TuxedoTranslations

Chapter 107

After taking the medicine the hospital had given him, Xia Tong hurried straight to the bathroom. He squatted miserably in there, scrolling through his phone and making pitiful little whimpering noises, while Shi Ya and He Youjin stood outside the door trying to comfort him.

“Hey… it’s really not a big deal,” He Youjin said. “Constipation is extremely common. Nine out of ten people on Earth have been constipated at some point. Trust me, this doesn’t count as a dark chapter in your life!”

“And the fans aren’t making fun of you either,” Shi Ya said as he scrolled through his phone. “Everyone’s saying you’re cute and feeling really sorry for you.”

“Who could possibly be cute while constipated?! I don’t want this kind of sympathy!! Nghhhhhh—”

By the end of his sentence, Xia Tong was putting every syllable into his utmost effort.

Shi Ya and He Youjin both instinctively leaned backward.

“Um… just concentrate on pushing,” Shi Ya said with the corner of his mouth twitching. “Don’t talk for now!”

Because his constipation had been exposed, Xia Tong refused to give Lin Mingfei a pleasant look for a full two days. It was the first time the normally cheerful little Omega had thrown such a big tantrum. Lin Mingfei, for his part, promptly engaged in some serious self-reflection.

He realized that although Xia Tong still looked somewhat silly and innocent, he had already made considerable progress mentally. His sense of shame was beginning to develop, and Lin Mingfei couldn’t continue dealing with Xia Tong’s problems as bluntly and roughly as he had before. He needed to learn to be more tactful and considerate.

Fortunately, Xia Tong was ultimately a straightforward and simple-hearted kid. He couldn’t hold a grudge for very long. After sleeping for two nights, much of his earlier embarrassment had faded.

At breakfast that morning, Lin Mingfei noticed him humming an off-key little tune while scrolling through his phone.

Shi Ya tore apart his sandwich and gave him an amused look. “What’s got Young Master Xia so busy first thing in the morning? You’ve got quite a lot on your plate, huh?”

“I’m replying to messages from fans who are worried about me!” Xia Tong said with a beaming smile.

“Oh? The fans who are worried about whether you’re still constipated?” Zhou Yanjun teased, grinning as he leaned over.

“Yeah.” Xia Tong didn’t get angry either, just pouted and said it.

“Xia Tong has a pretty good attitude,” Bo Yu said in restrained admiration. “I should learn from you.”

“Then how did you reply to them?” Lin Mingfei asked, somewhat curious, chiming in. “You didn’t actually tell them all the details of your treatment, did you?”

“Of course not!” Xia Tong made a face at him and went, “Bleh!” Looking sly, as though he’d suddenly turned into a mischievous little puppy, he said, “I told them that actually, it wasn’t me who went to the hospital that day for constipation—it was Zero!”

Lin Mingfei: “……Would anyone actually believe that?”

“Yes! Lots of people believed it!!” Xia Tong stretched his neck, arguing his case with all his might.

“I don’t think Xia Xiaotong has quite understood something…” Shi Ya raised a hand beside him to shield his eyes, unable to bear looking directly at him. “That’s not going to make the fans forget the fact that he was constipated. If anything, they’re going to think… that both he and Zero were constipated.”

–

At last, a month passed in a tense yet astonishingly quick blur, and the long-awaited official league finally kicked off.

There were a great many teams participating in the league, and quite a few of them had already attracted plenty of attention during the preparation period. For example, there was the previous season’s heavily decorated champion team, Sabertooth; Shadow, the team that had narrowly missed out on TOP1 and had to settle for second place; KUQ, which had just kicked out a Hunter player for misconduct; the former top-four team Rainbow, which had been thoroughly crushed and lost during a five-player arena match in the preparation period; and Polaris, which had just recruited a new Omega player and was still hovering on the brink of collapse.

This unprecedented level of attention had the official Wangling game team and the league practically laughing all the way to the bank, while major platforms began reporting one after another on the excitement surrounding the preliminary group stage.

The preliminary stage consisted of all the teams that had passed the league’s initial screening and met the basic qualifications for competition. They were divided into groups by lottery and faced off against one another, earning points according to their wins and losses. They were ultimately ranked by total points, with teams eliminated according to those rankings. There were many participating teams, with wildly varying skill levels, and there was no telling what kind of opponent a team might draw. That uncertainty brought plenty of unpredictability to the broadcasts: it could be a clash between two terrible teams, a lightning-fast one-sided stomp, or an exhilarating battle between highly skilled players.

It was rather like drawing lots, and in a sense, that uncertainty kept the audience’s curiosity hooked. As a result, interest in the preliminary group stage remained extremely high.

That day, the C City Expo Center, serving as the competition venue, was packed with people. Countless media cameras were arranged tightly throughout the venue, their lenses focused on the stage platform at the very front.

“Welcome, everyone, to Day Three of the Wangling League, the massive holographic esports competition! Today, the teams facing off in our first match here at the C City International Culture Expo Center are the up-and-coming team Amoon, known for their incredible momentum, and the veteran team Polaris, returning to the battlefield in full armor!”

The host’s voice rang throughout the venue, accompanied by deafening cheers from the audience.

Amoon was a newly formed team established this year. Its players were all amateur gamers who had put on outstanding performances in Wangling over the past few years. They were all very young, around seventeen or eighteen, and had been brought together to form a team. During their preparation, they had at one point thoroughly demolished several teams that had made last year’s top eight during five-player matches. Their talent and aggressive edge were impossible to overlook.

The five boys stood on the stage platform wearing red-and-lime-green uniforms, every one of them looking confident and cocky. It was now time for the pre-match interview. The attractive female host walked over with a microphone and asked them some fairly standard questions before following up with, “As newcomers, do you feel much pressure after drawing the veteran Polaris team, which has previously won three consecutive championships?”

The boy leading the team, whose jersey was embroidered with the name “A-Sheng” over his chest, curled his lips arrogantly and said, “From the beginning of the year until now, every team we’ve encountered has been a veteran team. If we felt pressured every single match, our whole team would have to go to a mental-health clinic to get treated for anxiety, wouldn’t we?”

His words were arrogant and confident, but also carried a touch of humor. The fans below erupted into screams and cheers. Even the host seemed momentarily pricked by his completely unrestrained sharpness. After a brief pause, she smiled and said, “As expected, young warriors who ride forth with swords at their sides are the bravest and most fearless! Then let’s look forward to an exciting performance from Amoon!”

After sending the red-and-green-clad team offstage, the host once again lifted her cue cards with a smile. “The clash between old and new forces, another battle between stars and moonlight! Today’s match is destined to be a thrilling, once-in-a-century showdown. And now, please welcome a glorious memory for so many of us—the Polaris team!!”

After making the announcement, the host began systematically scanning the audience below. Fans surrounded the stage in layer upon layer. Along the side of the stage, security had cleared a special pathway for professional players to enter and leave the stage area. Yet at that moment, the pathway was completely empty.

The host waited for quite a while, but no one came onto the stage. Unable to help herself, she repeated, “Please welcome the Polaris team onto the stage!!” She then frantically signaled to the stage-management staff beside the platform.

The stage crew were completely bewildered too. Someone grabbed a walkie-talkie and started speaking into it. Meanwhile, the spectators in the viewing area were even more confused, looking at one another and whispering among themselves. After roughly two or three minutes, a scream suddenly rang out from the back of the crowd.

That single scream spread into a line, then expanded into a wave, rapidly sweeping across the entire venue. The cries rose and fell one after another as the audience went wild, waving their hands or jumping up and down where they stood.

“AAAAAAH, Z-GOD!! It’s actually Z-God himself!! Z-God just walked right past me!!!”

“Brother Timer, will you shake my hand?! Brother Timer!!! Look at me!!!”

“AAAAAH, it’s the entire Polaris team!! The whole Polaris team up close!! Why did they suddenly come out from over here?! Is this some kind of surprise special event?!”

“Zhou Yanjun, you fat bastard, slow down!! Why are you shoving?! You stepped on my foot!! That hurts!!”

“Island, why are you walking sideways the whole time?! We know you’re tall!! But stop blocking Blink all the time! Are you guys a four-man team or what?!”

“Where’s Blink?! He’s way too short!! Let me see the real-life Blink!!”

The crowd was a sea of bobbing heads, yet people gradually began moving aside. A blue-and-white “□□” forced its way through the thick wall of people, struggling desperately until it finally reached the front of the stage.

“I swear, you’re really something else.” Lin Mingfei protected Xia Tong with one hand, making sure the little Omega’s head wouldn’t get hit by the crazed crowd around them, while lowering his voice and cursing under his breath. “You managed to get lost going from backstage to the front stage, even though it’s such a short distance! Zhou Yanjun, are you seriously a damn pig?!”

“Enough, stop roasting him. I think he’s so sleepy he doesn’t even know who his own mother is anymore. Ah, I think I’ve stepped on so many people’s feet!! Fire, this human bulldozer of yours is seriously incredible. If he couldn’t shove his way through, the five of us might not even have made it onto the stage!” Shi Ya protected Xia Tong from behind, then pushed Bo Yu, who was guarding the side, a little farther forward. “This is so freaking embarrassing……”

Bo Yu: “I wasted my time styling my hair this morning, and ironing my clothes was pointless too. Sigh.”

After overcoming countless obstacles, the five of them finally squeezed from the audience area into the stage zone. At the barricade, the four Alphas all bent down in perfect unison, considerate enough to accompany the little shorty in the middle as they ducked underneath the railing together.

The host onstage was absolutely stunned.

The five of them eventually made it onto the stage. They didn’t bother lining up and simply stood in the same order they had been “escorting” Xia Tong in moments earlier. It took the host a good while to recover. She gave an awkward couple of laughs. “P-Polaris certainly has…… a rather unique and unexpected way of making an entrance!” As she spoke, she handed the microphone to Zhou Yanjun, who was closest to her. “Fire is an old friend of ours. Is there anything you’d like to say to everyone today?”

Zhou Yanjun slowly took the microphone. His already-not-very-large eyes were now narrowed into slits, his gaze completely vacant. He gradually raised the microphone to his mouth.

“Rooooar—”

The moment he opened his mouth, before he could say a word, he let out an enormous yawn.

The yawn went straight through the microphone into the speakers, where it was amplified hundreds of times and blasted throughout the venue, like a real-life version of a “Beast Roar,” practically blowing the heads off everyone in the audience.

The host had never witnessed such an utterly unbelievable scene. She was completely dumbfounded, but then her professional instincts forced her to come up with something to save the situation. “Ah!! As everyone knows, Fire plays a Paladin with a mighty mount, and the Paladin’s signature skill, ‘Beast Roar,’ has a similar effect! Fire really is a player who’s deeply devoted to his own class! Hahaha…… Let’s turn our attention to the adorable young player standing beside Fire instead. Blink, may I ask you—”

Before she could finish, the yawn seemed to be contagious. Xia Tong, standing beside Zhou Yanjun, yawned too, then raised a hand and rubbed his sleepy, tear-filled eyes.

The host was utterly speechless. She finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Um, just a friendly reminder—we’re live right now……”

“Sorry…… We don’t usually yawn.” Zhou Yanjun waved a hand, taking his ridiculous, nonsensical demeanor to the absolute extreme. “Unless we really can’t help it……”

Host: “……Then may I ask why you’re all so sleepy?”

“Because we didn’t sleep well last night,” Zhou Yanjun said. Suddenly, he angrily shouted down at the audience, “Let me give everyone a heads-up! Whatever you do, don’t stay at that Huangting Hotel on the west side!! The soundproofing in those rooms…… holy crap, it’s like having 360-degree surround Dolby sound! You can hear exactly what the two people next door are doing, damn it!”

Host: “……”

Who still remembered that this was supposed to be a pre-match segment for a holographic esports tournament?! Why had this suddenly turned into something that felt like they were participating in some street-corner promotional raffle?!

She was screaming internally. Likewise, she noticed that several fans below holding Polaris light boards were trembling as they slowly lowered them. They practically had the words “This team is doomed” written all over their faces.

“Um…… in this condition, can you still play today?” the host asked with a strained smile. She was terrified that Zhou Yanjun might say something another ten thousand miles off-topic, so she deliberately bypassed the fat bastard and held the microphone in front of Xia Tong instead.

The little Omega was obviously sleepy too, but he struggled to open his eyes and gazed vaguely ahead. “Of course we can play……” He thought for a moment, then innocently said what was on his mind in his soft, childish voice: “Just…… finish it quickly. Get it over with as soon as possible, then go home and sleep!”

Host: “？？？！！！”

What kind of outrageous statement was that supposed to be?!

Did they look down on the competition, or did they look down on their opponents?!

She instinctively shifted her gaze and glanced toward Amoon, who were being escorted into the venue in the distance. Sure enough, A-Sheng stopped in his tracks for a moment, turned his head toward the stage, and stared at them sharply.

The disastrous interview finally came to an end before everyone could collectively dig a second exhibition center out of the ground with their toes. Lin Mingfei walked offstage with one hand pressed to his forehead, only to see He Youjin rushing over through the staff entrance.

“Oh my god! What on earth were you guys doing up there?!” He Youjin clutched his chest with one hand, looking like he was on the verge of a fatal heart attack. “For heaven’s sake, that was a livestream!! A livestream!!”

“It’s all that stage manager’s fault!” Zhou Yanjun said impatiently. “He must be new or something. He didn’t tell us anything—how the hell were we supposed to know the interview was live?! I thought they’d edit it afterward! Then he just waved us over and left. What did he think we were, huh? Come when summoned and leave when dismissed? And he walked off so damn fast, even though he knew I was so sleepy I could barely see straight—

“Sorry, he didn’t know,” Shi Ya said.

“Damn it,” Zhou Yanjun cursed.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, my dear ancestors, could you swear a little less?” He Youjin was exasperated. “You guys saw him about to yawn, so why didn’t you cover his mouth or something?!”

“Fuck, with Zhou Yanjun’s mouth being that huge, how were we supposed to cover it?!” Shi Ya said.

“Besides, covering his mouth onstage would have looked even weirder,” Bo Yu said quietly.

He Youjin: “……You guys really think you’re justified after turning a pre-match interview into this?? The worst part is, I actually can’t refute you!”

“Forget it.” Lin Mingfei waved a hand, putting an end to the topic. “It was just a pre-match interview. It’s only something the officials use to attract traffic. It’s not like it was some earth-shattering event.”

He Youjin: “……Do you really care that little about your public image? Let me tell you, when I came over just now, I already saw several Polaris light boards thrown into trash cans along the way!!”

The five members of Polaris: “……”

“All the effort and thought I put into making your uniforms look this cool!! And I even styled your hair this morning!!” He Youjin was devastated, pounding his chest in anguish. “It was all for nothing!!”

“……Learn from your mistakes.” Lin Mingfei sighed. “Next time, please check out a hotel beforehand before you book it. Yesterday, even with a whole room between me and Xia Tong, I could still hear the couple over there carrying on until four in the morning.”

He Youjin clicked his tongue in disbelief. “Damn, your ears are ridiculously sharp! No wonder you’re the national-server TOP1 Hunter player!”

“Waaah…… That’s why I only slept for three hours last night,” Xia Tong said miserably.

Zhou Yanjun: “Who didn’t? Sigh……”

Before Polaris could even deal with their collective gloom, someone suddenly let out a long whistle.

The members of Polaris all turned their heads in unison and saw Amoon’s A-Sheng standing there with several teammates at a short distance away. Their sea of red and green uniforms was especially conspicuous.

He Youjin shot them a sidelong glance, and his Virgo soul practically shattered. Suppressing his voice, he began ranting furiously: “Jesus, their uniforms are fucking ugly. What the hell is this color scheme supposed to be…… tomato stir-fried with green peppers?!”

The boy leading the “tomato stir-fried with green peppers” squad had both hands shoved into his pockets. His unruly hair had been slicked upward with wax, exposing his forehead, and he flashed a cocky, streetwise grin. “You guys can’t even find your way into the venue. Do you think you’ll get lost on the arena map later too, ‘veterans’?”

He put heavy emphasis on the final four words, making the provocation and mockery unmistakable.

The five members of Polaris straightened up one after another. Even Zhou Yanjun stuck out his big, round belly. Though the two sides were separated by some distance, an invisible field of hostility had already begun crackling between them.

Lin Mingfei stood at the very front. His hands hung naturally at his sides, and he extended one finger to tap lightly against the seam of his pants.

“Relax. We won’t,” he replied with a faint smile, politely returning the jab.

A-Sheng tilted his head. His gaze passed over Lin Mingfei and landed on the little Omega behind him, cold and piercing.

“Planning to finish quickly and go home to sleep?” he asked.

Xia Tong became a little flustered under his stare. Unable to help himself, he raised a hand and tugged at the hem of Lin Mingfei’s clothes. “Y-yes. So what?!”

“Tch.” A-Sheng was amused by his timid, wary little expression, and the contempt in his eyes grew even stronger. He said meaningfully, “Fine. Then I’ll finish quickly too, and send you and all your veteran teammates home for a nice long sleep. After all, when the moon is out at night, who would still bother looking at the stars? Don’t you agree?” With that, he silently mouthed something toward the members of Polaris before turning and walking away.

“First the moon, then the stars. Did he come here to write poetry or play professionally? Why is he so damn chuuni?” Zhou Yanjun, clearly still half-asleep, turned toward Shi Ya in confusion. “And what the hell did he mouth at us at the end?”

“If I read his lips correctly, I think he was saying…… ‘old relics’?” Shi Ya said.

Zhou Yanjun immediately reached for his sleeves. “……Hey! This temper of mine!! Are kids these days all fucking begging to be taught a lesson?!”

“Enough.” Lin Mingfei intercepted him with one hand and said lazily, “He’s not wrong. How old are you, anyway? Compared to them, aren’t you obviously an old relic?”

Zhou Yanjun exploded. “Zero, why the hell do you always side with outsiders?! At a time like this, aren’t you supposed to teach them a lesson with me?!”

Lin Mingfei raised his chin. “Look over there.”

Zhou Yanjun turned around impatiently. “What?”

Lin Mingfei: “The cameras. Are you stupid? Is this your first time playing professionally?”

Zhou Yanjun was speechless. After a moment, he rubbed his nose irritably. “It’s just that I haven’t been on an official stage in ages…… So what? Am I not allowed to be rusty?”

“Practice makes perfect.” Lin Mingfei said, “Take that same energy you’re using to argue with me and use it to argue with them in the arena, okay?”

Zhou Yanjun declared confidently, “OJBK!”

Xia Tong pulled his phone out of his pocket. Ever since he had learned how to interact with fans, he had recently gotten into the habit of pulling out his phone whenever he had nothing to do and browsing the forums and Weibo fan communities.

Just as he pressed his finger against the phone’s lock button to unlock it, a warm hand suddenly pressed down on it. Xia Tong froze, then looked up and met Lin Mingfei’s deep eyes.

“As an old relic speaking from experience, I’m telling you: from this moment on, don’t touch social media,” the Alpha said, his voice carrying a calming authority.

“Why?” Xia Tong asked.

“Because we’re about to go out there and teach our sons a lesson.” Lin Mingfei said calmly, “We can’t let other people affect our mood.”

Feel free to buy me a coffee/show your support on ko-fi! Thank you ❤