SITS CH2

Chapter 02: Little Sweet Soft Candy

Zhao Rui laughed so hard his whole body was shaking. Shen Man raised his hand and slapped him, which finally made him stop.

The game started. Xu Zhouye maneuvered Swarm Queen and quickly slipped into the densely forested jungle area. This time, Shen Man observed his gameplay and felt that he was indeed very skilled with the hero. He asked, “How long have you been practicing her?”

“A little over half a month,” Xu Zhouye answered honestly.

To have this level of proficiency in just over half a month, if he wasn’t lying, he was indeed very talented.

“How does she feel?” Shen Man asked.

“Pretty good, feels very suited for this patch,” Xu Zhouye said. “After the adjustments in the last update, her damage is higher and her map rotation is fast. If you can land the crowd control, you can get the kill.”

Indeed, if you land the CC, you can kill.

Crowd control skills in this game were divided into targeted and non-targeted. Targeted meant that as long as you pressed the skill, it would inevitably hit, whereas non-targeted meant you had to manually aim the projectile to hit the enemy hero.

This wasn’t an easy task. The skill ceiling for many heroes depended entirely on skill-shot accuracy.

Swarm Queen was a hero with non-targeted skills, and her skill projectiles moved very slowly, making them easy to dodge.

Shen Man asked, “Can you land the CC?”

Xu Zhouye replied, “I can.” After speaking, his hero happened to reach the top lane. Approaching the enemy top laner, he casually threw out a Q skill, accurately spitting venom packed with crowd control onto the opponent.

[First Blood]

The pleasant kill notification sounded.

Shen Man retracted his gaze. Looking at his screen, he said softly, “Beautiful.”

Xu Zhouye smiled again, as if being praised by Shen Man was something incredibly enjoyable.

Zhao Rui actually felt a bit surprised. Having partnered with Shen Man for four years, he knew his personality very well. He wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion, but he felt that Shen Man talked a bit more to Xu Zhouye today—going by past examples, Shen Man wouldn’t even bother giving an expression to a player who looked like they were about to be kicked from the team. This thought made him turn his head to glance at Shen Man.

Shen Man was actually a very unique existence in the league.

From the day he joined Team ACE, Shen Man had been accompanied by unceasing controversy. When people saw someone, the first thing they noticed was his face.

Shen Man was simply too good-looking. He had a face that would stand out even in the entertainment industry, paired with a height of 182 cm. Standing among pro players, he looked exactly like a beautiful vase.

When Team ACE first announced their roster, everyone questioned where the team manager had dug up such an unknown nobody, suspecting that the manager had been bewitched by that face.

Facing these rumors, Shen Man couldn’t be bothered to pay them any attention. He didn’t even open a Weibo account, keeping his presence as low as an invisible person.

But his skill was destined to be impossible to hide.

Zhao Rui had played support for many people, but he could pat his chest and confidently say that Shen Man was the most genius marksman he had ever seen—bar none.

This point had already been proven when Shen Man won his first World Championship.

For a person like this, having a bigger temper was perfectly normal.

“Zhao Rui.” Speak of the devil. Beside him, Shen Man furrowed his brows. “Where is your mind wandering off to? Can you pull off some mechanics appropriate for your age?”

Zhao Rui: “…”

Shen Man: “If I scold you later, you’re going to get upset again.”

Xu Zhouye burst out laughing, not forgetting to pick up another kill while he laughed.

Zhao Rui inexplicably felt like he was being ostracized.

The three of them played six games and didn’t lose a single one. It had to be said, Xu Zhouye’s jungling really had some substance to it. If it weren’t for the fact that the trending search was still up this morning, Zhao Rui wouldn’t have dared to believe they were the same person.

“Why exactly did you perform like that yesterday?” Zhao Rui couldn’t help but ask Xu Zhouye.

Xu Zhouye said, “I was nervous.”

Zhao Rui: “Huh? Just that reason?”

“Right,” Xu Zhouye nodded.

If you had to force it, it made sense, but Zhao Rui still felt like there was some other reason. He wanted to ask more, but Shen Man coolly interjected, “Stop asking. Esports only cares about results.”

Zhao Rui: “…True.”

In esports, being bad is the original sin. As long as you lose, no matter the reason, it isn’t important and no one cares.

Shen Man’s words sounded a bit ruthless; a petty person might even hold a grudge over them. Yet, Xu Zhouye’s expression looked as if he was pleased by these words. He stared at Shen Man with a smile, his eyes filled with a satisfaction and happiness that Zhao Rui couldn’t understand. He said, “Captain is right.”

Zhao Rui: “…” Are you a masochist?

—

Lunchtime.

The cooking auntie at the base had good skills. Shen Man had gotten his food and was eating when his coach walked over with a grin.

“Man-shen.” The moment the coach opened his mouth, Shen Man knew it was nothing good.

“Speak human.” Shen Man held his chopsticks, not even raising his head.

“Say, for Saturday’s match, should we let Xu Zhouye play or not?” the coach said. “Let’s discuss this.”

Normally, these matters were decided by the coaching staff, but Shen Man’s status in ACE was extraordinary; some things had to be discussed with him.

Shen Man rarely interfered with personnel changes. He only liked playing matches and didn’t enjoy dealing with people.

The coach also knew him and thought he would just say “whatever works.” Who knew Shen Man would suddenly speak up, saying, “Let him play.”

“Ah?” The coach was stunned.

This reaction left the coach unable to process it for a moment: “Let him play?”

“Didn’t you come specifically to ask me?” Shen Man asked oddly. “Or were you just asking me out of politeness?”

Coach: “No, no, no, I just thought you wouldn’t care. But this time we’re playing TKR. If he…”

It was okay to lose against TKR, but they absolutely could not lose too ugly.

Shen Man put down his chopsticks, unhurriedly wiped his mouth, and repeated what he just said: “Let him play.”

Coach: “Alright.”

The matter was settled just like that.

With a few days left until the match, the atmosphere in the base was a bit strange.

Shen Man didn’t notice this. He had a contract with Seafood TV, and hadn’t fulfilled his streaming hours for the month yet. Today, he planned to stream while playing ranked.

Opening a stream at this time, one didn’t even need to look to know what the chat would be spamming.

Shen Man’s in-game ID was SLOW, and fans liked to abbreviate it to SW.

[Finally streaming! I’ve waited so bitterly for you!]

[Yo, SW is in a good mood, he’s actually willing to turn on his webcam.]

[Baby, you look so good uwuuwu]

In the webcam, Shen Man was wearing his headset, eyes slightly lowered. His thick, long eyelashes cast faint shadows beneath his eyes. Perhaps because he hadn’t slept well yesterday, his complexion looked somewhat pale. But this paleness only accentuated his already cold temperament, making his whole person appear aloof and indifferent.

His face was small, fair, and clean, with only a tiny mole right under his right eye. His nose bridge was high and straight, his lips thin, currently slightly pursed, revealing a hint of impatience.

With no lighting and no beauty filters turned on, just being presented to the camera like this, the effect was already comparable to celebrities on TV screens.

It was just a pity that such a beautiful face usually lacked expression, making people feel he was hard to get along with.

Ten minutes into the stream, the volume of comments skyrocketed, and the contents started to become unfriendly.

[SW, you’re playing TKR on Friday. Can you field a jungler who can actually beat jungle monsters this time?]

[After a week of training, fest has finally touched the hem of the Storm Siren’s skirt for the first time.]

[Starting the game 3 to 0, if I went up there, even I could do it.]

Comments like these were too many to count, but Shen Man was long used to it. Playing professionally, the first requirement was skill, and the second was mentality. Pro players who could actually achieve results all had top-tier mentalities.

Shen Man glanced at them a few times, didn’t reply a single word, and opened Heart of the Wasteland.

If this attitude were put on other players, they would be heavily criticized. But because he had been like this ever since entering the scene, everyone was accustomed to it.

Though some people did leave a few sour remarks:

[My, my, my, don’t tell me this guy was personally handpicked by SW. Why does he look so displeased?]

[Come on, he’s never been happy while streaming.]

[True, I’m not happy when I go to work either.]

Shen Man was in the middle of selecting a hero when his WeChat dinged. He picked it up to look and saw someone had @ mentioned him in a group.

The person who @’d him was Xu Zhouye. The kid’s avatar was a yellow starfish, which looked a bit familiar. He asked Shen Man:

-Captain, do you want to duo queue? I want to practice a new hero.

Shen Man replied: I’m streaming.

The underlying implication was that there were many people watching, making it easy to get flamed.

His popularity was high, and many people watched him. Sometimes when he duo queued with teammates, any mistake would start drama. He didn’t care about it himself, but sometimes his teammates would get flamed along with him.

Just because of this, he almost always played solo while streaming; he rarely even brought Zhao Rui along.

-It’s fine, I’ll use a smurf. -Send ID.

Since Xu Zhouye himself didn’t care, he cared even less.

Xu Zhouye happily sent an ID over. Shen Man stared at his ID for a moment before slowly typing out a few words.

-This is… your account? -Yeah, yeah.

Shen Man: “…”

-Fine.

As long as Xu Zhouye was happy.

Three minutes later, Shen Man invited [Little Sweet Soft Candy] into his party.

The stream’s chat exploded instantly.

[Who is this????]

[SW, we treat you like a bro, and you’re getting all lovey-dovey behind our backs?]

[It’s over, it’s over, checked the match history and it’s really a soft e-girl, I can’t accept this!!]

[Enough from you guys. With Shen Man looking like that, it’d be weirder if he didn’t date!!]

[No way, this guy’s personality is so awful, yet someone still wants him?]

Shen Man happened to see that last line of chat and sneered, “Stop spouting nonsense. Your daddy has a very good temper.”

The chat went crazy typing question marks [???????]

Shen Man still wasn’t satisfied. He tapped a few words on his keyboard, questioning Little Sweet Soft Candy: [Do I have a bad temper?]

Little Sweet Soft Candy: [(●˙˙●) I won’t allow others to talk about Gege like that. Gege is the most good-tempered Gege I have ever met.]

Shen Man: “See that?”

Stimulated by this, the chat started going crazy: [Somebody come here, drag these two out and execute them for showing off their affection—]

The world was just like this. Even though the entire league silently agreed that Shen Man had a bad temper, he himself was completely oblivious to this fact.

How did he have a bad temper? He was just too lazy to socialize.

Entering the BP phase, Shen Man finally noticed that Xu Zhouye had queued up as Support. He thought he was going to play Jungle.

[What hero does SW Gege want?] Xu Zhouye had perfectly blended into the persona of the “Little Sweet Soft Candy” ID.

Shen Man: [Whatever you want.]

Xu Zhouye: [Then if I don’t play well later, Gege isn’t allowed to scold me, okay?]

Shen Man: [I never scold people.]

Xu Zhouye: [Gege is so good, so gentle.]

By now, there were so many comments they completely covered the screen. Everyone was thoroughly grossed out by the sickeningly sweet atmosphere between these two, saying things like, [Sister, don’t be deceived by his words! This guy loves using the silent treatment. Look at how much we miss him, yet he can ice us out for months. If you play poorly, he definitely won’t carry you next time!] and so on…

Of course, Xu Zhouye couldn’t see this. He happily selected a Phantom.

Zhao Rui’s computer was right next to Xu Zhouye’s. Seeing him lock in Phantom, he was shocked and said, “You actually went to duo queue with him? And you even picked Phantom?” (A character that can attach itself to players).

Xu Zhouye said, “Yeah.”

“Then you’re doomed,” Zhao Rui said. “If you mess up, chat will blast you to pieces.”

Xu Zhouye smiled brightly, “It’s fine. Being able to attach to the Captain and get flamed is also a blessing.”

Zhao Rui: “…” It hasn’t even been a month, and you’ve already maturely grasped the true essence of being the Captain’s dog.

The game began, and the two went to the bottom lane.

Chat was watching with a bystander’s mentality, probably thinking that with Shen Man’s temper, carrying an e-girl would quickly result in him going red in the face and breaking down. Yet the more they watched, the less right it felt. This Phantom was playing like Shen Man’s personal pet. The two had insane synergy; getting a double kill at level four, and straight-up tower diving at level six…

[It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s just the first game. Just good luck, everyone don’t panic.]

[Giving her a little taste of sweetness first, the days of suffering are coming up next.]

[I don’t believe he won’t tilt later on.]

Winning the first game, Shen Man definitely felt the synergy between himself and Xu Zhouye. He thought for a moment and had Xu Zhouye switch supports: [Play Yancao].

Xu Zhouye: [Okay Gege (^▽^)]

Qin Sang and Yan Cao were a couple in the game. In this current patch, both heroes were very strong. Yan Cao was a support; her map rotation speed and ability to protect her team’s main carry were top-tier, making her a pick-or-ban presence in competitive play.

After finishing one game, Shen Man gave Xu Zhouye’s Yan Cao incredibly high praise: [Your Yan Cao is better than zoop’s.] ‘zoop’ was Zhao Rui’s in-game ID.

The moment this sentence went out, chat spammed the screen again. Thank goodness Zhao Rui wasn’t streaming right now, otherwise a whole mob of people would definitely run to his stream to tell tales of Shen Man’s abandonment.

[You only see the new love laughing, but not the old love crying.]

[zoop, your Captain doesn’t want you anymore.]

Shen Man didn’t even need to look at chat to know what this bunch of people were spamming. He said blankly, “What, do any of you want Zhao Rui to support you with Yan Cao for a game?”

Everyone rapidly declined: [Forget it, you keep the good stuff for yourself to use.]

Shen Man: “Tch.”

You couldn’t blame Shen Man for this attitude. Mainly, it was because Zhao Rui’s Yan Cao this season had been played far too abstractly. He used it twice, and both games his stats were too horrific to look at. He couldn’t CC enemies, couldn’t protect his allies, was as fragile as paper, and died incredibly fast. If the game required watching an ad to respawn, he would be the advertisers’ favorite pro player.

However, Zhao Rui’s signature hero wasn’t Yan Cao in the first place. When they picked the hero, it was purely a strategic move to prevent the enemy from getting it. So Shen Man didn’t blame him, just told him to practice it more in private.

In the third game, Xu Zhouye pulled out a Snow Moon Maiden.

This was a typical Mage that could also be played as Support. The difference between its skill ceiling and floor was massive, mainly depending on whether her skills could hit and CC people—commonly referred to as “playing the lottery.”

If you hit the jackpot, you could one-shot them with a combo. If you missed, you were just a giant minion.

Seeing Little Sweet Soft Candy pick this, the stream chat immediately started laughing: [What’s going on, SW? Did little sister think you were winning too slowly and decided to do it herself?]

Xu Zhouye hovered it but didn’t lock in: [Gege, can we play this? 0.0]

Shen Man didn’t care: [Whatever works.]

[Gege is so good. If I don’t hit anyone, Gege isn’t allowed to scold me, okay?] Xu Zhouye typed.

Shen Man replied with a [.]

Shen Man didn’t care, but the Mage queued up on their team saw their conversation and was very unfriendly: [Can you not pick that thing? It’s completely useless.]

Neither Shen Man nor Xu Zhouye replied.

Seeing that no one paid him any attention, the Mage immediately picked Phantom, changing his summoner spells to Teleport and Revive—this action made it clear he was intentionally going to troll.

This was the current atmosphere of the game. There were too many arrogant divas who would just start trolling without saying a word.

Shen Man’s expression didn’t change one bit as he calmly clicked on his talents.

Xu Zhouye, sitting in front of his computer, typed out a line with a grin: [In this rank, with or without you, it’s all the same.]

The Mage’s mental shattered instantly, and he started firing away at Xu Zhouye. Seeing Xu Zhouye’s ID and assuming he was a girl, the Mage spewed all kinds of filthy insults. Xu Zhouye directly muted the in-game voice chat, but the guy kept typing. Seeing this scene made the stream chat’s blood boil; they called for the demolition squad to prepare and let this person experience the power of cyberbullying.

Having a teammate who was intentionally griefing seemed to doom everyone to a miserable game.

Chat even speculated if Little Sweet Soft Candy would tilt because of this, but the development of the plot exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Little Sweet Soft Candy didn’t follow Shen Man to the bottom lane. At level one, she directly skipped buying the gold-sharing support item and went straight to the mid lane.

The Mage who was flaming him was standing in the fountain typing when he saw Little Sweet Soft Candy send: [Wu wu wu, Gege, the enemy Blademaster is so scary.]

1 second later, the First Blood announcement played. The enemy mid laner had burned to death from Little Sweet Soft Candy’s Ignite (a summoner spell that slowly burns people to death).

Shen Man: “…” Being young meant fast hand speed. To think he could type all those words in the time the ignite was ticking on the enemy. Shen Man himself was also currently ignited. It was a two-versus-one against him, and the enemy was ready to jump him at any second, so he could only cowardly farm under the tower.

Little Sweet Soft Candy: [Hoo hoo hoo, blowing out the little flames on Gege’s body.]

Shen Man: “…” Xu Zhouye, where on earth did you learn these things?

The AFK Mage was getting a bit antsy now. Seeing that Xu Zhouye had killed the opponent two more times, he started intentionally feeding kills to the enemy.

But by this time, it was already too late. With his kill stacks stacked high, Xu Zhouye had become a demon lord. The moment he CC’d someone, following up with an ultimate would instantly delete them.

After killing someone, he never forgot to turn back and taunt: [Look, I told you, this game is the same with or without you.]

The Mage completely tilted, standing in place shouting abuse.

While playing under pressure in his lane, Shen Man also paid some attention to Xu Zhouye’s mechanics.

He had to say, Xu Zhouye’s mechanics really had something to them. “Playing the lottery,” yet hitting the jackpot nine times out of ten. The skills he casually tossed out seemed to read the opponent’s mind completely; even the exact spot the opponent would flash to was predicted with absolute clarity.

His positioning and skill shots all emanated a suffocating gap in skill, beating the enemy until they had no way to fight back.

Why would a person like this get killed by a jungle camp?

If Xu Zhouye was really the type of person who got too nervous to adapt to the competitive stage, that would be a true pity, Shen Man thought. Even he wanted to take a minute to feel sorry for Xu Zhouye.

In the end, they ended the game at twenty-three minutes. While hitting the Nexus, Xu Zhouye was still muttering in his heart: Are the outside rumors false? Isn’t Shen Man’s temper quite good? Even running into such an annoying person, he didn’t even type to interact.

But a split second before the Nexus exploded, he saw Shen Man type his first sentence of the match, which was also the final death sentence: [Say goodbye to your account.]

Xu Zhouye: “…” Oh, so he was waiting for this moment.

A player who intentionally went AFK, and on top of that, spat foul language to purposely disgust his teammates while doing so—running into Shen Man was his bad luck. His account was definitely gone. As for how long it would be banned, it depended on the official judgment, but it would be three months minimum.

The two played on stream all night and miraculously only lost one game. The win rate was far higher than when Shen Man and Zhao Rui duo queued.

The chat’s attitude shifted from wanting to watch Shen Man tilt while carrying an e-girl to:

[SW, where on earth did you trick this little sister from? Can you introduce one to us too?]

[Tell little sister to start streaming too, you can’t be making all this money alone.]

[I want to send little sister rockets! I want to send little sister rockets!]

Shen Man ignored them. The moment his work hours were up, he went offline instantly, leaving a crowd of viewers wailing like ghosts and howling like wolves, asking when the next stream would be, making them suffer like women waiting for their husbands to return.

Shen Man couldn’t be bothered to care.

Seeing Shen Man go offline and turn off his webcam, Xu Zhouye leaned over and called out, “Captain.”

“Played well,” Shen Man kept his head down, putting away his headset as he evaluated Xu Zhouye’s overall performance tonight.

Xu Zhouye smiled and hummed: “It’s because Captain is amazing.”

“Get ready,” Shen Man said. “The coach submitted your name to the roster. You’re playing again on Friday.”

After speaking, he glanced at Xu Zhouye, thinking the kid would at least be a little pleasantly surprised. Who knew Xu Zhouye still wore that smiling expression, not even the curve of his eyes changing, and his response was short and simple: “Okay.”

Xu Zhouye’s temper seemed very good, but somehow he felt…

“Captain?” Xu Zhouye suddenly called him.

“Hm?” Shen Man snapped back to reality, only to realize Xu Zhouye’s face was right in front of his. The two were so close their noses were almost touching.

This distance was too close, causing Shen Man to reflexively take a step back. Xu Zhouye didn’t lean in further, just stared at Shen Man with those innocent eyes, making it seem as if Shen Man had overreacted. He tilted his head, like a confused puppy: “Captain? What’s wrong?”

Shen Man said, “Nothing.”

Xu Zhouye said, “Do you want to go out for BBQ together tonight? I found a really delicious place…”

“No,” Shen Man refused flatly.

“Oh.” Xu Zhouye dropped his head, looking a bit dejected.

This expression and tone were so deeply aggrieved that it made Shen Man inexplicably feel like he was being a bit too harsh. He cleared his throat lightly and offered a rare explanation: “I have some things to do tonight, let’s do it another day.”

“Hehe, yay.” It was as if it only took a single minute to coax him back to happiness; Xu Zhouye revealed a smile again.

Shen Man turned and left, leaving a room full of teammates.

Zhao Rui crept up next to Xu Zhouye and said faintly, “Why does it feel like you and Brother Shen are so close?” He kept getting the bizarre illusion that Xu Zhouye was trying to steal his job.

Xu Zhouye blinked: “The Captain and I hit it off from the start.”

Zhao Rui: “…”

Xu Zhouye said, “We respect each other like a married couple.”

Zhao Rui: “?” Is that an idiom you use on teammates?

Xu Zhouye smiled and walked away.

Leaving Zhao Rui standing alone in place, his expression twisted.