"Tch, what's he acting so high and mighty for!"
"Forcing him to retire is for his own good anyway. What else could he even do?"
"Exactly, exactly. At least he had the sense to leave instead of hanging around the club milking his pension."
As Ye Qiu and Su Muocheng departed, the people left in the meeting room seemed to suddenly come to their senses, and the snide gossip started up all over again. Sun Xiang's expression, however, was dark and uncertain. He didn't join in, instead leaning over to the manager: "I don't get it. Why would he accept these conditions?"
"He had no choice," the manager said.
"Why?"
"Because he couldn't afford the penalty fee," the manager said.
"No... no way?" Sun Xiang was astonished. Ye Qiu was a professional player who had competed in the league for seven years, and a top-tier one at that. Even if he refused all commercial endorsements, his salary alone should have been more than enough to cover the penalty for terminating a year-and-a-half contract.
"You didn't come up through that era, so you never experienced it. In the league's early days, professional players weren't nearly as glamorous as they are now. Everyone was barely scraping by, and most of them worked part-time jobs. Anyone washed out back then had it rough—their best years all spent on gaming, no other skills to speak of, and most went on to live in poverty. Ye Qiu was a genius of that era, and he made it to where he is today on pure skill. But he had a lot of friends like that."
"You mean... he spent most of his money supporting those friends?" Sun Xiang's eyes went wide.
"Indeed."
"Then if he needed money that badly, why wouldn't he take commercial endorsements?" Sun Xiang asked.
"No one knows the reason," the manager said.
"Do you have any guesses?" Sun Xiang asked.
"Perhaps it has something to do with his family," the manager said.
"Oh?"
"No one has ever known anything about his family, and he never speaks of them. That's very strange, so that's why I have this suspicion," the manager said.
"So many stories behind this guy..." Sun Xiang clutched the One Autumn Leaf account card that Ye Qiu had handed over to him. He knew that One Autumn Leaf was originally Ye Qiu's recreational account in the online game, dating back to before the professional league was even formed, used continuously to this day—one of the oldest accounts in all of Glory.
"Alright, enough about him. The boss had business today and couldn't come, but he specially gave me this bottle of red wine he's aged for years, just to welcome you," the manager said.
"Haha, thank you so much! With me here, Excellent Era is going to turn things around."
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Ye Qiu was gone.
Su Muocheng stood at the entrance of the club, watching as Ye Qiu walked away until he vanished from sight. He kept turning back to wave at her, and Su Muocheng was already in tears.
There hadn't been much of a farewell. Ye Qiu had only said eight words in total: "Rest for a year, then come back."
Su Muocheng hadn't said a single word, only nodded firmly. She was no longer the childish little girl of years past—she now had the courage to shoulder many things on her own.
Snowflakes began drifting from the sky. This winter was so cold.
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It's snowing?
When Ye Qiu left the club, he hadn't figured out his next step either. A life that had gone on for so many years was suddenly going to change, and even he felt somewhat unaccustomed to it. He just wanted to walk like this for a while, keep walking, until he had thought things through.
But who knew that even the heavens wouldn't grant him this chance—it just had to start snowing at this very moment, and the snow kept getting heavier. The swirling snowflakes quickly dampened his shoulders, and icicles began forming in his hair. There was no way he could avoid taking shelter.
Ye Qiu looked around and spotted an internet café by the road, still brightly lit even at this late hour. He immediately sprinted toward it.
The café was warm inside. Ye Qiu shook the snow off himself as he rushed in and opened a machine at the front desk.
"Section C, machine 47," the girl at the counter announced his machine's location, then held out his ID card to return it—only to look up and find the person already gone. The girl didn't make a fuss; clearly she had seen this kind of thing plenty of times. She quietly put the ID away. Whoever was missing it would come back looking for it eventually.
Section C, machine 47. Ye Qiu made his way over by the numbers. The café was fairly large, with a great many machines, and even a second floor. Section C... Ye Qiu spotted the section sign hanging from the ceiling—no need to go up to the second floor after all.
But when he counted out machine 47, Ye Qiu froze. A woman was clearly already seated there, and she was playing Glory, no less—in the middle of a one-on-one duel in the Arena, her fierce操作 making the high ponytail tied behind her head swing back and forth.
Gazing at her profile, seeing the Launcher character on her screen, Ye Qiu felt a moment of daze—he almost thought Su Muocheng had taken this seat.
But he quickly realized it wasn't her. Su Muocheng was always so gentle and calm; even in the heat of intense PvP, she maintained her smile. Come to think of it, sometimes when Ye Qiu watched her smile as she blasted someone to smithereens with a single cannon shot, then politely say her apologies, he would inexplicably feel a chill run down his spine.
As for the girl before him, her looks were equally pretty, pure, and gentle—but the vicious way she gnashed her teeth as she abused her keyboard and mouse made her appearance seem like a complete and utter scam.
"That killing intent is terrifying. But unfortunately..." Ye Qiu got a clear look at her screen and could tell this woman was about to be in trouble. Sure enough, a flaw she had just exposed was caught squarely by her opponent, and a full combo came raining down. Her nearly depleted health was wiped out in an instant.
"Damn it!" Ye Qiu heard the woman shout furiously, and with a slap of her hand she closed the game entirely.
Ye Qiu was still hesitating over whether he even wanted this seat anymore when the woman turned around, spotted him standing there uncertainly, and rose angrily: "You using the computer?"
Ye Qiu nodded.
"Take this one then!" With that, the woman left.
Ye Qiu shook his head at the composure—or lack thereof—of ordinary players in competitive play, and finally sat down at the machine.
Chen Guo was depressed, extremely depressed. She had just been dueling someone in the Glory Arena—52 rounds, and she hadn't won a single one. She could hardly believe it was real.
Her account was by no means bad. Chen Guo patted the card in her pocket—Chasing Haze. Among ordinary players, her account could be considered quite strong. And Chen Guo's skill wasn't low either; she had been playing Glory for a full five years. Her opponent just now had an account inferior to hers, yet she couldn't win even one out of 52 rounds.
"A real master," Chen Guo concluded with a nod.
"Boss lady, you didn't log out of your game? How come that guy's playing on it?" As Chen Guo walked along lost in thought, a voice suddenly came from beside her. She tilted her head and saw a café regular at the neighboring machine, craning his neck toward the seat she had just vacated.
Oh no! Chen Guo's heart lurched and she bolted back. Glory's popularity had made the Glory account reader a standard computer accessory, absolutely essential in internet cafés. Since the account card only needed to be inserted when logging in, people in public places like cafés generally took their cards out and put them away right after logging in.
One card per account, and a lost card could be reported and replaced, so account theft had gone virtually extinct. But in places like internet cafés, people often carelessly forgot to log out—or only appeared to log out—and the next person to use the machine would help themselves to the loot, taking the gold and equipment. Chen Guo had been furious after losing 52 straight rounds, and in her carelessness she hadn't actually quit the game, merely switched back to the desktop.
Chen Guo rushed over in a hurry and sure enough saw that guy操控ing her account. Except he didn't seem to be scavenging equipment—he was engrossed in a duel with someone in the Arena. Before Chen Guo could even yell, two large characters popped up on the screen: "Glory!"
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For the public release of a new book, chapter lengths won't be as standardized as the VIP ones—gotta pad those click counts a bit, so please understand. Recommendation tickets and such are very important, everyone—don't be stingy, throw them in! Even if you're just stockpiling chapters, come by every day and cast a vote or two. It's good for your health, I'm telling you!