Chapter 21. Zhao Zhinian listened to that line twice...

Zhao Zhinian listened to the voice message twice, and her cheeks flushed instantly. This gun king, who was usually calm and powerful on the field and sparing with words in interviews, actually had such a... almost coquettish side in private.

The voice message amplified her coquettish emotions, and her suspicions began to surface uncontrollably: Could Zhou Zekai have sent the voice message on purpose?

"Oh?" Zhao Zhinian deliberately dragged out her words, pretending not to understand. "Well... to be polite, Captain Zhou? How are you now? Happy?"

Zhou Zekai on the other end of the screen was silent for a moment, not replying to the message for a long time. After a while, Zhou Zekai sent another voice message, with a probing tone: "Call me again."

"Speech." It wasn't a command, but more like a request filled with expectation.

Zhao Zhinian's heart raced even faster. She pressed the voice button, brought the phone close to her lips, and unconsciously softened her voice, making it clear and coaxing: "Brother Kai?"

After the message was successfully sent, she could even feel her ears burning.

"Mmm." Although it was still just one word, the slight resentment and dissatisfaction within it had vanished, replaced by a contented obedience after being stroked. "Goodnight."

After saying goodnight to Zhao Zhinian, Zhou Zekai was about to wash up and rest when his door was knocked at an inopportune moment. When he opened the door, the official members of the Samsara Team were standing outside. Driven by gossip, the Samsara Team had gathered in the middle of the night, and not a single one of them was missing.

It must be admitted that gossip is humanity's primary productive force.

Zhou Zekai looked at the large group of people at the door, especially Jiang Botao's expression that said, "I tried my best but I just couldn't stop them," and remained silent for two seconds.

"...What is it?" He stepped aside to clear the doorway, his tone indifferent, as if he didn't see the burning gossip in the eyes of the Samsara members.

"Captain!" Du Ming was the first to squeeze in. Although he was a little embarrassed, his eagerness to gossip overcame his shyness and he mustered up the courage to ask his captain, "We're just a little curious about your relationship with that host."

Zhou Zekai glanced at his teammates' expectant faces, realizing he really had to answer. Then he realized a disheartening fact: strictly speaking, he and Zhao Zhinian had no relationship now. He pursed his lips and reluctantly gave a conservative answer: "Classmate."

"Classmate?!" Lu Boyuan was shocked.

Wu Qiming clearly thought of the girl in the captain's high school confession story, "Another classmate?"

"Could this Miss Zhao be the classmate who confessed her feelings and was mistaken for a hacker?" Fang Minghua asked, getting straight to the point. He had just felt that Zhou Zekai was a reliable person and would never do something like reminiscing about his white moonlight in front of his current partner.

After Fang Minghua asked the question, his vice-captain indeed showed a tacit smile. He turned his gaze to the captain, Zhou Zekai, who also nodded silently.

"Just as I suspected." Having confirmed his suspicions, Fang Minghua nodded with a smile.

The others struggled to process the news, then exclaimed, "So the 'white moonlight' (ideal love interest) has returned to China? Is this a classic reunion story of a broken mirror being mended?"

"Did the captain confess his feelings?"

Are you together?

"Why would the person the captain likes be having dinner with Gao Yingjie?"

"Wait a minute! Why did she go to Beijing? Will she come back to Shanghai? Is it a long-distance relationship now?"

His teammates bombarded him with questions, but none of them were the kind of questions Zhou Zekai wanted to hear!

He neither admitted nor denied it, but simply picked up a towel to prepare for a shower. Then, looking at the group of people still lingering in his room, he gave them the order to leave: "It's very late."

The meaning is clear: the gossip is over, you can leave now.

Jiang Botao naturally understood that these issues were what had put his captain in a bad mood. Suppressing a laugh, he began to shoo everyone away: "Alright, alright, the captain needs to rest. Go back to sleep."

Although the others weren't satisfied yet, they still obediently followed Jiang Botao out. Before leaving, each of them patted Zhou Zekai on the shoulder and added, "Go, Captain!"

After a night of fermentation, the gossip in the group gradually cooled down. After all, Zhou Zekai, the male protagonist of last night, had been silent, and no one from the Samsara team had spoken up. In the end, the Tiny Herb team, who knew a little about the inside story, was also suppressed by Wang Jiexi with a sentence: "Training tomorrow, get some rest early."

During lunch break, Dai Yanqi posted a screenshot of the official announcement for the Glory esports event in the group chat: "Breaking news! Today, the Glory esports event officially announced a new Glory commentator! Any warriors want to tag Team Zhou?"

The Weibo post was from the official Honor esports account: "The Honor commentary season has started! Let's get to know them~" The post included a picture of the newly selected Honor commentators, a total of 6, four men and two women. The two women were naturally listed at the front, and Zhao Zhinian's good looks were too conspicuous in the commentary team. There were many comments below shouting that they wanted to get close to the beauties.

The bottom right corner of each commentator's photo features their self-introduction, including their name, professional title, favorite team, and favorite professional player.

The answers to these questions varied: some said their favorite team was Tiny Herb and their favorite player was Wang Jiexi; others liked Blue Rain and their favorite player was Huang Shaotian; still others were more balanced, using "ALL" twice to show their broad support. Another female contestant was clearly a die-hard fan of Team Tyranny, listing the entire Tyranny team as her favorite and her favorite players. Because her answer was so long, the official website even reduced the font size for her.

Zhao Zhinian's answer was also quite subtle: her favorite team was Samsara, and her favorite professional player was Ye Qiu.

This combination seems reasonable to ordinary players: although he has retired, Ye Qiu, as a legendary player, still has many fans. Team Excellent Era has not only lost Ye Qiu, but has now been reduced to playing in the Challenger League. Meanwhile, Samsara is the newly crowned champion, so it is understandable that they like strong teams.

However, according to the professional players who just gossiped about Zhou Zekai and Zhao Zhinian, the girl's favorite professional player is not Zhou Zekai, which is quite interesting.

Someone immediately noticed this: "Your favorite player is Ye Qiu?"

"My favorite team is Samsara, and my favorite player is Ye Qiu's Heart? What does that mean?" Chu Yunxiu teased.

"This shows that the revolution has not yet succeeded, and Captain Zhou still needs to work hard!"

"@OneShotThroughClouds Hahahaha, so pitiful, Zhou Zekai. The girl had dinner with Gao Yingjie yesterday. I thought she was going to follow you back, but she ended up following all the professional players. Today she said her favorite professional player is Lao Ye. But why doesn't she like Blue Rain? Our Blue Rain is clearly the strongest team! Is the other commentator a Tyranny fan? What's so great about Lao Han's wallet face..." Huang Shaotian fearlessly tagged Zhou Zekai and started his spam-style rant, mocking Zhou Zekai and Tyranny, and also promoting Blue Rain.

“Isn’t it normal for us Tyranny to have female fans? But you Blue Rain Temple shouldn’t even dream about girls!” Zhang Jiale joined the fray.

"So yesterday it was Zhou Zekai who pursued her unilaterally?"

"No wonder Captain Zhou didn't say anything, he was heartbroken."

"@LordGrimYe, aren't you going to give an acceptance speech?" Yu Wenzhou, always eager for drama, directly tagged Ye Xiu.

Amidst the intense training, gossiping was a great way to relieve stress. Everyone chatted and joked around, occasionally tagging Zhou Zekai.

Inside the training room, Du Ming glanced at his team captain while looking at the messages in the group chat. Although it was lunch break, Zhou Zekai was still playing games, his eyes glued to the screen, his fingers flying across the keyboard, seemingly unaffected by the group messages.

However, Jiang Botao noticed that Zhou Zekai's character was exceptionally fierce today, with several combos leaving his opponent helpless.

"The group chat is lively today too." Jiang Botao handed him a bottle of water, mentioning the group chat as if casually: "Remember to congratulate Miss Zhao on passing the selection."

Zhou Zekai took the water and said calmly, "Training."

Jiang Botao smiled but didn't expose him. He knew his captain had definitely seen the message in the group chat, but simply chose not to respond.

After finishing his game, Zhou Zekai took off his headphones, rubbed his slightly sore fingers, and finally opened the group chat again, which had accumulated 99+ messages.

After quickly browsing through the jokes and mentions, his gaze finally settled on Zhao Zhinian's profile picture, which listed his favorite professional player as Ye Qiu.

It wasn't too surprising, after all, when Zhao Zhinian met Senior Ye Qiu in the God's Domain last time, she also said that she was his fan.

Meanwhile, Zhao Zhinian is struggling to walk through a crowded food street in Beijing.

Many famous attractions require advance reservations, and Zhao Zhinian's trip was too rushed, so she naturally didn't have time. She also didn't want to help scalpers make money, so she just chose a food street to stroll around and have lunch. However, she didn't expect Beijing to be so crowded during the summer. She could only carry a donkey roll in her left hand and a yogurt in her right hand, struggling forward with the crowd. The crowd was so dense that if someone snatched the yogurt from her hand, she wouldn't be able to chase after them, and of course, the other person couldn't escape either.

She was taking pictures of the street food with her phone when a WeChat message popped up from Zhou Zekai: "Congratulations."

"Huh?" Zhao Zhinian didn't understand what he was congratulating her about. The only thing that could congratulate her recently was the commentator selection, but how did Zhou Zekai know? He couldn't possibly notify Samsara before he passed the commentator selection, could he?

She quickly checked her email on her phone, and sure enough, an email from Honor's official account was quietly waiting in her inbox. It had been approved!

Zhou Zekai also sent a screenshot of a Weibo post announcing the new commentators for the Honor of Kings tournament.

"Ah! It passed! I'm out right now and haven't had a chance to check my email yet." She hadn't expected the official notification to come via Weibo. She saved the screenshot and forwarded it to her father and friend Lin An'an across the ocean. "I can't believe you knew the result before me!"

Zhou Zekai explained, "It was sent in the group chat."

"Could it be a group of professional players?" Zhao Zhinian thought of Gao Yingjie's explanation yesterday and instantly understood. "I didn't expect the pros to be so gossipy. Did I cause you any trouble?"

Zhou Zekai didn't reply. She squeezed through the crowd with difficulty, quickly grabbed a bench on the street, put the snacks she had just bought aside, first reported the results to her director, then excitedly forwarded the Weibo post, and finally carefully examined her own photo. Then, her gaze fixed on the lower right corner: Zhou Zekai should have seen it, right?

She quickly switched back to the chat window, and sure enough, Zhou Zekai's side showed "typing," but no new messages popped up for a long time.

"I have something to say about my favorite professional player!" Zhao Zhinian typed rapidly, "I submitted my registration information early. I only knew that Ye Qiu was the most famous and safest player, so I filled it in. Of course, I do admire him! After all, the legend of Lord Grim is everywhere in the tenth server."

"Team...you even wrote about Reincarnation." Zhou Zekai grasped the key point, writing about the Reincarnation Team, but didn't realize that the possibility of Zhou Zekai being involved was zero.

After hesitating for a long time, Zhao Zhinian finally confessed in a self-deprecating manner: "Um... if I said I was embarrassed to write your name, would you laugh at me?"

"Then...who is your favorite professional player?" Zhou Zekai pressed on persistently.

Even through the screen, Zhao Zhinian could feel that unyielding determination. After hesitating for a long time, she finally made up her mind: "You! I'll definitely write your name next time I fill out the form!"

"Okay." On the other end of the screen, Zhou Zekai's lips curled into a slight smile. He pressed his advantage: "When are you going back to Shanghai?"

"Next week, I'll go back once I've finished dealing with things here."

"To pick you up?"

"No need!" Zhao Zhinian quickly refused, "You still have training to do."

"Senior Ye Qiu..." Zhou Zekai changed the subject abruptly, sending a wronged emoji along with a screenshot bearing the name "Ye Qiu," "Would you agree to pick me up?"

Zhao Zhinian really couldn't understand his thought process, and was both amused and exasperated: "What does this have to do with the great god Ye Qiu?"

Zhou Zekai did not reply, but simply sent the screenshot again.

Well, so they've got something on him and are demanding compensation. Zhao Zhinian, however, won't soften her heart easily. She's seen Zhou Zekai's schedule, and he'll most likely be training when she gets back: "It's no use, just train hard. If you have time, we can meet up for dinner."

Meanwhile, in the professional players' group chat, Lord Grim, who had been frequently tagged, finally appeared. Ye Xiu had stayed up all night fighting for the BOSS and had just woken up. Ye Xiu scrolled through the records, sorted out the cause and effect, and recalled the "battlefield reporter" who had been protected by Zhou Zekai when fighting for the BOSS before.

So the girl is a commentator, no wonder she likes to announce skill names so much.

Ye Xiu replied to Yu Wenzhou's message: "My acceptance speech was well-deserved. After all, the strength of three champions does not allow me to be low-key."

These words immediately sparked dissatisfaction among professional players.

"Damn it! Old Ye, have you no shame! Three championships are nothing special! This year's championship will definitely belong to Blue Rain!"

"They really know how to pat themselves on the back. It's already the ninth season, and they keep bringing up those three ancient championships every day!"

"Ancient champions are still champions." Trash talk has always been Ye Xiu's forte. He replied unhurriedly, "Ask Zhang Jiale if he wants an ancient champion? Look at me, even if I retire, I'm still the most popular professional player among girls."

"Ye Qiu, you son of a bitch!" Zhang Jiale was suddenly called out and his sore spot was hit.

"Ye Shen is blatantly trying to steal Zhou's place in the girl's heart."

"What do you mean by 'stealing'? This is the natural attraction of personal charisma." Ye Xiu, recalling the God's Domain incident, suddenly felt like teasing Zhou Zekai and deliberately tagged him: "Looks like the girl wasn't lying before, she really is my fan. You wouldn't be commentating on the Challenger League just for me, would you? I can't possibly accept that. @一枪穿云"

A note from the author:

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