FOG [e-sports]

Zhou Huo was now “one of their own”. He knew that there had been some conflict between them and the Bison Team two years ago, but he didn’t know the details. Zhou Huo was very sensitive to this fact. He warned them repeatedly that under his management of the team, there can be no incident of violence.

“A new team, a new season, a new aura.” On the way to the Bison Team’s home stadium, Zhou Huo tried his hardest to rouse everyone’s enthusiasm. “I’m not asking you to outperform yourselves, but you must display your strength and let everyone see. Understand?!”

The four internet addicted teenagers, except for Yu Sui, were all immersed in playing with their phones. None of them were roused.

The only one who wasn’t playing on his phone, had his eyes closed instead, trying to make up for lost sleep.

Zhou Huo sighed. “Forget it, all of you should already know what you need to do anyway.”

Only Old Qiao was still idle, and Zhou Huo was left with no one to chat with but Old Qiao. “What’s the friction between you guys and Bison exactly? Why’s the relationship been you two so subtle?”

“That’s not called friction.” Old Qiao said sadly, “That’s a blood feud. It was something that happened when Violent Shu was still just a brat who played as a sub. Do you really want to hear it?”

Of course, Zhou Huo wanted to hear about it.

Old Qiao patted his stomach and slowly narrated the tale. These people had already dismissed this matter from their minds but as Old Qiao began to recount the story, the expression on their faces began to change until they could practically compete with each other on who had the worst expression on. When Shi Luo heard the part about Yu Sui entering the hospital, the expression on his face had darkened completely.

Zhou Huo looked carefully at everyone and regretfully asked, “Should I...have not asked at this time?”

“Too late now.” Chen Huo rubbed his wrist. “It’s been a few years since I’ve last seen him. I don’t know if my old friend’s been doing well...”

Shi Luo said coldly, “Won’t you be seeing him in a little bit?”

Zhou Huo made a face palm. “Why am I such a big gossip...”

Half an hour later, they arrived at the venue. There were too many fans on the scene and the driver didn’t dare stop in the midst of them. He drove directly into venue’s underground parking lot.

Everyone went directly from the underground parking lot to the backstage lounge. Zhou Huo stared intently at Shi Luo and Chen Huo, lest someone take advantage of a lapse in his attention and go bounding off to Team Bison’s lounge. Fortunately, the waiting time during regular season games was pretty short. After less than an hour of waiting in the lounge, the match started.

This was the first time Team Free would be participating in an official competition, and there wasn’t a single empty seat in the stadium.

It wasn’t only the fans who were enthusiastically watching this game. As expected, all the other first league teams apart from Team Bison were also paying close attention to this match.

While testing out their equipment before the game, Chen Huo, laughingly said while testing out his mic, “Guess. Do you think all the other teams are watching the match’s broadcast in their bases?”

Puppy smiled. “I don’t wanna be too shameless but I’m guessing...yeah, they probably all are.”

Chen Huo raised an eyebrow and said, “I don’t know what they’re saying about me, but they should all be cheering for us, right? Aiya, now I’m thinking twice about going all out. I might expose too much of our tactics. Maybe I’m just gonna play this easy.”

“Don’t be too optimistic.” Shi Luo said coldly, “All the teams are competing for a spot in the playoffs. Why should they cheer for you? And who knows? Maybe Ji Yanhan’s also watching the broadcast. Waiting for us to make a fool of ourselves.”

Once Ji Yanhan was brought up, everyone lost their weariness. Chen Huo was instantly filled with fighting spirit. “Let’s give them a good fight! We have to play our best! For old scores and new grievances!”

Puppy stopped himself from laughing. He sighed, “Shi Luo, I like your way of encouraging your teammates.”

Puppy tested his equipment and leaned against his gaming chair. “Captain, aren’t you going to say a few words? It’s tradition for the captain to issue a three-thousand word manifesto before the first game of the regular season, right?”

Yu Sui moved his mic. “Thanks. There’s not a lot to be said.”

“You should at least go through the motions of it.” Puppy looked into the glass soundproof room on the right side of the stadium. “Look at Team Bison over there. Violent Shu looks like he’s pretty fired up. He’s definitely trying to raise his team’s spirits. You should say something too.”

Yu Sui took a light breath and he did things very perfunctorily. “Let’s have a good fight.”

Puppy snorted. “Add a few more sentences! How many years has it been already? You always do a half-assed job of this.”

Yu Sui was helpless. “OK...”

Yu Sui looked at the computer screen and after a moment, he said, “Our team is still too new. The team itself has no results. We’ve just gotten here by playing through the qualifiers. Right now, in the eyes of other clubs in the league, we’re just a disruptor. If we want them to show us some respect, there’s only one way and that’s to win.”

“Up to now, there are still some old FS fans who blame us for eliminating FS’ chance to be promoted back. They think we snatched FS’ spot in the league.” Yu Sui swept his eyes around the stadium. “We have always used only one way to deal with these slanderous rumors. We let our results do the talking.”

“We’ll let the match results show this place, this season and this entire league that Free belongs here.”

Shi Luo froze and couldn’t help turning to look at Yu Sui.

Chen Huo murmured. “Whisper is Whisper. Every time, you...”

“Did you get all that?” Yu Sui instantly relaxed. He adjusted his microphone, and asked, “Later, if you’re going to make our team do a promo vid for the season, you can edit that just now.”

The referee who was monitoring their team chat for the match, said into their team chat. “It’s been recorded.”

Yu Sui felt relieved. “My mission has been completed.”

Chen Huo rolled his eyes. “And here I f*cking thought you were really trying to boost our morale.”

After a few words, the referee signaled that the game was about to begin. Everyone settled down and the game began.

As soon as the countdown for the match finished, the four of them seemed to move as one. They put away their joking expressions and immediately rushed out of their resurrection stone.

From the four Free Team members’ perspective, Bison’s half of the map was shrouded in dense fog. They couldn’t see anything.

Chen Huo and Yu Sui, moved together as a unit and quickly went to the two teams’ common boundary on the map. Shi Luo went off alone to secretly clear out a path on the west side of the map. As the sniper, Puppy was the only character with a scope. He temporarily stayed towards the back, using his scope to report on the enemy’s situation and using his shots as the situation calls for it.

Bison always opens their games with the two strikers and medic rushing to the front line. Whether they would do the same this time was uncertain. Puppy hurriedly reminded, “Chen Huo, quickly clear the fog. There’s a big possibility that there would be three people coming. I can’t see it clearly over here.”

Chen Huo went to put down the purification dish at the junction of the map. He was a natural bait at this moment. Sure enough, in the middle of the animation of putting down the dish, shots were fired from the dense fog. Yu Sui had been waiting for this moment. Judging the location by gunshots, a dagger suddenly appeared behind the bunker and came striking down. Chen Huo took advantage of this half a second to successfully put down the purification dish. He got up and opened fire. The two of them worked together to take down one of Bison’s strikers. The head count went to Yu Sui.

Bison’s other striker was also beaten to half-blood. They quickly backed away and hid behind a bunker. Over by the other side, Puppy said, “Shi Luo, if you don’t leave now, they’re gonna find you. Don’t try to sneak around anymore. Go look for Yu Sui and Chen Huo.”

In order to make the most of their time, since running out of the resurrection stone, Shi Luo hadn’t met up with Yu Sui. Right now, he didn’t have any shield or any sort of stat boosts. He also wasn’t overly greedy. After hearing what Puppy said, he didn’t wait for the next purification dish to be placed successfully and quickly went to find Yu Sui. “Give me a shield.”

Yu Sui mended his own and Chen Huo’s health and then gave Shi Luo a shield. The three of them hid behind the bunker and quietly waited.

The rustling of the grass at the common boundary of the map became more and more obvious. Shi Luo and Chen Huo came out of the bunker at the same exact time and opened fire, collecting the head of Bison Team’s other striker.

“Okay, let’s clear the fog.” Puppy was relieved. “Both strikers are gone. They’re not gonna dare show their faces for the next half minute.”

Chen Huo continued to clear the front of the poisonous fog and attract firepower, while Shi Luo returned to the left side of the map to clear the path.

This was a tactic they used a lot in the past. Taking full advantage of the players’ excellent skills, one striker and the medic would be used to fight against the opponent’s strikers and medic. While their other striker goes another way to secretly create a small path, placing their opponents in straitened circumstances.

Bison also has a sniper monitoring the field, and naturally it won’t take long for him to discover Shi Luo’s movements, but as long as Yu Sui and Chen Huo can rain down firepower on the front line, they won’t be able to break off and deal with Shi Luo. Otherwise, it would only take a moment for Yu Sui and Chen Huo to open a breach at the front of the map and directly wipe them out.

From behind, Puppy kept an eye on the opponents’ movements while covertly letting out some shots. He couldn’t help ridiculing, “I think Violent Shu’s on the verge of mental collapse. It’s three of them against two of you. It’s a major embarrassment.”

Violent Shu’s mentality really had collapsed. After the three of them gradually began to lose against Yu Sui and Chen Huo, they had one of the strikers, sneakily break away.

Yu Sui noticed that the footsteps behind the fog didn’t seem quite right. “There seems to be one less person on the opposite side. Shi Luo, be careful of any incoming guests.”

While clearing out the poisonous fog by himself, Shi Luo whispered, “I heard you.”

Shi Luo took his time. He didn’t rush. As much as possible, he kept behind the bunker, laying down the purifying dishes. The purified areas overlapped but he didn’t feel distressed about the waste of purifying dishes. He moved steadily and surely; all the while making sure that he didn’t expose his position behind the bunker. Even when the Bison striker approached, he didn’t rush. He immediately held off, keeping completely still, waiting for the other party to move.

Shi Luo and the Bison striker kept watch on each other for nearly a minute. It was Bison’s striker who gave in first. He turned sideways to open fire but the moment he did so, Puppy, who’d been staring at him the whole entire time, fired a shot and directly took his head.

“Nice.” Puppy sighed, “Shi Luo, so steady. I was almost stuck in this position.”

Shi Luo didn’t say anything back. It has been twelve minutes since the game started and Free had yet to give up a single head while Bison had already lost five in a row. They basically had no way of turning this game around.

After twenty-two minutes, Free successfully won the game.

The start had gone off very smoothly. Everyone, including Zhou Huo and Old Qiao backstage, breathed out a sigh of relief. For the next match, everyone was a lot more relaxed. Shi Luo relied on his superior skills and mastery of them to begin venting his personal spite. Throughout the whole game, he targeted Violent Shu. Chen Huo and Puppy followed along. While saying stuff like “Aiya, this won’t do. Won’t do at all.” in the team chat, they were still adding in their own strikes. After the game, the match statistics showed that Violent Shu had died a total of fifteen times.

In the opener of the regular season, Free won over the Bison team so thoroughly, they couldn’t even get angry over it.

“Crushed. Completely and utterly crushed.”

On the way back to the base, Zhou Huo breathed a sigh of relief, looking through the post-match data analysis with joy. “Aiya, why are they all praising us like this? Is it really that much of a surprise? Given our team configuration, shouldn’t it be expected that we’d easily be able to press Bison’s faces and rub it against the ground?”

Old Qiao was quick to pour cold water all over his enthusiasm. “Don’t be so pleased with yourself. You can’t really consider Bison as a first rate team.”

“I know, I know. I’m just happy we played so beautifully in our inaugural fight.” Zhou Huo was very pleased and praised Shi Luo in passing. “Evil, you’ve really grown up. To tell you the truth, we had been preparing for the worst today. We already had an emergency public relations plan in place to counter unexpected incidents that might have happened today. Say, like if you and Violent Shu had gotten into a fistfight backstage...”

Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo and said, gratified, “Thank goodness, our son Luo is very sensible and didn’t force me to put this plan into action.”

Shi Luo was dumbfounded. Everyone was now an adult. How could things possibly dissolve into a fistfight?

But Shi Luo kind of wanted to know Zhou Huo’s plan and asked, “If I really had gotten into a fight with him, what would you have done?”

“What would I have done? You still want to try?” Zhou Huo closed the folder and warned coldly, “We would have contacted a feelings mediation talk show and have you and Violent Shu sign up for it. Then we would have handed over the both of you to the recording of the show. You would have been subjected to the passionate mediation of those old uncles. They would have made you cry, shake hands and make peace.”

Shi Luo: “...”

Zhou Huo finished his short rant. Everyone in the nanny car stopped playing with their phones.

Chen Huo sighed, “The money Yu Sui spent to hire you was not spent in vain.”

“Manager Zhou really is professional.” Puppy gasped in amazement and slowly applauded. “Isn’t this a bit too cruel? How much animosity...but I’m unexpectedly looking forward to this thing.”

Old Qiao said quietly. “I am also looking forward to it. It’s kinda embarrassing but what the heck. To tell you the truth, I love watching these kinds of shows. Silver Medal Counselor? Emotional Aid?...They’re actually fun to watch.”

Chen Huo imagined Shi Luo and Violent Shu getting into that kind of program together and exclaimed in admiration. “The ratings for that show would explode! Everyone in the league would tune in!”

They were nearly dying from holding back their laughter. Only Yu Sui, who practically never watched any TV and also never watched any domestic TV programs, was still completely clueless.

Yu Sui asked, at a loss, “What mediation? What program?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you!” Chen Huo was radiant with delight. He explained such and such. “It’s a program where both sides express their own feelings and opinions. Afterwards, they would tearfully recount how they’ve had it so hard these past few years, huhuhu, so on and so forth. They’ll resolve the misunderstandings and then afterwards the TV hosts would begin stirring up their emotions and ask both parties, ‘are you willing to forgive the other? If so you must walk through that door and give the other a hug.’ Finally, with everyone’s loud blessings, the program will reach its climax and the two parties would cry and hug it out. They will embrace each other and the end.”

Yu Sui was still as confused as before. It was only when Old Qiao explained it once again, that he began to have a vague idea. Yu Sui’s lips moved. He wanted to say something but then hesitated.

Zhou Huo saw that Yu Sui wanted to ask something and said, “What’s wrong? Don’t understand it yet?”

“I understood.” Yu Sui looked at Zhou Huo and asked hesitantly, “You...have this kind of contacts?”

Zhou Huo had just been talking sh*t just now. Where would he have this kind of outlandish connections? But his college classmate certainly did have connections in this field of work. He could find some connections if he really needed to. Zhou Huo said uncertainly, “More or less. Why are you asking?”

Old Qiao had been very protective of Shi Luo. Hearing this, he hurriedly said, “Don’t! No, no, no. Jokes are just jokes. Don’t tell me you’re really thinking of sending Shi Luo and Violent Shu on this kind of program.”

Shi Luo frowned and looked at Yu Sui.

Yu Sui broke into laughter. “You think I’m crazy? I was just asking. It’s nothing.”

Everyone resumed playing with their phones. Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo and then back at Zhou Huo. After a little hesitation, he still chose to say nothing.

It was the first time Yu Sui had heard of such a program. After the initial shock, relying on his imagination, he unexpectedly felt that it was actually pretty good.

Yu Sui felt that this kind of show was just f*cking tailor-made for himself and Shi Luo.

This was simply the best shortcut to solve their problem!

Find a contact. He and Shi Luo would go. They’d look for one of these CCTV hosts who were good at rousing emotions and have him mediate between them. Afterwards, for the show’s finale, Shi Luo would tearfully run into his arms. Then, wouldn’t that solve all their problems?