Chapter 38
On the way back to the Free base, aside from Yu Sui and Zhou Huo who were still in the dark, the other four people all had troubled expressions.
Puppy more or less deliberately pushed Yu Sui and Zhou Huo to the front of the group. The four of them sat in the last two rows of the van, exchanging glances with complex emotions.
Yu Sui, seated in the front row, turned to glance at Shi Luo but said nothing.
Up front, Zhou Huo also turned to look at Shi Luo, wanting to ask him: what do you mean by silently coming back to Free? Aren't you going back to IAC to pack your things? IAC and the Free base are in opposite directions—are you even moving today or not? How much more time is this going to waste?
Like Chen Huo and the others, Zhou Huo was also a bit intimidated by Shi Luo. Thinking about it, since Yu Sui hadn't asked, maybe he shouldn't speak up either.
Shi Luo, sitting in the back row, stared blankly out the window with a cold face. His mood had been ruined by Ji Yanjing, and he had completely forgotten about taking a separate taxi back to IAC. It wasn't until the driver pulled up in front of the Free base villa that he realized he had inexplicably followed the van to the Free base.
Shi Luo got out and checked the time—it was already 11 PM.
Zhou Huo suggested, "Want me to have the driver take you back?"
"No no no!" Puppy quickly stopped him. "Since you're already here, come up and sit for a bit."
"Right right right." Chen Huo's eyes lit up as he chimed in. "Come to my room and have some tea, come on."
Old Qiao caught on, nodding. "Oh right, since you're already here, come inside. The four of us brothers haven't had a good chat in ages, come on."
Shi Luo understood what the three of them meant, and replied stiffly, "Fine..."
The four of them went to Chen Huo's room in unison.
Yu Sui, who had been left behind, looked at Zhou Huo.
Zhou Huo was even more confused than Yu Sui. He asked carefully, "In your old team... were these four always the close ones?"
Yu Sui: "..."
Yu Sui, inexplicably isolated, went into the base on his own to organize the materials he would need tomorrow. In the team dormitory on the second floor of the base, in the room marked with Chen Huo's name, the four of them closed the door and locked it.
"Regret it now." Old Qiao grabbed his hair in frustration. "What was I even yelling at that kind of person for? Just let him laugh at us for nothing."
"Anyway, he wasn't going to help anyway—might as well have dragged him somewhere secluded and beaten him up to vent." Chen Huo was extremely annoyed. "Shouldn't have left. Damn damn damn."
"No use crying over spilled milk, and it wouldn't have helped anyway." Puppy sighed helplessly. "I just regret not recording it."
Chen Huo slapped his own head. "Right!! Why didn't anyone record it?"
"Who the hell would've expected to run into him?" Puppy was frustrated. "I shouldn't have told him to go clarify things himself. He probably won't say anything, but what if he says something ambiguous? Something vague and unclear would've just caused more trouble for Yu Sui... God, my head hurts."
Old Qiao nodded. "That's exactly what we're afraid of. The idea before was to wait until the new team made it into the league, then the few of us would find an opportunity—whether through appealing to emotions, reasoning, or threats—to make that bastard come out and say something. Today we got too emotional and messed it up."
"Not your fault." Chen Huo tried to comfort him. "Who the hell could stay calm seeing Ji Yanjing?"
Old Qiao worried, "He probably won't accuse us of hitting him, right? We didn't lay a hand on him."
Shi Luo said quietly, "Be on guard against him turning on us. We need to pull the surveillance footage—it might not be clear, but at least it can prove we didn't hit him."
Chen Huo looked at Shi Luo, testing the waters. "You... made up with Yu Sui?"
Shi Luo's face darkened at the question. Puppy quickly intervened, "When external conflicts outweigh internal ones, we deal with external conflicts first! Once this matter is over, he and Yu Sui can tear each other apart all they want—it has nothing to do with us."
Shi Luo烦躁地扭头看窗外。扭头 looked away toward the window, annoyed.
"Right now we're worried we made things worse." Old Qiao continued pulling at his hair. "Did I provoke that bastard just now?"
Chen Huo wasn't sure. "Probably... not."
Old Qiao yanked at his hair frantically. "If we couldn't help and only added fuel to the fire, I'll... I'll throw myself out this window to atone."
A knock came at the door. The group went quiet guiltily. Zhou Huo's voice came from outside: "The team qualified for the league, there's player personal information that needs signing. Everyone come downstairs to sign."
The group exchanged glances, shook their heads, and went out. When they came downstairs and saw Yu Sui, Old Qiao, Chen Huo, and Puppy all evaded his gaze guiltily.
Yu Sui had the most documents to sign. As he signed his name, he glanced around at everyone. "Actually..."
The group's hearts instantly rose to their throats.
Yu Sui kindly reminded them, "If you're going to talk bad about me, you could've done it to my face."
"What are you talking about? Who's saying bad things about you!" Old Qiao tried to cover up. "We were just talking about today's match. Has nothing to do with you."
"Oh." Yu Sui nodded as he organized the documents. "So it was the four of you playing today's match."
Old Qiao pretended not to hear, lowering his head to sign his own papers.
Yu Sui looked at the group, and finally settled his gaze on Shi Luo.
They looked at each other for a second, then simultaneously looked away.
The atmosphere was too awkward. Shi Luo couldn't stand it the most. "Just now we saw Ji Yanjing, and the few of us..."
Shi Luo simply told him everything.
In the first-floor conference room, the atmosphere was heavy.
Yu Sui listened quietly, then smiled.
"I thought it was something serious." Yu Sui continued signing, speaking calmly. "It's nothing. Let him do whatever he wants."
Old Qiao looked at Yu Sui awkwardly. "You..."
Chen Huo hesitated. "You're not worried?"
"When I decided not to let them play the final round, I knew how it would turn out." Yu Sui said dismissively. "Whatever he wants."
Old Qiao and Chen Huo still watched Yu Sui with worried faces. Yu Sui laughed. "Actually, I'm more curious—why would you think I'd be afraid of the backlash?"
Yu Sui reached over and pulled Zhou Huo's laptop toward him. "It's connected to the projector, right? Do you need me to livestream some forum threads to put you at ease?"
"No no no!" Old Qiao quickly said. "I'm afraid I'll be the first one to die of anger!"
Old Qiao was a beat too slow. Yu Sui's typing was too fast, and he had already opened a certain forum's esports section.
The first highlighted title was extremely eye-catching:
[What do people think about the three-timed traitor Whisper's self-built team qualifying today, and he even personally eliminated his old team FS in the final round?]
Old Qiao slammed the table in anger. "Three-timed your ass! What the hell do you know!"
Yu Sui smiled wryly, and continued scrolling down. Almost all of them were about him—some cursing him, some lamenting FS, some taking the chaos as an opportunity to blacken his name. Further down, Yu Sui saw a new thread title and paused his mouse.
[FS owner Ji Yanjing just posted and immediately deleted several Weibo posts—what's going on?]
Yu Sui squinted and clicked on the thread.
The thread's opening post showed a screenshot first—Ji Yanjing's previous Weibo posts.
[Sorry for disappointing everyone. FS lost the qualifiers. Just finished drinking with the players, and discussed with the players and upper management—FS will forfeit the secondary league qualification. Upper management will complete the contract terminations in three months, and during this time will arrange the transfer issues for the remaining FS players.]
[Sorry, everyone.]
Followed by the screenshots of what Ji Yanjing had immediately deleted.
[There have been misunderstandings about certain things all along. Let me clarify them all today—FS never had the rights to buy or sell any other players.]
[Two years ago, FS club had funding issues and had to gather funds by arranging player transfers. That was an internal matter within upper management and had nothing to do with the players.]
[It was that former upper management member who wronged the players.]
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The following几张 pictures were transfer contracts from two years ago, black and white. Yu Sui and the others' contract terms were written clearly—each person still had over two years remaining on their contracts. It was nothing like the rumors online that claimed Yu Sui had led a team exodus when his own contract expired.
Within minutes, every major esports forum was flooded by Ji Yanjing's Weibo posts, and everyone went crazy arguing.
Old Qiao stared blankly at the projection. "He... actually posted the clarification?"
"What does posting and then deleting mean? Thank god someone screenshotted it." Puppy hastily pulled out his phone. "Oh god... my WeChat is exploding."
Zhou Huo's expression froze. He stood up and said, "Nobody posts anything on Weibo or responds to anything on WeChat. I... I need to urgently hold a meeting with operations and media. Don't make any moves. If this is handled well, this might actually successfully clear everything! Nobody move."
Zhou Huo rushed out of the conference room to make a phone call. Yu Sui continued reading the thread, his expression unchanging.
Shi Luo had already pulled out his phone and was rapidly scrolling through posts. His WeChat notifications were buzzing constantly. Shi Luo switched out to mute all messages, then returned to reading the thread.
Ji Yanjing had stirred up a hornet's nest, dragging everyone out in the middle of the night.
Shi Luo scrolled through the posts, his fingers trembling slightly.
Two years. Finally, they could set the record straight about what happened back then?
The internet had split into two camps, tearing each other apart. People who had made a habit of blacklisting Yu Sui could always find their own angle—no matter what, they refused to admit Ji Yanjing was clarifying things for Yu Sui, insisting there must be more to the story.
Yu Sui's fans, however, completely lost it. Having been trashed for two years, the fans themselves had already resigned themselves to it. Never wanting to believe that Yu Sui hadn't gotten a single cent and had taken all the blame. The fans now wanted to personally destroy the "FS upper management" Ji Yanjing mentioned. They couldn't bother fighting on the forums anymore—they flooded Ji Yanjing's Weibo directly, demanding he explain the details clearly: who exactly sold the players, for how much money, and what methods were used.
The comments on Ji Yanjing's last Weibo post instantly exceeded thirty thousand. The fans even started bombing every FS management Weibo, demanding justice. Ji Yanjing and all other FS upper management remained silent.
Shi Luo grit his teeth. At this moment, he wished he could rush to Ji Yanjing's house and force him at knifepoint to livestream and explain everything clearly—what exactly happened back then.
The others felt similarly. Old Qiao and Chen Huo were about to explode from憋了, and they couldn't resist anymore—they logged onto alternate accounts and started arguing with the trolls.
Only Yu Sui was the same as always, reading the posts slowly as if reviewing documents.
Shi Luo watched Yu Sui with incomprehension, and couldn't help saying, "You..."
Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo. "It's getting late. Let me take you back to IAC? We can worry about the luggage another day."
"At a time like this you're still thinking about luggage?!" Shi Luo glanced at the others in the conference room, nowhere to direct his anger. He stood up and said sullenly, "You... come outside."
Yu Sui nodded, put away his phone, and followed Shi Luo out of the conference room.
In the hallway, Shi Luo grit his teeth. "You... you're not angry at all?"
Yu Sui shook his head. "No."
Shi Luo really didn't understand. "What happened that year—you really don't care?"
"Of course I care." Yu Sui leaned against the wall. "I even got so angry I threw up blood, remember?"
Shi Luo fell silent.
"And after that? You think everything's cleared between you two, so you're at peace now?"
Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo, was quiet for a moment, then said, "No."
"When I first got to Germany..." Yu Sui looked at the hallway ceiling lights. "For a long time, I wasn't in a good state."
Nobody is a saint. They're only human.
When Yu Sui had just transferred to the European region, he watched Puppy and Chen Huo get listed for sale one after another. Thinking about Old Qiao and Shi Luo across the ocean, Yu Sui felt like each day was a year. For a while, he had wanted to give up on himself entirely.
"There was a period of time... I didn't talk except during scrims. Except for contacting my parents, I didn't look at any social media, didn't socialize, didn't go out..." Yu Sui brushed his hair aside. "My hair got long during that time... Too lazy to cut it. Didn't want to see anyone. Didn't want to talk nonsense."
"I blocked out everything—including myself." Yu Sui said quietly. "I couldn't face myself, so I simply gave up. Treated myself like a machine. Like a tool for the team at the time. Just coast along. Don't think about anything. Coast... coast until retirement, and then it's over."
Yu Sui slightly narrowed his eyes as he looked at Shi Luo. "Later I realized... you really can't just coast along. There'll be consequences."
Shi Luo froze. "What consequences? What happened to you?!"
"Nothing happened to me." Yu Sui stared at Shi Luo, his voice heavy. "It's about what happened to you."
Shi Luo was bewildered. He tried to recall what had happened during the time Yu Sui first went to Europe. Yu Sui's departure had already been a devastating blow to him—what else could have happened that was connected to him?
Shi Luo racked his brains. Something suddenly occurred to him, and he went silent. "That time..."
Yu Sui said quietly, "Yes. That scrim."
"The Holy Sword team at the time played exactly that style—in crushing games they'd show no mercy, doing whatever made them happy. Things like killing at the spawn stone were common. I'd never done anything this disgusting before, but since I'd reduced myself to a tool, it didn't matter anymore."
"The teammates at the time were actually trying to please me. I'm the healer—no matter what build, I always have the lowest kill count, so they always let me get kills."
"Of course, there was no reason to find—I was the one who killed at the spawn stone. Nobody forced my keyboard. At the time, I didn't feel a shred of guilt. I was completely numb throughout... until..."
Yu Sui paused and couldn't continue.
For two years, Yu Sui's emotions had seen no ups or downs. But now, he was starting to lose control.
"Until..." Yu Sui's throat moved. "Until an hour after the game ended, I learned from Gu Qian that the healer who got cycled through... his original ID was Luo."
The one he had killed thirty-four times at the spawn stone was Shi Luo.
"Never thought you could just coast along after all." Yu Sui closed his eyes. "And I only coasted for one day..."
And it had already retribution on the person he least wanted to hurt.
"I'm not trying to defend myself. You don't have to forgive me." Yu Sui's voice was heavy. "What I owe you, I haven't forgotten a single bit. I just want to tell you—what truly tortured me was those first few months in Europe. The thing about being so angry at Ji Yanjing I ended up in the emergency room? That stopped mattering a long time ago. It doesn't torment me anymore. So this little drama from him now? I really don't feel anything from it. It can't hurt me anymore."
"There's no debt." Shi Luo frowned and said quietly. "I was the one who impulsively signed a five-year contract. I'm the one who caused you trouble. You worked hard to keep me—I know all of it. What I've been hung up on isn't about the spawn stone kills. I've stopped caring about that a long time ago. I was upset because..."
"All good here!"
From the other end of the hallway, Zhou Huo came rushing over in a panic. "I contacted that hot pot restaurant where we ate earlier. Got them to cooperate—went through all the surveillance footage. We have surveillance, but the restaurant's own camera only caught a little bit of you guys talking with Ji Yanjing. It's really far away and blocked by cars, too blurry to make anything out. But the restaurant next door had a private camera pointed that direction. They just contacted us and sent the footage over. Even though it's half-blocked by cars too, this camera has audio! The sound is crystal clear!"
"In case Ji Yanjing also remembers the surveillance and goes looking for it to twist things around or whatever—we bought the footage and we're preparing to upload it. Let's see how he plans to wash this clean this time!" Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo, his face bright with joy. "I didn't have time to review it in detail. You guys didn't say anything that could hurt us, right? It's fine to release the footage?"
Shi Luo felt a weight lift off his chest. He thought back and couldn't recall anything that couldn't be made public. "It's fine. Upload it."