Honey Stewed Squid

After a full week, Tong Nian’s spirits had already sunk into the deep, deep, deep sea.

Adding him in WeChat had been useless. Whether she sent “thoughtful greetings,” “weather forecasts,” “promotional news,” or even the “enticement of another prize,” the other end gave absolutely no response.

He must have put her on his blocked list already…

Lying on her belly on the bed, she numbly forwarded the ads for the “Animes and Mangas Carnival” as well as “Winter Anime Expo” and “Winter Gaming Convention” that she would be attending. Beneath each of these posts in her Weibo[1] were the excited comments left by fans. As someone who had an overly fragile, glass-like heart such that her mood was very easily affected by remarks left on the Internet, she was terribly afraid of interacting with netizens. Consequently, her Weibo was basically to forward information about events, release her songs, and enable commercial collaborations.

It was only when Soy Milk called for the seventh time that she at last listlessly picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Little Squidie.” The voice on the other end of the line was very low, with a purposely put-on air of mystery. “I have a way to find that person.”

Really?!

She instantly sat up, nearly kicking her laptop off the bed.

“Really. I found an expert to help me extract from the host computer a screen shot of his from that day! I asked my buddy to help me identify it just now, and he said it’s God, the latest team battle game.”

“I know…” She told him disappointedly, “I saw it that day, and I even deliberately found someone and asked about it, too.”

“You, the gaming idiot, would just ask so superficially. How could you possibly get good info?” Soy Milk grinned and lowered his voice a little more. “I can tell you what server he’s on and his ID.”

“Really?!”

“Guaranteed there’s nothing fake about it! I even managed to borrow a high-ranking ID for you. That way, you can run into him in ranked matches.”

“… Ranked wha?”

“Ranked matches!” Soy Milk had actually only just did the cramming on this stuff himself, but in front of her, he had a feeling of superiority. “I’m not going to talk to you, the noob, about it anymore. After I’ve solved everything for you, I’ll come back to this and teach you.”

And so, that evening, Soy Milk personally made a trip to her home. After greeting Auntie and Uncle[2] and freeloading a few bites of mapo tofu from the kitchen on the first floor, he sidled into her bedroom on the second floor. The two had grown up together since childhood, and her family members did not think anything of this action. In fact, when they thought about it, this address of “Auntie” had simply come naturally, without thinking, but if they traced back, there was not actually any sort blood relation between them. For all they knew, the two truly would become a couple, and then they would not even have to worry…

“Ah…” Inside the bedroom, Tong Nian impatiently watched the downloading progress bar. It was going to be done soon. “So, this game is played five people to a team, two teams battling one another?”

“Pretty much. Have you heard of LOL [League of Legends] and DotA [Defense of the Ancients]?”

“Uh-huh. ‘Lu A’Lu’ [‘stroke, ah, stroke’].” Yeah, she had heard of it. It was just that she had always thought that this nickname for LOL was rather indecent[3]. But here in front of her “last-minute teacher,” she still nodded her head in an innocent fashion. “In the anime expos I participated in, they also had a booth. DotA… It seems its popularity was several years back. When I was in high school, the boys in my class would often go play it. People still play it nowadays?”

She was that out-of-date?

“Yeah. DotA released a sequel, number 2, already. Right now, it’s the hottest game in eSports. The prize money is also the highest.”

“eSports?” 0.0

“Electronic sports. It’s, ah… video game competitions that you play on the computer…” Soy Milk used the plainest, simplest words to explain it to her.

“Online games? Sword 3 Online[4]? Fantasy Westward Journey[5]?” 0.0

“No… Those online games are ones that you spend time to level-up. They’re long-term games, where the leveling process is actually cumulative every time you play… eSports, eSports…”

“It’s fine. Explain it to me sometime later.”

Inside the computer, God had already completed downloading.

She had absolutely no interest in listening to Soy Milk continue to explain. It’s no problem. Once the man and I get to know each other, I’ll just ask him to explain it all to me… Why is my heart feeling all tingly?…

She could not refrain from bowing her head. Only after burying her face in her arm and rubbing it fiercely there was she finally able to make herself act a bit more normal.

Right then, Soy Milk, with a manner of all seriousness, had already pulled out a slip of paper from his pocket. Copied down on it was a game username and password. Tong Nian took it from him and carefully set it on her desk. One letter at a time, she typed in the username and password and then logged in.

A dim sound of a sword being unsheathed sounded out.

Login successful.

Then, a window with a vast server select list of more than twenty different server names…

“Um… Next is the server. We need to select a server.” Soy Milk fished out another piece of paper from his pocket. Written on it was the server name and user ID that had been found on the video left by the man that day. “Legend of Guevara, grunt.”

“grunt?” she repeated to herself. “It sounds so nice!”

No wonder his WeChat name was “Gn.”

It was right. It was definitely him!

“… Why don’t I think so? When you read it, it sounds just like ‘gun te’ [滚特 get lost!]. Don’t you think it sounds like you’re yelling at someone?”

Hmph! She tossed a glare at Soy Milk.

Then, Soy Milk opened up his third “embroidered pouch” of instructions[6]. Inside were the detailed explanations the other party had given him this afternoon on how to participate in a ranked match, how to invite a specific ID to play, how to enter the game arena, how to select the character you wanted to control, how to… The two felt like their brains were muddled. Despite seriously and carefully reading everything over, they still felt as if they were in a fog.

“Forget it. Just invite him first…”

It should be fine after playing a couple of times, right? Practice made perfect…

And so, after looking it up on a system search, they soon found the names that started with the letter G. Row after row, they read down… Suddenly, they both gave a sharp inhale. grunt was online!

What was going on with her heart, pounding away like that?…

What was going on with her fingers, trembling away like that?… f𝔯ee𝘸𝘦𝚋𝒏oѵ𝐞l.c𝒐𝓂

She was shaking. Right-click. Send… invitation.

Waiting.

Endless waiting.

All of a sudden, a dialogue box popped up.

Her heart thudded another couple of times as she clicked it open.

System message: The other party is currently in a match. Please wait patiently.

……

“Freaked me out…” She blew out a breath and rubbed her own chest. “I thought he wanted to talk to me…”

Soy Milk wore an expression that said, “You’re worrying about nothing,” but he could not bring himself to make a jab at her.

In the end, they waited for a full thirty minutes before the system finally showed another prompt with the row of words,

The other party’s match has ended. Please wait patiently for the player’s reply.

As she faced this so-called “other party,” it seemed she dared not even breathe a little louder until the system truly had prompted,

grunt has accepted your invitation. Please wait patiently while the system randomly selects 8 players.

“He accepted! Accepted!”

“Uh-huh… Uh-huh… Don’t be anxious. In just a bit, when we go in, you need to be calm and say hello, understand?”

“Uh-huh… Uh-huh…” She did not concern herself with Soy Milk’s cheeky tone and only stared fixatedly at the screen.

She did not even know what sort of character she had selected and merely dazedly entered the game.

Such pretty game graphics.

Tonight happened to be Christmas Eve, so there was a specially-created scene of falling snow.

Tong Nian could not be bothered with admiring the exquisite 3-D graphics. The instant she entered, she began searching for his name on the screen. Huh? How come he wasn’t there? There clearly had been ten people who joined the game, but on the screen before her eyes, there were only five characters.

And that included herself… Five people.

“Oh shoot! He selected the opponent camp.” Soy Milk was depressed. “You won’t be able to see him unless you call for him in the all-chat screen or actually run into him; then you’ll be able to see him.”

“Huh?” Tong Nian was puzzled. “Why do I need to run into him? Can’t I just go find him?”

“… That would work, I guess? Even though he’s the enemy, you can just go say hi. Friendship first, competition second.”

And so… a few seconds later…

The remaining nine people saw that, inside the game, an ID who had not bought a single item or equipment came running, one step at a time, in a ridiculous frenzy out of his base. Following the map display he… skipped and bounced in the direction of the enemy camp.

From the looks of it… that person was even pretty happy.

* * * * * 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

grunt did not even lift a brow. Showing no mercy, with two slashes, he killed that person who was merrily waving his arms while jumping up and down… and saying nonstop, “Hi!”

He even sent emojis? Was this some nutjob?

“That dude…” 97’s eyes were fixed on his own computer screen. “His account’s been hacked?”

“… I guess so.” Another person watched incredulously as well as grunt killed off this opponent, who had been absolutely powerless to even resist, and drew the first blood. “Real points are involved in ranked matches. The people on his team are going to be ridiculously frustrated. As this game is played out, their point loss definitely is not going to be insignificant.”

“… How deep would the hatred have to be to specifically hack an ID and then specifically invite grunt, just to have him kill you?”

But as for grunt, who was doing the killing, he felt very disgruntled. Shoving his glasses up with his index finger, he put on an insincere smile and called a flunky buddy over. “Here. You play a match for me.” He did not want to waste his time on a hacker.

After he finished saying this, he stood up in front of his computer and stretched. “Where’s Leader?”

“Catching up on sleep. He just got back from watching a tournament in Chicago and is still adjusting to the time zone difference.”

97 gave a suggestive grin and added, “Oh, by the way, the other day, I heard his WeChat alert ringing. I thought he never uses WeChat to chat with people? He’s dating someone?”

“No. A cybercafé added him and keeps sending him ads. I said I’d help him block it, but he felt that would be a blow to someone’s motivation for sales and marketing and wouldn’t let me do it. He just had me set it to silent. Anyway, even if they send stuff, he won’t look at it.”

grunt was rather surprised. “When did Leader become so kind-hearted?”

“He suddenly found his conscience, I guess,” 97 answered offhandedly.

Everyone was at a loss for words.

Gun, that demon overlord, had a thing called a “conscience”?