After the situation was reported, the organizers quickly sent emergency supplies such as thermometers and fever patches.
Song Shihan did not respond to Zuo Tao’s insistence that looked more like coquettishness, but Jiang Ming still took his temperature. It was 37.91~100°F°C, which was indeed on the lower side, but he was still worried that it might worsen in the near future.
Jiang Ming did not feel well. He said, “PINK, if you’re truly feeling uncomfortable, don’t be so hardheaded.”
Zuo Tao shook his head. “It’s fine, I can do it. It won’t affect the game.” He couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Song Shihan. From his view, the man’s profile was clear and smooth, but his eyebrows remained furrowed, a hint of coldness emanating from his body.
“Okay, I’ll ask the staff to lessen the air conditioning,” Jiang Ming said. He remembered something: “PINK, where’s your bottle? I’ll get you some warm water.”
Zuo Tao shook his head, remaining silent.
The break ended and the members of Wildfire walked to the stage once more.
Sitting on the spot of the support, checking his peripherals, Zuo Tao glanced at Song Shihan several times, but he never got even a look back.
It was so far from the first match, where Song Shihan even ruffled his hair.
The Sherlock Holmeses watching the livestream quickly noticed that something was wrong —
【Wow, what’s with this sudden change? They were so happy earlier but now something isn’t right.】
【If I remember correctly, they won the first match, right?】
【Are my dear son’s eyes red? Zoom in please, camera, bring it closer, I want to see PINK!】
【FIRE doesn’t look too good either. Doesn’t he look like an ice cube?】
【Did these two argue?】
【I don’t think so. Although FIRE isn’t known for his good temper, he wouldn’t fight with a kid.】
【I feel like they had a disagreement. Did you notice PINK sneaking glances at FIRE? It looks like guilt with a hesitancy to speak.】
The players of course had no idea what was being discussed in the comments.
Zuo Tao sniffed, looking disheartened.
He was thinking that there was no reason to ask the staff to adjust the air conditioning; Song Shihan alone was enough to freeze him to death.
Life sure ain’t easy, the tyrant sighed.
Zuo Tao didn’t even have the time to finish his thought before a black thermos was placed on his table. Stunned, he looked up and witnessed as Song Shihan left his thermos in front of him, not saying anything verbally but allowing him to understand through his actions.
Song Shihan… was giving him his thermos?
For a moment, Zuo Tao sat there silently, feeling like all his discomfort had disappeared. Sure enough Song Shihan was a man with a cold face but a warm heart. In hindsight, wasn’t Song Shihan’s displeasure also from concern for his health?
Happiness bubbled in Zuo Tao’s heart. He wanted to say something but he was afraid that the referee would hear him, so he covered his mic and said, “Thank you, gege.”
Song Shihan responded with an ‘en’ and withdrew.
【What’s happening? Why did FIRE give his thermos to PINK?】
【Don’t ask. Asking means we have no idea how straight men work.】
【Who’s dying of laughter? Me. Does he really think that if he covers his mic we won’t be able to figure out he’s calling ‘gege’?】
【Help… my son is an idiot.】
【Don’t be scared! If FIRE is bullying you, blink once and your moms will find a way to get you out of there!】
With the first match as reference, Jiang Ming gave his team heroes to ban immediately. As for the heroes they pick, aside from making Si Zheng choose a tank with higher sustainability, he let the team choose on their own based on the situation.
The summer split would follow closely after the preliminaries. Their main task was to get qualified for the regular season, so there was no need to expose their tactics now.
It was the same for all the other teams participating now; they couldn’t show their full strength, they were simply here to the waters and see the strength of other teams. In short, they would treat it as a slightly more formal training match.
As for REBORN, they still banned High Priest and Youhun Mingqiang.
Wu Shuibo: “Expected choices. Just a fun fact: I became an avid fan of FIRE because of his Youhun Mingqiang.”
Lin Taisen smiled. “You’re not alone, I’m sure a vast majority of FIRE’s fans are because of this hero. Alright, Wildfire is now done with their bans… hey, wait a minute — REBORN’s last ban is Elemental God?!”
Wu Shuibo was just as surprised as he watched it happen on the screen. “Um… to be honest, I never expected we’d one day see Elemental God on the ban list during a competition. Doesn’t this mean that Huohu E’ying is open for the taking? Will Wildfire take it?”
In the Wildfire voice chat —
Si Zheng had the first pick, and he braved the silent line and said, “Anyone want me to take it?”
No one answered.
Si Zheng was about to speak again, but Song Shihan’s cold voice finally came through: “Help me get Huohu E’ying.”
On the commentator’s table, Lin Taisen looked at both teams and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Although Huohu E’ying is a strong AD in this version since it has both crowd control and burst skills, it falls short when it comes to movement. RONI is a strong crowd control-type support, making it easy for him to suppress the fox2Huohu = firefox. Moreover, REBORN will play more safely after losing the previous match.”
However, he just finished speaking when, through the screen, they saw Si Zheng choose Huohu E’ying, exchanging with Song Shihan.
Wu Shuibo: “Wow, God Han truly deserves to be called God Han, throwing caution to the wind despite the consequences3明知山有虎偏向虎山行啊, lit. knowing there are tigers on the mountain but going to Mt. Hu (tiger mountain) anyway. In that case, PINK best choose a hero with good crowd control and healing. Hmm, let’s think about it; Taisen, from your experience as a pro player, do you think it would be appropriate for PINK to choose Guardian Spirit for this game?”
Guardian Spirit was one of the first support heroes to be released in 《Rising Wind》, thus its skills also leaned more towards the traditional support skillset. It can heal, remove debuffs and crowd control, give movement speed, and even give teammates shields to lessen the damage they receive. It was an all-around balanced support, but it could not deal damage, couldn’t carry the game, and relied too much on teammates.
Simply put, by choosing this hero, one would pin all hopes of winning on teammates.
Based on Lin Taisen’s understanding of his nephew, he couldn’t help but deny Wu Shuibo: “Guardian Spirit is indeed a suitable choice, but PINK mostly plays attack-type supports. Personally, I am of the opinion that he would choose supports like Xu Wu or Earth-bound Evil.”
Soon, it was time to pick their heroes. Zuo Tao pursed his lips, his gaze moving between Xu Wu and Guardian Spirit, thinking deeply.
Indeed, it was more appropriate for him to choose Guardian Spirit given their current lineup, but… he glanced at the thermos close to his hand. He had absolute trust in Song Shihan. After another moment’s hesitation, he made his choice.
Wu Shuibo looked at Zuo Tao through the screen, blinking, and immediately told Lin Taisen off: “I don’t believe you. I guess that there will be a lot of changes to PINK’s gameplay.”
Lin Taisen shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do about it then.”
On the big screen, Zuo Tao locked on a support hero — Guardian Spirit — that he never would have glanced at before.
Lin Taisen’s expression cracked. “Hmm…”
Wu Shuibo laughed. “Taisen, it seems you don’t know your nephew as well as you thought you did!”
Lin Taisen laughed it off. “As children grow older, they also learn to consider the bigger picture. This is growth!”
【HAHAHAHAHA Lin Taisen getting slapped in the face4Face slapping, or the act of getting put down after claiming/doing something is funny!】
【Ya~ uncle doesn’t seem to understand how far a fan is willing to go for their idol.】
【Machine gun-lao saozi5Old sister in law, an honorific that can be used among women who are not related. They call him ‘sister’ as in someone who is part of the LGBTQ community has amazing judgment!】
【What ‘growth’, it’s obvious that PINK only chose Guardian Spirit because of FIRE. If you don’t believe me, see if you will ever see him play Guardian Spirit with anyone else /I_see_through_everything.jpg】
After the game loaded, Zuo Tao bought his roaming equipment and followed Song Shihan down the bottom lane.
The first three minutes cemented something for him: something was wrong. Song Shihan was setting a fast pace and he was hardly able to keep up. Song Shihan had no intention of even communicating, playing as if he didn’t even notice he had a support with him in the lane.
Ten minutes in and Song Shihan had the highest points in the game, making his way to the tower. With all his skills off cooldown, RONI immobilized him under the tower’s range, REBORN’s AD quickly following up with damage. Zuo Tao flashed towards him to give him shield and heal him while tanking damage from the tower at the same time.
One second later, the crowd control on him lifted, and Song Shihan used two arrows to hit RONI. Zuo Tao calculated the damage. Song Shihan still had his regenerate available, so he shouldn’t die as long as Song Shihan used it on Guardian Spirit.
However, the escape from the tower did not happen. Song Shihan did not share his heal, instead stepping over his corpse — killed by the tower — and continued on to the jungle to get some creeps.
Zuo Tao’s heart went cold. Not even drinking the hot water from the thermos helped.
Wu Shuibo clicked his tongue. “God Han is surely cold and ruthless. PINK wouldn’t have died had he received some healing.”
Lin Taisen responded, “It’s obvious since FIRE already has the highest damage. It’s been less than 20 minutes and he can burst down whoever he meets. As for the heal, I suppose he’ll have to save it for himself. This way, if he’s caught in the jungle, he can still have enough HP to escape. Players who play solo all have this habit of subconsciously saving their skills for themselves.”
Song Shihan continued to look for opportunities to develop. Zuo Tao struggled to keep up with his pace, and even if the rest of the team spoke, Song Shihan didn’t listen.
Zuo Tao’s heart was getting heavier and heavier, thinking that Song Shihan must have started to dislike him.
The game reached eighteen minutes.
Song Shihan cleared his lane and once more invaded the enemy jungle alone. Zuo Tao had recalled to the base to regenerate and was on his way to Song Shihan to heal him, but Song Shihan took a detour and instead went to the midlane for a gank.
Zuo Tao bit his lip and chased after him.
He glanced at the record. Song Shihan had six kills, but Zuo Tao only, surprisingly, had two assists.
In the game —
Wang Qiu couldn’t bear to watch the Guardian Spirit chasing their AD for healing around the map. He coughed and said, “Peach, how about you stay with me?”
Zuo Tao didn’t respond, his hand tightening on the mouse.
【Even as FIRE’s fan, I can’t watch this anymore. What’s wrong with FIRE? The kid’s going to cry!】
【I hope no one claims I’m an anti anymore when I say that FIRE still hasn’t changed. When will he realize that this is a team game?】
【I feel like FIRE is being a tad too aggressive. Is there something urgent he has to deal with later?】
【What could be more important to an esports player than the game?】
【It’s unfortunately over for PINK. He was pretty good during this game, too bad FIRE just isn’t following through.】
Twenty five minutes.
CAT and Si Zheng managed to get the dragon, and together with Wang Qiu, eliminated WIND and REBORN’s jungler outside the dragon pit.
On the other hand, with the damage buff from the dragon, Song Shihan’s Huohu E’ying rushed up the lane to the inner tower. RONI had resurrected with the AD, and they both flashed towards him. The moment a crowd control caught Huohu E’ying, Song Shihan activated the Holy Ring — which could cleanse all debuffs — and used his skill to burst down the newly-respawned AD.
Zuo Tao, following closely behind Song Shihan despite all the times he’d been left for dead, healed Huohu E’ying. Fortunately the game was coming to an end, and it took the fully-built fox a few moments to destroy the enemy base tower. Watching as the tower’s health continuously fell, Zuo Tao breathed a sigh of relief.
However, when the base HP was down to just one last hit left, Song Shihan stopped. Zuo Tao thought he wanted to wait for the enemies to respawn to wreak havoc on their base when —
“Aren’t you coming to hit the tower?” Song Shihan’s faint voice came through his earphones.
Zuo Tao was stunned, but he reacted quickly and used two basic attacks to finish off the enemy tower.
【VICTORY!】
When the blue ‘Victory’ icon lit up the screen, the gym once more erupted in cheers and loud applause.
Wu Shuibo: “Wow! I would like to call this game, ‘Player FIRE’s Personal Damage Abuse’!” He laughed. “But, on the other hand, did anyone else notice that little detail? FIRE let PINK deal the finishing blow to the tower~”
The world was so noisy, everyone was talking, but Zuo Tao felt nothing but a sourness in his heart. In the blink of an eye, two tears fell on his keyboard, the noise of cheers moving farther and farther as his vision began to blur.
He didn’t know what brought it one — all his worries had been lifted by Song Shihan’s call. He knew that Song Shihan just wanted to end the game early. He understood, but he couldn’t stop crying.
It may be because he was sick, and people who were sick were usually more emotionally fragile, their eyes and noses more sensitive.
But Zuo Tao was still tense. He hung his head as he cried, feeling inexplicably aggrieved.
CAT was the first to notice that something was wrong. She took her headphones off and walked to Zuo Tao, half covering the camera on his monitor. Her voice was soft as she asked, “Taozi, what’s wrong?”
Zuo Tao shook his head, but his tears continued to flow. He choked up as he said, “It’s annoying…”
The gym was far too loud, and CAT had to bend down to hear what Zuo Tao was saying —
“It’s annoying, so embarrassing, I want to gouge my eyes out.”
CAT was speechless. The audience, for some reason, started yelling until their voices were hoarse —
“FIRE, did you bully PINK? Apologize, now!!!”
“Aaaaaaaah, apologize! Aaaaaaaah!!!”
“Apologize!”
Team Wildfire: …
Even CAT’s action of pushing a paper towel to Zuo Tao froze.
If they thought about it, there was indeed an undeniable connection between Song Shihan and Zuo Tao crying so pitifully.
On the commentator’s table, Wu Shuibo smiled unkindly, not letting the opportunity go to make some waves. He said, “FIRE, regardless of whether you bullied him or not, shouldn’t you, the AD, give your support some comfort at this time?”
The director and organizers also took advantage of the situation, switching the main view to Zuo Tao, who was still crying to the point of collapse. The livestream comments also quickly caught up, and the three large screens in the venue showed the dense comments flashing by —
【Ah, ah, ah, Machine Gun, if you can, say more!!!】
【Hate that I’m not on site. FIRE, please calm him down!!】
【Aaaaaaa, comfort! Give him comfort!】
【Apologize!! Apologize!!】
【Don’t cry, Fenmao, mom loves you!!】
After a while…
Song Shihan lowered his head and glanced at Zuo Tao beside him, who was struggling to stop crying. He clicked his tongue and, with a slightly disdainful face, opened his arms and pulled Zuo Tao into his embrace.
Zuo Tao froze.
Because he was still sitting, his entire face was buried in Song Shihan’s abdomen. He could clearly feel the warmth emanating from the body wrapped around his, his nose tickled by that faint fresh, citrusy scent.
Warm palms gently ruffled his hair.
From the TL:
And so the cuteness continues~
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An extra chapter will be posted each time we reach our dono goal of 3 ko-fis~
![There’s a Beauty [Ancient Wear Modern]](https://www.freenovels.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image_2023-11-22_095131618.png "There’s a Beauty [Ancient Wear Modern]")
