You're beautiful when you smile

[Yao Yao, I broke up with Ai Jia.]

Tong Yao opened WeChat to see a message from her good friend Jinyang. She was taken aback for a moment, before taking a cracker from her desk and bringing it to her mouth to calm herself. She replied after taking a moment to think: Why?

[He's someplace beyond my reach.]

The five words stared back at her icily, eliciting a small "oh." After a few moments, she realized that her friend could not hear her reaction — —

Jinyang's boyfriend, Ai Jia, was a professional League of Legends player, an esports player. Since esports has been recognized by the country as a sports event, their status has gone up a notch.

In essence, most of these professionals are simple-minded teenagers addicted to the internet who can live happily with just a computer — —

But if you date them, it probably isn't that different from dating a famous movie star.

"... I said it from the beginning, you shouldn't have agreed to date a teenager addicted to the internet."

Tong Yao pinched another cracker and placed it into her mouth. Not knowing how to respond to her angered friend, she decided to wait for her to cool down by opening up League of Legends on her computer. — —

All text on screen suddenly became Korean. She had recently switched to the Korean servers to play since they had a more mature esports landscape. Professional players from all over the world tended to play on the Korean servers for this very reason.

Tong Yao had encountered several such professional players.

After signing in, as she was waiting for a match in queue, a chat window burst from the bottom left hand corner with an English ID. She squinted her eyes, waiting for the message to arrive, before discovering that he was quite direct.

[HI, friend, would you like come to china play game]

... was he using Google translate?

Tong Yao dropped the cracker dangling in her mouth from laughter.

Might as well reply — —

[I'm Chinese.]

The other side was silent for a few seconds.

Then sent a flood of "hahahahahah" — —

[You play well. How old are you? Do you want to come and play professionally? I'm part of China's ZGDX's team.][1]

She stared at those four letters for some time before letting out a shout. Her mother, who had been cleaning fish in the kitchen, had quickly dashed into her room with a cleaver still clenched in hand: "What's the matter? Is there a cockroach?"

"Mom, someone's inviting me to play games professionally!" Tong Yao pointed at the screen, "It's a famous team, they're sponsored by China Telecom, headquartered in Shanghai."

Her mother had a look of understanding, but otherwise her demeanor remain unchanged. "Last week, someone called to tell me that I had won a Rolls-Royce from the nearby supermarket."

Tong Yao remained silent.

"How can you be so gullible? Play professionally? Then what about school? Just from playing these lousy computer games has gotten to your head. Have you even finished your summer homework?"

"I'm a college freshman, there's no summer homework anymore..." Tong Yao spoke to the side, keeping her eyes on screen, and broke from her stupor in shock. "They make 600,000 RMB a year, not including the award money from tournaments. If you're not satisfied by that, we can still talk."

"...." After a long moment, her mother responded, "Give him your contact information."

"Didn't you say it's a scam?"

"Would a scammer claim to pay someone 600,000 RMB?"

"Maybe he's smarter and doesn't over exaggerate."

"Give him your phone number. It couldn't hurt."

"... Didn't you say I need to finish school first?"

"Take leave, then after you've earned 600,000 RMB you can go back." Her mother deftly replied and waved her cleaver, "Just give him your number."

It seemed that if she said no now, the cleaver was going to fall onto her head. Tong Yao shook her head and turned back to the computer. After a moment of thought, she typed her answer into the chat.

[Sorry, I'm a girl. I can't play LPL.]

LPL is China's top League of Legends League, composed of twelve teams. ZGDX is one of the better teams in the league with many star players, each with thousands of fans both in and outside of China. — — Compared to Jing Yang's ex-boyfriend's team YQCB, they were miles above.

Tong Yao also held great admiration for the team, following them whenever they were competing.

When she saw someone from this team contacting her, she was ecstatic, but now there was only one problem — —

She was a girl.

Except for last year at the North American Regionals, they had only taken one girl on the team. Aside from her, there was not another girl in any of the other major teams, globally. — — When she was hired from the North American Regionals, it caused a small earthquake in the League of Legends community.

Tong Yao wiped her face and seeing no response, figured that the other side probably wouldn't continue the conversation. She couldn't tell if she felt disappointed or something else, but either way lost interest in playing a match. As she was about to close the chat box, she noticed that there was a response.

[girls is OK, xiaojiejie, let's make a big splash in the news!]

"..."

Even with his Google translate English, it was still a bit cute.

Even if he was pulling her leg, she was happy enough to give it a try. With that, she posted her number onto the chat and logged off.

By this time, she discovered that her WeChat with Jinyang was overflowing with messages — —

[All he knows what do is play his damn game. What about his girlfriend? I told him one day that I was in a bad mood. Guess what he said? I lost my game today, I'm not in a good mood either. T.T]

[I told him that I wanted to see him. He said, sure, tonight he's going to stream with his web cam, so I can watch him and give him some bits.]

[I told him that I'm tired from my classes. He says he's tired from playing games.]

[Dammit all, I'm so angry. Where are you! Come back and respond now. Yesterday, I saw him wear a t-shirt that I'd never seen before. It looked so nice on him, but the moment I saw it, I could tell it wasn't something he'd ever buy himself. I asked him where it'd come from. He told me that it was sent in from a fan. Could I say that it looked good? I had to say it didn't look good on him. What did he say? The fan had sent it to him, to support him, so he had to wear it at least once to show his appreciation. Damn him, he appreciates his fans but treats me like shit!]

[I've had enough of this idiot! My heart can't take it anymore!]

[Finally, he's on break and doesn't have to train. He doesn't even want to go out with me for dinner .... He has the gall to stay at his base to self-train. If he practices so much, why hasn't he won a championship yet? Fate's just playing a sick joke on him isn't it!]

[He loved that keyboard more than me. Hell, I'm the one who gave him the fucking keyboard. ]

[Even when we're dating, we're just playing games. Then he has the balls to criticize how badly I play. Please! All a girl has to do is play cute. If there's such a creature who's cute and can play games well, then there'd be no need for pro gamers like him!]

[It just pissed me off!]

…...

Tong Yao roared in laughter as she read.

She laughed so hard that she felt guilty as she typed her reply. "Look at the bright side, I'll buy you a big dinner." Before she could send the message, another line popped up from Jinyang.

[Yao Yao, if it's you, how would you go about dating a professional gamer?]

Tong Yao stopped typing her message and began to think, before deleting her message. After a moment of silence, she came to a realization as her smile faded away. Tong Yao looked down and earnestly responded — —

[If it was me, I wouldn't date a professional gamer. If I had that kind of patience, then I might as well use it to get into Tsinghua University or Beijing University.]

[1]: A big Chinese telecommunications company.