Work Text:
The first piece of evidence came from Huang Shaotian.
“Say, do you know who any of the other pro player’s soulmates are?” a reporter asked, already knowing it was an empty question.
“Hmmm. Do you think I know that? You know how people are with their soulmate mark. Nobody would tell me anyway, those people. Not a single one. How dare they? I’m a good friend, I swear! I helped old Han with a dungeon the other day I’ll have you know, and I also helped Wang Jiexi to slaughter some of his noobs, and Su Mucheng…..” Huang Shaotian paused for a moment as if remembering something.
“Wait….” He leaned closer to the microphones like he was telling a secret. “I saw Ye Qiu’s soulmate mark once.”
The reporters leaned closer to the pro player, ever so eager to gain a smidge of information on the elusive god.
“It was a rainy day after an Excellent Era Blue Rain match. The winds were blowing, the skies were pitch black. I like rain, you know. Excellent Era had stayed at a nearby hotel has usual, and Wenzhou and I visited him after the match. When he opened the door, his sleeve was rolled up, and it was on his left forearm, all neat and dark.” Huang Shaotian said all this information in record speed, but now his voice slowed down to a hushed whisper. “And do you know what it said?”
The reporters really could not take the suspense anymore.
Huang Shaotian’s eyes twinkled. “It was his own name! HAHAHAHAHA. 7.6 billion people in the world, and his soulmate really was himself! HAHAHAHAAH! Can you believe that? At first even I didn’t. What kind of person has their own name as their soulmate mark? Does that explain why he’s so weird? PFFFFT HAHAHAHAHAAAAA--”
Huang Shaotian’s soulmate Yu Wenzhou came up and dragged the cackling pro player backstage.
The reporters didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Was this some kind of joke?
---
Su Mucheng glanced down at her phone and looked at Ye Xiu.
“You’ve been betrayed,” she said.
Ye Xiu shrugged. “The internet can say what they want about me, it’s not like I’ll say anything back.” He paused and took a drag from his cigareette. “Remind me to go PK Huang Shao later.”
Glory fans soon passed it off as Huang Shaotian talking out of his ass like usual and life moved on.
---
The second piece of evidence came a few years later from a promotional photo of Ye Qiu’s hands. The photo was nothing special, just a typical keyboard company sponsoring the pro player.
The photo though, what what had the internet in shambles.
Besides the fact that the god had accepted a sponsorship, the other fact was that the editor of the photo clearly had not done a good job when it came to editing the image.
The image was of Ye Qiu’s hands on a keyboard. Really, it was such a generic photo that if the keyboard brand had not asked Su Mucheng to publicize on her Weibo that it was Ye Qiu himself’s hands, it wouldn’t have garnered much attention.
The problem was that the photo extended beyond his hands, up onto his forearms. Of course, according to confidentiality terms in the contract, the soulmate mark was required to be covered. But of course, Murphy’s Law required that all things that could go wrong would go wrong. The damn editor.
The soulmate mark had clearly been covered- but not really. There was a smudge of beige color on top of where it was supposed to be, but if one squinted and turned their brightness all the way up, traces of dark black ink and beautiful cursive writing appeared.
The photo spread like wildfire. Soon, every glory fan had seen the image, eagerly eating up the information.
The keyboard company tried everything they could to contain the image once they realized but to no avail. Never mind them anymore, the company would eventually face legal issues so great they went bankrupt.
The internet went into an uproar.
The black ink, barely visible through the beige smudge, really could have been a multitude of words. If Huang Shaotian hadn’t opened his mouth during the press conference so long ago, maybe the media would never have clearly deciphered them.
But soon enough, fans and netizens alike had blown the image up, run the photo through multiple image sharpeners, photo editors, and every imaginable tool under the sun.
And through that data, the image looked very very remarkably like the characters 叶 and 秋.
Both Su Mucheng and Ye Qiu were suspiciously silent.
---
The pro player’s soulmate mark did indeed say the name Ye Qiu. That was something Ye Xiu never denied and never had any intention of denying.
Though it wasn’t pointing to his own name.
---
The third piece of evidence was discovered by the pro players only.
From the time where the promotional photo was exposed, fans had made it their collective goal to find every possible human on earth named Ye Qiu and exhibit said person online to their god as some sort of cultish offering.
“There is no scientific evidence of one having their own name as a soulmate mark.” One magazine reported. “It must be someone else with the same name.” This only spurred the fans on.
‘I know a “Ye Qiu” that works at the shoe factory down the street. I think he died last year though.’
‘叶秋 looks a lot like 叶科, my uncle’s cousin’s side hoe is named that?
‘Ye Qiu….’
The Ye Qius of the world, as though they had not been through enough by having the same name as the hidden glory pro, found themselves under deep internet scrutinization.
‘Hey look, this “Ye Qiu” is the CEO of the Golden Leaf Corporation, and is the son of the second richest man in China.’
The last one was what caught the pro player’s attention. To those that had seen and met pro player Ye Qiu before, this CEO Ye Qiu looked exactly the same. The resemblance was incredible. Uncanny.
Huang Shaotian, who was sipping some hot tea when he scrolled past the image, spat out his mouthful all over Lu Hanwen. He zoomed into CEO Ye Qiu’s picture, and then zoomed out, and then zoomed in again.
Troubling Rain: CEOYEQIU.png HOLY SHIT @ONE AUTUMN LEAF @One Autumn Leaf @One Autumn Leaf EXPLAIN?
One Autumn Leaf: ;)
Troublilng Rain: ASFDHWUBFEUHIBWEFHWDIBOGAUWHEIUOGWUIHEBLOGIWUHFBLOWUHPEFO
Soon enough, the number of pro-players who knew this tidbit of information grew, likely due to Huang Shaotian’s big mouth.
---
Ever since he was 12, when his soulmate mark had first appeared, Ye Xiu had never once hated it. This was because, in neat, orderly handwriting, the mark read Ye Qiu. The name of his own twin brother. What was not to like about this?
And on Ye Qiu’s forearm was Ye Xiu’s own signature, slightly messier but still recognizable.
Standing on the rooftop of Happy Internet Cafe and gazing at the H City lights, Ye Xiu placed his right hand on his left forearm and rubbed at the mark. On the other side of the connection, he could feel his twin brother gently pat back.
“Happy birthday, Ye Qiu,” he said, knowing that his bother could hear him even if he was more than 1,000 kilometers away in City B. “I hope you’re enjoying the media mess.”
The light slap he felt shoot through his forearm made him smile in response. With his twin brother so easily by his side, was there any need at all for a cellphone?
“Happy birthday to you too, brother. Come home soon, will you?”
Ye Xiu’s grin widened. “Perhaps.”