Chapter 609 – Unexpectedly Here
Tao Xuan wasn’t the only person sitting here. Next to him was Club Excellent Era’s director, Cui Li.
These two people were, without a doubt, the two top executives of Club Excellent Era. For them to show up together here was already very surprising to Ye Xiu because today was Team Excellent Era’s away match. Moreover, this match would decide whether or not Team Excellent Era would drop into relegations. However, these two executives apparently didn’t go to support their team. Not long after the match ended, they came over here for a late night snack. It was very unusual.
Cui Li was sitting, facing the entrance. After seeing Ye Xiu, he signalled in front of him. Tao Xuan turned around and the two looked at Ye Xiu.
“What a coincidence! To think that we would bump into each other here.” Ye Xiu greeted.
Chen Guo was still choosing a seat and hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. When she heard Ye Xiu say something, she turned her gaze over and saw the two sitting there. She quickly recognized them. Cui Li frequently showed up in the news and Tao Xuan had personally come to visit the Internet Cafe.
“Ah!” Chen Guo suddenly felt the atmosphere become awkward, but after examining them for awhile, she realized none of them felt awkward at all. The three guys were acting very comfortable, as if this wasn’t an uncomfortable situation. Seeing their friendly smiles, the scene looked more like friends unexpectedly bumping into each other. It definitely didn’t look like there were any existing conflict between the three.
Chen Guo deeply felt like she had said enough. The other side also had people who could talk. Cui Li replied to Ye Xiu: “Yeah, what a coincidence!”
“I won’t keep bothering you guys then.” Ye Xiu clearly didn’t plan on conversing with the other side too much.
However, Cui Li was very interested in their group. He laughed: “You’re not bothering us at all. Are these fellows with you your future team members? How about introducing them to us? In the future, we’ll certainly be interacting with each other anyways.”
Chen Guo was the boss of an Internet Cafe and she often made deals with people. She immediately heard the deeper intent in Cui Li’s words. Right when she was about to reply, Steamed Bun Invasion actually responded faster than her. He jumped out and said: “Ah! So you’re also someone in this profession? How lucky! This little bro is Steamed Bun Invasion. My friends call me Steamed Bun. What’s your name?”
“Ha ha.” Cui Li smiled: “Cui Li, Club Excellent Era’s director. Some might call me a leader. This is our boss.”
“Oh oh oh oh!” Steamed Bun Invasion repeated “Oh” four times and then asked: “What’s that?”
“HA HA HA HA!!” Chen Guo laughed so hard that one of the waiters was startled. Tang Rou could control herself, but she was clearly having a hard time holding herself back. Only when Ye Xiu explained to Steamed Bun Invasion in a serious tone did he understand: “The director is someone who manages the Club in most situations. The boss is the owner of everything in the Club. He manages the Club behind the scenes.”
“Oh oh, very senior?” Steamed Bun Invasion asked.
“Of course. They’re much more senior than us.” Ye Xiu said.
“Age?” Steamed Bun Invasion looked at the two of them and asked.
“You were asking about their age?” Ye Xiu had a hard time following Steamed Bun Invasion’s thought process.
“Pretty much!” Steamed Bun Invasion said.
As for what this “Pretty much!” meant, even Ye Xiu had trouble understanding. However, one of Ye Xiu’s strengths was that he didn’t care much for what you meant. I’ll say what I want according to what I understand, so he continued: “If you’re talking about age, they’re both older than us.”
“Amazing!” Steamed Bun Invasion praised. His comment was another mystery within a mystery. From what it looked like, he was praising how old they were? But why was being old something so amazing?
Cui Li’s expression continued to appear calm, but he was feeling very embarrassed. He definitely didn’t believe that the person in front of him was showing his true character. He felt like Ye Xiu must have set this up beforehand in order to ridicule them. It couldn’t be said that Cui Li was a petty person. Steamed Bun Invasion’s brain wasn’t something most people could understand regardless. Cui Li thinking in this way meant he was still a normal person.
But Steamed Bun Invasion wasn’t thinking about this at all. He sincerely patted the shoulders of the director: “We’re all on the same side. Let’s take care of each other!”
His words said one thing, but from his actions, it sounded like he would be looking after them and not the other way around. This time, Chen Guo didn’t laugh. She pulled at Steamed Bun Invasion: “Who’s following who? How are we on the same side?”
“Aren’t we all from the same circle?” Steamed Bun Invasion said, “Right. What team did they say they were from?”
“Excellent Era!” Cui Li was clearly angry as he repeated it again. His face clearly said: “Keep pretending! You just keep on pretending!”
But Steamed Bun Invasion immediately understood: “Excellent Era! Isn’t that that team, the one that lost really badly on TV just now?”
“.....” Cui Li.
“Yes.” Chen Guo nodded her head.
“Ah!” Steamed Bun Invasion looked at Cui Li with pity. He said in grief: “They shouldn’t have lost!”
“.......” This time, Cui Li didn’t answer him. He was afraid this was another trap. If he followed up, the other side would mock him. In his eyes, this guy named Steamed Bun was very terrifying.
“Steamed Bun, come sit over here!” At this moment, Ye Xiu had found seats and was already sitting together with Tang Rou. He called Steamed Bun Invasion over to sit with them.
Steamed Bun Invasion turned to look and felt that there was a lot of space near his seat, so he asked Cui Li and Tao Xuan: “Would you like to sit with us?”
“Ha ha, no need......” Cui Li’s smile looked very unnatural.
“If you lost, you lost. There’s no need to feel so bad.” Steamed Bun Invasion consoled them, “As long as you try hard, you’ll definitely have a future.”
What the f*ck are you talking about!! Cui Li was about to slam the table, but he saw Tao Xuan give him an eye, so he didn’t make any rash moves. He didn’t want to talk to Steamed Bun Invasion any longer, so he didn’t answer back.
Steamed Bun Invasion saw that they were ignoring him, so he ran off to sit together with Ye Xiu and the rest of the group.
“Amazing!” Tang Rou gave Steamed Bun Invasion a big thumbs up.
“Of course.” Steamed Bun Invasion said with excitement, but did he actually know what Tang Rou was praising him for?
“Bao Rongxing. Is that your real name?” Chen Guo asked.
“Yeah yeah! How did you know?” Steamed Bun Invasion asked excitedly.
“I was listening when you introduced yourself earlier.” Chen Guo tried hard to get used to talking with Steamed Bun Invasion.
“Yup yup, that’s my name! We’re all so familiar with each other, so you can just call me Steamed Bun.” Steamed Bun Invasion said.
“Okay, let’s order some food!” Chen Guo nodded her head. On the other side, Tao Xuan and Cui Li had already gotten up. They looked like they were about to leave.
“Enjoy yourself. We’ll be leaving.” Right when they were about to leave, Tao Xuan came over and said bye to the four of them. His tone of voice didn’t sound polite at all. In fact, it sounded very cold.
“Have a safe trip home! When you go back, work hard! You can do it!” Steamed Bun Invasion didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t say bye. Instead, he cheered them on. Chen Guo nearly burst out laughing again.
Soon afterwards, their food arrived. The four of them ate, while chatting with each other. They didn’t talk about anything serious until Chen Guo suddenly had a realization: “Hm? Today was an away match for Excellent Era. They didn’t go with their team?”
“Yeah!” Ye Xiu nodded his head.
Even though Chen Guo figured it out a bit slower, she also noticed this issue.
Excellent Era was doing terribly, but the two executives of the Club didn’t seem worried at all. Even for such an important match like today, they didn’t go with their team. If it wasn’t because of absolute confidence in the team, it must mean that they didn’t care about how Excellent Era did this season.
With Excellent Era’s terrible performances recently, they shouldn’t be very confident in the team, which meant that these two executives of Excellent Era didn’t have any hopes for this season, but no matter the case, if they get relegated, even if they returned the next year, without a year of fighting in the Professional League, the financial losses would be huge. It didn’t make sense for them not to care about relegations, no?
Chen Guo spoke her thoughts as she analyzed these issues. Ye Xiu listened and also nodded his head.
“Do you think that maybe after knowing you’re forming a team and preparing to go through the Challenger League, they’re losing intentionally to fight against you there?” Chen Guo suddenly said.
“I don’t think they’d go that far. Why would they care so much about me?” Ye Xiu laughed. If that was truly the reason, then they would letting their emotions affect their decisions. Tao Xuan had run the Club and taken care of the team for so many years. He had become an experienced boss long ago. How could he make such a decision just for such a simple reason? Ye Xiu clearly didn’t believe it.
“In any case, next season, Excellent Era will definitely be making big moves.” Ye Xiu said.
“What do you mean?” Chen Guo asked.
“They’re already at such a state this season. If they don’t make any big moves next season, won’t Excellent Era go out of business?” Ye Xiu said.
“Then why don’t they hurry up and make any movements now?” Chen Guo asked.
“It’s probably because they can’t do anything right now with their current situation!” Ye Xiu said as he looked at the seats, where the two had sat in before.
Club Excellent Era. After Tao Xuan and Cui Li returned, they went into Tao Xuan’s office. Tao Xuan picked out a random bottle of wine from his wine rack and poured out two cups. One for him and one for Cui Li.
Cui Li took it and sipped on it. He spoke: “Do you think that guy is actually stupid or acting stupid?”
Tao Xuan sat in his big chair and stared at the ceiling. After a moment, he said: “I don’t know.”
“Where did Ye Xiu get this guy?” Cui Li said.
“He doesn’t matter. How are your discussions going? You didn’t get a chance to finish talking about it back there.” Tao Xuan said.
“Everything is going smoothly.” Cui Li had a big smile on his face.
“Have you explained what might happen?” Tao Xuan asked.
“I’ve explained it all clearly.”
“Good.” Tao Xuan nodded his head.
“What next?” Cui Li asked Tao Xuan.
“Don’t have Sun Xiang come out on stage for now.” Tao Xuan said.
“Okay.” Cui Li didn’t seem surprised either. They had clearly talked about this arrangement before. He let out a slight expression of hesitation, but it was because of another reason: “We might really encounter Ye Qiu’s team in the revival tournament.”
“That’s good too!” Tao Xuan smiled, “It’ll be more fun that way!”