Chapter 70 – I’ve Always Been Thinking About This Day
The night before the PGC tournament began, Xu Shaoqiu gathered everyone together to briefly discuss the group stage situation.
He flipped through the printed list and said, “We’re pretty lucky this time. Group A doesn’t have any strong teams. But Group B has SNS from the European region, and they’ll be facing us tomorrow. We need to be careful with their two attacking players. They’re a couple who’ve been together for years and have great chemistry. Try to avoid direct 2v2s with them.”
Da Shu scoffed. “What’s wrong with couples? You’re talking as if we don’t have any. Tsk.”
Xu Shaoqiu slammed the document on the table. “You’re comparing us? Our couple hasn’t even been together for a few months. Did you forget you couldn’t beat those SNS guys in a 2v2 last year?”
Da Shu pressed on. “That’s because you didn’t ask Unique for his ID photo and get him signed earlier. So how can you say we’ve only been together for a few months?”
Xu Shaoqiu took a deep breath and brushed off the argument. “Nothing more to say. The tougher SOP team is in Group C—we won’t meet them until the third day. If everything’s clear, go back and get some sleep.”
“I have something,” Ji Wei raised his hand quietly. “Can you give me my phone back?”
“Huh?” Xu Shaoqiu glanced at him in surprise. “You still don’t have it? Oh, right—I might’ve forgotten.”
He rummaged through his bag for a while before pulling out Ji Wei’s phone and handing it to him. “I already blocked and deleted those idiots who were harassing you. After that interview, they completely lost it. They’d send you a couple of insults every day like they were punching a clock.”
Ji Wei took the phone and found only a few scattered messages from Ji Lin in his chat list. Xu Shaoqiu had already cleared out the rest for him.
“Thank you, Brother Qiu.”
Xu Shaoqiu waved him off. “What’s there to thank me for? By the way, how did you manage yesterday without your phone? Did you sleep in Solve’s room again?”
Before Ji Wei could reply, Da Shu spoke up first. “Report! We played scrims all day yesterday. I saw them go back to their own rooms. They didn’t sleep together!”
Yin Sijue, who was replying to a message, shot him a cold glance.
“If you paid as much attention to your gameplay as you do to gossip, you’d have been MVP long ago.”
Xu Shaoqiu: “By the way, how was your practice match yesterday? I was so busy cleaning up Unique’s mess that I didn’t make it back to see.”
Da Shu smiled faintly. “We lost almost all of them.”
Xu Shaoqiu: “?”
Lao Ma tugged at his sleeve. “I sent you a message yesterday, but you probably didn’t see it. The training computers provided by the organizers are terrible. Not only are there network lags and slowdowns, but two of them don’t even have sound. How can you play PUBG without sound?”
Da Shu stood up and complained at the top of his lungs. “No sound—forget it! We were playing rock-paper-scissors, and the loser had to use one of the silent computers. I was the first to lose, so I didn’t hear a single footstep all day!”
Mi Li snorted coldly. “Unique lost second, but he wasn’t as noisy as you.”
Da Shu: “Bullshit! I always listen to the captain. I said I’d share that crappy computer with him the next day, but what about me? Anyone want to trade? You? You?”
Mi Li: “I won’t.”
“Stop arguing.” Xu Shaoqiu turned to Lao Ma and asked, “Have you complained to the organizers?”
Lao Ma: “They told us yesterday to wait for a response, but there’s still no update today.”
Xu Shaoqiu frowned. “These Koreans are so unreliable! I’ll talk to them later. You can all go back and rest.”
After a full day of training, everyone had persevered, even with the faulty computers. Da Shu was already exhausted—his back and waist ached.
“Then I’m going back to bed. I’ll see my family tomorrow.”
Yin Sijue and Ji Wei were the last to leave. After their teammates had entered their rooms, Ji Wei heard someone beside him ask quietly, “Are you hungry?”
Ji Wei, too tired from losing all day to eat, looked up and blinked. “A little, but there’s nowhere else to eat right now.”
“There’s a 7-Eleven next to the hotel. Come with me?”
Five minutes later, the two of them sat on a bench outside the 7-Eleven, enjoying the last of their instant noodles.
It was late at night. The streetlights were dim, the convenience store nearly empty except for a dozing clerk, and a few pedestrians passed by now and then. No one noticed the two esports players—who would take the world stage tomorrow—sitting behind the transparent glass.
Ji Wei was indeed hungry. Unsatisfied with just the noodles, he took two sips of the soup and sighed in contentment.
Yin Sijue propped his head up and looked at him. “Still hungry?”
It was quiet outside. Yin Sijue’s voice was low, slightly rough, with a magnetic undertone—like it had been polished by sandpaper.
Ji Wei wiped his mouth and shook his head faintly.
“Tomorrow’s your first Worlds match. Nervous?”
Yin Sijue covered his phone. The WeChat message was from Xu Shaoqiu, who couldn’t sleep. After today’s poor scrims, he was worried Ji Wei might be affected, so he’d asked the captain—and boyfriend—to check on him in advance.
“Not nervous, just a little excited.” Ji Wei hooked Yin Sijue’s pinky finger. “I’ve been dreaming of this day—fighting side by side with you on the World Championship stage.”
Yin Sijue’s eyes curved slightly. “Yeah, me too.”
After their late-night snack, the two returned to their room, feeling full. Yin Sijue closed the door behind Ji Wei, keeping the rest of his words to himself.
Me too. Ever since I signed my AVG trial contract at seventeen, I’ve been dreaming of this day.
Three years late, but the wait is finally over.
…
The next day, during the first round-robin of the PUBG Global Championship group stage, the Chinese team AVG topped the opening standings with 61 points.
Ji Wei felt nothing as he stepped down from the stage. The six games had passed in the blink of an eye—easier than even the Summer Split regular season.
“This is how the group stage went.” Da Shu packed up his peripherals, humming a little tune as he prepared to leave. “But this time was definitely easier. We pulled more than ten points ahead of second-place SNS.”
“Damn, speaking of SNS,” Xu Shaoqiu leaned over to gossip. “You guys might not have noticed on stage just now, but when they won the third round, those two attackers actually kissed on stage.”
Ji Wei’s eyes widened. “On stage…? So bold?”
Mi Li smacked his keyboard. “You didn’t see it? What were we doing? We totally missed the show.”
Xu Shaoqiu pulled out his phone. “And their attacker, GUN—he tweeted that no matter what result they get at Worlds, as long as they stand on the podium, he’ll propose.”
“Oh my god, that’s going to be a hot topic whether they win or not. How smart.” Da Shu turned to look at his two teammates. “So… you two want to consider it?”
Ji Wei: “…”
Yin Sijue had played relaxed all day. He lazily pulled Ji Wei into his arms and whispered in his ear, “What do you think, Unique?”
Ji Wei’s cheeks burned. “We can’t get married…”
Da Shu pricked up his ears, eavesdropping. “So you’re already considering it?”
Yin Sijue pressed Ji Wei’s face against his shoulder, his cold eyes cutting him a look.
Da Shu: “I’m backing off.”
Once they’d reached a distance where no one could eavesdrop, Yin Sijue released Ji Wei and stroked his hair. “We could get married abroad—or in-game.”
Ji Wei, still stunned by the first half of the sentence: “?!”
What does it mean to get married in a game? Since when did PUBG turn into a couple simulator?
Beside him, Yin Sijue stifled a laugh. “We’ll open a custom room and invite everyone from the super topic. I’ll buy roses and candles from the prop store, line the street with ‘Marry Me’ signs, and you can stand on the overpass and watch…”
Ji Wei was stunned. He shook his head, leaving a faint shadow behind. “No, no, no—I don’t want that.”
Yin Sijue pursed his lips in a smile, about to continue teasing him when a sudden, exaggerated cry came from behind.
Backstage was a place where every contestant could come and go freely. In this day and age, open couples were nothing new. Yin Sijue and his partner were close and didn’t bother to hide it, so most people just laughed or gossiped a little before moving on.
But not everyone was so normal.
SOP didn’t have a match that day, yet they had still shown up at the venue. A group of them walked over from the lounge, their eyes fixed on the pair like searchlights—filled with a mix of disgust and mocking curiosity.
Leading them was their team captain, Zone, a tall, thin man with chestnut-colored hair. As he passed by, he looked them up and down and said something in a foreign language, his tone dripping with malice.
Ji Wei didn’t understand a word, but he could feel the naked hostility in every syllable.
Ironically, Ji Lin had warned him over dinner that this path wouldn’t be easy. Still, Ji Wei hadn’t expected his first brush with discrimination to come from a fellow competitor—someone his own age.
The air went taut, like a string stretched to the breaking point. Yin Sijue stepped slightly forward, shielding the others behind him, his eyes growing colder. Just as he was about to speak, Xu Shaoqiu came rushing back from the front.
“Yes, those are the ones!” Xu Shaoqiu grabbed a staff member and pointed directly at the SOP players. “Does the organizer allow contestants to openly discriminate against others on-site? Or should I take this online and ask for your advice there?”
The staff member’s face drained of color. A sensitive incident like this going public would cause an uproar and cast a long shadow over next year’s event. The organizers couldn’t afford a scandal of that scale.
He immediately escorted the SOP players backstage and, together with the tournament officials, issued a stern warning: if anything like this happened again, they’d face a heavy fine.
Xu Shaoqiu stayed behind to ensure the fine was issued before returning to the team. “Tsk. That small amount of money won’t even sting them.”
In the car, as Xu Shaoqiu explained what had happened, Da Shu said disapprovingly, “I don’t think they were really discriminating. They’re just pissed about our last scrims and wanted payback.”
Mi Li: “Maybe so, Captain. What exactly did they say?”
Yin Sijue crossed his arms, his face blank. “They said, ‘Wow, isn’t this that player Unique we destroyed last time? Turns out she’s dating Solve. It’s disgusting—two men together. Are they polluting the place? You won’t be so lucky when we meet on the field the day after tomorrow.’”
Xu Shaoqiu, sitting in the passenger seat, nearly spat water all over the windshield. “How dare you translate that! Unique, don’t take it to heart. They’re just foul-mouthed idiots—”
“You know Korean?” Ji Wei looked at Yin Sijue in admiration, his eyes twinkling. “Teach me next time.”
“I learned a little when I was a kid.” Moved by Ji Wei’s cuteness, Yin Sijue pinched his palm. “I’ll teach you when we get home tonight.”
Xu Shaoqiu: “…”
Mi Li: “By the way, Brother Qiu, can you fix that computer issue? My PC’s basically dead right now. We’re training all day tomorrow—we won’t have to use those broken machines again, right?”
For players, both hand feel and mentality were crucial. Questions crammed the night before an exam might not show up the next day, but whether or not you practiced before a match could make or break your performance.
Xu Shaoqiu bristled at the thought. “They said the practice room’s full and there’s no way to switch. I even asked UGC, but their machines are down too. So we’ll have to go to an internet café to practice. I swear, we’ve never suffered such injustice before.”
Da Shu: “Huh? Then what do we do? Go to an internet café too?”
Xu Shaoqiu was already typing furiously on his phone. “That’s our only option for now. I know you’re all precious. I’ll find one with private rooms. And I’ll keep complaining to those useless organizers!”
Ji Wei sat bored in the back seat, scrolling through his phone. “Why are the Worlds conditions so awful this year? Were things this bad before?”
Yin Sijue said coolly, “Never this bad.”
“The organizers are such a bummer this time…”
His phone buzzed. Ji Wei received a WeChat message from a friend—
Taotao Taotao: [Brother Wei! I just realized you guys are competing in Korea after watching the live stream! Congrats on getting first place!]
Taotao Taotao: [I’m in Korea too! When’s your next match? I’ll buy a ticket and come watch!]
“Hm?” Ji Wei typed back, lips curving in surprise at the coincidence.
Weiwei Dounan: [Thanks. The next match is the day after tomorrow. You don’t need to buy a ticket—I’ll ask Brother Qiu to get one for you.]
Up front, Xu Shaoqiu was juggling several phone calls, muttering, “All the nearby cafés are full. I bet the other teams went too. I’m definitely filing a complaint with the organizers over this—next year if I have to…”
Ji Wei suddenly had an idea and texted Lin Tao again.
Weiwei Dounan: [Do you know any good internet cafés near Hotel XX?]
Taotao Taotao: [I’ve never been to an internet café in Korea. Why? What happened?]
Weiwei Dounan: [The organizers’ training PCs are a mess, so we’ll have to find an internet café ourselves. [/CatCrying]]
Taotao Taotao: [Huh?]
Then his phone rang—Lin Tao was actually calling.
“What the hell? Pro players’ training computers aren’t working? This is the first time I’ve heard the PGC organizers being that lame.”
Ji Wei sighed. “Yeah, so now we can only find an internet café.”
There was a brief pause before Lin Tao said, “How about you guys come to my place?”]
Ji Wei was stunned. “Your home? You… have a home in Korea?”
Lin Tao replied matter-of-factly, “I have homes in many places.”
Ji Wei had the call on speaker, and everyone turned to look at him in disbelief.
Where did you meet this rich second-generation kid?
“Uh…” Ji Wei turned the phone slightly away and explained to his teammates, “This is Lin Tao, the player I tried out with before. Do you remember him?”
Xu Shaoqiu immediately realized, “I remember that kid who came here during summer vacation just to spite his parents. He’s only fifteen, right?”
Lin Tao didn’t hear Xu Shaoqiu’s words and continued, “Come on, come on. I’ve got top-of-the-line computers at home, but only two. I can have someone buy two more right away.”
Ji Wei hesitated. “Won’t… won’t that be too expensive?”
“Expensive? Are you talking about me?”
“…”
Finally, Xu Shaoqiu took the phone and, after thanking him profusely, accepted the invitation.
Da Shu was still dazed by Lin Tao’s earlier words: I have homes in many places.
“We actually had such an amazing trainee on our team? Why didn’t you keep him, Brother Qiu? You’re out of your mind!”
Xu Shaoqiu replied, “He clearly wasn’t interested in going pro back then. He was just playing for fun. As soon as the tryout ended, he told me he was going back to school.”
“Oh my god,” Da Shu grinned. “Rich people treating pro gaming like a hobby—it’s unbelievable.”
Half an hour later, the AVG team stood inside an elegant villa with its own fountain and garden, realizing just how many unimaginable things existed in this world.
Da Shu barely remembered the trainee who had briefly stayed at their base. What stuck in his mind was that the kid had been a die-hard Mi Li fan.
After being welcomed into the villa by the butler, he scurried over to Mi Li like a rat and grabbed his teammate’s wrist.
“I’m begging you, this is your big break! Whether you can seize it or not is up to you. Our team already has a precedent of sleeping with fans—get him to sponsor you and let me get rich too!”
Mi Li kicked Da Shu. “Shut up.”
A noise came from the stairs.
Lin Tao ran down excitedly and grabbed Ji Wei’s hand. “Long time no see, Brother Wei!”
“And Brother Solve…” Lin Tao glanced at the man behind Ji Wei, recalled the online gossip, and quietly let go of his hand.
“Don’t be scared.” Ji Wei turned, winked at Yin Sijue, then reached out and took Lin Tao’s hand again. “You’re a lifesaver for letting us train here.”
Yin Sijue nodded at Lin Tao. “Thank you.”
Understanding how valuable a pro player’s time was, Lin Tao acted quickly, having new computers delivered and fully assembled on the spot so they could start training right away.
“Holy crap.” Da Shu ran his hand over the brand-new setup. “This is miles better than the junk the organizers gave us. I feel like I just went from the slums to a millionaire’s home.”
“That’s not just a millionaire’s home. Hurry up and practice.” Xu Shaoqiu smacked him lightly on the head. “You’ve only got a few hours tonight—make them count.”
“You guys can come again tomorrow, right? You don’t have a match?” Lin Tao had several plates of sliced fruit set on the table. “I’ve got nothing to do during summer break anyway, so I’d love to watch my idol play up close.”
Xu Shaoqiu said, “Your idol? Oh, right—Mi Li. I’ll have him sign ten autographs for you later. Don’t say we never give back.”
Mi Li: “…Okay, brother.”
…
After playing five scrimmages against PCL teams in one night, AVG secured four victories.
Freed from the sluggish, unreliable computers, everyone felt more comfortable with their setups, and the strengths of the new roster became more apparent as they adjusted.
Previously, AVG had been a true gunfight-oriented team, with thrilling moments in almost every match. Close calls during landings were routine, and their aggressive, open-field shootouts were a delight for the audience.
But that’s the nature of aggressive teams — you have to accept both their brilliance and their flaws.
In past tournaments, AVG’s rankings fluctuated wildly: they could top the table one day and get wiped out the next.
UGC, another powerhouse team in the PCL, is a master of strategic play. While their raw firepower might not match other teams, they consistently reach the finals. When luck isn’t on their side, they create it. Many viewers accuse them of “buying” their way into the finals, but in reality, it’s their strategic precision that drives their success.
Of course, professional teams don’t always stick to one playstyle. With Ji Wei’s arrival, AVG gradually shifted, developing a dual-leadership system: Solve commands during landings and frontal skirmishes, while Unique handles rotations and circle predictions.
In short, Yin Sijue focuses on securing elimination points, while Ji Wei ensures ranking points.
This dual-leadership setup is almost unheard of among other teams, since differing leadership styles often lead to conflicts — leaving players unsure whom to follow and resulting in chaotic plays.
But Yin Sijue and Ji Wei don’t have that problem. Their natural chemistry makes them a perfect match for PUBG.
A day later, the third round-robin of the PGC group stage began as scheduled.
Since today’s match featured two championship favorites — SOP and AVG — the crowd was noticeably larger than on previous days. Most of the spectators were Korean, which was expected when playing on a rival’s home turf.
“Don’t look around during the game, don’t shout, and don’t glance at your teammates’ screens even if you’re eliminated,” Xu Shaoqiu reminded Ji Wei. “PGC rules are stricter than PCL’s, and the referees aren’t from our region, so be cautious.”
Da Shu, carrying his peripherals as he prepared to go on stage, looked confused. “Why so nervous? Unique’s never broken any rules.”
Xu Shaoqiu frowned. “I found out yesterday that the organizers’ computers for the Korean teams were running perfectly — no lag at all. And SOP didn’t actually get fined for their misconduct. I’m starting to doubt the fairness of this PGC.”
“At the very least, let’s not give them any excuse to cause trouble.”
In a sense, Xu Shaoqiu’s words turned out to be a blessing.
Ten minutes later, the four AVG players took their seats. After the referee finished checking their equipment, the first match officially began.
The opening map was the island — a route stretching from the mines to K Town. If nothing unexpected happened, AVG would choose their usual drop point, Port G.
Assuming nothing unexpected happened.
In the game, the low hum of the airplane buzzed in their ears. The bird’s-eye view of the island was breathtaking. The team marked Port G on the map, deciding to wait until the flight path was at its closest point before jumping.
Just as the AVG members pressed the jump button, Da Shu — the one responsible for gathering information — nearly screamed out loud.
In the air, several squads were dropping toward Port G along with them, lined up in a dense formation — at least three teams in total!