Volume 4 - CH 2

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 4: The Return of the King

Chapter 2

The next day was the first of the three-day preliminaries at Shanghai.

Shanghai was the last preliminary in the nation.

It was the final stop of the eight-city preliminaries.

The past three months have been wonderful to watch. The brightest

moment among the seven preliminaries that already concluded was at

Guangzhou, because there was one of the two largest clubs, K&K, and

a veteran team, Buff.

And now, this stadium would draw even more attention for the next

The moment the SP bus drove into the stadium parking lot, the fans

crowding outside the stadium went into a frenzy.  Ai Qing looked at the

passionate girls surrounding the bus and the more numerous men at the

distance and spoke to Slide in a low voice,  “I would never have imagined

ten or even five years ago that esports would be so hot nowadays.”

“It’s more than that.  The seats are all sold out.  The attendance rate is the

same as the highest attendance rates of the CBA.”  Baona took off his

sunglasses. He raised his eyebrows to Ai Qing, proud of his foresight in

joining SP from the start. “The black market is selling the 40 RMB tickets

for the first two days of the preliminaries for 150. The tickets for the final

day are 400.”

Slide stood up and grabbed his backpack from the luggage rack.  As

everybody began to collect their bags, only Ai Qing and Baona relaxedly

But they had underestimated the power of a celebrity team.

Before Ai Qing’s foot touched the ground, she was shoved aside by the crowd.

After she confusedly and awkwardly squeezed out from the crowd of fans

who were swarming towards them, she turned back to find a sea of cell

phones in the air taking pictures.  Even Bug, the least handsome, most nerdy

looking, of the bunch had a younger girl hugging his neck with a V sign.

Slide embarrassedly lifted his arms high up.  A young girl, who looked as red

as a beet, in front of him gave him a book.  “This is the book you mentioned on

Weibo that you couldn’t find.” Before she finished, there were more small gifts

being presented to him……

Ai Qing pulled aside her boss who was in a daze from all the shoving.  She

pointed to the stadium. “Let’s wait on the stairs…...”

Baona kept looking back at the lively scene. “Oh, oh. That guy’s really popular

with girls.”

When all the players freed themselves from the crowd and hurriedly walked

into the players entrance, even the security guards were excited.  “There were

a bunch of boys before you. Same thing happened to them. Those young girls

said that you guys are star players. It’s hard to imagine that esports has come

so far, eh?”

Slide was in a fluster, opening his backpack to stuff the various gifts in.

All hugged his neck.  “Captain, you’re really something.”

“It’s another type of trouble.  Trouble.” Slide pushed All away with his elbow

and tidied his outfit.  “Bothers, no joking around. Let’s go.”

Other than the first match in Korea and the game with RAP two months ago,

SP’s A team was like a shadow waiting to come into the light.  But now, here,

their first official competition was about to begin.

Ai Qing walked into the arena and signed in at the staff station.

Somebody patted her shoulder just as she had put down the pen, “Boss.”

Uhm?  Ai Qing turned her head back to see a strange face.

“Boss, finally I can formally introduce myself.”  The big boy with hair dyed

peach pink stretched out his hand.  He made the self introduction in a

business-like manner. “I am Taotao.  Tao Qitao.”

The staff at the registration station all stared at them with interest.

The nineteen years old Taotao, who was ranked number 3 in China, had drawn

the attention of a lot of fans since he walked in the arena.  It was a show of his

popularity. The organizer’s marketing people even took pictures with him trying

to cultivate him as the star player…...And now, this big boy, stood calmly in front

of Ai Qing making a self introduction.

“Hello.”  Ai Qing candorly shook his hand.  “Do your best.”

It didn’t matter whether he would lose or win.

Just do your best...