Chapter 78 Do you think they'll... just because you say a few words?

The off-season after the summer tournament lasted for nearly a month. At the celebration banquet, Lao Xu generously said, "Do whatever you want." He then turned around and chugged two bottles, revealing a bittersweet feeling of drowning his sorrows in alcohol.

Everyone present had drunk some, but You Xin's glass remained empty. While everyone else at the table was slumped over, he remained seated upright, chopsticks poised in his bowl, seemingly deep in thought.

"Dude, aren't you going to have a drink?" Rock, slurring his words, came over and gave him a heavy hug on the shoulder. "So disciplined?"

You Xin politely pulled his arm off his body and placed it back beside him: "If Xiao Yi drinks, I won't drink."

"Oh...ah? Is that so?" Rock, feeling a bit dizzy, followed his gaze and saw Nan Zhiyi sitting next to Lao Xu, already giggling and lying on the table. "Wait a minute, he only had one drink...right? I remember?"

You Xin: "He can't hold his liquor."

Rock gave him a thumbs up: "Oh, I get it, you're going to take care of him, right? Hey! That's what good buddies are like..."

As he spoke, he couldn't help but feel melancholy: "Every time I drink too much, Milk just calls me a dead pig, throws me into the room, and... burp, he doesn't care about me anymore. Sigh, why don't I have any buddies who are... this nice to me?"

"..."

When Nan Zhiyi stood up, she felt dizzy and disoriented, as if her hands and feet no longer belonged to her. She could only grab at something in front of her, trying to steady herself.

Then he grabbed an arm. Nan Zhiyi subconsciously squeezed it, the thought "It feels really good" popping into her mind.

He looked up and saw that the person he had grabbed was You Xin, who had come around from the other side of the table. He immediately let out a drawn-out "Oh—" and laughed.

After Lao Xu paid the bill, the group walked out in a scattered manner. When they entered the lobby, someone said, "Isn't this Milk?" Suddenly, a large group of fans surrounded them, wanting autographs and photos.

Nan Zhiyi's mind was still reeling; she just stared blankly at the shadowy human figures in front of her.

Then, everything went black before his eyes—something soft covered his head, accompanied by a calm, woody scent.

After a while, he realized, oh, it's a piece of clothing.

You Xin took off his coat and put it over Nan Zhiyi's head, then grabbed him and squeezed through the crowd of enthusiastic fans. Some people excitedly took photos with their phones, while others tried to catch up, but were stopped in time by the accompanying staff.

Only after he had completely shoved Nan Zhiyi into the passenger seat, gotten into the car from the other side, closed the door, and used the privacy film to block all view, did he finally remove the clothes that had been covering her head.

You Xin lifted his clothes, and the person underneath was still smiling at him, seemingly completely unaware of where he was.

"..." You Xin took out a tissue and leaned over to wipe his mouth.

Finally, seemingly out of the blue, he added, "He was kidnapped and didn't even know it."

“…What?” Nan Zhiyi clearly didn’t understand. He was seeing double, so he tilted his head to the side.

You Xin stopped moving.

He glanced out the car window and found the parking lot empty, without a single person in sight. So, he naturally leaned over, cupped the drunkard's face in his hands, and gently bit his lips, his tongue lightly brushing over the spot where he had just left a tooth mark.

Finally, he managed to say, "It's nothing. I just wanted to compliment your looks."

Sit back down and fasten your seatbelt.

Just as You Xingan put his hand on the steering wheel, his wrist was suddenly grabbed.

Nan Zhiyi looked at him and said righteously, "You've been drinking, you can't drive!"

You Xin smiled slightly: "I didn't drink it."

"oh……"

The car started. Nan Zhiyi leaned against the window, finally finding some peace and quiet.

As the vehicle rounded a corner, he was thrown slightly away from the window by inertia, so he opened his eyes, looked out the window, and then his gaze stopped.

Then, he spoke clearly and distinctly: "Stone is a big idiot."

You Xin: "...?"

He glanced up briefly, followed the other person's gaze, and saw a brightly lit sign that read "CG Esports Club".

So that's where we ended up.

“The entire CG team is idiots.” Nan Zhiyi continued, listing the IDs of the CG team members one by one, “wind, beer…”

"Oh, you thought you were so great... but this year? You couldn't even get into the invitational tournament."

"Zds's BP, even primitive humans were smarter than him..."

It took him about ten minutes to get home from the CG studio. He muttered and cursed the team all the way, until he finally got home, lay down on his bed, and finally calmed down.

Nan Zhiyi lay with her eyes closed for a while, then raised her sleeve and sniffed it.

Then his face scrunched up: "I need to take a shower..."

Taking a drunkard to bathe is no easy task, especially since this drunkard is also very restless.

Seeing that he was having a hard time even standing, You Xin was really worried about letting him go in to shower alone.

Just as he was about to turn around and fill the bathtub with water, a pair of hands suddenly reached up from behind.

Nan Zhiyi leaned her head against the back of the person in front of her, her tone half lucid and half dazed: "...Do you want to shower with me?"

You Xin thought he had misheard.

He turned around, pulled the person off him, and pulled them slightly away: "Do you know what you're saying?"

"Hmm?" Nan Zhiyi raised her eyes, met the gaze of the person in front of her, and smiled reflexively. "Of course I know."

You Xin frowned slightly. He wanted to say something more, but the next moment he was pulled hard by the hand hanging behind his neck, and then a pair of soft lips, smelling of alcohol, pressed against his.

He vaguely heard that voice, the one that always made his heart race, whisper to him, "Don't you want to...?"

...

When Nan Zhiyi woke up in the morning, she couldn't remember where she was for a moment.

With his eyes closed, he instinctively reached to the side, trying to fumble for his phone in the darkness, but instead touched something warm and cozy... a body.

Nan Zhiyi: "".

Nan Zhiyi: "?"

His sleepiness vanished instantly, and he suddenly opened his eyes, just in time to meet Shang Youxin's drowsy eyes that had just opened.

"Good morning," You Xin greeted him in a relaxed tone.

As if a switch had been flipped, the chaotic memories of last night, along with the sensations she felt all over her body, instantly flooded back. Nan Zhiyi felt her eyes widen uncontrollably: "You..."

As soon as I opened my mouth, I realized that my voice was terribly hoarse, so I quickly stopped myself.

You Xin sat up slightly, looking at him with a hint of amusement: "Me?"

"..."

Nan Zhiyi took a deep breath and squeezed out a "N-nothing" from her throat.

He suddenly hated himself for drinking too much or too little last night, so much so that he remembered everything that happened last night with perfect clarity... including how proactive he was, how many times the other person rejected him, and how they tormented him over and over in the end.

If it weren't for the soreness and pain all over her body, Nan Zhiyi would have had the urge to run away on the spot immediately.

"Hmm." You Xin sat up from the head of the bed, rubbing his eyes. "You last night..."

Nan Zhiyi's internal alarm bells immediately went off, and she blurted out, "I...I don't remember! I don't remember anything!!!"

You Xin paused for a moment.

"do not you remember?"

Nan Zhiyi nodded vigorously.

"Oh." You Xin looked at him with a half-smile. "It's alright. I don't mind doing it again to help you recover your memories."

"…………"

-

Although the off-season lasted a month, the team ended their break after only five days. Otherwise, if they had played all the way until the World Invitational, HYG might have become the shining star of Europe.

After another two weeks of intensive training, the whole team is finally heading to City C, the venue for this year's World Invitational Tournament.

The night before their departure, HYG started a live stream for their routine pre-World Championship event – ​​exchanging gifts.

The rules of the game are simple: each team member anonymously sends a gift to another team member, and the person who receives the gift must show it to the camera in public.

The first few gifts were fairly unremarkable. Rock opened his gift and found he had received a pair of boxing gloves. He immediately put them on, swung them a couple of times, and declared that he would beat OTG to a pulp. Lemon received a new album from her favorite girl group. Mike received a very ugly sunflower that could move and mimic other people's speech. Youxin's gift was a bit perfunctory; it was a HYG merchandise mug.

When it was Milk's turn to open the gift, he sighed when he found a huge package in front of him, handed the selfie stick to Rock, and then bent down to open it and pulled out... a complete cosplay outfit.

Milk picked up the clothes and shook them twice, then looked at them with admiration: "Who gave me this thing?"

A staff member suggested, "Why don't you guess?"

"Whose outfit is this?" Milk leaned over to look at the comments. At the same time, Nan Zhiyi also peeked at the comments and found that everyone was spamming the words "High Priestess".

Milk suddenly realized and immediately deduced, "This must have been given to me by that idiot Rock."

Although the High Priestess is a class in the game, in the official story background and the subsequent IP movies, the High Priestess is portrayed as a blonde, blue-eyed saint in the game's world view.

“Congratulations, you guessed right.” Rock chuckled slyly. “I’m reminding you, according to your championship pact, you have to wear this to the World Championship this year.”

“Sure.” Milk was quite nonchalant, and even wanted to take off her clothes and put on this outfit on the spot. However, she was loudly stopped and reminded by the staff next to her. She then took the clothes back to her room after the live broadcast. Not long after, she walked out casually wearing the whole dress.

Milk himself has a handsome appearance, plus a height of 1.82 meters, so wearing this outfit makes him a classic "muscle Barbie." Yet, he still has to pose pretentiously in front of the camera: "How is it? Does it look good?"

“…………” You Xin, who was standing to the side, had already silently turned his head away.

Nan Zhiyi glanced at the comments and noticed that the people in the live stream were almost doubled over with laughter. However, besides the "hahahahaha" comments, he also noticed that some people were persistently sending "Not innocent!! Not innocent at all!!!" and "I'm shipping them."

He keenly sensed a hint of gossip and couldn't help but start searching for relevant information in the comments section.

What does this have to do with Nova?

[Fun Fact: Nova is the name of the famous High Priest Dream Man]

[Nova's own characters are all based on the initial concept of the High Priest.]

It seems Nova has really been retired for too long; some people have already forgotten that he played a cross-dressing account.

I still remember how he dominated the top of the ladder with just one female character for a year and seven months. He was truly invincible.

[Nova, hahaha, who still remembers Nova and Milk being paired up as a couple, both thinking the other was a girl?]

[It's not that I thought it was a problem, it's just that back then, Milk liked to pretend to be a little sister at the end of the season and ask others to carry her to rank up. Nova was the victim, hahaha, she seriously carried the other team to rank up, but it turned out to be a guy [laughing and crying emoji]]

Nan Zhiyi: "...?"

He recalled carefully that he hadn't arrived at CG's youth training program when this story happened, and naturally hadn't met Song Baiyu, the gossip king. No wonder he knew nothing about this "secret".

...No wonder Nova's fans hate Milk so much. He even thought it was a rivalry between the two main center champions.

"You wear this and blind those foreigners, and I'll just wear the boxing gloves and scare them," Rock declared decisively. "Perfect!!"

It was Nam Ji-yi's turn to open the gift last.

His gift was smaller than everyone else's, and Rock took a close-up shot of him unwrapping the gift with a selfie stick. Then everyone in the room, plus the more than 60,000 people in the live stream, watched in disbelief as he opened a... exquisitely packaged little box.

Rock was still oblivious: "Wow, who sent this? It's so exquisite!"

Nan Zhiyi's smile froze on her face as she unwrapped the gift.

No way...

...No way?

The live chat exploded at the same time:

[Ding ding dong]

【……ah? 】

[Could this be... that thing that so-and-so bought that day?! ...

Holy crap, buddy, are you serious? This is way too much...

[What do you mean? Everyone had already agreed to say it was just a prank that day, so what's the meaning of you suddenly pulling out a ring?]

I suddenly noticed a red dot near the collarbone of the streamer's collar. Can you guys help me check if it's a mosquito bite?

【？】

【？？】

What are you guys talking about all of a sudden? I don't understand.

Nan Zhiyi: "..."

The die was cast, and he had no choice but to proceed. It would be even stranger if he didn't open the box now, but if he did, he could justify it as a publicity stunt... So he took a deep breath, gripped the small box in his hand, and pried open the lid.

A beautifully crafted Samoyed figurine, sticking its tongue out at him, smiled and looked at him.

Nan Zhiyi was almost stunned for a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief.

"This is a gift from me," Lemon said, taking the initiative to claim her gift.

He counted on his fingers a little shyly: "Thank you, Brother Yi, for your help during this time..."

While still shaken, Nan Zhiyi pretended to be nonchalant and praised him, saying things like "The gift is so cute" and "So thoughtful," all the while thinking to herself, "Kid, this gift of yours almost scared me to death."

"What nonsense is this?" Milk, who was looking at her phone on the other end, suddenly spoke up. "I'm in a relationship with him. What do you mean by fraud? This is just a joke!"

He seemed to get into an argument with some Nova fans in the comments: "It's just saying a few words, just venting. Anyway, I'm not really gay."

Milk said, raising her head and glancing in Nan Zhiyi's direction: "What's wrong with saying a few words? Don't you guys tease Yux and Angel Yi every day? Does saying a few words make them gay? No way. So what's wrong with me saying a few words?"

As he spoke, he seemed to be looking for confirmation from his teammates, craning his neck and shouting at You Xin, "Right, Yux? Are you gay?"

You Xin: "".

"Ugh, he's ignoring me again. That's just how this guy is, aloof." Milk shrugged. "So stop nagging me, you guys are better off nagging him instead."

Nan Zhiyi: "…………"

-----------------------

Author's note: milk: At the time, it seemed like nothing special. :(

————

I'm taking the day off tomorrow. I went to accompany my mom to her surgery today, and tomorrow I'll be staying with her at the hospital and bringing her meals, so I won't be able to update for a while. I'm not sure about the day after tomorrow either. [laughing and crying emoji]