Chapter 67
In the second-floor hallway, the阿姨 was mopping the floor. Yu Sui greeted her, then leaned against the wall by the glass door near the balcony, browsing his phone.
The阿姨 glanced at Shi Luo on the balcony and muttered something in Shanghainese about how smoking at such a young age was bad for the lungs. Yu Sui nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I'll talk to him about it."
The阿姨 finished mopping the hallway quickly, picked up the mop and bucket, and went downstairs. Only then did Yu Sui turn and push open the door to step onto the balcony.
Shi Luo was lying prone on the stone railing of the balcony, eyes slightly narrowed, his cigarette nearly finished. Yu Sui walked over, took the cigarette from Shi Luo's mouth, and dropped it into the ashtray on the balcony.
Yu Sui stood very close to Shi Luo. Shi Luo下意识turned his head to look, and only when he saw the second-floor hallway was empty did he lean back against the railing.
"What's there to be afraid of? If someone sees, they see." Yu Sui leaned beside Shi Luo, paused for a moment, then softly said, "Earlier too—were you deliberately trying to make me worry?"
"This time, really not." Shi Luo looked a bit awkward as he explained. "I wasn't trying to bring it up, I just slipped... Anyway, this time wasn't on purpose."
Yu Sui nodded and repeated, "This time wasn't on purpose..."
Yu Sui held back a laugh. "So you're admitting that you were deliberately messing with my head before?"
Shi Luo plucked at a cactus spine uncomfortably. "I already admitted it long ago, don't ask anymore... At least now I don't want to make you worry."
Yu Sui caught the key point again. "At least now?"
"You're being so good to me now... I can't bring myself to mess with you." Shi Luo rotated the cactus pot halfway, continuing to pinch off spines from the other side. His expression was cool, but his words were a bit sweet. "Wait until you're not good to me anymore, then I'll settle old scores."
Yu Sui listened quietly, his heart aching slightly.
"So every time before when you deliberately said things to make me worry, it was..." Yu Sui said softly, "When you felt I wasn't being good to you? Was I that bad to you so many times?"
Shi Luo pressed his lips together without arguing. After a while, he quietly said, "You were going to send me to NSN before, I couldn't exactly be grateful for that, right? Sigh, I said I wouldn't dig up old grudges... Let's drop it."
"Just a little bit. Don't worry about me." Yu Sui didn't want to bring up everything from two years ago either, but anything related to Shi Luo, he wanted to understand completely. "Why didn't you challenge me to an account deletion duel back then?"
Shi Luo's reasons weren't very convincing. Back then, both of them had switched to new teams and new accounts, but a real account deletion duel would have been quite damaging.
For pro players, actually carrying out an account deletion was very complicated. After deleting the account, they had to apply to the game official for a new professional account and explain clearly what problems had occurred with the previous account that led to it being abandoned. "I challenged someone to an account deletion duel and humiliatingly lost, now my account has been deleted by the other person, please give me another player account"—if such a reason were actually submitted to the official, it would basically become news that could spread instantly through all four major regions and shock the game's headquarters.
Based on Yu Sui's understanding of Shi Luo, such a self-destructive revenge was completely something Shi Luo could do.
Yu Sui had been playing professionally for nearly six years, and Shi Luo was the most ruthless and extreme player he'd ever seen in handling problems.
Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo. "I treated you that way back then, and you still couldn't do it?"
"No, back then I was..." Shi Luo kept harming that cactus without stopping, after a long while he mumbled vaguely, "I knew I couldn't beat you."
Yu Sui: "..."
Shi Luo's brow furrowed tightly. "If I'd been absolutely certain I could beat you, I would have challenged you to an account deletion duel long ago. But back then... I really couldn't win."
"Outmatched in skill, getting crushed by you over thirty times was already humiliating enough. If I'd challenged you to an account deletion duel and you deleted my account too... way too embarrassing." Shi Luo analyzed point by point, looking sullen. "I go crazy and even screw myself over, but this really wasn't worth it. Even though I was气得发疯了 back then, I wouldn't go that far... What are you laughing at?!"
Yu Sui tried his best to hold it in, but he was about to lose it.
Shi Luo was truly too cute.
Shi Luo's face flushed a bit, annoyed. "I told you not to ask... it's all embarrassing stuff, I really don't want to talk about it, and besides..."
Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo seriously. "And besides what?"
"Given your personality, you could even slaughter FS, most likely you wouldn't go easy on me." Shi Luo said quietly. "In an account deletion duel, you'd hold nothing back, cleanly and decisively take me out, and I might not be able to recover from that..."
Yu Sui smiled wryly. Shi Luo really understood himself perfectly.
Yu Sui opened his mouth, about to say something more, when someone knocked on the balcony door.
"What are you doing?" Old Qiao passed by the balcony, saw the two of them standing there, knocked on the glass door, and pushed it open. "The scheduled scrim is about to start. Log in."
"Coming."
Yu Sui seemed to be calling to Shi Luo. In front of Old Qiao, he put an arm around Shi Luo's shoulder. In Old Qiao's blind spot, Yu Sui gently squeezed Shi Luo's hand.
Shi Luo squeezed back. Their rest time was too short—their hands parted as quickly as they touched. Each of them straightened the team jacket draped over their shoulders and headed to the training room.
It wasn't a regular season day, but it was still high-intensity training. It seemed Saint was fully preparing for the regular season match against Free. Angel Sword directly messaged Old Qiao—before the regular season encounter, they wouldn't scrim with Free anymore. He didn't want to expose any more tactics. The tough teams in the domestic scene, besides Saint, were NSN. Old Qiao scheduled NSN for the afternoon and a North American team for the evening—five hours each session.
After ten consecutive hours, with only a half-hour break that was spent eating, Zhou Huo couldn't stand to watch anymore. That evening, after everyone finished the scrim with the North American team, Zhou Huo went to the training room and said, "Don't do high-intensity training tonight. Either review replays, or stream something fun."
Zhou Huo was talking to Old Qiao. Old Qiao nodded. "No need for replay review, it wastes time. I'll look at the footage with the data analysts first, summarize the problems, and address them all tomorrow. You guys stream for entertainment."
They hadn't accumulated enough streaming hours this month yet. Everyone had no objections, rubbing their shoulders and slightly tidying up their appearance to prepare for streaming.
Of course, "tidying up appearance" for Shi Luo just meant pulling down his T-shirt sleeves that he'd rolled up to his shoulders, while Chen Huo just messily ran his fingers through his hair that had been crushed flat by his over-ear headphones.
Chen Huo complained while fixing his hair. "You're the only one with the camera on, and the whole team has to follow along with your idol包袱. Can't you just turn it off?"
"No." Puppy said lazily. "My viewer count is entirely propped up by this camera. Everyone who comes to my stream basically wants to see you guys through my camera. If I turn it off, all your fans will leave... Heh, can you give the low-viewership players some breathing room?"
Zhou Huo was about to leave but turned his head at this. "If you're worried about low viewership, don't just dry stream. You guys can duo together."
"Please, spare me." Puppy said without thinking, his face full of resistance. "Normally I duo for synergy training, that's fine, but we've already done ten hours of that, if we duo more we'll start fighting. I don't want to see any of their usernames right now."
"I said that scheduling two scrims in a row was a bad idea, the intensity was too high. You guys wouldn't listen." Zhou Huo was helpless. He glanced at Shi Luo beside him and an idea struck him. "Hey! Otherwise, you guys play something else."
Shi Luo turned to look at Zhou Huo. "Play what?"
"Play that account deletion duel you mentioned today. I'll post it on Weibo to build hype—it'll definitely get views." The more Zhou Huo thought about it, the better it sounded. "Doesn't your custom server have a 1v1 mode? You guys can play like that."
"You..." Shi Luo stared at Zhou Huo in disbelief. "Did you just find out about account deletion duels today and get so excited you want to see one? Does our own team have some blood feud that requires an account deletion duel?"
Chen Huo looked at Zhou Huo warily. "I'm not playing. I'm not going to kill my wife over streamer viewership."
"Not deleting any accounts... what are you thinking?" Zhou Huo couldn't help but laugh. "Can you guys stop thinking about nothing but fighting? Bet something else. The loser doesn't delete their account, maybe just treat everyone to takeout or something."
Zhou Huo spread his hands. "That way you guys also relax, Puppy's stream gets views, and we get late-night snacks too."
"Okay okay, come on come on." At the mention of views, Puppy's eyes lit up. He was very willing. "Only I have the camera on, so whoever comes to my stream will definitely be the most numerous. Let's play, let's play."
Chen Huo heard there'd be no account deletion and agreed too. "Sure, worst case I just treat everyone to some takeout."
Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo meaningfully. "You playing? Doesn't have to be late-night snacks, we can't possibly eat that much late-night food. Could bet on something else."
Zhou Huo emphasized the words "something else" particularly. Shi Luo's eyes brightened slightly. He didn't argue further and silently agreed.
Zhou Huo finally looked at Yu Sui, then remembered his role and awkwardly said, "Um... Yu Sui... the medic can't really solo, right?"
Yu Sui was very straightforward. "It's fine. Same rules."
"Awesome!" Everyone unanimously agreed. Zhou Huo was very satisfied—this was the first entertainment activity since Free was established. He was quite happy. "I'll post it on Weibo as a纪念. Not easy, not easy. Old Qiao, set up a custom map and put them in."
Old Qiao also wanted to see the fun. He nodded, logged into Free's own server on his computer, and created a 1v1 map.
Old Qiao pulled all four people into the map and turned to urge Zhou Huo. "Did you finish posting on Weibo?"
"Ready ready." Zhou Huo hastily corrected some punctuation. "Posted. Come on come on..."
Zhou Huo posted the announcement through the official account, and the viewership across all their streams instantly skyrocketed.
"Let's do a gauntlet." Old Qiao clicked random. "The first matchup is random, then it's gauntlet style—the winner picks their next opponent. The bet is that the winner makes the loser do one thing, just nothing too extreme."
"They know the limits." Zhou Huo urged. "Hurry and start."
Old Qiao said, "Already clicked, waiting for the system to randomly select."
Zhou Huo was very excited, craning his neck to watch Old Qiao's screen. After half a minute, the system randomly selected and displayed: Shi Luo and Puppy.
"Tsk..." Puppy clicked his tongue. "Career disadvantage. I'm a sniper, how am I supposed to fight him?"
Shi Luo didn't speak. After the countdown, he immediately spawned at the respawn point.
In the 1v1 mode on the custom server, there was no poison fog on either side's map. Both players had completely clear sightlines. Each hid behind cover, and killing the other ended the round.
"Can't do it, can't do it." Puppy kept shaking his head, muttering endlessly. "Can't upgrade equipment either. This basic sniper can't fire in burst mode. After one shot I have to reload, by the time I'm done reloading he'll have already mowed me down. Can't do it, can't do it, can't do it..."
Puppy appeared to be slacking off, constantly chattering about how he couldn't win, but his eyes were extremely focused. He scoped in and locked onto Shi Luo's position. When Shi Luo was about to move forward, he fired a steady and accurate "boom"—right on target.
Unfortunately, Shi Luo reacted too fast and dodged with his movement, avoiding vital damage. Puppy's prediction was completely on point, but he only hit Shi Luo's arm.
Chen Huo was also in the map and could watch from the observer perspective. He couldn't help but say, "...Puppy's still Puppy, as dirty as ever."
Puppy regrettably sighed. One missed shot meant he had to reload again. During the reload, he was completely defenseless. The moment his gun fired, Shi Luo didn't even need to find cover anymore. For 1.5 seconds, Shi Luo had nothing to fear—even walking in a straight line toward him would be fine.
But there was nothing to be done. The Striker class was inherently more agile and mobile. Shi Luo was young, at the peak of his reaction speed. Trying to catch him was extremely difficult. Fortunately, limited by his class, Shi Luo's assault rifle couldn't reach him yet. Puppy could still fire at least five more shots. Puppy held his breath, stopped talking, and timed Shi Luo's approach toward him—firing his second shot, third shot, fourth shot...
The last three shots all missed. On the fifth shot, Puppy had entered Shi Luo's attack range. The fifth shot hit Shi Luo's leg, leaving him with just a sliver of health. But Shi Luo still had just that sliver of health.
Shi Luo had already reached close range. At this distance, Puppy couldn't withstand Shi Luo's attack, and there was no time to reload. Puppy resigned himself to his fate and lifted his hands off the keyboard.
Shi Luo emptied an entire magazine and cleanly finished off Puppy. "Frog jump, extra spicy, two bowls of rice."
The chat on Shi Luo's stream had gone wild. Fans flooded the screen with "666."
Puppy shook his head, opened the food delivery app on his phone, and sighed. "What does everyone else want to eat? I'll order..."
Everyone ordered their late-night snacks. Old Qiao restored the map to its original state from the backend. "Okay, restored. Next one."
Zhou Huo contentedly also got a free meal out of Puppy. He looked up at Shi Luo.
Shi Luo quit the map.
Everyone was stunned. Before anyone could ask questions, Shi Luo logged into a medic account he'd abandoned two years ago.
Shi Luo said, "Next. Whisper."