CHAPTER 66

"What nerve! Can you just speak nicely, how dare you hit a girl? !"

Tong Yao ignored her scream, but turned to touch Lu Sicheng, her hand became wet-- --In reality, being hit by a bottle of water wasn't a big deal but for Tong Yao it was enough to send her into a frenzy. Before anyone realized it, Tong Yao had squeezed herself out of Lu Sicheng's arms like a loach-- --She stepped forward like Godzilla; before she could strike again she heard Lu Sicheng call on Little Fatty in a deep voice. Their support was on the same page as their captain, he immediately reached out to grab Tong Yao and picked her up again…...

Tong Yao's teammates liked to tease her by calling her fat, but at a critical moment, anyone of them could lift her up.

"So you think you're the only woman here, where do I look like a man? Speak nicely, can you understand it if I talk nicely? I only see people at this anime convention, where can I find a dog to translate for you?"

Tong Yao shouted but couldn't get any closer to the girl. Her short legs kicked in the girl's direction in the air, still restrained by Little Fatty. Little Fatty moved back a little with Tong Yao. Lu Yue handed napkins to Lu Sicheng to wipe himself dry, happily watching the show...

The girl was also being held back by other showgirls. Several showgirls grabbed her hands and tried to calm her down-- --

"It's normal to change the program if the special guests have concerns over it. Why are you getting yourself into it?"

"It's true that we are all paid to be here. But they're special guests, they've been invited to be here..."

"Don't say anymore, don't say anymore."

"Really, it's none of your business. Why do you have to chip in while they're discussing with the host. You didn't even thank her when you took her seat..."

The girl, sensing that some of the other showgirls disapproved of her behavior, flew into a rage, shook off the hands holding her back, and rushed forward-- --However, when she raised her arm high and before she could slap it down, her arm was firmly clasped with a forceful hand. Surprised, she looked up to meet a pair of cold, dark brown eyes-- --The tall man with still damp hair looked down at her: "Are you finished?"

The harsh stare made her subconsciously shrink back.

Another man came up from behind to pull her arm out of Lu Sicheng's hand. This man was a little shorter, but looked very much like Lu Sicheng except he had dyed some strains of his hair green. As he was pulling her arm out, he conveniently pushed her with some force with a smile on his face: "Don't look for trouble."

Though this second man was all smiles, it was frightening. He didn't look any more amiable than the first man.

Seeing so many people were against her, the showgirl quieted down. She kicked the chair next to her and yelled: "I quit, bunch of idiots." Then she flung her arms and started to walk towards the door with her head held up high-- --

After a few steps, she tripped over a leg thrust out suddenly in her path. She turned to look back with a ferocious stare, but found everyone in the room was looking back at her with innocent looks on their faces. Since she couldn't figure out who the culprit was, she could only curse in a high pitch: "Idiots." Then she turned, pulled the door open, and slammed the door hard behind her.

Everyone: "..."

For the next five seconds, everyone in the lounge stayed still, silent, until Little Fatty lifted his hand to pat Tong Yao's head: "You've messed up."

Tong Yao hopped out under Little Fatty's arms, bent to rub the area where she got kicked by the high heel when she tripped the girl, but didn't say anything…...Lu Yue looked at her for quite a while then smiled to say: "Alright, you brought all the trouble for yourself. Now you'll be deducted at least a month's worth of pay."

"It's alright, it's alright. I'll talk with the club…...No one wants things like today to happen anyway."

Xiao Rui came out to smooth things over. Actually, he was the person in the most awkward position, caught between the club and the players. It was hard for him to stand out and say anything-- --In fact, he also felt that the arrangements for this event were quite idiotic, but he was in no position to complain...

It was the reason why he'd been so reactive the entire day.

Finally, the lounge quieted down and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Several showgirls circled around Tong Yao asking whether she's alright. The host was also trying to smooth things out…...Only Lu Sicheng bothered to take the program and took a picture of it on his cell phone in the corner before tossing it away-- --Tong Yao turned to see that his back was still wet. With a frown, she took out a pack of tissues from her pocket and handed it to him.

"We'll do what's on the program sheet." Lu Sicheng took the tissues but didn't look at Tong Yao: "Little Fatty, Old K, and Lu Yue, those of you who don't have any injuries on your hands will go with the host to do the game. As for the other stuff, we'll talk after we get back."

Tong Yao widened her eyes: "You're still doing it? Then what did I cause all that fuss for-- --"

Before she could finish complaining, a calm glance from Lu Sicheng made her swallow the rest of her words.

The host was delighted that Lu Sicheng had agreed to do the game. Though not all the team would be participating, it was already good enough for the host after everything that had happened. He hurriedly thanked Lu Sicheng and grabbed Lu Yue, Little Fatty, and Old K to go on stage with him, as if he was afraid that they would back out at any moment-- --

When the game began on the stage, it grew quite in the lounge.

Lu Sicheng sat in the corner with tissues in hand, neither using them nor saying a word. The atmosphere in the room became rather gloomy…...Tong Yao and Old Cat gave each other an uneasy look; they suddenly found it difficult to sit back in their chairs, as if there were thorns on the seats-- --Tong Yao dejectedly picked up the chairs strewn all over the ground and put them back upright. Then she followed Xiao Rui back to the team bus to fetch a spare uniform for Lu Sicheng to change into. She carried the uniform back as carefully as a eunuch holding the emperor's dragon robe.

Back in the lounge, Tong Yao gave the uniform to Lu Sicheng and said in a small voice: "Cheng Ge, go change your clothes."

Lu Sicheng stopped playing on his cell phone and looked up. Without saying a word, he took the uniform and stood up to go to the restroom-- --When he pushed the lounge door open, he lit a cigarette between his lips. No one had the courage to stop him.

"..." Tong Yao squatted down next to Old Cat: "Cheng Ge hasn't smoked for quite some time now."

"Yeah, I figure he's taking a few puffs to steady his nerves." Old Cat seriously nodded. "Otherwise, how else can he deal with the urge to beat you up. He can't beat you up. Can't whip you with his belt. All he can do is light up a cigarette to cool himself down and maybe deduct your pay..."

As he spoke, he looked outside the door and saw Lu Sicheng had extinguished the cigarette on the trash can outside after just a couple of puffs.

Old Cat: "Try to imagine that cigarette as your head."

Tong Yao: "..."

Tong Yao just remembered what Lu Sicheng had told her on the airplane. Then she realized, her captain was angry at her.

.........…...It was a difficult situation for her to handle.

Tong Yao had never tried to appease the captain when she's enraged him-- --

Tong Yao was in a predicament which she had never faced before.

...

The event ended at three o'clock in the afternoon.

As a rule, bad news always spreads faster than the good ones.

On their way to the airport after the event, Tong Yao saw the Weibo post from [Kitten meow] go viral. She had posted several messages crying about how arrogant and big-headed the ZGDX players were, not even willing to work with the organizer to play some games. The female player of the team was particularly difficult to deal with and would hit people when irritated-- --

She emphasized the hitting part!

This was probably the biggest wave Tong Yao had created since she joined the team several months ago.

All of a sudden, every media platform exploded, whether it be Weibo, Tieba, or lesser known forums. Many viewers who didn't really know what happened exactly, nonetheless shared the news. There were all sorts of comments-- --

[Oh my goodness, I've been looking forward to seeing some explosive news about our little sister for a few months now. News like she was having an affair, or hiring someone to play for her, or simply as eye candy. Yet I get none of them; the biggest news is that she was in a fight? ! Does this mean I get to have a laugh before I jump on the dissing bandwagon?]

[Is the woman going crazy?]

[This goes to prove once again that a normal girl can't be a professional player. She's either transsexual or a nutcase.]

[Why did she hit you? What did you say to her? Make it clear. It can't be that she just started to hit you once she just sat down? What is the program about, the one that caused the argument?]

[Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, Isn't there a ZGDX tradition to starting a fight when there's disagreement? Aren't they toxic?]

[No matter what, it's not right to hit people. Hope OP is ok.]

[Well, well, it's especially exciting when women fight! You guys know how to have fun!]

[She has a worrisome attitude judging by her looks.]

...

Tong Yao looked at all the comments one after another, but maintained her cool.

She turned to take a look at Lu Sicheng, sitting on the back of the bus. It was the first time she'd seen him not sleeping on the bus. He was holding his cell phone, doing something-- --Tong Yao hoped that he wasn't reading all those comments discussing with all seriousness whether she was crazy or not.

Tong Yao shrunk back into her seat quietly, knowing that she had done something wrong. She watched similar news about her fight with the showgirl on various news media for a while…...About 3:30 in the afternoon, she finally received a phone call from the club's upper management. The phone call was first for Xiao Rui. After being severely criticized, the phone was passed on to Tong Yao who was scolded in turn. Then the club announced that Tong Yao would be deducted 2 months pay plus bonus and there would be an official reprimand on the official Weibo site. In addition, Tong Yao would be suspended for one match.

Suspended?

…...Alright.

Tong Yao bit her nails with a frown, and obediently promised that she would go back and reflect on her mistakes-- --

But deep down she didn't think it was fair.

But she realized that she could no longer act on impulse to deal with everything once she had entered this business. The Club had done all it could to give her punishments that wouldn't cause any real damage to her career…...Tong Yao picked up her cell phone after she hung up and checked her Weibo account. Many people were sending her private messages criticizing her, some with very derogatory words, like narrow-minded, rude, disgrace to all girls and so on-- --

She read them without too much emotion.

Though she was the one who caused the commotion, she couldn't be exempted from feeling bad about being bad mouthed by so many people. All she could do was talk to Jinyang, other than that she wouldn't know how to respond to all those people who didn't really know what had happened in the afternoon and had only heard showgirl's side of the story.

There was no way for her to give a convincing explanation for her self-defense.

After Jinyang read some of Tong Yao's rambling, she immediately called Tong Yao on the phone instead: "Who isn't her parents' little princess? What's the problem for hitting her if she gets bitchy? Why didn't you give her one more slap at the time-- --Ai Jia, don't try to grab my phone? ! Get lost! Don't bother me!"

"Don't stir up more trouble for her." Tong Yao could hear Ai Jia's voice from afar. "You can't act impulsively. Haven't you seen how they're talking online..."

"I've seen them. That's why I said to slap her a few more times." Jinyang's voice was clear now, probably having won the tug of war for her phone: "Nowadays if a woman can't even crack down on another woman, then wouldn't all those bitches be out of control? What's the point of reasoning with that bitch when she's making up things out of nothing?...But, Mulan, why do you sound so dejected as if you've been suspended for life?"

Tong Yao carefully looked behind her then swiftly turned her head back and lowered her voice as if she was a thief avoiding detection: "...Our captain is furious."

Jinyang: "What is he angry about?"

Tong Yao: "Yesterday, he had just patiently cautioned me on doing my own job well and not to mind what other people are saying-- --Then 12 hours later, I got suspended."

Jinyang: "...That's really irritating. If I were him, I would probably be mad as hell."

Jinyang: "But, something is not right. Why don't you explain? Just let others diss you without any defense?"

Tong Yao thought about it. It wasn't that she couldn't defend herself. It was that anything she said now would sound like a bad excuse, with no persuasive power...

She talked on the phone with Jinyang for a while, pouring out the grievances the world had done her. She apprehensively arrived at the airport at 4:30 in the afternoon to catch the flight back to Shanghai.

As she was getting off the bus, she received a message from Jinyang-- --

[Ah Mao's mom: Go check the site.]

The corners of Tong Yao's lips twitched, she already guessed what Jinyang was referring to. She logged on Weibo and saw a new post on the ZGDX official site-- --

[Today at noon, a member of our ZGDX Club's League of Legend Team, Tong Yao Smiling (id: zgdx, smiling) had an argument with a showgirl while attending the X Anime Convention in C City over the contents of one of the activities. During the argument, our club member exhibited excessive behavior and language, setting a bad example of proper social conduct. Our Club deeply apologizes for this improper conduct and will be dealing the following punishments to said member-- --

1: Suspension. Unless some unforeseen incident happens, said member will be forbidden to participate in the June 11th (tomorrow), professional league competition at 17:00. We hope said member will take the time to reflect on her mistakes and take the necessary steps to rectify her behavior.

2: Deduction of the said member's pay of two months salary and all bonuses.

We hope everyone working in the Club has learned their lesson from this incident and work together to establish good examples for the esports business.]

That was the entire public announcement about Tong Yao's punishment.

It had glossed over what had happened exactly, like all the public relation statements did. With the announcement of her punishments-- --even if there were still some people demanding to know what had happened exactly and what Tong Yao had done, as long as the Club didn't respond to their demands, the statement served as a closure to the whole incident.

Surprisingly, there was a reversal of public opinion right after the club's statement went live.

Under the official announcement on Weibo, there appeared one comment, evidently from someone's sockpuppet, sharing a picture of the program sheet that each of the special guests had received in the afternoon at the anime convention, with the caption: The so called truth?

This picture quickly became the top searched post on Weibo.

Numerous people replied-- --

"What's this?"

"What happened?"

"What the hell is this picking up showgirls thing?"

"Don't tell me Tong Yao is being deducted pay because she refused to play and irritated some showgirl who wanted to be picked up by who knows which player."

"That's…...disgusting. Isn't it pretty tasteless? Did they really do it in the end? Is the management of your Club so brain dead that they would allow your injured players to play this sort of game?"

Someone immediately took a screenshot and posted on the Tieba forum with a title: [The fighting incident of our mid little sister seems to have turned around] -- --

The post instantly gained over a hundred replies!

All of them commented that the reversal from this afternoon was quite amazing!

With the turn of tides, more and more people came out to express their opinions. Many of these people were ZGDX fans at the convention. They proved that they really did this activity this afternoon and they all felt quite uneasy watching it!

Someone even posted a video showing Old K and the others carrying showgirls doing the game on stage. One could clearly hear in the video the fans in the audience yelled "What kind of game is this" "Disgusting" "Stop it, we don't want to see this" -- --

It was proof enough seeing Old K and the others running back and forth in the video.

By now, whether a person was a fan of ZGDX or not, everyone's criticism changed direction. Comments constantly appeared with messages like: "disgusting," "brain dead club management," "it's stupid to do an event the day before a major competition, didn't expect they could make the event even dumber".

[We went to the event to see the players, not to see them make a monkey of themselves.]

[I heard in the beginning that all the players had been asked to play the game. Don't ask me how I know -- --There were six showgirls on stage. When Old K and them were doing the game, three of the showgirls were just watching at the sidelines…...In the end, neither the two Cs of the team played. I've heard both Cs of the team suffer from professional injuries. If this incident happened because of that, then I'm siding with Smiling : )]

[I was one of the showgirls this afternoon. To tell the truth, that girl deserved it. Since the morning she was in and out of the players' rest area numerous times asking for autographs. After Smiling refused, she came to complain to us that Smiling was small-minded. When it was time to do some games on stage, Smiling told the host that Cheng Ge and some of the others had hand injuries and to change the program. Before the host could say anything, she jumped in asking why there was a need to change anything. I was thinking of slapping her right then!]

[Wow, is everything above true? ! A big piece of information! ! ! ]

[................The plot changes every second, I surrender.]

[No matter what, to avoid being slapped in the face after everything turned around. I'll first go delete my comments about Smiling being rude, hhhhhhhh]

[I'm not happy at all seeing esports players being asked to do activities like this: they should be shining from behind computes. They aren't crowd pleasing clowns. The organizer of the anime convention is the first to blame, then the Club should take a hard look at themselves. If you don't treasure and protect your own players, then who will?]

...

Tong Yao browsed through the new posts on Tieba, then went to Weibo.

Several people, who were cursing her earlier, were now sending private messages apologizing to her.

Other than that, some fans who seemed to be young girls judging by their usernames also sent private messages to thank her: "It would be hard to imagine how Cheng Ge or Old Cat would look if they had played the game"...

Tong Yao logged off Weibo and took a look at her teammates who were all sitting at the gate waiting for the flight. She stood up from her chair, shook the cell phone in her hand, and asked: "Who posted that program sheet?"

"Don't know."

"Not me, I was busy watching the commotion at the time."

"I'm holding you back then, how could I have time to worry about such details?"

"Probably one of the staff? Whoever he is, he's a master of changing the direction of the wind, changing public opinion like that in an instant-- --"

Tong Yao's teammates started to discuss who it could be. Lu Yue looked at Tong Yao with his arms crossed in front of his chest and said to her: "Welcome to my world." Lu Sicheng, who was sitting next to him with earbuds in his ears and the hood of his jacket covering half of his face, had his eyes closed with a cold face…..

"Though I don't know who it is, you've done me a big favor, thank you, really." Tong Yao bowed towards her teammates and all the staff. "I've caused trouble for all of you today, I'm sorry."

"Don't say that."

"Don't bow to me, it's more than I can take!"

"It really isn't me. Whoever it is, stand up. Maybe our mid will be so excited that she'll marry you..."

Her teammates teased her, until the gate announced it was time to board.

Lu Sicheng opened his eyes, took off his earbuds, stuffed them into his pocket, and stood up. He glanced at all his teammates who had finished joking: "Boarding. Go back and continue training. Get ready for tomorrow's match."

Then he passed by Tong Yao without looking at her to the boarding gate.

Tong Yao was taken aback, looking at the straight but frosty back of his-- --

…...very well.

Her captain was still angry.