Chapter 12 ◎ A Horror Movie? ◎
The pre-season lasted only a month and soon came to an end.
Before the regular season officially began, Yu Pei was ordered to give a pre-match pep talk to the rest of the team.
The problem was, this guy was a pure chatterbox. A perfectly good pep talk turned into him rambling about random nonsense for ages.
“Everyone knows that if we play well, we play, and if we don’t, we get flamed. I remember that guy from the team next door… he made a mistake in a BO3 and lost, and he got flamed so hard by fans and haters alike that he almost retired.”
“Even though we sleep at 2 AM, at least we pass the time playing games. Isn’t that better than those office workers who have to work overtime writing documents until 2 AM?”
“Does what we do even count as overtime? How could it! It’s normal off-duty time, okay!”
“Just think about it. When we get first place in the regular season, the bonus is distributed, and we go on break… carrying money to see our parents and saying, ‘I average tens of thousands a month,’ isn’t that super respectable?”
“Um… whether there’s a break or not, that’s another story.”
…
By the end, Lin Sumo was almost asleep, his head bobbing up and down like a chicken pecking rice. When Yu Pei finally finished his nonsense, he perked up instantly, like a student hearing the dismissal bell.
The team leader, who had been dragged in to take minutes, rubbed his forehead. “…My Captain Yu, Song Hong asked me to take meeting minutes. With what you said… how am I supposed to write this?”
Yu Pei waved his hand indifferently. “Write whatever you want.”
Team Leader: “……”
“Alright,” Yu Pei said. “Go do what you need to do. I’ll have Song Hong send you the regular season schedule later. Remember to take a look at it yourselves.”
…
A few days later was Trust’s first regular season match of the season, against Team YH.
YH’s base and the venue were in Ying’an, quite a distance from Luowen, so they took a plane there two days in advance.
On the bus, Song Hong was in high spirits and clapped his hands together. “You guys have been training hard these past few days, and YH isn’t a particularly tough team to beat. Since we’re here early anyway, how about we treat today as a holiday and go have some fun nearby?”
Cheers erupted inside the bus.
Jiang He stretched. “I didn’t expect our Little Red to be so kind-hearted.”
Xiao Lanyu looked disgusted and covered his mouth. “Reign in your craziness.”
Shen Chen asked from the front row, “Shall we go to Shengwei? That mall is quite famous in Ying’an.”
Everyone else agreed, so Shen Chen asked the driver to head to Shengwei Mall.
On the way, they saw that there were new movies out recently and planned to catch one when they got there.
At the time, Lin Sumo didn’t think much of watching a movie, so he agreed readily. He didn’t ask what they were going to watch, nor did he look closely when he took the ticket.
Sitting down in his seat, Lin Sumo looked to his side and realized he was sitting next to Pei Yun.
Lin Sumo shifted away like he was avoiding a plague god and asked the others, “Can anyone swap seats with me?”
Jiang He: “Your side doesn’t have massage chairs.”
Yu Pei: “That seat has a bad viewing angle.”
Xiao Lanyu: “Don’t want to move.”
Shen Chen glanced at the two sitting together, understanding dawning in his heart. “I don’t want to move either.”
Lin Sumo: “……”
Helpless, Lin Sumo could only sit back down silently.
Less than ten minutes into the movie, Lin Sumo felt something was wrong.
This scene, this atmospheric rendering, this background music…
Hiss, why does it feel like a horror movie…
Lin Sumo hurriedly raised the hand clutching the movie ticket and squinted to read it in the dim light.
It would have been better if he hadn’t looked. One look and Lin Sumo discovered the movie title was a standard horror movie name: Ghost Shadow in the Lonely Village.
Lin Sumo silently cursed in the dark.
Actually, he had been afraid of ghosts since he was a child—more than anything else in the world.
Once, Lin Sumo was tricked by a friend into watching a horror movie. As a result, he didn’t sleep for three days; every time he closed his eyes, he saw the ferocious ghost faces from the film.
Later, when Pei Yun found out, he mocked him for being afraid of ghosts.
Lin Sumo opened his mouth. “…Can I leave first?”
Jiang He, unaware of his situation, blurted out, “Mo-mo, you’re not afraid of this, are you?”
“Just watch it, the tickets are bought,” Yu Pei chimed in. “Besides, this movie has high ratings.”
Lin Sumo: “……” Is it too late to just crash and die right now?
He silently brainwashed himself in his heart that there was nothing to be afraid of. As the movie gradually reached its climax, Lin Sumo’s heart pounded wildly. He took a breath and reached into the popcorn bucket beside the seat, preparing to eat a kernel to embolden himself. Suddenly, he touched a patch of cold skin that didn’t belong to him.
“Ahhhhh!!!” Lin Sumo was startled out of his wits. Disregarding everything else, he jumped a huge distance in the other direction. As luck would have it, he tripped over Pei Yun’s extended leg. With his center of gravity unstable, he fell to the side.
It’s over.
Just when Lin Sumo thought he was destined for a comminuted fracture today, a hand suddenly appeared and grabbed him.
Lin Sumo turned his head and discovered the owner of the hand was actually Pei Yun.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” Lin Sumo frowned, sucking in a breath of cold air. “Let go, let go, I can get up!”
Pei Yun indifferently released the hand holding him.
Lin Sumo shook the arm that had been gripped painfully. Turning his head, he found Jiang He looking over with a confused expression, a piece of popcorn frozen in mid-air in his hand.
Lin Sumo: “……”
Scared like this by a hand… Lin Sumo, really?
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