GTRSH Chapter 61

Esports forums have always been a place where people criticize those who lost and praise those who won. If you play poorly, you’ll also get criticized.

After the TZ vs. WING match, the forum trolls collectively resurfaced, seizing on the mistakes of both teams to make a big fuss. The flash escape and rescue maneuvers of Yu Xinche and He Ci also sparked the first major argument between their fans.

– I’ve wanted to say this for a while now, it’s really frustrating that Yu always leaves the young master alone in the lane. He makes contributions, gets MVP, but the young master bears all the pressure, and if he dies, people will criticize him.

– Yes, fans are still raving about its “spiritual” movement, but is it really spiritual? Isn’t it just He Ci directing it?

– You yourself said that He Ci directed him to roam, and He Ci agreed, so what gives you the audacity to raise objections? It’s more accurate to say that He Ci’s decision-making was flawed.

– Okay, let’s put the roaming issue aside for now. What about the Flash-selling-teammate thing, and the issue of not taking peripherals?

– Not taking your own peripherals is really a team bullying behavior

Fans also commented, “This is what the group’s darling is like,” [sweating emoji]

– All I can say is that the young master is really kind; he helped carry it without saying a word.

– It wasn’t on purpose that I didn’t take it. There’s footage of the lounge in the background; the two of them were chatting the whole time, they didn’t argue at all, and Baby didn’t throw a tantrum.

– And he didn’t betray his teammates, okay? He used Flash to dodge the opponent’s skills; it was He Ci who insisted on going for the fight.

– He Ci flashed to save him; don’t tell me you couldn’t tell.

– You guys are truly the number one ingrates! Just think about who brought your precious baby into the professional game!

– Uh, what you guys are saying are all in-game issues, those can be fixed. But what’s with He Ci not training properly and spending all his time playing with girls? Anyone want to defend him?

– [Screenshot of He Ci’s battle record]

– Look at the picture and tell the story. Every night, I play an hour of casual mode with this cute pink avatar ID that has no rank. You’d think it was the off-season.

– He didn’t say he was bringing a girl, right? What if it was a teammate, the club manager, or a coach?

– Yeah, if I remember correctly, I did a Brawl live stream with baby not long ago.
– First, they only played one game of Brawl before switching to duo queue; second, I checked all of Yu’s accounts on the OB mini-program, and the one shown in the screenshot above wasn’t there. Therefore, Yu is ruled out based on the first point.

– [Unofficial OB Mini Program – Yu Xinche Account Statistics Chart]

– Really? He Ci is in a relationship??

– What are you talking about? It’s just brawl! Which eye saw any romance? Can you please stop spreading rumors?

– Huh? But the person who makes He Ci waste an hour of his training time every day, what else could it be but his girlfriend?

– Don’t say it was him who hired someone to play with him, lol

– BURN didn’t even bring his girlfriend this often during their honeymoon phase, it’s hilarious!

– And it’s really… well, it’s hard to describe, but it’s quite ambiguous. You’ll see if you watch the replay. Someone screen-recorded the accident yesterday.

– Really?

– If only you guys spent more time browsing the game section…

– What’s with the game section? Let me check it out.

A strange tale has been circulating in the gaming section late at night: when playing casual games at midnight, it’s easy to encounter a lovey-dovey couple.

One was a poor whale who can play any hero but doesn’t own a single skin, and the other was a newbie whale who always wears top-tier skins but had no proficiency with any hero.

The pro players would often find a quiet, deserted corner of the map to demonstrate hero gameplay to the whale, who would then eagerly learn and dare to fight and feed.

There were certain barriers between players who frequent the game forum, those who ship players, and viewers of competitions; there are not many groups that overlap among the three.

He Ci’s privacy settings also prevented his ID from being displayed in the game, so people in the game area haven’t yet discovered that the poor guy in this “couple” was He Ci.

However, as more and more people who had read the CP (couple) posts were then directed to game-related posts, the matter gradually escalated and became increasingly serious. Even marketing accounts started spreading rumors that “He Ci is suspected of being in a relationship.”

When Xu Le received the notification from his PR colleague, fans had already started making a scene in the comments section of TZ’s official account.

They all demanded an explanation, wanting to know whether He Ci was in a relationship or not. They said it wasn’t that they couldn’t accept him being in a relationship, but they didn’t want to see him neglecting his training time and affecting his competition because of it.

Some even went to Xu Le’s private account to ask him to check who the game partner of He Ci was. They said that this person not only didn’t appreciate how hard he worked during the competition, but also dragged him to play with them every morning at dawn. They wondered if he had any sense of propriety at all.

“Damn it.” After looking at the account and forum, Xu Le cursed. Then he called the two people involved out of the training room.

After hearing what had happened, the two were dumbfounded, showing the same bewildered and incredulous expressions.

“…We were just doing normal training, how did it develop into such an outrageous situation?” Yu Xinche was dumbfounded.

Xu Le never spoke harshly to Yu Xinche. He asked He Ci, “You’re playing a squishy character, why are you blocking skills for the tank?”

He Ci recalled for a moment: “When we ran out of mana, we might as well just die and go home.”

Xu Le: “…”

He then asked, “Then why don’t you use skins? The forum says you guys are doing some weird stuff.”

He Ci: “?”

After defeating WING, he didn’t check the forums much. He knew without even looking that they would be full of negative comments about him, so there was no need to invite trouble. He never expected netizens to have such wild imaginations.

“I… I was the one who told him not to use it.” Yu Xinche weakly raised his hand, “It was just for fun.”

Xu Le: “Okay. Then why do you use a pink profile picture? And that ID, fans say you two have matching names.”

Yu Xinche: “That account only posted three initial profile pictures. Apart from the two ugly ones, only this one is acceptable. As for the ID, wasn’t it like this when it was first given?”

Xu Le: “?”

He glared at He Ci.

He Ci glanced at the two of them, then touched his nose: “I changed it. I gave it to you after I finished changing it.”

“?” Yu Xinche wanted to punch him, but he held back.

“I never knew you had such a talent for being a brat,” Xu Le chuckled.

“So what does the name mean?” Yu Xinche asked him.

Previously, the account names provided were either random characters or pre-registered with the players’ preferred names. When this ID was released, he asked He Ci about it out of curiosity. At the time, He Ci said that the staff member who created the account might have been too idle and just typed the name randomly.

He Ci happened to have paper and pen on hand, so he wrote the name down on the paper and asked the two of them, “What does it look like?”

His nickname was “oooO,” which Yu Xinche couldn’t decipher, and asked him, “What does it resemble?”

“Blowing bubbles,” He Ci said with a matter-of-fact expression. “Aren’t you Little Fish?”

“…”

Yu Xinche and Xu Le fell silent, both taken aback by He Ci’s joke.

Then he asked, “I have another question. How come they’re couple names? His number is just a string of random characters, and the number of digits doesn’t match up.”

This time, Xu Le realized: “His full name is ‘Nuclear Magnetic Representation Dictionary,’ which is exactly the opposite of the structure of your circle of ‘o’s.”

Yu Xinche raised an eyebrow; that was indeed the case.

“I’m used to it. I’ve used this name for many accounts before.” He Ci smiled at Yu Xinche, a little apologetically, “Sorry.”

Despite saying that, Yu Xinche only saw a tiny bit of guilt on his face, barely enough to be considered negative.

“I think you’re pretty shameless,” Yu Xinche glanced at him and muttered under her breath.

“How about I let you get your revenge? You can change the name of my main account.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“No, you two…” Xu Le couldn’t stand it anymore, “We’re talking about serious business here.”

Yu Xinche sat up straight in a second: “Mhm.”

“Okay.” He Ci had already opened his phone and scanned the comments section and forums. “How do you want us to cooperate?”

“I think we should clarify this. What do you two think? It’s better to ship our team’s cp than to say that He Ci is always out with girls.”

“Indeed,” Yu Xinche agreed.

He had only been in the industry for a short time, but he had already felt that the industry was like a high school campus. In most people’s eyes, dating was not illegal, but it would affect the contestants’ performance.

There were countless negative comments about He Ci on the forum, but his dating situation was not the same as those competition gossips, and it has a much greater negative impact on him.

Besides, the whole team knew that he hangs out with He Ci. They’re doing it openly and honestly, so there’s nothing they couldn’t tell their fans.

“And what about He Ci?”

“I don’t mind, it’s up to you.”

“Okay. It’s not worth recording a video to clarify this, it’s too deliberate. So how about one of you do a live stream in the next couple of days, and take the opportunity to play along with Xiao Yu’s bubble-blowing account, and mention it to the fans while you’re at it.”

“Okay,” the two agreed.

To avoid any unforeseen complications, He Ci started a live stream that very evening.

【It’s been a long time since we last met.】

【Everyone’s saying you’re seeing someone else, honey, say something!】

【I don’t believe you! I need your explanation! *sobs*】

【So you’re really in a relationship?】

【Is today going to be an official announcement via live stream?】

He Ci was at the center of a media storm, and many marketing accounts were watching him closely. Less than three minutes after the live stream started, the number of viewers surged to the top of the Jinyu platform, and trolls also came to join in, posting some disgusting comments.

【Retiring without winning a championship—is this a way to retire earlier?】

【Are you bringing a girl with you today?】

【Let me show you the little sister I brought】

“The moderator should ban the comments.” After saying that, He Ci played a normal solo queue game.

He switched to his Brawl account only after most of the onlookers had left and only his own viewers remained in the live stream.

“There’s been a lot of drama lately, so I’ll do a live stream today to talk about my casual duo queue games.”

【!】

【How did you become serious in a second?】

【They’re not really going to officially announce it, are they? I can’t accept it!!!】

【I’d rather you lied to me and said this account was played by BREEZE, really, sob sob.】

“You’ll rather I lie and said BREEZE was just playing around?” He Ci glanced at Yu Xinche. “Sorry, I really can’t fool you.”

“Because I was actually just playing around with him.”

Yu Xinche had just finished a game and hadn’t started playing again. He was watching He Ci’s live stream and waiting for him.

Then, taking advantage of the situation, he dragged the chair closer and sat down, entering the frame at the right moment:

“Hello everyone, there’s no girlfriend. I’m the one who’s always playing with He Ci in random battle modes.”

【????????】

The live chat exploded.

 

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