Chapter 12: Call Me Brother
Seventeen-year-old Shen Yanjin irritably ruffled his newly dyed hair and cursed coldly and hatefully at the computer: “Foolish teammates.”
It was summer vacation. Outside the window, the cicadas unique to midsummer chirped noisily and incessantly.
Shen Yanjin’s final exam results were decent. Thanks to that, he spent the entire summer vacation comfortably nestled in his room playing games.
Days without skipping class to inhale secondhand smoke at internet cafes were leisurely and happy. Shen Yanjin forgot to eat and sleep, sitting in front of the computer for over ten hours a day without moving, successfully pushing his account into WL’s top 100 leaderboard.
At this time, the new season of WL had just begun, and scores and ranks were reset. It also happened to be nearing the end of the month, and every pro team’s quotas were approaching the deadline. The leaderboard at this time was in deep water and scorching fire, changing almost every second. Comparing ranking up to hell was definitely not an exaggeration.
On the top 100 leaderboard, Shen Yanjin, as a random player sandwiched between IDs of pro players, naturally attracted countless attentive gazes.
More importantly, he wasn’t playing relatively easy-to-climb positions like Jungle or Carry, but Support, which had almost no carry ability.
And it was solo queue.
Solo queue Supportâthose who knew, knew. Without making mistakes yourself, you couldn’t rank up. Playing extraordinarily well would at most get you a 50-50 chance. Only by meeting teammates who knew how to play could the game be steadily secured.
simply put, luck was greater than mechanics.
Although Shen Yanjin had reached the top 100, he still had to stabilize his ranking for half a month to get the ranking rewardâa silver badge engraved with a crown.
For players with this silver badge, every time they entered the game loading screen, their ID would flash with silver lightâvery impressive. For an internet-addicted teenager, this was an indispensable tool for showing off.
At this moment, Shen Yanjin looked at his ranking which had already dropped to ninety-six, exhaled with a dark face, steadied his mentality, and continued to queue.
Calm, calm.
Games always have wins and losses.
However, less than two minutes into the game, Shen Yanjin felt something was wrong.
Their bot lane was suppressed too miserably. Two waves of minions, and the AD hadn’t even eaten half.
Not long after, the jungler was solo killed at level 3 in the jungle.
Mid lane was pinned down under the tier 2 tower.
Ten minutes, three outer towers broken.
Fifteen minutes, surrender, crystal shattered.
Shen Yanjin clenched the mouse tightly.
Although he often encountered such games, today seemed particularly plagued. He lost four games in a row. The points he worked hard to climb for half a month were gone in just over an hour.
Now, no matter how much he advised himself to be calm, he couldn’t help but want to cry from anger.
Why so unlucky!
Stupid game, trash teammates!
Shen Yanjin glanced at his ranking, which was already dangling precariously at the tail end of one hundred, and despairingly said bye-bye to the coveted little silver badge.
Just then, the in-game notification sound ding-donged, and a team invite popped up.
He looked up feebly and found the person inviting him was the opposing jungler from the last game.
He remembered this person played Ascetic Monk. Rhythm and mechanics were ridiculously good, punch by punch smashing their side into pieces.
However, Shen Yanjin didn’t know this person. He didn’t follow competitions; playing WL was just out of interest. Seeing the other party had a pro team prefix, he assumed it was like those people before, inviting him to play professionally. He rejected the team invite and typed.
[YanGold: Not playing pro, not going to youth training, please find someone else.]
On the other end, the young man sitting in the gaming chair gave a short laugh seeing this reply.
[KW-RedMoon: Not ranking up either?]
[YanGold: ?]
[KW-RedMoon: Ranking up alone is too hard, take this along.]
[KW-RedMoon: (The other party pasted their ID to you)]
[KW-RedMoon: Duo queue, kid?]
“Eh?”
A teammate passed by from behind and stretched his head to look: “Isn’t this that solo queue Support King? Many teams contacted him before, but all got rejected. What, turns out you know him.”
Duan Mingyue was waiting for a reply. Hearing this, he smiled lazily: “Don’t know him, met by chance.”
That teammate said “Wow” very exaggeratedly: “Met by chance and carrying him to rank up? Bodhisattva Moon, can your radiance shine on me too?”
“Not carrying.” Duan Mingyue shook out a cigarette and held it in his mouth, unlit. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the training room; whenever the craving hit, he would do this to get by. “Carrying him is my pleasure, got a problem?”
“Sure, how could there be a problem?” The teammate patted his shoulder and walked away grinning.
YanGold didn’t respond for a long time. Duan Mingyue pulled up his profile and flipped through it.
To be honest, the data was excellent, and the style very sharp.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what kind of high-spirited and incredibly arrogant genius youth was behind the controls.
Many teams lacking a support in the circle were eager to recruit this good seedling, but all returned in failure.
The only one without movement was KW.
The team’s support, Lucida Lu Yuan, was beautiful and meticulous, with delicate mechanics. She spoke and acted gently, and the whole team liked her.
Except Duan Mingyue.
Sometimes he felt this woman was smart, sometimes he felt she was stupid.
Was his dislike not expressed clearly enough? Otherwise, why would she tirelessly crowd around him every day?
Previously using discussing tactics as a pretext to run to his room in the middle of the night, or using various small actions to provoke him, and deliberately speaking ambiguously on stream, making Duan Mingyue inexplicably acquire several love debts.
The matters were small, but annoying to death.
Duan Mingyue tried both soft and hard tactics, but Lu Yuan was impervious to both.
And YanGold appeared at just the right time.
Eighteen-year-old Duan Mingyue’s thinking was simple.
In esports, strength speaks. Getting a capable support who wouldn’t create drama to replace Lu Yuan was a good thing for him, beneficial and harmless to the team, killing two birds with one stone.
So, he was lying.
He came personally to seduce and trick the little support into taking the bait.
Shen Yanjin paused for two seconds and clicked on RedMoon’s profile.
Then he was blinded by that glaring, golden ID.
This was the Gold Badge only the server’s number one could get each season!
Earlier his mentality was on the verge of exploding, failing to recognize Mount Tai, actually not realizing the server’s number one was right opposite him!
And the server’s number one actively sought him for duo queue to rank up!
Making an internet-addicted teenager admire you was simple: just be better than him.
Shen Yanjin instantly changed from his suspicion and indifferent attitude just now, drooled over the Gold Badge for a while, then actively clicked to team up.
RedMoon accepted.
Shen Yanjin was pulled into the voice channel. Soon, a lazy and husky male voice came from the headphones.
“Hello?” RedMoon seemed to fiddle with the mic, producing a burst of static noise. “Can you hear me?”
Hearing no response, he frowned and repeated doubtfully: “Can you hear me?”
Shen Yanjin froze, scrambling to turn on the microphone: “Yeah, I can hear… haven’t used the mic in too long.”
As he spoke, he secretly rubbed his reddening earlobe, muttering inwardly: Is this guy holding the mic in his mouth? Why does it sound like he’s speaking right next to my ear… Too flirtatious.
Then he spat on himself: Why go gaga just meeting a man with a nice voice?
RedMoon chuckled lightly: “Alright, I’m queueing?”
Shen Yanjin forced himself to calm down: “You queue.”
Two strangers meeting for the first time in the same voice channel should logically be awkward. Shen Yanjin rarely duo-queued, and being a bit socially anxious, he was particularly bad at handling such an atmosphere.
But unexpectedly, being with RedMoon, there was no such feeling at all.
Let alone awkwardness, he was even forced to feel a trace of enthusiasm.
RedMoon chatted with him: “How do you pronounce your ID? Yan… Gold? Does it mean words are as precious as gold?”
Shen Yanjin didn’t want him to know his real name, mumbling “En” vaguely: “I just made it up randomly.”
RedMoon said “Wow” and smiled: “Impressive, cultured. How should I call you? Little Yan? Little Gold? Little Yan Gold?”
Shen Yanjin felt his face heating up: “…Must there be a ‘Little’?”
“Is it bad?” RedMoon smiled. “I think it’s very cute.”
Shen Yanjin unconsciously scrolled the mouse wheel: “Up to you.”
“Then how should you call me? Let me think.” RedMoon pretended to ponder for a while, saying with unconcealed teasing: “I’m older than you. You calling me Brother isn’t excessive, right? Come, call me Brother Moon, let me hear it.”
Shen Yanjin heard he was teasing him, pursed his lips with a blushing face, unwilling to reply.
At the same time, unable to suppress the curiosity in his heart, he quietly opened the browser and typed RedMoon’s name into the search engine.
Search results appeared quickly.
The first link on the first page was a summary of RedMoon’s career as a pro player.
Below was a photo.
In the photo, a handsome young man was looking at the camera with a slight smile. He wore a black and red team jacket, long straight legs casually crossed, back very straight and upright, making his whole temperament outstanding.
The photo was very clear, clear enough that Shen Yanjin could almost see the muscle lines hidden under the young man’s jacket and the smile contained in those eyes.
“Not talking, angry?” RedMoon smiled, simultaneously reflecting that the kid was thin-skinned, and he should restrain himself a bit. “If you don’t call, you don’t call. Don’t ignore me.”
“You… I’m not angry.” Shen Yanjin really couldn’t toughen up. The smiling voice in the headphones and the photo in front of him invisibly connected. He could almost imagine the look on that person’s face when speaking to him.
He closed his eyes. How can someone have both a voice and a face so to my taste?
If the awkwardness just now was due to social anxiety and admiration for the server’s number one, then eight parts of Shen Yanjin’s uncontrollably jumping heart now were because of seeing RedMoon’s face.
The internet-addicted teenager’s first awakening of love was recklessly and frivolously dedicated to a stranger across the internet cable and screen.
He quickly scanned downwards.
RedMoon… real name, Duan Mingyue.
Shen Yanjin unconsciously licked his lips: “Y-you’re only one year older than me.”
Duan Mingyue froze, then reacted and laughed: “Don’t say one year older, even if I’m one hour older, that’s still older.”
This time, the voice channel was silent for a long timeâat least Duan Mingyue felt it was a long time.
Just when he almost couldn’t help breaking this silence, Shen Yanjin spoke.
With a slightly childish voice, shy and stuttering, the boy called out, “Brother Moon.”
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