Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t really care about romance. Not the way people think she does, at least. She loves the trappings of it: candlelit dinners, holding hands during walks in the park, kisses on the cheek (and other places). She likes the idea of having butterflies in her stomach when she sees someone, of giddy smiles and nervous desire to be close to someone.

She doesn’t experience those fluttering feelings in her gut, but whatever, that’s not as important as the image she projects. Chu Yunxiu flirts like it’s a game, teasing anyone who will return her volleys. “Sweetheart” turns to “dearest” turns to “apple of my eye” and “treasure of my heart”; sitting next to each other turns to holding hands turns to cuddling turns to kisses.

(She likes kissing. It feels good, and she loves learning the different ways people react and how they signal what they want.

That particular enjoyment, she later realises, is maybe part of what makes her a good captain.)

Flirting turns to dating more easily than she expects. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t care so long as people don’t expect either monogamy or continuity. She’ll go on a date with any of her friends so long as it suits her, but too many of them expect one date to turn into three, then ten, and the idea of commitment makes dates lose their charm. So Chu Yunxiu watches her friends’ reactions carefully, and stops spending solo time with any of them who think they’ve captured a slice of her heart in a special way nobody else has.

It breaks their hearts. Chu Yunxiu knows it does. They can call her a catty bitch all they want, but she warned them at the start; it’s not being cruel to do exactly what she told them she would, back when they first made the choice to pursue her anyway.

Still, some people play the game of romance with her without trying to attach strings to it, and Chu Yunxiu goes on dates with them as many times as it’s still fun for them both. Most of those peter out when the other person finds a crush who will mean it back at them. Chu Yunxiu gets that, but it’s still a disappointment each time a friend slowly drifts away for the sake of their reciprocated desires.

Romance is fun, but Chu Yunxiu wishes that she could find someone who cared for it the same way she does for once.

Glory distracts her from the problem of romance—and the pressure of being a good girl looking for a steady partner. Chu Yunxiu throws herself into the game, and she gets good at it. It’s the easiest thing in the world to say Yes when Misty Rain offers her a position. She has the grades for university, but she doesn’t want anything from university. ESports are a career, at least for now, and she loves Glory.

(Her parents might not understand, but at least they don’t try to stop her. Chu Yunxiu thinks they know they won’t succeed.)

Chu Yunxiu flirts with the other pros like breathing. It’s especially fun with the other rookies of her year: Xiao Shiqin sputters (clearly unused to attention, gangly and gawky and not yet grown into himself), Huang Shaotian gives as good as he gets (but he’s gay, and clearly in love with Yu Wenzhou, so it’s a different kind of game with him), and Fang Minghua cheerfully tells her about how he’s planning to propose to his girlfriend soon (but sweetly compliments her back).

By the end of the year, Chu Yunxiu has a reputation for being a flirt. It’s not a problem, until it is.

Being a flirt is fine when she’s Misty Rain’s rookie prodigy, member of the Golden Generation and heir to Windy Rain. It’s not fine when she becomes Captain Chu Yunxiu at the beginning of Season 5; she’s held to higher standards by both the media and herself.

None of the pros who would go on for-fun dates with the nice young rookie will keep up the game now. Chu Yunxiu can’t blame them; all the media attention on her robs the dates of any joy, because going incognito is more effort than anyone wants to make. For a few weeks, Chu Yunxiu thinks about stopping entirely. No more dates at all, just Glory.

But management is worse than her parents about her image. Chu Yunxiu hates the idea that she’s dating someone just to look like a good role-model for young people, but if that’s how it needs to be—

Chu Yunxiu thinks about her friends and mentors in the GPA, contemplates who might agree to a farce, and then gathers up her courage and asks her best friend to meet her for lunch.

Su Mucheng laughs her head off. She also says she’s certain Ye Qiu will agree. If there’s one person in the GPA the media can’t touch, after all, it’s Ye Qiu. He’s notoriously private, too, so Chu Yunxiu not being seen on dates with him won’t stand out.

By the time their lunch is over, Ye Qiu has texted back saying “I don’t need to do or say anything, right?” and then “Yeah, I’ll play along; just tell what I need to know.”

It’s nice to have a shield.

It doesn’t stop the media from scrutinizing her every time she grabs drinks or dinner with a friend. Chu Yunxiu seethes about it, icily informing the media that being friends with men is a perfectly normal thing for a woman, actually, and just because she’s getting drinks with Li Xuan or Zhang Jiale or Fang Shiqian or even—god forbid!—Fang Minghua, who has a fiancee, doesn’t mean she’s dating them.

“Ye Qiu isn’t worried,” she tells a reporter, poison on her tongue. “I know our relationship is new, but that doesn’t mean it’s weak.” It’s the most Chu Yunxiu is willing to say about their relationship. Ye Qiu is a private person, and everyone knows that.

She gives hints, though, and has fun figuring out how to give the media just enough rope to tie themselves in knots about. The right smile and tone as she says “I’m very satisfied with my relationship” leads to a flurry of fan speculation about their sex lives, and saying that “Ye Qiu’s kind enough to watch my favorite shows with me; he gets so invested!” makes people think they’re cozied up watching rom-coms when actually Ye Qiu messaged her a clip from a recent Glory match to ask her opinion about an Elementalist’s strategy.

And then, when they press, Chu Yunxiu smiles and flutters her eyelashes and says that she couldn’t possibly say anything that breaches her boyfriend’s privacy. It’s so important to him, and she needs to care for him just as well as he cares for her, doesn’t she?

If the media attempts to swarm Excellent Era over this, well— Excellent Era has plenty of practice turning aside requests to interview Ye Qiu. It’s fine.

(Chu Yunxiu enjoys lying by telling the truth. It’s a game that doesn’t harm anyone, and it keeps her safe. Or, well, it keeps her from being annoyed as much, in this case.)

The media (and fans!) honestly aren’t sure if the relationship is real or a troll. If it’s real, this is more than they’ve ever known about Ye Qiu’s personal life before. If it’s a troll, well, that fits Ye Qiu but why is Chu Yunxiu doing this? Surely she has better options than the mystery man! If they ever ask her, Chu Yunxiu tears them apart for thinking that Ye Qiu isn’t good enough for her because he absolutely is, and tells them how he’s not just a god of Glory but a kind and respectful person who values her happiness. It shuts them up.

They meet up in hotels when Excellent Era and Misty Rain face each other (or if they just happen to be in the same town) to help their cover. It doesn’t take long to realise that it’s fun to hang out together. Ye Qiu likes the way Chu Yunxiu’s sharp tongue comes out of hiding when they’re alone, and Chu Yunxiu enjoys teasing Ye Qiu about his fairly-intentional lack of fashion sense.

Sometimes Ye Qiu takes Chu Yunxiu out to tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants where nobody knows their faces, and listens with a smile as Chu Yunxiu tells him stories she invents about the people walking by. Other times, Chu Yunxiu leads Ye Qiu up to her room to watch dramas together. She explains her favorite things—ridiculous and serious both—about their tropes, and Ye Qiu laughs and starts guessing twists and mocking genre conventions with her.

By the time Season 6 begins, they’ve lost any awkwardness they once had. They hold hands, kiss each other’s cheeks and fingers, and generally start making a game out of playing romance. Their smiles are honest, because they’re enjoying themselves, they’re on the same page, and it’s fun to watch everyone move from confusion to bewildered acceptance that this really is happening—especially since the pros are united in not giving the media an inch more than Ye Qiu allows about his personal life.

(Nobody’s dated Chu Yunxiu like this before. Ye Qiu acts with such sincerity, and Chu Yunxiu knows exactly where they stand with each other: friends who are in this relationship for convenience, and who have been taught this game and are safe playing it with each other because it won’t change their feelings.

It’s breathtaking to have such a friend. Chu Yunxiu wonders, sometimes, if what she feels for Ye Qiu is anything close to the consuming flames of desire she reads about in novels. But this isn’t a sun blazing in her heart; it’s the moon, cool and soft in the night, lighting her way and granting her her comfort in the oft-confusing dark.)

Three years pass. Chu Yunxiu builds up her team and brings them to the playoffs consistently. Su Mucheng is delighted that her best friend and her brother-in-spirit are getting along so well. Chu Yunxiu realises she’s stopped wanting to play at dating anyone else. The media whines about how few details they get about her relationship with Ye Qiu, but can’t do anything about it.

Season 8 starts, and Chu Yunxiu’s sure that this is Misty Rain’s year. She and Li Hua have had a season together to settle in and prepare the team, and now they can take Misty Rain further into the playoffs than ever before.

Then Ye Qiu retires.

It’s sudden. Chu Yunxiu texts both Su Mucheng and Ye Qiu about it. She gets more of an explanation from Su Mucheng than she does from Ye Qiu, mostly because Su Mucheng’s angry and wants to rant about it to someone who will both understand and keep everything secret for all their sakes. Chu Yunxiu listens, and rages, and then messages Ye Qiu again, this time to say: I will keep your secrets, but I will need something to tell the media to keep them off your back.

She gets back his thanks and a brief note saying that she shouldn’t worry about him; he’s found somewhere near Excellent Era to live, and he’s safe. Focus on Misty Rain, he says, and tell people that he’s taking time to figure out what’s next. Or anything else she thinks will keep people from investigating him, because he just really doesn’t want to deal with any of that right now.

Chu Yunxiu gets it, mostly. She’s never pried about Ye Qiu’s life, but they’ve spent years together, and secrets have a way of sneaking out. Like the fact that Ye Qiu’s hiding from his family, and that his avoidance of the media has more to do with that than anything else. Something about his name is off, too, because when he’s relaxed he doesn’t respond to it in the same way. So she figures he knows how to use a cover identity, and that it’s not her problem where he is, so long as he’s safe. And he says he is, and Su Mucheng agrees, so that’s fine.

She still needs to deal with the media, but when Chu Yunxiu and Su Mucheng close ranks there’s no way to break through them. Ye Qiu gets his privacy. Chu Yunxiu gets to have fun sighing about how different All-Stars will feel without Ye Qiu there. Su Mucheng gets to quietly plot vengeance while smiling sweetly and gently tearing people apart.

The one time Chu Yunxiu snaps, it’s because a reporter asks if they’re still in a relationship.

“Do you think he isn’t good enough for me now?” Chu Yunxiu asks, not bothering to hide her anger and disgust. “Did you think I was just chasing fame? That I like my boyfriend for what he can do in the game and not who he is? Ye Qiu is a good person. He’s taking some time for himself. That changes nothing about my feelings for him. He and I are still very happy to be together, not that it’s any of your business, because what you should be asking me about is Glory. Do you question Fang Minghua about his wife? Do you interrogate Lin Jingyan about his dating life? Would you dare ask Yang Cong or Tian Sen or any of the men if they’re seeing someone if they didn’t bring it up first? No? I didn’t think so. Then shut up about Ye Qiu’s life and talk to me about Misty Rain and Glory instead.”

Ye Qiu sees that interview and laughs, then asks her if she wants to hang out and watch her current favorite drama with him when she’s in town to face Excellent Era in a few weeks. Chu Yunxiu smiles at the message, and says yes.

It’s kind of fun to sneak Ye Qiu into her hotel room. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t ask where Ye Qiu’s been staying, or what he’s been up to. He doesn’t ask her about how Misty Rain is doing. They just curl up on the hotel bed and watch a drama. Ye Qiu refers to everyone by the trope he thinks their aesthetic fits, and he’s pretty accurate. Chu Yunxiu delights at his commentary on the show, explains plot points, and enjoys watching Ye Qiu’s expressions at the nonsense scriptwriters put in to create relationship drama. It’s grounding. It’s the most familiar that anything’s been since his retirement.

Ye Qiu doesn’t stay the night. He never does. Chu Yunxiu sometimes wishes he would, because it’d be nice to share a bed with someone without them expecting anything from her, but she’s never going to push it. He has his reasons, and she needs the sleep.

She does ask, though, if he’s happy where he is. Ye Qiu laughs a little. “Yeah,” he says, and there’s a lack of tension in his eyes that means he’s telling the truth. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been this relaxed.”

“Good,” she says, and gives him a kiss on the cheek as she hugs him goodbye. Ye Qiu returns the favor by kissing the back of her hand, like he’s a prince and she the princess, and then turns and leaves with a light step and a smile on his face.

Things settle down. The other pros ask her about Ye Qiu’s plans, and she tells them about as much as Su Mucheng does when she’s asked: if Ye Qiu wants them to know, he’ll tell them. (She doesn’t tell them that she barely knows more than they do.)

It’s wonderful to know that Ye Qiu trusts her enough—that there’s enough truth to their relationship—that he tells her outright when “I can’t stay away from Glory” turns to “I’m building a new team.” It’s also perfectly expected that she’s just as thrown as everyone else in the scene when she realises that Ye Qiu’s playing Unspecialized and has a ridiculous silver weapon.

“It’d be unfair to give you an advantage,” Ye Qiu says, grinning, when she and the rest of the pros figure out that he’s Lord Grim. “You need to be on the same playing field as everyone else, or else what’s the point of the league?”

Chu Yunxiu agrees. She would love to get a chance to study the MMU, but since he’s not letting anyone outside the team Ye Qiu has barely admitted he’s putting together see it in detail— Well, she doesn’t want her relationship with Ye Qiu to give her insider information. That would be cheating, and Chu Yunxiu didn’t get as far in life as she did by cheating.

(She’s been accused of it many times in her life, starting from the first experimental boyfriends who taught her to play their favorite videogames. She was always better than them once she knew how to play; she had reflexes and the ability to read action through chaos, and those gifts served her well across many games. Glory, once she was introduced to it, became her life. She was a guild elite by 16, a raid leader at 17, debuted at 18 in Misty Rain and then became Misty Rain’s captain at 19. Hard work, fast hands, and passion brought her to this point; cheating would undermine every bit of that effort.)

It’s hilarious when Ye Qiu teases the idea that he’s going to join Heavenly Swords. Chu Yunxiu smiles mysteriously and says nothing to the media, because Ye Qiu’s playing a long game and she recognises that even if she isn’t sure exactly what his side of the deal is. Based on all the media attention Heavenly Swords is getting, she’s sure Ye Qiu’s spun something good for himself out of this.

Then Ye Qiu’s team starts taking the Heavenly Domain by storm, and Chu Yunxiu rolls her eyes about the little alliance he gets going. She’s sort of annoyed that Misty Castle isn’t involved, but she gets it; Misty Rain’s guild might not be a powerhouse, but it’s not weak, and Ye Qiu aimed for the teams who have nothing to lose and everything to gain in this alliance.

Chu Yunxiu’s busy, anyway, because Misty Rain makes it to the playoffs and is facing Tyranny. It’s a hard fight. Chu Yunxiu puts her all into it, holds Ye Qiu’s wishes of luck close, and refuses to back down.

They win.

Even if Blue Rain beats them in the next round, and Tiny Herb’s gained more points and thus officially takes third place in the season, Chu Yunxiu’s pleased. She’s proven that their team works, and maybe they only got this far because Excellent Era fell apart, but they still made it here, entirely under their own power.

Summer flies by far too quickly. It’s strange not having Excellent Era in the pro league, and stranger still to have everyone paying attention to Challenger League. But Excellent Era will be there, and so will Ye Qiu; Chu Yunxiu understands the twin draws, and especially the unsettling awareness that Ye Qiu will face the team he once led to victory.

She can’t afford to give too much of her focus to Challenger League, though, because she’s still in the pro league. Chu Yunxiu sits down with Li Hua, analyses the rest of the teams, screams about Samsara’s skill points, and does her best to plan for the coming year. Her team’s strong, and she’s proud of them, and they’re going to do well; she’s going to make sure of it.

Despite that, she needs to care a little, because Ye Qiu has decided that being in the Challenger League means he can talk to the media. She doesn’t ask why; it doesn’t really matter. She just asks him to give her a head’s-up about anything she needs to know to keep their stories straight.

He calls her later that week to explain about his name. Chu Yunxiu flops back on her bed, stares up at the ceiling, and says, “I guess that explains a few things.” Then, after a minute of processing, she laughs. “Does this mean our CP name should be XiuXiu instead of YunQiu?”

Ye Xiu chokes. When he recovers enough to speak, he weakly says, “Not YeChu?”

They trade arguments and new suggestions, not so much because they want to convince each other but because the debate is fun, until it’s clear to both of them that this didn’t change anything. Still, before they say goodbye, Chu Yunxiu thanks Ye Xiu for telling her, and he tells her it was the right thing for him to do. “Keep it secret for a while,” he adds, as if she needed to be told that. “I haven’t decided when I’m making it public.”

The first half of Season 9 goes smoothly. Misty Rain’s never been a powerhouse, but Excellent Era’s absence leaves a spot open for the playoffs-level teams to snag. Like Thunderclap, Wind Howl, 301 Degrees, and Void, Misty Rain wants to get an early start on claiming a spot at the peak of Glory.

Chu Yunxiu is used to the rhythms of the competitive season. She wouldn’t call it relaxing, exactly, but it’s familiar, and she likes Misty Rain’s chances. She’s got a good team right now.

Then the Christmas holiday event happens, and that team is thrown into chaos.

The event itself is fun, and Chu Yunxiu enjoys seeing everyone grumble about “upstarts with too much free time sweeping the rankings”—otherwise known as Team Happy, despite how Excellent Era is doing the same thing. Possibly it’s because even Excellent Era isn’t matching Team Happy’s scores, which many fans think is somehow faked. Chu Yunxiu knows better; Ye Xiu’s ability to find talent and hone it is impressive.

Still, she can’t spend much time thinking about Ye Xiu’s performance. Management has their eyes on the pair of Sharpshooters using the event to show off their skills, and wants to add them to the team. Chu Yunxiu easily agrees that they’re good, and asks Ye Xiu—who’s directly competed with them, not just watched their highlight reel—what he thinks about them. Ye Xiu says that they’d be quite a catch for any pro team: their mechanics are there; they just need to learn how to work with a team.

Which Chu Yunxiu is supposed to teach them, apparently, since Misty Rain won the bid war for their contract.

The first time she meets Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin in person, it takes her a minute to match names to faces. They aren’t quite identical—posture gives them away more than anything else, but their dimpled smiles are mirrored reflections—but they’re close, and Chu Yunxiu is certain they style themself to emphasize the resemblance. If they didn’t grow up with media training, they’ve certainly taught themselves quite a bit already.

Chu Yunxiu welcomes them to Misty Rain, shows them around the building, and does her best to answer any questions they have. Most of them are logistical queries about where they’ll eat, sleep, and train. Some of them break the crafted image: what it’s like to be a woman in the GPA (which Chu Yunxiu does a press release about once a year, along with Su Mucheng and whoever else in the Pro Women’s Chat wants to join in), how much freedom they have to decorate their rooms, and what people do for fun other than play Glory.

They’re easy questions to answer, except for one.

“When will we debut on the stage?” Shu Keyi asks as they walk towards the training room. She looks just as eager as any rookie.

Chu Yunxiu had a long talk about that with management when they were signed; she’d hoped some of it would be passed on. Apparently not. She stops and looks straight into both twins’ eyes. “At the absolute earliest, after All-Stars.” It’s two weeks away; that’s no time at all, as the season goes. “We want to give you time to settle into Misty Rain’s rhythms before playing. Plus, you caught everyone’s attention during the Christmas event—management is negotiating with the All-Stars committee for a way to showcase the pair of you during the All-Stars events.”

The twins’ faces, which had gone tight—Shu Keyi—and sad—Shu Kexin—both brighten at her final words, as Chu Yunxiu had hoped. “I like the idea of a dramatic entrance,” Shu Keyi admits. “But we’ve been assured we’ll quickly see the stage with you.”

“You’ll get fielded soon,” Chu Yunxiu assures them. “I’ve seen your skill. The faster you integrate with the team, the more opportunities you will have.”

She doesn’t say that Misty Rain already has a Sharpshooter, and that Lu Yining has been upset since hearing that the twins were signed. She doesn’t say that she expects it to be months before the twins learn Misty Rain’s plays well enough to join the team roster. She simply promises them the stage and makes notes about how they respond.

It’s telling that they seem to expect the compliments and don’t quite know how to process being told to wait.

This wouldn’t be her choice, but it wasn’t her choice to make, and so Chu Yunxiu doesn’t complain publicly. She performs pleasure for the media, talking about how happy she is to see more pro women players and welcoming Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin to the team. Even just around Misty Rain, she keeps an upbeat expression, encouraging Lu Yining to mentor the twins in the team’s Sharpshooter tactics and settling tempers ruffled by the twins’ unthinking arrogance about their skills.

In private, Chu Yunxiu wants to scream. She has Sun Liang, a Striker, and Wei Zhong, their Knight. They’re the only melee characters in her main roster as it is, and she doesn’t need another Sharpshooter to replace Yu Lining; he won Best Sixth Player last season!

They’ll play their best regardless. Chu Yunxiu knows that. Glory is a team game, after all, and Chu Yunxiu will do her best to bring her team together, but the only person she has direct control over is herself. She can lead by example, and she expects her team will follow as best they can, but it’s a dangerous instability to add midseason. Mostly, she’s frustrated because adding the twins makes it clear that management cares more about their public image than about the team’s composition.

Fine, Chu Yunxiu thinks, staring at her scribbled notes for the upcoming match against Blue Rain. If Misty Rain’s image is going to become “the women’s team,” Chu Yunxiu wants them to be seen as strong too. Showcasing the skill and power of women has been one of Chu Yunxiu’s goals since she joined the GPA, and she’s not going to give up now.

Management has given her two new players who can support her agenda; all she has to do is train them. Chu Yunxiu takes a deep breath, sets aside her frustrations at management, and keeps working.

Chapter Text

All-Star Weekend comes fast on the heels of the winter transfer window. It’s nice to see Ye Xiu there, even if she’s there officially and he’s there as an observer. She meets some of his team, and the media has a field day.

Since Ye Xiu isn’t hiding from them as much, they get a photo of her huddled outside the stadium with Ye Xiu, sharing a cigarette. They’re leaning close together, her face lit by the glow of Ye Xiu’s lighter and his still entirely in shadow, and it’s not a great picture but it’s the first one of them together that the media’s managed to take. They saw the camera flash, and Ye Xiu whispered in Chu Yunxiu’s ear, “Should we give them what they want?”

Chu Yunxiu grins at him, then takes a draw from the cigarette. “Nah,” she murmurs, leaning into him. His eyes glitter in the firelight, amused and unfathomable. “Let them stew for a while before we give them a show.”

Seeing eSports news reports balance the All-Stars events with gossip headlines like “GOD YE’S RELATIONSHIP CONFIRMED AT LAST” that are nearly-entirely fluff pieces is hilarious. Especially since none of the pros comment beyond “Yeah? That’s… normal? What are you asking about?” because for them, a photo of Chu Yunxiu and Ye Xiu smoking together isn’t interesting at all.

The fanbase explodes, though. Chu Yunxiu asks the guild and PR to give her daily summaries of the best comments and rumours flying around, and starts calling Ye Xiu late at night to read him her favorites. It’s good to hear him laugh when she dramatically reads comments—like the one left by Autumn Clouds’ Splendor, who says they “look like a dream together… god chu’s grace and god ye’s elegance are a perfect match… 💞 🍃 ☁ 🥰 🥰”—and then breaks down to grumble, “We were wearing hoodies, Ye Xiu; what elegance or grace is there in that?”

“Maybe they mistook comfort for elegance,” Ye Xiu offers. He’s tired, but amused, as he adds, “Baozi read our zodiac charts and says that we’re a very low-drama couple with a lot of energy and he isn’t surprised we have fun together. He asked what sort of pranks we like to play, and might have even believed me when I told him that our whole relationship started as a joke.”

Chu Yunxiu can imagine that, and presses her phone closer to her ear. “Nobody will believe him if he says that, anyway.”

“The beauty of Baozi,” Ye Xiu says fondly.

Season 9 continues, and Chu Yunxiu barely has time to keep up with Ye Xiu’s progress through the Challenger League anymore; her team requires every bit of her attention.

Adjusting to the new level cap is one thing. New skills mean new potential strategies, more skill points mean slightly different stats, and everyone is working their hardest to familiarize themselves with the new playing field—especially as silver equipment upgrades start coming in. But on top of that, Misty Rain has a second challenge: integrating Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin into the team.

The twins are good, but they’re prideful and unused to high-level coordination with literally anyone else. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t have a temper, but the Shu twins test hers nonetheless.

“Why aren’t we in the team match?” Shu Keyi asks, barely a month into her time at Misty Rain. She did nicely as their group starter, with Shu Kexin beginning the individual rounds. Most rookies would be thrilled to be fielded so consistently and prominently. It’s not what the Shu twins were promised.

Chu Yunxiu takes a moment to drink her tea; she needs the sweetness. When she sets down the cup, she smiles at Shu Keyi. “Keep working in practice sessions. Once you can coordinate with us as well as Lu Yining does, I’ll rotate you in.”

Shu Keyi grits her teeth. Shu Kexin clenches her fingers.

Chu Yunxiu sighs and settles her hands on her desk. “We all know that you’re fantastic with each other.” Their PR image is built upon them being a matched set, after all. “That’s great. The fans love it, management loves it, and it’s a beautiful show at All-Stars. It’s going to give you some incredible plays on the stage, too. But”—Chu Yunxiu leans forward, meeting the twins’ eyes intently—“on that stage, you are two of five players in the field, and if one of you falls the other is still part of that team.”

They’re smart, and Chu Yunxiu knows they’ve been trying. But there’s still a moment where Shu Keyi’s eyes flash and she snaps, “We were promised—”

“Jie,” Shu Kexin murmurs. Her voice is no less intense for its lower volume. “Captain,” she says, as Shu Keyi fumes. “Our contracts state we will be fielded in team matches.”

“I’m aware.” Chu Yunxiu has those contracts in a folder by her desk. She knows every word of the concessions management made. “It does not say when. I’ll bring you in sooner if you work hard at the tasks I’ve set you, Kexin. I know my expectations are reasonable. You’re both skilled and smart. Prove it to me.”

“Understood.” Shu Keyi stands, drawing Shu Kexin up with her. “We’ll comply with your training program, Captain.”

Chu Yunxiu dismisses them. As soon as they’re gone, she rubs her temples with a sigh.

It’s not just the twins who want to see them standing in the spotlight. Misty Rain’s fans are over the moon about them, chattering about how beautiful they are, how incredible their play is, and how cool they’ll look with the rest of Misty Rain’s team. Chu Yunxiu would love to point out that the individual matches are safe points, and that the group rounds are important to overall victory, but nobody cares unless there’s an exceptional 1v1.

Glory is a team game, after all, and the team stage is where players shine most brightly.

It’ll work out, Chu Yunxiu tells herself. The twins are dedicated. Now that they’ve truly heard her expectations, they’ll match them.

February hits and management starts breathing down Chu Yunxiu’s neck. They want her to field the Shu twins in team matches by the end of the month, which is still too fast for her liking. They’re growing quickly, but the twins still haven’t fully integrated into the team. Some of it, Chu Yunxiu admits, is that her team is resistant to the twins being on the field when Lu Yining’s style is so much more familiar.

She’ll need to talk with everyone about the team’s plans going forward, but she can’t alienate Lu Yining in the middle of the season. It’s a disaster in the making, but management doesn’t seem to notice, and Chu Yunxiu tries to stave off a headache as she eyes the competition calendar. She can’t fully ignore management’s demands, but she can choose her battles.

Their first match of February is against Hundred Blossoms, who might not be a powerhouse right now but are strengthening with Yu Feng’s leadership. Chu Yunxiu fields Lu Yining, relies on Misty Rain’s practice coordinating with each other, and takes the win. Their next match is against Heavenly Swords, whose coordination is better than most new teams. Despite Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin grumbling about it just being a team of rookies, Chu Yunxiu plays it safe and takes Lu Yining to the team fight for another victory.

That’s as far as Chu Yunxiu can push it. If she’s going to give everyone what they want, it needs to be now.

Chu Yunxiu switches Shu Keyi onto the team roster to play Bright Green. Against Seaside, she fields Shu Kexin. Both are victories, and the twins celebrate. Facing Time—the weakest team this season—Chu Yunxiu gives the fans what they want, and lets the twins both start on the field. It’s a strange team composition, and victory is harder than usual, but they still win the match.

The twins exult. Shu Keyi answers questions about the team’s strategy in the interview like she’s already a core member of the team, and Chu Yunxiu indulges her energy. Shu Kexin is quieter, but the passion in her eyes is no less.

“You can’t do this every time,” Chu Yunxiu tells them the next morning. “You’re not experienced enough yet.”

Shu Keyi scowls and opens her mouth; Shu Kexin frowns and bites her lip.

Chu Yunxiu raises her hand to forestall whatever comes next. “Samsara and Tiny Herb are both powerful teams,” she says. “You’re good enough to field in group or individual rounds. You haven’t yet integrated enough into the team for anything else. We haven’t practiced dual Sharpshooter compositions enough, either, and I’m not handing away points. Do you understand?”

They do, which is a relief. They still grumble, and Chu Yunxiu needs to hold steady against passive guilt trips, but they don’t outright argue about joining team fights about powerhouses.

Even against the weaker teams, where Chu Yunxiu is comfortable fielding one—or very occasionally both—of the twins, their newness means they make more mistakes than anyone else on the team. Covering those errors puts an extra strain on the rest of the team that nobody needs. They’re still winning more often than not, but the margins aren’t great, and that means Misty Rain’s slipping in the standings. Chu Yunxiu’s pretty sure they’ll make the playoffs but she isn’t sure how far they’ll be able to go; Excellent Era might not be standing in the way, but Samsara and Tyranny are ferocious and nobody wants to back down.

Then the Challenger League reaches the in-person stage and Excellent Era talks to the media about Ye Xiu’s name. Ye Xiu’s interview in response ignores the drama, but the media still goes wild with this revelation, wondering what other secrets this god might now be convinced to share. Chu Yunxiu shakes her head; Ye Xiu is remarkably good at stonewalling the media, avoiding conversations he doesn’t want to have, and talking purely about Glory when he’s forced to give a PR statement at all.

Chu Yunxiu gives her interviewers a little more, when they ask. She says she hopes that Ye Xiu’s grassroots team does well, since she wants to face him on the stage again; that she hasn’t been involved with his team’s training at all, and neither is Ye Xiu responsible for any of Misty Rain’s achievements; and that Yes of course we’re still dating, haven’t you heard of long-distance relationships?

She makes time to watch the Challenger League finals, too. Li Hua joins her, and the rest of the team—minus the twins, who are still holding onto a petty grudge against Ye Xiu that Chu Yunxiu really doesn’t have any patience for—gathers at her side even though she never asked them to. Excellent Era might be foundational to the Alliance, but Ye Xiu is their captain’s boyfriend, and they’ll root for his victory even when he’s facing their friends.

(It’s always like that. It doesn’t matter who they’re competing against; Chu Yunxiu has friends on every returning team, and makes a point of taking the time to greet newcomers to the Alliance so that they can become friends as well. She likes having a wide circle of connections, and maybe that’s part of what makes people call her weak, but Chu Yunxiu’s found value in being well-liked. It means people talk to her, and she hears rumours more quickly, and that gives her time to plan ahead and react to the other teams’ changes as best she can.)

Ye Xiu takes his victory in the Challenger League, and Chu Yunxiu’s pretty sure that Li Hua snaps a photo of her clutching a pillow to her chest and grinning fit to split her face at the final GLORY popping up on screen. She knows someone did, because Ye Xiu texts her later to say her team sent him a victory gift of her face, and Chu Yunxiu laughs and sends him a selfie of her making a kissy face instead. Her team groans. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t care, because it’s fun to tease them and Ye Xiu was asking for it and is probably getting his own round of teasing from Happy.

Then Chu Yunxiu sets that aside because she needs to focus on the playoffs. Management has been after her to let the Shu twins take the field together more often, and Chu Yunxiu’s been resisting as much as possible. But this time, their push happens at the same time as Wei Zhong catches the flu. She has other second-string players, but the GPA cares about teams’ public image and fans too. Chu Yunxiu swears under her breath, hopes that the twins pull off the miracle their supporters believe is possible, and slots them both into the starting line-up.

It doesn’t work.

Misty Rain falls to Wind Howl.

“You just need more practice,” management says. “Our fans loved seeing the twins working together.” Next season, they’ll need to be consistently fielded together, Chu Yunxiu is told, and she’s not given the option to refuse. Chu Yunxiu grits her teeth and goes to tell the twins the good news.

For a moment, they act like the youths they are, jumping at each other and hugging in delight. “We won’t let you down,” Shu Keyi promises. A moment later, Shu Kexin adds, “Thank you for believing in us.”

Chu Yunxiu smiles, wishes she was worthy of those words when she’s the one who’s been arguing against this tactic all along, and tells them to have a good summer vacation.

Then she starts working out how to field her over-constrained and primarily-ranged team.

It feels impossible. Ranged characters need protection and for their targets to stay at range. Of their main lineup, three of them are now ranged, one is a Cleric, and Li Hua is the best Ninja in the Alliance but he’s still a Ninja; his class isn’t built for extended melee confrontations. Sun Liang’s Striker could help, but who can she switch out in order to field him? Her? Li Hua? The twins? Their Cleric?

Their other main substitute, Bai Qi’s Warlock, gives them more control options, but is also ranged, so Chu Yunxiu can’t field him very often because she needs a melee class in the mix.

This really would be easier to fix if she could switch herself out—a Striker, a Ninja, two Sharpshooters, and a Cleric would be a solid team, with her or Bai Qi standing by as the sixth player—but that would be admitting defeat. Chu Yunxiu refuses to fall by the wayside, even if she can feel management trying to shuffle her aside for the money-making aesthetic of the twins.

Chu Yunxiu seethes. She tries to vent her anger first by playing solo PvE on an alt, then by watching shows so bad they wrap around to being good again with scathing commentary, and ends up lying in bed staring at the ceiling while wishing she could visit Ye Xiu or invite him over for a week. They’d done that in previous years, taking advantage of the brief vacation summer allows even team captains, but this year he’s too busy with Happy. She gets it, and she isn’t going to ask Ye Xiu to set his dreams aside for her, but Chu Yunxiu still misses his company.

She can’t change the situation, and so instead she focuses on what she can do. Chu Yunxiu studies Misty Rain’s matches over the last half-season, calls her team together for scrimmages to keep their familiarity with each other solid, and then lets them loose on in-game events in the hope that they’ll gain something from it.

The Ghost Festival’s boss dungeon isn’t exactly the same as a pro match, but it certainly shows a number of the team’s flaws, and highlights how they need a Cleric.

It’s also the last straw before Lu Yining accepts a transfer offer. He goes to Thunderclap with Chu Yunxiu’s blessings; he’s fantastic, and deserves the greater opportunities he’ll have there. As the paperwork is finalized and the announcement made, Chu Yunxiu feels a sharp pang in her chest. She misses Wei Zhong, whose retirement had been part of what gave management the opening to toss two Sharpshooters into the main roster.

But it’s done, and this is the team she has, and Chu Yunxiu needs to work with what she’s got. Chu Yunxiu uses the information she has to make plans for the season to come, and then asks everyone to come back almost a month before the first match, not caring about all the complaints. They need the extra time working on coordination and new strategies if they’re going to get anywhere. Since everyone shows up and doesn’t grumble publicly, she assumes they understand why she asked this of them.

To her team’s credit, they are trying their best. It’s hard to switch up strategies, especially to ones hinging on an unbalanced team formation, but they’re all coming up with new ideas and iterating on strategies until Chu Yunxiu is at least confident that her team can work together. She hadn’t been completely convinced of that when they’d lost the playoffs that spring, so Chu Yunxiu’s glad to enter the season with a team that’s acting like a team.

For the first match of Season 10, Misty Rain faces Seaside, and Chu Yunxiu is thankful for that gift. Misty Rain might be in flux, their strategies rough around the edges and their new players prickly, but they’re all strong players. She knows they can win, and they do.

Ye Xiu gets wiped by Samsara, but Chu Yunxiu’s certain that he expected that. Happy’s morale certainly doesn’t seem to suffer, even as their supporters complain.

Misty Rain wins against Royal Style the second week of the season. It’s the first true test of their new team, and one that proves that all the work Misty Rain has done is worth it. Tian Sen offers his congratulations and praise for how the Shu twins locked down his Summoner, preventing Royal Style from gaining a summons-based numbers advantage. Chu Yunxiu grins, thanks him, and watches the Shu twins celebrate.

Miracle is pretty solid—not a surprise, with the ex-Excellent Era members giving it strength—and a tricky fight, but Misty Rain takes that game, too. Lightly is easy. Conquering Clouds gives them a test of strength; their composition favors melee just as much as Misty Rain’s favors range. Chu Yunxiu kites them, sends Shu Keyi to harass their Launcher, and takes a hard-won victory. It’s exhilarating. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t let herself hope yet; after Bright Green next week, their real competition starts.

Samsara crushes them, and Chu Yunxiu watches the twins mope around after the loss. Even knowing that winning would be a fluke, they need more practice adjusting their attitudes. Chu Yunxiu reminds them that Shu Kexin won them their single point in the individual matches by kiting Lu Boyuan’s Grappler and wearing him down, and that lifts the twins’ spirits.

They lose against Tyranny too, but it’s the slimmest loss possible: 4-6. That doesn’t hit as hard; even if Tyranny isn’t playing their strongest yet, they’re a tough opponent and it feels good to keep them on their toes. It’s more practice for the twins’ mentality, and Chu Yunxiu is grateful that they correct themselves after the first evening.

After that, it’s a mixed bag. Misty Rain takes Heavenly Swords, but loses to 301 Degrees and Wind Howl. The other teams have adjusted to Misty Rain’s new strategy, Chu Yunxiu tells her team, and so it’s to be expected. They need to keep adapting and improving. Still, it’s mid-November and nobody’s swept them, so they’re doing alright. They’ve still got a shot.

Then they face Happy, and Chu Yunxiu’s nightmares about an opponent tearing Misty Rain apart come true.

It’s partially because Happy’s lineup keeps changing. Most of the major teams have a primary roster which they occasionally deviate from by a player or two, and one can make predictions about when and why. The only stability in Happy’s team fight roster is Ye Xiu, and his class is the definition of unpredictability. Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, Fang Rui, and Baozi often appear. An Wenyi, their Cleric, is always in the team roster, but doesn’t always start. Luo Ji, Wei Chen, and Mo Fan are all possibilities lurking strategically in the background.

In short, nobody in Misty Rain knows what to expect.

Happy, on the other hand, knows exactly what’s coming and prepares for them.

Misty Rain gets trounced even in the individual and group rounds, but it’s only when the team fight turns into a rout that the emotional damage comes to bear. Chu Yunxiu can’t even be surprised; Ye Xiu’s only doing what she herself would have done in his place. It doesn’t make it easier to see their screens go dark and hear Shu Kexin curse up a storm that makes Chu Yunxiu deeply grateful that no recording is allowed in player booths.

“Vent your frustration if you must.” Chu Yunxiu knows her words are clipped and taut. She carefully spreads her hands flat on the table, then relaxes them. “When we leave, we will do so with smiles on our faces and respect in our hearts.”

Shu Keyi turns from where she’s rubbing her sister’s back. Her scowl could light a fire. “After being slaughtered?”

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t flinch. “Yes,” she says crisply. “Did you do your best?”

Both twins nod, their expressions slowly loosening.

“So did Happy.” Chu Yunxiu turns back to her computer and starts packing her peripherals. Li Hua, Feng Xiangming, and Bai Qi—chosen as their sixth player in hopes of being able to control someone and salvage the situation—have already done the same. Chu Yunxiu continues, knowing the twins have adjusted their mood to listen. “We will take this match as a lesson. All our opponents will, so we cannot do otherwise.”

“Yes, Captain,” her team choruses.

Chu Yunxiu smiles at them, then leads them out to shake hands with Happy and prepare for the post-match interview. It’s going to be awful; while Chu Yunxiu would rather Ye Xiu be the one to find the exploit, she knows the media is going to ask if she went easy on him.

As predicted, it’s the second question, coming after a softball about the team’s mood. Chu Yunxiu knows Ye Xiu wouldn’t be asked the same question if their situations would be reversed, and that makes her angrier than being asked at all.

Chu Yunxiu glares at that reporter, and the force of her will is enough that nobody breaks the silence until she says, “Do you really think Ye Xiu would respect me if I did? Do you think that either of us would ever go easy on each other? The greatest gift we can give each other in Glory is to go all-out, to fight with the fullness of our hearts and nothing held back. If we do anything else, we betray not just each other but ourselves.”

Then she smiles, as sweetly as PR has taught her, and adds, “Misty Rain thanks Happy for such an educational match. We fought as best we could. Happy fought better. Anything else?”

There isn’t.

Chu Yunxiu leads her team out, lets them load onto the van that’ll take them back to the hotel, and says, “Take the evening. We’ll do a full-team match review once we’re home tomorrow.”

Li Hua waggles his eyebrows at her, then herds their team away. Everyone knows where she’ll be, including the nice security guard who lets her back into the stadium to hover outside Happy’s green room to wait for Ye Xiu to finish Happy’s interview.

He takes one look at her, hands his team off to Su Mucheng, and leads her to a nearby cafe.

Talking to Ye Xiu about her team won’t change anything, but it’s nice to vent to someone who will listen, let her lean on him, and not offer platitudes. Instead, Ye Xiu lights a cigarette and says, “You’ve spent so much energy trying to work out strategies yourself. Have you tried asking what strategies they would suggest?”

It rankles. Chu Yunxiu scowls at him, then steals the cigarette from his mouth. He laughs at her, like he’d already predicted that, but the heat in her lungs soothes her; this is physical, not emotional, and she can blow the smoke away. “All they do is gripe.”

“Sure, if you aren’t listening.” Ye Xiu leans back and stretches. “I don’t know if they’ll have good plans, mind you, but if you’re out of ideas…” He trails off and takes the cigarette from where it dangles between her fingers, his touch gentle. “Asking for help brainstorming isn’t the worst next step, you know?”

“Master of understatement,” she grumbles, but she takes his point. Chu Yunxiu sighs and settles her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and they sit in the night, not saying anything as they watch smoke drift into the air.

More gossip headlines follow, little fluff pieces about Ye Xiu offering her comfort after the match, and Chu Yunxiu supposes that this photo is a better one than the first. It looks more clearly romantic, since Ye Xiu’s never been seen snuggled up to someone else. But then, people can see romance in anything if they try hard enough, especially when they’ve been told to expect it.

Chu Yunxiu puts it out of her mind and keeps working to hone her team into the best they can be. Ye Xiu’s doing the same thing, she knows; as a result, they don’t talk much. Well-wishes every week, and congrats or condolences after each game, and maybe a few messages in between. It’s not much, but it’s enough.

Chu Yunxiu does talk to Misty Rain, though. She gathers them in a meeting room the day after facing Happy, a whiteboard marker in her hands, and announces, “Group brainstorming time.” A chorus of sighs and laughter follows, and Chu Yunxiu ignores that and talks over them. “Happy showed us our weaknesses. What can we do about them? How can we highlight our strengths instead?”

They can’t fix this immediately, but if they start working on it now it’ll be enough to give them a chance to reach the playoffs, and that’s all they need. Chu Yunxiu makes crisp notes on the whiteboard, marker squeaking as she scribbles down Li Hua’s quiet suggestions and Shu Keyi’s louder and more cutting words. Feng Xiangming and Shu Kexin pipe up occasionally, with Bai Qi and Sun Liang offering their own thoughts from a more external perspective.

When they’re done, Chu Yunxiu looks at the lists of ideas with satisfaction. “Alright,” she says, smiling at her team. “Now all we need to do is put this into practice.”

Misty Rain laughs, and the tension of being wiped transforms into the determination to improve themselves and win.

Chapter Text

All-Star Weekend arrives sooner than Chu Yunxiu expects. She’d lost track of time at some point while trying to see if Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin can tighten their effective Gun Fu distance in order to increase Misty Rain’s close-range and control abilities. They’re good, and Chu Yunxiu’s pretty sure that they’ll get there, but she’s also increasingly aware that they can’t close that gap this year.

It’s a welcome distraction to enter the arena with Li Hua at her side and wait for Ye Xiu to come join her. It’s the first time they’ve officially been seen in public together, and she’s excited to see what people will think. Ye Xiu’s given her permission to be as ridiculous as she wants, so long as it doesn’t distract from gameplay.

(As if she needs that warning. Chu Yunxiu loves playing at romance, but Glory comes first.)

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary during the opening ceremonies. She waits until the rookie competition is about to start, then sneaks over to Happy’s stand to give Ye Xiu a hug and plant a chaste kiss on his cheek. Su Mucheng laughs in delight, and the stadium roars, because of course there was a camera pointed at them. It’s ridiculous. Ye Xiu blushes—which he’d never done in private—and Chu Yunxiu grins; she’s going to have so much fun provoking him to blush, now that she knows he will.

Then Ye Xiu gets called up for a sequence of rookie challenges, and Chu Yunxiu returns to her own team’s seats to wait out the display. It’s only when the day comes to an end and everyone is released that they have time to talk again.

“You’re a menace,” Ye Xiu informs her as they walk through the backstage halls, but he’s still got his arm over her shoulders. “Why did I ever give you permission to perform public displays of affection?”

Chu Yunxiu bats her eyelashes at him. “Because you love me?”

Ye Xiu drags her into a head-lock and noogies her, which is the most incredibly older brother thing he’s ever done. Chu Yunxiu laughs and sputters out a complaint about him messing up her hair, and then he’s laughing too and it’s fantastic. She’s enjoyed his company and his sense of humor in private, and sharing that with other people too—

It’s the best. She’s having so much fun, and she can tell Ye Xiu is too, and she’s happy.

There are some traditional gatherings at All-Stars—Rookie Luncheon on the first day, the Golden Generation’s brunch the second day, the All-Stars pre-match tea-and-cookies party—but the first evening has no schedule but what the individuals choose.

Chu Yunxiu and Ye Xiu head to a nearby teahouse for snacks, and many of their teammates follow. The Shu twins are absent, and Chu Yunxiu just hopes that they’re mingling elsewhere instead of closing in on themselves again. She knows they have friends among the rookies, even if they’re in a strange place from joining in the winter transfer window: Gai Caijie and Lu Hanwen are both chatty, Qin Muyun shares their class, and there’s the whole pro women group chat.

But she can take an evening to stop worrying and meet Ye Xiu’s team properly. As expected from the stories Ye Xiu has told her, they’re delightful. Half of them are awed by All-Stars, and the other half don’t care at all, which is a great dichotomy. Chu Yunxiu wishes Wei Chen had come with them, but Huang Shaotian had pounced on him and dragged him away to spend time with Blue Rain. Even so, Chu Yunxiu likes the rhythm of the evening. Happy trades stories of Challenger League and the Heavenly Domain for Misty Rain’s memories about previous seasons of the Alliance.

Chu Yunxiu leans against Ye Xiu with her head tucked against his shoulder, letting the conversation flow around them, and murmurs, “This is good.”

Ye Xiu squeezes her in a hug and agrees.

The second day of All-Stars is for silly games, but Misty Rain isn’t asked to play any of them. Chu Yunxiu gets pulled aside for brief chats with reporters, and is deeply impressed by how well Ye Xiu avoids having the same happen to him. She continues refusing to talk about her relationship with Ye Xiu, says a few words about Misty Rain’s performance so far this season, and generally doesn’t tell reporters anything they don’t already know. It’s fine. They can run a photo of her snuggling with Ye Xiu next to anything she says and imply that she told them something about their relationship anyway.

The highlight of All-Star Weekend is, of course, the third day’s team battle. Chu Yunxiu isn’t surprised to see Ye Xiu set against Samsara: the representative of an old era facing the team forging a new one. She is surprised to hear Tyranny called to stand at Ye Xiu’s side, Ye Xiu and Han Wenqing exchanging a handclasp of friendship while the crowd is in an uproar over the lack of rivalry.

Once Wind Howl joins Samsara—Liu Hao scowling at Ye Xiu while Ye Xiu pointedly ignores him—Chu Yunxiu catches on to the rivalries being highlighted instead. Excellent Era might not be in the Alliance this year, but it hasn’t been forgotten.

It’s not a surprise that she’s on Ye Xiu’s team, but Chu Yunxiu is smug about it as she takes her place in the lineup.

This isn’t the first time she’s fought on Ye Xiu’s team during All-Stars. It is the first time they’re all visible and Ye Xiu isn’t hiding his face from the crowd. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t know what viewers can see as they argue strategy, but she’s sure the gremlin grin on Ye Xiu’s face comes through; it somehow always does.

Waiting for the team match takes forever, because Zhang Xinjie is very good at keeping himself alive, but it’s worth it to run a headlong rush strategy. It’s exhilarating to fight in any All-Star match, but today she gets to run with Dancing Rain and Lord Grim at her back, Desert Dust and Vaccaria at her side, and it’s incredible.

They win, of course. Ye Xiu doesn’t actually have a perfect win rate in All-Stars, but he does have a seemingly-endless ability to surprise and shock his opposition, which sometimes appears to be the same thing.

That last night, after the All-Stars dinner, Chu Yunxiu leads Ye Xiu to her room. She always has one to herself, because Misty Rain doesn’t like the idea of their captain sharing a room with any man—even Li Hua—and the Shu twins refuse to be split up. It’s a bit exasperating, but it’s very convenient for spending time with Ye Xiu in private.

It’s familiar to collapse on the bed and curl into Ye Xiu’s arms. It’s comforting, knowing that he’s here with her. It’s soothing to feel Ye Xiu’s skin against hers. She can’t remember the last time she’d bothered to go on a date with someone else, even for fun. Sometime before Ye Xiu’s retirement, of course, but she doesn’t know how far before; it just hadn’t seemed worth it, compared to what she can have with Ye Xiu.

“I hadn’t realised I’d have fun being in public with you,” Ye Xiu says, breaking the silence. His hands stroke through her hair, absently untangling it. “This is why you liked going on dates with people, huh?”

“Yeah,” Chu Yunxiu says. She rolls on top of Ye Xiu and studies him from this intimate vantage point. She likes how he looks when he’s relaxed, eyes half-lidded, mouth curved in a fond smile, hands light on her back and shoulders. “Occasionally I had other reasons too, but… it’s just fun feeling allowed to mess around with someone.”

“I’m glad you asked me.” It isn’t the first time he’s said it, but this time Ye Xiu’s smile fades into something more thoughtful. “I grew up with… expectations that I did not want to meet.”

“Tell me about it,” Chu Yunxiu grumbles, thinking about both the expectations piled upon a daughter and those piled upon a woman in eSports, and rests her head on Ye Xiu’s chest.

To her surprise, he chuckles and starts talking.

Chu Yunxiu knows, as she listens, that nothing else this season will be able to match the overwhelming sense of trust which Ye Xiu gives her that night. He softly explains his childhood and how he escaped into both the wider world and gaming. She’d known he and Su Mucheng went back, but she hadn’t realised just how far.

Or how Lord Grim and Dancing Rain factored into the equation.

It’s easy to tell that Ye Xiu has almost never talked about this before. His voice is raw. He cries, tears leaking from his eyes that he refuses to acknowledge until Chu Yunxiu gets up and hands him a tissue. He doesn’t stop talking until he reaches the first season of the Alliance. “You know the story from there,” he says, wry. “Or enough to put the rest together, now that you’ve heard the start.”

She does. Chu Yunxiu hugs Ye Xiu, kisses his cheek, and thanks him.

For once, Ye Xiu doesn’t leave. He stays there all night, tucked in her arms, and Chu Yunxiu wakes to find herself sprawled all over the man all of Glory regards as their highest god. He looks tired, even after a whole night of sleep, and takes up so much less space than he does when awake. Chu Yunxiu tries not to disturb him when she gets up, but he’s conscious enough to reach for her again anyway when she comes back from her morning toilette.

He doesn’t make any move to leave, though, instead burying his face in her hair as Chu Yunxiu texts Su Mucheng. They can’t stay long—there’s so much that needs to happen this week, and travel arrangements were booked months ago—but Chu Yunxiu’s surprised by how sweet it feels to have even half an hour of time to slowly wake up with another person in the morning.

When they part, down in the lobby, Chu Yunxiu sends Ye Xiu off with a hug and a promise that Misty Rain is going to beat Happy next time. Ye Xiu laughs, and returns the sentiment.

Chu Yunxiu travels home with her team, who tease her gently but are more concerned with the next match of the season. It’s a stark contrast to management, who call her in for a meeting bare hours after she unpacks.

It’s obvious from the jump that this sudden meeting is about Ye Xiu and media perception of Chu Yunxiu’s relationship with him. “Don’t let your relationship interfere with the team,” management warns her.

Chu Yunxiu rolls her eyes. They’ve been dating for years, management reminds her of this at least once a season, and she’s run out of pithy responses. “I never have. That’s not changing,” Chu Yunxiu says flatly, since they expect a response. “Anything else?”

After a moment of hemming and hawing and checking papers, she learns that, “Public opinion ratings are high because you and Ye Xiu are finally showing yourself in public.”

“Great,” Chu Yunxiu says, already standing. “I’m returning to my team now.”

They bid her farewell as she closes the door. Chu Yunxiu pauses outside for a moment to text Ye Xiu—Management thinks you’re a distraction.—and then heads back down to the training room.

Ye Xiu’s response pings as she’s setting up a 3v3 training match. Tang Rou ambushed me because I looked at your text. I think *you’re* the distraction.

Chu Yunxiu smirks, sends back a heart and an angel emoji, and mutes her messages before Ye Xiu can retaliate. “Ready?” she asks her team. “Show me what you’ve got.”

She’s pushing Misty Rain as hard as she dares. The second half of the season is going to make or break their ability to reach the playoffs this year, and she wants that victory. Some of it’s just straight-up keeping their teamwork up. Some of it’s working on 1v3 or 2v3 scenarios. But a lot of it is just continuing to see where they can add a little more skill and speed to add another trick to their arsenal.

“Your coordination with each other is astounding,” Chu Yunxiu tells the twins. “I have every confidence you’ll keep that up. I want you working on coordination with the rest of the team. You’re good; I want you to be great.”

It’s a credit to how much they’ve grown over the last year that Shu Keyi nods sharply and doesn’t argue. Shu Kexin winces a little, like she’s hearing a reprimand that Chu Yunxiu doesn’t mean, but all she says is, “Any preference for how, Captain?”

She has a lot of preferences, but none of them are as important as making this work. “Doubles works well for most people.” Chu Yunxiu squeezes Shu Kexin’s shoulder. “You taught yourselves coordination, Kexin; what do you think would help you?”

The twins trade a glance. “Communication,” they chorus. Then Shu Keyi adds, “And a lot of practice.”

Chu Yunxiu laughs. “I also want you working on flanking maneuver coordination with each other. It might not work against Blue Rain, but it’s always worth a shot. We’ve got a decent comp for sneak attacks, so practice them.”

“Understood,” Shu Keyi says crisply, and they turn back to their computers.

Chu Yunxiu leaves them be. Last year, she’d had to discuss the difference between their theoretical understanding of teamwork and the practical realities. This year, the challenges aren’t about them as players, but about their team’s composition and skill as a whole. Their growth, especially after the Ghost Festival, was staggering.

She challenges the other members of Misty Rain to improve too. Her own mana management and predictive skills can always be honed. Li Hua, she sets to practicing ways to close distance and harry tanky melee characters without dying himself. “A stop-gap,” he calls it, because it is, but he does as she asks; he knows that Chu Yunxiu’s pushing herself harder than anyone else.

Chu Yunxiu asks Feng Xiangming to figure out what Knight and Paladin skills he could swap into his build. “It’s dangerous,” he points out with a sigh. “I’m daring them to attack me.” But he agrees to try it, even if it might not work, because he understands Chu Yunxiu’s goals: Misty Rain can’t pull their Cleric out of the lineup, but they need him to do more than heal and cast debuffs if they’re going to pull ahead.

Everyone’s stressed. Everyone’s also playing incredibly well. That, alongside the desire to not get wiped again, means that they beat Happy in April.

Ye Xiu praises Misty Rain’s performance, and Chu Yunxiu is relieved to see the Shu twins accept his compliments with matching smiles. They aren’t full of pride, they don’t gloat; they just accept it as their reward for playing a fantastic game, the way any pros should. Then Ye Xiu turns to Chu Yunxiu and promises her a chance to “trade pointers” later that night, which absolutely everyone else takes as an innuendo even though he means it in all seriousness. Chu Yunxiu flutters her eyelashes at Ye Xiu and invites him into her room to watch dramas and talk about something other than Glory for a few hours.

All the practice in the world can’t overcome a weak team composition, though.

“Aggression worked against Happy,” Shu Keyi says as they begin preparing to face Void. “What if we go all-in?”

Chu Yunxiu rolls the thought around in her head. Then she laughs. “Sure.” They need a miracle to reach the playoffs this year. They’ve done as well as they could with this team comp—beating Happy might be the highlight of their season—and something needs to change for Misty Rain to keep growing.

But it’s not Happy that Chu Yunxiu’s thinking about as she outlines a strategy for the next round. It’s Wind Howl.

Feng Xiangming sucks air through his teeth, says, “Are you certain?”

Li Hua shakes his head, but there’s a smile hiding in his eyes. “Daring.”

“Let’s do it!” Sun Liang slaps his fist into his palm, blending threat and bow. “This is gonna be wild, Captain.”

“They’ll never expect it,” Shu Keyi says, grinning. “It’s going to be fun.”

“Give me everything you’ve got,” Chu Yunxiu orders. “Practice. This is going to be a disaster if we can’t escape Void’s control.”

Misty Rain shouts agreement, and doubles down.

They do well in the individual rounds. Their players are good, and DPS focused comps usually do well in 1v1s. It’s the team fight that’s the problem, and Chu Yunxiu can’t avoid the anxiety rattling through her lungs as she leads her team off the stands and into the player booths.

Feng Xiangming stays behind, and Chu Yunxiu just barely catches the bewildered roar of the crowd as the booth’s door shuts tight behind her.

Void scrambles at the beginning, but they’ve always been focused on teamwork. They know how to cover their backs, work their way into good positioning, and escape from 1v1s. Misty Rain’s first assault is their most effective, piling damage onto Ge Zhaolan’s Spitfire and nearly taking him out. Maybe if they had, the rest would be more effective, but Void faced Wind Howl last week and Chu Yunxiu can feel the practice they’ve done as a result.

Misty Rain’s ranged characters can’t break Void apart. Once Void understands what Misty Rain is attempting to do, they rally and begin turning the tables on Misty Rain. Ghost Boundaries capture them, Exorcist talismans bind them, and then Void tears Misty Rain apart one by one, using the very strategy Misty Rain had hoped to find victory with against them.

After the match ends, Chu Yunxiu sits amidst her silent team. She should try to lift their spirits, but she’s exhausted and the audience’s sighs aren’t helping. Li Hua glances at her, a question in his eyes, and Chu Yunxiu forces herself to stand up. She’s still Misty Rain’s captain, and she should act like it. “Let’s go,” she says, even though she wants nothing more than to lie on the bench and grieve Misty Rain’s lost chance at the playoffs.

Her team files out behind her, and Chu Yunxiu leads them towards one of the most excruciating interviews of her life. She manages to keep a good face on questions about Misty Rain’s unexpected strategy, the failures of their team composition, and her feelings about Misty Rain’s point ranking, but by the time Misty Rain gets home she’s just exhausted.

The rest of the team isn’t much better. Li Hua’s always quiet, but he’s withdrawn into his hoodie and headphones, eyes closed as he listens to whatever metal is soothing his soul tonight. Feng Xiangming is scowling at a sudoku puzzle like it personally offended him. Bai Qi is tapping away on his DS, old Pokemon chiptunes radiating out. Sun Liang is reading a light novel, supposedly, but Chu Yunxiu hasn’t seen him turn a page in minutes.

The twins are muttering to each other, notebooks out. The scratch of their pencils across paper is soothing, even if Chu Yunxiu can’t bear to deal with it right now. She raps her knuckles on the table they’ve clustered around, and everyone looks up. Even Li Hua lowers his headphones, eyes sharp.

“Any immediate thoughts on the match?” Chu Yunxiu forces herself to keep her tone even. “Otherwise, we can wait until the morning to break it down.”

The team shares a look, and Chu Yunxiu is uneasily aware that they had their own discussion

“Wind Howl figured out something that worked for them.” Li Hua shrugs. “It was worth a shot, as you said, but its value is in giving us ammunition to explain why management’s requirements are too much.”

That had been one of the reasons Chu Yunxiu had tried this strategy. She grins at Li Hua, whose eyes narrow for a moment before widening as he bursts out laughing. “You— You—” He shakes his head, cackling too much for words.

“We’ll do our best for the rest of this season, of course,” Chu Yunxiu says, for the benefit of her teammates who haven’t put it together yet. “But since we’ve been struggling with team comp, know we can’t make the playoffs now, and have another six games this season…”

“You want to gather data?” Shu Keyi asks, disbelieving. Then she thinks about it and starts laughing too.

Beside her, Shu Kexin scratches something out and closes her notebook with a snap. “Experimentation? During the season?”

“What do we have to lose?” Chu Yunxiu spreads her arms. She’s tired enough for it to transmute into giddy excitement that her team isn’t summarily throwing the idea out. “If nothing else, we can show management what they’re missing out on.”

“Alright,” Li Hua says, leaning forward. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Chu Yunxiu gestures at the team. “Wild mass brainstorming. Tell me everything you’ve wanted to try that seems too risky for a pro match, and we’ll see if we can work it in. We’ve already done one wild swing and miss; we can do more so long as we’re clearly still trying.”

After an initial hesitation, Shu Keyi says, “We’re up against Hundred Blossoms next week. I’ve been wanting to try a 2v2 with Kexin against Zou Yuan and Yu Feng. Can we make that happen?”

“We can try,” Chu Yunxiu says, and pulls out her own notebook to write it down. “What else?”

The ideas start pouring in, getting sillier as the night goes on. They don’t go to bed until midnight, but everyone’s mood has been raised. They might not make the playoffs, but they’re going to enjoy the rest of their season nonetheless.

But no matter how many confused looks Misty Rain garners, and how many questions about their plans they field, it still sucks when the end of the regular season comes and the playoffs teams are formally announced.

Chu Yunxiu sighs and tries to ignore the sting in her heart. She’s captained Misty Rain for six years, and to reach the playoffs every previous year—

She isn’t immune to feelings of inadequacy.

Li Hua finds her staring at her computer monitor and reaches over her to close the Season 10 rankings. “We have a few extra weeks to prepare for next year,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “What do you need?”

Chu Yunxiu takes a deep breath. “We need to organize data and arguments for management.”

“Then let’s get started.” It’s so simple when Li Hua says it. Outsiders see Misty Rain and wonder why Li Hua is the vice-captain when he’s so quiet, a presence easily overlooked both in and out of game. This, his quiet confidence, is why Chu Yunxiu has wanted him by her side since his debut. He listens, remembers, and silently adjusts not just himself but everyone around him to most beautifully execute any plan he’s given.

Chu Yunxiu leans into him and knows that he’ll understand that as her thanks.

It takes Misty Rain two weeks to organize all their arguments and turn them into a nice slideshow with embedded video clips and charts. In the process, Chu Yunxiu learns that Shu Kexin had done most of the editing on the Shu twins’ highlight reel, and that she’s delighted to turn to editing video for Misty Rain instead.

“I was a fan first,” Shu Kexin tells Chu Yunxiu, carefully adjusting the angle of a shot for best effect. “I don’t advertise my old fan identity, but I put together a lot of Cloud Piercer fanvids before we realised we had a shot at going pro.”

“We’re very grateful for your talents,” Chu Yunxiu says, and returns to making graphs of match data. She likes working with numbers and manipulating them to highlight exactly what she wants a viewer to see, and she knows she’ll need all the advantages she can get for this presentation. Still, Chu Yunxiu carefully ensures that her numbers are both truthful and easy for anyone else with the same data to replicate. It never hurts to be careful.

Once everything is ready, Chu Yunxiu talks to management.

Management hates it when she stands up to them like this. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t care. They run a business, and they know the image they want to project, but Chu Yunxiu knows Glory. She’s willing to sit through as many meetings as it takes to convince them that Misty Rain needs more flexibility in order to keep the composition it has, and that management is lucky that none of their core members are interested in being traded to another team.

As she walks back to her room after a whole day spent in meetings, Chu Yunxiu wonders if her fans really know what she does for them. She knows that many people—mostly people who dislike Misty Rain, but even some supporters—think she’s weak, that she gives up fighting too easily, and that she doesn’t fight with all her power.

They’re wrong.

Chu Yunxiu is perfectly willing to fight for what she cares about. It’s just that a lot of the time she can get what she wants without a fight, or the fight isn’t winnable with the time and energy she has available, so she doesn’t bother. Zheng Xuan has understood since their first year, she knows; he has honed his laziness into a weapon, deploying his full intensity only when necessary and often startling the opposing team.

Chu Yunxiu thinks of him as she stands in a boardroom, her presentation projected on the wall behind her, and refuses to back down. How stressful, she thinks, but it’s less stressful than losing another year of Glory.

After almost a whole week of discussion, management says that they’ll consider her proposals. Chu Yunxiu smiles very sweetly, thanks them for their time, and packs up to go watch the final match of Season 10.

Finals are always dramatic. They’re the culmination of a whole year’s shared hopes for both the players and the fans who supported them along the way. But this year, with Happy’s meteoric rise and Ye Xiu’s unimaginable dream arching towards the zenith of their Glory—

Chu Yunxiu knows she will never again feel a stadium vibrating with so much emotion. Certainly there will never be anything to match the final seconds of the final match, where the audience held their collective breaths, and shock rippled through the crowd like waves, and nobody quite understands what happened until the replays slow it down enough for them to truly experience Ye Xiu in the fullest extent of his breathtaking skill as he moves too fast for even the other pros to comprehend and reminds everyone why he is named Glory’s god.

Happy wins, but victory belongs to the fans: there is a peak of skill yet higher for them to seek, to watch, to admire, and Ye Xiu brought a team of ordinary players here.

In the pro player section, Huang Shaotian’s scream of DID YOU SEE THAT foreshadows the replay and the crowd’s roar of awed understanding. Chu Yunxiu isn’t looking at the screens, though; her eyes are fixed on Han Wenqing. He watches the replay, arms crossed, a complicated expression on his face.

When he feels her gaze, Han Wenqing gives her a rueful smile. Chu Yunxiu dips her head in acknowledgement and understanding. They aren’t the only ones who saw Ye Xiu push past his own limits today—every pro knows what he did—but they are united in their inability to ignore what that means for the future.

She leaves first, slipping through the crowd and coaxing stadium staff into allowing her to wait at the players’ private exit. It’s easy; the security guards accept her presence because they recognise her, and she helps things along by batting her eyelashes and saying she just has to congratulate her boyfriend in person as soon as possible.

When Ye Xiu slips out of the stadium alone, far too early for Happy’s interview to have finished, Chu Yunxiu hugs him. “You did it,” she murmurs into his ear.

Ye Xiu leans into her embrace, trembling slightly and clearly exhausted. “Yeah,” he breathes. “We did.”

We. Chu Yunxiu had been talking about Ye Xiu himself, but she doesn’t waste breath correcting him; Ye Xiu probably knows. Besides, there’s no point: Ye Xiu wins with his team or not at all, and she knows he could never have accomplished such victory without his team at his back.

Instead, she kisses his cheek and spirits him into the waiting taxi. On the way to her hotel, Chu Yunxiu texts Su Mucheng to let her know that she’s taken Ye Xiu; she doesn’t know if he would have remembered to tell her, exhausted as he is.

The drive is short. The walk upstairs is even quicker. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t speak, save to give directions, and Ye Xiu barely hums in response. Once they’re in her room, Chu Yunxiu climbs onto the bed and sits against the headrest. Ye Xiu stretches out next to her, breathing soft and deep already as he settles his head on her lap. “Sleep,” Chu Yunxiu murmurs.

“You too,” Ye Xiu mumbles.

Chu Yunxiu laughs softly. “I can’t, just yet. It’s okay, I’ll join you soon.”

Ye Xiu makes an incoherent noise, but drops off quickly. Chu Yunxiu turns on the TV to watch an episode of an old drama on mute, her fingers combing through Ye Xiu’s hair on habit. By the end of the first episode, Chu Yunxiu is finally relaxed enough to tuck Ye Xiu under the covers, brush her teeth, and join him. She texts Su Mucheng, almost an afterthought, to tell her that there’s no way Chu Yunxiu is returning Ye Xiu to Happy until the morning.

Su Mucheng’s reply, which Chu Yunxiu only sees in the morning, is simple: Thank you, she says. He needs the break.

The morning is quiet. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t set alarms, and lets herself wake slowly as light finally creeps in around the curtains. Even then, Ye Xiu is deeply asleep, and stays that way as she gets up, slips out of bed, and then returns with headphones to listen to music as she scrolls through the next-day reports on Happy’s victory and replies to piled-up texts.

Chu Yunxiu is contemplating brunch when Ye Xiu stirs beside her. She ruffles his hair as he stumbles out of bed, then orders room service for them to share while listening to him shower.

Half an hour later, after they’ve both sated their hunger and Ye Xiu’s eyes are finally clear, he says, “Go ahead, ask me.”

“Was it that obvious?” Chu Yunxiu sighs and lifts her gaze to Ye Xiu’s to ask the question hovering at the back of every pro’s mind since that awesome display. “Will you keep playing? Professionally, that is.”

Ye Xiu’s face tightens subtly. He turns his teacup in his hands, then sets it down. “I shouldn’t.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.” Chu Yunxiu tilts her head. He brought this up, so he can’t run away from it. “Don’t pretend you haven’t, not with how lao-Han and lao-Lin have been playing this season. Not with that final show.”

He lets out a long breath. “I don’t know whether people will believe me if I announce my retirement.”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” he says firmly. Ye Xiu has always been decisive; once he makes a choice, he is not easy to sway. “It will not.”

Ye Xiu returns to Happy an hour later, and Chu Yunxiu rejoins Misty Rain.

Less than a week later, Ye Xiu disappears. Chu Yunxiu isn’t surprised—as much as he’d deny it, Ye Xiu has always had a flair for the dramatic—and so she rolls her eyes and once more tells the media to stop asking her for information about her boyfriend. Ye Xiu is a private person; that had never been faked, even if the extent of his desire for privacy had been somewhat exaggerated by his circumstances.

Despite his refusal to engage with the media, Ye Xiu picks up when she calls him. He’s at his parents’ house, as Chen Guo and Su Mucheng had told the press, and tells her that his family is very interested in meeting her. “I quote, ‘We never expected you to have a girl to bring home!’,” Ye Xiu says wryly. “I said that you’re going to be busy this summer.”

Chu Yunxiu looks at the invitation to join the Chinese Glory Team and play in the Glory Worlds Invitational. Of course he already knows that she’s both received the offer and is going to accept. “And you won’t be?”

Ye Xiu pauses. There’s no way he hasn’t received an invitation of his own; he retired too recently for the GPA not to have considered him, and calling the Worlds Invitational his last hurrah would delight the GPA. “We’ll see,” he says, after entirely too much time.

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t push. She’s too caught up in thinking about how summer will go for Misty Rain with her gone for two months. Li Hua will need to step up to keep track of the team, make sure everyone practices, and run teamwork exercises. Some of their trainees will need to be evaluated and promoted, their substitutes will be given bigger roles, and Chu Yunxiu wishes she could be there to see it happen. But this is important, and she needs the world to see that China has strong women players, so Chu Yunxiu makes the necessary arrangements to spend much of the summer abroad.

It’s not a surprise when Ye Xiu texts her to say, I’ll see you in Beijing. It’s a bit of a surprise that he’s there as team leader and coach, not as captain and player, but Chu Yunxiu doesn’t mind. The Chinese Glory Team would be incomplete without him standing there as a cornerstone of the Glory Professional Alliance, foundation and visionary in one person.

He’s made history in so many ways already; she fully believes he’ll lead them to victory again.

Chapter Text

The first thing the Chinese Glory Team does is learn the match format of the Glory Worlds Invitational. Duels are simple; they’re group matches given a new name. Squads are also the same as their own team fights; five versus five with a sixth player as back-up. Pairs is self-explanatory, but a different format than China’s teams normally practice on the stage; it’s usually a training exercise for them.

Nothing that will be too hard to learn, Chu Yunxiu decides, but it’s just unfamiliar enough to feel strange. Huang Shaotian and Sun Xiang are delighted about pairs, of course, as members of dual-core teams where both elements of the dual core are present. Li Xuan looks wistful, likely for the opposite reason, while Su Mucheng appears to be scheming with Fang Rui.

Chu Yunxiu is more interested in how the team will be given access to team voice channels during pairs and squads. Other regions have been using them for years, apparently, and now it’s China’s time to catch up.

The second thing they do is give management their preferences for hotel roommate assignments, as there isn’t enough space at the event for them all to room separately. It’s hilarious, in Chu Yunxiu’s opinion, because the organizers look so apologetic when they say that Chu Yunxiu and Su Mucheng, as the two women on the team, will be rooming together. It’s for propriety’s sake, Chu Yunxiu knows. She doesn’t mind; Su Mucheng is a good friend.

Ye Xiu, on the other hand, laughs and tells them to put him with someone who doesn’t mind him smoking. From the expressions he receives, this is not helpful input.

He ends up rooming with Wang Jiexi. Blue Rain’s members are together, of course, as are Samsara’s and Tyranny’s. There’s a tense moment before Li Xuan decisively says he’ll room with Tang Hao, leaving Fang Rui and Xiao Shiqin together. Chu Yunxiu fully anticipates that Su Mucheng will spend half her time in their room; her vice-captain and the only good part of Excellent Era’s time in Challenger League are both there, after all.

The actual training is fun, honestly. It’s hard, but the period of time before they fly to Switzerland feels like a combination of All-Stars and training camp, with a side of the Golden Generation’s annual summer holiday gathering. They joke with each other, throw out suggestions for team plays they’d never have a chance to try normally, and have Mandated No-Glory Hours every afternoon because Ye Xiu says—correctly—that otherwise he doesn’t think they’ll ever remember to take a break.

“This is going to test our endurance,” Ye Xiu points out. He raps his hand against the schedule displayed on the wall. “We all play every day, of course. We don’t play official matches at this pace, though, and that’s going to feel different. I don’t want anyone playing so much that they get injured,” Ye Xiu says, and Zhang Jiale nods grimly in agreement. “Rest your hands. Give your brains a break. Watch TV, go for a walk, read a novel, nap—I don’t care what you do, so long as it’s not about the game.”

Chu Yunxiu’s pretty sure that Huang Shaotian and Zhang Xinjie’s English study sessions are still related to the game, but so long as they’re focused on language skills and not battle tactics, nobody’s going to point that out. Fang Rui sets up an elaborate poker tournament for anyone he and Li Xuan can convince to play. Wang Jiexi gives people tours of Beijing, since they’re here for long enough to explore the city more properly.

Tang Hao grumbles about being forced to get off the computer and ends up being dragged into a brutal basketball grudge match with Sun Xiang, which escalates into a three-vs-three: Sun Xiang, Zhou Zekai, and Xiao Shiqin versus Tang Hao, Su Mucheng, and Zhang Jiale. Chu Yunxiu thinks that being on Tang Hao’s team might be Zhang Jiale’s way of apologising. She’s not sure if it works, but Ye Xiu and Yu Wenzhou point out that Tang Hao’s teamwork is improving because of the matches, and she can see the effect herself in the practice sessions.

Chu Yunxiu hosts movie-watching parties and drifts between her friends’ activities, depending on the day. Sometimes, she drags Ye Xiu into her room so that she can make sure that he’s resting too. Occasionally, he falls asleep on her. She takes that as a sign that she’s absolutely right to pay attention to him like this, and Su Mucheng’s quiet thanks on those evenings confirm it.

Two weeks pass far too quickly, and then they’re off to Zurich.

Ye Xiu leads them through the airport with complete confidence, showing off his “I was tutored from childhood” English skills with an ease that Chu Yunxiu knows he displays mostly to aggravate Huang Shaotian into a meaningless competition that takes the edge off everyone’s anxiety. Even if they’re bickering in English now, a language most of them only somewhat understand, the rhythm of Ye Xiu and Huang Shaotian’s conversation is familiar and soothing when contrasted with the unfamiliarity of everything else around them.

They’re one of the first teams to arrive, and mostly use that extra time to adjust to the timezone and get a feel for the computer facilities. They spent most of a week figuring out what food they like, how to navigate the hotel and the areas around it, and slowly meeting the other teams. Then the tournament begins, and there’s no time to think about anything else.

The Invitational is even more strenuous than the GPA’s playoffs. They’re playing almost every day. Their opponents field different combinations and strategies than the teams back home, honed by other modes of play and tournament win conditions. Chu Yunxiu can’t ask for more skilled teammates at her side, but they still aren’t her team, and she misses Li Hua’s quiet confidence and Shu Keyi’s sharp-edged tongue.

Still, it’s the first time in five years that Chu Yunxiu hasn’t needed to run a team meeting. She shares her insights and opinions—they all do—but Ye Xiu is running the show with the other tacticians at his side.

The first six matches are a double round-robin in their pool of four. Ye Xiu jokes about it being like Challenger league finals again, and Sun Xiang fires back with, “But these teams are actually good.”

“So are we,” Ye Xiu replies, and the conversations turn serious again.

They face Norway, France, and Australia twice each in quick succession, and gain just enough points to lead their pool. Chu Yunxiu can barely keep the three teams separated in her head by the end, and then she has to clear all that information out to prepare for the quarterfinals. The organizers are scrambling the pools up deliberately to ensure new matchups, which Chu Yunxiu understands and appreciates logistically but feels exhausted by as a player.

“How do you do this?” she asks Ye Xiu one evening, her head pillowed on his lap.

He absently strokes her hair; most of his attention is on the TV screen playing other teams’ matches and the notebook balanced on her shoulder. “It helps that I don’t need to play,” he says. “I can focus on the strategic level and study our opponents more directly, and leave the details to the rest of you.”

Chu Yunxiu groans and turns to hide her face in his stomach. She doesn’t know when she falls asleep, just that the steady scratch of Ye Xiu’s pen scribbling notes soothes her into dreams.

Once the round-robin qualifiers are over with, the Invitational changes to a single-elimination bracket, with victory determined by the best two-out-of-three, just like China’s own playoffs. It’s still more compressed—a game every other day for the quarterfinals, and daily games for the semis and finals—but the format is a relief. They can focus on one opponent at a time now, and that’s much easier.

Ye Xiu dumps a pile of paper on the conference table the morning the bracket is announced and says, “Switzerland.” Everyone nods, and starts listening to the plan.

Switzerland’s home turf advantage brought them through the round-robin by the skin of their teeth, but Chu Yunxiu can tell they’re feeling the strain. They’re a small country, with a small team, and Chu Yunxiu can see them starting to crack under the pressure. Xiao Shiqin and Huang Shaotian lead China’s team in mercilessly hammering against every single one of those cracks, and Switzerland falls.

Beating Switzerland in the first two matches means they have a longer breather before the semifinals. Chu Yunxiu’s grateful for that break. They can rest their hands and get a head start on preparing information about their potential semifinals opponents. It’s still a tense wait, though, because the UK and Germany go to the third round.

They’re very evenly matched teams, but Chu Yunxiu is hoping that the UK will win; Bai Shu had stopped by for a day during their prep period in Beijing to give them all the information he had on the UK’s Glory scene, so they have a deeper understanding of that team than any other participant in the Invitational.

Her hopes are rewarded: the UK beats Germany with a risky sacrifice play that pays off far better than Chu Yunxiu thinks anyone expected, and Team China starts preparing for the semifinals.

Bai Shu sends them a folder with all his analyses of the UK team’s matches during the Invitational. He’d been working on it since the first day, just in case China and the UK faced each other, and Chu Yunxiu is grateful for his diligence as she reads the files. They all noticed the UK team’s quirks, but Bai Shu’s knowledge of their home teams means he can explain why some of those quirks exist.

“Their top players are rivals, like how the media portrays Captain Han and Captain Ye,” Bai Shu writes. “But they apparently can’t set aside their rivalry as easily as Captains Han and Ye.”

Everyone highlighted that note. Ye Xiu taps it, then turns to Yu Wenzhou and says, “Your plan?”

Yu Wenzhou grins sharply. Chu Yunxiu’s become very familiar with this expression; it means he’s full of tricks and traps. Huang Shaotian is bouncing with anticipation at his captain’s side, eyes bright with glee, and if he was involved in brainstorming then the plan is sure to be great.

At this level, Duel and Pair battles are sometimes a matter of luck as much as skill. Not knowing who your opponent is until you enter the match means you just have to hope it’s someone you can fight easily. When it doesn’t work out, you just do your best. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t like it, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

The real game is in the Squads fight, where they work together to shape victory. Team China goes into the first team battle at a slight points deficit—the UK tournaments have Pairs competitions, and China is still working out the best compositions beyond their Dual Core duos—and then handily overtakes Team UK in the Squads match by splitting them apart and playing them against each other.

“Good job,” Ye Xiu tells them after. “But we won’t be able to do that again. Let’s try something new.”

The UK retaliates, aiming to tear through them apart in the Duels round and gain an advantage by the time Squads comes around again. Team China refuses to let them, eking out a victory in 1v1 matches, but they suffer a heavy loss in Pairs again. It’s still the UK’s advantage going into Squads, but the conclusion isn’t settled beforehand.

Team China shifts their strategy completely for Squads, letting Wang Jiexi’s Magician take the lead while Huang Shaotian and Fang Rui dart around him, Su Mucheng filling in the gaps with her shots and Zhang Xinjie taking the rear as a healer. Improvisation is the name of the game, a dramatic contrast to the first match’s cleanly-delivered strategy.

It doesn’t work as well as they’d like. They end the second round with a points tie; the UK had drawn too far ahead, and the team fight was a grind. The match is awarded to the UK for having more overall kills, which rankles, but Chu Yunxiu takes a breath and sets it aside. It’s best two out of three; all they need to do is decisively win the third match. They’ve come too far to lose.

“Back to the basics,” Ye Xiu says, and they play more conservatively next time.

Zhou Zekai and Fang Rui take victories in Duels, with Wang Jiexi sighing ruefully at his loss. Yu Wenzhou and Huang Shaotian showcase their coordination and ambush techniques in Pairs. Zhang Xinjie heals and calls the shots as Li Xuan teams up with Tang Hao, Sun Xiang, and Chu Yunxiu to control and destroy the UK in Squads. It’s exhausting, and exhilarating, and when GLORY flashes up on the screen Chu Yunxiu slumps back in relief.

“Take the rest of the evening off,” Ye Xiu tells them. “Tomorrow, we prepare for the finals against South Korea.”

There’s a collective groan, and then everyone trails away to their preferred relaxation activities. Chu Yunxiu waits until everyone else leaves, then says, “You need a break too.”

Ye Xiu winces. He doesn’t argue the point, so Chu Yunxiu’s certain he’s tired, but he still says, “I should prepare the briefing for tomorrow.”

“I know you have it almost done.” Chu Yunxiu crosses her arms and glares at him. “If you aren’t in my bed by 10pm I’m going to drag you there.”

The ultimatum comes out of her mouth more easily than she expected, and startles a laugh out of Ye Xiu. “Alright,” he says, and the pinched look around his eyes loosens. “I’ll be there.”

Chu Yunxiu is half-asleep already when Ye Xiu shows up, but the clock—when she blearily checks it—says it’s 9:58pm. She wraps Ye Xiu up in her arms and refuses to let go. He might still be thinking about Glory, but she falls asleep on him and he’s still there when she wakes up in the morning, so he couldn’t have kept working. That’s enough for her to believe he got the rest he needed, especially when Ye Xiu greets her with a sleepy smile.

Su Mucheng and Zhang Jiale still tease them mercilessly through breakfast, of course. Ye Xiu rolls his eyes and says nothing, while Chu Yunxiu smiles and baits Huang Shaotian into explaining what he thinks they got up to last night while Su Mucheng was also in the room. (He’s wrong, of course, but it’s great to watch Huang Shaotian splutter and half the room turn red at the implications.)

By the time it’s nine and they’re at their briefing, everyone’s relaxed again, which was the point.

“Alright,” Ye Xiu says as they settle into the meeting room, “I know you’ve all been keeping an eye on our competitors, so none of the material about South Korea’s typical team compositions should be a surprise to you. Thoughts? Plans? Suggestions? Please include the ridiculous ones.”

“No Cleric,” Zhang Xinjie mutters, and everyone bursts out laughing. They can’t afford it, even if Zhang Xinjie is tired from playing in every Squads match. The best they could do would be to substitute Ye Xiu in for him, and everyone knows that even a tired Zhang Xinjie has more skill and practice at being a Cleric than Ye Xiu—playing at pro-level is different from being a specialised god. It’s a reminder that next time, the Chinese Glory Team should have a Cleric and a Paladin both, so that they can swap out healing duties and have more potential strategies.

“Doable suggestions,” Ye Xiu reminds them, but he still writes ‘No Cleric’ on the whiteboard in his scribbly handwriting. “Next?”

They start throwing ideas at the wall until it turns into more serious planning. The watchword for South Korea is, everyone agrees, careful. They tend to fight defensive battles, right up until they explode into action to take advantage of an opening their opponents didn’t realise existed. “Does it look familiar?” Yu Wenzhou asks Xiao Shiqin.

Xiao Shiqin shakes his head. “If I’d known how to take chances with Excellent Era, we could have tried some of their strategies.”

“We’re better than Excellent Era was then,” Sun Xiang says, reaching over to clasp Xiao Shiqin’s shoulder. “Tell us how you want to counter them.”

There’s a moment of silence, where Xiao Shiqin’s eyes are closed and he’s visibly thinking. Then, “South Korea vs. Japan in the quarterfinals. Squads in the second match. There was a moment where Japan disrupted South Korea’s plans. Were there any other times that happened? How did they respond? Who took the lead? We need to study that before I can start telling you how to counter them.”

They eat lunch in the conference room, still watching match replays and discussing their plans. Nobody wants to lose, not with World Champions so close at hand. Everyone’s watched a slightly different set of matches, and focused on slightly different things, and their overlapping memories and notes slowly draw out the whole picture.

Ye Xiu switches them to practicing at one, and they iterate on possible team combinations. It’s nerve-wracking work, and Chu Yunxiu understands herself well enough to know that her tendency to second-guess herself in this area is the hesitation her detractors think rules her and leads to Misty Rain’s defeat. It’s not, really; Chu Yunxiu knows she’s good, but she also knows there are many people just as good or even better, because she’s sitting in a room filled with those people.

They’re on her side right now, though, so there’s nothing to fear.

“Take a break,” Ye Xiu says at five in the afternoon. “Stretch. Remind your body it works. We’ll reconvene for dinner, and keep going from there.”

Even Tang Hao, normally the most reluctant to leave, stands up without any real complaint. Everyone drifts out, still chatting about the upcoming match, and Chu Yunxiu wraps her hand around Ye Xiu’s arm. He glances at her, smiles, and leads her out of their hotel and into the late afternoon light.

Zurich glistens, and the people here look different than those in Beijing or Hangzhou or Shanghai, but it’s good to see a variety of people after so long locked in a single room. Chu Yunxiu stretches and spins around in front of Ye Xiu, startling a laugh out of him. When she stops moving, Chu Yunxiu takes Ye Xiu’s hand with a grin and asks, “Where are we going?”

Ye Xiu smiles back at her. “I don’t know,” he says, eyes bright and fingers tight around hers. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

There’s so much to see, so many roads to wander down, and Chu Yunxiu doesn’t think either of them have looked at a map. That doesn’t matter; the best destinations are the ones that surprise them, and Chu Yunxiu knows she’ll enjoy wherever they end up, because they’ll be together.

They wander down to the waterside, where afternoon sunlight glistens on the water and boats spread sails to the wind like unwieldy wings. From there, a local suggests—in English Ye Xiu follows easily, but Chu Yunxiu can only catch a few words of—that they find a chocolaterie and sample the offerings. “He has no idea who we are,” Ye Xiu tells her, delighted. “Other than tourists on a date.”

Chu Yunxiu leans into him. Unthinking anonymity, without even a trace of “Do I know you from somewhere?” isn’t something she’s been afforded in China for a long time. Ye Xiu, for all his hidden nature, has still had to think about recognition. It’s a benefit of being abroad she hadn’t expected. She doesn’t want to think about that, so instead she teases, “Is he wrong?”

“No,” Ye Xiu says, and he pauses to gently catch her cheek and press a kiss to her forehead. “He’s not.”

The sun is dipping towards the horizon, painting the city gold, by the time they make it back for team dinner. Chu Yunxiu has a bag of assorted chocolates to share with the team, and Ye Xiu steps ahead of her to open the door to the conference room set aside for their team’s use. “We’re back,” he announces, and then moves aside to allow her in.

As Chu Yunxiu enters, the team choruses, “Happy birthday!” and she stops in her tracks. She’d lost track of the day, so busy had they been with the tournament. August third. Their break day. Her birthday. Belatedly, she remembers waking up to messages from her team and family, but the rest of the day had washed those early messages right out of her mind.

Huang Shaotian brings her back to the present by enthusiastically singing, in English, a Happy Birthday song. A few other teammates join in, stumbling over the words and tune, and Chu Yunxiu starts laughing in surprised delight.

Ye Xiu’s hand is warm on her back as he urges her fully inside. Chu Yunxiu starts taking in the scene: a birthday cake on the table, clearly bought from a store from the plastic surrounding it; a cheerfully decorated bag that has to hide gifts, and her whole team wearing ridiculous little party hats.

Su Mucheng grins wickedly at her, which is the only warning Chu Yunxiu has before she blows into a party noisemaker and an awful whistle fills the room. Fang Rui joins in, as does Huang Shaotian, and then the room turns to chaos as everyone picks a side in the cacophony. Chu Yunxiu sets her bag of chocolates on the table, pulls the plastic lid off the cake, and projects her voice over everyone else: “Are there candles?”

“Of course,” Zhang Xinjie says, appearing at her side. “We simply thought it prudent—”

“Can I light them?” Huang Shaotian asks. “You said I had to wait! And Wenzhou took the lighter from me, but I know he has it, so can I—”

“Nope,” Ye Xiu says, his own lighter flicking through his fingers. “My surprise party for my girlfriend; I get to light the candles.”

Chu Yunxiu pats Huang Shaotian’s shoulder as Zhang Xinjie arranges the candles and Ye Xiu smirks at Huang Shaotian’s outraged look. “You planned all of this?” she asks.

“It was a joint effort.” Xiao Shiqin gives her a quick hug. “Captain Ye reminded us of when your birthday was, and we sorted out the plans when we needed a break from thinking about the tournament.”

“Thank you,” Chu Yunxiu says to the whole room. Behind her, Ye Xiu’s lighter clicks and she hears the soft crackle of flames catching on the candles. “This is the best party I think I’ve ever had.”

Ye Xiu wraps his arms around her from behind. “Happy birthday, love.”

Chu Yunxiu twists around until she can kiss him. It’s quick and light, but she still hears half the team roll their eyes.

“Cake time,” Fang Rui says loudly. “We’ve been waiting!”

For a moment, Chu Yunxiu debates delaying longer. Then Ye Xiu laughs quietly into her hair, obviously guessing her thoughts, and Chu Yunxiu gives up and laughs along. “Alright,” she says, and turns to the chocolate cake gleaming beneath the flames. “Let me make a wish.”

It’s easy to find one. There’s the World Championship, of course, but that’s not what Chu Yunxiu wants to wish for. She wants to win that on skill, not supernatural beliefs. No, what Chu Yunxiu thinks about as she blows the candles out is Ye Xiu, and how lucky she is to have him, and how much she wants a long and lasting relationship with him, whatever form that may take.

The party is lovely. Even Zhang Xinjie takes a slice of cake without muttering about how it might ruin dinner. Chu Yunxiu opens her presents, which are mostly gag gifts and tourist trinkets, but she didn’t expect anything else. It’s the thought that counts, and it’s enough that her temporary teammates have put this much effort in.

When dinner itself arrives, it turns out to be take-out ordered from the Indian restaurant nearby they’d all collectively agreed was excellent, and the atmosphere in the room is relaxed and warm with camaraderie.

After they’ve sated their hunger, the party turns into an evening strategy meeting, and from there everyone wanders back to the practice room for a last hour of practice. It’s only when the team dissipates, drifting off to bed, that Ye Xiu murmurs, “I wanted there to be something good today no matter what,” and Chu Yunxiu’s throat tightens. She’s glad this was a celebration for the team, but if her birthday had needed to be the excuse for joy after a loss—

She would have enjoyed it either way, seeing her friends laugh and joke and tease her about growing old, but it’s better this way.

Chu Yunxiu stops outside the door to Ye Xiu’s room and places her hands on his shoulders. He looks down at her, a faint smile on his face, and she meets his eyes. “Thank you,” she says. “For taking care of all of us.”

He pulls her tight against his chest and rests his face in her hair. They stay there, leaning against the wall, until Wang Jiexi interrupts them with, “Are you planning to fall asleep standing up?”

They break apart with a laugh, and Chu Yunxiu bids them both goodnight with a light heart. She sleeps well, dreaming of jokes and friendship, and wakes with fire and determination in her heart.

That morning is a scramble of final plans and pre-game warm-ups.

Adrenaline carries them into mid-afternoon, where the UK and France begin their duel for third place. Waiting for that match to end brings a measure of calm; Team China has prepared everything they can, but the real test is the game itself. The Duels stage goes well; they take two victories to South Korea’s one. In contrast, Pairs is bloody and fast; South Korea’s Berserker sacrifices himself to ensure South Korea’s win. Then it’s Squads, and the culmination of their rapid-fire planning and hopes.

They lose Squads, and thus the match.

Xiao Shiqin doesn’t apologise, but his taut expression makes it clear how hard he took the loss. Nobody blames him; South Korea had won the coin-flip to get the first choice of map, and used that advantage mercilessly. They’ll take it back next time, Ye Xiu assures them, now that they’ll choose the field of battle.

The next morning, Fang Rui starts offering suggestions about dirty tricks that might work better, and Su Mucheng chimes in, with Ye Xiu and Huang Shaotian offering their own thoughts. Wang Jiexi is the one who turns all their half-serious suggestions into a plan this time, one centered on using mobility and sneak attacks to good effect. Yu Wenzhou picks up the lead after that, as the master of opportunism, and they’re off to the practice rooms to hone their synergy once more.

Chu Yunxiu is placed in the Squads fight this time. They’re leaning heavily on magic, powerhouses of explosions taking over the field. Plus, this time they aim to take the points lead with Duels and Pairs and give themselves the advantage entering Squads, just in case.

The home field advantage makes the difference. They don’t win Squads easily—Chu Yunxiu falls halfway through to a skilled Ninja’s strike, which she knows Li Hua is going to tease her about—but they take the victory and move on to the final match.

At the post-match debrief, Ye Xiu crisply outlines all the key plays of the game, dissecting where both teams erred and where they played well. “Planning only gives us the tools to win,” he says. They’ve all heard this before. They’ve all said it before. And yet, at the precipice of the World Championship, with Ye Xiu standing before them projecting calm confidence, the words mean more than before. “Tomorrow, victory will hinge on skill. We have plenty; stay confident, believe in yourselves and your teammates, and together we will find victory.”

Then he sends them off to practice and prepare.

The practice room is quiet. Everyone’s pushing themselves, especially knowing that the map selections will be randomized for this final match. Yu Wenzhou stresses that they’ll need to adapt, react, and take control of the situation no matter what it happens to be. They nod and practice, playing 2v2s and 3v3s with random team comps while Zhang Xinjie rests and schemes with Ye Xiu. It’s all they can do that evening.

Ye Xiu banishes them from the computers at 11pm, saying they need sleep.

He doesn’t go to his room, though, and so Chu Yunxiu follows him up to the rooftop. He’s smoking, the cigarette’s ember the only light on his face. She doesn’t say anything, just takes the cigarette he offers her and stands next to him, looking out over the unfamiliar city’s lights. At night, all the obvious differences are washed away in shadows and the hum of cars through streets and people calling to each other outside bars seem the same as back home.

She misses China, and her own room, and being surrounded by people who speak her language. But one way or the other, she’ll be back next week, so Chu Yunxiu sighs and leans against Ye Xiu. He wraps an arm around her shoulder and they stand there in the warm summer night, looking at humanity’s electric stars.

It’s nearly midnight when she leads him back inside. They end up in her bed again, Chu Yunxiu’s ear pressed against Ye Xiu’s chest to listen to the steady beating of his heart. His arms are wrapped loosely around her, as gentle asleep as awake.

They’re late to breakfast because Su Mucheng doesn’t wake them up, and Chu Yunxiu refuses to go downstairs until she’s finished brushing her hair and making some attempt to tame Ye Xiu’s. He accepts her care, a soft smile on his face like he knows this is more to settle her than because she expects it to have any effect.

When Chu Yunxiu declares herself done, Ye Xiu takes her hand, intertwining their fingers with ease—she doesn’t know when this became familiar, normal, but it is and she’s glad for his warmth—and they walk downstairs together.

At breakfast, nobody has the time to tease them. Zhang Xinjie and Ye Xiu present their game plan over coffee and pancakes, and the whole team listens silently. Zhang Xinjie, his eyes steely behind his glasses, wraps up the explanation by saying, “It’s risky, but it’s the best we can come up with.”

Nobody argues.

Then it’s time for last-minute prep and rituals for luck, everyone quiet except when they’re loud, fourteen people brought together for this final fight.

Chu Yunxiu walks onto Zurich’s stage for the last time, and everything feels clear and steady. This could be any eSports stadium. Voices roar, the lights blind her, and the opposing team is across the way. It could be anywhere, and it doesn’t matter where they are, because once they enter the booths there’s nothing to see or hear except the game.

Glory is the same, no matter where she sits. It’s what makes this easy; no matter the changes, no matter the city or the teammates or the opponents, the only thing that matters is the game and her ability to play it.

Chu Yunxiu gives her all for this final match. Everyone does.

Zhang Jiale lands the final blow—“I’m cursed,” he’d insisted upon hearing the line-up for this match, but Zhang Xinjie had stared him down and growled “Break that curse”—and even through the soundproofing Chu Yunxiu hears the roar of the crowd as GLORY flashes across the screen.

Then it’s group hugs and disbelief, two months of focus on top of years of practice having turned into something so simple and ephemeral as just another victory and a trophy saying Glory World Invitational Championship Team, shaped like a globe held within the wings of Glory above a plaque where all their names will soon be engraved.

It’s surreal.

Chu Yunxiu finds herself looking to Ye Xiu in the middle of the chaos. His eyes meet hers, and he smiles. In relief, she thinks, but also satisfaction. Chu Yunxiu moves to his side and takes his hand, squeezing it, and he leans into her for a single moment before it’s on to interviews and photos and the inevitable flurry of media attention.

They’ll be going home tomorrow, Chu Yunxiu thinks through all of it, awed and uncertain of what that will mean. Everything will be the same, but everything has changed: Glory Professional Alliance Season 11 will be influenced by everything they’ve seen and done here, and it’s going to ripple through the season.

It’s not just about seeing other countries play Glory and learning about other modes of competition. It’s about the intimacy of playing with the other pros, learning them not just as opponents but as teammates. The candid explanations of skills and preferences and instincts, none of which are surprises after the years playing against each other but which are ingrained yet more deeply into her understanding of them now.

Whatever the next year brings, it will be interesting. Chu Yunxiu leans against Ye Xiu on the long flight home, falls asleep on his shoulder to the soothing sound of Glory VODs escaping from his earbuds, and wakes to him murmuring “Yunxiu, we’re landing” in her ear.

Home isn’t Beijing, but Beijing is close enough. The whole Chinese team spends a day there, exhausted from travel and readjusting to the timezone, before splitting to return to their hometowns or team HQs or whatever other summer plans they had.

Chu Yunxiu lets Ye Xiu talk her into staying in Beijing for the afternoon to meet his family. “It’ll get them off my back about you until the holidays,” he says as they wait in the hotel lobby for a family car to pick them up. She’d known the Ye family was rich and well-connected, but it still feels odd to have the proof right in front of her eyes. “I need to prove that you’re not some elaborate hoax, apparently.”

“There’s only room for one elaborate hoax in this relationship,” Chu Yunxiu says loftily, “and that’s you.”

Ye Xiu snorts and concedes the point.

His family is nice enough. They’re clearly wealthy, which Chu Yunxiu had assumed, and their choice of restaurant for lunch confirms it. Ye Xiu slides into a matching persona, though she can see the roughness around its edges, and Chu Yunxiu feels awkward in the mix. Her parents are solidly middle-class, and she was drilled into having good manners, but it’s nothing compared to the masks of politeness the Ye family wears.

It is fun to see Ye Xiu and Ye Qiu in the same place. Even without their distinct clothing choices, Chu Yunxiu’s certain she’d be able to tell them apart: Ye Xiu is easy in his body, relaxed in a way that Ye Qiu doesn’t seem able to achieve.

“Going to take up all your responsibilities as heir now?” Ye Qiu asks, raising his eyebrows at Ye Xiu. “Now that you’re done flitting around under my name?”

Ye Xiu grins. “I don’t know, didi; you’ve got so much more experience in this field…”

Chu Yunxiu covers her laugh as Ye Qiu glares at Ye Xiu. Their mother intercedes, smoothly changing the topic to Ye Xiu’s accomplishments—and asking what Zurich was like, as if either of them remember the city when everything about their visit was centered in Glory.

When they leave, Ye Xiu’s parents give her pleasant well-wishes. She thinks they approved of her, and maybe even liked her. Ye Qiu certainly seems to be satisfied about seeing his older brother with a partner; Chu Yunxiu wonders if a lack of interest in dating runs in the family, or if Ye Qiu has been kept single to dangle before business partners as a lure. She hopes it’s the former, but if it’s the latter… well, Chu Yunxiu is a daughter; she understands such mercenary choices.

Ye Xiu joins her in the car to the airport, but she thinks it’s more to give himself another buffer from his parents than anything else; he won’t be boarding a flight himself. Chu Yunxiu leans against him, lightly tracing the veins on the back of his hands, and asks, “Where will you be this season?” She doesn’t know what she’s hoping for. Maybe promises that she’ll see him even without Glory bringing them together. Maybe just reassurance that he’ll be happy.

“I don’t know.” He sighs and turns his hand over to capture her fingers. “My father wants me to start working in one of the subsidiaries.”

Chu Yunxiu squeezes his hand. “Do you want to do that?”

“I spent so many years running from what they wanted. I may as well give it a chance.” Ye Xiu grimaces. “Still, I think they’ll give me a choice about where to work.”

“Pick somewhere you like,” Chu Yunxiu says. Then, more quietly, “Hopefully somewhere with a pro team. I’d miss you, otherwise.”

It’s the closest she’s come to admitting something she hasn’t been thinking about. With Ye Xiu out of the Alliance—not forced out halfway through a season, not running around in Challenger League, but well and truly retired—there’s nothing keeping them together anymore. It’s not the first time she’s lost friends to retirement; a dozen names come to mind easily, people she wanted to keep in touch with but who drifted away, unable to listen to talk of Glory that they could no longer touch.

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t want to lose Ye Xiu.

It’s been five and a half years. It doesn’t matter that their relationship started as a sham, a shield; it means something now. This might not be the romance everyone expects from them, but it’s comfortable and important and Ye Xiu has become an anchor for Chu Yunxiu in ways she never expected to have. Someone who she trusts will be at her side if she ever needs him, who doesn’t care about her bed-head and teases her about the idol posters in her room and then turns around and gives her fan merch for her favorite shows on her birthday “because I saw it on sale” and never quite manages to tell her anything he wants in return. He’s ridiculous, with an incisive sense of humour and no sense of shame, and he uses that to make her happy.

He’s everything a romance story says a beloved partner should be, and Chu Yunxiu has no idea when it happened. Somewhere in the middle of playing the role, it became almost true. Not the romance—Chu Yunxiu still doesn’t understand that obsession—but the commitment and care, which are what she’d always wanted more anyway.

Ye Xiu catches her cheek in a gentle hand and turns her face until their eyes meet. “I’m thinking about Shanghai,” he says, and it catches in her chest. “Plenty of Glory there, and I’d only be an hour or two from Misty Rain’s HQ.”

“Because of me?” Chu Yunxiu asks, her voice a little strained.

“For a number of reasons,” Ye Xiu says, eyes soft, “but yes, one of them is you.”

Chu Yunxiu closes her eyes in relief and buries her face in his chest. He hugs her, and whispers, “This way we won’t need to miss each other at all.”

Chapter Text

Returning to Suzhou is almost anticlimactic in its normalcy. Chu Yunxiu reaches Misty Rain HQ late enough that the only reason she’s fully awake is because she still hasn’t completely readjusted from Switzerland. Li Hua meets her at the door anyway, gives her a hug, and asks if she wants any updates tonight.

Chu Yunxiu eyes him—he’s awake, but barely—looks around at the familiar cool greens and blues of Misty Rain’s walls, and says they can wait until tomorrow.

He walks her up to her room, then splits off to his own with a promise to talk about the summer over breakfast. “Or maybe brunch,” Li Hua says with a yawn.

“Probably,” Chu Yunxiu admits. She’s not tired yet; she’s wired from coming home and everything else that’s happened today.

They bid each other goodnight, and then Chu Yunxiu dumps her luggage on the floor and turns her computer on. She hadn’t been able to keep up with email as well as she liked while in Zurich, and she wants to get a head start on catching up if she’s going to be awake anyway. Only a few of the emails are important, and so Chu Yunxiu lets her mind drift to ideas for the coming year.

The Worlds Invitational was inspiring. The Shu twins are blossoming into their prime. Misty Rain’s future requires some changes. Everything tumbles through her head, and Chu Yunxiu’s certain there’s some kind of integration for her to find, but the pieces aren’t quite coming together.

Chu Yunxiu rubs her eyes, turns off her computer, and goes to sleep. Maybe morning will bring more insight.

It doesn’t, but by the end of the week—after so many briefings and meetings and updates on what has happened while she was abroad—Chu Yunxiu has a plan.

Chu Yunxiu calls Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin. They pick up, matching faces clear across the video feed as they share one screen. “I’ve got a proposal for you,” Chu Yunxiu says. “You don’t need to tell me what you think of it right away. In fact, I want you to wait until tomorrow to give me an answer. Today, I just want you to listen, and ask any questions you might have.”

It’s simple, in theory. Management wants Misty Rain’s core to shift to the Shu twins. Chu Yunxiu wants Misty Rain to continue being captained by a woman even after she retires. The Shu twins want to make a name for themselves. The Worlds Invitational taught Chu Yunxiu the advantages of having multiple shot-callers and strategists on a team—including, but not limited to, having someone to pick up command if the captain falls, as Thunderclap and Tiny Herb’s performances last season showed to be vital.

So long as at least one of Shu Kexin and Shu Keyi are interested in learning to lead, Chu Yunxiu can start teaching them and training them up to take the captaincy after she retires. “It’s a process,” she warns them. “And if you agree, we might not do well at the beginning of the season. That’s understandable. Growing pains happen. But this year is going to bring changes for every single team, so this is a good year to try something new.”

The changes are only partly because of the intermingling of style and experience that the Chinese Glory Team allowed them to share. Chu Yunxiu has brought back inspiration from exposure to not just her fellow GPA players, but to all the other countries’ teams. The pairs-focused American meta, the voice-chat of the European region, the six-player team comps of the UK—everyone has a broader range of strategies to analyse and contemplate replicating now.

Equally important is that the GPA announced, just before the Worlds Invitational began, that Season 11 will allow the use of team voice channels. Nobody will be forced to use them, but since all the powerhouse team captains were on the Chinese Glory Team and have had an intense summer of getting used to voice chat, Chu Yunxiu is sure that everyone will follow their lead. Using their voices allows their fingers to perform mechanical sequences without worrying about giving information to their teams, after all.

The transition to shot-calling vocally should be easy for the twins, since they haven’t built up as many habits around text-based leadership. Sure, they’ve been part of her team for almost two years now, used to the chat and shorthand Misty Rain uses, but they’ll make their own styles. They’ve always been good at that, and Chu Yunxiu is excited to see them blossom.

She tells them as much, as she wraps up her explanation.

Then Chu Yunxiu waits, telling herself that silence isn’t a bad thing, as the twins look at each other and have a near-silent conversation. It’s frustrating to be shut out from whatever they share, but she’s used to it by now. If she can harness that understanding and broaden it to the team, Misty Rain will do well this year.

And if she can’t, she’s still doing her best, and that’s all she can ask of herself.

It’s minutes later that Shu Kexin breaks the silence to ask, “Why not Li Hua? He’s been vice-captain for years.”

“He and I are very well-matched.” Chu Yunxiu talked this over with him two days ago, and he was the first to agree that he didn’t want her position. “His preferred style is to act as a support, and he has no interest in taking up the mantle of leadership. On the other hand, I know both of you enjoy the spotlight and are willing to work hard for it.”

“I know Tyranny has multiple shot-callers,” Shu Keyi says, leaning closer to the camera. “How will that work for us?”

“I don’t know.” Chu Yunxiu grins at them. “If you want to try, we’ll figure it out together.”

It’s no surprise that they call her back tomorrow morning to agree.

It’s even less of a surprise that management thinks this is a fantastic development. They quietly start asking if she’s planning on retiring after this season and joining Ye Xiu. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t give them an answer; her contract is up after Season 11, it’s true, but she can always renew it for another year. She hasn’t decided yet. She’s pretty sure her choices will depend on how Misty Rain does this year and how well the Shu twins and her new recruits perform.

The twins show up three days later to start discussing leadership and practicing shot-calling with the summer camp youths at Misty Rain’s training camp. Chu Yunxiu supervises and spends her mornings talking about strategy and research with them. Shu Kexin takes quick and detailed notes, while Shu Keyi debates Chu Yunxiu, but Chu Yunxiu is certain that the notes are for both of them and that Shu Keyi’s words are drawn from Shu Kexin’s insights.

They make a good team. Chu Yunxiu has always known that, but it’s becoming even clearer how the two of them will turn into a force to be reckoned with next year.

In the following weeks, the rest of Misty Rain comes back, drawn by the energy Chu Yunxiu and her disciples show in online practice matches. Once they’re back, Chu Yunxiu cheerfully tosses everyone—her main roster, her substitutes, and the most promising trainees—into scrimmages and tells each Shu twin to lead one team. Chu Yunxiu watches, takes notes, and debriefs with the twins after. It’s a very different kind of teaching than she’s used to, but it’s a joy to see the fierce intelligence and drive of the Shu twins on full display.

Sometimes Chu Yunxiu adds herself to the scrimmage mix too, as a simple Elementalist and not the shot-calling captain. She wonders, as she does, if this is what Ding Zhulang experienced when he taught her in Season 4. If he’d been sure, even before the season started, that it would be his last. It’s a bittersweet feeling, but Chu Yunxiu can’t quite bring herself to call her old captain and ask about it. Maybe later, she thinks. Maybe when she’s decided what she’ll do in Season 12.

But that’s a year away, and Season 11 comes first.

The season opens with everyone’s attention on the match between Qiu Fei’s revived Excellent Era and Happy. Ye Xiu is in Hangzhou to watch it in person, and he tells Chu Yunxiu that the teams walked into the arena together like old friends. Ye Xiu doesn’t tell her that the commentators even found him in the crowd and dragged him in front of a mic to make some kind of speech; when Chu Yunxiu catches that later on the VOD, she laughs. They really shouldn’t have expected him to say anything more than “Welcome back to the stage! Good luck, everyone!”

Still, the crowd roars in response as their two hometown teams face off, and that rush of noise blends into the starting fanfare of Glory.

Happy wins, but Excellent Era puts up a good fight. They’ve had their core all summer, and move smoothly through their strategies. Happy’s individual power—and unpredictability—and extra year in the Pro League give them the edge. It’s probably the match where the new voice chat plays the least role; Happy grew up in-game, and Qiu Fei’s Excellent Era had all of Season 10’s playoffs to adapt.

The other new team in the GPA, Crane’s Flight, gets absolutely crushed in their match against Samsara. It’s the least surprising outcome of the week. Everything else goes about as expected, with the other match of note being Tyranny’s choice to field Song Qiying and Zhang Xinjie as their core against Blue Rain. They win, too, and Chu Yunxiu suspects this heralds Tyranny’s steady rise to the play-offs.

Misty Rain plays 301 Degrees—another team clearly sporting new strategies—and they nearly end up in a draw.

301 Degrees snatches the final kill, and thus the victory, but Chu Yunxiu’s still very pleased as she shakes Bai Shu’s hand after the match. Under his leadership, 301 Degrees’ defensive and melee capabilities are enhanced. To take her ranged DPS team and eke out a close match is plenty for the first game of the season. “We’ll take you next time,” she promises. Bai Shu’s closed-mouth smile as he promises to beat her more soundly is all the respect she could want in return.

It’s a full month into the season before Chu Yunxiu manages to see Ye Xiu in person. The first weeks of a season are always busy, as competition draws out every flaw in summertime’s preparation and they reassess the other teams and their responses. But when Chu Yunxiu takes Misty Rain to Shanghai to face Samsara, she tells Ye Xiu that he’d better be in the audience and come see her after.

They lose. It’s fine; nobody expected to win against Zhou Zekai and Sun Xiang, who are once more in the running for Best Partners. After the match, Jiang Botao nods at the Shu twins and tells Chu Yunxiu that he’s looking forward to seeing what Misty Rain becomes.

It’s nice to know that he thinks they’re dangerous enough to keep an eye on. When they’re back in the ready room, Chu Yunxiu tells the twins about Jiang Botao’s comment and laughs at Shu Kexin’s blushing squeak. “You’ve made quite the impression,” she teases, and it’s absolutely worth Shu Keyi’s quelling glare.

After their interview, Chu Yunxiu takes her team out the player’s entrance, where Ye Xiu is waiting for them. The whole team stops to say hello this time, and Ye Xiu has something to say to every single one of them; mostly praise, but a few critiques that the Shu twins take with grimaces of understanding. Chu Yunxiu breathes a sigh of relief at seeing them chat so freely; she hadn’t realised she still carried the stress of wondering if the people she’d chosen—unwillingly at first, but whole-heartedly by now—as her successors could get over their initial grudge against her partner. Setting it down feels good, and gives her more confidence in Misty Rain’s future.

Then a staff member comes by to politely remind them to clear out before someone realises so many pros are still chatting back here. Li Hua thanks her, then ushers Misty Rain towards their bus. Ye Xiu flashes a charming smile more at home on his brother’s face and wraps his arms around Chu Yunxiu. “I’d like to borrow your captain for a night,” he says cheerfully. “We’ll make sure she gets home tomorrow.”

Chu Yunxiu pats his hands. “Keyi can run the debrief,” she says, seeing Li Hua’s expression. Then, at Shu Keyi’s surprised look, Chu Yunxiu laughs and adds, “It’s good for you.”

“I can do it.” Shu Keyi nods decisively, then walks off without another glance. Misty Rain follows her, and Ye Xiu leads her off to his own waiting car.

It’s only after they’ve reached his condo and he’s shown her around—she’s seen it in pictures and video calls, but it’s nice to experience it for herself—that Ye Xiu asks, “Are you planning to retire? There are rumours flying around about it through all the retired player chats.”

Chu Yunxiu groans and flops down on Ye Xiu’s nice couch, face-first in the soft cushions. “Management would love to know.”

The couch dips down by her feet, and Chu Yunxiu bends her knees so Ye Xiu can scoot onto the couch more properly. “It’s not a decision to make lightly.”

“I know.” Chu Yunxiu rolls over to stare at the ceiling. “I’ll let you know when I’ve made a decision.”

He doesn’t press her. Instead, he tosses her the remote and tells her to put something on if she’d like, and that the food he’s ordered will be there soon. Chu Yunxiu resettles herself with her head in Ye Xiu’s lap, flips idly through channels until she lands on an idol music show, and treats it half as karaoke even though even the songs she recognises are all remixed enough that she’s not matching the singers at all.

It’s a good evening. Chu Yunxiu relaxes into Ye Xiu’s home, finding all the ways he’s quietly left spaces that she fills without even thinking about it. He wouldn’t have bothered with such a large TV screen for himself, she’s pretty sure, or chosen on his own to surround the kitchen sink with plants in a way she’d once mentioned her family liked doing.

She falls asleep at his side, and it’s the easiest sleep she’s had since returning to Suzhou.

He comes back to Misty Rain with her the next day, too, and Chu Yunxiu thinks it’s hilarious watching everyone do a double-take at seeing Ye Xiu walking hand-in-hand with her. The Shu twins dismiss such simple PDA, and Shu Keyi even ignores Chu Yunxiu to directly address Ye Xiu. “Since you’re here,” she asks, “would you give us some advice?”

Ye Xiu glances at Chu Yunxiu, who raises her eyebrows at him. She’s perfectly aware that Su Mucheng and Qiu Fei have both asked him for advice over the last year. The tacticians have their own chat, too, and she’s pretty sure he’s still in it. Ye Xiu likes teaching, though he doesn’t like admitting it, so there’s no way he’s going to say No to her proteges. Especially since it’s the first time they’ve asked him for pointers.

Someone—Li Hua, probably—lets out a muffled laugh, and Ye Xiu turns back to the twins. “Since you think an old man’s words are worth listening to,” he says, “I can answer some questions.”

Chu Yunxiu laughs as the twins spirit him away to interrogate him about tactics. “Have fun,” she calls, and Ye Xiu raises a hand in acknowledgement.

Beside her, Li Hua coughs politely to get her attention. “Debrief,” he says, waggling a tablet at her. “I’ve got the notes from last night, but it’s not complete until you give your perspective.”

She nods and follows him into the lounge. He curls up on his favorite armchair, and she sits down on the couch next to it, just like they’ve done for years. It takes Chu Yunxiu perhaps five minutes to run through her observations about the game, since it’s just her monologuing, and then she spends another fifteen reading through Li Hua’s neat summaries of both the team’s conversation and how the Shu twins did leading the debrief..

When Chu Yunxiu sets the tablet down, Li Hua asks, “Have you figured out what your role in the team will be next year? Keyi has all the makings of a fine captain, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

He knows her too well. Chu Yunxiu sighs and slouches into the couch’s thick slate upholstery. “Do I need to decide?” she asks, not looking at her vice-captain. “It’s still early in the season.”

“The earlier you decide, the better prepared we’ll be for whatever comes.” Li Hua reaches over to squeeze her shoulder. “Management isn’t going to be so nice about asking, Yunxiu. If you need to talk through your thoughts, please come to me; I want to help.”

Chu Yunxiu takes his hand and looks up to meet his calm brown eyes. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m not ready to think about it yet. But soon.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Li Hua says, a soft smile on his face.

They stay there, companionable in silence, until a loud shout comes from the training room down the hall. Chu Yunxiu shakes her head, standing, and Li Hua follows her to the door. Ye Xiu has logged onto a computer, playing with an account that has to be one of Misty Rain’s spares. From the sound of things—Shu Kexin is muttering curses while Shu Keyi threatens Ye Xiu—he’s taking on the twins 2v1 and winning.

Chu Yunxiu rests her arms on Ye Xiu’s shoulders so she can see his screen. It distracts him just enough to let Shu Kexin get off her Snipe. “Thanks for that,” Ye Xiu says absently, but he makes no move to dislodge her. “I’m proving a point.”

“Is that point the reason Misty Rain used to have a Knight?” She recognises the account as Wei Zhong’s Iron Mask. None of the substitutes coming up through training camps since his retirement have been Knights, and it’s nostalgic to see Iron Mask being played skillfully; though Ye Xiu might never have mained Knight, and the meta might have moved on since he was playing regularly, he’s still unquestionably good.

From the other side of the match, Shu Keyi says, “He thinks we’re too aggressive.”

“The best defense is a good offense.” Ye Xiu guides Iron Mask into the shelter of an as-yet-undestroyed tree. Chu Yunxiu watches the cooldowns tick down and sees Ye Xiu’s steady attention towards where the twins are aiming to flank him. From his stillness, she’s pretty sure they won’t quite make it in time. “But you need to be in control of the game for offense to work as a defense. As soon as you stop controlling the pace, you’ve lost everything.”

Chu Yunxiu feels Shu Kexin hesitate. “He’s tricking you into this,” she tells them. The sleight-of-hand is clear from where she’s standing. “If you’d fully committed, you might have beat his cooldowns.”

“Traitor.” Ye Xiu rolls his shoulders. “Shoo.”

“I’m their Captain,” she points out, kissing the crown of his head as she steps back. “It’s important to give them their lessons.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Ye Xiu explodes out of cover, Charging at Shu Keyi’s Lower Your Head before spinning to use a Shield Counter on Shu Kexin’s attack. From there, Ye Xiu keeps moving into the Sharpshooters, not allowing either of them to stay at their most effective distance for long. He’s bleeding health, but so are the twins; Chu Yunxiu could see the fight going either way, which is a potent enough lesson for the twins even if they take the win.

Shu Keyi crows in triumph when Ye Xiu falls. He smiles, says he’s a little rusty, and stretches his hands. Before everyone else can crowd around and demand a match with Ye Xiu, Chu Yunxiu swoops in. “He hadn’t planned to spend all day here,” she says, drawing Ye Xiu to his feet. “Perhaps we can plan something for later in the season?”

Ye Xiu lets her manage him, which Chu Yunxiu takes as acceptance; if Ye Xiu wanted to keep playing, he’d do just that. From this reaction, she’s even more certain that this was a tactics lesson that got a little out of control.

It still takes almost an hour before Ye Xiu says he has to leave, that he needs to be back at work for a lunch meeting. He says it with distaste, and everyone laughs, but they leave him be after that, saying their farewells and urging him to return soon.

Chu Yunxiu walks Ye Xiu to the door and kisses him on the cheek. “Thanks,” she says, hugging him tight. “You should come to our home games more.”

“I should.” He kisses her forehead gently before stepping away. “I’ll do my best.”

Despite their intentions, the next time she sees Ye Xiu is most of a month later when he needs a date to a company function. Chu Yunxiu almost rejects his invitation on principle, but it’s on a Monday night and she can spare the time, and if Ye Xiu doesn’t want to go alone…

He’s done so much for her. She can easily do this for him, especially when her team is actively attempting to offload much of her usual work so that she can “Have a fancy night out for once,” as Feng Xiangming puts it with a cheeky smile. Chu Yunxiu makes a face at him, then glares at Shu Kexin and demands that the review of Miracle’s strategies so far this year—they’ve started innovating away from old Excellent Era habits—be perfect when she gets back. She gets an eye-roll and a promise, which is enough.

Chu Yunxiu admits, as she puts on make-up not for cameras but for herself, that she’s also enjoying the chance to dress up. There are other people in the Alliance who like dressing well, and everyone is capable of allowing media experts to dress them for photoshoots and ads, but this is different. Tonight, people are only going to look at her as Ye Xiu’s date, not as Misty Rain’s captain.

It’s weird. It’s a change. As she circles the room and forces Ye Xiu to network by introducing her to all the important people at the event, Chu Yunxiu realises she might just like it. Not the networking, but not immediately being known or judged lesser because she dared to be both feminine and a captain. At this event, Chu Yunxiu is amused to realise, she’s one of the least feminine women—simply wearing a dress isn’t enough to make her stand out.

Plus, it’s fun to see Ye Xiu wearing a nice suit and with his hair tamed out of its usual mess.

Chu Yunxiu might not understand what sexy looks like, but she can absolutely appreciate aesthetics. Ye Xiu’s charisma comes from his personality and drive, not his appearance; he’s ordinary-looking and spent so long making an effort not to stand out that seeing him dressed up is a dramatic change. A positive one, Chu Yunxiu thinks, glancing at him from the corner of her eye; it’s good to see Ye Xiu caring about his body as more than a vehicle for Glory.

That night, Chu Yunxiu washes make-up off her face and teases Ye Xiu about how surprised his coworkers and bosses had been to see a beautiful woman at his side. “Did they think you were making me up?” she asks. “That’s quite the reversal.”

He laughs from the other room, where he’s carefully hanging up his suit and her dress. He’s back in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his normal clothes. “I showed them pictures of us together, Yunxiu. I think they were surprised to see my very busy girlfriend, who I am obviously proud of, take the time to come to a business dinner.”

Chu Yunxiu’s face heats. She’d known he talked about her, but for them to interpret her actions that way is still a surprise. “It’s interesting seeing what you do.” Chu Yunxiu dries her face, so that any lingering redness can be accounted for by the towel, and joins Ye Xiu in flopping on his bed. “You don’t talk about it much.”

“I don’t want to distract you.” Ye Xiu turns on his side, gives her a soft smile. “But if you’re interested…”

Chu Yunxiu musses his hair, finally restoring Ye Xiu to his familiar unkempt appearance. “I think about Glory all the time. Tell me about this ‘ordinary life’ thing you’ve got going on now.”

She knows what Ye Xiu does around the edges of his job: he explores the neighborhood, makes friends with the aunties at corner stores, and refuses to admit that the cats who run up to him each evening as he returns home are sort of his cats now. She also knows that Ye Xiu still plays Glory for fun, wandering around the Heavenly Domain on alts and occasionally getting swarmed with attention as Lord Grim. He’s even mentioned wanting to raise a new character on the 13th Server that’ll be opening this December, though Chu Yunxiu hasn’t yet learned what class he’s planning to play there.

But now Ye Xiu tells her that the work he does is mostly managing people and learning about finance and business through private tutoring sessions. The Ye family can’t bear to let him take night classes like the average citizen, apparently. “Ye Qiu is taking great joy in grading my homework,” Ye Xiu adds, “even though he doesn’t need to do it. He’s not officially teaching me, after all.”

“He’s happy to have you around again.” Chu Yunxiu knows the feeling. She yawns and snuggles closer to Ye Xiu. “Keep telling me about this later, when I’m not so tired.”

He does. Not just the next day, as they eat breakfast and he takes her home, but in the following weeks and months. Ye Xiu tells her about both baffling businessmen he interacts with and math problems that are stymying him. Chu Yunxiu laughs at him and solves some of the math problems for fun; she’d always liked the subject. It’s a pleasant counterpoint to the number games of Glory, tracking points and plans and potential damage outputs like her life depends upon it.

In some ways, Chu Yunxiu supposes it does. Misty Rain is flourishing as she starts rotating herself and the Shu twins through the team matches. Sun Liang is delighted to see his Striker on the field more often. Shu Keyi has thrown herself into command and is honing her natural gift for it. Shu Kexin’s coordination with everyone has improved. Feng Xiangming is relaxing, and Li Hua’s more daring plays are paying off more and more often with the increased support.

Chu Yunxiu is the only one drifting away, and by All-Star Weekend she’s forced to stop avoiding that fact. Li Hua had, as promised, kept after her for a conversation. Every time, Chu Yunxiu had simply said “I don’t know” and Li Hua had sighed but not pursued it further. But this time it’s not Li Hua who wants to ask her. It’s Misty Rain’s boss.

Management corrals her before they depart for Wuhan—Thunderclap is hosting this year—and demands an actual answer to the rumours that this will be Chu Yunxiu’s last year in the league.

“Han Wenqing is the only captain who’s rotated himself like this before,” they say. “He has age as a reason. You don’t.”

“Do you have a preference?” Chu Yunxiu asks, as much because she’s curious as to stall for time.

“We aren’t going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do,” she’s told. “But if you’re retiring, we want you to start making plans for Windy Rain.”

“I’m not retiring,” Chu Yunxiu says automatically. Then she bites her lip and reconsiders how her actions look from the outside and how tired she’s been this last year. Slowly, she says, “However, if you and Shu Keyi find it acceptable, I will step down as captain over next summer and raise Shu Keyi into that position. Whether the position of vice-captain also changes—and if so, to me or to Shu Kexin—can be discussed afterwards.”

Management agrees, and is excited about the idea, as she knew they would be. They’ve been pushing the Shu twins as the team’s future since the start, after all.

It’ll make Chu Yunxiu one of the first team captains to step down from the role without leaving her team.

Most people keep the role until they retire or transfer away. Chu Yunxiu understands that; ambition and drive lead people to the captaincy, and it feels like giving up some of that to hand the captaincy to someone else. Zou Yuan switched with Tang Hao, but Zou Yuan had been forced into his role to begin with; he hadn’t wanted it for himself. But Chu Yunxiu had wanted this.

She still does, she tells Ye Xiu. Explaining herself to him will prepare her for having a similar conversation with first Li Hua—who will be happy to simply have an answer, she knows, no matter what it is—and then Shu Keyi, but without the tension inevitable from talking about her team’s future with her teammates. Chu Yunxiu wants the captaincy, but even more than that she wants Misty Rain to be strong. “If Shu Keyi’s aggression can bring us there—if the ability to choose how many long-range attackers to field can bring us there—then I want to give the team that chance.”

Ye Xiu listens, and smiles, and says, “That’s how I know you’re a good captain.”

There’s a wealth of emotion in those words. Chu Yunxiu knows that Liu Hao undermined Ye Xiu’s Excellent Era, and has seen the difference in Wind Howl this season now that Tang Hao understands how to draw his players into true teamwork despite Liu Hao’s temperament. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t want to be another warning for future players; she’d rather be someone mentors can point to and say, “Look, there are many ways to lead.”

Bolstered by talking her decision through with someone other than management, Chu Yunxiu goes to Li Hua. He nods, seeming unsurprised, and tells her, “It’ll be strange not calling you captain.” That’s the only negative he can see as they finally have the conversation he’s been expecting for months, which makes her feel better still.

“Would you stay as vice-captain?” Chu Yunxiu asks at the end. “Or do my plans change yours?”

“I like Misty Rain too much to leave as long as the team will have me.” Li Hua clasps his hands between his knees. His tiny smile hasn’t changed since his first year on the team, even as he’s grown more confident and settled in many other ways. “If Keyi wants me as vice-captain, I’ll be that for her. But I don’t think she’ll ask me when she could have you or her sister instead.”

Chu Yunxiu nods. It’s the answer she had been expecting, even as fear niggled at her heart. One of the things she’s always loved about Li Hua is his understanding that the team is bigger and more important than his role in it. “Thank you,” she says.

“I’m your vice-captain,” Li Hua says, plain and simple. “I’ll support you in every way I can, even this.”

There aren’t any words to come past the tears welling up in her throat, but that’s alright. Chu Yunxiu knows that Li Hua understands.

Shu Keyi, on the other hand, is a harder sell. “Are you certain?” she asks, a change from the arrogance both twins entered Misty Rain with. Shu Keyi leans forward, places her hand on Chu Yunxiu’s arm. “Captain, if they’re forcing you out—”

Chu Yunxiu cuts her off with a raised hand. “They’ve been very kind to me this season,” she says, meeting Shu Keyi’s eyes. It’s hard to separate the twins sometimes, but right now it’s necessary. She needs to know that Shu Keyi, on her own, will make this choice. “This is my choice, Keyi. Misty Rain is doing well this season, and that’s because we’re rotating. You’re beginning to take on the role already. I want to make it official at the end of the season, if you’re willing.”

“Yes,” Shu Keyi says immediately. “I’m willing.”

There had never been any question of that. They’ll have six months to hash out the details, but Chu Yunxiu leaves the conversation with purpose in her heart. She’ll continue mentoring Shu Keyi next year too—Shu Keyi’s first question had been if Chu Yunxiu would be her vice-captain—but she wants her successor—not Windy Rain’s, but hers—to come into the role as confidently as possible.

All-Star Weekend comes quickly after that, and Chu Yunxiu enjoys seeing the small shifts in the list.

Qiu Fei easily joins the All-Star rankings; Excellent Era’s fans love him, especially since his team is already good enough to aim for the playoffs. Yang Cong drops from the list, but Bai Shu doesn’t quite manage to take his place; he’s still foreign, and his playstyle is unfamiliar to 301 Degrees’ fans. Liu Xiaobie crows in excitement in all the chats when it’s clear he’s finally made it on the list. The rest of the names are the same as last year, but Chu Yunxiu is pretty sure that Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin’s fans could get one of the twins on the list if they could agree which, so she’s confident that Shu Keyi will make it next year with the boost of captaincy.

Maybe next year will bring them another healer, too, because the All-Star match at the end of the weekend hinges once more on “Which team is Zhang Xinjie on?”

It’s fine. It’s normal. Last year was a nice change of pace, but Chu Yunxiu’s not surprised that this year’s teams—themed about an Excellent Era reunion—don’t bother changing things around. Chu Yunxiu takes the sixth-player slot as Su Mucheng, Sun Xiang, Qiu Fei, and Xiao Shiqin lead them in a powerful rush, aiming to take out Zhang Xinjie before his tactical and healing influence give the game to Team B.

Zhang Xinjie falls, but it costs too much: Xu Bin’s defense eroded their health, leaving Team A easy pickings for the new Blossom Duo and Gao Yingjie. Chu Yunxiu makes it to the fight just in time to send a torrent of fire at Li Xuan, killing him and breaking his ghost boundaries. It’s something, but it’s not enough to make up for their lower HP totals. She falls to a well-placed Lava Flask, hidden among the bursts of Zou Yuan’s support fire, and laughs at the game of hide-and-seek Huang Shaotian leads Yu Feng on before finally accepting his fate.

It’s a good game, though, and a good show. Chu Yunxiu is pleased by the outcome—winning and losing aren’t the point of All-Stars, except for bragging rights, and losing a match against a defensive wall is nothing to be ashamed of.

Besides, she knows that her parents watched the match in the stands, sitting next to Ye Xiu and hearing his second layer of analysis on Li Yibo and Pan Lin’s commentary. It’ll give them more perspective, and it means that they’re getting along well. Before All-Stars, Chu Yunxiu hadn’t wanted to admit she was worried about that, even as Ye Xiu laughed and said he’d put on a good boyfriend act. “As if you need to act,” Chu Yunxiu had grumbled.

She’s enveloped in hugs when the All-Stars are released from the stage and the event comes to a close. Ye Xiu lets her go a moment later, leaving her to her parents’ mercy, and chats with the other pros. It’s not unusual for family members to visit All-Stars, but they don’t usually have Glory’s god to sneak them backstage as a special gift.

It’s unexpectedly emotional to have her mother scolding her for not dressing nicely at such an event, even though Chu Yunxiu’s explained many times before that teams have uniforms and they’re designed for comfort more than aesthetics. But her mother ends the speech by saying, “I’m so happy for you,” and her dad adds, “You’ve found a fine young man. It’s good to see you settling down,” and Chu Yunxiu can’t hold back her feelings anymore; they leak out through her eyes.

They take her to dinner, too, which everyone teases her about. Not all of the pros are on such good terms with their families, though, so Chu Yunxiu takes it and gives as good as she gets, cheerfully insulting Huang Shaotian and sweetly promising Fang Rui that she’ll make sure Ye Xiu takes everyone out to dinner next year instead. It takes until Su Mucheng starts cackling for Fang Rui to realise that she’s insinuated that Ye Xiu was his dad, which Chu Yunxiu counts as a win.

Even with her parents questioning her and Ye Xiu about their future plans at dinner—a topic neither of them have thought about further than the next year—it’s a nice break in the middle of a tough season.

The Spring Festival, on the other hand, is not a break.

Chu Yunxiu is glad that it falls on a weekend when they’re facing Royal Style up in Beijing, because it means she can agree to join Ye Xiu’s family for a meal while she’s there. Royal Style isn’t a pushover, of course, but Misty Rain has settled into their new strategies now. They win, bullets flying across the field to knock Peaceful Hermit’s sickle aside, and Chu Yunxiu walks out of the players’ booth much more secure in her team’s chances of making the playoffs.

Misty Rain goes to their hotel. Chu Yunxiu had negotiated, via Ye Xiu, to only show up at his family home at noon the next day; she wants to have the debrief with her team in the morning. Then Ye Xiu can pick her up, and her team can fly home, and she’ll rejoin them the following evening. Ye Xiu’s family wanted more of her time, she knows, but Ye Xiu has always been good at holding his ground and he knows the challenges of a pro schedule just as well as she does.

It’s one of Ye Xiu’s aunties that brings it up, asking how long they’ve been dating and then cooing over the way neither of them actually remembers—“Since Season Five,” Ye Xiu says, and then Chu Yunxiu winces and quickly calculates that it’s been, “Five and a half years.”—before wondering, “When should we expect your engagement party?”

Chu Yunxiu and Ye Xiu blink at each other, nonplussed. “We’ve been very busy,” Ye Xiu says, which has the benefit of being true. “It didn’t seem feasible to discuss such things until I’d settled into helping with my family’s business.”

“Do start thinking about it now, xiao-Xiu,” the auntie says briskly, rapping Ye Xiu’s shoulder with her fan. “You don’t want to let such a lovely woman slip away!”

“Thank you, auntie,” Ye Xiu says drily, and then steers Chu Yunxiu away from the conversation.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, voices covered by the general chaos of the ballroom, Chu Yunxiu murmurs, “How much has your family been pushing for us to marry?”

“Surprisingly little.” Ye Xiu’s pleasant mask falls, showing the weariness Chu Yunxiu is too familiar with. “I imagine they’ll be more vocal by summer.”

Chu Yunxiu sighs and leans into Ye Xiu. “My mother’s been asking too. You heard her at All-Stars; she was being restrained then.”

Ye Xiu is quiet for a moment, in a way that Chu Yunxiu mistrusts. She glances up and catches a considering look on Ye Xiu’s face before he says, “Are you opposed to getting married?”

“I am not making a decision about that right now,” Chu Yunxiu says sharply. Then, because the mischief in Ye Xiu’s eyes hasn’t faded, she softens. “What are you plotting, Ye Xiu?”

“They want a show,” Ye Xiu says, gesturing at the vividly-decorated ballroom. “I was thinking we could give them one.”

Chu Yunxiu purses her lips, turning that over in her head. “I’m not saying yes,” she cautions, “but if we did, what sort of show are you planning?”

The wide grin on Ye Xiu’s face tells her everything she needs to know.

Chapter Text

When Chu Yunxiu returns to Misty Rain—head full of personal plans—Shu Keyi approaches her with plans for how to face Void. Chu Yunxiu looks them over, curious; matches against Void have always been about negating their Dual Ghost Boundaries style and preventing them from taking control of the field. It makes them a tough nut to crack, despite how Void’s DPS is usually on the lower side for a playoff-tier team.

Shu Keyi’s strategy, which Li Hua and Shu Kexin have apparently been helping her with over the past week, is to use Misty Rain’s greater range and mobility to their advantage. “It’s a home game for us,” Shu Keyi points out. “If we choose a map without as many terrain features and some good high ground, we can kite them.”

It’s a variation on strategies Chu Yunxiu has used before. They generally work well, though it’s hard to tell how much Ge Caijie’s Exorcist has changed up Void’s habits; last year, he’d been settling in and Misty Rain had been fighting itself. This year, they’re both more stable. Chu Yunxiu looks up from the plans to ask, “What’s the lineup you planned this around?”

“You, me, Li Hua, Bai Qi, Feng Xiangming, and Kexin as the sixth,” Shu Keyi says unhesitatingly.

“Not Sun Liang?” Chu Yunxiu looks down at the plans again, frowning. “If this fails, it’s because they’ve closed in on us. Another ranged attacker won’t help.” Li Hua could have easily seen this. That he didn’t let Shu Keyi know points to this being a lesson he either wanted Shu Keyi to discover for herself or for Chu Yunxiu to teach. She suspects he’d prefer the former, but it’s become the latter.

When there’s no immediate response, Chu Yunxiu glances at Shu Keyi’s face. Her expression confirms the problem, and Chu Yunxiu holds back a sigh. “You can’t field people purely for emotional reasons,” she says gently. “If you want Shu Kexin on the field, then we need to switch her with another ranged attacker.”

One of the things Chu Yunxiu likes about Shu Keyi—both of the twins, really—is that she doesn’t argue when faced with facts she doesn’t like. She chews on them, grumbles, but eventually nods and re-evaluates. It only takes a few minutes of waiting, during which Chu Yunxiu quietly annotates Shu Keyi’s plans, before Shu Keyi says, “What would you suggest?”

“Unless you’re thinking of counter-controlling them, drop Bai Qi and replace him with Sun Liang.” Chu Yunxiu spreads papers across the table and gestures for Shu Keyi to sit next to her. “His Striker will give us flexibility in case they switch to a sword demon style to deal with us.” Not accounting for that had been their downfall at the start of this season, and Chu Yunxiu didn’t want to lose the same way twice in one year if she could help it.

Shu Keyi grimaces, clearly remembering the same event. “But you think the idea has merit?”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into it,” Chu Yunxiu says, wrapping her arm around Shu Keyi’s shoulder to give her a hug. “I just have more experience. Now, let’s pull up the training program and look at maps. I’m sure you have some in mind.”

It’s a fun change of pace to work with Shu Keyi instead of Li Hua. Chu Yunxiu needs to explain more choices, leave more space to hear Shu Keyi’s thoughts, and bite back her instinctive “That won’t work” reactions to really hear Shu Keyi’s reasoning. It’s generally sound, even when it’s framed in a completely different way than Chu Yunxiu is used to and more aggressive than Chu Yunxiu tends to be.

But that’s why Chu Yunxiu wanted Shu Keyi to take over, she reminds herself, and then they continue working to finesse the ideas Shu Keyi presents her with.

As the months go on, Shu Keyi’s plans get more streamlined, and her active grasp of other teams’ tactics gets more comprehensive. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t always go with her plans—sometimes, it’s not worth the risk—but against the weaker teams it’s interesting to see what happens when Shu Keyi is given a leadership role. They usually win, but it’s a different victory than Chu Yunxiu would take.

Other teams notice the change quickly. The media takes a bit longer to catch on. Once they do—in late March, as teams prepare for the final surge towards playoffs—Chu Yunxiu starts taking post-match interviews flanked by Shu Keyi and Li Hua. She doesn’t give any direct answers, because the media doesn’t deserve them and Misty Rain will garner more attention through inviting people to ferret out their secrets anyway.

To her fellow pros, Chu Yunxiu is more direct. “Of course I’m training my successor,” she tells Zhang Xinjie after a match, rolling her eyes. “Who isn’t?”

“You weren’t, last year.” From someone else, the remark could be cutting. From Zhang Xinjie, it’s simply a factual assessment. He cleans his glasses, eyes wide and unprotected for a moment. “Are you preparing for retirement?”

Chu Yunxiu tilts her head at him. “Are you?”

Zhang Xinjie laughs and settles his glasses back on his face. “Point taken,” he says, and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. “The future is coming, but we’re still part of it.”

The future, mostly, is thinking about playoffs.

Misty Rain hits the points cut-off with two weeks to go by thrashing Radiant, claws their way into keeping their spot by trouncing Parade, and then faces Hundred Blossoms—one point below them, their biggest competitor—on the final day of the main season.

It should be the biggest match of the week. Ye Xiu still bets against her that the networks will choose to show Wind Howl vs Excellent Era instead: if Excellent Era wins, they won’t make playoffs—they’re 11th right now, better than most people expected but not as strong as their fans hoped after Happy’s mercurial rise last year—but they might keep Wind Howl from gaining a spot, depending on how the Hundred Blossoms vs Misty Rain match goes.

Chu Yunxiu takes the bet, more to keep herself from stressing than anything else. It’s a hard match, and she’s relying on Yu Feng and Zhou Yuan not having figured out Shu Keyi’s tactics yet. If they win, it’ll be from their plans first shaking Hundred Blossoms and then not giving them a chance to find their footing again.

Ye Xiu texts her while they’re waiting to go on stage. You won, the first message says. The bet :), the second clarifies.

Chu Yunxiu laughs, her worries fading away as she turns her phone off for the coming game. “We’ve got this,” she promises her team, and draws them in for a group hug. “Let’s show them what we’ve got!”

What they’ve got is more aggression than any team expects out of Misty Rain, honed into clean teamwork and tied together by the Shu twins’ beautiful performance. Chu Yunxiu supports them, her spells competing with Zou Yuan’s bullets to screen the stage and allow Li Hua to weave into the chaos and drain HP from Mo Chuchen’s Cleric. It gives them enough of advantage to focus their attacks onto Arrogant Flowers and down him in a powerful wave.

From there, victory is a matter of patience. Chu Yunxiu takes the lead for the second half of the fight, baiting members of Hundred Blossoms out of formation and taking advantage of every opening. She’s certain that Huang Shaotian and Yu Wenzhou will see their influence in her tactics, just as Ye Xiu will see his hand in Shu Keyi’s initial plan. That’s fine; they all take inspiration from each other, and build upon concepts that other teams introduce. It’s how the game polishes itself, each year’s strategies more refined than the last.

They win.

It’s not a clean victory, but it’s enough of a margin that Chu Yunxiu isn’t worried about another team snagging their spot for play-offs.

It’s especially exciting to learn, later that evening, that Excellent Era put up a vicious fight against Wind Howl and knocked Wind Howl’s points down enough that Misty Rain is placed seventh instead of eighth this year. It means they won’t be facing Samsara—who topped the regular season again this year—in the first round of playoffs; they’ll be facing Blue Rain.

Seeing the Shu twins so excited is also a joy. Chu Yunxiu accepts Shu Keyi’s hug, and Shu Kexin’s shyer follow-up, with warm enthusiasm. “So,” she says, laughing, “what do you think we can do against a master tactician?”

The twins glance at each other, and Chu Yunxiu sees the moment they take it as a challenge. Good. She can’t wait to see what they’re going to bring to her tomorrow. But tonight is for celebrating, and they do that with abandon.

Chu Yunxiu even has a light enough heart to enjoy visiting Ye Xiu for his belated birthday celebration. He might say he doesn’t need a party, but his face still lights up when he sees her and he laughs when she drags him to a nearby restaurant where Ye Qiu and Su Mucheng are waiting. “We didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Su Mucheng says cheerfully as she hugs Ye Xiu, “but we needed to do something.”

They’d done most of the plotting; Chu Yunxiu had been too busy to add anything beyond her own schedule and her memory of which restaurants Ye Xiu liked. It’s worth it for the way Ye Xiu’s exasperated look melts off his face, replaced by something softer and sweeter. “Thank you,” he says to Su Mucheng. Then the exaggerated scowl is back as he turns to Ye Qiu. “I should have known you were being too nice about my refusal to join the family party!”

“Thanks for including me, ge,” Ye Qiu says, raising a cup in sarcastic salute. “I had to field questions about you from everyone. Again. I thought you joining the family business meant I was done with that!”

“Including you wasn’t up to me,” Ye Xiu retorts.

Chu Yunxiu slips into the seat next to Su Mucheng as the birthday twins bicker. Su Mucheng has a fond look on her face, and Chu Yunxiu suspects she looks the same; it’s good to see Ye Xiu having fun, and she thinks that Ye Qiu has had even fewer opportunities to relax and just be a person.

It’s a lovely evening, but Chu Yunxiu likes it best when Ye Qiu and Su Mucheng go off together to wherever they’re staying—Chu Yunxiu couldn’t quite figure out if it was a hotel or some currently-unused company apartment Ye Qiu was appropriating for the night—and leave her alone with Ye Xiu in his own condo.

She leans into Ye Xiu and murmurs, “Any other birthday wishes?”

Ye Xiu laughs softly and kisses her forehead. “Run a dungeon with me?”

“How many people will I need to share you with?” Chu Yunxiu asks as she boots up the extra computer Ye Xiu keeps around for this exact purpose. It’s easy to imagine all of Happy keeping an eye out for Ye Xiu, even on his alts.

He shrugs, flipping through his account cards. “Do you want to go fast?”

“Not really.” Chu Yunxiu takes out her own alt, Singing Sunrise, and loads into the Heavenly Domain. “It’s just nice getting to do this with you.” Sullen Kitten sends her a party request, and Chu Yunxiu rolls her eyes. “You didn’t need to accept Happy’s parting gift,” she mutters, as always. They’d given him every single provocatively-named alt he’d played as Happy had gotten itself set up. The ones with more reasonable names, they’d kept.

“I like them,” Ye Xiu says absently. “How about Sunken Maze?”

Chu Yunxiu hums agreement. It’s a Level 65 dungeon meant for 5 players. It won’t be too much of a challenge for the two of them on level 75 characters. It’s also a lovely map, full of hidden nooks and crannies that are designed to lead new players astray unless they have a map or guide. Chu Yunxiu and Ye Xiu might not have all the in-game dungeons memorized the way guild leaders do, but they know the most common tricks.

Plus, it’s not like they’re going for records.

Between the third and fourth bosses, they rest in a grotto lit by luminescent moss, their characters recovering HP and mana via potions. Chu Yunxiu takes advantage of the break to stretch, then reaches over and pokes Ye Xiu’s leg with her toes. “Hey, Ye Xiu, are preparations ready?”

“For the boss? No, we’re—” Ye Xiu stops, visibly catching himself, and then shakes his head as he remembers what she’s referring to. “Yes. I think I’ve even kept it secret from my family, though I’m pretty sure Mucheng suspects.”

Chu Yunxiu rolls her eyes. Su Mucheng knows everything. She blames it on a childhood spent keeping an eye on her brothers, but Chu Yunxiu knows Su Mucheng also just likes gossip. “Mucheng won’t spoil the surprise.”

“You need to sell the act too.” Ye Xiu’s laughing tone is at odds with the serious look on his face. “Nobody will believe it if you don’t seem surprised.”

“I promise you,” Chu Yunxiu says, “this is going to be the last thing on my mind the day we lose.”

Ye Xiu leans over, abandoning his computer entirely to hug her. “Hey,” he whispers into her ear, “don’t sell yourselves short. Misty Rain could get an upset victory.”

Chu Yunxiu leans into Ye Xiu’s grasp, her face falling into his shoulder. Smoke doesn’t cling to either of them as strongly this year; she’s mostly a social smoker, and Ye Xiu smoked because he was stressed. He’s weaning himself off cigarettes, slowly but surely, and Chu Yunxiu has found herself doing the same. It means she can catch the scent of his soap underneath tobacco’s bitterness, something soft and floral and soothing.

“We could,” she acknowledges. “But Lu Hanwen’s come into himself and they’re very good at harrying our gunners.”

A brush of lips across her forehead, and Ye Xiu murmurs, “Think about it later. Tonight’s for us, not for playoff anxiety.”

Chu Yunxiu lets herself be distracted by the challenge of grinding down the last two bosses, one after the other in quick succession. Managing mana, keeping out of range of attacks, coordinating with Ye Xiu to ensure that they can take advantage of status effects—it’s all familiar, easy as running, but the more obstacles there are the more focus it takes.

When they exit the dungeon, Chu Yunxiu logs out. It’s late, and she can’t afford to stay up in the lead-up to the playoffs.

Ye Xiu follows her lead in getting ready for bed. It’s peaceful. Domestic. Something Chu Yunxiu doesn’t remember reading about in romance novels or seeing often in shows. There, relationships are defined by the brilliant highs and the dramatic lows of the plot. Little moments of time shared together, not talking but simply existing in each other’s space, aren’t notable except for when they’re disrupted.

They’re Chu Yunxiu’s favorite part of being with Ye Xiu. She likes being comfortable with him and knowing how they can move around each other without worry. In the morning, they’ll wake up to his alarm, and he’ll throw together some breakfast while she brushes out her hair and ties it up again. There’s a routine now, and Chu Yunxiu marvels at it as much as she’s grateful for it.

“I like this,” she mumbles, half-asleep.

Ye Xiu’s arms tighten around her. “I do too,” he says, the words pressed into her shoulder. “I’m glad we’re planning on staying together.”

Chu Yunxiu takes his hand and laces their fingers together. It’s not the most comfortable position. They fall asleep like that anyway, tangled together and content.

By noon the next day, Chu Yunxiu’s stressed about the playoffs again, but she has the memory of that contentment to soothe her when she needs it. Shu Keyi wants to try plotting a counter-ambush against Blue Rain, which would be great if it works but Chu Yunxiu doesn’t think it will. Chu Yunxiu takes a breath, looks at the determination in the twins’ eyes, and says, “Walk me through how you think you’ll get a counter-ambush past not just Yu Wenzhou but Huang Shaotian.”

They can’t. Shu Keyi hisses in thwarted ambition. Shu Kexin frowns and says, “Are we simply assuming that we will be ambushed?”

“It’s usually part of Blue Rain’s strategies.” Chu Yunxiu raises her eyebrows in question. “We may as well plan for it.”

“Then…” Shu Kexin glances at her sister. “You’re going to hate this idea, jie, but what if neither of us appear in the starting lineup?”

Shu Keyi narrows her eyes but doesn’t argue. Chu Yunxiu watches the wheels turn in her head as personal ambition wars with the desire for Misty Rain to win. Finally, Shu Keyi leans back in her chair and says, “Bai Qi isn’t going to like facing Yu Wenzhou.”

“He’s done it before,” Chu Yunxiu says mildly. “It’s a good idea. If you’re okay with it, tell me which of you will take the sixth player position, and we’ll work out the rest.”

Bai Qi and Sun Liang are delighted to be given starring roles on the playoffs stage. Li Hua thinks it’s hilarious that their team’s version of tricking Blue Rain is reverting to strategies they haven’t practiced for two and a half years. Feng Xiangming takes it all in stride, binding them all together with his healing support.

Guangzhou in summer—which it absolutely is, at the start of June—is hot and sticky. Chu Yunxiu is grateful every time she steps into air-conditioned rooms, their chill a shock to the system that grounds her in the moment. They’re in the playoffs. They aren’t the most anticipated match-up, but Chu Yunxiu doesn’t care about that; she just wants Misty Rain to give a good showing.

“It’s all rain and no thunder,” the commentators joke, a familiar warm-up any time Misty Rain and Blue Rain face each other. “Who will wash the other away?”

The group match is unsurprisingly inconclusive. Blue Rain might be higher ranked, but much of the difference is eliminated on an individual stage. Misty Rain’s team composition might be weaker, and their tactics less incisive, but that doesn’t mean their players aren’t strong. Chu Yunxiu anchors her team, blows away Zheng Xuan, and then falls to Huang Shaotian’s quick blade.

“You’ll need to watch my sword more carefully in the team match,” Huang Shaotian taunts as they return to their teams for the short break.

Chu Yunxiu glances at the cameras. Then she flips her hair back, using its fall to hide the brief flash of a rude gesture that leaves Huang Shaotian cackling madly.

The team match goes about as well as expected. Chu Yunxiu can feel the way Yu Wenzhou reevaluates his plans when he finds a Striker and a Warlock and no Sharpshooters at all. She grins sharply, though nobody can see her, and says, “First assault.”

It’s fun to see her team surge towards Blue Rain. Their opponents scatter, but whatever formation they’d been in is now disrupted, and Misty Rain takes advantage of that pause to do as much damage as they can. They don’t quite down anyone, and Blue Rain is always quick to find their feet again, but it makes the match more even than it would otherwise be.

Misty Rain loses, but they take half of Blue Rain out with them.

The media interviews focus on their plans and the lack of the Shu twins in the opening lineup. Chu Yunxiu nods at Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin, says, “It was their idea,” and lets the pair of them field everything else. Yes, they wanted to trick Blue Rain. No, they don’t feel bad about being left off the field. No, this wouldn’t have worked if they’d been fielded. Yes, they love playing Glory—but this is a team game, and their team winning means they’re winning too.

“They’re growing up,” Yu Wenzhou comments as they pass in the halls. He smiles at her. “See you in Suzhou!”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Chu Yunxiu replies, and leads her team back into the warm Guangzhou air for their post-match dinner and debrief.

The next match is make-or-break for their time in the playoffs, and Chu Yunxiu throws everything she has into it. “He’ll have two plans this time,” she tells her team. “One for our standard lineup and one for whatever trick he thinks we might pull next. I don’t think we need to be fancy this time; let’s play our best and make our fans proud.”

It always feels special to walk into a stadium filled with people cheering just for you. As Chu Yunxiu leads her team into their home match against Blue Rain, she blows kisses to Misty Rain’s fans. They scream even more loudly at the attention, a wave of noise that drowns out anything Blue Rain’s away fans can manage. The stands are a sea of jade interspersed with blue; the colors of the ocean despite both teams being named for water falling from the sky.

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t let herself think about anything but the match in front of her. Denying Blue Rain their favored complex individual maps in favor of simpler terrain Misty Rain’s long-range members can use to their advantage. Sending spells at her opponent. Gathering her team between group and team rounds to review their plans one last time.

Then there’s nothing but the final fight for survival. Misty Rain plays elegantly and fiercely, accepting their limits and showing their best teamwork. The Shu twins dance across the map, Chu Yunxiu holds steady, and Li Hua weaves around Blue Rain. Huang Shaotian is his shining mirror, blade flickering out to disrupt Misty Rain as if he’s an Assassin and not a Blade Master. Chu Yunxiu grinds her teeth, but can’t do anything about it; she’s too busy attempting to counter Yu Wenzhou.

When it’s over, Chu Yunxiu closes her eyes for a moment. She’s disappointed, of course—nobody wants to lose—but she’s satisfied with her team’s performance.

On stage, the teams shake hands. Chu Yunxiu raises her hands to the stadium, hears them roar in response, and calls, “See you next year.”

Then she turns to leave the stage and halts.

Ye Xiu is standing there, just off-stage, grinning at her. He’s dressed nicely, his hair combed and laying almost-flat for once. Chu Yunxiu squints at him, brain still consumed with Glory, and then he’s bouncing onto stage very cheerfully while saying, “Sorry to interrupt your victory, Wenzhou, but I have something important to do.”

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t hear Yu Wenzhou’s response—or Huang Shaotian’s, which implies that Yu Wenzhou has covered his mouth—because Ye Xiu’s kneeling in front of her. “Oh,” she says, as her memory of all their plans crash back into her. “Ye Xiu, I—”

“Shh.” He smiles, more softly now. Chu Yunxiu sees the mic on his collar, and wonders how many people he had to bribe for this. Ye Xiu raises his voice. “Yunxiu, my dear, I can’t give you a championship, but I can give you something more valuable.” He raises his hands. Chu Yunxiu sees a ring shining in his fingers, a little worn but clean, with Champion engraved upon it. “I can give you my heart, and my pledge. Yunxiu, would you make me the happiest man in the world and agree to marry me?”

Chu Yunxiu’s hands fly to her face as the whole stadium explodes into noise. There’s no team division now, just wild celebration as Chu Yunxiu drops to her knees, leans towards Ye Xiu like she’s going to kiss him—it’s for the mic, really, and the drama of the image—and says, “Yes.”

Ye Xiu takes her hand. As they stand, he slips the Season One Championship ring onto her finger. It fits perfectly. He had it resized, she knows, but it’s still dizzying to feel the smooth metal against her skin and know that they can’t back out now. Chu Yunxiu leans into Ye Xiu, nods a little at his questioning look, and holds on tight as Ye Xiu sweeps her off her feet into a dramatic dip.

They kiss. It’s how the play goes, how the story is told, and if they want the drama of a publicly-broadcast proposal they’re going to commit to the show.

When they break apart, Ye Xiu turns off his mic and murmurs, “And that is going to be the only thing anyone talks about for the rest of the weekend.”

Chu Yunxiu laughs, delighted and overwhelmed, and keeps his hand in hers as she turns to her team and says, “I will not be going to the post-match interview, thanks.”

Shu Keyi shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “Congrats, Captain. Is there any message you want us to convey for you?”

“No. I trust your public relations skills.” Chu Yunxiu glances up at Ye Xiu. “Thoughts?”

“Stonewall them into talking about Glory,” he says, smirking. “They’ll hate it but they won’t be able to say they hate it since they should be here for Glory anyway.”

Misty Rain laughs, and Chu Yunxiu leads them backstage. She collects her things, promises everyone she’ll see them tomorrow, and lets Ye Xiu spirit her away.

After all, it’s fun to have a storybook romance sometimes.

Chapter Text

Chu Yunxiu ignores most of the alerts flooding her phone. They’re all variations of the same two ideas, anyway—“What a surprise!” and “Congratulations!”—except for the Misty Rain PR department’s demands for a statement and the media contacts she’s made doing the same. Chu Yunxiu sighs and leans against Ye Xiu in the back seat of the fancy taxi—chartered car, whatever—they’re taking back to his Shanghai condo.

A few years ago, Chu Yunxiu would have loved this chaos and encouraged it with delight. Now, she’s just exhausted thinking about all the messages she needs to respond to. She’ll probably post a Weibo update thanking everyone and leave it there, though she’ll need to phrase it carefully to avoid getting too many salacious comments.

The only call Chu Yunxiu picks up is the one from her mother.

“Hi, Mama,” she says, and then there’s no space for her to say anything else. Chu Yunxiu makes noises of agreement and understanding into her phone, rolls her eyes at Ye Xiu, and mouths Your twin is going to be just as bad at him.

Ye Xiu’s unrestrained laughter penetrates her mother’s tirade about how Chu Yunxiu should have warned her that they were thinking about marriage. Mama stops abruptly. “Is that him?” she demands. “Hand me over.”

“She wants to talk to you,” Chu Yunxiu says, offering her phone to Ye Xiu.

He takes it gingerly. “Yes, this is Ye Xiu.” He blinks, then moves the phone’s speaker a little further from his ear; Chu Yunxiu can hear her mother’s voice. “Yes, I planned it ahead of time. Yes, we’d discussed marriage beforehand. No, nobody forced her into anything.” Ye Xiu makes a face at needing to confirm that. Chu Yunxiu watches, entertained by seeing him deal with her mother’s worries; she’s a good person, but very loud in her distress. “I’ll make sure my mother contacts you about wedding plans,” he says at last. Then, very quickly, “I’ll give you back to Yunxiu now.”

“Coward,” Chu Yunxiu mutters in the moment before she takes the phone. “Mama, we’re going to arrive at Ye Xiu’s home soon. Is there anything else urgent?” She modulates her voice to soft pleading. “I’d like to enjoy having an evening with my boy—” Chu Yunxiu intentionally pauses and giggles. “With my fiance,” she breathes, infusing her voice with wonder worthy of any movie.

It does the trick. Her mother spends another minute enveloping her with well-wishes, and then hangs up.

Ye Xiu outright cackles as soon as Chu Yunxiu sets down her phone. Serenely, she turns it off. “How much further is this drive?”

“Fifteen minutes?” He shakes his head with another laugh, and Chu Yunxiu can’t help joining in. Ye Xiu’s joy is infectious. “You’re fantastic, Yunxiu.”

“You’re pretty amazing yourself.” Chu Yunxiu flops back against Ye Xiu. He kisses the crown of her head, and she closes her eyes. “What ridiculous TV drama do you want to watch when we get home?”

He doesn’t answer for a moment, and Chu Yunxiu retraces her words. She hadn’t thought anything of it when she spoke, but Ye Xiu’s condo is her home, just as much as Misty Rain is. Chu Yunxiu squeezes Ye Xiu’s hand. “It is, you know. Home.”

“I’m glad,” Ye Xiu murmurs, voice heavy with emotion. Then, more lightly, “Pick any proposal episode; I want to rank how I did compared to the shows.”

In terms of media response, Ye Xiu doesn’t lose out.

Their engagement takes over eSports news for a solid day, and fills much of their next few weeks with periodic interviews. Chu Yunxiu drags Ye Xiu along with her to one, simply to get it over with. He calls it “a less thorough grilling than the one my parents inflicted upon me,” which isn’t saying much; Chu Yunxiu only heard some of that phone call, but she knows it lasted over an hour and included many questions about why that stage had been the appropriate place for a public proposal.

Tyranny beating Happy and challenging Samsara for the Season 11 Championship diverts Glory fans from them, at least.

Chu Yunxiu goes to watch the finals, bringing Ye Xiu with her, and they sit in the section of the stands reserved for the pros. The game is incredible. Tyranny follows Zhang Xinjie’s lead into carefully and precisely informing everyone once more that Han Wenqing and Zhang Jiale, the two oldest players still active in the GPA, are still powerhouses to be contended with.

Ye Xiu watches with longing clear on his face. He’s also the first to say, “Tyranny’s done it.” It takes the rest of them half a minute to catch on, and the commentators another minute to see how Zhang Xinjie’s deliberate shotcalling has led Samsara into playing at his pace. From there, it’s just a matter of time, and Zhang Xinjie’s patience is the immovable rock his account is named for.

Tyranny wins. Nobody can avoid being moved by the way Zhang Jiale takes the championship trophy, tears streaming down his face as Han Wenqing raises it above their heads with a victorious roar.

Ye Xiu’s on his feet, eyes fixed on his greatest rival’s, fist raised in salute.

He’s not the only person standing and cheering, of course, but the silent tension in Ye Xiu’s body—the understanding, the single-minded familiarity—is his alone. Chu Yunxiu thinks Han Wenqing meets Ye Xiu’s gaze, his lips curving into a different smile for a moment. She isn’t sure how they find each other across such a distance; maybe it’s the years playing against each other, their tacit understanding growing through pushing each other to be better as surely as if they were teammates.

The flurry of media retrospectives Tyranny’s victory inspires about Han Wenqing’s career transitions seamlessly into coverage of his retirement. Zhang Xinjie becomes Tyranny’s captain, Song Qiying standing at his side as vice-captain.

In the wake of that announcement, Misty Rain’s press conference about Shu Keyi taking the mantle of captaincy from Chu Yunxiu causes mere ripples upon the media pools. Chu Yunxiu doesn’t mind. Their team’s fans pay attention, and that’s all that matters.

Everyone takes it well. That’s helped by Chu Yunxiu confirming that she’s staying on as vice-captain, and Li Hua saying he’s planning on staying with the team as well. Misty Rain’s new leadership configuration will allow them more flexibility in the players they field, and they’ll begin rotating in some new promising rookies. Chu Yunxiu’s looking forward to it, and that energy comes through in the interviews.

In the middle of Misty Rain’s reorganization, Chu Yunxiu takes the summer off for the first time in years. She’s deeply grateful that the Glory Worlds Invitational is only happening every other year, so that they don’t need to spend all summer pushing themselves yet higher. Rest, as Chu Yunxiu constantly reminds her rookies, is just as important as practice.

It’s a good break, once she settles in from spending the first week moving and the rest of that month adjusting to living with Ye Xiu full-time.

The rhythm of his days, working half-remote and half in-person, are simple to pick up. The experience of consistently sleeping in the same bed as someone else is comforting and easier to become habituated to than Chu Yunxiu had feared. The domestic comfort of curling up in the evening, watching dramas and talking or working side-by-side on computers or simply wandering through Glory on anonymous alts, is grounding.

Summer has always been a time to breathe, relax, and center herself between seasons. Even now, with the team’s structure changing, that’s true.

Chu Yunxiu talks with Shu Keyi more days than not, and Shu Kexin’s present for about half those conversations; Chu Yunxiu’s pretty sure that next year, the Shu twins will have both leadership positions, and she’s looking forward to it. Li Hua texts her a few times a week with pictures of his family’s cats or idle contemplation of how much more free time he’ll have during the season now that he’s not the vice-captain. Other members of Misty Rain’s team and guild send her little messages every now and then, a network of connections Chu Yunxiu has cultivated and feels wrapping around her and holding her warmly through this time of transitions.

People stop by to visit them over the summer. Su Mucheng, with various Happy members in tow, is the most frequent. Han Wenqing comes by once, and Chu Yunxiu spends that day elsewhere, letting them catch up and reminisce and think about the future outside of Glory. Ye Qiu comes by often, muttering about wanting a break from parents who are starting to get on his case about not being in a relationship.

“And your not-a-thing with Su Mucheng?” Ye Xiu asks, halfway through summer, and Chu Yunxiu watches, fascinated, as Ye Qiu dissolves from a put-together young businessman into a blushing, stuttering mess.

She asks Su Mucheng about it later, and Su Mucheng leans across the cafe table with a smile. “He’s fun,” she says, twirling her hair around her fingers. “Once you get past the snob act, anyway, and I like teasing him into losing his cool.”

Chu Yunxiu laughs. She understands that. Especially in the early days, Ye Xiu had been so withdrawn and isolated that all she’d wanted was to remind him that he was human too, not just a machine that played Glory. Learning that his twin is the same, but about a different subject, isn’t a surprise at all.

By now, Ye Xiu doesn’t need that reminder. He has friends from Glory, friends from work, and free time to spend as he chooses. He keeps up to date on more dramas than she does, during the depths of the season, and lords that knowledge over her. Chu Yunxiu returns that favor with a will, binging dramas while Ye Xiu is working and then telling him the juiciest tidbits when he returns in the evening.

Autumn beckons, but summer is warm with this new expansion of what their relationship is and means.

Ye Xiu even fields most of the parental questions about what they want their wedding to be like, for which Chu Yunxiu is grateful. “Like a fairytale,” is about all the thought she’s put into it, but Chu Yunxiu doesn’t know what that would look like in practice. Ye Xiu’s parents have money to throw at the ceremony, and Chu Yunxiu’s parents are happy to be given leave to meddle in their precious daughter’s affairs one last time.

The date is set for next summer, and then Chu Yunxiu proceeds to ignore everything else about the wedding planning because the GPA is gearing up for Season 12.

Teams shifted throughout the summer, players transferring or retiring, and Chu Yunxiu kept up with the news. Now, as August looms, the players all return to their headquarters. Chu Yunxiu promises Ye Xiu that she’ll figure out at least one night a week she can spend with him, and then returns to Suzhou and the rooms that still feel like home but in a different way.

Shu Keyi meets her at the doors. “Vice-captain Chu,” she says, reaching out like it’s their first meeting.

Chu Yunxiu shakes her hand. They both know she’s only vice-captain to ensure the fans understand and support this transferral of power; Shu Kexin will be vice-captain in all but name. “Captain Shu,” she replies, a smile growing on her face. “Ready?”

“Always,” Shu Keyi says, and leads her inside.

Season 12 feels completely different from any other year she’s played in the GPA. Chu Yunxiu is no longer in charge, but the Shu twins still look to her for advice. Chu Yunxiu is a core member of the team, but she’s no longer always in the starting lineup. Chu Yunxiu commands everyone’s respect by her seniority, but is happy to see Shu Keyi take charge.

Charge really is the right word, Chu Yunxiu realises as Misty Rain’s new strategies take shape. Just as she’d known they would, the Shu twins favor a more straightforward and aggressive style than Chu Yunxiu herself. The underhanded tactics of ambush and surprise she and Li Hua had crafted dissolve into the background as the Shu twins begin building towards a combination of range and control that Chu Yunxiu can see making Misty Rain a powerhouse in its own right.

Bai Qi’s Warlock takes the field more often, and the twins discuss adding a Ghostblade or Knight to their main roster for additional control and short-range options. Li Hua and Chu Yunxiu dominate the one-on-one matches but slowly stop appearing so often in the team matches.

Chu Yunxiu knows that everyone sees her change to vice-captain as a stepping stone towards her retirement. She feels the same in her fingers and her heart; Windy Rain might be emblematic of Misty Rain, but Chu Yunxiu is no longer the face of the team. Chu Yunxiu wants to stay for Season 13, just to say she played for a whole decade, but she expects to spend that year preparing a rookie to take over Misty Rain.

She has her eye on a pair of trainees already, and spends some of her free time down at Misty Rain’s training camp taking their measure. Next summer, Chu Yunxiu will bring Shu Keyi and Shu Kexin over and have them play a few rounds with the trainees to decide which will be a better fit for their style, but that’s still months away. For now, Chu Yunxiu guides both trainees into improving their skills, determined to ensure that even the one who transfers to another team—Elementalists are always in demand—will fondly remember their roots in Misty Rain.

Ye Xiu shows up for all their home matches, and a few of their away matches as well. The only times he formally abstains from supporting Chu Yunxiu’s team are when they face Happy, as Ye Xiu can’t uproot his loyalties from the team he built; or the new Excellent Era, where nostalgia and pride color Ye Xiu’s feelings too deeply. Chu Yunxiu understands. When Qiu Fei lays an exquisite trap for Shu Keyi or Su Mucheng’s range blasts a hole in Misty Rain’s formation, she’s mad on her successor’s behalf but delighted that Ye Xiu’s disciples learned his lessons so well.

By the Spring Festival, Misty Rain has fully settled into its new shape, and Chu Yunxiu is proud of them. She’s also happy to take half the week off and go to Beijing with Ye Xiu for his family’s party, which there’s no way to avoid this year.

“Prepare for Grandmother and every auntie to coo over you,” Ye Xiu says with a sigh. “I’m the oldest of my generation of cousins, and Ye Qiu has happily returned every bit of the expectations that entails to me.”

Chu Yunxiu doesn’t mind as much as Ye Xiu does. These aren’t her blood relatives; she didn’t grow up seeing them all the time and feeling the future narrow into only what they wanted for her. Ye Xiu is doing better now than when he first retired; he’s taken the detail-oriented personal attention that made him a God-level captain in Glory and turned it towards hand-picking subordinates who run the family company for him. His family has nothing but praise for how much he’s done.

They also have an endless array of questions for Chu Yunxiu. What her childhood was like, what her favorite foods and colors are, her parents’s jobs, what her plans are for once she’s married—

The food is spectacular, at least. Ye Xiu steals her away whenever either of them starts getting snippy, and they hide in a corner playing on their phones and not talking to each other until they’re summoned back into the fray.

Ye Xiu’s mother spends a whole morning sitting Chu Yunxiu down in front of an annotated list of wedding preparations and demands that Chu Yunxiu have opinions. It’s surreal, but sort of fun. Ye Xiu is forbidden from interfering because “He doesn’t have an ounce of style in his body,” but Ye Xiu’s mother approves of Chu Yunxiu’s choices once she learns that Chu Yunxiu isn’t choosing simpler pieces for fear of asking Ye Xiu’s family to spend too much money.

“He always has been a simple soul,” Ye Xiu’s mother says fondly, patting Chu Yunxiu’s shoulder. “You’re right; if it’s too glamorous, Ye Xiu will run away again.”

Chu Yunxiu laughs, as she’s meant to, and doesn’t mention that it’s for her sake as much as Ye Xiu’s. A fairytale wedding, yes, full of flowers and light, but she doesn’t need everything gilded or made out of the finest silk.

Returning to Misty Rain is a relief. Chu Yunxiu easily slips back into thinking about tactics and the tricks other teams are likely to pull, and spends her free time with friends or watching dramas or seeing Ye Xiu in the quiet privacy of their home. It’s a good life, and Chu Yunxiu is happy to have it.

Even the rising tension as they reach the late season and it becomes clear that Misty Rain will once more need to fight for their place in the playoffs can’t stifle Chu Yunxiu’s good mood. She plays at the top of her game, anchoring Misty Rain’s group arena and bringing them needed points more often than not. She knows better than to promise victory, but she can feel Misty Rain pulling together and knows that they have a shot at reaching the semi-finals this year.

Their last match before the playoffs is against Wind Howl, because somehow it’s always Wind Howl. Chu Yunxiu knows their fans have an ongoing rivalry at this point, but she can’t find it in herself to be mad at Wind Howl anymore. Tang Hao kicked Liu Hao out last summer, after he failed to join in Tang Hao’s teamwork initiative, in the clearest sign of how much Tang Hao has grown since he first took the captaincy. She’s happy to face him again, especially with Shu Keyi leading Misty Rain.

Chu Yunxiu thinks it’s a fascinating match from a tactical perspective. Shu Keyi and Tang Hao have very similar styles, in that they’re both fairly straightforward people with a preference for aggression. Their classes, and thus the composition of the teams following them, define their differences: Tang Hao’s melee skills means he tends towards driving rushes, while Shu Keyi’s range means she thinks about terrain and kiting.

They both try to outflank each other in the team match, and the match then hinges—as it always would—on distance. Wind Howl closes distance, and Misty Rain takes it again, and their control characters attempt to restrain the other team at their preferred range.

It’s a close match, high-level and nasty, and Chu Yunxiu isn’t in it.

Wind Howl wins the team match, but Misty Rain ekes out a perfect tie on points.

Then it’s the playoffs, with Misty Rain’s teeth bared against Thunderclap. They drag it out to a third match, the Shu twins’ tenacity proving very effective against Xiao Shiqin’s careful plans, but all the willpower in the world can’t help once Xiao Shiqin ensnares them in a perfect trap. Chu Yunxiu is on the field for this one, but she sees it coming too late to warn Shu Keyi or break it herself.

They lose, but it’s a good fight, and Chu Yunxiu wishes Xiao Shiqin the best on his eternal quest for Glory. “Maybe this is the year,” Xiao Shiqin says, looking at the standings. Tiny Herb is his next opponent, Gao Yingjie finally showing the world that he can lead the powerful team in his own right while Wang Jiexi’s Magician devastates opponents in the group arena.

Chu Yunxiu wants all of her friends and their up-and-coming heirs to do well, but this is Glory, and there can only be one team standing victorious in the end: Happy proves that their first-year victory wasn’t a fluke, and that they don’t need Ye Xiu to make them champions.

Then it’s summer.

Shu Kexin formally takes the role of vice-captain from Chu Yunxiu. Nobody’s surprised, and Misty Rain’s fans are happy to see their beloved twins standing together on the stage when the announcement is made.

Chu Yunxiu brings the twins to the training camp to meet the Elementalists she’s recommending, and stands by as their playstyles and personalities are evaluated. Two weeks later, she and Shu Keyi return to give Yuan Xingxing the good news: the young Elementalist will be joining Misty Rain as a substitute, with an eye towards joining the main roster next year.

Shu Keyi takes charge of acclimating Yuan Xingxing to Misty Rain, and Chu Yunxiu takes her leave.

The rest of Glory is focused on the World Invitational. The teams have just been announced—Chu Yunxiu had preemptively declined this year—and everyone is gathering for pre-Worlds training and scrambling to make hosting preparations for all the visiting teams. China, as the winning country last time, has the responsibility for leading this year’s event.

But that’s not the most important event of Chu Yunxiu’s summer, as much as part of her misses the energy and adrenaline, the give and take and long debates about tactics and skill. It’s a glory all of its own, and Chu Yunxiu is glad she had the experience. But this year, the final preparations for the wedding are underway, and Chu Yunxiu wants to be involved.

She and Ye Xiu barely get to be alone with each other during the lead-up to their wedding. Their families are in high spirits, insisting on final fittings for their outfits, the tiniest alterations to the food being served, barely noticeable changes to the venue’s decorations—Chu Yunxiu is just glad that she only needs to say “Yes, Mama, that sounds good” and not have any opinions of her own.

What time they share is spent quiet and exhausted, leaning against each other for the comfort of human contact that doesn’t ask anything of them other than simple presence.

Still, when Chu Yunxiu walks into the hall on her wedding day, everything decked out in red and gold, it’s all she can do not to cry.

When Ye Xiu slips his championship ring onto her finger and raises her veil for their first kiss as a married couple, Chu Yunxiu gives up. She’s going to cry, and that’s okay; this is everything she ever wanted as a child and never thought she would have:

Glory, a husband who loves her the same way she loves him, and their friends and family all around them.

On their daughter’s thirteenth birthday, Chu Yunxiu turns to Ye Xiu and says, “She really is your child.” Ye Zixia has disappeared into her VR gear, the one thing she’d asked for as a gift. It’s for Stellar Vanguard, of course; the game had entered the market explosively, and their daughter had been obsessed with it ever since she’d first played it at a sleepover.

Ye Xiu snorts. “Which of us decided that retiring from Glory meant becoming an eSports analyst and commentator?” His eyes are fixed on the POV projection and its HUD, tracking Ye Zixia’s progress just as Chu Yunxiu herself is doing. “She gets it from both of us, my dear.”

“How long do you think it’ll be until there’s a league?” Stellar Vanguard has a single-player campaign mode, which is what their daughter is currently working through, but the hype is about the multiplayer CTF and assault maps.

“By the end of the year.” Ye Xiu nudges her with his elbow. “Are you thinking of getting in on the ground floor?”

“Zixia is heading there.” Chu Yunxiu grins as a mission victory screen comes up and Ye Zixia lets out a crow of success. “It’s not too hard to join in.”

“She’s going to be so embarrassed.”

“She’s allowed.” Teenagers are like that, if they aren’t too prideful for their own good. Chu Yunxiu pauses, then adds, “I wouldn’t interview her team without asking first.”

Ye Xiu shakes his head, laughing. “You’re going to be the terrors of their eSports scene.”

“Good.” Chu Yunxiu curls up against Ye Xiu, comfortable and content. It’s been fifteen years since they married, and she’s very pleased with how their lives have gone. “She’s the child of two gods. Let her build her own legacy.”

The future looks gloriously bright.