Chapter 5

In the end, Shi Luo didn't go out to dinner with the team. He went back to the base alone, ordered takeout, and headed to the training room after a shower.

The others weren't back yet. The training room was empty, and Shi Luo sat down at a computer.

Team activities generally had little to do with Shi Luo. He had no friends at IAC. It wasn't that the others dared to shut him out; Shi Luo liked spending time with people. The team was a strictly commercial operation, and management had neither the time nor the inclination for heart-to-hearts with its players. Everyone kept things cordial on the surface.

Rather than expend energy navigating his relationships with his teammates, Shi Luo preferred to train alone. On the rare occasions when he felt troubled and wanted someone to talk to, he wouldn't turn to anyone on the team.

Like now.

Shi Luo sat at the computer and opened Wawa's stream.

On camera, Wawa was tearfully railing against him.

"Thirteen kills!!!"

"In the very first game of the preseason opener, I got killed thirteen times!!!"

"Do you understand what dying thirteen times means? It means I did exactly one thing that entire game! One thing!!! Run from the respawn stone to the front line!!! Get there, get gunned down by Evil, then repeat!"

"I was like some shitty boosting bot!!! Respawn and feed, respawn and feed, respawn and feed!!!"

"Seriously, my mental is gone. Oh God, my chest hurts..."

Shi Luo picked up the mouse and clicked a few times.

On camera, Wawa was crying into his hands. At a special sound effect, he looked up and sniffled. "A donation? Thank you, Daddy Shi, for the three Meteor Showers. Wow! Three!!! Thank you for the donation, Daddy Shi... Wait a second!"

"Shi Luo!!!" Wawa shouted.

Shi Luo laughed.

"People already think I took money from IAC to throw today's match!!!" Wawa said through gritted teeth. "And now you're sending me donations!!!"

Smiling, Shi Luo casually sent him another five Meteor Showers, at three thousand apiece.

"Okay, okay, seriously, stop. Just treat me to something good later." Wawa was an earnest soul, and it pained him to think of the cut the streaming platform would take. He told Shi Luo not to send any more. "Got some time to duo? Carry me up the ladder and we'll call it your apology."

Shi Luo didn't reply. He dumped all the free popularity-boosting gifts the platform had given him into Wawa's stream, then closed the site and opened the game client.

He partied up with Wawa, and they queued on the Chinese server.

Wawa sent him a voice chat request. Shi Luo accepted.

Wawa was still whimpering. "You guys were so vicious today. So vicious. You destroyed me. I couldn't fight back at all..."

They loaded into the map.

"It was deliberate," Shi Luo said.

"I noticed," Wawa whined. "I didn't even do anything to you."

"It wasn't about you."

Wawa had only been a pro for a year. He genuinely knew nothing about the bad blood between Shi Luo and Yu Sui.

"Then who was it about?" he asked, bewildered. "Even an idiot could tell you were targeting me today."

Shi Luo bought his starter gear. "I just apologized, didn't I? Still not enough?"

"Fine." Wawa sighed. "I don't blame you. I'd have targeted the medic too. My early game was garbage today. I just can't pull off God Yu's style. You outplayed me. Fair and square."

Shi Luo paused.

He said nothing more and took Wawa out to clear the fog.

Wawa was still wallowing. "Ugh. It's the exact same playstyle, but God Yu makes it look effortless. When he was teaching me, the stuff he pulled off blew my mind. Seriously, he's a medic, and he was keeping the enemy assaulter pinned down. It got me so fired up! I went charging into that match against you guys, all full of confidence, and then you wrecked me."

Shi Luo picked off an enemy without saying a word.

"God Yu really is incredible. Ugh, I give up. No more assassin medic for me. I can't handle it. I'll stick to being a good little babysitter healer."

"You're fine the way you are," Shi Luo said, sounding distracted. "You don't need to copy anyone else's playstyle."

"Our captain told me to learn it," Wawa sighed. "How could I say no? He said that while I'm still figuring out my own style, I should try some other approaches. I really did take it seriously."

"I was pretty scared of God Yu at first, but he surprised me. He's really easygoing. I kept pestering him with questions, and he never got impatient. Probably as a favor to our captain." Wawa sounded helpless. "God Yu's a good teacher. I'm just not a good student. I really tried, but if I can't get it, I can't get it."

"Then let it go," Shi Luo said.

"Our captain thinks so too, but our manager won't give up. He insists I keep practicing. Whatever. He means well. If he wants me to practice, I'll practice." Wawa sounded utterly miserable. "Speaking of which... Shi-ge, can I practice with you? I'll take the front line. Help me out a little?"

Shi Luo had been mulling over what Wawa had just said. He came back to himself. "Sure."

After crushing Wawa in their match that afternoon, Shi Luo had felt a tiny bit guilty. That was why he'd agreed without a second thought when Wawa asked to practice with him.

Ten minutes later, he regretted it.

For one simple reason: Wawa was so fucking bad at assassin medic!

Outside of streaming on his alt, Shi Luo hadn't encountered a medic this bad in ages!

He had never flamed a medic, not since his very first day playing this game. Today, he nearly broke that streak.

"You f..." Shi Luo gritted his teeth and swallowed the rest. "Far too aggressive... Could you at least try to check how many enemies are there?"

"Motherf... Move a little slower. Can you do that?"

"F... Field! West side of the field, did you hear me?! Go!!! Didn't you hear me?!!!"

They duo-queued for three hours. Shi Luo's main account plunged from number one on the Chinese server to number seventeen as though it had jumped off a bridge with a bungee cord.

After another game, Shi Luo opened the server's top one hundred leaderboard. He stared at his own name in nineteenth place, speechless for a long time.

He didn't want to start swearing. He lit a cigarette.

"Shi-ge?" Wawa ventured. "Are we... still playing?"

Shi Luo exhaled a mouthful of smoke. After a long silence, he said, "Do you know how many high-ranked games I have to play every week to stay number one?"

"I've held that spot for four months straight. As long as I don't drop in the rankings today, I'll only need another half month to break the record..."

Shi Luo was starting to doubt Wawa's reputation for honesty. "Are you throwing my games?"

Wawa could have cried. "I wish I were throwing. But I really am just that bad. Have your cigarette. Calm down, calm down."

Shi Luo shook his head, cigarette between his lips. "No, no, no. Go practice with Captain Gu. I'm done."

Wawa was heartbroken. "He stopped playing with me ages ago. My assassin medic has driven off another assaulter."

"As one of the few friends I have," Shi Luo said, "here's my honest advice: give it up."

"I think so too. Assassin medics are a rare breed. I don't want to keep trying anymore... Oh!" Something suddenly occurred to Wawa. "Shi-ge, before you switched classes, weren't you an assassin medic?"

Shi Luo took a drag and gave a muffled grunt of assent.

"That's such a rare talent! Why did you switch? What a waste!!!" Wawa thought for a moment, then added, "Well, you made it to the top as an assaulter too, so I can't really call it a waste. But good medics are already hard to come by, and assassin medics are even rarer. It's such a shame."

Shi Luo exited the map. "Nothing to regret."

Wawa still found it painful. "Easy to take your gifts for granted when you've got so many... Why did you switch, though? Aaargh, what a waste."

Shi Luo ignored him. After finishing his cigarette, he was ready to shut down the computer and log off, but Wawa kept howling in his ear and wouldn't stop asking. Shi Luo laughed.

"I don't even regret it. Why are you getting so worked up on my behalf?"

"It's just such a waste..." Wawa all but beat his chest in anguish. "If you hadn't switched classes, you definitely wouldn't have transferred either. You'd be NSN's starting medic now. I'd have been perfectly happy being your sub! I'd gladly carry your shoes, boss..."

Shi Luo snorted.

Now Wawa was curious. "Come on, tell me. Why did you do it?"

Shi Luo lit another cigarette.

"Because..."

Then he said irritably, "There was an official announcement. Look it up yourself."

"Just tell me!" Wawa urged. "I became a pro too late. There's so much old stuff I don't know."

"The official explanation..."

Shi Luo thought back, then slowly recited, "As player Evil's personal understanding of the game has diverged from the objectives of the medic class, continuing in this role would be an ordeal for both parties. Therefore..."

"Hang on," Wawa said tentatively. "Let me put that in plain English. So... Evil got fed up with playing healer and decided to trade medicine for weapons. Right?"

"You could put it even more plainly."

Wawa tried again. "Fuck being a medic. I'm not healing you assholes anymore."

Shi Luo approved.

"Badass. Seriously badass." Wawa applauded slowly, his admiration sincere. "I have that thought every so often, actually. I've just never had the guts to do it."

Shi Luo smiled and continued, "...Following thorough and amicable discussions between player Evil and the management of NSN's FOG division, the club and player have mutually agreed that Evil will switch to the assaulter class, effective immediately."

"As all assaulter positions on NSN's first team are currently filled, the club will make further arrangements concerning Evil's future in accordance with the player's personal wishes."

Cigarette between his lips, Shi Luo said, "That's it."

While they talked, Wawa had opened the official website for FOG's Chinese league and searched Shi Luo's player ID for the announcement from two years earlier. He finally found it.

Although Shi Luo had still been a rookie at the time, he was already something of a star. The league had given his class-change announcement the full official treatment, even creating a special poster.

Two game characters stood behind Shi Luo in the poster. In the shadows was his old medic character, holding a three-panel, six-edged photon shield. Beneath a streetlight stood his newly created assaulter, carrying a submachine gun.

"I mean, I get being fed up with playing medic," Wawa said hesitantly. "But back then, you had no way of knowing you'd make it to the top as an assaulter too. Switching just like that... That was pretty stu... Um."

"Pretty fucking stupid," Shi Luo finished for him.

He took another drag. "I was a fucking idiot back then, sure. But that wasn't actually why I switched."

Wawa's curiosity spiked. "Then why did you?!"

Shi Luo stubbed out his cigarette. "Not telling. I'm off."

With that, he shut down the computer and went to bed.

Shi Luo left just like that. The viewers on Wawa's stream, who had been eagerly listening to their conversation, erupted. Afraid he might say the wrong thing and stir up trouble for Shi Luo, Wawa scrambled to end the stream.

In NSN's training room, Captain Gu Qian stood up to get some water. Wawa took off his headset and asked casually, "Captain, why did God Shi suddenly switch to assaulter when he was on our team?"

Gu Qian stopped. He turned to look at the person by the window, who had been on his phone the whole time.

"His fault."

Wawa gaped. "God Yu?"

Then he thought about it. "Wait, hadn't God Yu already gone to the European league by then? How could he..."

"Precisely because they weren't on the same team anymore." Gu Qian's expression was calm. "Our region had arranged some scrims with the European teams. We happened to play Yu Sui's new team. Shi Luo was my medic. We played three games and lost all three. They targeted Shi Luo the entire time, every single game. In the last one... I don't think he ever made it out of the respawn stone after the very start."

Wawa looked horrified. "Wasn't that even worse than what happened to me today?!"

"What happened to you today was nothing," Gu Qian said. "That European team camped right on our respawn stone and slaughtered us. Respawn, get killed. Respawn, get killed. They even deliberately had their medic do the killing. Him. Yu Sui."

"In the last game, the rest of us surrendered and left the map. We really couldn't beat them. There was no point wasting time. Only Shi Luo refused to surrender. He stayed in there alone, dying and getting back up, getting back up and dying again..."

In FOG, injured player characters developed wounds and bloodstains. Even after respawning, those wounds and bloodstains remained for the rest of the match. If someone kept getting killed and coming back to life...

Wawa pictured it and asked with difficulty, "How many... times did he die?"

"Thirty-four." Gu Qian looked at Yu Sui, who was still on his phone. "Right?"

"Thirty-four?!!!" Wawa said in disbelief.

Still looking at his phone, Yu Sui murmured an acknowledgment.

In that game, Shi Luo's character had been covered in wounds from head to toe. Half his face was soaked in blood, leaving him unrecognizable.

"...You'd only just sold him off, too," Wawa managed. "God Yu, in an action manga, you'd be the villain."

Yu Sui stared into space for a moment. Then he smiled and murmured to himself, "I've been the villain for a long time, even outside a manga."

"True," Gu Qian said. "As far as I can remember, the trolls in Chinese esports have only ever united against a common enemy twice. The first time was when Yu Sui took his team to Europe. The second was when Shi Luo got sold twice in three months."

"Trolls from every forum joined forces against the same target. They made hate videos, Photoshopped funeral portraits, spammed insulting nicknames everywhere... They stopped just short of pooling their money to hire someone to go to Europe and cripple Yu Sui's hands."

Gu Qian summed it up without expression. "The first man to unite the trolls of esports: Whisper, Yu Sui."

Yu Sui smiled. "Quite an honor."

Wawa glanced awkwardly at Yu Sui, not daring to join in the teasing, and went back to queuing for a game.