note: so sorry for the late chap! I’m a bit sick and overslept a lot
Editor: Decemebery
The Summer Regular competition season’s semifinals were scheduled to begin on the 16th of July, the opening game being the Eagle Riders against Infinite. There were no more issues with being guests or on your home court as the semifinals were to take place at the Star League’s headquarters, and the players were arranged to stay in the headquarter hotel.
In order to give Qiu Yu time to recover from the discomfort due to travel, the Eagle Riders arrived at the headquarters a day ahead of time. After resting for a while at noon, Qiu Yu felt a little bored in the hotel room. Remembering that the headquarter’s hotel was closed off to the public and only the people on his team had arrived so far, he put on sports clothes and prepared to jog for a while.
However, just as he opened the door, Zhou Shu and Lu Cun returned.
Zhou Shu was poking at his bracelet, mumbling, “I told you, we’re not allowed to borrow gaming cabins cus they’re being calibrated for the competition… If you really are bored, should we go find captain and go take a stroll together?”
Lu Cun didn’t reply. Seeing Qiu Yu about to head out in sports clothes, he politely greeted him, “Hi master.”
Hearing Zhou Shu, Qiu Yu felt extremely gratified—Lu Cun was hardworking. He would never back down no matter how hard Qiu Yu pushed him during regular trainings. Although he would cry sometimes, he would never give up easily. Even now when they’d arrived at the competition venue, he still had a mind to train.
He liked this type of hardworking soldier.
Qiu Yu had a smile in his eyes as he walked up to the two. He placed a hand on Lu Cun’s shoulder and cocked his head to the side. “If you’re bored, want to go jogging together?”
Summer was currently in full swing. As the Star League’s headquarters was located on a man-made planet whose climate followed that of Yan city, today’s temperature was quite high. Qiu Yu wore the lightest t-shirt he had—paired with cotton shorts, the elegant and smooth curves of his bare arms and half his thigh bared to the air while the lines of his firm but not overly bulky muscles were vaguely visible through his clothes.
It was fine when he was further away, but now that he suddenly approached them and even placed a hand on his shoulder, Lu Cun immediately blushed bright red.
Qiu Yu didn’t notice and patted him twice on the shoulder again. “Are you going? Quickly go and change if you are, I’ll wait.”
Lu Cun averted his eyes and hurriedly nodded, “Umm… sure.”
And then he sprinted back to his room.
Zhou Shu poked at his bracelet for another while before his message was finally sent. Placing his hands behind his back, he chuckled in Qiu Yu’s direction. “I guess I’ll go as well, be right back after changing, wait for me!”
At the same time, Mu Feibai suddenly sat up straight from the sofa in the middle of discussing the pre-game interview with Coach He, frowning down at his bracelet.
He Jingxing asked, “What’s the matter?”
Mu Feibai quickly turned to rifle through his suitcase while replying to Coach He, “I got it, coach! We’ll follow your plan for the interview, I’ve got no opinions. I’m fine with anything! Thanks, and you can head back, I’m going for a jog downstairs!”
He managed to find and put on his shorts and t-shirt as he spoke, his actions unbelievably quick,
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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In a moment, they opened.
He Jingxing spoke with an expressionless face. “Quickly get ready, your captain’s taking you guys on a 5km long-distance jog, you’re leaving in ten minutes.”
Mu Feibai: ……
Oh come on!
It’s just a jog, how did it turn into team training?!
Zhou Shu even said he had made plans to help him draw Lu Cun away!
Qiu Yu didn’t expect that his decision to jog due to being too bored in his room would turn into a team long-distance training exercise and couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
However, he wasn’t too opposed to having extra training. It’s just that the intensity of a casual jog was completely different from that of formal training. His physique still wasn’t the best so he had to carefully do warm-up exercises prior to running in order to avoid injuries.
Hence, Mu Feibai was greeted with the view of Qiu Yu turned slightly to the side, one hand on the wall and another on his foot. His leg was bent behind him, his heels lightly touching the smooth curve covered by the cotton shorts. In that position, Qiu Yu’s thighs formed a beautiful curve, and his t-shirt also hitched up a little, tracing the lines of a slim waist that seemed to be able to be fitted in the palm of his hand.
Qiu Yu felt someone looking at him and turned his head.
Mu Feibai subconsciously dodged his gaze but met the other’s eyes in the next second. He crossed his arms and lazily leaned against the wall with a lopsided smile, “Sudden training is just to make them feel a bit of urgency, you don’t have to go too fast, we still have a game to play tomorrow night.”
“Got it.” Qiu Yu nodded and swapped legs. He then reached down to touch the floor with his palms before stretching the muscles at the back of his thighs, wrists, and ankles.
After waiting for the team members to finish changing, Mu Feibai could only helplessly lead a bunch of people downstairs and slowly start jogging around the plastic strip in the headquarters garden. With so many people watching, he couldn’t well pretend to fall behind and accompany Qiu Yu as he had to watch the distance counter on his bracelet and obediently run five kilometres under the sun according to the Coach’s instructions.
What kind of hell on earth was this?
He Jingxing, you’re so good at sabotaging!
Half an hour later, the team members finished the five km jog one after another and rested in the shade of the trees, waiting for Qiu Yu to finish his quota. At this time, one of the media companies’ vans stopped outside the league’s headquarters and the staff carried their equipment off of it.
“Eh? Is that the entertainment media’s van?” Zhou Shu picked a random leaf off of the ground while sitting in the shade and patted Mu Feibai’s arm. He asked, “Why are the first batch of reporters here so early?”
Mu Feibai quickly glanced at the van, “Yeah, we have a pre-game interview with them tonight…”
Before he finished talking, the reporter seemed to discover what was happening on their side and skipped over to one of the cameramen. It was unknown what they said, but they turned and sprinted over with the speed worthy of hundred-metre sprint athletes.
“Oh shit!” Zhou Shu jumped in shock, “What does she want to do? Cap, escape?”
Mu Feibai frowned and looked subconsciously at the path in the gardens. Qiu Yu had quickly passed through a field of flowers and was slowly running in their direction. It was a little far so they couldn’t immediately gather, but still not far enough to avoid the reporters’ line of sight.
“Mu Feibai!!!” The sprinting reporter yelled at the top of her lungs at a distance.
She arrived with a gust of wind and was only a wooden fence away from the team members when she continued her sentence. “Hello, I have communicated with the battle team before and have scheduled an interview tonight. Do you guys have time to accept an interview for extra content right now? It won’t take too long!”
Mu Feibai retracted his gaze from Qiu Yu’s direction. Knowing that they could no longer avoid it, he could only muster up some energy and put a polite smile on his face, “Of course.”
He couldn’t just take his members along and escape while leaving Qiu Yu alone to face the cameras.
The hover-cam quickly chased over and the reporter tidied up her hair. She started with a string of praises, “No wonder your team has a long history of strong players, the game is tomorrow and you’re still squeezing out time to train. This kind of dedication and effort is definitely worthy of praise.”
Next, her gaze immediately drifted behind the group and said, “Even the new players are training so hard?”
As expected, she discovered Qiu Yu.
Mu Feibai smiled and didn’t act humble at all. “We’re aiming for champions, of course we have to train hard.”
When Qiu Yu neared the team members, Mu Feibai had already chatted with the reporter back and forth for a couple of sentences. Mu Feibai wasn’t foreign to the media and responded quite naturally. At this time, he smiled and waved towards Qiu Yu, planning on bringing him over to speak a little so that the media would be satisfied after greeting the entire team, and then they could leave without looking rude.
The reporter saw Qiu Yu approach and her eyes shone, “Hi, Qiu Yu! I didn’t think you would train together with the team, would this type of physical training be a bit too hard for you? Is your training intensity usually the same as that of your teammates? You’re so strong and skilled in the game, how do you usually train? Would you feel uncomfortable after training like you do after games?”
Qiu Yu was just about to lift up the hem of his shirt to wipe off his sweat when he was suddenly asked a series of questions machine-gun style and couldn’t help being stunned in place.
Mu Feibai noticed his hand that gripped onto the hem of his shirt and immediately realised what he wanted to do. He hurriedly took a step back and pulled down on the bottom of Qiu Yu’s shirt from behind Du Chen.
Qiu Yu turned to look at him confusedly. “Huh?”
Mu Feibai: ……
Everyone’s eyes followed Qiu Yu’s line of sight and shifted onto Mu Feibai.
Mu Feibai watched as Qiu Yu was about to lift up his shirt in front of the camera and panicked. Without another thought in his brain, he grabbed the towel from the neck of the closest person to him and threw it at Qiu Yu.
Qiu Yu subconsciously let go of his shirt and caught the towel, catching a whiff of the light scent of mint from it.
“That’s…” Du Chen was frozen as he confusedly looked at his family’s captain, “…my towel.”
“…Oh.” Mu Feibai gritted his teeth.
Qiu Yu smiled and passed the towel back to Du Chen.
At this time, he realised that he was still facing the camera and reporter, who was female at that. According to the customs of this world, he couldn’t act too casually so he ignored the discomfort of sweat on his neck and nodded politely towards the other.
The reporter didn’t get Qiu Yu’s answer and was about to ask again, only to see He Jingxing rushing over with Yuan Lu to guide the team members away from her with a smile on their faces.
“Su jie, the members have just finished training and are all covered in sweat, it’s not great for their images,” Yuan Lu familiarly gripped the reporter’s hands, “Why not let them go back and shower and prepare. We have an interview tonight anyway, we’re not in a rush…”
Mu Feibai understood the meaning behind the coach’s gaze and immediately led the team members to say their goodbyes and leave.
Qiu Yu returned to his room. Just as he was about to shower, a knock sounded.
He opened the door and looked at Mu Feibai. “Is there something?”
Mu Feibai placed a hand on the doorframe and handed him a palm-sized, ginger-yellow capsule. “You can have this.”
Qiu Yu didn’t reject it, looking over it curiously. “What’s this?”
As he spoke, he had already discovered the gap on the side of the capsule. Lightly breaking it open, he took out the knitted object inside—it was a soft and smooth sport towel.
The author has something to say:
Mu Feibai: Wu, won’t be able to see wifey’s abs anymore QwQ
Qiu Yu: So you only gave me a towel just now because you wanted to see my abs before?! (raises knife)
Tn: who are we all rooting for in the FIFA WWC? (GO MATILDASSS)
Dear translator Nagisa, why are you so funny and why is your humor same as mine? 😭 I LITERALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD AT THAT “HI, BARBIE!” NOTE🤣
Eyyyyyy twinsies!!!🤭🤭
No fanservices 😭😭😭😭😭😭
QIU YU HAS ABS!?!? WHY DID U NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS? NONE OF YOU TOLD ME??? 😭😭
I*
AN OMEGA WITH ABS, HOW COULD WE RESIST?!? 😜
Almost caught on camera…abs… Readies knife…lmao! Thanks for the update 🤣❤️
I think there was typo when Qiu You was stretching, it said food instead of foot. And when the reporter started with giving them praise, sting instead of string of praises.
Thanks for the chapter! How big is the towel to fit in a capsule??? Even when it’s shrunk.
Fixed it, thanks!😭😭
Btw I think it’s a palm-sized capsule shaped container so the towel probably isn’t that tiny hahahhaha
Not the Catra picture 💀 lovely tns tho