Probably her exclamation mark had some effect, as Yu Tu didn't invite her for the next game, but So Scared School is About to Start did.
Qiao Jingjing continued using Cai Wenji, but this time the Marksman was someone else—So Scared School is About to Start.
Not long into the game, "So Scared School is About to Start" was killed by the enemy, giving up the First Blood.
After giving up the second kill, So Scared School is About to Start couldn't hold back anymore.
So Scared School is About to Start: Cai Wenji???
Qiao Jingjing felt a bit embarrassed. She had no qualms about letting Yu Tu down, but she did feel bad for others.
Can Pick Cotton: I'm not very good, just started playing.
So Scared School is About to Start: ...Turn on voice chat, listen to my commands.
Previously, A'guo had taught her on the spot, so they had never used voice chat. This was the first time Qiao Jingjing clicked the small speaker and microphone icons in the top left corner. As soon as she did, she heard a somewhat rough voice on the other end.
"No wonder Yu Tu, the eternal Marksman, actually went Mid-laner this time. This Cai Wenji is a bit of a liability."
Qiao Jingjing: "..."
Before Qiao Jingjing could even feel frustrated, a long-unheard voice sounded from the other end. "You're overthinking it. I'm just demonstrating the correct way to play Zhuge Liang."
The deep voice carried a hint of teasing. Qiao Jingjing was momentarily dazed. Just then, the enemy Jungler Sun Wukong appeared out of nowhere and knocked off half of Cai Wenji's health with one strike as she stood in the middle of the lane.
The enemy Mid-laner Gao Jianli quickly followed, using his Ultimate skill to engage, and Cai Wenji was instantly eliminated.
So Scared screamed and tried to flee, "There are like eighty thousand of them!" But it was too late. Under the assault of three enemies, the fragile Marksman was taken down in two hits.
The Mid-laner Zhuge Liang, Yutu Daoyao, had originally gone to support the top lane and arrived at the bottom lane a step too late, finding himself surrounded by the three enemies. Although the enemy Jungler was now low on health, the Mage and top laner still had half their health left.
Lying on the ground, Qiao Jingjing thought Zhuge Liang was done for. But with a cleverly positioned Ultimate skill, Zhuge Liang instantly took down the Jungler, then activated his passive and eliminated Gao Jianli.
Double Kill.
By then, however, he was down to a sliver of health himself and used Flash to escape. The enemy top laner, of course, wasn't about to let him go and chased closely. Unexpectedly, Zhuge Liang turned back, used his second skill to reposition, followed by his first skill and another Ultimate skill, finishing off the top laner.
Triple Kill.
This series of actions took only about ten seconds, leaving Qiao Jingjing dazzled and stunned. So Scared School is About to Start grumbled in frustration, "Yu Tu, you kill-stealer."
The two who had been silent until now also spoke up.
Shilaimei Bao: "Yu Tu, your Zhuge Liang is pretty good. How come I've never seen you play him?"
Dragon King 2001: "Zhai Liang always snatches the Mage role, so he never gets a chance."
A low chuckle came through the microphone from Yu Tu, his voice particularly clear as he said, "Just standard play."
Qiao Jingjing felt as if her chest resonated with his voice.
So Scared School is About to Start: "Pfft, would you die if you didn't show off? Cai Wenji, later, stand in the bush and help me with vision."
Qiao Jingjing was still immersed in Yu Tu's domineering triple kill and instinctively asked, "Which bush?"
The game suddenly fell silent.
Qiao Jingjing was also taken aback, suddenly realizing a problem she hadn't considered earlier—would Yu Tu... recognize her voice?
"So Scared School is About to Start" asked in shock, "A girl?"That's not really surprising...
Qiao Jingjing: "Aren't 40% of the players in this game female?"
Although she wasn't good at gaming, she took her endorsement duties seriously in other aspects and had memorized plenty of materials.
Hao Huang: "But you were invited by Yu Tu, who's practically a girl-repeller. Yu Tu, do you really not know this girl?"
Yu Tu: "...Mm."
Hao Huang: "Not from QQ?"
Yu Tu didn't respond. Qiao Jingjing, who had just been pondering what "girl-repeller" meant, grew nervous, fervently hoping he wouldn't remember. She was his classmate, so of course she had his QQ number. But back then, due to some inexplicable whims, she had specially created a secondary account to add him. She tried twice, but he never accepted—not even when she used a pretty girl's profile picture (not hers).
Out of boredom, she searched his QQ number on Baidu and accidentally discovered he had left it on an aerospace enthusiasts' forum. A lightbulb went off—she added him posing as a fellow forum user, and he accepted.
However, she knew nothing about the topic. After adding Yu Tu, they only exchanged a few messages before he likely saw through her cluelessness and never replied again.
In high school, Yu Tu had been somewhat arrogant.
Afraid he might recall, Qiao Jingjing hastily answered, "I added you randomly before." She quickly followed up: "Um, what should I do while hiding in the grass?"
Hao Huang was successfully distracted: "Watch if the enemy is coming to flank us. If they are, signal."
"Okay."
Cai Wenji slowly moved into the grass. Suddenly, it belatedly occurred to her—Yu Tu...
He really hadn't recognized her voice.
Relieved, Qiao Jingjing felt a twinge of disappointment, then immediately scorned herself for it. Her inner drama surged with twists and turns, quite vividly. Since providing vision was boring, she couldn't resist checking the map to see what Yu Tu was doing. But in those few seconds of distraction, she was killed again by the sneaky enemy Jungler.
The enemy top laner immediately rushed in to assist the Jungler, taking down Hao Huang once more.
Lying on the ground, Hao Huang said weakly, "Cai Wenji, you should just stick with the mage. I'll farm alone for a bit."
He then called out, "Yu Tu, whoever invited her is responsible."
Yu Tu said leisurely, "Fine. A Marksman as lousy as you doesn't deserve protection anyway."
Hao Huang: "..."
Driven away by the Marksman, Qiao Jingjing had no choice but to sulkily run to Zhuge Liang's side.
Zhuge Liang was a highly mobile hero, with three dashes built into his second skill. Combined with Yu Tu's elusive playstyle, Cai Wenji struggled to keep up. However, Yu Tu made no demands of her and didn't say a word to her throughout the match.
They won again. Qiao Jingjing checked the final stats—Yu Tu's Zhuge Liang had actually secured 21 kills.
And her Cai Wenji's performance wasn't too shabby either!
Pleased, Qiao Jingjing reviewed her stats, feeling a little thrilled and almost wanting to screenshot it for Ling Jie. After wrestling with the urge, she sent it anyway, provoking an angry roar from Ling Jie: "Qiao Jingjing, you have a shoot tomorrow! How dare you stay up so late without caring about your skin?Qiao Jingjing perfunctorily replied with "Going to sleep now," closed WeChat, and returned to the game interface waiting for them to invite her again. But after a long while, no invitation popped up. Checking the friends list, she saw that Yu Tu had already logged off.Going to bed this early?
Qiao Jingjing reluctantly sent friend requests to the other three teammates before regretfully putting away her phone to sleep. However, she found herself completely unable to fall asleep. After a while, she opened the game again and recharged her new account, planning to buy all the heroes and skins for this account as well.
But when she checked the recharge page, she discovered that you could only recharge 648 at a time...
What kind of ridiculous setting was this?
After recharging twice, the wealthy Jingjing grew impatient. The next morning, as soon as Xiao Zhu arrived, Qiao Jingjing handed her phone over to her.
"Help me recharge the game."
Xiao Zhu: "Huh? Oh, how much?"
"The 648 one, just recharge a hundred times."
Xiao Zhu: "...Can you even spend that much?"
Qiao Jingjing waved her hand: "Then help me buy all the heroes and Runes, and all the skins... Actually, just buy the good-looking ones."
So, by the time Qiao Jingjing returned home after filming the commercial that evening and logged into the game again, she was already dazzlingly equipped, having upgraded from a basic setup to a premium one!
As soon as she went online, So Scared School is About to Start sent her a team invitation.
Qiao Jingjing wasn’t surprised by the invitation at all. While browsing her skins in the afternoon, she had noticed that all three of them had accepted her friend requests. In a sudden flash of inspiration, she sent each of them two skins—all for the characters they had played yesterday. She had noticed that none of them had been using skins at the time.
This way, they would surely feel too embarrassed not to play with her. And sure enough, the invitation had arrived, hadn’t it?
"Can Pick Cotton" entered the room, and all four from yesterday were there.
So Scared School is About to Start: Girl, did you send me two skins?
Dragon King 2001: I got them too.
Shilaimei Bao: Metoo.
Can Pick Cotton: Please carry me, gods O(∩_∩)O
Qiao Jingjing effortlessly played the role of an adorable newbie.
Only Yu Tu remained silent.
Qiao Jingjing chuckled to herself.
Touched, So Scared School is About to Start started the game. Once they entered King's Canyon, Hao Huang noticed that Yu Tu was still using a skinless Zhuge Liang and couldn’t help but turn on his microphone.
"Yu Tu, you’re not wearing the skins the girl sent you?"
Yu Tu said calmly, "I didn’t get any."
Qiao Jingjing struggled to hold back her laughter. After a moment, using all her acting skills, she pitifully said, "I ran out of money when I tried to send skins to Jade Rabbit God."
The game fell silent for a moment, followed by a burst of laughter. "Hahahaha... Yu Tu, even you’re ranked last by a girl, hahaha..."
He laughed heartily for a few seconds, but soon let out an angry roar: "Yu Tu, you sold me out!"
Along with the system voice prompt, Hao Huang, who had gone with Yutu Daoyao to steal the enemy’s blue buff in the Jungle area, was killed by the enemy’s Hua Mulan, gloriously giving up the First Blood.
Yu Tu, who had taken the enemy’s blue buff and run away, said leisurely, "A reasonable retreat."
Then he added another jab: "Don’t worry, I got the blue buff. This round wasn’t a loss."
Really... =
Qiao Jingjing suddenly remembered high school, when Yu Tu was always surrounded by a group of boys, talking and laughing confidently in the crowd. He was always the best—in grades, in basketball, and now, unexpectedly, in gaming too.
But somehow, something felt different. It seemed... he spoke less? He would only speak after Hao Huang provoked him, and even his laughter sometimes carried a hint of melancholy. As an actress, Qiao Jingjing had a professional sensitivity to such subtle emotions.
Was it because he had matured with age and become more reserved?...Wait, why was she analyzing him?
Qiao Jingjing quickly dismissed these sudden thoughts and focused on playing her Cai Wenji seriously.
After diligently playing two matches as Cai Wenji, Qiao Jingjing felt she had improved rapidly, with significantly fewer deaths. Emboldened, she tried a match as Sun Bin, sheepishly admitting before the battle that she wasn't very skilled with him—yet they actually won!
Even though she'd thrown her Ultimate skill several times into deserted wilderness with no enemies around!
Just as Qiao Jingjing was about to practice another match with Sun Bin, Hao Huang somewhat apologetically said, "Hey, we want to play a Ranked Match. How about we take you for a normal match tomorrow? We've all been pretty free lately."
Qiao Jingjing was taken aback. "Can't you take me along?"
Only after asking did she realize how silly the question was. Her alternate account had only played a few matches and hadn't even unlocked Ranked Matches yet, while they were all Diamond tier. With such a large tier gap, of course they couldn't team up. In Honor of Kings, players can only queue for Ranked Matches together if they're within one tier of each other.
"Can't take you," Hao Huang said even more apologetically, especially since he'd received two skins from her.
"You guys go ahead," Yu Tu suddenly spoke up. "I'm not interested in Ranked Matches."
With those words, the game session ended.
Once a match concludes in this game, teammates can no longer use voice chat. Just as Qiao Jingjing was feeling annoyed about being abandoned, an invitation popped up on her screen.
Yutu Daoyao (from QQ friend)
Diamond III
Invites you to team for normal match. 5v5 King's Canyon
Accept Decline
Qiao Jingjing was stunned.
This... did he intend to carry her alone???
But she hadn't gifted him any skins!
Without hesitation, Qiao Jingjing tapped Accept. Sure enough, the team consisted of only her and Yu Tu, and Yu Tu directly clicked Start Game.
OpenNovel