Chapter 1243: Art Book Signing
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Chen Guo had by now entirely abandoned her original plans for Christmas Eve. By the time Fang Rui, Qiao Yifan, An Wenyi, and the others entered, she voluntarily told them to pick their presents. By the end, the planned gift matchups had become a complete mess, resulting in hilarious pairings that everyone was laughing over. Chen Guo's initial bit of unhappiness quickly faded away. What was the point of giving gifts? Wasn't it just to make people happy? And now everyone was so happy, there was nothing wrong with this. It looked like the surprise element of this random selection was really quite exciting!
The presents that Chen Guo had gotten weren't just for the players. The in-game department, the R&D department, these were also crucial components of Happy. Chen Guo had done a headcount and gotten enough presents for everyone. These workers didn't work in the practice room, but Chen Guo quickly called them over.
Wu Chen and the others came over and picked their presents, and their unwrapping brought another wave of enjoyment. Guan Rongfei was a bit disappointing though. He had to be forcefully dragged over here, his face filled with reluctance. He charged over, snatched a present, and left, spending a total of less than ten seconds in the practice room before vanishing.
At the end, everyone finished picking their presents and chattering about their suitable or unsuitable presents. Everyone's eyes fell upon Chen Guo, and the final two presents hanging on the Christmas tree.
"Huh?" Chen Guo was surprised.
"Is someone missing?" she asked. The presents had been counted correctly, and she hadn't chosen yet, so by logic there should only be one present left. But in her memory, everyone in Happy had arrived! Even Guan Rongfei, who had only existed here for ten seconds. Chen Guo had clearly seen him holding something as he left.
"If there was no choice at the end, wouldn't that be very boring?" Ye Xiu said.
"Oh?" Chen Guo heard something significant in his voice, and turned back to look at the tree. Two presents, one very familiar to her eyes, undoubtedly one that she had prepared, and the other…
"You put it there?" Chen Guo asked Ye Xiu.
"It's your turn to pick now," Ye Xiu said.
Chen Guo was startled. She never would've expected that at the very end, there'd be this little surprise left to her. If she was choosing, then of course she'd pick the one that she didn't know, but… Ye Xiu, that guy, he wouldn't have randomly and hastily thrown something together just to make fun of her, would he? Like a half-smoked pack of cigarettes or something? Something like that, Chen Guo felt that Ye Xiu could easily do.
But… Chen Guo walked up and studied it. That unfamiliar present was wrapped just as neatly as the others. It definitely didn't look like something that was slapped together last-minute. Was it also carefully prepared?
Chen Guo felt a bit moved. She didn't hesitate any longer, and plucked from the tree this present that had been specially prepared for her.
"What is it?" Chen Guo wanted to see what it was, and yet was a bit nervous at the same time.
"You'll know once you open it," Ye Xiu smiled. "It's something that you've really wanted."
"Something that I really want?" Chen Guo was at a loss. At the moment, she couldn't think of anything that she really wanted, and was even less clear on how Ye Xiu would know.
The present was very light, and when Chen Guo took it, she did wonder if it was really was a half-empty pack of cigarettes or something. But hearing Ye Xiu say this, Chen Guo felt that this wouldn't be some prank. She unwrapped the package, lifted out the paper box inside, opened it, and saw a card, a Christmas card.
This was what she really wanted?
Chen Guo was puzzled, and in her heart there was the tiniest trace of disappointment. She took out the card and opened it. At the top was written, in none-too-elegant handwriting:
What you've always wanted, as you wish.
And then, two signatures.
Ye Qiu.
Su Mucheng.
Stunned, Chen Guo flashed back to several years ago, back when she was just an ordinary fan alongside all of the other Excellent Era fans, passionately supporting Excellent Era, loving Ye Qiu and Su Mucheng, these two gods. Of course, autographs from the gods were things that they all wanted. And then afterwards, on that snowy night, Happy Internet Cafe saw the arrival of a stranger, who used Chen Guo's account to defeat an opponent in the Arena in 40 seconds, and then asked to become an Internet cafe employee.
At the time, Chen Guo thought that this was some nobody kicked out of his team with nowhere to go. She invited him to stay, encouraged him, and jokingly asked that when he returned to the professional circle, he would get Ye Qiu's and Su Mucheng's autographs for her.
That had just been a joke, Chen Guo hadn't been serious. But two years later, she received this Christmas gift.
The autograph itself didn't mean anything anymore. If Chen Guo wanted a signature from Ye Xiu or Su Mucheng now, she only needed to say the word.
But it was exactly this point that reminded her. The Chen Guo of today was no longer one of those ordinary fans that could only quietly support their idols from afar. She stood right beside the people she had once worshipped. They were friends, and they fought together. This time, she was no longer a bystander; she was a participant.
Team Happy, it had Ye Xiu, it had Su Mucheng, and it had her, and it had everyone. This was the meaning behind these two signatures. Chen Guo instantly understood, and she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. But so many people were watching, and if she cried now that would just be too embarrassing.
Chen Guo quickly turned away and rubbed at her face. Fiercely gathering her emotions, she waved the card around and said, "This, this is just… just…"
Chen Guo wanted to make a joke, wanted to say "this is just too cheap," but she truly couldn't get it out, because she understood the significance of this card. She wanted to pretend she didn't understand, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
"Fuck, just two signatures, that's so lame! So shameless!" In the end, she didn't say it, but someone else did for her. What was the present? This was something everyone was curious about, and they had all politely waited for the revelation. But Wei Chen was never that kind of person, and barged over to take a look. Seeing what was written on the card, he hadn't thought as much as Chen Guo did. He immediately treated this as a prank that Ye Xiu was pulling, and began to condemn him.
"And you too!" After scolding Ye Xiu, Wei Chen turned on Su Mucheng. "You're just as shameless as Old Ye. Our boss doesn't have it easy, she pulled together this Christmas celebration for us, and you two use your pathetic signatures as a gift to brush her off? If you're going to give signatures, at least have everyone sign it! Don't cry Lady Boss, come come come, I'll sign for you too."
"Sign, everyone come and sign!" Chen Guo called, but she had already closed the card. She returned to that Christmas tree and retrieved the final gift that no one had chosen.
"We'll just sign this!" This final present was opened, and it turned out to be an art book. Chen Guo had prepared all of the presents, and so she had an idea of which present was which just from the wrapping. This art book was merchandise that Happy itself had produced. The pages were filled with art of their characters, made by professional artists based on the character designs. To invite everyone to sign their names on this, it couldn't be any more meaningful.
"Huh, the art book was printed?" Wei Chen took the book and flipped through it. Everyone knew that Happy was producing this, but they had no idea that it was already out, so Chen Guo obtained a copy from the first round of printing to serve as a present.
"Hm, not bad." Wei Chen quickly flipped to the page with his Windward Formation, and he was very satisfied with the image of the Warlock in the middle of casting.
"Look at me, look at me." The other Happy players all swarmed over. Even Mo Fan, this antisocial person, was curious at this moment. He left his seat, but still maintained a distance of two meters from everyone, as though he were still considering whether or not he should join in.
"Hahaha, Mo Fan's here, so sneaky, so graceful!" The person in question hadn't even arrived, but everyone was already commenting on Deception's page. They then turned to look for Mo Fan, and saw his hesitating figure two meters away.
"Come and take a look," Su Mucheng invited him, and after a tiny bit more hesitation, Mo Fan finally came over.
In the image, a masked Ninja carefully crept along, indeed looking very sneaky.
This was him?
Mo Fan really didn't think he should look like this, but looking at everyone around him, they all seemed to think this was very accurate.
"Sign your name!" Chen Guo passed a pen to him, preparing to let Mo Fan be the first to sign the art book.
Mo Fan tentatively accepted the pen. Under the eyes of everyone watching, his writing hand trembled a bit. The written characters weren't much in the first place, and with this they suddenly became more askew.
"Your handwriting really needs work!" Fang Rui said from the side. "Here, let me show you guys my Golden Right Hand!"
After speaking, he took the pen from Mo Fan, flipped to the page with Qi Master Boundless Sea, and signed the two characters "Fang Rui" with a flourish.
"How about it, it's a hundred times better, right?" Fang Rui even flipped back to Deception's page to compare. Indeed, his signature was much better; those that wanted to speak up for Mo Fan couldn't open their mouths.
"Try writing a third character," Ye Xiu said.
"Go away!" Fang Rui had already swiftly passed the pen to someone else. Everyone paused, but understood soon enough. Fang Rui was an All-Star level player, and definitely wasn't a stranger to signing autographs. No matter whether or not he practiced on purpose, after signing so many, he would definitely be practiced enough to have a good-looking signature. But aside from these two characters of his name, how good he was at writing any other characters remained to be discussed.
The art book continued to be passed along, everyone signing their name on the page of their character, and was finally passed to Chen Guo. She flipped through the pages, silent until she reached the end, when she said, "When you have time, you should practice your signatures!"
Aside from Fang Rui and Su Mucheng, who had to sign things often, only Tang Rou had a rather
eye-pleasing signature. Of the rest of them, none of them could be brought onstage, not even Ye Xiu's. When Fang Rui took a look at it, he fell over. "And you criticized me! Your third character isn't any good either!"
Everyone looked at Lord Grim's page. The two written characters "Ye Xiu," no matter how they looked at them, were awkward and misaligned. Chen Guo was stunned for a while, then pulled out the card she had received. Once she compared them, she understood.
Ye Xiu was incomparably practiced at signing "Ye Qiu." Even though he never revealed his face, he still would often sign merchandise for the team, at the level that Su Mucheng and Fang Rui had to. But now, he had to sign Ye Xiu, this "Ye" was still the same, but the "Xiu" couldn't keep up with the rhythm at all. Then, putting the two characters together, it was even uglier than the chaotic mess of equipment worn by Lord Grim.
It looked like Ye Xiu's "Xiu" was, unfortunately, his third character.