# Chapter 49
【BREAKING NEWS!! Whisper and Evil are duo-queuing again!! Including that time they ran into each other in ranked, this is the third time!】
【BREAKING NEWS!! Whisper is playing support again!!】
【Have Free's in-team rival duo truly reconciled? They still don't communicate much during duo queue, but being able to team up is already a breakthrough, right?】
【It's true there's not much communication—things definitely won't be the same as before. That's understandable, considering all the mess they've been through.】
【A breakthrough is enough for me. How else are teammates supposed to play together in matches? I'm satisfied, Free! Go get 'em this season!!】
【I'm NOT satisfied, still bitter about it. F*** Yan Ji Han, give me back my twin stars!!】
【New fans saying you're satisfied, I suggest you go watch Shen's early streams from the internet café to understand the history. See what state those two were in back then, then you'll understand why we're not satisfied.】
【Don't mention the past...】
【Don't mention the past+1, it's all old wounds.】
【Don't mention the past+3. During today's stream, Whisper tried to heal Evil to full health, but Evil probably thought he only lost a tiny bit of HP and kept moving forward. Whisper tried to heal him several times but got interrupted. Finally he had no choice but to open voice chat and call out "Shi Luo"—I swear my ears caught "Luo Luo"—and I immediately burst into tears by the Huangpu River. D***, ever since he transferred from FS and changed his ID, it seems like nobody's called him "Luo Luo" anymore.】
【My Luo Luo, f***...】
【Just kill me now...】
It was midday. Zhou Huo was scrolling through the forums on his phone, feeling both relieved and worried.
Yu Sui and Shi Luo weren't at each other's throats anymore, and everything was developing as he'd expected. Zhou Huo was very satisfied. But the thought of the practice match against Saint scheduled for that afternoon made him lose his good mood.
Saint was really good at getting in people's heads.
Shi Luo was a big-game player himself, but back in the day he hadn't even been able to withstand Saint's "newbie starter pack" and went pro directly. If they lost today's match again, who knew how the players would feel. It wasn't like they'd transfer teams or anything, but the hit to team morale would be significant.
Team morale was always something very mystical. To put it dramatically, it was almost like a form of fortune. When morale was high, the team always seemed to exceed expectations and dominate everything. But once挫折 hit, it was like the whole team was cursed—lose one match and there'd be a second, then a third.
Free had won their first regular season match, and Zhou Huo had initially thought this was a good sign, that they'd win steadily all the way through. He really didn't want those jerks to ruin his team's good fortune at this point.
"You're overthinking this." Lao Qiao had woken up early too. He was eating while he talked. "You think a winning streak is always a good thing? The ones who trip up in major tournaments are always the ones who steamrolled through the early games. Yu Sui's concerns are valid—losing now is better than getting caught off guard later."
Zhou Huo watched Lao Qiao with a troubled expression. "Isn't regular training hard enough? Why do you guys love this挫折 education stuff so much?"
"Learning to adjust your mindset after a loss is also a skill,必修课 for every player." Lao Qiao said casually. "Commonly called抗压能力—pressure resistance. This ability is particularly weird. It slowly drains over time and needs to be exercised and maintained regularly. You wouldn't understand."
"Fine, whatever. It's not like I can control you guys anyway." Zhou Huo checked the time and sighed. "I'll go set up the custom server. After they wake up and eat, tell them to go straight to the training room."
At 3 PM, all four Free players logged into the custom server on time.
The game devs provided custom servers to all league and minor league teams, exclusively for training purposes. These dedicated servers had data that wasn't shared with the main servers, so regular players and other teams generally couldn't find out details about their practice matches.
Zhou Huo thought to himself that fortunately the devs had this layer of protection, otherwise news about Saint stomping both the Chinese league champions and runners-up would've spread everywhere.
After confirming all four players were ready, Zhou Huo notified the Saint side. Both teams clicked into ranked queue simultaneously and entered the map.
"Honestly, brothers." Chen Huo pulled his mouse and adjusted his voice in the team chat. "I'm starting to regret this. Why did I vote to scrim these guys? We're about to get taught how to play by our former team. Will our ex-org tweet celebrating that they saved money this season by not re-signing this trash?"
"Probably." Puppy stretched his wrist. "While they're at it, they'll also be relieved about me. After seeing the match results, our former org will breathe a sigh of relief. Glad they didn't renew contracts with those two trash cans."
Yu Sui adjusted his microphone. "At the same time, it'll boost the confidence of a few people from our former org. After they see us play, they'll think—if these trash cans can win a championship, what's impossible for us?"
Zhou Huo, monitoring the team voice chat, couldn't help but break down. "You haven't even started yet! What's with the friendly fire on your own teammates?!"
"It's tactics. I bash myself." Chen Huo cleared his throat. "You wouldn't understand? It's reverse psychology on the enemy, trying to score some emotional points."
Zhou Huo had completely given up on these people. He was about to compliment Shi Luo when Shi Luo started adjusting his mic. "After we get 2-0'd, they might tweet and ask what profession I'm planning to transfer to next. Sniper?"
Zhou Huo went silent, grinding his teeth as he muttered to himself. "I should've known better than to worry about you guys' mental states..."
"The mic levels are fine." Yu Sui said quietly. "Let's begin."
The practice match officially started.
Although Saint had undergone major roster changes, they hadn't changed any of their coaches. Their tactical system was still the same—focus on early-game ambushes with kills as secondary objective, always lurking until the enemy couldn't hold back.
After the match started, the Saint players didn't push toward the map's交接 areas. In the thick toxic fog, no figures could be seen, not even a trace of footsteps.
"They like to play reactively." As an assault player, Chen Huo had to take on the role of explaining Saint's strategies to Shi Luo. This was also one of the reasons Yu Sui had insisted on this practice match. Chen Huo spoke rapidly. "While you're clearing fog, their two assault players and medic hug together, lying in wait behind cover at the back. Their sniper reports positions. They'll usually wait until you've placed at least three净化 globes and the toxic fog is no longer uniform before they push. They'll bait you into their territory and fight you using the uneven fog to their advantage in movement."
On Saint's side of the map, the toxic fog on their half wouldn't damage them or obstruct their vision. But for Free, it was different. If Free wanted to take the initiative and clear their enemies' fog, they'd have to perform极限 operations right under the enemy's vision.
If you couldn't see clearly, you also had to be careful not to touch the enemy's poison. Game mechanics—touch the毒雾 and you were dead.
"So hold back for now." Chen Huo was the first to hide behind cover. "Honestly, we're not strong enough to碾压 them. So hold back early, don't contest. After half a minute if they still haven't made a move, let Whisper be the bait."
Yu Sui had used that time to apply initial photon shields to everyone. Thirty seconds after Chen Huo finished speaking, he left cover and pushed forward to scout. Through the fog at the交接 point, the enemy couldn't tell what classes were on this side at all. Yu Sui crouched down, his character posture barely distinguishable from an assault player's when placing a净化 globe. Sure enough, the enemy immediately opened fire.
The moment the gunfire sounded, Saint's positions were revealed. At the same time, Shi Luo and Chen Huo fired together. Both sides exchanged fire.
The enemy's assault player was killed by Shi Luo. Yu Sui took most of his health in damage, but his positioning was the best among them. He quickly retreated, barely escaping with a sliver of health before hiding behind cover.
"Impressive."
Chen Huo rapidly reloaded, cursing. "Of course we're impressive."
"I meant the enemy." Puppy, who had been holding the back line, murmured. "You believe that? I never saw even a corner of any of them the whole time. They predicted my position perfectly—they never even gave me an opening. The kills you guys got just now were pure coincidence."
Chen Huo wasn't convinced, but he had to admit it.
During that exchange, Yu Sui hadn't died only because his play was极限 to the max. When retreating, he'd rapidly injected himself with a healing syringe, giving him just a tiny bit more health than the enemy, otherwise he would've been traded.
The enemy lost one player and didn't dare push again. Shi Luo and Chen Huo waited for Yu Sui to recover before pushing forward to clear fog, getting hit by the enemy sniper every now and then. Puppy was also doing his best to封路 from the rear, but because their team exposed too much while clearing fog, they were always at a slight disadvantage. After the first round of fog clearing, although Free had one more kill than the enemy, their经济 consumption was more than double the enemy's.
Yu Sui narrowed his eyes slightly. The practice match had only been going for six minutes, but problems were already piling up—their economic consumption was too severe.
Saint wasn't the kind of team you could quickly finish off. And the enemy was deliberately stalling. Yu Sui vaguely sensed they were trying to pull off a strategy of exhaust all resources.
Yu Sui's prediction proved correct.
Around the thirty-minute mark in the game, Free had cleared a larger area of the map, but their消耗 was already very severe. Saint was playing extremely dirty this round. When they were about to lose a player in a face-off, they'd immediately run. Even when they could've saved a teammate, they wouldn't. They'd let Free take kills freely. The result of Free's players all getting kills was that they could upgrade equipment, but upgrading equipment necessarily consumed more economy. Wanting to碾压 the enemy with better gear—but the enemy wasn't actually bad players. When Free tried to周旋, they couldn't fully hold up.
At the forty-two-minute mark, Free's economy was essentially depleted. The match outcome was already decided.
Zhou Huo, who'd barely blinked for over forty minutes, watched with growing anxiety. By the end, he let out a long sigh.
Another round of轮转生石 was coming.
Zhou Huo looked at Yu Sui worriedly. He understood Yu Sui had extremely strong抗压能力—even getting轮几十次 wouldn't faze him. But Zhou Huo couldn't help feeling upset.
Just because someone could handle pressure didn't mean they deserved to have it piled on them.
The practice match hadn't ended yet. Zhou Huo didn't dare say a word, didn't dare offer comfort like "it's just one practice match, no big deal." Saint was genuinely stronger, both in individual mechanics and overall game sense. This wasn't shameful.
But what was the point of those empty platitudes?
Did Saint not know this? Did NSN not know this?
Especially NSN. With Saint's defeat as precedent, Gu Qian clearly knew this practice match was a guaranteed loss, but he still accepted without hesitation.
Did Wa Wa not know he wasn't as good as Angel Sword? But even knowing he'd be humiliated, he accepted Gu Qian's arrangement without a word of complaint. He was屠了 twenty-one times by Saint, and got back up twenty-one times.
Lao Qiao watched the game screen and shook his head, murmuring quietly. "Chinese scene, same blood and bones."
Zhou Huo was inexplicably fired up. He cursed. "F***,轮就轮, whatever you want. You think I'm scared? Not your f***ing father!"
Before Zhou Huo even finished speaking, in the game interface, starting with Yu Sui, Puppy and Chen Huo rapidly clicked surrender.
Zhou Huo choked hard, clutching his throat and coughing.
In the game, Shi Luo, who had already exhausted his last bullet, stared blankly for less than half a second before quickly voting yes as well.
Since Shi Luo had voted last, he still got killed by the enemy.
Chen Huo clicked his mouse rapidly, gloating. "Hee-hee-hee! Whoever votes last gets killed!"
Shi Luo: "..."
Shi Luo gave Chen Huo a菜刀眼. Chen Huo immediately闭嘴.
"Cough, cough, cough..." Zhou Huo was breathless, staring at them in shock. "What happened to 'same blood and bones, don't lose face'?!?"
Yu Sui's expression was calm. "A match we were guaranteed to lose, what's the point of wasting time? Click ready, next game."
Zhou Huo angrily sat down to catch his breath. He should've known better than to worry about a team full of这群混蛋!!