Part 2
“Tsk, Brother is thinking, for someone who gets uncomfortable and shy just being stared at by one person, how did you dare to profess your love publicly in front of so many viewers on stage just now?”
Wen Ran: “……”
He defended himself somewhat anxiously, “Who professed love to you? The person I was talking about isn’t you!”
“You’re shameless! Stop assuming it’s about you!”
Jiang Yan crossed his arms, waiting leisurely to watch his performance. “I’m wrongly accused. Didn’t you say you were thanking your teammate?”
Wen Ran: “……”
“If thanking a teammate, why did you use the word ‘profess love’?!”
“Oh~” Jiang Yan said. “So the first person Ran-Ran mentioned was a confession of love.”
Wen Ran: “……”
“Where did you go for advanced studies these past two days?” Jiang Yan teased him intentionally. ” Making ‘I like you’ sound so noble and grand.”
Wen Ran couldn’t win the argument at all and stomped on Jiang Yan’s foot in exasperation.
“He heard it.” Jiang Yan leaned close to Wen Ran’s ear. “He asked me to tell you, he likes you too.”
“Likes you for a lifetime.”
The man’s voice fell by his ear, carrying a sensation like an electric current running through him, densely packed and tugging at Wen Ran’s heartstrings.
It made him blush crimson.
Jiang Yan didn’t continue teasing him. “Ran-Ran, I’m taking you to meet a friend tonight.”
Wen Ran: “?”
He was just about to ask about this friend when he heard Orange’s voice.
“Captain?”
After approaching, he saw Wen Ran clearly. “Dawn? Why are you here too?”
Orange noticed that Wen Ran was wearing Wind’s jacket.
Orange only felt it was exceptionally piercing to the eyes.
The captain had rejected his movie invitation, saying he was going to find a friend, yet while wandering aimlessly, he bumped into him together with Wen Ran.
Orange was a little sad, his voice trembling. “Captain, didn’t you say you were going to meet a friend?”
“Why are you with Dawn?”
Did he deceive him, or was this friend he mentioned… Dawn?
Orange didn’t know what he was thinking either. In a moment of heat, he asked, “Captain, why do you treat Wen Ran so differently?”
“Do you like him?”
He must be crazy.
Orange never imagined that one day he would dare to speak to Wind like this. That was his male god, the famous Jungle King Daddy.
He naturally held a sense of reverence toward Wind.
Orange regretted it as soon as he asked. What right did he have to question him like this? Their relationship was merely that of teammates.
The captain was a senior he respected and his preferred type, but the captain had no relationship with him whatsoever.
And it was disrespectful to Wen Ran too.
Just as Orange was about to apologize, Jiang Yan spoke before him.
“Yes.” Jiang Yan looked firmly into the other’s eyes. “I like Wen Ran.”
Orange: “???”
“And the two of us are currently in a formal romantic relationship.”
Orange felt his worldview had been impacted.
Wind and Dawn were actually a couple!
Orange couldn’t say a word; he didn’t know how to express his current emotions.
The person he liked actually already had a partner, and it was his own teammate!
No wonder he always felt Wind treated Dawn differently before. How could one treat their partner the same as an ordinary person?
Wen Ran glanced at Jiang Yan; he was also a bit surprised that he said it out loud.
“Ran-Ran and I are just like ordinary couples; we like each other, so we are together,” Jiang Yan said. “The reason we didn’t go public is that this is the first season, and we both wanted to play the matches well first.”
“If possible, I hope you can give us your blessing.” Jiang Yan curved the corners of his lips. “I love Ran-Ran very much.”
This was the first time Wen Ran had been confessed to by Jiang Yan so blatantly and passionately in front of an acquaintance.
He blushed and elbowed Jiang Yan backward.
“I…” Orange looked at their natural movements and bit his lower lip. “Of course I will.”
“……Bless you.”
He liked Wind, but so what? Jiang Yan was already with Wen Ran. If he still had any dignity and basic morality, he should know to keep his distance.
Those secret feelings that hadn’t been spoken aloud—the best way was to hide them in his stomach for a lifetime.
Besides, the look in Jiang Yan’s eyes when he looked at Wen Ran was so gentle. Eyes couldn’t lie; the hidden love inside was almost overflowing.
It wasn’t easy to find a lover one liked so much in this lifetime.
What’s more, Wen Ran seemed to have thanked him on stage today, and he was a nice person.
He was also very good-looking; he matched the captain quite well.
“As for the friend, we really are going to meet a friend,” Jiang Yan said. “I don’t lie.”
“Sorry, Captain.” Orange’s face turned red too, this time from embarrassment.
He thought for a moment, took out his phone, and forwarded the two tickets to Wen Ran. “Then I’ll give these two movie tickets to you guys. If you can make it, you can go watch it.”
“Then I’ll go back first.”
After saying that, Orange left.
Wen Ran followed Jiang Yan and met his friend at a barbecue stall.
The other party looked about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a buzz cut, smiling very happily.
“Here?”
“Here.” Jiang Yan sat in the seat opposite him. “Why didn’t you tell me in advance that you were coming?”
“You were playing matches, I didn’t want to disturb you.” The man looked at Jiang Yan with a smile. “But for your Grand Finals, of course I had to come watch.”
“Tonight was truly too strong, just like you back then.”
“That’s natural.” Jiang Yan wasn’t modest at all. “Always at the peak.”
“This personality of yours hasn’t changed a bit,” the man said. “Just as shameless and without limits as a few years ago.”
“Hey, hey, hey, my partner is here. Save me some face.”
Only then did the man notice Wen Ran beside him. He looked him up and down. “This is Ran-Ran?”
“Even more handsome in person than in photos.”
Jiang Yan not only introduced him to people but also sent photos?
“Hello, I’m Jiang Yan’s brother, Lin Cheng.”
“Brother Lin, I’m Wen Ran.”
“I know, Jiang Yan is always rambling about you to me.” Lin Cheng looked at the two of them with a smile. “Really unexpected. Jiang Yan actually has a partner.”
“What are you chatting about so lively?” Suddenly, a hearty female voice rang out, attracting Wen Ran’s gaze.
A woman with a ponytail walked toward them holding a few bottles of drinks.
She looked very pleasant and comfortable. Although she only wore light makeup, one could tell she had good natural features.
“Sister-in-law is here too?” Jiang Yan was a bit surprised. “Where’s Lele?”
“Grandma is watching Lele.” Fang Xing casually picked up a chopstick from the table, popped the caps off the glass bottles, and handed them to Wen Ran and Jiang Yan. “Wind, Dawn, congratulations on winning the championship!”
Lin Cheng and Fang Xing were both quite chatty people and talked a lot with them.
“Jiang Yan, is there anywhere selling chargers around here?” Fang Xing said. “I forgot to bring mine this time. If it’s convenient, take me to buy one.”
“There’s a mall nearby.” Jiang Yan naturally wouldn’t refuse. “Then Sister-in-law, I’ll take you there now?”
After speaking, Jiang Yan and Fang Xing went to the mall together, leaving Wen Ran and Lin Cheng alone.
“Ran-Ran, I can call you that, right?”
“When did you and Jiang Yan meet?”
Wen Ran didn’t know why, but he had a good impression of this couple, so he answered Lin Cheng truthfully.
“That’s good, really good.”
“There are some things I don’t know if Jiang Yan has told you,” Lin Cheng said. “He has always been a very strong person. I’m really gratified that there’s someone to accompany him.”
“Did you only know that he was a Jungler who debuted in WK’s ninth season, peaked upon debut, and became famous in one battle?”
Wen Ran was a bit puzzled. “Isn’t that so?”
Lin Cheng shook his head gently. “Jiang Yan and I met through gaming. You know it too, ‘Ling Xiao’.”
“At that time, a few of us often played games together. ‘Ling Xiao’ already had specialized professional competitions, only it wasn’t very mature yet.”
“We were young and arrogant back then. One time while chatting, I don’t know who mentioned, ‘Why don’t we form a team for fun?’ Many people responded at the time. Later, through simple and crude 1v1 solos, we confirmed five people.”
“That crude team was established in an internet cafe. At that time, something about ‘the man like the wind’ was popular, so our team name was Team Wind.”
“The members came from all over the country. Jiang Yan was the youngest, only 17. He didn’t tell us he had taken a leave of absence from a prestigious university to come; we all thought he was a slacker who couldn’t get into college.”
Wen Ran, who only had a junior high education: “……”
“A team is fine for playing locally, but we didn’t have the qualification to register with the alliance. We were what’s commonly known as a ‘wild team.’ We could only arrange scrims in the online game, with teams as crude as ours. Everyone was an expert in the online game, so playing like that was quite fun.” Lin Cheng seemed to recall that time, paused, and then said, “But we couldn’t stay there playing those matches forever. It’s esports; everyone wants to move up.”
“So a group of us scraped together 100,000 yuan and bought a qualification for the Challenger Series. The result was a crushing defeat in the first game.”
“There are always mountains beyond mountains and people beyond people. That kind of oppressive force wasn’t something hard work could solve. Just like that, we lost more than twenty games in a row, and our hearts scattered.”
Wen Ran knew the cruelty of esports and understood that it wasn’t that they lacked perseverance, but that reality was just like that—hundreds of times the effort couldn’t compare to the crushing weight of talent.
“At this time, Jiang Yan proposed going to registered teams for tryouts. As long as we were on the field, there would always be a day we’d meet. In the end, except for him, none of us were selected.”
Lin Cheng said, “The day before he went to report to the team, us brothers prepared a farewell banquet for him. A group of us got drunk, patted Jiang Yan on the shoulder with tears streaming down our faces, telling him to keep going up, win the championship, and carry the wishes of us people forward without looking back. Because we all knew our talent was average; we had nothing but passion. In the end, we didn’t even have the qualification to step onto that stage.”
“He doesn’t touch alcohol. In my daze, I heard him say ‘Okay’.”
“The next day, WK announced a new Jungler named Wind.”
Wen Ran listened, somewhat stunned. So, his name meant this—carrying the will of the other four people.
As if they were on the field too.
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