When the little girl was detained for five or six days and cried for her parents, Tong Yao returned to Shanghai. From then on, she no longer had to worry about someone rushing onto the stage mid-match to splash sulfuric acid in her face...
“—No one’s going to splash sulfuric acid. The female fans who’d confront you are usually my fans. Since I sit right next to you during matches, what if they accidentally splash their oppa instead?”
The above was Lu Sicheng’s shameless remark after Tong Yao embarrassingly shared her overactive imagination while on the plane back.
Tong Yao rolled her eyes and shoved him. Before takeoff, she checked the forum on her phone and noticed that after China Telecom Team’s crushing victory over Red Arrow the previous week, the skepticism on the forum had slightly subsided—most of the spectator masses in the esports circle were like this. They didn’t care about a match’s significance or advanced tactical changes; they just wanted to see their favorite team stomp the Domestic Professional League, dominate the other Four Major Regions, and keep winning nonstop.
As long as they won, nothing else mattered.
Tong Yao turned off her phone just as Xiao Rui spoke up beside her: “After returning to the Group Stage, we’ve already taken down the toughest opponent, Huawei Team. So here’s the question—the remaining three teams, Obsidian, Storm, and King, are honestly as weak as Melon Skin...”
Tong Yao: “If you post that on the forum, it’ll flood the boards with eight-page threads per post.”
Xiao Rui: “Ahem.”
Tong Yao: “What are you trying to say?”
Xiao Rui: “What I mean is, securing first place in the group for the Playoffs is a given. So here’s the real question—unless your heads get slammed in a door during Playoffs or other teams pull out some secret strategies—which I highly doubt—our S-Series Spot this year should be locked in. When it comes to the World Championship, the team will rotate between you and Lu Yue based on the opponent’s lineup.”
Tong Yao: “Huh?”
Xiao Rui glanced at the girl fiddling with the bandage on her hand, then cautiously peeked at Lu Sicheng before mustering the courage to blurt out: “I’m worried Lu Yue lacks match experience. Maybe you should sit out the Group Stage and let him practice. You can come back for the Playoffs.”
Lu Sicheng stayed silent. Tong Yao paused her bandage-fiddling, looked up at the visibly nervous Xiao Rui, and smiled. “Sure.”
“...Don’t smile,” Xiao Rui said uneasily. “When you smile, I get nervous—last time, benching you for one match due to injury made you act like you wanted to kill someone. Now you’re agreeing so easily—are you plotting something?”
“………………I just think you’re right,” Tong Yao shrugged. “Before, I couldn’t wrap my head around it—I felt like not playing meant people looked down on me. But now I realize that mindset was wrong. Sometimes, you have to prioritize the team’s needs, just like how I finally understood the club benching me against Red Arrow was for my own safety.”
Xiao Rui beamed with pride. “You’ve grown up.”Xiao Rui's words carried the usual tone of parents marveling at how their little one had grown up, but to someone with a guilty secret, it sounded entirely different—Tong Yao could feel Lu Sicheng's gaze on her turning subtly strange. Feeling awkward, she quickly withdrew her injured hand.
Lu Sicheng took the opportunity to grab her hand, nodding meaningfully. "She has indeed grown up."
Tong Yao pulled her hand back and smacked him.
...
They returned to the team headquarters around 8 PM.
Just in time to order takeout for dinner, Little Fatty and the others gathered around the table and asked about what had happened that afternoon. They were surprised to learn that the girl who sent the package wasn’t a first-time offender and applauded when they heard she had already faced fair and strict legal consequences... Besides that, during the dinner meeting, Xiao Rui announced that Lu Yue would be playing in the upcoming matches, while Tong Yao would take over his sacred duties of guarding the water dispenser and warming the bench through Scrims and solo Ranked Games.
Upon hearing this, Lu Yue excitedly ate an extra piece of braised pork. "I'm moving up in the world!"
Tong Yao smirked coldly at him. "Up my ass. Everything’s mine, even your own brother."
Lu Yue: "..."
The table fell into brief silence. Tong Yao looked utterly unbothered, as if she saw nothing wrong with her words. Lu Sicheng, sitting beside her, set down his chopsticks and glanced between the two rival Mid Laners. After a pause, under the expectant gazes of everyone waiting for drama, he nodded and commented, "Well said."
Tong Yao immediately grabbed his arm and hugged it tightly.
Lu Yue made a disgusted face. "Take him, take him. You’re the only one who wants him anyway. Just don’t return him once you take him."
Tong Yao: "Only me? Why don’t you tweet and ask how many girls out there would love to have your brother?"
Lu Yue: "Falling in love with a wild horse—do you even have the pasture for it?"
Tong Yao’s expression stiffened at that. She tightened her grip on Lu Sicheng’s arm and turned to glare at him. Lu Sicheng leaned down and kissed her lips. "Domesticated horse. Biggest perk is obedience."
Satisfied, Tong Yao let go and grabbed a napkin to wipe nonexistent grease from his mouth, her gaze tender. "Full?"
Lu Sicheng: "Full."
Tong Yao: "Gaming or sleeping?"
Lu Sicheng: "Gaming with you or sleeping with you?"
Tong Yao: "Gaming with me! I can support you—"
Lu Sicheng: "I choose sleeping with you."
Tong Yao tossed the napkin aside. "You only love my body."
"If I said I also love your supporting soul right now, it’d mean I’m a shallow liar who spouts nonsense without thinking." Lu Sicheng pulled Tong Yao up. "Let’s go sleep."
At 9:30 PM, the dinner meeting adjourned.
Tong Yao bounced up the stairs ahead, dragging Lu Sicheng by the hand as if leading a horse back to her room—leaving the rest of the team downstairs utterly dumbfounded, unable to process what these two thought the headquarters was, or what they took the living, breathing single dogs around them for.
At 10:30 PM, Xiao Rui decided: Think you’re having a sweet night together? Think again. Ten minutes later, Tong Yao, fresh out of the shower and sprawled on her bed scrolling through Weibo, came across an official post from the China Telecom Team. It announced that the team would implement a Mid Laner rotation for the next three regular-season group matches, with Lu Yue taking the starting position.
Instantly, fans erupted in chaos. Those with wild imaginations began speculating that the team's starting Mid Laner, having become the captain's girlfriend, had grown arrogant and forgotten her place, offending the captain and consequently being benched…
While people spun this into an eight-million-word melodramatic esports romance novel filled with steamy scenes, the so-called "ruthless, cold, and tyrannical" captain of the China Telecom Team had just stepped out of Tong Yao's bathroom. Towel in hand, he gently dried her hair, his scattered kisses and heated breath landing on her fair shoulders…
"Wow, these people are something else. When I was playing, they complained about me, and now that I'm not, they miss me… Mmm," Tong Yao squirmed away, "that tickles."
The man paused, brushing his lips against her smooth cheek, faintly scented with face wash, before giving it a playful nip and lazily pulling back.
"And here’s someone saying the China Telecom Team is doomed. Why do they love predicting our downfall so much?"
"Ahhh! And this one says Lu Yue actually plays pretty well and I don’t need to come back… Damn it! So annoying!"
"At least these comments begging for Smiling to return are more pleasant. Let me switch to my alt account and like them one by one…"
As Tong Yao read the Weibo comments aloud, she stumbled upon one that said, "Some fans are saying you benched me because I’m your forbidden… Ugh, I can’t even finish this, it’s so dirty—" Before she could continue, the man’s large hand deftly slipped her nightgown strap off her shoulder, snatched her phone, and tossed it out of her reach. The next moment, the girl who had been lying on her stomach playing with her phone was pinned beneath him into the soft bedding…
Amidst the girl’s ragged breaths, after a long while, the man’s deep voice, laced with faint amusement, finally responded—
"Let them write. Let them write all they want. We’ll wait for their little smut fic and see if the details match up."
"What if they don’t?"
"Then we’ll follow the script, practice more, and strive for improvement."
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