Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room
Book 1: The Storm is Coming
Chapter 18
A few years ago, Baona once had high expectations for StarCraft 2.
In 2012, there were still 8 professional teams in China, but last year, there were only three teams left.
Certainly this game was not very popular in other countries either.
Right in front of her, there were fans who were holding signs for the various teams that they supported, fierce battles on the screen, and…...commentary that she couldn’t understand. Luckily, sometimes she would play a round with members of her club when she was bored, so she could at least know what was going on.
All players still stayed after the competition.
Some of them were packing, but most of they were chatting in the smoking area.
These youths had just fought fierce battles with each other, but after the fact, they were actually good friends who just hadn’t seen each others for some time. Ai Qing stood outside the smoking area with Dt waiting for Inin to come out. During that time, somebody recognized Dt.
Two Korean big boys dressed in a black team uniform walked over with a smile and asked Dt in English, “Why did you come to Korea this time with your girlfriend?”
Dt promptly clarified that they were only good friends.
The taller boy was still joking with him. He repeatedly emphasized “good friend” and seemed to have a lot of fun with it, “Good friend, oh, good friend. I see, good ‘friend’.”
The shorter boy did not speak English well, but he could still understand these simple words. So he could not help laughing as well.
Dt didn’t know how to argue, so he just stopped explaining.
Ai Qing was also fairly embarrassed because she was the target of the joke. She could only pretend that she didn’t know a single word at all. She was looking around and saw Inin, with his backpack on his back, rushing over.
The young boy was panting from running. Before he came to a stop, the tall boy dragged his backpack and pulled him aside. The tall boy spoke to him, but Inin seemed somewhat hesitant. He looked at Dt, then looked at Ai Qing. He started talking with hand gestures; it seemed that he was unwilling to do something and refused the taller boy’s suggestion.
Unfortunately she and Dt didn’t know Korean at all.
They could only watch their enthusiastic discussion like watching a Korean drama.
Finally Inin couldn’t resist the other two any longer. He scratched his hair and looked back at Dt bashfully. “He said, he heard that Dt hasn’t registered for this year’s WCS. They won’t have the chance to win it back from you, so they want to play a game privately.”
He finished and looked at Ai Qing to explain, “Their situation is exactly like mine. They missed the Korean Regional Tournament last year, so they went to the European Regional and lost to Dt.”
Ai Qing finally understood now.
There was going to be another grievance round.
Dt looked like he didn’t hear it. He looked at his black electronic wrist watch. “We should go back now.”
“An emergency?” Inin asked carefully.
“Very urgent. It’s already the time that I need to take her back.” Dt answered solemnly. Obviously he still remembered his promise to Ai QIng that it would only take two hours to take care of things here before taking her back to the resort.
Inin instantly grabbed the key point and his eyes shone at Ai Qing. “Very urgent? It’s urgent that you have to go back? What urgent business do you need to deal with?”
‘Ah? No. Nothing.” Ai Qing was embarrassed from the attention, so she was honest to him. “Absolutely nothing. You guys just go ahead.”
She didn’t have any problem at all if she went back half or an hour late.
Maybe Inin could be the commentator to give her a master level analysis.
When they were inside the arena, she specifically paid attention to Dt’s friend. Every movement he made was extremely efficient. He had godlike hand speed. Though he was young, he was definitely one of the top ranked players in the Grandmaster League as she expected.
She had very high expectations for his commentary.
Inin put his hands together and bowed to thank Ai Qing repeatedly.
Obviously he felt that Dt had to stay since Ai Qing already said so.
And actually, that was indeed what was happening.
They looked around for an empty small room and pulled over several computers, mice, keyboards, and earphones. Inin threw his backpack aside and sat leisurely on the sofa with Ai Qing. The two watched at them setting up while they gossiped in a low voice at the same time.
“You know what the fans called Dt in Battle.net on the American and Korean Servers?”
Ai Qing shook her head with smile. “I only knew that he was called ‘God’s Left Hand’ when he was playing DotA.”
“God’s Left Hand?” Inin meditated on this name in his head for a while. He used his not so fluent Chinese to decompose these words separately and then reassembled them into one phrase. ‘Uhm. Uhm. I understand it now.”
“As you were saying, what was he called in Battle.net?” Ai Qing asked with great interest.
“Ah, right. He was called Medusa, the Medusa from Norse myth.”[1] Inin started laughing while speaking. “She was the one that would turn you into a statue if you took a glance at her, but people still couldn’t help looking at her.”
This description was quite unusual.
“Why? Why did they give him this name?” And it was a woman.
“Because he was too lethal.” Inin stretched his arms. “For example, the strongest guy in our team is really full of himself. Usually he pays no attention to anybody, but he turns into a chatterbox immediately once he meets Dt on Battle.net. On Dt’s birthday last year, several grandmaster level players on the American Server Battle.net all made an appointment to take a picture to wish him happy birthday.”
“......”
“Ah, Also. Also.” Inin suppressed his voice even lower. “The guy who is challenging Dt, he has a teammate who is ranked number 2 in Korea on StarCraft 2. In order to play with Dt, he specifically registered a matching id on the American Servers as Pt.“
Inin spoke in high spirits. Ai Qing listened but she felt dumbfounding. “So on the Chinese Servers, he might be called ‘Daji’?”[2]
“Almost. Almost. I read that Chinese story, The Legend of Deification. Really. Really, close.” Inin kept nodding repeatedly.
This young boy had a great capacity to gossip. If he gave up being professional player, he absolutely could be an reporter. He would be a good commentator, too. Nowadays, the commentators good at talking about the latest gossip was very popular. Especially this kind of commentator who was professional, cute, and familiar with the background of players in various tournament regions……
The two chatted very happily while the computers were being set up over there.
Suddenly that tall Korean big boy looked at them and waved to them.
Inin didn’t quite understand and Ai QIng was all confused.
“3v3.” Dt spoke just in time. “He wants 3v3.”
“With whom? Me?” Inin pointed to himself. Then he looked around at other onlookers. “Coki? Warm? There’s not enough players?”
1, 2, 3, 4, 5……
Ai Qing was also counting silently.
There were actually only five StarCraft 2 players including Dt and Inin.
Looked like they needed to find another player.”
That was how she figured.
But nobody moved.
“Don’t we actually have exactly six players?” Dt asked back.
Everybody was instantly silent.
These professional players of StarCraft 2 all continuously ranked within top 20 on Battle.net. These players in the grandmaster league all looked at her direction immediately. They looked at this…...seemly, probably, perhaps, possibly a girl who was not familiar with StarCraft 2------The girl that had come with Dt.
[1]: This is exactly what the author wrote in the raws. If you don’t know, Medusa is a monster from Greek mythology (and not a deity nor Norse).
[2]: Daji was the consort of the last king of the Shang dynasty and she caused the downfall of said Chinese dynasty. (One of those beautiful queens/princesses causing the downfall of their kingdom kind of story.)
