[Esports] I Started an Online Romance with a Big Shot After Retiring Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Exposed?

Triple Kill.

As Hammer Sister fell, a flurry of question marks instantly lit up on the minimap, pinged by teammates. They were all marveling at the extreme operation of this counter-kill.

Shen Yanjin leaned back in his chair as if drained of strength, his right hand trembling slightly from pain due to the burst of hand speed just now.

He gritted his teeth and rubbed it, a layer of cold sweat breaking out on his back from the piercing pain.

Pain, really too painful.

The doctor told Shen Yanjin to rest, but he couldn’t rest at all. High-intensity duo-queueing with Shi Feng yesterday, competing with Duan Mingyue today—his inflamed right wrist couldn’t bear such a load, using severe pain to warn Shen Yanjin.

But how long had he played?

Not even one-fifth of his former training time.

Shen Yanjin looked at his right hand, a trace of despair crossing his eyes uncontrollably.

Seeing him standing still, Duan Mingyue asked: “What’s wrong? Did you disconnect?”

Shen Yanjin typed with his left hand alone: QAQ Moon God, something came up suddenly. I don’t think I can continue playing after this game.

He pressed Enter to send, his heart bleeding. If possible, he really didn’t want to be the one to leave actively.

Duan Mingyue seemed to see through his thoughts and smiled: “If you have things to do, go do them. It’s okay.”

Shen Yanjin hardened his heart and continued shamelessly: Then can I still duo queue with you in the future?

Seeing this sentence, Duan Mingyue’s index finger unconsciously tapped the side of the keyboard a few times, as if deliberating. He paused for a while before saying: “Sure.”

Getting an affirmative answer, Shen Yanjin let go of some worry. He endured the pain to hold the mouse again, biting the bullet to continue operating.

Duan Mingyue noticed UOOW’s mechanics were a bit deformed. Not thinking much, he assumed she was just restless because of being rushed by matters.

Recalling that flowing movement operation just now, he hesitated, then seemingly casually asked: “Little U… no problem calling you that, right? How long have you played WL?”

Shen Yanjin knew his operation just now was a bit too showy. Sensing Duan Mingyue seemed suspicious and was fishing for information, he typed calmly: Two years ah.

Duan Mingyue was thoughtful and joked: “Your movement just now was really sharp. Watching it made me want to recruit you into our team.”

Sponsored

The speaker meant nothing, but the listener took it to heart.

[If you want to play pro, find another team. KW doesn’t lack a support.]

[Be sensible, let’s end it here.]

The conversation from five years ago was like a thorn deeply embedded in the bottom of Shen Yanjin’s heart. Every time he thought he had almost forgotten, it would ruthlessly tear open his wound again, making fresh blood flow.

Insomnia, nightmares, regret.

And deep inferiority.

For how many days and nights was he tormented into tossing and turning by those bone-chilling words.

But Shen Yanjin never expected that the words he had foolishly dreamed of for five years would be spoken lightly by Duan Mingyue at such a time.

Spoken to a girl he just met not long ago who only performed one godlike play.

Not to YanGold, and… impossible to be said to YanGold.

Shen Yanjin couldn’t describe what kind of mood he was in right now. His chest ached and swelled, seemingly filled with something. Yet at the same time, he felt a huge sense of loss, empty, wind leaking from all sides, freezing him into shivers.

He typed numbly: Wow~ really! Happy to be recognized by Brother so much~

But the corners of his mouth couldn’t even pull up a slight arc.

At this moment, he actually started to rejoice that he couldn’t open the mic and could only type.

The opponent’s rhythm, which had been slowly building up, was shattered by this triple kill in the jungle, completely routed. After Duan Mingyue took Baron, they were utterly unable to recover, and surrendered not long after.

Shen Yanjin said bye-bye to Duan Mingyue with kaomojis, then exited the voice channel and game client, exhaling heavily.

He picked up the cigarette pack on the side, tapped one out, held it in his mouth, and lit it.

The scent of nicotine temporarily smoothed the anxiety in Shen Yanjin’s heart. He closed his eyes, finishing the cigarette unhurriedly. Feeling his emotions return to calm, he stubbed out the cigarette and picked up the phone on the table.

Duan Mingyue duo-queued just now, Shen Yanjin had muted the phone fearing untimely disturbances.

Unlocking the screen now, he was surprised to find quite a few people looking for him.

Sponsored

[WOF-Mountain: [gif]]

[WOF-Mountain: ?]

Shen Yanjin clicked on the gif.

It showed the WL game map.

In the jungle, Bell Spirit and Tata walked side by side. Bell Spirit inadvertently face-checked the buff bush, getting controlled by three burly men inside. Immediately, Tata was focused down to critical health and inflicted with healing reduction.

Bell Spirit flashed in front of him, maneuvered with positioning, firmly protecting the Tata with a sliver of health behind her. After switching to Soul-Eating Bell, she completed the counter-attack, securing a triple kill.

Shen Yanjin’s brain buzzed, and he hurriedly closed the gif.

Wasn’t this the game he just finished with Duan Mingyue?

Who can tell him, how long had it been? Half an hour? How come even a gif was out!

Shen Yanjin stared blankly for a moment, then carefully replied with the same “?”.

[Sliver: ?]

[WOF-Mountain: Do you have anything you want to explain?]

[Sliver: .]

[Sliver: You wouldn’t be trying to say this support is me.]

[WOF-Mountain: Is it not?]

Shen Yanjin clicked his tongue. He duo-queued with Yue Fengling quite frequently, and Yue Fengling liked to bring out his unpresentable AD to see the world. Helplessly, when duoing with him, eighty percent of the time Shen Yanjin had to pick a protective support to cover him.

So, even if others couldn’t recognize it, Yue Fengling would recognize Shen Yanjin seeing this Bell Spirit.

Tricky.

He deliberately waited a while before replying.

Sponsored

[Sliver: I went to the hospital yesterday, my hand hurts so much I can’t move it, and I’m playing games?]

[Sliver: Besides, I checked, this is a Diamond tier game, right.]

[WOF-Mountain: …Opposing Mid laner is Kai, Jungler is also a King tier streamer.]

[WOF-Mountain: [gif]]

He sent another image over. This time it was Duan Mingyue arrogantly going into the jungle to catch people, coordinating with Shen Yanjin to get a double kill.

Who the fck made these?*

Shen Yanjin saved them through gritted teeth.

[Sliver: Who is this Tata?]

[Sliver: Plays pretty well.]

[WOF-Mountain: …]

Even if Yue Fengling saw through it, there was no evidence to prove it. If Shen Yanjin insisted on denying it, he couldn’t do anything and had to let it go.

Seeing him stop questioning, Shen Yanjin breathed a sigh of relief and clicked the next message.

[TWG-Wind: [gif]]

???

Shen Yanjin was confused.

This time he didn’t even need to click to know this damn image was that triple kill again.

Was what I did that obvious?

He replied to Shi Feng with a question mark, then turned to open Kai’s stream room.

As soon as he entered, he heard Kai bragging extravagantly.

He seemed to have determined UOOW was his future sister-in-law. Plus, since Lucida really went too far recently, there was also an intention to suppress her, so the praise was unreserved.

Sponsored

“See that? This positioning!”

Kai was watching the recording of that game just now. Reaching the exciting part, he even turned on slow-motion replay, taking the more than one million viewers in the stream room to savor Shen Yanjin’s operation frame by frame.

And perhaps fearing the audience would recognize Tata as Duan Mingyue, he intentionally avoided Tata’s brilliant plays, pushing all credit onto Shen Yanjin’s head.

He said excitedly: “Precise, neat, clean! Not a single bit of excess! Brothers, don’t look at this as a Diamond game. In this game, our side had me on Mid and Little Kuo on Jungle! Know Little Kuo? Yes, that King high-ELO jungler streamer. We two happened to match together.”

He cleared his throat and continued impassionedly: “Perfectly predicting the skill usage of a King streamer and a pro player the whole time. This… isn’t me blindly blowing smoke, but this operation, even some active pro supports can’t do it, right?”

“Everyone, come, spam ‘UOOW awesome’ with me!”

Shen Yanjin: “…”

He closed the stream room, holding his forehead, finally understanding why so many people knew about this mess.

Turns out someone was advertising for him for free.

Kai doing this was half wanting to use UOOW to suppress Lu Yuan’s arrogance, and half wanting to make up to UOOW. After all, he had called him a loose woman in front of the person himself, and even cursed Duan Mingyue in passing. Thinking back, he was terribly scared.

Shen Yanjin felt his scalp tingle from this wave of compensation.

Annoyed, he switched back to the chat box with Shi Feng. Shi Feng had a new reply by now.

Fortunately, Shen Yanjin always played control supports with him, so Shi Feng didn’t see through it.

[TWG-Wind: This wave of protective support jungle-support roam opened a new door for me.]

[TWG-Wind: I asked Aiai, he said we can try.]

[TWG-Wind: Wuwuwuwu finally I don’t have to duo with his control support anymore. I really want to send this UOOW a silk banner!!!]

That won’t be necessary.

Shen Yanjin amusingly congratulated him a few times.

Then he scrolled to the last message.

[Lu Hui: Little Gold, free tonight?]

Sponsored

[Lu Hui: I’ll call everyone, gather at the old place?]

Shen Yanjin paused, replying: Okay.

Almost simultaneously, another new message popped up from Yue Fengling.

[WOF-Mountain: UOOW’s identity… I won’t say much.]

[WOF-Mountain: But if your condition is really maintained this well, I sincerely feel you should come back and try.]

Shen Yanjin didn’t reply.

He couldn’t and didn’t want to tell Yue Fengling too much about the surgery. Telling others such things would only increase their worry without changing the current situation.

But at this moment, looking at Yue Fengling’s “should come back and try,” suddenly associating it with Duan Mingyue’s joking “wanted to recruit you into our team” just now, a wisp of somewhat unrealistic fantasy suddenly emerged in his heart, which was feeling lost just a moment ago.

📖 Return to Table of Contents