Chapter 13

The KTV room was dim, filled with the heavy smell of alcohol and the restless hearts of pro players. The song’s melody was classic and gentle, but Qin Baotian squeezed his gong-like voice into a duck’s quack, singing terribly and interacting with the other people in the room.

Facing Bai Wei, he squeezed out a flirtatious wink from his small eyes. “He has a pair… of gentle eyes. He quietly… oh! stole my heart!”

The atmosphere in the room was truly bizarre. Yan Xiu held the microphone, his brows slightly furrowed.

But he wasn’t given a chance to think it over carefully. Qin Baotian: “Sing, Show.”

The BGM had reached the next verse. Yan Xiu could only pick up the mic and sing, “Little Wei, ah… do you know how much I love you…”

Qin Baotian grimaced and winked, deliberately grossing Bai Wei out. But Bai Wei paid him no attention, just leaned back on the sofa and glanced seemingly casually in Yan Xiu’s direction.

Yan Xiu’s voice was slender, his tone clean and clear, with no singing technique involved—purely superior vocal quality. He didn’t sing with much modulation, but his pleasant voice made it sound gentle and soft. “I want to take you… flying up to the sky. See how beautiful the stars are, pluck one down… and personally give it to you.”

Qin Baotian spoke into the mic. “Not bad. Let’s switch it up.”

The second team all squeezed onto the other sofa, burying their heads like quails. Qin Baotian stood alone on the stage, incredibly excited, his face bright red. He had lost quite a few drinks during the game earlier.

Suddenly, Yan Xiu felt a stirring in his heart and looked towards Bai Wei.

Bai Wei’s striking face was hidden beneath the dim, ambiguous lighting, his eyes dark and quiet, betraying no particular emotion.

“God D?” Yan Xiu sensed the undercurrent in the atmosphere.

Bai Wei looked at him and smiled. “Go ahead, sing.”

Yan Xiu didn’t understand what was happening. It was his turn to sing the first verse. He frowned slightly. “There is a beautiful little girl… her name… is called Little Wei…”

Inside the room, the young man’s voice was gentle and low, swaying gently with the beat of the music.

Bai Wei’s gaze shifted from the provocatively rampant Qin Baotian on stage and quietly landed on him. The light only illuminated the lower half of Yan Xiu’s face. He pressed his lips to the mic grill, singing the lyrics, line by line.

Yan Xiu sang softly, “Little Wei, ah… do you know how much I love you…”

Bai Wei gave a soft “hmm” from deep in his throat, propping his chin on one hand, a smile uncontrollably spreading across his lips.

“Oh oh oh oh~~~ Little Wei, ah! Do you know how much I love you!” The moment Qin Baotian’s deliberately strained duck quack burst out, Yan Xiu’s singing faltered for several beats, then stopped completely.

Bai Wei fixed his eyes on that death-defying dead fatty.

The dead fatty made a heart-ripping gesture, digging out his own heart to offer to his duet partner. “Oh oh oh! See how beautiful the stars are, pluck one down…” He roared it out directly. “I’m gonna give it to you, Little Wei!!! Hahahahahaha…”

Unfortunately, the second team kids didn’t dare laugh; the only one present who might have laughed, Jack, was already blackout drunk.

Qin Baotian lamented his missed opportunity.

Bai Wei stood up, smiling. “Enjoyed your singing? Enjoyed it? Then let’s head back.”

Belatedly, Qin Baotian felt chills. He pretended nonchalantly, scratching the back of his neck. “Let’s… let’s go now, back we go!”

The second team members teamed up to haul the dead-drunk Jack. The ride-hailing cars arrived quickly. Again, they split into two groups to return to the base.

As soon as the car arrived, Qin Baotian scrambled for the front passenger seat, terrified of ending up in the same row as Bai Wei.

Sitting in the car, Yan Xiu felt that nine out of ten things were off. He did a Baidu search for Little Wei.

It was a classic old song, popular for a spell over twenty years ago. He knew it because it had been covered by some online singer a few years back and became popular again, used as BGM in many TikTok videos. Although after two days, TikTok’s trending songs had changed again, he had remembered it.

The song was indeed easy to sing, and the lyrics were simple.

Yan Xiu looked at the lyrics info on his phone, completely baffled. What exactly was wrong with this song?

“Little Wei…” he murmured under his breath.

“Hmm?”

Yan Xiu froze instantly, looking at Bai Wei in shock. Suddenly, “…Little Wei?”

Bai Wei smiled at him. “Yeah, right here.”

Yan Xiu: “…”

“None of your concern. Qin Baotian was grossing me out. Every time he goes to KTV, he has to sing this song.”

It dawned on Yan Xiu. In the front passenger seat, Qin Baotian simply closed his eyes and played dead.

Sitting beside Bai Wei, Yan Xiu carefully recalled what exactly he had just sung.

Little Wei, Little Wei…

Looking down at the lyrics again…

Expressionlessly, God Show closed his phone, shut his eyes, and didn’t dare look at Bai Wei again.

~

Around noon the next day, Yan Xiu had just woken up and went downstairs. He heard the voices of Jack and Qin Baotian.

“On what grounds is WhiteDog docking my vacation? Abusing private power for personal revenge, huh? So what if I sang his song? I even said I love him. I’d give him my heart! The OLG Crown Prince, even you, can’t just mess with my vacation!”

Jack’s face darkened. “You’re asking for it. You had to mess with him. You know full well he’s the OLG Crown Prince, and you still did it. Even CatClaw treats Young Master Bai respectfully. He wouldn’t mess around like you!”

“How could anyone resist that? Tell me, wouldn’t you want to see Young Master Bai with a look on his face like he’d swallowed shit but couldn’t spit it out?”

“I’m not interested in watching people eat shit, but right now, you sure look like you swallowed shit and can’t spit it out.”

Qin Baotian: “Fuck!”

Seeing Yan Xiu come downstairs, Qin Baotian directly resorted to guilt by association. “Then why wasn’t Show’s vacation docked? Show also sang! The two of us belted it out together, bam-bam loving Little Wei, willing to ram a big wall for Little Wei!”

Yan Xiu had no idea what had happened yet.

Huarong came downstairs, interrupting the squabbling in the first team’s training room. “What public revenge? Your and Rose’s vacation issues were decided yesterday before we even went to dinner. You and Rose have today as your last vacation day. Formal preseason training starts tomorrow. And Danger, same as you guys, starts preseason training tomorrow. As for Show, he hasn’t officially played in a match yet, so previous results aren’t considered his problem. Naturally, he doesn’t need extra drills.”

Qin Baotian instantly deflated. “It’s about performance?”

Huarong: “If you’re bad, practice more.”

Head hanging, Qin Baotian sulked for a long time before spitting out two words, “Got it.”

Though it was the last day of rest, Qin Baotian was frustrated for half the day and then opened his computer anyway. “Show, duo trios for a bit?”

Yan Xiu: “Okay.”

The two played until the afternoon. Auntie Wang finished dinner. The second team ate first. Auntie Wang set out a fresh spread, but only Yan Xiu and Qin Baotian sat down at this new table.

Yan Xiu didn’t like eating much. He only picked at the green vegetables and deer velvet mushrooms on his plate. His eating pace was also slow. Qin Baotian had already wolfed down two bowls of rice, while Yan Xiu’s first bowl was barely touched.

Qin Baotian gave a thumbs-up. “That rice really hit the jackpot being paired with you. It’s set for life.”

Auntie Wang brought out another bowl of soup. Seeing Yan Xiu’s chopsticks had barely moved, she expressed great concern. “You need to eat. You young people now are all about dieting. But you can’t skip meals to lose weight! When you’re young, you want to be skinny and look good; when you’re old, all sorts of health problems crop up! Here, have a pork knuckle.”

Qin Baotian: “Auntie, I want some too. I saw another pork knuckle in the pot.”

“That one’s for Little Bai. He went to the hospital today. Needs to replenish when he gets back.”

After Auntie Wang left, Yan Xiu put the pork knuckle into Qin Baotian’s bowl. “I’ve never eaten pig’s feet since I was a kid. God Qing, what happened to God D? Why did he go to the hospital?”

Chomping on the knuckle, Qin Baotian mumbled unclearly, “Old problem. Heard from Jack, he broke out in hives as soon as he woke up today. Might’ve drunk a bit too much last night. Or maybe not the alcohol; he didn’t drink much anyway. This kind of hives acts up at the slightest trigger. No way to know what caused it.”

Qin Baotian: “After eating, wanna go bridge-camp Aerospace?”

Yan Xiu: “I’m an aggro player. Never bridge-camped in my life. And God Qing, using your own account with the pro badge to bridge-camp? Aren’t you afraid of getting flamed?”

“Who uses their main account for bad deeds? Relax, I’ll use Guo Qiang’s account. No one will know. And then I’ll stuff my parents down my pants. Safe and secure.”

“What about Guo Qiang’s parents?”

Qin Baotian thought for a moment. “Then I’ll stuff a whole family portrait down there, his parents too.”

Yan Xiu: “…”

They did it.

When people are doing bad deeds, they have extreme patience.

The Aerospace Base, Delta Force’s most famous map, had the most players who loved rushing. To extract from the Aerospace Base, aside from the drop-backpack extraction and the Ascension mission extraction, only the normal switch extraction remained.

And the switch extraction point and the Ascension mission pick-up point were all on a single elevated bridge. Even the drop-backpack extraction required passing this bridge.

Thus, this elevated bridge became a bridge-camping holy site for many shameless players. Stand on the bridge, hold the angles… pick Uluru with loitering munitions for long-range attacks. Out of the 15 people on the Aerospace map, 16 would curse your whole family. The extra one was Yan Xiu—he also thought this playstyle deserved hell.

The two logged into their respective accounts.

Qin Baotian asked, “Whose account are you on—Juewei Pineapple? Is that the friend you got the autograph for?”

“Yeah.” Yan Xiu nodded, his expression indifferent.

Qin Baotian glanced at him with deep respect several times over. So you’re not a good person either, kid.

The two bridge-camped three consecutive matches. In one match, the 15 enemies in the lobby teamed up for revenge. They used signals, rallied, charged at the Aerospace Bridge, besieging the Bright Summit. Yan Xiu played Luna, sniping three with his DMR. Qin Baotian played Uluru, exerting all his pro-player strength to kill only four before being overwhelmed. The furious players stormed the bridge and chopped them into mincemeat.

Yan Xiu and Qin Baotian, their hearts still pounding, extracted as mincemeat.

One of the Vyron players in the bridge-attacking alliance, after downing Qin Baotian, spammed voice lines and spray-painted his Uluru in mockery.

“You’re trash, next.”

“You’re trash, next.”

Then a spray.

The spray pattern: the imposing Luna, holding a black longbow, eyes resolute. In the upper right corner, a name: OLG-Qingbao.

Qingbao: “…”

Yan Xiu: “…”

“Bridge-camping?”

Yan Xiu heard the voice and turned. Bai Wei, carrying a bag of medicine, stood behind him. He didn’t know how long Bai Wei had been watching.

He wore a plain white T-shirt, only a short chain dangling from the collar. He walked on long legs past Yan Xiu, then past Qin Baotian, and reached his own seat.

“The hives haven’t cleared up yet, God D?” Yan Xiu couldn’t help asking.

Bai Wei looked at him. “Just a minor allergy.” He wore a black face mask, his eyes showing slight fatigue.

Qin Baotian: “Is this disease contagious?”

Bai Wei shot him a glare, pulling his mask down to hang on his chin. “Your stupidity is definitely hereditary.”

On Bai Wei’s right lower jawbone, a few scattered, sesame-sized red bumps had appeared. But there was also a pinkish hive mark, the size of a fingernail, resembling something rather… unspeakable.

Qin Baotian: “Whoa, looks like a hickey!”

Bai Wei scoffed coldly and pulled his mask back up.

Yan Xiu searched the term “hives” online. Basically, it said to apply some cream, take allergy meds, and it should generally be fine. If severe, go to the hospital for a shot. Bai Wei had already been to the hospital, so it seemed not to be a big issue.

Bai Wei: “Still bridge-camping?”

Qin Baotian said, delighted, “You’ll join too?”

“If I go bridge-camp, will there be any survivors on the Aerospace Base?”

“So you’re not coming.” Qin Baotian sounded disappointed.

Bai Wei laughed without a shred of morality. “I’m in. Gotta give the Aerospace kids some intensity every now and then.”

Qin Baotian was pumped. “With you here, I don’t even know how we could lose! Screw whatever damn alliance; come one, you snipe one!”

Bai Wei played Luna. Yan Xiu and Qin Baotian played dual Uluru.

Danger’s DMR shots were all headshots.

The DFL’s number one sniper in the world patiently squatted on the Aerospace Bridge, letting the escort carries, aggro bros, and hatchet runners all bask in the spring breeze, experiencing universally the equal despair of being one-tapped by OLG-Danger on the pro stage.

Bridge-camping was a playstyle that damaged one’s moral credit too much. The trio only played two matches before Qin Baotian was called away by Jack to guide the second team’s recon role in gameplay review.

The central AC in the training room was turned very low. Yan Xiu wore a white autumn jacket, his mouse-holding hand cold to the touch.

Without Qin Baotian, the training room instantly grew quiet.

Yan Xiu looked at his screen, unsure what to say. Eyes lowered, he tested his newly modified gun in the shooting range, his whole demeanor cold and austere, from his hair down to his toes exuding an air of detachment. As if he couldn’t communicate with anyone.

Bai Wei stared at his profile for a long time.

Yan Xiu seemed to have some sort of switch. If someone initiated a greeting, pulled him into conversation, he could chat a little, blending into the lively atmosphere. But when no one was around, he’d quietly find a place to be alone, like a child being isolated.

Or perhaps he was the one isolating the whole world?

That thought amused Bai Wei.

“What’s wrong… God D?” Yan Xiu initially didn’t dare look at him, but suddenly hearing a stifled, low laugh, he looked up.

The diagonal seating placement put them the farthest apart, yet without the monitors blocking the view, he could see Bai Wei perfectly. His lower face was hidden by the black mask, but his eyes were lazily narrowed. White hair fell slightly messy across his brow bone, casting a dusty shadow over his eye sockets.

Bai Wei asked, “Duo?”

Yan Xiu paused. “…Sure.”

Bai Wei: “I’ll start a stream. Still got 10 hours this month to fulfill.”