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Fang Rui had always known that he’d have a hard time transferring teams. He’d been a core member of Wind Howl for so long that adjusting to a new rhythm and a new role was definitely going to be an uphill battle. In theory, joining Team Happy didn’t feel much more difficult than joining any of the other teams who’d offered him contracts. However, in practice, moving to a brand new team on top of switching to a different class was a special kind of struggle. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that his time with Happy so far felt like he’d been running a set of consecutive marathons at the pace of a sprint.
But now, for better or for worse, the first major break in the Glory Professional League’s tenth season had finally arrived. For the first time since he transferred, Fang Rui finally had the time to really sit down and think about the twists and turns his life had taken. And, because of this, all the doubts he’d been putting off were crowding back into his brain, refusing to be set aside now that there was no fire lit directly under his ass.
Fang Rui knew that his team had noticed his worsening mood — he may have gotten away with stewing in his own maudlin thoughts at the tail end of his stay in Wind Howl, but Happy was way too small and close-knit for that. Unfortunately, all the guilt he felt from worrying his teammates only fed back into his uncertainty, so he’d found himself in a slowly growing spiral of negativity.
He tried his best to shake it off. He attended all the practices and team activities, whether they were mandatory or not. He bugged Lin Jingyan constantly . He’d even taken to goading his younger teammates into all sorts of shenanigans, much to their boss’ dismay. But none of that was enough.
The thing was, Fang Rui knew that leaving Wind Howl was the best choice for him, and he also knew that Team Happy was a great team that did have the potential to win and make history. Happy had so many things going for it: staunch idealism, a drive to succeed, lots of grit to go around, and treasure troves of potential just waiting to be unlocked. He would never have moved here otherwise.
However, knowing was one thing, but really believing , really feeling it in your bones, was an entirely different matter. Fang Rui was definitely struggling with the latter these days. So, when Wei Chen complained about his knees hurting for what felt like the millionth time that week, and Chen Guo responded by proposing semi-weekly morning callisthenics for the team, Fang Rui couldn’t help rolling his eyes and letting his mouth run unfiltered.
“We really are a retirement home, huh?” Fang Rui muttered snidely. He saw Wei Chen beginning to bristle after his comment, but before a fight could break out, Chen Guo completely barreled through all the tension.
“Yes, and I’ll always make sure it’s the best one there is!” Chen Guo said cheerfully, “With all the young, energetic, and beautiful staff you could ever dream of, on top of consistent interactive activities to make sure your bodies and brains don’t atrophy in your old age!”
Wei Chen laughed one of his deep, slightly obnoxious, full-bellied laughs, and Fang Rui was so surprised by this turn of events that his bad mood was almost instantly chased away. Just like that, what would have probably been the biggest fight to ever happen within the team fizzled out into nothing.
Fang Rui’s mood stayed good the rest of the day. In fact, by the time he’d gone to bed, he’d realised that somehow, Chen Guo’s words had helped ease his doubts a bit. And because he didn’t exactly understand how it helped him, Fang Rui ended up thinking about the incident quite a bit over the next few days.
The thing was, after Ye Xiu had convinced Fang Rui about the viability of Team Happy as a championship team, Fang Rui had next focused his considerations on two things: his teammates, and the team’s playstyle. All pro-players knew how disastrous a mismatch in either of those could be; Fang Rui, in particular, felt the need to consider them more keenly, given that they were exactly the two reasons he needed to leave Wind Howl.
The idea of really taking the management team into consideration didn’t even occur to him. After all, in Fang Rui’s entire career before Happy, from his trainee days to his disastrous last season in Wind Howl, he’d been lucky enough to be part of clubs with no shortage of sense or funding. Management in those kinds of clubs tended to be efficient, well-oiled machines that faded into the background. They were usually well aware of their own unfamiliarity and lack of skill with Glory as a game, and were therefore happy to support the decisions and defer to the expertise of their top players.
Because of all this, Fang Rui had subconsciously relegated the thought of management teams — and therefore Chen Guo — to the back of his mind. It was only now that he was starting to see just how big of a role she played in Happy.
“The best retirement home” — this idea shouldn’t have comforted anyone in the room that day. And yet, somehow, coming from Chen Guo, it had reassured him.
After the incident with Wei Chen and Chen Guo, Fang Rui’s mood had started stabilising into a much better state. Still, he couldn’t seem to completely shake off his lingering doubts. It wasn’t until a snowy day in Qingdao, the day before All Stars Weekend, that Fang Rui finally found his peace.
“Let’s play in the snow!” Steamed Bun had shouted, as soon as they entered the apartment they’d rented for the weekend.
Wei Chen, the old southerner that he was, shuddered. “No way!”
Sounds of dismay echoed in the room, and the starry-eyed younger members turned as one to Chen Guo to convince her that team bonding in the snow was a must. Before anyone realised what was happening, they were being whisked away in hired cars to a park Qiao Yifan had found on an internet list of “best places for winter fun in Qingdao.”
There was a flurry of activity as the members of Team Happy climbed out of the cars and into the snow-covered park. Steamed Bun ran ahead, straight to the snow hill, and An Wenyi rushed after him to keep him out of trouble. Chen Guo, Ye Xiu, and Luo Ji followed at a more sedate pace, chatting casually with each other. Meanwhile, Qiao Yifan and Tang Rou politely but firmly herded the reluctant Wei Chen and Mo Fan onwards. Su Mucheng took up the rear, gently teasing Wei Chen for his hilarious overabundance of layers.
Fang Rui hung back a little. He was happy to tag along, but he was still feeling a little unsettled, and didn’t really want to dive right into the action. But it was very uncharacteristic of him to be so quiet, so it didn’t surprise him at all to see Su Mucheng start to hang back to check on him.
“Why are you lurking all alone?” Su Mucheng asked, elbowing him on the side. “So many opportunities to shove snow down people’s backs, and you’ve taken none of them!”
Fang Rui tilted his chin up and put on a dramatic, affronted expression. “ Excuse you , I am a responsible senior and would never set such a bad example as that.”
“Sure,” Su Mucheng answered pleasantly, smiling innocently all the while.
Fang Rui’s lips twitched and he let out a short laugh. There was really no winning against Su Mucheng.
“Really though, what’s eating you?” she asked, turning to face the rest of their teammates so she could give Fang Rui some space.
Fang Rui followed her gaze and absently watched their teammates playing in the snow, the younger kids ganging up on Ye Xiu to get him to ride sleds with them.
“Just a little bit confused about something the Boss said recently…”
Su Mucheng made a small noise of acknowledgement, leaving it to Fang Rui if he wanted to continue.
“I called the team a retirement home, and Boss just laughed and said she’d make sure it was the best one. And she didn’t even just say that to avoid a fight. She really was alright with me saying it,” Fang Rui said, confused. “It shouldn’t have been a good thing at all, but when she said that… it suddenly didn’t sound like a bad thing.”
The two watched their team in silence for a moment, before Su Mucheng hummed thoughtfully.
“Back when Ye Xiu had just retired, and we were still in the tenth server raising Lord Grim, Huang Shaotian said something to me,” she started. “I don’t remember why, but I remember him telling me that I was just the same as Ye Xiu, and had no future.”
Fang Rui blinked at her, confused.
“At that time, Ye Xiu had just been driven out, and I was still under contract with Excellent Era. Lord Grim’s development was still shaky, and we didn’t have any idea if there would be a team willing and able to accept both of us when the time came. Huang Shaotian didn’t mean anything by it, but what he said should have hurt me to the core.”
At this, Su Mucheng turned to face Fang Rui straight on.
“But somehow, when he said that, I felt relieved. Because when he said that, all I could hear was that I was the same as Ye Xiu. Someone had acknowledged that no matter what, our paths would never diverge. Ever since I was young, that was all I’d wanted. To stay together no matter what. So what should have been a horrible thing actually became the best thing anyone could have said to me.”
Fang Rui stared wide-eyed at Su Mucheng. When he started talking about his feelings, he had known Su Mucheng would listen and try to help, but he had never expected that she would share something so personal. In the Alliance, Su Mucheng and Ye Xiu had always stayed in their own little world, one slightly set apart and secret from the rest of the pros. And while it was true that Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng were much more open now than they ever were before, he’d still never expected to hear something this deep or raw from either of them.
“Hearing what Chen Guo said — I think it’s given you the same feeling that I had back then. Having an uncertain future is often seen as bad, but after Huang Shaotian reminded me that I would be with Ye Xiu no matter what, I came to realise that uncertainty was just the other side of ‘opportunity’. In this case… retirement means the end of one long road, but it also means the start of another. Chen Guo saying that she would make sure Happy would be the best retirement home… doesn’t that just mean that she’s determined to create a club that supports new beginnings?”
Fang Rui blinked, speechless. What Su Mucheng was saying made sense to him, and as she talked, he felt what was left of the tension he’d been holding loosen.
“The fact that you felt better when she said that — doesn’t that just mean you have faith in her, and her ability to support the team?”
“I suppose, yes,” Fang Rui answered.
Before now, Fang Rui had thought that Chen Guo had only become the club owner because she was in the right place at the right time. He’d even noted numerous times how much more authority Ye Xiu had over the team and even the guild. In his mind, it just so happened that Ye Xiu needed a new team for all the new ducklings he’d found and raised, and it also just so happened that Chen Guo was there, with enough material resources to help her idol’s dreams come true. He’d thought that Chen Guo was more or less replaceable by anyone else with enough money and passion for Glory.
But it wasn’t that simple.
In Team Happy, there were two retired pro players, a retired pianist, a retired security guard, a retired student, and a retired café employee. It also had three players who had retired their original professional classes in Glory. It really was a team that had more retirees than not — but retirement was not a permanent state. Instead, it was a transition. As Su Mucheng said: it was the end of one road, but the beginning of another.
Apart from Chen Guo, which aspiring owner would take a chance on this kind of team, even with Ye Xiu at its helm? The Glory Professional Alliance valued Glory, the game, and glory, the concept, only as much as they contributed to one thing: money. And money was not about heart, but about assurances. A team full of new beginnings was just a team full of risk. Teams looking to break into the GPA were full of members that wanted to take the next step of their lives, not a new step. To be honest, even the New Excellent Era was less ‘new’ and more ‘reborn’.
The fact of the matter was, Chen Guo was possibly the only club owner in the entirety of the Alliance that could truly be happy to support this new team filled with players that were taking their first steps in a brand new world.
In retrospect, despite Ye Xiu’s general aggravating demeanour, and his tendency to initially put people off left and right with his frankness and sneakiness, he was still very much the One and Only God of Glory. His level of expertise and versatility, on top of his friendships with many of the more powerful players in the Alliance, meant that if Ye Xiu really wanted to, he could have just gone up to any team of his choice and worked something out for himself and Su Mucheng. Despite that, he chose the much more difficult path of growing his own team filled with “newbies” and what many would consider “has-beens”.
As someone who had already bet on his idealism in the past and lost miserably, Ye Xiu’s decision to pursue this path could only mean that he had absolute faith in each and every member of his new team, especially his new management — after all, the deterioration of Excellent Era had started from there. He must have seen something in Chen Guo to make him so determined to go on this path.
Chen Guo was the part of Happy that would outlive the comings and goings of all the players, the one who would keep alive what the team and its founding members stood for. She had given every current member of Happy a new beginning, and it seemed like she would strive to continue to give new beginnings to others in the future, as long as they had the right drive and the right mindset for Glory.
Fang Rui finally felt settled. Team Happy was a gamble, but he now fully understood why he had chosen to take this leap. This was the first time in his entire career that Fang Rui felt what it was like to truly have faith in his entire club — not just specific teammates or even the entire team, but also in all of its machinery.
In perfect, serendipitous timing, Steamed Bun chose this moment to run over to his two seniors.
“Yifan’s convinced Wei Chen to go sledding with him!” Steamed Bun whisper-shouted.
“Did he use his guileless face and his big, pleading, doe eyes?” Su Mucheng asked, laughing.
Steamed Bun grinned. “Of course!”
“I’m so proud!” Su Mucheng said, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. “Are you coming to watch Wei Chen suffer, Fang Rui?”
Fang Rui smiled — a proper, huge, toothy smile, the likes of which no one had seen since the season started.
“Of course!” he said, then took off running. “Last one there is a loser!” he yelled, not even looking back to see if the other two were following.
Fang Rui was always going to have a future after Wind Howl, but he’d always thought that future would be relatively colourless compared to his first team. Happy, he was glad to note, was anything but that.
While it was true that Wind Howl was always going to be his first team, Fang Rui decided that Happy was going to be his last. This would be the team he grew old and retired as a pro player in, and the team that would send him off to whatever new road he’d go on, whenever that time came.
But he had years to go before then. For now, he was looking forward to creating a legacy of new beginnings.