Chapter 3

Lanbai changed his posture to a more comfortable one in his chair.

As the owner of the internet cafe, Lanbai’s room was at the far end of the second floor, isolated from most of the noise. At this moment, he could even clearly hear the fatigue in the voice on the phone.

"Heh, to still have the energy to talk after such a big incident, not bad at all." Lanbai activated his "Taunt" skill, at its maximum level.

"Hey, do you have any empty rooms left?" Chen Bin dodged his taunt skill and changed the topic directly.

"No." Lanbai pouted and played with the room key in his hand.

"That's great, then I can sleep in the same bed with you again!" Chen Bin’s voice sounded so cheerful it could make someone’s skin crawl.

"Get lost!" Lanbai’s hair stood on end, "If you’re not dead, get over here quickly. The room was cleaned yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Chen Bin’s voice paused, he was silent for a moment, then drew out a long "Oh..." Then, he switched hands holding the phone and laughed, "That’s very considerate. I won’t be polite then! I’ll come over right away!"

"Tch. As if you’ve ever been polite..." Lanbai rolled his eyes.

"Next time." Chen Bin was about to hang up.

"Oh, when you come over, remember to use the back door. Do you know where it is?" Lanbai reminded him.

"Why would I use the back door?"

"Of course, if you want to use the front door, show your face, and take a tour of how the gaming area in my internet cafe has been messed up, I don’t mind..."

"From the tone of your voice, it sounds like a big scene?"

"Absolutely a big scene." Lanbai snorted.

"Can’t miss it! I must take a tour!"

"Suit yourself. Anyway, all the losses the internet cafe suffered today will be on your head. Enjoy your tour." Lanbai pushed up his glasses, the lenses reflecting the light.

Chen Bin on the other end of the phone was unhappy: "Why should it be on my head?"

Lanbai said confidently, "Telling you to disband the team for no reason! If it’s not on your head, whose head should it be on?"

"Hey! Although I introduced Weiwei and the others to other teams, it wasn’t me who disbanded the Nine-Tailed Fox. I didn’t want to either, I’m a victim too, hey... don’t hang up, hey..."

...

It was around 11 PM, and the internet cafe had already switched to all-night mode, with fewer people logging on and off.

The noise caused by the dissolution of the Nine-Tailed Fox team had gradually subsided.

A figure wearing sunglasses and a low-brimmed hat appeared at the main entrance of the internet cafe, heading straight for the second floor as soon as they entered.

Wearing sunglasses at night, this strange appearance immediately caught the attention of the front desk girl, who called Lanbai’s phone to describe the situation and ask, "Boss, how should we handle it?"

"Beat him to death with sticks!" Lanbai hung up the phone.

The footsteps in the hallway sounded familiar, Lanbai lowered his head, sighed lightly, and got up to open the door.

Standing at the entrance of Lanbai’s private room was none other than Chen Bin, the captain of the Nine-Tailed Fox team, whom all the major websites were looking for.

Chen Bin was wearing a spring jacket, carrying a keyboard bag, and had messy hair after taking off his hat.

"Captain of the champion team, wearing a five-year-old old jacket and sneaking into a small internet cafe. Hmm, I’m considering whether to call the reporters and earn some informant fees," Lanbai said, looking Chen Bin up and down.

"No problem! But you’d better think about how to introduce yourself to the reporters. You should explain why you mysteriously retired two years ago with the top-tier trap class account 'White Night Walk'?" Chen Bin didn’t take his words seriously, going straight to make tea, turn on the computer, and log into the game...

Lanbai looked at him for a moment, his lips moved, but in the end, he didn’t ask anything, letting him do as he pleased.

Chen Bin inserted the account card into the authentication device.

The game screen flashed, and the character entered the "Sword Battle" arena ladder.

The time was April 1st, 11:20 PM.

A notification popped up on every player’s screen in the arena: "Tianluo Jinyu (Rank 1) has logged in."

The game immediately exploded.

The account that had just been traded to Longyin actually appeared in the game.

Players who couldn’t directly message Chen Bin immediately spammed the world chat: "Is it Captain Chen? What’s going on with the Nine-Tailed Fox?"

"Captain Chen, why did the Nine-Tailed Fox disband? Can you explain?"

Of course, there were also those who started cursing: "What the hell? Money talks, don’t you think? It’s just that those teams offered more money, right?"

The world chat was flooded for about half an hour, but the players didn’t see Chen Bin reply. When they looked back at the chat history, they realized he had replied, but it was so brief that it was overlooked.

Chen Bin only replied: "Come, let’s fight."

For a moment, countless players flooded into the arena. The "Sword Battle" maintenance staff saw the situation and urgently added servers to stabilize the situation, preventing the ladder server from crashing.

Chen Bin opened a free match.

In a free match, there’s no matching system. Even if the ladder points are zero, you can still request to fight Chen Bin.

Ladder points are calculated based on the character’s level, equipment, number of matches, win rate, and other data through a complex formula, which no team has managed to crack yet.

Generally, there are two types of arena matches.

The first is a ladder points match, where the system automatically pairs opponents with similar points. Before the match, neither side knows who they will face.

The other is a free match, where one side can invite the other to accept, forming a match.

In the "Sword Battle" world, only system-randomly paired ladder points matches contribute to the ladder ranking, to prevent players from boosting their points through free matches.

The top 100 in the ladder receive a system notification every time they log in!

For players, that is the ultimate honor.

As the countdown of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 began, Lanbai turned off the first-person video from his side and came over to watch the live first-person view.

Tianluo Jinyu, the top-tier character account in "Sword Battle."

An 80-level maxed-out character, fully equipped with nine-star gear, refined +16, wood element enhanced +16, with three Fire Eye gems embedded in the weapon and Wind Sigh gems in all the armor...

Such a magnificent character took Chen Bin nine years to build.

Lanbai saw the familiar "3, 2, 1" pop up on the screen and couldn’t bear to watch how Chen Bin’s opponent would be utterly crushed.