You’re Beautiful When You Smile

Chapter 3 (1)

The weekend after she signed onto ZGDX, Tong Yao flew to Shanghai. Before boarding, she did two things while waiting at the gate-- --

The first was to WeChat her friend, Jinyang, informing her that she was going to Shanghai to play professionally. Tong Yao was going to be the Mulan of the esports.

The second was to post on Weibo telling her streaming fans that she was going to Shanghai to watch this years Spring Tournament Finals. She made it clear who she was rooting for: Go Team ZGDX!

Soon after her Weibo post, the official Weibo site of Team ZGDX reposted it with the comment [Thanks for the well wishes, Smiling. Looking forward to seeing you]. The unexpected interaction excited Tong Yaos fans, quickly creating a giant comment chain-- --

[My goodness, when did you get hooked up with the team of the competition sponsor, ahhhhhh!]

[Youre really going to watch the game! Im going too! I want to go and guess which one is you!]

[So happy Smiling likes the same team as I! Promise me to get an autograph from Cheng Ge, alright?]

[Is the competition sponsor buying a ticket for you? Make sure to ask for business class since they have money. Ah]

Usually when she had free time from school or was on vacation, Tong Yao would live stream, either playing games or simply chatting to earn some spending money-- --Unlike other stream hosts, she never turned on the camera. Yet, since she was a girl at the Challenger tier on both the Chinese and Korean servers, she had gathered quite a following-- --about thirty to fifty thousand fans. In a normal day, her post on the Weibo would receive several dozen replies at the most. At the moment, probably because the official ZGDX site had shared her post, her post about going to watch the game in Shanghai received more than 300 comments in less than ten minutes

[Posting on Weibo just about going to a game.  You have no life! Why dont you go compete yourself if youre so good? You dont even turn on the camera when streaming, are you afraid of exposing yourself!]

Tong Yao, ......

Because she never turned on the webcam, there was always a rumor circling around that someone else was playing for her, especially after the scandal where another Challenger tier female streaming host had someone carry her through her ranked matches...that was the reason why there were so many malicious comments as well

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It seemed like he was having a lot of fun.

Tong Yao twitched her lip and stared at this comment for a while when she heard the boarding announcement. She grinned and replied with a smiling face on the spot with [Thats right! Dont you know women like to post on Weibo for the smallest of reasons? Thats what makes it cute.]  Then she calmly signed off the Weibo.

Her phone started vibrating, an incoming call-- --

The caller id was Jinyang.

Tong Yao could guess what Jinyang would say, so she pretended that she was too busy boarding the plane to notice it. The phone hung up after ringing twice, but before Tong Yao could breath a sigh of relief, a message from her arrived-- --

[Answer the phone! Dont pretend youre not there. I saw your Weibo! You were talking smack with someone just 35 seconds ago!]

Tong Yao, ......

Tong Yao, afraid of losing her friend after she got off the plane, called back and listened patiently to her friends ranting-- --

To hell with the Mulan of esports! !

Dammit, my boyfriend plays esports and now my best friends going to play as well. In the future when Im watching a game, other people asked me what I was watching and I reply that Im watching my boyfriend and my best friend. They would think Im insane! !

Where are you? Are you really on the plane already! Get the hell off! Im going to hijack it! !

Tong Yao spent a long calming her friend down, especially since she was sensitive to the words esports player. They talked until the flight attendant nicely reminded her that the airplane was about to take off. Just as she was getting ready to hang up, the agitated one on the other end suddenly quiet down-- --

Tong Yao knew what was coming.

As expected, she heard her best friend speak the next second, You arent playing professionally because of Jian Yang?

......No. Tong Yao said, I play for the 800,000 yearly salary.

Tong Yao!

Aiya, Im really not! I havent talked to him for a long time...besides, people on his Baidu fan page say that recently Yang god has a new girlfriend, a pretty streaming host-- --

What? Arent you a streaming host?

Pretty, streaming host.

Dont be like that. Though I despise Jian Yang, that jerk, I havent heard anything about a new girlfriend from Ai Jia. They said CK wouldnt allow love affairs

Anyway, Im not going to look for him.

Then, thats ok. The one on the other end seemed to want to make sure. A good horse will never turn around to graze on an old pasture. I remember you said just a couple days ago that if you had a chance to do it again, you would never date a professional player ever.

I know, I know.

If you have to date one, then Ill go to your wedding only if its Cheng Ge.

........................then you dont have to come to my wedding. The face of Cheng Ge flashed in her brain and Tong Yao replied, Cheng Ge has a face which doesnt like any human beings.

Jinyang burst into laughter at the other end of the phone.

At this time, the flight attendant came over a second time to remind Tong Yao to turn off her cell phone.

Tong Yao hastily bid goodbye to her friend and put away her phone. She looked out through the window as the airplane gained speed to take off.  She saw a silly face yearning for the LoL League stare back at her in the window with the blue sky and white cloud in the background.

Be modest. She murmured while patting her face. Be cool.

It took about two and half hours to fly to Shanghai.

After she got off, the lady sent by ZGDX to meet her took her directly to the hotel where all the players would be staying for the finals happening the day after tomorrow-- --

Tong Yao was nervous for a while thinking the lady was going to introduce her to her future teammates. She found out when they were almost at the hotel that it wasnt the case. The manager of the team just wanted to treat her properly since she was travelling on her own, so they booked the same hotel for her.

As for the meeting with her new teammates, it had to wait till after the retirement announcement of their current mid player, Ming god.

Thats good. Thats good. Tong Yao kept nodding. I also feel itd be a bit too rushed to meet them.

The lady laughed at Tong Yaos reaction. I thought you couldnt wait to meet Cheng Ge and the others. The other trainees who came to our base before were like that.

I do want to meet them. Tong Yao said matter of factly. But I havent washed my hair today.

......

Not even yesterday.

......

Tong Yao laughed embarrassingly. They were close to the hotel at the time and could see many reporters holding long-focus cameras swarming outside. The outside had so many people bustling about as if a superstar was going to show up there-- --

The lady shook her head. Who knows where the media people learned about Ming gods retirement. They all want some scoop

Tong Yao, Oh.

The lady glanced through the rearview mirror at Tong Yao who didnt seem to have much of a reaction. She raised her eyebrows and proudly said, Those stupid people dont know that the biggest news is sitting at the back seat in my car.

Dont, dont, dont. Tong Yao giggled as she shook her hand. The big news hasnt washed her hair.