The appointed time for the training match had yet to arrive, and there were people from both teams who weren’t online yet. STAR decided to open a custom room and pulled Zuo Tao in.
STAR: “Typing is too bothersome, let’s voice chat instead.”
Zuo Tao used his silence to express his doubts.
“What? Don’t ignore me,” STAR said, smiling. “I was just talking nonsense for fun, I didn’t mean to say you aren’t any good.”
Zuo Tao: “You’re not livestreaming, are you?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not,” STAR answered. “When your coach called our coach, he said that if we livestream this training match again, he will never schedule us for another again. We got scolded so much for it already, why would we do it again?” He sighed. “The preliminaries have been keeping me busy these days, and I haven’t livestreamed at all. I miss my fans.”
Except for having killed him in the game a few times, Zuo Tao has never actually interacted much with STAR before, and they also didn’t actively seek each other out to chat casually. Whenever they did talk, STAR would just say things and Zuo Tao would interject occasionally.
STAR: “By the way, your next game is against FG, right?”
Zuo Tao: “En. Yeah.”
Except for the first day, where matching was determined by drawing lots, all subsequent matches were randomly generated according to the league’s system. The schedule had just been released last night and they were facing FG next. If they win, they would get the bonus from winning two games in a row, and they’d enter the top 5 without further incident. If they lost, they would have to play a third game.
STAR sighed again. “FG isn’t easy to play against. We met them on the first day, and they’ve improved so much from last season. Be careful.”
Zuo Tao was busy reading through his runes and talents and wasn’t wholly paying attention. As he was using Song Shihan’s account, he dared not modify his settings hastily, and was conflicted on whether to send Song Shihan a message to ask or not.
Hearing STAR’s warning, he replied, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll take them on.”
STAR: “????”
There was a pregnant pause, and Zuo Tao realized what he’d said. “Uh… I mean, our captain will take them on.”
“Oh, that scared me. I was thinking, how could this kid be so confident?”
Fortunately, STAR believed him without a doubt, even laughing at Zuo Tao and saying, “PINK, you worship God Han so much?” He paused. “I mean, it’s not that God Han can’t compare to FG.”
“No,” Zuo Tao answered, heaving a sigh of relief. “I’m just being honest, our captain is just that impressive.”
As soon as he finished talking, a shadow fell over his head. Zuo Tao took his earphones off and saw that Song Shihan had returned to the training room at some point.
“Who are you talking to?” Song Shihan asked, sitting down on Zuo Tao’s vacant seat, moving his wrists a few times.
Zuo Tao straightened his back out of habit. “STAR from GGF. He pulled me into a custom lobby.”
Zuo Tao hung his earphones around his neck, allowing STAR’s warm voice to leak out of the speakers: “God Han, do you want to come in to chat for a while?”
The training match was getting closer so of course they couldn’t continue chatting. Leaving STAR’s lobby, Zuo Tao glanced at Song Shihan and asked, “Captain, can I change your runes?”
Song Shihan: “Sure. Make any change you want.”
Ten minutes later, both teams finally entered the game.
The five of them spawned at the base. After purchasing his equipment, Si Zheng watched as a loli1Yep, the little girl archetype support wearing a candy pink dress walked down the bottom lane wearing the ID “Wildfire-FIRE”, still feeling a little dazed.
“Don’t you guys find this scene a little eerie?”
“En, I think so, too!” Wang Qiu answered, fully relating to the feeling. “This flashy skin with the captain’s ID? They’re completely different styles.
CAT smiled with her agreement.
It wasn’t just them; even Zuo Tao agreed, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, silently watching the screen. He was lucky that this practice match wasn’t getting streamed; if this was discovered by the larger netizen network, it might lead to an even bloodier scene online.
Despite it all, though, he couldn’t help the feeling of sweetness rising in his heart.
In the chatbox on the lower left corner of the screen —
【(World) GGF-STAR: So, God Han’s account is being used by PINK, huh?】
【(World) Wildfire-FIRE: 1】
【(World) GGF-DING[Top Lane]: ?? The hell, what did I miss?】
【(World) GGF-STAR: Ding-ge, can’t you read? Didn’t I just say? They exchanged accounts for this game.】
【(World) GGF-DING: It’s just that you talk so much, I don’t know what to believe and which to just ignore.】
【(World) GGF-STAR: Are you blaming me rn? /beautiful_eyes.jpg】
*
Time passed relatively quickly that morning with several back-to-back training matches, ending with two wins and one loss.
Zuo Tao reached up to pinch at his shoulders as he left the custom lobby. Intensity in training was rising, and every time they finished he felt his muscles getting sore.
Song Shihan seemed to be in the same situation. Zuo Tao noticed him stretching his neck a few times during the last match, which may mean he was feeling uncomfortable, but he didn’t say a single word about it even after the match ended.
“Is your neck feeling uncomfortable again?” Jiang Ming asked, noticing Song Shihan’s discomfort, putting his notebook away and walking towards Song Shihan with a slight frown. “Is it serious?”
“It’s fine,” Song Shihan answered, “just a little stiff. I’ll just stretch later.”
Song Shihan’s words made it seem like it wasn’t anything serious, but Jiang Ming acted like he was facing some formidable enemy. He had already taken his phone out of his pocket, saying, “Go rest up, I’m calling the therapist.”
Of course Zuo Tao knew that professional athletes suffered from a myriad of occupational diseases, such as cervical spondylosis, tenosynovitis, and muscle injuries to the shoulders, back, and waist. With daily high-intensity training, the problems would just compound and get worse and worse.
But he didn’t expect that Song Shihan’s issues had reached a point where physical therapy was warranted; and, judging by Jiang Ming’s reaction, it was quite serious.
“Captain, would you like me to give you a massage for now?” Zuo Tao asked after a moment’s hesitation, letting go of his mouse and raising that hand to raise his hand as if volunteering for service. “I’ve done some research on massage techniques before.”
His statement immediately roused curiosity in Wang Qiu. “Why would you even research something like that?” he asked, blinking at Zuo Tao teasingly. “Did you want to learn so you could get close to your male god?”
Zuo Tao was speechless. “…that’s not it,” he denied, blushing at Wang Qiu’s words. “I was in third year of high school, and the academic pressure was intense. Every evening during self-study, my deskmate and I would massage each other’s shoulders.”
Wang Qiu smiled, his tone heavy as he said, “I see.”
CAT gave him a look of disdain. “Stop wasting time teasing Taozi2Peach.”
Cervical spondylosis, in the early stages, could be alleviated through light massage, therefore Jiang Ming didn’t hesitate any longer and nodded in approval, turning to Song Shihan: “FIRE, are you up for letting Zuo Tao give you a massage for now?”
Song Shihan honestly didn’t feel like his issues were significant, as he could still cope, and that a short rest after training would fix him right up. Still, looking at Zuo Tao’s expression caught his rejection in his throat.
“Alright,” Song Shihan finally settled, nodding at Zuo Tao. “I’ll be troubling you.”
Zuo Tao waved his apology away, saying, “It won’t be any trouble at all.” He stood up quickly, moving behind Song Shihan. He placed his hand on Song Shihan’s shoulder. “Let me know if I’m going too hard.”
Song Shihan nodded.
Jiang Ming watched this peaceful scene, something warm rising in his chest. A thought crossed his mind and he immediately brought his phone out. “Wait, this will be a good thing to post for our update.”
Management had been worried about their team’s bottom lane relationship and cohesion, even asking for them to interact more online or queue together to dispel netizen rumors, but now it seemed like these concerns were unnecessary.
Look, aren’t these two getting along very well over here?
Put a picture of these two online and one wouldn’t even have to think too deep to imagine the reactions of fans.
“Speaking of,” Jiang Ming said, posting the picture on the team’s account, sitting on the sofa with Song Shihan. “Your CP fans3Couple fans, or shippers have been growing recently. You want me to ask PR to handle it?”
No one would have anticipated that the match a few days ago would lead to a sudden growth of CP fans among their supporters, popping up like mushrooms after rain, with no signs of abating.
Song Shihan kept his eyes closed, not reacting at all. He had never been one to care or pay attention to things like that online. “I don’t care.”
Zuo Tao immediately seconded: “I don’t care, either!”
“Taozi, you need to pay attention to these things to some extent,” Si Zheng piped up. “Don’t think that just because it’s all online, it stays online. If the stereotype sticks, it will be difficult to change or even remove that label.” He smiled before continuing: “Everything else might be fine, the only problem is that you might have a hard time getting into a relationship once you get to college.”
The topic piqued Wang Qiu’s curiosity. “By the way, Taozi, have you ever fallen in love at your age?”
Zuo Tao was carefully massaging Song Shihan’s shoulder and neck, moving up and down the stiff areas with circular motions, answering, “No.”
All of his focus was on Song Shihan, thinking that today was a wonderful day not to wash his hands until it was time to rest.
His answer surprised Wang Qiu. “For real?” he asked in disbelief. “You’ve never been in a relationship in all your three years in high school??? That’s unscientific.”
Jiang Ming asked, “How is it unscientific?”
Wang Qiu: “If I had a face like Taozi’s, I’d be loved every day.”
“That’s just proof of your moral corruption,” Jiang Ming warned. “Stop talking nonsense. If a child as good as Zuo Tao ever gets in trouble, you’d be my main suspect.”
Wang Qiu: “…how can dating be proof of moral corruption? It’s such a beautiful thing.” He sat back on his chair, grabbing a pink leopard from the couch to play with. “Wait a minute, you’re not planning on imitating your idol in perpetual singleness too, are you?”
Zuo Tao, not understanding what Wang Qiu meant for a moment, was stunned, only able to answer with a “huh?”
“If I remember correctly, the captain’s been single since birth too, right?” Wang Qiu asked.
With the topic returning to him once more, Song Shihan answered with an “en”.
This was a completely unexpected turn of events for Zuo Tao, especially since this was a piece of information that wasn’t available online. His hand paused. “The captain has never been in a relationship?”
“En, I just haven’t mentioned it anywhere before,” Song Shihan confirmed, tone plain. He pressed his knuckles against his forehead, finally opening his eyes to say, “You’ve worked hard. You can take your break now, too.”
Zuo Tao shook his head. “No hard work at all.”
After lunch.
Zuo Tao returned to his dorm room after lunch.
The class group chat has been noisy since noon, with some of his classmates only having found out that Zuo Tao had gone to play esports professionally after videos of 《Rising Wind》preliminaries came out. The matter was discussed for a while, and, inevitably, emoticons of his crying face were also shared.
Even their homeroom teacher sent a few messages. However, even if as a joke, he was still worried that the student he was most proud of would give up his studies for this career and sent a private message, asking what Zuo Tao’s plans in the future would be. After learning that Zuo Tao was going to college to continue studying, he felt relieved; in the end, he simply sent the usual reminders of not staying up too late and so on.4Not at these students being brave enough to keep their homeroom teacher in the GC 😂
It was almost one PM by the time he finished chatting with his teacher.
He was about to move from WeChat to Weibo when an unfamiliar number appeared on his screen, unsaved and without a single note. Pushing open the door to his balcony and stepping out, he casually tapped on the answer button.
“Hello?”
“So you still know how to answer your phone?” a man’s slightly weathered voice answered, carrying a strong sense of displeasure.
Zuo Tao almost immediately hung up the phone. He was about to block the number when it called again. Looking at the unfamiliar string of numbers on his screen silently, he still answered despite his annoyance.
“Zuo Tao!” Zuo Zhiyong’s voice was filled with anger. “What’s wrong with you? I am your father, and this is how you treat me?”
Zuo Tao didn’t respond to the question, simply asking, “What’s up with the call?”
Zuo Zhiyong seemed too lazy to even talk to him much, as if going this far was too much for him. He said coldly: “I called your homeroom teacher the other day, and I also received your transcript. If you perform well in the entrance exams, it would be easy to get into A University. I’ll fill out the forms later—”
Giving the man no more chance to keep talking, Zuo Tao interrupted impatiently: “How many times do I have to tell you that I won’t be going to A University?”
“What do you plan to do if you don’t go to A University?!” Zuo Zhiyong exploded. “Zuo Tao, don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing recently. Playing games when you’re young, you’ll just meet all sorts of people5Negatively, as in the people he’d meet on this road wouldn’t be good influences. If you don’t study hard now, you’ll simply suffer in the future!”
Zuo Tao sneered. “If that’s what you think, then we have nothing else to talk about.”
Zuo Zhiyong: “Zuo Tao, I didn’t call you today just to argue with you.” As if trying to calm himself, there was a moment of pause on the other side before the man continued: “I’ve already set out a plan for your future. Your first choice is to enroll in A University, so it would be easier for me to help you until you pursue your doctorate. If everything goes smoothly, you can even stay at the university to teach.”
Zuo Tao didn’t answer. He simply put on his earphones and started playing music.
Zuo Zhiyong was still going. “Your cousin6Older male cousin on the father’s side is already walking this path. Think for yourself, isn’t he outstanding right now? To put it bluntly, his salary is in the ten thousands per month.”
“Wow,” Zuo Tao answered.
Zuo Zhiyong thought that the response meant he was succeeding, and his tone became even calmer. “Yes, it pays better than playing games.”
“By the way,” Zuo Tao said, “what’s my cousin’s phone number?”
“What do you want his number for?”
“Since he earns so much, it wouldn’t be a problem for him to lend me some.”
Zuo Zhiyong: “…Zuo Tao!”
Zuo Tao finally hung up on the call, and also immediately blacklisted the number. He leaned against the railing in silence, before letting off a long sigh. He was about to get up to grab a leaf from the mint plant when he looked up and caught sight of Song Shihan smoking on the other balcony.
“Uh…” Zuo Tao froze.
Seeing that Zuo Tao has finally noticed him, Song Shihan dusted off his cigarette and said, “I just came out, maybe you didn’t notice.” After a moment, he asked, “Who was on the phone?”
Zuo Tao hummed in acknowledgment before finally finding his voice to answer: “Just… the family.”
“I hope you don’t misunderstand, I didn’t overhear your conversation,” Song Shihan said, putting his cigarette out on the ashtray. He turned to enter his room but paused. “Zuo Tao.”
Zuo Tao was embarrassed, looking up at Song Shihan. “Yes?”
Song Shihan glanced at him over his shoulder, hesitating before finally settling on, “If you don’t have money, just ask from me.”
From the TL:
*throws this chapter at you and runs away*
