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Xue Wei’s voice disappeared.

At the same time, a duo queue invitation popped up on his game page.

The green microphone icon next to [CHN.Pretty] flickered: “I have something to do tonight, can only play one round.”

Xue Wei: “Mm.”

The two entered the map.

It was still the DOOR map.
Wen Man said: “This round, you follow me, I’ll take you to sweep the map.”

Xue Wei didn’t say anything; he remained very silent, but once in the game, he surprisingly didn’t pick a sniper weapon, only taking a small USP and following behind Wen Man.

The two moved quickly and didn’t follow conventional tactics to hold points, just wandering around in circles, from CT base to T base.
They would kill anyone they saw but never actively initiated attacks.

Two minutes later, all their teammates were dead, and the two of them were still ‘strolling around’.

Bullet comments: “Is this the legendary ‘strolling’ playstyle?”

“Don’t tell me, God Wen is teaching him to learn the map, huh?”

On screen, Wen Man took him around to see a few conventional tactical spots, such as the side ramp or a certain cover point that could be shot through walls.

He didn’t speak much on the mic.

He would stop at a new position, and Xue Wei would stop with him, his perspective shifting, looking up and down.

The two had little communication, but Wen Man’s open mic was never turned off, only soft breathing could be heard.

By the fifth round, some sounds emerged from Wen Man’s end: a phone ringing, chairs being pushed, and the muffled voice of another unfamiliar man: “Captain Wen, SSQ said they want to… this matter might require contacting EGT’s former manager…”

Xue Wei looked up, seeing his character model freeze.

Wen Man typed: [You keep playing, I’ll be AFK for a bit.]

“Oh,” Xue Wei said.

They had spent four rounds ‘map-running’.
Xue Wei was already familiar with the general common tactical spots, so he also stopped.
Holding a small USP-S, he didn’t move, just stayed there, planting the bomb and waiting for the CT enemies to come for the siege.

Bullet comments: “They’re not moving at all, Naonao, you love him so much.”

“Is the upstairs comment spouting nonsense? If I could duo queue with God Wen, I’d be his leg ornament; I’d live and die with him!”

His teammates discovered Wen Man was AFK.
They called out to Xue Wei: “Brother #3, why don’t you come and join us?”

Xue Wei: “Don’t want to move.”

Teammate: “? It only takes ten seconds to walk from your spot to B site.”

Xue Wei: “No strength.”

Teammate: “?”

The teammates were nearly frantic: “But they’re coming soon, ahhhhh—”

“It’s okay,” Xue Wei said, “I’ll lead you to victory.”

He glanced at the direction and started firing blank shots.

The sound quickly attracted two enemies.

Xue Wei raised his USP and cleanly picked off two.

Another was mobbed and killed by his teammates.

This round was a victory.

Wen Man was still AFK and hadn’t returned.

The next round he simply respawned at home base.

Mid-match, Wen Man’s previously grayed-out mic suddenly lit up again.

He was talking to his teammates: “Sorry, I have something I must leave for now. I’ll have my friend play.”

This round, two of the teammates were also Chinese and recognized him: “It’s fine, it’s fine, God Wen, you can just leave. The little brother you’re duo queuing with is quite good too. We won’t lose this round.”

This round truly couldn’t be lost; the score was already 7:0.
Nine more rounds and it would be over.

“Mm,” Wen Man said, “Then I’ll be going.”

He said that and then went silent, presumably having left.

Xue Wei also stopped moving.

On the other side, Alan rushed up, sweating profusely: “What happened, what happened, what’s wrong?”

He had just been taking students to eat Wagyu hot pot outside the esports park.
He had just blanched a slice of fatty beef and hadn’t even eaten it yet when Wen Man’s urgent phone call summoned him back.

He looked up.
Wen Man pointed at the computer, his dark peach blossom eyes lowered, very casually: “Help me finish this game.”

Alan almost broke down: “I gave up an expensive hot pot meal, and you’re telling me it’s just to play one game?”

“Mm.” Wen Man didn’t seem to think there was any problem.
Alan grumbled as he approached, only then realizing Wen Man had changed clothes and was holding a file bag, seemingly preparing to leave.

“Where are you going?”

Wen Man waved the file bag behind him: “Going to B City. The manager will tell you the rest later; please help handle it.”

B City.

Alan frowned.

A city tens of thousands of miles away from them.
Wen Man probably still had to catch a night flight.

A few team members downstairs heard the commotion and peeked their heads up.

“Captain, do you have to go out?” A young man mustered his courage and asked, “What’s going on? How long until you’re back?”

“What’s wrong?” Wen Man glanced at him with his peach blossom eyes.

That student was a sniper personally chosen by Wen Man, ID Pandora, known as ‘Little Pretty’.
The public generally believed he would eventually take over Wen Man’s role.

He found it a bit hard to articulate: “You… haven’t taken us to play in a few days. The break is almost over. We want to…”

“I won’t be leading the team or participating in internal team training next season.” Wen Man pressed the doorknob, his voice quick, with a hint of indifferent composure, “If anything comes up, find Alan and the head coach.”

The young man fell silent; the others exchanged glances.

“But Captain Wen is clearly holding…” Someone whispered, “Clearly holding a contract and documents for signing someone.”

Their rules stated that whether it was signing a talent agreement with a club or recruiting from the youth training team into the national team, whoever was responsible would be the one to sign the agreement.

Wen Man had signed the entire national team previously with the same kind of arrangement.

He was going to sign a newcomer today.

Upstairs.

Alan sat in Wen Man’s gaming chair, utterly bewildered.

On Wen Man’s desk were three monitors.
One displayed his main account’s competitive page, another was a live stream page.

“EGT.Now…” After reading it, Alan suddenly slapped his forehead, “It’s him! That little practice squad member!”

Alan quickly opened his mic, maneuvering Wen Man’s character into the battle.

The small green microphone flickered.
He enthusiastically greeted Xue Wei: “Hello there! I’m Alan, here to help him play. Are you duo queuing with him?”

His words received no response.
On the other side, Xue Wei cleanly picked off an enemy with his Desert Eagle, then typed in public chat: [Mm.]

Very cold.

Just as cold as when he rejected his friend request that day.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take over for him!” Alan said, “I’m quite good too! Hold on a second, oh my, I need to adjust my mouse sensitivity… I’m going to throw up. Nausea always comes so suddenly.”

He adjusted his settings while looking at the live stream on the other monitor.

The ‘bros’ in the live stream were all explaining things to Xue Wei.

“Alan is the head coach of the SH team, recently recruited by the national team… no, hired. He used to be a commentator for the Euro Cup, first-class tactical awareness, top-tier free agent, but his mechanics are just at the level of an ordinary noob player.”

Alan had a good temper. After he finished adjusting his settings, he said: “It’s not that bad, my mechanics can still get me to… Silver rank.”

He skillfully entered a position while chatting with Xue Wei.

“Little one,” Alan said with a smile, “God Wen is teaching you to sweep the map, right? Come over, I can also show you. Look here, there’s a shaded pergola, many people will crouch here to ambush others. If you don’t spot them, the consequences are… um? Are you listening?”

Xue Wei gave him six dots.

Alan didn’t understand what he meant.
From those six dots, he felt his self-esteem had been slightly challenged.

He decided to say something more difficult: “Cough, and over here, there’s a very narrow corner with cover. As for the wall thickness, the opponent can jump down from the window, and bullets can instantly penetrate the box to hit you. The recoil will give them a hang time of about 0.5 seconds, different from normal freefall time. Many veterans wouldn’t react in time…”

Bullet comments: “National team coach giving live lessons! Everyone understood!”

“Isn’t this something everyone already knows, but most people can’t pull off this maneuver.”

“They can. In international matches, God Wen used this maneuver to kill a North American team’s assaulter three times. After that, this position became heavily guarded, and only later did people learn this playstyle. If it occasionally comes out in high-level matches, then any enemy directly encountered will surely die.”

“Is the streamer that awesome, not even speaking when a national team coach is personally instructing him.”

“How about it?” Alan asked Xue Wei, his voice betraying a hint of small pride.

Xue Wei paused for a while.
His microphone finally began to flicker.

“Why?”

Alan: “?”

“What ‘why’?”

Xue Wei glanced at the two places he mentioned: “Why would one fail to spot the enemy?”

Alan choked: “Well… they just wouldn’t react in time.”

“Why wouldn’t they react in time?” Xue Wei continued to ask.
He mowed down an enemy who peeked out from behind a wall with a burst of fire.

“Because…”

Alan suddenly fell silent.

He was standing right behind Xue Wei, and the enemy that Xue Wei had just shot dead—he hadn’t even seen them.

He used to be a commentator, and a professional one at that, for the European Champions Cup, and even the World Championship.

The strict requirements of this profession were dynamic vision and reaction speed.

A commentator must be able to keep up with rapidly changing developments and quickly formulate them into coherent spoken logic to maintain their position at the commentary desk.

At that instant, he hadn’t even seen the person.

Even he couldn’t help but have a thought cross his mind—could it be hacking?

Xue Wei’s and Wen Man’s accounts both had extremely high hidden combat power.

Although their scores were only 1500+, the enemies they actually matched with were all 2200+ and above.

Especially the one on the opposite side who was 2500, the one Xue Wei had just killed.

This enemy should have just been trying to peek to get vision, using the body shake when switching guns to peek and retract in an extremely short time.

This entire process would not exceed 0.5 seconds.

This was even more outrageous than the blind judgment when killing Ming Xu last time.

This player also couldn’t help but speak in public chat: “new hacker?”

Bullet comments surged: “Holy crap, that’s insane, how was that shot fired? How did the opponent die? Did the damage wall-bang?”

“Sit down, it’s just typical hacker moves. Haven’t you seen the national team members constantly playing ranked with him these past few days? Isn’t it just to identify new hackers? I’ve been watching his stream for several days, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a hacker so brazen. He’s from EGT, even though it’s a practice squad, he can’t even be a youth training substitute, but he’s still under the national team’s jurisdiction. National team, please handle this!”

“Right, right, Coach Alan is also present this time, and he’s on Pretty’s account, he saw it! This matter must have a resolution, we’ve already sent an email to the official team!”
This was a comment from a small fan of SSQ.Ming Xu.

“Dying laughing, still dares to stream all day, with the title ‘Solo King,’ showing off to the national team. I’ll just wait and see what he does after he gets exposed.”

Xue Wei raised his eyes, glanced at the bullet comments, then indifferently shifted his gaze away.

Just then, a friend request popped up in his chat window.

[SSQ Training Group.Vee] sent you a friend request. Do you accept?

Verification message: Hello, would it be convenient to get to know each other?