William Harris was lost in thought for a moment. After a smile, he muttered to himself, “Even if I’m not in a hot-blooded manga, I’ve long since become a villain.”

“That’s right.” Edward Grant said, “As far as I remember, there have only been two times when the domestic esports trolls united in solidarity. The first was when William Harris led his team to transfer to Europe, and the second was when Henry Clark was sold twice within three months.”

“All the trolls on every forum worked together, making hype videos, photoshopping memorial pictures, spreading black nicknames everywhere... They almost pooled money to hire a hitman to go to Europe and ruin William Harris’s hands.”

Edward Grant quietly summed up, “The number one unifier of esports trolls: Whisper, William Harris.”

William Harris smiled, “That’s status.”

Evelyn glanced awkwardly at William Harris, not daring to join in the banter, and went back to queuing for games.

Chapter 6

A few days after Henry Clark and Evelyn duo-streamed, the forums were once again in chaos. Many old grudges were dug up and rehashed, with William Harris fans, Henry Clark fans, William Harris haters, and Henry Clark haters all mixed together in endless arguments.

During a training break, Henry Clark glanced at the forums. David Wright caught sight of Henry Clark’s computer screen and hurried over to stop him: “Of all the things you could do with your free time, why look at the forums? Are you trying to live longer or what?”

“I’m not afraid of trolls.” Henry Clark slowly scrolled through the page. “I’ve gotten used to facing the storm at the center of attention for so long.”

David Wright couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s a good attitude, I’ll give you that. Anyway, I have something to tell you.”

David Wright glanced at the others in the training room. Henry Clark understood, pushed away his keyboard, and got up to follow David Wright out of the room.

The two of them went to the meeting room next door. Henry Clark casually pulled over a chair and sat down, hands in his pockets, his long legs naturally propped up on the table. “Is it about streaming again? I’m not extending my hours. Thirty hours a month is my limit.”

David Wright leaned against the table and smiled helplessly, “Other teams have contracts for forty-five hours, even sixty hours.”

Henry Clark shook his head, “No way. You guys don’t want me to reveal tactics, so you let me just mess around in a few games during streams, but if I mess around too much, you’re afraid I’ll slack off and my skills will drop. You’re contradicting yourselves, and now you want me to stream more?”

David Wright knew he was in the wrong, and also knew Henry Clark wasn’t short on money. But in the club, aside from money, there wasn’t much else to offer, so he could only say, “Alright, at least don’t cram all thirty hours at the end of the month, okay?”

Henry Clark was absent-minded and nodded perfunctorily.

“And there’s one more thing I need to tell you.” David Wright pulled over a chair and sat down, his tone softening. “I see you’re already checking the forums yourself, so I guess you don’t care anymore. I’ll just say it, so you don’t get caught off guard later.”

Henry Clark frowned and looked at David Wright.

David Wright said slowly, “It’s about, you know, your former teammate, Ethan Wood...”

David Wright watched Henry Clark’s expression carefully and said, “He’s about to return to China.”

Henry Clark lifted his chin slightly. His expression didn’t change at all when he heard this, he just said, “Oh.”

David Wright was a bit surprised, “You’re not upset?”

Henry Clark replied calmly, “I expected it.”

David Wright laughed, “How did you guess?”

Henry Clark said indifferently, “Evelyn can’t keep his mouth shut. I chatted with him for a bit the other day, and I figured it all out.”

“Huh?” David Wright was confused, “You mean during Evelyn’s last stream, when you duo-queued with him?”

Henry Clark leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the meeting room ceiling. “Yeah.”

Now David Wright was completely lost, “I watched the replay of your stream that day, from start to finish, didn’t skip a minute, watched it all. How come I didn’t notice anything?”

Henry Clark turned to glance at David Wright, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Want to hear?”

David Wright was genuinely curious and nodded, “Tell me, we’re not training right now anyway.”

Henry Clark took out his phone and glanced at it. There was still some time, so he casually tossed the phone onto the conference table. “Then don’t bug me about streaming for a while.”

David Wright was helpless, hesitated, then nodded, “Alright, alright, I won’t bug you.”

After getting the promise, Henry Clark put his legs down and looked at David Wright. “Since NSN already has Whisper, why did they have Evelyn play that day?”

David Wright hesitated, “Probably to avoid revealing tactics. Every season, after we secure a playoff spot, we sometimes let the substitute take your place, just so you don’t show too much before playoffs. For a warm-up match that doesn’t count for points, not putting Whisper in makes sense, right?”

“Makes sense.” Henry Clark nodded. “With William Harris, I can understand why NSN wouldn’t sell Evelyn right away—maybe out of sentiment, or maybe to enrich their team’s strategies.”

“William Harris’s specialty is assassin medic, Evelyn has always been a healer medic. They have two completely different medic roles, which adds another layer of strategy. That’s good, but if that’s the case, why does Captain Grant still force Evelyn and William Harris to learn from each other? Forcing two strategies to merge into one?”

David Wright was stunned, “Well... naturally because William Harris is the best medic...”