Chapter Twenty-Two

Xiao Jie pointed at Yan Yu in shock: "You, how could you lay a hand on me!"

Yan Yu turned her head to look at him and asked, "Didn't your team members attack first?"

"But……"

Yan Yu ignored Xiao Jie, reached out and tapped Lu Shilin's throat. Her fingertip didn't actually touch him, but it still made him shrink back in fright: "Be more mature. Don't throw a tantrum after losing the game, and don't bully girls."

Lin Yi sighed and came forward to apologize: "I apologize for the immature behavior of my team members."

After the people from Zhuxian left one by one, Ye Xiu finally breathed a sigh of relief: "That scared me to death. My heart can't take it if this happens a few more times."

Yan Yu touched Zhou Qiao's nape to make sure she wasn't strangled: "What are you so nervous about? Do you think I would cripple him in front of everyone?"

Ye Xiu retorted, "You mean you'd secretly put a sack over his head?"

Yan Yu denied it: "Am I that kind of person? If I were to put a sack on someone, I would definitely put the ones from Excellent Era on it first."

Just as he was about to leave, Xiao Shiqin noticed an unexpected situation and came over to inquire about it: "?"

Xiao Shiqin left silently.

Ye Xiu covered his forehead, ignoring Wei Chen and Baozi, who were discussing how to put the sacks on Excellent Era after being reminded by Yan Yu's words. Chen Guo waved, calling to Tian Qi and the others in the audience: "Let's go, let's celebrate the victory!!!"

Zhou Qiao, with Chen Guo's arm around her, pouted and said, "We really should have gone for barbecue the night before the finals!"

Chen Guo: "Huh?"

Ye Xiu: "Are you paying?"

Zhou Qiao: "Cough cough cough, my throat hurts so much, I probably need to go back and rest."

Ye Xiu, the former captain of Excellent Era, led his internet cafe team to successfully enter the Challenger League finals to face Excellent Era. This final received unprecedented attention, even overshadowing the final match of the professional league. The professional league also showed its importance to this match, changing the venue of the finals to Liulisong Comprehensive Gymnasium.

On Friday morning, the league, along with experts, took the entire Happy team to Liulisong to test their equipment.

Zhou Qiao looked at Sun Xiang and greeted him, "What a coincidence, little monkey."

These words blocked Tao Xuan's smiling face, and the greeting he had prepared was stuck in his throat.

Su Mucheng asked, "What's a little monkey?"

Zhou Qiao solemnly explained: "Because he is the grandson of the great-grandson, he is a monkey grandson."

Su Mucheng followed Zhou Qiao's gaze and saw Sun Xiang, whose face looked unpleasant.

Su Mucheng: "Ah, I understand."

Tao Xuan cleared his throat: "Xiaoxiao is still as mischievous as ever, just like before."

Wei Chen leaned closer: "Who is this?"

Zhou Qiao: "I don't know, I've never seen it before."

Chen Guo: "Hmm?"

Zhou Qiao: "After all, I was an All-Star player before I retired. Maybe they're my fans, haha."

Ye Xiu: "Pfft."

Zhou Qiao ignored Tao Xuan and continued moving, when suddenly an arm appeared in front of her.

She looked at the owner of the arm.

Sun Xiang opened his arms to her and waved them: "I'm ready to get five more kills tonight."

Zhou Qiao immediately retorted, "Fine, if you're not the first one to appear tonight, you're my great-grandson."

Sun Zheping became alert: "?"

Wei Chen stirred things up: "This is taking advantage of you."

Zhou Qiao looked at Sun Xiang, whose expression was stiff, and made a peace sign with her fingers: "You're 20,000 years too early to talk trash to me."

Baozi: "Huh? Why is it 20,000 years?"

Zhou Qiao: "That's Zero's famous line! You can watch 'Zero Hero Legend' on the hotel TV."

Ye Xiu pressed down on the back of Zhou Qiao's head: "What have you been doing these past few days?"

Zhou Qiao: "..."

With Ye Xiu holding onto her fate, Zhou Qiao weakly retreated back to the middle of the team.

Tao Xuan took a deep breath, preparing to speak, but Ye Xiu interrupted him: "Let's not talk anymore. It's only two hours. Do you guys go first or should we go first?"

Tao Xuan: "Hehe."

Tao Xuan: "You can go first."

Tao Xuan: "I look forward to your performance in tonight's match."

At 8 p.m., after a series of flashy holographic demonstrations, the competition officially began.

Zhou Qiao stood up amidst the boos from the crowd. When he saw the people coming out from Excellent Era, his expression gradually changed, and he whistled towards Excellent Era's seats.

Sun Xiang took a deep breath and held back.

Ye Xiu asked disdainfully, "Who did you learn this from?"

Zhou Qiao: "Can you stop talking like your good daughter has gone astray?"

Ye Xiu was even more disgusted: "I'm not Wang Daye, I don't have such a strong heart."

Zhou Qiao: "No, is it possible that my dad isn't Wang Jiexi?"

Sun Zheping grew impatient: "Go now!"

Zhou Qiao: "Is this because Sun Xiang caused the person who is a generation younger than me to become angry and embarrassed, Senior Sun?"

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The scenery of the port town unfolded before Zhou Qiao.

The game begins.

The order of appearance for Team Happy in the arena was originally designed to counter Sun Xiang: Zhou Qiao would start, and it would be best if he could defeat Sun Xiang in one fell swoop. If not, then Wei Chen, who would be the second to enter the arena, would continue his sneaky two-man show.

Zhou Qiao retorted, "Who's the 'perverted style' guy?!"

Ye Xiu ignored him.

Ye Xiu is the third person in the arena battle, and he will face Xiao Shiqin, who may be the second to appear.

Although Sun Xiang always won the arena matches in the Excellent Era Challenge, the team match roster was very fixed: Sun Xiang, Xiao Shiqin, Su Mucheng and Priest Zhang Jiaxing, with Boxer Shen Jian and Battle Mage Qiu Fei rotating as the sixth person.

Since the priest is unlikely to appear in the arena, it's easy to guess the lineup for Excellent Era's arena battle. The second person will either be Xiao Shiqin or Qiu Fei.

“What if it were Su Mucheng?” Sun Zheping calmly pointed out Ye Xiu’s flaw.

Zhou Qiao quickly answered, "If Happy weren't Ye Shen's team, Mu Mu might be the second to go out. In my opinion, Mu Mu is most likely to be the fifth person in the arena."

Ye Xiu frowned and sighed, "It's not impossible."

Zhou Qiao sat up straight, pointed out the situation, and began to assign tasks to the others: "So, Ye Shen's task is to take down Xiao Shiqin and his apprentice, while Rou Shen will deal with the boxing master, and finally, Senior Sun will defend the last point of the arena match for us."

Wei Chen was displeased by Zhou Qiao's dismissive attitude: "What about me?"

Ye Xiu's hand was itching to slap the little head opposite him that was full of trash talk: "Why don't you take on three of us and defend the three points in one fell swoop, relieving the pressure on us veterans?"

Zhou Qiao, completely oblivious to the menacing threat Ye Xiu was trying so hard to suppress, continued Wei Chen's words: "In that case, why not hand over the important task of taking on three opponents at once to Senior Wei Chen!"

Wei Chen: "..."

Wei Chen: "Pah!"

Before Zhou Qiao retired, he was always a starting player for Tiny Herb in individual competitions. Therefore, although he debuted at the same time as Xiao Shiqin, he never faced the Mechanic who took on the main responsibility of defending the title in the arena right after his debut. He only fought against him once in the All-Star Game of Season 6.

Xiao Shiqin is a tactical master who is very good at scrutinizing details, and the Mechanic profession gives him the ability to maximize his performance by utilizing those details.

Therefore, on Zhang Xinjie's advice, Zhou Qiao chose the arena as the map for the individual competition.

Zhou Qiao is typing on the public channel.

Marquis Nevernight: We're all so familiar with each other, let's skip the fancy stuff. (XXXX, XXXX), I'll be waiting for you here, rain or shine.

Life Extinction: Actually, we're not that close.

Marquis of Nevernight: The way you speak is so cold, as if you've never loved anyone.

Extinction of life: There was indeed no love.

Nevernight Marquis: How can someone with a 37-degree hand type such cold and icy words?

Life Extinction: I've arrived at the time you mentioned, where are you?

Unnight Marquis: When you lie to me, can you at least put some effort into it? You arrived in just one minute. Did you fly there?

Extinction of Life: Don't you know the Mechanic can fly?

Marquis of Nevernight: You've changed! You weren't like this before!

Marquis of Nevernight: I miss the time when we first met, when you were still so reserved.

The Undying Marquis: A man's words are deceitful; Ye Shencheng is not lying to me.

"Extinction of Life and Death": We're all just playing games with each other, so there's no need for these kinds of statements.

The Nightless Marquis did not choose to find a high vantage point and set up an ambush as usual. If Sun Xiang were the first player to start, she would choose to wear him down in this way, but since the opponent was Xiao Shiqin, she could not fix the battle location.

After all, rather than expecting that this map has areas that tactical masters haven't studied, it's better to expect that Xiao Shiqin ate the wrong thing before going on stage and had to voluntarily give up.

Zhou Qiao mentally constructed a 3D model of the map—as soon as the match map was released, Yan Yu was helping Ye Xiu with map analysis—she couldn't give up the high ground; as a sharpshooter, she naturally had an advantage when she was on high ground, regardless of the opponent's class; she couldn't approach overly narrow alleys, otherwise she would easily be trapped in the alleys and suffer a full-scale bombardment; the Port Town map indicated that there were no mountainous terrains on this map…

Zhou Qiao had a flash of inspiration, interrupting the storm in her mind.

Marquis Never Sleeps: Let's have a water fight!

After respawning at the spawn point, Nightless Marquis had been wandering around. Now that she had found her destination, she began to run in a straight line towards the port.

Xiao Shiqin did not believe Zhou Qiao's chat messages and instead continued to move tactically toward the center of the map.

He had his own estimates of several high points on the map. The Port Town map had an excellent sniping position. If One Autumn Leaf were to play now, Zhou Qiao would definitely be "nesting" there by now, because melee classes would have to take two Barrett sniper shots to get close. And with Zhou Qiao's accuracy, even considering the equipment difference between the two sides, she would have taken away half of One Autumn Leaf's health.

But the Mechanic wouldn't play it that way. At least before the Living Dead gets hit by the second Barrett sniper shot, he'll definitely be able to blast Nightless Marquis down from the high ground.

Having lost this initial advantage that allowed him to control the battle, Zhou Qiao is unlikely to take this risk.

Of course, it cannot be completely ruled out, so the Extinction of Life launched an electronic eye in that direction.

And it hasn't been taken down yet.

While the living beings were searching for possible sniping spots of the Nightless Marquis, Zhou Qiao successfully reached the port at top speed.