Chapter 71
"A hundred—" Puppy choked on his own breath, clutching his chopsticks and leaning against his keyboard as he coughed.
"He just raised it tenfold without even pausing..." Puppy took a while to recover, muttering, "I'm suddenly curious—what signing bonus did Yu Sui offer you when he poached you from IAC? What made you so careless with money now?"
"I played professionally for two years before signing with Free. I can afford this." Shi Luo shot Puppy a glare. "What are you staring at? Type!"
"Oh, right, right, right." Puppy cleared his throat and addressed the stream. "No one can beat this price, right? One million once, one million twice, one million three times—OK."
Puppy clicked his mouse. "Sold! Whisper's first gaming buddy session, bought by Young Master Shi."
【Would 100,000 even work? I'm seriously willing to pay!】
【666666……】
【Booking by the night is hilarious—Shi Zi, do you think you're at an internet café?】
【HAHAHAHA longtime fans know Shi Zi is a jealous little thing.】
【Young Master Shi is rich, Young Master Shi is amazing.】
【Grateful heart, thanks to Puppy—I love this webcam so much, watching team dynamics is the best.】
【Wait, why did Evil bid? When have you not been able to duo with Whisper? Why are you stealing福利 from us humble players?】
【Hold on, what's going on? Why did Evil bid? My last memory was them cutting ties two years ago—what's their situation now?】
【This is probably hate runs deep, but makeups are even deeper.】
【Honestly, don't you guys think they've been interacting a lot lately?】
【Was that Shi Shen just now?】
【To be real, sometimes I even suspect these two are together...】
【Never mind the rest—Evil, if you win the bid you have to pay! Otherwise it counts as a failed auction, and it's mine at 100,000.】
Puppy spotted a highlighted message from the iron fan大哥 and turned to Shi Luo. "What do we do? Yu Sui's fans are serious. Shi Luo, they're asking you to pay. If you don't pay, it counts as a failed auction—and that means going back to the last bid of 100,000. Are you actually buying or just talking big?"
Yu Sui was leaning on the sofa; hearing this, he lifted his eyelids and glanced at Puppy. "From the start, did I ever agree to let you auction me?"
Shi Luo was looking at his phone. "I don't have time to talk big. Already transferred—one million."
Yu Sui's phone notification chimed immediately.
Yu Sui froze, then laughed. "You actually transferred it..."
Before he could finish, the players in Puppy's stream went wild.
"Is this for real?" Lao Qiao had been watching the show for fun, but now he got spooked seeing Shi Luo suddenly go serious. He hastily distanced himself. "The normal 1,000-yuan-per-hour gaming buddy sessions—you guys have always been fully reimbursed by the team. We've never wronged you, the team has never been stingy, but this one million... the team doesn't cover that!"
"Of course it can't be reimbursed!" Chen Huo complained beside him. "Has anyone ever heard of a club reimbursing players for... purchasing people outside?"
"'Purchasing' is a bit crude." Lao Qiao turned and looked Yu Sui up and down, then hesitated. "Though I do think... when Yu Sui heals for Shi Luo, there's a certain vibe..."
"Right?" Every time the topic of Yu Sui healing Shi Luo came up, Chen Huo got worked up. "What did I tell you?! The moment Yu Sui first healed Shi Luo, I knew that flirtatious energy was off! Like a gaming buddy hired from one of those apps—not only carrying the game, but also especially considerate of Shi Luo's gaming experience. Isn't that literally what a gaming buddy does?"
When Yu Sui first healed for Shi Luo, players were shocked that Yu Sui even played healers—and，顺便把#心疼宸火#送上了热搜. Chen Huo still remembered that grudge. He slumped in his gaming chair, hating how Yu Sui looked next to him, and cursed, "Seriously, just look at him—his messy hair, doesn't he look like a pro? It's a good thing he made it in this industry, otherwise with Yu Scumbag's natural配置, letting someone like him loose in society, who knows what scandal he'd get into."
Zhou Huo looked seriously at Yu Sui leaning on the sofa. "To be honest, I've actually discovered a new business opportunity from Yu Sui... but the消费 price has been bid up too high by Shi Luo. Hard to push forward."
"Fuck off." Yu Sui smiled. "I don't sell."
"Look, he just got sold to Shi Luo and now he's building a virtue sign." Chen Huo clicked his tongue. "The account is dirty, the person is dirty too..."
Zhou Huo shook his head and gave up. "Forget it. Our team is too rich—we don't need you two earning money as gaming buddies. Besides Shi Luo, probably no one else would spend one million on Yu Sui. Let it go."
"Enough already. We're a proper league club—don't let you guys turn this place into a brothel." Lao Qiao checked the time. "It's time, training. Hey, you—the one for sale!"
Yu Sui answered obligingly. "What?"
Lao Qiao held back a laugh. "The guy already paid—are you going to start the buddy session now or what? If you're coming, I'll stand down."
Yu Sui stood up from the sofa and looked at Shi Luo, his words carrying a deeper meaning. "You want to use me now, or schedule it later?"
Shi Luo had already sat back at his station, chewing gum. "...Not now. When I need you... I'll call you."
Yu Sui was very agreeable, smiling. "Sure. Waiting for your call."
Yu Sui went to train. Lao Qiao powered up the computer to be Shi Luo's gaming buddy.
Everyone was about to train, and the official training content couldn't be leaked. Puppy turned to the webcam. "My buddy session needs to be set up too—can't stream during training. I'm ending the stream here. If you like watching me live, remember to follow. OK, I'm logging off. If training finishes early, I'll come back for another two hours."
The stream had only been going for an hour and now he was ending it—fans from every fandom in Puppy's stream immediately wailed. Highlighted messages and donations flooded in. Puppy clicked his tongue. "With all this spam, I can't bear to end. OK, I'll pass along some messages for you..."
Puppy read the highlighted messages in the stream. "Brother Chen, when are you streaming? We want to see you duo with Wa Wa 嘤嘤嘤."
Chen Huo had barely managed to stay in the top 100 of the Chinese server this month. Hearing this, he quickly said, "I didn't agree to that! No duo, and I'm telling you all—can everyone hear me? Wa Wa's little bastard is now sniping us for playoffs, and he's started hiding strats from our team! Ungrateful little shit, I'm never duoing with him again."
Puppy nodded and continued passing along Shi Luo's fans' messages. "Shi Zi, eat well, rest well, smoke less, play well in competitions. I'm going to take the graduate school entrance exam—when I graduate, I'm marrying you."
Shi Luo ignored everything except the first part. "Good luck with the exam."
"Can you hear me? I'll skip that one. Last message for Yu Sui..." Puppy was getting eye strain from the endless stream of highlighted messages, squinting hard. "Yu God, you haven't streamed in so many days. I have a bad feeling. Please go live."
Yu Sui was logging into his game account. "Getting ready for playoffs. No streaming for now."
Puppy was very satisfied with this. "Yes, Whisper does it again—he does it again—he does it again. This year's most brutal schedule hasn't even officially started, and Yu Scumbag is already forgetting about you. But it's fine! You still have me. One last time—hit that follow button. If you want to see them, come to my stream. I'll turn on the webcam for you. OK, my buddy session is here. Bye."
Puppy ended the stream. The moment training officially began in the training room, the curse words from the players instantly skyrocketed. Shi Luo ran hot, so he'd pushed his t-shirt sleeves up to his shoulders. Chen Huo had kicked off his shoes again, grinding through solo queue while cursing up a storm. Zhou Huo wore a look of disbelief and left the training room to handle his own business.
Yu Sui wasn't ending his availability early—regular season play was halfway through. Free's regular season schedule was relatively late, but the later it got, the denser the matches. They had to play every regular season match one by one. Qualify for playoffs, then push for the two World Championship spots in playoffs, still aiming to snipe Holy Sword in Berlin—they really did have their hands full. In the month that followed, aside from Puppy, even Chen Huo barely streamed.
Before they knew it, it was end of the month, and finally the day to face Saint in regular season.
As last season's regional champions, Saint enjoyed many privileges this season. Having their regular season matches almost entirely scheduled at their home arena was one of them. On the day they faced Saint, Free had to wake up ridiculously early again, practically crossing all of Shanghai to reach Saint's arena.
"For real, this season—if nothing else—can we try to win the regional championship?" Chen Huo sat in the car, putting on his neck support pillow, grumbling. "Angel Sword and them have it too easy, right? Playing matches in an arena less than three kilometers from their base every day. No early mornings. All that energy—some of those energetic people probably don't even need to take a car, they could jog over for matches."
Zhou Huo was looking forward to it. "It is nice. Their home arena hosts games regularly. Fans buy tickets to watch—the club keeps the ticket revenue after the league takes its cut. Of course it's good."
"Other arenas hang banners with their team logo for a year." Lao Qiao was envious too. "If we can win a championship this season, they'll have to hang ours too."
Shi Luo finished organizing his peripherals. "If the Wild Oxes hang our banner... that would be nice."
Yu Sui had his eye mask on, but smiled at this. He murmured quietly, "Can you be any more vindictive?"
"Right, whether you're convinced or not, hanging our banner would be fun." Lao Qiao rallied the team. "But let's not think about that. Playing到现在, only we and Saint remain undefeated in regular season. Give it your all today—keep our streak alive. Saint is pretty determined to keep theirs, though. Saint's manager posted on Weibo this morning—as long as they beat us, he's making Angel Sword stream and sing for an hour. Whatever the fans request, he'll sing it. Angel Sword agreed."
Shi Luo froze. "He agreed? Is he insane?"
"Normal, actually. This trend started from our team..." Puppy said slowly. "Ever since I auctioned Yu Sui in my stream, the whole region has gotten a little more... unrestrained. So, any team福利 happening on our end?"
"We... we have one!" Zhou Huo didn't want to lose to Saint's manager. After some thought, he made the call. "If we win, Shi Luo streams with his webcam on for an hour. What do you say, Evil? If you agree, I'll post it on Weibo. We'll intimidate Saint before the match even starts."
Shi Luo was about to refuse, but Yu Sui, who had been pretending to rest, murmured, "If Evil goes live with the webcam... I'll say hello too. Just remembered—I don't think I've ever shown my face in his stream."
Shi Luo swallowed his refusal. "Fine. Post it."