novel
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Chapter 9
Two years ago.
Yu Sui put the half-finished cup of lemon tea on the table and lay down on the bed.
In the captain's dorm room of the FS team base in Shanghai, all was quiet. The warm afternoon sun was just right. The windows of the room were open and the curtains swayed gently with the breeze, sweeping across the glass of lemon tea on the table..
The phone on the side of the bed was constantly buzzing, and with every buzz it slowly slid a little towards edge of the bed; little by little until finally fell to the floor.
Yu Sui opened his eyes slightly, glanced down over the side of bed, and turned over to continue sleeping.
An hour later, Yu Sui, who had caught up on sleep, got up, bent down, picked up the mobile phone on the ground, and put it back on the bed.
Yu Sui washed his face, sat by the window and lit a cigarette. He picked up his phone and looked through it.
His WeChat was filled with both useful and useless messages. Yu Sui looked through them one by one and replied to those that needed it. A little unexpectedly, Yu Sui saw several missed voice calls from Ke Hao.
Ke Hao was a classmate and childhood friend of Yu Sui's.
Although the two no longer kept in touch, their relationship has always been good. Yu Sui called back Ke Hao, and it quickly went through. Yu Sui slowly said, "I just saw it, what's the matter?"
Ke Hao on the other end of the line sounded as though he had grabbed onto a lifesaver and said miserably, "Ancestor, why couldn't I get in touch with you? I was about to try to camp out at your doorsteps."
"You won't be able to find me at my house." Yu Sui smiled."I can only go back there few times a year. Why are you looking for me?"
After exchanging a few pleasantries, Ke Hao then tentatively asked, "Can you do me a favor?"
Yu Sui took a puff of his cigarette."What is it?"
Ke Hao sighed."My cousin, he had a complete falling out with the family recently. Not only did he leave the house, he also isn't going to school anymore. I heard that recently he does live gaming broadcasts. My uncle's lungs are about to burst from anger. If he later becomes an internet celebrity... well, what a way to bring honor to our ancestors, huh?"
Ke Hao's family was engaged in business, but for the past eighteen generations of the family, they were all men of letters. They were a proper family with a literary reputation. They were old-fashioned and conservative. Yu Sui couldn't help but smile.
But there were a lot of internet addicted teenagers who didn't want to go to school and ran away from home. Most of Yu Sui's friends were like this.
Ke Hao said sadly, "He's in high school. He'll have college entrance examinations in two months and his grades are not bad. If he really dropped out of school at this time... then what would you call this? And it would because of playing games — that game of yours, FOG! My God, my uncle doesn't dare tell my grandfather. He's afraid the news would send him directly to the hospital."
Without waiting for Yu Sui to speak, Ke Hao said quickly, "Hey, don't be so touchy! I'm not saying that what you do is bad. I'd be happy if he really could follow in your footsteps. But just how many can actually get into your business? And he's not even playing as a profession, he's doing live broadcasts! An anchor! Anchor, do you understand?!!!"
"I understand." Yu Sui blew out some smoke, "I occasionally broadcast live too. What's wrong?"
Ke Hao said miserably, "This really won't do. He hasn't graduated from high school yet. Where can he go from here? Can you... help?"
Yu Sui said, "How can I help?"
Ke Hao said, "If he really, really doesn't want to study, we can't force him. He's this old now, he can't be tied down. To be honest, my cousin has been rebellious since he was a child. He has never been obedient. These past few years he's tormented my uncle so much, he's long given up already. But... he can't really just be an anchor. If my grandfather knew about this, he'd be worried to death."
"I also convinced my uncle to take a step back and make a compromise." Ke Hao said helplessly, "If he really likes that game so much, he could play it professionally like you, instead of trying to make a living by doing live broadcasts. I thought about how my grandfather had always liked you. If he knew my cousin was in the same profession, maybe he could accept it."
Yu Sui held his cigarette between his lips, and the corners of his mouth raised slightly."Do you think anyone who plays games can get into my line of work?"
"No, no, no! I know it's harder than testing into Tsinghua!" Ke Hao frantically tried to apologize."My uncle shouted at me so much, my brain's been scrambled. My idea was to ask you to please take a look. Can you see if he has what it takes or if he's a dud?"
Ke Hao said, "If he's a dud, then that's it. But if he could develop into that direction, then he could be a professional player."
Yu Sui was not optimistic."I'm telling you now, there are a thousand people who brag about going pro, if there's even one of them that actually has the qualifications for the job, that could already be considered as a pretty good turnout."
Ke Hao said quickly."I understand, but it actually seems like he really can play pretty well. And he plays the same position as you do, that, that..."
Yu Sui raised an eyebrow."A medic?"
Ke Hao slapped his thigh, "Yes!"
Yu Sui nodded, "Okay, send me his ID. I'll look at his ranking on the national server."
Ke Hao stuttered, "Wha-what are you talking about?"
Yu Sui said tersely, "It's his game account. Send it to me."
Ke Hao drew a blank."Huh?"
Yu Sui sighed."You can just ask him, he'll understand."
Ke Hao said miserably, "He already blacklisted me a long time ago&#k2026;"
Yu Zheng couldn't do anything about it. He said, "Then send me the address to his live broadcast, and I'll go watch it."
Ke Hao sighed."To be honest... I don't know where he's doing his live broadcasts."
Yu Sui was so angry that he laughed."Then f*ck off. I can't help you."
"Don't be like that!" Ke Hao said incoherently, "It's not my fault! My uncle only told me that he was working as an anchor, but he didn't tell me where! I asked my uncle and he was shaking with anger. Then he asked me back, just what the heck a live broadcast was. What could I do? I knew that you'd know, but I was afraid you were busy with competitions so I didn't dare bother you. So, I asked my classmates who are in China."
"My classmates tried to explain it to me for a long time, but... I really can't understand any of your gaming jargons. I searched for several days like a headless fly. My uncle and my father came to remind me again. I haven't even finished writing my group essay for the week and my head's going to explode. Yu Sui, help me out..."
Yu Yan lit another cigarette and shook his head."No way, you don't know anything. Where would I even begin to look for him?"
"You must have a way, can't you help?" Ke Hao was afraid that Yu Sui wouldn't care about it anymore, and shamelessly said, "Look... I really didn't want to bring this up. But you remember when you started your career? That year you had a falling out with your family, who gave you tuition and living expenses so that you could go to school while you were still training your skills?"
Yu Sui asked in reply."How much was the tuition?"
"The tuition wasn't that much, but do you want to compute your living expenses?" Ke Hao remembered these past matters and was filled with anger."You spent tens of thousands worth in living expenses every month! Have you forgotten whose pocket money you spent?! My mom suspected that I was already providing for some starlet at my young age!"
"Pfft!" Yu Sui laughed."I paid it back to you a long time ago, didn't I?"
"Yes, you paid it back but the blame I took for you is nothing to scoff at either! All that money I saved up for so many years by living frugally was all spent on starting your e-sports career!" Ke Hao's tone was unstable from anger, "You can ask anyone, what kid who runs away from home lived as cushy a life as you did back then?
Yu Sui really did owe Ke Hao a debt of gratitude for this matter. He nodded helplessly."I... I'll think of a way."
Yu Sui sighed. Ke Hao was instantly relieved."I can't tell you how thankful I am!"
Ke Hao believed himself to be in the wrong. He chuckled."I know you're busy, but I had no other way. I'll invite you to dinner when I return home."
"Alright." Yu Sui thought to himself that it was lucky he was idle recently."Send me his contact information."
Ke Hao hurriedly sent a bunch of information and said, "I have given you his name, age, mobile number, and QQ number. The phone is probably a dead end. It's been shut down for half a month, and he won't add any strangers to his social networking accounts...... I guess you'll still need to start from his live broadcasts."
Yu Zheng minimized the voice call to see the messages."Shi Luo. Your surname is 'Ke' and your cousin's is 'Shi', since which generation has your family been green-hatted, huh..."
"Bah!" Ke Hao mocked good-naturedly."It's not convenient to tell you the family scandal right now. I'll tell you some other time."
Yu Sui never actually intended to ask. He was about to hang up when Ke Hao hurriedly added."He's really bad-tempered. Just be patient with him, he's in his rebellious period."
"En", said Yu Sui and then hung up. He then received several messages from Ke Hao.
Ke Hao sent all the information he had on his cousin, even his grades from school.
Yu Sui narrowed his eyes as he took a look.
Shi Luo, male, 17 years old, 181cm tall.
Ke Hao, being overly careful, also sent several photos. Yu Sui raised his eyebrows as he looked at the photos.
Handsome.
Very handsome.
The 17-year-old teenager in the photo had extremely short hair that was dyed white. He had several rings on his ears. Even if he squandered away this aristocratic appearance, people could still see through his appearance into his true nature; seeing that he was indeed very handsome.
The rebellious young man had eyes and brows that looked a bit wild and ruthless, almost as though his expression was telling strangers to keep away.
Yu Sui gave a call to this Shi Luo. It was turned off.
He added him on WeChat. There was no response.
He could only begin his search from the live broadcast. Yu Sui sent a message to his club owner and former captain Ji Yanhan. He gave him a brief rundown of the situation and sent Shi Luo's name and age. He requested Ji Yanhan to ask a few people he was familiar with in the live broadcast platform companies. Maybe they could directly find Shi Luo's live broadcast room.
Ji Yanhan was out discussing business, but he immediately replied after receiving the information and asked Yu Sui to wait for news.
Yu Sui left his mobile phone on the bed and went to take a shower. After he took a shower, he placed the clothes he had changed out off into the clothes hamper and sent it to the base's cleaning aunt. He then took a look at his mobile phone. Ji Yanhan had already sent news back.
Ji Yanhan: [I couldn't find him. Either he doesn't broadcast on these mainstream live broadcast platforms, or he does, but he didn't sign a contract with them and didn't upload his real personal information, so they couldn't find him. Who is this guy? 】
Yu Sui hadn't been expecting that at all. They couldn't find him?
Yu Sui let Ji Yanhan get back to work. He told him not to mind him anymore.
Then he really had to search for his live broadcast. This needed luck. It'd be great if Shi Luo was broadcasting at this time. He doesn't know how many rounds of searching he'll need to do before he bumps into him. Yu Sui really didn't want to bother with this anymore, but thinking about that home before, he couldn't refuse. That scene when he went to Ke Hao's home and ate Ke Hao's mother's dumplings for New Year's Eve flashed across his mind. Yu Sui sighed and headed towards the training room.
Yu Sui's teammate, Chen Huo, just happened to come back from outside. When he saw Yu Sui enter the training room, he followed in."Isn't it a rest day? Are you still going to train?"
Yu Sui shook his head."It's a personal matter."
Chen Huo shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't going to touch a computer during his hard-earned short vacation. So after walking around the training room a couple of times, he left.
Yu Sui was the only one in the empty lounge. He opened the first live broadcast platform and opened the FOG game category.
Male, young, playing a medic.
Yu Yan screened out the professional players he knew, and based on the meagre information Ke Hao provided, he began to investigate one by one...
Half an hour passed.
An hour passed.
Three hours passed.
Yu Sui let go of the mouse, lowered his head and pinched the corner of his eyes.
He was going blind.
Chen Huo had come back from eating barbeque with the team next door. Seeing Yu Sui still sitting at his computer desk, he became curious and said, "You haven't opened the game client and you're not doing a live broadcast. Just what the heck are you doing?"
Yu Sui said expressionlessly, "Going door to door to help my buddy find a missing child."
"Scary!" Chen Huo was horrified."Who lost him?! How old is the child? How tall?"
Yu Sui opened another live broadcast room."Seventeen, one meter and eighty-one."
Chen Huo's face revealed shock."... I think you're losing it."
"I think so too." Yu Sui took a new pack of cigarettes and drew one out using his lips."I f*cking don't believe it anymore. The little bastard..."
Huo Chen was afraid that he'd be roped in by Yu Sui to do the work, and so he ran away on tiptoe.
Yu Yan took a puff of his cigarette and continued to investigate.
Two hours later, Yu Sui looked at the live broadcast room on his screen, his face ashen.
The game that was being broadcasted was FOG, alright.
The live broadcaster was playing as a medic, alright.
The webcam was turned on in the live broadcast room. Yu Sui looked at the picture sent by Ke Hao on the mobile phone, and then looked at the person who was broadcasting live—that's him, alright.
It's this person.
There was nothing wrong. The live broadcast was also pretty popular. Logically, it should have been easy to find, but...
Yu Sui really wanted to type in the live chat and ask his Shi Luo: You, a technical game anchor, why... why the f*ck did you classify yourself under the house dance channel?
"You......"
Yu Yan hadn't eaten all night. Right now, he was so angry, he was getting a stomachache.
He really had expended a great deal of effort just now. After checking all the possibilities, he could only believe the impossible.
Yu Sui opened the strange, more unlikely channels one by one, and then he finally saw Shi Luo's unique game interface and indifferent male face amongst a group of trembling cat-eared maids on the house dance channel.
Yu Sui was so annoyed that he wanted to call the platform administrator to report the anchor's malicious mis-categorization, but thought better of it and pulled his hands back.
Shi Luo hadn't signed a contract, and the platform administrator had no way of controlling under which channel he placed his streams.
"F*ck."
Yu Sui took a deep breath and opened his game client.
Yu Sui re-opened the live broadcast room, glanced at Shi Luo's game ID and then opened the client's national server rankings. He entered '2000-Luo' in the search bar.
The search results came out instantly:
2000-Luo, national server ranking 179.
Yu Sui was stunned.
It has been less than two months since the new season started. At this point in time, a lot of professional players hadn't yet entered the top three hundred of the national server rankings.
Of course, the possibility of someone else actually playing his account couldn't be ruled out. Yu Sui closed his client and opened the live broadcast room to watch him play. Combined with the webcam image and the game being broadcasted, Yu Sui could basically rule out the possibility of someone else playing for him.
He was the one playing this himself.
Yu Sui watched Shi Luo play another round. He then sent a message to Ke Hao: [I've found your cousin. There's a possibility he could become a pro-gamer. ]
Ke Hao immediately replied back. [What do you mean by "possibility"? Were you able to see his ranking? ]
Yu Sui: [A high rank doesn't necessarily mean he can play professionally. They're not necessarily related. ]
Ke Hao: [Then how can you judge?]
Yu Sui was too lazy to explain to this layman, saying, [There are a lot of things to ascertain. ]
Ke Hao replied, [Then can you help me check to make sure?]
Yu Sui: [No way. ]
After having said so, Yu Sui was about to close the live broadcast room when Ke Hao hurriedly sent a message over: [My allowance!!!!! New Year's dumplings!!!!! Dragon Boat Festival dumplings!!!!! Mid-autumn Festival moon cakes!!!!!!!]
Yu Sui paused and typed: [Give me a few days... I need to communicate with him myself. ]
Ke Hao was instantly relieved and sent another message. [Great, I wish I could contact him, but he said that he had nothing to talk about with an old man like me. Then what... You're the same age as me. You, you... you should watch out for that. ]
Yu Sui held back his anger. He threw the phone aside, reopened the game client, and applied for a side account.
Recalling what Ke Hao said just now — "He said that he had nothing to talk about with an old man like me", when he was filling out the details he changed his age to fifteen. He tried to remember the youthful trends when he was young. After incorporating it with this rebellious boy's aesthetics and interests, he quickly changed his nickname and signature.
Yu Sui used a side account to send a friend request to Shi Luo in the game. He said to himself: "A career assessment has come, young man, if you don't pass this, it will be too much of a loss..."
At the same time, at a certain internet cafe, Shi Luo friend request notification flashed.
Shi Luo opened it-
[① Heartbroken Person] sent a friend request. Reason for the application [Little gege, won't you ease my broken heart a little?]
Shi Luo looked at the ID, his slightly sharp eyebrows twitched. The next second, he decisively pressed "decline".
Translator's notes - very important:
To understand why Yu Sui's catfishing message was like that, you have to understand that this (see below) is Yu Sui's mental image of Shi Luo.
It's also necessary that you understand this so that you can understand why his messages in the next chapter sound the way they do. This is the Bury Love/Shamate Family subculture in China. They're characterized by the outrageous hair and make-up. They're often viewed as less-educated partly because a lot of them came from families of migrants from the provinces. Of course, a lot of them are young teenagers so they're also kind of emo. You know, railing against the system, being angst-y, stuff like that. So his messages to Shi Luo, are kinda of dramatic/emo sounding. In the original Chinese there were tons (like 90% of the message) was spelled wrong. Sigh... I guess, to reflect the uneducated image people in this subculture have.
I guess, the closest American equivalent would be Emo-punk? But of course, there are a lot of cultural differences.
For more info, you can check this out: Link or this Link
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