Book 1 — 30

Book 1: Chapter 30

After the sponsor finished his speech, the competition officially began.

But surprisingly, the big screen was blank, without even a list of names for matches.

“As I had said earlier, today’s competition will be the most remarkable one in this half year.” The male commentator stood up, suddenly placing one hand in his pocket and slowly strolled to the front of the stage. “Whose signature move is this?”

The audience yelled Solo.

He moved in this manner every time he walked up to receive awards or walked into the competition arena.

Ai Qing looked at him.

Solo faintly smiled but didn’t look back at her. “The camera is on you.”

Ai Qing, startled, immediately turned around to look. It was a close-up of Solo and her on the big screen……

The commentator curved up his index finger and pushed upward the frame of his glasses. “How about this one?”

One particular area in the audience, where about 30 some girls shouted in unison as if they had rehearsed before. “Grunt~”

“So, everyone here thinks the highlight of today is the match between Grunt and Solo?”

The audience didn’t know how to answer.

“Today’s highlight really is Solo.” The commentator paused. “But it’s not the exhibition game. Rather it’s the number one team which dominated the CS competitions around 5 or 6 years ago. The team was one of the eight in the final round this time and their old captain Solo happens to be the guest of this competition…… the most incredible thing is that even the one and only female sniper of the team, Gou Gou, is here too.”

“Is this an accident? Or did you guys plan this all along?” The female commentator also stood up and looked at All.

All faintly sighed and half jokingly said, “Fate, this is fate. Don’t you all know that I have a crush on Gou Gou?”

Ai Qing laughingly slapped him; just plain nonsense.

“I’m a fan of Gou Gou too. I even drew a cartoon version of her. I’ve always been curious to find out how many boys at the time used Gou Gou’s picture as their desktop background?” Several veteran CS players in the contestant area started to laugh and some of them even raised their hands and yelled I had……

The male commentator coughed and seriously said, “To tell the truth, I did too……”

Everyone in the audience laughed and the awkward atmosphere quickly dissipated.

After all the teasing, the male commentator finally got back to business. “Since Solo’s team disbanded in ‘06, there’s been no other team that could copy their glory in those days. CS as an event also has frozen over; it no longer attracts the same attention as before, no longer has a large following. But we believe that there will be a day when it will get better.” The commentator finally looked towards Ai Qing and the others. “Ever since your team entered the quarterfinals, we have prepared a gift for you and also for those CS players who had gone through 04, 05 with you.”

After he finished talking, he gestured for everyone to be quiet.

The arena gradually quieted down and all the lights turned off.

Ai Qing curiously looked at Solo, Solo shook his head too. “Don’t know what they are up to.”

Suddenly Within Temptation’s ‘Jillian’ started playing, with the vibrating Gothic Metal, the answer began to reveal itself……She watched the big screen with surprise, deeply moved. In the end, she was speechless and just stared at the big screen.

It was a collection of the team’s competitions of ‘05.

The suffocating rhythmic editing put together all the brilliant multi-kills, headshots, excellent flash bangs, and even the classic AWP[1]……

She glanced at All and Xiaomi; one was unusually quiet, the other had tears in his eyes. Just as she moved her eyes away from them, she felt her cell vibrate. She opened it to take a look, it was from Dt: very amazing.

She turned around to look at the audience and could only barely tell which one was Dt.

“Do you miss it?” Solo asked her.

In the deafening metal music, she looked back at Solo’s eyes. “To be honest, a little bit.”

Solo seemed to smile.

She wasn’t sure if it was actually a smile, Solo had already turned his head. “Your picture.”

On the big screen, the competition section was over and pictures of all five of the team members were showing one over another, and another, some were laughing, some were crying with their head raised up, some hugging each other, some were receiving awards……

All the pictures gradually faded, there was only one line left in the dark.

“With this video, we pay respect to Solo’s team of ‘05.”

The music abruptly stopped.

Thundering applause and cheers followed.

Newcomers and veterans who had gone through the glories of ‘04, ‘05 all applauded.

Solo was the first one to stand up and turn around to face the audience bowing deeply. Ai Qing and the others followed him to show their appreciation. She saw Dt was watching towards her direction applauding.