Chapter Four

After the hot pot, the boys headed back to the base, Xin Yi and Wuxian headed to their respective homes, and Li Wei drove Yufei home. On his way home Yufei asked Li Wei to stop by the convenience store so he could inform his boss that he will be quitting.

He got out of the car and told Li Wei that he doesn't need to stay because he will walk home from there, so they told each other goodbye and Li We drove off heading home.

Yufei walked into the store and greeted a woman who seemed to be in her late 50's. "Goodnight mam."

The woman turned around and smiled towards Yufei telling him goodnight. They walked to the tables outside the store and sat down together.

"I brought you some BBQ pork. I know you love them." Yufei said as he handed her a bag with a container filled with BBQ pork which her ordered from the restaurant he was at.

"You sweet boy." The old woman tanked him, as she took the bag from his hand, and placed it on the table. "What brings you here tonight, you don't work on Fridays." she commented.

Yufei sighed as he said, "I'm here to tell you that I can't work here anymore."

He looked at the woman with sad eyes expecting her to refuse him from quitting. But instead she warmly smiled at him, "That's good. I was wondering when you would say this."

A surprised Yufei question, "Your not angry?"

The woman answered, "No child, in fact it's the total opposite. I remember when you first came here 6 months ago. I was closing up the shop and through the window I saw this boy walking in the rain. The look on his face made him look like had lost a part of him. So, I called him in from the rain, gave him dry clothes and something warm to drink. I asked him if he had a job and he said no so I offered for him to work here part-time."

Yufei the chuckled, "I remember asking you why part-time and not full-time. You replied by saying you'll tell me the answer when the time is right."

"Yes, and right now is that time, so here is my answer. I said part-time because when I found you you seemed to be in a moment of where you had lost all your hope. I believe that a day would come when the fire in your eyes will appear again, and that's what I'm seeing right now. The fire in your eyes is telling me that you have now found your way back to the hope you once had, and that's what makes me happy." the woman told him.

She then looked down into the distance of the street and shared, "When I was about your age, something happened that made me loose all my hope. The fire in my eyes also burnt out. That's when I found this place. Back then this place was only just a ramshackle building. An idea came to me then. I then proceeded to work as hard as I can and had multiple jobs until I had enough money to buy the place and I did. I opened this convenience store. My dad used to always tell me that most people who take part-time jobs in places like these, is either because they are having a hard time, or they fell and too scared to get back up. So on that note I decided I'm hire only part timers at this store and help them in my own way."

she then turned to Yufei and continued, "I've watched many of my part-timers as they came here feeling hopeless. I tried to cheer them up in my own way and be there for them until the time comes when their hopes return again."

Yufei smiled, for he knew exactly what she meant. He was glad that she was encouraging him to go after the chance he got.

Before going back inside the woman said one more thing, "Life is just like a video game kid, all you have to know is how to play it. For the players of life; like in a game when you meet your enemies, you know it means that you're going in the right direction."

And with that the woman went back inside the store to close up leaving Yufei outside to think about what she said.

Yufei softly chuckled as he got up from the seat and started headed home, before he could reach around the corner the lights outside the store shut off as well as the ones inside. Not long after the lights in the home above the store turned on indicating that the woman was already upstairs and probably heading for bed.

Yufei walked the street and soon arrived near the front of the internet café where he met Suchang. Upon arriving at the entrance he decided to go inside. When he entered the café attendant welcomed him.

Yufei paid to use a computer for one hour and headed to the seat he was assigned to which was on the far corner of the last row in the back.

He sat down and opened the game League of Legends. He lingered on the sign in page for a while contemplating weather he should use a guest account or his real account. He ended up logging into his account and decided to play a Soloq. He chose as champion which was Ashe, and placed on his headset as the countdown started and took a deep breath in the final seconds.

The game began and Yufei started heading towards the center of the map. His opponent's champion was Ahri and met face to face with his.

Yufei waited for his opponent to make the first move and as he did using Ahri's fox-fir ability, Yufei quickly dodged and countered attack with Ashe's frost shot.

For a while they kept dodging and firing attacks, but Yufei soon got tired and fiercely started to attack offensively.

Throwing one attack after the other Yufei's opponent HP quickly dropped and as he was about to finish him off with Ashe's enchanted crystal arrow, His opponent's champion Ahri shot at him with her charm ability. Unable to dodge it Yufei's champion got hit. This attack instantly stopped Ashe's movement abilities and caused her to walk harmlessly towards Ahri.

Using the advantage Yufei's opponent attacked him with every ability he had killing Ashe and drawing the first blood of the match.

Yufei sucked his teeth as his time to be resurrected counted down. Hid opponent used this time to get rid of Yufei's first turret's buff.

When he respawned at his home's base, Yufei looked at the game time displayed at the top right corner of the screen and whispered, "20 minutes before the first blood. You're good, but not that good."

He ran back to the center of the map and fired an attack at his opponent keeping him from destroying the turret. Once again they kept dodging and firing attacks. Every open they got they killed each other and while the opponent respawned they used that time to destroy a turret.

Coming down to the last turret of his opponent, Yufei started play offensively in a monstrous way. Giving his opponent no time to fire an attack. When his opponent died Yufei destroyed the last turret and when his minions arrived he headed for base.

Using Ashe's enchanted crystal arrow ability he shot it towards the enemies base which caused a huge damage to base's HP. As the base's HP was down to it's last few numbers. Ahri's spirit rush was casted onto Ashe.

Yufei got hit the first two bolts but managed to dodge the last one. His HP was really low and one more hit could kill him. So he started playing defense. When he saw an opening Yufei fired Ashe's enchanted crystal arrow once more and at the same time Ahri's fox-fire shot at him. At the very instant he got hit Ashe's arrow hit the opponents base and destroyed it. Yufei had won. He then looked up at the game time again and saw that it took 1 hour and 50 minutes before this match was over.

He took off his headset and thought to himself, "Why is this so familiar?" He then remembered that he once had a soloq with his past teammate Yulong and that match also lasted for almost 2 hours before he won.

He then saw a dude walk out of the internet café. Yufei saw that he resembled Yulong and quickly got up out if his seat and ran towards the door.

He ran outside and scanned the entire street for the guy but couldn't see him. Yufei then went back into the café and walked up to the attendant asking, "Miss can you please tell me the name of that costumer who just walked out?"

The girl told him no for she cannot reveal their customers identity without their consent. Yufei thanked her and walked back to the computer he was at and logged out of his account. As he was about to the leave a girl walked up to him and tapped on his shoulder.

"Sorry to bother you, but were you asking for the name of the guy who left a while ago?" She question. Yufei nodded his head and asked, "Do you know it?"

She smiled saying, "I remembered his name because he helped me in a game before and he's also cute. That day he helped me he came with a friend and I think I heard his friend called him Yulong. Yeah that's it; Yulong."

Yufei felt his heart skipped a beat. He quickly then asked the girl, "Do you know when he'll be back here?"

The girl shook her head, "He comes to this café at least twice a month and this is his second time this month so if you want to see him you need to wait until next month."

Yufei thanked the girl and left the café in a hurry. He rushed back home and dug into his closet pulling out a black box. He sat on his bed and placed the box in his laps. He then pulled off the cover and lay it down on the bed beside him.

In the box there were many things from his time as a professional gamer. His teams uniform was folded neatly in the box, and in there was also his keyboard. Next to them were pictures of all of them together, a few with them standing in front of their team logo in the base, other's with them in front of the base, some with them fooling around and being around the table during birthdays. There were other photos of them with their first Summoners Cup, and under that was a picture with all of them together with Summoners Cup from the 2022 championships in their teams bus.

This was the last picture Yufei took with them and he had a flashback to when he arrived back in China. He remembered that the first thing he did when he came back was going to the base wanting to surprise them.

But was shocked to find out that when he got there instead of seeing Team Heroes logo at the top of the building he instead saw the word 'Elite' in gold at the center of a pair of golden wings.

Yufei was shocked and wondered around in the base, and there he bumped into someone.

This boy was dressed in a black shirt, black hoodie with gold stripes around the neck collar, down the sleeve and around the wrist, with the same logo at the top of the building printed on the righthand corner of the hoodie. Next he had on a black sweatpants also with two strips of gold line extended down to the ankles.

"Can I help you?" The boy asked Yufei.

Yufei then stammered, "Um...yeah. Can you tell me what happened to Team Heroes."

The boy looked at Yufei and answered, "Oh, you mean the team that won two championships in a row? Yeah they disbanded two years ago, I think it was sometime after their team captain retired. And the base was sold to our team."

Yufei remembered how this news shocked him to the point where he froze and became speechless. He remembered how the boy looked at him asking him if he was alright. He remembered asking the boy if he knew what happened to the members of the team, but the boy couldn't answer for he new nothing about that. Before he left the base he remember calling everyone one of their numbers but the line was always silent indicating that they changed their numbers. Yufei remembered how that day he went to all they places they used to go together, from the place where they first decided to become a team to the place where they went when they won their first game. That day he searched all the places that was important to them in hopes of at least spotting one of them.

Lastly he went to the internet café where they all first met, where the league brought them together. Turns out that this café is the same café he saw Yulong today. He remembered when he left the café and started walking down the street and out of nowhere it started to rain. He remembered allowing the rain to wash away his tears as he blamed himself for the disband of the team.

Upon remembering these things and feelings a tear fell from Yufei's face as he clutched on to the picture.

He then remembered the vow he made that day and repeated, "I'll find you guys, I promise."