Honey Stewed Squid

Carrying her computer with her and not bothering to care that she was wearing her completely-pink jogging suit, Tong Nian burst straight into Blueberry’s room. Blueberry had been huddled together with her husband on the bed, watching the re-adaptation of Hunter x Hunter, and when she opened the door, she said in surprise, “What a coincidence. We’re just at the part when the Phantom Troupe comes out, and we were dissing the new art style…”
“Is this a convenient time for you guys?” Tong Nian felt a little apologetic.
But even though she asked this, her face was clearly already written with the row of words, “Even if it’s not convenient, you will need to make it convenient. Please!”…
Blueberry smiled, “It’s fine. Come on in.”
“I want to ask your hubby a few questions about eSports.”
“No way. You’ve honestly started to get hooked on pro gaming?” A look of disbelief covered Blueberry’s face. “You, the person who’s practically a cripple in the hands and can’t even play Lianliankan well…” Blueberry really did not want to cut her down, but Tong Nian was genuinely a huge gaming idiot.
Tong Nian nodded her head furiously, but very shortly, she switched to continuously shaking her head.
Where could she even begin to explain?
She was already feeling slightly in a fluster. Catching sight of Blueberry’s husband, she paused blankly for three seconds before spinning her laptop computer around and setting it down in front of him. “I want… to know, in detail, stuff about this person.”
Since Blueberry’s hubby was a longtime eSports fan, the information he knew would for sure be the most numerous and most comprehensive.
At first, this grown boy of a man was confused. His gaze fell on the computer screen, though, and half a second later, he freaked out. “Holy sheet! God Gun! He’s my male god of this lifetime, AAAAH!!!! It’s because of him that I went to watch the tournament today, AH, AH, AH, AH!!!!
……
Thump, thump, thump, thump. Her ears were filled with the sound of her heartbeat.
Her heart, which had already been having difficulty quieting down, once again ignited.
“Have you seen the photos of him with the Chinese flag draped over his shoulders? Or seen the one where he’s wearing a gold medal and holding up a golden trophy? So awesomely cool that no one can even compare!” Blueberry’s husband rolled up his sleeves and leapt off the bed. “If you want me to talk about him, one night absolutely is not enough. Tell me, where to begin? What do you want to listen to first?
Huh? Where to begin?
Tong Nian was dazed. From… ten years ago?
Or…
Ah, right. “From his romantic history!”
……
……
Blueberry and her husband exchanged a look.
Uh, this… To point at the Baidu Baike page of a person but then ask, as a first request, to hear the romantic gossip of that person… A bit of a fruitcake, eh.
Blueberry was the first to recover, and giving a faint sigh, she remarked, “Our Highness is like that… Hubby, you’ve got to understand, the thoughts and mind of a girl who was forced to study biological engineering from the age of fifteen will more or less be a little defective.” Blueberry tossed him a look that said, “Please try to understand.”
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Blueberry’s husband pulled himself back together and cleared his throat. “I can’t say that this romantic history of his is a hundred percent accurate.
“In regards to this, we need to first talk about Team Solo from ten years ago. Ten years ago, the situation of the eSports industry within China was very poor. There were not this many competitions, and there also weren’t many professional gaming teams. The earnings of pro gamers were very low. At the time, he was the only investor in Solo and also one of its key players… Ah, all of this can be found on Baidu. I’ll talk about stuff that Baidu doesn’t have.
“When Team Solo was at the height of its game, it suddenly disbanded. Some people say it was because its captain, Solo, out of nowhere got an illegitimate daughter, which caused the breakup between him and the team’s sniper, appledog. And because of that, the team dissolved. There are others that say that Gun was the third party who stuck himself into his captain’s relationship by falling in love with appledog, and that’s what caused the team to disband.”
“Is that rumour true or…” Tong Nian anxiously looked at Blueberry’s husband.
The latter spread his hands. “Don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
“So that means, the person he likes possibly is”—she reflected on this for a moment—“appledog?”
“Can’t say for sure.”
“Then… were they ever together?”
“Huh? Of course not! If they had ever been a couple, then it wouldn’t be a mystery.”
“Oh, right.” She was somewhat dejected. “Well, is she pretty? …”
“Oh yeah! She is absolutely worthy of being matched with my male god! The most important part is not whether she is pretty or not but her pro gaming history, which absolutely could be classified as goddess level. Go search her up on Baidu Baike. It’s all written there.”
“Oh, okay…”
Blueberry’s husband had apparently not noticed that, in front of him, Tong Nian was already beginning to droop into depression. “So that’s why lots of people are saying that Gun established K&K eSports Club to win appledog back.”
“Win her back?” Tong Nian’s eyes widened.
“Check out Baidu Baike.” Blueberry’s husband pointed at the webpage. “Doesn’t it say that K&K and SP are standing together, like equal legs of a ding [vessel][1], as two top eSports organizations? SP’s core members now are basically the key players from Team Solo of the past, minus Gun.” He sighed, “My poor male god. He established K&K all alone. All of his former brothers and comrades are in SP and are now his opponents.”
……
……
Tong Nian did not really listen to anything that was talked about after.
She was merely submerged in this: ten years ago, because Gun liked a girl named appledog, his team disbanded, and in the end, he also retired from professional gaming. Ten years later, it was also because of this girl that he started over and established K&K.
That was… such a fixated, persistent love.
The other party blabbered away for a lengthy period until, discovering that the young girl’s mind had wandered away for a long time already, he finally hastily brought the topic to a close. Curiously, he asked, “You went to the tournament today because you wanted to see my male god, too?”
Tong Nian nodded dully. “Uh-huh.”
“Were you able to get his autograph? I didn’t even get a chance to rush up there.”
“No…” Tong Nian dropped her head. “He doesn’t really like talking to me.”
He didn’t even say goodbye…
“Wha—?” That grown boy was shocked. “You talked to my male god at a close distance?! What did you guys say?”
“Just…” She took a few seconds to recollect. It was not like she could tell them about her mortifyingly huge mess-up. But, during dinner later on, it seemed they hadn’t really communicated. It was actually those players of K&K who had chatted with her… It would seem that the only thing she could mention was the brief moment of interaction inside the elevator. “He said he was giving me a fruit candy to eat.”
A green one… Apple-flavoured…
“Wha—?!” Blueberry and her husband cried out in unison, utterly flabbergasted. Then, in unison again, they asked, “Why?”
“Maybe…” she guessed, “because he wanted to comfort me.”
“Why would he comfort you?!”
How was she supposed to tell them this? She couldn’t just say that it was because she had professed her feelings and had been turned down, right?
Tong Nian struggled inside herself, and then, after falling into a long silence, three words finally popped out from her: “It’s a secret.”
***************
Late into the night, in the hotel room.
With his black headset on, Gun was having a telephone conference with the various team captains of the Nordic branch. Inside and outside the phone were all perfect Nordic accents…
The door, which had not been latched closed, was pushed open. Dt walked in and, in front of Gun’s eyes, waved the mobile phone he was holding that was still in a call.
Gun frowned, not really wanting to take the call that was on Dt’s phone. Dt shrugged and placed the phone on the windowsill in front of Gun with a look of “whether you take the call or not has nothing to do with me.”
Gun had no choice but to hang up his own work-related call and pick up that mobile phone.
A bombardment of Chinese drifted through the phone line from the other side of the ocean. He listened, from initially with narrowed eyes to later, after completely losing his patience, with closed eyes, until at last, he hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed. “Next time, don’t be a mouthpiece for someone else.”
Dt glanced at him from beneath the brim of his hat.
Gun wanted to carry on and dial another number, but suddenly, in a seldom-seen moment, the grown boy behind him spoke a sentence of his own accord. “That girl today, I’ve seen her before.”
Gun looked at him, lifted his brows, and motioned for him to continue speaking.
“The ACM-ICPC [ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest]. She was representing one of the Chinese universities in the competition.”
Only now did Gun remember that this younger cousin of his seemed to be in computer science. “What type of competition is this ACM?”
“An international collegiate programming contest. It’s,” Dt pondered briefly before carrying on, “the top computer programming competition amongst university students around the world.”
“Oh? Really? You participated in it?”
Dt nodded. “My results were a little better than hers, but… she did pretty good, too.”
Gun was somewhat surprised by this. After all, apart from Dt’s goddess, appledog, this was the first member of the opposite gender whom this younger cousin of his actually commented as being “pretty good.” Of course, Gun could also tell from these words that Dt had already deduced there was nothing between him and the little girl.
Feeling that there were no other matters here for him, Dt picked up his mobile phone from the bed. But then, he heard Gun ask, “You know that there’s nothing between me and her? Why didn’t you explain for me?”
“I’m guessing you didn’t clarify because you didn’t want her to be embarrassed in front of everybody.” Contemplating seriously for a moment, Dt said, “If you weren’t going to explain, why should I explain? It has nothing to do with me.”
Gun tilted the corners of his lips upwards. He could not even be bothered to expose him.
Yeah, the whole world knows that, as long as it has nothing to do with your goddess, appledog, then it has nothing to do with you, Dt.