Chapter 40
All night long, he hadn't lost his composure when the operations department carefully cleared his name and cleared a black mark he'd carried for two years. He hadn't lost his composure when the old fans silently endured reminiscing about how hard it was to debut six years ago. But now, looking at his account from two years ago in the game client, Yu Sui couldn't hold on anymore.
This account was the first one he'd ever created for this game.
Back then, Yu Sui was only fifteen. If he used his own identity to register a game account, there would be parental controls—he'd only be allowed to play two hours a day. So when Yu Sui registered the account, he'd secretly used his father's ID.
Before three months passed, almost every domestic club had contacted him. Then he joined Blade Edge. According to the rules, once officially registered as a player, the league would assign him a player-specific account. But Yu Sui had already spent nearly twenty thousand yuan on this account and wanted to keep his private account because of the exclusive skins. The China server league made a special exception and modified the account's identity information and upgraded it to a player account.
Later, Yu Sui brought this account to FS, won the server championship, won the World Championship, and won the World Championship again.
This account carried too much glory. Sealed away for two years, it remained the only account that had ever logged in as a Medic class and ranked first in overall server points. It still held the record for longest time maintaining the top ranking on the China server. It was still the account that had won the most championships in FOG.
Two years ago, after confirming the transfer, when the Sword Saint club's representative was handing over the account to Yu Sui, both the representative and the league headquarters specifically asked Yu Sui if he needed help applying for a cross-region account transfer.
Cross-region account transfers were extremely complicated to execute, but that was Whisper's account. After careful consideration from multiple parties in the league, they felt they should grant Whisper this courtesy.
After all, it was also the most iconic living fossil account in the entire game—its significance was extraordinary.
But Yu Sui refused.
Yu Sui directly had the local server reclaim his account.
The league representative handling the handover was very surprised at the time. This young man was truly cold-hearted—they thought. Such a precious account, thrown away so cleanly. Yu Sui didn't explain much.
Yu Sui hadn't had absolute certainty that day that he could still transfer back to the local server.
He was nineteen years old then. Two years later, he'd be twenty-one. Many players retired at that age. The path ahead was uncertain. Yu Sui couldn't be sure he could keep playing forever.
If he retired within those two years, Yu Sui refused to bury this account in the EU server.
Fortunately, he had made it back.
After successfully applying to create his team, Yu Sui immediately asked the league to return his and his teammates' accounts. He'd been waiting for this moment.
Who said Whisper was an old soul in a young body? In his bones, he was still that edgelord teenager.
He was coming back, and he was getting his youth back.
Yu Sui stared at his in-game character on the login screen, his eyes slightly reddening.
The account he'd thrown away without a thought two years ago—was the one he'd created at fifteen using his father's ID. It was the account he'd used for a full four years. It was the account with which he'd won two World Championships. How could he not be heartbroken?
In the in-game friends list, many friends now had [Retired - Reclaimed] official tags. The last recorded game was from two years ago—a public matchmaking duo queue where he and Shi Luo had been paired with random players. They'd won that game. Now opening the replay, every detail of that match was still fresh in his memory.
Yu Sui gradually adjusted the various settings in the game that were two versions behind the current one, breathing gently.
Although it was incredibly difficult, he'd done it.
Compared to Yu Sui, Lao Qiao and Chen Huo had much less control over their emotions. Lao Qiao stared at his computer screen, first choking up, then sobbing, then wailing, all while cursing Ji Yanhuan through his teeth. Chen Huo spent the entire time wiping away tears while cursing, and eventually the nostalgia hit too hard—he cried so hard he hiccupped and couldn't take it anymore. After changing his password, he logged out of the game.
"Come on, you all haven't slept for over twenty hours. Rest." Zhou Huo couldn't bear to watch anymore, coaxing them. "Push everything back today. First, just rest. Everyone, rest."
Zhou Huo helped Lao Qiao up. "Go sleep, go sleep. Hurry up. Shi Luo... need help packing your stuff?"
"No need." Shi Luo quickly wiped the corner of his eye, stood up, and spoke hoarsely. "I'll do it myself."
Zhou Huo nodded. "Alright, don't just sit there. Without more sleep, you'll die. Go, go, go."
The five people got up one by one and went back to their rooms to rest. Zhou Huo was also exhausted and went to the guest room the base had prepared for him to catch some sleep.
The sun was blazing. For once, they all slept soundly.
At the same time, online, people hadn't recovered from the Yu Sui incident when another news item ignited the discussion.
At the tail end of the 2019 transfer window, Free Club and IAC Club posted announcements back-to-back. IAC Club's FOG active player, Assault player Evil, through friendly communication and negotiation, would be transferring to Free Gaming to assume the starting Assault position.
When the original FS five logged on in the morning, some veteran players had vaguely anticipated this outcome. But seeing the official announcement still couldn't help but stir them up. So they'd all come back, right?!
Of course, there was still controversy. Not to mention the fact that Yu Sui and Shi Luo's fan groups hadn't had time to reconcile yet—many people were still questioning whether Yu Sui and Shi Luo could really play on the same team without any lingering resentment.
The misunderstandings from before were true, yes. But Shi Luo was different from the other teammates—these past two years, he and Yu Sui had zero communication. The best proof was that during Shi Luo's previous livestream, they'd played a game together, and Shi Luo hadn't even recognized Yu Sui. If everything was truly like before, why had the atmosphere during that livestream collision been so awkward? What was going on between these two now?
One night passed. First, Yu Sui's fans, bitter with grief, organized a raid on Ji Yanhuan's Weibo. After he cleared his account, everyone shifted to other platforms and bombarded everything connected to Ji Yanhuan. Then, not yet satisfied with their hatred, they also raided the remaining FS executives. After settling their accounts, they received the news of Evil transferring to Free. Yu Sui's fans and Shi Luo's fans ran into each other unexpectedly—everyone felt a bit awkward.
Immediately shaking hands and making peace? Still a bit unable to process it. Continuing to fight? Not conducive to team harmony.
The two fan groups didn't know what to do, so they simply joined forces and raided Ji Yanhuan again. Then they continued their awkward standoff.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, everyone at the Free base gradually woke up.
Puppy needed the least sleep. He was the first downstairs, ordered takeout, and sat on the sofa in a daze. Zhou Huo woke up soon after, dealt with some of his own business, checked online, then went downstairs and ran into Puppy. "Where are the others?"
"Woke up early." Puppy rubbed his eyes. "One比一个能睡... By the way, wasn't there transfer paperwork to sign?"
"Right." Zhou Huo handed Puppy a file bag. "The new streaming contract we negotiated for you is in there too. If you want to look it over, go ahead. If not, just sign it. Legal's already gone through it for you."
Puppy clicked his tongue. "I'll read it myself. Once bitten, twice shy..."
Zhou Huo laughed. "Suit yourself."
At the same time, on the second floor of the base, Shi Luo opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, lost in thought.
He was actually at Free now.
Too much had happened in these two days. Shi Luo felt like he'd been chased and driven here by one unexpected event after another. He'd thought it would take much longer. And now, he was already in Free.
Shi Luo picked up his phone and checked. WeChat and all his messages were exploding. He couldn't be bothered to open them one by one, so he just went straight to Weibo to search for news about himself.
He read for a full half hour before putting his phone aside.
Everything else was fine. It was just that his fans were still worried—whether he could properly integrate into Free.
After all, the other three people on the team were teammates who had been through life and death together for the past two years.
No matter how he looked at it, he was the outsider.
Speaking of being an outsider, Shi Luo's experience as an "outsider" was incredibly rich.
When he was little, he'd followed his mother, watching her live her solitary wonderful life. Shi Luo always felt like an outsider.
Later, he was sent to the Ke family. There was no need to feel it—he was completely and utterly an outsider.
Later still, his mother remarried and completely cut off contact with him. The world was vast. Wherever Shi Luo went, he was an outsider.
Until Yu Sui picked him up and brought him to FS.
Back then, Shi Luo actually saw himself as an outsider too. Unless absolutely necessary, he wouldn't proactively speak to anyone other than Yu Sui. Everyone else was busy and didn't have time to pay attention to him.
But Shi Luo didn't dislike the teammates back then. They simply didn't have time to focus on him and held no hostility toward him. That relationship was actually what Shi Luo liked best at the time—he never wanted to get too close to others anyway.
But they were all human. As time went on and they had more contact, they unconsciously drew closer.
When Shi Luo got into a fight, Lao Qiao had been the one to remove his own jacket and drape it over Shi Luo's head to shield him, then forcibly drag him out of the hot pot restaurant—worried that Shi Luo would cause trouble again, worried he'd be photographed.
Chen Huo had been the one who openly made fun of Shi Luo but covertly warned him not to do anything stupid again and ruin himself.
Puppy had been the one who, in his usual quiet and unassuming way, always extricated Shi Luo from awkward situations.
Even if Chen Huo and Puppy were always bickering with each other—what real deep-seated hatred was there? It was just that they were both mouthy.
Actually, if things hadn't gone wrong back then, Shi Luo probably would have been like the others. After joining the team, he'd have gradually become friends with everyone, without distinction.
Unfortunately, heaven didn't cooperate. Before anything could really develop, it was forcibly severed.
His fans were right to worry whether he could smoothly integrate into the new team. Shi Luo had anticipated this situation himself.
Shi Luo didn't particularly care.
How could it possibly be worse than it was at IAC?
Shi Luo looked at his phone again, opened his Weibo. His private messages were so full they'd crashed.
The fans weren't just worried about Shi Luo's relationship with his teammates—they were also worried about his relationship with Whisper.
After all, Whisper wasn't just the team captain now; he was also the owner. If they couldn't get along harmoniously, Shi Luo's days wouldn't be easy either.
While he was reading private messages, new ones kept popping in. One of Shi Luo's young fans was full of worry: [Evil, we know Whisper is a responsible team captain, but it's been so long. You're rushing over like this all by yourself—can he really treat you the same as before?]
Shi Luo murmured, "How would I know."
Two years ago, Shi Luo would have run to Yu Sui's room, secretly whispered to Yu Sui, "You'll be good to me, you'll always be good to me. Come type it. You type it and tell this fan—it's you making the promise."
Now...
Shi Luo gave a self-deprecating smile.
How could he have been so insufferable back then?
Looking back now, it was a miracle that Yu Sui had tolerated him like that.
The question Zhou Huo had asked him in the car last night still echoed in his ears: Do you like Yu Sui?
Shi Luo had told the truth. He really wasn't sure.
The only thing he could be certain of was that if they hadn't separated two years ago, this answer would have become clear.
Not like now, when it had become a muddled mess of unclear accounts.
It was useless to talk about this now. They'd separated, and they'd separated for good. He'd become an adult. Yu Sui had also just turned twenty-one.
They were no longer seventeen and nineteen-year-old boys. How could they possibly interact purely and without any lingering barriers like before?
Shi Luo had learned many lessons throughout his life. One reminder he always told himself was: never expect anything from others.
No expectations, no hurt.
That was also the reason he'd stayed at IAC for two years.
Shi Luo got up to wash up. Two years. Now... he'd just treat Whisper as his boss.
Shi Luo finished washing up and changing into clothes, ready to go downstairs. He pushed open the door.
In the hallway, the lighting was dim. Yu Sui, draped in the team jacket, was leaning against the wall across from Shi Luo's room, eyes closed in a light sleep, as if he'd been waiting there for a long time.
Shi Luo froze.
As the boss... he shouldn't be waiting for his player like this, right?