Chapter 25 ◎ Dying of Awkwardness ◎
Lin Sumo: “……”
“If you don’t know what to say, can you just not say anything?!” Lin Sumo was both angry and annoyed, his voice carrying a sob. “Comforting someone sounding like scolding them. Did you come here specifically to inflict secondary damage?!”
Pei Yun rubbed his forehead, momentarily at a loss. He had to let go of Lin Sumo first and take a step back.
Looking at Lin Sumo, who was slightly curled up, Pei Yun suddenly wondered why Lin Sumo had started crying all of a sudden.
There was a laptop on the desk in Lin Sumo’s room; he didn’t usually know what it was used for. Looking up now, Pei Yun saw that Lin Sumo’s computer was on.
Pei Yun looked closely and realized a social networking site was on the screen. Lin Sumo had been looking at something just now; the interface was densely packed with text.
He took a step toward the laptop. His height made it impossible to read the text from this angle. Just as Pei Yun was about to lean down, Lin Sumo, who had been sitting on the chair, suddenly stood up and practically threw himself at the computer.
“Stop! Don’t look!”
Pei Yun frowned. He simply raised a hand and pressed the just-standing Lin Sumo back into the chair. Ignoring Lin Sumo’s resistance, Pei Yun leaned over quickly. But when he saw the content on the screen clearly, he visibly froze.
No wonder.
No wonder Lin Sumo had suddenly broken down emotionally.
The densely packed words Pei Yun saw, every single sentence, were cursing him.
[Retarded thing, if you can’t play, don’t play. Your mom didn’t give birth to you just to feed us losses.]
[Brother, I beg you, roll back to your school. Watching your few games made me want to vomit yesterday’s dinner.]
[With such shitty mechanics, I really want to ask what is the meaning of your existence until now? Are you here specifically to lower Trust’s points?]
[Give it up. Signing such a waste, a team like Trust definitely won’t produce anything good. ‘Domestic veteran brand,’ I spit! I’m just waiting for them to be trampled underfoot by other teams one by one.]
[Trash team, trash player, fuck off.]
Seeing that he had seen it all, Lin Sumo gave up resisting, lowered his head, and said nothing.
Pei Yun stared at those malicious comments, his breathing becoming heavier.
The room was terrifyingly quiet for a moment, save for the sound of their overlapping breathing.
Although he had bickered with Lin Sumo growing up and used all kinds of words, the malice from strangers online was more aggressive and undisguised, showing no care for emotions whatsoever. Unless one had a truly strong psychological constitution, who could face it calmly?
“Hey, what are you guys doing?”
The two turned around simultaneously.
At the door, Yu Pei, Xiao Lanyu, and Jiang He were clinging to the doorframe, peeking in with faces full of curiosity.
Lin Sumo silently turned his head back.
Dying of awkwardness.
“Nothing,” Pei Yun replied. “He just got scolded a few times and got angry.”
“Scolded by whom?” Yu Pei walked in. Seeing Lin Sumo who had obviously just cried, he addressed Pei Yun, “It couldn’t be by you, right? He just came down late; surely not enough to scold him to tears?”
Pei Yun laughed. “Brother, with which eye did you see me scolding him?”
“Doesn’t mean you didn’t,” Jiang He interjected. “With your usual relationship, it’s scary.”
“Really didn’t,” Pei Yun said. “He was just looking at how those trolls online were scolding him, and then he got like this.”
Lin Sumo couldn’t hold it back and squeezed out a sentence: “Stop talking.”
As his voice fell, no one spoke again.
The teammates looked at each other. In the end, it was Yu Pei, with his innate mother-hen attributes, who spoke up to relieve the awkwardness. “It’s okay, Mo-mo. Those trolls online speak without thinking. We just do what we need to do; ignore them.”
Lin Sumo was silent for a moment, then asked uncertainly, “You guys… aren’t going to scold me?”
Now it was Yu Pei’s turn to be confused. “No, why would we scold you?”
Lin Sumo buried his head, his voice as small as a mosquito. “You guys specifically told me not to look at the trolls because you were afraid my mentality would collapse, but I…”
Even though the others didn’t hear the rest, they knew what he wanted to say.
Pei Yun was closest to Lin Sumo. He hesitated for a moment, then placed his hand on Lin Sumo’s back and patted it gently a few times.
“We don’t blame you,” Xiao Lanyu lowered his voice. “Let’s go down and eat. The food is getting cold.”
Chapter 26 ◎ Promotional Photos ◎
When Yu Pei took the complaint to Song Hong, the manager expressed surprise.
However, he didn’t scold anyone. Instead, he asked Lin Sumo, “The entertainment match is the day after tomorrow. Are you up for it? If you really can’t manage, we can let someone from the second team fill in. It doesn’t affect our points anyway.”
Lin Sumo shook his head. “It’s fine. I can do it.”
Having just calmed down, Lin Sumo spoke with a slight nasal tone. Song Hong was still a bit worried and asked with concern, “Are you really okay? If you don’t feel up to it, just say so. We won’t scold you. Don’t force yourself.”
Lin Sumo felt a bit like laughing. “I’m really fine. Don’t worry about me.”
After confirming repeatedly, Song Hong let out a breath. “If you’re okay, then go on up. Little Chen-zi has been calling for you upstairs for a while now, waiting for you to join the replay review.”
Hearing this, Lin Sumo quickly went upstairs. At the corner of the stairs, he didn’t forget to poke his head out and shout down, “Thank you, Manager Song!”
Song Hong didn’t speak, only smiling helplessly.
Seeing this, Lin Sumo quickly forced a smile and ran up the stairs.
But Lin Sumo soon found himself unable to smile.
Leaving aside the fact that the review lasted nearly six hours, he was criticized the entire time. Lin Sumo was criticized to the point of shutting down.
However, he kept repeating a sentence in his mind.
—You can’t blame anyone else for losing the match. If they don’t scold you, who should they scold? Are you wronged just because they said a few words?
Yes, the classic logic of internet trolls.
But Lin Sumo felt it made a lot of sense.
When Shen Chen finally finished lecturing and let them go, Lin Sumo stood up dizzily, ready to go back to sleep. Suddenly, Song Hong entered the review room.
“The arrangement for the entertainment match is different from usual. There’s an extra segment before the match. You guys need to go take promotional photos a day in advance—ah, that means tomorrow.”
Lin Sumo froze. Before he could speak, he heard Jiang He complain, “Are they crazy? What promotional photos? Useless and exhausting. I really don’t understand…”
Pei Yun stood up. “If they’re crazy, just act crazy with them. Why try to be a normal person?”
Lin Sumo was stunned.
Pei Yun had always hated trouble; he knew that.
Song Hong swallowed. “…If what you just said got out, there’s a high probability you’d be sieved by trolls.”
Jiang He looked indifferent as he walked out. “Let them spray if they want to. It’s not like I haven’t been sprayed before.”
Lin Sumo was amazed.
What kind of peerless state of transcendence was this?
The day before the entertainment match.
Although the shoot was done in batches, there were only four teams including Trust present at the moment. Still, having more than ten people together felt a bit crowded.
The dozen or so players waited backstage while the makeup artists applied makeup and styled their hair one by one.
Lin Sumo had gotten up early. He was sleepy as hell but couldn’t sleep, so he could only take out his phone to browse.
After a while, the young girl styling his hair behind him probably felt bored too, so she struck up a conversation with him.
“Hey, Little Brother, you’re from Trust, right?”
Lin Sumo suddenly remembered he had taken off his team jacket because it was too hot indoors. “Ah… yes.”
“Don’t be nervous,” the girl said as she filled in Lin Sumo’s eyebrows with a pencil. “Although I’m responsible for doing your makeup every day here, to be honest, I don’t really follow these things.”
The girl stepped back to take a look, then added, “But… I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as handsome as you.”
Lin Sumo was flattered.
“There must be a lot of girls who like you. Oh, I don’t mean fans, I mean in daily life. You know what I mean, right?”
“I know,” Lin Sumo stared at the table in front of him. “This… I really don’t know.”
“Hahaha,” the girl clapped her hands after finishing the last touch. “What a pity. Maybe someone has been secretly in love with you for a long time.”
Lin Sumo smiled politely, thanked the girl, and got up to find the others.
The shooting process wasn’t complicated. They took individual shots one by one, then a few group shots. Logically, it should have taken about two hours, but things just had to deviate from the norm for Lin Sumo.
“Little Yun, Mo-mo, come here for a sec. There’s a duo promotional photo,” Yu Pei shouted from the side.
Lin Sumo turned his head and asked blankly, “Huh? What is a duo promotional photo?”
“Arranged by Little Red,” Yu Pei shrugged. “It’s just the two of you taking a photo together.”
Lin Sumo was still confused. “No, why did he arrange this?”
“More eye-catching, I guess.”
Lin Sumo: “……”
“Hahaha,” Yu Pei couldn’t help laughing. “Aiya, although Little Red looks stingy and money-grubbing all day, you don’t know him well yet. He’s actually a very good person.”
Lin Sumo could actually sense that.
After all, if Song Hong really only cared about making money and disregarded the players’ well-being, he wouldn’t have repeatedly asked if Lin Sumo could handle it back then; he would have just used coercion and bribery regardless of the consequences.
That being said, Lin Sumo’s face was still full of resentment.
“Go quickly,” Yu Pei pushed Lin Sumo with one hand and Pei Yun with the other. “Don’t keep the photographer waiting.”
The shooting time wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either. The two came out after forty minutes.
Sitting in front of the computer, the photographer casually asked, “Hey, do you guys want to see the photos?”
“Yes!” Jiang He was the first to bounce over to the photographer’s computer, dragging Yu Pei along.
The others slowly walked over as well.
The photographer casually flipped through the photos he had just taken of Lin Sumo and Pei Yun. He was clicking the mouse quickly, about to switch to the next one, when Yu Pei suddenly spoke up. “Hey, I like this one.”
The photographer stopped. “This one?”
The hairstylist had given Lin Sumo a textured, airy short cut. Pei Yun’s hair was a bit longer than when he first arrived, so the stylist had given him a 3/7 side part. These casually styled looks were inexplicably handsome on their heads. Coupled with their faces, which seemed like God had chased them down to feed them beauty, it was simply a visual feast.
In addition, the photographer had asked them to relax and get closer while posing. So Pei Yun stood diagonally behind Lin Sumo, and Lin Sumo leaned back slightly, half-resting against Pei Yun, while Pei Yun naturally draped a hand over Lin Sumo’s shoulder. The two looked at the camera together, appearing inexplicably compatible.
Yu Pei looked at the two in the photo, who looked ready to debut as idols right then and there. He sighed in amazement and clapped his hands slowly. “High level, too high level. Little Yun and Mo-mo posed well, and Big Brother Photographer shot well. It’s truly absolute perfection.”
Lin Sumo froze.
Hiss…
Although he really didn’t want to admit it, but… Pei Yun, this guy, was way too handsome!
In the end, Lin Sumo thickened his skin and asked the photographer for the raw file of that photo.
Pei Yun looked baffled. “What do you want that for? Do you have to compare every day just to deal a blow to yourself?”
Lin Sumo: “……”
“None of your business,” Lin Sumo rolled his eyes. “Being able to clearly see every day that I’m more handsome than you makes me feel good inside, okay?”
The remaining three teammates couldn’t close their mouths, watching the two argue like they were watching a show.
On the bus back to the base, Lin Sumo hesitated for a long time before opening Weibo and posting the picture he had just asked for from the photographer.
【@Trust-Solve】: 【Promotional photo. [Image]】
Recommended Reads
![Enemies on a Narrow Road [Esports]](https://beereads.space/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/enemies-on-a-narrow-road-214x300.jpg)
