章 14: CHAPTER 14
The fans finally left leaving Tong Yao feeling like a disaster survivor. Looking at the backs of the excited fans, she stretched out her neck and sighed somewhat envious, "Will I have this many fans later on? Who like me, praise me, and can't wait to take a pictures with me-- --"
Lu Sicheng glanced at her and lightly said, "You will if you play seriously."
Tong Yao: "Ah, really."
Mhm, actually, Cheng Ge wasn't a bad person at all. At least he knew how to encourage the new-- --
"If you don't play well, then there will be thousands of people who hate you, curse you, and wish that you'll choke to death the next time you drink water. Who can't wait to burn you at the stake."
"..........."
"Do your best."
"But there's no one cursing you."
Lu Sicheng twitched his lips as if Tong Yao was talking rubbish, "Because I'm strong. In esports, being weak is the original sin."
Tong Yao: "...So true. Thank you for giving me a lesson."
Lu Sicheng: "You're welcome."
They finally arrived at the section for household items. Tong Yao walked in the front with a basket on her arm, putting in things she needed as she saw them. Lu Sicheng walked behind her, looking quite bored. He would pick up something once in awhile, scanning it with his eyes, before put it back again.
Tong Yao suddenly stopped in front of a pile of indoor shoes-- --She had her eyes on a pair of fuzzy sherpa shoes. It was a pair of boots with soft soles and two pom poms on top. Tong Yao took down the sample shoe, it felt very warm. She thought it would be perfect to wear in the winter since the floor at the ZGDX base was ceramic...
Tong Yao put back the sample, then started to choose the color she liked-- --
Were the blue ones better or the pink ones?
Actually, the white ones were cute as well, just easy to get dirty.
Tong Yao couldn't make up her mind. Finally, she picked up the blue and the pink samples to show Lu Sicheng, "Cheng Ge, which one looks better?"
Lu Sicheng was throwing back a plush cap back onto the shelf when he heard her. He turned around to take a look, "Blue."
Tong Yao nodded while murmuring, "a man's taste isn't trustworthy," and put the blue one back on the shelf. She held the pink sample in hand, starting to look for an unopened bag of pink shoes on the shelf…...finally her eyes brightened up. On the very top shelf and inside the corner to the back, she could see a pair of pink shoes pressed down by all the white and blues ones. She stood on her tiptoes trying to reach the bag-- --
With some difficulty, her two finger tips touched the bag and began to slowly drag the bag out...
"Tsk."
A big hand stretched out from behind and easily took down the bag.
Startled, Tong Yao turning around to look up at the face of the man behind her. It was against the light, she couldn't really tell his expression, only to see him dropping the shoe bag into her basket and said, "Just tell me the rest of the things on your list. You're not an acrobat. You were almost hanging onto the shelf."
"You can't blame me. This is the last pink one. Someone must have hidden it at the back so no one could find it!"
"..."
"Hehehe, but I still found it. She must be very angry-- --"
Lu Sicheng watched that self-approving smile on her face and suddenly remembered something. He paused, then finally spoke in surprise, "...did you do the same thing at the supermarket next to the hotel we stayed for the Spring Finals? You hid a bottle water on the back of the highest shelf-- --"
"............"
Seeing the smile frozen on Tong Yao's face, Lu Sicheng sighed in disbelief, "That was you again."
"........What do you mean by that? How do you know? Ah! You were that thief who stole my water!"
"Who's a thief." Lu Sicheng took the basket from Tong Yao and walked towards the cashier. He took a bag of chips at random while speaking without turning his head, "Did the bottle have your name on it?"
"I hid it first! I saw it first!" Tong Yao quickly kept up with him.
The man in the front sneered, "You call that hiding."
"Why wasn't it hiding!"
"Hiding things in the supermarket, are you a little kid?"
"I just don't want others to get it!"
"...In those two days, I thought I was besieged by a whole bunch of shorties. It turns out it's only you."
"What shorties besieged you. Speak nicely!"
Tong Yao watched the cashier scan all the merchandises in her basket. It was 374 RMB in total. Before she could take out her purse to pay, Lu Sicheng had already taken out a card and handed it to the cashier-- --
Tong Yao widened her eyes and hurriedly said, "Wait, I can pay for my..."
"There's my stuff in it too." Lu Sicheng took out the bag of chips and carried the rest as well. Tong Yao followed him out of the store and wanted to say something. In the end, she could only came up with the words, "Thanks."
Lu Sicheng looked at the ill-at-ease girl behind him and thought what a difference she was from those people at the base who always claimed, "Cheng Ge has money, Cheng Ge pays." He said to her, "Then buy everyone a midnight snack tonight."
Tong Yao nodded her head like chicks pecking the rice.
"Let's go to that private hot pot place, the one that costs 1000 RMB a person."
Tong Yao pause, her expression stiffened.
"I'm kidding." Lu Sicheng stuff the bag of chips, which he had opened but only took one chip out, into Tong Yao's hand. "Hot and spicy hot pot will do, plus some celtuce and potato slices."
"..."
Tong Yao cautiously finished the bag of chips on the way back to the base under Lu Sicheng's threat, "If you leave a single crumb in my car, I'll throw you into the ocean."
...
When they got back to the base, they saw the manager Xiaorui sat cross legged on the couch with Dabing in his arms after they opened the door. Xiaorui had a look of bliss as he stroked the cat when Tong Yao and Lu Sicheng came in one after another.
"Having a good time shopping?" Xiaorui asked, "Are you getting along with our new teammate?"
A laugh came from the support, Little Fatty, nearby.
"We had a good time." Lu Sicheng said with a stone face, "It was like bringing a kindergarten aged daughter to go snack shopping for the field trip tomorrow so she could fill up her little backpack."
Tong Yao was looking for the new slippers she just bought and turned to glare at him.
Lu Sicheng threw the car key onto the table and started a new ranked game even before he sat down in front of his computer-- --just like an internet addict…...Xiaorui squinted and picked up the cat to go near Lu Sicheng, "Did you smoke again?"
"Don't know what you're talking about. I don't smoke." Lu Sicheng lazily lied through his teeth.
Tong Yao walked over wearing her new slippers, Xiaorui beckoned her over and pointed to the empty seat next to Lu Sicheng, "Come, Tong Yao, I set up your computer for you while you were out. This will be your seat from now on."
The seat was in between Lu Sicheng and the jungler Old K. Everything from the monitor to the mouse were new. The keyboard was also her favorite Cherry MX Red mechanical keyboard, but-- --
"What's this?"
Lu Sicheng used two fingers to pick up one corner of the pink laced computer screen frame cover in utter bafflement.
Tong Yao: "..."
Xiaorui: "It's the pink frame cover that teenage girls use to dress up their monitors. Take your claws off."
Lu Sicheng: "This thing stings my eyes, I'll drop down to Diamond."
Xiaorui: "I dare you. We'll see whether you'll still have any salary for the month. I'll even call you grandpa if you somehow still earn a cent in the end."
Lu Sicheng: "Take it away."
Xiaorui: "I won't."
Tong Yao also hesitatingly spoke after flipping the lace at the lower right hand corner of the computer, "Rui Ge, this thing will block the minimap..."
Because of Tong Yao's concern, the terrible thing around the computer was eventually taken down…...When Tong Yao sat down before the computer, Lu Sicheng had already started his ranked game. She tilted her head to watch for a while, then couldn't resist the temptation to turn on her own computer. She discovered that LoL had already been downloaded together with the VPN reserved for esports clubs. She had heard about this VPN, since most of the professional players played ranked games on Korean servers, all the clubs would provide them with the app to go around the firewall-- --
The speed was much faster than normal VPNs, and much more stable.
Tong Yao was excited about it after years of dealing with lousy VPN speeds. The sound of Lu Sicheng clicking on the mouse and keyboard made it irresistible for her, who hadn't touched a computer for a few days, to open the game-- --
She sighed with satisfaction when a familiar sound entered her ears as the sign-in page appeared.
She keyed in her password as usual, however, she felt someone was staring at her from behind, burning two small holes into her back. She turned around and saw Little Fatty eagerly looking at her…...Tong Yao chuckled, "Little Fatty, let's play duos."
Little Fatty got what he had hoped for and happily agreed.
At this time, Lu Sicheng, with eyes still fixed on his computer screen, suddenly spoke, "Shorty, do you know why except during training time, ZGDX bot never plays duos?"
"Who are you calling shorty…..I don't know." Tong Yao was confused, "Why?"
"You'll know soon enough." Lu Sicheng said lightly.
Tong Yao watched him for a while then shrugged. She accepted the invitation from Little Fatty and entered duo queues with him......
-- --To be more precise, she got on board of his hearse.
After a few hours of playing, Tong Yao finally understood what Lu Sicheng meant earlier. Little Fatty was a trouble maker. While playing with him, Tong Yao had an eye opening experience of his fancy champion pool. There wasn't any champion that he couldn't use for playing support.
The result was that Tong Yao had successfully pushed her ranking from Challenger down to Master after playing hard between the time she came back from her shopping trip in the afternoon till ten o'clock at night-- --
After they finished the last round, amidst Little Fatty's howling, "I'm going to drop to Diamond 2," Tong Yao also didn't know what to say after seeing her points drop from 600 to 400+. She rubbed her stomach, "I'm hungry. Let's order some food?"
Everyone agreed immediately.
They left their computers to gather around the table. Tong Yao ordered the hot and spicy hot pot per Lu Socheng's request, plus the celtuce and potato slices-- --After the food got there, they all happily started eating while casually chatting.
Though Tong Yao was new, after playing games with them the whole afternoon, she got to know them well by now. She conversed with them easily. Soon the topic changed to why Tong Yao chose her ID-- --
"Why did you call yourself Smiling?" Jungler Old K asked. "Because you're optimistic? You just got dragged down 200 some points by Little Fatty and didn't punch him. You're really optimistic."
"Say that again? !" Little Fatty stared at Old K with food in his mouth.
"It's because when I started playing games, I especially liked an ex-ADC player Smiling from WE." Tong Yao excitedly put down her chopsticks and dreamly said, "I was so sad when he retired with regrets. I swore to myself that I'll make sure this ID, Smiling, would come back onto the international scene again. So I use this ID!"
"Typical fangirl behavior." Lu Sicheng commented, "A somewhat higher level fangirl."
"You're a fanboy."
"Smiling was the ADC. You're a mid, what are you doing being a fan of his."
"Why isn't a mid allowed to be a fan of an ADC? I also like you. As long as it's a superb player with upright professionalism, I like them all." Tong Yao blurred out.
Lu Sicheng was a little bit taken back. He raised his head to take a look at Tong Yao but didn't say anything more.
Silence fell on the table. Then Lu Sicheng dropped his chopsticks and stood up, saying that he was full. He went back to his computer…...The four people left at the table looked at each other. Tong Yao lowered her voice to ask, "Did I say something wrong?"
Old Cat shook his head.
Little Fatty also shook his head.
Old K sighed and was about to say something, but was interrupted by Lu Sicheng's cold voice-- --
"Shorty, come play duos after you finish eating."
Tong Yao was shocked and widened her eyes in confusion.
Old K finally found the chance to talk. He sticked out his thumb and sighed, "I was going to say that you just kissed up to him at the right point. I'm truly impressed."
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