Chapter 51 – JueWei, Number One in the World
Silence—a deathly silence.
Ji Wei finally understood something today: no matter how well prepared you are, some things will always be disrupted by the unexpected.
Da Shu stared at them in disbelief. There was no fear of gay men in his eyes, only the shock of having just discovered something truly startling.
“Oh my God! Aren’t you all surprised? Am I the only one shocked here?” He glanced at his two teammates. Lao Ma paused briefly before continuing to eat his barbecue. Mi Li didn’t even raise an eyelid.
Annoyed by Da Shu’s stares, Lao Ma swallowed his food and said calmly, “Actually, I had some idea.”
“?” Da Shu felt a sense of imbalance, as if someone had stolen his thunder. “How did you guess that?”
Lao Ma replied, “Solve was never this close to anyone before. Even with Rex, they’d just go out to eat or duo together. But with Unique, it’s clearly different.”
Da Shu turned to Mi Li. “What about you? Why aren’t you surprised?”
“I knew all along,” Mi Li said coolly, pretending to be unfazed. “Anyone who can’t tell is a fool.”
Foolish Da Shu: ?
Ji Wei was just as stunned as Da Shu. He glanced at his unbothered teammates, feeling a little melancholy.
He hadn’t expected that the secret he’d guarded so carefully would end up being exposed so easily in front of everyone.
All he could do was say weakly, “Sorry, it’s not that I didn’t want to go public. We just haven’t been together that long. I wanted to wait for the right moment to tell you.”
“When did you get together?” Da Shu asked curiously.
“On… the day the playoffs ended.”
“D*mn! No wonder you two left so early that day. I was wondering why I didn’t see you on the way back.” Da Shu was still reviewing the game in his mind when he suddenly looked up.
“Wait! Didn’t you just have your birthday that day? Didn’t you just turn eighteen?”
Ji Wei nodded, puzzled.
The next moment, the other three members of AVG looked at Yin Sijue with strange eyes.
Lao Ma clicked his tongue. “Tsk. Honestly, I didn’t even notice Unique’s age. Just turned adult? Isn’t that too young?”
“Maybe no one cares.” Yin Sijue calmly met their gazes and said, “I’m only twenty-one.”
“Then that makes you different,” Da Shu commented. “To use an animal metaphor—you’re like a ferocious tiger, and Unique is the little white rabbit you’re preying on.”
Lao Ma thought the analogy was odd, but after considering it, he nodded.
Yin Sijue raised his eyebrows casually and said indifferently, “So what?”
His expression—as if he had already devoured both the little rabbit and the little cat—earned him countless glares from Da Shu.
After finishing his meal, Da Shu patted Ji Wei, who was still eating. “If you ever get bullied, remember to come to your brother Shu. I might not be able to help you in real life, but I can at least get you some kills in the next match.”
Before Ji Wei could respond, Yin Sijue spoke first: “When have you ever managed to snatch a kill from me?”
It seemed he hadn’t—not even once. Da Shu rolled away with a smile.
The others, noticing that Yin Sijue was still sitting there without having eaten a single bite, tactfully left the restaurant, giving the young couple their space.
Ji Wei obediently cleared away everyone’s leftovers and began tidying the messy table. He sighed. “I didn’t expect them to accept it so quickly. I’d been worried for so long.”
Yin Sijue stood up, took the trash from his hands, and asked casually, “What were you worried about?”
“A lot. I worried they’d be offended if they found out their teammate was gay. I worried they’d be unhappy with their captain’s partner.”
Yin Sijue chuckled. “You’re overthinking it. They’re obviously more unhappy with me.”
After a pause, he continued slowly, “Everyone likes you. They don’t care about your orientation or who you’re with. AVG may have had one unusual person, but the rest of them are pretty good.”
Ji Wei felt a little embarrassed by the first half of his words. “It’s not that exaggerated.”
Speaking of unusual people, Yin Sijue suddenly remembered something. “Was your previous account hacked?”
“Yeah.” Ji Wei nodded, a flicker of regret crossing his eyes. “It’s my fault. I didn’t protect it properly, and now I can’t get it back.”
“Steam announced a few days ago that if you’ve lost your email and can’t get the verification code, you can use your purchase history to recover the account. You should try that.”
“Really?” Ji Wei asked in surprise. “I’m not getting my hopes up, but I’ll talk to my brother tomorrow.”
Yin Sijue paused. “Your brother?”
Ji Wei remembered he hadn’t mentioned Ji Lin before and explained, “A distant cousin. After he left my parents’ place, he had nowhere to live, so I stayed with him. He’s also the one who paid for my Steam games.”
“Oh.” Yin Sijue’s tone was strangely stiff. “You never mentioned him three years ago.”
“We don’t keep in touch much. He’s usually very busy with work. Back when I was in high school, that was probably his busiest time. It was urgent then, so I’d only call him if it was absolutely necessary.”
Yin Sijue hummed glumly and pulled Ji Wei over to wash his hands, squeezing two generous blobs of sanitizer onto the sink.
“Why so much?” Ji Wei asked, puzzled, though he rubbed his fingers together obediently. His hands, coated in the transparent gel, turned sticky.
The next second, a broad palm enveloped his, curling it into a fist and lathering it with foam.
“Your hands are so small.” Yin Sijue’s fingers brushed lightly across Ji Wei’s palm, feather-soft, making it ticklish.
Ji Wei shrank from the sensation, but his wrist was caught and held firmly as Yin Sijue turned on the faucet and rinsed his hands clean.
Yin Sijue lowered his eyes and noticed the small mole on Ji Wei’s palm. He kneaded and pressed it under the running water until the skin turned pink.
“What are you doing…”
Ji Wei, bewildered, let his wrist be held as if shackled. After both of them rinsed the foam from their hands, Yin Sijue finally let go and walked him back to the bedroom.
Ji Wei’s cheeks flushed the same pink as his hands as he was led away. He couldn’t understand how something as simple as washing hands could make him blush so fiercely.
“I’m not coming in today.” Yin Sijue guided him to the door and pressed a restrained kiss to the corner of Ji Wei’s lips. “I have training tomorrow, so go to bed early.”
“Mhm.” Ji Wei didn’t really register his words; he was too delighted by the kiss. He slipped back into bed, head spinning.
Before sleeping, Ji Wei couldn’t resist opening the new video posted on the official Weibo account.
Xu Shaoqiu was undeniably talented. His camera work and editing were flawless, capturing even the most subtle interactions between the two of them.
In the final scene of the live-action CS match, Xu Shaoqiu used a long shot, showing Solve seemingly using Unique’s gun to kill him—but the dialogue between them couldn’t be heard. This hazy, ambiguous moment instantly sparked fan imagination and drew a flood of attention.
Scrolling through the trending comments, Ji Wei spotted an ID he instantly liked: [JueWei Tianxia Diyi.]
He immediately recognized it as a CP fan account for Yin Sijue and himself. Excited, he clicked on the profile—only to find it full of strange images and links he couldn’t understand.
The images looked like Chinese characters, but weren’t. Clicking the links led only to blank screens.
Every comment under the posts was the same: [I’m full. Thanks for the meal, ma’am!]
What meal? Give me a bite! Ji Wei scratched his head. He wanted to comment but hesitated, worried about exposing himself since he was on his main account.
Undeterred, he switched browsers—but still couldn’t open the links. So he enlarged the images and studied them carefully.
Two minutes later, inspiration struck. He saved one of the images locally, mirrored it, and flipped it. At last, it transformed into actual Chinese characters he could read!
“I’m like Sherlock Holmes,” he muttered smugly, zooming in to examine it.
Title: <(**) AVG Base Training Room | Computer Desk Play · Blindfold · Exhaustion · Grass Withering (Private Settings)>
Is this even Chinese anymore? What does (**) mean? Ji Wei frowned and kept reading.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
In the pitch-dark silence of the night, a sudden whooshing sound broke the air. Ji Wei hurled his phone aside, sat bolt upright, and stared blankly at the wall.
“Holy shit… what did I just see?”
Ji Wei fell into stunned silence—then, all at once, realization dawned on him.
At an age when other boys were passing around pornographic films, Ji Wei had fallen in love with gaming. While the young couples in his class secretly held hands, he was playing games with Yin Sijue. When the teacher scheduled sex education classes, he skipped them—just to play more games with Yin Sijue.
Until today, his understanding of same-sex relationships had been limited to handjobs.
Until today.
A fanfiction featuring himself and Yin Sijue had opened the door to a whole new world.
After sitting frozen in place for five minutes, Ji Wei finally crawled over to retrieve his phone. Ignoring his overheated body, he pulled the blanket over his head, curled up, and zoomed in on the images—studying them one by one.
…
The next day, Da Shu and Mi Li finished their lunch downstairs and waited for Ji Wei to come down.
Da Shu said, “You’re already ten minutes late. The captain almost went up to call you.”
Yin Sijue had already finished his meal and was waiting. When he looked up, he saw his boyfriend walking into the restaurant, looking exhausted.
Ji Wei’s eyes were dark and heavy. He rubbed them listlessly, as if he might fall asleep while standing.
“What’s wrong?” Yin Sijue frowned. “Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
Ji Wei yawned and avoided his gaze, a little guilty.
He had stayed up all night reading every story that lady had written, only forcing himself to sleep when the sky outside had started turning pale.
Then he’d had a string of chaotic dreams.
Now his head was a mess, and the sight of Yin Sijue instantly triggered images from those 18+ scenarios. Flustered, he deliberately sat farther away.
Da Shu, who noticed the subtle movement, asked, “Did you two have a fight?”
“No!” Ji Wei sat up straighter, denying it, while trying to ignore Yin Sijue’s burning stare.
“That’s good. I bet you two won’t break up. Do you know how many shares that video got yesterday?”
“Ten thousand?” Ji Wei guessed. He’d checked the night before, and it had been over nine thousand.
“Thirty thousand.” Xu Shaoqiu strode into the restaurant with his hands behind his back, eyes gleaming with pride. “My debut work has gone viral.”
“So many?” Ji Wei exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes. Even the CP super-topic shot to number one on the rankings.”
Da Shu asked curiously, “What’s the CP super-topic called?”
Sleepy Ji Wei answered on reflex, “JueWei!”
…
The table fell into silence for a long moment.
Then Da Shu let out an “Ohhh~” and gave him an I get it look. “So the real couple has already started patrolling, huh.”
Ji Wei: …
Knock, knock—
Having been ignored by his boyfriend for too long, Yin Sijue finally tapped his fingertip against the table and asked leisurely, “So those panda eyes you had last night—was it because you stayed up reading this?”