God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 5

If yellow hair’s victory in the first round could be considered a narrow win.

Then the next two rounds were one person’s exhibition shows of Ai Qing.  After a series of flashes and the smoke cleared, her opponent didn’t even have a chance to fight back.  One headshot with one bullet, a clean kill.

The assault rifle and long gun rounds ended in one minute.

Pop music was playing inside the building.  The air conditioning wasn’t working properly, so when Ai Qing released her mouse, her palm was somewhat sweaty.

She began to subconsciously tap the keyboard with her left fingers while she was lost in her thoughts.  She closed the game and pointed to the computer in front of her.  “It looks like this laptop doesn’t have any problem.”

Yellow hair didn’t make a sound, it looked like he didn’t plan to say anything.

“You are welcome to come anytime if there’s a problem later on.”  Ai Qing closed the laptop, unplugged it, and handed it over to the person who had  been on purposely looking for trouble.  “The feel of this laptop’s keyboard is quite good.  Or at the very least, I’ve never used anything better than this.”

After she finished, the onlookers there all came closer, curious to examine it themselves.

They murmured to each other in agreement.  “What an awesome computer.”  “What a really high end computer.”

The person took the laptop, not knowing what to say, and left.

Ai Qing finally exhaled a long breath.  “That was scary.  It’s true that if you don’t play it for a while, your skill degrades quite a bit.”

Slide squinted his eyes and sighed, “Did you have a sudden feeling of nostalgia back there?”

“Yeah.”  Ai Qing took out water from the small refrigerator next to the counter and took a sip.  “I just remembered that I was pretty lucky to have gotten an upgrade when we flew back home that year.  That was the first time I flew business class.  Really miss that.  I haven’t had much luck in these two years.”

Actually, what she missed more was those days on the road.

She missed the excited fans who came to meet her after she walked off the airplane.

She missed the moments when she adjusted her equipments before each match.

She missed the courages they showed when they raised their name tags in protest.

She even missed some of the trashy hotels she had to stay in while competing.

What she missed the most was the wild celebration after each game whether they lost or won……

Ai Qing looked at him and said in a melancholic voice,  “Sometimes, I feel like I was living in a dream before. I didn’t have any pressure from daily life.  Suddenly, I walked out of it and couldn’t get use to real society.”

“You’d be at the top of your professional career at your current age.”  Slide suddenly asked her, “Why didn’t you continue?”

“Let’s make a pact.”  Ai Qing twisted the cap back on.  “Let’s not ask each other this question.”

“I like to gossip.”  Slide kept smiling until it began to make her uneasy.  Then he asked in a low voice, “I remembered that year you were upgraded with that young genius.”

Ai Qing glanced at him.

As she was about to say something, her roommate happened to come back.  Her roommate

threw herself in front of Ai Qing and asked her with winking eyes, “Can we go now?  Should I go back to school first?”

Ai Qing stuffed the computer into her arms and said to Slide,  “I just took your cell phone and dialed my own number.  These two weeks I have exams, I’ll come look for you after my exams.”

On the way back, her roommate kept asking Ai Qing how she knew the handsome store owner.  Was there an affair going on?  Ai Qing just said that he used to be her neighbor.  She leaned against the door of the subway and watched absent mindedly as billboards passed by one after another.

She clearly remembered that morning, when they arrived at the airport to check in, she and Dt were the last two to hand over their passports.  They were lucky enough to be upgraded to business class.  During the five hour flight, she did not talk too much with Dt.  She habitually suffered from motion sickness; whenever she was on any form of transportation, she would be in a deep slumber the whole time…...it was Dt who woke her up when it was time to land.

He then handed over a cup of apple juice to her.

“Thanks.”  She took it, cleared her throat, and asked him, “Where are you transferring to after landing?”

“Guangzhou.”

She answered with an “En”.  “Hope there’s a chance to see you again in the future.”

What she really wanted to say was that she hoped he would continue to walk down the path of a professional gamer.

“For sure.”  He answered very positively at that time.  

She even remembered his dark black eyes under the shadow casted by the rim of his cap.

Unfortunately, he didn’t keep his word.