【Zhou Xiang】The Tropic

1.

Compared with digging newcomers, daily tasks suddenly become insignificant.After Sun Xiang finished typing that sentence, he couldn't help repeating it again to show his urging.

Coincidentally, Ye Guiren also has a personality that loves to be lively. When he heard that there was a PK, he agreed immediately without hesitation, saying that he would wait for him for a while and call his cousin now.

Two minutes later, Ye Guiren's figure slowly emerged from the teleportation array in the encrypted room of the arena.

Yeguiren 9802: Brother!we are coming!

Sun: Are you ready?

Zhou Zekai didn't say a word, and the manipulator waved his hand as a greeting.

Yeguiren 9802: Alright!I will let my cousin join this account now!

Sun Xiang was taken aback, and turned his head to exchange a puzzled look with Zhou Zekai—for the convenience of communication, Zhou Zekai had just hugged the notebook nearby, and the two of them perfectly restored the scene back then—sitting side by side, with only a keyboard distance between their shoulders .

"He seems to have misunderstood it. Ask him to change his number?" Sun Xiang asked Zhou Zekai, "Should we play a game first and then watch?"

"Let's fight first." Zhou Zekai said.

"OK." After all, he was the best partner ever, and Sun Xiang could easily understand Zhou Zekai's subtext: Let's see how the other party can perform with Ye Guiren's messy configuration account.

2.

After another ten seconds, there was a rustling sound from the earphones, like the friction sound of furniture being dragged, and the sound of adjusting the position of the keyboard and mouse.

In addition, Sun Xiang and Zhou Zekai heard a boy talking in a low voice deliberately: "Xizai, that's my elder brother and sister-in-law, you must remember to control it later, don't win too much, save them some face."

Sun Xiang's head was full of black lines, and he wanted to laugh a little bit. He thought that he and Zhou Zekai were also the influential figures who were rampant in glory back then. A middle school student worried that he would be blown away. For this reason, he kindly asked his cousin to show mercy. This experience is really fresh.

Zhou Zekai was more straightforward than him.

ZzK1124: Lots of noise, typing.

The movement on the other end stopped, and the same boy's voice, "Quickly, turn off the microphone! Sister-in-law asked!", followed by the short electric sound of "Zi——", completely quiet.

"You come and I come?" Sun Xiang raised his eyebrows and asked Zhou Zekai.

"Me." Zhou Zekai answered Sun Xiang with a look of course, and at the same time he had already operated the sharpshooter in the game to go to the left preparation position.

Sun Xiang couldn't help laughing: "Then go for it."

Seeing this, the cousin who was operating Yeguiren's account also walked to the right side to prepare.

A text bubble floated above the sharpshooter's head: "Start?"

The elemental blaster responded with a "hmm" and took the initiative to send out a battle invitation.

"Map: Random. Mode: Free. Loading countdown 10, 9, 8..."

The countdown sound effect of New Glory is more three-dimensional and richer in layers, vividly showing the sense of tension that is on the verge of triggering.

Sun Xiang couldn't help but tilt his head to look at Zhou Zekai.At this moment, the other party was staring at the screen, the hands controlling the keyboard and mouse were in the standard professional preparation position, the side face was so calm that there was almost no expression showing an unmistakable all-out effort, which made him return to the past in a trance The arena of glory.

In the earphones, the countdown has come to an end, "3, 2, 1" pulled Sun Xiang back from the trance.He licked his lips, and suddenly realized that his heart was beating a little faster—he interpreted this as a long-lost excitement—after all, after five years, he could finally see Zhou Zekai, who was far away from glory, return to the arena, Although it was just the most common match in online games, and the opponent was not a professional player, it was still the match he was looking forward to the most besides the last match of the Mercury Challenge in recent years.

On one side is a 30-year-old former e-sports player who has been unfamiliar for a long time, and on the other side is a gifted middle school student whose agility and comprehension are on the rise.

Will Zhou Zekai lose? ——This question popped up in my mind.

Sun Xiang squinted his eyes and stared at the screen tightly, the corners of his mouth slightly curled up, and some kind of unreasonable intuition rose up.

——That’s not necessarily true!

3.

What is the most important thing to win in e-sports?

The vast majority of ordinary players will answer: finger dexterity, accuracy of basic operations, skills and map familiarity, etc.It's all commonplace.

But in fact, for god-level players like Sun Xiang and Zhou Zekai who have honed their experience and skills to the peak, there may be a few other factors that can affect the result more——

Professional fighting awareness, self-improvement fighting style, stable mentality, excellent insight, adaptability and decisiveness.

That is to say, although due to age force majeure and unfamiliarity with New Glory, Zhou Zekai has no advantages in the points that ordinary players value, but in the aspects that Sun Xiang considers, he is definitely far superior to the opposite "genius" juvenile".

In addition, there is a correction field to solve the problem of the level gap, which means that the objective strength of the two accounts is actually almost the same--Zhou Zekai's winning rate is still quite high!

Sure enough, at 3 minutes and 05 seconds, the result of the first PK game popped up in the system sound prompt.

ZzK1124VS Yeguiren 9802, 1:0!

4.

"Excellent!" Confidence is confidence, seeing his guess come true, Sun Xiang couldn't help applauding, "I haven't seen you use sharpshooter for a long time, as expected, only you can achieve this feeling."

It was true that Zhou Zekai's hand speed couldn't keep up with the young man on the opposite side. He was interrupted several times in the opening stage, and his health bar was once behind.The hearty confrontation, the perfect switch between offense and defense, plus his unparalleled aura, these series of factors add up, and there is no chance for the opponent to breathe.Zhou Zekai played all the way to the end, and finally ended the first game with a beautiful close-range rapid fire.

"Okay, that's amazing..." Through the network cable, Ye Guiren was dumbfounded.This was the first time he saw his cousin being overthrown in the middle of the game, crushed to death, "Xizai, I take back what I just said... let's use 100% of your strength!"

He Xi, that is, his cousin, a handsome and shy boy in reality, his expression didn't change when he heard that, he just nodded: "Yeah."

Soon, he proposed a second round of invitations.

To the surprise of the two middle school students, the invitation was rejected.

Sun: Wait a minute, let me discuss something with your sister-in-law, about 5 minutes.

5.

It turned out that after Sun Xiang praised Zhou Zekai, he was not disappointed with the children because of this, and he regarded Ye Guiren's description as "exaggerated".

On the contrary, after cutting out the game, he quickly dragged the synchronously recorded video to the center of the screen, and called Zhou Zekai to watch it together in a slightly excited tone: "This little guy has two brushes!"

"Yeah." Zhou Zekai agreed concisely, "There is a strong sense of flexibility."

"That's right." Sun Xiang commented happily, "Yeguiren's shit equipment has a lot of non-professional skills. Most players probably wouldn't even consider using them."

After all, it is not a skill of this profession, and it is a cumbersome thing to additionally memorize the key position of sending moves.And even if you remember it, what can you do? You can't combine combos, and it's hard to integrate with your own characteristics, let alone use it to achieve some effective attacks.

And how did this cousin do it?

For example, when Zhou Zekai shoots a string of ice-attributed bullets, it is reasonable to use fire-attributed skills to defend, but the account's fire-attributed skills are all cooling down - this is of course calculated by Zhou Zekai, and it is replaced by other The player probably could only run away in a hurry, but this kid didn't.

He acted strangely calm.

First of all, he used the first "waste skill" on the robe - the anti-gravity vortex.The special effect is to form a black hole, and then explode. If the level is full, it can cause quite a large area of ​​damage. Push 1.5 figures in opposite directions.

However, these 1.5 personalities are impartial, just enough for the element blaster to leave the water and step on the soil on the shore.Then, my cousin launched the second "waste skill" - flying sand without hesitation.

This skill must be launched in an environment with earth elements, and the effect is a local sandstorm for more than 2 seconds.

Naturally, it didn't upgrade, but for 2 seconds, it couldn't be more for the elemental blasters who were fleeing.

The moment Zhou Zekai resolutely gave up the frontal attack and decided to bypass the sandstorm circle, the opponent's professional skill finally had a countdown - Rain of Annihilation successfully blocked Zhou Zekai's new combo.

"It's a pity that it's not perfect every time." Sun Xiang shook his head.On more occasions, even though the opponent made a conscious save, the deviation in distance, angle, and timing of skill withdrawal... These all became fatal weaknesses under Zhou Zekai's almost flawless offensive, which eventually led to failure.

"It's not a big problem." Zhou Zekai said.

"Yeah." Sun Xiang dragged back to watch a few clips, "They are all bugs that can be solved by professional training."

"How is it?" Zhou Zekai asked vaguely.

Sun Xiang understood it easily, turned his wrist, and replied bluntly: "It's not that good, the opportunity is equal, next, I will meet him!"

6.

This time, Sun Xiang clearly asked the other party to change his number.

So half a minute later, Ye Guiren's cousin came with the account of the legendary element blaster with a winning rate of 87%.

The first thing Sun Xiang did was to open the opponent's panel to confirm the authenticity of that number—three months, 101 games, 87 wins, 10 draws, and 4 losses.Although the total number of PK games is far below the average level - it is easy to understand that he is a student with excellent character and learning, but just looking at the impressive winning rate is enough to show that he is extraordinary.

"Fuck! It's a fake!" The owner of the Mercury Club's eyes lit up, and he was so excited that he almost stood up and danced, "Zhou Zekai, you found a treasure!"

Zhou Zekai tilted his head and looked at him helplessly: "Should I hit him or not?"

"Fight, fight, of course!" Sun Xiang frowned, "Don't send out invitations to fight secretly!"

This person has been getting more and more naive lately.Zhou Zekai slandered, didn't bother to talk to him, and simply got up to pour water.

Sun Xiang was completely unaware of the psychological changes of his ex-teammates. He put his mind at ease, opened the opponent's equipment panel and studied it for a while, and was very satisfied - the combination of skills is very good. If there is no account with krypton gold, the points will be less, but they are all used in The tip of the knife was on, but it didn't make any difference.

After the panel observation was over, Sun Xiang didn't say much, and directly initiated a battle invitation.The other side didn't hesitate, just picked it up.

Sun Xiang has never given up on glory since he retired. Compared with Zhou Zekai's level, he must be a bit better. After three rounds, the kid only won one game, but for the other two games, Sun Xiang had to admit that it was not easy for him to win.

What pleased him the most was more than that.

During the battle, Sun Xiang discovered that the kid's mentality was not as stable as usual.No matter what kind of mistakes he made, he didn't panic in the slightest - if this quality is not enough to be a professional player, then most players in the Glory League can retire early.

"I won't fight anymore," Sun Xiang rejected the fourth invitation from the other party, and asked straight to the point, "What's the beginning of this year? Have you considered entering the professional league?"

7.

According to Sun Xiang's judgment, since this kid has real skills and awareness, it is very unlikely that he has not been discovered by e-sports scouts—professional scouts will scan the arena rankings every day, The monthly list is too familiar, and it is basically zero to miss the concept of such outstanding good seedlings.

Therefore, before he asks a question, he has already anticipated a series of reactions from the other party and his own coping methods, such as direct rejection or indecision.

However, in reality...the other party didn't respond at all.

There was almost 3 minutes of silence.

Sun Xiang waited and waited, feeling that it was not an option to wait any longer, so he couldn't help asking in the public channel: Is it convenient to say?I'm just curious, so let me know if it's inconvenient.

As soon as the voice fell, there was movement immediately.

It's just Yeguiren's account.

Yeguiren 9802: Brother, I'm sorry, he just went to answer the phone and hasn't come back yet...

Hi, it turned out to be an accident.Sun Xiang breathed a sigh of relief: It's okay, then I'll wait for him to come back.

Yeguiren 9802: It's actually not a secret.If you are particularly curious, I can answer for him now.

Sun: Huh?

Yeguiren 9802: My cousin is very rigorous, professional and has his own opinions... Many scouts have come to him before, and we discussed in private which team in the past, whether to go or not, but none of them agreed.

Sun: Why?

Yeguiren 9802: Because he would not enter unless Mercury, he said that the boss is one of his idols!But Mercury already has players in the same profession.

Sun Xiang was very surprised and couldn't help exchanging a look with Zhou Zekai.

Zhou Zekai frowned slightly: "Element blaster?"

Sun Xiang: "Yes, you also find it strange?! Worship... me?? Don't confuse me with Yu Wenzhou Chu Yunxiu!"

In the game, because Sun Xiang did not return for a long time, Ye Guiren might also realize the logical loopholes in his words, and added: "No, the worship he is talking about is the kind of...personality worship, personality charm and other worship? Strictly Speaking of which, Sun Xiang is not the only one my cousin admires, when he was in elementary school..."

"Double One fan. When they were together, I recorded every game of Samsara." The cousin's account suddenly spoke, and for the first time, he said a very long sentence, "I dream of Like Sun Xiang and Zhou Zekai, they have a partner who can understand each other’s tactical intentions without communication, and complement each other strategically. Among the existing clubs, Wu Yue is the most suitable for me. It’s a pity that he already has a partner, although that guy Not very reliable..."

This passage contained too much information, and Sun Xiang felt very complicated for a while.

Whether it is the fact that a fan who is many years younger than me said "I especially admire Shuangyi", or the fact that this fan is a genius with unlimited potential, or that this genius is more mature, calm, and rational than expected So much so that before he found him, he had already considered the possibility of coming to the Mercury team... Any one of these was enough for his mood to fluctuate for a long time.

On the other hand, Zhou Zekai, who is also one of the protagonists of the topic, was calm from the beginning to the end.

He waited for a while, but there was no new change on the screen. Turning around to look, the friend was in a daze as expected.

"Sun Xiang." Zhou Zekai cleared his throat helplessly.

"Oh!" Sun Xiang came back to his senses as if he had just woken up from a dream, and hurriedly typed: "If Wu Yue's partner was replaced by you, would you think about it? The above is not a joke."

If it were an ordinary middle school student, they might already be screaming with joy at the computer.

He Xi remained calm and calm: "How do you prove it?"

Sun Xiang didn't get angry, on the contrary, he appreciated the other party's attitude more and more.As he was typing, he was impatiently curious about the other party's next reaction: "Add QQ, turn on the camera, and prove it to you."

8.

Zhou Zekai went to answer the phone, so he missed the whole process of Sun Xiang's face-grabbing and poaching.

When he came back, he was surprised to find that Sun Xiang didn't show the relaxed and satisfied expression he imagined, but instead frowned and propped his head in thought.

"You were rejected?" he asked.

Sun Xiang pulled out of his contemplation slowly, and when he saw Zhou Zekai, his eyes lit up involuntarily, but then he returned to gloom.

"No, he promised quickly, and I am the one who is shaken."

"Why?" Zhou Zekai sat down opposite Sun Xiang, resting his hands on the cup, staring at the young man opposite him seriously.

"A third-year student, the top three in the province's entrance examination, what concept, Zhou Zekai, do you know? I... I'm afraid to delay his better future. After all, e-sports is a youth meal, even if he can reach our level. , but after that, hey—”

Having said this, Sun Xiang was suddenly at a loss for words. He rubbed his face before continuing, with a serious and difficult expression, as if he was dissecting himself.

"Don't laugh, my mentality is very strange. When I was a player, I never considered this kind of problem. I just thought that playing truant from school was very cool and awesome. But after retiring, the more people and things I came into contact with, the concept changed unconsciously. .Obviously I run an e-sports club, and I tell the media that I want to emancipate my mind and respect the ideas of young people, but actually...actually, I gradually began to understand the mainstream views of society...You know, when I first started a team, I told scouts , study is particularly good, don't look for any one, lest parents and children will regret it when they grow up, but I say it nicely, but in reality, the timing is too good to meet such a good seedling as He Xi The right time, place and people, as long as we recruit him, we can solve our club's urgent needs, I..."

Sun Xiang held his head, closed his eyes, and stopped talking.

He was immersed in a fierce ideological struggle, and for a moment he couldn't remember whether he was talking to himself or talking to others. The more he talked, the more painful he was, and his heart was occupied by anger and dissatisfaction directed at himself.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly felt someone pat him on the shoulder.

Sun Xiang raised his head blankly, and the focus fell on that handsome face: "...Zhou Zekai?"

Those black eyes were quiet and deep, and just looking at him wordlessly, they could convey an incredible power that allowed him to break free from anxiety.

"I can understand." Zhou Zekai said.

"No, you don't understand me, I mean..."

"I understand." Zhou Zekai interrupted him firmly, "I'm the same as him."

Sun Xiang didn't know anything about Zhou Zekai's student days. Hearing Zhou Zekai's speech at this moment, his eyes widened in surprise, and then he slowly digested Zhou Zekai's subtext—"You mean you also..."

"The important thing is not your thoughts, but his." Zhou Zekai didn't answer directly, but made a request, "How much is his QQ?"

"Wait, are you going to—"

"It's nothing, just chat." Zhou Zekai smiled slightly, "Dinner reward. No?"

TBC