At the exact moment Duan Chi’s friend request popped up, Lin Anke happened to click the mouse and accept his friend request.
【You are now friends with DG Safer. Come chat together!】
Lin Anke turned his head and glanced at Duan Chi.
Duan Chi chuckled lightly. “Anke, how about adding your own marksman too?”
They were already friends now, so there was no point in saying it only afterward. Lin Anke ignored him and accepted the friend requests from the other members of DG.
Adam had already entered the team and was greeting them.
“Hello, hello! Encore is here, huh? I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Adam, DG’s top laner. Call me anytime if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
Danqing immediately exposed the flaw in that offer. “What good is calling you? Top lane and bottom lane are practically an entire galaxy apart. By the time you get there, Anke and Safer will already have respawned!”
Adam said, “What’s the rush? We can always meet during team fights.”
Yuanshan waved a hand impatiently. “All right, all right. You two can just go meet each other at the fountain. Hurry up and start. The second team has been waiting for you for ages.”
The exchange between the two made the corners of Lin Anke’s lips curl into a smile.
Once the match began, since this was a trial, Yuanshan did not participate in the ban and pick phase. The players were allowed to choose whichever champions they personally preferred.
Adam was first pick and immediately locked in a tanky top lane champion with a health bar practically as long as a barcode. Clearly, he intended to help absorb damage for the team.
Danqing was second pick. Although he had been loudly clamoring about wanting to try Cupid in the mid lane, he still locked in a champion with fairly strong current version stats.
Jiangnan said nothing and likewise chose a jungler who was strong in the current patch.
Duan Chi muted the team voice chat, then leaned closer to Lin Anke and said, “Anke, looks like your teammates really like you.”
Although the main purpose of a trial was to assess an individual player’s ability and the outcome of the match could not determine the coaching staff’s evaluation of a player, having a favorable game was ultimately much easier for a player to demonstrate their individual skill than being forced to play from behind.
The choices made by the three teammates were enough to make it clear that they all wanted to help Lin Anke establish an advantage and create momentum.
Thanks.
Although Lin Anke was wearing headphones, Duan Chi was close enough that he still heard those words. He pressed his lips together and silently said thanks to the others in his heart.
It was now Lin Anke and Duan Chi’s turn to choose their champions. Lin Anke hesitated for a moment while looking through his champion pool before locking in Sequence, the champion he had just played.
Duan Chi raised an eyebrow, then unmuted the team voice chat. “Anke, can I take Flow of Time?”
Lin Anke said, “Up to you.”
Duan Chi asked, “Then I’m really taking it?”
Adam was still completely out of the loop. “Why do you need to ask Encore when you’re choosing your champion?”
Danqing was puzzled by the question as well. Then, suddenly, inspiration struck him. “I know! Sequence and Flow of Time are a couple, so Safer is worried Anke might mind, right?”
The champion selection countdown ended and the system automatically locked in Flow of Time, which Duan Chi had already selected.
Adam was still hung up on the question. “Aren’t the two of them brothers?”
Danqing said, “Aren’t Sequence and Flow of Time colleagues? The official sources never said whether they’re brothers or not.”
Adam said, “Even so, they’re not a couple, right? They’re both male heroes.”
Danqing replied, “So what if they’re male heroes? Shipping a couple is perfectly normal nowadays. Even Jiangnan and I have our own shippers!”
Jiangnan said, “Shut up.”
Adam said, “We’re starting, we’re starting. You guys don’t need to worry about me this game. I can handle the pressure up here. Just give the bottom lane more help.”
Ever since Danqing had said that Sequence and Flow of Time were a couple, Lin Anke had not spoken another word.
Watching the two characters’ models walk side by side in the game, he actually began to feel a little uncomfortable.
The others might not know but Lin Anke himself knew his own sexual orientation.
When he had been together with Xu Sheng, they had never made their relationship public because they did not want it to affect the team’s matches. Aside from the people within the team who knew the truth, everyone else had assumed that Lin Anke and Xu Sheng were merely childhood friends.
As for Duan Chi, Lin Anke did not know whether he had known about it before but after Lin Anke had broken up with Xu Sheng right in front of Duan Chi that day, he should have figured it out as well.
Inside the game, the two of them reached the area beneath the first tower, where the minion waves from both sides met. Lin Anke pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind and focused seriously on the match.
In the meeting room next door to the training room, Panda and Yuanshan were sitting together, watching the entire game from the god’s eye perspective through the coach’s computer.
Panda asked quietly, “How is it?”
Yuanshan nodded. “Encore’s thought process is very clear. He should be quite familiar with Safer’s playstyle and the two of them have excellent coordination. The mid jungle rhythm is good too. Every time there’s an opportunity to make a move, he calls Danqing and Jiangnan over to invade the jungle together. It’s only been six minutes and they’re already ahead by four thousand in gold.”
Panda shook his head. “Poor kids from the second team. When they heard they were going to help with a trial, they were actually looking forward to showing off a little. Now they’ve been completely beaten senseless.”
Yuanshan continued, “He isn’t familiar with Danqing or Jiangnan yet he can coordinate and direct them to this extent. Honestly, that really surprised me. In that last play, we could tell from the god’s eye view that the enemy jungler wasn’t in the bottom half of the map but they had no vision of that area from inside the game. Encore’s sense of timing was incredibly precise. If they had retreated even one second later, they would have left someone behind.”
As he finished speaking, Yuanshan’s eyes were filled with amusement. “TIG’s shot caller has always been Xu Sheng, right? He’s pretty good, sure but if Encore had been the one calling the shots during this spring final, we might not even have managed to win this championship.”
Panda was confused. “Is he really that strong?”
Indeed. Although he had followed Duan Chi’s instructions and done everything he could to persuade Lin Anke to sign with them, honestly speaking, Panda himself had never been completely confident about Lin Anke’s strength.
After all, there had been so much controversy surrounding him online. It was impossible to say that none of it had affected their impression of him.
Yuanshan nodded. “Has the contract been printed?”
“It was printed earlier. Duan Chi told me to offer twenty million. I nearly scared him away with that number. After talking him around again and again, Encore finally agreed to an eight million signing fee. He wouldn’t accept anything more than that.”
“…………….”
Yuanshan almost failed to understand the logic behind what he had just heard. In this day and age, were there actually people who earned too much money?
“All right, then. You guys handle it. The boss has plenty of money anyway. Sign the contract once this game is over.”
Panda breathed a sigh of relief. “All right. We’ve finally got it settled.”
Once the practice match ended, Danqing excitedly let out a series of loud cries, so thrilled that he practically wanted to throw himself onto Lin Anke. Unfortunately, Jiangnan and Duan Chi were two very much alive human beings sitting between them, making that impossible.
“Anke, you’re incredible! How did you know the enemy was hiding in that bush waiting to ambush me? Ahhh! I was almost killed by that damn jungler!”
Lin Anke explained, “When you were laning against the second team’s mid laner, he missed a minion. The two of you had seventeen more gold at the same time.”
Danqing was utterly amazed. “You were all the way down in the bottom lane and you still noticed something like that? That’s incredible! I want a support who protects me like that too!”
Adam said, “Awesome!”
Lin Anke rarely found himself directly facing this kind of praise from his teammates. For a moment, he genuinely did not know what he was supposed to say.
Fortunately, Duan Chi spoke up. He smiled at Danqing and said, “Get lost. Let Jiangnan support you.”
Jiangnan said indifferently, “Sure but I’m not buying support items.”
Danqing immediately let out a loud wail. “I hate junglers!”
Just as Yuanshan walked through the door, Danqing rushed straight over and grabbed him by the arm, wiping away imaginary tears that did not exist.
“Yuanshan, I don’t want to play a utility role anymore! Next time, give me a mage carry! I’m going to eat up Jiangnan’s entire jungle! I want the blue buff! I want a pentakill!”
Panda sympathetically patted Danqing on the shoulder. “Heavens above, look what you’ve driven this child to.”
Yuanshan was utterly merciless and completely indifferent. “We’ll talk about it when the mage carry meta arrives.”
Danqing: “QAQ”
Panda handed Lin Anke two copies of the contract, one for each party. “Encore, this is the revised contract. Take a look. If there’s nothing wrong with it, you can sign it.”
This was what it meant for Lin Anke to have passed the trial.
Lin Anke lowered his head and glanced through the terms. Everything else remained unchanged. The only adjustment was the signing fee, which had been changed to eight million as he had requested.
Even so, it was still an enormous sum of money for Lin Anke.
He picked up the pen and signed his name.
Danqing cheered. “Welcome to DG!”
Adam said, “Welcome!”
Jiangnan said, “Welcome.”
Duan Chi looked at the contract that had now officially taken effect. At the same time as he finally let out a breath of relief, there was a smile in his voice.
“Encore, congratulations on being reborn. DG won’t disappoint you.”
This was the first time Lin Anke had heard him call him Encore instead of the teasing and slightly flirtatious “Anke.”
He paused for a moment before saying, “Thank you.”
Panda cheerfully put away the copy of the contract belonging to the club, carefully laying it flat inside a folder. He did not dare to bend it even in the slightest.
This had to be kept safe. Sooner or later, that young boss would definitely come asking for it so he could keep it in his own collection.
Panda said, “Encore, come over later and let us take your height, weight and all the other measurements. I’ll have someone get your team uniform custom made for you. Oh, right. Since it’s the off season these next few days, everyone’s going home for a break. Do you want to move into the dormitory in a few days, or move in today? There’s still an auntie staying at the base during the off season, so you don’t have to worry about meals or anything like that.”
Danqing nodded. “Exactly, Anke. Jiangnan and I are leaving tonight. Safer’s family is in A City, so he’ll probably be going home too. If you’re staying at the base, I can lend you my limited edition figurines. The base is so big, it’d be kind of scary to stay here all by yourself.”
Duan Chi suddenly felt like throwing Danqing out of the base.
He was just about to explain that he had no intention of going home when he heard Lin Anke say, “It’s fine. I’ll go back. I haven’t completed my required livestream hours for this month yet, so I’ll go back and make up the remaining hours.”
Panda slapped his forehead. “Right, TIG’s livestreaming platform contract is different from ours. DG is signed with Youyou. Once your contract over there expires, I’ll negotiate a new livestreaming contract for you.”
Lin Anke did not really care which platform he livestreamed on. He nodded. “Thank you.”
Panda said, “Ah, no need to be so polite. All right, then, I’ll take you, uh, let Safer take you home. I still have some work to report at the company headquarters later.”
Duan Chi withdrew the threatening look he had been giving Panda and turned toward Lin Anke with an entirely harmless smile.
“Anke, please.”
He was still driving the same car as yesterday. Lin Anke did not need to wait for Duan Chi to come over; he simply opened the front passenger door himself and got in.
Duan Chi stood at the entrance of the base for a moment, stunned.
Then he let out a soft, amused hum.
After fastening his seat belt, Lin Anke finally realized what he had just done.
The owner of the car had not even said anything yet and he had already climbed into the passenger seat on his own.
He was being a little too comfortable, as though he were not an outsider at all.
“Um…”
Duan Chi started the car and turned his head to ask, “Do you want to sleep for a while? It’ll take about half an hour to get there.”
Lin Anke shook his head.
Duan Chi was driving him home yet he was going to sleep in the car? That hardly seemed right.
From the corner of his eye, Duan Chi saw Lin Anke sitting in his passenger seat, both hands clenched into fists and resting on his thighs. He gave a small shake of his head, looking awkward while deliberately pretending that nothing was wrong.
Duan Chi laughed quietly to himself.
With the kind of old fashioned, serious personality their Anke had, he had probably already started regretting getting into the car without asking permission.
Duan Chi shifted his gaze back to the road ahead and asked casually, “Just now, when I picked Flow of Time and Danqing and Adam joked about it, you weren’t angry, were you?”
Lin Anke paused before answering, “No.”
He had indeed felt a little uncomfortable just now but he had not been angry enough to take it personally.
“The Sequence and Flow of Time combination is pretty strong. There’s nothing wrong with you picking it.”
Duan Chi hummed in acknowledgment. “They don’t know about what happened between you and Xu Sheng. They’re used to joking around without thinking about boundaries. They didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know.”
At the mention of Xu Sheng’s name, Lin Anke pressed his lips together.
Duan Chi quietly took in his expression from the corner of his eye before suddenly asking, “Aren’t you curious how I knew?”
“Wasn’t it yesterday, at TIG?” Lin Anke asked, puzzled.
Duan Chi smiled.
“Back when we were at the youth training camp, there was a time when Xu Sheng came to pick you up. I saw you then.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ COFFEE OFFERING
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · He was substituted off the fieldChapter 2 · I’ll avenge youChapter 3 · Leaving TIGChapter 4 · Point and shootChapter 5 · Join DGChapter 6 · Live stream collisionChapter 7 · MysteriousChapter 8 · Transfer NoticeChapter 9 · Want the championshipChapter 10 · Galaxy BattleshipChapter 11 · Be my DogChapter 12 · Post match ConflictChapter 13 · ReportedChapter 14 · Weibo CodeChapter 15 · Live Streaming to attract FansChapter 16 · Duan Chi’s horse was exposedChapter 17 · Emotional articlesChapter 18 · Match voice recording