What you lost I found

Never in his live had Sun Xiang thought, silence could be so frightening. This silence threaten him with eternity. He didn't want this silence between them to be eternal! One may think, all he had to do to interrupt this silence was to speak up, but he was afraid the other one wouldn't answer. Being ignored would make the silence even worse. He hated it. He hated, how he had nothing worth of saying. He hated, how the other one looked so weak. He hated, how things turned out this way, though it was only logical, since he and the other one – he and Ye Xiu – had no close relationship. He hated, how he was just an opponent to Ye Xiu. He hated Ye Xiu so much!

Why was the sun shining today? It wasn't fitting the mood – his mood. A thin film of sweat lingered on his body. Maybe because it was so hot. Maybe because he was so nervous. Every two minutes or so he wiped the sweat off of his hands onto his trouser leg. He was thirty. However, he ignored it and hoped to find a topic to talk about – hoped to find the words to express his thoughts and feelings. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Did he even have the right to have any thoughts or feelings related to this matter? Towards Ye Xiu?

The reason he had started to play Glory, was Ye Xiu and his One Autumn Leaf. At first he wanted to fight alongside his idol, but through the time inside the game – all the praise from other players and finally the invitation to a professional team – he changed. Slowly his dreams from fighting alongside Ye Xiu turned into fighting against him and defeating him until they were about not only defeating the Battle God, but becoming the next Battle God!
Ye Xiu had never done anything to him and yet on their first meeting face to face, he acted out on his former idol. In the past few months he had thought about his actions. Had he acted out of disappointment, because his idol was so normal, so plain – Ye Xiu didn't look like a hero, like someone special or great? Or had he acted out of disgust towards the fact that this old man didn't seem to care – why had this man looked so arrogant, had looked down on him, when it was the old geezer that was about to be replaced with someone better?
Was he better than Ye Xiu? Once he would have answered to this question with a confident and absolute yes, but nowadays he wasn't so sure anymore. Or course, his APM were higher and because of his young age, he had more changes to improve and more stamina. Considering only those factors made it seem that he indeed was better than his idol, but how fair was it to compare them now? There was an age gape of eight years! He was young, while the other one was old. So, was he better than the young Ye Xiu? The Ye Xiu, who won three championships? Although Glory was already in its third server, when the professional league was created, there were still a lot of thing that had to be figured out by the players. Even nowadays pro players still found new ways of incorporating the features of the arena environment – like the sun light in some maps that could be used as cover – or created new skill combinations. The Ye Xiu from back than wasn't as knowledgeable about Glory as the current Ye Xiu was.
Sun Xiang was a lucky one, he didn't need to figure things out on his own – at least not as much as the first generation of pro players. Through trial and error the first generation, especially Ye Xiu, had discovered different skill combinations and tactics. Thanks to the first players the new generation had a better training program that ensured that they wouldn't make any unnecessary moves. They performance was beautiful, so they could please the eyes of the fans, and efficient. Ye Xiu style wasn't beautiful, but efficient.
No, Su Xiang couldn't compare himself to the young Ye Xiu as well. Their starting point and the circumstances were too different. Maybe it was better to not compare them at all! Even when he was considered better than Ye Xiu, Ye Xiu had achieved so many things by now – one of this things was the creation of the Battle God. And Sun Xiang? He still hadn't won a single championship – well he won the Best Rookie Award, but else there was nothing more. He had only inherited One Autumn Leaf and the title of Battle God, he had not created it and earned it. This fact had been pointed out by a fan once in the forums and at first Sun Xiang had been furious, until he realized that the fan was right.