After bowing to the audience, Tong Yao and the others returned to their seats to pack up their mice and keyboards. Lu Sicheng complained of a headache and mercilessly dumped this task onto Little Fatty—
"I'm your support, not your babysitter!"
Grumbling all the while, Little Fatty still obediently and carefully packed up Lu Sicheng's peripherals into the bag. It wasn't until Tong Yao saw Little Fatty removing the headphones that she realized Lu Sicheng even brought his own headphones—
"Is there really a need to bring your own for this?"
"Because some players sweat when they get anxious, because he's too picky, because he's a clean freak—pick whichever reason you like," Little Fatty said expressionlessly as he placed the keyboard into the bag and slung it over his shoulder. "By the way, these headphones cost fifty grand."
Tong Yao, who had been walking ahead with her bag, suddenly stumbled and spun around, staring at Little Fatty as if she'd seen a ghost. The latter grinned. "Yep, enough to buy a toilet in my hometown’s eighth-tier city. Our captain is just that extravagant."
"..."
Tong Yao adjusted the bag on her back. She once thought a four-digit keyboard was the epitome of pride and luxury for a pro gamer. Now, that pride lay shattered at her feet...
When they entered the break room, the extravagant captain was already gone—according to Xiao Rui, he had boarded the van first to "play dead," ready to be transported back to the team headquarters for a proper burial...
The rest of the teammates were busy handing their peripheral bags to the staff, preparing to take another vehicle to the evening event location for some godforsaken carnival later. Tong Yao obediently handed over her bag too. She was just about to ask if she should bring back some offerings from the event to set up an altar for Lu Sicheng when she suddenly felt another sharp cramp in her lower abdomen—
It was as if the herd of elephants that had just passed through her stomach had gone somewhere for the winter and were now stampeding back in full force.
Her face paled as she bent over, wondering how her stomach could still hurt after the match was over—nerves couldn’t possibly be the reason now. Before she could even process it, another, even more unsettling sensation shot straight to the top of her skull—
Specifically...
The kind that felt like a babbling brook.
Tong Yao’s face instantly turned green. Tossing out a quick "I need the bathroom," she dashed into the restroom amid Little Fatty’s muttering of "You and your bathroom trips again"—
Open the door, close it, pull down her pants, take a look, pull them back up, open the door, walk out, wash her hands.
Three minutes later, Tong Yao reappeared in front of the team manager with her hands on her hips, calmly stating, "Rui Ge, I can’t go to that godforsaken event either."
Xiao Rui exploded. "What now? Planning to join Cheng Ge in the afterlife?"
Tong Yao replied deadpan, "My pants are dirty."
Xiao Rui’s face also turned green. "...Did you shit yourself?"
The entire break room turned to look at them in unison.
Tong Yao remained expressionless.
About thirty seconds later, Xiao Rui finally had a Sherlock Holmes moment, piecing together the earlier symptoms of her frantic stomachaches and inability to relieve herself. He let out an "Ah," paused, then another "Ah," before waving a hand with a pained expression. "Go on. I’ll call Cheng Ge’s corpse transport van back to pick you up. They probably haven’t gone far yet."
......
And so.
Ten minutes later.Lying motionless in the backseat of the car, Lu Sicheng noticed the vehicle had stopped again shortly after setting off. Puzzled, he lifted the clothes covering his face and sat up, glancing out the window to see they'd returned to the competition venue's parking lot... He paused, then wearily lifted his eyelids and asked, "What's going on?"
Just as he spoke, the car door opened.
A short figure huffed and puffed as she climbed into the vehicle. After setting down the peripheral bag on her back, she hesitated before addressing her captain, who was half-reclining in the back row and currently staring at her with utter bewilderment: "I was worried, so I specially requested to come take care of you."
Lu Sicheng: "..."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "I may have a fever, but my brain isn't fried yet."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "What's really going on?"
Tong Yao: "My pants got dirty."
Lu Sicheng let out an "Oh," his expression completely calm: "Did you shit yourself? Then sit farther away from me."
"........................" Tong Yao grumbled as she scooted three rows away from Lu Sicheng, "Your nose is too stuffed to smell anything anyway."
"It's assaulting my eyes, is that good enough for you?"
The man shot her a glance before pulling his jacket over his face again and leaning sideways to resume sleeping... Leaving Tong Yao alone in the car with one or two accompanying male staff members who now wore utterly confused expressions. After a moment of silence, with the continuous sound of running water in the background, Tong Yao finally couldn't take it anymore and said, "Driver, could you please hurry up? My relative is visiting, and I need to get home quickly to see her."
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