Chapter 71: This Can Also Trend? Wearing the Wrong Clothes
Zuo Chi had run high fevers a few times back in college, but never quite like this. After taking antipyretics for two days, his temperature was still hovering at 38°C. His entire body felt weak, and his head was dizzy and heavy.
Lying in bed, the thought that the cubs downstairs were still training while the Grand Finals were rapidly approaching made him restless. He didn’t know how many scrim reviews he had fallen behind on and hadn’t explained to them yet. It felt like lying on a bed of needles; he just couldn’t fall asleep.
Unable to rest, Coach Zuo took it upon himself to get out of bed. Wearing his pajamas and throwing a jacket over his shoulders, he quickly washed his face and headed downstairs to the training room.
He had barely pushed the door open and hadn’t even uttered a word before Ning Luzhao, acting as if he had a camera installed in the back of his head, locked his gaze accurately onto him. Subsequently, the other cubs also seemed to sense his presence. Four pairs of eyes turned in unison to stare at him, making Zuo Chi feel a sudden, intense wave of guilt.
He fiddled with the zipper of his jacket. “…I’m feeling much better.”
Beyond was extremely straightforward: “Coach Zuo is lying. Brother Land said he took your temperature at dinner and you were still at 38°C.”
Ning Luzhao was even more direct: “Coach, let’s go to the hospital.”
Zuo Chi was instantly rendered speechless. Standing there sick seemed to only disrupt the players’ training.
He nodded, still playing with his zipper pull. “Alright, I’ll go to the hospital by myself. You guys be good and…”
The cubs turned back to their training. Amidst the rising and falling clatter of keyboards, he unlocked his phone.
He had just drafted a message to trouble Manager Li into driving him to the hospital for an IV drip when a message popped up at the top of his screen.
[Land: Coach, if you accept my video call in a bit and listen to our communication audio during training, will that give you some peace of mind?]
[Land: Wall and I did the review for everyone today. Although it can’t compare to the coach’s, it should be decent enough.]
[Land: Believe in us. Smiling_kitty.jpg]
Zuo Chi’s lips curled up in a faint smile.
[Zuo Chi: Okay.]
Manager Li drove like the wind to get him to the hospital. Late at night, the emergency department was still brightly lit. Just as Zuo Chi put on his mask and prepared to open the car door, he finally realized that he was still wearing his pajamas underneath a VEX team jacket. He couldn’t help but let out a dumbfounded laugh.
Having parked the car, Manager Li noticed he hadn’t gotten out. “Coach Zuo, what’s wrong?”
“Wearing a team jacket to the hospital… isn’t that a bit inappropriate?”
“Oh please, the wind is strong and cold tonight! You have a fever, how can you not wear a jacket? You’re just going to the hospital for an IV drip, not to rob the place. What’s inappropriate about wearing a team jacket—let’s go, go, go!”
“But—”
Manager Li pulled the car door open. “Let’s go!”
Zuo Chi lowered his head, his mask almost covering his eyes. “Oh.”
When they reached the registration area, Manager Li took his medical booklet and went to queue up, leaving him to find an empty seat.
Next to him sat a young couple. They had been leaning intimately together, whispering to one another, when the boyfriend caught a glimpse of the team jacket. His eyes instantly peeled away from his girlfriend and glued themselves onto Zuo Chi.
The girlfriend followed his gaze, looking over curiously. “Is he wearing—”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but the couple looked eager, almost itching to come over and strike up a conversation.
Zuo Chi buried his head even lower.
Just as he was debating whether lowering his voice and claiming he was merely a fan who bought a VEX replica jacket would hold any credibility, Manager Li returned from the registration line.
“Let’s go, fever clinic in Room 215 on the second floor.”
The couple hadn’t dared to recognize him, but Manager Li wasn’t wearing a mask, nor did he disguise his voice. Any fan who followed VEX’s matches would have some impression of Manager Li’s face. They recognized him instantly.
The couple was very polite. Even though they were excitedly pinching each other’s hands, they didn’t come over to bother them.
They just kept whispering continuously: “Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, holy crap…”
Zuo Chi stood up and took two steps toward Manager Li, the “holy crap” behind him growing just a bit louder.
He couldn’t help but look down at himself. Besides the somewhat comical sight of pajamas under a team jacket, it shouldn’t have been enough to make anyone exclaim “holy crap” with such intensity.
“Manager Li.”
“Ah?”
“Is there something wrong with me?”
“You have a fever, you tell me what’s wrong… Don’t tell me the fever fried your brain.”
Zuo Chi: “…”
“I meant my outfit.”
Manager Li walked a circle around him. “There’s nothing wrong, except you wore the wrong team jacket, right? The one you’re wearing belongs to Land. It has his ID printed on the back.”
[#Encountering VEX Coach in Nancheng Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital Emergency Room#]
[#Coach Zuo Suspected to be Sick Before Grand Finals#]
[#Coach Zuo Wore Land’s Team Jacket#]
With an IV drip attached to his hand, Zuo Chi sat quietly in the corner, internally reviewing the incident of wearing the wrong jacket.
Sitting next to him, Manager Li scrolled through the fresh Weibo trending topics, his tone failing to hide his astonishment: “No way, nowadays a team coach getting a fever, being a bit fuzzy-headed, and accidentally wearing the wrong jacket can make it to the trending searches?!”
Too lazy to unlock his own phone, Zuo Chi tilted his head, wanting to peek at the hot search contents on Manager Li’s screen. Manager Li vigilantly tilted his phone away.
“Coach Zuo, you can’t look at your phone right now. It’ll affect your mood.”
Zuo Chi looked up at the ceiling. “…Land’s fans shouldn’t go as far as to curse me out over a team jacket, right?”
“No one is cursing you out—” Manager Li paused for a second. “Uh, but there are people shipping you.”
“Skipping me?”
“Shipping, as in shipping a CP (couple). Do you know what shipping a CP means?”
[Why did Coach Zuo go to the hospital? @VEX, is the illness serious? You must take good care of Coach Zuo. Crying.jpg]
[I saw the video a passerby took. Coach Zuo was literally staggering.]
[Getting sick not early or late, but right before the Grand Finals, and even purposely wearing the team jacket to the hospital just in case people wouldn’t recognize him. He really plays the ‘green tea b*tch’ perfectly. Isn’t marketing him as a young genius coach enough? Now he has to pull stunts right before the finals. If he loves the clout this much, he should just quit being a coach and become an influencer. Rolling_eyes.jpg]
[Could it be that he’s afraid of losing to ZAP in the finals, so he’s faking an illness to play the victim and find a good excuse in advance?]
Amidst the comment section filled with fans genuinely worried about Zuo Chi’s health and its impact on VEX’s performance, as well as the haters accusing him of faking sickness for clout, a few comments stood out as exceptionally fresh and refined.
[I knew staying up late would bless me with good stuff! Coach Zuo wore Land’s jacket!!!]
[I thought the ‘Zuo/Zhao Ning/Chi’ CP I was shipping was just a crack ship. Usually, we don’t see any interactions outside of matches. I didn’t expect… CP fans are eating good tonight!!!]
[Reporting—VEX’s official Weibo just posted. They attached Coach Zuo’s electronic medical record. It’s a fever caused by a viral infection. He’s getting an IV drip at the hospital right now and it’s not serious. The players are training normally at the base. Please do not believe or spread rumors.]
[Did they not mention the jacket?]
[They did. They replied to a fan in the comments saying that because Coach Zuo and Land share a dorm, he was in a rush to leave and grabbed the wrong jacket.]
Zuo Chi righteously informed Manager Li that he was a man of the new era with modern thoughts, and that he didn’t care if people shipped him with whomever. He then pulled his own phone out of his pocket.
Ning Luzhao had just started a video call. He accepted it.
Manager Li glanced over. “What does Land need?”
From the phone came the fiery, passionate communication audio of the cubs playing a scrim in the training room. Zuo Chi felt this was far more effective than any medicine. After listening to just two sentences, his head, which had been dizzy all day, cleared up significantly.
“Land brought me my medicine.”
“Ah?”
Zuo Chi shook his phone, closed his eyes, and listened for a moment. “Fugui, you’re talking too densely. Report only the key info, key info! Don’t talk over the shot-caller!”
“Beyond, speak up more. State your needs.”
“Wu Yang, don’t rush, don’t rush. Fugui’s reading comprehension isn’t great, explain it to him slowly.”
“Land, that decision just now was solid.”
Manager Li: “…”
This “medicine” was indeed effective. Coach Zuo had been terribly weak just a moment ago, but as soon as he opened his mouth to scold the cubs, his voice became crisp and clear.
He took the IV drip for two hours and still had to return for another session the next day.
The doctor treating him offered some heartfelt advice: “You young people have terrible constitutions. Don’t stay up late all the time. Pay attention to the balance between work and rest, and eat more vegetables and fruits…”
Zuo Chi wore his earphones, listening to the voices of his cubs. The doctor’s words went in one ear and out the other. Aside from the “eat more vegetables and fruits” part, which he could manage, the rest was basically impossible.
Looking across the 32 teams in the Arena Professional League, not a single team had players who slept early and woke up early like Makka Pakka.
Playing esports meant having a hellish sleep schedule, and the coach was no exception.
Under the watchful eyes of Ning Luzhao and Manager Li, he rested for another day. Whether it was from getting enough sleep or the effect of the IV drips, by the third day, his high fever finally broke.
Unexpectedly, when he returned to the training room to watch the cubs play their first scrim—which was against BLUE—the cubs were incredibly valiant. They completely dismantled the opponent with a 10:0 kill score.
They terrified BLUE’s Storm into a state of bewilderment.
[storm: Coach Zuo, didn’t you… didn’t you say you had a fever and were in the hospital, and hadn’t coached the players for days?]
[Zuo Chi: Yeah.]
[storm: Are you saying that Land and the others trained by themselves for three days and reached this level?]
[Zuo Chi: Saying that hurts my feelings a bit. The cubs trained themselves and played quite well. Does that mean they actually don’t need me?]
[storm: I’m the one whose feelings are hurt, alright?! Coach Zuo, where did you find these five monsters? They improve so fast. We aren’t scrimming you guys this afternoon; go terrorize some other team.]
[Zuo Chi: Fine, we’ll go terrorize LTY this afternoon.]
[storm: Speaking of which, the finals are coming up. Remember to save a seat for me on the day of the finals. I’m coming to watch.]
[Zuo Chi: No problem.]
[storm: I heard ZAP has been doing closed-door training. Although they haven’t scheduled scrims with domestic teams, they’ve played a few matches against foreign teams that advanced to Worlds. They didn’t reveal their drafts, but I heard the scores. Against H Country’s Spring Split runner-up, they went 4:2. That’s a massive improvement.]
Translator’s Note:
- Makka Pakka: A reference to the children’s show In the Night Garden. In Chinese internet slang, going to sleep like Makka Pakka means having a very healthy, early, and innocent sleep schedule.
- Shipping / CP: CP stands for “Coupling”. To “Ke CP” (嗑cp) means to ship two characters or people together.
- Green Tea: A slang term used to describe someone (often female, but used universally here) who acts innocent, pure, and pitiful to manipulate others and gain sympathy.
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