Fish Playing While Trapped in a Secret Room Vol 4 Chapter 13

Book 4: The Return of the King

Chapter 13

The next day was the final competition.  When Ai Qing and Slide walked
side by side out of the VIP entrance, their arrival drew a strong reaction from
both the players and the audience.  

The owners and managers of many clubs in the VIP players’ area were casting
encouraging looks at Ai Qing. All of those who were sitting in the VIP area had
been in this circle for many years, going from amateur players to professionals.
They had witnessed so many different games and so many players, coming
and going. Though they might not personally know Ai Qing, they were all
expressing their support to one of the first professional players.

SP club’s fans all gathered in one area on top of her, shouting slogans louder
and louder.

Amidst the din of the crowd, Slide turned around, crossed his hands each
clenched into a fist, and lifted both high above his head, showing his sincere
appreciation.

Another wave of cheers fell upon them.

“Damn it.  Looks like we double the number of fans from yesterday.”  Following
looked at the area high above them with one hand shielding his eyes.  “Captain,
your future wife will be very jealous about you with all these fans.”

Slide glanced at him.  “Who knows if my future wife has even been born yet.”

It took only less than two minutes for the

dozen or so players to sit down in their
seats, but every step they took was the focus of the whole arena. Thousands of
people in the audience were watching their every footstep as they moved forward.  
Ai Qing looked back and saw an overwhelming number of flags and banners.
Some of the fans were even dressed in imitation SP uniforms who occupied about
one fourth of stadium.

She sat down beside Baona.  Baona laughed. “You always wear the flat glasses
when you were crying earlier.  Can’t you try some new trick?”

Ai Qing pursed her lips and curved up her index finger to push up the glasses a
little bit.  “I didn’t cry.”

She twisted the paper cup in her hands.

She just didn’t sleep the entire night last night…...so sleepy.

At the same time, Dt, sitting next to Grunt, sipped some coffee from the Starbucks
cup in his hand.  K&K wasn’t competing, they just reserved the first three row of
seats at the southeast corner of the stadium.  He and Grunt sat in the first row, the
fans were only four rows behind them.

Apparently, because of the series of events from last night, most of the fans had
calmed down somewhat.

Some fans had their hearts broken, but most of them were shocked. They now
viewed Dt, who seemed seclusive and unsociable, as a role model of what a good
man should

should be.

……

Grunt squinted and glanced at Dt.  “You never drinked coffee before. Ever since
you’re with your goddess, everything in your old life has changed.”

Dt’s eyes were very red……

But he didn’t feel sleepy at all.

They talked on the phone the whole night.

It was the kind where they didn’t have anything important to talk about but continued
to converse in low voices despite being too sleepy to maintain a conversation. Dt
had never experienced falling in love, so he didn’t know whether it was normal to be
this clingy, but he truly enjoyed it.  He even felt that he could do it again for three days
and three nights without any sleep and it wouldn’t be a problem for him to fly to Beijing
right afterwards for the national finals.

Of course, Grunt couldn’t understand what was going through Dt’s mind.  He was
already sluggish though he had just been promoted to captain. “As brothers for so
many years, I’m just the nominal captain.  Don’t expect me to do anything. If you and
Han Shangyan push me too hard, then I would rather jump to another club.”

Dt casted a glance at him.

Grunt shrugged.  “Your goddess is in SP, it’s off limits to me. But I can still jump to
European or American clubs, it’s no big deal.”

Dt silently looked at him once again.

Grunt took off his glasses.  “Alright, I won’t joke around with you.

with you.  People in love are
always somewhat abnormal.  I understand.”

All the K&K players behind them cracked up.  Originally they thought they would
overhear some serious discussion about today’s competition between the two captains.  
Even if it might not be so serious, but shouldn’t they at least comment about the outlook
of today’s competition? Since the K&K fans were only a row behind them, they all tried
to pretend to be focused on the competition and hadn’t overheard anything.

From Ai Qing’s point of view, K&K was still the same.

Not everybody can fit in the position of captain.  Grunt was more like a sharp knife
than a commander.

But her team was different.  Slide, Following, and Bug all had been captains before.  
Whenever there was any problem, they could take over as the captain immediately.  
She looked at the pink haired boy in the north end of the VIP area. This boy was
also a captain, but just too young.

There were still ten minutes to enter the competition area.

The surrounding large screens started to play the game trailers of the preliminaries
in eight cities.

Inside the staff area, referees put on their name tags and got ready.

The commentators were in place.

The live stream began a countdown.

Slide seemed to understand that Ai Qing was paying attention to that young boy.  He
pulled out a keyboard from his sports bag and put it and put it on his right shoulder. He hit the
keyboard lightly.  “I know what you want to do with him. That rookie has to let us
evaluate his capability first to determine whether he is qualified to join the A team.”

As a good friend for so many years, Slide fully understood Ai Qing’s thoughts.  He
and All were both approaching the age of retirement. It was very possible that they
would retire after this tournament.  And that rookie probably was the new captain that
Ai Qing was searching for.

After Slide spoke, the other four players understood it also immediately.

All’s two eyes instantly had a shine in them. “Beat him up till he cries.”

Following licked his lips.  “Absolutely no mercy. Let’s take turns.”

Bug and Inin chimed in agreement with less bloodthirst.  Since he was to be recruited
by the manager, then they would do their best to beat him up till he cried…...The excited
five players were even more geared up, wearing faces as if they were going to swallow
the ranked number 3 player whole.  They carried their mouses and keyboards as they
walked into the arena each in a hyper state of mind.

The light dimmed as the song began playing, the players of eight teams
checked their keyboards and mouses for the very last time……

The final round of the national preliminary was about to begin.

Chapter end