Chapter 42
After all the contracts were signed, the team began normal operations. The next day, Zhou Huo sent everyone a schedule, training requirements, and management regulations. These were no different from the old FS setup, and similar to both Holy Sword and IAC's arrangements. Everyone glanced at them and raised no objections.
"I often think about posting these details online for the haters to see." Zhou Huo held up a copy of the schedule, shaking his head. "Who the hell says professional players just get paid to play games for free? Show them this schedule and see if anyone still wants to do this."
During normal training periods, everyone had to be at their computers by 2 PM every afternoon. Group training ended at 10 PM, during which phones were prohibited, no other games were allowed, and absolutely no watching dramas—only FOG. Over the eight consecutive hours, including dinner time, no one could leave the training room for more than one hour.
What did they do after group training ended? They couldn't rest. They had to put in another four hours of individual training, not stopping until 2 AM.
During those additional four hours, players could usually stream, but they could only play FOG—no other games allowed. All in all, that added up to at least ten hours of training per day. Of course, that was just the baseline. During preparation periods, the hours were anyone's guess—twelve hours was possible, fourteen was possible, and even more was possible.
No weekends, no holidays. Each player got only one day off per month, and even that day had to be scheduled according to the team's needs. That single day was usually spent doing absolutely nothing. The rest of the time, the only holidays were Mid-Autumn Festival and Chinese New Year, and only if the club arranged time off—which they only did if there were no competitions during those periods. If there were matches, then no holidays mattered. Esports has no days off.
Every training match was scheduled at least a day in advance, so attendance was mandatory and tardiness was not tolerated. After training matches, there were always review sessions. If you played well, fine. If you played poorly, you got scolded the entire time. After being yelled at until you were dizzy, you finally finished, got off the computer, opened your phone, and found the haters had already arrived on schedule to insult your parents and mock your garbage gameplay. The mental fortitude required was unimaginable.
During major tournament cycles, the requirements for players relaxed slightly, and time was more flexible, but everyone still needed a minimum of six hours of training daily. Even during holidays like New Year or the period after major tournaments, each player had to play at least eight ranked games per day. The club had people specifically monitoring each player's daily account activity. Playing too little or playing badly wasn't acceptable. Fines were the minor consequence. If management determined a player was engaging in negative gameplay, whatever time was wasted would have to be made up later.
Counting all of this, players essentially trained year-round.
Old Qiao sighed. "This schedule isn't even that demanding. At a lot of clubs now, players have to ask permission just to leave the training room. They have to explain exactly what they're going to do, when they'll be back, whether they're eating or using the bathroom. If they're even a little late, God knows what happens. Zero privacy."
"More than that." Zhou Huo laughed. "There are places even stricter than this, with sign-in and sign-out systems for turning computers on and off. But we don't need that here. Everyone's an experienced player. We're capable of self-discipline. No need to micromanage."
"Yeah, that's the good part. Everyone knows what's expected." Old Qiao clicked his tongue. "Early on, I spent a few months with a team in the minor leagues. That place was terrifying. Players with bad mindsets had bad mindsets, the slackers slacked off, and some were even chasing romance instead of working. My God... no wonder they couldn't perform."
"Speaking of romance..." Zhou Huo's eyes lit up. "Yu Sui's streaming tonight, right?!"
"Is he?" Old Qiao was puzzled. "Probably? I don't know. What's the big deal? It's not his first time streaming."
Zhou Huo was anxious. "I mentioned it to Chen Huo this morning, and he said exactly the same thing you did. Am I the only one in this team who's looking forward to Yu Sui's stream?"
Of course he wasn't.
Even though he'd kept telling himself over and over: don't look forward to it, don't think about it, don't pay attention—Shi Luo had still been affected.
During the meeting that day, Zhou Huo had suggested that Yu Sui bring a teammate for duo queue on his first stream. Yu Sui had neither agreed nor refused, leaving it uncertain.
On his first day streaming back in China, if he really did bring a teammate, who would he choose?
Shi Luo was very clear about it—Yu Sui choosing him would be the least appropriate option from every angle. But Zhou Huo's words still brushed against Shi Luo's heart like a feather, again and again.
Shi Luo kept telling himself: their relationship was strange. Streaming together suddenly would only be awkward and cold. Besides, this wasn't two years ago. He was already nineteen. Getting on in years. Couldn't have such strong possessiveness. Shouldn't be bothered by these things anymore.
The streaming platform had already posted a preview—Yu Sui would go live at 8 PM that night. At 7 PM, Shi Luo went to the hallway, opened a window, and smoked a cigarette, trying to clear the mess in his head.
Shouldn't overthink it. Can't overthink it. Can't have expectations.
After one cigarette, Shi Luo felt a bit calmer. He closed the hallway window and returned to the training room.
The others hadn't finished dinner yet. Shi Luo was the only one in the training room. He sat down and aimlessly scrolled through Weibo, where he saw the streaming platform's countdown preview promoting Yu Sui's stream.
Zhou Huo had somehow convinced the streaming platform to go along with it. They seemed to have already assumed Yu Sui would bring a teammate, and the countdown preview had even hinted at it.
Shi Luo clicked on that Weibo post and checked the comments. The top comment was Yu Sui's fans building comment chains to express their feelings. The second hottest was fans promoting the stream address. The third was Puppy's fans coming to express their excitement about Yu Sui duo-queuing with his old teammate. Fourth was Puppy's fans. Fifth... fifth was an advertisement selling fake shoes.
Shi Luo: "..."
Shi Luo scrolled down stubbornly. What about him? Was no one even willing to look forward to him?
Wasn't his popularity number two on the team?
Shi Luo irritably grabbed his phone, logged into his alt Weibo account, commented and reposted the streaming platform's preview to save face, typing: [Looking forward to God Shi. God Shi is truly amazing.]
The moment Shi Luo posted, he got several comment notifications. He frowned. What were his fans doing? No presence at all. Did they only follow when someone else posted first?
Shi Luo opened the comments—
[Don't start trouble. Our God Shi doesn't do this.]
[Please don't. We just want to watch the stream peacefully. We don't want to see the chat explode with arguments.]
[The fan bases are in a ceasefire right now. Stop trying to start drama, troll.]
[Why are there so many troublemaking trolls? So annoying. Can you stop mentioning your Evil dad?]
[Our Shi child likes solo queue. Mind your own business, okay?]
[Obviously a passive-aggressive troll trying to start a rift. Don't feed the troll.]
[Big brother, please delete this comment. Our God Shi absolutely doesn't want to duo with anyone.]
[Delete it.]
[Delete it+1]
[Delete it+2]
Shi Luo: "..."
Shi Luo swallowed his anger and deleted the alt account comment. Now he understood why there was no comment from his fans.
His fans... were just too considerate.
Shi Luo stopped looking at Weibo and logged into the game for solo queue.
Half an hour later, Chen Huo and Puppy came upstairs after dinner. As usual, they exchanged some banter before settling into their stations and starting their own solo queues.
Ten minutes after that, Yu Sui also came upstairs and entered the training room.
Shi Luo took a deep breath, didn't look up, and put all his focus on the game in front of him.
Fifteen minutes later, exactly 8 PM.
Yu Sui went live.
When the preview was posted at 7 PM, Yu Sui's new stream already had ten million views. When he officially started, the number skyrocketed to thirty million. While streaming popularity didn't represent actual viewer count, reaching that level was still rare.
Yu Sui didn't turn on his camera, only his microphone. He didn't say much—after going live, he opened the game client and started adjusting his settings.
Chen Huo and Puppy had just finished a game. Chen Huo checked the time and quickly said, "Yu Sui's live? Come on, let's throw some money at him."
Chen Huo tabbed out of the game, opened the streaming interface, and gifted Yu Sui twenty thousand yuan's worth of presents. "Remember to gift me back when I stream! Don't forget!"
Puppy followed suit and tabbed out to send gifts too. Then both of them went back to their own games.
Shi Luo's fingers flew across the keyboard, securing a kill on the enemy. His brow furrowed slightly.
Everyone was sending gifts? Should he...
Shi Luo took a deep breath and pretended he hadn't seen anything.
Shi Luo played this round quickly, carrying three teammates to take down the enemy's Phoenix and ending the game cleanly.
The training room wasn't noisy. Other than Chen Huo occasionally cursing at his solo queue teammates, the only sounds were the clicking of keyboards and mice.
Yu Sui, who was streaming, was actually quieter than everyone.
Zhou Huo came upstairs and peeked in. He slipped over to Yu Sui's side and whispered, "Haven't started playing yet?"
Behind the computer screen, Yu Sui spoke softly, "Still adjusting the game settings."
"Okay, okay, hurry up." Zhou Huo couldn't help glancing toward Shi Luo's side. Not daring to say anything with Yu Sui's mic on, he slipped away.
Shi Luo's mouse hovered over the [Solo Queue] button in the game client. Before clicking, his in-game friend list lit up.
Shi Luo's fingers paused. He opened the friend list.
[Awa]: [QAQ, Shi ge, I dropped out of the top 500 Chinese server. If I can't climb back by the end of the month, they'll dock my pay. Can you carry me for a few games?! Please, look at poor Wawa!]
[Awa]: [God Shi, help me one more time. I promise this is absolutely the last time! 55555...]
Shi Luo stared at Wawa's message for almost half a minute, then typed a reply: [Invite me.]
Wawa invited him immediately.
Shi Luo clicked the [Duo Queue] button.
Shi Luo scoffed.
Seems like they just weren't meant to be.
Anyway, this wasn't possible anyway. He wasn't streaming, so he didn't have to worry about fans seeing. And the others in the training room weren't watching his screen. While waiting in queue, Shi Luo casually opened Yu Sui's stream.
Yu Sui had just clicked solo queue as well.
Yu Sui's stream was exploding with popularity. The danmaku was stacked layer upon layer.
[Welcome home, Whisper. We've waited so long for this day.]
[Welcome home, Whisper. We've waited so long for this day.]
[Welcome home, Whisper. We've waited so long for this day.]
[Welcome home, Whisper. We've waited so long for this day.]
[Welcome home, Whisper. We've waited so long for this day.]
...
[TAT, finally seeing God Yu in a domestic stream again. So grateful.]
[My roommate asked why I'm crying, wuwuwu...]
[God Yu, we're not asking you to turn on the camera anymore. Can you just say something?]
[Is he about to start solo queue? So excited!!]
[The platform preview said there might be duo queue though?]
[Not asking for duo anymore. First day streaming. Solo queue is fine.]
[+1, solo queue is good.]
[Here we go here we go here we go, so excited...]
...
Shi Luo and Wawa's duo queue popped. Shi Luo closed the stream and focused on duo queue.
Wawa had been losing so many points lately. Once he dropped out of the top 200, having Shi Luo carry him was like pubstomping—easy work. Shi Luo and Wawa won game after game. Shi Luo's mind was elsewhere, but Wawa got more and more excited, spamming Shi Luo's friend chat with praise.
[Awa]: [Shi ge is amazing!!!]
[Awa]: [Shi ge is the best entry fragger!]
[Awa]: [Evil carries, climb with your eyes closed!]
[Awa]: [Best Shi ge in the world!!]
Shi Luo was getting a headache from Wawa's吹捧. After another game ended, just as he was about to mute the friend list, Wawa sent another message.
[Awa]: [...]
[Awa]: [Shi ge, God Yu messaged me.]
[Awa]: [QAQ He asked how much longer I was going to play. What does that mean?!]
Shi Luo froze for a moment. Instinctively, he reopened Yu Sui's stream.
The danmaku in Yu Sui's stream had exploded completely, layered so thick nothing was visible. Shi Luo turned off the danmaku, staring at Yu Sui's stream interface. His eyes couldn't help but drift to Yu Sui's friend chat with Wawa—
[Free-Whisper]: [How much longer are you going to play?]
[Awa]: [God Yu? Scared, why are you messaging me?]
[Awa]: [I-I-I... I need about five or six more games to climb back to top 500. Why?]
[Free-Whisper]: [Mind if I cut in line?]
[Free-Whisper]: [I'll have Chen Huo carry you.]
[Awa]: [Huh? S-sure, but God Chen said he'd retire if he had to play with me again. Would he even agree?]
[Free-Whisper]: [He would.]
Shi Luo's throat moved. This... was... what...?
More confused than Shi Luo were Yu Sui's fans. The danmaku had scrolled so fast it froze completely.
The next second, Shi Luo's own friend list lit up. He clicked it—
[Free-Whisper]: [Wawa wants to duo with Chen Huo. Want to queue with me for a bit?]