Chapter 719: A Visit
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: - -
In the practice room of the second floor of Happy Internet Cafe, the people there continued to play the game as usual, but the mood in the room was somewhat downcast. Excellent Era’s grand welcoming for Xiao Shiqin angered Chen Guo and Wei Chen. On the other hand, Ye Xiu wasn’t as emotional as the other two. Steamed Bun had no idea who Xiao Shiqin was and Tang Rou wasn’t afraid of anyone. Xiao Shiqin’s arrival didn’t bother these three at all.
The reason that these three weren’t happy was because their boss hunt didn’t go as well as they had planned.
The problem wasn’t them, but rather that their opponents were a lot stronger than before.
Especially Tyrannical Ambition. After a few exchanges, Ye Xiu was certain that Tyrannical Ambition had an absolute expert on their side. On Tyrannical Ambition’s side, there was a single heavily guarded Cleric. Ye Xiu immediately knew that Zhang Xinjie had personally come out to the game.
Both Ye Xiu and Zhang Xinjie were skilled in tactics. Although they mainly specialized in five versus five team battles, in large scale battles, their impact on the battlefield was far greater than someone like Zhao Yuzhe, who could kill a few more players than the others at best. With Zhang Xinjie’s help, Tyrannical Ambition’s fighting strength practically doubled. Their elites were already widely reputed as powerful. As a result, Tyrannical Ambition immediately won themselves a huge advantage in the competition for bosses. Even though Ye Xiu didn’t lose to Zhang Xinjie in tactics, their troop’s fighting strength lost to Tyrannical Ambition’s by quite a huge margin.
Their numbers advantage wasn’t actually much of an advantage. A top guild like Tyrannical Ambition only sent out two elite groups, but that didn’t mean their side only had two elite groups. Which of their branch guilds didn’t have their own elite groups? The only reason that the guilds sent out two groups was so that they didn’t waste too many people’s time. At the same time, they didn’t want every wild boss fight to become a world war. The big guilds didn’t want that. The small guilds even less so. In fact, they might not even have the resources to sustain such fighting. Thus, Ye Xiu and the alliance didn’t want to fight by overwhelming the opponents with a sea of people. It was better to follow the unwritten rules like everyone else.
But today’s results ended pitifully for the alliance. Tyrannical Ambition was the strongest guild, but the other guilds either found an alliance or had come to an agreement. The competition for bosses instantly became complicated. Six bosses had spawned today, but Ye Xiu and the alliance failed to get a single one. How could he be feeling good? Loulan Slash and the other allied guild leaders also sighed. Even though Ye Xiu had given them a warning before by letting them know that this week would be the most difficult, no one expected such a disparity compared to last week, not even Ye Xiu. It was unpredictable that even Zhang Xinjie had personally came.
Zhang Xinjie coming to the game wasn’t likely at the request of the Club guilds. This action could be considered as made by the Club as a whole. It seemed like Tyrannical Ambition was about to make a huge move. During the summer break, the Club even had their vice-captain come out. This move showed just how much the Club valued the upcoming season. Zhang Xinjie had been with Team Tyranny today too. It didn’t look like he was helping out just for fun.
Loulan Slash and the others were still distressed by today’s bosses. Ye Xiu was thinking deeper though.
"What do we do?" They asked Ye Xiu.
"Zhang Xinjie isn’t that hard to deal with." Ye Xiu said.
"What?" Their eyes lit up, but then again, if he wasn’t hard to deal with, then why didn’t they win even a single boss today? Of those six bosses, Tyrannical Ambition actually got three of them. Three in one day! That was an exceptional harvest. They were only a single guild. They didn’t need to split their harvest with four or five others.
"He follows his sleep schedule very strictly. We’ll just have to be more active when he’s sleeping." Ye Xiu said.
"Ah?" The four guild leaders hadn’t thought that dealing with Zhang Xinjie would involve something outside the game.
"This is the most economical and simplest method." Ye Xiu said.
"Oh, that’s true. It’s very reliable." Yue Ziqin said.
Zhang Xinjie was like Ye Xiu. There was no point in killing his character. What mattered was the person controlling the character. However, Zhang Xinjie’s strict self-discipline was famous in Glory. For Ye Xiu and these guild leaders, changing their sleep schedule was something they often did, but for Zhang Xinjie, that would make headlines for gaming news. Simply avoiding Zhang Xinjie would certainly be an effective strategy.
"But we’ll only be able to play for a third of the day. If he plays like this everyday, we’ll lose out on quite a lot." Yue Ziqin said.
"We’ll think of something else for the other two thirds of the day! We were caught unprepared today. If we have a better understanding of them, we might not lose." Ye Xiu said. He glanced at Wei Chen. He could finally employ the mole in Samsara. How could he use Samsara’s elite troops to his advantage?
Ye Xiu thought to himself, when suddenly, someone knocked on their practice room’s door.
"Who is it?" Chen Guo called out.
An employee from Happy Internet Cafe pushed the door open a bit and said: "Boss, someone’s asking for you."
"Who? Tell them to come over." Chen Guo said.
"Okay." The employee didn’t say who it was. He closed the door and left.
"I’ll go take a look." Chen Guo told the employee to have them come over themselves, but she still got up. However, just when she got up, the door was pushed open again and the employee stood to the side: "They’re here."
The people in the practice room raised their heads to see who it was. Some felt like the people outside seemed familiar, while some felt like they should recognize them. The only ones who completely recognized them were Chen Guo and Ye Xiu.
"Hm? Is this your practice room? Not bad!" The first person to come in laughed. Tao Xuan, Excellent Era’s owner. A powerful owner of a huge Club praising Happy Internet Cafe’s small practice room felt insincere. It almost sounded like he was ridiculing them.
To the left of him was the young and arrogant Sun Xiang. To the right was Xiao Shiqin. Because Tao Xuan had kept it a mystery on the way here, Xiao Shiqin was even more surprised and serious than Ye Xiu and Chen Guo. He wrinkled his brow and pushed his glasses up. He was quite nearsighted and didn’t feel confident in his eyeglasses. After adjusting his glasses and squinting, he finally confirmed: "Senior Ye Qiu?"
Yes, in front of Ye Xiu, the golden generation was still several generations younger than someone from the first generation.
Chen Guo was already feeling upset upon seeing Tao Xuan and Sun Xiang. She was about to shout "Who let you in?" However, XIao Shiqin’s tone of voice was very polite, so Chen Guo didn’t shout in the end. Ye Xiu got up and greeted Xiao Shiqin: "Oh, Little Xiao’s here. Sit anywhere you’d like!"
As for the other two, Ye Xiu gestured towards the sofa in the practice room and said "Let’s sit there."
"Oh, Xiao Shiqin. I was about to say you looked a bit familiar." Wei Chen stood up at this moment.
"You are?" Xiao Shiqin asked. The other side spoke very casually as if they were close, but Xiao Shiqin didn’t seem to recognize him at all.
"Wei Chen." Wei Chen introduced himself.
"Team Blue Rain’s former captain?" Xiao Shiqin immediately recalled.
"Ha ha, that’s right. That’s me." Wei Chen was quite happy that Xiao Shiqin immediately knew who he was. He felt as if he were famous. In reality, he was just lucky to run into Xiao Shiqin. As a master tactician, Xiao Shiqin might not have even interacted with Wei Chen before, but he still had that information in his head. In comparison, a normal, younger player…..
"Wei Chen. Who’s that?"
See, there’s a younger person right there. Sun Xiang had never heard of Wei Chen’s name before. Sun Xiang repeated it in his head, but still couldn’t come up with anything, so he asked.
"Of course you don’t know. At that time, you were still playing around with your little JJ!"
Sun Xiang instantly turned red. He was no stranger to trash talk, but it was his first time hearing such a straightforward and vulgar insult. In particular, after Wei Chen finished speaking, he turned his head to look at Sun Xiang. Who knew what he was imagining in his head?
"What did you say!" Sun Xiang’s counterattack was quite terrible.
Tao Xuan was also surprised! He had met Wei Chen before. It had been many years since though, so he hadn’t recognized him. After the introduction, he immediately remembered and was surprised that he was with Ye Qiu. By the time he reacted, the two sides had already started butting heads. Sun Xiang’s response made even Tao Xuan extremely disappointed. However, Sun Xiang was still a young player, after all. He couldn’t compare to those older fellows. Not every player had this kind of talent like Huang Shaotian.
"Ha ha, so it’s captain Wei Chen. I apologize for not recognizing you sooner. We’ve met before, right?" Tao Xuan hastily said to cover up Sun Xiang’s terrible response. Tao Xuan wanted to show Ye Qiu their strength, but Ye Qiu hadn’t even said anything yet and Wei Chen shut Sun Xiang down.
"Who are you?" Wei Chen asked. It was hard to say if he was sincere or not. Only he would know.
"Tao Xuan." Tao Xuan introduced himself.
"Oh, Excellent Era’s owner?"
"Correct." Tao Xuan nodded his head.
"When is Excellent Era disbanding?" Wei Chen asked.
"Why would we disband?" Tao Xuan was still smiling. He wouldn’t be so childish as to be furious at such words.
"You’ve already been relegated. Why wouldn’t you disband?" Wei Chen said. Before Tao Xuan could reply, he said to Xiao Shiqin: "Little Xiao, right? You seem like a good person, but why are your so stupid? Excellent Era’s already sinking and yet you jump on board. Are you thinking that the world’s not ending soon enough?"
Xiao Shiqin heard Wei Chen’s taunt, but only smiled in response. He knew that Wei Chen was just trash talking. He wouldn’t try and explain his reasoning to him, so he just smiled. He was more concerned about why the boss brought him and Sun Xiang here.
"Getting relegated isn’t the end of the world. Speaking of which, you retired many years ago. Aren’t you also struggling?" Tao Xuan had some skill. He guessed Wei Chen’s intentions and countered.
"My struggle spells disaster for you! To think Excellent Era would fall by my hands. Ye Qiu, you’d better not stop me when the time comes!" Wei Chen said.
Ye Xiu finally had a chance to speak. He laughed: "I hope we come across Excellent Era someday."