You’re Beautiful When You Smile

The team manager, Xiao Rui, had kept quiet with a darkened face up till now, “First of all, this incident is aimed at Lu Yue. He just came back to the club after the ban lifted and someone put the video online. Obviously, someone is trying to use public opinion to prevent him from coming back……”

Xiao Rui continued after a short pause, “Only our people have this video clip. Do you know why we kept this video a closely guarded secret back then? Because the number of people who had viewed the video at the time were less than 20, along with KTV staff and the police. The security at KTV and the police were all middle-aged. In their eyes, this incident had nothing to do with esports, just a bunch of young men brawling. The rest are people from our club and JK-- --People from JK definitely wouldn’t want this video publicized. From a public relations perspective, there’s no benefit for JK to show the video in public. That was what we agreed on, to suppress the incident from going public; they were even more eager than us to do so.”

Tong Yao: “Why? Wasn’t Lu Yue the one who hit them first?”

Lu Sicheng: “But they also fought back.”

Tong Yao: “Justifiable self-defense?”

Lu Sicheng: “That’s not how self-defense works. Have you seen the video? Those people, in the beginning, tried to subdue Lu Yue; they pushed him down and struggled to take his weapon away. That was justifiable self-defense. But later on, they turned around and beat him up, that was assault-- --”

Lu Sicheng took a glance at Lu Yue. “If you ask me, he deserved it.”

Lu Yue indifferently twitched his lips and turned his head away.

Xiao Rui gestured Lu Sicheng to stop and flatly said, “Thus one of our own people did this. I don’t know who, but I hope you’ll confess. Then we can discuss and try to solve it internally-- --Now rumors are flying out there, everyone is in the teeth of the storm. If we can’t stand together as a group, then it’ll turn into a big problem for us.”

Right after Xiao Rui finished, Little Fatty rubbed his tummy then said with a stone face, “I released the video.”

Everyone was quiet.

Tong Yao silently touched her chin. She didn’t expect Little Fatty to admit it so fast and it was still a surprise to her that it actually was Little Fatty who put the video up-- --

“Why was there a fight? Why drag Ming god down? Why drag the whole team down?”

Little Fatty frowned and showed a scornful look in his eyes for the first time. “It was so cool to knock a bottle on someone, wasn’t it? Hehe, I used to fight against ten people in front of my high school, it was cool, too. Yet, I stopped doing that later on. Why? Because I know I’m a professional player now, I have my teammates, my bosses, the club and the whole esports circle behind me……”

Little Fatty breathed out a long breath. “In terms of the small picture, with this one action of yours, Ming god’s professional career came to an end. The whole team wasted a whole year of hard work backing out of the world finals. In terms of the bigger picture, how would society view the esports business as a profession now? Internet addicted teenagers, goofing around, no future in playing games-- --I hear these comments year after year. I’m tired of them but I still can’t raise my head to refute them. You explain to a hundred people that we aren’t like that, but turn around, there’s one jackass teammate who can be used as proof to tens of thousands of people: You’re all correct. We’re a bunch of good-for-nothing just like you’ve said.”

Little Fatty stood up. “I know it’s quite boring to talk about all this. But this is what I’m thinking-- --I’m annoyed. What I’m doing isn’t something that I should be ashamed of. But why can’t I walk with my head held high?”

No one said anything after Little Fatty finished.

Lu Yue looked at Little Fatty, without anger, and no one could tell what he was thinking from his face…...Lu Sicheng lightly commented, “too impulsive.” Xiao Rui kept sighing, “You young kids-- --”

Ming god furrowed his brows and called Lu Yue.

Lu Yue raised his head to take look at him.