Chapter 9: The Question

25 minutes later, all of the first round matches concluded, and the quarter-final matches were about to begin, and Jun Mùchén started thinking why he didn't need to play a quarter-final match.

Shortly after the first quarterfinal match began, Jia Hao walked over to Jun Mùchén. Just as Jia Hao stands next to Jun Mùchén, Jun Mùchén looks at him and asks.

"Jia, by the way, why don't I play a single quarter-final match"?

Jia Hao turns his head towards Jun Mùchén and responds.

"You know one guy had to leave after the first round… otherwise the match bracket wouldn't make any sense… I thought you were reaching it regardless, so I just put you in there".

Jun Mùchén answers a bit confused.

"But isn't that Rigged"?

Jia Hao laughs and replies.

"Don't worry about it… one guy had to leave, so we had to change the bracket".

Jun Mùchén responds with.

"Okay, if you say so".

After he responds to Jia Hao, he twists open his bottle and takes a big sip.

As both are standing next to each other watching the games, Jia Hao asks Jun Mùchén while still looking at the game.

"Do you have fun playing Kudos again"? 

Jun Mùchén responds while looking at the game.

"Well, I don't really know if I'm honest".

Directly after Jia Hao hears Jun Mùchén say that, he looks at him confused and replies.

"Wait, how can you not know if you have fun playing?".

After a short break, Jun Mùchén responds while still looking at the game.

"Man, it's been such a long time since I last played. I'm pretty bad at the game right now because of it, so... I don't know…maybe after the tournament's over I'll start having fun again. Guess only time will tell".

After hearing Jun Mùchén saying that, Jia Hao slaps Jun Mùchén on the back and looks at him, and says with a big smile on his face.

"Stop being so serious and just enjoy your time, I was just a courier, then I had fun watching you play Kudos again, then it reminded me of the time we played together on Leafen".

Jun Mùchén doesn't know how to respond, but luckily, the match just finished, and Jia Hao had to go back onto the stage and announce the next matchup.

As Jia Hao walks up onto the stage, Jun Mùchén is relieved and takes a big sip out of his iced tea, while he screws up the bottle, he hears Jia Hao say.

"Everyone, this is the last quarter final match…then the semi finals begin, so let's hope the best for our last contests".

Right after he finishes saying that, both of the contestants walk up onto the stage and sit down at their PCs. Jun Mùchén walks over to a table next to the stage and puts down the bottle he held in his hand.

After he puts down his iced tea bottle, he turns around and starts looking for the toilet. As he looks around for a short while, he sees a little sign over one of the doors towards the right side of him.

As Jun Mùchén sees the sign, he looks over at the big screen above the two players on the stage and sees that the match standings are 1:1. After he sees that, he turns around and walks over to the restroom.

Jun Mùchén opens the door to the restroom. He sees how modern the restroom is, but he has completely forgotten how different the city is from living in a village.

He opens one of the toilet stalls. It shines, then the light from the light bolt is bouncing around the perfectly clean toilet. 2 Minutes later, Jun Mùchén opens the toilet stall and walks out of the stall.

Jun Mùchén walks over to the bathroom sink and starts washing his hands. After he dried his hands, he walked out of the restroom.

Right as he walks out of the restroom, he looks at the screen to see how the match is going. Jun Mùchén sees that the match has just concluded.

Jia Hao announces.

"The winner of the last quarter-final match is Ye. She played fantastically".

As Jun Mùchén sees that he is completely buff, how is that girl who can win two rounds in two minutes?

Shortly after announcing the winner of the last quarter-final, Jia Hao announced that there will be a short 5-minute break before the semi-finals start. 

Jun Mùchén walks over to Jia Hao, who is standing next to the stage, taking a big sip out of an iced tea bottle. As Jun Mùchén gets closer, he sees that it's his bottle, which he placed on the table, that is missing.

Right as Jun Mùchén reaches the table, he looks at Jia Hao and asks him curiously.

"Where did you get that bottle from"?

Jia Hao puts his bottle cap back onto the bottle and puts the bottle back onto the table. After putting the bottle back onto the desk, he looks at Jun Mùchén and says with a dead face.

"It's your bottle".

As Jun Mùchén hears that, he immediately punches Jia Hao in the stomach and says angrily at the same time.

"Stop taking my stuff… it's your own netcaffe, why do you need to steal drinks from your customers?".