Chapter 53

“Brother Zhou! I just heard that you officially joined the team yesterday! I was just thinking about calling you when you called me!”

Qiao Yanzhou had just come out of Coach Chen’s office when he called Liang Dong. It was already dark outside. On the phone, Liang Dong’s voice was very loud and there was also a lot of background noise. It vibrated Qiao Yanzhou’s ears, making it hurt. 

Gu Zixing was following behind Qiao Yanzhou and didn’t make a sound. Because he told Qiao Yanzhou that he would take him to the ancient town in Lin District to celebrate his smooth entry to the team, Gu Zixing intentionally switched to casual clothes ahead of time. But they had only just left the door when Qiao Yanzhou was called over by Coach Chen. 

It wasn’t anything big, he was just asking him to actively participate in the team arrangements and activities during his internship. Training was also required to attend, and there was also talk about his salary and his Ivory Cat streaming contract. 

None of these were bad things, all the requirements were things Qiao Yanzhou could handle. And his streaming contract with Ivory Cat was to remain, letting Qiao Yanzhou relax a bit more with his streaming. 

This all seemed pretty good to him. 

Seeing that everything was settled, Qiao Yanzhoul could finally breathe a sigh of relief. His body was finally relaxed and he could settle himself and call Liang Dong. Liang Dong had been trying to ask him recently so Qiao Yanzhou was also feeling a bit apologetic. 

As soon as Liang Dong picked up, his loud voice crashed into Qiao Yanzhou’s ear. But he was curious about how Liang Dong knew about him entering the team. He never told him, how come Liang Dong already knew….

“Who did you hear this from?” Qiao Yanzhou asked. 

“EG’s official Weibo account, did you not see it? Pictures are already up, looking pretty handsome.” Liang Dong’s tone was full of astonishment. “My god, are you still on earth?”

“No, I went to EG’s moon division, the environment is nice.”

“Badass.” Liang Dong laughed for a while before saying, “But I was looking at the comments on your weibo, your fans probably have insiders in EG, were able to leak secrets.

“Could be real or fake, seems pretty coincidental.” Qiao Yanzhou was a bit startled and looked towards Gu Zixing next to him, only for Gu Zixing to give him a ‘what are you looking at’ expression.

“Leaking secrets is out of the question… but EG’s coach and manager really did find me to talk it over.”

“Talk about what?”

“Everything, even asked if I had any requests for my salary.”

“Wow you're so awesome my Zhou!” Liang Dong’s tone was more excited than Qiao Yanzhou. Qiao Yanzhou felt like he was ready to bounce around on the other side of the phone. 

“It’s currently only an intern period, so it’s still early to get full membership ne.” Knowing that Liang Dong would be excited for no reason, Qiao Yanzhou hurried to throw a pot of cold water on him, but it seemed to have no effect whatsoever. 

“Don’t say intern, Brother Zhou if you ask Zhao Lingling to go to EG to pour tea and clean bathrooms, see if she's willing or not.” Liang Dong snorted, “She’d die to be able to!” 

“What are you saying about me again!” 

Zhao Lingling’s voice suddenly came over from the phone, but it seemed like she was very far away. She probably started walking towards Liang Dong. 

Seeing this, Liang Dong hurried to lower his voice and ask into the phone. “Brother Zhou brother Zhou, is God Gu near you?”

“Yes.” Qiao Yanzhou turned his head again to look at Gu Zixing. 

“You look like a monkey with you glancing over.” Gu Zixing held a cigarette in his mouth. “Keep looking and I’ll charge a fee.”

Qiao Yanzhou stared coldly at Gu Zixing. 

“Then I’ll hurry to hang up, family shames should not be spread around. If Zhao Lingling snatches the phone from me, God Gu will think you’re talking to a mental patient.”

Qiao Yanzhou couldn’t help but laugh. “Ok ok, you should hang up ba.”

“That's right brother Zhou, don’t forget to call home. A few days ago, Qiao Ai even sent me a wechat message asking about you!”

He didn’t even wait for Qiao Yanzhou to reply before Liang Dong just hung up.

Qiao Ai ah… Qiao Yanzhou sighed at his phone. 

Actually Qiao Yanzhou had also thought about calling home to tell them about what happened recently, but he was afraid of his mother ranting endlessly to him that would make him vexed. Not to mention his mother was of an older generation who thought lowly of the younger generations in esports. If Qiao Yanzhou really wanted to reach out to his mother, then he’d have to carefully word things. Thinking about it already made him tired. 

If he was like Gu Zixing where each competition he got tens of thousands, he could easily say that his worth was double or tripled. But he was just a small shrimp still in the internship period. 

“What are you mulling over?” Seeing that Qiao Yanzhou continued to stare blankly at his black phone screen, Gu Zixing leaned his head towards Qiao Yanzhou and asked him a question. 

“Say… should I call my family and let them know?” Qiao Yanzhou grasped his phone and hesitated. “I haven't told my mom that I even came to the org. My mom currently thinks that I’m still a streamer ne.”

“If you want to say it then say it.” Gu Zixing looked at the heavy expression on Qiao Yanzhou’s face. “What? Your family doesn't want you going down this route?”

“I can’t say that they don’t want to. In any case, if my mom knew, she would definitely be disappointed in me…”

“You didn’t steal or fight anyone, what's there to be disappointed in?”

“Disappointed that I didn't mature.” Qiao Yanzhou bitterly laughed. “Everyone wants to be like you. Since entering the team till now, you are worth millions. Just look at Zhao Qin, about to be 24 but he’s still a substitute. Maybe I’ll be ranked even lower than Zhao Qin.”

Gu Zixing didn’t respond. 

“So I was thinking, I’ll just wait to officially enter the team and then I’ll say something ba.” 

Gu Zixing understood Qiao Yanzhou’s current mood. Although when he first entered the team he was treated like a treasure, but Gu Zixing had watched many people enter the Org and retire from the Org; their face was never revealed even once. 

Zhao Qin was still considered pretty good. He at least managed to go onstage once for a competition. There were many people in the alliance who, let alone never played in a normal professional competition, they couldn't even get in on offline scrims.

The professional teams… their grand appearance was proportional to the bitterness behind it.

“Remember to come and train tomorrow, don’t forget.” Gu Zixing’s voice was very low, deliberately switching the topics. 

Qiao Yanzhou nodded. 

**

Gu Zixing originally was going to take Qiao Yanzhou to the area of that ancient town in his car, but then thinking that there were a lot of people there at night, it would be hard to park his car, so at the last moment they decided to take the subway.

It was already dark outside when the two happened to run into Manager Ren at the entrance of EG. Whether it was good or bad, Manager Ren also happened to see them. 

“Manager Ren.” Qiao Yanzhou greeted him first. Although usually when he comes across someone older than him, he would pretend to play on his cellphone to hide, unfortunately he accidentally made eye contact with him.

“Ai, Xiao Zhou.” Manager Ren nodded his head first in acknowledgement, then immediately twisted his head to look at Gu Zixing by his side. 

Qiao Yanzhou was able to clearly see that Manager Ren’s facial expression changed a bit, but just as quickly it returned to his original smiling expression. “Going out?”

“En.” Qiao Yanzhou nodded. 

“Be careful on the road.”

“Will do.”

Seeing that Manager Ren looked like he wanted to hurry and leave, Qiao Yanzhou originally wanted to continue walking when suddenly Gu Zixing interjected from behind him. “Are you very close with Ren Ming?”

“Not close.” Qiao Yanzhou shook his head, “But no matter what, he’s still the manager. I still need to greet him properly.”

“Don’t get too close to him in the future.”

“Ah?”

“Don't. Get. Too. Close.” Gu Zixing faced towards Qiao Yanzhou and counted out 4 words with his fingers. “Which word did you not understand?”

“I don’t understand why…” Qiao Yanzhou said. 

“So many questions.” Gu Zxing raised his eyebrow. “You interested in that pedophile?”

“Qi, you're not a pedophile, so that means...”

“En?”

“Even though it was me who moved first.”

Qiao Yanzhou didn't know how he managed his face speaking of this issue again. He suddenly felt that his shameless skills had improved in the past few days. At the speed he was going, the day his shamelessness reached great heights wasn’t far off.

In fact when he was on the phone with Liang Dong, he was already thinking of a method: If Zhao Lingling knew that her cherished male god already did perverted sins with him, then he was scared that she'd throw him into a fryer to turn him into fried shrimp.

It was a bit frightening, but it was also a bit exciting, very perverted.

Besides this, Qiao Yanzhou was also at a loss about something. And that was that he didn't have the guts to confirm something with Gu Zixing — Was he considered bent? If it counted, then did it mean that he and Gu Zixing were together? 

In the middle of this messy question, he could only confirm one small thing. No matter if it was his body or his mind, he couldn’t be in conflict with Gu Zixing.

Even though Qiao Yanzhou didn't have conflict with Liang Dong, there was still a difference. If the person he laid on the bed with that night when he was drunk was Liang Dong, then the next day when they woke up, one of them was bound to go to the hospital. Not to brag or slander, but if it wasn’t death then it was a heavy injury.

Up to now Qiao Yanzhou could still remember clearly the sensation of Gu Zixing’s ice cold palm as well as an indescribable tenderness. With this type of languid tone, if it was leaked outside, don't know how many young girls he would drive crazy.

And when Qiao Yanzhou sobered up and saw Gu Zixing again, besides being embarrassed, he unexpectedly didn’t have even a tiny bit of disgust. 

If this shouldn’t be the mindset of a straight guy, then Qiao Yanzhou was definitely confirmed to have been bent into a coil. 

“Where is the ancient town?” Can’t think about it anymore, it’s simply too gay. Qiao Yanzhou shook his head and randomly found a topic to switch to.

“Take Line 4 towards 6th station then walk a bit.” Gu Zixing yawned. 

Although the place was called an ancient town, this was actually a food street that was specially decorated to look like ancient times. If they continued to walk up the street, not too far they would see a big lake called Wangjun Lake. Next to the lake, there were even a few ancient buildings. As soon as night hit, the inside and outside of the buildings would emit light that was beautiful to look at. It was a place that was popular for lovers to have a date.

“Qi Chen will also come over in a bit, he's the training partner for Shen Yinan.”

“Shen Yinan?”

Gu Zixing nodded then suddenly laughed. “Coach Chen originally wanted me to do it, but Shen Yinan refused no matter what.” 

“Probably scared of being beaten up by you.” Qiao Yanzhou also laughed. When he thought of Shen Yinan’s ugly face getting slapped into dust by Gu Zixing, for some reason he felt stimulated.

“Shen Yinan is staying on the team?” After laughing for a while, Qiao Yanzhou finally realized he didn’t ask this important question. 

“Nope, he spent money to find a training partner on the team.” Gu Zixing smacked his lips, “He wants to add two extra hours every time Qi Chen is finished with training for the day.”

“Like this ah…. “ Qiao Yanzhou frowned. “Then how much is it ah?”

“The price of Qi Chen? About 6k for an hour.”

About $833 USD

“That expensive!?” Qiao Yanzhou was a bit astonished, but when he thought about it again, it made sense. Qi Chen and Gu Zixing were both world champions, 6k or more was actually not that strange. 

“Then if it's you? One hour…” Qiao Yanzhou looked at Gu Zixing, only to realize that Gu Zixing was beaming with smiles at him. He suddenly didn't really dare to continue to ask. 

But the little abacus in his mind was still going.

If the fee was related to his reputation and skill, and you started calculating from when he became a pro, then Gu Zixing at minimum had to be twice that amount. 

Lets say Gu Zixing cost 12k an hour, then for those nights when Gu Zixing would play with him from 8pm until 1 or 2 am. F*ck…

Around $8k - 10k USD per night.

“What are you calculating?” Gu Zixing smiled as he asked, interrupting Qiao Yaznhou’s train of thought. 

“Calculating how much money this life is worth.”

“In fact, if you want to pay it back….” Gu Zixing stooped lower to lean right up against Qiao Yanzhou’s ear, “It can always be paid off~”