The Smiling Chessman - Falling into your smile

Putting down roots

After the car drive which honestly was exhilarating for Tang Yao, she busied herself with setting up her room.  The manual task of putting everything away allowed her to calm down from the strange outing she had with the captain.  He was an interesting man. He appeared like he was cold, indifferent but his attention to detail was unparalleled- he remembered moments of an encounter he had down to the last detail, allowed her to drive a car that was obviously dear to him and was perfectly amicable to her, even gentlemanly, like the K-dramas. She didn't know what to think of him.

She took a cool shower, changed into comfortable sweats and a oversized top and went downstairs. She heard Little Fatty, " I am so hungry. Let's order dinner"

Tang Yao, " Would you all like hot pot? I can order some"

The captain said, " I want beef and broccoli" That settled it. She ordered dinner. While they waited for it, they directed her to her new seat. The team had gone out of their way to make her feel welcome . She had loved everything so far, except for an offending pick lacy border for her monitor. The captain, AD was in the seat next to the mid on the chair, he took one look at it and knew that she would hate it. He interjected, " What is that offending thing?" 'Thank you' , thought Smiling, 'please go on. I want that thing off'. She was looking for a polite way to remove that.

K responded, " Its a thing that girls like on their screen" Seeing his captain angry look , he shrunk into his seat. Captain thundered, " Remove that at once". Xiao Rui tried to interject but Smiling spoke up - " It was so sweet of you all but I think I need to remove that. It will cover a part of the map in game" and tactfully diffused the situation. After dinner, Lu Sicheng called out, " Come shortie, play a duo with me"

Smiling -" Now? I was going to go to bed. It's been a long day"

Old Cat- " She's refusing to be paired with captain. She's saying no to the chessman"

K - " She doesn't want to win"

Captain -" No one goes to bed as soon as they eat. Let's play a game or two"

Smiling breathed in and out , grabbed a pen pulling her hair into a bun with it and walked to the station without a word. He saw a glimpse of her delicate neck as she passed him. She turned around and lifted a brow . He sat down at once and the rest of the team gathered. In the first game, they played against a random Korean team , the match lasted 20 minutes with both players playing aggressively. Needless to say, they won.Old K declared, " ZGDX has two attack dogs now, the top and support can chill, I as the Jungler only need to farm". The rest laughed. On the second game, they got to play against CK's Mid and their Jungler. Smiling hesitated for a second when she saw his name.  Chessman whispered, " Scared?" . She snorted, " He wishes" realizing that her captain somehow knew about her relationship with Jiang Yang. She wondered how. The rest of the team watching, exchanged glances trying to decipher the meaning of the conversation.

The second match was confusing to say the least. Yang god tried to protect Smiling while trying to attack the chessman at the same time. Smiling got progressively irritated with his behavior and started attacking him  at every turn. The chessman let himself be used as bait. This happened for the first few minutes. Then after several potions and purchases, Yang god then switched to attacking Smiling. She was playing her signature Leblanc and had reached level 6 by then. She used her ultimate and played aggressively. The chessman joined forces and together they managed to wreak enough havoc to drop him down a level. CK's mid ran away to the top lane exclaiming he was surrounded by crazy people. The game soon ended with another victory for the ZGDX duo. Not wishing to linger or giving Jiyang Yang another excuse to talk to her, she logged off and got up from her seat. She announced, " I am going to bed. Good night " and simply walked away like the Chessman did.

Little Fatty explained, " Cheng-ge , did you manage to find another person like you to be our mid? She walked away just now , like you normally do"

The next morning, Smiling came downstairs at 8 am. She found no one on the first floor save for the housekeeper. The housekeeper greeted her, " Hello, are you a girlfriend to one of the players?"

She smiled, " No. I am the new player on the team. When does everyone usually get up?"

The housekeeper replied, " That's great! Welcome. I make lunch, but they usually come downstairs around 3 pm. They tend to stay up all night"

Smiling spent the day watching some American TV dramas, working on her idea and coding till 3:30 pm. At 3:30 Little Fatty came downstairs in just his underpants, he took one look at her and ran away. After an hour he and the captain came out together. Lu Sicheng looked like a male model with his simple fitted T-shirt showing off his muscles, pajama pant hanging off his waist and dripping wet hair. Smiling was engrossed in her code when he came and stood behind her watching her work.

Chessman -" Afternoon! What are you working on?"

Tang Yao was startled, she jumped, "Just a personal project. Hellooo" She noticed little Fatty sulking to the side and called out " Nice Ultraman undies" and giggled.

Little Fatty said with some embarrassment- " I forgot there was a girl here...also don't tease me"

Chessman - " What girl? Little shortie here is one of the guys. Shortie, come play a duo with me"

Tang Yao thought '??? Does he not realize I am a girl? What the hell?'

Interpreting her gaze correctly he thought to himself, ' Trust me I have a realized you are a girl. But for the sake of your comfort here, it's better everyone thinks of you as one of the guys'.

She played 3 games with him. He stole her blue bluff in the first game, she snatched his red bluff in the second game and in the third game they both chose champions they weren't familiar with and played poorly. As a result neither party wanted to talk to each other. Their strange interaction confused everyone else at the base. Ming God even had a conversation with Lu Sicheng in private about being nice to Smiling.