Chapter 453 – Unable to Speak

“You guys...... had it all planned beforehand?” Chen Guo finally understood. Ye Xiu didn’t need to explain anything to her.

It was true that Lord Grim had joined Guild Heavenly Justice, but it had never been said that Lord Grim would join the team. Everyone had only thought that.

Now that Team Heavenly Swords made everything clear, Ye Qiu was in a great spot. With this sudden turn of events, the players would think that they had made a mistake. They might even think that Lord Grim wasn’t Ye Qiu.

“Pretty much. I was really only there as a guest performer to help Loulan Slash publicize his team.” Ye Xiu said.

“Who guest performs like you? The amount of attention you got was even more than their team!” Chen Guo said.

“That’s what happens when you borrow someone else. It’s how you get everyone’s attention!” Ye Xiu said. His QQ made a noise. Loulan Slash saw that he wasn’t in-game, so he went to see if Ye Xiu was on QQ.

“Nice!” Ye Xiu replied: “That was a great press conference!”

“Ha ha ha, too splendid. When those reporters heard that we were going to open a press conference, they immediately gathered there. We prepared the answers to questions relating to you a long time ago. The moment those reporters heard the spokesman say that Ye Qiu definitely wasn’t joining Team Heavenly Swords, you should have seen the expression on their faces! It was amazing!” Loulan Slash said and sent a few pictures of the dumbstruck expressions.

“They really are amazing.” Ye Xiu appreciated them.

“Ha ha ha.” Loulan Slash was very happy. Their plan had gone perfectly. There wasn’t much else to talk about after saying that. It was clear that the reporters were mainly for that one question. First, they asked a few questions regarding the team out of courtesy and then immediately switched to inquiring about Lord Grim.

The spokesperson repeated his statement again and for the questions asking about Lord Grim, he simply replied saying his weapon was a secret and couldn’t be revealed to the public.

“Why did Loulan Slash cooperate with you?” Chen Guo wondered.

“I helped publicize his team. Why wouldn’t he cooperate with me?” Ye Xiu said.

“But if he used your identity as Ye Qiu, he could have gotten even more attention. He could have also pulled in a whole bunch of your fans, no?” Chen Guo’s reasoning was also logical. Even though most people had been angry at Ye Qiu after the previous reports, there were also quite a few who defended Ye Qiu. These few were clearly loyal fans of Ye Qiu and supported their idol unconditionally.

“However, I really wasn’t going to join them. That’s the truth. It would have been seen through sooner or later.” Ye Xiu said.

“But with the way they did things, they’re also just making everything unnecessarily complicated. Lord Grim is you. That’ll be revealed sooner or later too. Doing it this way won’t win much of a favorable impression either, no?” Chen Guo said.

“It’s different. The way they did things is simply a trick to hype up everyone. There will be many chances in the future to slowly dissolve the situation. But if they directly said that I had joined their Team Heavenly Swords, then they would be lying. Once their lie came out, they would provoke a lot of hate from the players and it wouldn’t be easy to dissolve the situation. Loulan Slash wants to be relevant in the Alliance for a long time, so he doesn’t want that type of stain.” Ye Xiu said.

“Oh.......” Chen Guo acted like she understood, even though she didn’t. Today, she hadn’t done any fighting in the game, but the several waves of news, made her emotions go up and down all day. It was even more of a thrill than fighting. Chen Guo was now convinced that the competition in the pro scene wasn’t just as simple as characters fighting in matches.

“Are you still going to play today?” Chen Guo asked.

“It’s better not to for now! I’ll be taking a look at the situation after the announcement.” Ye Xiu said. After the Spring Festival, Ye Xiu’s work and rest schedule had been slowly changing to a normal person’s. Before, he had to stay up all night because he had to take up the night shift. But now he only had to focus on the game, it didn’t matter whether he played during the daytime or during the nighttime. With Chen Guo’s frequent shouts, he would probably be heading towards a healthier schedule.

The newly released statement naturally lifted another huge wave.

The thoughts of the players were about the same as Chen Guo’s. All of the news being released today made it so their hearts couldn’t take it anymore.

They had just thought that Lord Grim was Ye Qiu, when Team Heavenly Swords clearly said that they hadn’t roped in Ye Qiu.

Just like Chen Guo thought, the players immediately felt that Lord Grim actually wasn’t Ye Qiu.

If Lord Grim wasn’t Ye Qiu, then Ye Qiu’s name didn’t need to be brought into the discussion. As a result, Lord Grim once again became a “mystery man”. Who exactly was he? Everyone began guessing again. This Lord Grim beat Huang Shaotian. He had been acknowledged by the Gods, who had unanimously believed that it was likely that he was Ye Qiu. But he wasn’t actually Ye Qiu. There were only so many Gods in the scene. From the looks of it, it was actually his first time stepping into the pro scene. Was he some sort of immortal that had just come out of closed door training?

When the Clubs saw the reports that night, they were all dumbstruck.

These Clubs were just like the players and immediately felt like Lord Grim wasn’t Ye Qiu. They were suddenly very upset. If he wasn’t Ye Qiu, then why didn’t they try and rope him in? Who told them that Lord Grim was Ye Qiu? Had the pro players made a mistake? After all, no one had personally witnessed Ye Qiu controlling Lord Grim.

Some were completely certain though. For example, Huang Shaotian, Liu Hao, Han Wenqing, Wang Jiexi. All of them had talked with Lord Grim and Ye Qiu directly and were 100% sure about this point. They were having a bit of trouble understanding after seeing Team Heavenly Sword’s press conference.

“I can’t believe he has the balls to lie like that!” Huang Shaotian was dumbstruck and was about to look for Ye Xiu to ask.

Yu Wenzhou quietly thought for a bit before saying: “Maybe it’s not a lie.”

“How could it not be! Lord Grim is obviously Ye Qiu. Hm? Wait a sec.......” Huang Shaotian looked more carefully at the statement and then immediately understood.

“See! Heavenly Sword’s people never said that Lord Grim isn’t Ye Qiu.” Yu Wenzhou said.

“You’re right!” Huang Shaotian recalled Team Heavenly Sword’s marketing from the beginning to end. From the very start, when the news came out that Lord Grim had joined Heavenly Justice, they had never put Lord Grim and Ye Qiu together.

“What a beautiful plan to create hype!” Yu Wenzhou said.

“If it’s just for hype, wouldn’t it be better to reveal Ye Qiu’s identity?” Huang Shaotian said.

“Didn’t you hear the official statement? Ye Qiu isn’t joining their Team Heavenly Sword.” Yu Wenzhou said.

“Oh.......”

“The team and the guild in the game are two different things.” Yu Wenzhou said.

“How crafty.” Huang Shaotian said.

“Unless you’re absolutely sure that Lord Grim is Ye Qiu like us, I doubt many will be able to see through the scheme.” Yu Wenzhou said.

“But we can’t prove anything either.” Huang Shaotian said.

“We don’t need any proof.” Yu Wenzhou said, “The people who are having it the most difficult right now is probably Excellent Era. It was lucky they made that statement this afternoon.”

“Ha ha ha, it’ll be a bit difficult, but they didn’t lose anything. They made it clear that even if Lord Grim is Ye Qiu, they would still have a professional attitude, which pretty much means that they regard him first as a competitor and opponent. They will do what they need to do. Even if their opponent isn’t Ye Qiu, they can still do what they like. Even if it’d made clear in the future, it doesn’t matter, no?” Huang Shaotian said.

“That’s certainly true, but their goal was to create an unfavorable public opinion of Ye Qiu. This statement effectively neutralized this.” Yu Wenzhou said.

“A pity. They probably can’t prove that Lord Grim is Ye Qiu either.” Huang Shaotian said.

Yu Wenzhou and Huang Shaotian had already analyzed Excellent Era’s situation well. On the other hand, Excellent Era themselves didn’t react as quickly as the two of them.

They had confirmed that Lord Grim is Ye Qiu. After seeing the news, they were extremely angry at the scheme set up by Team Heavenly Sword and Ye Qiu and had completely forgotten about their statement that afternoon.

After a lot of yelling, Wang Sheng was able to clearly see the word game being played around in these statements.

However, just like Yu Wenzhou and Huang Shaotian predicted, there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t prove that Lord Grim is Ye Qiu!

After thinking about it for a bit, exposing their opponent’s plot and proving that Lord Grim is Ye Qiu wouldn’t really benefit them in any way. Team Heavenly Sword had attracted a huge amount of attention from this. If they jumped out and struck back during this hype, they wouldn’t interrupt it, but instead help them even more.

Even though Excellent Era could attract a lot of eyes this way too, but Excellent Era was an old established team. If they were going to hype things up, they would have to fight with someone of equal status as them. Picking a fight against a new team would make them drop in status. The other side would actually pull themselves up using Excellent Era’s drop instead. If Excellent Era wasn’t even able to see this, then there was no way they would have been able to stay in the Alliance for so many years.

In the end, Excellent Era could only grind their teeth and hold it in. Seeing the forums explode with guessed to this “mystery man” while not being able to speak the truth was truly quite painful.

“We can’t give them another opportunity to attract more attention. Picking a fight would be falling into their trap.” Wang Sheng said.

“Mm, but we can’t have them think we’re idiots. Make another statement, reinforcing our previous statement and that it still holds.” The director slapped the table.