The tension in the air was so thick it was difficult to breathe.
Zuo Tao left his seat in a daze, realizing belatedly that his heart had accelerated when he saw Song Shihan in front of his computer.
Song Shihan’s recent behavior was really provocative.
Damn, how could such a perfect1The term in the raws is actually slang for ‘Mary Sue’ or ‘Gary Stu’, aka someone who has good looks, good prospects, good life, etc man exist?!
There were no changes in his expression, and his tone remained even and indifferent. But even so, just the simple act of him moving and sitting down was enough to make Zuo Tao’s scalp tingle.
He felt as if there were a dozen little fairies holding hands and dancing in his heart, frantically calling for Song Shihan. If this were an anime, he was certain that blooming flowers would have surrounded him at that moment.
Taking advantage of the sweetness in his heart, he took a sip of ginger tea, thinking that it might be able to mask the taste and it wouldn’t be as difficult to drink.
“Ow, how can you drink that?”
Wang Qiu watched him drinking the tea, his face twisting. “Don’t you think it’s hard to swallow?2Not when he’s so in love he probably can’t taste it, Qiu-ge lol”
“It’s alright,” Zuo Tao answered. “Jiang-ge said I’ll feel better quicker after drinking. Didn’t you all drink it, too?”
Wang Qiu: “…who told you we drank his ginger tea?”
“Jiang-ge,” Zuo Tao said. “He said you’re all feeling alright now because you drank ginger tea last night.”
“And you believed him?!” Wang Qiu laughed, glancing at Jiang Ming before lowering his voice to a whisper. “We didn’t drink it! We threw it out.”
Zuo Tao: …
He looked at Si Zheng and CAT, and though they didn’t respond verbally, the expressions on their faces showed that they were silently agreeing with Wang Qiu.
Song Shihan was using Zuo Tao’s account for the match. He first removed his watch before testing out the keyboard a few times with his slender fingers.
Noticing that his eyebrows were furrowed, Zuo Tao twisted the thermos cap closed and asked, “Captain, do you want me to get your peripherals?”
The first string’s training room couldn’t accommodate them for this solo competition, so they used another training room downstairs. It was relatively spacious and there was a lot more in terms of equipment, but it has rarely been used since the base’s opening. The keyboard on the PC was still the basic assembly that came with the set, and there was a significant gap compared to the custom keyboards they’d spent thousands on that they usually use for training and competitions.
Zuo Tao was also a professional player, and he knew that each one of them had personal preferences and requirements for their equipment, especially their keyboards. Some people liked brown keys, some liked black3So there are several keys available for keyboards, each one with its own distinct characteristics. Brown keys, for example, sound a lot more solid when you press on them (kind of like ‘thoc thoc’) and they’re known for feedback, aka the keys immediately come up against your fingertips after you press them. Other keys include red/cherry, black, blue, and white. Each one sounds different, and each one boasts a different touch/sensory experience.; there were a lot of considerations that came with choosing the right keyboard.
For example, from watching all of Song Shihan’s game videos over the years, Zuo Tao knew that he only used his own custom keyboard, which he has never changed until now.
“No need,” Song Shihan said, “just rest.” He leaned back against the chair, resting his hand on the mouse. He looked across the table to his opponent and said, “You choose the hero.”
“No… Captain Song, are you really playing against me?” crew cut asked, still dazed.
Song Shihan answered evenly, “Is there a problem?”
Crew cut was flustered. “Captain Song, we have no conflict with you,” he said; this was simply the second string wanting to challenge Zuo Tao. “We simply wished to see PINK’s abilities, this has nothing to do with you…”
“He’s a support, and you want to fight him?” Song Shihan said calmly, tapping on the table with his fingers. “Or are you saying that the entire second string wants to switch to playing support?”
Crew cut opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say anything. After a few moments, he gritted his teeth and said, “No, I don’t want to change.”
“En,” Song Shihan said.
Wang Qiu finally realized what was happening. “No, wait, you were thinking of playing against PINK one after another?” His tone did not hide his dissatisfaction. “I can understand if your support is dissatisfied, but why is everyone else who plays different roles joining in?
“You can’t just be doing this because our support has a good temper, can you?” Although he was smiling, his eyes were cold. He rolled his sleeves up and said, “I play midlane. Who’s your mage?”
As he spoke, he pulled a chair out and turned on another computer. “Let’s do the same thing with the bottom lane and the jungle. We’re all here, anyway.”
Zhou Chuanyi saw through the situation and fear twisted his face, not having expected this level of chaos at all. He turned to Jiang Ming and said, “Jiang-ge, this is…”
But before he could finish, Si Zheng and CAT had already taken up their own computers, setting up their accounts and fixing their settings.
Jiang Ming stood behind his team, arms crossed, silent. It was a tacit agreement to his team’s behavior.
Although he was feeling cold, there was also an inexplicable sense of relief. It hasn’t been that long since Wildfire was established yet, and though most of the members were good, the coordination and cooperation between them still left much to be desired.
The best way to cultivate a team’s tacit understanding is by doing nothing more than team activities. If members of the team had good relationships, then it was impossible for their tacit understanding of each other to remain bad.
But he didn’t expect the entire team to make such a choice, with no hesitation, when it came to Zuo Tao.
“Jiang-ge,” Zhou Chuanyi said, “is this okay?”
Jiang Ming: “What’s wrong, isn’t this good?” He smiled, waving his hand. “Let the kids play. They can solo if they want, it won’t take that much time.”
Zhou Chuanyi had nothing to say.
All the matches ended within the next five minutes. There was no surprise in the results, the first team easily took the wins.
Especially Song Shihan.
As a former world champion, he unleashed astonishing techniques in the solo match. From meeting his opponent on the middle lane to a kill, it took two and a half seconds, demonstrating perfectly what it meant to face death.
His match ended much faster than the match between Zuo Tao and Xiao Ding.
Zuo Tao calculated the time silently.
Killing a jungle creep may take upwards of three seconds, so crew cut wasn’t even as good as a first-minute jungle creep4Jungle creeps (or monsters) are special characters that get progressively harder to kill as the game moves. They’re easier to kill in the early game (with little to no equipment) and harder in the late game.
The second string members looked bad as they left the training room.
“Oh, it’s alright,” Jiang Ming said, feeling like the parent of a first grader, standing at the door of the training room with a smile he couldn’t quite hide. He waved his hand. “Go back and review your matches, target your weakness in training, and you’ll gradually improve your skills and game awareness.”
“Jiang-ge, you’re like a preening peacock,” Wang Qiu teased as he looked back.
After their matches ended, the team walked upstairs together. Jiang Ming, who was still talking to Zhou Chuanyi, smacked his lips.
Zuo Tao followed behind Song Shihan closely, his mood not dropping at all.
“Captain, that was really amazing!” Zuo Tao exclaimed, gesturing with his hands. “Two and a half seconds, it only took two and a half seconds! So strong!”
Wang Qiu: “Taozi, what does this mean? Only praising the captain and ignoring our strength?”
“Strong,” Zuo Tao said, giving the rest of the team a thumbs up, “everyone is so strong!”
Song Shihan pushed the door to the training room open, walking to his seat and sitting down. He rubbed at his forehead before looking up at Zuo Tao who was following behind him. “Why do you still have it on?”
Zuo Tao had worn the mask again, leaving only his eyes exposed. At first glance, he looked even younger than he really was.
Zuo Tao took his seat and said, “I have a cold, I’m afraid you guys might get infected.”
Song Shihan didn’t respond, thinking of something else instead. With a smile, he asked, “You’re not avoiding me anymore?”
From the end of the interview until now, he noticed that this child had been avoiding him. Even just walking around the base, they had to walk with someone else between them.
Song Shihan guessed that it was probably because of Wu Shuibo’s comments during the interview, but he didn’t expect it to affect Zuo Tao so badly.
It was understandable, though; under normal circumstances, no boy would like to be stuck in romantic topics with another guy.
“Huh?” Zuo Tao’s smile stiffened, feeling guilty. “No… I wasn’t avoiding you.”
Song Shihan simply gave Zuo Tao a deep look.
“Zuo Tao,” Song Shihan said, “Don’t be easily affected by outsiders’ comments.” He looked away and turned his computer on, adding, “After today’s interview is released, there will be many other voices joining in on the chaos. If it bothers you, you can tell Jiang-ge and management and public relations will handle it.”
“It’s okay, it doesn’t bother me!” Zuo Tao shook his head. Finding that he was overreacting, he added, “Ah, I mean, it’s no big deal. There’s no need to waste money on PR for this.”
He decided to drag Ding Lei into the mud. “I have a friend I’m close to from school, so I’m used to getting shipped as a CP5Couple or couple pairing, easier known as shipping or real-person shipping.”
They had a few more training matches that night. Jiang Ming let them off the clock early as they were leaving for the venue tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning.
Zuo Tao was exhausted. After taking a hot shower, he laid down in bed.
Of course, no matter how tired he was, it was still impossible to fall asleep immediately. For the youth of the new era, sleeping before 11 in the evening was a sign of soullessness.
So he planned to surf on his phone for a while.
There was already an entry for tomorrow’s summer preliminaries among the trending topics. After flipping through the posts for a while, Zuo Tao saw a familiar name among the many entries.
【#WildfireVSMachineGun】
Remembering that Wu Shuibo had said he was going to post some clips from the interview on his personal account, he clicked into the tag, intending to watch Song Shihan’s entry.
The posted video wasn’t too long, only about three minutes, with each member of the team being given a few scenes. Zuo Tao focused on taking as many screenshots of Song Shihan whenever he appeared on the screen.
The video quickly ended, but after fading into black, there were still about 20 seconds left.
Zuo Tao didn’t pay it much mind. He was about to close the post when suddenly, an exclamation sound effect played within the video, and the screen lit up once more.
He had an awful premonition —
The next second, he saw his own face in the video.
“FIRE is a player I used to really, really like. Of course, I still like him very much now. He’s great, an amazing player… He’s very different from what people say about him online. He’s not cold or distant at all, he’s actually very good, and personally, I think he’s the best ADC in the league.”
No wonder Machine Gun had called it a sweet, heartfelt confession. After getting edited, under the romantic special effects, even he felt he had confessed.
Oh, god.
The video wasn’t over yet. A second “wow” sounded as the cameraman followed him as he left the set. On the back of the noticeably larger jacket he was wearing, the ID ‘FIRE’ stood out particularly prominently.
As he walked towards Song Shihan among the crowd of people.
Zuo Tao: …
Help.
His face burst into flames, and he wrapped himself in a blanket, rolling back and forth on the bed a few times. His legs kicked the air awkwardly.
So shameful, but I’m so happy.
Zuo Tao screamed internally for a few moments, then jumped into the comments with his heart pounding.
【The script for today’s meal6You may have encountered this before, but slang for PDA is ‘dog food’. The ‘meal’ that has been served is about FIRE and PINK is amazing!】
【Emm, the last part. PINK is fanboying as usual.】
【Sorry, am I the only one who got something?】
【Upstairs7Comments are divided into ‘floors’, so the OP/original commenter is usually called ‘floor owner’ or ‘upstairs’, meaning ‘the person whose comment I’m replying to’, me too… Although FIRE didn’t show up, the team jacket speaks volumes, right?】
【Machine Gun is truly a machine gun. Why are you stuck being a host? Hurry up and write a drama!!!】
【Former CP fans fell, and millions of CP fans rose again8The temptation to write this as ‘and on the third day they rose again’….】
【WTF? Help me, why do I… taste a bit of sweetness?】
【My FIRE does quite give off gong9Yes, as in attacker/seme/top vibes, he’s the gong whenever he gets paired with anyone, ah, ah, ah!!!】
【Please pay attention to where you’re shipping, and don’t go too far. Not everyone is open to this kind of behavior, okay? @Wildfire-FIRE, @Wildfire-PINK, when are you getting your marriage certificate?】
【If this ain’t love!!!】
【Here10circling back to comments being floors, the raw here literally means ‘borrowing the building’ aka they’re using the series of comments (floors) as a place to say something to promote my fanfic, one sentence introduction: Captain Iceberg and His Little Support Wife. Please see my homepage for details /bad_smile.jpg】
Zuo Tao was taken aback by this particular comment. Face still flushed, he hesitated for a few seconds before coughing, pretending that his finger slid and accidentally opened the commenter’s homepage. The first thing that caught his attention was a pink cover image, and the rest of the posts were filled with dense text.
After reading only two lines, Zuo Tao’s brain was fried. He covered his burning face, put his phone aside, and, after a mere few seconds, picked it up again.
He had to say, netizens of today really dared to write. It wasn’t even halfway through the first chapter yet and he and Song Shihan had already kissed each other three times. Reading further down, things got even more impressive, especially when the timeline reached the evening; even without any explicit descriptions, the atmosphere written about was enough to make people blush.
The more Zuo Tao read, the faster his heart beat. Shame and excitement raced through his blood and mixed to create an all new emotion. He was reading, getting excited, when someone knocked on the door of his room.
“Who’s there?” he called. There was no response. Feeling guilty for some reason, he put his phone down and moved to open the door.
On the other side stood the other protagonist of the novel.
Zuo Tao: …
TL notes:
Happy Valentine’s day, everyone! I’m not sure if this counts as a spoiler, but just a head’s up that this novel is vegetarian. Meaning there’s no meat, but that doesn’t mean that nothing of the nature happens. It does get mentioned, but, again, nothing explicit! I hope you’re enjoying DPTBG so far!
If you can, please support the author by buying the original work! You can also support the translator through this link:
An extra chapter will be posted each time we reach our dono goal~
![You’re Causing Chaos Again [e-sports]](https://www.freenovels.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1sMqC2JNjIep8Ov.jpg "You’re Causing Chaos Again [e-sports]")
