God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 3

Sorry guys, I accidentally set it to publish at 11pm rather than 11am. My bad...

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Though it was such a hot day one of his hands was covered by a black glove.

The glove was very thin, showing off five slender fingers.  For those who didn’t know him, they would think that he was just wearing it to look cool.

But for someone who was supposed to be a professional player in Germany, selling computers in a computer city downtown…...he wouldn’t be wearing the glove for such a silly reason.

Slide stroke her hair with a smile.  “Do you want to be Zhen Zi (贞子, TL: Sadako, from Ring, the horror movie/book)  Your hair has grown this long.”  He gestured with his hand.  “It’s reached down to your thighs.  Isn’t it bothersome?  Won’t it take half an hour to wash it?”

“40 minutes.”  Seeing that he wasn’t answering her question, Ai Qing stopped poking at his sore spot.  “I don’t need to train ten some hours a day now, I have more than enough time to do unimportant things.”

He couldn’t help laughing.

Three years.  

It seemed to have changed a lot of things.

Her roommate didn’t come back from her shopping after the two had finished their lunches.

Ai Qing chatted with Slide idly; their conversations were all on superficial, trivial gossips of daily life, which didn’t involve anything related to video game competitions.

In between, there were customers who came by to purchase computer accessories or to fix their computers.

People who liked video game competitions are more than likely fans of computer hardware.  Due to Slide’s past experiences, he understood well the needs of video gamers and most of the customers were enthusiasts of various video games.

Some were very polite and some were obnoxious.

Slide greeted everyone with smiles until there came three tall young men later.

One of them was holding the “Alien” which her roommate so envied.

“Boss, this computer is no good.”  The one who’s holding the computer said with a false smile.  “My younger brother came here yesterday and bought this computer.  It’s totally no good.  You even lied to the kid that this is a special computer for games?”

Ai Qing intuitively thought that this person had specially come looking for trouble.

Sure enough, after Slide said a few words patiently, the other two who had come with the man started to mock and ridicule Slide.  Saying that this was tricking the kids, how could this computer play any games, that it was just rubbish.

In the end, there were more and more onlookers.  Those three began attacking the store, questioned the quality of all the products sold in the store…...Ai Qing couldn’t stand it and finally said, “Alienware is the top notch computer for games.  A lot of professional video game contestants use it.  You can go online to check it; it had even sponsored World Tournaments before.”

The three men looked at her.  The one who started the complaint smiled suddenly.  “Little sister, this is a computer worth twenty to thirty thousand RMB.  It won’t do just to go online to check.  We certainly know about this computer, but it is just hard to use.   Or, maybe it was good to use, but after it was `processed` by the store, it has become harder to use.”

Ai Qing carefully glanced at him.  “When buying a computer, it’s very common to have some hardware problems.  But what you refer to as `hard to use`, is there any definition for it?  If it is just a problem with your own personal sense of touch, there’s no need to bother other people’s normal business.”

The man smiled hypocritically.  “You play games, little sister?  A kart racing game?  Audition Online?”

Ai Qing was starting to get angry with “little sister” being said over and over.

Slide deliberately took a look at her and hinted to stop before she was in an unfavorable situation.

Ever since she knew Slide, he always had smiles on his face, friendly and happily towards anyone.  But, no matter what, he was once a person highly worshiped by many esports fans.  Looking at his face, Ai Qing suddenly felt very sorry for him.

Some people’s pretension are offensive, but some people…...if their pride was bent, it would only make others feel heartbroken for them.

She stood up from her chair, walked to the counter at the front of the store.  “Does it matter which game you play?”

“It certainly matters.”  The man, with both hands propped up on the counter, came closer and laughed.  “As you just said, this computer is a high end one and used at many tournaments.  My younger brother is going to use it to play in the national tournament.”

“So, you feel that this one isn’t qualified for it?”

“It’s just like you said the feel of the keys isn’t good.”  The man casually hit a few keys with his index finger.  “To a professional player, the feel of the keyboard is very important.”

“What if your brother’s skill level just isn’t good enough yet?”  Ai Qing looked him calmly. “Maybe some other person feels that this computer is very good to use and it’s just that your brother’s skill level isn’t good enough to use a high end computer?”

“His team was number 10 nationally last year.  They played hundreds of games to reach the final.  What do you think about that, little sister?”  The man turned his head and pointed at the man next to him who had died his hair yellow.  “He and my brother are in the same team.  My brother doesn’t have time today, he specially comes with me to return the computer.  Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

“What do you play?” Ai Qing looked at this man.

“CS.”  The yellow hair man had a very stern look in his eyes.

Very harshly……

Ai Qing took a look at Slide and took down a string from her wrist to tie back her hair.

“How about this.”  She smiled politely.  “We have lots of computers here.  We can network and try it.  If we can use this computer to play a game without any problems, then there is no need to return it.”