God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 4

Hey guys! So we've gotten faster at this whole translation thing, so we'll be posting more God's Left Hand every Monday.

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The three men didn’t expect such a challenge from the girl.

The yellow hair looked at Ai Qing with great amusement.  “You mean a round of Kart Racing?”

“CS.”  Ai Qing thought for a bit.  “2 wins out of three rounds.”

She hadn’t touched the game for more than two years.  Usually when she was bored, she would play VOS to pass time, a game where one would tap keys on keyboard as piano keys…...so, she felt much more comfortable if it was a best of three games.

“Your girlfriend is pretty funny.”  The yellow haired guy looked at Slide.  “Two on two?”

Slides smilingly took out another computer, the exact same model, from under the counter. “No, one on one.  I am basically what you would call an armchair strategist.  I never play any games.”

“Then if we win?”

“If you win, I’ll let you return the computer.”

Slide connected the two computers to the router with a cable.  Ai Qing sat besides him and said in a low voice, “Don’t expect too much from me,  I haven’t touched CS for two years.”

Slide didn’t even raise his head, as he tapped the keyboard to set up the attributes and properties.  “I don’t expect you to win all three.  That guy is also selling computers and has a store on the second floor.  Mine and his customers are mostly people who like to play games.  Just now, when I saw his face, I was already prepared to take the computer back.  So no pressure.”

“Vicious competition?”  Ai Qing, holding her chin, watched him open CS and test the controls.  “Well then don’t blame me if I lose.”

Slide grinned and pushed over one of the computers.  “Doesn’t matter.  If you lose, I’ll give that returned computer to you.”

Ai Qing snorted with laughter and kicked him.  “Such a big incentive.  Watch out, I might just lose on purpose.”

Slide raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her with a faint smile.

How could a person who loved to compete so much be so easily defeated.

While they were doing the preparations, some old customers came by.  They were all excited by what they were seeing.

Especially the fact that one of the contestants was a young lady with long hair, that made it even more interesting.

Quite a few people recognized the yellow hair guy and were discussing in a low voices that he was a member of the most popular team this year.  The yellow hair was icy from the beginning and acted as if he didn’t hear a thing.  But, when Slide pushed a computer to him, he suddenly said to Ai Qing, “How about this, I’ll take a handicap.  I will just use the sniper rifle.”

In CS, each player can only carry a big gun.

The submachine gun has a magazine capacity of 30 bullets, the sniper rifle has a short delay before being able to fire the next bullet.  Therefore, except for professional snipers, no one would choose to use this gun.

Ai Qing used to be a sniper.

“Ok.”  Ai Qing accepted the challenge, but not the handicap.  “I will use the sniper rifle, too.  How about this way, for the three rounds: knife, assault rifle[1] , and long gun.  For the long gun, we will use a sniper rifle.  The time for each round is one minute.”

The yellow hair was stunned after hearing what she just said.  “Have you been playing this?”

Ai Qing shook her head.  “Haven’t played it for a long time.”

The two sat across from each other at a small round table.  Slide stood next to Ai Qing’s side, while watching her open the game, and suddenly lowered his head and touched the cigarette in his pocket…...Ai Qing turned and glanced at him like she had sensed something.

Slide smiled embarrassingly.

Her emotions that had just calmed down was stirred up completely.

But the game had to go on.  Ai Qing turned her head back, took a deep breath, and nodded to the yellow hair.

She unexpectedly lost the first round.

Ai Qing regretfully glanced at Slide and her left hand was unconsciously trying to familiarize herself with the keyboard.

She hadn’t touched it for a long, long time.

She didn’t think she would lost the first round.

A knife battle was her area expertise, but just now, she was killed by the opponent’s knife the instant she met face to face with him.  She reckoned that if Solo and the others had seen this, they would had laughingly scold her for being a good for nothing.

Her eyes were suddenly covered by a warm touch and turned into dark.

Slide covered her eyes and said, “Get familiar with the feeling.”

Ai Qing smiled and stroked the surface of the keyboard, trying to quiet herself down.

Solo did the same in the past.  Whenever she was impetuously impatient, he would cover her eyes with his hands, to let her casually gain control over her keyboard, while he explained the map to her with a low voice.  In the darkness he would always tell her where she was on the map and the areas enemies would normally come out……

Ai Qing pulled down Slide’s hands.  “I’m good.”

[1]:  We’re not sure if it’s actually an assault rifle, as the weapon was censored in the original text.  We checked several sites, but couldn’t figure it out.  Sniper rifle was also originally censored, but we could see the original wordings in other sites.  Anyhow it’s probably an assault rifle or something.