Chapter 18
Translator: Aafkee
Proofreader: ChaiTea
Pei Lu did not want to come here in the first place. He never once thought that there was a substitute playing for Mu Wanwan.
But since Brother Yang said that Lil Meatbun would come in his place if he didn’t want to… so here he is.
The girl in front of him freezes for a moment. She has put on very heavy eye shadow, glittering faintly.
“No.”
The answer was short and clear.
Pei Lu didn’t think she would reject him this quickly. He opens his mouth, wanting to say something.
“Wanan,” a man suddenly appeared beside them, the smile on his face slightly artificial, “it’s an honour to meet you.”
A stranger. Mu Wanwan smiles, not saying anything.
“Oh! Let me introduce myself. I’m BattleCat’s staff, the one who chatted with you a couple of days ago… You remember me, right? I’m Admin03!”
The smile on Mu Wanwan’s gets wider; so he’s that idiot who talked to her the other day.
“I saw your gameplay just now. Seeing how concerned you were getting last hits on the minions, the ADC in you never dies, huh? Hahaha.”
Seeing how Mu Wanwan is ignoring him, Admin03 can only laugh at his own joke awkwardly.
Of course, he knows Mu Wanwan doesn’t like him. But she’ll undoubtedly become one of BattleCat’s most popular streamers after this live broadcast, and it’s never wrong to network and make sure they have a good relationship in advance.
He shifts his gaze and sees the person standing next to her. Since the person is wearing a cap, he couldn’t see his face clearly, “This is?”
Pei Lu lowers his head slightly, clearly not wanting to be recognised. BattleCat TV is well-known for using anything they can to make it their marketing material. With that matter with Chen He… he’s pretty sure it’ll cause quite a stir if they find out he is here.
But Admin03 is not discouraged. He even bends his neck and leans over just to see who he is.
Suddenly, Mu Wanwan lifts her hand and presses Pei Lu’s face onto her shoulder.
???
It isn’t just Admin03, even Pei Lu is frozen.
Mu Wanwan is not that tall. She’s only a bit over 160cm while the person next to her is 184. The position they are currently in looks extremely comical, no matter how you look at it.
Pei Lu can even smell the aroma of the Johnson & Johnson body wash from her.
Faintly, from her neck.
Mu Wanwan looks calm, “I still have things to do here. Please excuse me.”
With that, she tugs Pei Lu’s arm and walks hurriedly towards the resting lounge before the other person could even react.
Everyone is watching the SOLO match outside, so there is no one in the lounge.
“You’re really…” Mu Wanwan doesn’t know whether to cry or laugh, “Aren’t you afraid of others recognising you? Why are you wearing such an eye-catching cap?”
“Lil Meatbun gave it to me,” Pei Lu tugs his cap upwards, revealing a few strands of messy short hair. His expression is serious as he returns to their previous conversation, “Why don’t you want to play professionally?”
Mu Wanwan replies truthfully, “I’m still studying. There’s no way I have time to compete. Besides, my family probably won’t agree.”
“That’s… quite a pity,” Pei Lu has never been good at persuading others, “You play really well.”
And the conversation seems to end there.
Mu Wanwan purses her lips and smiles, thinking about how this might be the closest she has ever been to playing professionally.
She exhales a heavy breath mentally.
“So, are you going back now…?”
“Why don’t you come to visit our base?”
The two spoke at the same time.
Mu Wanwan freezes, “Huh?”
“The environment at our base is pretty good, the team members are friendly, and the company benefits are good,” Pei Lu looks at her with burning eyes, “And, I’m a year older than you, so if there’s anything you don’t know, I can teach you.”
She couldn’t catch up with the change of topic at all. Weren’t they having a normal conversation? How did they end up talking about helping each other in their studies?
“How do you know I’m a year younger than you?”
“Brother Yang said you’re in your third year.”
It seems like the one who contacted her last time was TS’s manager.
At that moment, Lin Jiu leans in at the lounge entrance, “What are you doing in here?”
Lin Jiu freezes for a second the moment she sees Pei Lu.
Pei Lu stands up and nods as a greeting.
“God Lu… we meet again,” Lin Jiu blinks at Mu Wanwan as she continues, “Are you here to join the event?”
Pei Lu answers straightforwardly, “No, I’m here to look for Wanan.”
Lin Jiu lets out a meaningful “ohー”.
Mu Wanwan asks, “...You needed me for something?”
“They’re asking you to go out for the second round of SOLO.” Lin Jiu answers with a wide smile on her face, “Do you wanna watch, God Lu? I can get you a good seat.”
Pei Lu shakes his head, “There’s no need. I’m going now.”
Lin Jiu frowns, “So soon?”
“Yeah, I have a practice match in the afternoon,” Pei Lu turns to pick up a piece of paper on the desk beside him. He writes down an address and passes the paper to Mu Wanwan, “This is the base’s address. You can look for me within the next week anytime in the morning if you are interested.”
Mu Wanwan thinks about how Team TS’s base can be easily searched online as she receives the piece of paper.
She stares at the confident handwriting on the paper blankly after Pei Lu has gone.
“Damn, what’s going on?” Lin Jiu asks after making sure that Pei Lu has left, her eyes wide, “Pei Lu is asking you out? And straight to the base? That’s exciting??”
“...Don’t speak nonsense.”
Mu Wanwan briefly describes how Team TS invited her to Lin Jiu.
Lin Jiu’s eyes open even wider, “Why won’t you join them?”
“My mum will never agree to it.”
Mama Mu would be unhappy whenever she saw her playing games, let alone allowing her to play professionally.
“How can you be so sure if you didn’t ask? Besides, being a professional gamer is a proper job. Even the pay is much higher than what an average person earns.”
“We’ll see.”
Mu Wanwan drops the conversion and stuffs the paper into the inner pocket of her backpack.
Just as she steps out of the lounge, she sees Pei Lu coming back.
He looks as if he had run back, still gasping for breath, and stops in front of Mu Wanwan.
Mu Wanwan frowned, “You…”
“I forgot to give you my number,” Pei Lu’s eye tooth clearly in sight, “Just in case you can’t contact me when you come over.”
**
Mu Wanwan took the championship with ease as Ezreal during BattleCat’s streamers SOLO tournament.
During her interview, Admin03 is the interviewer.
“Wanan, do you have anything you wish to say after taking the championship and the cash prize of 50,000 dollars?”
Mu Wanwan cast him a glance before slowly turning to look at the camera.
“Just wanna ask the anti-fans and that female streamer who said that I had a substitute playing for me; does your faces hurt?*”
(T/N*: It’s a common saying when a person claims that something is true when it actually isn’t and is proven wrong.)
Everyone knows who Wanan is referring to, and they all look toward MeowMeowPunch, who’s standing on the left side of the crowd.
MeowMeowPunch’s face flushes red, but she manages to force herself to keep the smile on her face.
Admin03 feels a bit awkward, too. He looks toward the camera and says, “Malicious comments are indeed very angering. We hope viewers can watch the streams sensibly, and our platform will also strive to give all our streamers a conducive streaming environment.”
Mu Wanwan rolls her eyes in her mind.
Not wanting to have their audience snatched by LPL’s Spring Season Tournament in the afternoon, BattleCat scheduled their 5V5 match at 11 o’clock in the morning.
For the sake of maintaining the “superficial friendship” between streamers, none of them has formed a team privately. All of them have their teams decided by drawing lots instead.
Mu Wanwan is allocated to a team of veteran streamers. While the other four are busy chatting chummily with one another and making jokes here and there to get the atmosphere high, Mu Wanwan takes it as a game with four random pubs.
They are playing against the team where MeowMeowPunch and BattleCat’s number one streamer is in. Naturally, MeowMeowPunch is playing as a support. The male streamer is speaking so loud that Mu Wanwan can hear him commanding his teammates during the banning phase through her earphones.
The support sitting beside her asks, “What AD are you playing?”
“Whatever is fine. You can choose first.”
In the end, the opponent’s team settled for Nami and Twitch for their bottom lane.
And Mu Wanwan’s side settled for Jhin and Soraka.
The game begins very quickly.
That BattleCat’s number one male streamer is playing Jarvan as a jungler. He has already tried ganking bottom lane three times before level six.
Mu Wanwan creases her brow slightly. Is he taking the bottom lane as his home?
Maybe he didn’t become the number one male streamer for no reason, after all. He used to substitute for Team MS’s jungler. Perhaps, he felt that he could not expect anything more as a substitute player, so he retired as a professional player and became a streamer.
His ganks are very frequent. He is the type of jungler who likes to think that “if the gank doesn’t succeed this time, I’ll get a camp and come back again”.
This time, Mu Wanwan controls her character, Jhin, to walk along the top lane. Before she could even last hit two minions, Jarvan’s flag comes shooting out from the bush on the right sideーgod knows how long he has been camping there.
Jarvan’s ultimate has trapped Jhin in the walls of rocks. The opponent’s Twitch and Nami follow up quickly and Mu Wanwan’s monitor turns grey within ten seconds.
“That Jarvan is clearly maliciously targeting Jhin. He has never been on the top lane before this.”
At TS’s base, Brother Hu, who’s sitting behind Pei Lu, mutters non-stop.
A few of them are watching BattleCat’s Streamer Tournament’s live stream.
“Why isn’t the jungler on Wanan’s side helping with the ganks? It’s so easy for him to catch the opponent off-guard there.
Lil Meatbun explains, “The jungler from Wanan’s team is very close with that number one male streamer. He’s probably doing it on purpose.”
Jhin has already been ganked twice when he reaches level six, leaving him with an ugly 0/2/0 score.
Mu Wanwan does not seem to have any changes in her facial expression on the monitor.
Seeing how the atmosphere is becoming heavy, Lil Meatbun tries to joke around, “Why does Wanan always put on such heavy makeup? I have seen those videos when the pretty ladies remove their makeup and they are scary as heck. Don’t tell me Wanan looks like a completely different person too when she doesn’t have makeup on?”
Pei Lu creases his brows as he watches Jarvan moving to the bottom lane once again and answers absentmindedly, “She does look like a different person.”
“How do you know?”
Pei Lu purses his lips awkwardly, “...I’ve seen her before.”
“Is she really ugly?”
“No,” Pei Lu tries to recall and concludes, “She looks better without makeup.”
Just as he finishes his sentence, Mu Tou suddenly speaks, “Look at this fight.”
Jarvan has just failed his gank at the middle lane and is left with half health as he goes directly to the bottom lane and hides in a bush before he pings, signalling the team to dive the tower to force a kill.
Fortunately, Soraka has planted a ward in that bush beforehand. Jarvan’s position is already revealed.
However, Jhin continues to walk toward the tower.
“Did she not see?” Lil Meatbut can’t help but be anxious as he watches, “She’ll definitely get dived if she continues to the tower.”
Finally, Jhin stops near the tower.
ーAnd suddenly, Jhin leans to his side and activates his ultimate directly!
Jhin’s ultimate is four extremely long-ranged bullets, one bullet more painful than the next. The damage dealt will be very considerable if all four shots land.
Everyone is quite surprised. The ward in that bush where Jarvan currently is is the only vision she has out of the whole jungle area near the bottom lane. All Jarvan had to do is walk a step to the side and she’ll lose all her vision of him.
As expected, Jarvan decidedly escapes with his E and Q skills to the right side after he hears Jhin activating his ultimate.
Without any hesitation, Mu Wanwan shoots out her first shotーit hits Jarvan directly despite the lack of vision.
With the slow debuff from the first bullet, Jarvan can no longer escape from Jhin’s ultimate’s effective area. However, Jarvan has movement skills to get him out of tricky situations, so the number one male streamer does not feel anxious.
BattleCat strategically switches the audio to the number one male streamer’s mic to live stream what he says.
“Heh, let me perform a series of fancy movements.”
With that, he begins controlling his character to move left and right.
“Bangー” The second bullet lands steadily on Jarvan.
The facial expression of the number one male streamer changes slightly as he quickly changes his character’s escape direction.
“Bangー” The third shot lands, again.
…The number one male streamer seems to recall the fear of being dominated by poison mushrooms.
Jarvan is only left with a little bit of health. If he takes the final shot, there’s no doubt he’ll die.
The number one male streamer moves his character downwards, and laughs, “No worries, the cooldowns on my E and Q are already refreshed. This woman can’t finish me.”
And with that, he plants a flag on the side. Just as he’s about to press Qー
“Bang!”
The last bullet lands, and kills… Jarvan, who was flying in mid-air.
The number one male streamer’s mic finally quietens down.
Lil Meatbun’s jaws drop slightly. What kind of game sense is this? Is she hacking??
Before anyone can react, a message suddenly pops up on the chat box.
【(All) DepressedPrince: Keep targeting me, don’t stop.】
The expression on Brother Yang’s face is complicated, “... Xiao-Lu was right. This lady, is really quite unrestrained.”
Awesome story looking forward to more !
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