You Boys Play Games Very Well

13-16: As long as you persevere, a dog can eventually become a dad.

This is probably my favorite section so far! Ah, backstory is just wonderful ?

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Chapter 13

Shan Zhu wasn’t in the first batch of players for “Legend of the Galaxy”. When he entered the pit, the game was already very popular and it was hard to keep up with the popular social topics.

At first, he just used the game as a pastime and played a couple rounds in his leisure time. He didn’t care if he won or lost, until the day he met Lemon.

At that time, Lemon had accumulated some negativity popularity in the Galaxy community because of his persistent poison tongue attacks. This was still in the days of everyone shouting and fighting. No one called him Lemon Dad, they only called him Lemon Dog. Almost every day, people called him that name from end to end on the forum.

This one who didn’t pay attention to the Galaxy gossip naturally wouldn’t know who Lemon was. He just met a good opponent. His development was suppressed the entire match. He tried several times but failed to make a comeback.

At the end of the battle, he sincerely praised the other party for playing well.

[Federation] Mangosteen: GG

[Empire] Lemon: This young fellow is good, he successfully forced out one-tenth of his Daddy’s strength.

[Federation] Mangosteen:???

[Federation] Mangosteen: It’s just a game, so serious?

[Empire] Lemon: Have you forgotten your father’s family training? Everything must be taken seriously!

Lemon‘s last words stayed on the screen for only a few short seconds, but they remained in his mind. He spent half a minute staring at the main interface of the game and then decided to carry out such philosophical family training to the bitter end.

Everything must be taken seriously!

Lemon would never imagine this sentence of his had created one of the future generation of great gods. Mangosteen, a dark horse, after six months of obscurity in the test server, reached the top 500 in one season and stabilized in the national ranking for the next three seasons. However, it was often questioned if he was using an external plug-in agent or something similar (to cheat).

In order to prove his innocence, Mangosteen launched a Fighting Cat live broadcast. Soon, due to the high popularity, he signed a contract smoothly. The record audience count reached 800,000 people. From an ordinary casual player, he ascended in the Galaxy to become the well-known Mang God.

During this period, Lemon also successfully evolved from a Lemon Dog to a Lemon Dad, becoming a unique weirdo in the scenery of the game.

This story tells us that as long as everything is taken seriously, a person will one day become a god; as long as we persevere daily, dogs will eventually become dads.

Chapter 14

Almost no one stayed at the star diamond rank for long and naturally he lost the chance to meet Lemon again. At that time, the name Lemon Dad was already blackened all over the Galaxy, but Shan Zhu didn’t expect that the next time he would hear the name would be in the university canteen.

“Hey, I heard that the player who always calls himself Lemon Dad is at our school and that allegedly he’s in your department. It is real or fake, ah?”

“Of course it’s true, that’s my roommate, ah.”

“No fucking way?!”

Shan Zhu curiously gave a sidelong glance and a few students who he didn’t know at the next table were chatting like hot cakes.

“What ‘swindling you’? I pulled him into the pit myself and I watched him build his reputation with my own eyes.”

“Haha, it can’t be true? I’m unexpectedly a classmate of the legendary Lemon Daddy?”

“Wow, how surprising,” said the classmate sitting across from Shan Zhu, listening to the conversation going on next to them. Whispering to Shan Zhu in a low voice, he added, “Looking at his reputation in the game, I thought he was some little hoodlum in reality.”

“Don’t judge people on their outward appearance,” Shan Zhu reminded him.

“Then you have to get a good look first?” the classmate disagreed.

The one at the table next to them had a thought come to mind: “What’s he like in real life, is he as arrogant as in the game?”

“No,” Lemon‘s roommate waved his hand. “Look at this little kid, he’s the youngest in the dormitory. We call him MengMeng.”

“Pfft–” the eavesdropping classmates spat without warning and some of them couldn’t keep from laughing.

“Watch out, I’m right in front of you.” Shan Zhu smacked him with his chopsticks.

“MengMeng, hahahahahahahaha.” the classmate folded over his stomach, laughing and grinning.

The roommate was still doing his best to talk up MengMeng: “Don’t look at MengMeng and see the one who wants to be called father – in fact, he can be very bashful and he’ll blush when talking to girls.”

“Arrange a chance for me for fight with him, I also want to take a screenshot of Lemon Dad’s hospice care and show it off in the forum.”

“No problem!”

After listening to those others chat at lunch, Shan Zhu remembered that the new season had begun and that he hadn’t been online much since he had too many activities this semester. The live broadcast has been ditched and his group of followers couldn’t take it anymore.

An impromptu announcement was made and, while watching the number of people in the live broadcast room increase one by one, Shan Zhu entered the queue for his first warm-up match today.

“The first match competitor has come out……”

Shan Zhu’s voice paused.

Mangosteen VS Lemon.

No, it should be MengMeng.

At this time, the people gathered in Mang God’s broadcast room heard a faint chuckle.

Chapter 15

Since Ling Meng had jumped into the pit, he had defeated thousands of opponents and his hospice care had spread all over China. Naturally, he had no special impression of the ID Mangosteen, which was long and hard to remember, and he knew nothing of the relationship they once had. Now, Ling Meng was being defeated again by the one who had suffered defeat at his hands once before and one sentence was enough to make him fly into a rage.

“Return that photo to me, I won’t hand it over!” He reached for it and the other side merely raised his hand so he missed it.

He willfully stood up and grabbed at it. Mang God’s gently raised his hand over his head and Ling Meng jumped up several times but it was not enough.

“Give it back to me!” Ling Meng said, anger turning into embarrassment.

“This is the prize for the tournament. How could it be given back?”

“Loathsome! Bastard! Look how great you are!”

“I’m back!” The loud ringing voice of his roommate sounded out before he entered the door, “I’m just saying that the MengMeng prizes you prepared aren’t good and none of them were delivered… oh, what’s this?”

When his roommate came in, he saw a handsome stranger holding up a photo, teasing the shorter-by-ten-centimeters Ling Meng to jump at it, in the spitting image of a bad man using food to lure small animals.

“You’re finally back!” Ling Meng acted as if he’d seen his savior, “Help me get the photo back!”

“Who are you? I haven’t seen you before. Are you bullying MengMeng, yes or no?”

Seeing that person had come who was evenly matched to him in strength, Shan Zhu first placed the photo into his pocket. “You misunderstood.”

Hearing his voice, the roommate was taken aback: “Do I know you?” Without waiting for a response, the roommate changed his tone: “No, are you on the school radio station?”

“You seem to have mistaken me for someone…”

“He’s Mang God!” Ling Meng shouted from the side, “I said that he would use a small account in the tournament!”

Hearing that Shan Zhu was Mang God, the roommate’s eyes lit up and he stepped forward to shake hands enthusiastically: “So you are Mang God. Glad to meet you, I’m your fan! Let me introduce myself, I’m MengMeng’s roommate, my name is Huo LongGuo.”

Ling Meng was dumbfounded; obviously he didn’t even pay attention to the live stream, how did Huo LongGuo suddenly became a fan?

“I didn’t believe it when MengMeng said you were in university with us. I thought he was just obsessed, I didn’t think it was true!”

“You don’t have to say that kind of misleading thing!” These words pushed Ling Meng over the edge.

Shan Zhu shook hands with his roommate, but his eyesight fell on Ling Meng: “So it was all brought to light by him, MengMeng has a strong detective ability.”

“No wonder you’re so familiar to the ear. You don’t even know, MengMeng watches your live stream day in, day out, totally fascinated. My ears are going to fall off- oh oh oh, wuwuwu.”

“Shut up now!” Ling Meng had rushed over to cover his roommate’s mouth and dragged him away from Shan Zhu in fear that he will say something to make him lose even more face.

Shan Zhu raised his eyebrows: “I can’t imagine MengMeng following me with such interest.”

“Who cares about you! I want to know my enemy and know myself and never die in a hundred battles!”

The light suddenly dawned for Shan Zhu: “No wonder you were so confident in that match and were able to restrain me everywhere.”

“Wasn’t it your dogshit luck that won in the end?” Ling Meng became furious as it came to mind.

Shan Zhu smiled and didn’t refute it.

“By the way, what did you just say wasn’t sent out?” Ling Meng remembered that his roommate had just gone to deliver the prizes for him.

“Your Durex.” His roommate took out twelve small squares from his pocket and piled them up on Ling Meng’s desk. “I went to the twelve rooms and no one wanted it. They told me to take them back for MengMeng to use. I was almost caught by a counselor and wouldn’t that have been embarrassing?” He sat down with a sigh: “I should have realized after all this time that all the single dogs play Galaxy. Why should I not also play this game?”

Ling Meng also had a headache about how to deal with these things. He inadvertently caught sight of Shan Zhu laughing.

“You think this is funny? That this isn’t all because of you?”

“You demanded a bet.”

“Let’s give them all to you then. Don’t you have powder? Go off with your thirsty powder.”

Shan Zhu laughed without speaking.

The words were all just hot air from Ling Meng and he soon put the Durex, scattered across the desk, into the drawer, revealing the printed tournament bracket on the surface of the desk.

“Clearly it’s mangosteen, have the nerve to disguise yourself as mango.” (Review the note at the beginning of Chapter 9 to see what he’s talking about here. He’s saying it should be Shan God since mangosteen is Shan Zhu in Chinese.)

Ling Meng’s whisper was heard by Shan Zhu: “My ID was originally mangosteen, but I was mistakenly called a mango (in Chinese). It’s been a long time and I’m too lazy to correct it. Besides, I prefer to eat mango.”

“I’m allergic to mango,” Ling Meng said deliberately.

“The day before yesterday, you ate such a big one that your hands and mouth were covered in juice. I really regret not taking pictures of you,” Huo LongGuo interrupted to share some gossip.

“You would die if you couldn’t gossip!” Ling Meng hated this pig roommate.

“I haven’t received my whole prize yet.” Shan Zhu felt that it was necessary to remind the forgetful MengMeng.

“Didn’t you get the picture? What other prize is there, ah?”

“Have you forgotten the promise to be my good friend? I have to personally watch you add me before I go, otherwise I’m afraid you’ll turn your face over.”

Ling Meng loss for words, he didn’t want to admit he was thinking exactly that: “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll add you then delete it?”

“I know where you live anyway, I’ll come back if you delete it.”

“You ……!”

“Good friend status?!?” his roommate was excited again, “Can I ask for a good friend status, Mang God?”

Shan Zhu apologized: “My friends list is already full. Today I cleared a spot specially for MengMeng.”

“Fuck, MengMeng, you quickly add ah, this is Mang God’s good friend status ah, you’ll have the opportunity to get popular through his live stream!”

“I already have gotten popular through his live stream!”

Were it not for Mang God’s broadcast, would he be barraged with the same sentence everywhere he went? He had been painstakingly building up the brand of Lemon Dad for many years. In the end, he has fallen into the ranks of laughingstocks.

His roommate was reminded of Ling Meng’s shining achievements and the barrage in his mind also repeatedly rolled over the same sentence. Constrained by the expression in the other’s eyes, he wanted to laugh but didn’t dare to, enduring great hardship.

“Add me as a good friend, I’ll duo queue with you when I get back.” Shan Zhu’s attitude could be said to be quite pure-hearted.

Roommate smiled and said: “Rest assured, I have MengMeng’s account info, if he doesn’t add you, I’ll add you.”

Ling Li was furious: “Who on earth are you helping?” (╯‵ □ ‘) ╯ (┻━┻)

Chapter 16

[System] Your friend Lemon is online.

— Meow meow meow?

— Something seemed to flash by right now.

— I must have opened the broadcast room the wrong way.

— Sorry, Mang God, I can’t watch your live. I’m going to the hospital to see the ophthalmology department.

— This Lemon is the Lemon I know? Does this game allow duplicate names?

“That is the Lemon you know,” Shan Zhu smiled and opened his friend’s chat. “It’s not a duplicate name, no need to see an ophthalmologist.”

— What the fuck, when did you hook up and privately add each other as good friends?

— My Dimensional Wall has been broken into slag. ╮(╯▽╰)╭

— Meng God added Lemon Dad as a good friend to show him how well the boys are playing games?

— 6666666666 The time to show the strength of our boys is here!

[Private chat] Mangosteen: You’re here, baby.

Ling Meng saw at a glance that Shan Zhu was heating the viewers on the broadcast and, in the spirit of exposing him, replied with great seriousness.

[Private chat] Lemon: This anchor, selling rot to cheat money, water friends must keep their eyes open, don’t be fooled!

He said no more than that, but after the instant explosion in the broadcast room, the cat food, catnip, and cat cans streamed in wave after wave. The water friends said while brushing:

— I like this anchor who sells rot and cheats money!

— Ridiculous, instead of watching Fighting Cat to see the fake gay anchor selling rot, should we just watch the anchor play games?

— Anchor, two pounds of rot, no need to give change!

— This is today’s share of the food, please collect it.

— Today’s cat food is lemon-flavored, meow ^^

Shan Zhu glanced at the unceasing gift notifications and heard nothing of the one was cheating money.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: What to do, everyone suddenly sent a lot of gifts, should I share half of them with you?

— Declined! My share was to brush Lemon Dad only!

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Some people are saying it’s only for you, baby.

[Private chat] Lemon: Don’t call me baby!

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Call you by the other name? ^_^

[Private chat] Lemon: Call me baby! I like to hear you call me baby!!!

The barrage exploded a second time, everyone couldn’t help wondering what the other name of Lemon Daddy was, but Mang God had openly concluded the PY transaction with the other party. Despite the barrage exerting enough force to topple the mountains and overturn the seas, he held his peace.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Come to my broadcast room.

[Private chat] Lemon: Won’t go.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: I’ll make you a housekeeper.

[Private chat] Lemon: Don’t.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Didn’t you previously come everyday?

[Private chat] Lemon: I don’t want to go now.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: It’s hard to give up a habit.

[Private chat] Lemon: There’s no end to you!

— Lemon Daddy previously came to Mang God’s live stream every day???

— Has he been lurking in our midst???

— God, we have a traitor!!!!

“Yeah, I just found out,” Shan Zhu laughed. “He was hidden very deep.”

Shan Zhu opened the room and sent a game invite to Ling Meng.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Baby, let’s duo queue.

[Private chat] Lemon: Haha, you aren’t afraid of me deliberately sending you a pit?

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Feel free, we boys play games very well, not afraid of pits.

[Private chat] Lemon: Don’t regret encouraging my waves.

Shan Zhu smiled and smacked down the enter button.

[Private chat] Mangosteen: Do as you please.

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Footnotes:

1. pit (坑): common internet slang for a bottomless hole of a hobby, like reading/writing webnovels or playing games

2.family instructions (家训): a family’s traditional injunctions passed from generation to generation, recorded with the genealogy, very traditional concept/term

3. weirdo (奇葩): slang, literally translates to rare and exotic flower

4. pigeon (鸽): to stand someone up aka ditch them

5. 草粉: transliterally fuck powder, but the context seems more like implying the fans are thirsty for Mang God

6. turn over face (翻脸): suddenly become hostile, revealing the true face

7. hot (火): to be hot aka popular

8. selling rot (卖腐): basically queerbaiting, the equivalent to fujoshi in Chinese is fu nu (rotten female) – so you sell rot to the rotten females to gain powder

9. cat food, nip, cans, etc: the monetary payment levels in the Cat Fighting stream, by my best guess. Viewers give money to the streamer buy giving these “gifts”

10. PY transaction: internet/gaming slang from LOL for a backroom deal

11. housekeeper (房管): real estate management, moderator role in the chat

12. making waves: doing as one pleases without restraint, disrupting others in the process

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