Little Sparrow

“If you don't go to the world championship to get revenge, are you really willing to spend the rest of your life watching over a warehouse?”

An esports revenge story, Team Monte Cristo. A tribute to my youth playing in raids on the North American server.

Here's a wild advance preview. I'll start writing it someday, if I live long enough.

Two years ago, we stood at the top of the world. I thought we'd always be that amazing.

Until I woke up from surgery one day... and found the team had disbanded.

Our spot in the world finals had gone to someone else.

One teammate joined another team, one deleted his account and quit the game, and another lost the use of his hand in a car accident.

And my raid leader, branded a traitor, disappeared into the vast sea of people.

The strongest Chinese team on the North American server fell apart overnight.

I went back to school, took exams, got a job, and became one more expressionless face among the legions of overworked wage slaves.

No one knew I still kept a corner of my heart folded away, as a memorial to those once-dazzling names.

No one knew that one day I'd run into him again, at a coal mine on the northeastern border.

My old raid leader, the man who seemed like a god descending from the heavens whenever he had a keyboard in his hands...

Now he was a warehouse manager with chilblains all over his hands, ordered around by everyone.

I'd cut my hair short, put on glasses, gained thirty pounds, and hidden myself inside a bulky down jacket, but he recognized me at a glance.

“Xiao Que.”

The moment he turned and called my name, all the ashes burst into flame.

(Narrated in third person.)

Theme: We will meet again in the end.