Ch38 - Real men never look back at the explosion!

Edited by kat and Noks

No one thought that Mo Chen would decide so quickly and decisively.

Let alone Lan Yan, even Ling Shuyi and Chen Wei froze when they heard his response.

They hadn’t even managed to psychologically prepare themselves, yet suddenly learned about their competition lineup. They were completely caught off guard….

As the coach, Chen Xiao was the first to react and said, “That’s right, this competition is mainly to let Wen Xi get the feel for the atmosphere at a competition. Kitty’s position is an assault, A-Wei is a medic, and A-Yan is mainly responsible for support. Wen Xi’s good at shooting long-range, so the most suitable position for him to replace is A-Yan’s.”

After a pause, he pretty much grit his teeth and made up his mind. “Then let’s train according to this line-up first ba. If there is a problem in the actual competition, then A-Yan will switch in.”

Lan Yan let out an “en” and didn’t say anything.

Chen Xiao breathed a sigh of relief.

When CLM was first established, other than Mo Chen and the two Chen brothers, there was only Lan Yan. They were CLM’s first-ever team of regular players, and they had worked hard together to reach the global finals that year.

——Yes, at that time, Chen Xiao was not the coach, but was Lan Yan’s teammate.

So at this time, helplessly watching as his original teammate became a substitute made Chen Xiao feel that he was being very cruel.

However, he didn’t think that Mo Chen had done anything wrong.

Rather, he admired Mo Chen for making this decision without showing any change in his expression.

As early as Wen Xi’s first visit to CLM, Mo Chen had stated—the regular team members would be those who possessed the ability.

It was the same idea as— “in e-sports, being noob is the original sin.” This was an indisputable consensus that everyone in this field had reached.

Ling Shuyi patted Lan Yan on the shoulder, unsure of what to say.

Chen Wei comforted him, “We’re all a team. No matter what kind of adjustments we make, it’s all for the championship. Anyway, the final honor will belong to the team as a whole, and everyone in the team is indispensable.”

Lan Yan smiled a bit and replied, “En, I know. I have no objections to such an arrangement.”

He said that, but internally, it left a bad taste in his mouth.

The championship belongs to everyone in the team—that was nice to say, but how many people played e-sports for the sake of their team? In the end, it was for themselves first.

If you couldn’t win the game on your own, and you couldn’t hold the champion’s trophy yourself, then to Lan Yan, playing e-sports was meaningless.

However, he had always been gentle and easy-going, so it was absolutely impossible for him to voice his thoughts. He could only sit there and listen to Chen Xiao in silence.

Chen Xiao said, “YEEY, as the secondary team of YEY, has a very different style from YEY. YEY plays more flexibly, advancing and retreating freely. To put it bluntly, it’s clear when you should retreat from them. YEEY is more reckless. They like to face off in fierce battles, and rack up points with kills. Meanwhile, JY’s style is similar to that of MQ. They have good teamwork, and the team members won’t stray too far away from each other. They cooperate well with each other. As for QAQ, this team is relatively new, so it doesn’t feel like they have a fixed playing method and style yet. We will have to observe later.”

After that, Chen Xiao analyzed the playing methods, habits, and even personalities of the main members of the three teams in detail.

Everyone listened carefully, except for Lan Yan.

He looked at Chen Xiao as he was seriously analyzing the other teams, and sighed a bit emotionally.

My former teammate is now a qualified coach.

Meanwhile, where should he go from here on out?

*

After the meeting, everyone went to the neighborhood for lunch.

After lunch, they returned to the club. Once Lan Yan had gone upstairs, Chen Wei secretly went to find Mo Chen and said to him alone, “Lan Yan doesn’t have much time left.”

Mo Chen looked at him calmly. “So?”

“Can you let him play for another year? Just one year,” Chen Wei asked. He probably knew that his request was a bit too much, so he didn’t dare to look up at Mo Chen, and continued saying to himself, “In fact, although he didn’t say anything, he’s clear about his situation in his heart. Whether he becomes a substitute or transfers to another team, he can only play for one more year.”

Mo Chen was silent for a moment.

He knew what Chen Wei meant—if Lan Yan couldn’t play next year, then he’d miss the chance to win the championship.

However, it wasn’t like Lan Yan didn’t have chances to win the championship before.

Which of this year’s spring, summer, or domestic trials had he not played in?

And the result?

“Chen Wei, you say Lan Yan doesn’t have much time left, but what about Wen Xi?” Mo Chen coldly replied, “He’s not much younger than Lan Yan, so how many years of e-sports can he still play? If we want to win the championship, then we’ll win it next year. Whoever has the ability will compete, so what’s the problem?”

After a pause, and without waiting for Chen Wei to respond, he added, “If you want to be a good person, then I’ll allow you to exchange positions with Lan Yan.”

With that, he had both blocked Chen Wei’s retort and made him speechless at the same time.

Seeing that he didn’t reply to his suggestion, Mo Chen didn’t pay any more attention to him and went upstairs to Wen Xi’s room.

Chen Wei looked at Mo Chen’s back as he walked upstairs and sighed.

Before Wen Xi arrived, Chen Wei had thought that he would have no complaints if the rookie was very strong and squeezed him onto the bench.

But now that the rookie had replaced Lan Yan’s position, when Mo Chen proposed to him to give up his position for Lan Yan, he was also unwilling— Who didn’t want to play in the competition?

He was distressed for Lan Yan, but he didn’t want to give up his own position, and he even went to trouble the captain….

Chen Wei slapped his own forehead.

——Tch, I’m probably toxic!

Mo Chen didn’t take this matter to heart.

He had made a rational choice, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have an emotional side.

It was impossible for him to say that he regretted making this decision, but if he had to say whether he felt guilty, then Mo Chen could only say—he now sincerely wished for Lan Yan to come up and curse him out a bit.

After sighing secretly, he went and tentatively knocked on the door to Wen Xi’s room.

“Who is it?” Wen Xi was startled.

“It’s me, Mo Chen.”

Hearing Mo Chen’s familiar voice, Wen Xi was relieved. He put down the luggage that he had just been organizing and got up to open the door.

“Unpacking?” Mo Chen’s gaze went past Wen Xi, and he looked at the room that was now a little disorderly, asking, “Need any help?”

“No need, I can handle it myself,” Wen Xi responded.

“Alright.” Mo Chen also didn’t force the matter, and then hesitated before saying, “Don’t concern yourself about the matter just now.”

What had happened just now?

Was he talking about the matter of him replacing Lan Yan?

Wen Xi actually wasn’t worried about it.

It wasn’t that he was cold-blooded. First of all, he didn’t know Lan Yan well, and secondly, he had come here to fight alongside Mo Chen. He didn’t really care about the others…

However, since Mo Chen had mentioned it, then it meant that Mo Chen was a little concerned about it ba?

So Wen Xi tentatively replied, “You also don’t have to concern yourself with it.”

Hearing his response, Mo Chen froze a bit, but couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay.”

*

Over the next few days, Wen Xi began to train with the CLM players.

For this reason, he had to change his livestreaming time to 6 p.m. until 10 p.m.—it matched with both Ai Zhe and Blue Wolf’s schedules, overlapping with their livesteams for two hours each.

Wen Xi could now also count as an anchor who had a bit of fame. He could farm points on the overseas servers like Blue Wolf, and every time he made a headshot, he got a pile of gifts.

Yet for better or for worse, they were teammates who had livestreamed and crossdressed together, so some friendly feelings had been generated between them.

Thus, the four of them discussed it a bit before deciding to queue for squad matches together from 8 to 10 every night.

On the first day of their joint stream, Ai Zhe couldn’t help joking, “Bro, you’re so busy now ah. It’s too difficult to make plans with you to play a game.”

“I joined a professional team ma.” Wen Xi didn’t intend to hide this matter.

In fact, even if he didn’t admit it, the barrage on his screen and the comments on his Weibo showed that everyone had pretty much already guessed it.

“Which team was so shrewd?” Blue Wolf asked.

“I’m keeping it secret for the time being,” Wen Xi laughed and added, “I can only say that all of the top 10 teams on the total score list have sent me invitation letters.”

Ai Zhe exclaimed, “Holy shit! Awesome!”

Blue Wolf said, “It’s really awesome!”

“Haha, congratulations ah! I’m looking forward to your performance in the competition~” Ruby said, then suddenly thought of something and said, “Wow, I haven’t livestreamed together with you two for a long time. I’m really a bit not used to it.”

The two she mentioned were obviously Ai Zhe and Blue Wolf.

They really hadn’t played games together in a long time.

At least in Wen Xi’s memory, apart from that time they had crossdressed, he had never really seen both people livestreaming together before.

“I just wanted to livestream with Wen Xi,” Blue Wolf said.

“I also just wanted to livestream with Wen Xi,” Ai Zhe said, “Wolf Ge is here to make up the numbers.”

Wen Xi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry— Whatever makes you guys happy.

The four people played four matches in a row, taking first place in all four matches, and thus causing the entire JJ Livestreams game forum to explode.

——In terms of more famous SGH skill-based anchors, JJ Livestreams only had these three people. If they mixed and livestreamed together, how could it not explode?

Magic Xi smashed 200 deepwater torpedoes on Wen Xi in one breath, then waited for Wen Xi to end his livestream. She called him with her personal phone for the first time, asking, “Did you join CLM?”

Wen Xi was stunned and didn’t respond for a long time. He didn’t know how Magic Xi had guessed it.

Magic Xi said, “With your fanaticism for Mac, you couldn’t have joined another team.”

That made a lot of sense.

“Yes…” Wen Xi reluctantly admitted it and added, “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Magic Xi said with a laugh, “I just wanted to confirm it. If you really went to CLM, then… Maybe I can surprise you this week oh~”

“En?”

Magic Xi didn’t say what the surprise was, and Wen Xi was clueless on what it could be.

Until Saturday, the day of the Ice Cream Cup.

[Hello everyone, I’m Commentator Xiao Bu.]

[Hello everyone, I’m Commentator Magic Xi~]

Wen Xi: !!!

Wen Xi had never imagined that Magic Xi would be the Ice Cream Cup’s commentator!

So this was the “surprise” she had mentioned? Was she sure it wasn’t a “scare”?

Magic Xi stood on the commentator stage, dressed in a completely different way than usual. She wore a delicate red cheongsam that highlighted her wonderful figure. Her long black hair was partially tied back, and neatly draped behind her, while her current makeup suited her well. Her entire person looked natural and graceful, glowing with a kind of indescribable charm.

If it wasn’t for her voice, Wen Xi wouldn’t have recognized this mature and charming woman at first glance.

“I’m very glad to have received an invitation from the organizer to commentate on this competition~” Magic Xi said happily, “There are 22 teams participating in this competition, so the scale is quite large!”

“Yes!” the other commentator echoed, “I’m very much looking forward to their performances on the field!”

Wen Xi was still in shock when he suddenly heard Chen Wei next to him say, “Yi? Is that male commentator a JJ Livestreams anchor? I think I’ve seen him before?”

“No, he’s a director.” Chen Xiao replied, “These two people are both JJ Livestreams directors. They have provided commentary for other competitions together before.”

“Is this kind of informal competition incapable of inviting professional casters ah?” Ling Shuyi complained.

Mo Chen gave him a cold look.

Ling Shuyi: ???

Huh? Did he say something wrong?

Mo Chen knew that Magic Xi was the person in charge of Wen Xi’s livestream.

However, he felt that it was unnecessary to tell his teammates about it, so he said faintly, “Don’t chat anymore, and concentrate on checking your equipment.”

The first match was the solo competition, but he wasn’t participating in it. Lan Yan was substituting for him.

This wasn’t to comfort Lan Yan, but because Mo Chen didn’t want to steal Wen Xi’s limelight—this competition’s protagonist must be Wen Xi and could only be Wen Xi.

After all the contestants had logged in and entered the prepared map, Chen Xiao and Mo Chen withdrew from the venue and sat down in the first row of the observation platform.

“About A-Yan…” Chen Xiao had thought about it, and ultimately decided to discuss it with Mo Chen.

Mo Chen originally thought that he would plead for Lan Yan like Chen Wei. He was just about to interrupt him when unexpectedly, Chen Xiao said, “It’s obvious that his skills have worsened this year, and it’s not unfair for him to be replaced by Wen Xi. Even if Wen Xi didn’t join, any new person that arrived would have more potential than him. However, he is not only our teammate, but also our friend, so I feel that there are some things we should say to him in person.”

Mo Chen raised his eyebrow with some surprise, asking, “What things?”

Chen Xiao replied, “Regarding whether he wants to stay as a substitute for our team for one year, or transfer to another team to continue being a regular player and play another year.” He paused, before continuing, “If it were someone else, it’d be fine for us to just let them hang around like this, but it’s Lan Yan.”

“Then you ask him ba,” Mo Chen responded.

In fact, Mo Chen didn’t think it was necessary.

As an adult, Lan Yan should be very clear about his own state and CLM’s current situation. Whether or not he wanted to stay was his own choice, and he didn’t need any such reminders from others.

——Both of the Chen brothers were too emotional.

However, he didn’t object to Chen Xiao’s desire to have a chat with Lan Yan. It even might encourage Lan Yan into making a choice.

Chen Xiao knew Mo Chen well. Knowing that his non-objection to this was equivalent to encouraging him, he couldn’t help laughing and replying, “Okay, I’ll go and talk to him after the two-day competition is over.”

While they were talking, the first solo match had begun.

The director’s perspective had cut to Wen Xi from the very beginning. Who knew whether it was intentional or not?

Seeing Wency’s ID, Magic Xi’s heart beat wildly, and she almost forgot to provide commentary.

Fortunately, there was also Xiao Bu. “CLM is also participating in this competition, which was quite unexpected. However, Mac doesn’t seem to be participating in this game?”

“They must have come here to give the newbie some experience ba,” Magic Xi blurted out, “I haven’t seen this player, Wency, in any previous competitions. He’s most likely one of CLM’s new recruits.”

At this moment, Wen Xi had his headphones on and couldn’t hear Magic Xi’s voice.

If he had heard her, then he would definitely not have been able to hold back from complaining—don’t pretend as if you don’t know me, okay?

On this map, the plane would pass through Area M first, so when the plane flew over Area M, Wen Xi didn’t hesitate to press the F key to jump down— If you land first, then you can take the initiative!

After him, a lot of other players jumped out, one after another. This included QAQ’s captain, Bunny.

From Chen Xiao’s analysis, Wen Xi knew that the QAQ team especially liked to jump to the first area that the plane passed over, especially their captain, Bunny.

During this match, Bunny really did jump to the first area.

Unfortunately, Bunny had jumped to the area that Wen Xi was most proficient in, so he couldn’t blame him for not being polite.

Wen Xi roughly memorized the positions of all the players who had jumped to Area M, then began to accelerate his descent, landing on the mountain before everyone else.

He equipped his bow, switched to first person perspective, and fired off an arrow in Bunny’s direction!

“Shhpt—”

[System] You hit QAQ-Bunny with a headshot with a bow.

Bunny’s helmet was damaged, and a third of his health was gone.

Wen Xi calmly switched to a sniper rifle and equipped it with a 4x scope and red-dot sight, before aiming right above Bunny’s head, firing, and walking away.

[System] You killed QAQ-Bunny with a headshot with a sniper rifle.

At the same time, all of the players saw this in the upper right corners of their screens:

[CLM-Wency killed QAQ-Bunny with a headshot with a sniper rifle]

“Beautiful!”

The moment he saw the notification, Chen Xiao slapped Mo Chen’s leg.

The corner of Mo Chen’s lip drew in, and he pretended that it didn’t hurt, didn’t hurt, didn’t hurt….

Not long after Chen Xiao cried out “Beautiful!”, they could hear other people exclaiming and sighing in admiration all across the observation platform, obviously due to Wen Xi’s maneuver.

With great difficulty, Magic Xi managed to restrain her excitement and didn’t cry out directly. She commented as clearly as possible, “CLM’s Wency got the first kill of the competition!”

Internally: My Xi is too handsome AHHHHHH!

On the contrary, Xiao Bu excitedly said, “He used both the bow and sniper rifle to get two headshots in a row! Oh my god! This is the first time I’ve seen someone play like this! How should I analyze and explain this? I feel like it is completely incomprehensible ah!”

As soon as she heard his excitement, Magic Xi could no longer hold herself back and added, “Especially the way he turned after he shot. It was too hot! It reminded me of a sentence: Real men never look back at the explosion!”

Xiao Bu laughed. “Hahaha, it should be that real gods never look back at their headshots!”

They had thoroughly misunderstood Wen Xi’s action.

After Wen Xi had fired his gun, he had hurriedly moved back because he knew that someone had just landed behind him.

So, disregarding whether or not his shot hit, he had to move.

He slipped behind a rock as fast as he could. After swapping to his bow, he shot the person behind him with an arrow!

[System] You hit QAQ-Mice with a headshot with a bow.

This time, Wen Xi failed to headshot Mice with his sniper rifle. However, he still managed to hit them.

He decisively switched to an assault rifle and rushed up with a round of tututu!

[CLM-Wency killed QAQ-Mice with an assault rifle.]

“Another kill!” Xiao Bu commented, “The QAQ team lost two members in one go, and it was CLM’s Wency who took both their heads! CLM’s newbie is too fierce ba!”

“Of course!” Magic Xi blurted out, almost following up with “My Xi is the most handsome!”, but forcefully stopped herself and energetically amended her words by saying, “…He’s a newbie who can enter CLM, so he must have some ability? Speaking of that, two players from the same team actually jumped to the same area during the solo competition. I don’t know if that was a mistake.”

“The main point is that this CLM newbie can even get a headshot with a bow! And his headshot rate with this weapon is even higher than with his guns!” Xiao Bu said, and voiced some doubts, “He used his bow twice and got two headshots, so it doesn’t seem like a coincidence. However, he only got a headshot once with his sniper rifle. Why is that?”

Magic Xi replied, “You can tell that he is better at using the bow.”

It was the monstrous truth she had declared, but after she spoke, the clear sound of boos and jeers resounded on the competition scene— Better at using bows? Are you pulling my leg?

If you say he’s good at archery, then there’s no problem. Good at using a bow? Also no problem.

But being “better” at using a bow than a gun?

“Has this commentator not played the game before ba?” some people questioned.

“The bow is much more difficult to use than guns. Who can use bows better than guns?” — was said by a lot of people.

However, there were also some people who recognized Wen Xi.

“WTF! The archer assassin!”

“Oh my God! It’s really him on the scene!”

For a moment, the volume at the scene grew a little higher as it became noisier.

There were plainly 22 teams, with 88 people participating in the competition, but the opening minutes of the match had inexplicably become Wen Xi’s one-man show.

And this was what Mo Chen had wanted to see the most.

“You really brought back a treasure ah!” Chen Xiao said excitedly, turning his head wanting to see Mo Chen’s reaction. As a result, he saw Mo Chen’s lips curl up into something that could only be called a doting smile.

Goosebumps broke out all over Chen Xiao’s body— He had known Mo Chen for so long, but he had never seen him smile so “disgustingly” before.

Mo Chen was completely focused on Wen Xi, and didn’t notice the flash of distaste on Chen Xiao’s face.

He said to himself, “It seems that his hands are in good condition today.”

Internally: Did everyone see that?! This was his Wen Xi! Are you shocked?! Are you scared?!

Chen Xiao quietly turned back. He suddenly wanted to pretend not to know the person beside him.

At this time, YEY and MQ were playing training matches abroad, and so were naturally not watching this amazing scene at the Ice Cream Cup.

However, members of their secondary teams all witnessed the rise of a new star, Wency— They had jumped to other areas, but they couldn’t help shivering when they saw Wency’s ID sweeping across the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Even Wen Xi’s teammates felt pressured.

Ling Shuyi was carrying an assault rifle and had gotten a double kill. When he glanced at the upper right corner of the screen and once again saw Wency’s ID, he couldn’t help but laugh and say, “Good show ah!”

Inexplicably, he had the delusion that it was their captain being a pinch-hitter right now, what was with that?

Chen Wei hadn’t played solo for a long time, and he was looking for various places to hide and launch sneak attacks from. He also didn’t forget to count Wen Xi’s kills—he should be able to break past 20 ba?

He could previously tell that Wen Xi was strong, but he hadn’t expected him to be this strong.

This competition had really become Wen Xi’s one-man show.

Lan Yan had originally wanted to use this game to prove that he could still play. However, he saw more and more kills pile up in Wen Xi’s hands, while he could only try his best to avoid other people’s bullets.

Suddenly he realized—he really couldn’t do it anymore.

He felt a bit of despair, but also, inexplicably, felt relieved.

——Losing to such a bug-like existence, he couldn’t even find a reason for why he shouldn’t be resigned to his fate.

“Right,” Chen Xiao suddenly remembered something, and asked, “Wen Xi’s contract hasn’t been signed yet?”

Only after hearing the words “Wen Xi” did Mo Chen compassionately spare a bit of his attention to Chen Xiao, letting out an “en.”

Chen Xiao said, “When the two-day competition finishes, let’s have him sign ba.”

Mo Chen replied, “It’s essential.”

—

Juurensha: Yaaaay, a good first showing for Wen Xi! Still feel a bit bad for Lan Yan, but hopefully he can find something else to do too!

kat: it’s so funny to see momo fanboying just as hard as xixi! i’m glad lan yan isn’t holding a grudge against xixi either

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