CHAPTER 20

Lu Sicheng tilted his head, "You're ending the stream?"

Tong Yao stood up and stretched, "En. It's already 10..."

"Don't turn off your computer yet. Send the address of the place where

you bought your beauty camera-- --"

Before he could finish his sentence, Tong Yao, half way through her stretch,

frantically rushed to close the stream app on her computer-- --She turned to

stare at the man had a confused expression as he slowly finished, "to Little Fatty."

The chat was now filled with comments like, "beauty camera!"

"Hahahahahahahahahaha, beauty camera!" "I knew she can't possibly

be this good looking." "Little sister, you care a bit too much about your image."-- --

Tong Yao resentfully stared at Little Fatty.

Behind Lu Sicheng, Little Fatty spoke as if it wasn't his fault, "Fans are

saying that I'm getting fatter. I saw your camera has good effects, you look

so good and natural. So I asked Cheng Ge to ask you. He sits closer to you

…...How did I know Cheng Ge would ask in front of the camera!"

Tong Yao stared back at Lu Sicheng. He looked very innocent, "What?"

"Take a look at the chat yourself!" Tong Yao angrily pointed at the computer

screen, "They're all questioning my beauty!"

Lu Sicheng turned his head to glance at her, then chuckled, "What beauty is

there for them to question?"

"..."

Tong Yao shook her head. She was afraid that if she stayed there for one

second longer, she wouldn't be able to control herself from going into the

kitchen to grab a cleaver and thrust it into Lu Sicheng's head. She turned

around ready to go upstairs to get ready to sleep. Suddenly, a hand from

behind gripped her t-shirt-- --

Tong Yao leaned back.

"What?"

"You're going to sleep?" The man who had nothing better to do the whole

night asked.

"Yeah. Won't it be great when I'm back at 600 points Challenger in my dream."

"Don't sleep so early. Dad will help you get your points back tomorrow, so

your dream will come true."

"Don't bother. People said I'm spoiled just because you were reading the

bullet comments tonight. Tomorrow I'll become a bitch if you help me get

points." Tong Yao wasn't interested at all. She turned to look the man behind

her, "What's there to do except sleep-- --let go of my t-shirt first."

Lu Sicheng let go his hand, jumped down from his chair, then looked at the

others around and announced, "I'm hungry. Anyone want to go for a late

night meal with me? Hot pot, on me."

There was three seconds of silence.

On the fourth second, everyone at the base stood up as if they had heard

the national anthem. Little Fatty, who was wearing only a tank top, nervously

said, "My jacket, where's my jacket? Gimme three seconds to put on my jacket!"

Xiao Rui: "I'm hungry too. I just turned on my phone to order some takeout."

Ming god: "I want sashimi!"

Old Cat: "Sea urchin!"

Old K: : "Geoduck clam!"

Lu Sicheng: "Oh."

Tong Yao: "..."

...

Tong Yao didn't quite understand the kind of lifestyle that included eating

hot pot at the middle of the night.

She didn't really want to go, but when she thought about what Xiao Rui had

said before, "You're not going to our group activity!"-- --As a new member, it

wasn't a good idea to stay away from the group. She had concluded from her

social experience for the past 19 years: If you choose to be the one who stays

away from any group activity among friends or colleagues, then you will be the

one they gossip about the most at the gathering that day.

In order to avoid being the subject of the conversation that night about "why do

you think she's so short yet she eats a lot," Tong Yao compromised and followed

the group of night owls to get on the club's van, while yawning-- --The blue and

white logo of the owner of the club was quite conspicuous-- --If it wasn't for the fact

that the van was a high end car, a passersby would probably wonder: Why is China

Telecom workers coming out in the middle of the night to fix someone's internet?

Lu Sicheng: "You're live streaming, be more civilized. A kid shouldn't use

profanity."

Tong Yao: "...Little Fatty uses it every day."

Lu Sicheng: "He's beyond help."

Little Fatty: "Hey!"

Tong Yao: "Then don't read the bullet comments. It'll distract me."

Lu Sicheng: "No way."

While Lu Sicheng was amused by the situation, Tong Yao wanted to die.

-- --Just imagine, when you were focused on playing the game and someone

was nagging right next to you. He wasn't just nagging by himself, he was reading

comments word for word written by thousands of other people...

[Little sister's champion pool is so deep, she can use anyone well.]-- --That's

because you haven't seen her using Yasuo.

[Smiling, you look so cute, why do you play so fiercely?]-- --Haven't you heard

'In me the tiger sniffs the rose.'?[1]

[I heard you guys skirmishes with YQCB today? What was the result>]-- --The

VPN went down, saving them from humiliation.

[Ahhhhhhh, Smiling, ahhhhhhh. You really are good looking, so cute!"-- --Too

many 'ah's, do you need to go to the bathroom to cool down?

[Smiling, switch to another chair. You look so short in this chair.]-- --She's even

shorter when she stands up.

[Who's reading the bullet comments?]-- --Me.

[Cheng Ge, you have the time to read bullet comments, you won't die if you

stream yourself.]-- --I'm busy. Can't you see how many bullet comments there are?

You want me to stream two days in a row? I'll die.

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng turned his head to look at Tong Yao's black and white screen (*After a

champion died in LoL, the screen will turn monochrome.) and said with a poker face,

"Our team didn't buy you a color monitor?"

Tong Yao, facing the monochrome image of her champion's corpse lying on the

ground, had the urge to stand and swing the keyboard into that handsome face-- --

At this point, Tong Yao had already dropped some 200 points down to Master.

She felt like she had been cursed; ever since she came to ZGDX, her points were

dropping like an anvil for various strange reasons...

"What's so fun conversing with the bullet comments?"

"It's fun."

"When do you plan to stop?"

"When I'm tired."

"..."

Thus, two hours later, Lu Sicheng was far from being tired of it, but Tong Yao was

already tired-- --if being fed up with it all counted as being tired.

She wiped her face to look at her nexus which had been mercilessly battered and

her pitiful stats. While the man next to her read out in an emotionless voice, "What

a pity, you're losing the whole night", Tong Yao quit the game. She looked at the time,

it was 10:30pm. The viewer count had exceeded 1,500,000, which included her fans,

Lu Sicheng's fans, and many spectators...

There were still a lot of bullet comments.

Aside from discussions about the game she just played, most of the comments

were about the relationship between her and Lu Sicheng. One of the viewers who

had quite the imagination even lashed out at her being a spoiled girl who would let

Lu Sicheng read the bullet comments to her while she was playing the game. What

a big favor-- --

…...What a big favor.

If it wasn't for the fact that the man next to her wouldn't let her curse, she really

wanted to say something to this viewer.

"Did I ask him to read the bullet comments? If anyone who can buy him a mute pill,

I'll donate one dollar. Haven't you seen the result of games? It's all in the red! That's

the result of having someone reading the bullet comments..." Tong Yao used some

more civil language to rebuke the comment. Then she waved to the camera, "That's it

for today. I'm going to sleep-- --"

[1]: The line is from the poem 'In Me, Past , Present, Future Meet', by English poet

Siegfried Sassoon.

Tong Yao sat in the van, checking Weibo and chatting with her friend

online. Her teammates' conversation along the way was entirely about

League of Legends-- --mainly focused on the mid-season competition.

They all agreed that the Korean telecommunication company's team was

so strong that CK was helpless during today's match. If the Chinese

Region hoped to have a good chance at this year's world competition,

they had to first conquer the Korean Region...

"We're both owned by telecommunication companies, have you guys

ever played a skirmish with that Korean team?" Tong Yao asked, without

even raising her head, still playing with her cell phone-- --

Jian Yang, her ex-boyfriend, happened to text her asking where she

went after the stream. She replied with four-word axiom: [None of your

business.]

"We had. A couple days before this year's Spring season. Ming god

was still playing then." Little Fatty used his chubby chin to point at the

data analyst sitting next to him. "We couldn't beat them at all. Cheng

Ge barely had a small advantage at the bot. The other lanes, tsk, ask

Ming god and Old Cat what it was like..."

Old Cat smiled wryly, "I was a lost cause."

Ming god cleared his throat, "I had nightmare that night."

ZGDX was one of the strongest teams in China and they were beaten

that badly? Tong Yao was stunned, she stopped playing with her cell

phone and raised her head, "That bad?"

Then she remembered that the day when she first saw Lu Sicheng in

person, the staff who accompanied her seemed to have said something

to the effect, "lost to the Korean team again."...

"Not just this team, there's another TAT team." Lu Sicheng stretched his

legs and lightly sighed, "After Pop left, TAT wasn't doing great at the

beginning of the Spring season, but they rallied later on-- --The new ADC

of theirs adapted to the team very quickly. Though they lost to the

telecommunication team at the Spring finals, they lost after five close

matches. If things go well for them, by the time of the world finals, that

new guy will be devilishly strong again..."

TAT was the team where Lu Sicheng and Pope had played before.

Two strong carries, Lu Sicheng and Pope, left the team one after another,

yet the team only needed one season to adjust itself and come back stronger-- --

Everyone in the van couldn't help but sigh.

"It can't be helped. Korean esports is well developed and constantly

has new blood..." Xiao Rui smiled bitterly. "As for us, since last year,

we only buy established players. Few bother learning about the core

foundations..."

Tong Yao's interest was aroused from the conversation, she asked

Xiao Rui, "When are you going to arrange another skirmish with the

Koreans?"

Lu Sicheng glanced at her, then chuckled while speaking without

emotion, "Just cause you beat Ai Jia today, you're already letting it

get to your head."

Tong Yao widened her eyes, "What are you talking about. I just want to

at least give it a try. I know the Koreans are very strong, but how do I

know for sure if I don't try-- --"

Before she could finish, the man's big hand landed on top of her head.

He rubbed her short hair as if he was trying to calm a restless kid down

and plainly said, "Not now."

Tong Yao pushed his hand away and asked in disappointment, "Why?"

Xiao Rui nodded and went along, "Yeah, why? Since Smiling is so eager

and TAT isn't doing much lately, why don't we arrange-- --"

Lu Sicheng glanced at Tong Yao, "She needs confidence, not set backs.

You know what kind of person the TAT Mid, Ah Tai, is."

Tong Yao: "..."

Xiao Rui: "..."

Xiao Rui looked at Lu Sicheng, then at Tong Yao, as if he had stopped

himself from saying something.

Lu Sicheng stressed again, "Therefore, it's a no if I say so. It's not the

time yet."

Lu Sicheng stood firm, so everyone just dropped the topic…...The van

stopped as they spoke, they had reached their destination.

Tong Yao stretched her head out to take a look, except for an old villa,

the street was quite empty. There was no hot pot restaurant to be seen

....Tong Yao pulled her head back, "I told my mom that Rui Ge's a

human trafficker, she didn't believe me. Now, you finally drag me here

to exchange for liquor."

"You'd only be worth a bottle of Qingdao beer." Lu Sicheng opened the

car door, "Get off."

"Where's the hot pot place?"

"Right here."

Tong Yao watched her teammates knock on the gate of the villa. The

gate opened, inside was an elegantly decorated restaurant-- --It was

rare to have a hot pot place opened at midnight, what's more shocking

was that it was located in a villa in a city where land was as valuable as

gold…...Tong Yao followed the others in. Her first impression was: Shit, can

they make enough money to pay for the rent?

…...Tong Yao got her answer after the well dressed waiter handed

her the menu. She glanced over the menu and the answer was: Yes,

they can pay for the rent.

1188¥ for a plate of beef?

568¥ per pound of clam, were they from a star? !

80¥ a plate of winter melon, what was going on? ! ! !

...........Could it be that they were priced in Japanese

Yen?

Tong Yao quickly closed the menu. She pretended that she had seen

it before and said lightly, "I'm not hungry."

However, no one was paying attention to her. Lu Sicheng and others

seemed to come here often. They ordered a lot of food: meat, seafood,

and all kinds of vegetables. Tong Yao roughly calculated the prices and

arrived at a frightening figure-- --

She had an annual salary of 800,000 RMB, 800,000! Yet, it could only

pay for 20 or 30 dinners here.

She was still distracted when the food was brought to the table. She

glanced at the different dishes in front of her, they were all very fresh,

top quality…...But in Tong Yao's eyes, they were dishes of RMB being

dropped into the hot pot-- --

Little Fatty and others were happily eating the various food, they

definitely had been here before.

Tong Yao quietly ate the greens, 10 RMB for a head of green. One dish

of the green here could buy the whole vegetable stand in the market…...

While Tong Yao was eating her vegetables, the man sitting across from

her suddenly stood up and pushed some cooked meat in the front of Tong

Yao, "Shorty, eat some meat."

Tong Yao, with greens still in her mouth, raised her head in confusion.

Lu Sicheng's sudden act made the others pause in their conversation.

They all stared in confusion at Tong Yao, then Lu Sicheng-- --No one could

figure out when these two, who constantly bickered, developed such a good

friendship...

Tong Yao, in the meantime, stared at the beef in front her which costed four

figures as if they has been seasoned with gold-- --

The atmosphere became tense.

"Uhm, well, I was about to say it on the van." Xiao Rui cleared his throat

and said, "Cheng Ge, do you really think you're raising a daughter? You care

so much about her; afraid that she fell off the bed; afraid she'll lose confidence

if she loses a skirmish; afraid that she'll go hungry-- --"

As Xiao Rui was mumbling, Tong Yao quickly sucked the greens into her

mouth. Thanks to the elegant atmosphere of the hot pot place, she could

hide her red ears, which were as red as the cooked shrimp in the pot, from

the others in the dim light...

There was a short silence.

"She entertained me for a whole night." Lu Sicheng spoke without any

facial expression, "What's wrong with letting her eat more?"

Everyone: "..."

Tong Yao: "........"

Tong Yao blankly looked at Lu Sicheng.

Then she felt like she had been awoken by thunder-- --

Isn't that right?

It's true? !

She had been tortured the whole night…...He was feeding her to

make up for it? !

Tong Yao instantly put down her chopsticks and looked around trying

to flag down a waiter-- --

She wants the menu! She wants the lobster! She wants the edible

nest! If they have shark fins, she wants two orders, one to rinse her

mouth, one to eat! Expensive? Ha! Cheng Ge has money, Cheng Ge

can pay for them! !