The abilities of that group from Economics and those of Room 408 were rather evenly matched. If there had been much of a difference in their abilities, they wouldn’t have had been in a conflict for such a long time. This time, with the addition of Xu Tingsheng, the power balance inevitably tipped, culminating in a one-sided slaughter on Room 408’s part.
As they fought on, those from Economics sensed that something was wrong, sending one guy over to take a look, “Heck, you got help?”
“Why not?” Zhang Fengping replied.
“Fine, we’ll get help as well then.”
After a while, the reinforcements for their opponents arrived. The guy in question carried his own earpiece, mouse, keyboard and mouse pad as he entered, having completely the style of a professional gamer.
“Heck, it’s him! It’s over, there’s no beating him,” Zhang Fengping said.
“It’s fine,” Xu Tingsheng smiled.
“Bro, you don’t know, but he’s our Jianan University’s number one expert. There’s really no beating him,” Yu Yue said.
How could Xu Tingsheng not know about it? This Bro Expert had owned the entire CS-er community of Jianan University for close to two years in his previous life. It was only afterwards that someone discovered that in having brought along so many accessories each time, taking the time to plug in and arrange all of them, it was actually just to plug in a thumbdrive at the back of the computer.
Within that thumbdrive was installed a professional-tier automatic aimbot cheating program that could not be found anywhere on the local internet at that time. Watching the game, most people would have been unable to tell that such a cheat move was actually happening.
Only when the Brazilian professional gamer ASP had been exposed of cheating online did everyone realise from this scandal that other than what they had seen before, such pro-tier cheats actually existed in this world. As for how Bro Expert had managed to obtain it, no one had been able to learn the answer. They only felt ‘admiration’ at his ‘true passion’ for the game.
Bro Expert finished with his ‘lengthy preparations’.
Seeing those of Room 408 not entering the game even after quite some time, those of Economics began to clamour, “What, afraid? Weren’t you so cool back there? Come on?”
“Fine, let’s fight then,” The hot-tempered Zhang Fengping was the first to enter the map, after which he turned and whispered to Xu Tingsheng, “Relax, we’ll just get owned for a while at most. It’s not like we’ve never gotten owned before.”
Xu Tingsheng smiled, not replying Zhang Fengping as he instead yelled, “This is boring! How about we bet cigarettes? Liqun is fine.”
“Bro, you, don’t…” Zhang Fengping stammered with a panicked expression on his face.
“Relax, I’ll win some cigarettes for you,” Xu Tingsheng smiled, thinking: Just take it as if I’m returning them to you. I smoked so many good cigarettes of yours back then.
After discussing for a while, one of their opponents stood up, “Two then.”
“Fine,” Xu Tingsheng agreed straightforwardly.
“Ours is Chunghwa!” The other side broke out into laughter.
“Fine,” Xu Tingsheng remained adamant.
Beside him, Zhang Fengping soon recovered from his shock as he clapped his thigh, “Let’s fight. Hell, when I still have money now, bro, no need to feel any pressure. It’s fine if we lose. After all, it’s the start of the month. This bro has money.”
Gritting their teeth, they of Room 408 all entered the map.
Feeling rather shaken by Xu Tingsheng’s confidence, the people opposite asked Bro Expert and got a definite response before continuing to enter the map.
After three refreshes, the match began.
In the first round, Bro Expert casually swept in a 1v4, achieving a complete victory.
Cheers resounded on the other side while those of Room 408 clenched their teeth in silence. However, none of them blamed Xu Tingsheng for making such a bet. They understood why he had done so, understood that this after all being the first time he had come here to play, he just wouldn’t have understood the fearsomeness of Bro Expert. Meanwhile, his actual proficiency was such that he indeed possessed the right to be confident.
Yet never would they have thought that Xu Tingsheng would actually be such a ‘wastrel’, for after having met defeat in the first round, he again yelled, “Raise the stakes! Five Chunghwa.”
“Bro…” Tugging at Xu Tingsheng’s sleeve, Zhang Fengping appeared on the verge of crying.
With their surging morale, there was naturally no reason at all for those of Economics to refuse. They agreed very straightforwardly to the proposal.
At such a time, everyone in the internet cafe had already set their games aside, gathering around to witness the final decisive battle between Economics and Room 408 in which five Chunghwa were at stake, or perhaps having come in envy of those of Economics who had been so fortunate as to meet a fool, winning five free Chunghwa for nothing.
Xu Tingsheng thought for a moment. It seemed that with the current standard living expenses of university students, if he continued to raise the stakes, he would instead be unable to receive what was owed him when the time came.
Thinking that he should be contented with that, Xu Tingsheng called over Zhong Ming who had given him his position, whispering in his ear for a while.
“Look carefully. That black thing over there; it’s very small. It’s smaller than the usual thumbdrives we see, perhaps having had its external shell taken out and been painted.”
Now, Zhong Ming took a walk around and surreptitiously knelt down to tie his shoelaces between the two rows of computers. Upon his return, he nodded to Xu Tingsheng.
Thus, at the start of the second round, be it the spectating students or those of Room 408, all of them discovered to their great bemusement that Bro Expert had suddenly ‘lost his efficacy’.
Meanwhile, Room 408 suppressed their opponents under the lead of that newcomer, Xu Tingsheng achieving a score of 2 : 21 while Zhang Fengping, Yu Yue and the others began growing increasingly confident the more they played as well.
After the seventh consecutive victory by Room 408, Bro Expert clutched his head and said, “I’ve been feeling a little dizzy today. I’ll stop for now.”
Next, ignoring everything else, he began packing up his belongings.
Of course, there was one thing that he wouldn’t be able to get back.
Those of Economics were wide-eyed and flummoxed as they watched Bro Expert leaving just like that. How were they still supposed to play? After substituting someone on and trying for another two more rounds, seeing that they were just truly unable to resist, they admitted defeat.
More than ten minutes later, Economics sent someone over who put two Chunghwa down on the table, gritting his teeth, “That’s all we have right now. As for the remaining three, we’ll gather them later and send them over to your dorm.”
Yu Yue took one of the cigarettes, returning the other one.
“We’ll take this one, taking it as a gift from a friend. As for the rest, it’s fine. No need to mention them again. Everyone’s originally just here to have fun. There’s no need to be so calculating.”
He spoke very sincerely. The other party hesitated for a while before taking that other cigarette, saying ‘Okay then. Thanks, we’re friends from now on’ and returning to convey Yu Yue’s words to the others.
It was for this very reason that Xu Tingsheng had actually really admired Yu Yue in his previous life. Even having triumphed, he would never get too full of himself as he was broader in mind and competent in handling matters in a way that exceeded others of the same age. Therefore, he always just emanated a refreshing feeling in his interactions with others, also possessing many friends.
“A person such as this…if not for afterwards, he should have had a very successful life,” Xu Tingsheng thought.
As they walked back to the C District, Zhong Ming took out the thumbdrive that he had pulled out earlier and asked, “What exactly is this? As soon as I took it out, Bro Expert was disabled.”
Only now did the others know of the existence of such an object as they hurriedly crowded round, looking at it and fingering it as they directed inquisitive gazes towards Xu Tingsheng.
“It’s a professional-tier cheating device. Whoever of you takes it, whoever will be the future number one expert of Jianan University,” Xu Tingsheng smiled, “Still, don’t be found out, or your reputation will go straight down to the rocks.”
“The heck, so it was like this! Why didn’t you expose him directly then?” Wang Yu asked.
“If I’d exposed him, how would we have gotten the Chunghwa? Also, there’s no need to go that far when there’s not a need to,” Xu Tingsheng said.
In his previous life, Bro Expert had had it rather hard after he had been exposed. After all, CS had been as popular then as LOL would be in the future.
“But, I’m wondering-how did you know? That was your first time seeing him,” Zhang Fengping asked a crucial question.
Having long been prepared for this, Xu Tingsheng smiled, “We also caught one over on our end. Thus, when he was setting those things up, I observed carefully and discovered it.”
“No wonder you were so confident then. Really, you should have told me earlier. You nearly scared this bro to death,” Zhang Fengping passed the cigarette over, “Your merit, it’s yours.”
Xu Tingsheng pushed it back to him, “Nah, I won it for you.”
Those of Room 408 accompanied Xu Tingsheng back to the guest building and said their farewells, “We won’t be watching that match tomorrow, because…we won’t know which side to cheer for. Then, if you’re here again next time, remember to look for us to play, or we can also go over there and find you. Anyway, we have each other’s numbers. Let’s keep in touch!”
“Definitely,” Xu Tingsheng agreed.
In just a mere day’s time, the former bros had become friends once more. Perhaps there was really something called fate in this world that allowed some people to grow close especially easily.
Xu Tingsheng returned to his room and took a bath. Just as he was about to lie down, his phone rang.
Fang Yuqing yelled from the other end of the phone, “Xu Tingsheng, you’re too shameless! Jumping out in support of yourself.”
“What do you mean?” Xu Tingsheng asked blankly.
“Rebirth! Coming out in support of yourself, that’s really too shameless,” Fang Yuqing said.
As he took Fang Yuqing as a bro, as soon as Fang Yuqing had asked him about Rebirth, Xu Tingsheng had naturally admitted his involvement in it. Still, Xu Tingsheng had never posted anything of the sort on the Rebirth webpage before, nor had he asked Fu Cheng to do so.
Currently, those of Yanzhou University who suspected Xu Tingsheng as being part of Rebirth due to Apple having officially entered the entertainment industry were but his roommates and a few others who knew about their relationship. Thus, it would still have been okay to do such a thing. It was just that Xu Tingsheng had deemed it as unnecessary at the present time.
Xu Tingsheng hung up the phone and called Fu Cheng, who expressed that he had just gone to visit Ms Fang in Jiannan City that day, not having touched a computer at all.
“What’s the situation?”
Xu Tingsheng left his room, going to the coach’s room to borrow his computer and access the internet. Covertly loading Rebirth’s webpage, he saw that an announcement had been posted: Rebirth fully supports Hucheng Education Service Platform of Xishan Academy City.
To the students of Yanzhou University, the existence of the mysterious Rebirth was actually something they took great pride in. If not anything else, in just having returned to attend former classmate gatherings over the holidays, this always easily became a focal point of conversation.
Thus, after Rebirth had made an announcement, Hucheng’s momentum surged.
Yet, this was still not the main thing. The main thing was that more people within the entire nation became curious about this ‘Hucheng’, searching for its information to find out exactly what sort of a thing it was.
Xu Tingsheng’s original promotion strategy for the expansion phase of Hucheng had been drawn on prematurely. Meanwhile, there were actually only three people who had a management account on the small Rebirth webpage-Fu Cheng, Xu Tingsheng and Apple.
Since it was not him or Fu Cheng, the answer then was evident.
Indeed, just moments later, a new announcement appeared on the webpage:
Hi everyone! I’m Apple from Rebirth. Since Rebirth is supporting Hucheng Education, I believe that it must definitely be a very good education platform. Fans who are still studying, if you need to, remember to choose Hucheng! Also, I really hope that I will be able to record a motivational theme song for Hucheng Education one day.
Xu Tingsheng ‘painfully’ clapped his forehead. This self-directed play of Apple’s, with that ‘Since Rebirth is supporting…’ as well. Hey, it was clearly you who posted the previous one too, okay?
She must be having fun.
Without question, with Apple’s current popularity, her fame would propel the public awareness on Hucheng Education within the entire nation to the greatest extent. This was especially so when most fans who chased after celebrities were still youngsters currently in the midst of studying. This was also the most compatible from a business perspective…
Everything was good, just that the timing wasn’t right. The current Hucheng was still lacking in many preparations, with negative rumours also rampantly abound. At this moment, it was not a good time for an all-out expansion.
After deleting the two announcements, Xu Tingsheng made a rare call to Apple on his own accord.
Picking up her phone, Apple didn’t seem happy as she instead sounded uneasy, “Xu Tingsheng, have I done wrong?”
Hearing her like this, Xu Tingsheng could not find fault with her as he laughed, “Acting on your own…how did you find out about things over here? It must have been Song Ni again, right?”
“No,” Apple said.
“No? How is it possible that you know then?” Xu Tingsheng asked.
“It’s, it’s because when I reach home after performing every day, I always turn on the computer and search on the web for your name,” Apple said.
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