[FLOTG] Chapter 26: I Was Mistaken

After confirming his itinerary, Shen Huai called Shen Nuo to update him, but Shen Nuo did not pick up. His assistant, Mr. Jin, was the one who took the call.

When Assistant Jin heard that Shen Huai was going to go report for work at a club, he took the initiative to book Shen Huai's flight tickets and then wished him good luck, saying that he would go watch him play live if he had the chance.

Assistant Jin had been with Shen Nuo for decades and had watched Shen Huai grow up. He knew that Shen Huai was introverted and not good with words, and that he had disliked acting since he was small. Although it was a bit of a shame for him to quit the entertainment industry, it wasn't a bad thing overall.

Shen Huai chatted with him for a bit before hanging up. He walked over to his computer and was just about to close his game when an invitation to spar popped up on his screen. A level-80 gunner stood beside his character, dressed in an incomplete set of equipment.

Shen Huai rejected the invite and then typed into [ Current ]: Use your main account.

Ever since Guan He had appeared to PK him the other night, there had been many people who came asking him for a PK for no good reason. Though the usernames of these players did not ring any bells, quite a number among them turned out to be streamers of major platforms or civilian club players. Some were even famous gods in the game.

The majority of these people would challenge him with alternate accounts, and some even went so far as to record their fights and upload it onto the net. Shen Huai could not determine the identities of every one of these challengers, and he also couldn't be bothered to actually PK all of them.

After seeing what Shen Huai typed, the gunner vanished. Shen Huai thought he had given up and was just about to log off when a teleportation array suddenly appeared before him.

This was an item being sold in the market for real money. A player could use it to teleport to any designated location, and it was typically used when hunting down someone in the wilds.

This was a main city, which had a specialised NPC tasked with teleportation. It was very convenient, so almost no one would spend the money to buy this item to teleport to a main city. Curious, many players stopped and waited to catch a look of this spendthrift.

A machinist illuminated by the red glow of his top-tier gear emerged from the teleportation array. A familiar golden title above his head dazzled the eyes of the audience. ID: <WeGo!> ― "City of Despair Officially Verified Member of WG". 

Shen Huai: "......"

If had known, he would never have asked this man to bring his main account!

The surrounding players exploded into a furore.

[ Current ][ Big Orange ]: Captain Yan, Captain Yan! OMG! Captain Yan, can I take a photo with you?

[ Current ][ Mana ]: What's going on?!

[ Current ][ Lift Up Your Big Plate Face ]: Isn't that guy beside you the assassin who PKed Captain Guan two days ago?

Shen Huai's head hurt. <WeGo!> was the ID of the WG team captain, Zhang Jia-Yan, the other professional player he was familiar with other than Song Xue-Yang. However, this familiarity was completely due to Zhang Jia-Yan dropping into every one of his live-streams to nag him to join his team.

Zhang Jia-Yan was extremely persistent and passionate. If Shen Huai refused to fight now, he was afraid that the other would come and pester him every day.

[ Stranger ][ WeGo! ]: Can we fight now?

Shen Huai thought about it and finally decided to fight, since he would have to sooner or later anyway. Thus, he sent over an invitation to spar.

The two players were swiftly transported into the 1v1 arena. As they waited for the spar to begin, Shen Huai saw that the number of spectators displayed on the screen was 53, and that number was still rising.

[ All ][ WeGo! ]: let's make this quick

[ All ][ MuWanGe ]: 1

The machinist was a branch of the gunner class. Machinists could summon all sorts of turrets, mechas, and tanks, and they could even set up landmines and fire off flares to expand their team's range of vision. It was a very versatile subclass which dominated the 1v1 arena.

Shen Huai turned invisible and jumped up onto the stage. There was no one within his sight, and he saw no sign of Zhang Jia-Yan as he made his way to his opponent's spawn point. There, all he found were two small cannons. Shen Huai immediately guessed that Zhang Jia-Yan was intending to fire off some Flares to negate his invisibility and catch him off guard, but he made no move to hide.

Sure enough, a Flare exploded overhead and the cannons on the ground automatically turned to attack all exposed enemies within range. At the same time, Zhang Jia-Yan charged out from behind, summoning a Demon God Mecha as he ran. Violet laser rays instantly pierced through the body of the little assassin.

The assassin was surrounded by the two cannons and lone mecha, and Zhang Jia-Yan swiftly summoned a third cannon right beneath his feet. The combined attacks of the three cannons dealt a staggering amount of damage — Shen Huai lost 30% of his HP within the blink of an eye. Unperturbed, Shen Huai unhurriedly finished off one of the cannons to break out of the barricade, and then he caught up to the machinist hiding behind his mecha in several quick strides.

Shadow Mark - Soul Steal - Assassination - Pierce - Dark Razor!

Although this combo successfully triggered the Stealth special effect, Zhang Jia-Yan did not give Shen Huai any chance to escape. Zhang Jia-Yan decisively unleashed his special move "Martial God". The colossal figure of a martial god descended from the sky and promptly sat on Shen Huai, forcing him back into sight and stunning him too.

Almost all of a machinist's skills required switching among various gadgets, which made it a challenging character class which really tested a player's hand speed. Zhang Jia-Yan's machinist ranked within the global top ten — commentators often jokingly called him "the fastest man"{In Chinese, this has connotations of ejaculating too quickly during sex. Hence, Zhang Jia-Yan's dislike for the title.} due to his reality-defying hand speed. And though he hated this title, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he had the fastest hand speed in "City of Despair".

Shen Huai was only stunned for 1.5 seconds, but Zhang Jia-Yan managed to summon three cannons in a burst of hand speed, not only successfully dealing the stacked damage of three cannons, but also summoning out a tank! Tanks had really high attack, but with the drawback of slow attack speed. However, still stunned, Shen Huai was a sitting duck, and he was soon bombarded till he was HP-Critical.

At this point though, Zhang Jia-Yan did not continue to attack but instead turned tail to run, because Shen Huai's HP was now below 10%.

Anyone who had ever viewed one of Ash Wing's live-streams knew that the real battle was just about to begin!

Shen Huai naturally wouldn't just let Zhang Jia-Yan run away. Gunner types were generally short-legged, with machinists being the slowest of the lot. Shen Huai swiftly caught up to Zhang Jia-Yan and took control with a Soul Steal, and then unleashed a combo under Reaper's Mark.

Zhang Jia-Yan watched the rapid dance of dual blades across his screen and was almost certain that this person had to be Ash Wing!

Many people felt that machinists were difficult opponents, mainly because it was hard to decide when to attack the machinist's gadgets and when to focus on attacking the machinist. And so, they were often killed off by a horde of gadgets while still floundering in hesitation. In contrast, this assassin had a clear attack plan from start to finish. He first cleared the cannons then attacked the machinist, moving quickly and dealing rapid combos. Not just anyone could pull off a full combo within the 1-second effect window of Soul Steal.

Just as Zhang Jia-Yan was mentally applauding his opponent, the assassin before him suddenly stopped. The expected final special move in the combo chain did not appear. Zhang Jia-Yan was puzzled by this uncharacteristic mistake on Ash Wing's part, but he still instinctively unleashed a Laser Barrage, just as the martial god slammed down a fist. The assassin did not dodge and was smashed to death under the martial god's fist.

When the word "Victory" popped up on the screen, Zhang Jia-Yan scratched his head, rather bewildered.

Liang Ming-Hui glanced at his screen and asked. "So, Captain? Is it Ash Wing?"

Zhang Jia-Yan did not say anything, looking up in contemplation for a long while. "I might have been mistaken."

He had thought this assassin was Ash Wing all this while, so he had assumed Ash Wing was just deliberately taking it easy before his HP went below 10%. But now, thinking back, maybe... the guy was just weak?

On the other end, a freshly-washed red apple sat on Shen Huai's hand on the keyboard.

He looked up to see Song Xue-Yang standing behind him with a fruit platter in his hands. "Want an apple?"

Shen Huai really wanted to ask if Song Xue-Yang had done this on purpose, but on second thought, did he even have to ask? First Guan He, then Zhang Jia-Yan... Song Xue-Yang must be doing this on purpose!

Shen Huai grabbed the apple and took a bite; the assassin on the screen was already dead. Zhang Jia-Yan typed into the current channel — [ Sorry, I mistook you for someone else... ] — and then disappeared through a teleportation array.

Song Xue-Yang said, "The matter of you joining Maple Moon hasn't been made public yet. Letting others know that you're Ash Wing now would not be conducive to keeping our tactics confidential."

What he said seemed formal and sensible, but Shen Huai didn't believe a word of it.

"You haven't even gathered enough team members yet."

Right now, even after his joining, Maple Moon only had five people, which was still two short of the seven required under the official rules.

Despite the circumstances, Song Xue-Yang seemed to be in a good mood. He laughed and said, "Someone just gave me a teammate."

Shen Huai was curious. "Gave?"

Song Xue-Yang didn't give a straight answer. "A player from a pro team."

Shen Huai became solemn. "A member of another pro team reached out to you?"

It was highly frowned upon for a player to secretly initiate contact with the captain of another team in order to jump ship. Players who joined a team this way often found themselves struggling to gain acceptance.

Song Xue-Yang chuckled softly. "What are you thinking? Guan He is the one who wanted to send the player to me."

"Captain Guan?" Shen Huai was quite surprised. Primo Wolf was filled with veteran players, and had a harmonious team atmosphere and a stable line-up. It was hard to imagine Guan He sending away one of his teammates to a rival team.

However, Song Xue-Yang didn't look like he was lying either. Shen Huai quickly figured it out. "From their second team?"

Only then did Song Xue-Yang's smile fade into a more serious expression. He had just received a call from Guan He downstairs and had been very surprised to hear the other ask if he was willing to take in a youth from their second team. It wasn't until Guan He told him the youth's name that Song Xue-Yang believed Guan He was sincere.

"Who?" asked Shen Huai.

"Shi Yi."

Shen Huai drew a blank. Although he was usually busy filming, he still knew the names of all the players of the various pro teams. Even so, he had never heard of this 'Shi Yi'.

Song Xue-Yang prompted, "Flickering Heaven's Wrath to smite the martial god; Sacrificing the holy priest to Arena's random draw."

Shen Huai came to an abrupt realisation. "Wang Shi Yi?"

Song Xue-Yang looked at him pointedly. "His surname is Shi, not Wang."

Shen Huai: "......"

Shen Huai wasn't the only one under this misconception. Frankly, Shi Yi could also be considered a "legendary" player of sorts.

He had joined Primo Wolf at 15 years old, and then had gained the favour of Guan He to become a regular member in less than a year. In his training matches and live-streams, Shi Yi had displayed an astounding talent for solo-fighting, so netizens had eagerly anticipated his debut in the professional leagues.

Perhaps due to such high expectations, Shi Yi's first year as a pro player wasn't very impressive. He made many mistakes in the official games, and even committed many bizarre operations which left people not knowing whether they should laugh or cry.

In particular, in a team battle between Primo Wolf and WG in the semi-finals, when his teammate had deliberately given Shi Yi the opening to take the kill, Shi Yi's mage had mistakenly used Arcane Flicker to rain down Heaven's Wrath on the mechanical martial god Zhang Jia-Yan had summoned. Due to this shocking mistake, Zhang Jiayan managed to pull off an upset while HP-Critical, causing Shi Yi to become the biggest joke in the national finals that year.

Primo Wolf had very strict team rules. After committing such a serious mistake, Shi Yi had been demoted to a substitute player as soon as the game was over. However, Guan He still thought very highly of him and had let him take the command role in the group stage the next year. Anyone with eyes could see that Guan He intended to cultivate Shi Yi as a successor.

Unfortunately, their opponent for that game was again WG.

In the first tag-team 1v1, Zhang Jia-Yan took a different approach and put forth two players who had never fought on the arena stage. Shi Yi had been so shaken by this that he had failed to submit the arena player roster before the end of the countdown. Consequently, the team's holy priest had been randomly selected to go on stage and had been brutally thrashed by WG's mage.

Rumour had it that the holy priest player had beaten Shi Yi up as soon as he stepped off the stage, almost resulting in his being banned from competing for the violence.

After that, Shi Yi had been transferred from the first team into the second team, and if nothing changes, he would spend his entire career there without ever returning to the first team.

After being transferred into the second team, he continued to perform mediocrely, and yet would show amazing prowess on par with the top players in live-streams and the smaller competitions. This led the netizens to dub him as the layman "Wang"(King){'King' in Chinese is 'Wang', which is also a common Chinese surname.} Shi Yi.

Having gotten used to calling him that, many people, like Shen Huai, were under the impression that his surname was "Wang".

Shen Huai had never watched any of Shi Yi's private matches, and Shi Yi's performance in the few official matches Shen Huai had seen could be said to be astonishingly bad. However, he could vaguely recall rumours about Shi Yi being very strong when playing solo in non-professional games. In short, Shi Yi was the classic example of a player with weak mental fortitude, the type who couldn't be relied on in an official match.

"Are you sure you want to take him in?"

Shen Huai was a little worried. Primarily because Shi Yi's performance in "Flickering Heaven's Wrath to smite the martial god" was just too blinding... in a sense, it was enough to be included in the TOP 10 memorable clips.

A player whose psychological resilience wasn't up to par would be difficult to use no matter how skillful he was.

Song Xue-Yang smiled sunnily and Shen Huai could just tell that he wasn't about to say anything good.

"Maple Moon isn't mine alone. Let's all spar with him!"

Who was it who said during dinner earlier that he had the final say in Maple Moon?

Shen Huai was speechless for a moment before deciding to change the subject. "The tickets have been booked. 3pm tomorrow."

"Ok." Song Xue-Yang then cheerfully sent a message in the Maple Moon WeChat group.

―― I'll be bringing Ash Wing back to the team tomorrow night.

As soon as the message was sent, the group exploded.

ryuxenji: Thank you all for being such kind and patient souls. Stay safe, stay happy!

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Previous: Chapter 25: Second Invitation
Next: Chapter 27: Returning to the Team

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