Pixel

The discussion was over, and there was nothing else to say.

Alan checked the time: “It’s almost one in the morning. If you have no other questions, I’ll head off first – you can always contact me later if you think of anything. I’ll send you my number in a bit.”

Xue Wei said: “Okay. Thank you, Coach.”

His voice still showed no fluctuation, but Alan was almost moved to tears—

It was so hard! The little lone wolf thanked him! This trip was not in vain!

He came down from the third floor and returned to the second-floor conference room.
Manager Jin gave him an OK gesture: “God Wen’s side is settled; we just need to input the contract.”

“Mm, I just put the kid to bed.” Alan pulled out a chair and sat down, letting out a weary sigh, “By the way, how much did God Wen offer the kid?”

“Fifty million.”

“Fifty…” Alan flinched, almost passing out, “Where do we get that much money? No, is he crazy?!”

“God Wen covered it himself. His exact words were—” Manager Jin played a voice recording for him.
Wen Man’s relaxed, magnetic, deep voice came through, “To buy the future world champion, how much do you think is appropriate?”

Manager Jin spread his hands: “That’s all he said. Anyway, he’s paying for it himself. He’s practically obsessed with that little practice squad member.”

‘I don’t know if he’s crazy or if I am.’ Alan shifted his chair.
Wen Man’s computer was still on, the page paused at the match summary of his game with Xue Wei.

Alan was about to exit for him but suddenly remembered something and instead clicked “Save Replay.”

“What are you doing?”

Alan answered perfunctorily: “I’m watching the replay. Later, I’ll change God Wen’s mouse sensitivity and keybinds back, or he’ll kill me.”

He wanted to see that play from the round he duo queued with Xue Wei again.

Their final score was 16:0, another shutout victory, totaling over forty minutes.
Alan, from memory, dragged the timeline to around thirty-two minutes and saw the replay.

Xue Wei was holding a USP-S at the time; it wasn’t a sniper rifle, so there was no pre-aiming involved.

This time, he still couldn’t see the enemy player.

Alan downloaded the video and slowly replayed it frame by frame, finally discovering an anomaly in one particular frame.

The enemy had indeed peeked out.
The duration of their exposure was approximately 0.3 seconds.
The exposed area was… three pixels.

The screen precision and aspect ratio of 《Fire》 are accurate down to the pixel.
Hitting a head pixel, whether at the edge or center, is uniformly judged as a headshot kill.

Alan dragged the timeline a few frames forward.

0.1 seconds later, Xue Wei had already raised his gun; at 0.2 seconds, the crosshair was aimed at one of the pixels.

At 0.3 seconds, he fired and killed.

Alan felt like his breathing was about to stop.

The reaction speed of a normal person is mostly around 0.3 seconds (300ms).
In the esports industry, reaction speed is very important, and most players are in the range of 0.12-0.2 seconds (120-200ms).
In the league, only Wen Man could achieve below 120ms.

If Xue Wei wasn’t hacking, then his reaction speed was probably in the 105ms-120ms range.
This was almost close to the human limit for reaction speed.

The person Wen Man had set his sights on this time was either an unprecedented hacker.

Or… a rare genius in the world.

Xue Wei climbed into bed and saw Alan had sent him a message: [If you can’t sleep, you can play on the computer in the room.]

It wasn’t actually Xue Wei’s bedtime yet.
But it was warm under the covers.
He was already lying down, casually playing on his phone in bed.

He had suddenly learned today that he had joined the national team, which was a surprisingly good piece of news.
He thought for a moment, opened his contact list, first told Zhao Xiaoyi, then scrolled for a long time, his fingertips hovering over a contact named “Mom.”

He paused, still not sending the message, but right next to it was a contact named [Micro].
He accidentally tapped it and clicked send.

–I joined the national team.

Xue Wei long-pressed the message, preparing to recall it, but the other party replied quickly.

–Congratulations! You deserve it.

[Micro]: “Already there? How do you feel?”

The other party’s tone was very gentle.

Xue Wei slowly typed: “Very good. The place is big, beautiful, and clean. My coach is also very nice.”

[Micro]: “Your coach?”

Xue Wei: “My coach is Alan. I had a bit of a prejudice against him before, didn’t know what he was teaching, but after meeting him in person, I think he’s a good person.”

Xue Wei: “He seems fine as a coach too.”

[Micro]: “Who did you originally want to be your coach?”

Xue Wei’s fingertips stopped mid-air.
After a moment’s pause, he said: “Don’t know.”

[Micro]: “What about Pretty?”

Xue Wei replied even slower this time: “Mm… never thought about it.”

The other side didn’t reply; the conversation seemed to end there.

Xue Wei closed his phone, rolled over, and stared at the ceiling in the darkness.
He wasn’t sleepy.
After a long while, he still turned on the light and got up.

On the desk was a fully equipped computer.
Xue Wei had just gotten out of bed when he suddenly glimpsed a deep red gaming laptop in the bedside cabinet.
It was in a box, but the box had been opened, so it must have been used.

Alan said he could use the computer in this room.

Xue Wei moved the gaming laptop onto the bed, opened it, and it started up smoothly.
The desktop was clean and empty, with only the game 《Fire》.

He logged into his account, intending to check out the store skins.

No sooner had he logged in than a game notification popped up:

[CHN.Pretty] is inviting you to join a casual match. Do you accept?

The time in the bottom right corner jumped to 1:30 AM.

Xue Wei clicked accept and entered the casual map, typing: [Coach Alan?]

Only after entering did he realize this wasn’t a competitive match; it was the sandbox workshop in casual mode, where players could freely build structures and invite friends to play or compete.

Currently, there were only the two of them on the map.
It was a snow-covered map, a vast expanse of white, without even houses, only a pile of moving targets by the roadside.

“I was only gone for half a night,” the man’s voice sounded, muffled with the gaming laptop in the bed, somewhat distorted, “Do you only have Alan left in your eyes?”

Xue Wei fell silent.

He lay in bed, the computer placed diagonally, his breathing stifled and warm.

He typed an explanation: [I thought he was still using your account.]

Wen Man didn’t reply either.
He turned in a different direction and fired a shot at a distant moving target: “Come here, play sandbox.”

[EGT.Now]: [Not duo queueing?]

[CHN.Pretty]: [It’s too late, no more playing. By the time one round is done, it’ll be dawn.]

His voice sounded scattered and casual: “Go to bed early, little one.”

Xue Wei wasn’t sleepy.
He didn’t like being told to sleep, but he didn’t say anything.

He also turned in a different direction and started shooting at the distant moving targets.
These moving targets appeared continuously and completely randomly; the farthest ones were just pixels.

The scoreboard kept refreshing.
When Xue Wei reached 300 points, [CHN.Pretty]’s mic lit up again.

“Three hundred twenty shots, twenty misses. Of those twenty misses, fifteen targets were only one pixel in size, which is the smallest size of the crosshair.”

Xue Wei stopped.

“I watched today’s replay. Your reaction is very fast, but your accuracy isn’t enough.”

Wen Man raised his gun.
It was a Galil AR, one of the guns with the worst bullet deviation in 《Fire》.
Three pixel-sized targets drifted in the distance.
He sprayed bullets, hitting them with lightning speed.

The scoreboard showed his score: 323.

If anyone else entered this room at this moment and saw what they were doing, they wouldn’t believe their eyes.
If any other professional player or coach were to watch, they would immediately go insane with PTSD, vehemently claiming that such a training method could not possibly exist in reality.

But it truly did exist.

Xue Wei took a deep breath under the covers, then slowly exhaled.
Mist condensed on the computer screen.
He reached out and wiped it, feeling it moist and cool.

“You’ve been in this sandbox room of mine before; you can directly enter it from the history rooms later. The room password is ‘target’. If you’re interested, you can come play more often.”

Other visitor records could be seen in the room.
Xue Wei clicked to check.

Every day, the visitor records showed only Wen Man.

The last one was him.

Xue Wei typed: [Okay.]

He was about to try a few more shots, but Wen Man suddenly manipulated the sandbox, removing the targets.
Only white remained between heaven and earth; heavy snow fluttered down from above them.

[CHN.Pretty]: [No more playing, come relax.]

Wen Man controlled his character to sit down and looked up at the sky.
Perhaps seeing that he wasn’t speaking, he also stopped using his mic and just typed quietly.

Xue Wei maneuvered his perspective to look up with him, seeing a five-colored aurora at the edge of the sky.

[CHN.Pretty]: [Are you used to sleeping at the base?]

[EGT.Now]: [Used to it. The room is big, the bed is soft, and there’s a computer to play on. The shower gel smells very nice. The pajamas are a bit big. Coach Alan said we’ll custom order them next season.]

Wen Man’s side paused for a while.

Xue Wei waited for his reply.
When he was almost falling asleep, a new message popped up.

[CHN.Pretty]: [The shower gel brand is XXX. If you like it, you can take a bottle from the cabinet.]

Xue Wei felt something was off for a moment, but he was sleepy and couldn’t immediately figure out what was wrong: “…Hm?”

[CHN.Pretty]: [The clothes were new, unopened from a year ago. They would be a bit big on you.]

Xue Wei ‘Hm?’ed again.

[CHN.Pretty]: [If you like my room, I’ll give it to you when you come over.]

Xue Wei finally realized—he wasn’t sleeping in an empty room, but in Wen Man’s room.

Wen Man had a very severe germophobia, which was why the room was empty and spotless.
He hadn’t thought in that direction.

His ears turned red.

Late at night, a man a thousand miles away smiled, crossed his legs, and lowered his head to light a cigarette.

The young man wore his clothes, carrying his scent of lime.