Superstars of Tomorrow

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Panda Novel

Fiery Bird’s representatives wanted to try a few more times to convince Fang Zhao before giving up. Even if Fang Zhao only appeared at the All-star Match, it would still generate a lot of publicity. The amount of influence Fang Zhao had in esports circles couldn’t be compared with thhe amount other athletes had.

Fiery Bird’s representatives had crafted three different messages to send to Fang Zhao depending on whether Fang Zhao’s dissertation defense went poorly, went well, or was borderline. They had also arranged for someone to provide them with real-time report of Fang Zhao’s dissertation. With this, they could choose which message to send once Fang Zhao’s dissertation defense was complete.

They were preparing additional reasons against Fang Zhao’s expected decline. Yet, they never expected…

“Fang Zhao said he would give us a reply in two hours time.”

“It’s great that he didn’t decline straight away! This means that Fang Zhao has some desire to participate in the match, just that his time is limited. He still has graduation and academic arrangements. He’s also being watched by Mo Lang all the time, so there is no knowing whether he can apply for leave.”

“Should we prepare gifts for a discussion with Mo Lang?”

“Better not.”

They knew that if they really went over, Old Venerable Mo would instantly complain to the relevant departments. The old master was especially firm with regards to this. Threats and promises wouldn’t affect him, so it would all be up to Fang Zhao.

If Fang Zhao really couldn’t take part, they could only select other guests as backups. However, these backup guests had much less influence, so they wouldn’t attract as much publicity.

At the other end, Nanfeng parked the car in the advanced student dormitory’s underground garage. Fang Zhao let him leave first and took the elevator up alone.

Inside the dormitory, Curly Hair had fallen asleep from doing questions. Then, his ears shot up suddenly. As if remembering something, Curly Hair ran over to unlock the room door and looked around the room in a fluster. He rushed over to remove the “do not disturb” indicator. In his haste, Curly Hair failed to control his strength and broke the switch of the electronic indicator sign. Sparks flew out from it.

Noticing that Fang Zhao was about to open the door, Curly Hair swallowed the broken indicator sign in a moment of desperation. Then, he crouched by the door and wagged his tail as if nothing had happened.

Fang Zhao opened the door to an innocent and lovable-looking Curly Hair.

Fang Zhao didn’t say anything and closed the door. He swept his gaze across the room and paused at the spot where the indicator sign used to be before walking over and turning on the learning console.

The history inside the learning console had already been cleared. Only practice questions and purchased curricula material remained within.

“Deleted rather cleanly,” Fang Zhao mused.

Curly Hair wanted to wag his tail but felt that something wasn’t right after wagging it twice. He stopped and looked at Fang Zhao carefully with his innocent eyes.

Fang Zhao used his personal terminal and searched for some of the news articles that Nanfeng had talked about before projecting one.

Curly Hair shrunk back when he saw the projection. His ears drooped down from fright.

Fang Zhao continued browsing through the news.

“Mystery primary school student? Mmhm?”

Curly Hair hung his head.

“Luckily, you remembered my words and didn’t mention my name. Otherwise, you’d already be on the road to Muzhou for sheep herding.”

Curly Hair’s head drooped even lower.

“Is it very fun breaking records? You didn’t even want the two million yuan reward.”

Curly Hair suddenly raised his head and looked at the news articles that Fang Zhao was browsing through. He realized he hadn’t heard the host’s final words before he had ended the call.

Two million! How many luxurious game consoles could he have bought?!

“There is actually still a monetary reward! Why did the host mention the learning console first?!!” Curly Hair looked shocked.

Fang Zhao cast him a glance. “Forget about the prize money.”

Receiving the prize money required a bank account and an identity verification. None of this could be revealed.

Fang Zhao selected another piece of news and displayed it for Curly Hair to see, letting him know how much trouble he had caused.

Curly Hair had thought he had evaded the host’s information digging, but he had actually revealed a lot. The reporters had keen perceptions and already had some guesses. For example, “the parent of [Little Curly Curls] might be a person with a sensitive identity” or “See, no one has claimed the two million. Either two million isn’t much to [Little Curly Curls] or this person’s identity cannot be revealed.” They were all curious which case it would be!

If he did not have a sensitive identity, then perhaps he had things to hide!

Some reporters specially went to investigate good rubik’s cube players amongst primary school children. There were some who used searches on voice databases trying to find a match. However, they didn’t discover anything.

Fang Zhao pondered for a moment and looked through the various resources in the learning console. There were question banks from famous schools and online classrooms run by reputable teachers. However, all of these had limitations in regard to Curly Hair’s transformation. After seeing that there were some children’s shows on the learning console too, Fang Zhao selected two for Curly Hair to watch. Since written language was too difficult for Curly Hair to understand, perhaps using the vivid visualization of videos would be better.

Of course, it was a learning console after all. How could these shows only be for killing time? There were still questions to solve!

Thus, Curly Hair took a temporary break from reading comprehension and delved into a new question bank.

Since it still had some element of entertainment, Curly Hair could easily catch the errors in some of the exaggerated acting in order to make progress. However, the worse actors still misled Curly Hair.

Fang Zhao also added the learning console’s news section to Curly Hair’s everyday reading list. Curly Hair didn’t read the news on his own. Previously, besides completing the daily tasks Fang Zhao assigned for him, he would be studying the various games in the learning console.

After making these arrangements for Curly Hair, Fang Zhao checked the news online before calling Mo Lang. Then, he gave Fiery Bird his reply. He was willing to participate in the All-star Match as a special guest.

Fiery Bird was delighted. They immediately dispatched someone over to discuss terms.

Fang Zhao agreed to participate in the All-star Match because he wanted to understand the situation and fish for information. Perhaps he needed to create bigger news to divert the reporters’ attentions. Although the news headlines were already starting to be captured by the various “Battle of the Century” gaming gods, Fang Zhao still felt that going down for a look was worthwhile.

A Fiery Bird representative arrived at Fang Zhao’s dormitory shortly and explained to Fang Zhao about his special guest participation and the competition rules.

“There are twelve modes. You can select three, and we will proceed with allocation.”

Many of the special guests invited to the All-star Match weren’t professional “Battle of the Century” players. The organizing side gave the guests three chances to choose game modes. If two or more guests chose the same mode at the same time, the organizers would make the arrangements. In any case, invited guests had the selection rights but not the deciding rights. In addition, Fiery Bird had also said that this was basically a competition that was mainly for commercial and entertainment purposes. Thus, even if the invited guests were allocated to modes they weren’t adept in, Fiery Bird would also give them added benefits for weapons and equipment so that they wouldn’t lose too badly.

Fang Zhao went over the organizer’s information seriously before making his three choices.

The Fiery Bird Personnel was somewhat astonished when he saw Fang Zhao’s first choice.

“Actually, there are very few invited guests that chose this mode,” the Fiery Bird personnel said. “Are you sure you want this as your first choice?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, any requests regarding weapons and equipment? We will do our best to fulfill them. You can also request powerful equipment.”

“The basic ones will do.”

“… Are you sure?”

“Yes.”