**Chapter 9: Shh, There's a Girl**
1308 Words
**Chapter 9: Shh, There's a Girl**
Luoye was from Jingcheng. Among his classmates, there was another Jingcheng native, so the two quickly got in touch.
After all, being far from home, it was nice to have a fellow townsman to look out for each other.
But after adding her as a contact, Luoye regretted it.
Because this Xuxiaojia was a chatterbox.
"I forgot to check WeChat."
Before Luoye could send those seven words, Wangdachui urged, "What's the holdup, Luoye? Get on the game."
"Okay."
Closing WeChat, Luoye logged into Honor of Kings.
Luoye was also very good at this game. Though not top-tier, among casual players, he was the kind of jungle king who could carry.
"I'm carrying hard."
Wangdachui's Marco Polo used his ultimate and charged into a team fight, dealing a bunch of damage before being gloriously killed—a perfect laborer.
Then Luoye's Kai charged in violently, killing one enemy with each s***h, easily cleaning up the kills.
"Hammer Bro, how many times have I told you? Let me start the fight. You clean up. That way, neither of us dies. But you insist on starting the fight yourself," Luoye said.
"Hah, shut up. My Marco Polo details the initiation, details the death. Those are details. You wouldn't understand."
Luoye: ?
With a big question mark over his head, Luoye prepared to start the second round with the others.
During the half-month of military training, Luoye had led the group to the Peerless rank of over thirty stars.
After gaming, he spent about three hours writing updates, so he hadn't rested well and always had dark circles under his eyes.
Today, Dorm 515 was getting ready to play games again.
"Don't start yet. No girls, no fun. Let me see if there are any girls nearby," Wangdachui said.
"With your skills, you want to carry girls? Don't think that reaching Peerless makes you good. We only got this rank because Luoye carried us."
Suddenly, a game invite appeared on Luoye's screen.
Love Hotpot...
She played Honor of Kings too?
Luoye accepted the invite.
Seeing the sudden appearance of a girl's avatar, Wangdachui said excitedly:
"Shh! There's a girl!"
He thought he had invited her from the lobby, since he had just invited a bunch of girls.
Love Hotpot joined the team.
"Hello hello, do you have a mic?"
Wangdachui asked directly over voice chat.
"Yes."
Love Hotpot said only one word, but Wangdachui was unusually excited.
It was a cool, mature female voice—the kind that got his blood pumping.
"Holy crap, your Hammer Bro's luck is incredible. One invite and I get a mature beauty."
Luoye was speechless. Can't you see this is my game friend?
"Start," Wangdachui said impatiently.
Four players at over thirty Peerless stars, plus Love Hotpot at forty-eight stars, entered the game.
But soon, Wangdachui realized that this girl had only said one word in the team interface...
In the game, she typed everything.
On the hero selection screen, Love Hotpot wisely chose the support role. After all, a girl had to understand social dynamics. With four tough guys around, where was there room for her to shine?
She picked Yao and followed Luoye's jungler from the start.
She had thought about helping the marksman occasionally, but then she realized that this Marco Polo was awful.
Terrible.
How did such a terrible player reach Peerless?
So Yao chose to follow the jungler the whole game.
Marco Polo was left alone in the bottom lane, facing the enemy marksman and support, occasionally getting ambushed by the enemy mid and jungler, and even the enemy top laner Guan Yu often came around to flank.
"Help!"
After going 0-6, Wangdachui opened his mic again and pleaded, "Yao Yao, come here."
Princess Yao remained unmoved.
If the marksman was terrible, following him as support was just buying one get one free—giving the enemy two kills at once.
In the end, they lost the match. Even though Luoye had gotten a quadra kill, he couldn't overcome the bad teammates, and Love Hotpot, who seemed to have some skill, had picked Yao, who had little killing power.
"I'm done. I've been playing all day. Any more and I'll lose my mind."
Shenqiao quit the game.
Seeing that, Wangdachui, who had gone 0-11 on Marco Polo, finally realized the problem. He made a bitter face. "I'm done too. I'll go practice against bots."
Lihaoyang scratched his head, hesitated for a moment, then also quit the game. His fingers kept typing on the screen, chatting with who knows who.
Only Luoye and Love Hotpot remained.
"I'm done."
Luoye typed those three words and quit the game.
The next moment.
"Love Hotpot has invited you to join the team."
Luoye was pulled back in.
"Three stars away from Glory rank."
In the chat, the other person typed this.
"No problem. I'll carry you."
"No. You support."
Love Hotpot left that sentence, leaving Luoye baffled.
Before he could react, she had already started matchmaking.
He was supposed to support? Luoye was confused.
But he didn't care about roles.
He chose Luban Master at the start.
This round was in the bag.
Third teammate: Does Luban Master know how to play? If not, switch. Don't throw.
Love Hotpot: Shut up.
Third teammate: Hah, girl's pretty protective. Is this your man?
Love Hotpot: ...
Thirty seconds until enemies reach the battlefield.
Luoye followed Love Hotpot's marksman the whole way, making full use of Luban Master's skills.
By the end, Luoye as support had more kills than the third teammate.
Soon, three consecutive wins. Luoye and Love Hotpot worked well together, pushing Love Hotpot to Glory rank.
"Not bad support."
Love Hotpot typed these words.
"You were impressive too."
They exchanged pleasantries, then Luoye typed, "You play Honor of Kings too? I thought you only played battle royale."
Love Hotpot: I play both.
She had just habitually logged in to check and happened to see Luoye online.
When she played games, she either solo-queued or played with other girls.
Only in the battle royale game did she have a gaming buddy to play with.
Luoye opened Love Hotpot's profile and saw that she was "Jiangcheng City's 7th Sun Shangxiang."
That wasn't the important part. The important part was that she was also in Jiangcheng.
Luoye: Are you in Jiangcheng too?
Love Hotpot: Jiangcheng University.
Seeing that, Luoye was a little surprised. Could it be that the person Gumingxuan had invited back then was a colleague?
Luoye: Hello, teacher.
Love Hotpot: ...
Seeing those words "hello, teacher," Subaizhou almost couldn't help laughing.
This junior had some skill, making the ice-cold goddess laugh.
Love Hotpot: I'm a student.
Seeing those four words, Luoye was stunned.
Gumingxuan had actually invited his student to play games with him?
Then, finding typing troublesome, he opened his mic directly:
"Hello there. I didn't expect us to be schoolmates."
Luoye had never turned on his mic when playing battle royale with her. But since they were schoolmates, Hotpot might soon become his real-life friend.
Love Hotpot didn't turn on her mic. She quit the team interface directly, so fast that Luoye didn't even have time to react.
On the other side, in the girls' dorm.
Subaizhou was startled by Luoye's voice and quickly quit the game.
She never turned on her mic in games and generally muted anyone who did.
She was very socially anxious online. That was why, after all this time, she had only made one gaming friend—Luoye—and that was through Gumingxuan's connection.
But... an online friend becoming a real-life friend, though exciting, was actually quite interesting.
For some reason.
Subaizhou's mind flashed back to that rainy day, and the young man's youthful face...
The ice-cold goddess's expression softened slightly, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of her lips.
- Writer
