FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 41

Yu Sui opened his eyes when he heard the door open.

The corridor was less than two meters wide, and the two stood face to face. Shi Luo’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You…:

Yu Sui pinched between his eyebrows. “Sorry, I was too sleepy. This is for you.”

Yu Sui stood up properly and took out the door card from his trousers pocket. “The key to your room is in your bedside table. The cleaning aunt will clean the room at 5 pm every day. If you want to lock the door, remember to open the room for her around that time. The driver isn’t available 24 hours. Zhou Huo will send the driver’s contact details later. If you want to use the car, you can just call him. In case of an emergency and you can’t contact the driver, you can contact any of the staff at the base. They all have licenses, including…”

Yu Sui paused and handed the door card to Shi Luo. “Including me.”

Shi Luo’s lips turned down slightly. Inwardly, he said, ‘Using my boss as a chauffeur? How is that even appropriate?’

Shi Luo took the card and asked quietly, “Why… Didn’t you knock?”

Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo. “…I was afraid you weren’t awake yet.”

Shi Luo pursed his lips. In his heart, he couldn’t help but silently say, ‘Here he comes again.’

No wonder so many young girls are pitted by slag men. This f*cking… Even if he really were a slag man, you just couldn’t hold out against him; especially this kind of slag man, who had zero self-awareness and whose thoughts were pure and simple.

“Just knock on the door next time.” Shi Luo said sullenly, “Is there… anything else?”

Yu Sui put on his uniform jacket. “A lot. There’s a lot of things that you need to sign. Let’s head downstairs.”

Shi Luo then thought of the matter about his transfer documents and the contract for the new team and so he followed Yu Sui downstairs.

Except for the two of them, everyone was already in the lounge on the first floor. They were all looking over their contracts. Once the two of them came in, Zhou Huo immediately handed Shi Luo his set of documents.

Shi Luo took the documents and sat down. “Where’s the pen?”

“No need to hurry.” Yu Sui sat down. He didn’t have anything he needed to sign. At this moment, Yu Sui said to everyone, “Look over your own contracts. In a while, I’ll call in the legal department to come so they can answer any questions you might have.”

Shi Luo frowned. He was about to say that they needn’t go through all that trouble when Puppy, on the side, said, “Evil, don’t look at it as troublesome. Look through it carefully. You’re the one who’s most in danger in this room.”

Shi Luo looked at Puppy suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

Puppy glanced at Yu Sui for a moment. He made as if to say something but hesitated. He didn’t dare spew out poisonous milk. “It’s nothing. I just blurted out whatever.”

Shi Luo brows wrinkled. This time, he really didn’t understand.

Chen Huo was trying to keep from laughing. “That’s right, really…no matter how you look at it, Shi Luo is the most in danger.”

Yu Sui took out his mobile phone to send a WeChat to the legal staff. His lips moved slightly to give out a silent curse. He then explained, “Back then, Ji Yanhan entered Team Knife Edge and after being pitted by the club, he ran away and built the FS Club. After three years, he then pitted me and now I myself have also built Free. The sprayers think we’ve got a very poisonous history and if history repeats itself&#k2026;”

Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo. “It’s your turn next.”

Old Qiao and Puppy couldn’t help laughing out loud.

Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo. His head was starting to hurt. “Do you know? Your fans feel that this team, from its roots up to its Feng Shui is simply no good. They collectively sent a private message to our official Weibo, warning us not to dig a pit for you. If later on, you really do end up leaving and setting up your own team, the this f*cking program’s really effective.”

Shi Luo: “…”

Chen Huo nodded and reminded him. “Whether in terms of seniority, age or time period, the next one is you. So you must be sure to carefully look through your contract and prevent this nightmare from ever happening again. You must be sure to end our curse with you.”

Shi Luo glanced at the contract and frowned. “I’m just signing for a season. What could happen?”

“Signing season after season is troublesome. My original suggestion was for you to sign two seasons directly, but the boss disagreed.” Zhou Huo was helpless. “It couldn’t be helped. Let’s just listen to the boss. Also, make sure to look through the broadcast contract. Except for the contract fee, everything’s the same. All of them stipulate 30 live broadcasting hours per month. Let me say this first, I wasn’t the one who set the contract fees to be different. Those were based on the prices given by the broadcasting platform They’re basically reasonable. The profit sharing from the rewards are the same. Take a look at it yourselves. If you have any comments then let me know.”

It was just a season’s contract. The terms of the contract was also very favorable to the player. This was the most lenient contract ever given to Shi Luo. He has no comments on it. After reading through it quickly, he grabbed a pen and signed.

Zhou Huo looked at the others. “Anyone else? Any comments?”

Chen Huo raised his hand while looking at his contract. “Question, how is the live broadcast time calculated? Is it only live broadcasts on the gaming channel or all channels?”

“It’s not the hours spent broadcasting on the gaming channel. It’s for all hours you spent live broadcasting.”

Chen Huo hadn’t yet said anything but Zhou Huo already knew what he wanted to ask. He sighed and looked at Chen Huo. He said, annoyed, “I know you’re all the kind of player who still owe 29 hours by the end of the month. I understand. If you’re not going to do a live broadcasting of you playing the game, even a live broadcast of you eating takeout is fine. As long you yourself is doing the broadcast, that’s fine.”

Chen Huo laughed mischievously. “Nice.”

“But I beg you, please don’t cram everything for the end of the month. I know that you don’t actually need these live broadcasting fees and that you’re not afraid of being fined for not reaching the required hours. The live broadcast platform won’t dare to disturb you, but they will certainly complain to me. So, please. I’m begging everyone,” Zhou Huo asked again, “Anyone else?”

Puppy looked up and said very positively. “Manager, I’m not the kind of student who puts off his homework until the day before school starts. Can I broadcast on my mobile phone now? I think the fans would like to watch our team sign their contracts.”

“No!” Zhou Huo didn’t even have to think about it. “Not to mention that I haven’t shampooed my hair for over a day, I haven’t finished discussing business with you guys yet.”

Puppy shrugged. “Fine. I guess we’re going to miss out on all those rewards from a certain couple of teammates’ fans.”

Chen Huo wondered, “Which couples’ fans? Mine and Yu Sui’s?”

“I think you need to take a long hard look at your popularity.” Puppy ruffled Chen Huo’s head like he would a dog and sighed. “Haven’t you noticed yet? Your popularity has dropped to third place. But it’s still much stronger than mine. So, that’s something to be happy about, right?”

Chen Huo stared at Shi Luo.

“I’m not as popular as Shi Luo now? I’m a serious and earnest returnee player! You’re saying my popularity can’t compare to his?”

Shi Luo was starting to have a headache. Who the f*ck wanted to compete with Chen Huo on popularity?

“Speaking of live broadcasting, let me remind everyone. There are…some sensitive topics…that you need to take note of a bit.” Zhou Huo thought for a while, “For example, some details two years ago and what not. We’ve already given our official statement on this. Right now, there aren’t a lot of netizens left who would dare insult you but we wouldn’t want to start anything ourselves. Normally, live broadcasts should be for discussing something lighter, right, Yu Sui? You probably don’t want the others mentioning about that, right?”

“Me?” Yu Sui looked up and very nimbly pulled out the rug from under Zhou Huo’s feet. “I certainly wouldn’t take the initiative to mention it, but if the others want to mention it, I don’t really care.”

Shi Luo followed coldly, “I won’t make any guarantees. I don’t care about the others either. Whatever the others want to say, they should say it. It’d be best of Ji Yanhan gets whipped all the time.”

Zhou Huo’s head was hurting. “None of you want to back down from this? Then…can they talk about anything?”

Yu Sui himself was big-hearted and he didn’t want to put too much restraints on his teammates. “Whatever. I don’t mind.”

“That’s that then.” Zhou Huo looked around the meeting room and sighed. “You’re all ruthless characters who spend year in and year out, standing where the struggle is fiercest anyway. What more have you got to be afraid of? Fine, we won’t place any other restrictions within the club. Just follow the rules of the league, don’t do anything that will hit that high-voltage wire. You’re all seasoned players. You know the rules of the league better than I do.”

“Normally, you’re all very proficient at toeing the line when throwing out insults.” Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo and coughed. It was obvious who he meant. “But try to curse as little as possible. 10,000 yuan for each cursing incident, I mean, what’s wrong with saving this bit of money and using it for something else, right?”

Shi Luo was criticized without being explicitly named. He silently bowed his head, continued signing and didn’t refute.

He also had nothing he could refute. Even including the other regions, he was the one who racked up the most penalties for spraying players in the game. Someone who has to sign several penalty tickets every month had no right to quibble.

“Let me think. What else…” Zhou Huo tried seriously to think back. He slapped the table. “Yes, the staff at our base is basically complete. Though we’re still short of a psychological counselor. I haven’t had time to interview one yet. So it will be at least a month before the psychological counselor can come in and then…”

Chen Huo looked up and asked, “Psychological counselor? Why are we hiring a psychological counselor?”

“Why shouldn’t we?” Zhou Huo looked at everyone dumbly. “Didn’t FS have a psychological counselor before?”

Old Qiao shook his head. “No.”

Zhou Huo looked at Yu Sui with a surprise look. “What about at Sacred Sword? There wasn’t any psychological counselor there either?”

“There was.” Yu Sui said, “But I never looked for him. He wanted to talk to me a few times to give me some help, but I didn’t accepted it, so I don’t know exactly what it is he does.”

Zhou Huo was shocked and turned to look at Shi Luo. “What about IAC? I know IAC has one.”

Shi Luo was still signing the documents and he didn’t look up. “They do.”

Everyone turned to look at Shi Luo.

Shi Luo said vaguely, “It was useless, at least for me.”

Chen Huo was curious. “What can he talk with you about? What’s the process? Can he hypnotize? Is hypnosis cool?”

Shi Luo gave Chen Huo a dead-eyed stare. Chen Huo didn’t dare provoke him. He shut up and continued to sign, but he was still curious.

Puppy and Old Qiao were also curious.

Shi Luo hadn’t wanted to mention this part, but what could he do? He was the only person in the room who had actually received sports psychotherapy. He had to hold back his ire and say, “I didn’t like talking when I first joined IAC. Zhao Feng at first thought I was mute. After he found out that I wasn’t, he thought that I needed psychotherapy.”

Puppy slapped his thigh. “When I first got to Europe, people there also thought I was mute, hai! That son of a b*tch, Ji Yanhan! Continue.”

Shi Luo couldn’t bear to recall. “After the daily training matches, Zhao Feng, that stupid sh*t, would warn me against internet addiction. He forced me to keep an hour free to talk with this psychological counselor. I just didn’t want to talk. They insisted on making me talk, like Xuanzang, that continued on for a whole month…”

Chen Huo shook his head again and again, sighing, “That son of a b*tch, Ji Yanhan. He’s committed some evil sins. And then?”

Shi Luo said coldly, “They saw that I was turning from simply not wanting to talk to being outright rash and hot-headed. Zhao Feng was worried there would be an incidence of violence in the base, so he never asked me to go to that counselor again.”

“Look.” Old Qiao commented, “It’s basically useless. That son of a b*tch, Ji Yanhan.”

“…” Zhou Huo was speechless and couldn’t help spraying, “It’s just useless to you guys! This position is very important!”

They all looked at Zhou Huo apathetically, refusal written across their faces. A team filled with wicked people wasn’t easy to lead. Zhou Hu had no choice but to yield. “Fine, meeting you all is my great fortune in life. It’s so nice that everyone here is so mentally strong. We might as well save up on this expense.”

“Okay, that’s about it.” Zhou Huo took away the signed contracts one by one. “According to normal practice, I would take this time to make some concluding remarks. I’d like to thank Whisper for trusting me and bringing me on board. Although, this is more your home than mine, I’ll act as host instead of guest and say — Welcome, everyone.”

“You’ve all worked hard these past few years.” Zhou Huo looked around at everyone and said resolutely, “No one has had it any easier than anyone else so let’s not talk about that. Let me be even more shameless and be the voice of all your fans.”

Zhou Huo accepted all the contracts and seriously said to them. “These past two years hasn’t been easy on you. Thank you to the great gods for sticking it out till now so that this story can have a new beginning. Thank you.”

“The contracts have been signed, and the new season will begin immediately. I ask that everyone go into a battle with a light pack and spare no effort in your fight.”

“Sigh, my tear glands have been acting up recently. Stop saying this.” Chen Huo waved his hand. “All the contracts have been signed, is there anything else?”

“Everything’s done. Just let me tell you a little about your work schedule.” Zhou Huo took out his mobile phone and opened the notepad. “Now that the contract with the live broadcast platform has been signed. You should begin broadcasting in succession. Perfect timing. It’s the start of the month. Let’s start this month.”

“The four of you signed with the same platform. The platform was worried that if you all broadcasted at the same time on the same day, the server wouldn’t be able to handle it and moreover, it would be a waste of traffic. So I have a suggestion for your first broadcast schedule. You’ll go one after the other. This is only for your first broadcast. You can schedule your subsequent broadcasts whenever.” Zhou Huo read from the notepad. “First day is Yu Sui, second day is Puppy, third is Shi Luo and fourth is Chen Huo.”

Zhou Huo looked to Yu Sui. “Are you alright with taking the first day?”

This wasn’t his first live broadcast and Yu Sui didn’t care either way. “It’s fine.”

Zhou Huo nodded. While sending a message to the person in charge of the live broadcast platform, he said, voice completely level, “If you feel that doing a broadcast by yourself is too boring, you can pair up with one of your teammates. This is your own business. If you want to pair up or not or who you pair up with, I’m not setting any of that up.”

Zhou Huo raised his eyes and looked at Yu Sui, “It’s up to you to look for whoever.”

Shi Luo’s fingertips twitched. With a great deal of effort, he forced himself not to look at Yu Sui. He stood up and followed everyone out of the lounge.