FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 81:

Shi Luo gritted his teeth and wanted to snatch back his headphones. Yu Sui took Shi Luo’s headphones and avoided him with a step back. He said with a smile, “Feeling shy? So, do you usually listen to these things when you have your headphones on?”

“In the stadium lounges, the hallway before we go up on stage, on the road on our way back to the base after a match...” the more Yu Sui thought about it the more he felt that Shi Luo played too unrestrainedly at such a young age. “Shi Shen, I have found that since a long time ago, whenever you want to concentrate, you wear your headphones. I always thought you were listening to light music. Now, I’m suddenly having doubts about that...”

Shi Luo angrily grabbed the headphones from Yu Sui’s hand and gritted his teeth, “I haven’t heard it more than a few times! I only downloaded it a few days ago.”

“Where’s your evidence?” Yu Sui smiled. “The last time I heard this audio must have been four years ago. And you’re saying you just downloaded it?”

Shi Luo was speechless. He opened his music player with his face all red and whispered, “This is synched with the app on my mobile phone. Look for yourself... I’ve only listened to it five times in total.”

The backend dashboard of Shi Luo’s commonly used music player records the number of playbacks for each piece of audio. Yu Sui glanced at it and sure enough the number ‘5’ was displayed as the number of times that piece of audio Shi Luo had been listening to just now has been played back.

“I saw it by coincidence a few days ago. I was curious what it was about...so I went and listened to it.” Shi Luo turned off the music player and said like each word was being dragged out of him, “I listened to it and turns out it wasn’t anything interesting...”

Then Shi Luo closed the music player very quickly but Yu Sui’s eyes were too good. He noticed that there was a piece of audio with a garbled title amongst the Chinese and English songs in his playlist. What’s more the number of playbacks was displayed as “999+”.

There was no song information so it must be another piece of synthesized audio.

Yu Sui smiled. It was now four years later, the fan’s material library has also been updated and they had probably edited a 2.0 version.

Shi Luo was already embarrassed and it would be inconsiderate of him to expose him once again. Yu Sui pretended not to have seen it. He lowered his voice and laughed, “Listening to my R-18 synthesized audio while practicing; you better pay attention, Shi Shen.”

Shi Luo was furious. Just when he had finally worked up the spirit to exert himself, after practicing the use of his weapon for a while, his hand was finally feeling good. He suddenly figured out some key points for playing against NSN and wanted to play a round to try out that tactic. However, he was already feeling a little sleepy. That’s when he suddenly remembered the audio. The timing was perfect, there happened to be no one around and so he thought about listening to it to relieve his sleepiness. He never would have thought that a certain 21-year-old veteran could stay up late up until this hour and so he was caught red-handed.

Shi Luo logged out of his game account and quickly shut down his computer. His guilty gaze swept this way and that, refusing to look face-to-face with Yu Sui. “Listening to...you know...that...it helps me to stay awake.”

“Didn’t you just say that it wasn’t at all interesting?”

Shi Luo was unable to utter a word and Yu Sui looked at him with a smile in his eyes. He said seriously, “Really, if you need it, I can record an interesting one for you. Since you’re an old customer, I’ll even let you make a custom order.”

A custom order......

A lot of adult scenes flashed through Shi Luo’s mind. He closed his eyes. “No. I wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

Saying so, Shi Luo planned to head out but Yu Sui leaned to the side, firmly blocking Shi Luo’s way. He chuckled, “Place your order and I’ll deliver it right away.”

“One hundred yuan...ah no.” Yu Sui was very open to persuasion, “one yuan will do.”

“You&#k2026;” Shi Luo’s cheeks flushed and he glanced sideways at the decorative clock hanging on the wall of the training room. It was already 3:45 in the morning.

Yu Sui was never as good at staying up late as he himself was. Every time he goes to bed late, even if he wouldn’t be late the next day, he definitely wouldn’t eat much to save time. Often, he’d make do with a bowl of porridge. Shi Luo was worried about Yu Sui’s delicate stomach and didn’t want him to delay any longer. He said quietly, “What do you think you’re doing acting so unrestrained when it’s already so late&#k2026; Go to sleep.”

Unexpectedly, Yu Sui glanced at the clock and lowered his voice as well, “And who was it that was acting so unrestrained first?”

Shi Luo was speechless once again.

“It’s OK.” Yu Sui smiled and stepped aside, “It’s time to go to sleep.”

Shi Luo almost fled in defeat.

After returning to his dorm room and washing his flushed face, Shi Luo’s anger from being shamed, dispersed. Shi Luo even began to feel a bit regretful.

While he’d been training on his own, Yu Sui was afraid that he would stay up too late and so he silently accompanied him all night and stayed up this late. Because he was too embarrassed, he didn’t even thank him.

Yesterday when they were out eating at the restaurant, he ran into Zhou Huo in the bathroom. Zhou Huo secretly let him know that Yu Sui had told him, “Thinking back on the past, I feel like I didn’t care for him enough.”

The “him” he was referring to was Shi Luo himself.

At the time, Shi Luo thought that it was such a coincidence. He thought so too.

Whenever he thought of Yu Sui, Shi Luo always felt that he didn’t care for him enough.

It used to be because he was willful and now, it’s because of his insensitivity.

Shi Luo knew that he was too much of a ‘straight guy’, like just now...

Shi Luo scratched his head irritably. Slag Man Yu was too gentle and knew too many tricks, making Shi Luo seem even more heartless.

Shi Luo took a shower and when he came out of the bathroom, he curled up and shivered from the cold.

The temperature dropped several times this week and the central heating in the base still hasn’t been turned on. It was a bit cold during the early hours of the morning.

It seemed that the temperature had dropped even further. Shi Luo wiped his hair and went to bed.

It was still a bit cold under the quilt. It was already late, Shi Luo closed his eyes and lay motionless, forcing himself to fall asleep quickly.

Five minutes later, Shi Luo opened his eyes and began to worry about Yu Sui’s vexing stomach condition again.

He’s not allowed to get too tired. He’s also not allowed to get too cold.

Every time it was cold, Yu Sui would eats less. Yu Sui would usually fob it off by saying that he had no appetite, but the truth was that he just felt uncomfortable and so couldn’t eat.

The temperature in his room was a bit cold. How different could the situation in Yu Sui’s room be? Was his stomach going to hurt after a night like this?

Shi Luo frowned, lifted off the quilt and stood up. He gave a long sigh, “Damn that Ji Yanhan...”

Shi Luo put on his slippers, put on his jacket and left his dorm room with his mobile phone.

The entire base was empty. You could hear a pin drop in the corridor.

It was after four o’clock, the entire base was asleep.

At this time, no one would notice Shi Luo doing anything.

At this moment, if their situations had been reversed, if Yu Sui was the one in the corridor in this situation, Yu Sui would have pushed open the door to Shi Luo’s dorm room, bringing along his own quilt. He would give the quilt to his stomach-problem-afflicted, afraid-of-the-cold boyfriend and as only to be expected, would settle in and sleep together.

He would have had contributed his own quilt, if they didn’t sleep together then what was he to do?

But ‘drink-more-hot-water’ Shi Luo was different.

Shi Luo had on a jittery expression and cursed silently. While cursing Ji Yanhan for not letting him sleep, he passed Yu Sui’s dorm room without even giving it a passing glance. He headed downstairs to the conference room on the first floor to get the key to the base’s control room. He also took a flashlight while he was at it.

Shi Luo opened the door to the control room and squeezed into the small space. He turned on the light and also raised the flashlight. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a single Chinese character. Shi Luo rubbed his tired eyes and carefully identified which switch on the control panel was for the central heating.

Although Shi Luo had never been in contact with this before, he managed to get an understanding of it after a while. He spent a little while adjusting it. He turned it to heating mode for the base and adjusted the temperature.

Shi Luo put back the key and flashlight and went back to his dorm room.

The various dials for the central control for water, electricity, natural gas, cooling and heating for the entire base were all squeezed together in the control panel. Shi Luo actually wasn’t so confident. If it turns out that he’d turned on the air cooler then he was f*cking done for. When he returned to his dorm room, Shi Luo didn’t immediately go to bed. He took the little model figure that Yu Sui gave him today, sat on his bed and waited for a while, waiting for the room to really warm up before going to sleep.

Shi Luo looked at the little doll in his hands and let out a gentle sigh.

It had just been a casual remark; that no one remembers him when it comes to giving this kind of thing; but Yu Sui took it to heart and even asked one from a fan to give to himself.

Like Chen Huo, Shi Luo wasn’t fond of dolls, but it was a different story if it was something given to him with such consideration.

Shi Luo wasn’t some sort of miser. Since he was a child, there certainly had never been anyone to give him things.

When he was young, his parents fought all the time. The two of them wanted to get rid of each other. No one cared about Shi Luo. When they finally divorced. Shi Luo went with his mother and he thought it would be the start of a quiet life but then it was too quiet. His mother had finally broken free of the marriage that had tormented her for several years. She was eager to enjoy a normal life, to enjoy a new love and a new marriage. She didn’t have much time and energy to allocate to Shi Luo. Even her occasional gentleness and caring had always been tainted with a bit of absent-mindedness. Shi Luo understood that his mother would remarry sooner or later, but he hadn’t expected that he would be swept out like garbage before she did.

Thus began Shi Luo’s childhood spent fighting against his scumbag father.

He fought against heaven, fought against other people, fought against his father.

Shi Luo sometimes felt that his excellent competitive form might be due to his constant struggles during his childhood years.

Since he was little, he had already seen through the social snobbery but he had never enjoyed any warmth.

The only little bit that he got...

Shi Luo fiddled with the doll in his hand. ...he got all of it from Yu Sui.

If he wouldn’t adjust the temperature for such a good boyfriend, then who would he adjust it for?

Shi Luo felt the room starting to get warmer. He put the striker doll away, took off his jacket and returned to the bed. He fell asleep as soon as he lay down.

Not long after Shi Luo fell asleep, rain began to fall outside his window. The outdoor temperature dropped again and again.

It was cloudy and rainy at ten o’clock that morning.

Yu Sui got up earlier than usual. He opened the curtains and took a look outside. His heart stirred slightly.

Yu Sui left his dorm room after washing up and ran into the cleaning aunt who was mopping the floor. Yu Sui said in a low voice, “Is the central heating turned on?”

“Yes. I don’t know who turned it on though. It started to turn warm in the middle of the night.” The entire base was still asleep. The cleaning aunt kept her voice low and whispered softly, “I already said it was getting cold these days. Yesterday you had a game and you were all in a hurry. I said it several times before but no one paid any attention to me. I don’t know how to adjust the heating over here. I don’t know who got up in the middle of the night to turn it on but thank goodness they did...”

Yu Sui’s eyes moved slightly. Who adjusted it? Yesterday everyone was in a hurry to get to bed so who else could it be?

Shi Luo has never been afraid of the cold. He wouldn’t mind much if it cooled down. The only reason he’d mind would be——

Yu Sui paused for a moment, and said in a low voice, “Sorry, I sleep lightly...”

Auntie suddenly realized and hurriedly apologized. “Okay, okay. I’ll clean the second floor in the afternoon. You can go back to bed. It’s only ten o’clock.”

Yu Sui nodded, “Sorry to trouble you.”

Yu Sui watched Auntie go downstairs. When Auntie disappeared at the top of the stairs, Yu Sui walked to Shi Luo’s door. Without even a moment’s thought, he gently turned the knob of Shi Luo’s door and headed in.