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The game was held in the afternoon, the first game starts at 5 o’clock, the first game started at five o’clock and their turn would come only after the first game. The Internet addicted teenagers slept until noon as usual and were called downstairs for dinner by Old Tan through WeChat.
[Old Tan: We’ll eat at the table today, there are a few things I want to talk to you about]
Shi Du and Cheese went downstairs around the same time. When the two entered the dining room, Yu Zhaohan and Lu Yaoshan were seated face to face with a rectangular dining table in the middle. In front of Lu Yaoshan, a tablet and a substantial amount of notes were set.
Lu Yaoshan gushed about the tactical arrangement he had repeated three times, with a frenzied expression on his face. Yu Zhaohan was meditating quietly, his side face made the sleepy Cheese wake up all of a sudden.
“I’m so happy to have a beauty blast at noon.”
Shi Du looked at Yu Zhaohan’s motionless eyelashes from the side, and asked, “What do you think the captain is thinking?”
“He must be thinking about tactics.”
Shi Du laughed and disagreed. Yuyu has most likely already started wandering in his head because of his hazy eyes.
The two sat down at the dining table, and Lu Yaoshan just finished speaking. He asked Yu Zhaohan: “Shine, do you remember?”
Yu Zhaohan nodded slowly: “Yes.”
When everyone arrived, the aunt served seven dishes and one soup, and everyone ate while listening to Old Tan talk about today’s arrangements.
“Today is R.H’s home game, and the league has arranged a series of activities. First of all, when the players enter the arena, there must be someone holding the team flag and waving at the front. Who will wave it?” Old Tan looked at Yu Zhaohan, “How about the captain?”
Oh, you also know that I’m the captain, no captain ever walks around waving his own flag.
Yu Zhaohan couldn’t be bothered: “Don’t even think about it.”
“Then Timeless? You are so popular and tall…”
Shi Du said without hesitation, “I have the lowest qualifications in R.H. I don’t deserve it.”
“Why don’t I do it? I guarantee that the flag will be present both while the person is present and when the person is not present.” Cheese volunteered, “Let the Support carry the honor of R.H!”
Lu Yaoshan gave a thumbs up: “Very good, Cheese! This is the spirit you need! Come on, tell us what kind of mood you are in right now. Do you feel that fighting for glory is your goal in life?”
Cheese was filled with pride immediately: “I do!”
The others ate their meals, tacitly pretending they hadn’t heard anything.
“Also, during the 20-minute intermission,” Old Tan said, “the officials arranged a lottery…”
Lu Yaoshan stopped his chopsticks in mid-air, and said in disbelief: “Isn’t the intermission only ten minutes? Now you’re telling me there are twenty minutes?”
Old Tan hesitated: “Is this important?”
“Of course it’s important!” Lu Yaoshan’s tone was very serious. “To ensure winning the game, every detail is very important! The tactics that can be arranged in ten minutes are completely different from those that can be arranged in twenty minutes!”
“Old Lu, you are too nervous. Come, come, drink some soup and calm down…”
The coaches’ match-day anxieties are nothing new to the experienced R.H players. Although Lu Yaoshan’s uneasiness is still present, it won’t influence his decision-making. Instead, as his anxiety increased, his tactical thinking grew sharper and more decisive, earning him the moniker of “ghost” coach until he lost his mind. But it also implies that he is unable to consider the players’ psychological states.
Yu Zhaohan has been doing the job of stabilizing the team’s psychological state. Although Lu Yaoshan has done several pre-match mobilizations, Yu Zhaohan still symbolically said before the start: “You can’t lose, play well.”
The five simple words received an enthusiastic response from the pro-teammates.
Cheese: “Don’t worry, I’ve been practicing a lot lately and my sleep shot is accurate. If TCO’s assassins dare to cut me, I can kill them without your help.”
Qi Xian: “Is Timeless blocking the TCO resurrection point today?”
Shi Du: “I want to block, but I have to ask the captain if he will let me.”
At 4:30 in the afternoon, R.H’s bus stopped in front of the e-sports venue. As soon as he got off the bus, Yu Zhaohan was overwhelmed by pink—the R.H promotional video was played on the huge screen, the R.H team logo and Slogan could be seen everywhere, and the staff at the entrance were all wearing R.H’s iconic pink team uniforms.
The crowd lined up to enter the arena, where they could take pictures with the cosplayers. There was also a temporary R.H merchandise store inside, and all the income of the store belongs to the club.
R.H’s operations team had a busy day at the venue. Backstage, Yu Zhaohan met the little boss who came to cheer them on.
The little boss told them happily: “I have asked around, and our team’s merchandise is the best-selling both online and offline, more than IPL and Lawman combined! As long as we win this game, I will take out 20% of the surrounding income and give everyone bonuses!”
Even though Old Tan is happy, he still doesn’t grasp how their fan merchandise can sell so well. Given that IPL was the champion and runner-up in the previous season, there ought to be a big fanbase.
“The new uniforms of the IPL is too ugly.” Cheese answered Old Tan’s questions, “It’s just a plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes. I can only say that it’s good that little brother has already transferred.”
Lu Yaoshan looked serious “Could this be the IPL’s newest strategy? Entering the arena wearing tomato scrambled eggs, giving the opponent the impression that it is time to eat, thus causing the opponent to enter a state of hunger.”
Everyone: “…” Do you think we care about you?
The first game was a match between Guangzhou ZC and Hangzhou DSD. R.H and TCO were in the backcourt of the lounge. ZC’s four starters were all rookies, and they had a hard time facing the old strong teams, and the score soon came to 2:0.
“It’s almost time for us to get ready to play—grey hair, golden hair, and crew cut?” After Old Tan asked, he suddenly felt that the scene seemed familiar, and he couldn’t help frowning, “Wait a minute, gray hair isn’t going to get into trouble again, is he?”
Yu Zhaohan knew that Old Tan was worried that Shi Du would run into someone from the TCO, recreating the scene where he almost got into a fight with Caps last time. “No,” said Yu Zhaohan, “don’t worry.”
The little brother promised that he would be obedient, and he believed in his little brother.
Shi Du lived up to Yu Zhaohan’s trust, he really just came out to go to the bathroom. It just so happened that Cheese also had needs, so he went with him.
There was only one person standing in front of a row of seven/eight urinals in the bathroom. Cheese saw the man’s crew cut, subconsciously shrunk behind Shi Du.
Shi Du greeted: “Xiao Jiang.”
Jiang Di responded by nodding. Cheese decides to use the urinal that was the furthest away from Jiang Di since he still hasn’t got rid of the shadow Jiang Di once brought him. Jiang Di on the other end had already finished when he only just started. The boy, who was as tall as a mountain, approached Cheese and stopped only a step away from him.
Cheese asked tremblingly, “Do you need something?”
Jiang Di said calmly: “You have seen mine, and I have to see yours.”
Cheese almost collapsed: “What the hell is wrong with you! Brother, brother, save me!!!”
Shi Du suppressed a smile, and said impartially: “Who told you to watch Xiao Jiang take a bath, there’s see nothing wrong with him wanting to see yours.”
“Damn it, Timeless, are you still a human being?”
“You looked, and I also just looked,” Jiang Di said as he looked at it, and then left, leaving Cheese in a complete mess.
After solving the needs, Cheese strongly condemned Shi Du’s reluctance to save him and threatened that he would not be given support in the double row in the future. The two walked out of the bathroom and bumped into an “old acquaintance” TCO’s captain, Fall.
Fall stopped abruptly, staring warily at the gray-haired boy in front of him. He knows that Timeless can speak Korean, and he hasn’t forgotten the boys who taunted them during and after games last season.
Shi Du put away the smile in his eyes and looked up at the camera in the corner. Cheese grabbed Shi Du’s arm in a timely manner, and whispered, “You don’t want to be writing a letter of repentance again, do you?”
Shi Du smiled: “I never wrote one.”
He really wanted to do something, but unfortunately, he promised Yuyu.
Fall watched the boy approach him slowly, and opened his mouth to say something, but the boy ignored him, walked away without even glancing back, and continued on as if he didn’t even exist.
DSD defeated ZC as expected. After the intermission, TCO came out first. No applause or cheers could be heard at the scene, and not booing was the last thing the fans could do to respect the game. If this were Seoul’s home game, R.H would have faced the same situation, if not worse.
After the four TCO players were seated, the home team played. The exclusive R.H BGM sounded, and the scene screamed and cheered one after another. Cheese led the way while carrying the team flag and carrying himself with confidence. Behind him was Yu Zhaohan with a world-weary face, squinty-eyed Qi Xian, and their handsome little brother Shi Du.
The audience shouted everyone’s ID, with Shine and Timeless definitely getting the biggest shout. However, no matter how much the fans chanted Shine’s name, Shine would not interact with them. Timeless’s was much better, laughing along the way and high-fiving fans on both sides.
“Timeless! This way, this way!!! Timeless—”
“Brother! Can my brother tell Shine that I love him! Please!”
Shi Du paused, turned around, and said with a smile, “Sorry sister, no.”
After the preparations were completed, the on-site commentary began to explain.
“R.H took the lead in choosing the map. We can see that R.H’s talented coach chose a Chinese-style map. Is this an attempt to do a little favor as a landlord to TCO?”
“No, no, no, I know Coach Lu very well. Using map selection to set up traps in advance and catch the opponent by surprise is one of his favorite tactics.”
“Cheese actually picked the hero Architect. The Architect can only provide armor to teammates, and the amount of healing is somewhat lacking, but he can create a portal to send teammates, and Cheese’s portal is situated on the palace’s eaves. Can people actually stand here? Damn… just laugh at me, I just found out now!”
“The TCO, who was caught off guard, apparently didn’t know until now either—3 minutes and 50 seconds, R.H gave TCO a beautiful group kill, Timeless frantically picked up heads, and the first quadruple kill of this season came too fast! Three minutes and fifty seconds!”
“R.H has studied this map! The score is 1:0, R.H in the leads!”
Round 2. The losing team chose a map, TCO chose a US map—Central Park.
“TCO’s Assassin chooses a virus that can silence the enemy. This is to target Timeless. As we all know, assassins who cannot use their skills don’t do as much damage as Support.”
“Timeless’ movement is somewhat restricted. But the virus keeps staring at him, who’s going to keep an eye on Shine!”
“The upper right corner of the screen is being frantically swiped by Shine’s archers. Does TCO not care at all?”
“The score came to 2:0, and R.H got the match point! Timeless is still higher than Cheese in silver damage.”
“But it’s really not much higher hahaha…”
“Now TCO is facing a serious problem. They can only target one of the R.H double C. But no matter which one they choose to target, the other can always stand out as C. There is no doubt that this is not only a problem of TCO but also will soon become a common problem for the other 31 teams.”
The third round is the match point game.
“TCO chooses to fight alley battles with R.H. This is actually a way. The narrow streets are not suitable for the use of spears/guns. After using the virus to restrict assassins from going around. Double Cs are targeted at the same time. How should R.H break the game…”
“TCO’s tactical arrangement is effective. R.H lost the oppressive power of the first two rounds, and the two sides played back and forth. TCO won point A, and R.H recovered point B. Is it TCO to pull back a round or R.H to win the game, it depends on who wins at point C.”
“The two sides met in a convenience store, and a team fight was on the verge of breaking out. A mech charge, Fall is massively damaged, can we claim Fall’s head? Calling Timeless!”
“Fall is being healed by the support. Timeless isn’t in the team fight— he’s at point C! He’s stealing points! It’s a point game!”
“At this time, TCO realized that it was not too late, and full-blooded Fall is desperately trying to get back. He should be able to return as long as he avoids being struck by Cheese’s sleep gun— turn off the lights, go to sleep—Cheese shot his sleeping gun!”
“Progress: 97%, 98%, 99%… Let’s congratulate Shanghai R.H for sweeping Seoul TCO 3-0!”
The screaming and cheering nearly knocked the roof off. Cheese took off his earphones and threw himself on Shi Du: “We won, we won! Damn, three to zero…”
Shi Du had been prepared for a long time, and harshly pushed Cheese away after placing his hand on his forehead. Cheese, who was so excited, didn’t mind at all, and turned around to hug Qi Xian: “Xian Xian, is my last sleeping gun handsome?”
“Mind your manners.” Yu Zhaohan said, “Don’t make it look like we have a hard time winning—get ready to shake hands.”
It was a tradition in the gaming world for the winning team to offer to shake hands with the losing team.
Yu Zhaohan stood up and heard Shi Du call “Captain.” As soon as he turned around, someone pulled his arm.
His vision was confused for a moment, and he was unprepared for the boy’s embrace.
Everything around him seemed to disappear, he couldn’t hear the cheers from the fans, nor the congratulations from the commentators, but he could hear the boy’s heartbeat again and again.
The smell of the boy was also very good, the faint smell of white peach was the smell of laundry detergent.
It turned out that hugging with teammates felt like this, he…he seemed to remember it.
One second, two seconds… Shi Du only hugged him for two and a half seconds before letting go.
So short.
The boy who just hugged the Captain Beauty looked the same as usual. He took Cheese’s shoulder and led Cheese forward: “Let’s go, shake hands.”
Cheese stiffly turned his neck and looked back at Qi Xian with a phrase written all over his surprised face saying: Ah, can the captain be hugged?