# Chapter 79
The momentum Shi Luo had carefully built up was thoroughly shattered by Lao Qiao's imposing presence.
Shi Luo leaned against the wall, exhausted from the deep breath he'd taken, still unable to understand. "What are you doing here?"
Lao Qiao was shocked by Shi Luo's brazen audacity. "Good question—what am I doing here? What could I possibly be doing here?! You've been absent from training for almost half an hour! I wasn't going to tell Zhou Huo to dock your bonus, but you're being this aggressive, turning around and asking me what I'm doing here? I'm checking if you're okay. If nothing's wrong, stop practicing your 'customer service' skills and get to training!"
"Oh." Shi Luo烦躁地挠了挠头发，满脸尴尬，低头道，"抱歉，耳知道了。"
Lao Qiao felt deeply uncomfortable. He stared at Shi Luo, baffled, and barked impatiently, "Go go go—if you're not feeling unwell, go train. What are you even doing…"
Shi Luo closed the door behind him and followed Lao Qiao back to the training room. Yu Sui's station was empty, and Shi Luo glanced over—the streamer had also cut the broadcast. Both Chen Huo and Puppy were doing solo queue with noise-canceling headphones on, having heard nothing from the moment the broadcast started, and obviously had no idea what Yu Sui had been up to. Shi Luo could only look toward Lao Qiao, who glanced at Yu Sui's station and said, "Oh, Zhou Huo just called him away."
Shi Luo nodded, returned to his own station, and also cut his broadcast, heading into solo queue.
Yu Sui had stirred up such a huge wave of controversy, and Zhou Huo naturally couldn't sit still. He immediately called Yu Sui over to ask what he was planning, whether he should clarify anything.
Every word had been his own—none of it he wanted to take back. Yu Sui told Zhou Huo there was no need to clarify or admit to anything.
Since Shi Luo wasn't ready to go public for now, Yu Sui would respect his wishes and had no intention of coming out.
Zhou Huo couldn't wrap his mind around it. "You don't want to go public, yet you're the one stirring up暧昧play for attention—what are you trying to do? Helping me create buzz? Since when have you been so considerate? Isn't creating buzz for the team my job? Why are you stealing my work?"
When the topic of creating buzz came up, Zhou Huo's eyes lit up. "Someone's already edited your voice with Shi Luo's webcam footage into a video and posted it online. The retweet count—wow. I watched that video myself and it's absolutely brilliant. Your voice combined with Evil's little expressions… it's really captivating."
Zhou Huo was thinking several steps ahead. "Are you paving the way for when you eventually go public? Is this all part of your plan?"
Yu Sui smiled faintly. "It's not that deep."
"In truth, I just got carried away. I couldn't stand seeing him unhappy, so I suddenly wanted to say a few more things… to help smooth things over for him." Yu Sui fiddled with his phone as he spoke slowly. "It was originally just a simple thing—I wanted to flip through some old memories with our new fans, but the more I talked, the more I got caught up in it."
Zhou Huo looked Yu Sui up and down, curious. "Got caught up in what?"
Yu Sui paused. After a moment, he said, "Thinking about the past. I feel like I haven't been caring for him enough."
Zhou Huo froze, then burst out laughing. "Haven't been caring enough? How could you possibly not be caring enough? What more could you do for Shi Luo?"
Yu Sui smiled and shook his head, choosing not to continue the conversation. He stood and walked to the training room himself.
From the moment Shi Luo had known him, he'd been deceived and then sold—overall, Shi Luo hadn't had many happy days. How could Yu Sui claim he'd been good to him?
Not caring enough. He'd have to care more from now on.
The next day was the regular season match against Wind Cleave. It was a home game, so there was no need to wake up too early. Everyone got up as usual, took their time with breakfast, and headed to the team's competition venue at a leisurely pace.
Home venue, and the lounge was exclusively for Free. It was larger and brighter than usual. Shi Luo walked into the lounge and immediately settled into the sofa in the corner, putting on his headphones and scrolling through his phone—focused and attentive.
Chen Huo and Puppy went to get their makeup done first. Since it was Wind Cleave Club, there shouldn't be any complications. Zhou Huo hadn't even come with the team today. Yu Sui placed his peripherals bag down to sign in for the team, and when he came back, Shi Luo was still on his phone.
"The tactics were finalized yesterday—what are you still looking at?" Yu Sui sat down next to Shi Luo, teasing. "I'm looking at your screen now."
Shi Luo glanced at the staff members in the lounge, and seeing no outsiders, handed his phone to Yu Sui, unable to resist showing off. "Look… we have this!"
Yu Sui took it and looked, smiling faintly.
He and Shi Luo finally had a CP supertopic.
Shi Luo was happy but couldn't exactly show it openly, so his boasting was pretty low-key. "Though it's not quite as active as the Wa Wa supertopic yet… there's still quite a lot of fans."
"Fans' eyes are really sharp. There's so much even I didn't know that the fans do."
Shi Luo scrolled through Weibo at lightning speed, screenshot after screenshot, and showed them to Yu Sui, whispering, "This photo… this was from a regular season match two years ago. You were caught on camera."
Yu Sui looked closely but didn't quite understand. "I'm holding a figure. So what?"
Shi Luo shifted further into the seat, lowering his voice. "Fans are saying… during that regular season match, one of the peripheral sponsors showed up. They made an appearance before the match to promote their product, and then as a formality, they gave gifts to all the players. It was that figure… for show in front of the cameras. Each player got one, categorized by role. Medic figure, Assault figure, Sniper figure… they were exquisitely made. The sponsor had prepared one for every player, but they missed me."
Yu Sui's brow furrowed slightly. He remembered it now.
At that time, Shi Luo had just joined FS and was still a substitute, with no reputation to speak of. The sponsors didn't even know he existed. When they were preparing gifts, they'd overlooked Shi Luo—he was the only one without a gift.
After the match ended, to follow the promotional activity procedure, the sponsor had to distribute the gifts to each player. When it came to FS's side, things got a bit awkward.
But the awkwardness lasted only a few seconds.
After the sponsor handed Yu Sui the Medic figure, Yu Sui took it, glanced at it without even examining it, and directly slipped it into Shi Luo's peripherals bag.
That exact moment had been perfectly captured by a fan.
At the time, Shi Luo was also a Medic, so giving him the Medic figure wasn't wrong. That move by Yu Sui had earned him high praise from fans for his high EQ. Now, looking back at it, there was a different flavor to it.
It was such a trivial thing from two years ago, Yu Sui himself had almost forgotten it entirely.
Yu Sui watched Shi Luo save that photo. He spoke quietly, "A figure. You're that happy about it?"
"It's not about the figure…" Shi Luo looked up at Yu Sui, his eyes full of satisfaction. He hesitated, then shook his head. "Forget it. If I say more, you'll think I'm trying to make you feel sorry for me again."
Yu Sui said softly, "It's fine. Go ahead."
Shi Luo looked at Yu Sui, and after a while, quietly said, "…Just things like these. Small gifts. Little toys."
He lowered his head and returned to his phone, murmuring, "No one ever thinks of me."
Thinking back on Shi Luo's childhood, Yu Sui took a long moment to digest those words.
"I told you not to ask." Shi Luo stared at his phone, regretting. "This time I really didn't do it on purpose."
Yu Sui reached up and ruffled Shi Luo's hair. "If you see anything else we've forgotten about, remember to show me."
"Show what?" Lao Qiao walked into the lounge. "The match is about to start—no need to review footage! It's Wind Cleave, no need to be this nervous. Just relax and play your game."
Shi Luo, feeling guilty, agreed, put his phone away, and let the staff lead him to makeup.
Wind Cleave had been a relegation-zone team last season, so there really wasn't any need for nerves. Free cleanly swept Wind Cleave 2-0. Including the break time and post-match interviews, they were done in less than an hour and a half.
There were two matches that day. Before Free versus Wind Cleave, at another venue, NSN had played against Saint—the third game was still ongoing when they arrived at the venue, but by the time their match finished, they'd learned the results.
Lao Qiao said, "NSN won."
Shi Luo was surprised. "Wa Wa held on?"
Lao Qiao nodded. "He held on. Especially in the third game—he played really well."
"Incredible." Chen Huo clapped his hands, impressed. "Well done. NSN beat Saint, Saint beat us, and we beat NSN… every team must be wondering how this rock-paper-scissors team managed to beat the third team. From now on, no one better mock anyone else for being bad. Well played, well played…"
"Real ambition you've got!" Lao Qiao swatted the back of Chen Huo's head. "Those two teams at least played a full three games. What about us? We were swept 2-0 by Saint. While you were here steamrolling the competition, those two were going at it hammer and tongs over there. Honestly, while you were playing just now, I wasn't even paying full attention—I had a stream open watching them…"
Yu Sui, while packing up his peripherals, asked, "How did they play?"
"Beautiful. Intense. Way more exciting than your match." Lao Qiao clicked his tongue in admiration. "Old Gu and the others really were hiding a lot from us. Their form today was really on point—completely different from their usual practice match rhythm… We're not reviewing your match today. We're reviewing theirs."
Puppy sighed. "I knew it. I knew you wouldn't review today's match. I was hoping we'd get a break today. Where's the justice? Just when we don't have to review our own, we still have to worry about reviewing theirs."
"Know your enemy." Lao Qiao also knew they'd been doing intensive training the past few days and tried to soothe them. "But we're not going home to eat today. We're treating you all—eating out. Manager Zhou is already waiting at the restaurant. Come on, come on…"
Urged along by Lao Qiao, everyone packed up and walked out with their peripherals bags.
On the way to the parking lot, they encountered fans who'd been waiting after the venue cleared. They'd won at home, and even though it was an easy victory, the fans who'd been there were still buzzing with excitement. They spotted the players from afar and went wild greeting them, many clutching gifts.
Since the old FS days, the players had almost never accepted fan gifts—not even flowers. The team members greeted the fans as usual and were about to leave when Yu Sui glanced back, took a couple steps, and turned around. Amid the fans' screams, he accepted a small Q-version Assault figure plushie from a fan who was holding it.
The fans surrounding Yu Sui burst into laughter, not understanding why Yu Sui would suddenly want a little plushie.
Yu Sui himself felt a bit embarrassed. He smiled at the fan, politely bowed, and turned to walk to the car.
The others were already seated in the vehicle. Puppy glanced at Yu Sui, lazy and listless. "Regressing to childhood?"
Lao Qiao also turned to look, and seeing it was just a plushie, didn't think much of it. "I think I've seen this on Taobao… less than a hundred yuan. It's fine to accept."
Chen Huo disdainfully looked Yu Sui up and down. "How old are you?"
Only Shi Luo, sitting in the back row, said nothing.
Sure enough, the moment Yu Sui got in the car and sat down next to Shi Luo, he tossed the plushie into Shi Luo's arms.
While the others were chatting and not paying attention, Yu Sui was putting his peripherals bag away. He lowered his voice. "…Shi Shen, I haven't accepted a fan gift in five or six years."
But making an exception for you is worth it.
No one else will ever think to get you things like this. But I will.
For your sake, being teased by fans and laughed at by teammates—it's nothing.