After TTC accomplished a 2021 grand slam, the extremely excited esports fans waited expectantly in the livestream rooms, hoping for a happy scene like the one that had emerged post-MSI, when all of the TTC members streamed a few days later.
Unfortunately, a week passed, and nothing happened.
Some fans couldn't sit still anymore, and they ran over to question TTC's official Weibo account:
[Your team members haven't been kidnapped because of how much they're constantly flaunting their wealth, right? Even now, nobody's streaming, it doesn't make any sense.]
[Forget everyone else—my son is a model worker for the streaming world! His only dream is to swindle away all of his dads' money, yet he actually stopped streaming for an entire week when his popularity is at its highest?!]
[Xiao Bai is nowhere to be found either T-T I miss seeing him hug P-baby's thigh every day.]
[P-fan here, crying. Judging from these circumstances, it looks like I'll have to wait at least a month before I can see my husband.]
[They should be on break, right? Didn't Bye say in the pre-finals interview that he was going to take his parents traveling after the competition? He probably hasn't gone back to the base yet...]
"Ss... I ate too much. This restaurant is pretty good... Yusong.
"Jiang Yusong?"
Pine snapped out of it. He looked up from his phone and glanced at his friend.
He had just left home and returned to Shanghai today when some of his old friends invited him out to dinner in the evening.
"We're gonna go to a bar, wanna come?" The friend patted his shoulder. "Nobody will recognize you with your mask on anyway."
Pine stuffed one hand in his pocket as a cigarette dangled from his mouth. Right as he was about to decline, his phone's preinstalled ringtone suddenly sounded.
He checked the caller ID before he pulled out his hand, removed the cigarette, and answered the call with a lazy "en."
A familiar, crisp voice pierced through the tranquil night. "Wuwuwuwu P-baby—quick, come and ransom me!!!"
The young man hadn't really spoken the entire night, nor had his expressions fluctuated much. But at that moment, he raised an eyebrow, and though he quickly lowered it again, it was enough to make his close friend next to him suspect that he was seeing things in the darkness of the night.
Pine exhaled a mouthful of smoke and asked, "Where are you?"
Xiao Bai halted in the middle of tossing out a card. "I'm playing cards in a mahjong and poker place, I'll send you my location."
"Who else is there."
Xiao Bai: "Me, Jian Rong, XIU, and my ge."
Pine paused for a second. "Brothers of the same mind give away money together?"
"BS, I just have bad luck, all my cards are super bad..." Xiao Bai threw out a card and complained, "My ge's not playing, but he keeps peeking at my cards and telling Jian Rong what they are!"
When Lu Boyuan heard that, he laughed from where he was sitting behind Jian Rong. "Who are you trying to slander here? Even if I was peeking, I wouldn't be looking at your cards, not with your skill level... How much have you two lost to XIU altogether now? Do you still have money in your pockets?"
Jian Rong gripped his cards tightly, pissed to the point of a headache because of the trash cards in his hand. But he insisted on saying stubbornly, "So what if I lose, I have money."
