Xiao Qiu was on the bench until he got his cast off, but it didn’t mean he was safe from the devil himself - Lee. Despite having been injured himself, he forced everyone to go for a brisk walk every morning and evening, restricted their diets to only food recommendations from their doctors, and forced them to do eight hours of training.

For Xiao Qiu who couldn’t be expected to play the game, he could only sit on stream with a sour expression while clicking through videos Lee had sent to him, accompanied by a loving note: “Make sure to take notes, I want to see them at the end of the week <3”

“Evil, he’s evil I tell you!” Xiao Qiu raved to his viewers as he clicked on another link in the document. “Do you know how many times I’ve seen this, do you know?”

[I haven’t seen it!]

[Lee’s doing his best, you should study more…]

[Why do you resemble a cat trying to act tough in front of a bear?]

Xiao Qiu paused the video and scolded his viewers, even going as far as to wave his finger at the camera. “… Whose side are you on, huh?! Don’t sweet talk the enemy.”

[He pays you.]

“Yes, yes, he pays me, but he can be mean at the same time! I want a raise!”

[…]

[This great god should look behind himself more.]

The so called great god flinched as he looked at the comment, then, his eyes drifted from his chat to the screen that showed his camera and had to thank the gods that it wasn’t Lee who was eavesdropping on his ‘private’ conversations.

There Alex was, leaning against the wall as he sucked on a lollipop with amusement playing in his eyes. Once he noticed Xiao Qiu looking toward the bottom right of his second screen, he raised his hand and waved with only his fingers. “Your fans are so cute.”

[Jia Li!]

[I go to Q’s stream and get blessed with Alex! Should I pay more?]

Alex glanced at the chat and hummed. “I’m just dropping by to make sure our little Q is doing his homework…” He watched as Xiao Qiu lowered his foot to spin himself around and quickly said goodbye. “I’ll go back to my practice now, goodbye cuties! Bye, Q.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Meanwhile, at Xiao Yi’s apartment which was still paid for by Lee, Li Hao was sat on the couch, laughing at his phone. “I should clip this, when did Xiao Qiu become so sassy?”

Tang An raised his head and looked at Li Hao’s phone. “Well, who do you think our Yi got it from? It’s Xiao Qiu’s fault!”

Across the room, Mu Yichen yelled from the balcony. “Don’t blame him, you can blame Chen Qiang for it!”

V had long left the apartment, stating that he needed to go to his company to do some paperwork, and Xiao Yi had gone out with Chen Qiang, only leaving the three men in the apartment to act like old retired ladies and gossip.

While they were gossiping, Xiao Yi found himself walking along a side street with Chen Qiang, who had pulled him out of the apartment through the chaos, leaving V to deal with everything. However, it had been so long since they’d last spoken one-on-one that neither of them knew what to say to one another.

After lighting another cigarette for himself, Xiao Yi started the conversation with a question he had pondered over since their last meeting. “Where did you go?”

Chen Qiang was the only one in their group, other than himself, who didn’t venture into the esports world again until now.

Chen Qiang glanced over at Xiao Yi, who wasn’t looking at him and simply said. “I went to Canada, South Korea, and Australia.”

With a small nod, he asked another question. “Where did you stay the longest?”

“Australia. They have beautiful beaches, good weather, welcoming people and it’s gorgeous.”

Xiao Yi glanced over at the older man and saw him looking off into the distance as if reliving his memories of the past four years, and found it a bit surprising. Out of all of them, Chen Qiang actually quite liked the winter. When they were younger, he was the one to get them to go outside and make snowmen, snow angels, sled, and build snow forts and he was the first one to throw a snowball at someone’s back while laughing gleefully.

When they grew up, he was the only one who wanted to take a stroll outside after it snowed.

Before he could ask any more questions, Chen Qiang paused his steps, looked at hi,m and asked. “Even if you couldn’t tell them, why didn’t you tell me?”

Xiao Yi opened his mouth but didn’t respond.

How could he?

Back then, he was focused on getting them to cut their ties to him and abandon him. He didn’t want to drag them into his family drama, nor did he want their careers to be ruined.

Chen Qiang sighed. “You know thats not what I met. We slept in the same room for half our lives, you know I would have understood. At the very least, you should have said something to our parents, they were worried sick!”

Xiao Yi couldn’t argue. He nodded. “I should have explained.”

“…” It was hard to be mad at him when he acted like this!

Chen Qiang shifted direction and asked him. “What have you been up to?”

“Eating, sleeping…” Xiao Yi was going to end there, but when he looked up and saw Chen Qiang’s expectant eyes, he added. “I worked as a game tester and editor for V for a bit, leveled up some alts, and got paid to help level others up.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Hmm. Not really. Everyone was too weak, it’s hard to have fun when you trample over everyone.”

“You said was?”

Xiao Yi nodded and pulled out his phone to check his notifications out of habit. “En, I made a friend.”