Chapter 22 – Murphy’s Law
After Tan Mo posted the Weibo message, the esports community went wild, and soon after, he was pulled aside by the coach who rushed over.
“Yu Haotian is already handling things with Song. Now that you’ve gone ahead and posted the Weibo on your own…” The coach took a sip of his goji berry tea, spitting out the foam. “Alright, tell me, what position are you planning to assign him?”
Tan Mo closed the office door and said bluntly, “Starting position for the Summer Split.”
The muscles on the coach’s face twitched. “There are still over two months before the Summer Split. You want a rookie who’s only trained for two months to take the starting spot?”
Tan Mo sat down on the couch nearby. “If Elan can do it, so can he.”
“…” The coach was clearly at a loss for words, taking a deep breath before saying, “I get that you want to find a spot for him on the main team, but as Yu Haotian said, after that unexpected loss in the Spring Split, the club’s finances are tight. We can’t afford to buy another starting player. That’s why when we initially recruited, it was either him or Elan, not both.”
Tan Mo interrupted before he could finish, “I’ll pay for it.”
“Fine! You’ve got money! Hell, the whole club is yours, so bring in whoever you want!” The coach’s temper flared, getting straight to the point. “Who are you planning to bench? Miao Sen or Elan? I just told Miao Sen tonight that he’d be starting. Now you want me to send him back to the second team? Elan signed with WLG aiming for the starting spot, and now I’m supposed to have him watch from the sidelines? I can’t promise everyone gets equal treatment, but I can’t make it so blatantly unfair either! The fact is, Song missed the tryouts. You feel guilty about it, so now everyone has to step aside for him? If that’s what you really want, why don’t you just chase everyone away and play solo?”
After being scolded harshly, Tan Mo remained silent for a long moment.
Sensing the upper hand, the coach pressed on, “So? What’s your plan?”
“His skills are good enough for a starting position,” Tan Mo replied, lifting his head firmly. “I don’t want to waste his time.”
The coach sat down behind his desk, giving Tan Mo a meaningful look. “Is it really about not wasting his time, or are you just afraid to see him cry?”
Tan Mo hesitated for a moment, then looked away. “You’re getting on my nerves.”
The coach chuckled knowingly, his expression filled with a smug sense of understanding.
After both sides had calmed down, the coach’s tone softened as well:
“There’s no way the starting position for the Summer Split can go to Song… Don’t look at me like that. He might not even make it onto the substitute list. If he’d made it to the tryouts, I’d have a reason to justify it, but right now he’s a blank slate, with no major tournament experience. Why should we let him take a spot? In WLG, we speak with our skills, but first, you have to prove yourself. Do you really think a solo match and a few ranked games prove anything? You want everyone to think he got in because of the hype from you, right?”
That last line had the desired effect. Tan Mo’s expression turned cold, but he didn’t offer a rebuttal.
“But don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of tournaments, big and small, before the Summer Split,” the coach continued. “There’s an online tournament next week. Even though it’s online, the prize pool is tempting, and the competition is solid. If Song can perform well in that, not only will it justify signing him to the second team, but also designating him as a Summer Split substitute.”
With that, Tan Mo had nothing more to say. He stood up, ready to leave. “I’ll leave it to you.”
“That Weibo post of yours caused more of a stir than Elan’s official announcement. Next time, consult with us before posting. Yu Haotian’s running around like crazy because of it.” The coach pointed a finger at him. “Let this be the last time.”
Tan Mo walked back to the desk, leaning both hands on it.
The coach spat out some foam from his tea. “What now?”
“Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” Tan Mo stared at him with cold, narrow eyes, looking down at him. “Remember, I’m the boss.”
The coach nearly choked on his goji berry tea, sensing a bit of personal vendetta in that comment. He laughed and cursed at Tan Mo’s retreating figure:
“You brat! Can’t out-argue me so you pull rank!”
…
The next day, Sang Ye dressed in the latest trendy outfit and headed to the WLG base to sign a letter of intent.
When he arrived, Yu Haotian greeted him.
On their way to the meeting room, Sang Ye couldn’t help but glance around.
As they passed a closed door, Yu Haotian casually mentioned, “This is the first team’s training room. Pai and Hu Fu are inside. Talk is out of town for an event and won’t be back for a week.”
Sang Ye quickly retracted his wandering gaze, feeling both disappointed and a bit deflated.
If he had known this, he wouldn’t have bothered trying on outfits for over two hours last night. He had dressed up so nicely, and now there was no one to impress.
Yu Haotian stopped at the training room door, grabbed the handle, and smiled, “Everyone’s training at this time. They’re really dedicated. Once you join, you’ll see for yourself. Go ahead, say hi.”
With a whoosh, the door swung open—
“That heartless jerk lied to me! Said he was going home during the break, but he was really with the other team the whole time! I knew something was off, him acting all sneaky and out of it! Turns out he’s been planning to break up with me all along, ughhhhh—!”
Xiao Pai sat there with swollen, frog-like eyes, hugging a box of tissues while ranting angrily, his face flushed and voice hoarse.
Meanwhile, Hu Fu was munching on a loaded jianbing guozi (Chinese crepe). The stuffing was spilling out, and as he ate, he picked up the potato sticks that had fallen onto his clothes, chuckling as he went.
The door swung open, and in that instant, eight eyes locked. The room suddenly fell silent.
It was almost 11 o’clock, and neither of them had even turned on their computers.
“…………”
Yu Haotian twitched at the corner of his mouth, quickly shutting the door again as if nothing had happened, and continued walking. “We’re almost there, just ahead.”
Sang Ye glanced back at the training room before leaving, frowning slightly.
Inside, Xiao Pai quickly wiped his face and blew his nose. “Did that white-haired guy just give me a… subtle look of disdain?”
“That’s just how he looks at slackers,” Hu Fu said, still picking up the spilled potato sticks from his jianbing guozi. “All your teammates are slackers. Shouldn’t you feel bad for Tan Shen as his fanboy?”
“Who’s slacking!” Xiao Pai protested, slamming the table. “I just… slacked off a bit because Tan Shen isn’t here today! What kind of fanboy monitors so closely… Wait! If he were here, he’d be watching me closer than the coach, wouldn’t he?”
Xiao Pai suddenly remembered the fear of being scrutinized by Tan Mo’s fans.
After every match, Xiao Pai would get flamed by those fans, accusing him of holding Tan Shen back.
Someone even created a Weibo account called [Xiao Pai Work Harder] where every day they posted the same question: [Did Xiao Pai try harder today?] The worst part? It already had 100,000 followers, and the thought of it infuriated Xiao Pai so much that he felt like pinching his own forehead every time he remembered.
“What am I supposed to do?” Xiao Pai muttered, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “If he comes back, I won’t even dare to slack off.”
Hu Fu laughed so hard his jianbing guozi started falling apart. “Then why don’t you just try harder?”
“Get lost!” Xiao Pai shouted angrily.
In the meeting room…
Yu Haotian pulled out the documents and handed them to Sang Ye in batches. “Since your contract with the guild still has a week left, we can’t officially onboard you yet. First, look through these contracts. If there’s anything you’re not happy with, let us know. Once everything looks good, you can sign the letter of intent.”
Sang Ye responded with a casual “oh,” flipped open the letter of intent, and went straight to the last page, ready to sign.
“Hey!” Yu Haotian leaned forward, pressing down on the letter of intent with a mix of surprise and amusement. “At least glance at the contract. What if we’re selling you off, and you don’t even know it!”
“No need,” Sang Ye said, looking up. “You guys wouldn’t sell me.”
“It’s just a figure of speech, but still…”
Yu Haotian glanced at Sang Ye’s trendy outfit, knowing full well that just the jacket cost over ten thousand. It made him feel that Sang Ye had a bit of that “naive rich kid” vibe.
“At least look at the salary and benefits,” Yu Haotian sighed in exasperation. “It’s your personal interest on the line.”
Sang Ye glanced at the three thick contracts on the table, looking a bit troubled. He confessed, “Reading makes me sleepy.”
“……”
Yep.
Definitely a naive rich kid.
Yu Haotian struggled to hold back his laughter. He personally flipped to the relevant pages in each contract and laid them open in front of Sang Ye. “The salary and benefits are on these pages. It’s not much text, but you need to read it. Otherwise, we won’t know if there was a miscommunication, and we can’t hire you with things being unclear.”
Perhaps worried that they wouldn’t hire him, Sang Ye pursed his lips and pulled the contract closer. “Got it.”
“Take your time. You can mark anything you want with a pen—it’s just a draft,” Yu Haotian said. “Once you’re done, just message me, and I’ll come back.”
Faced with the dense pages of text, Sang Ye propped his head on one hand, his brow furrowing even more deeply.
Yu Haotian got so busy in the office that he nearly lost track of time. He checked his phone—twenty minutes had passed, but he hadn’t received any messages from Sang Ye.
“Reading so thoroughly? He should be almost done by now, right?”
Yu Haotian hurried to the meeting room and pushed the door open. “How’s it going…”
What he saw was the boy sprawled out on the table, completely motionless.
Yu Haotian couldn’t help but laugh. He pulled out his phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Tan Mo.
Yu Ni Huanxi: [Let me show you what a truly carefree player looks like. The kid is too innocent for me to even consider tricking him. 😂]
At that moment, Tan Mo happened to be resting backstage. He opened the photo and saw a head of soft, milk-white hair nestled in the crook of an arm, exposing a smooth, fair neck. One arm hung loosely, with the wrist dangling in the air, fingers glowing almost translucent in the sunlight. Scattered next to him were the open contracts.
He was supposed to be reviewing the contract, but it looked more like he was cramming for finals after an all-nighter.
Tan Mo’s lips curled up slightly at the corners, and a rare smile flickered across his face.
The hairstylist working on Tan Mo’s hair was startled, raising an eyebrow. Having spent the entire morning with him, she had assumed he was incapable of expression, thinking he had a perpetual poker face.
Back in the meeting room, Yu Haotian was about to wake Sang Ye and give him a quick breakdown of the contract terms when a new message popped up on his phone.
T.: [Let him sleep. Send me the digital version of the contract, and I’ll look it over for him.]
…
Sang Ye didn’t accomplish much during his visit to WLG that day—except for a delightful nap.
Before he left, he tried to sign the letter of intent, but Yu Haotian, smiling like an affectionate aunt, confiscated it. “No worries, there’s no rush. We’ll be drafting a new version anyway… In three days, you’ll meet the coach. Just pack your things when you’re ready, and move in when it’s convenient.”
And so, Sang Ye left, still feeling a little dazed.
Since the incident, Liu Mingxuan had disappeared without a trace and hadn’t returned to the guild dorms.
But Sang Ye heard that Liu’s contract with Huangchao had fallen through.
Not only that, Liu Mingxuan had lost 200,000 followers overnight on the Maoya platform, and the numbers were still dropping day by day. The platform had already removed him from the list of the top 10 gaming streamers.
Sang Ye felt no emotional reaction to the news. If he ever saw Liu Mingxuan again, he’d probably just say one word:
“Deserved.”
It took Sang Ye two days to pack his things. The night before meeting the coach, he had stayed up late informing his relatives and elders about his good news, so when he woke up the next day and saw the time, his heart nearly stopped.
He quickly washed up, threw on a wrinkled hoodie, and left without even washing his hair.
He caught a quick nap in the taxi with zero concern. But when he arrived at the esports arena and saw his disheveled reflection through the glass door, he noticed a clear red mark on his left cheek from leaning against the car window.
Sang Ye rubbed his face, debating whether he should duck into the restroom to tidy himself up.
Sang Ye’s expression suddenly relaxed as the thought crossed his mind.
Forget it, there’s no one here that he cares about anyway.
According to what Yu Haotian had said on WeChat, the coach was in the first team’s training room.
Sang Ye followed his memory and went straight there, knocking on the door.
Hu Fu opened it and smiled when he saw him, “Yo! You’re here!”
Sang Ye gave a slight nod to Hu Fu.
There were about seven or eight people in the room, but the moment Sang Ye stepped inside, his eyes immediately caught sight of a handsome man in the corner, playing on his phone.
Sang Ye froze in his tracks, his face stiffening.
Hearing the noise, the man looked up, noticeably eyeing Sang Ye from head to toe twice, then lightly raised an eyebrow.
Sang Ye reacted as if he’d been shocked, quickly turning and blurting out, “Just going to the restroom!”
Everyone else: “???????”
Sang Ye hurried down the hallway with his head lowered, his face as red as a tomato, and his expression looked as if he was about to cry.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh—
Wasn’t he supposed to be back in a week!!!
Why did it have to be today!!!