AWM: PUBG - Chapter 2

Qi Zui entered the lounge and hopped onto a treadmill, setting it to a very health-conscious “slow walk” mode.

While walking, he took a moment to scroll through Weibo. Checking his mentions, he saw his “girlfriend fans” were out in force, crying out in a unified wail to demand why he hadn’t livestreamed in so long. He picked a fan with a cute profile picture to reply to, then closed Weibo and opened a popular gaming forum.

【What has Drunk been up to lately? Am I going blind? I just checked his match history—his account only played for four hours yesterday? And only three the day before? Is he messing with me?】

【The Asian Invitational group stages are about to start. HOG’s Yu Qianxi is streaming all day, and the captain, Drunk, is only training a few hours a day. Are they planning to ascend to heaven?】

【Classic. HOG’s form is tanking across the board. Are these guys planning to just bow down and call the Koreans “Daddy” at the Invitational?】

【Just waiting to see your “God Qi” fall from grace in Busan. Let’s see how the braindead fans spin it this time.】

Qi Zui remained indifferent. As usual, half the front page of the forum was dedicated to bashing his team.

“Tall trees catch much wind,” as the saying goes. Over the years, Qi Zui had been flamed so often he’d developed skin thicker than armor. He treated personal attacks like daily meals and trash talk like adrenaline. He scrolled down further and unexpectedly spotted a thread about Yu Yang.

【HUGE NEWS! Youth has joined HOG! The club hasn’t officially announced it yet, but Youth is currently in the youth training camp! Wild guess: will Youth go to the Second Team, sit on the bench for the First Team, or just straight up replace one of the slackers in the main lineup?】

Qi Zui felt a spark of interest. He was just about to click in to see if the “slacker” referred to himself or Yu Qianxi when…

“Captain?”

Yu Qianxi knocked and entered. He had clearly just woken up; his hair was a mess, and his eyes were bloodshot as he rubbed them incessantly.

Qi Zui stepped off the treadmill and leaned back against a nearby weight machine. Before he could speak, Yu Qianxi let out a dry, forced laugh. “A fan kept gifting yesterday and dropped tens of thousands. I felt bad ending the stream so early, so I went a bit longer.”

“I didn’t ask about that; we’ll talk about it later.” Qi Zui gently massaged his wrist. “How do you know Yu Yang?”

“Youth? Oh, him…” Yu Qianxi stuttered slightly. “He’s pretty famous. He’s been camping on the leaderboards for two seasons now. I saw his ID didn’t have a team tag, so I added him as a friend. That’s how we met.”

Qi Zui looked at Yu Qianxi and smiled. “So you recruited him? Since when did you start taking over the manager’s job?”

“No, no! After he found out who I was, he told me himself that he wanted to join our team.” Yu Qianxi felt his skin crawl under Qi Zui’s gaze, and his eyes darted away. “Afterward, I told Brother Xu, and they handled the contact.”

“Brother Xu,” or He Xiaoxu, was HOG’s manager.

“He… asked to come here himself…” Qi Zui repeated softly to himself. He looked up. “Fine. You’re dismissed.”

Yu Qianxi let out a sigh of relief. As he turned to leave, Qi Zui added: “I don’t care about your streaming, but you are not to be late for regular practice matches again. One more time, and it’ll be handled as a disciplinary violation.”

Yu Qianxi’s brow furrowed briefly before he forced an awkward smile and agreed, heading out.

Today’s training match was about to begin. Qi Zui grabbed his phone and followed him out of the lounge.

The lounge was on the second floor and shared by the whole club. As he reached the stairwell to return to the third floor, Qi Zui paused.

By the window at the end of the second-floor hallway, Yu Yang was standing with his head down, smoking.

The HOG base was massive, housing over twenty people—players, managers, coaches, analysts, counselors, logistics staff, chefs, and drivers. Since the First and Second Teams trained and slept on different floors, teammates didn’t necessarily cross paths every day. Ironically, despite Yu Yang being at the base for nearly a month, this was the first time Qi Zui had actually seen him again.

Yu Yang was a bit thinner than before, and his hair was longer, dyed a pale blonde. Perhaps because he hadn’t grown out of his rebellious phase, a closer look revealed a few flashy strands of “granny grey” highlights.

Hearing footsteps, Yu Yang turned his head and froze.

Qi Zui looked at him, recalling what Yu Qianxi had just said: “He told me himself that he wanted to join our team.”

Yu Yang stared blankly at Qi Zui. His fingers reflexively clenched, and the lit cherry of the cigarette pressed directly into his palm. Qi Zui’s brow twitched. Yu Yang flinched and let go.

As if waking from a dream, Yu Yang awkwardly scrambled to pick up the cigarette butt, turned, and bolted.

Qi Zui stood by the window for a long while before finally heading upstairs to the training room.

“Hurry up, hurry up! Join the lobby! The first match starts in ten minutes.” Bu Nana pulled off his headset and yelled at Qi Zui. “We’re just waiting on you. The password is in the group chat. Get in here.”

Qi Zui rubbed the bridge of his nose, sat at his station, and put on his headset.

PUBG: Battlegrounds. Each match begins with a hundred players. Everyone starts with zero gear, dropping from a plane along a fixed flight path and parachuting to their chosen locations.

Guns, ammo, armor, and meds spawn randomly across the map. In the four-man squad mode, twenty teams are scattered across the terrain, hunting each other down. To ensure encounters, a “Safe Zone” is randomly designated. Staying outside the zone exposes players to the “Blue Zone” (the gas), which drains health over time. As the zone shrinks, players are forced to relocate, leading to firefights and casualties. The game ends when only one team remains.

Today’s training was a squad match. Because PUBG requires a high player count, these sessions usually involved a dozen different clubs. Powerhouse teams like HOG would often field their Second Team or even their youth trainees to fill the slots.

“Not bad today—eighty-seven players total.” As the game started, Bu Nana glanced at the player count and asked, “Where are we dropping?”

As the captain and shot-caller, it was Qi Zui’s job to determine the drop zone based on the flight path.

Qi Zui glanced at the line. “Military Base.”

Bu Nana clicked his tongue. “Alright, Brother Qi. Feeling aggressive today, are we?”

The Military Base was rich in loot but had complex terrain and a high player density. Dropping there meant immediate combat. Unless it was a low-ranked “fish pond” lobby, it was rare for a full four-man squad to make it out alive. Most cautious teams avoided it.

“Drop.” Qi Zui marked a point on the map. “Loot and watch for the circle. I’ll keep an eye on the observatory. Lao Kai, look for gas cans.”

“Someone’s going to Novorepnoye… one, two, three people…” Lao Kai landed. “One squad. There’s also a squad at the base with us.”

Bu Nana sighed. “Wouldn’t it have been better to go to Georgopol with this flight path? Why do they insist on provoking their Daddy Qi?”

“Clear the squad at the base, quickly.” Qi Zui was in a foul mood and didn’t feel like joking with Bu Nana. He landed swiftly, looted a shotgun, and started reloading while circling a window to track an opponent. “After we clear this squad, check the circle. If it shifts north, we’ll hold the bridge and collect ‘tolls’ from the Novo squad.”

Qi Zui blasted an enemy in the face with his shotgun. A system announcement flashed:

[HOG-Drunk downed Wolves-Baoliu with S1897]

Wolves. Qi Zui had downed someone from Team Wolves.

Qi Zui didn’t finish him off. He reloaded and circled back into the hallway.

Per the game mechanics, as long as teammates are alive, a player doesn’t die instantly when downed. Their teammates have a short window to revive them.

Qi Zui took a position behind a wall to check his angles. He was “fishing.” Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he heard footsteps… the downed player’s teammate had arrived.

Qi Zui timed his move. Just as the teammate began the revive animation on Baoliu, he rounded the corner and ended them both.

[HOG-Drunk killed Wolves-Baoliu with S1897]

[HOG-Drunk killed Wolves-Star with S1897]

The remaining two members of Wolves were cleaned up by Bu Nana and Lao Kai. The Military Base was now theirs. After looting and distributing gear, they checked the map. The Safe Zone had indeed shifted north toward Yasnaya Polyana.

Bu Nana: “Go, go, go! Find a car and head to the East Bridge. Let’s gatekeep that squad from Novo.”

Lao Kai drove. They reached the East Bridge and parked their vehicle, using the wreckage on the bridge as cover while they aimed their scopes toward Novorepnoye.

“Nana, watch under the bridge. Novo spawns boats, so they might try to cross by water.” Qi Zui peeked through his scope. “I’ll watch the bridgehead.”

Bu Nana gave a lazy acknowledgement. After two minutes of waiting, he grew bored. “Why is the Novo squad so slow? Should we just move? I haven’t even gotten a kill this game.”

“We’ve been gatekeeping this long; leaving now just makes us targets for them.” Qi Zui was actually more annoyed than Bu Nana. Since the match started, his mind hadn’t been on the game at all. His thoughts kept circling back… back to Yu Yang.

Qi Zui didn’t smoke. He didn’t know exactly how hot a cigarette cherry was.

Being grazed like that… it had to be a burn, right?

And he’d burned his right palm—the exact spot used to grip a mouse.

So right now, he was…

“Hey!” Bu Nana suddenly shouted. “Brother Qi! You said you were watching the bridgehead!”

Qi Zui snapped his eyes to the bridgehead. The squad from Novo hadn’t used a car or a boat; they had crawled their way up to the cover at the end of the bridge!

“My bad.” Qi Zui took the blame, preparing to fall back to the right for better cover. He opened his scope. “S direction, 1—fuck.”

In the split second Qi Zui opened his scope, the opponent caught the opening. Three shots to the head.

System announcement: [HOG-Youth downed HOG-Drunk with mini14]

Qi Zui froze, then let out a startled laugh.

What a small world.

The squad that had dropped at Novo was actually Yu Yang’s team.

In-game, players only see an opponent’s ID via the system announcement when they down someone or get downed themselves.

Qi Zui was caught out in the open. Because of his momentary lapse in concentration, Yu Yang had him pinned down.

But Qi Zui wasn’t the only one who had faltered. Despite having the perfect opportunity, Yu Yang suddenly stopped firing. He stayed there for several seconds, completely motionless, failing to finish Qi Zui off.

“Move to the right, Brother Qi.”

Lao Kai threw a smoke grenade and pulled the car forward to act as a shield. He hopped out and began reviving Qi Zui.

As he stood back up, Bu Nana was confused. “He had all that time to finish you. What was he waiting for?”

“Who knows,” Qi Zui said flatly. “Maybe he’s waiting to die.”

The previous mistake had just been a lapse in focus. In a straight duel, the current Yu Yang was still no match for Qi Zui.

Qi Zui fully healed, and without even opening his scope, he stood up and hip-fired his SCAR-L toward Yu Yang’s position. As expected, Yu Yang ducked behind cover. Qi Zui timed the second his opponent flinched, swapped to his sniper rifle, and flicked his wrist. A single shot to Yu Yang’s head.

[HOG-Drunk downed HOG-Youth with 98k]

Without a moment’s hesitation, Qi Zui cleanly bolted another round and finished him off.

[HOG-Drunk killed HOG-Youth with 98k]

In the training room on the first floor, Yu Yang’s screen instantly faded to black and white. He stared at the monitor for a moment, then let go of his mouse and removed his headset.

Yu Yang lowered his head and began to blow gently on his right palm. Whether it was because the burn was too painful or for some other reason, as he blew on the injury, his eyes gradually began to redden.

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