I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 266
Chapter 266: Legends Never Die
“Nuo’er, I’m really sorry. He might have been dragged here by me this morning while he was resting, and he was in a bad mood.”
Perhaps feeling that the attitude of the young man sitting in the computer chair was a bit too much, Su Yunjin apologized proactively.
“The manpower at Tongmeng’s side is a bit lacking, and I don’t know many people who can assemble and adjust screens, so I called them over to help out. Don’t be fooled by their tough appearance, they’re actually pretty good people.”
Then, Su Yunjin patted the chair where the young man, supposedly ranked 27th in global APEX rankings, was sitting.
“Let me introduce him. His name is Li Shaobing. He has over 4 million followers on various online platforms, a professional APEX player, and also an esports streamer. His ID on the platform is ‘The Requiem of Shaobing K.'”
Matching the surrounding environment, the chairs on this side of the esports room were also high-tech sofas, exuding a sense of technology. They had the luxurious feel of leather sofas found in internet cafes, and some of the patterns on them were very fitting with the cyberpunk theme.
“Shaobing, you should also know these two, Yin Nuo’er and Yin Xiamo. They’re both employees here and recently gained a lot of popularity online as maid sisters… Don’t be fooled by their current tens of thousands of followers, I have a feeling that their achievements and fame will surpass yours in the future. It’s a merchant’s intuition.”
Su Yunjin seemed to be playing the role of a “quarrel mediator,” speaking in a tone full of humility.
“Nuo’er, don’t mind him. He’s the type who likes to talk big online but shrinks offline. When he watched your promotional video before, he called me five times just to ask if you and Xiamo were photoshopped. He kept saying how cute you were, like a two-dimensional goddess, and even suspected that we were planning to go the internet celebrity route…”
“Pretty much.”
Upon hearing this, the person known as “Li Shaobing” took off his headphones and turned his head. “When did I say those things?”
“You’re just stubborn. I’m not arguing with you.”
Su Yunjin gave him a look and walked towards the two computers on the other side, patting the chairs behind the two people who were adjusting them.
“How’s it going?”
“This monitor is pretty good…”
One of them took off his headphones, seeming curious about why I, with dyed hair and colored contacts, and Xiao Mo, dressed in Traveler cosplay, had come in this attire. However, out of professional courtesy, he only glanced at us for a few seconds before turning his attention to the screen.
“The overall colors are vibrant, the transparency is excellent, there’s no oversaturation or distortion, the SRGB color gamut volume is 139%, the font display is also very good, the pixel arrangement is perfect, and look at this…”
As he spoke, the young man pointed to several instruments beside him. “The highest brightness reaches 800 nits, the fast liquid crystal has qualified motion blur performance, the fastest response time without ghosting is only about 3 milliseconds, reaching the top tier of fast liquid crystals. The viewing angle is also good, HDR static contrast ratio is 3324.43, the factory calibration is excellent, the monitor itself is 240Hz refresh rate, paired with the Tianqi 3000 graphics card, it can handle most esports games at maximum settings…”
“Stop.”
Seeing that the person was about to continue, Su Yunjin interrupted him. “Get to the point.”
“The conclusion is, if this place is to be used as an internet cafe, it belongs to the highest level of internet cafes in the country. I just need to make some minor adjustments to this monitor and it’ll be good to go.”
The young man shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve never seen any internet cafe with such high-spec monitors and graphics cards. This configuration is even higher than some clubs’ specs when they compete.”
“Have you tested software compatibility and game optimization?”
“Games like APEX, PUBG, League of Legends, World of Warships, World of Tanks, CSGO, Overwatch, and some other well-known games have all been tested. They’re perfectly compatible.”
The surrounding breathing lights shone on the young man, accompanying his slight breaths.
“Boss, what exactly is this Tianqi 3000 graphics card? Why have I never heard of it before?”
“It’s a secret.”
Su Yunjin smiled. “Alright, you guys continue debugging.”
“Boss, can I ask an extra question?”
“What is it?”
“About those two girls… Can I get their contact information? They’re too beautiful, aren’t they? They’re like… goddesses.”
“Do you want it? Go ask them yourself. But don’t blame me for not warning you, both of them are lesbians, and they’re not very interested in making friends…”
While Su Yunjin was talking to the technician, I had already begun to assess the interior layout of this “esports room”.
Although it had a layout similar to an internet cafe, it had a much more atmospheric feel than any internet cafe I had ever been to.
The room was about the size of a typical classroom in an ordinary residential community, with rounded corners. Upon entering from the doorway, you could see a large mural on the wall depicting a man in a jacket and hoodie standing on the rooftop of a building with his back to the camera. In front of him was a futuristic cityscape filled with LED light tubes and various billboards.
At the top of this collage of small murals were several continuously undulating breathing lights. Combined with the semi-transparent murals with laser effects, every movement of the breathing lights gave off a surreal urban vibe.
In addition to this, the room was filled with various RGB light tubes. There was a rainbow-colored light tube that ran along the wall from the entrance, seemingly electrifying, looping from the left door to the right door and back again.
There were also floating lights that continuously changed patterns, as well as “thundercloud lights” that climbed slowly upward and imitated lightning flashes, all contributing to the ambiance of the room.
Um… This… should be cotton, right?
Carefully, I walked towards the corner of the room, tiptoed, and tried to touch the “white clouds” on the wall.
Indeed, it was cotton.
First, the light tubes and some metal plates that could diffuse light were stuck from below, extending to the ceiling of the room. Then, similar materials were laid on the ceiling, the light tubes were installed, and finally, large clusters of cotton were pasted on.
In this way, when you entered the room and looked up, it seemed as if there was a black sky with clouds above, and the lights buried in the cotton flickered. The light shone through the gaps in the cotton, like lightning in the clouds.
Purple lightning, green lightning, red lightning… It was really cool.
In this room filled with atmosphere, there was a large circular computer desk in the middle. The computers installed around it faced the center of the table, and there were also some “sound-controlled” sensor light tubes nearby. If someone spoke, these light tubes would emit various lights according to the volume and rhythm of the sound.
The design here is really thoughtful. I wonder how much they’ll charge per hour in the future.
If I were still the uncle I used to be, and if the price here was acceptable, occasionally coming here to relax for an evening wouldn’t be a bad idea.
After all, this underground “cyberpunk esports center” has surpassed the category of an ordinary “internet cafe.” It’s more like a… a sanctuary? I don’t know how to describe a place like this. It seems to cater to those who wish to escape the world, seeking a secluded place to relax, perhaps university students or working professionals.
“Are you going to duel with me later?”
As I observed the layout of the room, the one called “Li Shaobing,” the “27th-ranked Hunter in the world,” stood up from his chair and pointed to the computers around.
“I’ve tuned all the machines here for APEX. Shall we play now?”
“It’s not me…”
I quickly waved my hand. “I’m just a waitress. It’s my friend who wants to test with you.”
Speaking of which, being forcibly activated into this “elf” mode by Xiao Mo feels quite novel. Initially, I thought switching to “elf mode” only changed the color of my eyes and pupils and made my ears pointed.
It wasn’t until I chatted with Xiao Mo on the way to the cafe that I realized something was wrong. At first, I just suspected it, but now that I’m in this room, I confirm—my body has indeed changed significantly.
It’s somewhat like an all-around enhanced version of “human mode.”
Not only has the sensitivity of the skin been enhanced, but even hearing, vision, and so on have been improved.
Standing in this room, I can clearly feel the temperature of various machines around me: the computer monitors are slightly warm, the power strips filled with plugs are slightly warm, the wires buried in the walls are slightly warm, and even the computer case appears directly as a large heat trap in my eyes. The two hottest spots inside—CPU and GPU—I can clearly sense their specific locations.
This is obviously not something an ordinary person can achieve.
In addition, I can also clearly perceive the body temperature of humans, as well as the degree of heat from the surrounding light tubes, and hear sounds that are normally impossible to hear, such as the heartbeat of this “Li Shaobing” in front of me.
His heartbeat is fast, and his body surface temperature is high. I learned from Xiao Mo that this is a sign of nervousness.
“Sorry, I’m a streamer and also a professional player, so let me make it clear upfront. In my eyes, there’s only data. Regardless of whether your friend is male or female, how old they are, or whether they have talent, I won’t go easy.
He gestured to Su Yunjin next to him.
“He asked me to come and set up the machine, and also to test your friend later. He said he’s preparing to hire that person as a full-time streamer here. I don’t know what standards that Su Yunjin has, so I can only use my own standards—I’m only familiar with APEX. I’ll only test your friend’s aiming skills, agility, and professional qualities, then judge whether that person is suitable for streaming.”
Finally, this person added, “Generally speaking, for this kind of competitive streaming, skill is absolutely the top priority. Of course, I can’t control female streamers who skirt the edge. I only consider skill here…”
Ah… Su Yunjin was right, this person’s emotional intelligence is really low. I rubbed my ear with some headache, and then my sensitive organ was stimulated, causing me to subconsciously tremble.
Almost forgot, now I’m in elf form. Elf form enhances all senses, so what are the other two forms? Catgirl form strengthens cat-like habits? Maximum resistance to catnip? Succubus form… It can’t be that strange patterns appear on my stomach and hearts float in my eyes, right?
“Don’t worry.”
Perhaps unable to tolerate this “Li Shaobing” chattering away, Yin Xiamo interrupted him, then hugged me from the side, saying in a manner as if ‘only the strong deserve beauties’, “I think you’ll have to consider how to die less embarrassingly under her attack later.”
“Are you serious?”
Li Shaobing frowned, then showed a contemptuous expression, “If you were talking about those top ten elite hunters, I might hesitate a bit, but talking about a woman… Haha.”
“Oh oh oh! Back to this magical place again!”
As we were talking, Fei Luo’s voice came from outside the room.
“Nuo’er! Momo! Are you guys in there? Sister Ouyang asked us to come down and find you!”
“Over here!”
I quickly stuck my head out and waved to the two of them, “This way, this way!”
“This place is so beautiful!”
After entering the room, Gabriel was instantly amazed by the “thundercloud” formed by the combination of cotton and LED lights above her head. Then her gaze fell on the several computers arranged in a circle in the middle of the room.
“So many machines! They weren’t here yesterday!”
The movement of Gabriel and Fei Luo naturally caught the attention of Li Shaobing and the two technicians.
Even though there were several meters between us, I could still clearly feel their heartbeats speeding up and their body temperatures rising when they saw the two of them.
This elf mode is too powerful! No wonder I was always tightly controlled by someone…
I glanced displeasedly at the Xiao Mo beside me.
Coincidentally, she looked over in this direction too. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!”
I turned my head away in annoyance.
Normally, Xiao Mo would definitely be able to sense my mood and physical condition through these cues, but she continued to “tease” me pretending to know nothing.
Scenes of me playing with cats at the cat cafe while working there flashed through my mind. Cats express anger and impatience by continuously wagging their tails.
For example, some cats don’t like others touching their bottoms, so they keep wagging their tails. We pretended not to know and kept touching them, even grabbing their tails to prevent them from moving.
Normally, when Xiao Mo teases me, she probably has a mindset similar to a human teasing an angry kitten!
‘I know you’re angry, but because you’re so cute, even if you’re angry, it’s not threatening. Your little tiger teeth don’t hurt, so I’ll continue to kiss you…’
Darn it, it looks like the time to overthrow Miss Grim Reaper’s tyranny will be extended. You can’t keep going like this, Yin Nuo’er!
“Sister Ouyang is already working hard early in the morning.”
Under Gabriel’s curious gaze, Su Yunjin walked over. “Hello, you must be the angel… um, the young lady that Nuo’er introduced, right?”
“Hmm?”
Gabriel, wearing the white T-shirt with “Fallen” printed on the chest that I and Xiao Mo had just bought, paired with jeans, turned to Su Yunjin.
“Are you the manager of the cafe?”
“You don’t have to call me the manager, don’t be so formal, just call me Su Yunjin or Brother Ji like them,” Su Yunjin said.
Su Yunjin raised an eyebrow, then turned to Li Shaobing.
“This is Li Shaobing, a friend of mine. Nuo’er said you’re very skilled in esports. Have you played APEX?”
“I just played it yesterday,” Gabriel admitted truthfully.
“It’s a great game.”
“Just played it yesterday?”
Despite feeling Li Shaobing’s increased heartbeat when talking to Gabriel from my end, indicating he wasn’t very good at chatting with women, he still pretended to be calm and said in a somewhat incredulous tone, “So you’re planning to apply as the ace full-time anchor here? Are you sure? What did you used to do?”
“I used to work mainly by listening to prayers from sinners who had gone astray, guiding them,” Gabriel continued truthfully.
“We have many churches over there. Sometimes there aren’t enough nuns in the church, or there’s not enough faith, so they need our help…”
“Um, she hasn’t had much experience with computer games before, but her skills should be fine.”
I quickly interrupted Gabriel, “Weren’t you going to test it? Stop chatting and just try it out on the computer to see how your skills are.”
“Yeah, anyway, I’m only responsible for testing. Hiring anchors is your business,” Li Shaobing said as he sat back in his previous position, pointing to the computer next to him.
“Let’s just get started. I’ve already logged in for you. Go to the shooting range.”
I gave Gabriel a look that said “Go ahead.”
“They want to test your shooting skills.”
“Oh.”
Seeing the eager-to-try computer, Gabriel immediately ran over and sat down at the computer, taking the mouse and keyboard and glancing at the screen.
“Hmm?”
As soon as she saw the screen in front of her, Gabriel instinctively remarked, “This… this machine is better than the one at Nuo’er’s house, at least three times better.”
“Ahaha…”
I smiled and said. “Well, this place is meant to be professional.”
The computer at home had a top-of-the-line host, but the monitor, keyboard, and so on were all in the “usable” category. It was a bit of a stretch to use it for esports.
Just the refresh rate alone, the difference between the two monitors is 60Hz and 240Hz, which is completely incomparable, not to mention what those two technicians mentioned earlier about ‘ghosting’ and ‘response time’.
“I’ve added you to the team, get ready.”
Seeing Gabriel sit down, Li Shaobing glanced at her computer.
“Let’s start with an appetizer. When we get in, I won’t wear armor, you equip red armor, and we’ll use only the R301 rifle.”
In Apex Legends, there’s a distinction between “health” and “armor”. To simplify it, “armor” is like a “second life bar”. Red armor roughly equates to 125 health points, while a person only has 100 health. In other words… if Li Shaobing doesn’t wear armor, then he’s vulnerable, with only 100 health. But if Gabriel wears red armor, she’ll have 100 health plus the 125 health from the armor, totaling 225 health points, which is twice as much.
Moreover, in gunfight games, armor and health cannot be directly equated because if a person has no armor and gets hit, the crosshairs of the gun will wildly drift, making it impossible to aim. On the other hand, if a person’s armor isn’t broken, getting hit won’t cause the gun to shake, allowing for normal aiming.
Although he has low emotional intelligence and keeps saying, ‘I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman,’ when it comes to testing Gabriel, Li Shaobing’s proposal still gives her some face. Anyway, even if I were to face off against one of the top thirty players in the world, with me wearing red armor, I’m not sure I could beat them.
“Are you sure about this? It’s not fair to you.”
As Gabriel clicked “ready”, it didn’t take long before I, standing between the two of them, saw them enter the shooting range together.
“Are we starting?”
The two monitor technicians and Su Yunjin also came over, standing beside me and Yin Xiamo, finding a spot where they could see both screens at the same time.
“Shaobing, go easy on her.”
“The little sister has only been playing this game for a few days, don’t be too harsh on her.”
It could be felt that the two technicians didn’t seem to have high expectations for Gabriel.
“Fair or not, let’s see your skill level after you take a couple of shots.”
With “friendly fire” enabled in the shooting range, Li Shaobing picked up an R301 from the ground and retreated behind cover.
“Let’s start with a 50-meter distance shootout. Pick up some armor.”
Gabriel hesitated for a moment. Although she wasn’t sure what the human meant, seeing that neither I nor Fei Luo said anything, she picked up the armor and assault rifle.
“Ready…”
Li Shaobing’s heartbeat continued to accelerate, and he took a deep breath, starting to sway the character left and right.
“I said we can start shooting. Ready—begin!”
“Bang—”
“Bang—”
“Bang—”
Almost the moment Li Shaobing’s “begin” fell, his computer screen turned black and white.
“What…”
Li Shaobing in front of the computer was dumbfounded, and the two technicians who came to watch were also stunned.
In the first round, Gabriel faced Li Shaobing and instantly killed him the moment he appeared, without Li Shaobing firing a shot, resulting in Gabriel’s complete victory.
“What’s going on?”
One of the technicians looked at Li Shaobing’s screen, then at Gabriel’s side.
“Shaobing, were you going easy on her?”
“N-No…”
Just revived, Li Shaobing finally came to his senses, seemingly unable to believe his eyes. He sat still in his chair for a while before gritting his teeth.
“That one didn’t count. Did you just luckily hit me three times in the head?”
Gabriel said calmly, “There were headshot sound effects three times.”
“Let’s start over. This kind of situation is rare, but it happens. Miss, you got a bit lucky.”
Li Shaobing picked up the gun again. “I’ll count to three, and we’ll try again.”
“One, two… three! Begin!”
“Bang—”
Just like before, as soon as Li Shaobing’s voice fell, his computer screen turned black and white again.
“What’s going on?”
Even Su Yunjin felt something was off this time. “Shaobing, you’re not deliberately going easy, are you?”
“I’m not!”
Li Shaobing looked like he wanted to cry but had no tears. “Did she hit headshots again? Is this really just a coincidence? This time, I’ll wear a helmet.”
As he spoke, Li Shaobing controlled the revived character to pick up a shiny Level 4 helmet and picked up the gun again.
“Let’s try again, at a distance of fifty meters. Miss, get ready.”
“Three, two, one, begin!”
“Clack…”
“Bang—”
This time, Li Shaobing and Gabriel almost fired at the same time, but Gabriel once again managed to kill Li Shaobing in less than a second.
“You…”
Even Li Shaobing, slow as he might be, realized something was off now. “Your marksmanship… Your marksmanship is this good?!”
“You weren’t behind cover, and you hardly moved at all.”
Gabriel looked innocent. “The R301 has the lowest recoil in the entire game. As long as you anticipate the muzzle sway and keep the crosshairs on your head, there’s over an 83.77% chance of triggering a headshot.”
“Are you saying you were aiming for my head the whole time?!”
Li Shaobing was somewhat incredulous.
“No, that won’t do. Let’s try again, but this time I won’t go easy. I’ll wear armor too, and we’ll increase the distance to 80 meters.”
“Okay.”
Gabriel controlled her in-game character to take a few steps back.
On Li Shaobing’s side, he also earnestly picked up the R301 assault rifle from the ground, loaded an extended magazine, put on red armor, and wore a helmet.
“Ready.”
Li Shaobing in front of the screen took a deep breath again. “One, two, three… Begin!”
“Bang—”
“Bang—”
This time, because he was prepared in advance, Li Shaobing quickly retreated behind cover after firing a few shots. However, in just that moment, his armor had already been shattered by Gabriel, and his health was reduced to less than 30 points.
On the other hand, Gabriel had only taken one bullet and lost just over ten points of armor.
“No, this isn’t an illusion.”
Under our gaze, Li Shaobing directly released the keyboard and mouse. “I concede.”
Li Shaobing took off his headphones, his expression solemn.
“I just fine-tuned that computer, there’s absolutely no possibility of cheating. But that young lady has achieved a cheating-like effect in the game. There’s only one possibility…”
“Her gaming skills are godlike…”
“……”
……
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