Chapter 23

Two days before TZG's match, Yan Zhun packed his bags to leave.

The coach sat beside him, trying to talk him out of it. "Is it uncomfortable staying here? Why do you have to go back?"

Yan Zhun didn't even look up. "I'm getting in the way of your training."

"No, you're not," the coach said. "You can help me keep an eye on them while you're here."

"I have exams coming up. I don't have time to be their practice partner." Yan Zhun's tone was cool.

The coach called him heartless, closed the door, and asked, "You really aren't planning to come back and compete?"

Yan Zhun lowered his eyes, keeping all his emotions hidden beneath his eyelids, and pulled the zipper shut. "I'm not."

Yan Zhun walked out of the room with his bag slung over one shoulder and saw Lin Xuhuan lying on the couch, inspecting his baseball cap from every angle before bringing it to his face for a sniff.

Yan Zhun pulled the cap from his hands and frowned. "What are you doing?"

Lin Xuhuan widened his eyes innocently. "You can't buy this anywhere, so I just wanted a look. Hey, what's that smell on your cap? It smells really nice. No wonder you held it up and sniffed it for ages that day."

The others lying around resting gave them strange looks.

Hearing this, the assault player put down his chicken wing. "Come on, let me smell it too. Are you wearing cologne?"

Yan Zhun couldn't be bothered with him and put the cap on. "I'm heading back."

"Wait." The coach stopped him and handed over what he was holding: two internal admission tickets. "Take these. The seats are near the front, and you can get backstage too if you want."

Yan Zhun looked at the TZG logo printed on the tickets and took them. "Thanks."

Back at the dorm, Yan Zhun tossed his backpack onto the desk, took out his phone, and snapped a picture of the two tickets to send to Pei Ran.

[Pei Ran: Hm?]

[Yan Zhun: Saturday, at the venue downtown. Twenty minutes by taxi.]

[Pei Ran: Okay, I'll post them on Moments for you.]

[Yan Zhun: ?]

[Yan Zhun: Why would you post them on Moments?]

[Pei Ran: Aren't you selling the tickets?]

Yan Zhun stared at the words "selling the tickets" for a few seconds, then made a voice call.

It rang several times before the other end picked up.

"What about me looks like a ticket scalper?" Yan Zhun asked.

Pei Ran paused. "I just saw Lin Xuhuan post on Moments. He was selling two admission tickets. Aren't these his?"

Yan Zhun said, "..."

What was wrong with Lin Xuhuan, selling admission tickets when he earned millions a year?

"I'm not scalping tickets," Yan Zhun said. "I'm asking you to watch the match with me."

Pei Ran was coloring a drawing. At those words, his pen stopped, and he blinked rapidly a few times.

"We don't have classes on the weekend. I'll pick you up. We won't have to line up with internal tickets, and I'll explain anything you don't understand." Yan Zhun asked, "Want to go?"

The other end was quiet. Yan Zhun didn't speak either, silently waiting for his answer.

After a long while, Yan Zhun folded the tickets and was about to put them back in his backpack.

"Okay."

Pei Ran's voice was soft. "I'm not a girl. You don't have to go out of your way to pick me up. Can we meet at the bus stop?"

It was Pei Ran's first time attending a match in person. They entered through the back door, and there weren't many people inside yet.

Knowing they were coming, Lin Xuhuan had told them ahead of time to come sit backstage for a while.

The other players were extremely serious, but everyone at TZG was relaxed. They were used to international tournaments and had long since developed the mindset for them. When Pei Ran walked in, he even saw their assault player playing a tile-matching game on his phone.

"Help yourselves to water. The sponsor left it here. It's all free." The coach glanced at Pei Ran and smiled. "Yan Zhun, do you know why you can't win anyone over?"

Both of them paused at that. Even Pei Ran's hand stopped as he unscrewed his bottle cap.

Yan Zhun remained calm. "Why?"

"I gave you two tickets so you could ask a girl out and sit together to get closer, and you fucking... brought Pei Ran." The coach smiled as he spoke. "Of course, I'm not saying he can't come. You could've asked me for another ticket."

"If you have that many tickets, save them for Lin Xuhuan to make his fortune," Yan Zhun said flatly.

"Fuck," Lin Xuhuan said. "A friend couldn't make it and asked me to sell those tickets for him!"

The coach scolded him. "Then you still shouldn't have sold them on your main account! People took screenshots and posted them on Weibo! You got yourself cursed onto the trending list for nothing!"

After a little chatting, the team began discussing tactics for the upcoming match.

The tactics had been decided long ago. They were only going over the details again now.

Yan Zhun sat beside the coach, occasionally saying a few words when called on and offering one or two concise suggestions from time to time. His tone was casual, but his gaze was serious.

After they had spent a while in the lounge, Yan Zhun stood up. "The organizers will be coming in to film soon. I'll take him out."

There were sixteen teams in this tournament, with a tightly packed row of lounges leaving only a narrow passage.

Halfway down it, Pei Ran asked, "Have you competed before?"

"No," Yan Zhun said casually. "I left the team two days before I was supposed to play."

Pei Ran pressed his lips together and didn't ask any more.

Their seats were in the fourth row, where they could see the screen without looking up. By then, all the seats around them were full.

The players took their seats, and the host began introducing them one by one. TZG Team received the loudest cheers. When the camera turned to TZG's players, Lin Xuhuan even winked at it.

As soon as the match began, Yan Zhun tilted his head slightly and lowered his voice. "They're going to take the lower-right wilderness area. They want to camp the bridge."

Pei Ran paused before realizing Yan Zhun was explaining the match to him. "People camp bridges in tournaments too?"

"Sometimes. Depends on the zone. If it's a really good zone, they'll consider it. Otherwise, they loot outlying areas. Same thing." Watching the opposing players who were about to run into Lin Xuhuan, Yan Zhun said, "TZG's about to get a kill."

Within ten seconds, a notification appeared on the screen announcing that Lin Xuhuan had killed an opponent.

"You have a lot of confidence in him," Pei Ran said.

"He practiced this terrain for several nights, just a few days ago," Yan Zhun said. "Even a pig would've improved by now."

Pei Ran said, "..."

He even heard the girl sitting beside Yan Zhun laugh.

Yan Zhun heard her too and lowered his voice further.

TZG played reasonably well that round, securing the lower-right wilderness area. Unfortunately, the late-game zone wasn't kind to them, and they placed third.

With Yan Zhun's explanations, Pei Ran had miraculously understood everything. He frowned regretfully and was just about to speak.

"Um..." A gentle female voice spoke softly. "Your commentary sounds really good. Are you training to be a commentator? Want to add each other on WeChat? We could... play together sometime."

The girl beside Yan Zhun was trying to chat him up.

Pei Ran silently closed his mouth and leaned back in his seat.

"I can't," Yan Zhun said.

"Huh? Why?" the girl asked.

"The person I like is here. It wouldn't be appropriate if he saw." Yan Zhun tossed the words out lightly.

Pei Ran said, "..."

The girl said, "...Sorry to bother you."

During the third round, the camera switched to a player from another team. The commentators spent nearly a full minute talking about him, all of it praise. They called him a rare all-rounder and even said he was about to catch up to TZG's Lin Xuhuan.

The player lived up to expectations, winning a one-against-two fight with a sliver of health under the commentators' eager scrutiny.

"Fast reactions," Yan Zhun remarked mildly. "He's good, but still a little behind Lin Xuhuan."

Pei Ran hummed in agreement. "He's not as good as you either."

For once, Yan Zhun was taken aback. A few seconds later, he asked, "Who's better, me or Lin Xuhuan?"

Pei Ran was watching the match intently and said whatever came to mind. "You."

"Why?"

Pei Ran paused. "I don't know. I just feel like... it's you."

Yan Zhun hummed, propped his hand on the armrest to cover his mouth, and curved his eyes in the dim light.

When the match ended, TZG was temporarily second in total points.

Pei Ran still wanted to watch more. He stood with the rest of the audience, ready to leave the venue.

He had only taken a few steps when he heard a gasp beside him, followed by a girl shouting a name in surprise.

Pei Ran paused. He had heard that name before. It seemed to belong to a male celebrity.

Pei Ran didn't follow celebrity news, so anyone whose name he knew... was pretty famous.

This one, for example, caused quite a stir in the venue as soon as he was spotted. Not only did everyone in the back rows crowd over, but even people who had already left turned around and came back. The scene instantly spiraled out of control.

The crowd pushed Pei Ran forward. The girl behind him had actually started a livestream and was screaming, "Aaaah!!! It's him! It's him! He's here to watch the match, aaah!!"

Pei Ran called out, "Excuse me," twice, but his voice was drowned out by the screams, which made his head buzz.

A hand caught him steadily amid the crowd.

It first gripped his wrist, then slid down to take his hand. Feeling the strength in that grip, Pei Ran instinctively held on in return and looked up to find its owner-

It was Yan Zhun.

Yan Zhun led him along without looking back. All Pei Ran could see was the back of his head.

Their joined hands suddenly began to burn. Pei Ran loosened his grip a little, but Yan Zhun only held on tighter.

The screams around him were almost drowned out by his heartbeat.

They walked all the way to the ticket-checking desk by a side entrance. When the cold air outside blew over him, Pei Ran hurriedly tried to pull his hand back.

He didn't succeed.

But that movement made him realize something deeply embarrassing-his palm was sweating.

Pei Ran had held drawing tools for years and had never had a habit of sweaty hands, yet now his hand had only been held for a few minutes.

"Yan Zhun," Pei Ran said. "...We're already outside."

"Mm." Yan Zhun's gaze rested on the ticket-checking desk.

Pei Ran was about to say something else when Yan Zhun raised an eyebrow and pulled a tissue from the box on the desk.

Then he lowered his head, held Pei Ran's fingertips, and wiped his hand for him.

Where their fingers touched and pressed together felt as though it had caught fire, burning all the way to Pei Ran's ears. It took him a long while to remember to pull his hand back.

His phone rang. It was his roommate. As though reinforcements had arrived, Pei Ran hurriedly answered.

"Hello." Pei Ran held his phone, glancing elsewhere. "...You left something in the dorm? Is it urgent... you need it now? Okay, wait a bit. It's a twenty-minute ride back."

As soon as he hung up, Yan Zhun had already raised a hand to hail a taxi.

"Let's go."

Back at school, Yan Zhun pushed open the dorm room door while looking down to reply to Lin Xuhuan's messages.

His roommate sat in a chair with his arms folded, staring motionlessly at his computer. Weibo was open on the screen, along with a notification that a video had finished playing. He didn't react to the sound of the door opening.

Yan Zhun took off his cap and put it on the desk.

"Yan Zhun." Luo Qingshan broke the silence. "What's your relationship with Pei Ran?"