Chapter 30 Chapter 30: How Burnt Do You Like It?
Peng Xiaoxiao had already been completely won over by this club.
Shu Yuxin wasn’t surprised at all. To be precise, she had already guessed it the moment they walked into that room.
Peng Xiaoxiao hadn’t left the activity room for the entire day. She kept racing until the room was about to close, only then reluctantly returning to the dorm. As for the application form to join the esports club, she had finished filling it out while eating takeout at noon.
Shu Yuxin and Jiang Zixuan didn’t rush to fill out their application forms. At Jiang Zixuan’s suggestion, the two of them decided to get familiar with things for a couple more days before making a decision.
Actually, Shu Yuxin had some objections to this suggestion, but since Yan Zhikai had also said there was no need to hurry with the application, she compromised in the end.
By evening, the weekend was already drawing to a close. In the rental apartment, a lavish dinner was being prepared. Shu Yuxin finally decided to try cooking that box of chicken breast, and Jiang Zixuan said he was really looking forward to it.
He genuinely was curious about how Shu Yuxin would cook it. After all, last night had been her first time in the kitchen, and at noon today she had already made sliced potatoes that tasted quite good. Either it was some mysterious buff from her obsession with her favorite foods, or she really did have talent in this area. Jiang Zixuan believed it was the latter.
A comedy show was playing on the TV. Jiang Zixuan had the whole sofa to himself, leisurely cracking sunflower seeds. Listening to the sounds coming from the kitchen, he suddenly had an illusion—right now, he and Shu Yuxin really seemed like an old married couple who had been together for many years.
The illusion only lingered in his mind for a second before he refocused on eating his sunflower seeds.
“Zixuan,” Shu Yuxin’s voice came from the kitchen, “what do you think about that esports club?”
Jiang Zixuan turned his head toward the kitchen, though because of the angle he couldn’t see Shu Yuxin. “That club… it’s okay, I guess. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be any problem.”
“‘On the surface,’ huh. Tsk, you’re really paranoid. What, you think they might secretly be some evil organization?”
“That’s not impossible,” Jiang Zixuan suddenly laughed. “Let me tell you, I have a roommate who signed up for something called an ‘English Intensive Training Group’ three days ago. Not a club, just a student organization. That group requires all members to get up at 5:20 a.m. to go to the track for fifty minutes of morning reading, and then again at 9:30 p.m. for evening reading. Being late or absent gets recorded, and once you reach a certain limit, there are all kinds of punishments. I don’t remember all the details, but that organization is a huge pain, with tons of rules and requirements. On our school’s forum, that group, along with the flag-raising team and the Student Union’s publicity department, are collectively called the three major cults of Ming University. My roommate had to get up at five every morning, yell English, then rush straight over for military training drills. After just three days, he couldn’t take it anymore.”
After a while, Shu Yuxin’s voice floated out of the kitchen again. “If he couldn’t take it, couldn’t he just quit?”
“It’s not that easy. You think you can just quit whenever you want? To leave that organization, you first have to prepare a bunch of reasons, then fill out a stack of withdrawal applications, and then there’s approval and all that. It’s a whole mess. Apparently, even at the fastest, it takes at least half a month. And during that half month, he still has to keep following all the rules—no weekends off. These past few days, he’s practically been driven insane.” Jiang Zixuan shook his head and continued. “Withdrawing from a club might be a bit simpler than that organization, but the procedures are still kind of complicated. Some student club activities get recorded in student files. Submitting an application has to go through several rounds of approval, and even then it takes a few days at the fastest.”
“So troublesome…”
“I don’t know about the rules at your school, but that’s how it is at ours.” Jiang Zixuan cracked another sunflower seed. “By the way, you really haven’t looked into any of your school’s policies at all?”
“Nope,” Shu Yuxin said righteously. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“...You’re really carefree.”
After a brief pause, Shu Yuxin asked again, “Then if there’s nothing wrong with this esports club, do you want to join?”
“I’m fine either way. If you want to join, I’ll join with you.” Jiang Zixuan smiled. “Free games to play—why not?”
“I’m not doing it just for the games…” Shu Yuxin sounded a bit conflicted, but still said what she was thinking. “That competition Yan Zhikai mentioned—I just looked it up. It’s held every year. The teams are mainly made up of students from nearby universities. That means we could participate too… I heard that esports competitions like that are used by big companies to scout talent. If you get noticed, there’s a chance you could enter the esports scene directly.”
Jiang Zixuan’s hand paused mid–sunflower seed. “You’re not thinking of going into that esports world, are you?”
“Of course not! That kind of thing can’t put food on the table for a lifetime!” Shu Yuxin hurriedly denied it, then added, “I just… ahem, the teams that place in the top three all get a lot of prize money per player. I saw that last year’s first-place team got fifty thousand per person. Don’t you think that’s a lot?”
“Not really.”
“...I’m talking about this from the perspective of an ordinary college student, not a rich second-generation kid.”
“Ha, alright, alright, fifty thousand is quite a lot.” Jiang Zixuan laughed, understanding her point. “So you want to compete and win some prize money?”
“Why not? Didn’t Yan Zhikai say they’ve gotten third place before? Besides, if we play seriously, our skill level is actually pretty decent. A few tens of thousands… that’s a nice chunk of extra income.”
Jiang Zixuan thought for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, we’ll see when the time comes. No rush right now.”
“Mm,” Shu Yuxin was clearly getting excited. “Seriously, if we really managed to get first place, I’d earn all my tuition for the next few years in one go! That would be… holy shit—!”
As the saying goes, extreme joy begets sorrow. After a suspicious clattering sound came from the kitchen, Shu Yuxin’s slightly awkward voice drifted out. “Um… Zixuan.”
“Huh?” Jiang Zixuan glanced toward the kitchen and stood up, walking over. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just a small problem.” Shu Yuxin laughed it off, then suddenly asked, “Let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“How burnt do you like your grilled meat?”
“…”
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