# Chapter 65
This was the worst circle, and also the best circle.
When it came to the intensity of mudslinging and toxic trash-talking, the esports circle could absolutely rank first among all circles with overwhelming advantage.
Internal fighting and flaming within the esports circle had always been notoriously intense. Even if it was their favorite team or player, as long as the performance was off or they lost a match, they'd still get flamed without mercy. They had quite the talent for getting under people's skin—giving players nicknames based on their mistakes, going to players' livestreams to spam their black history before matches... these were everyday operations.
It was common for players with slightly weaker mental resilience to collapse from the toxic commenters, just like ROD who had just lost the match.
Shi Luo had never thought much of it. If he really lost a match or messed up an operation, he wouldn't say anything when fans flamed him. When he was in the wrong or clearly outclassed, Shi Luo would never fire back.
But if he clearly did nothing wrong yet kept getting targeted and messed with, that was a different story. He couldn't swallow that.
The iron rule of the circle was to hype the winners and flame the losers. Since everyone acknowledged this special cultural atmosphere, stop playing the double standards game. When I lose a match you can flame me, and when you wrong me I can flame back.
Our business in our circle gets handled by our circle's rules. Nobody needs to play the holier-than-thou saint. That's how it should be.
"The toxic flamers are always saying teams should stop with the idol fandom nonsense, right? Well, today we really aren't playing that game. Let's flame each other." Lao Qiao scrolled Weibo quite satisfied. "Our players' money doesn't come from those flamers anyway. Go ahead and骂—there's even people coming to our official blog saying they're unfollowing. Hah... playing what fan, unfollow if you want. Do you think we can't go to Worlds without fans? Who's trying to scare who?"
Puppy had an expression of couldn't-care-less. "I barely had any fans to begin with. If they want to unfollow, so be it."
"Don't listen to those flamers." Chen Huo raised an eyebrow, looking pleased with himself. "All the noise comes from brainless flamers. My follower count actually went up after I posted."
"Yeah, normally if someone suddenly fires back, they'd definitely become a target, but this time we're not worried." Zhou Huo had been hesitant before, but now seeing the results were good, he was very satisfied. "The players flamed back together, and the flamers were stunned, not knowing who to attack anymore."
Zhou Huo's phone kept buzzing, with management from other teams constantly messaging him. Zhou Huo was beside himself with joy. "Several teams are sending us thank you letters, thanking us for being stubborn, thanking us for standing up and clearing out the bad atmosphere in the circle. Makes sense... we really shouldn't have been catering to these rumor-mongers making things out of nothing. The players train so hard every day—why should they take the fall for this?"
"When you think about it, this really was something we should have taken the lead on." Zhou Huo sighed. "Not to toot my own horn, but among the dozen-plus teams in our domestic region, even though our team is the newest, in terms of player seniority, we might not be the absolute hardest but we're pretty close to it. Our team's players are also the thickest-skinned when it comes to getting flamed. So this time we stepped up. The job was done well. We'll guide the narrative going forward. We're in the right, and we can handle the PR smoothly."
"Of course we can." Lao Qiao waved his phone. "Latest news—NSN posted on Weibo too. They released all of ROD's training content and schedule for the past month. Player account backends keep records. Whether he was slacking off and dating around or grinding hard, anyone with a brain can see clearly."
Chen Huo was also scrolling Weibo, envious. "ROD posted on Weibo himself. He admitted to the in-game mistakes and did self-criticism, but said he and his girlfriend were doing fine and wouldn't break up."
Lao Qiao sighed. "He must have adjusted his mindset too. Not bad—he pulled through."
Zhou Huo went to the forums and scrolled. Watching the flamers hop mad but utterly helpless filled him with satisfaction. He sighed. "Honestly, being your manager these past few days has been seriously stressful AF, but there's one good thing about it—you all have ironclad mental strength. You screw over your own people hard, and you screw outsiders even harder. Being your manager is genuinely satisfying."
When it came to "screwing over your own people," Chen Huo's attention was immediately diverted. Chen Huo glared resentfully at Yu Sui, then hmphed and went to sit aside to keep scrolling Weibo.
Yu Sui, the one who had once united all of esports in flaming, was the calmest. In his view, whether they fought back or not made little difference. The biggest joy this whole incident brought Yu Sui was watching Xiao-Shen-God's little temper flare up. Yu Sui clearly noticed that ever since Shi Luo returned to Free, Shi Luo was gradually regaining some of his old self—his temper was increasingly like when they first met.
The way he schemed was the same, and the look of impatient not-taking-any-shit was even more so.
Back then, that idiot Bao Zao Shu had dirty mouth and Shi Luo had been able to slam him into the sink in a hot pot restaurant and beat him until he couldn't crawl. So how could he possibly tolerate flamers spreading baseless slander?
But there had been some changes.
The current Shi Luo Shen, as a mature professional player, wouldn't exactly get into a real physical fight with someone in a hot pot restaurant bathroom and risk crossing professional lines. He moved it from offline to online, but the killing power wasn't diminished one bit.
Shi Luo was crouching on the sofa, still flaming with the remaining stubborn trolls in private messages. Focused and absorbed, he didn't even have time to chat with the others in the training room.
The others had finished their teasing. When they noticed Yu Sui sitting motionless with focused expression, they followed his line of sight and spotted Shi Luo—earnest as if taking the gaokao—passionately flaming someone.
"Feel bad for whoever's on the other end of that." Puppy took a sip of tea and shook his head. "I really want to kindly inform those flamers—besides falling for Ji Yanhuan, none of us old FS folks have ever really吃亏ed in our whole lives. When it comes to flaming, we're not afraid. Especially our Xiao-Shen-God! He's a major flamer himself!"
Lao Qiao sighed along. "If ROD had encountered a scumbag boss like Ji Yanhuan back in his early days, he wouldn't have been able to hold it together either."
Chen Huo sighed too. "Speaking of Ji Yanhuan makes me want to say even more—why do any flamers still think we're the ones who should be scared? This is nothing!"
Chen Huo picked up his tea and took a sip, shaking his head. "This batch of flamers is no good. The real hell was when we transferred to Europe—that really took the cake. Now this is nothing!"
"Your Yu-God is long beyond worldly cares." Puppy glanced at Yu Sui with a hint of sourness. "He couldn't even be bothered to waste time checking what people flamed him. What's in his eyes? It's Xiao Luo who's causing trouble! I could even suspect these flamers are here to give Yu Sui an opportunity—to let him reminisce with Shi Luo and solidify their relationship!"
Yu Sui smiled faintly. He really couldn't be bothered to look.
He'd been through the eighteenth layer of hell. What was there to fear from a few small fry squawking?
It was still young at heart, still full of fire, still able to flame someone that kept Shi Luo attractive to Yu Sui.
Normally at this time Lao Qiao would review the day's matches with all four of them, but with today's incident, nobody was in the mood. It was getting late too. Lao Qiao told everyone to rest and do their own thing.
Lao Qiao slowly packed up his personal belongings and headed back to his dorm to do laundry. Chen Huo was happy to skip the review and went to play solo queue on a smurf account for fun. Puppy went to grind on his main account.
On the sofa in the corner of the training room, Shi Luo was chewing gum, still专心输出—focused on putting out damage.
Chen Huo and Puppy were both absorbed in their games and wouldn't notice anything. Yu Sui deeply respected his little boyfriend's desire to keep their relationship private, and only sat down next to Shi Luo after confirming they wouldn't be discovered.
Yu Sui asked quietly, "Still at it?"
Shi Luo stirred. He turned his head and glanced at Yu Sui, suddenly feeling a bit awkward.
Compared to Yu Sui's nonchalance, Shi Luo seemed more like someone who held grudges. Shi Luo's phone screen showed Weibo's private message interface, filled wall to wall with vulgar abuse.
Flaming others was pretty satisfying, but having his boyfriend watch him flame so crudely was another story. Shi Luo instinctively leaned deeper into the sofa, blocking his phone screen, kind of like how back in school he'd hide what he was doing from his romantic partner to maintain his image. He tried to cover, "No, I'm just seeing what people are saying about me..."
Yu Sui let out a barely audible light laugh. "We're all professional players, all with 20/20 vision. Looking down on who?"
Shi Luo gritted his teeth. It was rumored that among domestic professional players, the one with the best vision was Whisper, especially dynamic vision. Just that one glance and Yu Sui had definitely seen everything.
A whole screen of swear words, all sent from his side—no way to deny it.
Shi Luo felt a bit embarrassed. He leaned even further in, mumbling quietly, "I just lost my temper for a moment, I didn't—"
"Want me to take over some of those accounts you're having trouble with?" Yu Sui settled in, picked up his phone, and said while looking down, "Forward me the IDs you're having trouble with. I'll handle it."
Shi Luo: "..."
Shi Luo turned to look at Yu Sui.
Yu Sui's hair had air-dried naturally and he hadn't bothered to fix it, just hanging messily over his shoulders. The towel he'd been handed earlier was nowhere to be found. The team jacket draped over his shoulders had gotten damp from his hair, but he didn't care—when the shoulder got wet he just pulled the collar back. Now the jacket was basically hanging off him half the time.
Yu Sui was leaning on the sofa at that moment, one leg stretched out, the other slightly bent. From Shi Luo's angle, there was an unmistakable rogue charm radiating from Yu Sui.
When you're in love, you tend to deify the other person. He'd imagined Yu Sui as too perfect. When they weren't together, stuff like sneaking to gaokao to mess with Chen Huo or play dirty tricks on Puppy—Yu Sui had done plenty of that too. How could he not know how to flame people?
There were no good people on this team anyway.
Since Yu Sui was going to flame people anyway, Shi Luo didn't need to hide anymore. He sent the IDs of people he was struggling with to Yu Sui. The two sat on the sofa and got down to serious flaming business.
Yu Sui even smiled and asked Shi Luo, "Shen-God, is your vocabulary up to par?"
Shi Luo crouched on the sofa and said quietly, "We're all professional players, we've all had our ancestors cursed by flamers. Looking down on who?"
Yu Sui smiled.
Sitting next to such a handsome boyfriend, Shi Luo found himself flaming without much heart. Every time he was alone with Yu Sui, Shi Luo couldn't help but mess around a little. He glanced at Yu Sui from time to time and softly asked, "Can... can you keep up?"
"We're all professional players, we all have computer-level APM." Yu Sui typed at lightning speed. "Looking down on who?"
Shi Luo took a breath and silently thought to himself—himself and Yu Sui, whether from career or hobbies, were truly a match made in heaven.
The combined firepower of two professional-level flamers was naturally invincible. The two of them, openly flaming while secretly flirting on the sofa, finished off the dozen-plus people who had been flaming Shi Luo in less than half an hour. They made them so angry they were half-dead and completely tongue-tied. Yu Sui stretched his neck. "...So weak at flaming. Pathetic."
Shi Luo glanced sideways at Yu Sui, his heart itching again.
After the match against NSN ended, Shi Luo had first been deeply kissed by Yu Sui and then had love words written on his palm. This playboy had been leaving him in limbo, and he'd been wanting to make a move back.
Shi Luo glanced at the other two teammates in the training room. Both Chen Huo and Puppy were absorbed in their games, too focused to notice.
Shi Luo took a deep breath, exited the Weibo interface, and opened the translation app he'd downloaded during his trip to Korea for competition—in front of Yu Sui.
Yu Sui watched Shi Luo's movements, not quite understanding at first.
When Shi Luo set the translation software to German mode and switched his phone's keyboard to German input, Yu Sui instantly knew what Shi Luo was planning to do.
Yu Sui, the shameless playboy who had remained calm and unfazed even after being dragged into a huge controversy that nearly pulled him back into the vortex of public opinion, now, watching the translation app on Shi Luo's phone, had his ear tips turn an unprecedented shade of red.
Yu Sui cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You sure you can remember it all?"
Shi Luo's face was already flushed.
Shi Luo also lowered his voice. "We're all professional players, we all have brains that can remember resource consumption for both sides in every game down to the exact number. Looking down on who?"
Yu Sui smiled faintly. He rubbed his neck and leaned back on the sofa, watching Shi Luo's phone screen.
He watched Shi Luo type, watched him not miss a single letter, reproducing the German that Yu Sui had written on his palm in the van earlier.
Shi Luo finished typing all the letters—pure German. He clearly couldn't make out any meaning, but his face was completely red.
Shi Luo was still trying hard to maintain his composure and flirt with Yu Sui. He didn't press the translate button. He turned to look at Yu Sui, tone unnatural. "Are... are you scared of me translating this?"
Shi Luo looked at Yu Sui, racking his brain for what he could use as leverage to make Yu Sui beg him not to translate.
"We're all professional players, we all have thick skin and no shame. Looking down on who?"
The pepper was still spicier with age. Though Yu Sui's ears were red, he reached up and directly pressed the translate button on Shi Luo's phone screen.
After a one-second loading pause, countless explicit, unspeakable private love words filled Shi Luo's phone screen.
Shi Luo froze. One second later, Shi Luo's left hand flipped the phone face-down on the sofa, and his right hand covered his own face. His whole face was red and steaming.
Yu Sui leaned on the sofa, barely holding back laughter, voice light as a whisper. "Little brat..."