Retirement.

Every summer, this was always an unavoidable topic.

Lin Jingyan announced his retirement after Team Tyranny was eliminated. Ye Xiu, on the other hand, quietly left after winning the championship.

After that, several older players in the league also chose to say goodbye. However, compared to Lin Jingyan and Ye Xiu, they were less famous, so everything seemed much more ordinary.

Wei Chen was one of them. However, his departure didn't even have a hint of sadness; it was more like he had stealthily gone off to the side to count his money after picking up five million. He didn't bid farewell to Team Happy, but stayed on in Happy's guild department, running off to the online game to wreak havoc again.

"Old Wu! Quickly lead a team to support us, quickly!" The guild department resounded with his loud shouts every day.

The war in the online game was never-ending. From the beginning when Ye Xiu founded it, Happy Guild was quite the aggro magnet. However, at that time, Ye Xiu had formed an alliance with several small and medium-sized guilds, and didn't suffer losses in the entanglements with the major guilds. But now, Happy had become the newly crowned champion, and suddenly became the target of public criticism. The guild's situation in the online game suddenly became difficult.

With Wei Chen's return, he became incredibly busy, fighting with great vigor every day. The guild leader was still Wu Chen, but he was constantly being ordered around by Wei Chen. However, no one in the guild felt that there was anything wrong with this. With Wei Chen's status and seniority, who wouldn't call him Old Wei? Wu Chen was no exception.

With old people leaving, new people would naturally arrive. Every year, the training camps of the major teams would send fresh blood to the teams. However, Happy currently didn't have such a structure. With Ye Xiu and Wei Chen leaving the team, they could only rely on operations in the transfer market to replenish their ranks.

This aspect was left to Su Mucheng and Fang Rui to find suitable candidates. The two were currently Happy's captain and vice-captain, and had considerable say in this matter. Happy also didn't have a full-time manager.

Chen Guo deeply felt that such a grassroots and simple system was inappropriate. Right now, money wasn't too big of a problem for Happy. After winning the championship, merchants had been constantly seeking cooperation with Happy. Even City H had a series of support plans for Happy.

As the influence of Glory esports continued to expand, City H, which possessed the dynasty team Excellent Era, had always regarded it as one of the city's calling cards. It was a pity that Excellent Era eventually collapsed, and was torn down to start anew. On the other hand, Happy, which had overthrown Excellent Era, had brought back the Glory esports championship trophy to City H for the first time in seven years, and naturally received attention from City H. As for Excellent Era, they had passed the Challenger League, and in the upcoming eleventh season, they would fight alongside Happy on the professional stage.

City H didn't mind which team brought them honor; they wanted to see the prosperity and vitality that Glory esports brought to the city. Happy was the champion team, so the support would naturally be greater. The numerous negotiations, coupled with the various merchants coming to seek cooperation, kept Chen Guo extremely busy.

On the one hand, she expanded the scale of Happy Team, and began to constantly establish various departments and recruit specialized staff. On the other hand, she could only temporarily support the team by personally handling everything, big and small. Tang Rou helped her share a lot of things in this process. Luo Ji and An Wenyi had been staying in the technical department with Guan Rongfei, tinkering with equipment. Baozi and Qiao Yifan were following Wei Chen in the online game as fighters. As for Mo Fan, he had been focusing on Happy's finally acquired professional training system, diligently honing himself.

During the holidays, the members of Happy didn't scatter to take a vacation. Instead, like when they first gathered together, everyone contributed as much strength as possible, supporting Happy to continue moving forward.

This summer, Ye Xiu left.

But looking at everyone busy, Chen Guo sometimes felt like Ye Xiu hadn't left. Happy had his shadow everywhere, and his spirit remained everywhere. Chen Guo really hoped that these traces would never be erased.

Happy would continue to move forward, even if Ye Xiu left.

But, this summer, if he could have left just a little later...

Chen Guo looked out the window. The huge advertisement had been erected for two days, and the Glory logo looked golden in the sunlight. In these two days, the matter had spread far and wide, and was the talk of the Glory community.

The Glory World Invitational Tournament.

Jointly initiated by the World Electronic Sports Association and Glory Game Company, an invitation was extended to sixteen countries with Glory professional leagues for the upcoming Glory world tournament. As soon as the news was released, it was called the World Cup of the Glory world, and without a doubt, it would be the highest Glory world honor.

The competition was scheduled to be held from July 17th to August 6th in Zurich, Switzerland, inviting a total of sixteen countries to participate, including China, South Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, England, Italy, France, Russia, Canada, the United States, and Australia. So far, all sixteen countries have confirmed their participation and are drawing players from their respective leagues to form national teams.

Happy's Su Mucheng and Fang Rui received such invitations and had already rushed to City B to participate in the national team's training. At least the final list of the national team's lineup had not yet been announced. Even Su Mucheng and Fang Rui, the two confirmed players, didn't know.

"Who else could it be?" The Internet was filled with enthusiastic discussions and voting on the lineup, but Fang Rui didn't seem to care. This team would undoubtedly be the elite of the league's players. Even without an announcement, one could guess eight or nine out of ten. For example, for the healer position, although the healer players of each strong team were excellent, Zhang Xinjie was definitely the undisputed first choice.

Sure enough, the two ran into Zhang Xinjie in the elevator on their way to the training center's conference room.

"It seems we won't be late," Su Mucheng said to Fang Rui with a smile.

Zhang Xinjie certainly knew what this meant, and only smiled, then congratulated Happy on winning the championship.

"Why are you alone?" Fang Rui asked, puzzled. Like him and Su Mucheng, teammates who received invitations at the same time would usually travel together. Team Tyranny only had Zhang Xinjie alone. Could it be...

"Zhang Jiale went ahead," Zhang Xinjie said.

"Oh, he was lucky enough to avoid the topic of champions," Fang Rui said with a nod. This casual mockery had become a manifestation of professional quality. In just one sentence, "lucky" and "champion" were two consecutive keywords, like inserting double blades.

"Is it just you and Zhang Jiale?" Su Mucheng captured another key point in Zhang Xinjie's words.

"Han Dui refused the invitation," Zhang Xinjie said calmly.

"Why?" Fang Rui blurted out.

"He said he had limited energy and wanted to focus on Team Tyranny," Zhang Xinjie said.

Fang Rui, who was quick with trash talk, didn't say a word this time. The elevator was instantly silent. Han Wenqing had been with Team Tyranny for what could be called ten years as one day. Ye Xiu had quietly left, but he was still fighting for Team Tyranny, even at the cost of giving up the opportunity to show himself on a higher stage. This kind of trade-off was truly worthy of respect.

"Amazing," Fang Rui said heavily. Zhang Xinjie nodded. The three didn't say anything more, silently letting the elevator carry them to the floor, out, and into the conference room.

"I knew it! There's no way Zhang Xinjie would be late!"

The three entered the conference room without being a minute early or late. As soon as they entered, they heard Huang Shaotian banging on the table and shouting. However, this guy quickly saw Su Mucheng and Fang Rui.

"Yo, the champions are here too. Congratulations to you guys first!" Huang Shaotian continued to say, but not many people listened to his words seriously. Su Mucheng and Fang Rui glanced at the conference room. They and Zhang Xinjie arrived at the same time, right on the dot. Everyone should already be here.

Team Blue Rain's Yu Wenzhou and Huang Shaotian;

Team Samsara's Zhou Zekai and Sun Xiang;

Team Tiny Herb's Wang Jiexi;

Team Thunderclap's Xiao Shiqin;

Team Void's Li Xuan, Team Misty Rain's Chu Yunxiu, Team Hundred Blossom's Zhang Jiale and Team Tyranny's Zhang Xinjie, plus the two of them from Team Happy.

Thirteen people was the required number of players for the competition. These people were clearly the national team's lineup.

"It's a bit surprising that Han Wenqing didn't come."

Su Mucheng sat down. Chu Yunxiu had already moved to her side and immediately started gossiping with her about it.

"Yeah..." Su Mucheng nodded and looked at the people present. Han Wenqing was indeed the biggest surprise. Apart from him, although there were Jiang Botao, Xu Bin, Yang Cong, Tian Sen, and other excellent players who hadn't been selected, the number of slots was limited. The selection of players might not have been entirely based on strength. It was unknown what considerations were made to screen them out. However, adding them and replacing some people wouldn't seem very unconvincing. Only Han Wenqing's active refusal was unexpected.

"Say... if Han Wenqing came, who would be replaced?" Chu Yunxiu wanted to gossip a little deeper. This wasn't so much a replacement, but rather who had benefited from Han Wenqing's refusal, and had luckily caught the last train.

"That's hard to guess," Su Mucheng said.

"Ahem." Li Xuan, who was next to Chu Yunxiu, coughed twice. "Stop guessing. It's not very harmonious!"

"Why are you eavesdropping on our conversation! I bet it's you, right?" Chu Yunxiu said dissatisfied.

"It's me, it's me, Big Sister, please stop digging deeper, okay?" Li Xuan looked like he was prioritizing the overall situation.

Chu Yunxiu stopped talking, but her eyes were still darting around, still curious about this question. Yu Wenzhou stood up at this moment. Everyone's eyes naturally focused on him, and he naturally opened his mouth.

"Well, because Han Dui refused the invitation, and because Wang Dui refused to be the captain, the people in charge over there wanted to appoint me as the captain. Of course, I still want to ask for everyone's opinion. Does anyone have any objections?" Yu Wenzhou said with a smile. It was something that might be a little awkward for many people to say themselves, but he said it quite naturally, and then waited calmly for everyone's reaction.

"No objection," Huang Shaotian shouted loudly, very supportive of his captain. The others obviously had no objections or didn't care about this question, and waved their hands, "It's you, it's you."

"Okay, then thank you for your support," Yu Wenzhou said with a smile, and then sat back down.

"Then will you be hosting this meeting? What do you want to talk about?" Xiao Shiqin asked, puzzled. Everyone was already here, but they hadn't seen a manager. Everyone here was familiar with each other, so it was perfectly fine to treat the meeting like a chat.

"No, I don't have to manage much as the captain. The higher-ups said they would assign us a leader, and he would be fully responsible," Yu Wenzhou said.

"A leader?" Everyone looked at each other in confusion. They hadn't heard of this arrangement before.

"It wouldn't be that they're getting an outsider to interfere, right?" Wang Jiexi frowned. This was an international competition, and it was a national team, so the ones in charge weren't the professional league, but the State General Administration of Sport directly intervened. It was very possible that they would assign someone who didn't understand Glory to be responsible. If it was really such a person, then "fully responsible" would be a little scary.

"It's said that he's an insider," Yu Wenzhou said.

"An insider? Who in this circle is more of an insider than the people here? Who has the qualifications and ability to be 'fully responsible' for our Glory matches?" The words "fully responsible" were emphasized by Tang Hao. These words were not out of character for his arrogance, but everyone felt comfortable hearing them today. Many people agreed in their hearts. That's right, who in this circle has the qualifications and ability to be fully responsible for them?

Um?

Um?

Wait...

Suddenly half of the people's faces changed. Although the other half looked calm, when they asked themselves this question, a name naturally came to mind.

"Wouldn't it be?" Someone blurted out. Two-thirds of the eyes on the table converged on Su Mucheng.

Su Mucheng smiled and didn't speak. The door of the conference room was pushed open at this moment.

"Hello everyone."

Someone came in, looking unwilling and walking heavily.

"I'm here." While continuing to speak, he had already walked to the multimedia projection operating table on the other side, and listlessly and perfunctorily operated it twice, playing a video on the projection screen.

"I won't say any polite greetings. Let's understand our opponents this time." As he said this, he started talking to the blindingly white projection recording that was too blurry to see.

Apart from his speech and the sounds of Glory fighting on the projection recording, the conference room was dead silent, maintaining that for a full five minutes. Finally...

"Damn, who are you? What are you doing here?" Zhang Jiale was the first to jump up.

"Wasn't it said that you retired?" Zhang Xinjie pushed up his glasses.

"Yeah, you're coming back so soon? Isn't that never-ending?" Xiao Shiqin said.

"Can you be a little more reliable?" Huang Shaotian said.

Even the usually silent Zhou Zekai couldn't help but add two words: "Exactly."

"Shut up!" Ye Xiu said with a gloomy face, interrupting everyone before the rest could start shouting.

"Do you think I wanted to come? I was forced to," Ye Xiu said.

"Who forced you? Who? Stand up!" Huang Shaotian was almost jumping onto the table.

"My old man," Ye Xiu said with a dark face.

"Eh?" This answer was really surprising. Everyone was at a loss and fell silent.

At this time, Wang Jiexi was more mature and calm. "You mean, you retired and went home, and then your dad drove you here to be the leader?"

"Yes," Ye Xiu said. "The director of the General Administration of Sport called my old man directly and said that he wanted me to win glory for the country. These four words completely hit my old man's weak spot. I was driven out before I could even spread my sheets."

Everyone was stunned. What was going on?

"Alright, enough nonsense! These are the videos of the other countries' players that I've compiled in the past few days. You gods can copy them back and study them. Fight well in the competition, and don't lose face. I didn't bring my account card, so I won't be able to play for you."

"You can still play?" Sun Xiang was very sharp this time, grasping a possibility in Ye Xiu's words.

"In terms of the competition system, the number of players on each national team is limited to thirteen, but it's allowed to bring one more non-official player to replace the lineup when necessary," Yu Wenzhou was appointed as the captain in advance, and had obviously done a more careful understanding of the competition system.

"What does 'when necessary' mean?" Everyone asked.

"Accidents that prevent normal competition, etc. The competition committee will make a ruling at that time," Yu Wenzhou said.

"Should we look forward to some accidents happening?" Everyone looked at each other. Who would dare to not recognize Ye Xiu's strength?

"It's best not to," Ye Xiu said.

"Of course not, don't even think about it!" Everyone shouted with high morale and began to go to the operating table to copy the video data. Then, they left. Everyone didn't show any reluctance towards Ye Xiu, including Fang Rui, who had been a teammate at Happy. Soon, only Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng were left in the conference room.

"Don't you think this is infuriating?" Ye Xiu said helplessly to Su Mucheng.

"Really?" Su Mucheng smiled.

Ye Xiu didn't speak.

Many years ago, he left home for the game, for Glory.

Now, he had decided to let go of Glory and make up for his previous immaturity and recklessness. As a result, he was kicked out by his family and forced to continue Glory.

This kind of change, this kind of twist, really made him laugh and cry. But he could still be sure that this time, the old man was sincere. Because winning glory for the country was definitely a 100% convincing reason for him. Glory esports had finally developed to this point, to the point where it could be recognized by the old man...

The video was still playing on the projection screen. What was presented in front of them was the strength and skills displayed by foreign experts that they had never encountered before. But the sound effects of the attacks and the light and shadows of the skills were still very familiar.

Ye Xiu just watched quietly. This was what he had immersed himself in for more than ten years, and had never changed his original intention.

Glory!

The large characters flashed on the screen, almost bursting out.

"Continue?" Su Mucheng asked softly.

"Of course." Ye Xiu stood up. He smiled, "I'm a professional player, what did you think?"