The King's Avatar

”So in reality, the people that we’re meeting today, you’ve only known since today, as well?” Ye Xiu looked at Lou Guanning.

”Hahahaha… Actually, my social life is mostly based in Glory as well. You should understand,” Lou Guanning said.

Ye Xiu was speechless. He understood this all too well. That meant, though Lou Guanning looked like a social butterfly, he was, in fact, a hermit that was completely obsessed with gaming. However, his identity and background was different, so we managed to fit in here naturally.

”You seem pretty familiar with this place?” Ye Xiu asked. Ye Xiu and co didn’t even need invites to get into this private club. With just a single notice from Lou Guanning and they could enter and exit at will. It was clear that he had good relations with this place’s owner.

”Of course, we always come here to play Glory, after all!” Lou Guanning explained.

”Impressive…” Ye Xiu gave Lou Guanning a resolute thumbs-up. A year’s worth of membership in this sort of club might cost several hundred thousand, maybe even over a million. Playing Glory here and playing Glory in an Internet cafe were two completely different concepts.

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The two were still chatting over here when Chen Guo had long since charged over to the guy with reckless abandon.

”What did you say!?” Chen Guo was very clear on the fact that anyone who could come here would all be rich and upscale. The young man in front of her looked like that too, obviously not a normal person. However, being mocked like this wasn’t something that she could take sitting down.

”Yelling like that, you’ve used too much commoner’s language, haven’t you?” The young man glanced at Chen Guo, not moved by the fact that she was a beautiful woman, and continued to mock at them without care, ”All you people know is how to play games. You don’t know what to do with your lives and remain uncultured and uneducated. Does your existence truly have any value?”

Chen Guo was even more angry, but she couldn’t help but admit that what the young man said was a rather common view in many parts of society. Even though Glory’s pro circle was so active and grand nowadays, there were still many who didn’t view gaming as any sort of worthwhile skill. When Chen Guo was chatting with all these people before, she had gotten such a feeling as well. For these people, Glory was no more than a tool they could use to earn money. Speaking of Glory’s commercial future was much more effective than talking with them about how interesting or how classic this game was.

They didn’t care what game this was or how interesting it was, all they saw was what profits this game could bring them. As for pro players? In their eyes, pros were just cash-trees. What pro players dedicated to this game was something these people wouldn’t understand.

”I don’t have anything to say to people like you…” Chen Guo wasn’t a particularly eloquent person, her emotions were intensely felt, but hard to express with words. She could only bite out these words without thinking it through.

”Haha, see? Uneducated. Of course you can’t say anything. As for people like me, well, we can’t be compared to people like you.”

”You can’t say that now!” Ye Xiu finally walked over, ”Many players of Glory are talented in many ways. For them, gaming is just a way of relaxing, a hobby. It’s no different from if you come to this club to drink a little or go for a few rounds of cards.”

”I’m sorry, I wasn’t talking about those people who see games as a pastime. I’m talking about you, pro players who don’t know anything but playing games.”

”Who says that all we know is how to play games?” Ye Xiu said.

”Really?” The young man’s gaze swept across the room before alighting on a corner and he smiled, saying, ”Then do you have any sort of talent that you can show everyone? How about the piano or some other kind of musical instrument? Why don’t you play a song for us?”

The corner which the young man had set his gaze on had a piano sitting there. This could be a decoration, or you could find someone to play tunes on it, or one of the guests could come up and play something for everyone. With those words, he turned to Ye Xiu with a mocking expression, as if certain that the other would only humiliate himself here.

”Musical instruments?” Ye Xiu paused. ”Talent doesn’t necessarily mean music, no?”

”Haha, then what can you do? Drink tons without getting drunk?” The young man laughed exaggeratedly, glancing left and right as if expecting people to laugh with him. There were people who laughed with him, but everyone was very reserved in their laughter. No one openly laughed aloud.

”I apologize, but I’m even worse at alcohol. Then I’ll play a tune, as you suggested?” Ye Xiu said.

”What did you say?” The man widened his eyes, face full of surprise.

Ye Xiu ignored him, walking over to the piano under the shocked stares of many people, including Lou Guanning and Chen Guo.

”I say,” Ye Xiu suddenly spoke up again, ”Do you know how to play, having challenged me to do so?”

”Of course,” Despite his expression of disbelief, he still replied with confidence.

”That’s good…” Ye Xiu reached out and pressed a random key before saying, ”I’m going to play a tune. After that, I don’t need you to play it any better, I just want you show me that you, too, can play the original tune…”

”Hahaha,” The person didn’t wait for Ye Xiu to finish before laughing again. ”You don’t know how to play and are just going to play randomly, aren’t you? Don’t you think such tricks are rather boring?”

Ye Xiu smiled slightly, not explaining. His hands were already on the keys.

”Wow, this God has much more depth to him than he shows!” Lou Guanning breathed out in awe.

”This really is quite deep…” Chen Guo, who had just walked over, said, still stunned.

As they talked, Ye Xiu had already began to play. Like a storm that arrived without warning, it came suddenly, a burst of wild notes like an explosion, darting into everyone’s ears.

”What is this?” Chen Guo was shocked, Lou Guanning stared dumbly, yet Tang Rou had already found humor with just a few notes, laughing very very cheerfully.

”What?” Chen Guo hurriedly asked. From what she heard, it sounded like Ye Xiu was just slamming on keys randomly.

”Flight of the Bumblebee,” Tang Rou said.

”What?” Chen Guo was confused.

”This tune is called Flight of the Bumblebee. It’s a tune with a very fast rhythm; most people play it to show off their hand speed,” Tang Rou explained.

”Hand Speed?” Chen Guo was stunned for a moment, before finally understanding why Tang Rou was smiling.

”How shameless, that’s just bullying!” Chen Guo said with a massive grin.

”Yup, he’s definitely bullying him…” Tang Rou nodded.

”That guy definitely can’t play this, right?” Chen Guo watched the young man, delighting in his misfortune. The young man’s face was twisted in shock, seeming to have no idea what to do.

”Not just him. At this pace, there’s probably no one on earth that can manage it,” Tang Rou said.

”You’ve got to exaggerating!” Chen Guo was shocked.

”At least not that I know of…” Tang Rou also felt like she had exaggerated a little too much and hurriedly corrected herself.

With just these few sentences, Ye Xiu finished his performance. Because he was so fast, it was just several tens of second before Ye Xiu had finished the tune. The crowd was silent, looking at Ye Xiu wide eyed. Out of the people here, there was probably none that didn’t understand music at all, and that was why everyone was so shocked.

”Should we clap?” Chen Guo whispered at Tang Rou.

”Probably not!” Tang Rou said.

”How come?”

”Actually, apart from being fast and accurate, there’s nothing of note about the performance itself,” Tang Rou explained.

”He probably learned the song just to train his hand speed!” Chen Guo guessed.

”I think so…” Tang Rou said.

Anyone who had any form of accomplishment in music all shared Tang Rou’s thoughts. Such a fast performance was worthy of applause, but the problem was that this guy only pursued speed and nothing else. Any sort of tune had content and emotion, but this performance had pretty much no artistic aesthetic behind it. You could even say that this performance didn’t even have rhythm, it was just fast, fast, and faster, as fast as possible. Apart from that, he had been accurate. Applause for this sort of performance? Everyone felt like that was a disrespect to art.

Ye Xiu didn’t seem to care about this, standing up once he had finished and asked the perpetrator casually, ”Should I give an encore?”

”You… You…” The man was a little panicked, but luckily he was someone with some skill and understanding. ”Your performance was just fast; you don’t understand anything about music!”

”Don’t put it like that. All you can say is I’m not very accomplished in music, but I did, at least, manage to accurately play a piece, right? You’re up next,” Ye Xiu said with a smile.

The man’s face was red, unable to say a word.

”Seems like you can’t manage it, what a shame, then…”

”I didn’t agree to anything!” This guy was evidently afraid that Ye Xiu would use this against him to humiliate him in front of everyone and luckily cut Ye Xiu off before Ye Xiu could make any sort of arrangements, and Ye Xiu didn’t continue. In the current moment, he couldn’t be bothered with civilities anymore, grabbing onto this like a lifeline and hanging on shamelessly.

”I never had you agree to anything, but you really can’t play it, can you?” Ye Xiu said.

”There’s no meaning to this sort of performance anyways!” The guy made an excuse.

”Well, since you can’t play it, then I can only deem you as someone who doesn’t know what to do with their life and is uncultured and uneducated,” Ye Xiu said.

”You…” The young man was enraged, but someone tugged at him. Turning his head, he saw it was one of the employees from the club.

”Young master Lu, you’re drunk…” Hearing of what was happening, the staff of the club hurriedly came over. In the end, what they saw was the end of this young master’s thorough humiliation. On their way, they had already learned of the situation and knew it was this man that had been the perpetrator of this trouble.

Lou Guanning and co usually were holed up in the club playing Glory, rarely appearing in these social situations, so not many people recognized them. This young man obviously didn’t realize this, so he had no idea what sort of background the one who threw this party had. Seeing the pro players being introduced, he had resolutely began mocking them out of disdain. If he knew the background of the one that threw this party, he wouldn’t have made such a huge ruckus of this, even if he was disdainful. He didn’t have any sort of grudge, after all.

The club staff came to smooth things out. They couldn’t afford to anger any of these people and didn’t dare to show favoritism to any side. If they started calling people out, that would be excessive. That would be forcing one side to bow, and would probably anger a lot of people. So these staff came and gave this white lie in order to give one side a way out. If both sides could compromise, then this thing would soon be over.

It was unfortunate that with the enraged young master Lu, this became a futile hope.

”I’m not drunk!” The man referred to as young master Lu responded angrily, seeming to be unwilling to let go.