FOG [e-sports]

Zhou Huo sighed. “I even thought of the possibility of not making it past the group stage. I only thought of how we could lose. I never expected...”

Zhou Huo began bowing in obeisance towards the camera, his heart was full of gratitude. “Our ancestors have blessed us. They actually gave us a recommendation for admission. Thank you. Thank you. I didn’t forward those Koi in vain. Thank you to the Koi! God bless China!”

Zhou Huo was in absolutely high spirits. After taking a selfie he continued on to take photos of the players. Except for Zhou Huo himself, no one else in the team had a good expression on their faces. Shi Luo’s expression was particularly dark. Zhou Huo recklessly zoomed in on Shi Luo’s face and asked happily. “Evil, why aren’t you happy?”

“Others are going to play in the World Championships...” Shi Luo was venting his anger and said coldly, “While I’ve suddenly winded up playing in the Asian Cup. Tell me, should I be happy?”

Old Qiao couldn’t hold back and sprayed out a mouthful of water.

“What’s wrong with playing in the Asian Cup? The Asian teams are all warm and hospitable...” Zhou Huo was beaming, “Japan, Thailand, Vietnam. Hahahahaha, yes, they’re all actually Asian teams! Hahahaha...”

Shi Luo was so angry that his heart hurt. He pushed away the camera, preventing Zhou Huo from videotaping him. He continued to watch the draw with a sullen face.

His team was set but his old team wasn’t.

In the live broadcast interface, Group B has been drawn. This group was fairly balanced, with a Korean team, a North American team, a tyrant Swedish team and a Japanese Experience Baobao.

“At this rate, Old Gu and the others are the ones who are going to run into Sacred sword...” Chen Huo looked at the remaining eight teams that had yet to be drawn. He clutched his hair in frustration and frowned. “... Most of the remaining teams are strong teams. NSN’s path is going to be a bit difficult this year.”

Shi Luo was still brooding about Sacred Sword. He said coldly, “There are only a few Experience Baobao’s in all and we somehow managed to get three in our group. Of course, all the teams left would be strong.”

Zhou Huo had already calmed down but when he heard that, he became happy again. Thumping the table, he grinned, “Three Experience Baobaos...Even if you wanted to lose, you wouldn’t know how to...”

Yu Sui picked up a couch cushion and began pounding Zhou Huo with it. Zhou Huo accepted his beating obediently for less than half a minute before he grabbed the cushion and laughed.

The draw for Group C began. The first one was NSN.

Everyone put on a serious expression.

The second team for Group C: A strong North American team.

The third team for Group C: A top Korean team.

“F*ck...” The smile on Zhou Huo’s began to thin. He laughed hollowly, “This kind of play out...looks a little like...how my nightmare went...”

Shi Luo frowned a bit.

Chen Huo took a deep breath and murmured, “Don’t tell me this year’s main character script is going to be NSN’s&#k2026;”

Puppy whispered, “Why do I feel that Old Gu is feeling a chill down his back right now&#k2026;”

In the live broadcast interface, after the official personnel showed and introduced the Korean team, he began to draw the last team for Group C.

Officials started the last draw of Group C: the other team from Thailand.

The remaining four teams didn’t have any conflicts in terms of their competitive regions. Group C didn’t need to consider the possibility of being rotated because of this and the draw could already he considered a done deal. The draw for Group D was also effectively automatically set.

“Not bad.” Old Qiao let out a long sigh and nodded, “Sacred Sword is in Group D. In fact, except for our exceptionally weak Group A, the remaining three groups are quite balanced. They have two or three strong teams and an Experience Baobao.”

“Group C actually kind of looks like a Death group.” Chen Huo looked at the divided groups on the screen and said, “The North American team and the South Korean team in Old Gu’s group are very strong. NSN’s chances to make it past the group stage isn’t that stable.”

“That will depend on them.” Puppy watched the group slowly and said, “I think they’ve got a good chance. It will come down to how they play when the time comes... It’s fine. I actually I really want to go to Group C. Group D is fine too.”

Zhou Huo glanced at Puppy. “What’s so good being so uncertain whether you can make it out of the group stage? Is it fun having your heart in your throat?”

“Of course, that heart in your throat feeling isn’t fun.” Yu Sui leaned against his gaming chair and looked at the many powerful teams on the screen, his eyes brightening slightly, “...but it does feel good to knock out the strong teams with your own hands.”

Puppy slapped the table and smiled. “That’s right! That kind of pleasure can offset all the hardship that you go through in the early stages.”

Chen Huo nodded in agreement and gave an evil smile. “What it feels like personally sending home a strong team...Wow. Only someone who has personally experienced it would understand. It feels amazing!”

Zhou Huo was finding it difficult to understand: “Are you all sadists?”

Yu Sui turned around and returned to his seat. He said lightly, “Wait for the World Championship when we get the opportunity to send one away and we’ll let you see. You’ll understand.”

Zhou Huo was still “Okay... okay, but do me a favor and don’t use this pretext please. When you’re being interviewed, just say that you like challenging strong teams.”

“Okay. Besides, nothing’s for certain. Do we really need to schedule a strong team in advance right now?” The thing Old Qiao was most afraid of was that these players would be over-complacent and would be sent home at the group stage. “By our next training, I’ll collect the data of the three teams in our group. I’ll study how it compare with our data with our data analysts.”

Old Qiao said this to not let the players get too over-confident. However, he couldn’t help but grin and grumble in a low voice, “Damn, it’s not gonna be easy to find information though...Who the hell would’ve been bored enough to go and record games from the Japanese division?”

Zhou Huo’s phone rang. He took a look and quickly recovered his jubilant expression. “NSN’s manager congratulated me. He said I’m very lucky. Seriously, I detect a bit of envy in his tone.”

Zhou Huo happily replied to NSN’s manager, muttering under his breath. “Being able to draw three Experience Baobao’s isn’t the kind of luck just anyone has, y’know. And really, our Shi Luo is right. What is the use of being superstitious? His incense bath wasn’t as good as my blessing of sh*t...”

Having already drawn a giveaway grouping, Shi Luo was already feeling irritable. He couldn’t stand Zhou Huo’s neurosis and he shoo-ed Zhou Huo out of the training room.

Shi Luo was entering the World Championships for the first time. He originally wanted to destroy the heavens and raze the earth during the group stage. He was going to hack North America to pieces and then slice down Europe. He was going to step all over a road of corpses and enter the quarterfinals. Now his grand plan was all in vain. Everyone was an eyesore. His mood turned even worse when he thought of how Sacred Sword was going to ride roughshod over everyone in Group D. The training intensity that night was even more intense. One game after another, each game played extremely fast. At first, Shi Luo’s fans in the live broadcast room were angry but didn’t dare say anything at Shi Luo’s boring live broadcast. But as time went on, they started to rebel, flooding the live chat, asking Yu Sui to come.

[@Free-Whisper, have you no heart? There is a child here who’s about to go crazy.]

[Let Yu Shen take over broadcasting for awhile.]

[Is Shi Zai going crazy from happiness at how lucky they had been in the group draw?]

[He should be ecstatic. That was a once in a century kind of lucky grouping.]

[The Thai team in Group A tweeted a wave of crying emojis. Laughing to death. 】

【We want Yu Shen, We want Yu Shen, We want Yu Shen, We want Yu Shen...]

[Stop calling for Whisper. This isn’t even Whisper’s live broadcast, alright?]

[I sense that Shi Shen isn’t in a particularly good mood at the moment... It’s best not to comment in the live broadcast. 】

[I sense that Shi Shen is not in a good mood at the moment +1. Although I don’t know why, it’s best we don’t provoke the team tyrant.]

Shi Luo finished a game and quickly clicked to queue up again.

His rank on the national servers was too high and there were too few players he could be matched up with. The wait for a match was getting longer. While waiting in line, he clicked on the live broadcast assistant to take a look.

There were still a lot of people in the live chat asking for Yu Sui and many people as well advising them stop it, Shi Luo could see them at any moment and he might explode from anger.

Shi Luo paused. He clicked open the live broadcast settings and turned on voice chat.

There was a buzzing sound in the live broadcast room and instantly those comment wishing for Yu Sui to come disappeared. Terrified, they began wishing Shi Luo overwhelming victory in the World Championships.

“I’m not angry.” Shi Luo raised his hand to adjust his tone. His tone was as usual, “Whisper is in a match. It’s not convenient.”

The fans in the live broadcast room were immediately relieved. They began to flood him with gifts and blessings.

The group training was starting from tomorrow and they weren’t allowed to live broadcast during practice matches. This may be the last live broadcast before the World Championships. Shi Luo simply turned on the webcam as well.

This was the first time he had his webcam on since his side account had been exposed. Shi Luo was still a little uncomfortable. “...Let’s chat for a while. Don’t send gifts anymore. I can’t see the live chat clearly.”

Shi Luo doesn’t often interact during live broadcasts and the fans were instantly excited and immediately began to fill the live chat.

In the camera, Shi Luo glanced at his other teammates. After making sure that they were all wearing sound proof earphone and dropping his even lower, he said, “We’ll chat for a while. In a bit, I’ll be resting already. The practice games will start tomorrow and when our visa comes, we’ll be going to Germany ahead of time, adjust to the timezone, familiarize with the diet. And then it’s the World Championship.”

Shi Luo looked at the live chat and frowned. “NSN’s grouping? It’s okay...not as easy as ours.”

“We might not fly with NSN. Our manager wants to get to Germany early.”

“Going there earlier or going there later is basically the same. When I get there, I’ll find an Internet café or go to an official venue for practice games. It’s the same. We’re just adapting to the environment in advance.”

“Who do we have the practice matches with? It’s not set. Whichever team we have an appointment with. When we can’t get anyone, Angel Sword and his team are always there to help with practice matches.”

“Angel Sword...En, their team took the initiative to offer to help us train.”

“There’s no need to bring an interpreter. They can speak German...”

The live chat were all asking Yu Sui to interpret for Shi Luo. Shi Luo pretended no to see it, and said, “I’m fine... I can basically just speak English in public places, so it should be fine.”

As soon as the topic turned to Yu Sui, no one talked about the World Championship anymore. The live chat was swarming with questions about Yu Sui.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, he couldn’t find any another comment in the live chat. Shi Luo was helpless. After making sure that they rest of the team were playing in matches and couldn’t hear him, he lowered his voice and said, “He... today was just done on a whim.”

“He just saw that I really couldn’t finish my broadcast quota.”

“How do I usually call him? Yu Sui, Yu Shen, Captain, Whisper.”

The live chat was still unrelenting. Shi Luo was helpless. He said uncomfortably, “...I called him ‘Ge’ before.”

“Why did I call him ‘Ge’...because he’s older than me.”

“Call Whisper over... he’s in a match right now. It’s impossible.”

“He can’t hear me.”

“It has nothing to do with the volume of his own game. Our headphones are all soundproof. You can’t hear anything when you’re wearing them.”

“And...” Shi Luo still wasn’t successful in getting a match. He glanced at Yu Sui’s current status from his game client and said in a low voice, “He has already rushed back to the top five in the national server this afternoon and he’s trying to get into the number one spot. He’s in a high score match and he can’t be distracted.”

The fans also knew it but as soon as Shi Luo finished speaking, his in-game friend interface flashed.

Shi Luo directly clicked on——

[Free-Whisper]: [I heard you. ]

[Free-Whisper]: [I’m not as focused as you thought. ]

Shi Luo: “......”

Shi Luo looked towards Yu Sui’s direction in disbelief. Yu Sui was indeed in the middle of a game and he was indeed wearing headphones.

Yu Sui who was in the middle of his game was replenishing his blood and was in the middle of the animation for it. He open the chat window and quickly typed to Shi Luo.

[Free-Whisper]: [I use your live broadcast as my background sounds.]

[Free-Whisper]: [Are you saying I can’t afford to be distracted just because I’m playing matches at the top five of the national server?]

[Free-Whisper]: [Shi Shen, you underestimate me. ]