# Chapter 121
With the Holy Sword captain's provocation ahead and Shi Luo's comeback after the match, the friction between Free and Holy Sword was officially brought to the forefront.
Even the in-game notifications about the World Championship featured content related to both teams, letting players evaluate their performances at this tournament.
Holy Sword hadn't even finished group stage, so it was hard to evaluate their performance, but comparing the trash talk from the two teams' soul figures—
The Holy Sword captain stated they'd come here just to play that one finals match, while Shi Luo declared he wouldn't lose a single match before the World Championship ended. The comparison made it clear—Shi Luo's words were fiercer.
The Holy Sword captain was simply reserving a spot in the finals for himself, while the fearless cub Shi Luo was prematurely crowning himself king.
"Ah, they're both absolutely ruthless... I'm worried Shi Luo will casually grab the trophy after today's interview, and then the organizers will call the police saying we stole it... Seriously, based on how he carried himself in that interview, he really could pull something like that."
Puppy, that money-making genius, after the team went to dinner following group stage advancement and returned to the hotel, started a livestream while his hair was still wet, before the group review session began.
Puppy borrowed a phone stand from one of the girls on the team staff and set it up in the hotel training room. Wiping his hair, he analyzed the situation for fans: "You guys know, with trash talk at this level, what if both our team and Holy Sword get eliminated in the quarterfinals and sent home... Man, that画面不敢想，不敢想."
The livestream chat exploded with people calling Puppy a jinx. Puppy helplessly replied, "There are wins and losses in every match. Us getting eliminated in group stage isn't impossible. Out of sixteen teams here, at most one becomes champion. Do the other fifteen just stop living? We still have to live... This isn't impossible."
As he spoke, Yu Sui and Chen Huo also entered the training room. Seeing Puppy was livestreaming, Yu Sui walked around the camera and sat to the side playing on his phone. Puppy deliberately angled his phone toward Yu Sui to show fans while continuing his monologue, "It's not impossible for both of us to get knocked out in quarterfinals. We're Group A's first seed, so we won't face Holy Sword in quarterfinals. We don't know who we'll draw. The situation is, if we don't get placed in the same bracket during quarterfinals seeding, we won't even meet them until semifinals. Maybe our dreams will lead us both to die in quarterfinals... What? You're asking if Holy Sword is group first seed? Well obviously."
"So we won't face Holy Sword for at least half a month. We'll just have to trade insults from afar." Puppy squinted at the chat and read aloud, "D-o-y-o-u-r-e-g-r-e-t-t-i-n-g-t-h-e-t-r-a-s-h-t-a-l-k..."
Puppy scoffed. "What's wrong with talking trash? Holy Sword can spit in our faces with their输出, and we can't fight back? Please have some sympathy for your Luo-ge. Really, if he weren't still active and needing to play the rest of the season, today might not have been just trash talk."
Yu Sui's eyes stayed on his phone as he suddenly said, "Mind your wording."
"I know, I know, we didn't actually throw hands." Puppy continued reading chat messages to his phone. "I know you all mean well, worried we'll get embarrassed later, don't want us talking too much. But there's really no need—we're not scared, why should you be? Your Luo-ge isn't scared either. Think about it—when has he ever actually gotten angry at trolls? Think back. Isn't it always related to a certain playboy? When trolls flame Shi Luo himself, he doesn't care. Stop being so protective."
Chen Huo was still recovering from Shi Luo's fierce remarks and couldn't help pounding the table beside him. "Seriously, don't bother trying to talk us down. We don't usually do this, but this time they definitely started it. I'm really impressed—we weren't even going to trash talk them, but they came at us first, so I don't have any nice words left. See you in the finals."
Puppy laughed at the chat. "Actually, everyone thinks this way, it's just that only Evil dares to say it. Why didn't we say anything before..."
Puppy gave a self-deprecating smile. "...We were educated by the trolls. We learned to be good."
"It's not that I'm scared of trolls. I just got tired of the hassle after running into trouble a few times. Every time you say something, they keep asking the same questions and dragging up old stuff over and over. Annoying..." Puppy finished drying his hair and tossed the towel aside. "Honestly, I admire Shi Luo for this. I've played a few more years than him, but I really can't compare on this point."
"He's the kind of player who can't be intimidated or taught to behave." Chen Huo was also playing on his phone to the side, saying, "Believe me or not? Even if we lose in quarterfinals this time, your Shi Shen will still fire back at anyone who dares provoke him in future interviews. That's just his personality... Trolls can't teach him a lesson. It's useless."
The person in question wasn't present, so Puppy and Chen Huo难得 said a few nice words about Shi Luo.
Puppy himself felt牙酸 (sour), so he适时 wrapped up the topic. The chat was flooded with messages about Yu Sui, asking him to speak up. Puppy couldn't resist and called out to Yu Sui. After several shouted attempts, Yu Sui still didn't look up from his phone. "Busy."
Puppy mischievous expanded the camera angle, letting viewers see Yu Sui more clearly. "Busy with what? Who are you texting?"
"The China Regional coordinator." Yu Sui's tone was calm. "Zhou Huo just couldn't eat dinner earlier, was restless, and suddenly decided to contact the China Regional coordinator to arrange our quarterfinals victory press materials in advance. Demanding and insistent, worried they might do a sloppy job rushing it last minute."
Puppy was shocked. "He already booked us a quarterfinals victory? Did they actually do it?"
"No." Yu Sui lifted his phone to show Puppy. "The regional coordinator contacted me. I told them that Zhou Huo has been a bit cursed lately, just ignore him."
"Tsk, Shi Shen harms people indeed. He's too far gone." Puppy saw the chat flooding with messages about Yu Sui, so for the engagement, he started talking about Yu Sui and Shi Luo.
"Are Yu Sui and Shi Luo good together? Obviously yes..." Puppy smiled. "Hey, any girlfriend fans or boyfriend fans here? Not jealous, right? If not jealous, I'll tell you about those two."
The chat uniformly said they weren't jealous, with a few scattered messages saying they were jealous telling Puppy to shut up, but those quickly got buried.
"That certain playboy... Really, it surprised me. Both Chen Huo and I really didn't expect that after he started dating, he'd be this devoted to his partner."
Puppy glanced back at Yu Sui. Seeing Yu Sui wasn't about to beat him up, he turned back to continue. "Before our first group match, our training hours were too long. We didn't get enough sleep, couldn't rest too much. Especially those two fraggers—fraggers can't afford to rest. Once you懈怠, your feel for the game disappears. There's no way you'd carefully sleep well before a match, that would really ruin you. Before a match, you still have to train at high intensity. Then on group stage day, everyone was sleepy. Evil was the sleepiest."
"Let me show you what our player lounge looks like."
Puppy grabbed a tablet and found a picture to show fans. "See? Just two sofas—two long couches—and then lots of chairs. Generally, players sit on this side's sofa because you can lean back and rest, catch some sleep. The staff just pull up chairs to sit wherever. That means the four of us share two long sofas, two people per sofa."
Puppy put down the tablet. "But... Your Shi Shen, because he was so sleepy, someone pushed him onto the sofa for a nap, taking up an entire sofa. Guess where the person who should have been on that other sofa ended up?"
The chat was flooding with answers about Yu Sui taking the other sofa too. Puppy smiled. "Yu Shen isn't that ruthless... On the other side were me two. Your Yu Shen was sitting on the armrest of Shi Luo's sleeping sofa. His frequently-worn down jacket was still draped over Shi Shen. Oh, and you guys don't know this, right? Your Yu Shen's long down jacket, the roomy one—he bought it when we left the country... Basically he bought it for Shi Luo. Wasn't it over forty thousand? What could you do with forty thousand yuan? Going abroad, that ridiculously expensive down jacket is always just your Shi Shen's blanket."
Puppy sighed. "Really... Are there girls here? Listen to me. In the future, when you date, find someone like this. Let me check if Yu Sui has any older or younger brothers... Yu Shen? Yu Shen... Yu Sui!"
The fans nearly exploded the chat with excitement. Yu Sui was beside them playing on his phone, listening to Puppy's gossip session. When Puppy finally yelled at him, Yu Sui lazily said, "No. Only child."
Puppy spread his hands. "Then there's nothing we can do. He's an only child. All the family fortune will be his. Damn."
Yu Sui looked up. "Are you freaking kidding me... This is your own livestream. Talking about me all the time. Appropriate?"
"Okay okay, I'll stop talking about you." Puppy grinned. "I'll talk about Evil. Man, Shi Shen is always the last to arrive. I can only gossip about whoever's not here... No need to be jealous of Shi Shen. Finding someone like him isn't bad either. Even though he's younger, he really knows how to take care of people."
"It's what happened during today's match... Actually, it's Yu Sui's own fault. When we were heading to the venue, he couldn't find his thermos. So he couldn't bring hot water."
Puppy squinted at the chat. "Why not drink the hot water at the venue..."
Puppy helplessly explained, "We usually don't drink water from outside sources... Especially not at opponents' venues. Doesn't matter, I'll continue. Since there was no thermos, we were fine, we could drink cold water. But that certain playboy's stomach... He can't drink cold. During this cold winter, drinking it would basically ruin him."
"When we were leaving and couldn't find the thermos, Yu Sui said it was fine, just one afternoon. He'd rather not drink than let Zhou Huo make a big deal out of it and disrupt everyone's mood. So nobody mentioned it again." Puppy raised his eyebrows. "Then at the venue, I saw... Your Shi Zi."
Puppy酸溜溜 described, "At the venue, after we'd all signed in, sat down to rest and prepare for on-stage rehearsal, your Shi Zi..."
Puppy gestured. "Only then did he unzip his thick jacket and pull out a regular plastic water bottle from inside his clothes and give it to Yu Sui."
"That was hot water he'd brought from the hotel. Since he had no thermos, he'd poured it into a regular plastic bottle. Afraid it would get cold, he'd kept it against his chest, wrapped in his jacket... Neither Yu Sui nor any of us knew he'd brought hot water." Puppy glanced back at Yu Sui. "Just so this playboy could have some hot water, Shi Luo was like those school boys who secretly bring hot water for their girlfriend during her period."
"Worried he'd be thirsty. And worried he'd be cold. This f*cking..."
Puppy got worked up as he said it. "Sh*t! I'm ending the stream. The more I think about it, the more jealous I get."