SITS CH4

Chapter 04: We Never Lie

The next day at the base, several hungover teammates groaned about splitting headaches, with not even the coach spared.

Only Xu Zhouye and Shen Man survived unscathed. Shen Man simply disliked drinking and nobody dared to force drinks on him, but Xu Zhouye being sober was an outright marvel.

“My head hurts so bad… who brought us back yesterday?” Zhao Rui’s legs were like jelly right now, wobbling with every step.

Shen Man pointed toward the corner, where Xu Zhouye sat wearing headphones, playing solo queue.

Zhao Rui said, “Xu Zhouye? He didn’t pass out?”

“Nope,” Shen Man said. “He dragged you all back, one in each hand.”

Zhao Rui: “…That’s impossible.”

They rarely drank, so when they did, they naturally went all out. As the primary target of yesterday’s celebratory feast, everyone had aimed to drink Xu Zhouye under the table right from the start. Xu Zhouye had been courteous, accepting every single toast offered. Zhao Rui, seeing how reckless the kid was being, had even taken pity and cut him some slack, thinking he was headed for disaster. Who knew Xu Zhouye would be completely fine while he was the one who collapsed?

“That’s impossible!” Zhao Rui sidled up to Xu Zhouye, repeating loudly.

Xu Zhouye took off his headphones, looking completely bewildered: “Zhao-ge, what’s wrong?”

“You weren’t drunk yesterday?” Zhao Rui asked.

“Nope,” Xu Zhouye said. “Can people get drunk on beer?”

Zhao Rui: “…”

“Pfft.” Over to the side, Shen Man let out a chuckle upon overhearing them.

“You little punk,” Zhao Rui fumed. “Just you wait for next time. Begging for mercy won’t save you!”

Facing Zhao Rui’s outrage, Xu Zhouye looked somewhat helpless and said, “Bro, how about we try baijiu next time? I can’t drink that much liquor.”

Zhao Rui: “‘Not that much’ is how much?”

Xu Zhouye said modestly, “Around two catties—a liter or so, probably.”

Zhao Rui: “…” Two catties. Two catties of hard liquor could marinate his corpse.

A chorus of wails filled the base, with only Shen Man and Xu Zhouye sitting steady as rocks.

Shen Man started his live stream, planning to run the clock and wrap up his quota for the month.

The moment the stream went live, in less than a minute, comments swarmed the chat.

[Yo yo yo, the sun must have risen from the west today. You’re actually streaming this early?]

[Don’t you always cram at the end of the month to hit your quota? Your diligence is terrifying me.]

[Must be because you won the match! SW, does your team’s jungler have a stream channel?]

[Yeah, where’s fest’s stream room?]

Shen Man glanced at the chat, then turned to Xu Zhouye, who was sitting nearby reviewing match VODs: “Want to duo queue?”

Xu Zhouye immediately replied, “Down, absolutely.”

“They’re asking for your stream,” Shen Man said. “Why don’t you start one too?”

Xu Zhouye said, “Sure.”

His webcam was on, and everyone in the stream heard their conversation. Instantly, terror struck the chat.

[No way, why is SW so obedient this time?]

[Am I hallucinating? He actually deigned to read the chat.]

[Something’s wrong, something’s very wrong. Huge red flag!]

Shen Man was notoriously known for ignoring chat, especially after loading into a game; he rarely distracted himself to interact with viewers.

Viewers had a love-hate relationship with his disposition. They loved that his streams were incredible, with god-tier plays frequently appearing in his ranked games that left people in awe. They hated that the guy had an awful temper, refusing to give viewers even a shred of face. He treated streaming strictly like punching a clock at a nine-to-five—he wouldn’t work a single second over, enough to infuriate anyone.

But after all this time, everyone was used to it.

[SW being this compliant must be a conspiracy! He’s definitely plotting something!]

[I’m so scared, he’s not going to announce he’s retiring to get married in his hometown after today, right?]

Shen Man was amused to the point of laughter by this bunch of masochists in chat: “Watch if you want; if not, get lost.”

[Got flamed, now I feel comfortable.]

[Relieved, relieved. Looks like he isn’t retiring.]

[Quick, quick, scold us a couple more times so everyone can rest easy!]

Shen Man: “…” You people are ridiculous.

It would take Xu Zhouye a bit longer to set up his stream. Someone had left a tangerine on the desk; with nothing to do, Shen Man picked it up, peeled it, and popped a segment into his mouth.

His expression froze for an instant. Shen Man swiveled his chair around to face the room and asked, “Who bought these tangerines?”

Nobody answered.

Shen Man looked down at the tangerine, then looked over at Xu Zhouye, who was still obediently adjusting his setup nearby, and abruptly stood up to walk over.

Xu Zhouye felt a shadow fall beside him. He turned to find Shen Man, and just as he was about to speak, he saw Shen Man pinch something between his fingers and, with an unyielding gesture, shove it right into his mouth.

Xu Zhouye: “…”

The two held eye contact for a second, miraculously understanding what the other’s eyes were communicating.

Xu Zhouye held out a hand.

Shen Man handed him the rest of the tangerine.

Not a single word was spoken throughout; everything was accomplished through pure tacit understanding.

Xu Zhouye picked up the tangerine and walked toward the next victim…

“Fuck!” Zhao Rui, having become the next victim, let out a roar with a twisted expression after eating it. He slammed the desk hard and loudly barked the exact question Shen Man had just asked: “Who bought these tangerines?!”

Still nobody answered; everyone was baffled.

Clutching the tangerine, Zhao Rui glared menacingly at their mid laner Xu Xiaochong, who was furiously laning beside him. Just as he was about to stand up, Liu Shishi happened to walk in holding a giant bag of snacks, asking, “Yo, are the tangerines I bought sweet?”

All three turned their heads in unison.

Liu Shishi was bewildered: “Why are you all staring at me?”

The tangerine-planting culprit had finally been brought to justice. Zhao Rui and Xu Zhouye looked at him simultaneously, gentle and amiable smiles blooming on their faces as they spoke in one voice: “Sweet!!”

Liu Shishi hadn’t yet realized the gravity of the situation. Thinking they were truly sweet, he nodded: “Sweet is good! I left one on each of your desks. If you finish, there are more.”

“We just peeled one,” Zhao Rui said, stepping forward with a smile. “Finished it already. Here’s a second one, hurry and have a taste.”

Liu Shishi prepared to peel off a segment.

“Hey, why so dainty? A real man downs it in one bite,” Zhao Rui egged on.

Oblivious to the subtle undercurrents, and bathed in the trio’s tender, gentle gazes, Liu Shishi grabbed the tangerine and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

“Aaaagh!!!!” A shrill, agonizing wail echoed through the base. His entire face scrunched up like a crumpled paper napkin. “So sour—aargh—”

Everyone burst into laughter. Shen Man said, “Didn’t you taste the tangerines when you bought them?”

Liu Shishi was so sour tears streamed down his face: “Didn’t I ask the shopkeeper if they were sweet?!”

The three: “…” Excuse me, but which fruit vendor on earth would ever say their fruit isn’t sweet when asked?

Shen Man said, “You didn’t eat one yourself after buying them?”

Liu Shishi: “The peel was green, it looked a bit sour!!”

Shen Man: “…” He had some cunning, but not much. Once peeled it wasn’t green anymore, so he actually fell for Zhao Rui’s words and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth.

“I’m dying, I’m dying! Water, get me some water!” Unable to take it, Liu Shishi wiped his tears and scrambled for water. This tangerine was far too sour, sour enough to nearly make him pass out.

Shen Man said, “Let’s go. Hurry up and get your stream ready.”

Xu Zhouye replied obediently, “Okay, Captain.”

The two turned and left.

Zhao Rui glared at their retreating backs, grinding his teeth in indignation. These two were truly something else—eating a tangerine sour enough to make his teeth fall out, yet neither had cracked an expression. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have fallen for the trap. People’s hearts were truly rotten to the core…

In the stream, viewers were wondering why Shen Man had suddenly walked away when they heard Liu Shishi’s pig-slaughtering squeal.

[What happened? Who’s screaming?]

[Told you Shen Man is a team tyrant! He definitely just bullied his teammate.]

[How did he bully them? Stepping on them underfoot?]

[Come on, give me 500 bucks; I’m willing to be bullied by SW in their place!]

[I’ll pay 500, let me go first!]

[I’ll pay 1,000! Put me first in line!]

[????? Put your pants back on before speaking???]

Shen Man returned to find the chat spiraling out of control. He sneered, “Mod, ban all these shameless degenerates for ten days.”

Collective wails erupted.

[Nooo, I don’t want a gagging play!]

[Pants are back on, give me one more chance!]

[Oh, fest’s stream is up, I’m heading over to look.]

[Run, run! Run too slow and your mouth gets gagged!]

Over on Xu Zhouye’s side, he finally calibrated his webcam and went live smoothly.

Shen Man asked for his room ID and entered his channel.

The moment he entered, he saw chat spamming in a frenzy:

[fest, spill it! Is SW a team bully who picks on you every day?]

[Poor baby, did SW just yell at you?]

[We are all upright magistrates here to uphold justice for you!]

Xu Zhouye read the chat attentively and explained even more seriously: “No, he isn’t. The Captain is an exceptionally good person.”

[Yo yo yo, “The Cap~tain is an ex~cep~tion~al~ly good per~son~”]

[Where is he good?! As if we don’t know his dog temper!!]

Xu Zhouye furrowed his brows: “The Captain’s temper is truly quite good. You’re only saying that because you don’t know him.”

Shen Man nodded in satisfaction. Moving his cursor over to the gift section, he clicked.

The next moment, ten Rocket gifts blasted across Xu Zhouye’s stream room.

These were premium donations on Seafood TV, two thousand yuan each. Shen Man casually gifted ten in a row.

Before Xu Zhouye could speak, the chat went wild.

[I knew you had grievances! Look at that, what else could that be if not hush money?]

[Ahhhh, SW is actually using money to muzzle someone!]

[Speak up boldly, don’t let yourself be bought out by money! We will definitely secure justice for you!]

Seeing this, Shen Man remained expressionless: “Mod, run a raffle in a bit. Pick ten people who send ‘SW has such a great temper’ in chat and send them new phones.”

Chat fell silent for two seconds, and then [SW has such a great temper] instantly bloodbathed the stream.

Shen Man: “What were you spamming in Xu Zhouye’s chat just now?”

Chat: [We were praising your good temper! Saying it’s his sheer blessing to have you as a teammate!]

Shen Man: “Heh.”

Seeing the gifts Shen Man sent, Xu Zhouye smiled and thanked him: “Thank you, Captain.”

Shen Man turned to Xu Zhouye beside him: “Turn on voice chat, I have headphones on. Send me your game ID.”

Xu Zhouye agreed.

Moments later, Shen Man added Xu Zhouye’s smurf account, and the two began duo-queuing.

Their next match was scheduled for the night after tomorrow against a bottom-tier team. With little pressure, everyone was relatively relaxed.

Shen Man casually picked a Marksman and saw Xu Zhouye lock in a Mage known simply as the Revenant. This was a classic hard carry—the kind of hero that turned into an absolute raid boss once scaled into the late game.

“Your hero pool is quite deep,” Shen Man remarked. He had already noticed it when Xu Zhouye played support for him last time. The kid knew a lot of heros, executing mechanics that required dedicated practice with great precision, meaning he had definitely drilled them before.

“It’s alright,” Xu Zhouye smiled. “I just like trying everything.”

Shen Man said, “Humble.”

Hero pool was a vital metric for pro players, which was why some god-tier one-trick pub-stompers struggled in pro play; once their signature heroes were banned out, their performance plummeted.

Even though Xu Zhouye was also a rookie, Shen Man didn’t see that limitation in him.

Their duo queue run went very smoothly—out of five games, they only lost one.

Around 8:00 PM, Xu Zhouye suddenly received a phone call, mentioning he had an errand to run outside and had to hop off for now.

“Go ahead,” Shen Man said.

Compared to Shen Man, Xu Zhouye gave off an approachable, warm aura, always wearing a smile. He was handsome, but his hair had grown long and unkempt, obscuring most of his eyes and giving him an untidy look. Shen Man remembered that when Xu Zhouye first arrived at the base, the coach kept nagging him to get a haircut, but despite all the prodding, the kid never budged and played his match sporting that same messy mop of hair anyway.

Xu Zhouye’s performance in the second match had been great. If he kept it up in the upcoming games, streaming platforms would soon reach out with contract offers.

Shen Man let out a sigh, thinking he never should have signed this streaming contract in the first place; now he was forced to mutually torture chat every single month.

Naturally, he viewed it as mutual torture, but the stream viewers absolutely adored his reluctant “forced to work” persona.

[Ho ho ho, seeing Xu Zhouye leave makes you want to clock out too, huh? No way!]

[Who told you to slack off all month? You’re on your own with the remaining hours!]

[He’s sighing, he’s sighing! Sighing won’t help, weld him to that chair!]

With no duo partner, Shen Man switched to his main account for solo queue.

Because his rank was too high, queue times were painfully long, so he casually opened a blood-pressure-spiking game (Getting Over It)—controlling a character swinging upward with zero checkpoints. If your luck was bad enough, you could plummet all the way from the summit back to the starting line, throwing dozens of hours of progress down the drain.

[This game is great! Didn’t Zhao Rui tilt off the face of the earth playing it yesterday?]

[Never seen SW tilt before, I want to see it so bad.]

Tilt? Tilting was completely out of the question.

Shen Man plummeted from high altitudes more than twenty times throughout the evening without his expression twitching once.

In the end, the stream chat broke first: [People watch this game to see the streamer suffer, are you here to torture us instead?]

[Someone please humble SW! Why didn’t his eyes even flicker after dropping from that high?]

[I strongly suspect Zhao Rui is wearing a skin-suit to stream for him, which is why he can’t make facial expressions.]

[It’s a pre-recorded vod, it has to be a vod!]

“Pre-recorded my ass,” Shen Man said, bewildered. “If you fall, just climb back up. You can’t die from the fall anyway, what’s there to tilt about?”

[Forget it, give up. During the last showmatch when he got tower-dived, his heart rate didn’t even pass 80, steady as a corpse.]

[SW, you have no heart!!!]

[Fam, spam ‘SW is heartless’ on screen!]

[SW IS HEARTLESS!!! HAS NO SOUL!!!]

Shen Man: “…” You people are truly absurd.

The other teammates had all called it a day, leaving behind Shen Man—who usually slacked off during the month and was now forced into overtime—to stream all alone.

At 11:00 PM, Shen Man glanced out the pitch-black window, yawning: “Signing off at midnight.”

He hadn’t eaten dinner and felt a bit hungry, resting his chin on his palm as he waited in queue.

Suddenly, someone tapped his shoulder. Shen Man turned around to see a sweat-drenched Xu Zhouye gazing at him with a warm smile.

“Captain.” The kid had just returned from outside, breathlessly holding up what was in his hand. “You haven’t eaten, right? I brought you supper.”

Shen Man: “…” He fell silent for a beat before finally offering a thank you.

“Zhao-ge mentioned you didn’t eat dinner,” Xu Zhouye said. “Go eat first, I’ll play a round for you so the food doesn’t get cold and lose its flavor.”

Shen Man said, “Mhm… that works too.”

He stood up and surrendered his seat to Xu Zhouye.

Just in time, the match loaded in. Xu Zhouye maneuvered the hero out of the fountain, while Shen Man sat down beside him and unpacked the food Xu Zhouye had brought.

Catching the logo on the takeout bag, Shen Man asked, “Did you go to the West District?”

“Huh? Yeah, just happened to pass by.” Xu Zhouye seemed to have run back, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and clinging to the tip of his straight nose.

Shen Man pulled a tissue from the box and handed it to him.

Xu Zhouye glanced at it, smiled in thanks, wiped his sweat, and swept his damp bangs back away from his forehead. The change exposed his sharply sculpted face. With his hair swept back, Shen Man realized the kid was even more handsome than he had thought—sword-like brows, starry eyes, a tall nose with a slight aquiline hump. The bone structure looked aloof at first glance, yet Xu Zhouye loved to smile; smiling versus not smiling made him look like two entirely different people.

Shen Man pulled back his gaze: “The line must have been long.”

That shop had incredible food and massive popularity; the queue was notoriously long.

“It’s fine, takeout is fast,” Xu Zhouye said warmly. “Hurry and eat, don’t let it get cold.”

Shen Man nodded and picked up his chopsticks.

As he ate, he watched Xu Zhouye play the Marksman he had picked.

The bot lane Marksman role was notoriously unpleasant to solo queue. Put simply, queueing alone meant running into all kinds of bizarre supports. Teammates who were supposed to buy a gold-sharing blade—an item in Heart of the Wasteland where the gold earned was shared with allies—insisting on “financial independence” without giving a single cent to their primary carry was already a common occurrence. The most absurd incident occurred when Shen Man ran into a Mountain Breaker support who did buy the gold-sharing blade, but to put it in terms everyone could grasp: it felt like seeing a shirtless, muscular brute relentlessly chasing you down to breastfeed you.

Even with Shen Man’s iron-clad mental fortitude, his heart skipped a beat at the sight.

The support Xu Zhouye encountered this game was marginally normal—at the very least, belonging to the “Support” class.

Shen Man noted that Xu Zhouye possessed strong laning mechanics; he commanded duo-lane trading techniques remarkably well, managing to farm lane minions and the jungle creep on the right simultaneously without dropping a single minion. It was clearly well-practiced.

Rock-solid fundamentals.

Xu Zhouye was a jungle main; he hadn’t expected his fundamental mechanics to be this solid.

Chewing on wasabi-flavored smashed cucumber, Shen Man asked curiously, “Have you always played Carry Jungler?”

“No, I used to play Marksman Carry before,” Xu Zhouye replied.

“You played ADC before?” Shen Man asked. “Why switch to jungle?”

Xu Zhouye said, “I found that solo queueing as Marksman severely tested the limits of my moral civility.”

Shen Man: “…”

While speaking, Xu Zhouye claimed First Blood: “After flaming teammates and getting three or four accounts chat-banned, I gave up.”

Shen Man: “…” He wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

“Later I tried other roles and felt Carry Jungle suited me a bit better,” Xu Zhouye explained.

Shen Man thought to himself: You picked the right path. Why on earth did I stubbornly walk down this dark alley to the bitter end?

“That’s why I say Captain has such a good temper,” Xu Zhouye didn’t miss the chance to praise his captain. “If you had a bad temper, you’d definitely be typing to argue! Look at you, playing for so long without typing a single word!”

Shen Man fell silent for three seconds: “Do you think there’s a possibility…”

Xu Zhouye: “Hm?”

Shen Man said, “…that this account is already chat-banned?”

Xu Zhouye: “…”

Shen Man: “…”

The two looked at each other, both reading loud and clear what the other was thinking.

Fortunately, Xu Zhouye swiftly adjusted his mindset, continuing to dote on his captain and saying gently, “It’s fine. That person must have been terribly obnoxious to make Captain flame them. Look, in all the time I’ve been with the team, Captain hasn’t scolded me once.”

Shen Man: “…” Faced with Xu Zhouye’s disarmingly sincere gaze, he felt guilty. He lowered his head and cleared his throat—he couldn’t very well confess to Xu Zhouye that previously, he had simply assumed the kid would be booted from the team shortly and couldn’t be bothered to talk to him.

The webcam was still on, and their conversation was overheard in full by the viewers.

The chat spammed the screen like wildfire:

[Someone please tell me what is going on with the vibe between these two?!]

[Why do I see guilt on SW’s face? What the hell is he feeling guilty about??]

[I bet during last week’s match, this bastard SW already cursed fest ten thousand times in his head.]

[The way fest looks at SW is just like my Golden Retriever looking at me.]

[Their relationship is creepy levels of close.]

[Oh no, why is this giving such fruity vibes?]

[I finally understand why SW was never satisfied with previous junglers—turns out it’s because they weren’t good-looking!]

[Case closed: he wasn’t picking a teammate, he was picking a boyfriend!]

Shen Man didn’t see the absurd banter in chat, quietly continuing his meal. The food from this restaurant suited his palate well; though he preferred rich flavors, he was actually a very picky eater, able to gauge the freshness of ingredients in a single bite. Thus, even when ordering takeout normally, he barely ate much.

Xu Zhouye secured the win and queued up for another.

“Not going to rest?” Shen Man asked.

“I’ll keep Captain company,” Xu Zhouye smiled. “Not like I’d do anything else back in my room besides scroll on my phone in bed.”

“Did you register a Weibo account?” Shen Man asked.

Xu Zhouye: “Registered.”

Hearing this, Shen Man pulled out his phone and searched Xu Zhouye’s name: “Which one is you?”

Xu Zhouye pointed at an account, and with a tap of his finger, Shen Man followed him. He rarely logged into his account, but it still boasted over a million followers. Following Xu Zhouye, he said, “We’ll call it a night after this game.”

“Okay,” Xu Zhouye nodded.

At midnight, the stream concluded smoothly, and Shen Man signed off at light speed.

Shen Man went back to his room, took a shower, and scrolled on his phone in bed for a while. Xu Zhouye had followed him back, and even posted a Weibo: [Extremely happy today], accompanied by a picture of the takeout supper he had brought for Shen Man.

Shen Man thought: I was the one who ate all the food, what are you so happy about?

The kid was quite nice, though. He hoped their upcoming matches would go just as smoothly.