Desire to Lure [Esports] - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The harmless teasing dissolved the accumulated temper, making the “promise to stop pushing” stick in his throat once more. Sheng Xu’s breath hitched; his throat constricted for a fleeting second.

It was difficult for him to describe his current emotions, much like how he didn’t know why he was still waiting in the lobby, waiting for Yu Wenzhi to emerge from the high-level management office.

Yu Wenzhi really knew how to smile; it was as if the morning light had filled the windows. Taking a deep breath, it carried the lingering scent of damp flowers, inadvertently winding its way around one’s heart.

Sensing the slight signs of collapse in his hardened barriers, Sheng Xu used all his remaining strength to tighten his grip on his heart and let out a mocking “Hmph.”

But aside from that “Hmph,” there was nothing else.

His unmoving steps and his face, which hadn’t turned away again, exposed his thoughts entirely. Yu Wenzhi’s smile blossomed at the corners of his lips as he reminded him, “Your lips are getting dry and peeling.”

As he spoke, Yu Wenzhi raised the index finger that was still holding the cup and bumped Sheng Xu’s arm like a knock on a door, signaling for him to take it.

The force wasn’t even enough to penetrate the folds of his hoodie, yet it somehow bypassed skin and bone to knock on a place much deeper.

Only then did Sheng Xu realize he was indeed thirsty.

From the time they left for the match venue until now, he hadn’t had a single drop of water. There was a hard, rough texture on his lips—the jagged edges raised by skin that was severely dehydrated.

When his tongue flicked over them, the scraping sensation was uncomfortable.

He remembered that after they lost the match, everyone was quite silent. On the car ride back, Yu Wenzhi had stared out the window the entire time. Outside, a misty drizzle fell, splashing spots all over the glass.

Just when did he notice his lips were peeling?

It’s just a cup of water; it doesn’t mean anything.

Sheng Xu reached out and took it with intentionally rough movements, causing the water in the cup to jump and tremble as if startled.

But once it was in his hand, he froze for a moment.

Something was pressed against the bottom of the cup. Just now, Yu Wenzhi had been holding it in place with his pinky to keep it from falling.

Thanks to his quick reflexes, Sheng Xu’s other hand caught it immediately, only to find it was a bank card from a certain bank.

Sheng Xu frowned, forgetting to even drink the water: “What’s the meaning of this?”

After the match ended, Yu Wenzhi had sent a message to Yu Fan, hoping he could help find out exactly how much Sheng Xu still owed DTG in liquidated damages.

It wasn’t hard to guess that Sheng Xu owed money; after all, thirty million wasn’t something anyone could easily produce.

Sheng Xu’s tireless streaming was likely because the other side was pressuring him again, and since Sheng Xu was thin-skinned, he wouldn’t haggle or stall at all he only wanted to pay it off as quickly as possible.

Yu Fan’s status in DTG was extraordinary, and sure enough, he managed to find out. Yu Wenzhi had received this text while in the management office. While lowering his head to accept the criticism, he took a moment to look at it; the words of the reprimand didn’t register, as his mind was busy calculating this matter.

This year’s signing fee had only been paid last month. Yu Wenzhi was inexplicably procrastinating when it came to financial management and had never thought to put it into a fixed-term deposit, so a large amount of cash was just sitting in the card.

Thinking about it now, perhaps his past stubborn procrastination was a precursor to putting the money to its best use.

Yu Wenzhi’s free hand hung lazily: “I have it sitting there anyway and won’t be using it. Just consider it a loan; there’s no rush to pay it back.”

“I don’t need it.”

Sheng Xu’s ears flushed a bit red. He understood what Yu Wenzhi meant, but he refused to do something as embarrassing as borrowing money. He moved to shove the card back to Yu Wenzhi.

“But I want to have more time to train with you.”

Yu Wenzhi blinked his eyes, smiling brightly. The end of his sentence was voiced very lightly, catching the other man off guard as it drifted into his ears.

He seemed to do it unconsciously, like stars washed by the rain at night, unaware of how much lingering longing they would stir in the world below.

His mouth and tongue seemed even drier. Sheng Xu didn’t know people could be persuaded this way. His fingers gripping the card pressed so hard his nails turned white, yet his palms began to brew sweat.

In truth, Yu Wenzhi wasn’t talking nonsense.

It was currently mid-May, and the Summer Split would start in July. The time wasn’t very long. Compared to other teams, TEA needed more synergy, and as the crucial bot-lane duo, he and Sheng Xu truly needed more time to train.

“…I need four million. Once I get my finances sorted, I’ll pay you back four and a half million.” Sheng Xu’s voice was muffled, somewhat unwilling, yet unable to resist.

Realizing what he had been convinced by made him even more frustrated.

He had been unwilling to lower the price of his house by five hundred thousand, letting it sit on the market unable to sell, but when it came to paying Yu Wenzhi back an extra five hundred thousand, the words slipped out and he didn’t even feel the sting.

Yu Wenzhi laughed out loud, his eyes curving into a very gentle arc: “Your interest rate is so high; maybe I should take my bank deposits out and store them with you instead?”

Sheng Xu lifted his chin, his lips pressing together tightly.

He knew Yu Wenzhi didn’t want to take advantage of him, but facing Yu Wenzhi’s teasing now, he could no longer keep a stiff face at most, he could only torment his own lips.

He still had one hurdle he hadn’t cleared.

“Whether you believe it or not, my streaming never interfered with training. I couldn’t possibly affect the Mid-Season Invitational just to make money.”

The moment Zou Kai’s angry words came out, Sheng Xu knew what kind of image he had in their eyes.

The key was that they didn’t like it but didn’t tell him; instead, they silently passed judgment on him, making it impossible for him to play from the very beginning.

What he couldn’t stand the most was that Yu Wenzhi thought so too.

“Regarding this matter, I want to say I’m sorry. I presumptuously speculated about your motives, and I paid the price in this match.”

Yu Wenzhi’s expression was candid. There was no longer any sign of teasing or joking in his features, and his gaze met Sheng Xu’s without any avoidance.

Sheng Xu was stunned.

He thought Yu Wenzhi would change the subject, or laugh it off, or even pick out some of his mistakes to make it a matter where everyone shared the blame.

After all, given Yu Wenzhi’s status in the e-sports circle and his seniority in Team TEA, having him say sorry to a fledgling newcomer was practically a fairy tale.

But Yu Wenzhi was truly strange, different from everyone he had ever met.

Sheng Xu vaguely remembered when he was very young, his mother had found the Ru ware porcelain he had broken from under the bed. She told him that only people with very strong psychological fortitude are not afraid to admit their mistakes; he was still young, so she didn’t blame him.

He had asked: “Are there people like that?”

His mother said: “There are, but very few. So if you meet one, you must cherish them.”

The sound of his heart thumping in his ears finally shattered the stubborn, unyielding walls completely, allowing the last bit of estrangement to come crashing down.

There really was such a person.

It was as if he was seeing an entire night’s worth of the galaxy, and that galaxy occupied his entire vision.

“You… you don’t have to. It was Zou Kai who didn’t want to pick me anyway.” Sheng Xu kept a wooden face, the redness spreading to the tips of his ears. He was forced to down the cup of rose cold tea in one gulp.

He wanted to say that Yu Wenzhi wasn’t that bad, that the phrase “too clever for one’s own good” was too severe, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Yu Wenzhi smiled and remained silent.

Any person who is easy to coax is only so because they want to forgive you more than you want them to.

Inexpressible pasts, a rare and pure nature.

After the night rain came a whole day of blazing sun. The members of Team TEA also seemed to have recovered from their defeat in the semifinals.

After lunch, Yu Wenzhi called Ever into the review room.

“Captain, why did you want to see me?”

Ever closed the door behind him as he entered. He had his team jacket tied around his waist in a dead knot, and now it trailed and clattered around him, making him look like he had been withered for an entire night.

Yu Wenzhi had a half-smile as he leaned lazily against the back of his chair, toyed with a pen in his hand. The tip of the pen tapped against the smooth tabletop one beat at a time, the sound spreading through the small room.

Before he could even speak, Ever couldn’t stand the torture and blurted out first: “Not practicing Draven enough was my fault. I’ll take the big blame for the third game. I’ve already told Chuan-ge and the guys that I’ll be grinding Draven like crazy this week. I’ll definitely bring the win rate up.”

“Did you sleep well last night?”

To his surprise, Yu Wenzhi didn’t follow up on the match but instead asked a very casual question.

Ever swallowed hard and shook his head: “Not well. I didn’t sleep at all. Ware knows; I really felt terrible.”

Yu Wenzhi nodded and asked again: “Did my going out to find Sheng Xu have an impact on you?”

Ever didn’t dare say it had an impact. Yesterday, Yu Wenzhi was the one called by management for criticism, essentially taking the fall for him. At this moment, he figured Yu Wenzhi was probably holding in some anger, so he had to smooth things over for the Captain.

“No. Sheng Xu is young after all and has a big temper; it’s only right that you were worried about him, Captain. How could I take that to heart?”

Ever truly wore an expression of a senior being considerate of a junior, completely unlike the stance he took while arguing with Sheng Xu in the lobby yesterday.

Yu Wenzhi lowered his eyes and smiled slightly, and the pen tapping the table stopped.

“Then, does the plan to frame Sheng Xu for stealing your mouse have no impact either?”

Back then the match was imminent, and he couldn’t expose it for fear that Ever’s mental state would collapse. Now that the Mid-Season Invitational was over and a long holiday was approaching, he could talk about it in full.

Ever’s face changed instantly, a flash of uncontrollable panic in his eyes.

“I didn’t! Captain, I really don’t know when I put it in my pocket, and I never said Sheng Xu took it! How did it become framing Sheng Xu?”

Yu Wenzhi raised his eyes, looking at Ever through his thin plain-glass lenses: “We’ve worked together for over a year, and you still don’t know me well enough.”

Ever said aggrievedly: “Captain, how can you think so poorly of me? Even if I have a competition with Sheng Xu, it’s a fair and square fight. How could I ever use such means!”

Yu Wenzhi didn’t waste words with him. He took his phone from his pocket, tapped it a couple of times, and tossed it onto the table.

The phone began to play the surveillance footage from the hallway that day.

How Ever had provoked Sheng Xu sentence by sentence, finally forcing Sheng Xu to act, and how he had then cried about being wronged it was all clear as day.

Ever shook like a plastic bag in a gale, his heart leaping into his throat.

He hadn’t expected that for a matter Sheng Xu hadn’t even refuted, Yu Wenzhi would go and check the surveillance.

Yu Wenzhi had doubted him, a teammate of over a year, and he hadn’t noticed it at all at the time.

“Captain, I just…”

“The fact that you weren’t afraid of being swapped out after playing that ‘lost mouse’ routine before the match… the coach must have told you in advance that because of Sheng Xu’s poor attitude, he was definitely letting you play.”

“You indeed didn’t say Sheng Xu took it. You merely guided the coach to say it. You knew it would be easy to find out Sheng Xu didn’t have it after a check, but knowing Zou Kai’s personality, even if he felt guilty, he wouldn’t be able to say anything decent.”

“But Sheng Xu, upon finding himself suspected by the coach, was bound to lose his temper. There was no telling if he would do something outrageous. If the matter blew up, he would have to leave even if he didn’t want to.”

Yu Wenzhi said calmly.

Ever was speechless.

Yu Wenzhi’s mind was meticulously detailed to a terrifying degree; he had actually guessed every single one of his thoughts.

He wanted Sheng Xu to leave, and he wanted to keep himself out of it. To come up with this method, he had exhausted a hundred million brain cells and tossed and turned for several days before making up his mind.

But Yu Wenzhi said it so plainly, as if the idea he had come up with was as simple as a plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

Yu Wenzhi smiled, staring at Ever, and slowly pulled his phone back.

“Don’t play petty tricks in front of me. I only want to see the ‘fair competition’ you spoke of.”

Support Desire to Lure [Esports]