God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 39 [FINAL]

And that's a wrap people! We're done with God's Left Hand and moving onto Secret Room. (Coming on Monday, 16th.)

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Ai Qing didn’t expect that her suggestion would bring in such a large crowd.  The second floor of the computer city was packed.  They were as popular as movie stars.

They were handsome, skilled players, the top three in China and in one month, they could be ranked amongst the world’s top ten.

Who hadn’t played Warcraft before?  Even if one hadn’t actually played it, at least one had heard about it.

Boys bought the game for themselves, girls bought it for their boyfriends or someone she secretly admired in the past or in the future.  In any case, Slide had a blooming business.

Ai Qing ran to the other side of the floor to make room in the store.  She looked at the shop across the atrium and saw three handsome men standing in a row, one had a cute, bashful smile, one smiled once in awhile, and the third never smiled.  The crowd could pick and choose as they like.

The event lasted a little past six o’clock, when Slide decided to close the shop early since he felt guilty of making money this way.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 38

We're almost done with God's Left Hand people. Just one more chapter and then we'll move onto the Secret Room.

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“One, two, three, four, five…...eleven, twelve.” 97 stretched out his two hands, laughing excitedly. “Twelve Chinese characters plus five English letters. That is the longest sentence from Dt today. This must be a really special place.”

Ai Qing’s cheeks was slowing turning red again as usual.

She wanted to stand up, but she was in an awkward position. As she staggered, she leaned backwards and almost pushed the counter over. Fortunately, Dt extended his hand in time to catch her arm and forcefully pulled her up.

After she had a full view of the store, she realized why they would suddenly show up here.

A group of people looked at her smiling. The culprit, her sister Ai Jing, leaned against Grunt and said to her, “Mom and dad said you keep coming to this computer city all summer. We searched all over, luckily we saw Slide, otherwise we really wouldn’t have found you.” Ai Jing turned to Slide. “I remember, we met before.”

Slide smiled. “We met when you were still a teenager.” after saying that, he squinted his eyes and sized up Grunt with great interest. “Today must be a good day. The second and third place of WCG Warcraft are all in my store.”

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 37

2010 WCG China Regional Finals.

To be held in July at Shanghai, which was not far from the city where Ai Qing lived.

She still had two months of holiday left.  After she went home, she would go to Slide’s store whenever she was free.  It might have been due to Slide’s smiling face or the many semi-professional esports players that went there. Slide’s business was doing very well.  Earning several hundred thousand RMB in revenue per month and the profit certainly was quite sizable.

Originally, she had felt sorry for Slide, but now it looked like Slide was one of the few retired esports players who had done quite well.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 36

During the brief ten minute intermission, Grunt just stared at the computer screen with a very serious expression in deep thought. Solo on the other side also wasn’t paying attention to the noise in the arena. He took off his glasses, took out eye drops from his pocket, put in couple of drops into his eyes, and rested while lightly rubbing between his eyes.

Solo sat with his head raised up which made the SP logo on his left chest especially eye-catching.

His fans had always taken offense about his ranking on Battle.net. Grunt had entered the top ten list long ago while Solo’s name wasn’t even on the list.

But with this single round of battle, the excitement would keep his fans up for an entire night.

Ai Qing was thinking about turning around to check on her sister whose concerns were focused solely on Grunt. She didn’t expect that Ai Jing had already walked over to the side of the stage, calling softly out to Grunt. After a while, Grunt walked to the edge of the stage and knelt down to talk to Ai Jing.

Their eyes were looking at each other from beginning to end.

Grunt quickly laughed as Ai Jing spoke. He squeezed her hand and got up to walk back to his seat.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 35

The big screen was live broadcasting the game.  Both of them began to methodically build their base.

They had played against each other before, so they knew more or less the other’s strategies.

“Grunt’s ranking is very high on Battle.net; he’s been in diamond league for quite a long time.  Where he mainly battles with Korean professional Starcraft II players.”  Baona gave a detailed explanation and even began giving background information.  “When most of the Starcraft I players are still waiting to see how the competitive environment for Starcraft II will develop, Grunt was already the only Chinese player among the top six on Battle.net.”

Ai Qing knew Grunt was strong, but didn’t expect him to be this strong.

Then…...what’s Solo’s ranking?

On the stage, Solo’s face was illuminated by the screen.  Compared to Grunt’s powerful presence, Solo always gave the feeling of a calm sea before the storm arrived.

No matter how tumultuous next second would be, the moment before was always calm.

A calm that made others uneasy.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 34

The images on the big screen quickly switched to Starcraft II.  Since it’s an exhibition game with two famous professional players, the male commentator stood next to Solo and started with a brief interview.

“I heard that Blizzard had designed a post with Solo as the subject last year.  So are you really planning to give up Warcraft just for Starcraft?”  Solo put on his earphones and avoided a direct answer.  “Well, this is an imbalanced question.  If WCG had no restrictions on how many single events one can take, Warcraft and Starcraft are both very good.”

As he was speaking, he took out a pair of glasses from the pocket of his sports shorts.

He was slightly nearsighted.  He needed glasses to help him see the computer screen only when he didn’t have a good night’s sleep.  Ai Qing watched his actions and carefully recalled the party at the bar last night.  He didn’t seem to have drunk much and they left for the hotel quite early……she was sidetracked for a moment and missed what the commentator asked next.

Soon, the microphone turned to Grunt.

Grunt had switched from Starcraft I to Starcraft II.  The commentator mostly asked the reason why he switched.  When the game officially started, the lights completely went dark on the podium.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 33

Ai Qing became quiet when she heard the name Gun.

Fortunately, the results of the competition were just being announced.  All’s team won by an overwhelming margin.

This was their first championship in China after they had come back.

All, as the team captain, stood up and led his team to shake hands with their opponents.

Then, he took over the microphone from the commentator.

Everyone quieted down and watched the once conceited teenager on the VS platform.  

He used his hand to smooth over his bald head and started laughing after a moment of silence.  “I won’t dare to be cocky in front of our old captain and first sniper.  Years ago, I and Xiaomi were kind of forced to retire after the three main players of our old team left…...as for the reason for the disbandment of our old team, many fans have blamed Gou Gou.  The fact is that the reason why I came back this time is because what Gou Gou had said to me before.”

His words were very suggestive and stirred some of the audience.

Ai Qing didn’t expect All would mention her.  She intimidatingly shook her iced tea as a warning to not talk nonsense or suffer a blow to the head.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 32

The men from Solo’s club were intently watching the competition.  When she sat down, the man who sat next to Solo’s empty seat suddenly turned his head and smiled.

Ai Qing whispered,  “Have I missed anything?”

“It’s Cocky All.”  He jokingly made a shooting gesture.  “He shot through six walls and killed an enemy.”

Ai Qing couldn’t help but smile.  “I swear, it’s 80 percent luck.”

“Just luck for penetrating through six walls?”  He exhaled a long breath.  “For those two seconds, God must have stood right behind him.”

God definitely had stood behind him.

Ai Qing thought those words sounded very familiar.  She remembered after a while, that was a favorite phrase that Solo’s club liked to use whenever they were being interviewed.  She didn’t know very much about Solo’s club.  She would go meet him near the club only when she needed to talk to him and sometimes she would meet some of the top players of other events.

As the strongest club in China, SP recruited many top players and had became a peculiar legend in the esports circle.  Since it’s a legend, there were many hearsays about the club and it’s hard to get a true picture of it.

Every year, those SP top players would receive invitations from various tournaments around the world.  WCG was one of them.

The top SP players would use alternate ids to play on the three largest platforms, Battle.net, VS, and CGA, therefore, anyone could have the chance to play against real top players who were hiding behind the screen.

“Exploring the Mysteries of SP”, “SP Secrets”, “Talk About SP’s Affairs”......any post with a title like these would become the hottest post on a forum.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 31

“Solo’s team was composed of the ‘ten inconceivables’ in the Chinese CS circle.  The two star players, Solo and Gun, were ranked in the top ten in the world for two consecutive years.  Certainly, there’s Gou Gou master of the quickscope and no scope……”  The male commentator didn’t stop when the video was over. Influenced by the excitement of the audience, he began recounting glorious achievements of the number 1 team in China.  “The 2nd most consistent player, the 4th best player to draw first-blood in a game, the 2nd best at map control, the 4th best player for pistol-only matches, and nominated three times for MVP.”

“And, all of these were world rankings.”  The female commentator added with a smile.

The loud cheers seemed to bring some warmth to the CS world which was in a deep freeze.

The number one esport game, Warcraft, supported over thirty thousand professional and semi-professional players.

As for CS, there were only a handful players who could survive on their salary.  Every major CS competition was made possible mostly by the love for the game by veteran CS players.

Because everyone believed that even though the winter was long, there would come a day when the snow melted.

The opening successfully roused the passions of the audience.

The matches for the quarterfinals showed up on the big screen. The first round of the final competition had officially begun.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 30

After the sponsor finished his speech, the competition officially began.

But surprisingly, the big screen was blank, without even a list of names for matches.

“As I had said earlier, today’s competition will be the most remarkable one in this half year.”  The male commentator stood up, suddenly placing one hand in his pocket and slowly strolled to the front of the stage.  “Whose signature move is this?”

The audience yelled Solo.

He moved in this manner every time he walked up to receive awards or walked into the competition arena.

Ai Qing looked at him.

Solo faintly smiled but didn’t look back at her.  “The camera is on you.”

Ai Qing, startled, immediately turned around to look.  It was a close-up of Solo and her on the big screen……

The commentator curved up his index finger and pushed upward the frame of his glasses.  “How about this one?”

One particular area in the audience, where about 30 some girls shouted in unison as if they had rehearsed before.  “Grunt~”

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 29

“This kid’s not bad.”  Xiaomi walked over as well.  “It’s hard to meet someone who dares to look down upon Solo.  Cocky All, he doesn’t think you’re good enough for him.”

“I'm doing him a favor.”  All deeply felt the blow to his pride.  “We were playing with a keyboard and mouse when he had just begun writing his ABCs.  Starcraft II’s only been out for a year, most top players are still waiting to see how the scene will change and haven’t switched events yet.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t even have a chance.”

Xiaomi shrugged.  “It’s true.  He hasn’t played any match abroad and doesn’t know how strong the Western teams are, especially the Scandinavians.”

The three commentators on the stage all laughed.  Soon, one of them took over the microphone and announced,  “I guarantee, today’s match will be the most worthwhile one in this half year.  Everyone, don’t take a sip of water, don’t leave the arena; it will be an absolute loss if you miss just one second of it.”

His words and the challenge caused everyone to focus their attention upon these two camps.

On one side, it’s the god-like Solo and members of his old famous CS team.

On the other side, it’s the king of newcomers who had grown with a lightning speed, Grunt and…...his two unknown friends.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 28

Ai Qing remembered Grunt’s exhibition game before.

“He’s a dangerous type of player, hard to control, but very rare. I heard that he hasn’t signed on with any club. Why don’t you win him over?”

“I’m waiting for him to lose.  He has to fall down completely and climb back up again, then there will be room for further development.”  Solo glanced over at the audience.  “Ai Jing’s here?”

Ai Qing turned her head.

In the distance, there were Dt, 97, and Ai Jing sitting in the audience.

She sat at contestants’ area.  Most of the players had already entered the competition arena and only a few still sat in this area.  Solo and her were standing out.

97 saw her right away and pulled Dt’s arm with astonishment.  She couldn’t tell what’s Dt’s expression since his cap was low on his face and they sat quite a distance away.  It was Ai Jing who was excitedly waving at her and dialed her number right there.

“I didn’t see Grunt this morning.  Have you seen him?  Is he in the contestant area?”

Ai Qing didn’t expect her sister’s first sentence would be about Grunt.  She replied without knowing whether to laugh or feel annoyed, “No, he hasn’t given up the game again?”

“No, he won’t.”  Ai Jing helplessly said, “He sees Solo as his ultimate opponent.  He won’t give up any game to compete with Solo…...Ai, I saw him.”

Ai Jing hung up quickly and looked towards the entrance.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 27

Since she didn’t have ticket, she ended up arriving at the competition site with Solo.w

Best It was a CS special event. Most of the audience were hardcore fans. When Ai Qing and Solo arrived at the lobby of the convention, where they found All who raised his arm high in the air the moment he saw them. “Solo, Gou Gou, here, here.”

People who were in line waiting to get in all turned around to look when they heard the shouting. There were many radio station reporters who felt that they might have found a hot topic to report on. The younger generation certainly only knew Solo; they thought they were witnessing an affair and fixed their eyes on Ai Qing. Those who were older were surprised that members of the first CS team years ago were all here and the leading man and lady of the famous affair were here too……

Solo had a VIP name tag.

She could get away from all the attention and walk with them into the convention room ahead of the people waiting outside.

Solo’s seat was in the first row. She didn’t have a ticket and naturally didn’t have her own seat. She had no choice but to sit with him in the contestants’ area.

The first three rows were all professional players and some commentators.

Solo had left for a while, a young lady jumped over and holding Ai Qing’s arm. “Gou Gou, you’re back?!”

She shook her head and didn’t recognize the face.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 26

She walked up and hugged everyone.  Everyone there had gone through all night training, defeats and shady plots, victories and cheers with her……

When she was in front of Solo, looking at his eyes and face with the familiar expression and smile, she hesitated for a few seconds then reached out to hug him and said with a smile, “Can I say that you are even more handsome now?”

“Sure.”  Solo hugged her back.  When they separated, he continued to say,  “Your hair's longer.”

“Is there anything wrong?”  She touched her own hair.

“It looks good.”  Solo smiling eyed her.  “Sit down.”

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 25

She had met All seven years ago.

In 2003, Chinese esports was full of uncertainty.

At that time there were no commercial clubs; all the teams were formed by the players themselves, compared to foreign teams it was like comparing the earth to the heavens.  Most players came out of internet cafes and disappeared in a flash; no one had any long term plans.

They didn’t know how to plan for anything long term either.

The winter of that year was especially cold.  The internet cafe was freezing; she sat next to Solo and couldn’t stand the cold anymore.  She stood up to stamp her feet and asked Solo, “Aren’t you cold?”

Solo laughed and turned his hand around to hold her hand.

His hand was as cold as ice and she instantly cried out.

People in the cafe turned to look at her.  She was so embarrassed that she kept staring at him and whispered, “You should warn me first……”  Solo didn’t let go and pulled her over to sit on his lap. He brought his hands around her waist.  “If it’s too much for you, just go home.”

“That can’t do.”  She put both of his hands in hers.  “You said it’s more effective to do real game at the cafe than at home.  I’ve finally gotten a feel for it……”

Most of the time she was at home playing by herself.

Everyday only between seven and eight o’clock, she could get away and come out to keep him company.  How could she bear to leave early?

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 24

She thought Grunt was just asking casually; she hadn’t expected the sudden invitation.  After Ai Jing came into the room, Ai Jing mysteriously told her,  “He didn’t tell you everything; the one who’s playing against him this time is Solo.”

“You have found a man who likes to gossip.”  Ai Qing sulkily threw herself onto the bed.  “I warn you, don’t tell him anything about my past.  And, I’ll go home tomorrow; I need to report to the place I’m going to intern at.”

“How come I haven’t heard you mention this before?”  Her sister also laid down besides her.

“It’s an excuse.  Can’t you tell?”  She turned away, not wanting to bother with this person who had been carried away by love.

Her sister insisted on staying.  She went online to book an airline ticket and found out that for the next two days, all the flights to Hangzhou were sold out, the flights to Shanghai were sold out too.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 23

“14?  I remembered he was 15 at WCG.”

“There was an ID on battle.net called Momomo[1].  Have you ever seen it?”

The name sounded very familiar.

She tried very hard to dig it out of her memory and finally remembered the name……

That was the year after she and Solo’s team was disbanded and when Solo emerged as a dark horse in Warcraft.  She remembered the summer of that year, she would sometimes go on battle.net and notice this ID.

Momomo and Solo had a breathtaking showdown on battle.net.

It was deadlocked for 70 minutes.  In the end, both sides exhausted their resources and couldn’t do anything to each other. It ended with a ‘draw’.  For Warcraft, the word ‘draw’ was something unheard of.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 22

“I can’t.”  She quickly turned it down.  “I really can’t.”

The owner urged her on a few more times and gave up after seeing that Ai Qing really didn’t want to play.

Grunt took a couple of looks at her thoughtfully and 97 just smiled regretfully.

Suddenly, Dt stood up, took out ten dollars, and went to the counter to buy two bottles of coke. He handed one to Ai Qing.  “The air here is not good.”  It was as if he was talking to himself.

She sniffed.  “Indeed, a strong cigarette smell.”

The two looked at each other and stood up at the same time to walk out of the internet cafe.  The door of the cafe was facing a street full of local snack stands.  It’s close to dinner time and there were all kinds of enticing delicious food everywhere. Ai Qing was unfamiliar with the city, but she loved the food here and took a few looks at the place not too far away.

“I’m a bit hungry.  What do you want to eat?”  Dt said abruptly.

“Anything.”  She contemplated a bit.  “We just had a lot of stick food, let’s see whether there’s other stuff?  Should we buy some for Grunt and them?”

“En, wait for me here.”  He said.

He jumped down the stairs about the height of half a person and almost bumped into several young girls who happened to bike by.  The young girls screamed immediately and tried to avoid him.

He took a step back away from those bikes.

The two young girls in the front looked at each other when they saw Dt and their anger instantly dissipated.  They teased him using the local Sichuan dialect but Dt just stood there, seemly not understanding what the girls were saying.  He embarrassedly lowered his head slightly, bypassed the bikes, and went to the end of the longest line on the snack street.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 21

97 was just joking but it caught Ai Jing’s interest.

They ended up going to an internet cafe.

Because the city was one of the WCG tournament stops, the internet cafe was also infected from the excitement; there were heated contests going on there.

There were always two camps inside any internet cafe in any city, those playing MMOs[1] and others playing competitive games.  When Ai Qing walked in this internet cafe, there was a small scale tournament going on to celebrate the occasion.

Her sister excitingly looked at the scoreboard.  “Heh, it’s DotA, heh, there’s CS……”

The owner of the cafe was especially interested in the twin sisters.  After he heard what Ai Jing had said, he said immediately with a smile,  “How about you two come and give it a try?”

Ai Jing nodded and turned around to look at Grunt behind her.  “Will you play with me?”

Grunt’s eyes started to have a trace of a smile inside the black frame of his glasses.  “No problem.”

So, this guy, who overslept and forfeited the competition at Guangzhou stop, agreed without hesitation to seriously play a game with a bunch of teenagers in a unknown internet cafe in Chengdu.

“Grunt.”  He told the owner his name.

Then…...half of the internet cafe turned quiet.

God's Left Hand - Book 1: Chapter 20

When they arrived at the hotel, 97 happened to come out of a taxi; it appeared that they had arrived at the same time.

97 looked at them with great interest and smiled good-humouredly.  “I was thinking how come I can’t find you?  It turned out that you left with Gou Gou.”  Dt didn’t respond.

It seemed that her sister had just came back to the room when she walked in.

“Did you see Grunt?”

She took off her jacket; after staying at the stadium for a whole day, there were all kinds of smells on her.  When she was taking off her skirt, her sister finally nodded smilingly.  “Ai Qing, I have decided to play esports.”

She carefully looked her sister up and down, she didn’t seem to be joking.  “Sure, you can use my computer to play later.”

“I mean, I also want to be a professional player.”