Chapter 18

The dormitory in Aerospace Base was a guaranteed spawn point, always having one team landing there.

West Gate was right next to the dormitory. Teams landing there had two choices:

1. Directly swipe a keycard to open the door and enter the Core Area;

2. Blitz the dormitory.

Qingbao went up the dormitory stairs from the right side of the first floor. Yan Xiu followed Danger, going through the dormitory parking lot.

In the fifth match of the scrims, OLG had built a staggering economic advantage over the first four matches. In the third match, they’d even looted ten rounds of A-Max ammo from an aviation crate. But this match, Bai Wei didn’t have them bring the A-Max in. He planned to save it for the sixth match.

“Bang!”

Yan Xiu had just climbed onto the glass canopy of the parking garage when a bullet instantly headshot him. He immediately went prone. “Ambush at the dorm, second-floor garden. Using an M700. My helmet cracked. Repairing.”

Qingbao: “M700… then it’s probably Team A.”

—The team that wanted to go to the CEO Office’s little room with Danger?

Yan Xiu thought.

Unexpectedly, the two squads hadn’t yet entered the Core Area, running into each other on the left side of the map instead.

Bai Wei: “Give positions, Qin Baotian.”

Qingbao was playing the recon operator, Mai Xiaowen. “Threw a dart towards the flowerbed just now. No feedback. Should be over near Building 1. Pretty far.”

“Reposition.”

“Okay.”

Bai Wei issued commands. “Vorse likes to flank. The other two should be one in Building 1, one in the Garden. Qin Baotian, cover the Garden from the right side. I’ll envelop from the left. Show, you watch Vorse. He’ll definitely flank from Building 2. You hold him.”

“Understood.”

“Okay.”

Delta Force was a game highly dependent on listening for footsteps. Inside the dormitory, only two sets of footsteps were tapping softly.

Everyone knew Team A captain Vorse’s habitual playstyle, knew where he would appear. But knowing and being able to beat Team A were two different things. If two or more people held Vorse’s position, then the other two members of Team A would exploit the chance to take out the lone remaining opponent. If only one person held Vorse, then Vorse’s super aggressive Western-style jump peeks would teach you a lesson.

Vorse played Nameless, an entry fragger operator. His ultimate hid his own footsteps, but a notification would appear on the screens of nearby enemies when he activated it.

Suddenly, a layer of rippling water-like waves appeared on the screen.

Bai Wei: “Nameless ulted.”

Yan Xiu held his breath. Using the glass canopy of the parking lot for cover, he continuously small-peeked the exit of Building 2.

The moment Nameless’s figure appeared on the monitor, Yan Xiu’s bullets fired instantly. But simultaneously, Vorse’s bullets all shot straight at him.

[Shanghai OLG-Show eliminated ACG-Vorse with M14]

Qingbao: “Holy crap, good shot, God Show!”

Bai Wei lifted his eyelids to glance at the young man diagonally opposite. The corner of his mouth curved upwards. “Nice shot.”

…

[Shanghai OLG-Danger eliminated ACG-Slacker with M7]

[Shanghai OLG-Danger eliminated ACG-Monkey with M7]

~

“Show’s performance in scrims was excellent. His synergy with Danger and Qingbao was very coordinated. And his aim is precise. His mental game also seemed good.” Jack closed his scrim notebook and concluded, “He’s fieldable. Still don’t know if he’ll bomb or whiff during offline matches, but online, he’s perfectly fine.”

CatClaw nodded. “Every rookie has to get their start. You decide when to field him.”

“Okay.” Jack had the same plan, but he didn’t leave the manager’s office. He remembered something. “Danger’s been looking especially handsome lately.”

CatClaw looked up at him with a deadpan stare.

Jack didn’t know how to describe it. He gestured vaguely. “He was handsome before, naturally gifted. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have so many fans. But recently he’s been exceptionally handsome. Don’t you think so?”

CatClaw stared at him darkly. “…”

Jack, fearing misunderstanding, hastily explained, “I’m not gay! Even though I don’t have a girlfriend, that’s because I’m incompetent. You can’t slander my sexual orientation. Take what he wore today, for instance. That flashy shirt was kind of insanely cool, right? I even wanted to buy one. Then I looked it up—8,000-yuan T-shirt. I’m not worthy of wearing it.”

CatClaw suddenly asked him, “What do you think would happen if Danger started dating someone?”

Jack answered without a second thought. “His female fans would go crazy. But as long as it doesn’t affect performance, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Esports… if you have no results, even breathing is a mistake. Win a championship, and whether you date someone or even a shoehorn, the fans will praise your dating choices. Must be Shoehorn’s girlfriend who coached you well.”

He then remembered Bai Wei’s sexual orientation and added, “A male partner is still a partner.”

CatClaw: “You don’t need to project your own shoehorn-shaped horse face onto others. Are you sure you’re not gay? Why else would you use yourself and Danger as an example?”

Jack immediately flushed red. “You can insult my sexual orientation, but you can’t insult my face!”

Bai Wei would definitely not fancy Jack. If he did, even winning a championship might not make the fans accept such a male partner. They’d probably book Bai Wei an eye doctor’s appointment, or call in a shaman to perform an exorcism.

Rose returned from his full-body massage at an external wellness center. As soon as he stepped into the first team training room, his eyes crossed the computer desks and landed dead-on on the white-haired guy sitting directly opposite.

“This Balenciaga model is awesome. Didn’t you used to not like wearing black? I’ve never seen you in it.” Rose pulled out his gaming chair and sat down.

Bai Wei was solo queuing. He lifted his eyes at the words and gave a cold, indifferent “Mm.” “Switching up the style sometimes.”

Rose frowned and asked the nearby Qin Baotian, “What’s with him? Who pissed off the young master? He’s in a bad mood.”

Qingbao had no clue why. “Who knows? He was fine when he came downstairs. Turned like this once he hit the training room.”

That evening, Yan Xiu returned to the base after finishing his medical check-up with the second team kids.

Doing a medical exam for pro players was a hassle. Normally, check-ups had to be done in the morning. But making these kids wake up early was practically asking for their lives.

Still, no problem in this world couldn’t be solved with money.

The OLG boss had specially arranged for a hospital under his name to do the checkups for his players in the afternoon. The first team members had already done theirs last month. This month was the second team’s turn. Yan Xiu joined the team late, so he went along with the second team.

Huarong led them back to the base. She said to Yan Xiu, concerned, “You’re 178 centimeters tall and weigh only 114 jin. Is that a normal weight for a guy your age? And this is after gaining some weight at the base. How thin were you before? Eat more. Competing is also a physical job. Intensely playing six matches is very draining. If there’s network fluctuation or a game bug, and the match pauses for another hour or two, that’s even more brutal.”

Yan Xiu lowered his eyes. “Auntie Wang’s cooking is very good. I eat quite a bit.”

Huarong looked at his handsome face with great satisfaction. “Take a rest first. Come film a video in a bit.”

“What video?”

Huarong smiled. “Filming some content for the fans, posting on TikTok and Xiaohongshu.”

Qin Baotian yelled out from across the room, “Only making Show film a fan-service little video, huh?”

Huarong: “What do you mean ‘fan-service little video’? That’s called feeding the fans. The fans buy merch, pay for tickets to watch matches, and even help us scold haters online. Such good little fan-babies… Hmm? You’re streaming?”

Qin Baotian flashed a toothy grin. “Yep.”

Huarong’s face darkened. “You’re fing dead.”

[Sister Hua really is the best, wuwuwu!!!]

[She called me little baby~]

[Sister Hua, can you make God D do some fan-service for us too? He won’t even stream. Just logs off as soon as he hits his monthly hours!]

[Show is only 114 jin? That’s way too skinny. No wonder people earlier said he looked thin at the opening ceremony. It’s true.]

[Looking forward to Show’s fan-service little video~~]

Qin Baotian asked, “Only letting Show film? Should I appear in it too?”

Before Huarong could answer, the chat flooded in.

[That won’t be necessary, Brother Qingbao.]

[Really no need.]

[Just let us see your beautiful face when you stream. Don’t need you to do fan-service.]

[What we value is your skill! We’re not that shallow as fans!]

Qin Baotian: “…”

Bai Wei leaned over to Qin Baotian’s secondary monitor to see his chat. Half his face was caught on camera; the chat erupted again.

Blocked by several monitors, Yan Xiu could only vaguely make out that Bai Wei seemed to be wearing something black. He sat at his desk and booted up his computer. While waiting for it to start, he glanced again towards the diagonal opposite seat.

Bai Wei wore a black T-shirt and a long silver chain necklace. The sharp black made his angular, striking features look even colder, his brow carrying an indescribable air of world-weary aloofness.

Yan Xiu froze for a moment. His computer booted up, so he averted his gaze.

Bai Wei caught his action. Unable to help himself, he curved his lips and texted CatClaw on WeChat.

[He was stunned by my handsomeness.]

CatClaw: [.]

Huarong glanced at Bai Wei and muttered under her breath, “Flirty gay.”

Jack entered the training room to assign training tasks. Hearing her, he also leaned in and whispered, “That shirt’s Balenciaga. That necklace’s Chrome Hearts. Flirty clothes, flirty necklace.”

As a woman, Huarong had observed more carefully than the straight guys. “His hair’s styled, too. Flirty hair.”

The two exchanged a look: Flirty gay!

Huarong: “I’ll go arrange the shoot. Show, come directly to the photo studio in half an hour.”

“Okay.”

The photo studio and the first team training room were only separated by a bathroom. Before filming, one of the team’s PR girls gave Yan Xiu a simple makeup touch-up and stuffed a pack of portable makeup remover wipes into his hand. “You can remove the makeup right after the shoot.”

Huarong pulled up a recently viral boy-group dance on TikTok and handed her phone to Yan Xiu. “Take a look at this. Can you learn it?”

Yan Xiu took the phone.

“Arubikwo do for su, mado masa ha za do… vai do ma do ma do ma…”

Yan Xiu’s calm composure directly cracked open. “This is impossible. I’ve never danced before, Sister Hua.”

Huarong: “This is already considered one of the simpler ones. Other dances require your legs to dance along, too.”

Yan Xiu: “…”

“What dance?”

Bai Wei entered the photo studio.

Huarong paused, the thought ‘Why are you here?’ flashing through her mind. She handed the phone to Bai Wei and answered, “A boy-group dance that’s been super popular online recently. Planning to have Show record a clip to post on TikTok, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, etc.”

Yan Xiu’s gaze stopped on Bai Wei for an instant. It was the first time he’d fully seen Danger in all black, different from usual.

Yan Xiu said quietly, “I really can’t dance this.”

“You’ll learn it just by trying.” Huarong looked Bai Wei up and down, then still asked, “Why’d you come?”

Bai Wei watched that synchronized group dance, his eyebrow arching slightly, the corner of his lips raising just a trace. He handed the phone back. “I haven’t filmed any content for the official account in a long time either.”

Huarong was shocked. “You, willingly doing fan-service?”

Bai Wei gave a cold laugh and ignored her.

Huarong had the PR girl touch up Bai Wei’s makeup a bit, too. She asked, “You’ll dance this one too?”

“I won’t dance.”

The PR girl’s hand holding the powder puff froze mid-air.

Huarong: “Then what fan-service are you doing?”

“I’ll film something else.”

“Fine.”

Making esports shut-ins learn boy-group dances was truly somewhat unreasonable. But Huarong said, “BOX and ROC both posted videos of their whole teams dancing this over the past two days. Reactions were great.”

Bai Wei was watching the person beside him the whole time. Hearing this, he said, “Then have Qin Baotian and Rose come, too.”

Huarong: “Makes sense.”

Hearing they were filming the boy-group dance, Qin Baotian and Rose didn’t object. So the solo fan-service turned into a trio video.

After fussing for over an hour, Huarong finished filming. “Tonight, I’ll have someone edit it and post it. Remember to come like it and recommend it.” Then she turned to Bai Wei. “You’ve been so patient today. Your turn, Danger. What fan-service video are you filming?”

Bai Wei: “I already finished filming.”

Huarong frowned. “What did you film?” Bai Wei had just been sitting in the chair next to them the whole time, hadn’t moved an inch.

Bai Wei waggled his phone. “I already posted it on my own account.”

Huarong immediately opened TikTok. Qin Baotian was also quick, opening TikTok. Sure enough, there was a new video notification among their mutual friends.

Yan Xiu leaned in to look.

The photo studio only had bright lighting in the center shooting area. Elsewhere, the light was slightly dimmer.

Bai Wei’s new TikTok, posted five minutes ago, already had over 80,000 likes. It was a selfie video. He took up a very small area at the bottom right corner of the frame. The dim light showed half of his blurry silhouette.

The majority of the video’s frame was of the three OLG first-team members filming the boy-group dance. The slender new substitute stood at the back left of the trio’s formation, just happening to be the video’s focal point.

The young man in the black T-shirt danced half-heartedly. He was handsome and refined, completely out of place with the sexy BGM, exuding a cool, detached aura.

Gradually, as the video progressed, the camera shook. Even Bai Wei’s selfie disappeared. The entire frame became a solo focus on Yan Xiu alone, occasionally catching a bit of Qingbao’s hands or feet.

The caption was very simple.

[OLG-Danger: Very good-looking.]