Volume 4 - CH 3

Book 4: The Return of the King

Chapter 3

All the teams in the players area had witnessed their meeting.

This included K&K which had come to observe.

When she returned to Baona’s side, the pre-game warm-up had

already begun.

On the large screen, they were introducing the star teams and players

from the last 7 preliminaries.  In order to boost the tournament’s visibility,

they had been running a popularity contest on the internet and were

about to release the results.

“Do you think that rookie king is very promising?”  Baona asked her

in low voice.

Ai Qing nodded.

The last words that boy told her was,  “I may not win now, but I

definitely will be the one to replace Slide in the future.”  He was very

confident, very clear minded, and very straightforward.

In another year or at most two, Slide and All would retire one after

another.

After all, the future was for the rookies.

On the large screen, pictures of players started to disappear one

by one.

At last, there were only five pictures which were then enlarged,

replacing each other on screen.

The first picture displayed was naturally the man wearing a black

baseball cap.  As his picture gradually magnified, the fans in arena

began screaming excitedly. Fans kept yelling “D Devil”,  “D Devil”......

This was Dt’s new nickname on the internet.

It seemed that a very famous hostess was the first one to give him the

Baona clicked his tongue a couple of times.  “His popularity is too high.

It’s scary, very scary.  I looked at the votes backstage. He has 30% more

votes than second place. He’s practically a national icon.”

Ai Qing kept silent and glanced over there again.

The next four players were listed according to the order of internet

popularity, Slide, Taotao, Grunt, and Bug.

So when Bug’s picture popped out, a not so handsome, bespectacled,

and somewhat serious looking man, he was stunned……

SP teammates burst into jeers.  The whole group booed, further reddening

Bug’s face.  “It’s, it’s, the system was probably down……” All pushed him

and laughed loudly.  “You brat, don’t push your luck. Don’t you know that

this means you have the charisma in the future to find a wife?  Now your

value in SP is only next to the captain.”

All finished, but couldn’t help adding.  “See, when I was in the old team,

my popularity was lower than the captain and the vice captain.  Now I’m

the vice captain, but I’m still pinned under Slide and Bug. I’m the third

one forever.”

They were laughing and joking here.

Ai Qing’s cell phone rang.

She looked at it, while thinking that she should first turn off her cell phone

so it didn’t distract her when the matches began.

But after she saw the caller’s phone number, the clock suddenly stopped

for a moment.  Her cell phone was still ringing. Baona thought it odd and

asked her, “Why don’t you answer it? Is it too noisy here? Go to the rest

area if it’s too noisy here.”

Ai Qing shook her head, “It’s not noisy here.”

It was not noisy here, not noisy enough.  It should be noisier. It would be

She answered the phone while thinking about it and put the phone to

her ear.

“Damn.  I thought I dialed the wrong number.”  The familiar northern accent,

plus the southern tailing sound he had picked up from living in the south for

years, confirmed to Ai Qing that it was indeed him.  “Tell Slide and All not to

shame us. I’ve been watching every match. Let all these junior players see

what ‘Return of the King’ means.”

Return of the King……

Ai Qing answered in the affirmative.  She glanced over at the still arrogant

and domineering All, the only player from Solo’s team who still qualified to

play the competitions.

Though the captain Solo, vice captain Gun, sniper Appledog and the

defense Xiaomi was no more…...except All, but this was their team.

Everybody was still there behind All.