Chapter 32. The two characters in Chapter 32... seem to be wearing...
"Bang".
With a dull thud, the moving company workers carried the last large bag of luggage into the house, and the packing staff immediately surrounded them, sorting the luggage by type.
Wearing a mask and housekeeping gloves, You Xin silently cleaned the first-floor floor with a vacuum cleaner in hand. Nan Zhiyi, on the other hand, carried out a large case of water and handed it to each of the moving company workers, saying, "Thank you for your hard work, please have some water!"
Nan Zhiyi's original lease still had a little over two weeks left, but he couldn't wait to move to a new place. So as soon as the new landlord sent a message saying the house was ready, he immediately moved in.
Six or seven service personnel spent most of the day cleaning the house thoroughly. One of them even spent two minutes fighting with You Xin for the right to use the vacuum cleaner—the floor was too dirty, and this person insisted on constantly sweeping up the newly fallen dust.
Finally, Nan Zhiyi chased him into the aviary to feed the birds, and that finally calmed things down.
It was already evening when the moving company left.
Nan Zhiyi sat in the brand-new living room, staring blankly at the unfamiliar surroundings.
He didn't know if his decision was right or wrong. But things had already come to this point, so he could only grit his teeth and move forward.
You can't just agree to "take them in" and then kick them out the door.
Anyway, at most, we'll only live together for about two months... I guess.
Once the mid-season transfer window opens and Yux returns to the competition in the summer split, and I start making those silly game videos again, their lives should return to normal.
Just as I was lost in thought, a "screech" sound came from upstairs.
Nan Zhiyi was genuinely worried that the person and the bird would start fighting. It wasn't that she was worried the bird would get hurt, but that this thing really liked to bite. The Flying Hydraulic Pliers were not to be underestimated, and they didn't know their own strength when they bit. If they bit and damaged You Xin's precious hands, it would be a big problem.
He rushed upstairs, pushed open the door, and saw—the large parrot was lying on the ground, its yellow belly turned up, clinging to You Xin's pants like a persistent cleaning robot.
When You Xin saw him come in, he said, "It just spoke."
"Really?" Nan Zhiyi asked in surprise. Daodao is the kind of parrot that loves to chatter but doesn't really like to mimic others. It usually chatters loudly like a broken gong, and after a month of trying to teach it to speak, it still hasn't learned a single word.
“Really.” You Xin gently nudged the bird’s beak. The bird struggled a few times, then rolled over and stood up. “Say ‘little bird’.”
Bird: "Gah!"
"..." You Xin stroked its neck feathers again, teaching earnestly, "Little bird."
The bird tilted its head and flapped its wings.
Then it said clearly and distinctly, in a voice completely different from its usual tone, "Xiao Yi."
You Xin: "..."
Nan Zhiyi: "…………"
That voice... sounds so familiar...
Just now it wouldn't say a word, but now it's spreading its wings and walking all over the place: "Xiao Yi, Xiao Yi! Gaa!"
Nan Zhiyi scooped it up from the ground. It stood on Nan Zhiyi's hand and continued to bark, "Xiaoyi, gah! Xiaoyi! Xiaoyi!"
This scene seems familiar.
“It only knew this phrase when it was a puppy,” Nan Zhiyi said. “I haven’t heard it say it since I got it.”
You Xin thought for a moment: "Maybe I forgot about it before, and then I remembered it again."
Nan Zhiyi felt ashamed, thinking to herself that this thing even had a built-in memory retrieval function.
Thankfully, we never let it show itself during previous live streams, and now we have to be even more vigilant. Otherwise, if it flies into the live stream room and starts talking in a voice that's instantly recognizable, spouting nonsense... then everything would be over.
Nan Zhiyi's new roommate was much easier to manage than he had imagined. As he had promised, You Xin only stayed on the first floor and was mostly silent, so much so that Nan Zhiyi often forgot that there was someone living downstairs and was often startled by a figure suddenly appearing behind him when he went downstairs to get water.
If there's one thing that's changed the most about You Xin in these few short years, it's probably that he's become much more stable in personality and has a stronger sense of boundaries than before.
Nan Zhiyi even felt that he was being a bit hypocritical—aside from helping to feed the birds, You Xin never went up to the second floor easily, but he could freely enter and leave the other's work room on the first floor, reviewing the game after training, discussing the draft picks during the match, or chatting about other things casually.
On one occasion, Nan Zhiyi entered his study and found that he was not there, but the ROE account logged on the screen had not logged out.
With a thought in mind, he sat down at the desk.
Nan Zhiyi opened You Xin's rank history.
A dense array of battle records came into view—since You Xin started using this new account, he has played at least one ranked game every day.
On his busiest day, he played from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. the next day. Excluding meal breaks, he played seventeen games without a break, interspersed with several practice sessions in custom rooms.
The account's ranking on the ladder is prominently displayed on the homepage: 7.
The registration date is also striking: one month ago.
Nan Zhiyi gently closed the battle record page. What others saw as effortless and brilliant performance on stage was probably only known to the person involved, a skill honed through countless failures.
-
With more than ten days to go before the start of the competition on the 19th, they arranged practice matches with several teams in Group B. Since they will be playing directly against teams in Group A, avoiding practice matches with teams in Group A can effectively prevent the leakage of their tactics.
The win rate in training matches remained consistently around 50%. Nan Zhiyi successfully brought his usual research spirit to the training matches, spending most of his time busy with experiments.
Although You Xin played the support role, he only took on about 40% of the command tasks, while the rest fell entirely on Nan Zhiyi's shoulders.
As the main DPS, focusing too much on commanding can easily lead to mistakes in gameplay.
Fortunately, after practicing for a while, Song Meng's performance improved. Although he is still far from his peak two years ago, at least he is no longer struggling even in Platinum-level games.
After he helped Nan Zhiyi take on some of the output responsibilities, the team's overall dynamics finally improved.
In addition, the heavy responsibility of drafting and banning (BP) also fell on Nan Zhiyi's shoulders—although You Xin and Song Meng had played many matches, they mostly only offered improvements to the coach's BP strategy. Moreover, the overall design from the player's perspective was not quite the same. Xiao Yu, on the other hand, had only played ranked matches and his thinking was still at the level of casual games.
Nan Zhiyi played the main carry role, commanded the team, drafted the draft, and reviewed the game. She was like a father and mother to her team. After a busy day, she was exhausted and felt like a dead dog. She had lost all desire for this world.
Even in this situation, there are still people who insist on making things worse for him.
"The schedule has been released."
It was already 10 p.m. when training ended. You Xin ordered seafood porridge from a restaurant, and the two of them ate the porridge together in the dining room, taking turns spooning it out.
Nan Zhiyi looked up: "We're not playing the opening match, are we?"
“We’ll play against the Little Bell team,” You Xin said.
Nan Zhiyi shrugged: "I knew it would be like this."
Besides the captain, Xiaolingdang herself, the tank and support players in Xiaolingdang's team are both formidable, having both reached the top 100 in ranked ladder.
More importantly, their team's secondary center position, coincidentally, is none other than Tang Yuan, the streamer who was recently embroiled in a dispute with Nan Zhiyi.
Both the Little Bell Team and the Angel Team have been drawn into Group A, meaning they will face each other in the group stage regardless.
The organizers weren't exactly high-minded either, so they naturally arranged whatever generated buzz, directly scheduling the two teams for the opening match at 5:00 PM on the 19th without any pretense.
After eating, Nan Zhiyi voluntarily went out to throw away the trash.
When they returned, they found You Xin already sitting on the sofa, looking at his phone screen with a slightly gloomy expression and furrowed brows.
Upon seeing him return, You Xin said, "Someone leaked our training match results."
Upon hearing this, Nan Zhiyi nearly fainted: "Who is it? Doing such a despicable thing!"
That was a business plan he painstakingly designed!
The leak of the training match was made by a member of the streamer team from the Zero Boundary platform, whose team leader was "Zero Boundary Number One" Beijing.
Zero Boundary is a small platform that Nan Zhiyi hadn't looked into. But a quick search revealed that Bei Jing and Tang Yuan were close friends who had streamed together before. Their streams had similar styles, both using sensationalism to grab attention and deliberately saying controversial things to attract viewers.
Bei Jing is still streaming right now. Some marketing accounts have edited together clips from his stream an hour ago, and in the clips, there are comments saying things like, "Brother Jing is going to beat up Yux God. I'll beat Yux God to a pulp by Brother Jing."
Seeing this, Bei Jing frowned impatiently: "Bro, what's wrong?! Bro! You look down on your Jing-ge so much—is Yux really as amazing as you guys make him out to be? I'm telling you right now, in that scrim, I could easily solo kill him! Believe it or not!"
If it's just staying here, it doesn't reveal much information.
But after Bei Jing said that, some busybodies dug up his smurf account used for training matches, and then dug up the smurf account of another member of his team, Zero Boundary.
This person's account had no match history, and all four of their practice matches against the Nan Zhiyi team were completely visible to everyone.
Well, although, yux is playing support, right? Anything could happen to him.
[I got a 0-8 score just playing a bard game [laughing and crying emoji] How can this be defended?]
To be fair, Milk's support skills are also incredibly bad. He once tried to play a thief like someone else, and ended up stealing his teammate's items for the enemy team... [smile] Don't overestimate these professional players when they play other positions.
Although the majority of people in the comments section of the marketing account were reasonable, their words still conveyed a sense of distrust. This was probably because they had personally witnessed the training match results between Angels and the Northern team, where Yux was completely out of commission in three out of four games.
"..." Nan Zhiyi closed her phone in silence.
He angrily said, "Are you crazy? They're the ones who asked me to play a practice match. I didn't even know them and didn't want to play against them, but they insisted on doing it. Who says playing a practice match with someone doesn't affect your win-loss record?!"
Netizens saw it, and the number of times they mocked them is secondary. The problem is that their next opponent also saw it and will definitely make corresponding adjustments during the draft phase.
"Don't be angry," You Xin comforted him. "Someone like that might not even make it into the offline competition."
Nan Zhiyi paced back and forth in the living room, circling around ten times before stopping. His short hair was a mess from his rough handling.
He took a deep breath: "I think I'm a very kind person."
"Hmm," You Xin said, "You are..."
"But right now I have such a strong urge to kill," Nan Zhiyi said sullenly.
You Xin smiled.
"Should we practice a new lineup?" he asked.
Nan Zhiyi paused for a moment: "Aren't you tired? You've been practicing since this morning."
"I'm not tired," You Xin said. "I won't feel tired if I'm with you."
Nan Zhiyi's heart skipped a beat when he looked at her.
“…Sigh, let’s practice.” He selectively ignored the second half of the other person’s sentence, gritted his teeth, and said, “Really. Do you think that without this, I can’t come up with a new lineup to beat them?”
-
In addition to broadcasting from the observer's perspective in the official live streaming rooms of several major live streaming platforms, the online competition of the Juxing Cup will also be broadcast from the first-person perspective by the participating streamers. They are required to show their faces and hands, turn on their sound, and turn off the bullet screen assistant, so as to eliminate the possibility of cheating to a certain extent.
Therefore, on the afternoon of the 19th, as soon as the Angels team started their live stream, the main live stream's popularity dropped by more than ten million.
【Good afternoon, Xiaoyi】
[We absolutely crushed the other team in today's match, okay? Those trash players think they're so tough, resorting to all sorts of disgusting dirty tricks.]
[I've bet 10 Star Coins on you to win, it's all my savings [crying] You have to win!]
What?! Contestants in the Star Cup can also stream?! He's managed to rack up the allotted time again, damn it!
Nan Zhiyi glanced at the comments briefly: "We'll definitely win, we'll definitely win."
What if you can't get it?
“If you can’t get him…” Nan Zhiyi’s gaze shifted, “then you can go and settle accounts with Yux. He promised to have sex with us today, and if he doesn’t… no, no, no, he didn’t say that, I was just joking.”
Wow, we're so close now, we can joke around like that without any problems!
[Just arrived, anyone want to be a C-list streamer?]
All you do all day is talk about sex, you have absolutely no respect for the streamer. Where are your morals? Where are your bottom lines? Where is the viewing link?
Nan Zhiyi: "…………"
What's wrong with the thinking of young people these days?
On the other hand, the comments in You Xin's live stream were in a completely different style.
I don't know what to say to you, but since it's your competition, I'll cheer you on...
[Did they move to a new house? The background doesn't look like a place they've aired before.]
So you really terminated your contract with CG? Did CG really hold you back from fulfilling your contract?
The fact that he can stream here now is because he's exposed CG for doing a bunch of disgusting things behind the scenes.
[Xiao You, can you give me a definite answer? Will we still be able to participate in the Summer Split?]
You Xin ignored the noisy barrage of comments.
For this competition, the organizers of the Juxing Cup specially applied for brand new competition account sets from the league, with each account having a complete set of professions and outfits.
He had just changed his initial character settings and imported the character outfit code from his previous account. Now he was holding the mouse, intently studying... ROE's "Spring Outing Series Couple Outfits," which had only been available for two days.
Comments: [...]
It's beyond saving, just take it away and bury it.
Whether it was intentional or coincidental by the organizers, a match was also being held at the same time today in the roeCN league, with the two teams facing off being CG, currently ranked first in the standings, and NJ, ranked second.
A major battle, which should have generated over 30 million views long ago, is now stuck at just 19 million. The top three active players have left the league to play support in some obscure streamer cup. Everyone, regardless of their background, is flocking to the Juxing Cup to see what this little wandering god is up to.
As the match was about to begin, Nan Zhiyi called her teammates into the voice chat room, where they turned off their microphones and discussed today's tactics.
"Our online viewers... are all very enthusiastic today."
The two commentators in the main broadcast room also ended their previous rambling and brought the topic back to today's match.
To demonstrate the importance they placed on the competition, the organizers even invited commentators who usually only work in official leagues.
Another commentator said: "Today is the opening match of our Stars Cup. Both teams are streamers from the Stars platform, and the team captains are quite famous. First is our team 6's Dangshen, Xiaolingdang. Everyone should know him. He has been a top ten player on the ladder for many years. This is his third time participating in the Stars Cup. He is also the defending champion of last year and the year before."
"The other team members... should be completely familiar to everyone." The commentator couldn't help but laugh twice as he spoke. "What a dramatic scene! Our Little God of Travel, who was sitting in the finals last year, is now appearing in our Streamer Cup. To be honest, if someone had told me last year that Yux would be going to play in the Juxing Cup in four months, I would have thought they had something wrong with their brain."
Commentator 2: "Meng, the team's sub-DPS player, is also an old teammate of Yux from the 23CG era. Meng has not appeared since he retired at the end of 23. This time, he suddenly signed up for the Juxing Cup, which must have surprised many old CG fans."
"However, compared to these two former professional players, the person I'm more interested in on this team is actually their captain, Angel Yi," the commentator chuckled. "Most of you are probably seeing the ID Angel Yi in an official competition for the first time, right? If you've followed this streamer, you know that Angel Yi rarely streams, and his videos are mostly entertainment-oriented. His signing up for the Juxing Cup makes me wonder... could he actually be a hidden master?"
Commentator 2: "Just before the match, I came across a post that compiled statistics on who had the fewest ranked games in the past two weeks during this Juxing Cup."
"Could it be... the will of an angel?"
“That’s right.” The second commentator said, “The audience has done a very careful count. In half a month, all of Angel’s accounts only played 21 ranked games in total—while his teammate Yux played 234 games, but most of those games were played as his original main carry.”
[Weren't you trying to prove yourself? This is so perfunctory. Does simply registering count as proving yourself?]
These two give off an "I'm invincible, do whatever you want" vibe.
[Isn't that a bit too dismissive of your opponents? You've seen so many clips of Xiaolingdang dominating pro players in ranked games, surely you've seen at least one or two of them?]
"This..." the commentator chuckled awkwardly, "I have a feeling that Angels have some secret weapon today. Let's take a look at their draft picks."
Just like the official league matches, the maps for the Star Cup are randomly selected. The first map drawn was the Jungle map.
The ROE ban/pick rule is: each team bans two classes, and then selects four classes in turn.
Right from the start, Nan Zhiyi's team removed Xiao Lingdang's signature class, the Archer, and then switched to the Druid. Both classes are very suitable for the current version and are strong choices for the main DPS role.
"Angel's bans are really targeting Little Bell's class pool," the commentator said. "Look at the other side... Oh? In the end, they banned [Knight] and [Little Cat Man]. What were they targeting with those bans? I don't quite understand."
In the voice chat, Xiaoyu whispered, "They really banned our tactics."
"I knew it would turn out like this." Nan Zhiyi pouted. "You guys just follow the original plan. Yux and I have other secret weapons."
The game has entered the Pick phase.
"The red team, Angel, makes their first pick... oh, they've chosen [Bard]." The commentator seemed unsurprised by this choice. "First pick support, a very strong support in the current version, and one of the few control-type supports in the game. It's quite flexible and very suitable for the open terrain of the jungle map. Let's look forward to yux's Bard debut."
Next, the Little Bell team chose the Barbarian and the Fortress Guard in turn, as support and tank respectively, showing that they wanted to play a heavy-armor, high-output formation.
"The Little Bell team plans to select the center position later, while the Angel team... Oh? They've already locked in their main center position, [Elf Hunter]."
"The Hunter also follows the archery style, but has a shorter range. In jungle maps, people actually prefer archers with longer ranges. However, Yux often chooses this class in competitions as an alternative to the banned archer... Could it be that Angelic Will learned this from him?"
The two teams continue with their picks.
For her last counter pick, Little Bell chose the Necromancer.
The Necromancer can summon undead, effectively countering the Elf Hunter's choice. After all, with a large swarm of undead chaotically surrounding you, the shortbow's accuracy naturally decreases.
"Overall, both teams have fairly standard lineups. I originally thought Angel Yi's team would have some special preparations, after all, given Angel Yi's style as a streamer... um?"
The narrator paused.
A moment later, the tone shifted to an even more exaggerated one: "Huh???"
"—The exchange period has ended, but Angel Yi and Yux haven't switched back their job choices?"
Currently, Angel's class is Bard, while Yux's class is Elf Hunter.
The comments section erupted in an uproar.
[What does this mean? Even though I signed up for the main DPS role, I'm still being asked to play a support bard?]
I don't think anyone says a bard can't be a damage dealer.
The hunter's ID is yux, that's seriously terrifying. What's the difference between this and a ghost story?
It feels like Yux could single-handedly wipe out the opposing team.
While the comments section was buzzing with discussion, the Little Bell team couldn't sit still any longer.
The game screen suddenly switched to black and white, displaying the text: [Game paused].
"Oh? The game is paused. Let's see what the organizers have to say... Tangyuan from Team 6 has requested a pause." The commentator paused as he read the text, "Uh... Tangyuan has questioned the position allocation for Team Angel, believing it violates the rules... The referees are currently investigating."
The game is paused on the Pick screen.
Nan Zhiyi received the referee's notification in the voice chat room. Since the broadcast was ongoing, he did not comment on the reason for the suspension. However, Song Meng said in the channel, "That's not true. This is not against the rules at all. You can do this in the league."
His mouse aimlessly hovered over the screen.
Sudden.
Yux has sent you a skin sharing request.
Nan Zhiyi: "…………"
"Shared Skins" is a feature launched by ROE to boost skin sales, especially couple skins. If two accounts are friends and one person buys the complete set of couple skins and uses one of the skins, the other person can use the other skin of the same set.
Unseen by him, the live stream chat had already exploded with activity.
【? ? ?What are you doing】
[I can tell, you're really confident. You're still thinking about your couple skin even though you've made it into the competition.]
Is this fake? Is this fake? Is this fake?
“…………” Nan Zhiyi took a deep breath.
He really wanted to ask You Xin what she was doing, but because of the live stream, he didn't dare to speak up, afraid that You Xin would blurt out "selling bromance".
If he refuses now, it will make him seem like he has something to hide.
But wouldn't it be even stranger to accept it...?
A moment later, Nan Zhiyi made a firm decision.
It's just a couple's skin! It's not like it'll hurt you to use it!
He quickly clicked "Accept," then his gaze wandered aimlessly, humming a couple of off-key tunes as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, in the main live stream room.
The commentator was also unsure of the current situation and dared not speak easily.
One of them looked around, searching for a topic to start a conversation about.
Suddenly, his eyes caught something incredible: "Wait a minute. I just noticed that the characters played by Yux and Angel Yi... seem to be wearing matching outfits."
Narrator 2: "…………"
Narrator 2: "Teacher Aoki observes very carefully; it seems he has an eye for beauty."
"I've always thought this outfit is pretty good... cough." The commentator cleared his throat and suddenly started advertising, "This is ROE's new Spring Outing Couple Outfit, which you can buy in the store this week."
The second commentator chimed in, "Actually, I just noticed something too. I wonder if you guys ever read the backstories of the characters when you play games. In the backstories, the bard and the elf hunter are an officially designated couple, and they're both male characters..."
The commentator immediately said sarcastically, "Oh, I see you know quite a bit, Lao Zhao!"
Comments: [?????????]
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Author's Note: A small match
Writing about matches is a tricky thing, but it's something you have to write about. Sometimes I want the two to just stay sweet and loving, but without matches!! It wouldn't highlight the protagonist's handsomeness!! So I can only painstakingly write a short passage…
However, to ensure a good reading experience, the competition will try to end within one chapter (I checked the next chapter and it's over 7000 words again... my drafts are running out [laughing and crying emoji]).
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