# Chapter 82
Yu Sui moved very quietly. Shi Luo hadn't fallen asleep until five in the morning, so he was sleeping deeply now, with a Bluetooth earphone still in one ear for noise cancellation. He hadn't been startled awake.
Yu Sui glanced at the team jacket tossed by the bed and basically confirmed that it had been Shi Luo who got up in the middle of the night to turn on the central air conditioning.
Training was getting more and more intense. Everyone usually logged off around two or three in the morning, so exhausted they could barely keep their eyes open. To get to sleep faster, everyone had essentially worked out an optimized routine: start undressing as soon as they entered their dorm rooms, toss clothes piece by piece into the laundry basket, take a quick shower, come out and change into pajamas or a t-shirt with sweatpants, walk a couple more steps, and collapse onto the bed with eyes closed.
Shi Luo's laundry basket by the door had his clothes from before bed neatly folded inside. And the clean team jacket on the bed now clearly meant he'd gone out again at some point.
Yu Sui walked over to Shi Luo's bedside, studied him for a moment, then carefully pulled a chair over instead of disturbing the bed, and sat down beside him.
Shi Luo had been worried Yu Sui was cold, so he'd turned the air conditioning up a bit. This room temperature was most comfortable for Yu Sui, but for Shi Luo it was a little too warm.
The excessive heat had flushed Shi Luo's cheeks a rosy red, adding an innocent air that made him look even younger than usual.
He was already young to begin with, yet he took such good care of his boyfriend.
He even remembered to adjust the air conditioning.
Yu Sui, phone in hand, sat in the chair quietly watching Shi Luo, feeling a slight tugging ache in his chest.
Nothing serious, but persistent.
Some emotions between lovers might be contagious. Looking at Shi Luo—his boyfriend who was quite literally too good for him—Yu Sui didn't know how else he could worry about him.
The club had just been assembled this season. The competitions were frequent, the competition fierce, and there was plenty of training content. It was precisely at this time that they'd gotten together.
From the confession until now, they hadn't done any of the normal couple things—going on dates, watching movies—there's been barely any time alone together.
Yu Sui had been trying his best to create more contact opportunities with Shi Luo, but it never felt like enough. Far from enough.
Yu Sui would keep an eye on Shi Luo's mood, slip in whispered words whenever there was an opening, race against the clock to carve out moments alone together, do his best to be a good boyfriend. But thinking about it now...
Though Yu Sui had no dating experience before Shi Luo, he felt like what the two of them had was basically a long-distance relationship.
What a waste, living in the same base.
On the day of the confession, he'd asked Shi Luo's opinion. Shi Luo didn't want to go public, didn't want it to affect their normal training. Yu Sui always let Shi Luo do as he pleased, but at this moment, Yu Sui didn't really want to keep indulging him anymore.
At least on nights when the temperature dropped, they could sleep in the same dorm.
How much could it really affect training?
But he'd still have to ask his little boyfriend's opinion first. Yu Sui turned his phone to silent, leaned back in the chair, and scrolled through his phone, planning to wait until Shi Luo woke up, then gently negotiate with him.
Not even counting the price gouging, even if it were a proper auction, he himself would be listed at over a hundred thousand yuan per hour. His little boyfriend really wasn't fully utilizing him...
What a waste to give such a price away for free, and still play it safe.
As a professional player, playing mobile games was basically like slicing vegetables. Yu Sui crushed the opponent on the other side without using any brain power, but in his peripheral vision, all he could see was Shi Luo.
After playing for a while, Yu Sui closed his eyes and dozed lightly. Checking the time, it was half past eleven.
Probably due to the rainy day, outside the window it was still hazy and dark. The entire base was quiet, with only the pitter-patter of rain audible. Yu Sui's phone vibrated—the Free group was active. Zhou Huo had sent a message.
**[Manager Zhou]:** [You've all worked hard these past days. Since we finally have a good day for sleeping in, training is postponed. Keep resting.]
**[Coach Qiao]:** [The real situation is that the rain's getting heavier, the auntie can't go out to buy groceries, and the vegetables we ordered are stuck on the road and can't be delivered yet. Even if you all woke up, there'd be nothing to eat.]
**[Manager Zhou]:** [...You didn't have to say that. I genuinely thought everyone was tired and could take advantage of the gloomy weather to sleep more. Didn't you also say we could rest?]
**[Manager Zhou]:** [By the way, which angel turned on the air conditioning yesterday? I was half asleep and almost froze to death, then suddenly—"like a sudden spring wind"—I came back to life.]
**[Coach Qiao]:** [They're all still asleep. We can ask tonight. I'm going back to bed too...]
**[Manager Zhou]:** [Sleep sleep sleep. @everyone, there's no breakfast today. Order your own delivery when you wake up. The team will reimburse it.]
This was exactly what Yu Sui had wanted.
Yu Sui waited another quarter of an hour, but Shi Luo showed no signs of waking.
Yu Sui picked up the phone Shi Luo had left on the bedside table. The lock screen showed a music player, paused.
Remembering that string of garbled audio from last night, a slight smile tugged at the corner of Yu Sui's mouth.
Switching songs didn't require unlocking the phone.
Shi Luo wasn't a very still sleeper—one earphone had rolled to the edge of the pillow. Yu Sui picked it up, put it in his own ear, and used Shi Luo's phone to keep switching songs. After switching through a good forty or so tracks, the garbled audio finally appeared.
Yu Sui hit play and suppressed a smile, waiting for Shi Luo to wake up.
Looking at Shi Luo's lock screen, Yu Sui was surprised to see that this garbled audio was twenty-six minutes long.
Yu Sui chuckled. Shi Luo's stamina was impressive.
The garbled audio had slightly heavy static noise, with low rustling sounds for the first half minute.
Half a minute in, there was a click in the audio, like someone connecting to a microphone.
Yu Sui had no interest in the synthetically generated dirty talk about himself. Just as he was about to pull off the earphone to watch Shi Luo's reaction, he suddenly froze.
"Hey? Can you hear me?"
"...My voice doesn't sound like a kid's? I... I went through voice change early."
"I... I... Yeah, I'm playing behind my parents' backs."
"I watched your stream. You're Shi Luo, right?"
"Shi-ge, carry me."
"I'm not very good with the Medic. Really. Really. Really... Tsk, why don't you believe me?"
The smile on Yu Sui's face slowly faded.
That was indeed his own voice in the earphones, but it wasn't some合成喘息.
This definitely couldn't be fan-edited.
Some of these words were voice messages he'd originally sent to Shi Luo—there was no way fans could have gotten them.
The audio was long and still playing. In it was nothing but Yu Sui rambling on and on.
"Shh..."
"My voice is too quiet? I-I my parents are right next to me, I can't answer a voice call."
"Shi-ge, are we playing tonight? I skipped class."
"I specifically skipped class for you. They docked a lot of my money. If you don't show up I'll be at a total loss. Reply to my message when you see it."
"Your school doesn't fine you for skipping? Oh, our school's insane. Yeah, they're all bastards. Ten minutes late costs twenty thousand."
"I'm not lying..."
"I'd lie to anyone but you, really."
"I... really, I kind of regret it."
Shi Luo had slept too late; there were still no signs of him waking. At this point, Yu Sui didn't want him to wake up anymore. Yu Sui took a deep breath, quickly lowered the volume, and kept listening.
"Luo-ge, let's make a deal... I'll play really well today and carry you. The reward is that you promise me, no matter what happens later, we won't get angry, okay?"
"There's nothing to it. Just promise me first."
"Remember. You promised it yourself."
"Come on, hit start."
Yu Sui remembered now. These were the things he'd said to Shi Luo before he confessed.
Listening back now, it was absolutely ridiculous.
The audio kept playing, sounding like it was after the confession.
"Sorry, I lied."
"I'm a professional player."
"You've heard of FS Club, right?"
"Sorry, I don't know how it turned out like this."
"Luo Luo, I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
The audio had only played for less than three minutes and wasn't finished yet. The voices gradually faded out, leaving only simple static. Yu Sui exhaled with difficulty.
Recalling the backend records he'd seen last night, this audio clip had been played 999+ times.
It had taken him a while to find this audio, which meant Shi Luo hadn't listened to it recently. So where did the 999+ plays come from? It was obvious.
During Yu Sui's two years at Divine Sword, he'd been following Shi Luo's updates. He'd watched basically all of Shi Luo's matches, if not every single one.
Before matches started, after matches ended, when Shi Luo occasionally looked like he was in a bad mood, whenever the camera swept by, Shi Luo was usually wearing earphones.
Whether he was listening to this specific audio was impossible to confirm, but those 999+ plays didn't accumulate out of nowhere.
When Yu Sui had first returned to China, the first time he'd run into Shi Luo was in the waiting area of the competition venue hallway.
Shi Luo had been wearing earphones at that time.
A few more times after that, whenever Shi Luo's emotions ran high, he'd usually put on his earphones afterward.
Yu Sui had noticed it a couple times back then, but since he hadn't caught it happening again and Shi Luo didn't have this habit anymore, he'd completely forgotten about it.
The audio was still playing. After a stretch of white noise, Yu Sui's voice came through again. In this twenty-six minute audio, the last twenty minutes were entirely Yu Sui repeating the same sentence over and over:
"You promised me, no matter what happens later, we won't get angry, okay?"
"You promised me, no matter what happens later, we won't get angry, okay?"
"You promised me, no matter what happens later, we won't get angry, okay?"
...
Yu Sui pulled off the earphones. His throat was completely blocked.
It was only now, in hindsight, that the case finally cracked open. He understood why Shi Luo always had to wear earphones.
Young Master Shi wasn't actually without a temper.
He'd listened to those apologies thousands of times before finally making it through those entire two years.
On the bed, Shi Luo's brow furrowed. He was on the verge of waking.
His eyes opened a crack. Outside the window it was pitch black—he couldn't tell what time it was. Shi Luo rubbed his eyes, and before he could even reach for his phone to check the time, he was pulled into someone's embrace.
Shi Luo snapped awake, bewildered. "You—how did you—"
He felt Yu Sui holding him very tightly. He heard Yu Sui say near his ear, "...I'm cold. I came over here to warm up."
Shi Luo was about to say that with this temperature he couldn't possibly be cold, but sensing that Yu Sui's voice did sound a bit off, he frowned and said quietly, "Really cold? Do you need medicine?"
Shi Luo couldn't feel even a trace of coldness from Yu Sui's body. Being held like this, he actually felt a bit flustered. Before Shi Luo could ask more, Yu Sui said something even more embarrassing:
"Babe, I was originally going to discuss it with you... but now I don't want to discuss it anymore. I'm just telling you—going forward, on days we don't have matches, I'll sleep in your room."
Shi Luo froze. Before he could speak, Yu Sui said quietly again, "I just discovered..."
"You might like having someone around."
How else to explain playing someone else's voice audio that many times?
Shi Luo's instinct was to protect the team and defend Yu Sui. "What if someone sees..."
"I'll handle it." Yu Sui cut him off. "So, you agree?"
Shi Luo stood frozen for a moment, ears slightly red. He said quietly, "...Of course I agree."