Secret Room: Book 1 - Chapter 16

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 1: The Storm is Coming

Chapter 16

The exhibition tournament for <Secret Room Storm> lasted for a week.

The Chinese teams were notified that the competition would start the next day after the drawing.

Ai Qing had not played this game yet and she was not interested in the sponsor’s promotional events either.  So she left early with her backpack on her back and aimlessly walked around the streets of Seoul by herself.

As she stood at the Myeong-dong area, where they had a late night meal last night, now during the day time she felt like she was here for the first time.

Since she was just aimlessly walking around, she decided to visit both sides of the street back and forth randomly.

She stopped in front of a snack stand.

Everything looked so good.

She lowered her head and examined every item.  As she was struggling about what to choose, there was a slight cough behind her.  She turned back and laughed. “Did you sneak out too?”

Underneath the brim, the big boy nodded very slowly and then looked away slightly.  “What do you want to eat?”

“Ah?  Oh…...I have not decided yet.”  Ai Qing continued to look at the nice Korean food.  “I heard the rice sausage is very tasty.”

“Rice sausage?”  He frowned.  “It’s made of pig blood.”

Obviously he was reminding her about the main ingredient of the sausage to give her a second chance.

“Really?  Then I’ll just take the rice sausage.”

She purposely twisted his warning.

…...

“I want an order too.”  Dt suddenly spoke after Ai Qing placed an order.

Regardless whether he would eat it or not, he certainly had a good excuse to pay the bill now and promptly paid for both orders.

“6,000 Korean dollars?”  Ai Qing silently converted the money in her mind,  “18 RMB. Very expensive.”

But this was only the beginning.  They continued to walk up and down the whole street and spent several hundred RMB on food.  Ai Qing was not fast enough to pay the bill every time.  Finally she just silently calculated in her mind how much was her share.  She had decided to secretly put the money into his backpack before they departed.

But Dt seemed to have a lot of free time on his hands.  He just walked around with her without saying where he wanted to go.

Though he was good at paying bills, he was absolutely not a guy to go shopping with.

Clothing store? She was embarrassed to drag him into it.

Slush shop? She felt that he didn’t look like a slush person.

Even for the Lotte duty free store which she had long planned to visit at least once this time, she had to pass by and pretend that she was not interested.

“Is it alright that you left like this?”  Ai Qing thought about something.  The competition that was going on in the stadium right now was his main event and all the teams in the stadium would be his future opponents.

To understand an opponent’s onsite performance and habit, the best way was to watch them during competitions.

“It’s ok.  I can watch the competition videos.”

“That’ll do.”

She nodded.

They ran out of topics again.

They kept walking in this foreign country.  Finally, they did not even know where they were.

“I need to go to a place.”  Dt paused.  “It takes fifteen minutes to get there, then I need to stay there for at least two hours.  Can you go with me?”

“Me?”  She did not understand.  “Do you need me to go with you?  Can’t you find the place?”

“I can find it.  I can use Google maps.”

……

“It’s kind of far from here to the resort village you stay at.  I want to take you back after I finish.”

……

She was at first surprised, then she gradually seemed to understand his awkward suggestion.  He feared that it was unsafe for her to go back the resort alone, so he wanted her to go with him together to this place.  Then he would take her back after he finished?

Ai Qing lowered her head and looked at the ground.

When she was thinking, she usually liked to avoid looking into other people’s eyes.

Dt took the opportunity to look at her.

Though they already met twice since last night up to this morning, but he did not have the time and opportunity to look at her with full attention.  Even though the two had talked and ate BBQ face-to-face last night, he did not dare look at her for too long.

She had short hair with slightly long bangs that vaguely covered her eyes.

She had a pair of large eyes.  When she was watching the competition on the large screen onsite, the images of the video was the only thing that reflected in her pupils.

Frigg.

“Then…...Do we walk over there or take a taxi?”

Ai Qing raised her head and smiled with her mouth curled up.  She looked around trying to find a place to call taxi.

“Walking will do.”

“Oh.”  She followed him towards the new destination.  “What are you going to do?  Why do you need at least two hours?”

Were they going to a museum?

“It’s the WCS Korean Regional semifinals for StarCraft 2.  It’s also the Korean GSL semi final competition.”

WCS (World Champion Series) was Blizzard Entertainment’s World Tournament for StarCraft 2.

StarCraft 2?

“Are you going to watch the competition?”  She guessed.

“No.  I am an invited VIP.”

“Why?”  She couldn’t quite follow him.  “There shouldn’t be any connection between you and StarCraft 2?”

Dt was thinking how to tell her with his head lowered slightly.  Finally he decided to choose the simplest way------The most direct way.  “It has nothing to do with this year.  It was last year.  Last year, I won the European Regional competition championshipship for StarCraft 2.”