My Classmate Is 200 Million Years Old - CHAPTER 098 ♦ SPECIAL RECRUIT II

“StarCraft?”

“Huh? How d’you know?!”

“I’m using it. I have a match at eight.”

“You, you’re playing too? And you got into the elimination round?!”

“Enh.”

“Which team are you in?”

“When’s your match?”

Tang Jing Ze smiled in embarrassment: “I’m not competing, we got eliminated long ago, I just wanted to spectate. There’s a very strong team competing tonight so it’s definitely worth the time… it’s happening at eight too.”

“Looks like you’ll have to give it a miss.” Xuan Mo shrugged in regret for him, her expression however didn’t at all appear regretful.

“Nah it’s fine. I wanna watch regardless of the match. To be able to get into the elimination round means you’re the elite of the elite in the country… Can I spectate your match? Y’know the school doesn’t allow students to bring computers, you’re the only one that can get across this firewall… I’m really optionless, I don’t even think I can focus on my test if I miss this.”

Was it really that serious… Xuan Mo didn’t mind if there were spectators, so she nodded her head: “Alright, I’d wanted to play in my dorm, but since you want to spectate then you find a place, I don’t need cable.”

“Wireless, it’s fast enough?”

“You don’t need to worry about that…” Even if she didn’t trust the blue planet wifi, she trusted her mental net…

Xuan Mo once again utterly K.O.-ed Tang Jing Ze with her aggressive dominance. Now that he’s settled what had been bugging him for a long while, he felt much lighter. At that, he smiled: “Since it starts at eight then let’s meet at seven. I’ll text you the location later, enh… I’ll provide the snacks.”

“Okay.” After which, Xuan Mo turned to leave.

Tang JIng Ze still felt jittery about this, and reminded: “Seven-thirty! Don’t forget!”

Xuan Mo waved her hand in impatience and returned to the classroom.

The classroom was noisy, but this time, the gossip flying around took one another note. When a guy meets a girl alone at night, no one would think well of it.

Xuan Mo shook her head. She really wanted to bring these people back to Scorpio and have her researchers find a way to leverage on them to invent some soundwave attack or something.

Seven-thirty approached quickly. When Xuan Mo reached with her computer, Tang Jing Ze was already there waiting with a huge bag of goodies.

The school was very strict with the computer lab usage, so he could only request to access the practical labs in the physics practical building with the teacher. There was a socket at all the seats so as to ensure that the computer need not worry about running out of battery. The signal there was good and it was quiet too, even if the place permanently smelt like someone’s burning something there.

Xuan Mo switched on her computer. Since she had a spectator, she didn’t use her headphones. She used the in-built mic and speaker instead which actually wasn’t too bad when she tested it. She connected to the wireless internet and checked the speed. For security purposes, she had her mental net monitoring her signal. After ensuring that the web speed was good to go, she opened the chat group. The students whose lessons had ended were all instead. At that, they exclaimed in excitement: “Aye! Xuan Mo’s here!”

She’s met everyone from the team and they rarely called her by the name abu. Tang Jing Ze made two cups of milk tea and placed one beside her: “This is your team?”

“Ahhh! I hear a guy! There’s a guy!” Someone screamed in the chat.

Lu Yu Chen instantly shot up: “Mo Mo, who’s with you?”

“Huh, Brother Chen you’re there too? Brother Chen, how did you sneak out?” Tang Jing Ze asked as he sat down.

“It’s Ah Ze huh, why are you with Mo Mo.”

“I’m not omnipotent as you, can’t find a way out so I could only look for her to borrow a com to watch the match. She said she had a match too so I’m here to spectate.”

“Oh…” Lu Yu Chen was relieved. “You better not pull any funny moves on my sis, I’m telling you!”

Before Tang Jing Ze could react, Lu Yu Chen sighed again: “But it seems like the person who can successfully do that doesn’t exist yet…”

“…”

“You guys chat, I’m going to go ballot. I think all of us are satisfied enough just with the fact that we managed to get into the national top thirty-two, so no pressure guys!” Ah La Lei sounded absolutely thankful. If all these thoughts before the elimination round were just dreams to dream, right now, he was living his dream, and he didn’t want to wake up.

“Xuan Mo, what team are you in, it doesn’t show in the chatroom.”

“Thunder.”

“Oh… ah?” Tang Jing Ze exclaimed in shock, but immediately shut up when Xuan Mo swept him a glance. His expression now became one that was particularly strange instead.

He looked at the screen, eyes glued to Xuan Mo’s interface.

“…results are out, starts at eight-thrity, up against Half-Orc team… the heck, that demonic team?!”

Xuan Mo didn’t gave a damn if her opponents were animals or humans, in fact she didn’t even look at the chat. Seeing that she still had half an hour left, she entered the Chain Me Up lobby in the QQ games, joined a room and started bullying the other players.

When Tang Jing Ze saw that Xuan Mo was just playing Chain Me Up, he stopped peering at her screen and instead turned to text on his phone. He’d even had a notebook of vocab by his lap.

Half an hour passed quickly. Amidst the pressings from her teammates, she closed off all the applications that could interupt her gameplay and logged into the battle interface. Tang Jing Ze finally started looking forward to the competition. When he looked up to see the her interface, he couldn’t shift his gaze away. He asked in shock: “Xuan, Xuan Mo…. you’re abu?”

“Enh.” Xuan Mo wasn’t intending to hide this. She adjusted the settings and joined a room. As she did so, she instructed: “Don’t talk later, just watch.”

“…” Tang Jing Ze stared tightly at Xuan Mo’s interface before lowering his head for a while and exclaiming with his hands fisted as he tried to contain his excitement, “the heck! This is life, this is life!”

“I said…”

“I definitely won’t speak! Don’t worry, idol!”

Xuan Mo shot him a strange glance before continuing what she was doing. After a while, she said: “Alright everyone, no matter who the opponent is, same old…”

“Follow your instructions absolutely!” The voices in the chat screamed.

“Enh.” It’s only in the game where she’d find some inkling of the feeling when she commanded her fleets back in the days.

Tang Jing Ze swore, Xuan Mo wasn’t playing a game, this was loneliness!

She could almost imagine how she’d be like when she played games normally — sit alone in front of a computer in the dark room, speaking without emotions and without so much as pausing as she delivered her instructions.

She was a god! A battlegod!

When he’d been watching their recorded battle, he’d always wonder exactly how in sync the entire team must be to achieve such speed. After learning from someone else however, he realised that what the team needed was a strong commander rather than being in-sync in every step they take.

And so, he started to imagine exactly how powerful and sharp a commander was needed to carve out such a playing field through each and every member of the team and control the entire battle, control each and every soldier under each teammate, control what happens every second and even control what moves the enemy makes… was their commander Zhuge Liang*? No no no, Zhuge Liang was as though a fish in the water during the Three Kingdoms** period, but if he were in StarCraft, or up against the entire universe?!

* 诸葛亮 Zhuge Liang, courtesy name Kongming, was a Chinese politician, military strategist, writer, engineer and inventor. He served as the chancellor and regent of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. 

** Three Kingdoms, reference to “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, a 14th-century historical novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong. It is set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, starting in 169 AD and ending with the reunification of the land in 280.

He’s witnessed it personally now, the commander who could do all these.

Without surging undercurrent, without blood-pumping adrenaline, only the strange smell in the physics lab, the glaring light from the incandescent lamp, the rows and rows of tables and chairs, the portrait of the scientist on the wall, and the calm, clear voice speaking. It was plain, simple, yet, majestic and awe-striking, as though his tiny self was looking at a vast mountainscape.

“Lu Yu Chen, three gunboats; set out in the southwest direction in two minutes.”

“Tan Lu Yu halt your expedition, don’t mind the expenditure, ambush yourself within the circle of wild satellite planets, only move when I tell you to.”

“Fang Zheng Yu, you’re too slow. Change to a vacuum anti-aircraft gun to buy time.”

“Ah La Lei, retreat your vessel fleet after three minutes and self-implode.”

No matter her instructions, none of them had any objections. They carried out everything Xuan Mo instructed obediently, their hands flying on their keyboard without stopping, as though the way they process information had altered into a system that could register multiple commands at the same time, and with high accuracy.

“Fang Zheng Yu, retreat. Set up a single layer of fortress and don’t stop crafting navigation bombs. Lu Yu Chen, guard Fang Zheng Yu even if you have to die doing so.”

“Tan Lu En, move the ambush team eastward, attack upon encounter, you’ll definitely win them. Dash towards their base after that, they’re already ran out of fortress, wipe them out.”

“Fang Zheng Yu, aim all the navigation bombs at planet CA. You can rest after that.”

“Ah La Lei, send your vessel fleet towards T2, end them off.”

“Lu Yu Chen, move eastwards to protect Ah La Lei.”

“Alright, own-time-own-target now.” After speaking, Xuan mo took a sip of milk tea and stopped giving out instructions; the outcome was set in stone now.

Clinching victory in nineteen minutes, they barged their way into the national top sixteen teams.