Chapter 20 (1/2)

The next day, home base of JC Kings.

Zhao Mingwei was reading the news after the day’s training session.

Being a web addict youth who was true to his habits, he rarely checked out news of any kind—and yet he had been refreshing Weibo News since yesterday.

Specifically, news about River Town’s Food Street.

However, there was nothing.

No orcs, no Abyssal Hunt… not even any damage on the street walk.

There was only news about a certain building going up in flames on Food Street, and that firefighters had arrived at the scene to help.

In fact, he would have thought that yesterday wasn’t real if it was not for the Memory of the Light Elves quietly lying around in his item list.

“Smiley, what drops did you get from the Abyssal Hunt yesterday?” Lin Xi asked as he snuggled up to Zhao Mingwei, lunchbox in hand. He had never been calm and mature like Zhao Mingwei, but always loved to show off and was never careful with words.

And from the look of how he was behaving, Lin Xi must have obtained some good drops.

“Memory of the Light Elves.” Zhao Mingwei turned on the Sacred Souls app on his phone and showed Lin Xi his item list.

“Unique item? Well, pretend I didn’t ask.”

Lin Xi pouted. The drop he received in the Abyssal Hunt was a Level 25 epic-grade hand cannon, although it turned out that Zhao Mingwei had got a better reward just when he wanted to brag a little.

Zhao Mingwei did not press him about details of the Abyssal Hunt either, because he had already asked him last night.

Lin Xi’s reply then was that he had indeed been to the abyssal rift zone which was a simulation of Food Street. Then, when Zhao Mingwei mentioned that ‘monsters appeared in the real world’, his response was that Lin Xi has had too much pressure lately and that he should get a break.

That left such a harrowing sensation in Zhao Mingwei that he didn’t play Sacred Souls for the entire night.

“Captain Zhao, the front desk can’t keep all the fans’ gifts again. Should I take them upstairs for you to have a look?” One of the club’s workers suddenly poked her head into the training room and asked.

“Sure. Bring them over.” Zhao Mingwei said.

The worker—three workers, to be specific—then started to carry in piles of gifts, putting them behind Zhao Mingwei’s seat.

“Tut, tut, Smiley… I remember debuting at the same time as you, but why the fans never remember me?”

Lin Xi was a little envious when he saw the truckload of presents. Most clubs usually leave it to their employees to handle the fans’ presents, and it was quite rare to have a player like Zhao Mingwei who’d look through every gift he receives. Moreover, he rarely showed up on Weibo or any forum boards, and as such he rarely responded to fans online.

Nonetheless, Lin Xi knew that Zhao Mingwei was attentive even to the fans’ presents. He would basically properly keep things like letters after reading through them once, wear any clothes he received and just let them pile up in his closet even if there were too many.

As for food… he would have Lin Xi taste it in case of poison, before offering it to other club members.

“I do remember many posts scorning you at the forums, perhaps that is a way of remembering too.” Though Zhao Mingwei was calm and mature, he would not lose to Lin Xi in banter—especially when the banter is aimed at Lin Xi himself.

“Damn it! I’m getting irritated just talking about it… I even had to use a sockpuppet account to curse some wise guy over a hundred comments… Argh! I’ll help you with the presents.”

Lin Xi started to unwrap the fan presents, and Zhao Mingwei followed suit.

Suddenly, he found a well-packaged chicken chop.

***

Gifting food had been a common interaction between fans and the JC Kings players when the former came nearby their club house. However, as most clubs eventually banned that, even prohibiting fans from directly giving the players presents—with JC Kings especially building a security checkpoint for that.

Nonetheless, the chicken chop was definitely from that shop Zhao Mingwei frequented, and he straightened when he read the gift note attached.

There were just a few words, which read:

‘Thank you, do your best!’

Zhao Mingwei stayed silent for some time then. Then, without a word, he opened the plastic bag and started to gorge on the chicken chop.

“Are you logging in tonight?” He asked Lin Xi as he ate.

“Definitely, since I didn’t really use that Level 25 epic-grade hand cannon I got yesterday.” Lin Xi said, before remembering something halfway and added, “Old Song said he’s coming too. He reached out to me yesterday—his game ID is InkFlashback.”

Old Song’s real name was Song Zhengning. A former teammate who built a dynasty alongside Zhao Mingwei, he was now the coach of SC Nucleons—he had actually been forced into retirement, taking the coaching job after developing irreconcilable differences with JC Kings’ management.

“Old Song has an account too? Well, let’s set a time and challenge a dungeon tonight.” Zhao Mingwei said.

***