The final match of this edition of the mechanical athletic competition was Qiao An and Zheng Juncheng versus He Yishu and Adrian, which meant that the champion of this edition of the mechanical athletic competition would be generated among these two sets of partners.
He Yishu wasn’t the least bit surprised, or perhaps he should say, this was exactly what he had expected from the beginning.
The night before the finals, He Yishu had a rare opportunity to return to the apartment that belonged to him and sat on the sofa in the living room together with Qiao An to chat, and as the two of them chatted, they naturally chatted about the next day’s competition.
“Xiao Shu, tomorrow is the final; we’re going to meet on the field then.” Qiao An held his cup, looking as if he was a little nervous.
He Yishu nodded, and after thinking for a while, he spoke, “Yeah, I was thinking, how should we play tomorrow’s match?”
Hearing this, Qiao An hurriedly said, “Xiao Shu, I thought about it for a long time before; in fact, I still don’t want you to intentionally not use the Han character rune card for me, because this matter itself is a kind of unfairness to you.”
In Qiao An’s opinion, although the reason He Yishu gave before for not using the Han character card seemed to be sufficient, in the end, He Yishu’s behaviour was all a kind of concession because this was a match without suspense in itself.
With this thought in mind, Qiao An really didn’t want to see He Yishu purposely give in on the field of play because of a personal relationship, and even if he managed to win by chance in this situation, Qiao An wouldn’t be happy about it.
Of course the main thing was that Qiao An wasn’t someone who was afraid of losing, so he didn’t really feel that He Yishu had a complete need to do so.
After this period of time together, He Yishu already had a very good understanding of Qiao An’s character. Hearing him say this, he naturally knew what he really thought. He helplessly sighed softly: “Qiao An, in fact, I chose to do that because I also have a selfish motive; the victory or defeat of this match is not really that important to me. The reason why I don’t want to use the Han Character Rune Card is that I don’t want Adrian to lose because of the Han Character Card. I don’t want Adrian to suffer from other people’s slander because of me.”
Saying this, He Yishu glanced apologetically at Qiao An: “If I use the Han character rune card and the match is won, then it will take all the credit for the outcome of this match, but if it is lost, Adrian might become the target of other people’s criticism. To lose the match even after using the Han character rune card, it must be the responsibility of the Mecha Warrior, I think they would say that. So Qiao An, the reason I made this choice and advised accordingly is not entirely because of you.”
To He Yishu, the second half of this speech was actually unnecessary; he hadn’t even considered the situation where he would still lose after using the Han character rune card, but after all, it was in front of Qiao An, He Yishu still finished his words seriously.
“I see what you mean; if I were you, I think I’d choose the same way,” Qiao An thought carefully, then said with a bit of envy, “It’s nice of you to think of Adrian like that.”
“As a matter of fact, it’s yourself that you should be envious of.” He Yishu smiled slightly, and in a rare moment he praised Zheng Juncheng. “You and Zheng Juncheng’s situation is exactly the opposite of ours; if I use the Han character rune card, then even if you guys lose, people won’t think that there’s a problem with his strength. But on the contrary, if I don’t use the Han character rune card and you guys lose, then the main responsibility will fall on Zheng Juncheng.”
Qiao An froze slightly; he had never considered this. Now that he thought about it, if Zheng Juncheng didn’t want to carry such a responsibility, he could have insisted that He Yishu use the Han character rune card; this would appear to be broad-minded and open-minded and also spare him from unnecessary responsibility.
Even if they lost this match, the others would only think that his level of making rune cards wasn’t as good as He Yishu’s and wouldn’t put the blame on Zheng Juncheng’s shoulders.
However, after He Yishu had proposed the idea of not using Han character rune cards, Zheng Juncheng had not done so, so he was also thinking for him, right?
Of course, another possibility existed, which was that Zheng Juncheng felt that his strength wasn’t weaker than Adrian’s and that he could have won this match just as well with his mecha combat abilities, but Qiao An remembered that Zheng Juncheng had told him earlier that he had lost in several sparring matches with Adrian.
Qiao An let out a breath, his heart inexplicably feeling sour. At the same time, this matter also revealed the key issue: He Yishu didn’t want to use the Han character rune card, but Qiao An wanted him to use the Han character rune card.
But this problem actually couldn’t be considered a problem, because after Qiao An’s sour heart, he quickly realised an essential problem: “Xiao Shu, I’m sorry; I really shouldn’t have made such a request to you; I take back what I just said.”
He Yishu looked at Qiao An with a bit of surprise, and Qiao An smiled embarrassedly: “I just suddenly realised a problem; this is a free competition; everyone who participates in the competition has the right to decide their own way of competing, to hide their strengths or to put their best foot forward; it’s only the participant’s own choice; as long as they don’t break the rules of the competition, other people don’t have the right to question it.”
Upon hearing this, He Yishu was silent for a moment; whether he said that he favoured his friends or anything else, the truth was that his current choice was indeed biassed in favour of Adrian, so he could only say, “Thank you,” to Qiao An in the end.
“No, I’m the one who should say thank you; if it wasn’t for you, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t have thought of Juncheng’s idea at all, moreover.” Qiao An looked straight at He Yishu without any resentment in his eyes. “Although Adrian occupied the main reason, the reason why you chose not to use the Han character rune card was also partly for me, right? Not letting me be the main reason for losing this match, isn’t that in itself a consideration for me?”
He Yishu lightly breathed a sigh of relief and didn’t say anything else; even if Qiao An had spoken very softly, He Yishu had to admit that he was actually a very selfish person.
He always left everything he had to the people he cared about the most, as for others, he couldn’t consider that much.
The next day, the final of the Mecha Athletic Competition was held as scheduled; countless people in the Interstellar Empire were paying attention to this competition, and the virtual network was even discussing it with great fervour, but in their discussions, it was rare that they didn’t touch on one of the most fiercely debated issues in the past, that was, who would be the champion of this session of the Mecha Athletic Competition.
This was because, in their opinion, it was an issue that was completely without suspense.
The match officially started, both sides were teleported into the match venue, and the commentator began his impassioned commentary: “Hello everyone, it’s my honour to be the live commentator for this year’s Mecha Athletic Competition final. This match is going to give birth to the champion of this year’s Mecha Athletic Competition; which side will be able to win this title? Let’s wait and see!”
“So let’s start by casting our eyes on the field of play. Now that both members are in the game, in another 30 seconds the game will officially begin. Okay, now the match has officially started! Both sides launched their fierce attacks at almost the same time, so what kind of rune card tactics will they use next? Let’s take a look at the operation of the two rune card masters, who now have… in their rune card slots. Their rune card slots are empty.”
“Now that the game has officially begun, why didn’t both sides use rune cards when they paid? Could this be their battle strategy?”
It wasn’t just the commentators; everyone else was also surprised by this question. According to their expectations, the Rune Card bigwigs should have directly used their Rune Cards to kill the other side in seconds at the beginning of the match.
But the fact was that the Rune Card Masters of the two sides acted as if they had forgotten that they were in the middle of a match and had absolutely no intention of using their Rune Cards, so… was it their eyes that was out of order, or their Rune Card Big Brother that was out of order?
The commentator focused and continued to speak very fast: “Okay, we can see that the two mechas are now fiercely entangled together, and their speeds are really too fast to recognise with their eyes! Oh! Adrian manoeuvred his mecha to give a powerful sword to his opponent; now the damage level of his opponent’s mecha has increased to 2%, but Adrian’s mecha has also suffered some damage, so let’s take another look at the movements of these two rune card masters. Do they… seem to be making small talk?”
It must be that his eyes were wrong to see the two rune card masters engaging in a friendly and polite conversation, the commentator asked in a bit of a trance, “I shouldn’t have seen it wrong, right? Are they really chatting?”
The equally shocked and crying onlookers replied with a bitter smile, “Yes, you didn’t see it wrong, because we all saw it too! They were indeed just chatting! Chatting!”
The commentator, who was rendered rather speechless by the completely wrongly drawn He Yishu and Qiao An, had no choice but to shift his attention to the two mecha warriors once again.
“Although in this match, the rune card masters of both sides seem to be extraordinarily unproductive and completely unhelpful, but it has to be said that the mecha warriors of both sides are very strong, and even without the additions of the rune card masters, this match is still very watchable,” the commentator wiped his sweat sheepishly, and he was actually very clear that the vast majority of the people who had gathered around to watch this match had placed the key point on He Yishu’s body; even he himself was like that, but now, the situation was completely different from what they had expected. “Oh! Zheng Juncheng had already widened the distance between him and Adrian through the dodging he had just done, and he was now starting to unleash his long-range attacks! Then Adrian’s… Adrian has similarly launched a long-range attack! Then next…”
He Yishu chatted with Qiao An on one side while observing the mecha destruction degrees of both sides, and it had to be said that Zheng Juncheng’s combat strength was indeed not to be underestimated, because as his mecha destruction degree was raised to 93% by Adrian, his own side’s mecha destruction degree followed suit and rose to 90%.
After another ten minutes or so, the match was finally over, Adrian won, and at that time, their mecha destruction level had also reached 98.45%.
The champion and the runner-up of this year’s Mecha Athletic Competition were created at the same time, and half an hour later, they walked onto the podium together.
At the moment before receiving the championship trophy from the hands of the virtual arena’s director, the director suddenly asked in a profound manner, “He Yishu, can you tell us why you and your opponent coincidentally gave up using the rune cards in the last and most crucial final?”
He Yishu glanced at Qiao An, who was standing to the side, and grinned: “As you all should know, Qiao An and I are actually very good friends, and we live in the same student apartment, and last night, we had an argument in the living room of the apartment, and it was this argument that made us act the way we did today.”
“Oh? Can you tell us the content of your argument?” The Chief Director’s tone became more interested.
He Yishu paused for a moment, and after a mysterious smile, he intentionally and appetisingly said, “You go ask Qiao An; I’ve been eyeing my trophy for a long time; can you give it to me now?”