Chapter 118
The next day, just before Group A's second round of group stage matches began, the interview video of the Saint team captain was finally discovered by domestic players.
After Shi Luo watched the video, even with the scumbag Yu Sui provoking him beside him, he couldn't swallow his anger.
It was easy to imagine what the domestic players, Free fans, and especially Yu Sui's die-hard fans felt after watching that interview.
The old story of Whisper leading his team to the European region was already a disgrace to their region. During the time when the truth hadn't come out, everyone had blindly trashed Yu Sui for two full years. Later, when the truth about Free's team formation came to light, everyone redirected their fury at Ji Yanhan, completely driving this former esports player out of the scene—cutting him off from everyone in the industry. For almost a year now, he hadn't dared to show his face. The players had finally started to calm down.
Now the Saint team captain suddenly bringing up old grievances reminded everyone that this team wasn't anything special either. Back then, they had taken advantage of the chaos, and while all wealthy commercialized teams would snatch up talented players, everyone could rationally overlook that. But it had been an entire season already—what was the point of specifically dredging up the one thing the Chinese region least wanted to discuss right before a major tournament?
"Whisper's professional career will always have two years marked with our team's logo. He'll never wash that away."
This single sentence cut deep into the hearts of Chinese region players.
During the time when the truth was unknown, players had united to trash Yu Sui for two whole years. Now that guilt was stirred up again, old grudges were hard to put aside. Without any prompting or call to action, the Chinese server players directly climbed the wall and flooded Saint's Twitter,骂完圣剑从头到尾后，要求圣剑队长对余邃道歉。
Saint was certainly not one to back down. They would normally look for trouble and bully people for fun anyway, so with Free fans coming to them, they were even more excited. Within less than two hours, they posted a tweet: [Is a certain region scared?]
Less than half an hour later, another tweet: [We miss the handsome Whisper.]
The attached photo was of Yu Sui wearing the Saint team uniform during a match.
With the Saint team officially stepping in, the conflict instantly escalated.
Chinese server players were恨不得活撕了这个不要脸的战队，攻陷推特的国服玩家瞬间又升了一个量级。
As for the EU server players, being the hosts for this event, they weren't about to take the骂 lying down either. Saint's fans, considering themselves the defending champions, were arrogant and looked down on the Chinese region that had been declining for two full years. The champions couldn't tolerate any provocation from a bunch of nobodies, so they反击得也很快。On the international platform, the two sides went at each other relentlessly. Within just a few hours, both sides' families were爆炸and ashes were scattered everywhere. After less than an hour of stalemate,胜负初显——The outcome was obvious without saying—
When it came to压倒性人数this tactic that had existed since the dawn of the internet, the Chinese region had never tasted defeat in any field.
While Chinese server players were attacking externally, they didn't forget to安抚 internally. They even coined a slogan and刷屏 in unison under the two teams' Weibo accounts: [Free and NSN players, please disconnect and focus on your matches. We'll handle all the trash-talking on international platforms.]
Players were all going after Saint, which inadvertently rescued NSN. NSN had lost a game in the previous group stage round and wasn't guaranteed to advance. Domestically, there had been haters骂他们打得菜, blaming them for wasting the world championship slot, but now nobody had the energy or mood to骂NSN anymore. Everyone's firepower was directed outward. Anyone who dared to keep trash-talking NSN would be cursed out by domestic players.
During this special period, as long as NSN hadn't been eliminated for one more day, they still had免喷牌. During the world championship, domestic front was quiet across the board. Anyone who tried to mess with their own people's mentality during this time got crushed.
When the NSN club owner saw that Chinese server players had stopped骂his team, he was overjoyed. The storm had passed, the rain had stopped, and he felt invincible again. Resentful about Saint having targeted their team medic before, he suddenly hopped onto Twitter to骂, taking advantage of the group stage format where they weren't in the same group so nobody could actually fight them. He cursed out Saint caught them completely off guard.
Saint had accumulated too many sins, so at first they didn't understand why NSN was attacking them—but being骂led, they certainly骂led back. And thus, NSN officially stepped into the fray as well.
In the rest room decorated with Free's logo inside the competition venue, Zhou Huo stared at the battlefield strewn with残肢on the international platform, dumbfounded.
Their team's fourth game of group stage, a BO1, was less than an hour away. Zhou Huo didn't dare tell the players, but Puppy happened to glance at his phone, saw a push notification, and instantly found out.
Chen Huo sat closest to Puppy, so he saw it too. At this point, there was no hiding it.
Zhou Huo, worried the guys might be affected, forced a laugh. "So, uh... this is nothing, right? The fans are just having some fun. Pretend you didn't see it. It's fine, don't look at your phones anymore. Alright, alright, everyone rest up. You'll be going on stage soon."
None of the four players listened to Zhou Huo. They all pulled out their phones.
Zhou Huo磨刀霍霍 wanting to cut up Saint, his heart pounding as he watched the players, especially Shi Luo, terrified that he'd be affected by Saint's last tweet.
Never mind Shi Luo—even Zhou Huo himself felt his chest ache for half an hour just looking at that photo of Yu Sui in the Saint uniform.
But to Zhou Huo's surprise, Shi Luo's expression didn't change at all.
Zhou Huo小心翼翼地看着时洛，轻声道，"你……没事吧？"
"没事。" Shi Luo scrolled through the comments under Saint's Twitter and commented objectively, "The fight's pretty intense. We've got the numbers, but unfortunately our English is also pretty bad. A lot of guys just went on there typing in pinyin to骂... Enough flash, but lacking in substance."
Zhou Huo saw that Shi Luo wasn't affected and felt relieved. He quickly suppressed a smile and comforted him, "It's fine, the foreign devils don't need to understand anyway. They know we're骂ing them."
Old Qiao, however, wore an unhappy expression. He冷笑道，"In previous years, we wouldn't start the trash-talking and mind games until the finals. This year is really something—group stage isn't even finished yet, and a team from Group D is浪到我们头上来了。What does he have to do with us? They might not even be able to meet us! Who are they trying to恶心?"
"I also haven't been in a match this intense during group stage in a long time," Puppy目瞪口呆said, "Damn, everyone's acting like they've already secured a spot in the finals. What I don't understand most is NSN. What the hell are they suddenly cursing for?"
"What else, they're afraid we'd lose，帮我们凑人头啊！" Chen Huo was texting with Angel Sword on WeChat. Since everyone already knew, and the next opponent was a weak team they wouldn't lose to anyway, there was no point hiding it before the match. Chen Huo couldn't hold it in anymore and said, "You guys search for Saint. Their official Twitter had already started the fight last night—they posted several tweets, all in Chinese, English, and German."
Shi Luo wasn't familiar with the app and was searching slowly. After Yu Sui glanced at it and confirmed there was nothing harmful, he didn't let Shi Luo keep searching. He simply handed his phone to Shi Luo.
Shi Luo took the phone.
Saint's entire club, from top to bottom, inside and out, gave Shi Luo the impression of angels.
Ever since Saint was eliminated from world championship contention, they had proactively served as free practice partners for both Free and NSN. Every day, regardless of the time, they were on call despite the time difference.
It had nothing to do with them who won the championship, but Saint was willing to help anyway. Saint's manager had a very mild temperament. Before this, he had kindly offered Zhou Huo that if Free was too busy, they could help analyze practice match footage—just so Free could save some time during reviews.
It was this mild-mannered manager,难得的, who had finally snapped. He went onto Twitter himself and, using their official account that didn't have many followers, seriously, formally, and thoroughly cursed out Saint.
Saint's first official tweet recounted the details of how Saint had trolled Angel Sword during the practice match Saint had scheduled at the start of the season, furiously accusing Saint of not following practice match rules, of malicious gameplay, and of attempting to sabotage their player's mentality.
Their second tweet posted the detailed kill statistics from that practice match—evidence was solid.
The third tweet stopped attacking Saint and directly gave the rest of their region's teams a well-deserved compliment:
"At the start of the season, the Saint team first selected our team, last season's champions, for practice training. After an extremely unpleasant practice match, out of a sense of shared brotherhood, we truthfully informed our fellow teams about Saint's unsportsmanlike gameplay during the practice match, and offered the suggestion to politely decline Saint's practice match invitations."
"Under these circumstances, all eleven other brother teams still accepted Saint's training invitation without exception."
"All brother teams, without the knowledge of the general player base, have done their best to uphold the region's honor. The dozens of players across twelve teams, though defeated, are beyond reproach."
"This region has never feared the Saint team. We didn't before, and we certainly won't in the future."
"We hope all players in this region can unite against external enemies, accept all outcomes, trust the two strongest teams of this season, and face victory or defeat with composure."
"Looking forward to good news from our two brother teams. That's all."