God's Left Hand - Prelude: Chapter 16

In the end, Ai Qing didn’t make it to Slide’s match and instead brought the two handsome guys to meet Dt.

Perhaps it was because they trained late into the night, when Ai Qing knocked on his door, Dt was still half-asleep.  His hair was dishevelled and clung to his forehead.  After looking at them for a few seconds, he finally noticed the two Scandinavians and greeted them with a simple “hi.”

After a brief introduction and a few words, the three of them were already on friendly terms.  Competitive gamers all have similar temperaments.  Others see them as proud or withdrawn individuals, but if you got to know them, you’d find that they were basically all kids who refused to grow up.  Dt took out coke from the refrigerator for the two guests and they quickly began talking about CS.

Because Dt was younger and Asian, he wasn’t nearly as tall as the two twenty-some years old men.

But when he stood with them, he didn’t appear out of place.

The only thing that Ai Qing didn’t expect was that Dt could speak English fluently as if it was his native language and just like the Swedish and the Norwegian, he spoke with a Scandinavian accent.  In the past, when she watched interviews of the top players of the CS Scandinavian teams, she enjoyed listening to them speak.  Their style of clothing and facial expressions always seemed cold, but when they spoke, they would always end their sentences with a rising inflection, which she thought was the cutest thing in the world.

Right now, she was watching it live.

When I Met You - Part 2

Well the story escalated and went to a dark place in 2 paragraphs... Anyhow, enjoy!

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It was two months later when I met Jia Han again.  My close childhood friend and I came to Beijing to try to make something of ourselves.  However, one night in late autumn, she killed herself after making a last phone call to me.  She had been confiding to me that her superior in the office would inappropriately touch her from time to time.  When she was telling all these, sometimes helpless and sometimes sad, I would always console her and say, if she couldn’t take it anymore, let’s just change jobs…...who would know that she was gone without turning my words into reality.

I was blaming myself and determined to find out the truth.  I was in and out of her company trying to find any witness or anyone who knew anything.  The result of my endless rushing about was that I got fired from my own company.  And there’s no company in my field would dare to hire me anymore, because my reputation was--- ---terrible.

God's Left Hand - Prelude: Chapter 15

We're almost finished with the prelude guys. After chapter 19 we'll move onto the next act.

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Ai Qing thought that something was strange, but didn’t think much of it.

After all, in this group of players, most of them were skilled at playing more than two games.

So having videos of her old matches wasn’t out of the ordinary.  She was one of the best competitive players back in the day after all.

After returning to the hotel room, she was so exhausted that she immediately fell into the bed and fell asleep.

Around 3 or 4 in the morning, Ai Qing awoke to see her roommate, the younger girl, had finally returned, taken off her shoes, and was trying to quietly make her way to the shower.  Ai Qing lazily clutched her blanket and asked in scratchy voice, “What strategy has Dt decided on?”

The young girl saw that Ai Qing had awoken and breathed a sigh of relief.  She tiredly sat on the edge of her bed.  “The most energy intensive strategy.”

“Pure gank?”[1]

The young girl nodded in reply.

Ai Qing let out a long breath.  A gank was the most exciting aspect of DotA.  Ganking and anti-ganking.  Ambushing and countering.  When multiple players appear in a coordinated attack from the fog of war[2] and after killing their opponents in a few seconds, quickly disappear back into the shadows.  A well executed gank can change the rhythm of the battle, constricting the enemy with ambushes which can lead to the enemy’s defeat…...

When I Met You - Part 1

Alright so, here's the first of 3 parts for When I Met You. We'll be translating the other short stories as time permits after we finish this up. Also a note, this story is actually 1 continuous story, we just decided to break it into three parts due to time constraints. And don't worry we'll be coming out with God's Left Hand as usual on Saturday mornings.

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Actually, I already met you before.  But at that moment, I didn’t realize that our fates had already been intertwined.

Winter in Beijing is much colder than back at my home town.  It was so cold that when I sat on the bench inside Zhao Yang Park crying, the sadness wasn’t even the first thing on my mind--- ---Because it was so cold, it seemed that every drop of tear would instantly freeze into ice.  Therefore, I had to stop crying every so often, look up, and use napkins to wipe the tears.  Then--- ---continue crying again.

Suddenly, I felt something different.  I was somewhat startled.  Then I realized that it was a napkin moving towards my face.  I probably had cried myself silly, so I unconsciously reached out for the napkins next to me.  Sure enough, there wasn’t any left.  I looked up and saw him.

Update on Schedule: More Stories

Hey everyone.

Thanks for all the comments we've received and I read all of them, though I don't respond.  I will respond if it's a question or something though.

I just wanted to announce that we found more works from Shui Fu Shen Qing, the author of "Love by Soup."  Since the first one we did was decently well received.  So we'll be slowly translating these other short stories and posting them every Wednesday.  First one is coming this week.

Thanks!

God's Left Hand - Prelude: Chapter 14

Enjoy guys!

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Because of Ai Qing’s endless curiosity, Dt bought 11 ice cream sandwiches for everyone to try.  Everyone was staring at her in awe, their silent praise made Ai Qing wanted to elicit more verbal responses from Dt.

The group then walked in the direction of the ferris wheel.  Ai Qing, while eating the ice cream sandwich, on purposely walking next to Dt and chatted with him.

God's Left Hand - Prelude: Chapter 13

Ai Qing straightened her back and mouthed to Slide, “Should we let him go back to sleep?”

Slide shook his head with a smile and mouthed back, “Just let him sleep like this.”

In the end, he slept until Ai Qing had finished the final round.  She was swarmed by the media on the floor with the other finalist, assaulted by the flash of cameras.  She saw Dt and Slide waiting in the back for her and impulsively kissed her gold medal hanging on her neck.

Slide immediately understood her actions and replied with a thumbs up.  

Dt also quickly replied with a smile.

God's Left Hand - Prelude: Chapter 12

Hey guys, here's this week's! Enjoy.

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She had never played a final round this difficult.  Her first match was against last year’s champion.

She knew the maps in Need for Speed 10 well enough that she could have drawn them with her eyes closed.  However, every single contestant was just as familiar with the maps as she was.

Bend after bend on the road, her finger never left the shift key.

Every time, as she was about to bump into an opponent’s car, she would overtake them while barely grazing the car……

It’s a good thing that she had spent two months training to avoid crashing.  Last year, many Chinese Need for Speed players were knocked out of the international competition early on, all because they weren’t familiar with competition rules.

In China, a rematch is required if a player overturns their opponent’s car.

But in WCG tournaments, there is no penalty for purposely crashing into another opponent’s car, making it a viable strategy for players.

Surprisingly, her left hand was a bit sore after she took it off the keyboard.

This was only the first match and she had just won by only a narrow margin.  She glanced at the Singaporean players for the next match and gritted her teeth as she gathered her belongings and left the competition floor.

Match after match, semifinals, and finals.

There was still, however, half a day to get through……