Chapter 33
Yu Sui clicked accept on the friend request, then opened his in-game friends list. His list, usually empty, now had only Shi Luo in it.
Yu Sui stared at Shi Luo's avatar for a long while before returning to the queue interface and clicking to join a match.
The system's random team matching wasn't truly random—it paired players of similar rank together. Given that the top-tier players on the Chinese server were a small circle, running into each other wasn't some rare occurrence. The only reason they hadn't crossed paths over two years was the natural barrier between the Chinese and European servers.
On the other side, Shi Luo continued queuing solo after a while, but they didn't encounter each other again that night.
But online, drama was already exploding everywhere.
Every pro player had fans—more or less. Fan count generally correlated with a player's skill ranking. Those with good looks might have slightly more supporters, but it didn't break the overall pattern. There were only two exceptions.
One was Shi Luo. The other was Yu Sui.
When Shi Luo first debuted, he had no achievements to his name, but because he brought his own fanbase from the anime dance community and had the backing of FS战队 fans, he gained plenty of followers even with zero competitive results. For a long time, he'd faced heavy criticism and mockery about his "idol culture" fanbase. But Shi Luo proved himself by switching to the entry fragger role and skyrocketing his individual performance—within half a year, he firmly established himself among the top-tier fraggers and silenced everyone who'd said he'd only made it in esports through his looks. When the player delivered, the fans gained confidence, and they were nearly unstoppable in online feuds.
Yu Sui was even more extreme. From his debut, his individual skill was super-elite, and with his looks, his fanbase was on an entirely different scale than other players. He could crush anyone in terms of numbers. Later, when he left the domestic server, he lost ninety percent of his fans. Logically, he should have had no fighting power left. But with such a massive base to begin with, and the fans who stayed being die-hard elites, they usually kept quiet and lived peacefully. When someone crossed their line, though, they fought like demons—one person worth ten.
When fans of these two collided? The result was predictable.
When it came to trash-talking, the esports community had its own unique style and sat at the very top—no one could match them. Their usual attacks wiped the floor with other communities, and internal conflicts burned even hotter.
Anyone with eyes could see tonight's incident was a random encounter. But Shi Luo's fans couldn't tolerate that Shi Luo had been the one to主动添加好友 send the friend request to Yu Sui. Their player, their baby to protect. They felt Yu Sui should have revealed his identity right from the start. Waiting until the end without saying anything was deliberate deception. And speaking of deception, there was so much old history to dig up. Not tearing into this scumbag would be an insult to the breakfast money Shi Luo had transferred to Yu Sui back in the day!
Everyone started flaming, and they blew up Yu Sui's personal forum first.
Though Yu Sui's fans usually took the high road and ignored the attacks, they could stomach others but not Shi Luo. "Without our Whisper, where would Shi Luo be today? Still twerking in his livestream! At least we were his career mentors—does he have no appreciation for the old days? Does a kid his age have no conscience?"
Yu Sui and Shi Luo had zero interaction for two years, and both fanbases hadn't clashed on a large scale in a long time. With fresh grudges piling onto old ones, neither side wanted to show mercy. That alone would have been fine—Yu Sui and Shi Luo, especially Yu Sui, had been through countless online wars and couldn't care less. But the more teammates knew, the more ammunition there was, and it turned into a complete mess. While attacking each other, both sides leaked dirt from two years ago. Like how Yu Sui had eaten at the Bison team's place because their hot pot boiled faster, then gotten into a fight with Baozaoshu over vegetables. Or how Shi Luo had known Yu Sui never ate breakfast, yet always dragged Yu Sui out for morning meals two years ago just to disrupt his late-night sleep schedule—and look, the little brat succeeded, Yu Sui actually ended up in the hospital with a stomach bleed...
The more they fought, the more both fanbases felt sorry for their own players. Yu Sui's fans went to his Weibo, disappointed and frustrated. "Aren't you supposed to be an assassin-medic? Why did you suddenly turn into soft tofu?"
Shi Luo had it worse. He was still livestreaming. His fans flooded his stream with comments, genuinely concerned. "Why did you even add him as a friend? Did Yu Sui take the college entrance exam for you, or catch a nuclear bomb for you with his bare hands...?"
Shi Luo, who still hadn't gone offline, couldn't take it anymore. He messaged Zhou Huo: [Are you going to do something about this?! Can't you get some bots or something to drown it out?!]
Zhou Huo was on the phone with Yu Sui at that moment.
Yu Sui, who had been solo queuing all night and climbed to rank 158 on the Chinese server, picked up. After getting the gist of things, Zhou Huo asked carefully, "Want me to have Evil post something? Like, it was just a random encounter, nothing much, the game was pretty enjoyable and stuff?"
Yu Sui exited the game interface. "Why force him to act?"
Zhou Huo laughed nervously. "Force is such a strong word..."
Yu Sui said, "Isn't it? You know he's in an awkward position with me right now. Why force him to take a stance?"
"Just one statement won't hurt him." Zhou Huo tried to smooth things over. "I just hate seeing you getting dragged so hard."
"Didn't you always say I was a scumbag?" Yu Siu's tone was calm. "I'm not afraid of being attacked."
Zhou Huo had nothing to say. He试探地问, "Can I ask with zero expectations—Yu God, what were you originally planning? I get that you don't want to pressure Shi Luo, but you can't stay like this forever, right? I'm your appointed manager; you can tell me."
Yu Sui was silent.
Zhou Huo grew wary. "Let's get one thing straight—if you two keep this up, I really can't do my job. Are we going to need separate cars for you two at every tournament?"
"It's not that tense." Yu Sui said. "I can separate work from personal. For competition, I'll coordinate with him properly. Nothing will go wrong."
Zhou Huo relaxed a little. As long as there were results, everything else was negotiable. But first, he genuinely cared about Yu Sui, and second, he was curious. "So... what about privately? What are you thinking?"
"That's my own business," Yu Sui said.
Zhou Huo sensed something unusual. Smiling, he asked, "What? Finally planning to mend things?"
Yu Sui lowered his gaze.
How could he not want to repair things with Shi Luo?
In the early days after going to Europe, for a long while Yu Sui, though still dominant in competition, was in terrible shape privately. It had gotten bad enough that his boss at the time had been concerned.
Once Puppy had asked Yu Sui if he was missing Shi Luo.
Yu Sui said no.
Why would he be? Miss him calling him "ge"? Miss him pouring hot water for him?
But Yu Sui had been lying.
The time he'd spent with Shi Luo, though short and full of external hardships, had genuinely been the best period of his career.
Zhou Huo didn't know what Yu Sui was thinking, but he sensed renewed hope. Eagerly, he asked, "How are you planning to fix things? How far are you willing to go?"
Yu Sui stared quietly at the computer screen. After a moment, he said, "Wherever he wants to take it."
Zhou Huo choked.
That statement was loaded with ambiguity.
Especially given that Zhou Huo knew Yu Sui's orientation.
At least things wouldn't stay this awkward forever. Zhou Huo, as manager, felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He sighed. "Fine then, let the internet do whatever it wants. The drama would happen whether there's a stream or not. Oh, and Lao Qiao contacted me today. He just added me as a friend. I haven't added Puppy yet—send me his account."
Yu Sui agreed and hung up.
He forwarded Puppy's account to Zhou Huo. Shortly after, his phone buzzed.
Zhou Huo had created a group chat with five people: himself, Yu Sui, Chen Huo, Puppy, and Lao Qiao. It was quite the crowd.
With qualifiers coming up, maybe Zhou Huo wanted to foster a warm, loving atmosphere. The group name he chose was something else entirely: "A Loving Family."
Yu Sui stared at the group name, momentarily thinking he'd been added to some aunt's family group chat.
Yu Sui's phone exploded with notifications. Chen Huo had sent multiple messages in rapid succession.
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Whisper you get your ass in here right nowwwwwwww I'm gonna kill you!!]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [@Whisper, @Whisper, @Whisper!!]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Get in here get in here get in here!!]
Yu Sui typed.
[Whisper]: [?]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Video link.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Smile. Care to explain whose account this was?]
Chen Huo had sent the video of Yu Sui and Shi Luo's random encounter during the livestream. Yu Sui briefly considered leaving the group.
Three minutes later.
[Puppy]: [Watched the video. Was Yu Sui's alt account hacked?]
[Coach Lao Qiao]: [Watched the video. Was Yu Sui's alt account hacked?]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Clearly not.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Yu God, facing your brothers who've played with you for years, got nothing to say? No explanation?]
The evidence was damning. What was there to explain? Yu Sui typed: [It was me.]
[Puppy]: [I'm just gonna slowly type out a single question mark.]
[Lao Qiao]: [...My feelings are complicated.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Smile, smile, smile.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Yu God, impressive. All these years you've hidden this well. So you do play support, huh?]
[Puppy]: [+1. Learned something new today. My medic can apparently play support.]
[Lao Qiao]: [...]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [The floor is yours, Lao Qiao. You've been on the same team with Yu Sui the longest. Please, speak.]
[Lao Qiao]: [...]
[Lao Qiao]: [When Yu Sui first joined the team, I once asked him if he could play traditional support.]
[Lao Qiao]: [He said no.]
[Lao Qiao]: [And added that if he forced himself to play it, his mechanics would be painful to watch.]
[Lao Qiao]: [We were all young and naive back then. He said it, so I believed it.]
Yu Sui typed: [It's true I don't play support as well as assassin. Was I wrong?]
[Lao Qiao]: [Maybe not as good, but painful to watch?]
[Lao Qiao]: [Am I not good enough to judge?]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Am I not good enough to judge?]
[Puppy]: [Am I not good enough to judge?]
[Whisper]: [...]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [You want to know how I found out about this? Because Shi Luo and Yu Sui's fans got tired of fighting and decided to call a truce. But some considerate bro suggested—since we're all done fighting, let's all go show Chen Huo some love with "poor Chen Huo" comments before we go to sleep.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [One call, everyone answered. The guys rushed to my Weibo, one "poor Chen Huo" after another. Already got twenty thousand comments.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Thanks, really. Grateful that you two deities clashing dragged me onto the trending page.]
[Puppy]: [Be thankful. Nobody's commenting "poor Puppy" about me. Low popularity, no rights. So mad.]
[Lao Qiao]: [...I could post one for you.]
[Puppy]: [No thanks. One comment would just amplify the loneliness. I'll pass.]
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [The more I watch this video, the angrier I get. Whisper, tell me—was playing support fun? Happy?]
Just before Yu Sui hit send, Zhou Huo, who had just gotten off the phone with Shi Luo, added Shi Luo to the group.
The first message Shi Luo saw upon entering was Yu Sui's message.
[Evil]: [...]
Yu Sui quietly stared at the group chat, wondering what he'd done in a past life to deserve this.
One could only push their luck so far. Even if he'd been a reckless teenager who made some mistakes, did fate really have to be this relentless?
Chen Huo, with no tact whatsoever, saw the other party arrive and couldn't resist asking a pointed question.
[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Evil. Getting healed by Yu Sui. Happy? Having fun?]
After a long pause, [Evil]: [It was whatever.]
Yu Sui's lips curved slightly.
He private messaged Zhou Huo.
"Send Shi Luo all the chat history from this group."