Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

It seems that from the very beginning, apart from being cold to him verbally, Xie Wei's actions were always considerate and gentle.

Xu Ziyan had already lingered in the training room for a while, and after returning to the dormitory, she took a shower and checked Weibo before finally starting her live stream. Xie Wei had sent her a team invitation as soon as she logged into the game, clearly indicating that he had been waiting for a long time.

Xie Wei had countless opportunities to tell him this in advance—whether in the meeting room, the training room, or by sending a text message on Line—instead of waiting here idly.

However, Xu Ziyan most likely won't agree, and even if he receives a reminder later, he won't look at it. Xie Wei had those kinds of photos leaked about him not long ago. Although he didn't clarify at the time, the subsequent marketing intentionally or unintentionally pushed their relationship towards being good teammates. Now that things have finally calmed down, Xu Ziyan is unlikely to involve Xie Wei again.

Xie Wei probably understood this as well, which is why he made a surprise move at this moment.

The live stream chat had already exploded. With so many eyes watching, Xu Ziyan couldn't possibly click the "reject" button. He tried his best to keep his tone calm and said with a smile, "It seems the program content will have to be changed at the last minute. Let's duo queue with the captain today."

Is this really Captain Xie?

[I'm shocked! Xie's female fans are screaming themselves to death!!]

[Team Leader Xie, do you still remember that you also had a live stream room and a bunch of eager viewers...]

In an instant, the barrage of criticism and insults was suppressed by Xie Wei's fans and viewers who rushed to inquire.

Xie Wei rarely streams. When TWG was still relatively unknown, he would reluctantly stream to help the team gain some recognition. Now that they've achieved success, he rarely streams anymore, and his contract only allows for a minimum of thirty hours of streaming. He only streams when fans are urging him to. Xu Ziyan was one of those who eagerly waited in his stream room before.

The reason Xie Wei isn't doing live streams isn't because she's lazy, but because she's genuinely too busy.

Xu Ziyan only learned after joining the team that Xie Wei, in addition to the routine training and debriefing meetings, would also analyze other teams' data and methods to improve some mistakes with Yu Guangzhou and the data trainer after the meetings. Occasionally, Xie Wei would also need to run around for endorsements and team promotions.

Given his special status—TWG is, strictly speaking, an asset under the Xie family—and the Xie family intends to hand the team over to Xie Wei for management as a form of training, he needs to handle certain matters within the team personally.

When she has free time, things are fine, but if all the things happen at once, Xie Wei is really overwhelmed and wishes she had three versions of herself to handle all these messy matters.

After today's debriefing meeting, Xie Wei stayed in the coach's room for quite a while, as usual.

It's getting late; he must be very tired.

Xu Ziyan joined Xie Wei's team.

The two IDs, Shining and Ice, are arranged together neatly and harmoniously.

After a while, the microphone icon next to Shining lit up, and Xie Wei's voice came through the microphone to Xu Ziyan's ears, slightly hoarse: "Choose a role."

Xu Ziyan then came to her senses and quickly checked "medical" on the job selection screen.

The most flexible aspect of this system is that each player's account is not bound to a specific class; instead, players can choose their own class during ranked matches—multiple choices or just one. Players who choose multiple classes will be randomly assigned a class upon entering the game, while those who choose only one will receive the desired class, thus directly avoiding the various unpleasant situations caused by class conflicts.

Xie Wei also checked the "Sniper" box, and then the ranking icon lit up, starting the queue timer.

Because the queue was quite long and it was late, Xu Ziyan was worried that the audience would get bored, so he turned off his team microphone and started chatting in the live chat.

Perhaps because of Xie Wei's appearance, most viewers' attention shifted from the competition for the medical position to the relationship between Xie Wei and Xu Ziyan. Although both topics are sensitive, the latter is obviously less tense and more ambiguous than the former.

There's no way around it; Xie Wei, being a top Alpha with such outstanding qualities, inevitably becomes the dream lover of many Omegas and some Betas. Yet, despite being in the industry for so many years, he has never been involved in any scandals, not even a hint of being close to any Omega. The only one is probably Qu Qingyue from his team.

Therefore, Xu Ziyan's appearance was tantamount to dropping a bomb among Xie Wei's fans.

As a result, the content of the bullet comments inevitably became gossipy.

[Host, what's your relationship with Captain Xie?]

Xu Ziyan said in a normal tone, "We are teammates. He is the captain, and I am a teammate."

Do you guys often duo queue together?

"Me and the captain? No, no, the battle record is verifiable."

[Why are we all suddenly queuing up together today? Could it be because of the Clear issue? Is Shining taking a stand, showing which side she's on?]

"No." For some reason, Yu Guangzhou's words suddenly popped into Xu Ziyan's mind: "It's just that there is a lot of team spirit within TWG."

【……？】

These past few days, I've been caught up in all sorts of power struggles and drama surrounding the TWG medical role, which has left me deep in thought.

Does the streamer even know what they're saying?

Xu Ziyan coughed lightly: "Palace intrigue melon? What does that mean?"

It would have been better if you hadn't asked, because the comments section immediately became lively.

[Same question. What kind of melon? I'm an elderly person who just moved to the city. Can someone explain this to me?]

[Same question, plus one.]

Soon, a very long, well-intentioned comment appeared above Xu Ziyan's live stream as a paid message.

[To briefly summarize, TWG's management was divided, with Xie supporting Ice, Xiao Shen supporting Clear, and Bai Chen remaining neutral. Unable to choose between the two, the coach had to rotate players. Ultimately, Xie proved more capable, and Clear was forced to leave.]

Xu Ziyan's pupils dilated in shock; he was utterly astonished.

He exclaimed in surprise, "Is that so?"

What exactly are you, the person involved, so surprised about?

[Can Ice please stop getting so worked up about his own drama?]

So, is it real or fake?

Xu Ziyan said, "It's fake, of course it's fake."

[Could the host please explain what exactly happened between TT and Team Leader Xie? I've been really bothered by this for a long time.]

Xu Ziyan said, "I've already answered that question. We're teammates, pure teammates, good teammates."

“Good teammate,” he was chatting animatedly with the chat when Xie Wei’s voice suddenly came through his earpiece, “Stop looking at the chat, we’ve been matched with someone.”

Xu Ziyan froze on the spot.

He glanced at his squad's microphone.

...It's on, it's not off.

[Finally found it! I've already sent several comments to warn you.]

[This is hilarious! I didn't even intend to warn her; I just wanted to see when Ice would notice.]

Although we went on a date alone on the night of the first snowfall of New Year's Day, we're great teammates.

[Thank you, I was so embarrassed that I helped the streamer build a Barbie dream castle with my toes.]

"..." Xu Ziyan kept her mouth shut.

On the other end, Xie Wei also found it somewhat amusing.

He was indeed a bit tired today. He was the captain of TWG and also the nominal owner. He usually left many affairs to Jiang Yuxin, and the team's personnel were all decided by Yu Guangzhou and Lu Donglou. He did not interfere.

However, when it comes to transfers or endorsements, which often involve millions or tens of millions of dollars, Xie Wei has to handle them personally.

Moreover, it was Qu Qingyue who transferred this time.

Xie Wei had been keeping in mind the live stream that Yu Guangzhou had mentioned at the meeting. He knew Xu Ziyan's personality to some extent and knew that he was the kind of guy who didn't like to bother others, so he probably wouldn't accept an invitation to join a live stream to share the online firepower.

After thinking it over, I felt I couldn't just ignore it, so after finishing my work, I rested for a while, then ended the live stream, logged into the game, and started waiting for Xu Ziyan to come online.

Unexpectedly, Xu Ziyan carelessly forgot to turn off his microphone.

At first, Xie Wei didn't notice and thought he was just chatting casually to liven things up. Later, he realized that this silly guy probably didn't know that the microphone was on and thought he couldn't hear him, so he was just talking nonsense.

He chuckled, entered the map, and quickly selected his primary and secondary weapons.

Xu Ziyan felt as if he had been thrown into hot water, his whole body steaming. He could barely hold the mouse, and it took him several clicks to finally select the healing bottle and the pistol.

[It seems like very few people bring healing potions in ranked matches. What's the streamer thinking?]

[Not to mention ranked matches, even in tournaments, he's the only one using this thing.]

Don't ask, the answer is there are special usage techniques.

There are no special usage techniques, but there are some special lazy techniques.

When viewers in the live stream saw Xu Ziyan's action of not bothering to switch back from his pistol to his healing gun, but instead throwing a healing bottle in front of him to heal the enemy and then turning back to continue attacking, question marks flooded the chat.

However, this cannot be blamed on Xu Ziyan.

This map is a defensive capture point map, a map where the front line plays an important role, but their two assault players, well, let's just say, are not good enough.

He plays solo queue all year round and is extremely likely to encounter unreliable teammates like this. If the front line can't hold, their back line will immediately collapse.

Xu Ziyan, however, had the foresight to not bring a stun gun. Instead, he entrusted the defense of his back to Xie Wei behind him, while he used his pistol to deal damage from the front.

He's done this before in ranked matches, but he's toned it down a lot since joining TWG. Xu Ziyan's aim is naturally steady, and combined with the sneaky movement he's developed from playing medic for years, after a couple of rounds, his damage output actually reached second place in the team.

Xie Wei is the best in the team.

The two assault soldiers were actually being steadily suppressed by the damage from the medic and the sniper.

Once the fight started, there were far fewer trolls and insulters in the live stream. Xu Ziyan made virtually no mistakes, and by the end of the game, the chat was much more harmonious.

With Xie Wei's massive fanbase showering him with praise, Xu Ziyan was surprised to find that what she had expected to be the most tumultuous day of her livestream turned out to be the most peaceful day of her career.

"What do you mean?" Xie Wei and Xu Ziyan didn't join the team voice chat, but communicated through their individual squad voice chat. "For this round's attack, are you still going with a healing potion and a pistol?"

Xu Ziyan said, "I have a stun gun. Let's finish this quickly."

Xie Wei said, "Mm."

The comments section was already buzzing with excitement.

Is my period about to start?

[Holy crap, first-person perspective, so exciting!]

God knows how many times I watched the screen recording of that game against YNG that day.

[A newbie is confused; which one is which?]

That's the one!

[Hahaha, it's a medical procedure to cut off the back row!]

[Waaaaa, Team Leader Xie is so strong, I love him so much!]

It seems like Xie and Ice were chatting the whole day; they seem to have a really good relationship.

In the voice message, Xie Wei sounded tired, but she was still chatting with him about trivial matters. Xu Ziyan answered each question with a smile, and the atmosphere between the two was harmonious, making them seem like "good teammates."

But Xu Ziyan knew that Xie Wei usually didn't talk much when playing ranked games. Even when duo-queuing with others, he would just lazily respond with a couple of words.

Besides, he's very tired right now.

There's only one reason why he kept talking: to maintain the atmosphere and make the viewers in the live stream feel that they had a good and harmonious relationship, and that TWG recognized Xu Ziyan's existence.

His gentleness has always been like this.

No need for words, just actions.