You’re Beautiful When You Smile

By the time the four of them got on the escalator to go downstairs, Lu Sicheng had also taken Tong Yao’s umbrella.
Tong Yao was holding Pikachu’s paws while nagging: “I told you to bring an umbrella and you wouldn’t listen.
See, it really started to rain.
And you called to have an umbrella delivered to you.
Just buy one in the mall!”

“I looked, no one sells umbrella here.’

“……Then get a ride back!”

“It’s so close by, why bother?”

“And now you want me to get a ride back!”

Lu Sicheng glanced over the top of her head.
Her hair was still damp from the rain……He paused before speaking: “Didn’t you look for us for an hour? You still want to walk back?”

“……It’s so close, why bother getting a ride?” Tong Yao suddenly felt her own words sound very familiar– –Why was she saying the same thing?

“Aren’t you freezing to death?”

“It’s an idiom.
Understood?” She booked a ride online and put her cell phone back into her pocket while shivering.
“It’s chilly……Didn’t your mom told you that when you’re separated from the adults, you should wait in one place, or stand in a conspicuous location, or ask the police for help? Why were you roaming around the mall for? And you even turned off your cell phone!”

“It’s out of battery.
I was wondering why no one called me.” Lu Sicheng looked down to glance at her.
“En, I was wrong.
I’ll wait for you at the entrance next time.”

He was earnest in his apology, yet– —

Tong Yao: “There won’t be a next time.
This time I happened to be caught by Rui Ge……The lesson here is that we should play ranked games when we don’t have anything better to do.
I was just being lazy for a while, the price I paid was being sent out for an errand which almost broke my legs.”

Lu Sicheng: “I can carry you on my back.”

Liangsheng who was in front of them turned to look at them.
Tong Yao continued with a stone face: “We’re already at the pickup place.
If you said that three minutes earlier, do you think I would’ve refused?”

Liangsheng glanced back at them.
Seeing an annoyed Tong Yao, he smiled and tried to make peace between the two: “After you get back, take a hot shower to warm yourself up.
Don’t catch a cold.
We have to go to do the drawing for the summer competition tonight.”

Tong Yao was reminded of reality: “Oh, yeah, the drawing is tonight.”

This year the competition would be using a round-robin system.
The 12 competing teams would be divided into 2 groups.
They would complete in the group first, then with the other group, and back to their own group.
It would be a best of 3, winning a match would earn the team a point, losing meant a team earned no points.

At the conclusion of the summer competition, the best 4 teams from each group would go into the playoffs to fight for a better rank and accumulate more points for the year– —

There were 3 slots for the Chinese regional teams to go to the world tournament.
The first one was reserved for the champion of the season.
The second one was for the team which had the highest combined points from the summer and spring seasons.
The third one would be for whichever team that came out on top after another series of matches amongst the teams with the most points.
If a team had no hope of winning the summer championship and didn’t get high enough points in the spring, then the third route would be the only chance for that team to win the chance to play in the world tournament.

ZGDX came in second place in the spring competition, having higher cumulative points.
It could be said that basically ZGDX and CK were already halfway qualified for the world tournament– —

Certainly, they all wanted to be the champion of the summer season.

“I hope we won’t be in the same group as you.” Liangsheng put his palms together.
Pope, standing next to him, gave a look at him.
Liangsheng didn’t notice and continued: “We were a relegation team in the spring season and surely can’t wish for a summer championship.
We have to be in the summer playoffs so we can qualify to fight for the third slot……”

Tong Yao: “It’s the captain who’s going to draw, right? Then go back and pray as hard as you can……I don’t really feel there’s any difference if you have CK in your group.
They have the same lineup as the spring season, yet we have me, the new member.”

Since CK and ZGDX were the first and second place teams in the spring season, they were seeded teams and wouldn’t be in the same group– –So all the other teams would be facing either CK or ZGDX in their group.

Liangsheng paused and turned to looked at Tong Yao, smiling: “But I feel CK isn’t as unbeatable as your team.
Recently, we beat CK at a skirmish.”

Pope didn’t understand what the others were talking about but he heard “CK”.
He briefly joined the conversation: “En.
CK? Noob.
Can win.”

Tong Yao: “……”