Raine: First of all, I’m sorry if I butchered any gaming terms here. Aside from Genshin. I only ever played rhythm and otome games.
After logging into his high school WeChat account, Lu Yuan decided to use his current WeChat to play with Ning Guiqu and the others. If he had used his high school account to play with Ning Guiqu now, Ning Guiqu would immediately realize that Lu Yuan had seen his rant. That would probably be very awkward.
Lu Yuan glanced at Ning Guiqu again.
Ning Guiqu asked, puzzled, “Why are you still using this account? Aren’t you using your high school account anymore?”
Lu Yuan lied through his teeth, “Not anymore. The rank on my high school account was too low.”
Ning Guiqu frowned slightly.
Shi Wen added both Ning Guiqu and Lu Yuan to the game room.
The game they played was called “Legend of Glory,” a 5v5 competitive game. The ranks in the game, from lowest to highest, were: Stubborn Platinum, Plastic Gold, Glass Diamond, Extraordinary King, and Radiant King.
Ning Guiqu was Glass Diamond, Shi Wen was Plastic Gold, while Lu Yuan was still a Stubborn Platinum.
The game’s trio queue mechanism required adjacent ranks to play together. However, among the three of them, Ning Guiqu and Lu Yuan were two ranks apart. So, Shi Wen said, “We’ll have to do a five-queue. I’ll randomly invite two strangers.”
Shi Wen quickly invited two Diamond-ranked strangers.
Ning Guiqu said to Lu Yuan, “Lu Yuan, you play a marksman. I’ll protect you.”
Lu Yuan was confused.
Logically, if Ning Guiqu didn’t like him anymore, he wouldn’t go out of his way to protect him in a game. Lu Yuan suddenly remembered an odd line amidst Ning Guiqu’s rants: “Lu Yuan, can you let me hug your thighs for no reason?”
Let Ning Guiqu hug his thigh.
What did he have that Ning Guiqu could leech off?
As the game was matching, Lu Yuan wondered what Ning Guiqu was thinking. His alternate WeChat account suddenly flashed. Lu Yuan didn’t need to open it to see the message.
[Stupid Lu Yuan, not changing accounts and making us wait so long!]
Lu Yuan’s train of thought came to a halt.
During the hero selection phase, Lu Yuan followed Ning Guiqu’s suggestion and chose a marksman with high damage output but no self-protection abilities. Shi Wen also chose a damage-dealing mage, while Ning Guiqu was a support. Ning Guiqu was ready to protect Lu Yuan well!
Shi Wen said, “Xiao Qu, protect me well.”
Ning Guiqu replied perfunctorily, “Alright, Xiao Shi.”
The two random strangers played jungle and tank roles, respectively.
Soon, they entered the game.
From the moment the game started, Ning Guiqu stuck close to Lu Yuan.
After Shi Wen was killed in the middle lane by the enemy support and mage, he tremblingly asked, “Where’s our support?”
The support was busy hugging the thigh of the carry.
Ning Guiqu silently answered in his heart but outwardly reassured Shi Wen, “Lu Yuan is playing an immobile marksman. Once he gets strong, I’ll help you get revenge.”
Shi Wen asked weakly, “Can we win this game?”
Ning Guiqu made an affirmative sound, “We can.”
Shi Wen gave up.
The jungler initiated a fight in the bottom lane. Ning Guiqu led Lu Yuan to hide in a bush. Lu Yuan glanced at the minimap, seeing their jungler getting beaten badly. He intended to go help, but noticing Ning Guiqu crouching beside him in the bush, he asked, “Should we check the bush and go help?”
Ning Guiqu thought for a moment and replied, “I suspect there are several enemies in that bush. If we go, we’ll just die. Let’s wait for the jungler to die then we’ll avenge him. You can farm more gold by getting kills then.”
Lu Yuan: “…….”
Shi Wen: “…….”
“Xiao Qu, what are you saying? The jungler is already cursing us three as useless! Look, two enemies are already dead! Even if there’s someone in the bush, it’s just one person!” Shi Wen finally couldn’t hold back and roared.
Ning Guiqu raised his eyelids, his face slightly red. He didn’t notice that two enemies were dead.
But Ning Guiqu still needed to maintain his image as a small god in front of Lu Yuan, “I know what I’m doing. Xiao Shi, I carried you from Platinum to Gold. Don’t you trust me?”
Shi Wen did trust him.
But he had already died eight times! Ning Guiqu never came to protect him once. Their base was left with just a bare crystal!
If the crystal was destroyed, they would lose.
Lu Yuan was also very confused.
This wasn’t his first time playing this game, he just played less after entering university. So, he couldn’t understand what Ning Guiqu was trying to do. He hadn’t… developed his character yet.
Several times when Ning Guiqu said he’d help him farm, they both ended up dead halfway through. Lu Yuan thought he shouldn’t have followed Ning Guiqu’s commands from the beginning. After all, Ning Guiqu was just a Diamond player.
Ning Guiqu reminded Shi Wen, “Xiao Shi, you can go steal the tower now.”
Shi Wen didn’t want to, “I’ll be reported if I die again. I’m not going.”
Lu Yuan was puzzled, “You’re telling a squishy champion to steal the tower?”
Had the game changed so much since he last played?
Before Ning Guiqu could speak, Shi Wen explained, “It’s not just Xiao Qu telling me. I like to steal the tower with squishy champions in games. It gives me a sneaky feeling. When we’re ahead, I can steal the tower freely. When we’re behind, I have to listen to Xiao Qu. But early game, Xiao Qu didn’t protect me at all. I can’t die again!”
Shi Wen gritted his teeth.
Ning Guiqu tried to reassure Shi Wen, “I’m protecting Lu Yuan. He’s almost ready to carry now. Our goal is to win.”
Shi Wen snorted, “You can’t even protect him. I’ve seen him die in front of you several times while you still had full health.”
Ning Guiqu: “…”
Damn it!
Lu Yuan couldn’t hold back any longer and asked, “Is this how you usually play?”
Shi Wen replied, “No, not at all. Usually, Xiao Qu plays jungle. He’s very good at it. When he jungles, he doesn’t miss a single camp. When we’re ahead, he even steals the enemy’s jungle. Now he’s forced to play support just to protect you.”
Ning Guiqu’s face reddened slightly.
Well done! He was indeed that skilled, and now he was playing poorly just to protect Lu Yuan! Ning Guiqu decided not to curse Shi Wen on his alt account.
Lu Yuan fell silent.
Because all three of them were underperforming, their jungler cursed at Shi Wen, Lu Yuan, and Ning Guiqu.
Shi Wen, at this point, didn’t dare to argue back and could only weakly accept the abuse.
Ning Guiqu, to maintain his image, couldn’t curse back either, but his little demon had already appeared to curse on his behalf!
Lu Yuan didn’t care at all. He just wanted to end the game quickly and stop playing.
So, in the last teamfight, Lu Yuan went all out with his damage output and positioning. He didn’t listen to Ning Guiqu’s advice to go back and heal, instead clearing some small jungle camps to recover health. Their team’s tank, who had been invisible the whole game, finally stepped up to take damage for Lu Yuan. They won.
Shi Wen collapsed on his bed, “We won! So exhausting.”
Lu Yuan also breathed a sigh of relief. After exiting, he left the team, saying, “I’m done playing.”
But Ning Guiqu pulled him back, thinking Lu Yuan felt he wasn’t good enough, and that’s why he wanted to stop. He gently reassured him, “You have quite a talent for this game. You just don’t play much. We don’t look down on you. Let’s keep playing together.”
Lu Yuan: “…….”
They looked down on him??
Shi Wen shouted, “Xiao Qu, stop playing support. Play jungle!”
Ning Guiqu agreed. He realized he couldn’t protect Lu Yuan, so he had to play his best role to show Lu Yuan his skills as a small god.
“I’ll jungle this game. Lu Yuan, you play support and follow me.”
Lu Yuan was once again neatly arranged.
Lu Yuan continued to queue with Ning Guiqu and the others. While waiting to enter the game, Lu Yuan’s WeChat showed another message: [Stupid Lu Yuan, how can I show off my skills if you don’t play? I advise you to hurry up and come play!]
Lu Yuan: “……”
Ning Guiqu really had two faces.
Lu Yuan played another round. This time, Ning Guiqu was jungling, not missing a single camp, only ganking to help Shi Wen because helping others would mean missing jungle creeps.
As for Lu Yuan, after following Ning Guiqu, he only helped with jungle camps and had nothing else to do, so the marksman called him away.
Ning Guiqu was a bit unhappy, but it didn’t matter! He would use his skills to show Lu Yuan how amazing he was! Lu Yuan should stick with him. However, the marksman turned out to be even better, carrying the team throughout the game.
They won.
Ning Guiqu felt it wasn’t enough; this time, the random marksman stole all the spotlight. When he wanted to play another game with Lu Yuan, Lu Yuan had already quit the game.
“I’m done playing,” he said coldly.
Ning Guiqu: “……”
Ning Guiqu fumed, feeling like Lu Yuan was acting like a jerk who ditched people after playing. They had climbed two stars together, after all.
After ending the game, Lu Yuan turned off his computer and went to wash up.
When he returned, Ning Guiqu was already lying in bed, doing who knows what, but probably not playing games with Shi Wen. Because Shi Wen was video-calling his mother.
Meanwhile, Lu Yuan’s high school WeChat account had received several new messages from Ning Guiqu while he was washing up.
[Why did you stop playing? Why did you stop playing? Why did you stop playing?]
[Stupid Lu Yuan, do you think I’m not good enough? The marksman was so strong, how could I show off?]
[Big idiot, just blow up the dorm]
[T_TT_TT_TT_TT_TT_T So annoying!]
Lu Yuan: “…….”
Lu Yuan returned to his bed and scrolled through these venting messages from Ning Guiqu.
He was also troubled.
How was he supposed to pretend he knew nothing about this?
Should he just deactivate the WeChat account? But if he did that, Ning Guiqu would notice. So how could he make it disappear without Ning Guiqu realizing?
Lu Yuan thought that if Ning Guiqu found out, so be it. These embarrassing things had nothing to do with him. It was Ning Guiqu who did them, not him.
But why was Ning Guiqu acting like this?
He really didn’t know much about Ning Guiqu. Just in the past half month, he had discovered Ning Guiqu’s mild-mannered, simple personality. Lu Yuan didn’t intentionally try to understand him, but since Ning Guiqu always woke up early to secure seats in class, they always sat together. Initially, he thought Ning Guiqu had rekindled his feelings, but since Ning Guiqu didn’t do anything out of line, he could only completely reject him.
Now, there was this additional venting account. The personality in the venting account was completely different from the Ning Guiqu he saw now. Lu Yuan even wondered if Ning Guiqu became like this because he had been rejected too many times.
If that was the case, Lu Yuan felt really guilty. It was one thing not to have noticed, but now that he had, he couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
Lu Yuan looked up. His bed was opposite Ning Guiqu’s, so he could see what Ning Guiqu was doing with just a glance.
Ning Guiqu was wearing earphones, staring at his phone screen without blinking, seemingly watching a drama. He seemed quite normal when acting normal. Surely it couldn’t be because of his rejections?
The current Ning Guiqu called him “stupid” every day, showing no signs of affection at all. As Lu Yuan was thinking of this, he saw Ning Guiqu suddenly tapping away on his phone screen. Sure enough, the next moment, Lu Yuan’s phone screen lit up again.
Lu Yuan lowered his gaze.
[Damn it, why did they have to kill off Xiao Song? Can’t these ugly screenwriters write a proper script? The director is a bonehead, too. Damn!]
[I’m so angry, I’m so angry! How am I supposed to sleep tonight?!]
[Ugly writers and empty-headed director, wasting such good actors. Can I make them unlucky for no reason?]
Lu Yuan’s face remained expressionless.
He looked up again. Ning Guiqu’s face was flushed, his brows furrowed, seemingly genuinely angry. Lu Yuan hadn’t expected this, all over a TV drama.
Lu Yuan called out softly, “Ning Guiqu.”
Ning Guiqu reluctantly tore himself away from his phone. Upon seeing Lu Yuan looking at him from across the room, he instantly put on a polite smile, his voice gentle, “What is it?”
Lu Yuan: “…….”
Master of face-changing.
But why did he call out to Ning Guiqu?
Under Ning Guiqu’s “gentle” smile, Lu Yuan awkwardly said, “Shouldn’t you rest now? It’s almost midnight.”
Ning Guiqu feigned surprise, “Is it that late already? Thank you for reminding me. I’ll rest now. You should get some sleep, too.”
Lu Yuan: “…….”
How bizarre.
Sure enough, not long after, Lu Yuan’s phone lit up again.
[Stupid Lu Yuan actually cares about when I sleep. But aren’t you being too meddlesome? What’s wrong with it being almost midnight? Is midnight some kind of threshold? Will a pumpkin carriage come to pick me up? Do I have to sleep at the stroke of midnight? Damn it!]
[This is infuriating! I’m not even tired! I’ll wake up at 3 AM to play on my phone! Big idiot, I won’t rest, I’ll stay up late (ˉ▽￣～)]
Lu Yuan: “……”
With all these “stupid” insults on the screen, Lu Yuan thought that if he were a celebrity, Ning Guiqu would probably be a fan turned anti-fan.
A thorough and complete anti-fan. But strangely enough, this anti-fan was still inexplicably following his advice.
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