# Chapter 55
"Who那个人" was referring to whom—someone Shi Luo didn't even want to name back then—could hardly be more obvious.
"Shi Luo really is something else." In the afternoon break room, Old Qiao, unaware of the subtle change in Yu Sui's expression after hearing those words, was still sighing in admiration. "The match was about to start, and not a single one of the four players on NSN's second team would leave the break room. The event organizers were panicking, telling them to deal with whatever was going on after the match. The other three NSN second-team players hesitated, suggesting they just play anyway—what if the other team wasn't actually match-fixing? What if they got punished for this later…"
"But Shi Luo said the other side was definitely suspicious. No one could talk him down. He just sat in the break room smoking and refused to go out. Because of his refusal to play, the whole thing blew up, and the secondary league finally launched a full investigation into match-fixing."
"One scandal brought down a whole mess of others. A bunch of sketchy players got suspended. Xiao Jun was hit really hard back then—three of his teammates got permanently banned. He almost went after his former teammates, but thankfully, he pulled through in the end."
"His individual skill was always there. He just got dragged down by those idiot teammates before. After they were gone, he trained hard and played hard and got better and better. About a year ago in a cup tournament, he pulled off some insane plays, and the top management at Wan Chong Shan noticed him. They bought him straight into the first team, and he went straight into the starting lineup. Now… Xiao Jun's in the league. Wan Chong Shan's management values him, and his teammates are all pulling together to play well. You could say he hit rock bottom and things finally turned around."
"Xiao Jun's always been grateful to Shi Luo, but they haven't had much contact since. You know Shi Luo—he's not exactly easy to get close to. So they're not really friends, just have this old history."
"Shi Luo himself doesn't like talking about these things either, but after the refusal incident, both the NSN management and Gu Qian were quite pleased. They even told me, 'No surprise he's a pro from the Esports Holy Land FS—got that built-in pride.'"
After finishing the hot pot, it wasn't too late yet. The hot pot place was right next to Hongya Cave, so the group didn't head straight back to the hotel. They wandered around Hongya Cave for a bit.
Yu Sui walked slowly. He watched Shi Luo's tall silhouette ahead, turning over Old Qiao's words in his mind. *This has nothing to do with FS.*
Even though Shi Luo had mentioned him later, Yu Sui didn't think that had anything to do with him.
Shi Luo was simply born this way.
He was overthinking it.
Whether Yu Sui was there or not, Shi Luo would never wallow in mediocrity, never give up. He would grow into a player people admired.
Yu Sui didn't think he could claim any credit for this. Shi Luo had pride in his bones. He was born to do this.
"What's wrong with you?" Old Qiao fell back a couple steps to walk beside Yu Sui, studying his expression. "Your face has been deadpan since dinner. What's going on? Still thinking about Shi Luo? Come on, it's been this long—Shi Luo probably forgot about it already."
Yu Sui shook his head, hands stuffed in his pockets. "No."
"Actually, there's something I've never quite figured out." Old Qiao asked straightforwardly. "Who was Shi Luo talking about when he said 'that person'? He looked at me like I was a stranger when he said it. I just listened and didn't dare ask."
Yu Sui slowly turned to look at Old Qiao. Through Old Qiao's sincere eyes, he confirmed the man wasn't deliberately twisting the knife to get under his skin—he genuinely couldn't see anything. Yu Sui couldn't help letting out a laugh.
Straight guys really were impossibly dense.
Yu Sui couldn't be bothered to explain.
Old Qiao was still completely out of the loop, mumbling, "Right? Who do you think Shi Luo was talking about? Aren't you curious?"
"Curious…" Yu Sui nodded after a long pause, trying to stay even-keeled as he helped analyze. "Well, for starters, we can rule out Chen Huo…"
The Chongqing regular season match was won without much suspense. With training and other regular season matches waiting, the team only stayed one night in Chongqing and rushed back to Shanghai early the next morning.
Back at the Free base, everyone freshened up and went to their own dorms to rest for a bit. After sleeping less than three hours, they woke up gradually in the evening and went downstairs for dinner, ready to resume training that night.
During dinner, Zhou Huo seized a moment. "Hey, got something to tell everyone. Don't worry, won't take much of your time."
Everyone was dead tired and just gave a perfunctory "mm" without looking up. Zhou Huo grinned. "So, other teams all have assessment systems. Since we just formed the team and you guys were all using recovered old accounts, I didn't bring this up before. But it's been this many days now. We need to get the assessment system properly set up."
Zhou Huo didn't have anything wrong about what he said. Every team assessed their players' main account performance monthly—everyone was used to it, still eating their own meals. Puppy nudged Chen Huo. "Give me another plate of shumai."
"As you all know, I used to be assistant manager at NSN. NSN's assessment standard was top 500 on the Chinese server. Fall below top 500 and they docked your salary—directly cutting the monthly bonus, basically about a third of your pay." Zhou Huo glanced at everyone, continuing. "But that was before Saint challenged us. After Saint crossed the ocean to taunt us, NSN raised their standard to top 200. Saint adjusted to top 100. I originally wanted to set our standard matching Saint's, but getting气得 by that bunch of idiots from Sword for the past couple days—I'm a bit anxious. Thinking we need to align with international standards, so I wanted to ask…"
Zhou Huo looked at the three former Sword players. "What's Sword's assessment standard?"
Yu Sui: "500."
Puppy: "300."
Chen Huo: "200."
They rattled off answers in rapid succession, each person giving a different number. An awkward silence fell over the table.
Zhou Huo suppressed the urge to beat some truth into these people and resignedly searched Sword's actual assessment standard online himself. Coincidentally, one of Sword's players had mentioned it in an interview about a month ago: the standard was top 30 on the EU server.
Zhou Huo was aghast. "You bunch of liars! Made up nonsense just to dodge the assessment! Fine, to match Sword, we set ours at top 30 too."
"Come on, what's the point of comparing ourselves to a club that doesn't treat players like human beings?" Chen Huo一边 eating一边 eagerly played the victim card. "When I was slaving for the capitalists at Sword, I never got a full month's salary. Why do I have to suffer this even after returning to the motherland's embrace? Run into a few idiot teammates and your rank drops—and sometimes you still have to help people with friendly duo queues. Spare me."
Zhou Huo hesitated. "Weren't your ranks pretty high before? How…"
"That was accumulated over a whole season! At the start of the season everything resets. It's not that easy." Puppy seized the opportunity to push for lower standards. "After the season progresses and the points spread out it's easier, so maybe cut us some slack now?"
Zhou Huo wavered, looking at Yu Sui.
Yu Sui took a sip of soup. "Top 100."
Zhou Huo reluctantly agreed. "Alright, we'll implement this starting this month. Scoring resets at midnight on the first of next month."
Assessment systems were standard for every team, and top 100 on the Chinese server was already much more relaxed than top 30 on the EU server. No one pushed their luck further. After dinner, everyone headed to the training room.
"Let's check Dad's rank…" Chen Huo opened the game client and logged into his account, pulling up the Chinese server ranking with a苦瓜脸. "So many days, why couldn't I just push my rank properly? Why? Where did my ambition go… Hmph, I suspect Yu Sui and Shi Luo plotting when they pushed Wa Wa onto me. Rank 346 on the Chinese server—who's lower than me?"
Puppy sighed. "288."
Puppy scrolled up the ranking list. "Whisper's at 196, Evil's at 168…"
Not a single one qualified. Puppy instantly felt better, drawling, "Ten days till month-end. Best of luck to everyone."
Shi Luo had opened his client too. He glanced at his Chinese server ranking—it wasn't too bad. Ten days left. As long as he didn't suffer a freefall in points, getting into the top 100 wouldn't be too hard. As Shi Luo was considering whether to stream, Chen Huo on the side whined to Yu Sui. "Lord Yu, please have mercy on your brother. Duo queue for a bit? I don't even need you to carry—just play normally. Too many clueless randoms playing medic for me. Can't take it anymore."
Shi Luo glanced at Yu Sui involuntarily. Across two computer screens, their eyes met.
Shi Luo looked away. Before Yu Sui could respond, Chen Huo started the moral extortion. "Yu Sui, you're the one who suggested top 100 as the standard!"
Chen Huo might as well not have said it. Yu Sui nodded. "Exactly—wanted to dock your salary on purpose. Beat it."
"No no no, begging for one night of duo queue." Chen Huo immediately folded. "Just one night. I'll drop out at midnight."
Yu Sui invited Chen Huo to a party, and Chen Huo scrambled to accept.
Wa Wa, whose standard had suddenly been raised to Chinese server top 200, came to Shi Luo crying as well. After Wa Wa swore repeatedly he wouldn't follow Yu Sui's example and would be a more dedicated babysitter than Angel Sword, Shi Luo let Wa Wa join the queue too.
The whole thing about Sword crossing the ocean to challenge the Chinese server couldn't be hidden anymore ever since Zhou Huo's Weibo post. Though Zhou Huo never revealed NAN and Saint's actual ranks, the other teams could more or less guess. Suddenly, following the example of these three teams raising their assessment standards, the remaining nine teams followed suit, setting the minimum at top 300. This stirred up a hornet's nest. The Chinese server ranking became an instant bloodbath.
Chen Huo, who had been grinding his guts out trying to reach top 100,恨不得 wanted to go yell at the other eleven teams. What are you all even凑什么热闹!
Casual players watching the raging ranking wars were curious—what was going on? The leaderboard was changing almost by the minute, filled with pro players with team tags next to their names. What extreme KPI were all twelve teams in the local league chasing?
After the other teams raised their assessment standards, the Free guys couldn't climb as fast as before. Fortunately, their individual skills were solid. By month's end, all four of them passed the threshold.
But because of the recent adjustments across all major teams, falling below top 100 was always just one careless game away. Chen Huo, who usually loved to go all-out aggressive in random queues, didn't dare slack off anymore. Every single match was played seriously.
"Actually, this isn't bad." End of the month, Puppy, who had barely scraped into top 100, sighed appreciatively. "Now everyone's wild plays have moved to alt accounts. Main accounts need to be played seriously. It's nice to see everyone actually trying."
Puppy sourly watched Shi Luo, who was annihilating on the Chinese server with an alt account. "The guy who cleared the assessment threshold way early sure is leisurely… Hey!"
Puppy looked left and right, then spotted Yu Sui's empty seat. He raised an eyebrow. "Where's Yu Sui? He just joined the queue."
Shi Luo glanced at Puppy, didn't catch it clearly, frowned. "What?"
"Zhou Huo seems to have called Yu Sui away just now." Puppy lazily pointed at Yu Sui's station. "He forgot to cancel queueing. He's already in queue—gonna start the countdown soon."
Chen Huo, still grinding the Chinese server to hold his rank, smugly said, "Join a high-rank match and go AFK, you lose 100 points instantly. 100 points—oh that's beautiful. Old man here can't necessarily gain 100 points in a whole day. Thanks Lord Yu, thanks for conveniently vacating a spot."
Shi Luo took off his headphones, frowning. "I'll cover for him."
Puppy spread his hands. "I can't play Medic though. How am I supposed to cover? He didn't even take his phone. Can't call him if we're running out of time…"
Shi Luo's fingers flew across the keyboard. After destroying the enemy's rebirth crystal in-game, he stood up.
Puppy chuckled and went back to his own game. Chen Huo sighed dramatically. "What's your deal, Evil? Don't bring the NSN solidarity-and-friendship nonsense to our team. Why are you always disrupting our team atmosphere?"
Shi Luo ignored Chen Huo, hastily put on Yu Sui's headphones, and bought the initial photon shield and long dagger for him.
It had been too long since he'd played Medic. Shi Luo's movements were a bit sluggish. Fortunately, the fundamentals from back then had become muscle memory. Shi Luo picked it up quickly and found the rhythm.
Yu Sui had completely forgotten about queuing. Ten minutes passed and he still hadn't returned. Shi Luo glanced helplessly at Yu Sui's phone on the desk. There was no way to call him—Chen Huo and Puppy were in the middle of their main account games and couldn't leave. He had no choice but to keep playing.
He'd rushed over without thinking much of it. But after playing for a while, Shi Luo gradually realized—he was on Yu Sui's account, tapping Yu Sui's keyboard, holding Yu Sui's mouse, wearing Yu Sui's headphones, trying to adapt to Yu Sui's keybinds…
Shi Luo gritted his teeth. *What the hell, why am I suddenly embarrassed??*
Time ticked by. This particular match happened to be extremely close and grinding. Shi Luo wanted to type and flame some of the randoms on his team who kept making mistakes. *Can you people STOP feeding?! I'm healing as fast as I can and you keep dying. If Whisper really shows up mid-game it's gonna be so awkward—not gonna be尴尬 for you though right?! And you KEEP feeding!!*
Fortunately, the random teammates seemed to sense "Whisper's"急躁. Their coordination improved in the later stages. Fifteen minutes later, they pushed through and destroyed the enemy base, ending the match.
Thank god—Yu Sui still wasn't back.
Shi Luo let out a long breath.
The team chat was filled with confessions to Whisper. Shi Luo didn't type. As he was about to exit, he saw a message from a teammate.
**[Free永远nb]: [Lord Yu I'm your fan!! So excited, wuwuwuwu finally ran into you after grinding for days to reach top 500! Me and all my dorm buddies like you!!]**
**[Free永远nb]: [Whisper牛逼, Free牛逼!!]**
**[Free永远nb]: [替我下铺对Evil说，Shi God is牛逼!!]**
**[Free永远nb]: [Lord Yu, are you still there? Can you see me? I worship you啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊……]**
If it were his own account, coming across such diehard fans, Shi Luo would usually send an emoji at least. But this was Yu Sui's pro account, and he'd gotten on without permission. It wasn't appropriate for him to say anything. As he was about to exit, the random player messaged again—
**[Free永远nb]: [Oh right, my girlfriend wants to ask—Lord Yu, you don't like that EE streamer from the other day, right? She really cares about this.]**
Shi Luo frowned. He typed—
**[Free-Whisper]: [Nope!]**
After typing, Shi Luo felt a twinge of guilt. Just as he was about to leave, the random player quickly said—
**[Free永远nb]: [Great! My girlfriend's very satisfied! She also wants to ask—do you have someone you like, Lord Yu?]**
Shi Luo froze.
He stared at the computer screen. His long fingers, possessed by something, lightly brushed over the letter directly below the 3 and 4 keys.
Shi Luo pressed it down, then deleted it just as quickly.
"Damn it, what's wrong with me…"
Shi Luo felt like he really had lost his mind. Grimacing at himself, he took off his headphones and was about to stand up when he caught sight of Yu Sui, who had been standing behind him—he didn't know for how long.
Shi Luo's heart skipped a beat.
Yu Sui's expression was as usual. He said softly, "Thanks."
Shi Luo's ears instantly burned bright red. He hastily fixed Yu Sui's headphones, mumbled something incoherent like "it's nothing," and fled back to his own station.