FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 65:

Theirs was the worst circle and also the best circle.

When it came to the intensity with which they argued, sprayed and swore at people, the e-sports circle can definitely occupy the first echelon of many other industries with an absolute predominance.

Quarrels and mutual bad-mouthing within the e-sports circle was known to be intense. Even if it was towards their favorite team or players, so long as the team was in a bad situation or if the team lost a match, they would still spray. They were also very skilled at causing mental torment. They would use a player’s mistake as a basis for his nicknames. Right before a match, they’d specially go to that player’s live broadcast and comment on that player’s black history... These were their most used day-to-day operations.

It was also common for players whose ability to withstand pressure weren’t quite up to par to mentally collapse, like ROD, who’d just lost a game.

Shi Luo never thought much about it. If he really lost a game or if there was a problem with the way he played, he wouldn’t say anything when he was sprayed by the fans. If he was in the wrong or if his skills really were inferior to others, Shi Luo would never say anything back.

However, if he’d clearly done nothing wrong but they repeatedly cause him mental suffering, well, he wasn’t going to stand for that.

The ironclad rule of this circle was win and you boast, lose and you get sprayed. Since everyone approved of this peculiar cultural atmosphere, there shouldn’t be any double standards. You can spray me when I lose a game; if you treat me unjustly then I can also spray back.

Things in your circle should be handled according to the rules of your circle. Everyone should stop pretending to be saints already. This way was best.

“Don’t these sprayers keep saying that the big teams should stop feeding their fans the same old stuff? Well, we certainly did things differently today by spraying back.” Old Qiao felt very pleased as he looked through Weibo, “In any case, it’s not the sprayers who give the money our players make so curse at them all you want. There’s even some who specially came to our official blog to say that they’re gonna stop being our fans. Ha...what are they doing pretending to be our fans? If the fans what to quit being our fans, then let them. Will the league stop us from playing at the World Championships if we don’t have any fans? Who do they think they’re scaring?”

Puppy was completely indifferent. “Laozi never had that many fans in the first place, so let them quit.”

“Don’t believe those sprayers.” Chen Huo raised his eyebrows and said happily, “The only ones making a fuss are those brainless sprayers. After I posted on my Weibo, the number of my fans increased.”

“Yes, normally, if anyone tried to say anything back, they would definitely become the target of public criticism. But there’s no need to be afraid this time.” Zhou Huo had been full of misgivings at first, but now that he’s seen that the results were good, he was very satisfied. “All the players fought back together and now the sprayers are all muddled. They don’t know who they should spray.”

Zhou Huo’s phone was buzzing nonstop. The other teams’ managers kept sending him messages. Zhou Huo was overwhelmed with joy. “The other teams are sending us thank-you letters. They’re thanking us for being so tough. They’re thanking us for taking the initiative to clear the bad atmosphere in the circle. That’s right... we should never have indulged their rumor-mongering and habit of speaking and acting based on mere hearsay. The players train so hard every day, so why should they have to carry this pot?”

“When you think about it, we really should have been the ones to take the lead on this.” Zhou Huo sighed, “Not to brag but although our team is the newest among the dozen or so teams in the local division, but when it comes to our players’ qualifications, ours would be the best, right? Our team’s players are the least afraid of getting sprayed. At the moment, we’re also at the top. The matter this time was handled well. For the follow-up, we’ll guide the topics of conversation. We’ll be reasonable and we can get this whole thing to pass.”

“Of course.” Old Qiao smiled and waved his phone. “In other news, NSN has also posted on Weibo. They posted the contents of ROD’s training as well as his training schedule last month. They also have the records from his game account. In the end, whether he was just paddling and dating or working hard to face challenges, it’s obvious to anyone with a brain.”

Chen Huo was also checking Weibo. He said, admiringly, “ROD himself also posted on Weibo. He admitted that he made a mistake in the game and that he’s reflected upon it, but said he and his girlfriend are going strong and won’t be breaking up.”

Old Qiao sighed, “He must have already gotten his emotions under control. Not bad. It’s good that he’s able to withstand it.”

Zhou Huo went looking through the forums. He watched how the sprayers were jumping in anger but couldn’t do anything. He exclaimed, “I tell it as it is. This pressure I brought down upon you players was really f-ing big, but there’s a big of good from all this. You guys are all so big-hearted. You’re ruthless when you dig a pit for your own people, but you’re even more ruthless when you dig a pit for others. It’s really cool being your manager.”

Chen Huo’s attention was instantly redirected when Zhou Huo mentioned ‘digging pits for your own people’. Chen Huo gave Yu Sui a very resentful look and then sat to one side with a snort, continuing to look through Weibo.

Yu Sui, who had once unified all the sprayers in e-sports, was completely unperturbed. Arguing back or not arguing back, it would have been the same to him either way. The thing Yu Sui found more enjoyable about the entire thing was observing little Shi Shen’s mini explosion of bad temper. Yu Sui clearly felt it. Since Shi Luo returned to Free, Shi Luo gradually tended to grow back; his temper was becoming more and more like when the two had first met.

It was similar to when he played his little tricks. He looked as though he couldn’t stand even the slightest bit of loss.

Back then, when the Violent Shu ran off his foul mouth, Shi Luo could push down and beat him up in a hotpot restaurant restroom until he couldn’t get up. Now, how could he possibly tolerate this unsubstantiated smear campaign by the sprayers?

But there has been some change.

Now, as a mature pro-player, Shi Shen would no longer tangle with other people in the bathroom of a hot pot restaurant and touch their industry’s high-voltage lines. Offline had changed to the online, but his destructive power was still as strong as back then’s.

Shi Luo was squatting on the sofa and exchanging insults with the few remaining haters over private message. He looked completely focused and he couldn’t divide his attention to talk with the other people in the training room.

The others have had their fill off mocking the sprayers. Seeing Yu Sui looking so intent as to be completely motionless, they followed Yu Sui’s line of sight and saw Shi Luo trading insults on his phone, looking as serious as though he were taking the college entrance examinations.

“I feel kinda sorry for whoever’s trading insults with him.” Puppy took a sip of tea and shook his head, “With all good intentions, I really want to tell those sprayers that us old FS players, save for taking a tumble at Ji Yanhan’s hands, have reached this point without having suffered any losses. We’re not afraid of insulting people. Especially our little Shi Shen! He’s a sprayer himself!”

Old Qiao sighed, “If ROD had encountered a sh*t boss like Ji Yanhan in his early years, he wouldn’t have buckled under pressure like that.”

Chen Huo followed with a sigh, “Now that you’ve mentioned Ji Yanhan it makes me wonder even more why there are sprayers who think we’d be scared? How does this even compare to that?”

Chen Huo took a sip of his tea and shook his head, “This year’s batch of sprayer are no good. When I moved to Europe, they gave me absolute hell. They even insulted my eggs. So what the fart is this!”

“Your Yu Shen has long held himself above worldly considerations.” Puppy looked at Yu Sui and said, half-sarcastically but not bitterly, “He doesn’t even want to waste time reading what other people are spraying about him. What’s the only thing in his eyes? Shi Luo, the whelp, getting to work! I’m even beginning to suspect that these sprays are here to provide Yu Sui with opportunities, so that he can reminisce about the past with Shi Luo and strengthen their relationship!”

Yu Sui smiled, he really hadn’t bother to read it.

He had waded through the lowest depths of hell, how could be possibly be afraid of the clamoring of a few imps?

Shi Luo, who still retained some childlike innocence and still has the same great firepower standing off against the sprayers was more fascinating to Yu Sui.

Usually at this time, Old Qiao would be doing game review with the four of them. But today, after encountering this kind of incident, no one was in the right frame of mind. It was also getting late already. Old Qiao let everyone rest and play on their own.

Old Qiao unhurriedly put away his personal belongings and went back to his dorm to do laundry. Chen Huo was so happy that he didn’t have to do a game review. He logged on to his side account and played for fun. Puppy then went to gather points for his main account.

On the sofa in the corner of the training room, Shi Luo was chewing gum, still focusing on pouring out insults.

Chen Huo and Puppy were both concentrated on their games and wouldn’t notice anything. Yu Sui, ever respectful of his boyfriend’s wish to keep their relationship a secret, sat next to Shi Luo after confirming that he wouldn’t be discovered.

Yu Sui asked in a low voice, “Are you still spraying?”

Shi Luo moved, he turned his head and glanced at Yu Sui, instantly feeling a little uneasy.

Compared with Yu Sui’s indifference, Shi Luo seemed to be a little overblown in his reaction. On Shi Luo’s phone screen was his Weibo’s PM interface. His entire screen was filled with foul and filthy language.

It’s cool to scold others. What wasn’t cool was letting your boyfriend see you spewing out such coarse language. Shi Luo instinctively leaned back on the sofa and blocked his phone screen, as if were some high-schooler afraid of being seen doing something bad that might affect the way his crush sees him. Trying his hardest to hide it, he said, “No, I was just looking at what the sprayers were saying about me...”

Yu Sui chuckled quietly, “We’re both pro-players, with perfect 5.3 vision, who are you looking down on?”

Shi Luo gritted his teeth. It’s rumored that the one with the best vision among domestic pro-players was Whisper, especially when it came to sensing movement. Just now, with that barely there glance, Yu Sui must have already seen everything clearly.

The swear words filling up the screen were all sent from Shi Luo’s side, and now, Shi Luo couldn’t deny it.

Shi Luo was a little bit embarrassed, he leaned back and said in a low voice, “I just lost my temper a bit, I’m not...”

“Can you send me his ID?” Yu Sui sat down, picked up his phone, bowed his head and instructed, “Send me the ID of that one you haven’t sprayed into oblivion yet. I’ll do it.”

Shi Luo: “...”

Shi Luo turned to look at Yu Sui.

Just now, Yu Sui had left his hair to dry naturally and hadn’t seen to fixing it yet, so it lay over his shoulders in a half mess. The towel he’d handed to him was nowhere to the seen. The team uniform jacket Yu Sui put over his shoulders was wet from his hair. Yu Sui didn’t pay it any mind; when the shoulder of his jacket had gotten wet, he simply pulled the jacket’s collar to the back. Now, his jacket was basically, half-hanging down his body.

Yu Sui was now leaning on the sofa; with one leg stretched out and the other slightly bent. From Shi Luo’s perspective, Yu Sui had an anger that couldn’t be hidden.

When you’re in love, it’s easy to have the wrong idea about the other. In Shi Luo’s mind, Yu Sui was too perfect. But when the two of them weren’t together or like when Yu Sui tricked him into taking the college entrance exams, or when he’s bullying Chen Huo and deceiving Puppy, Yu Sui had a big hand in those. How could he not know how to spray people?

How can there possibly be any good people in this team?

Anyway, Yu Sui wanted to spray people too. Shi Luo didn’t need to hide it. He sent the IDs of a few people he couldn’t spray well to Yu Sui. The two of them sat on the sofa and concentrated on raining down insults.

Yu Sui asked Shi Luo with a smile, “Shi Shen, you sure you’ve got enough in your vocabulary?”

Shi Luo squatted on the sofa and whispered, “We’re both pro-players. We’ve both gotten our ancestors greeted by sprayers. Who are you looking down on!”

Yu Sui smiled.

With such a handsome boyfriend sitting next to him, Shi Luo couldn’t concentrate of spraying anymore. Whenever he was alone with Yu Sui, Shi Luo couldn’t help getting up to his little tricks. He looked at Yu Sui from time to time and said softly, “You ...are you done spraying?”

“We’re both pro-players, with computer-level hand speeds.” Yu Sui typed quickly, “Who are you looking down on?”

Shi Luo took a breath and sighed secretly in his heart at how he and Yu Sui were such a match made in heaven, from their career to their hobbies.

The lethality of pro-level spraying was naturally invincible. The two of them sprayed openly and flirted secretly. Within half an hour, the dozen or so people who had previously insulted Shi Luo were angered half to death and were rendered speechless. Yu Sui rotated his neck and said, “...These sprayers are so weak, poor little sh*ts.”

Shi Luo looked sideways at Yu Sui, his heart once again felt tickled.

After the game with NSN, Yu Sui had kissed Shi Luo deeply and then written all sorts of things on his hand. Shi Luo couldn’t stand being teased so one-sidedly by this slag man and has always wanted to find a way to tease him back.

Shi Luo glanced at their two other teammates in the training room. Chen Huo and Puppy were both concentrating on their game. Seeing that, he grew a lot more courageous.

Shi Luo took a deep breath and exited the Weibo app. In front of Yu Sui, he opened the translation app that he downloaded when he went to Korea to compete.

Yu Sui watched Shi Luo move but didn’t quite understand at first.

After Shi Luo set the translation software to German mode and switched his mobile phone input method to German mode, Yu Sui instantly knew what Shi Luo was going to do.

In the face of a wave of big rhythm and almost being caught once again in a whirlpool of public criticism, Slag Man Yu remained calm and unmoved. However, at this moment, looking at the translation software on Shi Luo’s phone, there was a rarely-seen, once-in-a-century redness at the tip of his ears.

Yu Sui cleared his throat uneasily, “Are you sure you remember?”

Shi Luo’s face was already thoroughly red.

Shi Luo also lowered his voice, “We’re both pro-players. We have brains that can remember the resource consumption for both teams for each game accurately down to the last digit. Who are you looking down on?”

With a smile, Yu Sui rubbed his neck and leaned against the sofa, looking at Shi Luo’s phone screen.

Yu Sui watched Shi Luo typing, saw that Shi Luo hadn’t missed a single letter and typed out all the German words he’d written on Shi Luo’s palm in the nanny car earlier.

Shi Luo typed all the letters, all in German. He clearly couldn’t understand what they meant but his face was already red.

Shi Luo was still trying to tease Yu Sui. He didn’t press the translate button just yet. He turned his head to look at Yu Sui, and said, sounding quite unnatural, “You, you...are you or or you not afraid that I’d translate it?”

Shi Luo looked at Yu Sui, racking his brains to figure out what he could use to threaten Yu Sui into asking him not to translate.

“We’re both pro-players, with stout hearts and absolute no sense of shame. Who are you looking down on?”

Sure enough, old ginger was still spicier. Although Yu Sui’s ears were red, he raised his hand and directly pressed the translate button on Shi Luo’s phone screen.

After a one-second freeze, countless explicit and difficult-to-say private and intimate words of love covered the entire screen of Shi Luo’s phone.

Shi Luo was stunned. A second later, Shi Luo smashed the phone on the sofa with his left hand, and covered his face with his right, blushing so hard he was giving off steam.

Yu Sui leaned against the sofa and stopped himself from laughing. His voice was soft and inaudible, “Little whelp...”