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Yu Wenzhou lowered his phone and said, “Ye Xiu is not going to like this.”

Wang Jiexi had been staring sleepily out the window since they got on the bus, about fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Now, he turned his gaze to Yu Wenzhou, who was sitting to his left. It took a few seconds for him to muster a response. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. You remember that summer camp thing the publicity director told us about?”

Another few seconds passed by. “Yeah.”

“That’s next on the schedule. After the interviews.”

With a sigh, Wang Jiexi rubbed the corners of his eyes. “No one is going to like that.”

Yu Wenzhou tapped his fingers against his cell phone’s screen. “We agreed to it, though.”

“Not in writing.”

“The director recorded Ye Xiu’s conditions. I saw her do it.”

A furrow appeared between Wang Jiexi’s eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“That still doesn’t mean anything.”

Yu Wenzhou wordlessly handed Wang Jiexi his phone.

It took only a few moments for Wang Jiexi to read the whole damning email. To the director’s credit, she was succinct. To Ye Xiu’s surely imminent despair, she was also merciless.

“This is…pointed,” Wang Jiexi said with a squint. His lips were twitching.

Yu Wenzhou cracked a smile. Sure is, his expression said.

Oh boy, Wang Jiexi’s expression said back.

Yu Wenzhou reclaimed his phone and turned off the screen. In the bus’s dim interior, he could just barely make out the shape of Ye Xiu across the aisle. Their unflappable team leader, fresh off a historic victory in Zurich, had taken the window seat so he could have an extra surface to slump against. His eyes were closed and he appeared dead to the world.

Su Mucheng, sitting beside him, had her earphones on. Her eyes were open and blinking right at Yu Wenzhou.

Yu Wenzhou smiled at her, then turned back to Wang Jiexi. “Our poor senior,” he said quietly.

Wang Jiexi shrugged. Whatever energy he’d dredged up to engage with Yu Wenzhou, it was gone now. Ye Xiu’s misfortune was not momentous enough to dispel jet lag, evidently.

Yu Wenzhou left him to his thoughts. They’d be arriving at the Glory Professional Alliance’s headquarters in another ten minutes or so, but that was still ten minutes of peace and quiet. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and imagined Ye Xiu’s reaction to the news.

For the Alliance’s sake, he hoped they broke it to him gently.

* * *

“Unbelievable,” was Ye Xiu’s reaction to the email.

Zhang Xinjie was about to admire this display of self-control when he remembered that Ye Xiu was probably just too tired to generate strong emotions.

He looked at Su Mucheng instead. It was hardly scientific, but he had noticed recently that the genuineness of Ye Xiu’s apathy could be measured in the width of Su Mucheng’s smile or the slant of her eyes. The more perturbed Ye Xiu was, the stiffer Su Mucheng’s expression became, until she dropped the smiles altogether. And that was never a good sign for anyone.

All throughout tonight, from the plane to the bus, Su Mucheng had been her usual pleasant self, so Zhang Xinjie could be excused for believing she had read the email after they landed, just like Yu Wenzhou and the others. However, he suspected she had read it before they boarded the plane out of Europe. Call it a hunch, but the frequency with which he’d spotted her bent over her phone and typing furiously away suggested some brand of damage control had been initiated at least a day ago and was still ongoing.

Zhang Xinjie was very curious to know whether he had the right of it. Almost unbearably so. He was still going to mind his own business. Butting into his colleagues’ affairs was a foolish and fruitless impulse and he avoided such inefficient waste of effort when possible.

Unfortunately, his resolve to remain aloof was challenged about five minutes later. That was about how long it took for Ye Xiu to properly wake up.

And Zhang Xinjie, who thanks to his immaculate planning had been among the first to reclaim their luggage, was just waffling around outside the bus with nothing to do. There were no escape routes and no excuses: a grave oversight on his part.

Ye Xiu sidled up to him, expression mild. “Say, Little Zhang…”

He braced himself.

“Can I borrow your phone real quick?”

“What for?” he asked with a reasonable amount of suspicion.

“I need to make a phone call.”

Zhang Xinjie stared into his eyes and said, “You are not waking up Han Wenqing right now.”

“So he’d wake up if I called him?”

Damn. “Don’t wake him up. He’s on vacation.”

“Oh yeah? I could be looking forward to a vacation, too, if he hadn’t agreed to go to summer camp.”

Perhaps aggression would work where good sense didn’t. “If I recall correctly, your conditions for participating were that everyone on the national team had to agree to it, as well as at least two people from every team excluding the relegated ones. And that Han Wenqing absolutely had to be there. The first two have nothing to do with him, you just made a gamble and lost.”

Ye Xiu carried on as if he hadn’t heard a word of that. “All he had to do was say no. I was counting on him. He was my last line of defense.”

“…Your mistake?” Zhang Xinjie had no idea how else he was supposed to reply to something so preposterous.

Any hint of mournfulness vanished from Ye Xiu’s eyes. “Be honest with me. Did you tell him? Did you tell anyone?”

“No.” It was the truth.

“Let’s see… Besides you, there were only three other people present for that conversation.”

Zhang Xinjie decided to humor him. “Did you tell Su Mucheng?”

“Nope.”

“Then you have four suspects besides me.”

Ye Xiu raised an eyebrow.

“The director,” Zhang Xinjie clarified, adjusting his glasses. “She could have used your participation as a bargaining chip to persuade others.”

“Would she be so devious? I got the impression she viewed my conditions as a challenge. It would be very unsportsmanlike for her to expose me like that.”

Zhang Xinjie barely withheld the urge to roll his eyes. “She had a job, and that job involved convincing a bunch of shut-ins to go camping in the countryside for a week. While being filmed. She’d have used every weapon at her disposal.”

“You make a compelling point, but I still have my doubts.”

“So it’s likelier that Xiao Shiqin, Yu Wenzhou, or Wang Jiexi plotted against you? For what reason?”

Ye Xiu thought it over. “Spite?”

“You think very highly of yourself.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Zhang Jiale asked as he approached, dragging his suitcase behind him.

“My pain and suffering,” Ye Xiu replied.

“Great,” Zhang Jiale said. “Love that for you.”

Ye Xiu pointed at him while smiling at Zhang Xinjie. “Do I, though? Do I think highly of myself?”

Zhang Xinjie sighed.

* * *

The national team was trapped at the Alliance’s headquarters for the whole day. They got naps and breakfast, a chance to change clothes and freshen up, and then their lives became a series of interviews and press conferences.

The only person who seemed more or less exempt from the perils of public relations was Ye Xiu. Xiao Shiqin spotted him conferring with various Alliance employees, and not just people from the PR department. On several occasions, he was urged to speak to someone on the phone, which caused him obvious consternation.

When Xiao Shiqin asked him what was wrong, Ye Xiu stared stonily into his eyes and said, “My escape routes are all cut off.”

“…What does that mean?”

“My family doesn’t love me.”

Xiao Shiqin dropped the topic like a hot potato. Which, in retrospect, may have been exactly what Ye Xiu intended.

Whatever. He’d rather deal with the media circus anyway.

By the time Team China’s heroes were free to ride the bus to the hotel the Alliance had booked for them, they were ready to check right out of the waking world. Most of them were able to sleep through the night without issue, Xiao Shiqin included. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he greeted his teammates with good cheer the next morning.

About a dozen people looked at him like he was crazy, then went back to eating their food.

Jeez.

Xiao Shiqin spotted an open seat next to Su Mucheng—a rare thing—and happily took it. His breakfast for that morning was lightweight and simple, so he finished before everyone else despite being one of the last to show up in the dining hall.

Fang Rui, who was sitting across from Su Mucheng, suddenly said, “So, Old Wei. Who let that happen?”

“It was his idea.” Su Mucheng’s voice was neutral and somewhat dismissive. She was eating her breakfast with a kind of slow deliberation that suggested she’d rather not get up too soon.

“May as well invite the boss, too. Isn’t it a perk of retirement to not be involved in stupid shit like this anymore?”

“You’d think so,” Ye Xiu replied flatly from Su Mucheng’s other side. “You’d really think so.”

Fang Rui gazed at Ye Xiu with pity. “Poor old man. First he got put in charge of us, now he has to spend a week in nature.”

“It would have been fine to spend a week in nature if there was also a decent Internet connection and no cameras,” complained Chu Yunxiu, also sitting nearby.

“The publicity department is a scourge on all of us,” Li Xuan agreed.

Baffled, Xiao Shiqin glanced around at all the sullen faces at the table. “Come on, guys, it’s not going to be that bad.”

They were looking at him like he was crazy again, so Xiao Shiqin added, “It’s only a week.”

“You spend a week in close quarters with Wei Chen,” Fang Rui grumbled.

“Hey, what? What was that? Why are you talking about that old fossil?” Huang Shaotian called from the other end of the table.

“He’s going to be at summer camp,” Chu Yunxiu called back.

“Oh god,” he heard someone mutter. Possibly Zhang Jiale.

Xiao Shiqin leaned forward a little to study the expressions of their resident Blue Rain members. Huang Shaotian was squinting blankly into the distance, a hint of consternation lingering around the set of his mouth. Yu Wenzhou was composed as always and calmly sipped a glass of fruit juice.

“Is Ye Xiu going to be at summer camp?” Tang Hao asked.

Su Mucheng thrust her hand toward the center of the table and gave him a big thumbs-up.

Several people, Tang Hao included, suddenly started smirking.

Xiao Shiqin may or may not have been one of those people.

* * *

PR Director Xiong Min’s beautiful plan first started to come together several weeks ago, shortly after the national team roster had been finalized. Somewhere in the bowels of the Glory Professional Alliance’s headquarters, Chairman Feng Xianjun had just been about to wrap up a very ordinary meeting with the heads of various departments when…

“Chairman, sir?”

Feng Xianjun, who had just stood up, glanced at Xiong Min with a gaze that seemed to be asking if she really, truly wanted to keep talking right now.

She cleared her throat. “I have something to discuss with you, if you have time…”

Around them, the others were gathering up their meeting notes and politely looking away from the chairman and Xiong Min. As if by silent agreement, they streamed out of the room in pairs and trios, quietly chatting amongst themselves.

Feng Xianjun waited for the door to close on the last of them before he gestured for Xiong Min to speak. She could tell she was on thin ice already, so she wasted no more time.

“Recently, the interns, with the help of some of my subordinates, put together presentations for possible future publicity projects,” she began. “We always encourage creative thinking in PR, but most proposals have to be discarded for budgetary reasons and such. You know how it is.”

Considering the budget had been one of the things discussed in this meeting, Feng Xianjun certainly did know how it was. “Get to the point, please.”

“Well, one of those proposals gained a lot of traction among the staff. I’ve been told over and over to bring it up in one of these meetings, but I thought it would be wiser to mention it to you first.”

“And what is this proposal?”

Xiong Min smiled.

The next morning, she got a call from the chairman’s secretary asking her to please come up to his office.

“We’re doing it, then?” Xiong Min asked right away.

“If it’s possible. I have a few concerns, so let’s see what everyone has to say first,” Feng Xianjun said, his expression bright like he was about to go spin tales in front of a horde of reporters. “Last night I dreamed about a group of grandmas cooing over Zhou Zekai and thanking me at my local grocery store for showing such a handsome young man to their aging eyes.”

Xiong Min stared at her boss. She’d totally forgotten what she was going to say.

Luckily, a bunch of other people soon started filling up Feng Xianjun’s office. The impromptu task force put their heads together and thought aloud.

“Since the main issue is scheduling around Worlds, we just have to wait for that to be over and done with before we start filming. Our national team’s performance on the international stage is our main priority right now.”

Feng Xianjun and Xiong Min nodded.

“Afterward, we announce that we’re pushing back the season start by a week or so. Minimal explanation for this bit—let the public assume we’re letting the national team players take a breather. Whether or not they win, this will make us look pretty good.”

Feng Xianjun and Xiong Min nodded some more. Anything that made the Alliance look good was to be celebrated.

“But before we look into broadcasting and finding a film crew, we need to communicate with the teams’ PR departments and see how feasible this really is,” Xiong Min added firmly. “It wouldn’t do to set everything up nice and proper only for the players to refuse to show up. It’s a very novel idea, so we need to ease them into it.”

“How should we go about that?” Feng Xianjun asked her.

“Leave it to me,” she said. “I can be persuasive. Besides, as long as their bosses approve, the players ought to be willing enough So we don’t need to convince everyone all at once.”

Personally, Feng Xianjun found Xiong Min’s confidence and optimism quite comforting. If anyone could get this scheme off the ground, it was PR’s fearless Director Xiong.

“Then I’m entrusting this to you. You’re in charge of this initiative for the time being. Recruit who you have to.”

Xiong Min nodded, beaming. The other staff who’d gathered here today couldn’t hide their trepidation.

Grim thoughts of all the work that lay ahead of them (why did they have to sooth all the chairman’s concerns so skillfully?) were interrupted when Xiong Min let out a little “Ah!”

Feng Xianjun, in the midst of recalling last night’s happy dream, blinked at her. “What is—”

“Ye Xiu,” she spat with all the vehemence of a lifelong curse.

* * *

“I have to say, this is a welcome surprise.”

“Yeah? Excited to get your ass kicked at a bunch of little kid games?” Wei Chen sneered.

The corners of Yu Wenzhou’s lips twitched. “Just what kind of camp do you think this is, Captain Wei?”

“…A summer camp.”

“It’s more like a summer retreat. For adults. Particularly, businesspeople and company employees who want to unwind and work on their interpersonal skills.”

Wei Chen’s expression grew more and more warped with each word.

“I hear there’s an arts and crafts activity. As well as storytelling. Around a pleasant little campfire, naturally.”

“What the fuck?”

Yu Wenzhou smiled gently. “Captain Wei, were you looking forward to beating us at little kid games or something?”

Wei Chen regained some of his bluster. “Would someone like me care about something like that.”

If there’s a possibility of winning? Absolutely.

Fortunately for Wei Chen, the camp counselors asked for everyone’s attention at that moment. Yu Wenzhou picked his way through the crowd of Glory pro players back to where his teammates were gathered.

“Hey, where is—eh? Where did you go?” Frowning, Huang Shaotian rounded on him, hands on his hips.

“I was just saying hello to some people,” Yu Wenzhou said demurely.

Rather than assuage Huang Shaotian’s suspicion, this only seemed to enhance it. He stared hard at Yu Wenzhou for exactly two seconds, opened his mouth, and—

“It’s nice to meet all of you. Let us welcome you once again. My name is Zhou Yan, and this is Cheng Shi, and that’s Hou Guangyu. We’re your counselors, and it’s our job to make sure everyone is having fun and staying safe. I’ll be reading the schedule now.”

“There’s a schedule?” someone quietly asked. “No one said anything about a schedule. What the hell did I sign up for?”

“Shut up! They’re filming!” hissed someone else.

“They’re not filming right now, they’re just testing the equipment.”

“No, they’re definitely filming. This is gonna be behind the scenes footage or something.”

“What, scared of your dumb clueless face ending up on the Internet?”

“Heh, it’s already on the Internet.”

“Why did you say that so proudly…?”

A minor epidemic of giggles broke out in that part of the crowd.

“Ahem!” The camp counselor’s gaze nervously roamed over the 80 or so game-obsessed shut-ins who were biologically incapable of not talking trash. “B-before that, note that all major activities are scheduled for the morning hours. We hold arts and crafts workshops every afternoon and campfire gatherings every evening. With a few exceptions, ninety percent of filming will occur in the mornings during major activities. This doesn’t include one-on-one interviews, which will be scheduled at the film crew’s discretion. We counselors will be working together with the film crew as necessary, but we don’t know their plans. You’ll have to direct any questions related to the TV program at them.”

“What do you think?” Huang Shaotian asked in Yu Wenzhou’s ear. “Should I wow everyone here with my interview skills? Do you think my fans would like that? I think they’d like that. They love hearing me talk, right? I can talk at these people all day, the crew had better be prepared.”

Yu Wenzhou patted his arm. “I support you. Don’t say anything I wouldn’t say.”

“Huh? Oh, that’s a joke, haha, you’re joking right now. You are, aren’t you? You know how I get carried—”

“So, ah, here’s the schedule.”

“Damn, is this bastard not gonna let me talk?”

Yu Wenzhou patted Huang Shaotian’s arm a little harder.

“Tomorrow, day one: morning tour of the campgrounds, followed by an afternoon crafts workshop crash course, then our first campfire gathering in the evening. The four major activities for the days after that are: a scavenger hunt, a game of capture the flag, an art contest, and a water balloon fight. Campers may enjoy some minor activities during the afternoon schedule as well. If anyone has anything in particular in mind, please let a counselor know and we’ll help organize it. As for mealtimes…”

“Hey, Captain. Is it just me or do all of these activities sound really competitive?”

The shortest member of Blue Rain had sidled close to Yu Wenzhou’s side to ask this question. Lu Hanwen was looking up at him with that special liveliness that only seemed present in people under twenty.

“They do sound that way, don’t they?” Yu Wenzhou asked back in a humorous tone.

Lu Hanwen’s face brightened. “Well, as long as we can apply your tactics, we’ll definitely win.”

Yu Wenzhou chuckled. “There are three other master tacticians here.”

“Oh yeah.” A blink. “Well, technically… Aren’t the Four Master Tacticians actually the Three Master Tacticians now?”

Yu Wenzhou stared at him.

“Little kid, don’t you know by now that Ye Xiu’s retirement is a huge joke? Just because he’s not competing against us anymore doesn’t mean he got any dumber,” Huang Shaotian grumbled. “We still shouldn’t lose to him, though!”

“Keep your voice down,” Yu Wenzhou said reflexively.

“What? I’m trying to get us hyped up. Whether it’s against Ye Xiu, Zhang Xinjie, or Xiao Shiqin, your tactics can still get us the win! Captain, please think hard about these activities! Especially the water balloon fight, I need to hit that little shit Mo Fan at least once, you know I need to.”

Mo Fan hadn’t come to camp, but Yu Wenzhou figured Huang Shaotian could find that out on his own later.

* * *

After the counselor’s introductory speech, it was time to pitch the tents.

Zhang Xinjie initially thought this would be a simple process. In his mind, it boiled down to reading the instructions, following the instructions, and not poking out your own (or anybody else’s) eyeball.

He was soon proven wrong, however.

“This part should go here,” said Bai Yanfei.

Zhang Jiale’s frown deepened. “No, that sounds wrong.”

“Well, what would you know about it?” Bai Yanfei plucked the manual from Zhang Jiale’s hands and started slapping at the paper with his finger. “See, this attaches here, to that thing Little Song is holding. So that means—”

“Are you blind? This drawing looks nothing like that. It’s some other thing.”

“I’m blind? I’m blind?”

Zhang Xinjie was proven very, very wrong: building a tent turned out to be one of the most arduous trials of his young life.

Thank goodness for Lin Jingyan.

“I’ve already done like half the work,” Lin Jingyan called from where he was sitting on the ground. He sounded amused. “You just need to follow my lead. Come over here.”

Song Qiying, who was already copying Lin Jingyan, scooted away from Zhang Jiale’s and Bai Yanfei’s belligerent auras.

Zhang Xinjie sighed at the lot of them. Then he glanced at Han Wenqing.

Tyranny’s captain, in all his subtle wisdom, had elected not to get involved in tent-related matters. In between receiving the deconstructed tent and the first debate over the instructions, Han Wenqing somehow acquired a camping chair and was now presumably judging them all from behind his dark sunglasses.

“This was a good idea,” Han Wenqing said suddenly.

Sure that he must have misheard, Zhang Xinjie said, “Pardon?”

“This was a good idea. I’m having a nice time.”

“…Really.”

“Mm.”

Since the others were busy debating the validity of Lin Jingyan’s expertise, they hadn’t heard this exchange. However, Tian Sen, who was overseeing his group’s tent-building attempts a few meters away, swiveled his whole head around just to nail Han Wenqing with a disbelieving stare.

It should be mentioned that Lin Jingyan was not going to be sharing a tent with the other members of Tyranny. The tents could comfortably shelter no more than five people at a time, and Tyranny had come with six people. Before they could vote on who’d be the odd man out, Lin Jingyan revealed that he’d agreed to share with Tian Sen and Shen Wanhe, the only representatives of Royal Style present.

It seemed like an optimal arrangement at first. But in a questionable twist of fate, Huang Shaotian and Wei Chen were similarly exiled from their teams’ tents. And Tian Sen, in a show of admirable practicality, had decided that among his strays’ three teams, he’d rather be closest to Tyranny. Which meant Zhang Xinjie could not escape from Huang Shaotian and Wei Chen’s bickering.

There was more than one reason this day was such a trial.

Anyway, he didn’t question it when Lin Jingyan fled here in search of respite. He was grateful, even. Not even a saint could force Huang Shaotian and Wei Chen to communicate civilly, but Lin Jingyan could at least calm his former teammates’ tempers.

However, Han Wenqing was sitting right between Tyranny’s argumentative group and Tian Sen’s more argumentative group. Willingly. In his position, Zhang Xinjie would not be having a nice time.

…On second thought, he didn’t have to be in Han Wenqing’s position to not be having a nice time. He was successfully having a not-nice time on his own, and was even working up a fair amount of dread for the rest of the week. People did often say he was an overachiever.

An unnameable instinct made Zhang Xinjie look up from Han Wenqing’s stoic face to see Ye Xiu approaching from the other side of Tian Sen’s group. Their fearless national team leader ignored the chaos around him like a venerated immortal gliding through a battlefield. The casual expression on his face suggested he was just on a little stroll and had found his way here by accident.

That was how Zhang Xinjie knew trouble was afoot.

“Old Han!” Ye Xiu called.

Han Wenqing didn’t bother turning around.

Ye Xiu slunk into his line of sight, bypassing Zhang Xinjie entirely. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Here I am.”

“Yes, how nice to see you. I’ve missed your wallet face. Nice shades, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know. Not a fan of existential questions like that.”

Ye Xiu crossed his arms. “So that’s how it’s gonna be.”

Han Wenqing hummed. “How’s your tent?”

“In progress.”

“You’re not helping?”

“Why would I do that? Aren’t you just sitting here?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then you understand me.”

Zhang Xinjie edged away from them.

To his surprise, this was an unnecessary precaution. Han Wenqing and Ye Xiu soon established themselves as the calmest people in the vicinity—if only because everyone else was so emphatically not.

“They’re chatty today,” Lin Jingyan observed when their tent was well on its way to actually becoming a tent.

Zhang Xinjie glanced over. In the last fifteen minutes, Ye Xiu had acquired a camping chair of his own and had settled next to Han Wenqing, except he faced Tian Sen’s group and not Tyranny. He seemed to be enjoying Huang Shaotian and Wei Chen’s verbal warfare in between comments to Han Wenqing, who engaged with him readily.

“Yes,” he agreed with some wariness. “I thought he’d be angry at the captain.”

“Hm? How come?”

“If Han Wenqing hadn’t agreed to this, Ye Xiu wouldn’t be here. And he doesn’t want to be here.”

“At this point, none of us want to be here,” Lin Jingyan said wryly. “But it’s good that Ye Xiu came. It’s not like we’re going to see him that often from here on.”

Zhang Xinjie was slower to agree with that statement, although it was an obvious truth. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Lin Jingyan smiled at him as he got to his feet and patted the dust off his legs. “Let’s try to enjoy the rest of the week.”

When he helpfully offered a hand, Zhang Xinjie didn’t hesitate to take it.

* * *

On the other side of the battlegrou—ahem—campsite, Dai Yanqi looked around and said, “Jeez, good luck.”

“Thanks,” Xiao Shiqin said, matching her in insincerity.

“I’m so glad girls have their own tents.”

She had good reason to be glad. Xiao Shiqin thought it must feel great to be Dai Yanqi this week. She only had to share with Su Mucheng and Chu Yunxiu.

As for Xiao Shiqin, Fang Xuecai, and Zhang Jiaxing… Well, they were pretty much on their own with Li Hua and Feng Xiangming, who’d been abandoned by their three female teammates as soon as they arrived. Xiao Shiqin had nothing against this arrangement, but their tent was never going to be a problem. The problem was the tents around it.

Why oh why did they have to be stuck between Happy’s tent and Samsara’s?

“There’s probably nothing to worry about,” Xiao Shiqin said, more to reassure himself than Dai Yanqi. “We all get along just fine.”

Dai Yanqi’s expression vacillated somewhere between mischief and pity. “Oh yeah? Even when there are no stakes involved?”

“It’s not like there are a load of things to disagree over, right?”

“Not right now, there isn’t. We just got here.”

“Have you always been this much of a pessimist, or do you just enjoy the possibility of my misery?”

“Definitely one of the two.”

“Hey, neighbor.” Fang Rui appeared around the bulk of Thunderclap’s tent. “Just moved in? Oh, are the girls’ tents here, too?”

“Nah, we’re way at the end over there.” Dai Yanqi pointed. “Is your tent ready?”

“Yep, we just finished dragging in our stuff. What about you?” The question was directed at Xiao Shiqin. “Need help?”

Xiao Shiqin smiled and shook his head. “We’re all good. Well, for a given value of ‘good.’”

Fang Rui nodded solemnly. “Yeah, I thought we were going to kill each other for a while there. Ye Xiu straight up ditched while our backs were turned. I don’t know where he is or if he’s coming back.”

“It’s not like he can make a break for it.”

“I try not to underestimate him.”

Fair enough.

Fang Rui’s eyes wandered to Samsara’s tent next door. None of the tents had distinguishing characteristics; they were all uniform in color and design. The counselors said they’d attach ribbons to the outside for identification purposes, but Xiao Shiqin had seen little of them so far. They might just be busy helping out other groups. Presently, the only way to tell who occupied which tent was by asking. Merely observing who came and went wasn’t conclusive, what with all the surprise visits (invasions?) going on.

Xiao Shiqin followed Fang Rui’s gaze. Zhou Zekai stood just outside his tent’s entrance, a vaguely baffled look on his face as he studied his surroundings. Xiao Shiqin had seen that same expression on several people over the course of the last hour or so. Zhou Zekai was probably trying to figure out how he’d ended up here.

“Samsara in that one?” Fang Rui asked casually.

“Yep,” said Dai Yanqi. “Don’t cause any trouble for my poor captain.”

Fang Rui tilted his head. “Why would I cause trouble?”

Xiao Shiqin coughed and changed the subject. “Should I help you look for Senior Ye?”

“What? Oh, I’m not really looking for him. If he managed to escape…Godspeed.”

Dai Yanqi snickered. “No feelings of tenderness for your former captain? What happened to Happy’s famous camaraderie?”

“It’s because I have such profoundly tender feelings for my former captain that I can wish him well in his hypothetical escape.”

Sun Xiang emerged from behind some distant tents and approached Zhou Zekai, who was still standing blankly in place. A cameraman seemed to be filming him. When Sun Xiang stepped into frame, he adjusted his camera to capture their interaction. But Sun Xiang bypassed Zhou Zekai and headed…straight for them?

“Hey, Fang Rui. Do you know where Ye Xiu got a camping chair? I think Zhou Zekai needs one.” Sun Xiang jerked his thumb at his captain. “He’s not coping well.”

Fang Rui was subjected to three intense stares.

“I also want to know where Ye Xiu got a camping chair. Why does he get a chair? I deserve a chair!” Dai Yanqi crossed her arms.

Blinking, Fang Rui said, “I don’t know where he got a chair. I haven’t seen him in, like, forty minutes. Where is he?”

“He’s sitting with Han Wenqing near Tyranny’s spot. I think they’re heckling Wei Chen and Huang Shaotian or something.”

Han Wenqing, heckling? It was enough to boggle the mind. Xiao Shiqin was sure Sun Xiang must be exaggerating.

“Anyway, they’ve got camping chairs. Do they provide chairs, or were we supposed to bring our own? I didn’t think we were supposed to bring anything but clothes and toiletries and other basics.”

The four of them pondered these questions.

“You should have probably just asked Ye Xiu and Han Wenqing,” Xiao Shiqin pointed out.

“You couldn’t pay me to get anywhere close to whatever was happening over there.” Sun Xiang scowled and turned away. “I’m gonna look for a staffer, then.”

“Bye!” Dai Yanqi waved at his back.

“Poor Little Zhou. Shall I go comfort him?” Fang Rui wondered aloud. “I’ve been told I have a soothing presence.”

Dai Yanqi snorted.

“So instead of escaping, Senior Ye went to hang out with Senior Han. Looks like you got ditched for the arch-rival,” mused Xiao Shiqin.

“Yeah, I’m real broken up about it.”

Xiao Shiqin hummed. “I guess we’ll be seeing new sides to Senior Ye this summer. Not sure if I should look forward to it.”

Fang Rui snickered. “Prepare for the worst.”

“Why’d he even come? I was already skeptical about this retirement claim,” Dai Yanqi said. “Now I’m starting to think he’s gonna haunt us forever, retirement or no.”

Honestly, Xiao Shiqin was in the same boat. But—and he might be totally wrong about this—he suspected it had something to do with him.

* * *

Sequestered in the camp’s admin building, the show director, Peng Zemin, gathered with several crew members around a row of laptops arrayed across a long table.

On one of the laptop’s screens, a pair of bickering pro players faced each other. The insults streaming from their mouths grew more creative and degenerate by the minute. Peng Zemin had heard the word fuck so many times in the span of thirty seconds that his ears were growing numb to it.

When the clip ended, the room fell into impressed silence.

“Well, we can’t air that, obviously,” said Cao Xinyi, the Alliance’s PR lackey-in-charge. And also the person metaphorically holding Peng Zemin’s leash.

But leash or no, Peng Zemin would be shot dead before he let something like this make it to the final cut. Family friendly was his brand. “We’re not airing it. Absolutely not.”

A surprising number of people looked disappointed despite their understanding nods.

“Are they…usually like that?” someone asked Cao Xinyi.

“Oh, pretty much. Wei Chen is retired from Team Happy now, but before that, he was the captain of Blue Rain. He and Huang Shaotian originally met online. The history makes everything between those two a little…intense. You can just ignore it.”

“It might be interesting,” another crew member said, “if they could stop cussing for a minute or so.”

Cao Xinyi sighed. “I’ll talk to them, see what I can do.” She didn’t sound optimistic about her chances.

“Any other dynamics we should keep an eye on? For the interest of the show,” asked Hu Lingxin, their set coordinator.

“Ye Xiu is a person of interest.” Cao Xinyi pointed to one of the other laptop screens. “Here he’s sitting and chatting with the captain of Tyranny, Han Wenqing—where did they get these chairs? They’ve been rivals basically since Glory was released. Ye Xiu is retired now, but even so, this is a pretty juicy clip.”

A few people started taking notes.

“Since we’re on the topic of retired players, following Lin Jingyan might be interesting. I saw him talking to Fang Rui earlier. Fang Rui is Happy’s vice-captain. Oh, we also have Tyranny’s Zhang Jiale and Heavenly Sword’s Sun Zheping. Both of them retired from Hundred Blossoms and made dramatic comebacks… Heavenly Sword is super chummy with Happy, by the way. So is Tiny Herb; Wang Jiexi’s future successor Gao Yingjie is close to Happy’s Qiao Yifan, who was a substitute in Tiny Herb, and… Where was I going with this?”

Yeah, where was she going with this? And who said “chummy” in this day and age?

“I’m sensing a theme here,” said Hu Lingxin. “Is it just me?”

“No,” assured Peng Zemin. The theme was Team Happy and it was everywhere.

“You know what?!” Cao Xinyi suddenly exclaimed.

Peng Zemin jolted.

“If we could find a cork board to use, I could set up a little diagram.” Humming and nodding, Cao Xinyi added, “I think it would be very illustrative.”

“I’ll get whatever you need,” Hu Lingxin promised, wide-eyed.

Cao Xinyi rubbed her hands together. “Great. This should make everyone’s lives a lot easier.”

Peng Zemin prayed that was the case.

* * *

Dawn of the first day. 120 hours remain.

Mornings at camp were going to be a challenge to Yu Wenzhou’s sanity. He had already been through so much in his life, but the trek from the campsite to the shower facilities to the dining pavilion might just do him in.

Having this ordeal filmed only exasperated him further. The crew had stopped short of putting cameras inside their tents, but it seemed like every time Yu Wenzhou turned around, there was a recording device pointed at him.

Was this really going to be okay? Was he going to be okay?

“Why would anyone want to watch us eat anyway? I hate mukbangs, I don’t see the fascination at all, like what’s so special about eating a meal? Actually, I don’t like watching people eat in real life, either. If they make too much noise or chew with their mouths open, I start to dislike them. Seriously, I can’t look at them the same way afterward.”

Yu Wenzhou nodded down at his breakfast tray. He understood Huang Shaotian completely.

“I can’t believe this is my life right now,” Zheng Xuan muttered to himself. “I should be at home, stress-free—”

“You know what I think?” Li Yuan tapped his chin. “If Huang Shao makes a strong enough impression on the audience, he’ll get his own show and none of us will have to repeat this experience ever again.”

It said something about Yu Wenzhou’s state of mind (and level of sleep deprivation) that he thought an idea as preposterous as Huang Shaotian’s own TV show might be worth pursuing.

Fortunately(?), he didn’t have much time to ponder it. The Yu Wenzhou of a couple hours later had a whole new set of problems.

It started with divisions. There were 82 pro play—ah, campers present. Ignoring the crew which followed them around, that was a lot of people to handle all at once. So the counselors split them into three groups based on their teams, and Blue Rain ended up in Group Three.

There wasn’t anything wrong with Group Three at first glance. Other than the six members of Blue Rain, it included Wind Howl’s and Misty Rain’s five, Hundred Blossoms’s four, and Parade’s and Lightly’s three, bringing them to a grand total of 26 people. Sure, they were the smallest group. Sure, Group One had both Tyranny and Tiny Herb, and Group Two had Ye Xiu and Xiao Shiqin, which seemed advantageous at best and overpowered at worst. But this wasn’t Glory, and nothing that could constitute an advantage in Glory was guaranteed to translate to real-life situations. So initially, Yu Wenzhou was not dissatisfied with his lot. He’d even assumed there was nothing to worry about besides the cameramen stalking their every move.

Oh, how innocent he’d been.

“The trees in this section of the woods were planted around twenty-five years ago, so they’re…um, they’re… Excuse me? Excuse—is there something happening back there?”

Zhou Yan, the mildest and seemingly wimpiest of the camp counselors, had been put in charge of Group Three. In retrospect, this was an extremely tragic choice.

“Poor guy is out of his depth,” Yu Feng whispered.

Yu Wenzhou nodded solemnly.

During their tour of the campgrounds, Group Three had fallen into a pattern. Blue Rain and Hundred Blossoms huddled at the front, Lightly and Parade hovered awkwardly in the middle, and Misty Rain and Wind Howl brought up the rear. The rear, as it turned out, was a great place to argue, and Chu Yunxiu and Tang Hao were finally getting loud enough that even Zhou Yan couldn’t ignore them.

“It’s nothing! Sorry, please continue!” Chu Yunxiu called.

Yu Wenzhou saw Zhou Yan’s struggle play out across his face. In the end, he decided to take Chu Yunxiu at her word and continued as requested.

The tour had already ended, technically. There wasn’t much to see: the campgrounds consisted of an admin building, an outdoor dining pavilion and kitchen, sports facilities, and shower facilities all arranged around a central courtyard. To the north of the dining pavilion was the wide open space where they’d pitched their tents, to the east and west were grassy fields, and beyond all that were carefully maintained trails that meandered through a scenic man-made forest.

What they were doing right now was a trail walk, a supposedly relaxing pastime campers often indulged in. Zhou Yan said they’d trek to an artificial lake in the northwest, an attraction the camp was well known for, and then head back to rest and have lunch.

Yu Wenzhou wished he could just bail and head back right now. He’d had a more relaxing time fighting against Tiny Herb for the Season 6 championship. He’d had a more relaxing time at Worlds.

“…totally obvious. Third Princess was never going to agree to marry him when all he does is lie to her,” hissed Chu Yunxiu.

“He lies to her because he wants to protect her.”

“But all he does is get in her way! If she’d known that Investigator Lu had sided with the general, she wouldn’t have gone forward with the plan to approach Madam Lu. In the end, he only sees her as a weak woman who is incapable of following her own will. He thinks it’s better for her to sit around and do nothing than to take an active role in politics, even though her well-being literally depends on being well-positioned in the court. He doesn’t understand her perspective at all, no matter how many times she’s explained it to him. That’s not true love and you’re fucking stupid for thinking it is! But you’re a man so of course you wouldn’t get how frustrating this is to watch for me.”

Tang Hao said something Yu Wenzhou couldn’t quite make out, and the argument faded into senseless noise for a few blissful moments.

“How much longer can they talk about a fictional character’s love life?” Zhou Guangyi demanded from somewhere behind Yu Wenzhou. “I didn’t even know Tang Hao watched dramas.”

“He only watches the popular ones,” said Zou Yuan. “This one is actually kinda good. I don’t mind the romantic subplot, but I’m starting to think Sis Chu has a point.”

Yu Wenzhou was starting to think Group Three was doomed.

* * *

“Well, this could be fun,” said Bai Yanfei as he sorted through the art supplies on their table. “It almost feels like being a little kid again.”

“You’re basically a little kid already,” said Zhang Jiale. “You should feel right at home.”

“Look at you, still being such a jerk when you won the first-ever international Glory competition,” Bai Yanfei said with some fondness. “I kinda missed it.”

Lin Jingyan chuckled. “You’ll be sick of him again soon enough.”

Zhang Xinjie glanced at Han Wenqing, who was sitting across from him with a bored expression as he fiddled with a colored pencil. “Any ideas about what you want to make, Captain?”

“None whatsoever,” Han Wenqing replied disinterestedly. “Maybe I’ll fold some origami.”

“You know origami, Captain?” asked Song Qiying.

“No.” Han Wenqing pointed at one of the shelves lining the walls of the crafts workshop. “I see origami books over there. I guess I can learn.”

Lin Jingyan’s lips quirked as he looked at the tripod set up next to their table. “I bet your fans will love that.”

“Why?”

“It just seems unique. Next thing you know they’ll send you letters in origami form.”

Han Wenqing shrugged like that didn’t concern him at all and got up to peruse the books.

“The counselor said we should consider making something for someone else, right?” asked Zhang Jiale.

Bai Yanfei dropped the marker he was holding and leaned forward. “Ooh, are you going to make something for Sun Zheping?”

Zhang Jiale stared at him, aghast.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Senior,” said Song Qiying, probably in an attempt to be supportive.

“I’m not making anything for him,” Zhang Jiale said laughingly. “That’d be pretty embarrassing.”

“Senior Sun is in Group Two. You could make something in secret and give it to him in secret,” Song Qiying suggested.

Zhang Jiale raised his eyebrows at their rookie. “Little Song, did you forget we’re being filmed? Do you want my thing with Old Sun to become some reality TV show subplot?”

“What’s your ‘thing’ with Senior Sun?” Zhang Xinjie asked, though he was a little scared of the answer.

Everyone looked at Zhang Jiale—including Han Wenqing, who was just returning with a couple of books.

Zhang Jiale flushed, lowered his head, then lifted it back up with a forcibly casual expression. “It’s nothing. I said hi to him yesterday.”

They waited.

“Is that it?” Han Wenqing snorted.

Zhang Jiale sniffed. “What were you expecting? We’re not best buds just because he’s back to competing. He’s probably going to retire before I do! Again!”

Lin Jingyan, freshly retired, coughed and returned to doodling on his paper.

Han Wenqing looked around at their sad table of six. “Enough talking, let’s focus on our artwork or whatever.”

“Hey, Old Lin, if you don’t know what to do now, you should try an art career,” said Bai Yanfei as he eyed Lin Jingyan’s doodles. “You have talent!”

Lin Jingyan smiled and thanked him for the compliment.

A little before two p.m., their counselor (a thirty-something named Hou Guangyu who was a self-declared gamer and the most senior of the three counselors they’d met) had marched Group One to the admin building and introduced them to the workshop. He then spent about fifteen minutes of their one-hour daily workshop period explaining the rules and goals of the arts and crafts activity and answering questions, so between that and figuring out what to work on for the rest of their stay at summer camp, nobody had accomplished much by three p.m.—not even Zhang Xinjie. He had covered one side of his paper in notes about potential art projects, and the other in color-coded to-do lists sorted by urgency. His body was in summer camp, but his mind was still processing the last few days of Worlds.

That changed a little bit when, five minutes to the end of their allotted workshop time, Zhang Xinjie caught glimpses of what his teammates had done. Besides Han Wenqing, who’d managed to fold a surprising amount of paper, and Lin Jingyan, who seemed to be an expert doodler, Team Tyranny was…struggling. Artistically.

“What is that?” Zhang Xinjie asked Bai Yanfei, pointing at the papers he’d filled with a riot of abstract scribbles and…color swatches?

“Oh, I want to try to draw the scenery by the lake. Not that I have any experience with that sort of thing. I hope they have books about drawing trees.”

“They do,” Han Wenqing said as he helped the others replace their art supplies.

“Thank goodness. Maybe I can become an art prodigy by the end of this week.”

“That’s not how it works, but I applaud your enthusiasm,” said Lin Jingyan.

Zhang Xinjie squinted dubiously. “You know you’ll need a photo of the scenery, right?”

Bai Yanfei tilted his head. “A photo? Why?”

“For reference.”

“A real artist draws from memory. Or imagination!”

“No, they don’t.” Zhang Xinjie was in disbelief. “When you said you don’t have any experience, did you mean you just don’t have practical experience? Or do you not have theoretical knowledge, either?”

“Uh…what’s so theoretical about art? It’s just drawing and coloring, right?”

“The look on your face right now,” Han Wenqing said to Zhang Xinjie, smirking.

Zhang Xinjie made an effort to control his expression. “This is not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny,” said Lin Jingyan.

“Art is a subject that requires a lot of study,” said Song Qiying.

“Yeah, you philistine.” Zhang Jiale laughed in Bai Yanfei’s face. “What art prodigy? You probably don’t even know how to draw a circle.”

Bai Yanfei groaned. “Shut up! I don’t want to study, I just want to draw a pretty picture.”

Zhang Xinjie sighed and stuffed everyone’s papers into a cheap archival storage box provided by the counselor. It took only a split second to make up his mind to search through every book in the place for one that was directed at idiots who knew nothing about art. After all, Counselor Hou Guangyu had mentioned that arts and crafts was supposed to be a constructive experience.

* * *

Group Two was surprisingly not that contentious, despite harboring its fair share of strong personalities. The morning tour and trail walk were peaceful enough and the afternoon arts and crafts workshop was sufficiently relaxing, so Xiao Shiqin imagined he was going to get through day one of summer camp activities unscathed.

This turned out to be very naive of him.

When the sky shaded from late afternoon blue into evening purple, six big bonfires were lit in the picturesque woods that bordered the tenting area. They were half in the trees and half in the open, creating an appropriately camp-like atmosphere. If one ignored the rows of tents in the distance, the camera setups scattered here and there, and the easy access to modern amenities like plumbing, one could pretend they were truly in the wilderness. It was a straightforward way to enjoy the great outdoors without sacrificing comfort.

So in his naivety, Xiao Shiqin assumed the campfire gathering was the ideal moment to unwind after a long day of doing stuff gamers didn’t usually do. Ignorant and innocent, he wandered from fire to fire with a big cup of juice in one hand and a skewer full of grilled meat in the other and searched for somewhere he could sit to enjoy a calm, quiet conversation.

“Captain! Over here!” Dai Yanqi called out. She was seated on a carved log, surrounded by the “girl gang,” as she’d started calling them. They seemed to have claimed a fire all to themselves because only a few people were hovering nearby.

Bemused, Xiao Shiqin trotted over. Dai Yanqi made room for him on her log, beaming happily.

“You came just in time,” Chu Yunxiu told him. “We’re about to start the story.”

Xiao Shiqin nodded and chewed on his meat. He wasn’t sure how seriously people were taking the storytelling activity considering it a) was a long-term event whose winner was decided by viewer voting and b) had a lame prize (a special set of one-of-a-kind Orange equipment designed by the game company for this occasion). If the girls wanted to give it a go, though, who was he to tell them otherwise?

“What kind of stories will you be telling?” he asked.

“Scary ones,” said Liu Fei.

“With a little bit of romance,” added Zhong Yeli. “Because I can’t be bothered to interest myself in something with no romantic subplots.”

“Amen,” said Chu Yunxiu. “It’s going to be a good romantic subplot, though. Unlike the romances in certain dramas I could name.”

Su Mucheng patted Chu Yunxiu’s arm. “Yeah, let’s not get sidetracked, sis. Who’s going to start?”

Xiao Shiqin leaned close to Dai Yanqi and whispered, “What exactly is going on here?”

“We already decided on the plot and characters,” Dai Yanqi whispered back, “so we’re going to take turns telling the different story beats. There’s room for a little improvisation. You know, for funsies.”

“Uh. When did you guys do all that?”

“Last night, during lunch break, and between workshops and now.”

That was shockingly efficient. “How did you even know there was going to be a storytelling activity?”

“One of the counselors told us yesterday. Our counselor, actually! What’s his name—Cheng Shi? He’s actually a lot nicer than he looks. Very forthcoming once we struck up a conversation. He explained all the activities. In detail. He’s so good at his job.”

Xiao Shiqin suspected Cheng Shi’s transparency had a lot to do with the girls being cute and less to do with his supposed skill at his job.

“Tell me later,” said Xiao Shiqin, because he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Dai Yanqi gave him a positively diabolical smile and nodded. “Now hush and be wowed by our storytelling abilities. I think Sis Chu should consider being a scriptwriter after she retires from pro gaming. She could make bank.”

On the other side of the fire, Su Mucheng had already begun easing into the first scene. Her voice was melodious, her word choice inspired. Xiao Shiqin listened attentively…

…and then bailed after the third scene, devised and narrated by Chu Yunxiu, the deranged mastermind herself.

“What’s wrong, Captain?” Fang Xuecai asked when Xiao Shiqin ran into him and Zhang Jiaxing a few minutes later. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Xiao Shiqin shuddered.

Ye Xiu materialized out of thin air just to laugh at him. “Lemme guess. You listened in on the girls.”

“How’d you guess?” Xiao Shiqin tried to rub away the goosebumps on his arms.

“I overheard a few things earlier. It was, ah, very stirring.”

Stirring was certainly one way to describe what Xiao Shiqin had been subjected to.

Ye Xiu grinned at Xiao Shiqin’s expression. “Chu Yunxiu sure has a talent for imagination, doesn’t she? She ought to be a scriptwriter. I think I’ll drop in for a minute.”

“He is so brave,” Xiao Shiqin said as he watched Ye Xiu’s back recede into shadow.

Fang Xuecai looked at Zhang Jiaxing. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

Zhang Jiaxing shrugged. “We can go check it out.”

The two wandered off after Ye Xiu.

“Captain Xiao?”

Xiao Shiqin blinked at Li Hua, who blinked at him in turn. “Where’d you come from?”

“I’ve been standing here this whole time. Where have you been? Do you want to come sit with us?” Li Hua asked, all obliviousness. He pointed to the nearest fire, which had drawn quite a crowd compared to the others Xiao Shiqin had walked past.

“Are you telling scary stories?”

Li Hua lifted his eyebrows. “Uh, no. We’re just sitting and eating. And talking.”

“Lead the way.”

* * *

“This might actually be doable. I thought it was going to be terrible, but day one hasn’t gone too badly.”

“Oh, shut the hell up, Cheng Shi. You only say that because you spend all your free time talking to those girls.”

“They’re the only ones who seem to actually want to be here.”

“You mean they’re the only ones who pay any special attention to you.” Hou Guangyu turned to Boss Xiao. “Boss, are you hearing this? Cheng Shi only wants to flirt with the female campers.”

“He’s a young man,” said Boss Xiao, the lines of her face hardly shifting. She turned a page in her magazine.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Mm. Okay.” Boss Xiao looked up at them. “Boys, don’t hit on the campers.” She looked back down.

Cheng Shi crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at Hou Guangyu. “You just wish you had more girls in your group.”

Hou Guangyu rubbed at the skin between his eyebrows like he wanted to reach inside his skull and rip out his own brain.

“Senior, maybe you should eat something,” said Zhou Yan. “You seem really stressed.”

“Yeah, Little Hou,” drawled Boss Xiao. “Where is all this stress coming from? You were excited yesterday.”

It was Hou Guangyu’s turn to cross his arms. “I already had dinner, and yesterday I didn’t realize what a shithead Cheng Shi was gonna be.”

“Oh, come on!” Cheng Shi threw his hands in the air.

Zhou Yan glanced between them and timidly said, “I don’t think Brother Cheng has been behaving…inappropriately.”

Hou Guangyu said in a voice dripping with disbelief, “He treats the girls nicely and shit-talks everyone else. Every time I see him, he has some snarky comment about how all these ‘shut-ins’ and ‘losers with no future’ are complaining about the simplest things. Where are all these supposed complaints even coming from? The director mentioned to me that Group Two is the most harmonious so far!”

Zhou Yan winced despite himself. Cheng Shi had made no effort to conceal from his coworkers how little respect he had for this batch of campers, but surely he could do his job without emotional interference. Cheng Shi had been working here for four years to Zhou Yan’s two, and though he was as sarcastic as they came, he had never been unprofessional.

But Hou Guangyu had seniority over them both, and he didn’t criticize them without reason. Zhou Yan had no choice but to subside since this senior was determined to make his point.

Cheng Shi must have come to a similar conclusion because he didn’t try to defend himself anymore. Instead he just stared at Hou Guangyu sullenly and darted a few subtle glances at Boss Xiao, who refused to pay attention.

Hou Guangyu continued: “I don’t care what you think about professional gaming as a career—”

“What career?” Cheng Shi scoffed.

“—but there are cameras and outsiders everywhere. Just because we’re background characters doesn’t mean someone isn’t going to call you out if they see you acting like a creep. Honestly, I’d rather you just be shitty to everyone than be shitty to everyone but the female campers. It’s weird!”

Cheng Shi lost his patience. “I am not acting like a creep! Boss, am I acting like a creep? Little Zhou?”

“I have been in this office most of the day,” said Boss Xiao.

“I think you’re fine,” said Zhou Yan, “but I also think you should listen to Senior. Besides, if you keep telling the female campers about the activities…”

“…He told them what?”

“It’s not classified information.” Cheng Shi tilted his chin challengingly. “And if it is, no one ever notified me.”

With a bark of laughter, Hou Guangyu walked over to his desk and plopped down. Then he laughed some more.

Zhou Yan and Cheng Shi stared at him with perplexed expressions.

“Looks like the campers pulled one over on you this time, Little Cheng,” Boss Xiao said apathetically. “Those losers with no future are gonna run circles around you now.”

* * *

“Good morning, Senior,” Yu Wenzhou greeted.

Ye Xiu blinked up at him with bleary eyes. “Good morning. Where are your ducklings?”

“They slept in a little.”

“Is that fine?”

“It should be. We have a whole hour to eat breakfast.” So far, no one in the camp, whether they be crew or counselor, had been strict about enforcing the schedule. They didn’t try to limit the players’ movements, either, so long as they showed up for activities. From Yu Wenzhou’s few interactions with the director, he was able to glean that they were more interested in capturing the players’ “natural behaviors” than sticking to a program. This conclusion left him with the strange feeling that he had somehow become the subject of a wildlife documentary, but he decided he was better off appreciating the freedom afforded to him than questioning it. His teammates certainly needed no encouragement to take advantage.

“You’re not going to follow their example?” Ye Xiu asked idly.

Yu Wenzhou shrugged. “My sleep schedule died in a ditch somewhere between here and Zurich. A few more minutes tossing and turning on the ground isn’t going to benefit me.”

Ye Xiu chuckled and returned to his breakfast.

The dining pavilion was a big circular open-air building. About three-fourths of the ten-seater dining tables were situated underneath its roof. The outdoor tables—one of which Yu Wenzhou, Ye Xiu, and the members of Happy (minus Wei Chen and Su Mucheng) were occupying—received a steady stream of sunlight throughout most of the day. It was also within view of the tents, allowing Yu Wenzhou to enjoy the sight of his half-awake colleagues stumbling out of their temporary homes to the shower facilities and then back again for breakfast.

Honestly, it was a killer routine and he didn’t know why any sensible adult paid for the privilege of experiencing it. Sleep deprivation or no, he’d lose his mind before he enjoyed having to traverse even a short distance from his tent just to brush his teeth and freshen up after a night spent sleeping on the ground. His only consolation was in shared suffering.

When Yu Wenzhou finished breakfast, he got up to hand in his tray, then returned to his seat and lowered his head atop his crossed arms with a sigh.

A finger poked his bicep. “Napping so soon? Your ducklings are already here, by the way. No sign of Shaotian, though. He and Old Wei might have killed each other overnight.”

“Tian Sen would never allow that.”

Ye Xiu huffed out a laugh. “But Old Lin would?”

Yu Wenzhou contemplated the variables surrounding this hypothetical double-murder. Before he could voice his thoughts aloud, however, a familiar voice called out for their attention.

Grudging, he lifted his head and focused on the person standing at the front of the dining pavilion, the end that was closest to the courtyard entrance. It took a moment to recognize Zhou Yan. Like yesterday when introducing the groups and whatnot, he had a microphone in hand and a jittery expression on his face. Was this how announcements were made around here? An auditorium would have been better. As well as a more confident speaker.

“Oh, that’s your counselor, right?” said Fang Rui. “The wimpy one.”

“He’s nice enough,” said Yu Wenzhou, though he didn’t disagree with the descriptor. He quickly cast his gaze around until he found his “ducklings” seated at a distant table with the members of Hundred Blossoms. Not the most unexpected combo.

Yu Wenzhou jumped as someone abruptly slid into the empty seat on his left. “Hi! Sorry I’m late, we had a big argument in my tent this morning and I ended up running to Tyranny’s tent and waking up Zhang Jiale, but then I had an argument with him and took way too long to get my stuff and head over to the—”

“Wow, that Leo can argue with so many people so early in the morning,” Bao Rongxing loudly whispered to Qiao Yifan and An Wenyi. The former winced while the latter leveled the table as a whole with a tired expression.

“Hey, I’m talking here—”

“Good morning, everyone. I see several campers are still missing…” Zhou Yan peered into the distance anxiously. “But I’m going to discuss today’s main activity anyway, so please fill in your fellow campers before we start at nine a.m.

“Our big activity today is a scavenger hunt! We’re going to hide the Glory Professional Alliance’s official character trading cards throughout the central campgrounds and inside the public-use buildings. Your job will be to find as many cards as you can until eleven a.m. It’s an individual competition, so you’re all competing against each other. One card is one point, but special-edition cards are worth three points, so look out for those. You cannot steal cards from each other, but a dropped card can be picked up.”

“How boring,” Fang Rui said with a yawn. “Would it be weird if I got up to grab a glass of juice right now?”

Yu Wenzhou glanced at Huang Shaotian, whose focus was directed entirely at the overburdened food tray before him, then at Ye Xiu, who was resting his chin in his hand and apparently spacing out.

“What do you think, Senior?” he asked.

Ye Xiu shrugged. “Don’t care, not gonna try. That’s my plan for this entire week.”

“I support this,” said Fang Rui.

“The prize for the first-place winner of the scavenger hunt,” continued Zhou Yan, “is a rice cooker.”

Ye Xiu raised his head and sat up straight.

A soft murmur arose throughout the hall.

“Rice cooker?” Bao Rongxing repeated.

“We could use a rice cooker,” said An Wenyi, his gaze calculating as he twisted around to see Zhou Yan properly.

“We sure could,” Fang Rui agreed. He stared at Ye Xiu.

Ye Xiu smiled back.

Oh dear.

* * *

“So, your thing with Sun Zheping…”

Zhang Jiale immediately groaned. “Please no. I regret ever saying that. I’m going to beg the director on my knees to bury that footage where it can never see the light of day.”

Zhang Xinjie shot Lin Jingyan a warning look, but either he didn’t identify it for what it was or chose to ignore it, because he gave Zhang Jiale one of his patented “I’m just asking a question” expressions.

“It’s only natural that you’d still think of him even after all this time, right? Setting aside that his return was a little dramatic—you two have that in common—he was a big influence on your career.”

Lin Jingyan had a way of making every word that came out of his mouth sound extremely reasonable. It wasn’t an act, either: he really was a reasonable person with very normal trains of thought, and his natural social aptitude allowed him to navigate conversations in a relaxing manner. If his goal was to put someone at ease, he’d say and do nothing that would raise their defenses. Zhang Xinjie had always admired this about him.

Right now, though, he had to wonder if Lin Jingyan knew what he was doing. The topic of Sun Zheping wasn’t forbidden, but Zhang Jiale had never spoken to anyone in Tyranny about him in great detail. He’d had a forward-facing attitude ever since he decided to sign on. He wrestled with regrets often enough, but his resolve didn’t crumble. Zhang Xinjie had always admired this, too.

Yet the only kind of resolve Zhang Xinjie was seeing on Zhang Jiale’s face right now was the resolve not to discuss Sun Zheping. It was apparent that some regrets were not so easy to defeat.

With a sigh, Zhang Xinjie fixed his gaze on the path ahead. They were currently circling around the eastern field. An expanse of yellow-green grass was to their right, a grove of trees was to their left, and the tents were somewhere behind them. Nearly an hour into the event and none of their trio had spotted any trading cards, which was fine by Zhang Xinjie. He didn’t care about a scavenger hunt, much less winning one. He’d much rather enjoy the relative quiet in this part of the grounds.

At length, Zhang Jiale spoke up, drawing Zhang Xinjie’s eyes from the shivering shadows of sunlit leaves. His expression was solemn, subdued, and rather unlike himself.

“I had to let go of a lot to carry on like this,” he said, each word articulated with care, “so I can understand Old Sun much better than I used to. That…makes it harder.”

“Makes what harder?” Lin Jingyan gently asked.

Zhang Xinjie’s pace faltered as he spotted a film crew member backing rapidly out of an emergency exit at the back of the closest building—the sports facilities, he recalled. A moment later, someone else charged out after the cameraman, the door closing smoothly behind them.

Was that…Bao Rongxing? The strange one from Happy? (Ignoring that most people from Happy were strange.)

“Is that Bao Rongxing?” Lin Jingyan pointed across the field.

They were a distance away and somewhat sheltered by the trees, so it made sense that Bao Rongxing didn’t spot them. He was clearly in too much of a hurry anyway; he ran around the building and into the narrow alley between it and the kitchen without so much as a glance around. The cameraman loped after him.

“Huh,” said Zhang Jiale. “He seems motivated.”

All of a sudden, the emergency door opened again. The person who came out was not quite as recognizable as long-haired and athletic Bao Rongxing, but the way he cut decisively across the field when he spotted them left no question as to his identity.

“Did that guy piss off Tang Hao?” Zhang Jiale snickered. “Some people are taking this super seriously, huh?”

It took a couple of minutes for Tang Hao to cross the distance. When he was within speaking range, he called, “Have you guys seen Liu Hao anywhere?”

“Nope!” Zhang Jiale called back.

Tang Hao threw his hands in the air and swiveled around to trudge back whence he came.

“Weird,” Lin Jingyan observed.

“Kids are so energetic these days.”

As the junior, Zhang Xinjie decided not to comment.

They had only made it another few meters when someone appeared on the opposite end of the path. They were…running. Running right at them.

The trio paused, perplexed. That person kept on charging forward, and forward, and forward, and eventually passed them by altogether without even a hello.

Considering how hard he was wheezing, though, Zhang Xinjie couldn’t blame him for saving his breath.

“Should we have mentioned that Tang Hao was looking for him?” Zhang Jiale asked.

Lin Jingyan chuckled as they watched Liu Hao disappear into the campsite. “Nah. This place isn’t that big, they’ll find each other eventually.”

“Is this because of the scavenger hunt?” Zhang Xinjie wondered.

Zhang Jiale waved his hand. “I don’t see why else anyone would be running that hard in this heat.”

It was, indeed, very hot. As soon as they found a shaded bench tucked near a corner of the field, they sat down and prayed to go unnoticed by cameramen and fellow campers alike.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Yet another person manifested in the distance, near the tents this time, and approached them. They had a cameraman behind them, too. The pair jogged at a leisurely pace as if they were in no rush to get anywhere.

“It’s Fang Rui,” said Zhang Jiale.

“Hey, guys! Chilling?” Fang Rui said, stopping in front of the bench. The cameraman backed up a bit to film all four of them.

“Yeah,” Lin Jingyan replied. “What are you up to? You’re sweating buckets. Remember to drink water.”

Fang Rui laughed. “Sure, Old Lin. You wouldn’t have happened to spot Liu Hao at any point…?”

“Yes, actually. He ran into the campsite less than ten minutes ago.” Zhang Xinjie pointed at the sports facilities. “We also saw Bao Rongxing and Tang Hao coming out of there. What’s going on?”

Fang Rui just smiled, thanked them, and went on his way.

* * *

“Hmm, we’ve got…forty-eight points then?”

“Yep.” Xiao Shiqin had counted them first before letting Dai Yanqi verify. “That was what I got.”

Dai Yanqi grinned and held up the stack of cards in her hand to the sky. “Yes! We’re definitely going to win this!”

“You mean you’re going to win this,” Xiao Shiqin said, unable to hold back his smile.

“No way, this was a team effort.” Dai Yanqi threaded her arm through his. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Captain.”

Xiao Shiqin doubted that was true. Dai Yanqi had been like a demon after she heard all the details of the scavenger hunt. For some reason, a rice cooker really appealed to her. Maybe it was because she wouldn’t have to spend her own money to acquire it. Free stuff just had that effect on (certain) people.

Anyway, Xiao Shiqin had been easily recruited to the cause, and he in turn had recruited Fang Xuecai and Zhang Jiaxing, who caved without a fight. None of them were eager to take the grand prize for themselves, which made them the perfect lackeys for Dai Yanqi.

And boy, she had worked them hard. Xiao Shiqin had to come up with a search strategy all on his own, which was a weird thing to do in real life, but he had enough experience with efficiently covering ground in Glory to figure it out. His efforts seemed to have paid off because the four of them stealthily gathered up nearly a dozen cards each just in the first hour of the hunt.

The rest of the hunt had been more…chaotic. Not only because the trading cards became rarer and harder to find, but because they had stiff competition. More than half the campers seemed content to just sit back and watch everything play out; the rest were as intent on victory as Dai Yanqi, if not more so. The added sense of urgency sent a bunch of people into a mad scramble, Thunderclap included.

This was all to say that Xiao Shiqin was glad it was over. He hoped he never had to repeat such an ordeal again, but hey, if Dai Yanqi won, it would be worth it. Probably.

Then they handed over their cards to a staffer to be tallied and waited. And the final result was…

“Bao Rongxing from Team Happy, Group Two, wins first place with fifty-six points!”

“No!” Dai Yanqi wailed as the crowd cheered and clapped.

Zhang Jiaxing patted her shoulder awkwardly. “There, there…”

“How did that guy get more points than us?” Fang Xuecai hissed into Xiao Shiqin’s ear.

Xiao Shiqin shrugged helplessly. As he was about to reply that he’d like to know that, too, he saw Bao Rongxing give his teammates high-fives, and a light bulb lit up above his head.

They—Happy—did the same exact thing as Thunderclap!

“Our second-place winner, who racked up forty-eight points, is Dai Yanqi from Team Thunderclap, Group Two!”

Dai Yanqi crossed her arms and smiled grudgingly as another cheer went up. A couple of cameramen filmed her reaction.

“And our third-place winner is Liu Hao from Team Wind Howl, Group Three! An impressive forty points! All together, the three top rankers racked up a whopping 144 points. Amazing job, campers!”

Xiao Shiqin heard Zhang Jiaxing mutter, “That’s even more surprising,” but he had no idea what he meant and didn’t have time to ask before Dai Yanqi grabbed him. Shocked, Xiao Shiqin was dragged toward a secluded spot along with a grinning Bao Rongxing and a pouting Liu Hao.

Turned out competition winners had to be interviewed on camera. Xiao Shiqin would have made himself scarce if he’d known this sooner. He wasn’t the nominal winner anyway; it was unfair.

“How did you get out of that?” he demanded from Ye Xiu when he was finally set free.

In shameless defiance of the rules, Ye Xiu had found a hidden nook to covertly smoke. Xiao Shiqin only noticed him because he was working hard to duck any and all attention. He hoped to see not a single camera more until he’d had lunch. (Yes, he knew this was a vain hope.)

“Out of what?”

“Interviews. I know you helped Bao Rongxing. The rest of Happy too, I’m guessing.”

Ye Xiu looked him up and down and smiled. A ring of smoke left his lips and dispersed in the air. “I just bailed. My spidey senses tingle as soon as I start getting any unwanted attention.”

Xiao Shiqin supposed he must have honed such an instinct from years of hiding his identity in the professional circle. “Impressive.”

“Thanks. I see Dai Yanqi put you through your paces.”

Most of the sweat had dried by now, but Xiao Shiqin still wiped at his face self-consciously. “Yeah, I couldn’t really refuse her.  She’s too persistent.”

Ye Xiu laughed softly.

“I guess the better tactician won today,” Xiao Shiqin said, “but if there’s a next time…”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” Ye Xiu didn’t seem perturbed by the challenge. “I just played along because the others really wanted a new rice cooker. Not that I blame them: the one we had at the house was secondhand and falling apart.”

Xiao Shiqin felt a little iffy at that. Were rice cookers a new fad or was Happy really just that poor?

Either way— “You can be a real softie, Senior.”

Ye Xiu snorted and shook his head. “I’m not lifting a finger for the rest of the week.”

“Heh.” Xiao Shiqin didn’t believe that for a second.

* * *

If anything was to be said about Cao Xinyi, let it be this: she kept her word, and she kept it with flair.

On a cork board mounted on one of the walls of the “strategy room” (as most of the TV production’s head honchos had taken to calling it), profile photos of 82 Glory professional players were pinned. The ten or so most relevant teams were color-coded for the sake of clarification. For further clarification, colored strings were drawn between certain players and certain teams, denoting rivalries, mentor-student relationships, recent drama (transfers, trades, shifts in position, and so on), and friendships (because those were important too).

It was a masterpiece. Cao Xinyi was 29 years old, but she thought it wasn’t too soon to call this her life’s work (so far).

Nobody had asked her to go the full mile like this, naturally. She just had a lot of fun with it. The research most people found tedious was just another facet of her job, and hardly the worst one. Reviewing player interviews and press releases was downright relaxing compared to some of the errands Director Xiong had had her run in the past. Believe it or not, there were downsides to being the understudy/pet prodigy of the head of the PR department (though it still beat internship).

“Okay, so…” Director Peng tapped his chin. “The Zhang Jiale-Sun Zheping connection seems worth pursuing, but neither of them have been particularly outstanding so far. Especially Sun Zheping. Most of the people he talks to are his teammates or former teammates in Happy. He hasn’t paid any attention to the people from Hundred Blossoms. In fact, he almost seems to be purposely ignoring them. He’s also not super cooperative with the crew.”

“The Ye Xiu-Han Wenqing rivalry is more interesting than those two, and they’re not really doing anything, either,” someone said plaintively. “Showing them peacefully hanging out together could garner a lot of attention.”

“I know all Huang Shaotian and Wei Chen do is argue with each other and swear a lot, but they’re definitely a lot more active all around than a lot of the so-called favorites,” Hu Lingxin said with a thoughtful expression.

“Well, Huang Shaotian is also a favorite. Sort of. He’d be more of a favorite if he didn’t have such a big mouth, probably.” The crew member who said this tossed Cao Xinyi an apologetic look.

Cao Xinyi shrugged. She had no emotional attachments to any of the pros. She also agreed entirely. How many rants had she been subjected to over the years concerning Huang Shaotian’s lack of marketability? His big mouth made a lot of people’s lives hard, not just hers or the crew’s.

“Fang Rui and Lin Jingyan are friendly and…er, normal. We should shoot them more often.”

“The girls are entertaining, too. They’re meeting up frequently throughout the day, as a big group or in pairs or trios. That campfire story—”

“I know, it’s really good.”

“Horror isn’t really my thing, but they’re drawing attention from the other pros, too. We’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Happy is interesting in general. They have friendly interactions with a lot of teams. Tiny Herb, Heavenly Sword, Blue Rain, Misty Rain, even the smaller teams. Hell, even Tyranny and Samsara, though I guess that’s kind of to be expected.”

“Is it to be expected?”

“Well, all the strings—”

“Ah, yeah. The strings.”

The room contemplated the cork board for a moment. Cao Xinyi felt smugger than ever.

“Right, anyway. What are our plans for tomorrow?”

“What’s the activity again?”

Cao Xinyi, who had just heard the details from Boss Xiao, recited, “Three-way capture the flag. It’ll be a group competition where the winner is the first to capture the two other groups’ flags or is the only one to keep their flag from being captured for both rounds. The game will consist of two rounds, twenty-five minutes each, with tiebreaker rounds if necessary.”

“Huh. Prize?”

“Limited-edition statue of a pro character of their choice. For everyone in the group.”

There was a weird silence at that.

“Do you think they’ll like it?” Director Peng quietly asked Hu Lingxin.

“Uh, why wouldn’t they?”

“They were so enthused about the rice cooker today, but they didn’t seem to care about the special game equipment. You know, the prize for best campfire story.”

Hu Lingxin blinked. “Well, who knows what goes through the heads of professional gamers.”

Cao Xinyi, who knew very well that these young men and women were all materialistic little demons, averted her eyes and tried not to feel vindicated. She’d told the higher-ups that the players would have been more motivated by useful or expensive prizes, but when did anybody ever listen to her? Not when she made valid points, that was for sure.

“Regardless, I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a pain to film,” Hu Lingxin said.

Director Peng agreed with a tired nod of his head. “I didn’t think this would be so challenging, but keeping up with eighty people is taking it out of me. At least they’ll all be in one place tomorrow. That’s definitely a plus.”

“Definitely.”

Cao Xinyi thought it was pretty cute of them to be so optimistic. After all, they hadn’t quite caught on to the existence that was the Four Master Tacticians.

(And yes, she did point them out on the board. Their names under their photos were printed with skull emojis next to them and highlighted in black with glaring red font.

But when did anybody ever listen to her?)

* * *

I was right. This group really is doomed.

Unfortunately, not even Yu Wenzhou’s powers of foresight had prepared him for just how doomed Group Three was.

What was the problem? Well…in simple terms, they sucked. They couldn’t maintain even the semblance of cohesion for longer than ten minutes once the counselors called a start to the game. Besides Hundred Blossoms and Parade (strangely enough), no one was interested in working together for victory.

But it was just capture the flag. The stakes weren’t that high, and Yu Wenzhou wasn’t about to force anyone to work together. If the others wanted to mess around, that was their right.

He just kind of wished they had discussed it with him first, because most of Blue Rain—and Huang Shaotian and Lu Hanwen in particular—did genuinely want to win some camp activities. It put Yu Wenzhou in an awkward position.

“How much time do we have left?” he asked Song Xiao, who had taken to following him around for lack of anything better to do.

“Hmm, another ten minutes?”

At least it would be over soon…except round two would follow shortly after. Depressing.

Yu Wenzhou pointed at Group One’s base, currently being guarded by a mix of people from Tyranny, Tiny Herb, and Miracle. Among them was Han Wenqing, Zhang Xinjie, and Wang Jiexi, who Yu Wenzhou assumed were at the center of Group One’s operation. “How many people do you count around the flags?”

After a few seconds, Song Xiao said, “Twelve.”

“Same. A little under half the group is focused on defense and relatively stationary.”

“That’s cautious of them, I guess?”

“Hm.”

Yu Wenzhou said relatively stationary because this cautious guard reacted to trespassers from other groups. It seemed they had a defense strategy in place and weren’t just standing around for show, which was bad news for his side. But it’d be a different story if he managed to send in some runners at the same time Group Two sent theirs. Defending two fronts would be reasonably difficult. It wasn’t too optimistic to expect an opening to appear in that scenario.

Logically, the chances of taking a flag increased if Group One was obliged to defend three or more fronts, but with Group Three this disparate, Yu Wenzhou didn’t think he had the manpower to both defend their flags and attack a well-guarded base like Group One’s. He was limited in his options.

Unless!

Yu Wenzhou moved his gaze from Group One’s base to Group Three’s renegades. Misty Rain, with the aid of Lightly, was focused on harassing Group Two, but Wind Howl seemed determined to harass Group One, and Tyranny especially (for whatever reason). If Yu Wenzhou prepared a strike team in advance and sent them in while Wind Howl’s members were making nuisances of themselves…

Just as he was contemplating the possibilities, he saw Liu Hao and Zao Yuzhe break out on their own to block Fang Rui and Tian Sen from making a run for Group One’s base. Tian Sen easily dodged them and charged forth, only to be faced with a wall of six brave defenders (though both Wang Jiexi and Xu Bin looked like they might be close to throwing in the towel, going by their red faces). Then Liu Hao caught up to Tian Sen and drew enough attention to temporarily divert Group One’s guard.

Holy shit. Was Tian Sen about to get that flag?

“What are they even trying to accomplish?” Yu Wenzhou demanded, watching Tian Sen make a mad dash for the flag. “If Two wins this round, it’s because Wind Howl gave it to them on a silver platter.”

“That’d be ironic,” Song Xiao said with a cough. “Sis Chu is doing her absolutely damnedest to keep Two from making any plays. Man, she’s going to skin Tang Hao alive.”

It wasn’t really Tang Hao’s fault—he was mostly focused on suppressing Group One’s plays, though that seemed more incidental than anything—but Yu Wenzhou didn’t care either way. If he had any emotional investment in this, he’d be ready to skin several people alive by this point, Tang Hao the least of them.

“Wenzhou! Wenzhou, the flag!”

Yu Wenzhou spun around. He only needed a second to take in the situation before he started running. His feet pounded into the ground with a ferocity he never thought he’d muster for capture the flag of all things.

But it couldn’t be helped. Bao Rongxing had Group Three’s flag attached to his wristband and he was already halfway to his group’s base. If they didn’t get that flag back now—

Huang Shaotian, accompanied by Lu Hanwen and Zou Yuan, moved to intercept Bao Rongxing. Group Three’s defenders were charging after them, expressions of chagrin on their faces.

Just as it looked like he’d be caught, Bao Rongxing passed the flag to Su Mucheng, who weaved masterfully between the Shu twins shadowing her and made a straight shot for her base.

Their flag was officially captured. Group Three was the first to fall in round one.

In the few minutes between this sad event and the end of the round, Group Three huddled together near their useless base and complained at each other.

“Shaotian, what were you doing?” Chu Yunxiu crossed her arms.

“Scouting out Two’s defenses, obviously, didn’t you see me running at them like a dozen times? You even gave me some openings! Are you blind? Did you drop your contact lenses somewhere? Huh?”

“Well, I was already doing that! Nobody asked you to do that!”

“Who was guarding our flag?” Tang Hao demanded.

“Blue Rain, Hundred Blossoms, and Lightly. But mainly Hundred Blossoms. If you even care,” Yu Feng said.

“Great job.”

“Both our defense and offense were the worst out of the three groups,” Yu Wenzhou interjected. “We have fewer people to begin with, and most of you were just running around without an objective. Including myself, there were maybe five people who were trying to figure out how to steal the other groups’ flags. So if anyone should be asking for explanations, it should be me.”

“I think my tactics were pretty sound,” said Chu Yunxiu after a moment’s silence. “Group Two would have dominated if me and the others hadn’t hindered them. Wind Howl, though—”

“Oh, please, we were doing the same exact thing—”

“You just blocked Bai Yanfei!”

“Because he was One’s main attacker! He’s a slippery little bastard!”

“He wasn’t even aiming for our flag!”

Yu Wenzhou sighed and retreated to the sidelines. He needed to drink some water.

* * *

“Looks like Three got their act together,” Li Xuan observed. “Could be bad news for us.”

Zhang Xinjie shook his head. “No matter what they do now, they’re the only group to have lost a flag. They’re at a huge disadvantage, comparatively.”

The options to win this game of capture the flag were simple: keep your flag from being captured or capture another group’s flag. Group Three had failed at both. It was unlikely they could salvage their situation in the next 25 minutes. Round two was essentially Group One versus Group Two.

“Two captured a flag and didn’t lose theirs, which means they’ve fulfilled both win conditions. We’ve only fulfilled one win condition, so as far as this round goes, we’re better off focusing on capturing Two’s flag than wasting time on Three,” Zhang Xinjie decided.

Li Xuan pondered that. “Makes sense. Eliminating one of their win conditions will put us in first place. But it would be easier to take Three’s flag, wouldn’t it?”

“Probably,” Zhang Xinjie said, “but Two is almost definitely thinking the same thing. They already accomplished it once. Except Three will be even more guarded against them as a result, so if they insist on trying for a repeat performance, we—”

“Swoop in and take the final win,” finished Li Xuan. “Perfect.”

Possibly too perfect, Zhang Xinjie admitted to himself. There was no way Ye Xiu and Xiao Shiqin would fail to understand Group One’s goal in this round. They’d be prepared for their attacks.

But there was no need to explain that; it was obvious. Group Two was not an easy opponent by any means. Although Group Three had been the most annoying in round one, Two had presented the bigger danger from the get-go.

The shriek of a whistle drew their attention to the sidelines, where the counselors and most of the film crew were gathered. Zhou Yan cried, “Starting the game in ten, nine…!”

“Everyone in position!” Han Wenqing barked. Zhang Xinjie had taken the lead for today, with Li Xuan serving as a deputy of sorts, but it couldn’t be denied that everyone felt motivated to follow Han Wenqing’s orders when he yelled like that.

“…five, four…!”

The lay of the land hadn’t changed much in round two. Tiny Herb was taking care of Two’s side while Tyranny was guarding against Three, both supported by Miracle for a total of six defenders on either front. Bai Yanfei, Song Qiying, and Ge Caijie formed the main attack group and were focused on capturing Two’s flag. Liu Xiaobie, Gao Yingjie, and Sun Haowen formed the secondary attack group, tasked with keeping Three busy. Everyone else was providing attackers and defenders alike with necessary support, but mainly Bai Yanfei and company. Bai Yanfei was the fastest runner they had.

The lack of athleticism in his group was probably the biggest challenge Zhang Xinjie had to contend with. Han Wenqing was the most impressive among them physically, but he’d clarified right away that he was not a runner. He had great stamina, he just wasn’t fast.

For lack of better alternatives, Zhang Xinjie, Wang Jiexi, and Li Xuan decided it would be best to force the youngsters among them to do the sweatiest work. Well, the youngsters plus Bai Yanfei, he of the long legs and impressive lung capacity.

Er, not force them. Rely on them.

“…one! Start!”

Zhang Xinjie and Li Xuan watched Bai Yanfei and company rocket off in the direction of Group Two’s flag.

Yes, very reliable.

* * *

Xiao Shiqin eyed the condition of their main attackers, eyed Group One’s main attackers, and finally eyed Group Three’s defenses.

“I know it’s a lot more proactive to capture One’s flag,” he told Ye Xiu, “but capturing Three’s would be so much easier.”

Ye Xiu did not yield. “We’re not playing a tiebreaker round. Over my dead body.”

“They wouldn’t make us play a tiebreaker round, we’re the clear winners as of now.” The perks of being the only group to have captured a flag. God, Xiao Shiqin was glad Bao Rongxing was on his side (not a thought he’d ever expected to have).

“Either we take that flag from under Zhang Xinjie’s nose or he takes Yu Wenzhou’s flag while we’re over here dragging our feet. Then they’d make us play a tiebreaker round.”

Sound logic, but… Xiao Shiqin sighed. “Well, right now we’re not getting anywhere. It’s been almost fifteen minutes of nothing much. Bao Rongxing and Tian Sen are both tired.”

“Ah, but One’s attackers are tired too. They’re relying way too much on Bai Yanfei, can’t you tell?” Ye Xiu pointed.

Xiao Shiqin followed Ye Xiu’s finger to where Bai Yanfei had taken to the sidelines for a water break. The guy’s shirt was soaked with sweat. Even the ends of his hair were starting to drip. That his exhaustion was clearly visible from this distance said everything that ought to be said about his condition.

“Regardless, we need to switch tactics,” Xiao Shiqin decided.

“Then switch them.”

“Me?”

Ye Xiu looked at him like he was daft. “Yes, you. You’ve been in charge of our tactics since the beginning.”

“No, I haven’t? You’re the one who said we should make Bao Rongxing and Tian Sen our forwards.”

Shrugging, Ye Xiu said, “That was just the obvious choice. Anyway, hurry up and switch tactics. I’m not standing in front of this flag all morning. I’ll get skin cancer.”

“You put on sunscreen.”

“I’ve probably sweat it off by now. Seriously, my life is on the line, Little Xiao.”

Xiao Shiqin rolled his eyes. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

Fortunately, he didn’t have to think for very long. Who knew he’d ever apply his skill for strategy in a game of capture the flag? But hey, “all warfare is based on deception” and whatnot. Xiao Shiqin temporarily abandoned the base to talk to their attackers, barely keeping the smile off his face.

Around five minutes later, after Tian Sen and Bao Rongxing made increasingly desperate bids to capture One and Three’s flags, a horde of Group Two’s attackers charged at Group Three’s base.

For one glorious instant, all was chaos.

Then Su Mucheng, Dai Yanqi, Sun Zheping, and Sun Xiang—the most unlikely quartet you’d never imagine—stealthily picked their way behind the three-way standoff occurring at the center of the field and beelined for Group One’s base.

To his credit, Zhang Xinjie wasn’t slow to react. He just didn’t have the manpower on hand to counter these four’s evasive maneuvers. Frankly, not even Xiao Shiqin knew Sun Xiang could move that fast.

Dai Yanqi made it back to Group Two’s base with the enemy’s flag streaming from her wristband, victory yell and shit-eating grin and all.

The whistle sounded. “End game! Winner: Group Two!”

Disbelieving and a bit proud, Xiao Shiqin trotted back to Ye Xiu, who apparently hadn’t budged a single centimeter from his spot. “Senior, we won!”

“Yes, yes.” Ye Xiu gave his shoulder a congratulatory pat. “Why are you so surprised? You’re the one who came up with this winning gambit in the first place.”

Xiao Shiqin laughed, words of thanks on the tip of his tongue—and then he was swept away by the energetic cheering of their group members.

The counselors eventually managed to calm everyone down enough to explain why Group Two won, which was easily understood and grudgingly accepted, and to remind the victors of their reward, which was easily forgotten. Xiao Shiqin was speaking for himself when he said statuettes or figurines of pro characters or whatever were uninteresting, but he imagined most people here were in the same boat.

Better than any prize was sweet, sweet victory. Nothing else compared.

Later, when the mingled crowd of players, film crew members, and assorted camp employees were streaming in the direction of the camp buildings (and the blessed shade therein), Xiao Shiqin found himself next to Ye Xiu again. He had wanted to thank him a short while ago, but suddenly, he couldn’t remember what for.

Still: “Thanks, Senior.”

Ye Xiu glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, visibly wilted around the edges. The sun must be getting to him. “You’re welcome? What’d I do?”

“I’m not really sure. I just get the feeling today would have been a lot harder without you.”

Ye Xiu offered him a perplexed smile. “It’s just capture the flag, Little Xiao. Are you forgetting we won the first Glory World Championship not too long ago?”

Xiao Shiqin smiled back. He hadn’t forgotten it for one second; that was kind of the point. Whether in Glory’s virtual arena or in summer camp’s physical one, Xiao Shiqin was coming to realize that there was nothing quite like being on Ye Xiu’s team.

* * *

Xiong Min leaned back against her chair with a contented smile. “I’m glad it seems to be going well.”

“Yes, ma’am, no need to worry. Everyone is feeling optimistic about the production.”

“As they should. We’ve allowed a few leaks here and there. The public is showing exactly the level of interest I hoped for.”

“That’s wonderful. I think we can count on high ratings upon release. The players…”

“The players are being their usual selves?” Xiong Min asked gently, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.

“Well, yeah. But they’re having fun. Most of them.”

Xiong Min laughed. “I guess some of them haven’t adapted too well, then.”

Cao Xinyi’s laughter echoed hers, albeit reluctantly.

“It kind of sounds like you have something to add?”

“…The rewards. Er, prizes.”

“Yes, what about them?” Xiong Min and the task force had considered the prizes carefully and arranged them to the best of their ability. Indeed, it could be said the prizes had been one of the biggest points of discussion between the Alliance’s task force, the game company, the production team, and the camp manager. And after so much discussion, there surely wouldn’t be any problems at coming through with—

“The players…aren’t the most enthusiastic about some of the prizes.”

“Oh? How come? And which prizes?”

“Basically, anything that comes out of Glory.”

Xiong Min paused.

Cao Xinyi laughed again, with much awkwardness.

What was this situation?

“But they like the other prizes?” Xiong Min asked slowly.

“Oh, yes, it looks like it? We’ve only gotten as far as capture the flag, but the rice cooker got a much bigger reaction than the custom Orange equipment and the statuettes. You should have seen some of their faces! Ah, well, you will see them in the show…”

The conversation progressed to other topics, but the strange matter of the prizes lingered in Xiong Min’s mind. She was very confused about why the players would prefer a kitchen appliance over in-game equipment and expensive merchandise. It just didn’t make any sense.

It would have been different if they were shocked over the awesomeness of the prizes, if they disbelieved they would truly receive such grand rewards. Xiong Min was prepared to reassure all the winners! She had several email drafts lined up for such an occasion. But for them to be relatively uninterested… Had the task force miscalculated? Was she going to have to organize another meeting pronto?

Dammit. Shit. Fuck. Xiong Min had relaxed too soon.

“Oh, and about Ye Xiu—”

“I don’t want to know about Ye Xiu,” Xiong Min interrupted immediately. Her heart rate accelerated at the mere mention of that man’s name.

“But he—”

“He’s participating?”

“Ah, yes. Surprisingly.”

Xiong Min sniffed and allowed herself a brief feeling of superiority, exactly the feeling a zookeeper or wildlife rehabilitation expert would have after handling an ill-tempered beast without incurring any harm.

But she made sure to coldly rein that feeling in after just a moment’s indulgence. Xiong Min could not make the mistake of thinking that Ye Xiu was in any way tamed. He was the type to lull you into a false sense of security while lying in wait for the best opportunity to strike. And when he struck, it was with deadly accuracy.

“Keep an eye on him,” Xiong Min said eventually.

“…Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

“Is he—yeah, he’s in here.”

Yu Wenzhou twisted his neck around to look at the tent’s entrance. “Hm?”

Zheng Xuan pushed his way inside, followed by Lu Hanwen. Predictably, the former collapsed onto his unrolled sleeping bag with a groan (so far, he’d never bothered to roll the thing back up, as would only be polite), while the latter approached Yu Wenzhou and plopped down beside him.

“What are you up to, Captain?”

Given that his hands were wrist-deep in his duffel bag, Yu Wenzhou thought it should be obvious what he was up to, but he nonetheless replied, “Just looking for some clean clothes. I want to shower and change.”

“You’re so energetic,” Zheng Xuan said lifelessly.

“I simply don’t enjoy the feeling of sweat crusting all over me,” Yu Wenzhou retorted, voice dry. “Do you two need something?”

“To leave this hell.”

“Nope, Captain, nothing at all.”

Yu Wenzhou paused his search for the T-shirts he knew were buried somewhere in his things to glance between Zheng Xuan and Lu Hanwen.

“Okay,” he said after a few dubious seconds. “You sure about that?”

“Very sure,” said Lu Hanwen, earnest as always. “Do you need anything, Captain?”

“No?”

“You just looked a bit down.”

“You’re concerned about me?” Yu Wenzhou chuckled. This kid was growing up so well. “I’m fine, Little Lu.”

Lu Hanwen’s expression twisted with such suddenness that Yu Wenzhou turned to face him fully, concerned.

Just as his mouth opened to ask what was wrong, Lu Hanwen blurted, “I need to get something off my chest!”

Yu Wenzhou’s teeth clicked shut. His gaze darted briefly toward Zheng Xuan’s prone form, but of course that lazy thing was no help. “Right. Go ahead.”

“I know we told you we wanted to win at these activities and that we’re counting on your tactics, but that’s… It’s okay to lose! And we don’t just count on you. It’s hard to work in these big groups. We don’t blame you for anything and we’re still having fun.”

They’re having fun? Yu Wenzhou doubted this, especially given how badly Zheng Xuan wanted to be anywhere else, but then he got a good look at Lu Hanwen’s wide eyes and tremulous smile and realized that wasn’t the important part.

Yu Wenzhou smiled back. “I do want to win for you guys. I’m not beating myself up over the losses, though. They’re just games.” And he wasn’t Wei Chen to want to beat everyone at little kid games; he hadn’t come here with expectations or grudges or any intentions at all beyond playing his role and doing his part. There wasn’t much to be disappointed about.

Would he deny that he was frustrated at how capture the flag went down earlier? No, he’d been annoyed for that entire agonizing hour, and he was still annoyed at the memory of it. But losing capture the flag had no longstanding repercussions. Unlike his gaming career, summer camp was indeed all fun and games. Besides, compared to the stress of Worlds, this whole venture was downright relaxing, cameras and sleeping bags and stupid morning routines and all.

“Well, this should at least be the last time Ye Xiu wins against us.”

Yu Wenzhou blinked at Zheng Xuan. It took him a second to contextualize that remark. “Ha! One can only hope.”

“Although losing to Ye Xiu wouldn’t be so bad,” Zheng Xuan went on in his lazy voice, “if I didn’t have to listen to Huang Shao complain about that old thing pulling one over on us.”

“That old thing” of course referred to Wei Chen, who Huang Shaotian had taken to complaining about at all times of day. Letting those two share a tent had been a mistake, in retrospect.

“It feels a little nostalgic,” Yu Wenzhou said thoughtfully, “so I don’t mind it too much.”

“Nostalgic, Captain?”

Yu Wenzhou shifted his weight so his legs didn’t go numb and redirected most of his attention to his duffel bag. “That’s probably not the right word. I guess it’d be more accurate to say that it feels like nostalgia in the making. It’s just something to put up with now, but I think I’ll miss it later.”

Zheng Xuan huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Miss this? Why?”

With his hands occupied sectioning out and refolding his mess of clothes, it was all too easy for Yu Wenzhou’s mind to shuffle through myriad memories. That nerve-wracking period after Wei Chen’s abrupt departure from Blue Rain, the weight of the team’s belief in him, the self-assurance he shrugged on like ill-fitted armor. The notebooks overflowing with breakdowns of Ye Xiu’s and Excellent Era’s matches, the doodles of Swoksaar and One Autumn Leaf, the records of feedback he received from Wei Chen and, much later, Ye Xiu.

It was easy to set aside the whys and hows of his past progress in favor of future potential. It was even easier to believe he ended up here because of his own hard work and his own dreams and his own pursuit of victory.

"Glory is not a single-player game.”

The truth was this: he had never been alone in his hard work or his dreams or his pursuit of victory. There were a lot of people who helped him along the way, sharing in his struggles and his triumphs and wishing him the best, even from the other side of the stage. His old friends were not replaced by new companions, new mentors, new teammates. Yu Wenzhou had too good of a memory for that to be possible. Wei Chen, Ye Xiu, and countless others—they were the words in his notebooks; they were the forebearers of all he carried now.

They were more than mere history.

“Isn’t it natural,” Yu Wenzhou murmured, “to miss people when they’re gone?”

“What was that, Captain?”

Yu Wenzhou sighed down at the set of unused clothes in his lap.

* * *

“Just how badly did you want to win capture the flag?”

At Han Wenqing’s question, Zhang Xinjie looked up from the half-finished bracelet in his hand to check on the camera mounted at the end of the table. He knew it was on and recording, but he couldn’t help but see for himself every time it seemed like Important (Possibly Embarrassing) Words were about to be exchanged. Just as a reminder.

Several people followed his gaze, then quickly lowered their eyes again to feign nonchalance.

Han Wenqing, being Han Wenqing, did nothing of the sort.

Since no one else was answering, Zhang Xinjie took it upon himself to say, “Not very.”

“Losing sucks,” Han Wenqing said with the weight of experience, “but this is a summer camp, not Glory. No need to get all messed up about it.”

Lin Jingyan, who’d been idly sketching away at what was sure to be another fantastic piece of artwork, laughed softly.

“What?” Han Wenqing squinted at him.

“You’re just such a comfort, Captain.” Lin Jingyan grinned down at his paper.

Han Wenqing scoffed.

Zhang Jiale, regaining some vigor, scoffed as well. “Who said we needed comfort? Nobody is messed up over capture the flag.”

Bai Yanfei smiled sweetly. “Even though we came in second?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Senior Bai and Vice-Captain were the ones who worked the hardest, so as long as they’re fine, I’m fine,” said Song Qiying. He, Zhang Jiale, and Bai Yanfei had a number of books in front of them, every one about art.

“I’m good,” said Bai Yanfei. “It was kind of fun running around like that. The expressions on people’s faces when I zoomed past were hilarious.”

“Would have been nice if you’d gotten a flag, though,” Zhang Jiale griped.

“Well, we can’t have it all. Did you have fun standing around at the base?”

Everyone knew the answer to that was a resounding “no.” What with his state after the game ended, one wouldn’t be faulted for believing Zhang Jiale had just spent the morning in a desert. Apparently, he forgot to apply sunscreen and suffered from heat stress. Hours later, he had yet to stop drooping, and Bai Yanfei had yet to stop poking fun at him about it. Zhang Xinjie was sure Zhang Jiale wasn’t the only person here who’d had enough.

Right on cue, Han Wenqing snapped, “How long are you going to keep this up, Yanfei? You’re pissing me off. Look, even Xinjie is annoyed.”

The others hunched into their seats and cast furtive glances Zhang Xinjie’s way.

Zhang Xinjie strung another bead onto the bracelet in silence, praying the director or whoever didn’t get any funny ideas about releasing this footage.

Bai Yanfei watched Han Wenqing press a fold into his origami paper with unnecessary vigor and grimaced. “Okay, I’ll stop. I’m just more tired than usual today. Sorry, guys.”

Zhang Jiale accepted the apology by rolling his eyes and putting his head down on the table. Song Qiying merely hummed. It was Lin Jingyan who went the extra mile: he slid a smaller piece of paper out from underneath the one he was currently using and handed it over.

With raised eyebrows, Bai Yanfei took the paper, then smiled, folded it up, and put it in his pocket.

They all returned to their work without saying anything.

Zhang Xinjie tied the ends of the string and put the finished bracelet into what would hopefully be a sizable pile by the end of the week. “It’s not a big surprise that we lost. Group Two had more advantages.”

Han Wenqing scowled at Zhang Xinjie with an expression that clearly demanded to know why he couldn’t just drop the subject.

Well, he should know by now that if Zhang Xinjie had something to say, he’d say it. “They had two of the Master Tacticians, more athletic people overall, and a lot of luck.”

“Yeah, well,” Lin Jingyan said after a moment, “I wish Ye Xiu had been in our group.”

Zhang Xinjie couldn’t judge by his tone whether he was serious or not.

Han Wenqing snorted. “Not Xiao Shiqin?”

“Ye Xiu’s a little more reliable, don’t you think? Nearly as reliable as Xinjie here.”

Zhang Xinjie paused in the middle of choosing another selection of beads. He knew this tone: Lin Jingyan was definitely smiling, and definitely serious.

“Now you’ve gone and embarrassed him,” said Zhang Jiale, his voice slightly muffled.

“I’m not embarrassed,” Zhang Xinjie said, not looking at anyone. “Senior flatters me.”

Lin Jingyan laughed softly. “But Ye Xiu’s also a pretty fun guy, so it’s okay that he’s not as reliable.”

“‘Pretty fun,’ he says,” Han Wenqing muttered.

“No one is as reliable as you, though, Senior,” Song Qiying said. “I wish we could play another season together.”

Silence befell their table. The background murmur of the other teams of Group One, lighthearted and relaxed, couldn’t quite drown out the solemnity of that moment.

“Me, too,” Lin Jingyan eventually replied. “We all gotta go at some point, though.”

“Tell that to Ye Xiu,” Zhang Jiale snarked, livening up again. “The guy’s not budging.”

“He’s made of sterner stuff,” Lin Jingyan said with an amused sigh.

“I think our captain is made of the sternest stuff, though,” Bai Yanfei added.

“Seconded.”

“Thirded.”

Han Wenqing harrumphed.

Zhang Xinjie finally picked out the first bead he wanted on the new bracelet. It was black marbled with red, and uniquely suitable for what he had in mind.

When their workshop hour drew to an end and they had to pack up their artworks again, Zhang Xinjie glanced around at his teammates and wondered if Happy’s atmosphere resembled Tyranny’s in any way. Was there regret? Was there tension? Was there sincerity and goodwill and mirth?

Was it hard at all for them to say goodbye?

The more he thought about it, the clearer it became that Zhang Xinjie ought not underestimate Happy next season.

* * *

Xiao Shiqin wasn’t artistically inclined, as far as he could tell. The arts and crafts workshop was probably the most dissatisfying part of his day because all his attempts to make something interesting ended in despair.

But if he had to designate an art medium he was least pathetic at, it’d be photography. Photography was relatively accessible. All you had to do was point your phone camera at something or someone and then plug in a filter or five. Maybe do a little color correction, add in a gentle blur effect, etcetera and boom! A pleasing image.

“The lake,” Dai Yanqi replied when Xiao Shiqin asked her what he should take pictures of. “Definitely the lake. The courtyard garden, too. And the main trail! There are actually a lot of pretty places here. Even the dining pavilion looks quaintly rustic in the right light.”

“You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

Dai Yanqi pouted. “If I’m putting up with all this, I may as well get some aesthetic photos out of it. Quit judging me, Captain, you’re the one who asked.”

“I’m not judging, I’m just impressed.”

“I haven’t taken photos everywhere, I’m just repeating what I’ve been told.”

Xiao Shiqin nodded. “I’ll go to the lake today, I guess.”

“Oh, I’ll go with you!”

The two of them left the admin building side by side, grabbed their phones from their tents, and trudged into the trees. A few cameramen filmed them on the way, and one broke from the pack to follow them. Xiao Shiqin pretended he was okay with this and replied politely when the cameraman asked him what he and Dai Yanqi were doing.

Fortunately, their tag-along wasn’t at all obtrusive. Xiao Shiqin and Dai Yanqi spent a good five minutes pacing up and down the dirt path along the closest bank, arguing about angles and distance. Xiao Shiqin ended up taking several photos of Dai Yanqi in poses ranging from cute to strange. When she had her fill, she took off back down the trail, and the cameraman followed.

Xiao Shiqin would have been miffed if he wasn’t so relieved to be alone. Frankly, no one needed footage of him muttering to himself while he struggled to get the perfect picture. There was a big gap between least pathetic and not pathetic, and that was all he’d like to say on the subject.

He had the lake to himself for maybe ten minutes before someone else showed up.

“Ah,” said Wang Jiexi, “I didn’t think anybody would be here right now.”

Xiao Shiqin, who was visiting this lake for the first time since the tour on day one, asked, “When do people usually come here?”

“Right after lunch, mostly. But nobody hangs around for long.” Wang Jiexi slowly made his way to where Xiao Shiqin was crouched, his gaze roaming across the water.

Belatedly, Xiao Shiqin rose to his feet.

Wang Jiexi blinked at him. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just taking pictures,” Xiao Shiqin replied, only to realize a second later that he’d contradicted himself.

Going by Wang Jiexi’s smirk, he hadn’t failed to notice. “Do you want me to take some of you?” He held his hand out as if to ask Xiao Shiqin to turn over his phone.

Alarmed, Xiao Shiqin stuffed his phone in his back pocket instead. “Oh, no thanks, I hate photos of myself.”

Wang Jiexi slowly withdrew his hand. “You hate photos of yourself…and yet you agreed to star in a reality TV show?”

“Does it count as a show when it’s just a few episodes?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, whatever.” Xiao Shiqin waved his hand. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m learning to ignore the film crew.”

“They’re not so bad, though I’m sure you got way more attention than you’d have liked earlier.” Wang Jiexi toed at a rock, then kicked it into the water. “Congrats, by the way.”

Xiao Shiqin laughed. “Thanks.”

“It was an interesting strategy.”

“Well, I can’t take full credit. Senior Ye was just full of good ideas today.”

“Isn’t he always?” Wang Jiexi asked wryly. “But you deserve your fair share of credit, too. I saw you directing the others.”

“Did it worry you?” Xiao Shiqin asked, grinning.

“A little, but with good reason, evidently.” Wang Jiexi pointed at the other side of the lake. “Wanna go over there? The view is nicer.”

Xiao Shiqin agreed and trailed after Wang Jiexi, who seemed very familiar with this area considering they’d only been here for a few days. On the way, he took out his phone to snap a few shots of the more interesting trees and flowers they passed.

Surprisingly, there was a worn-out wooden bench in the shade of a big old tree not far from the lake shore. Wang Jiexi wiped at the seat with his hand (needlessly; it wasn’t particularly dirty) and sat down.

Xiao Shiqin joined him at his invitation. “Do you ever wonder what people will say about you, like, five or ten years from now?”

“What?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.” Xiao Shiqin opened his photo gallery and scrolled through today’s pictures. “I can say I’m going down in Glory history because we won Worlds, but I’m not sure I’ve had any impact on the scene beyond that. Though I realize my perspective may be skewed.”

“It’s good you realize that.” Wang Jiexi was giving him an odd look. “You’re one of the Four Master Tacticians, I don’t see why you’re worried about not having an impact.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m worried about it…”

“Are you comparing yourself to Ye Xiu?”

“No.” Xiao Shiqin frowned up at the clouds for a second. “Maybe?”

Wang Jiexi sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” Wang Jiexi rested his arm on the back of the bench. “Worrying about what people think, I mean. We all worry about that. Comparing yourself to Ye Xiu… Yeah, that’s a little stupid. But that’s also probably something we all do.”

“You included?”

Wang Jiexi shrugged like it was no big deal. “Sure.”

Xiao Shiqin smiled hesitantly. “That makes me feel better.”

“You know what’d make you feel great?”

“What?”

“Thinking less about the future.”

“Oh, that’s a tough one.”

“I know.” Wang Jiexi tilted his head and stared fixedly at the lake. “There’s only so much you can control, though.”

Xiao Shiqin couldn’t disagree.

“While we were training, I thought Ye Xiu was going to change his mind about retirement again,” he said after a while. “But it’s not like the first time. Now it feels…very final, yet he doesn’t seem to think about it at all. The future, that is.”

“I’m sure he thinks about it a lot, he just doesn’t show it.”

“Maybe,” said Xiao Shiqin, raising his phone for one more photo, “or maybe it’s just that easy for him.”

* * *

In a rare show of generosity, Boss Xiao had bought the counselors and the other camp employees drinks. Within an hour, the whole place was abuzz.

“I get the impression your boss doesn’t normally do this type of thing,” said Hu Lingxin, who had also received a drink. His and the rest of the film crew’s were provided by Director Peng Zemin, however.

“She doesn’t. Maybe she just followed the director’s lead,” said Zhou Yan, sipping at his can. “Wow, this is good.”

Hu Lingxin squinted at him. “I guess it’s not easy to find some of these brands all the way out here.”

A little insulted, Zhou Yan was about to reply that they weren’t that far from civilization when Hou Guangyu suddenly burst in through the door of the strategy room and announced, “Head Chef said he’s going to make us pastries for breakfast tomorrow!”

Zhou Yan gasped.

One of the crew loitering in the room repeated, “Pastries? Your chef knows how to make pastries?”

“Of course, he worked as a pastry chef for several years,” said Hou Guangyu, like this was common knowledge.

Zhou Yan tilted his head. Was it common knowledge? He’d never heard so much as a word of Head Chef lore since he started working here…

Hu Lingxin turned wide eyes to Zhou Yan. “Head Chef is such a nice guy.”

Zhou Yan wanted to tell him the head chef hadn’t revealed any pastry-making powers in two years at least, but instead he just said, “Everyone’s being very nice today,” because it was true and also less presumptive. The head chef could in fact be a swell human being and Zhou Yan simply failed to notice.

A few people spilled into the strategy room after Hou Guangyu, including Cao Xinyi and the director. Hu Lingxin excused himself and joined them in discussing today’s footage.

Hou Guangyu filled the opening the set coordinator left behind. “Hey, Little Zhou!”

“Senior,” Zhou Yan greeted. “Doesn’t making pastries take a while? The chef’s not going to get any sleep at this rate.” The campers woke and breakfasted early to make time for the morning activity (or rather the hubbub surrounding said activity); the crew and the counselors started the day even earlier than that. Consequently, the head chef had to beat them all to the kitchen. It was a grueling schedule, even for someone like Zhou Yan who was used to staying overnight at camp and working from dawn to dusk.

Humming thoughtfully, Hou Guangyu said, “I think it does, but if he said he’ll do it, he’ll definitely do it. I think he was touched by Boss Xiao’s gesture.”

Well, Zhou Yan could kind of see that.

“Oh, it goes much deeper than that,” said a sly voice.

Zhou Yan straightened and brushed his hair off his forehead. “Miss Cao! Hello.”

Hou Guangyu gave him a knowing glance, then smiled at the Alliance’s PR rep. She grinned back at them both, self-satisfied to the extreme.

“I’ve only been here for a few days,” she told them quietly, a secretive cast to her expression, “but even I can tell Head Chef is carrying a torch for Boss Xiao.”

“…Huh?”

Hou Guangyu snickered.

“But it seems Boss Xiao has taken a shine to the esteemed director. Not that I can blame her, he’s handsome for an older guy.” Cao Xinyi moved so that Peng Zemin was squarely behind her. “A little conceited at times, but it can’t be helped in this industry. I was actually thinking of introducing him to my boss. Your boss, however—”

“Sis, don’t you have your fingers in too many pies as it is?” Hou Guangyu was visibly holding back laughter. “You complained to me just this afternoon about your boss. Why would you want to set her up?”

“I have a lot of respect for my boss, I’ll have you know. She’s just…a handful sometimes. And completely irrational about that guy Ye Xiu.”

“That guy? He’s in Cheng Shi’s group, right?”

“Yeah,” said Zhou Yan, glancing between Hou Guangyu and Cao Xinyi. Since when were these two so familiar?

“Is he really that bad?” Hou Guangyu asked Cao Xinyi.

“Ye Xiu?” Cao Xinyi scoffed. “From a layman’s perspective, no. From the perspective of PR agencies everywhere, he’s a nightmare. He hasn’t been giving you counselors any trouble, though, right?”

“Not me,” Hou Guangyu said cheerfully. “I wouldn’t mind if he troubled Cheng Shi a little.”

“Senior.”

“What? It’d be funny. And Cheng Shi would deserve it. He’s still being too nice to that orange-haired girl in particular. Is she Ye Xiu’s girlfriend?”

Cao Xinyi shook her head. “She’s his successor. But it’d still be funny, you’re right. Although it might make my life harder…”

“Just think of the entertainment value.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

…Well, that explained the familiarity. They were almost the same person, deep down. Although Hou Guangyu wasn’t half so pretty.

* * *

“What are you doing?” Chu Yunxiu whispered.

Su Mucheng stuck her head out from underneath the cover of the sleeping bag. “You’re still awake?”

“Yeah. So are you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are you doing under there?”

Su Mucheng silently brandished her phone.

It was too dark to tell for sure, but just going by Chu Yunxiu’s tone of voice, Su Mucheng guessed she was squinting. “I’ve already tried streaming my webdramas, the connection here sucks too bad. Maybe if we get closer to the admin building…”

“I’m not watching webdramas, you dork, I’m just chatting on QQ.”

“Oh. With who?”

“My teammates. The ones who aren’t here.”

A pause that may have been skeptical if Chu Yunxiu were alert enough for critical thinking.

Dai Yanqi, dead to the world, let out a faint snore.

“Hmm…okay.”

“But I’m going to sleep now.” On cue, Su Mucheng yawned. “So tired.”

“Don’t know how you have the energy to talk after the day we had,” Chu Yunxiu sleepily agreed.

“I was—“ Another yawn. “—waiting to hear back from some people… It’s so hard to wrangle them… Ugh, whatever, good night.”

“Good night.”

* * *

Day four’s art contest required every team (yes, even those teams who counted two participants) to make a promotional poster that accurately represented their team spirit. The teams could place in four categories—best message, best aesthetic, most inspiring, and most unique—which meant there could be up to four winners.

As for who’d decide the winners, that’d be the fans. Apparently there was going to be a voting period, which would start around lunch and end just in time for a dramatic dinner announcement.

As soon as he heard the details, Yu Wenzhou turned to his teammates and said, “We need to pick a category.”

“Best aesthetic is out,” said Lu Yuan.

“Probably best message, too, because I have no idea what that even means,” said Song Xiao.

Huang Shaotian frowned at Song Xiao. “I bet I could come up with a really cool message, though, something our fans would really love. I’m good with words so it shouldn’t be hard, and the fans love hearing from me anyway—”

Zheng Xuan’s sigh was so explosive that Huang Shaotian instantly stopped talking to stare at him, along with everyone else at the table.

“Do you have something to add?” Yu Wenzhou asked neutrally.

“Let’s go for most unique.”

Lu Yuan raised his hand. “Uh, how come?”

“Abstract art,” Zheng Xuan replied. “It works for those millionaire artists, it should work for us.”

“Honestly, that makes a lot of sense,” Yu Wenzhou admitted. “Let’s go with that.”

“Abstract art? Seriously?” Huang Shaotian seemed to be calculating their odds of victory. Suffice to say, he didn’t look thrilled.

“It’s not like you have stellar drawing skills, Huang Shao,” said Song Xiao, which was true and fair, but probably not worth the rant their chatterbox was about to unleash.

Moments before disaster, Lu Hanwen suggested, “Well, we could make a collage? I think that’d work since we have limited time and, um, limited art skills.” He smiled sheepishly at the table.

Yu Wenzhou and the others all nodded. Huang Shaotian’s expression shifted toward acceptance. “As long as we win those monitors…”

“You want a new monitor?” Yu Wenzhou was well aware of how much Huang Shaotian normally earned in a year. He could easily buy himself a new monitor.

“What I want is a cool prize and bragging rights,” Huang Shaotian grumbled. “We haven’t won a single game so far and it’s driving me insane, he’s driving me insane. If we can’t win this I’m going to walk out of this camp a murderer.”

Not for the first time, Yu Wenzhou wondered just what kind of fresh hell Tian Sen, Shen Wanhe, and Lin Jingyan were living through. That sleeping arrangement seemed to benefit no one but the members of Blue Rain (and possibly the members of Happy).

They started sorting through supplies for anything that could be useful. Lu Hanwen and (weirdly enough) Zheng Xuan were the most proactive about choosing materials. Lu Hanwen in particular seemed to have an eye for arranging wildly different elements into a cohesive whole.

When asked if he had ever made collages before, Lu Hanwen cheerfully explained that his mother liked collages very much and he’d watched her work on several creative projects when he lived at home.

Yu Wenzhou genuinely worried the kid was too wholesome for this world.

“Thirty minutes left!” Zhou Yan called from the front of the room.

By now, their table had fallen into an easy rhythm, with most of them—Yu Wenzhou included—cutting and combining materials which were then glued onto the poster by Lu Hanwen or Zheng Xuan. Other than a comment here or there, they did not speak. (No, not even Huang Shaotian. He did hum a little, though.)

When they only had ten minutes left, Yu Wenzhou idly asked Huang Shaotian, “Do you want me to ask Ye Xiu if he could take Captain Wei back?”

Huang Shaotian, in the middle of attaching two pieces of paper together with bright blue-patterned washi tape, blinked at him. “Hm? You mean get someone in Ye Xiu’s tent to switch places with Old Wei? Do you really think anyone over there would be crazy enough to agree to that?”

“Somehow, I don’t think Captain Wei annoys anyone at Happy as much as he annoys you,” Yu Wenzhou said wryly.

“Unless you mean you don’t think anyone at Happy would want to subject themselves to your presence,” Song Xiao added with a snicker.

Huang Shaotian scowled. “Less talking, more cutting. I don’t see you cutting enough paper, what are you even doing? Do you want to win this contest? Do you want a free monitor?”

“You’re doing the most talking out of anyone, as usual.”

“With my skill—” And so Huang Shaotian went on a spiel about how he had such overwhelming talent that talking while he worked was no big deal, and how dare anyone question his hand-eye coordination or his reasoning abilities, and could Song Xiao please shut the fuck up.

Smiling, Yu Wenzhou chose not to remark on the irony and instead focused on his part of the project. And if the players at other tables tossed them dirty looks for Huang Shaotian’s noisiness, well. He pretended he did not see.

Zhou Yan soon announced that their time was up and asked them to tidy their things and turn in their work. The members of Blue Rain gathered around their finished(?) poster with somewhat doubtful expressions.

“I mean, it looks cool, but I’m not sure it’ll win any prizes,” said Song Xiao.

“It’s fine,” was Zheng Xuan’s verdict. Whatever enthusiasm he’d dredged up for this project had drained away.

Lu Hanwen didn’t seem at all affected by their judgment. “It’s definitely unique! I think we can win. No, I’m sure of it.”

“Wow, this kid is so confident, I guess we have no choice but to believe him,” said Huang Shaotian, grinning. “What does our captain think?”

Five expectant pairs of eyes settled on Yu Wenzhou.

“I think…” Yu Wenzhou weighed his words. “I think spending a summer like this isn’t bad. I hope I can spend many more summer days with our Blue Rain.”

A brief silence.

“Wow, Captain,” said Lu Hanwen. “So you really like this poster, huh?”

Yu Wenzhou reached across the table to pat his head. “Yes, Little Lu, I like it a lot.”

* * *

“I’m starting to think that having fewer teammates is an advantage here,” commented Lin Jingyan.

Zhang Xinjie nodded tiredly. They only had an hour to complete their project, yet it had taken Tyranny almost twenty minutes just to decide on their poster’s concept.

But what they lacked in timeliness, they made up for in decisiveness. Once they committed to Zhang Xinjie’s vision, they were committed.

“On the bright side, we’re very good at following Xinjie’s directions. It feels familiar.”

“Yeah, super familiar,” said Bai Yanfei. Having been relegated to cleanup duty, he was the freest to chat. Zhang Xinjie had told him that tidying the table—their workspace—was essential, but he wasn’t sure Bai Yanfei took it all that seriously. He was tidying, though, in between bursts of unnecessary prattle.

“Looks like it’s coming together,” Han Wenqing said of their progress so far. “We’re only a little over forty minutes in. We’ll finish.”

At this point, they were aiming for a finished poster and not much else. Zhang Xinjie wasn’t going to write them off entirely, but he was too realistic to believe they’d win on their poster’s merits alone. It was more probable their fans would pull through and give them more votes than strictly deserved.

The joys of fame and fanbases.

Still…Zhang Xinjie would prefer their poster to be genuinely nice to look at. He’d spared no effort in coming up with concepts. Lin Jingyan had contributed every ounce of his drawing ability, too. The handier members of their team (everyone except Bai Yanfei) were doing their best to keep up. It’d be a downer if all their hard work was overlooked.

Truthfully, Zhang Xinjie hadn’t expected anyone to take his advice and learn more about art. But now that he thought about it, his teammates had been reading the books available to them with due diligence. Every afternoon during workshop hour, there were two or three art books open on the table. And judging by the lively discussion at the start of the hour, they had definitely learned something.

(They didn’t take almost twenty minutes to decide on a concept because they were arguing, but because they all had a lot of opinions to discuss. Apparently, composition and visual design elements were hotly debated topics at this table. Zhang Xinjie had not been aware.)

At 52 minutes, Lin Jingyan told them, “Let me do the rest. I’m not sure anyone else can be trusted with the finishing touches.”

“I’m both hurt and relieved,” Zhang Jiale said, rubbing his shoulder. “Take it away, master artist, sir.”

Lin Jingyan did just that, leaving Zhang Xinjie and everyone else at loose ends.

Bai Yanfei poked Zhang Xinjie’s arm. “I’ve been meaning to ask… Are you also an artist like our Old Lin? I haven’t seen you draw much, but your sketches today were pretty good.”

“I’m not. I spent some time self-studying art and design when I was younger, though,” Zhang Xinjie explained. “I wanted to make my own game.”

“Wait, seriously?” Zhang Jiale stared at him.

Zhang Xinjie nodded. “I’d still like to give it a try one day. I’ve watched every documentary about Glory’s development and production. It doesn’t seem like visuals would be as important as story or mechanics, but you’d be surprised.”

“So is that your plan for when you retire?” Song Qiying asked curiously.

“I suppose so. I’m not keen on programming, but game design is a fascinating field.”

Han Wenqing studied Zhang Xinjie intently, arms folded over his broad chest. “That’s surprising. No offense, Xinjie, but you act like the stereotype for software programmers.”

Zhang Jiale snickered. “Yeah, honestly. I’m surprised you didn’t time us when we started.”

“I did time us, I just thought the discussion was productive enough to be worthwhile.” And he was right: their final concept had turned out well, and their confidence in it allowed them to work very quickly compared to the teams around them. “Thorough planning is necessary for a smooth production process.”

Bai Yanfei grinned. “See, that’s such a software programmer thing to say.”

Sighing, Zhang Xinjie said, “Thorough planning is necessary for a lot of things in life.”

“True enough,” Han Wenqing said with a snort.

“Captain, what do you plan to do when you retire?” Zhang Xinjie asked suddenly.

Han Wenqing raised his eyebrows. A few seconds went by in silence—if one discounted the sound of Lin Jingyan painting. (The rest of the room was almost dead quiet: the last-minute panic setting in, Zhang Xinjie assumed.)

Zhang Jiale squinted at Han Wenqing, then at Zhang Xinjie for some reason.

“I’ll probably keep working at the club for a while,” Han Wenqing said as if it was no great concern of his. “After that…we’ll see.”

He met Zhang Xinjie’s eyes once he finished speaking, prompting Zhang Xinjie to nod.

Instead of calling the matter closed, however, Han Wenqing asked, “Is there a reason you want to know this now?”

Zhang Xinjie tilted his head.

Han Wenqing helpfully elaborated. “You’ve never asked me something like that before.”

“So true,” Lin Jingyan said. “Xinjie shows no interest in our personal lives. It’s off-putting sometimes.”

Zhang Xinjie’s lips twitched. “Are you done?”

“Yep, and just in time.” Lin Jingyan brandished the complete poster.

Zhang Xinjie and his teammates clapped quietly to avoid disturbing the other tables—not that there was much to disturb. A racket was rising in the room. Maybe the other teams were done, too.

“Amazing,” Han Wenqing said with utter sincerity.

“I don’t show interest,” Zhang Xinjie said, “but not because I don’t care. I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, that’s all.”

Everyone blinked at him.

“You wouldn’t be putting us on the spot,” said Han Wenqing. “Why would you think that?”

“Yeah, we’re all friends here, you can just speak your mind.”

Zhang Jiale scoffed. “We know you always speak your mind, Yanfei. You could stand to speak it less often.”

“Ouch.”

Zhang Xinjie took in the amused expressions around the table and thought it would be great if everyone could be together like this for years and years and years.

But as was custom, he kept that thought to himself.

* * *

“All right, everyone. The contest winners…! Can we please quiet down?” Zhou Yan laughed nervously into the mic. “I’d like to announce the art contest winners…please…”

A middle-aged woman wearing a counselor’s uniform who Xiao Shiqin didn’t recognize grabbed the mic and said, “Quiet down.”

The dining pavilion quickly fell silent.

The woman returned the mic to a wide-eyed Zhou Yan.

Eventually, Zhou Yan gathered himself and said, “Right. The voting period lasted a full six hours. After these six hours, we are pleased to finally present our winners!

“For best message: Team Happy!”

A baffled round of applause. Several people, Xiao Shiqin included, turned to look at the table Happy currently occupied. They had been joined by Wang Jiexi and Gao Yingjie this evening, both of whom ignored the attention.

Xiao Shiqin’s gaze caught on Wang Jiexi’s, then hastily darted away.

“For best aesthetic: Team Tyranny!”

Even more baffled applause. Xiao Shiqin was downright shocked at this result. Maybe he shouldn’t be because Tyranny had a huge and passionate fanbase, but…best aesthetic? Really? Tyranny?

“Most inspiring: Team Tiny Herb!”

The applause this time was slower and more relaxed. This result was thankfully not as much of a shock as the first two. Wang Jiexi, when Xiao Shiqin glanced at him, appeared only somewhat surprised.

“And last but not least, most unique: Team Blue Rain!”

“Ha!” No amount of clapping could completely drown out Huang Shaotian’s triumphant cry. The guy actually raised his arms and flashed victory signs at the cameras. His teammates didn’t stop him; in fact, they seemed almost as thrilled. Xiao Shiqin had to wonder just what was so unique about their poster.

He wasn’t left to wonder for long, of course, because the winning posters were trotted out in front of the entire dining pavilion. (They were followed by all the other posters, but who cared about those, right? Certainly not Xiao Shiqin, who suffered big time just to throw together something passable for the sake of the fans. No, he was not at all hurt that Thunderclap failed to top any of the categories.)

“Boo,” said Dai Yanqi. “Our poster turned out pretty good! Some of the other teams didn’t even try.”

“But the winning four kind of deserve it,” Zhang Jiaxing pointed out. “Tyranny’s is amazing.”

Some of Dai Yanqi’s indignity faded. “Yeah, you’re right. And Blue Rain’s does stand out.”

Xiao Shiqin nodded. Blue Rain had basically gotten a bunch of paper, paint, washi tape, and every other available material in the color blue and plastered it onto their poster. The only blank space formed the name of their team. It was abstract, artsy, and extremely eye-catching. Certainly deserving of the title “most unique” when compared to the competition.

Tyranny’s poster was a legitimate work of art. Xiao Shiqin had no idea anyone on that team was so talented. The poster consisted of a graphic yellow-orange desert background. In the foreground, the silhouettes of Tyranny’s avatars were painted in a range of colors from mahogany to garnet to crimson. The biggest silhouette, easily identifiable as Desert Dust, was solid black. The others were arranged in a loose V shape behind him and overlapped each other. That, combined with the gradual shift in value, created a dazzling sense of perspective.

Tiny Herb’s was interesting. Their poster resembled a comic strip made up of three panels depicting the growth of a small green plant. From one panel to the next, the plant spread more roots and sprouted more leaves. At the bottom panel, where it was the largest, Tiny Herb had added their logo and a line of text that was too small for Xiao Shiqin to read from where he sat.

As for Happy’s poster… Well, they went for a plain pink background, which was fine. The color of the (very large, very bold) text was ruby red, which was also fine. What was incredible was the text itself, which read, Hunting wild bosses all alone, handsome?

“But I think if there hadn’t been a category for best message, Happy’s would have won most unique,” said Dai Yanqi. “Really hard to beat that.”

Xiao Shiqin, Zhang Jiaxing, and Fang Xuecai nodded solemnly.

Chu Yunxiu, sitting next to Dai Yanqi, covered her face. “I should have thought of that. God dammit!”

Dai Yanqi and the Shu twins hurried to comfort her.

“Ahem, now, why don’t we let our winners speak on their work? Let’s start with Team Blue Rain!” Zhou Yan pointed to Blue Rain’s table with a broad smile and eyes that begged for mercy.

Xiao Shiqin remembered Blue Rain was in Zhou Yan’s group. Poor guy.

The speeches were easy to tune out; Xiao Shiqin was more interested in Dai Yanqi’s conversation with Chu Yunxiu, which involved a lot of griping and oaths of revenge. Nobody seemed to have too much to say, either (except for Huang Shaotian who insisted on dissing Wei Chen. At least he didn’t swear).

After Blue Rain, Tiny Herb went up, then Tyranny, and finally Happy. But Happy, for some reason, only sent Ye Xiu to present.

With a stoic expression, Ye Xiu took the mic from Zhou Yan and declared, “It was all Su Mucheng’s idea, I had nothing to do with it. Except for the pink. That was me.”

Bao Rongxing cheered.

“Anyway, I may be retired now, but I’ll make sure to drop by the Heavenly Domain on occasion to snatch bosses from your guilds. No, the chairman can’t stop me. If I’m not competing, I may as well have fun. So don’t get complacent just because you don’t see me around.”

Ye Xiu returned the mic, waved halfheartedly at the cameras and the stunned pros, and sat back down.

“Um, thank you for that…stirring message.” Zhou Yan cleared his throat, looking like a lost puppy. “So, ah. Please feel free to eat your dinner now, everyone.”

“Finally!” cried Fang Xuecai.

An hour later, when dinner had winded down and several tables had cleared out, Dai Yanqi said, “Despite all the annoying parts like having to trek a thousand miles just to use the shower, I’m glad I came to camp. I feel like I know our colleagues so much better now. Like, Senior Lin Jingyan? Wow. I should ask him to draw some of my danmei faves. He’d get so many new followers.”

Xiao Shiqin smiled and nodded along. Internally, he questioned where Dai Yanqi got all this optimism from. He thought he was skilled at finding the silver lining in every situation, but she made him look like an amateur. Her spirit was irrepressible.

“You’d make a good captain,” he told her.

Fang Xuecai and Zhang Jiaxing looked at him like he was crazy. He was abruptly reminded of Team China.

Dai Yanqi laughed. “You jest! I couldn’t lead anyone. I still have to ask you for help all the time.”

“That won’t always be the case.”

“Who knows? Maybe it will. Maybe I’ll never change, and you’ll be our captain for the next ten years.”

Oh, if only. As it was, Xiao Shiqin sometimes wondered if he was necessary at all.

But that was a dead-end line of thinking. Whatever people remembered him for, whatever was to become his legacy, he would be nothing short of fortunate if someone like Dai Yanqi carried it on.

* * *

That evening, Yu Wenzhou found himself sitting alone at a campfire. Huang Shaotian and the others had deserted him to go listen to the girls’ story, which had become the most popular attraction at camp in what seemed like no time at all.

If he could dredge up a little more enthusiasm, he’d have joined them. He probably would join them in a while. But for now, he was in a contemplative mood and would rather have some peace and quiet, even if it meant acting like a self-isolating weirdo.

Yes, he knew there was a camera on a tripod next to that one tree. Yu Wenzhou was too jaded to believe he was not in frame.

“Someone is going to take this out of context. And if no one does, the editors will convince them to.”

Yu Wenzhou looked up and raised his eyebrows. “What are you two doing?”

Xiao Shiqin smiled. “Running away.”

“There isn’t any context to begin with,” Zhang Xinjie said. “Is there?”

With a shrug, Yu Wenzhou said, “Not as far as I’m concerned.”

Sitting next to him on the log, Xiao Shiqin pointed at the tripod. “A team captain by himself, quietly watching the fire, an empty skewer in his hand… It’s a powerfully melancholy image.”

Yu Wenzhou slowly hid the empty skewer behind him. “I’m not melancholy. What’s so melancholy about spending some time by yourself?”

“Dare I say…it’s a bit romantic?” Xiao Shiqin acted like he hadn’t heard anything.

Zhang Xinjie took a seat in an empty camping chair next to the log. “I wouldn’t bother believing in the illusion of privacy while on this property if I were you.”

Yu Wenzhou chuckled. In truth, his belief was more pragmatic. He’d assumed sitting alone and doing nothing for a few minutes would make for such boring footage that no editor worth their salary would bother to examine it. But now that Zhang Xinjie and Xiao Shiqin were here, he may as well throw that vain hope out the window.

He didn’t speak these thoughts aloud. It was rude to turn away company, even uninvited.

Xiao Shiqin chewed on a piece of meat and swallowed. “What do you think about summer camp? Will you ever come back?”

Smiling, Yu Wenzhou said, “I’d rather not, but I wouldn’t mind another vacation with my teammates.”

“Blue Rain is very close-knit,” Zhang Xinjie observed.

“I suppose we are. It would have been nice if the others came with us.”

“Well, in my case, it would have been nice to have more allies,” Xiao Shiqin said laughingly. “I tend to feel outnumbered wherever I go in this camp.”

Yu Wenzhou hummed sympathetically.

“But it’s been fun, I guess. Though I really don’t want to come back.”

“Neither do I. There are better places for a vacation,” Zhang Xinjie said.

“At least this one is being paid for.”

“True.” Xiao Shiqin stuck his empty skewer into the dirt. “It seems ungrateful to complain about it too much. Especially given our circumstances. Imagine how different the mood would be if we’d lost at Worlds.”

Yu Wenzhou huffed out a laugh. “We’d still have a good time, if we were together.”

“That is such a sappy thing to say. Isn’t it, Xinjie?”

“No, he has a point,” said Zhang Xinjie. “I’m glad to spend more time with my seniors.”

“Oh, I get you. It’s not as if we know for sure when we’ll see Senior Lin again.” Xiao Shiqin tossed a sideways glance at Yu Wenzhou. “The same goes for Senior Wei.”

“Mm.” Yu Wenzhou hunched forward a little. “Captain Wei is important to Shaotian. He and I, though…”

“You’re a more than acceptable successor,” Zhang Xinjie said quietly.

“Oh, that’s not the issue. There isn’t an issue, if I’m being honest. I’m just happy Shaotian is happy.”

“He’s happy?” Zhang Xinjie sounded dubious. “I can hear their insults in my dreams at this point.”

Xiao Shiqin snorted so hard he almost choked. Yu Wenzhou thumped him on the back, laughing all the while.

Once he had regained his composure, Yu Wenzhou cleared his throat and said, “That’s just how they express affection. I’m sorry to hear about your disturbed sleep, though.”

Xiao Shiqin stopped wheezing long enough to say, “God, Xinjie, I didn’t know you could joke like that.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

Another round of hysterics followed. Yu Wenzhou shook his head and wiped his eyes. “I really do feel bad, but…better you than me. I’m barely getting enough sleep as it is.”

Unmoved by their mirth, Zhang Xinjie said, “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

It took another minute for Xiao Shiqin to finally calm down. When he did, they spent long moments in silence, eyes on the fire. Nighttime had yet to fully descend over the camp, but the darkness was growing deeper every minute, and the sound of voices was distant. It felt like they were in their own realm of shadow and flame. Like in those scant seconds between laughter and sobriety, they had detached from the rest of the world.

“I really am going to miss this,” said Yu Wenzhou. “Not the camp itself…just the experience of it. Do you ever stop to think how good it would be if things could stay exactly as they are?”

“I think it would be good if people could stay,” Zhang Xinjie replied. “I’m always prepared for situations to change. On a purely intellectual level, I know my captain and my older teammates will retire at some point and others will come in to replace them, but I don’t know what will come of it.”

“You’d have to be a prophet to know that. It’s not a matter of preparation. We can’t plan for what we can’t predict, all we can do is brace ourselves,” said Yu Wenzhou.

“And think less about the future. At least, that’s what I’ve been told,” added Xiao Shiqin in wry tones. “It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

Yu Wenzhou nodded. “If we’re not thinking about the future, we’re not doing our jobs right. But there’s no point in agonizing over it, is there?”

Xiao Shiqin cupped his chin as he stared solemnly into the middle distance. “I think there is. The more I agonize, the surer I am that I don’t actually need to know what happens five years from now.”

It sounded like there was a “but” at the end of that sentence, so Yu Wenzhou waited.

Sure enough, Xiao Shiqin continued, “But I do need to know if this is good enough for the present.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” said Zhang Xinjie.

“Uh, like…” Xiao Shiqin floundered a bit. “Am I good enough for the present? Is my team doing well? Could they do better if I changed? Is it okay if we—if I—never get any better than this?”

Once the words were out, he lowered his head.

Zhang Xinjie and Yu Wenzhou exchanged glances. In that split-second of eye contact, Yu Wenzhou realized they were thinking along the same lines: What comfort could we provide to someone who hasn’t won a championship even once in seven seasons? What right do we have to tell him that it’s okay and he’ll receive his just rewards?

Nobody could promise that. If anyone in the circle promised that, it would be a lie. Ye Xiu could make all those jaw-dropping declarations because he was Ye Xiu and he had little to lose. Before Season 10, he had already proved himself three times over.

Someone like Xiao Shiqin…he was just a small character in comparison. He led a mid-tier team that paled against juggernauts like Blue Rain and Tyranny. When he had occupied the space Ye Xiu left empty, he fell short of his mark, and the one to knock him down was none other than Ye Xiu himself.

Yet for all that—

* * *

“We won Worlds. Doesn’t that say something about your present ability?”

Xiao Shiqin looked up at Zhang Xinjie, surprise writ across his face.

Zhang Xinjie was surprised at himself, too. Among his teammates, he was rarely the first or even the second to offer encouragement or comfort. He preferred factual statements and practical advice. Anything else was too wishy-washy to be useful, in his opinion.

Sometimes, though, factual statements were all the comfort required. The truth may struggle against self-doubt, but eventually, truth won. As long as one was reminded of it.

Zhang Xinjie met Xiao Shiqin’s eyes squarely and reminded him: We won. That says it all.

“It wasn’t an easy win, either,” Yu Wenzhou added. “I’d rather go ten rounds against the old Excellent Era in its prime.”

“And you have changed this last season. It used to feel like you put up a fight for the sake of it. Now you’re fighting because you think you should win.”

“Well, don’t we all think that?” Xiao Shiqin said weakly.

Yu Wenzhou made a “so-so” gesture with his hand. “Sometimes we think it with conviction, other times with desperation. Who in this circle is going to admit they deserve to lose?”

Xiao Shiqin blinked.

“Besides, if you’re worried about your disadvantages, don’t be. We all have those. Thunderclap doesn’t have any outstanding talents, Tyranny’s aggressive play style doesn’t match Zhang Xinjie’s defensive capabilities, and my hand speed is atrocious. If you consider it carefully, you have less to overcome than we do.”

“I never thought about it like that,” Xiao Shiqin admitted, looking dazed.

“You should have,” Zhang Xinjie told him bluntly. “No one is without weakness, not even Ye Xiu.”

“And what’s his weakness, from your perspective?”

“Age, obviously.” Zhang Xinjie crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He thought about Han Wenqing, Zhang Jiale, and Lin Jingyan: brilliant players whose accomplishments were limited even at their peak. “It’s not the most important weakness one can have, but it’s the weakness no one can escape.”

“Well, now we can say we’ve successfully waited out Ye Xiu,” said Yu Wenzhou, smiling ironically.

“Like waiting for a storm to pass,” Xiao Shiqin agreed. “One less reason to lose.”

“I do wonder, though. What will it feel like, knowing he’s not coming back? It’s not the same as that sham retirement in Season 8. Even then I suspected we hadn’t seen the last of him,” Yu Wenzhou mused.

Xiao Shiqin frowned. “But he is coming back, sort of. Next year for Worlds.”

“Is he? He never gave a definitive answer to the press. He is annoyingly good at skirting around questions.”

“Well, he’s got to. What are we going to do without him?”

Xiao Shiqin and Yu Wenzhou squinted at each other.

Zhang Xinjie broke the silence. “What about the person who leaked his conditions for coming here? Since we’re speaking of Ye Xiu.”

“Hm?” Yu Wenzhou shook his head. “Conditions? You mean what he said to the PR director that one time?”

“Yes, I just remembered. He hasn’t brought it up to me since we arrived, but he said he wanted to know who shared that around. Because he doesn’t believe any of this came about naturally.”

Xiao Shiqin’s eyes widened. “Ah…”

“What does it matter?” Yu Wenzhou shook his head again. “He’s here now. It’s not like anyone would go so far as to hatch a scheme just to guarantee his participation. We would have heard something about that, anyway.”

“It sounds insane, but I can’t help but think it might actually be deliberate. Some sentimental, roundabout plot to convince him he should maintain ties with the pro scene, or the Alliance, or both,” Zhang Xinjie confided.

Though he still appeared skeptical, Yu Wenzhou pondered it. “I guess that could be possible? But the only person I can picture going that far is Su Mucheng.”

“I also thought of her first,” said Zhang Xinjie, “but Ye Xiu said he never told her. If she knew about his conditions, she was informed by someone else.”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t think it was her. Of all people, Su Mucheng would be the one to confront Ye Xiu directly if she wanted something from him.”

“It wasn’t you, was it?”

“No. If it had to be one of the four of us who talked with the director and Ye Xiu that day…wouldn’t Wang Jiexi be the likeliest culprit?”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s known Ye Xiu the longest out of us. He was also Ye Xiu’s first pick for national team captain—or was it Han Wenqing?—and assuming he retires sometime soon, he’d be a likely candidate to replace Ye Xiu. Which I don’t think he wants to do at all.”

“You’re suggesting he dragged Ye Xiu into the fire so he could stay out of it?”

“Does it sound too implausible? This is already a plot straight from a drama.”

“Hmm.”

While Yu Wenzhou and Zhang Xinjie reasoned their way through the mystery, Xiao Shiqin fixed his gaze on the fire, sweating just a bit more than usual.

* * *

“Oh, look at this. We had this camera on one of the campfires. Some of those tactician guys hung out together while everyone else was listening to the girls’ story.”

Peng Zemin perked up and leaned closer to Hu Lingxin. Sure enough, the screen he was pointing at displayed an image of those tactician guys—excluding the infamous Ye Xiu—having a chat in front of a campfire. From what Peng Zemin could see, they were alone.

“Were we able to capture any audio?”

“It was quiet in this spot, so yes, thankfully.” Hu Lingxin played the footage after handing Peng Zemin one of a pair of earbuds.

Peng Zemin listened to the young men’s conversation about the summer camp and what they thought of it. When Seniors Lin and Wei—presumably Lin Jingyan and Wei Chen (yes, he paid all due attention to the cork board)—were brought up, he perked up like a dog offered a juicy morsel… But Yu Wenzhou, that devil, brushed off Zhang Xinjie’s touching words of reassurance.

“He has no drama in his soul,” Peng Zemin mourned. “This is the ideal situation to air out some insecurities.”

Hu Lingxin, listening alongside him, nodded fervently.

Then the men started laughing over some silly comment concerning Huang Shaotian and Wei Chen (understandably), and Peng Zemin revised his opinion of where this get-together might be going. Were the Four Master Tacticians close friends? What did it mean that three of them were joking around without Ye Xiu? Was Ye Xiu, a venerated senior in the pro circle, the odd man out?

Perhaps…perhaps these undramatic fellows would finally do something interesting and gossip about their senior a bit?

Peng Zemin strained to hear every word. But when the laughter faded and the conversation restarted, he was caught entirely off guard.

“I really am going to miss this. Not the camp itself…just the experience of it. Do you ever stop to think how good it would be if things could stay exactly as they are?”

“Oh, is it a heart-to-heart? Director, we might have just struck gold!”

Peng Zemin clutched at his chest. “Let’s keep listening.”

“I think it would be good if people could stay. I’m always prepared for situations to change. On a purely intellectual level, I know my captain and my older—”

“Hm?” Peng Zemin blinked at the screen.

“Hm?”

“…Huh?!”

Hu Lingxin whispered, “T-the camera battery ran out.”

Peng Zemin’s hand dropped from his chest. He stared blankly at the wall.

“Director…”

“No. Don’t say anything.”

“Director, it’s all right. We got plenty of good footage tonight. The girls—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Peng Zemin dropped his earbud on the table. “I’m going to eat dinner.”

“Didn’t you already eat dinner? Wait, sir—”

But Peng Zemin had already fled the strategy room.

* * *

Xiong Min frowned down at her phone. An uneasy sensation had gripped her heart from the moment she sleepily opened her eyes this morning. Proving her intuition right, she had been awake for less than ten minutes before Director Peng called her, sounding just as uneasy and exhausted.

As a result, she rushed into work earlier than usual. It took a lot of doing, but at least she was able to avoid rush hour traffic. However, the only reason it was worth arriving early at all was because she knew the chairman would be there already.

“So what seems to be the issue, Director Xiong?”

“I wouldn’t say there’s an issue, sir. Just a slight complication.”

“Isn’t that how we usually define an issue?”

Xiong Min strategically ignored that. “I received a call from our friend Director Peng, corroborating my on-site agent’s opinion that we should alter the prize for today. Which is the last official day of filming, if you recall.”

Feng Xianjun let out a groan. “This again? Do we really need to change anything at this late hour?”

“It’s not too late; the activity has yet to begin. Besides, I’ve made all the arrangements.” Xiong Min handed over her phone.

Narrow-eyed and sour-faced, Feng Xianjun studied the phone screen for about a minute before he returned it. Then he leaned back in his ominously creaking chair and sighed the sigh of a weary Daoist who’d grown disillusioned with the mortal world.

“Fine, you have my permission. Call our friend the director back immediately and give him the okay.”

Xiong Min thanked the chairman profusely and took off before he could change his mind or start listing caveats. It was ludicrous and simple-minded to deem such an exchange a victory, but Xiong Min let herself believe she had accomplished something momentous. She needed it.

What she did her best to not let on to the chairman was that there was no reason to assume changing the prize would improve anything. Director Peng was of the opinion that the odds were not in the show’s favor. “They’re fun to watch when they’re playing around and competing with each other,” he had said of the players, “but otherwise they’re very reticent.”

It hurt Xiong Min’s heart to think about it. They had invested time, effort, and money to make this summer camp romp a reality, and for all that work, the show was probably going to tank. If fans wanted content of players having fun competing, there were countless matches to review and old All-Stars clips to watch. Even the clubs released promotional material of their players indulging in non-Glory games now and then.

Was there going to be any profoundly emotional content at all, in the end? What could they show the fans to assure them this was an authentic and enjoyable experience for everyone involved?

Ensconced in her office, the hours passed slower than normal. Xiong Min checked the time frequently, wondering and wondering again how the last activity was going, if there was good footage being captured, if poor Director Peng had somehow seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then she took a late-night call from her dear Cao Xinyi, and all her worries were put soundly to rest.

Xiong Min really needed to give that girl more credit.

* * *

Lobbing water balloons at people was something Yu Wenzhou never imagined himself doing at the ripe old age of 25, but here he was. Although Huang Shaotian did most of the lobbing, to be fair. Yu Wenzhou, in an unprecedented reversal of roles, hid behind people’s backs and popped out to conduct a surprise attack whenever it was expedient.

As it turned out, ambushes were very fun when you were the ambusher and not the ambushed.

His groupmates suddenly erupted into cheers, prompting Yu Wenzhou to look to the other side of the field. A drenched Zhou Zekai jogged out of bounds and took a seat on the sidelines.

“Jiang Botao! It’s your turn!” Chu Yunxiu cried, reeling her arm back to throw.

Jiang Botao quickly backed out of midfield to join Lou Guanning and Bai Shu, the only remnants of Heavenly Sword and 301 Degrees. Since he was the last member of Samsara still standing, he was in good company.

Group Two’s foremost attackers—Fang Rui, Bao Rongxing, Dai Yanqi, and Zhang Jiaxing—moved in to cover Jiang Botao’s retreat. Ye Xiu, Xiao Shiqin, Wei Chen, and Tian Sen edged past midfield to back them up, balloons in hand.

Yu Wenzhou smiled. Everything was going just as planned.

In truth, Jiang Botao was a high-priority target, but not as much as Ye Xiu or Xiao Shiqin, who had actively countered Yu Wenzhou’s tactics since the game started. While Chu Yunxiu, Li Hua, and Zou Yuan drew Group Two’s fire toward them, Huang Shaotian would take out Fang Rui, who undoubtedly had the best aim out of anyone on the field right now.

As for the tacticians…they were Yu Wenzhou’s prey.

The rules for the water balloon fight resembled dodgeball more than anything else. The winner was whichever group acquired the most points throughout three rounds. The amount of points awarded per hit varied from one to three depending on the distance between thrower and target, but that didn’t affect the target’s fate in any way. One hit and they were out.

One well-placed, timely toss at Ye Xiu and Xiao Shiqin each, and victory was theirs.

“Captain, I’ll cover you!” said Lu Hanwen, only a little damp from the big splash that had heralded Lu Yuan’s end a few minutes ago.

Yu Wenzhou nodded down at him. “I’m counting on you, Little Lu.”

They exchanged profound glances, determination shining in their eyes. Then they took off, Lu Hanwen slightly in the lead.

Both groups were on their last legs now, and they still had over ten minutes before the first round was over. Yu Wenzhou refused to believe that his group couldn’t completely annihilate Group Two in that interval. No matter how hot it was, no matter how tired his legs were, he was resolved to end this soon.

Ye Xiu was the first to notice his approach. He raised his eyebrows and called a warning to his closest allies, who all turned to regard the oncoming threat. Water balloons were hefted, a defensive formation was established, and Xiao Shiqin—

Xiao Shiqin stepped momentarily into the open and flung his balloon straight at Yu Wenzhou.

As promised, Lu Hanwen leaped into the balloon’s path. His sacrifice was immediate and undeniable. The balloon exploded on his stomach, and between one instant and the next, he was soaked.

"Captain, I’m cheering for you!” Lu Hanwen called as he darted away.

Yu Wenzhou, for his part, needed no encouragement. He had started taking aim before Lu Hanwen was even hit, and perhaps some would call it a stroke of heavenly fortune, but his balloon struck true.

Xiao Shiqin blinked down at his drenched T-shirt as droplets of water slid down the lenses of his glasses. “Dammit,” he groaned.

Three more balloons sailed Yu Wenzhou’s way, but he had already fled out of range.

Partial success was better than total failure. Ye Xiu was still on the loose, but in the scramble that followed Xiao Shiqin’s loss, a veritable ambush predator like Huang Shaotian was sure to find an ideal opportunity to take him out of the game.

And Yu Wenzhou, for once not hindered by slow fingers, was not far behind him.

* * *

“This shield and sword thing is actually working out. Who knew?”

Zhang Xinjie huffed. Obviously he knew, since he had come up with it.

Bai Yanfei grinned at him. “Old Lin was right, you’re so reliable.”

That was a given. Whether it was an art contest or a water balloon fight, Zhang Xinjie would always unflinchingly pursue victory. He was Tyranny’s vice-captain; this was only right.

Of course, Group One wasn’t just Tyranny, but Zhang Xinjie was no stranger to dragging people with him on the road to ultimate triumph, whether they wanted it or not. Wang Jiexi and Li Xuan did not need much convincing to accept his strategy, thankfully, and since their three teams had eighteen people between them, they were indispensable allies.

Miracle’s five had disregarded Zhang Xinjie’s instructions and were promptly made to regret it. They somehow convinced Conquering Clouds’ two players to follow them and proceeded to indulge in reckless gambits right from the start of this round. Group Three, riding high on their win over Group Two in the first round, made plenty of reckless gambits of their own, but Yu Wenzhou seemed to be controlling them well because they still whittled those rogues down until only He Ming and Shen Jian were left.

The only upside to this was that Sun Haowen and his two teammates were more than willing to heed Zhang Xinjie. At his urging, they helpfully pulled He Ming and Shen Jian from the fire and into the fold. Bottom-tier-team solidarity at work, perhaps. Zhang Xinjie had no idea, he just wanted the fools to follow directions.

“Yanfei, run up there and draw attention to yourself so I can replenish our troops,” Zhang Xinjie ordered.

Bai Yanfei obediently swiped two water balloons from the bin, but hesitated to take his leave. “You’re sending those guys?”

“Who else?” Zhang Xinjie asked, not betraying his irritation. “I can’t let them lurk back here forever. Go now.”

Bai Yanfei went, and Zhang Xinjie called, “Sun Haowen, you’re up. All five to the front.”

To his credit, Sun Haowen did not protest being used as a meat shield. He herded his charges forward and got them flinging balloons in no time, allowing the empty-handed attackers to hurry back and restock.

“The timing is wrong,” Zhang Xinjie muttered to himself. Han Wenqing, three whole balloons tucked under one arm, gave him an odd look. Zhang Xinjie waved him off.

Timing was the crux of the battle, Zhang Xinjie had learned. Specifically, the timing of throwing the balloons and retreating to fetch more balloons. There was an interval when the main attackers were away from the front line that the opposing group always took advantage of. In that interval lay the seeds of victory or defeat.

Hence, Zhang Xinjie’s sword and shield. A strategy that would allow two squads, one focused on defense and the other on offense, to stay at the front for as long as possible. While the “sword” squad was busy throwing balloons, the “shield” squad kept them from being hit.

Yu Wenzhou’s little trick with Lu Hanwen served as the inspiration for this, by the way. Zhang Xinjie had very keen eyes. And judging by the very gentle smiles Yu Wenzhou occasionally sent his way, the opposition was not unaware of it.

It wasn’t a perfect strategy, however. Though the groups were allowed to place balloon bins anywhere, the safest place to restock was as far from the front as possible. The swords still had to retreat constantly, forcing the shields to take their place. This was a bit counterproductive, because not only were the shields simply less adept attackers, they were also most useful as protection. And they could only protect by staying in the game until they were absolutely needed as shields.

On his next trip to restock, Han Wenqing directly asked, “What’s up?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Well, think fast. We might need you to go up if we keep losing people.” Han Wenqing ran back to his spot. A sour-faced Shen Jian assumed position slightly in front of him.

Zhang Xinjie sighed. Group Two’s rapid decline after the removal of Xiao Shiqin and Ye Xiu proved that a tactician with decent seniority was essential to win. Wang Jiexi might be able to take his place, but…

No use in worrying. Zhang Xinjie stalked up and down the length of the court (so to speak), looking for patterns and identifying potential weaknesses.

From where Group Two sat, Ye Xiu waved at him. “Supply line!”

What nonsense was this senior on about?

…Wait.

Fifteen minutes into round two, Zhang Xinjie had implemented two new tactics. One, coordinate attack rates among the swords so that their retreats were staggered, ensuring someone was always at the front. Two, establish a supply line, which mainly consisted of talented runners like Bai Yanfei delivering balloons to those in need. Both were working beautifully.

Bless that sly senior of his. Zhang Xinjie wasn’t the only one with keen eyes.

“Mystify and mislead!” Xiao Shiqin called when Zhang Xinjie again wandered close to Group Two’s spectators. “‘All warfare is based on deception’!”

Zhang Xinjie paused, then decided to ignore that. He was not in the habit of following obscure advice. Not that Sun Tzu was obscure, but—

Wei Chen, of all people, added to the confusion. “‘Never venture, never win!’”

…What did that even mean? Beyond the obvious.

Again, Zhang Xinjie hit the figurative ignore button.

* * *

Round one went to Group Three, round two to Group One, and round three to Group Two. It seemed like a totally inconclusive game, but the sticking point was…the points (ha).

Groups One and Three were tied for points, while Group Two lagged just a little behind, putting them out of the running. And so, Groups One and Three were obliged to fight a tiebreaker round.

“In retrospect, announcing our intentions to Zhang Xinjie before we even fought was unwise,” said Xiao Shiqin.

Ye Xiu, sitting next to him on the grass, shrugged. “It would have been cool if he had figured out what we meant.”

“Oh, he did figure it out. To our detriment.” Xiao Shiqin sighed.

While Group One was able to (barely) win against Group Three by persisting with a single well-thought-out strategy, Group Two was able to win against Group One by copying their winning strategy and then fooling them with it. Basically, they lulled Zhang Xinjie (who was mostly cognizant of what was happening but couldn’t do much about it) into a false sense of security and then used the last tiresome minutes of the game to rush at the front line. It was a reckless gamble, but they were able to overwhelm the opposing attackers with sheer audacity.

Attack when the enemy is unprepared, appear where you’re not expected. Ye Xiu enjoyed these kinds of tactics the most, and Xiao Shiqin could understand why.

Still, though they did technically win the round, they lost in numbers. Xiao Shiqin had been disappointed for about two minutes, but then he realized this meant he could go back to sitting and watching his colleagues fling projectiles at each other. And Xiao Shiqin deserved good things, didn’t he?

“Who should I support?” he wondered aloud. “Zhang Xinjie is rather inflexible today, but Yu Wenzhou has clearly lost the plot. One is running wild and the other’s doing the opposite.”

Zhou Zekai, who had seated himself on Xiao Shiqin’s other side, hummed and said, “Others besides tacticians.”

“Hm, you think Wang Jiexi could cover for Zhang Xinjie? I feel like Wang Jiexi has been awfully passive in just about every activity we’ve done.”

“No, other players,” was Zhou Zekai’s attempt at clarification.

“He means there are other people to consider besides Zhang Xinjie and Yu Wenzhou,” Ye Xiu said wryly. “Can’t you tell that much, Little Xiao?”

Xiao Shiqin frowned at him. Then he frowned at Jiang Botao, who was also sitting next to Zhou Zekai and smirking.

“I’m not fluent in Zhou Zekai speak,” he grumbled.

“Anyway, I think Yu Wenzhou’s non-strategy will win it for Group Three. His group is way more enthusiastic. They’re taking his cue and running wild. A harmonious team is often a winning team,” Ye Xiu declared.

Jiang Botao chuckled. “Often, but not always.”

“Well, that should be obvious.”

But then, midway through the round, when Group Three was down half its troops and Group One a third, Yu Wenzhou’s non-strategy suddenly turned into a strategy.

“Wow, they carried those bins up just like that,” Jiang Botao remarked, faintly disbelieving.

“The poor staff,” Xiao Shiqin added. “They have to run all that way just to drop in new balloons.”

“It’s not that long of a way. I’m sure they’re used to it.”

“I wonder about that. Does this camp host water balloon fights for grown adults often?”

“It’s not like we’re all grown adults here. But I see your point.”

Ye Xiu interrupted their conversation to say, “It’s Three’s win.”

Xiao Shiqin was about to retort that it was too early to make that call, but the sight that unfolded before his eyes forced him to shut his mouth. In quick succession, Han Wenqing, Wang Jiexi, and Bai Yanfei were all hit. Followed by Gao Yingjie and Xu Bin, Li Xuan and Wu Yuce… All of Group One’s most prominent offense-defense pairs got taken out.

Zhang Xinjie reluctantly moved forward to support his troops, but his advantage over Group Three had already faded to nothing. The tables were soundly turned. Group One was forced to temporarily withdraw, and Group Three was obliged to snipe at them from afar.

The longest shots scored the most points. It was no wonder Three would win.

Xiao Shiqin watched this sad drama play out and said to Ye Xiu, “Looks like I still have a lot to learn.”

“Hm?”

“You saw that coming from a mile away, didn’t you?”

“Don’t overestimate me,” Ye Xiu said amusedly. “I saw it coming from a meter away, at most. Or if we’re being literal, about fifteen meters.”

“If you say so. By the way, I’ve been meaning to apologize to you.”

Ye Xiu dragged his gaze away from the bloodshed on the field to squint at Xiao Shiqin.

“It was me. I leaked your conditions. But only to Sun Xiang! I didn’t mean for them to get around, I didn’t know they were a secret to begin with.”

Sun Xiang, sitting behind Zhou Zekai, let out an indignant noise. “Why does it sound like you’re blaming me?!”

Ye Xiu’s expression was fixed into a mask of impassivity. Slowly, his eyes trailed from Xiao Shiqin to Sun Xiang and back again.

Nobody said anything. Of course, nobody expected Zhou Zekai to say anything, but the silence from the others was a mite nerve-wracking.

“Aren’t you to blame, Little Sun?” Ye Xiu nearly crooned. “Who did you tell?”

“Uh, you have it all wrong…”

Zhou Zekai craned his neck around and Sun Xiang winced. “Okay, I did blurt it out at one point, but that was the only time. I was not gossiping about you. I don’t gossip.”

“He gossips sometimes,” Jiang Botao commented.

“You! Be quiet!” Sun Xiang wriggled in frustration. “A few people overheard, I don’t remember exactly who, but definitely Wang Jiexi, Li Xuan, Tang Hao…and Zekai, here. Maybe Su Mucheng? It was probably Su Mucheng.”

“Mucheng, who orchestrated my misery? Unlikely.”

“C’mon, you’re not miserable,” Xiao Shiqin weakly protested. “At least…not more miserable than anyone else.”

Ye Xiu leveled him with a look that statement probably deserved.

Then, while everyone watched in stupefaction, Ye Xiu got up, walked onto Group Three’s side of the field (amidst outcry from surrounding staff and crew), swiped a water balloon, walked all the way back to the sidelines, and forcefully dropped the balloon right atop Xiao Shiqin’s head.

It didn’t hurt, but Xiao Shiqin moped anyway.

* * *

It was the day after Director Xiong Min had interrupted Team China’s training to relay the news: the Alliance had greenlit a reality TV show and asked for their cooperation and support in making it happen. Xiao Shiqin, with so much on his mind, had only barely internalized the information. He’d rather think about what he was used to thinking about; stuff like damage-dealing statistics and animation lag and terrain visibility. Ye Xiu’s research into their opponents had thoroughly fed Xiao Shiqin’s imagination.

Imagination was half the work when it came to tactics. If you couldn’t imagine a tactic taking shape, you had no choice but to discard it.

So absorbed was he in his thoughts, Xiao Shiqin didn’t notice that Sun Xiang had come out of the bathroom and was walking in his direction until they nearly ran into each other.

“Oh, it’s you. Is it lunch break already?”

Xiao Shiqin blinked rapidly. “No, I just stepped out to fill my water bottle.”

Sun Xiang squinted at him. “What’s got you daydreaming?”

“I’m not daydreaming,” Xiao Shiqin retorted. “Just deep in thought.”

“About?”

It wasn’t any of Sun Xiang’s business, but Xiao Shiqin figured it wouldn’t hurt to explain. “I went over some of Senior Ye’s research last night. Tactical planning and stuff, you know how it is.”

As soon as he said that, he realized Sun Xiang probably didn’t know. The guy was famed for many things, but his strategic inclination was not one of them. Though he wasn’t as hopeless as he’d been when Xiao Shiqin first went to Excellent Era, granted.

Sun Xiang, demonstrating remarkable observational skills, seemed to infer what Xiao Shiqin was thinking. “Fuck, I’m not a dunce. Isn’t Ye Xiu going to share with the class? The people who are going to be on that stage need to be informed, too.”

That was an awfully diplomatic (and sensible) demand, coming from Sun Xiang. Xiao Shiqin smiled at him. “We’re going to review after practice, so we’ll be ready to present in a few days.”

Sun Xiang seemed to be satisfied with that. Nodding, he made to return to the training room. Likewise, Xiao Shiqin made to continue toward the water fountain.

But all of a sudden, Sun Xiang called his name and asked, “Is Ye Xiu coming with us to Europe?”

Xiao Shiqin glanced over his shoulder. “I’m…pretty sure he is.” Even as he said this, he realized Ye Xiu had never confirmed it either way. It just seemed obvious that he would be there. He was a member of the national team, too, even if he would never debut on the international stage.

Besides, what was the point of a team leader who stayed at home while everyone else left to fight the good fight? Totally illogical.

“That’s good, then.”

“You’ve really changed,” Xiao Shiqin blurted. He had noticed it before, but now it was plainer than ever.

Sun Xiang huffed. They were still standing far apart, but sometime during that exchange, they’d reoriented their bodies toward each other so they could at least make proper eye contact. And Sun Xiang’s eyes were narrowed.

“What?”

“I hate that people keep saying that to me,” Sun Xiang growled. “I was never that much of an asshole.”

Maybe not in general, but to Ye Xiu? Absolutely. Xiao Shiqin decided to say nothing of it.

“But it would be nice to prove it to him,” Sun Xiang continued. “Prove that I’m different now. He just has to be there to see it.”

Xiao Shiqin felt like they were edging into dangerous territory. “I can understand that. Anyway…water.”

“You gonna be on that reality TV show thing? I think pretty much everyone else will, but you haven’t mentioned it at all.”

Damn, did this kid just not want to let him go? “I’m preoccupied today. I’ll probably be preoccupied for a few more days. I don’t care about a show.”

“Do you at least know if Ye Xiu will be there?”

“At this summer camp? I don’t know and neither does he.”

“…What? He hasn’t decided yet?”

“He invented some conditions for participation. On the spot, I think, because the director wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Sun Xiang snorted. “Why am I not surprised? Is it just a bunch of impossible shit?”

“Not really. One of them involves Team China.”

“Ah? What about us?”

So Xiao Shiqin explained. In his defense, he really didn’t know what it would lead to.

* * *

“So…why did you lash out at Xiao Shiqin, your own groupmate?”

“Because it’s his fault.”

“That Group Two lost?”

“That I’m here.”

The interviewer paused. After a few baffled moments, he tossed a confused glance at the other crew members.

“Can you elaborate?”

Ye Xiu sighed as if this was a hefty request. “In the spirit of fairness, I’ll admit it wasn’t all his fault. The director is to blame, too.”

Peng Zemin, watching from somewhere off to the side, pointed at himself incredulously.

Cao Xinyi pinched the bridge of her nose. She knew exactly who he was talking about, and she was sure Director Xiong would cough blood when she caught wind of this. But was an interview really the time to air all that laundry? How much of this were they going to need to cut later?

“Ask him what he was thinking when he ran out into the field like that,” she hissed to the interviewer.

The interviewer cleared his throat and did as she ordered.

“Vengeance,” Ye Xiu promptly replied.

“Xiao Shiqin offended you somehow?”

“I already told you, it’s his fault I’m here.”

“Did you not want to come to summer camp?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Is that a serious question?” Seeing that it was indeed a serious question, Ye Xiu let out another gusty sigh. “I just came back from an international trip after spending over a month slaving away for our national team’s victory. Why would I come to a summer camp when I could be at home relaxing?”

“That does make some sense,” the interviewer said slowly, “but you weren’t obligated to come…”

Ye Xiu glared halfheartedly. “You say that like this show would be worth watching without all the national team players. Not only did the director corner me, she even got my dad involved! Again! How do you people keep doing this?”

“Us?”

“Sorry, not you, the Glory Professional Alliance. No sooner was I told that all my conditions for participating had been met that my dad sent word not to come back home until filming was done!”

Cao Xinyi started sweating. He was really going there?

The interviewer was just a random crew member who’d been selected to ask questions because he was a good conversationalist with a pleasant voice. However, like most people in the entertainment industry, he had a keen nose for drama. That nose was telling him to dig.

“God Ye has never spoken much about his personal matters. Concerning your—”

“And that’s a wrap! Stop, stop, stop!” Cao Xinyi threw herself directly in front of the camera. “God Ye, thanks for your time.”

When she turned to meet his eyes, Ye Xiu wore an expression of such supreme nonchalance that Cao Xinyi instantly knew she’d been played.

“Sure, glad to be of help.” And with those parting words, Ye Xiu made himself scarce.

Cao Xinyi gritted her teeth and tried to think less violent thoughts.

Radiating irritation, Peng Zemin came forward. “Miss Cao, what was that?”

How to explain? And in front of all these witnesses, too. She didn’t dodge that bullet only to shoot herself in the foot. “Well, you see…”

Peng Zemin waved off the grouchy cameraman and other assorted crew members, all of whom were gazing at Cao Xinyi with varying levels of hostility. “Just tell me quietly.”

Cao Xinyi was annoyed at his presumption, but unless she wanted to strangle the Alliance’s chances of working with such a respected personage in the future, she had to say something. It was only a matter of which words she chose.

In the end, she made up her mind to stall. “Well, you see. Ye Xiu’s family is a touchy subject.”

“Is it? Is his father someone important?”

Trust Director Peng to instantly grasp the situation! “That’s right! His father is not a man we can afford to offend. That’s why we promised we would do our best to keep Ye Xiu’s family out of the spotlight. We can’t air any footage mentioning them specifically.”

“Even though his father played a big part in Ye Xiu’s presence here?”

Cao Xinyi nodded decisively. “No matter what, the Ye family cannot fall under public scrutiny.”

Peng Zemin’s astonishment was plain to see. “Can it be there’s a big secret behind this family?”

“Oh, probably not. It’s just beneath their dignity to parade in front of everyone like common public figures.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them said anything for a short while.

“So that interview…”

“Just use what you can. Or make up another explanation—can’t we interview Xiao Shiqin instead? He’s more reliable for this kind of thing anyway.”

With a pained expression, Peng Zemin reluctantly conceded.

Cao Xinyi couldn’t blame him. They said Ye Xiu was a god of Glory, but from her perspective, he was more like a god of inconvenience.

* * *

“I suppose you achieved your goal, albeit in a roundabout way,” said Zhang Xinjie.

Yu Wenzhou, who had just freed himself from the clutches of the film crew, blinked. “I’m not sure what you mean?”

“The winners’ prize is a resort vacation, paid for by the Alliance. If you schedule it for next summer…won’t that be even better than a summer camp?”

“Well, it’s not hard to beat summer camp when it comes to vacations,” Yu Wenzou said with a grin. “But yes, I guess I did achieve my goal? If you can call a sentimental wish a goal.”

Zhang Xinjie shrugged. “You can call anything a goal, with the right parameters established.”

“That is such a you thing to say.”

“I’m sure I don’t understand what you mean.”

Yu Wenzhou shook his head. His eyes were drawn to the celebratory members of Group Three, who up until now had not won a resounding victory in any of the activities, especially not as a group.

Chu Yunxiu and Tang Hao, at odds since their group was formed, were chortling over something Yu Feng had said. Yu Feng, for his part, was smiling and self-satisfied. Lu Hanwen, somehow caught between the three, looked harried in that way unique to put-upon juniors everywhere.

As Yu Wenzhou watched, Huang Shaotian broke away from Blue Rain’s euphoric huddle to rescue their kid, yelling and pointing all the while.

Everything was as it should be. And indeed, another summer with Blue Rain would be absolutely perfect.

* * *

Zhang Xinjie left Yu Wenzhou to reconvene with his team and returned to where he had last spotted the members of Group One—only to realize everyone had scattered.

In fact, a few enterprising souls had followed Ye Xiu’s example and were playfully attacking each other with the leftover water balloons. The nearby staff watched on in bemused dismay, but made no move to stop them.

Thankfully for Zhang Xinjie’s dignity, Tyranny had engaged in no such pastime. But he also couldn’t find them, and he was reluctant to walk around at random with so many cameras watching on.

“There you are.”

Zhang Xinjie jumped, then exhaled softly. “Captain. I was looking for you. Where is everyone?”

Han Wenqing had sneaked up behind him like it was the most natural thing in the world, but at this question, he appeared discomfited. “Well…”

“They were lured away by the film crew for paired interviews or something,” Wang Jiexi said. Luckily, Zhang Xinjie saw him coming. “They seemed to have a lot to say about the other groups. And by ‘them,’ I mean Liu Xiaobie and Bai Yanfei.”

Zhang Xinjie closed his mouth. To think he was going to point out that no one in Tyranny or Tiny Herb had trash-talking proclivities.

Well, Liu Xiaobie and Bai Yanfei… Those two were more likely to gripe and grumble than talk trash, but the point stood.

“We can’t expect composure from all quarters,” Zhang Xinjie said eventually.

Han Wenqing huffed and waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s probably good for them. A rant after a loss is probably the simplest catharsis there is, but how often are we afforded the privilege? Press conferences are no place to pour out your frustrations.”

“And a reality TV show is?” Wang Jiexi asked, tilting his head.

“It was a water balloon fight. Childish games draw out childish attitudes. If the film crew finds it charming, why not the fans?”

Wang Jiexi made a speculative noise. “I’m halfway convinced the objective of this crew is not to enhance our image but make it worse.”

“Maybe it’s fine to be humbled now and then.”

Han Wenqing and Wang Jiexi startled, then stared silently at Zhang Xinjie for a long moment.

“Maybe so,” Wang Jiexi said. “Maybe so. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of humanity here and there.”

“But why did Ye Xiu do that?” Han Wenqing wondered. “Dunking his own groupmate isn’t what I’d call humanizing. Hilarious, though.”

Zhang Xinjie sighed. “I have my suspicions.”

Wang Jiexi lifted his eyebrows and took a step closer. “Oh?”

“I believe Ye Xiu found out just who was responsible for this predicament.”

“Predicament…?” Han Wenqing frowned.

“His presence here,” Zhang Xinjie clarified. “He didn’t want to come to summer camp, so he made up some excuses on the spot when the PR director met with us—the Master Tacticians and Captain Wang—in private. Like that there had to be at least two people from every surviving Alliance team, that all the Team China members must participate…”

Catching his cautious glance, Han Wenqing said flatly, “He told them I had to come too, didn’t he.”

“How’d you guess?” Wang Jiexi asked, smirking.

“Sounds like something he’d do.”

“I’ll admit, Captain, I thought you were informed. Xiao Shiqin never told you?”

“No, but Li Xuan asked me if I was participating. This was before you went to Europe, by the way.”

“And at that time, you’d already decided to sign up for this?” Wang Jiexi seemed quite shocked.

“Yes,” Han Wenqing said, “but it had nothing to do with Ye Xiu’s conditions, obviously. Didn’t know about them. It’s just that Lin Jingyan said he’d only go if I went, too.”

Zhang Xinjie had seen nothing of this in Tyranny’s group chat and said as much.

“We didn’t discuss it in the group chat. I was needled in private instead.” Han Wenqing crossed his arms and glared up at the sky like the clouds had offended him.

Wang Jiexi faced Zhang Xinjie with a smile. “It turns out Captain Han can’t resist an earnest request from his teammates.”

“That does seem to be the logical conclusion,” Zhang Xinjie said slowly. “So, does Ye Xiu know of your lack of involvement?”

“I did explain my reasons to him, but who knows if he believed me.” Han Wenqing shrugged and looked around. “That guy always has a lot of thoughts. Too many, even. What’s up with them?”

Zhang Xinjie followed Han Wenqing’s gaze to a small group of people who had surrounded someone… Ye Xiu? Yes, that was Ye Xiu, and he was trying to escape their clutches. While protesting. Viciously.

So many swear words were thrown around in the space of twenty seconds that Zhang Xinjie felt dizzy.

He understood on an intellectual level why Ye Xiu and Wei Chen had teamed up, but on an emotional level, why in the world did they tolerate each other? They were like two tomcats in a back alley.

And why were Lin Jingyan and Zhang Jiale there? To watch the show? He could almost expect that of them, but Sun Zheping and Yang Cong, too?

…Was this some sort of secret senior player ritual Zhang Xinjie never caught on to?

“I should help out,” Wang Jiexi said.

“Who?” asked Han Wenqing.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Whatever it is, Ye Xiu probably deserves it,” was Han Wenqing’s solemn verdict.

Wang Jiexi nodded just as solemnly. “Probably.”

The three of them observed Ye Xiu get ganged up on and moved not a hair out of place.

* * *

Xiao Shiqin survived one frightful interview following the water balloon debacle, then resolved to spend the rest of the day in hiding. This consisted of staying in his tent and refusing to leave even when people called for him just outside the entrance. He didn’t even accompany Group Two to their last workshop hour—not that this was a huge loss, artistically speaking.

It was a peaceful afternoon, to be honest. The camp’s Wi-Fi was laughable at best, but he had downloaded a bunch of videos on his phone before coming here. All of them concerning Worlds matches, of course. He’d need another two weeks or so to analyze everything that happened. This was just a shallow start.

When campfire time rolled around, Xiao Shiqin finally showed his face. Mostly because Dai Yanqi barged into the tent and threatened to drag him out by the neck if he didn’t budge.

“They’re going to announce the winner of the storytelling competition!” Dai Yanqi gushed, tugging on his hand as they took one of the more sidelong paths toward the campfires.

Xiao Shiqin had nearly forgotten there was a storytelling competition. “Isn’t it obvious that you’re going to win?”

“You’d think so, but Cheng Shi said there have been others telling stories here and there. But most of them were a one-time thing, not a multi-chapter saga like ours.”

Well, that was a given. Who else but Chu Yunxiu and her enablers would possess the motivation to weave such a long and convoluted tale? And all for the sake of spooky campfire vibes.

Xiao Shiqin and Dai Yanqi made it the main campfire just as the winners were announced. To no one’s surprise, the girl gang had captured the fans’ hearts and earned a truly astounding number of votes. It was a sound victory.

“You’d think she won a championship,” observed Fang Xuecai.

Zhang Jiaxing rolled his eyes. “This is probably what she put the most effort into during all of camp.”

Dai Yanqi paused in her celebratory shouting to scold them. “You bet I put a lot of effort into it! At least it paid off!” She suddenly looked emotional. “I can always count on my girls…”

The three of them backed away from her.

They need not have worried; Dai Yanqi had no sooner finished receiving the congratulations of the nearest players when she took off to meet up with the girls and finish their story. Turned out Chu Yunxiu had taken pacing into consideration when she organized these storytelling sessions.

Xiao Shiqin admired her, he really did.

After partaking in some barbecue, Xiao Shiqin lurked about, flitting from cluster to cluster and campfire to campfire. He had an interesting conversation with Lou Guanning and Wen Kebei, endured some good-natured ribbing from Li Xuan, and exchanged awkward eye contact with Sun Xiang.

While he meandered to and fro, he spotted at least a dozen people darting around and handing out small objects or papers. It took him a whole five minutes to remember that they had the option of gifting their arts and crafts creations to their fellow campers.

“You make anything?” asked Yang Cong, who received a hand-written letter from Xu Bin while he chatted with Xiao Shiqin about one of the foreign Assassin players who’d made a splash at Worlds. (Who would’ve guessed Xu Bin practiced calligraphy?)

Xiao Shiqin shook his head, then hastened to explain that no one would appreciate anything he could make.

Yang Cong chuckled. “Maybe someone made something for you, then.”

Perish the thought. He’d assumed all his friends knew he didn’t want anything, but what if there was some earnest junior out there who wanted to express their admiration? Xiao Shiqin would be flustered to high heaven. Then he’d have to coach the kid at least a couple times to repay their regard.

“Incoming,” Yang Cong warned.

Xiao Shiqin didn’t even have time to turn around before his arm was taken in a firm grip. “Why, thank you for keeping him occupied, Senior.”

“You’re welcome…?”

Yu Wenzhou leveled them with a soft smile. “I’ve been ordered to retrieve this one. Please excuse us.”

Yang Cong waved them off, clearly baffled. And so Xiao Shiqin was abducted without protest.

“Retrieve me where? And why?” Xiao Shiqin asked, though he was certain he did not want to know.

“To sit with us. Have a chat. Strengthen our friendships.”

Oh, boy.

Yu Wenzhou led Xiao Shiqin down a familiar path to the same campfire the three junior Master Tacticians had occupied the night before. Except this time, it wasn’t only the juniors present, but their illustrious senior, too.

Zhang Xinjie, sitting beside Ye Xiu on the log, said, “Finally. It took you a whole sixteen minutes just to find him?”

“He was moving around all over the place,” Yu Wenzhou explained, then belatedly let go of Xiao Shiqin’s arm. “Anyway, why don’t you join us?”

Xiao Shiqin grimaced faintly at Ye Xiu. That stoic expression foretold of terrible things in his immediate future. “Now you’re asking for my consent?”

Ye Xiu lifted an eyebrow and patted the empty space beside him.

Xiao Shiqin sat. “I’d love to join you.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ye Xiu said.

Yu Wenzhou took a seat in the camping chair next to the log. He and Zhang Xinjie exchanged resigned glances.

“Senior, how many times do I have to apologize? Again, I’m really sorry.”

Ye Xiu met his gaze. Xiao Shiqin tried to communicate how remorseful and well-intentioned he was through sheer force of will.

Like clouds parting before the sun, Ye Xiu smiled. “You’re forgiven. You’re not the one to blame.”

“…I’m not?”

“I probably would have ended up here with or without you. Your slip of the tongue just made it easier for me to agree.”

Xiao Shiqin was sure there was a lot of hidden meaning in those words, but he did not have the context to pick it apart.

“But as far as any of those other punks are concerned, it’s all their doing. And yours, incidentally. Got it?”

Mystified and relieved, Xiao Shiqin nodded. “Whatever you say, Senior.”

“Besides…” Ye Xiu raised his hand. A black paper crane rested on his palm, tiny and perfect. “For all my complaints, summer camp really wasn’t all that bad.”

Zhang Xinjie leaned forward to get a better look at the crane, his expression blank. Xiao Shiqin gave it a good look, too, but he could discern nothing special about it.

Yu Wenzhou shattered the odd atmosphere with a change of subject. “Since you’re in such a good mood, why don’t you agree to lead Team China again next summer?”

Ye Xiu hummed and squinted at the fire. “I can only agree if there’s an offer, you know.”

“Why wouldn’t there be an offer?” asked Zhang Xinjie. “You have been an exemplary leader. We won, after all.”

“As the ones who played, you deserve the most credit. The viability of coaches in this industry is still undecided.”

“You didn’t coach us,” Xiao Shiqin pointed out. Ye Xiu didn’t even watch their training most of the time. He made suggestions, asked for status updates, and researched. He researched a whole lot, and often. While everyone was busy practicing, he learned the ins and outs of their opponents’ gameplay and elaborated a host of countermeasures. Later, he only needed Yu Wenzhou’s feedback and the input from the other tacticians to decide which measures would be the most effective according to Team China’s capabilities.

Of course, everyone had done their part. Ye Xiu didn’t gather and prepare so much material for his own sake. But he had been the most informed person about the competition from start to finish, and that was no accident. Rather, it was his way of sharing their burden.

“You did pretty much everything except coach us,” Yu Wenzhou added.

“Thanks to you, we could train as much as we wanted. And I don’t know about anyone else, but whenever I went up to play, I never felt unprepared or uncertain. I always knew exactly what had to be done.” Xiao Shiqin hesitated. “It was very reassuring, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s…good,” Ye Xiu said, not without surprise.

“Very good,” Zhang Xinjie agreed, “so I’d like it if things didn’t change too much for next time.”

“So sure there’ll be a next time for us?” Ye Xiu seemed to be teasing now.

Yu Wenzhou laughed. “Ah, fair enough. Who knows what can happen in a year?”

Ye Xiu stared up at the sunset-hued sky as his nimble fingers played with the paper crane. “Who indeed?”

* * *

For reference, there was a tripod set up at this particular campfire, and this particular gathering was recorded from beginning to end. With really good audio. (Some saintly crew member had arranged for a higher-quality mic to be placed at the scene. Possibly at Cao Xinyi’s suggestion.)

Thus Peng Zemin got precisely the footage he needed to add the magic of story to this disaster of a reality TV show. After all, who could resist the beautiful development of a Ye Xiu who had been uncertain of his return to the world stage receiving encouragement from his fellow Master Tacticians to continue his good work?

Of course, many other small stories had unfolded all over the place. Zhang Jiale and Sun Zheping’s slow thaw, Huang Shaotian’s final boast to Wei Chen, Group Three’s gradual transformation into a functional unit. Not to mention all the touching team moments (yes, that footage from Tyranny’s arts and crafts workshops would be in the final cut, and no amount of glaring from Han Wenqing could prevent it. Tyranny’s PR agent had already approved).

But something about Ye Xiu, this huge character who refused to play any huge roles all throughout summer camp, had intrigued Peng Zemin from the get-go. And now, he could receive a conclusive story arc worthy of every Glory fan’s jubilation.

Peng Zemin and the Glory Professional Alliance finally had their show.

(That said, Xiong Min still coughed blood at Ye Xiu’s antics.)

* * *

Su Mucheng left her shared tent with a broad smile on her face, ready to seize the day. She had already freshened up, gotten dressed, and even applied more than the usual makeup. For good luck, naturally.

Chu Yunxiu and Dai Yanqi both stumbled out behind her.

“Why is the sun so bright? Why are you so chipper?” Chu Yunxiu whined. She rubbed at her eyes gracelessly and glared at the nearby cameraman. “Hey, wasn’t filming supposed to wrap up yesterday?”

“Officially,” said Su Mucheng.

Dai Yanqi groaned and hefted her duffel bag over her shoulder. It was a big bag for a small girl, and she looked rather comical carrying it. “I’m going to meet up with my team for now. See you guys at breakfast!”

“See you!” Chu Yunxiu called. She turned to Su Mucheng. “Are you going to leave your stuff at Happy’s tent?”

“Yep,” replied Su Mucheng. “I’m off! By the way, you got lip gloss on your chin.”

“Dammit.”

Su Mucheng left her luggage just inside Happy’s tent. It was still messy inside, and only Ye Xiu and Qiao Yifan were present. Both fully dressed and alert, of course.

Ye Xiu squinted suspiciously at her. “What’s with that face?”

Drat. She should have known he’d catch on. “I’m not sure what you mean. Unless you mean the new eyeshadow, in which case—”

“No, you’re excited. What are you excited about?” Ye Xiu darted a glance at Qiao Yifan. “Everyone’s just a little too energetic this morning. What did you do? If it’s bad, tell me now and I’ll ask the boss to pick us up sooner.”

Su Mucheng raised her hands in surrender. “Well, the thing is…we’re not leaving.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re not leaving,” Su Mucheng repeated. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Guoguo came all this way just to pick us up?”

“She said she had some business in the city.”

“She’s bringing Rourou and the others.”

Ye Xiu stared at her. Then he stared at Qiao Yifan, who was studiously avoiding his eyes.

“You planned this,” Ye Xiu realized. “All of you.”

“Guilty as charged.” Su Mucheng finally took a seat beside him. “Don’t be mad. We only wanted to spend a few days together, just us.”

Ye Xiu shook his head in bafflement. “What in the world for? If the others missed me so much, I could have just dropped by.”

“Well, we’ve made it easier by coming to you,” Qiao Yifan demurred.

Incredulous, Ye Xiu said, “More like you outmaneuvered me. How am I supposed to get away from here now?”

Su Mucheng stated the obvious: “You can’t, or you’ll hurt everyone’s feelings. It wasn’t easy to arrange this, okay? And we only had the best of intentions!”

Ye Xiu scoffed and exited the tent.

By the time Su Mucheng charged out after him, he had already acquired a camping chair from somewhere and sat down. Apparently to wait.

Staring, Su Mucheng asked, “What about breakfast?”

Ye Xiu reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette and a lighter.

“You’re going to smoke? Here?” she demanded.

Qiao Yifan poked his head out of the entrance and let out a bleat of alarm. “Senior! This is a no-smoking zone!”

“Oh, it’ll only be a minute.”

“Cameras!” Su Mucheng hissed.

“What’s the worst that’ll happen to me, a fine? Even if someone leaks the footage, my reputation’s never been spotless to begin with.” Ye Xiu inhaled and exhaled. “Ah, that’s the stuff. Just bring me back a meat bun or something.”

Breakfast was a tense affair, to say the least. The girls gave Su Mucheng weird looks for sitting with her teammates rather than with them, considering they had all agreed to eat together today, but Su Mucheng had to make sure someone fed Ye Xiu.

“What’s going on?” Chu Yunxiu asked when she finally made her way over.

“Oh, nothing much.” Su Mucheng immediately launched into a recital of the “reviews” they received on their story. She had spent a good two hours combing Weibo for comments last night. Suffice to say, their humble tale had left quite the impression on fans, especially those horror nerds.

After breakfast, a whirlwind of activity overtook the majority of the camp. The players were readying themselves to leave—some had already gone—and the film crew was collecting and storing their equipment. Someone spotted a handful of staff carrying a cork board with a bunch of players’ photos stuck to it out of the admin building. A dozen or so players caused a minor frenzy when they challenged themselves to locate this mysterious cork board and uncover its purpose.

The only island of calm in the sea of bedlam was Happy’s tent, where nobody did anything whatsoever. Ye Xiu still sat just outside (thankfully no longer smoking), and in typical Ye Xiu fashion, he refused to answer questions about why he was dithering about.

Then, an hour before lunch, when a good third of the camp had emptied, a handful of new faces appeared.

“You guys!” Chen Guo cried, arms spread wide. “We have finally arrived!”

Su Mucheng cheerfully threw herself at Chen Guo. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming!”

“Ha! No, Rourou’s plane was just delayed.”

Tang Rou, already drawing the eyes of several nearby players (Du Ming included, naturally), grinned. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Su Mucheng scoffed and embraced her, then proceeded to greet Mo Fan and Luo Ji.

The other members of Happy came forward as well, and the reunion was so beautiful (and loud) that Su Mucheng rather regretted that nobody was filming anymore.

Later, at lunch, Zhang Xinjie approached her. “Is this what you were doing, then?”

She blinked. Was this guy keeping tabs on her or something? “Uh, no offense, but what’s it to you?”

“Never mind.” Zhang Xinjie politely excused himself. He seemed to be lost in thought all of a sudden.

Su Mucheng shook her head. “Why are all these Master Tacticians so strange?”

“I’ll choose not to take offense at that.”

She jumped at Ye Xiu’s voice. “Hey! You surprised me!”

“I don’t think you get to complain about surprises. Not until you’re at least sixty.”

Su Mucheng grinned. “Are you saying we’ll be friends in our sixties?”

“What else? People change, but not all that much.”

“Hmm. I like those words.”

Lots of things could change, they could change, but in the end, this—surprising each other, laughing at each other, supporting each other—this would stay the same.

* * *

“Well, we’ve done it. We’re finished!”

“Finished with most of them, anyway.” Hou Guangyu tossed an arch look at Cheng Shi. “If only that Team Happy could have gone with the rest…”

“We never turn down respectable clients,” Boss Xiao intoned from her desk.

“We should turn down freeloaders. I don’t see why we had to honor Cheng Shi’s promise. It’s not like he speaks for this camp.”

Boss Xiao let out an exhausted sigh and closed her magazine with a heavy hand.

Zhou Yan winced. Were they in for it? He, for one, had been quiet and obedient this entire time.

“This moron acted as if he spoke for us, and that’s all that matters. Don’t you know that orange girl is a big name on the Internet? She has a ton of fans even outside of the—” Here Boss Xiao made a weird face and waved her hand. “The gaming industry or whatever it’s called. Peng Zemin told me.

“Anyway, it would have been much better if our idiot Cheng Shi had kept his mouth shut around the pretty girls, but since that’s too much to ask for, we can only hope that Miss Orange out there says nice things about us on her little accounts. Since she was promised a free three-day stay with her teammates, that’s what she’ll get. As for our other scheduled clients, well, we have plenty of room now that all those people are gone.”

This was why Boss Xiao was generally a good boss: her reasonableness. It was hard to find patient and logical managers who didn’t berate their underlings for every slight.

Not that Cheng Shi didn’t deserve some berating, but he’d gotten plenty of that from Hou Guangyu already. Zhou Yan wouldn’t be surprised if he decided he was better off resigning after this.

As it was, Boss Xiao definitely wouldn’t let him go until “Miss Orange” was gone. She was fair-minded like that.

“At least it all turned out okay,” Zhou Yan offered. “Right?”

“Sure.” Boss Xiao tidied her desk absentmindedly. “All’s well that ends well. You better hope none of you did anything too embarrassing on camera.”

Zhou Yan had long ago accepted that his dignity was bound to suffer once the show aired.

Hou Guangyu shrugged. “I had a good time, personally.”

“I didn’t have the worst time,” Cheng Shi muttered. “It could have been better, though.”

“Say, Little Zhou, did you ever end up getting Sis Cao’s WeChat?”

Zhou Yan stared wide-eyed at Hou Guangyu.

“Well?” He crossed his arms. “Did you or didn’t you? Maybe her QQ? Something? Anything?”

The more Zhou Yan shook his head, the more despairing Hou Guangyu became.

He groaned loudly. “Are you serious? I gave you so many opportunities to talk with her alone!”

Zhou Yan bowed his head in shame. It was true; Hou Guangyu had truly played the part of the big brother to the T. He did everything to help Zhou Yan get closer to his crush. It was Zhou Yan who failed to seize the chances provided to him.

Cheng Shi snorted. “This brat would never have the courage for that sort of thing.”

“I have her QQ. I’ll ask her if I can pass it along.”

The three of them turned to gawp at Boss Xiao.

She waved at them. “I’m going out with Old Gao. We’ll be back before dinner. Don’t bother me unless something is on fire. Don’t kill each other. Don’t make bad-business promises to pretty girls. See you.”

They still hadn’t reacted when the door closed behind her.

Hou Guangyu, older and worldlier, recovered first. “I guess love does change a person.”

“Who knew Head Chef’s sincere feelings would finally touch Boss Xiao’s heart? And now of all times,” said Cheng Shi in a wondering tone.

“I really thought she’d go for Peng Zemin.”

“Yeah, same. But maybe money and good looks aren’t all there is to a partner.”

“…I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

* * *

Windy Rain: Ummm guys

Windy Rain: Remember that orange equipment they promised to give us as a reward for winning the storytelling contest?

Red Leaves: Yeah

Thousand Falling Leaves: Yes! Did it finally get added to our accounts?

Windy Rain: Uh huh

Windy Rain: And uhhhhhhhhhhh

Windy Rain: [what.jpeg]

Red Leaves: What

Firebird Messenger: WHAT

Dancing Rain: [dazed emoji]

Thousand Falling Leaves: [coughing blood emoji]

Firebird Messenger: [shocked emoji] [fire emoji] [100 emoji]

Dancing Rain: Oh my god just wait till I show our equipment guy

Dancing Rain: And Ye Xiu was so sure they wouldn’t have the balls to give us anything useful LOL

Lower Your Head: suddenly i have so much respect for the game company and the alliance

None Dare Attack: respect +1

Dancing Rain: respect +2

Windy Rain: respect +3

Firebird Messenger: respect +4

Firebird Messenger: but is it ok to have such op equipment tho?????

Thousand Falling Leaves: Yeah girl!!

Thousand Falling Leaves: We deserve it.

Lower Your Head: totally

None Dare Attack: totally +1

Dancing Rain: totally +2

Windy Rain: totally +3

Red Leaves: totally +4

Firebird Messenger: u right u right

Dancing Rain: [blows kiss emoji]