# Chapter 35
Shi Luo stared at his chat window with Yu Sui, staring at the message "Have you finished packing your luggage?" and felt a pang of bitterness in his heart.
The two of them had been in this awkward limbo for a while now. They hadn't contacted each other after the streaming collision a few days ago. Today, in a moment of desperation, he'd added him as a friend, but the atmosphere between them was still distant and微妙.
Shi Luo himself couldn't even clarify what he felt toward Yu Sui anymore. The hatred was real, the understanding was real, the lingering resentment was real, and so was the longing that persisted to this day.
Yu Sui held an especially special position in his life.
The most beautiful days were given to him, and so were the most painful days.
Shi Luo had understood long ago that what Yu Sui did back then wasn't actually wrong. Putting himself in Yu Sui's position, Shi Luo didn't think he could have handled it any better. But the shadows from childhood still tormented Shi Luo—no matter whose promises, Shi Luo couldn't bring himself to believe them.
Yu Sui would only sign him after the qualifiers succeeded. Shi Luo understood Yu Sui's intentions—he was giving himself an extra layer of insurance. But Shi Luo couldn't help but think, obsessively, what if they still failed the qualifiers?
Was there anything in this world that was one hundred percent certain? Even for Whisper, what right did he have to guarantee they'd definitely advance in the qualifiers?
Not to mention this was a four-player team battle—who knew if others might mess up? Especially that NSN rookie who replaced him, someone he didn't even know the name of, an entry fragger who'd never played a city tournament. Could he be relied on? Was he just going to be a mascot?
What if that rookie messed up, dragged down the whole team, and they failed the qualifiers? Then what? Who could he complain to then?
Shi Luo couldn't relax. He hadn't wanted to message Yu Sui first, but the more he thought about it, the more he backed himself into a corner. After mindlessly playing two games, he picked up his phone again and sent Yu Sui a message.
【Evil】: [Is it too late for me to transfer now?]
Shi Luo gripped his phone, bit down on a bit of his lip, and squinted at the screen.
Yu Sui replied quickly—just two seconds later, Shi Luo's phone buzzed.
【Whisper】: [No need.]
Shi Luo gritted his teeth and typed.
【Evil】: [Nothing is certain. What if you fail to advance?]
After hitting send, Shi Luo felt his words had gone too far. He hesitated, wondering if he should say something else, when his phone buzzed again.
【Whisper】: [Won't happen.]
Shi Luo froze, almost getting combative: [What if? What if you just fail? Are you saying you won't admit there's a chance of failure?]
Yu Sui didn't reply for a long while.
Shi Luo knew he was being pathologically obsessive. Any normal person wouldn't torture themselves and others like this. Shi Luo took a deep breath, was about to type that it was nothing, when his phone buzzed again.
【Whisper】: [Fine, I'll admit there's a chance of failure.]
Shi Luo's heart lurched. Before he could type again...
【Whisper】: [If we do fail,麻烦帮我问一下赵峰，IAC还需不需要医疗师。]
Shi Luo stared at Yu Sui's last message, reading it over and over, and couldn't help but let the corners of his mouth turn up.
This guy...
Shi Luo was holding his phone, about to reply, when there were new messages in the group chat. Shi Luo exited and took a look.
【Puppy】: [Raises hand, small report—I just passed by the couch on my way to the restroom and accidentally glanced at someone's phone. I think I saw something quite interesting.]
【英俊宸火】: [Who?]
【Puppy】: [I was going to pretend I didn't see it, but some people's particular remarks were too egregious. I feel they need to be exposed.]
【英俊宸火】: [Expose! Expose! Expose! Wait—what?]
Shi Luo watched the group chat and suddenly had a bad feeling.
【Puppy】: [A certain medic and a certain external team entry fragger were discussing our qualifiers failing.]
【Coach·Old Qiao】: [We haven't even played yet, and you're already talking about failure?]
【英俊宸火】: [Who dares shake our army's morale?!]
【Puppy】: [Not just shaking. A certain medic was asking a certain external team entry fragger whether IAC still needs a medic if the qualifiers fail.]
Shi Luo regretted everything. What had gotten into him just now? Why had he suddenly lost his mind and messaged Yu Sui?!
【英俊宸火】: [Whisper???]
【Puppy】: [The match hasn't even been played yet and you're already reaching out to external teams. Give us an explanation.]
【Coach·Old Qiao】: [...Yu Sui, was that really you?]
Shi Luo gritted his teeth, about to frantically explain for Yu Sui, when Yu Sui had already spoken in the group.
【Whisper】: [That was me.]
【英俊宸火】: [Still have a conscience?]
【Whisper】: [When have I ever had a conscience? It's not my first time selling out the team.]
【Coach·Old Qiao】: [...]
【英俊宸火】: [...I actually can't even argue with that.]
【Puppy】: [This is exactly what I love about my Yu Shen—I'll throw shade at myself.]
【英俊宸火】: [But I still can't accept it. We haven't even played yet. Why are you privately finding yourself an escape route? @Evil, does your IAC need an entry fragger?]
【Puppy】: [Right, why do it privately? If the qualifiers really fail, who wouldn't want to go to IAC? @Evil, does your IAC need an AWPer?]
【Coach·Old Qiao】: [Can you guys be normal for once???]
【Coach·Old Qiao】: [...Fine, we're all adults. There's no need for me to burn my own bridges. @Evil, does your IAC need a coach?]
Shi Luo: "..."
Shi Luo rubbed his brow. It had been too long—he'd forgotten how these people were all worse than each other. He'd actually believed they were genuinely upset.
【Manager·Zhou】: [???]
【Manager·Zhou】: [What's going on?! I just stepped away to take a phone call. How did you guys already start job hunting?!]
【英俊宸火】: [Poor Zhouzhou, you're the only one who can't contact Zhao Feng and ask him if IAC needs a manager.]
【Puppy】: [Right, I've heard of the medical twin stars team, but never of a manager twin stars team.]
【英俊宸火】: [Feeling bad for our manager. Let's spam some "poor Zhouzhou" for him.]
【英俊宸火】: [Poor Zhouzhou.]
【Puppy】: [Poor Zhouzhou.]
【Coach·Old Qiao】: [Poor Zhouzhou.]
【教练·老乔】: [Poor Zhouzhou.]
Shi Luo couldn't watch anymore. He put his phone aside and continued gaming. After all the banter and joking around, his anxiety had eased somewhat.
Until the day of the qualifiers officially began.
Including FS and Wind Cheat, two teams that had failed to avoid relegation, there were a total of eight second-division teams competing in the qualifiers. The format was still a single round-robin BO1 system—all teams played one small round against each other team, earning one point per win, and final rankings were determined by total points. The top two teams by points would advance.
A single round-robin of eight teams meant twenty-eight matches total, with each team playing seven matches.
The qualifiers lasted only one day. To save time, the first sixteen small rounds were played across four match areas, all finished by morning. The remaining twelve rounds would be played in the afternoon, single matches, before results were determined.
Shi Luo had misjudged the situation. Only on qualifier day did he realize how foolish he'd been.
Shi Luo also knew he couldn't afford to be recognized. On qualifier day, he老老实实 changed into a plain set of casual clothes, put on a mask and sunglasses, and found a slightly larger baseball cap to cover his eye-catching silver-white hair.
Shi Luo thought he'd hidden well enough. But when he arrived at the venue dressed like this, before even reaching security, a venue staff member glanced at him and asked, "Evil? What brings you here?"
Shi Luo: "..."
Wawa, equally disguised, removed his sunglasses and said warily, "You recognized him?"
The staff member was equally wary. "Wawa, are you guys filming some kind of show where you can't be recognized? But... as long as you're fans, looking at you is like watching you naked. You can't hide your build and silhouette. One glance and it's obvious who you are."
Shi Luo gave up. He removed his sunglasses and mask, resigned. "Take us through the staff entrance. Find me a spot near the director's booth where fans won't notice us."
The understanding staff member nodded, handing him a staff badge. "You should have contacted us earlier. Didn't you buy tickets?"
Shi Luo didn't want to admit it, mumbling, "Thanks for the trouble."
The staff member led Shi Luo and Wawa to the director's room. After coordinating with the internal staff, they found Shi Luo and Wawa a spot死角 in the second-floor corridor—a blind spot from the fans' perspective. They also instructed the two that if they needed to switch to an adjacent match area, they should follow staff and not go downstairs where fans might see them. Then, kindly, they gave each of them a bottle of cola and a can of popcorn.
Shi Luo finally had his spot. He sat down with Wawa and waited for the players to enter.
Wawa looked around. "What's Yu Shen's new team's name?"
Shi Luo said softly, "Free."
When the Free team members entered, Shi Luo's breath stopped for two seconds.
Their new team uniform was black, with only a single white wing printed on the left sleeve from shoulder to wrist—simple and clean.
"Wow, your new uniform looks great." Wawa nudged Shi Luo. "Look, look!"
Afraid Wawa might jinx them, Shi Luo quickly said, "They're not necessarily my new team yet! First they have to advance! First they have to advance!"
Shi Luo couldn't worry about anything else. He started getting nervous about the upcoming match again.
And as it turned out, he'd worried for nothing.
Of the first sixteen rounds, Yu Sui's team had four matches to play. They played four and won four—not even breaking a sweat, completely crushing every opponent. The skill gap between them and their opponents was truly vast, their opponents couldn't even fully display their real abilities. Shi Luo gradually went from being fully focused to mentally wandering, and eventually became bored enough to lose interest entirely. Free still had three matches in the afternoon. As long as they didn't lose all of them, advancing would be no problem.
Nothing could go wrong now. Shi Luo finally relaxed. During the transition between matches, he glanced at the live standings and frowned slightly.
Wind Cheat, the team that had been beaten to a pulp by everyone else in the relegation tournament, unexpectedly performed well today.
Besides their loss to Free, they'd won three of their first four small rounds.
FS, on the other hand, had played four rounds in the morning but had only won two.
Only two teams could advance. Yu Sui's squad had already firmly secured one spot. But FS was in danger.
Shi Luo fastened his cap, stood up, and scanned the venue but didn't see Ji Yanhuan.
Shi Luo leaned on the corridor railing, his expression blank as he chewed popcorn. His heart harbored a growing sense of unease.
The afternoon single-match rounds began. The first three rounds included two of Free's matches. They steadily, accurately, and quickly finished each game. By this point, Free had won six rounds, six points—they had officially advanced.
Shi Luo should have felt relieved. But when he looked at the match schedule, his unease grew heavier.
Yu Sui's team's final match was against FS.
Shi Luo silently prayed: FS, please just get eliminated outright. Definitely don't get stuck on the edge.
The "edge" that players often talked about referred to teams hovering between qualifying and not qualifying.
In a round-robin scoring system, what determined whether you could advance often wasn't your own match, but someone else's.
Shi Luo had been a professional player for two years. He'd seen the edge countless times—whether it was the regular season's final matches, the playoff edge, or the Worlds group stage advancement edge—the thing he hated most, most, most was when he had to face a team that was one foot away from catching the last train. Every time he encountered such a team, winning was wrong, and losing was wrong.
In the season before last, NSN had been in poor form. They stumbled through the early regular season, winning one then losing one, their performance unstable. Then they suffered several consecutive losses mid-season. By the end of the regular season, NSN ranked eighth—just barely clinging to the playoff cutoff, only half a foot in the playoffs. One wrong move in the remaining matches and they'd fall out of the playoffs entirely and become a relegation-bound team.
To make matters worse, Shi Luo's team IAC's final regular season match happened to be against Wan Chong Shan, ranked ninth. If IAC carelessly lost to Wan Chong Shan, Wan Chong Shan would become the eighth-ranked team, and NSN would naturally drop to ninth. And ninth place meant not only missing the playoffs, but having to fight relegation against the bottom three teams.
NSN had been very good to Shi Luo back then. He also had good relationships with the NSN players. He wasn't without personal bias, but competitive matches weren't something one person could decide. And it wasn't like he'd never lost to Wan Chong Shan before. That whole week, Shi Luo's pressure multiplied. He worried that in the final regular season match, he'd accidentally lose to Wan Chong Shan and personally send his old team NSN into relegation.
Fortunately, NSN fought hard for themselves. They won the next three regular season matches 2-0 each, shooting up to sixth place in the standings, securing a solid playoff spot. The final regular season match between IAC and Wan Chong Shan no longer affected any team's rankings, and Shi Luo finally set down his heavy burden and played freely.
Shi Luo watched the live team standings, his unease growing heavier and heavier.
When the twenty-sixth small round ended, Shi Luo felt like his head was splitting looking at the results.
Wind Cheat had finished all seven of their small rounds, ranking second with five points.
FS had completed six rounds, ranking third with four points. They had officially arrived at the edge.
FS was putting on the same show they'd done during the relegation tournament. If they could win their final round, they'd still have a chance—a tiebreaker match against Wind Cheat, who also had five points. But if they lost... then nothing would matter.
And FS's opponent in their final round was Yu Sui's Free.
Shi Luo had been a professional for two years. He'd seen the edge too many times. He'd even been dragged down by water ghosts① at the edge himself. He personally didn't care about it. But that didn't mean others didn't.
Shi Luo didn't dare imagine the scene if Yu Sui's team won the final match.
That could be set aside for now. What mattered most right now was...
"Do you think Yu Shen and them will...?" Wawa said quietly. "Will they try to give FS a hand? After all..."
Shi Luo pressed his lips together and said nothing.
Wawa whispered, "It's not like they'd be throwing the match. Just giving FS one last chance—a chance at the tiebreaker. FS played pretty well in a few rounds earlier. It's not like they have absolutely no hope of beating Yu Shen. If they just play a little more relaxed..."
"Which team—FS or Wind Cheat—gets to advance will depend on FS's own abilities," Wawa continued. "Years ago, before Worlds changed its format, when teams from the same region were grouped together, many teams would go easy on their regional brothers. Everyone knew about it. That's why the league changed the format—to prevent teams from playing favorites. This kind of thing... the league can understand."
Wawa looked at Shi Luo. "What do you think... will they show old loyalties?"
Shi Luo thought back to the group chat a few days ago and uncertainly shook his head.
Including Shi Luo, everyone genuinely didn't want FS to be relegated.
"Quietly," Shi Luo said softly. "Follow me to the backstage locker room."
Under the staff's protection, Shi Luo and Wawa traveled through the staff corridors all the way to Free team's locker room.
Before they even reached the door, Shi Luo and Wawa heard suppressed arguing inside.
Wawa clicked his tongue. "So it really... was as I guessed."
Inside the locker room, Zhou Huo looked confusedly at everyone. "We've already advanced. Why are you all pulling long faces? Anyone who didn't know would think we got 0-7'd and sent home."
Old Qiao stood up, turned off the cameras and microphones in the locker room, and said flatly, "Now you can talk freely."
Puppy lay flat on the sofa, expressionless. "Fine. I'll admit it. My heart went soft."
Chenhuo sighed deeply.
Puppy said helplessly, "Forget it. If you guys really can't bear it, then go ahead and give them a hand. I have no objection."
"Reluctant, but can't bear it." Chenhuo stretched his legs out in his gaming chair, murmuring. "Fine... I'll follow your lead."
Old Qiao spat, barely holding back disgust. "Then let's do it. This will be the last of our sentimentality. Yu Sui?"
Yu Sui was wearing headphones, looking at his phone. Only when Puppy nudged his shoulder did he remove his headphones and ask, "What?"
Puppy's lips moved. The words were hard to say. "The next round—FS is on the edge. Since it doesn't matter whether we win or lose for our own advancement... should we..."
Yu Sui put his headphones away, draped on his team jacket, and asked, "Should we what?"
Puppy's lips twitched. "You... everyone knows what's being implied. Do I really have to say it out loud? Don't pretend you don't understand what I'm getting at."
Yu Sui nodded. "I understand."
Yu Sui said calmly, "We've been playing all day. Six grueling matches. Everyone's tired. I understand. To be honest, my current condition isn't all that great either. The last match will be a bit difficult."
Old Qiao breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to follow Yu Sui's lead and start finding excuses for everyone, Yu Sui spoke again, coldly:
"Thirty minutes until we go on stage. If you're hungry, hurry up and eat something. If you're thirsty, go get water. If you're sleepy, go chug coffee. Do I need to teach you how to adjust your condition?" Yu Sui stood up, looking around at everyone in the locker room. "I understand what you're thinking. But sorry—no. For the next match, I'll do my absolute best. No mistakes, period. And I won't allow any other team members to make any mistakes either."
"It's already clear that the outcome of the next match won't affect our advancement. I'm very aware of that."
"Opponent is FS, teetering on the edge. I'm also very aware of that."
Everyone was speechless for a moment. Old Qiao hesitated, "Setting old feelings aside, if we crush their chance at a tiebreaker, those online trolls might go after you again..."
Yu Sui looked at Old Qiao and calmly asked back, "Am I supposed to be afraid of internet trolls?"
The next round, Free crushed FS and won the match swiftly. The three Free players personally sent their youth away, officially advancing to the league alongside Wind Cheat.