[Defeat]
The emotionless electronic announcement and the crimson “DEFEAT” emblazoned in the center of the screen declared the end of this game and the result of this match.
The unique sound effects of the game in the headphones gradually dissipated until there was silence.
Shen Er’s hand gripping the mouse couldn’t stop trembling, and his vision gradually blurred, the gray screen and the neon lights of the audience seats blending into one.
With his lips tightly pressed, he trembled as he took off his headset. The cheers from all around surged into his ears like a tide, sounding piercing and leaving him feeling helpless.
“Let us congratulate Team UMA for defeating Team KNG with a score of 3:2!” the commentator’s voice was hoarse with excitement, “This is UMA’s third grand slam, and also the third FMVP (Finals Most Valuable Player) title for player hyper. Let’s give him a round of applause!”
Shen Er weakly closed his eyes, the tears that had pooled in his eyes now sliding down like a silent, serene rain.
“At the same time, we would also like to thank KNG for bringing us such an exciting match—”
As the commentator’s words fell, the director’s camera shifted to the other side, and on the big screen, hyper, who had been accepting cheers with a smile, became a lonely and tearful Shen Er.
This was Shen Er’s second time making it to the World Championships.
In the first year when UMA won the world championship, they defeated KNG in the summer season, preventing them from reaching the World Championships.
In the second year when UMA won the championship, KNG lost to LCK (South Korea League), stopping at the quarter-finals.
And this year, KNG made it all the way to the finals, staging an LPL (China League) civil war at the World Championships for the first time, but still fell at their hands.
Shen Er and hyper debuted in the same year, and it was inevitable that comparisons would be drawn between them.
hyper was the pride of the esports circle, reaching the peak as soon as he debuted, while he was… just an inconspicuous stepping stone.
“Let’s go, let’s shake hands.” A teammate sitting beside him stood up, and patted him lowly on the shoulder.
Shen Er choked out a response from his throat and tried to stand up using the armrest when, amid the cheering for UMA, he caught a different voice—
“Owl, hang in there, don’t cry!!”1hang in there: 加油 (jiā yóu) is an expression of encouragement and support in China, it is used in a similar way as Hwaiting (화이팅) in Korea
Shen Er’s wrist, holding the armrest, suddenly throbbed uncomfortably, forcing him to slump back into his chair.
This “hang in there” and this slight pain were like the last straw, almost suffocating him.
His teammates exclaimed by his ear, “Fuck? What’s wrong?”
With red eyes, Shen Er slowly lowered his head, pressing his forehead against the edge of the table, his tears turning from silent falling to a suppressed, sobbing cry.
The director’s camera never moved away, and he on the big screen looked like fragile glass.
Perhaps affected by the mood, the cheers from the audience gradually grew smaller and smaller, and encouraging words came from different places, urging him on.
…Shen Er cried even more fiercely.
After a long time, a hand rested on his shoulder again.
“Shen Er, are you okay?”
It was hyper’s voice. Shen Er sniffed, turned his head to wipe away the tears with the back of his hand, and then turned to look at him.
Shen Er shook his head, standing up with hyper’s support.
“It’s good that you’re okay.” hyper comforted him with a pat on the arm, took two steps back, and extended his hand to him, “See you next season.”
Shen Er pressed his lips together, not responding, but he lifted his trembling hand to shake his, then followed his teammates to shake hands with the other UMA players, and then, left the arena dispiritedly.
The sound of the audience cheering for the champions erupted once again, penetrating through the door of the lounge. Shen Er picked up the thick coat lying on the sofa and wrapped it around himself. The KNG logo was completely covered.
“Just keep working hard next season,” the team manager said, looking at him and sighing silently, “It’s okay, let’s go back for now.”
Shen Er remained silent, following everyone out of the venue.
Outside, a heavy rain poured down, accompanied by chilly dampness that seeped in through his cuffs and collar, sending tiny, piercing pains through his wrist and spine.
The club’s bus was parked not far away, and one by one, his teammates hurried over, rushing into the warmth of the heated bus.
Shen Er raised his head, watching the dim night sky through the curtain of rain, then put on his hat, stepped over puddles reflecting the warm yellow streetlights, and boarded the bus.
The atmosphere inside the bus on the way back to the club was oppressive.
Sitting in the back row, Shen Er leaned his head against the window, listening to the sound of the rain pounding on the glass. He turned on his phone and opened Weibo; eight out of the top ten hot searches were about this game.
#UMAWinsAnotherGrandSlam#
#HyperIsReallyStrong#
…
#OwlShedsTearsOnTheField#
Shen Er clicked on it.
[Does Owl have a hyper phobia? Whenever he faces hyper, he never wins]
[Isn’t he just bad? In esports being bad is the original sin.]
[I can only say that Owl is really unlucky. He’s not bad, it’s just that hyper is too strong.]
[I hope no one is going to claim Owl as the Uncrowned King again. Fun fact: there’s only one champion.]
He calmly scrolled through the Weibo posts, whether it was regret or mockery, Shen Er showed no emotion at all.
Until—
[I remember watching a documentary about KNG saying Owl often practices beyond his limits. Today, during his match, you could see muscle patches peeking out from his sleeves. I wonder if he can still play.]
He pressed the lock button, closing his eyes.
The moment he returned to the club and took off his coat to hang it up, the manager noticed his wrist swollen to the point of deformation.
“Shen Er.” The manager lowered his voice, “Come with me to the hospital for a check-up tomorrow.”
Shen Er turned his head to meet his gaze, nodding slightly. “Got it.”
After saying that, under the surprised eyes of everyone, he put on his T-shirt, took the coat, and went upstairs to his room.
The dim room was illuminated only by the faint light of his phone screen. Shen Er’s fingertips trembled as he slowly tapped on the screen.
[Hello everyone, I am KNG’s mid-laner Owl, Shen Er, and I’ve decided to retire.]
A short line of text, deleted and edited, edited and deleted again.
Until he fell asleep from exhaustion, he had never managed to press the send button.
Early the next morning, there was a knock on Shen Er’s door, and standing outside was the neatly dressed manager.
“Brush your teeth, wash your face, and grab something to eat. I’ll take you to the hospital for a check-up,” he said.
Shen Er was a frequent visitor to the hospital. He was accustomed to the pungent smell of disinfectant and the boredom of waiting in line to register. He took out his phone and opened Weibo, where the first thing he saw was the retirement declaration that he hadn’t sent out last night.
“Liu Ge2Liu ge: 刘哥 (Liú gē) A nickname for Manager Liu, 哥哥 (Gēgē) itself means older brother, so Liu ge can be translated to brother Liu, is my contract expiring?” Shen Er, who had been silent, suddenly spoke up.
Before Liu Ge could come up with a suitable answer, Shen Er’s name appeared on the screen in the consultation room, accompanied by a voice announcement. He pushed himself up with his knees and stood up. “We’ll talk about that later. Let’s go in for the check-up first.”
Shen Er’s occupational illness was more severe than they had imagined.
When the doctor said, “Retire as soon as possible if you don’t want to be disabled,” Liu Ge’s expression became particularly grim.
“It’s okay, I figured as much,” Shen Er smiled. “Go ahead and announce my retirement. I’ll go to the restroom.”
After saying that, Shen Er walked to the end of the corridor by himself, bypassed the restroom, and entered a service corridor.
Leaning against the wall, he looked at his wrist swollen into a lump from the medicine, slightly lowered his head, and pressed a fond kiss on his pale palm.
Then, he took out his phone from his pocket and sent out the retirement declaration that he had been reluctant to send out. His trembling fingertips couldn’t hold the phone steady, and it slipped from his grasp, landing on the ground with a muffled thud, bouncing down layer by layer.
After a moment of daze, Shen Er followed its trajectory and hurried downstairs.
The hospital’s service corridor was tiled, and coincidentally, that particular area had just been cleaned, leaving the tiles still damp with water stains.
Shen Er’s feet slipped, and he fell down.
–
His head hurt.
Shen Er frowned deeply, massaging his throbbing head with one hand, while propping himself up on the edge of the bed, he sat up.
“Awake? Do you feel any discomfort?” The person that spoke was the nurse who was adjusting his IV drip.
Shen Er looked at her. “My head hurts.”
“You fell down the stairs. It’s normal to have a headache. We’ve checked, and there’s no internal injury, so don’t worry too much.” The nurse pulled out a hand warmer from her pocket, opened it, folded and squeezed it to activate, and handed it to him, “It’s cold, hold onto this. Once this IV bottle is finished, just ring the bell.”
Fell down the stairs.
Shen Er’s consciousness gradually returned.
Ah, right, he fell down the stairs.
If he is lying in the hospital now, it must be Liu Ge who brought him here.
Shen Er rubbed his head and looked around. The ward had eight beds, and there were people sitting or lying on each one, with others accompanying them. But…
Where was Liu Ge?!!
With his personality, he wouldn’t just leave him alone in the hospital after saying he was going to retire!!
Just as the nurse was about to leave with her cart, Shen Er hurriedly called out to her—
“Excuse me, do you know where the person who brought me here is?”
The nurse turned her head and pointed outside the window. “He was just at the front desk arranging your hospital admission, he should be back soon.”
After thanking her, Shen Er’s gaze fell on the hand currently receiving the IV drip, feeling somewhat strange.
These hands… why do they look different from mine?
Shen Er frowned, enduring the pain in his head, and stretched out his other hand from under the covers, with his palm facing him.
The sense of strangeness became more and more intense.
Until his gaze landed on the wrist bone.
Shen Er suddenly realized the source of this strange feeling.
There were no mouse calluses or tendon sheath cysts on his wrist, instead, there was a thick layer of calluses on the palm.
This did not look like the hand of an esports player.
He frowned, blinked in disbelief, and habitually tried to flex his four fingers towards his little finger.
No hint of soreness.
He didn’t even have tenosynovitis.
Shen Er raised his head in shock and happened to make eye contact with the person standing by his bed holding a meal.
“You’re finally awake,” the person sighed deeply, “You really scared me when you suddenly collapsed.” He walked over to Shen Er’s side with the meal, opened the plastic bag, and placed it on the cabinet next to him, “Hungry? I got you some food from the hospital cafeteria, eat something first.”
Shen Er stared at him blankly, the person in front of him looked familiar yet unfamiliar, as if they had known each other for a long time but hadn’t been in contact for a long while.
“What’s wrong with you?” the person waved his hand in front of Shen Er, “Hey?”
Shen Er opened his mouth, thought hard for a while, and then uncertainly uttered a name.
“Wang Chenyu?”
“Ah, why are you calling me that?” Wang Chenyu handed him a pair of disposable chopsticks. “With that look on your face just now, I thought you had amnesia. I mean, it can’t be that dramatic, right? The doctor said the CT scan showed no internal injuries.”
Shen Er took the chopsticks and murmured a thanks, then fell silent.
In his memory, Wang Chenyu seemed to be a former roommate from long ago, and their friendship had always been quite good…
After he went professional, how could there have been absolutely no contact between them?
If there was no contact at all, why would he appear in his hospital room now?
Shen Er held the chopsticks and stared at Wang Chenyu in a daze.
“No, what are you doing, Shen Er? You’re giving me the creeps staring at me like that.” Wang Chenyu took a step back, furrowing his brow and hissing. “Could it be there’s some internal injury that wasn’t detected… I’ll go find a doctor again!”
As soon as he finished speaking, Wang Chenyu turned and ran.
Shen Er’s gaze followed him until he disappeared from view.
How strange.
Just then, Shen Er’s stomach conveniently grumbled, and a wave of hunger surged up.
He unwrapped the disposable chopsticks and, in a twisted posture with his left hand flat for the IV and the right hand holding the chopsticks, ate some of the very ordinary-looking meal.
Soon, he noticed the phone next to the lunch box.
Whether it was the model or the fact that it showed no traces of being dropped, this phone didn’t look like his at all. But besides being his, there couldn’t be another phone placed in this position.
Shen Er, with a head full of doubts, set down the chopsticks and picked up the phone, trying his usual password—
Unlocked.
The phone was open to a novel-reading app, which meant that just before he fell, it hadn’t been exited from this screen.
But reading novels seemed like a hobby from long ago; since joining the professional team, he hadn’t had the energy or time to read novels. And he clearly remembered that before he fell, his phone was on the Weibo app.
His head spun with confusion, and all sorts of question marks kept popping up in his mind.
He pressed the lock screen button, and sure enough, his own face appeared on the dark screen.
What’s going on? Had he traveled through time?
Before Shen Er could sort out the mess in his head, Wang Chenyu had already rushed in with the doctor.
“Doctor, he really seems off. Can you take another look to see if there are any sequelae?” Wang Chenyu anxiously spoke, “He seems a bit… not very bright right now?”
Shen Er, still immersed in his shock, gaped at the doctor, which indeed made him look not very bright.
“Do you still remember who he is?” the doctor walked to Shen Er’s side and pointed to Wang Chenyu.
Shen Er hesitated and nodded. “I kind of remember…”
“Then do you remember where you fell and how you fell?” the doctor asked again.
“I fell in the hospital stairwell, right?” Shen Er’s voice grew fainter and less confident, “I think I slipped on wet tiles…”
Wang Chenyu was shocked.
The doctor quickly wrote something with a pen and asked, “Do you remember where you live? Where you work?”
Shen Er tilted his head, murmuring softly, “I live… at the club, right?”
The doctor pushed his glasses up, nodded calmly, tore off the paper he had just written on, and handed it to Wang Chenyu. “Your friend is experiencing some symptoms of memory confusion. It won’t last long. Just give him this prescription and make sure he takes it on time.”
After he finished speaking, the doctor even kindly went to Shen Er’s side to change his IV before leaving.
Wang Chenyu held the paper, looking at Shen Er, who sat on the hospital bed staring back at Wang Chenyu, both of them staring wide-eyed at each other.
“You said you fell in the hospital?” Wang Chenyu’s expression was incredulous. “You, who haven’t set foot in a hospital in over 180 years, how could you possibly fall in a hospital?!”
Shen Er was also puzzled by his words. “Then, I…”
“Also, living at a club, huh? Who has the money to live in a club?” Wang Chenyu sighed heavily, clutching the paper as he sat by Shen Er’s bed, looking at him seriously. “Your name is Shen Er.”
Shen Er was utterly confused.
“You know I am Wang Chenyu, so you should know your own name is Shen Er, right?” Wang Chenyu said. “If you remember, just nod.”
Shen Er obediently nodded. “I remember.”
“We both live in the old city area in those old apartment buildings. You fell because you worked late last night without eating, and you got low blood sugar while climbing the stairs today, do you remember that?”
Shen Er shook his head blankly.
Wang Chenyu fell silent, pursing his lips, and nodded resignedly. “We both work at a milk tea shop. Do you remember that?”
Shen Er furrowed his brows, as if there was a faint impression, but it felt very long ago.
Wang Chenyu sighed heavily, shaking the paper in his hand. “Lie down for a bit more. I only took half a day off, I need to go to work and also ask for another day off for you. Hopefully, when I come back, you’ll remember. It’ll save us money for the medicine. After this trip today, you’ve wasted three months’ worth of salary.”
Shen Er watched Wang Chenyu leave the ward, deeply questioning his life as he opened his phone again.
A few friends on WeChat and a pitiful bank balance.
No Weibo on the phone at all.
And a bunch of unfamiliar apps for reading novels.
What on earth was going on…
It wasn’t without reason that he was called Lucky E; what kind of strange situation was this?
Luckily, he didn’t tell the doctor that he was a professional esports player, or Wang Chenyu might have just turned around and sent him to the psychiatric ward next door to check if he was suffering from delusions.
Shen Er silently swiped left and right on his phone, opening apps and closing them again.
After all these actions, this old, worn-out phone…
It froze.
It got stuck on that initial novel-reading app.
Shen Er frowned, muscle memory prompting him to long-press the side button to force a shutdown.
As the screen went dark, his gaze fell on the last paragraph of the novel page.
[Hello everyone, I am KNG’s mid-laner Owl, Shen Er, and I’ve decided to retire.]
Author’s Message:
Beginning of the story!
Thank you for reading! 
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