Chapter 12: The Arena
In the evening, Shen Guanchao sat in the villa’s living room watching match replays. He took a moment to scroll through his phone, but before he could open his Friends Circle, he was called back to the training room by Zoe to play the Arena.
The Arena was a newly launched gameplay mode in Plague Games (LFK). Small map, 2v2, random class combinations. Victory increased Special Training Points by 15 (20 points for the first win), and defeat deducted points according to rank. It opened at 19:00 every day.
Inside the Arena, players could also initiate real-time PK (1v1) with each other. Invited PKs did not affect points, while Forced PKs counted 10 points for a win and deducted 20 points for a loss.
Those who could stay in the same venue were all players of the same level with similar strength. In high-elo venues, ordinary people wouldn’t initiate a Forced PK casually; winning didn’t earn much, and losing would be a huge loss.
Unexpectedly, just as Shen Guanchao controlled his character to walk into the Arena, he received a PK invitation.
[[Nearby] Player “Jing” has initiated a PK invitation to you—] [You can choose “Accept” or “Reject”]
A strange male character wearing a simple black ancient robe teleported in front of him at the same time. He had silver hair, held a flowing and colorful original skin Bionic Shark Hunter Blade, and had a sparkling title “Special Grade Kendo Master” hanging over his head. The ID below, however, was just a gentle word: “Jing.”
Shen Guanchao pressed reject without thinking.
He had no time to waste with ordinary players. He wanted to finish the first win quickly and log off.
The Arena mode had been online for more than two months, and no one had ever beaten him in a PK. The ID “NAVA·Flesh” sat firmly at number one on the leaderboard.
[Player “NAVA·Flesh” rejected the PK invitation]
Shen Guanchao pressed a shortcut key and retreated, dodging “Jing,” who had descended from the sky.
Xie Jingchu had originally planned to land in Shen Guanchao’s arms, but now he landed on empty air.
The system’s blue light teleported him to the target. The moment he landed, he initiated a Forced PK against Shen Guanchao again.
[System Red Text Alert:] [[Nearby] Player “Jing” has initiated a Forced PK against you—]
According to the method taught by Mu Xinyue, first attract the attention of the object of affection, then catch them off guard and create a sense of contrast.
Xie Jingchu had squatted in the Arena all day, finally waiting for him, and chased after him anxiously for a ring PK.
[Ring Loading…] [“NAVA·Flesh” vs “Jing”] [Ring loaded, spectator seats opened] [Special Grade Main Attacker vs Special Grade Kendo Master]
“?” Shen Guanchao didn’t understand this person’s persistence and typed a question mark in the scene channel.
Rushing up to give points to a pro player, brother?
[[Scene] Jing: 1v1, one round.] [[Scene] Jing: Go easy on me.] [NAVA·Flesh: …] [NAVA·Flesh: Make it quick.]
Shen Guanchao rushed out of the spawn point without fully buffering his temporary status. The cool top-tier combat drone “Crimson Lightning” followed automatically behind him.
His game character wore the new limited edition [Tianshu General] and [Dragon Wings] released a few days ago, holding the golden UTS-15 shotgun that never left his side, coming aggressively.
They engaged in close combat on the ring. The bionic blade in “Jing’s” hand, worth millions of game coins, slashed towards Shen Guanchao’s fragile neck.
Four slashes, only one hit.
The other three were deflected by Shen Guanchao’s “Block” skill.
Three misses, and “Jing” showed weakness in the scene channel.
[“Jing”: Gege (Brother), let me win.]
He thought secretly, creating contrast is as easy as turning a hand.
Shen Guanchao, however, was very unromantic.
[NAVA: You’re talking about ‘Gege’ with me in the cage?] [NAVA: Too late.]
“Cage” was the common name for the Arena ring.
Couples often flirted and bantered in the cage. Of course, the cage was sometimes also a Shura field (battlefield) for male competition.
But Shen Guanchao had no such romantic thoughts, not to mention that “Jing” opposite him was a stranger.
A stranger who approached with a strong purpose.
He switched the shotgun to a heavy cannon, charged an attack, and reduced “Jing’s” movement speed.
What a Kendo Master feared most was movement speed reduction. “Jing” controlled his game character to retreat rapidly. During the interval while he dodged the heavy cannon’s attack range, Shen Guanchao switched back to the shotgun and sprayed four times in a row. His health bar instantly became precarious.
Shen Guanchao didn’t finish him off. Instead, he stood imposingly on the ring looking down at him and typed: [If you really don’t want to lose points, exit the map yourself and forfeit the PK.]
“Jing” got off easy, but before leaving, he created another wave of contrast.
[“Jing”: Thank you Gege, I’ll find you again next time.]
He thought the effect was good, worthy of Master Mu taking him to learn from female streamers acting coquettish and love tips all night last night.
Little did he know, Shen Guanchao looked at this sentence with black lines all over his face (speechless), his brain in chaos—
Is this a ladyboy?
What does that mean?
Going to force PK him again next time?
When did he provoke such an… abstract master?
The Forced PK was interrupted. With a dark face, he clicked on this “Jing’s” profile page and surprisingly found that this person was actually in his friends list.
It was his WeChat game friend, Xie Jingchu.
[Player Homepage: “Jing”] [Race: Half-Infected] [Class: Sub-Attacker] [Class Title: Special Grade Kendo Master] [Record: Hidden] [Total Kills: 1708] [Player Signature: None] [Intimate Relationship: None] [Player Album: None] [Mood Today: None] …
This was a swordsman alt account Xie Jingchu specially made to pretend to be a rookie. He usually played his sniper account, ranking in the top twenty of the National Server.
Shen Guanchao stared at his homepage, silent for a long time.
He opened WeChat and specifically checked to see if he had made a mistake.
Pinned at the top of the other party’s Friends Circle was a photo of a back view.
In the dim interior, a young man with broad shoulders and thin muscles, tall and upright, stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window wearing a grey-white shirt. The profile of his face was cut and outlined by light and shadow, half hidden in darkness, half in light.
Just from this back view, Shen Guanchao could determine that the person who chased him for a Forced PK in the Arena calling him “Gege” just now was that cold-faced handsome guy with gastroenteritis he bumped into when buying breakfast for Zoe that day.
The little thing has quite the contrast.
“How is the progress? Did you hook up with him?”
After class, Mu Xinyue called Xie Jingchu on the way to the cafeteria.
“Not bad, he pitied me.” Xie Jingchu was in a rather good mood, and even his tone of voice lifted slightly.
“I force-PKed him in the Arena. He beat me until I was crippled but didn’t finish me off; he let me exit the map to save points. Does this count as pity? It’s enough to attract attention, right…”
“You f*cking…” Through his big iPhone, Mu Xinyue suddenly felt a bit of a heart attack.
“Your way of chasing someone is chasing them to PK in the Arena??”
“And you call that f*cking pity? It’s already good enough that he didn’t farm you for a beating.”
Xie Jingchu didn’t understand: “Hm?”
“Chasing someone doesn’t mean chasing them to fight, brother. You have to proceed step by step, be gentle and understanding, okay? Who chases someone like this?” Mu Xinyue bit the bullet and explained to him, “Sigh… I finally know why you said Flesh has a good heart. Letting you exit the map even like this—if it were me, I definitely wouldn’t let you go. I’d have to catch you and farm you in the Arena ten or eight times.”
“Don’t move around blindly right now. Wait for me to get food and come back to teach you.”
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