seriously, don't send any more. Let me treat you to something good to eat later." Wa Wa was a straightforward guy. Feeling bad for the platform fees Shi Luo was paying, he told him to stop. "You up for duo queue with me if you're free? I'll ride your coattails to rank up. Consider it an apology from you."
Shi Luo didn't respond. He dumped all the free popularity-boosting gifts that came with his platform account onto Wa Wa, closed the streaming platform, and opened the game client.
Shi Luo invited Wa Wa to duo queue. The two of them queued in the Chinese server.
Wa Wa sent a voice chat request. Shi Luo accepted it.
Wa Wa was still sniffling: "You guys were too vicious today, too vicious. You guys beat me down until I couldn't even fight back..."
The two of them got into a map. Shi Luo said, "It was intentional."
Wa Wa whined: "I could tell, but I didn't do anything to you."
Shi Luo said, "It's not about you."
Wa Wa had only been in the industry for a year. He genuinely didn't know about the grudge between Shi Luo and Yu Sui. He asked, bewildered, "Then who could it be about? Even an idiot could tell you were targeting me today."
Shi Luo bought some starting gear. "I already apologized just now. Isn't that enough?"
"Fine." Wa Wa sighed. "Can't blame you. If it were me, I'd target the medic too. I played like garbage in the early game today. I just can't learn that style of His Yu. Skill issue. I admit defeat."
Shi Luo paused.
Shi Luo stopped talking and led Wa Wa to clear the fog.
Wa Wa was still wallowing in self-pity: "Sigh, same playstyle, but His Yu executes it like flowing water. When he was teaching me, he blew my mind. Seriously, he, a medic, was actually压制ing the enemy flanker, and I got so hyped watching it! Marching forward all proud and ready to fight you guys for real—and then you guys destroyed me."
Shi Luo picked up a kill from the enemy. He still didn't say anything.
"His Yu is truly amazing. Sigh, I give up. I'm not playing assassin-medic anymore. Can't afford it. I'll just老老实实 be a babysitter medic."
Shi Luo spoke as if half-distracted: "You're fine the way you are now. No need to copy someone else's playbook."
Wa Wa sighed: "But our captain told me to learn it. How could I not listen? Our captain said that since my playstyle isn't fully set yet, now's the time to try learning other approaches. I really did study it seriously."
"I was actually kind of scared of His Yu before, but surprisingly, His Yu's temperament is really good. He didn't get impatient no matter how many questions I asked. Probably because of our captain's connection." Wa Wa was helpless. "His Yu's a great teacher, but I'm a terrible student. I really tried, but some things you just can't learn no matter what."
Shi Luo said, "Then forget it."
"Our captain thought so too, but our manager won't give up. Insists I keep practicing. Whatever, it's for my own good. If he wants me to practice, I'll practice." Wa Wa was pitiful. "Speaking of which... Shi Ge, can I use you to practice? I'll play front line, cut me some slack, okay?"
Shi Luo had been lost in thought listening to what Wa Wa said. He snapped back: "Sure."
Earlier that day, Shi Luo had utterly destroyed Wa Wa on stage. He did feel a tiny bit guilty, so when Wa Wa wanted to use him for practice, Shi Luo agreed without thinking. But before ten minutes were up, he was already regretting it.
For one simple reason: Wa Wa's assassin-medic was playing like an absolute他妈的不像话!
Except for when he streamed on a smurf account, Shi Luo hadn't encountered such a terrible medic in ages!
From the very first day Shi Luo started playing this game, he had never raged at a medic. But today he almost broke that rule.
"You t—" Shi Luo gritted his teeth and swallowed his words. "Too aggressive... Can't you, like, slightly gauge how many enemies there are?"
"You m—slow down, can you not?!"
"I c—grass! Go to the west side of the grass! You hear me?! Go!! Did you not hear me?!"
The two of them duo-queued for three hours. Shi Luo's main account ranking plummeted from first in the Chinese server like it was on a bungee jump, all the way down to seventeenth.
After finishing another game, Shi Luo opened the Chinese server top 100 ranking page and stared at himself sitting at nineteenth place for a long time, speechless.
Shi Luo didn't want to curse. He lit a cigarette.
Wa Wa小心翼翼 asked: "Shi Ge? Are we... are we still playing?"
Shi Luo exhaled smoke. After a long while, he said, "Do you know how many high-ranked games I have to play every week to stay number one?"
"I've held the first-place ranking for four consecutive months. As long as I don't drop today, just half a month more and I'd have broken the record..."
Shi Luo started doubting whether Wa Wa was really as innocent as he seemed: "Were you acting this whole time?"
Wa Wa was on the verge of tears: "I wish it were me acting, but I'm genuinely terrible at this. Just smoke first, cool down, cool down."
Shi Luo held the cigarette between his teeth and shook his head: "No no no. Go find Captain Gu to practice with you. I'm out."
Wa Wa was distressed: "He stopped practicing with me long ago. This assassin-medic of mine has scared off yet another flanker."
Shi Luo said, "Out of the few friends I have, I'm being genuine when I tell you—give it up."
"I think so too. Assassin-medic is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I don't want to try anymore... Wait!" Wa Wa suddenly remembered something. "Shi Ge, before you switched classes, weren't you an assassin-type medic?"
Shi Luo took a drag of his cigarette and vaguely hummed in acknowledgment.
"Such a rare talent! Why did you even switch classes back then? What a waste!!" Wa Wa thought for a moment, then added, "But you made it to the top playing flanker too, so can't really say it was a waste. Still, good medics are rare to begin with, assassin-medics are even rarer. This is such a shame."
Shi Luo exited the map: "Nothing to be sorry about."
Wa Wa still felt the pain: "Truly, the favored ones have nothing to fear... Why did you even switch in the first place? Ughhhh what a waste."
Shi Luo ignored Wa Wa. After finishing one cigarette, he was about to turn off the computer and go to bed, but Wa Wa was still over there yelling questions endlessly. Shi Luo couldn't help but laugh: "I don't even feel sorry about it myself. Why are you心疼 for me?"
"It's just such a waste啊啊啊..." Wa Wa beat his chest in frustration. "If you hadn't switched, you probably wouldn't have transferred either. Then NSN's starting medic would be you right now. I could be your backup! I'd happily carry your bags啊啊啊..."
Shi Luo sneered.
Wa Wa suddenly got curious: "Tell me. What was the reason back then?"
Shi Luo lit another cigarette.
"Because..."
Shi Luo was irritated: "There was an official announcement. Look it up yourself."
Wa Wa was impatient: "Just tell me directly. I entered the scene too late. There's so much stuff from back then I don't know."
Shi Luo said, "The official statement..."
Shi Luo recalled the past and said slowly, "'Due to the fact that player Evil's personal understanding of the game has diverged from the career goals of a medic, continuing down this path would be torture for both parties, and therefore...'"
Wa Wa试探道: "Hold on, let me translate that into plain speak. This means... Evil got so frustrated playing healer that he decided to quit healing and go martial arts, right?"
Shi Luo said, "You could actually be a bit more direct."
Wa Wa re-translated: "Fuck this healer shit. I'm not healing anymore."
Shi Luo nodded in approval.
"Damn legendary. Real damn legendary." Wa Wa slowly clapped, genuinely praising. "I actually get that urge every now and then, but I still haven't dared to actually do it."
Shi Luo smiled and continued: "...Under the充分友好的沟通 of NSN Club's FOG Division management and player Evil, and by mutual decision of the club and player, player Evil will transfer to the flanker class starting from this date."
"'Since NSN's current first team flanker slots are full, regarding player Evil's future placement and retention, the club will proceed with further arrangements based on player Evil's personal wishes.'"
Shi Luo held the cigarette: "That's all."
While chatting with Shi Luo, Wa Wa had simultaneously opened the FOG China Regional League official website and searched Shi Luo's in-game ID for announcements from two years ago. By now he had finally found it.
Shi Luo at that time, though a rookie, was already half a star player. The league officials had handled his class-transfer announcement very formally and had even specially made a poster.
In the poster, Shi Luo stood with two in-game characters behind him. The one standing in the shadows holding a three-sided hexagonal photon shield was Shi Luo's previous medic character. Standing under a lamp post with an assault rifle was the new flanker character Shi Luo had created.
Wa Wa hesitated: "While I can understand you getting frustrated playing healer, you didn't know you'd make it to the top as a flanker either. Making such a rash switch... That's so stupid... Um."
Shi Luo finished for him: "So damn stupid."
Shi Luo took another drag of his cigarette: "I was indeed a damn fool back then, but that wasn't the real reason for the switch."
Wa Wa instantly became even more curious: "Then what was it?!"
Shi Luo stubbed out his cigarette: "Not telling you. I'm logging off." Shi Luo said this, turned off his computer, and went to sleep.
Shi Luo left without warning. The fans who had been listening to their chat in Wa Wa's livestream immediately exploded. Wa Wa was afraid of accidentally saying something wrong and causing drama for Shi Luo. In a panic, he rushed to end the stream.
In NSN team's training room, Captain Gu Qian got up to pour some water. Wa Wa took off his headset and casually asked, "Captain, when Shi Shen was on our team back then, why did he suddenly switch to flanker?"
Gu Qian paused mid-step, glanced toward the window where someone was still on their phone: "His fault."
Wa Wa was stunned: "His Yu?"
Wa Wa thought about it: "No wait, wasn't His Shen already in the Europe region by then? How could he still..."
"Just because he wasn't on the same team anymore." Gu Qian said calmly. "Back then, our region and the European teams scheduled a practice match. Coincidentally, we got matched against the new team Yu Sui had just formed. Shi Luo was my medic. We played three games and lost all three. For all three entire games, Shi Luo was targeted the whole time. In the last game... It seemed like besides the very start of the match, Shi Luo never once left the spawn point."
Wa Wa was horrified: "That's even worse than what I went through today?!"
"What you experienced today is nothing." Gu Qian said. "Back then, the European team was stepping on our spawn point to虐 us. Respawn and kill. Respawn and kill. And they purposely made their medic come over to mock us. Just him. Yu Sui."
"By the last game, we had all surrendered and left the map already. Really couldn't beat them. No point wasting time. Only Shi Luo wouldn't surrender. He was alone in the map, dying and getting up, getting up and dying again..."
In FOG, when a player's character takes damage, it leaves wounds and bloodstains. In the same match, even after respawning, the character's wounds and bloodstains don't disappear. If you're killed and revived over and over again...
Wa Wa imagined that scene and asked with difficulty: "How many... times did he die?"
"Thirty-four times." Gu Qian looked at Yu Sui, who was still on his phone. "Right?"
Wa Wa was incredulous: "THIRTY-FOUR TIMES?!"
Yu Sui was still looking at his phone. Upon hearing this, he simply hummed in agreement.
In that match, Shi Luo's in-game character was covered in wounds from head to toe. Half his face was soaked in blood. He was unrecognizable.
Wa Wa said with difficulty: "...But you had just sold him, His Shen. In a shonen manga, that makes you the villain."
Yu Sui stared into the distance for a moment. After a smile, he murmured to himself: "Outside of shonen manga, I've been the villain for a long time."
"True." Gu Qian said. "In my memory, the flamers in China's esports scene have been united in hatred only twice. The first time was when Whisper led the team to transfer to Europe. The second time was when Shi Luo got traded twice within three months."
"All the flamers on every forum came together as one, making drama videos, photoshopping memorial pictures, spamming black nicknames everywhere... They even nearly pooled money together to hire someone to cripple Yu Sui's hands in Europe."
Gu Qian quietly concluded: "The first person to unify esports flamers—Whisper. Yu Sui."
Yu Sui chuckled: "Fame."
Wa Wa awkwardly glanced at Yu Sui, didn't dare to join in the teasing, and went back to queuing for games on his own.