Chapter 375 Chapter Old Boy, Set Sail Again (Part )
(Because I have to stay up late today to finish the materials, so I will post another extra episode)
"No, this is the strength you get right from the start?" The bearded man was stunned as he watched the man in front of him, who called himself a child, pressing the joystick skillfully and controlling the character on the screen to perform one smooth move after another.

The combo operation tutorials on the left side of the screen are densely packed into more than ten columns, adding up to almost a hundred operations.

But the kid just took a quick look and didn't even memorize it, and Terry, who he was controlling, started dancing.

Well, the bearded man thought that the smoothness and beauty could be described as dancing.

No, this is Street Fighter, a brand new game, which is fundamentally different from KOF!

Even if you've been playing fighting games for thirty years, you should at least be familiar with it, right?

Can you please respect the designer?
The trial session had only been going on for ten minutes, but Terry was already dazzled by the effect. The middle-aged man with the ID child had a messy stubble.

"As expected of Jun-ge, Terry Jinchuriki is still so powerful even after changing the game." Someone next to the bearded man exclaimed sincerely.

The bearded man was moved and quickly pulled the man next to him to ask, "Brother, the one playing now should be a top expert, right?"

If it was true as Zeng Zhuojun said, that he had only worked in arcades for a few years, the bearded man would never believe it even if he was beaten to death.

Apart from this incredible level, there are too many suspicious things.

The seat they were sitting in at the beginning to watch the fun was not too close to the inside. When they were waiting in line, the bearded man was ready to watch others try out the game the whole time.

As a result, when he and the child moved over, the crowd saw them and quickly made way for them. No matter how the child tried to refuse, the group of players forced him to a trial seat.

The key point was that there was already a player there. When he saw the child being pushed in front of him with an embarrassed look on his face, his eyes immediately lit up and he insisted on letting the child try first.

Even the bearded man who was watching the whole show benefited from this and easily got the innermost seat to watch the child's operation.

This kind of treatment... If you say that this man is not a big shot in the town, the bearded man would never believe it even if you beat him to death.

Sure enough, as he asked this somewhat funny question, the slightly fat guy next to him looked as if he had seen a ghost. After a while, he tentatively asked:
"Brother, you probably don't know much about the fighting game industry."

"Well, I've only played a little bit of King of Fighters, but I don't know much about it. I heard there was a trial session for a new game here, so I came to join in the fun." The bearded man said cautiously.

Fortunately, the guy didn't show any contempt or other expressions because of what he said. Instead, he looked overjoyed and grabbed his hand fiercely:

"Okay, new player, that's great!"

Then he remembered something, and immediately put his hands together, muttering something. The bearded man pricked up his ears to listen carefully, and could only vaguely hear some words such as "藤门" and so on.

"What... happened?" The bearded man was a little panicked.

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm just expressing my feelings." The fat guy smiled.

"As for our industry, it can't even be considered a cold industry, it can only be said to be half-dead, because of the decline of arcade games and the inhumanity of the development team of the previous King of Fighters. "

He suddenly got a little angry: "Look at King of Fighters XV, a game from 22 years ago. If you don't know the graphics, you'd think it was from 12. The special effects are so cheap that they look like they were made by an intern."

"Except for Japan, where there is still a certain number of players, in other countries, there are basically only a group of old players like us who pay for the sentiment."

“It’s so frustrating…”

"But..." He changed the subject, "Now that I've joined Tenghai, my future is suddenly bright."

As a veteran in the fighting circle, Lao Deng almost popped his eyes out of his head in shock when he first saw the promotional animation of Street Fighter.

This kind of picture, this kind of modeling, this kind of special effects expression, is it something that the fighting circle can have?
He took another look at Fighting King XV and felt so disgusted that he wanted to throw him into the sewer.

I opened Tieba forum and other websites with excitement, and sure enough, I saw countless old users who had been dormant for many years collectively resurrected on this day, opened champagne and joined in the celebration.

Good times are coming!
As soon as Fujiko took over, everything from the game itself to the player community became completely different.

When you come to the solo exhibition today, you can also find new players who have become a rare species.

These days, I am becoming more and more hopeful.

"No wonder, it's normal that the newcomer doesn't know Brother Jun." He patted the bearded man's shoulder in a friendly manner, and then began to brag.

In fact, it wasn't much of an exaggeration. It was just a simple listing of the kid's previous deeds.

But just this one move was enough to make the bearded man's pupils tremble.

I thought I had run into a professional player...

Unexpectedly, the person he met was Ye Xiu from the KOF world.

The child entered the game hall when he was five or six years old. He was brought there by his father.

Speaking of which, Zeng Zhuojun's father is also a heavyweight.

On the one hand, in an era when games were feared by mainstream society and arcades were considered bad places, he dared to bring his six-year-old son in and allowed him to play.

But on the other hand, he made a rather bizarre request: after losing ten coins, if he loses again, he will be slapped every time he loses.

At first, the masters in the arcade thought it was a joke, thinking it was just a trick used by the father to scare his son.

Don’t let your children become too obsessed with toys. Ten coins are enough.

As a result, when Zeng Zhuojun lost the first ten coins without any suspense, and was defeated again with the eleventh coin, his father slapped him without hesitation.

After beating him, he continued to stuff game coins into the child's hand and told him to win them back quickly. If he lost, he would be slapped again.

Listening to the child's screams and howls echoing throughout the arcade, all the masters inside were ashamed: he was a ruthless person.

But what they didn't know was that the kid who got beaten up was actually a heavyweight.

From then on, in just a few years, Zeng Zhuojun went from being a little kid who was beaten to a pulp by his father to a well-known figure who dominated arcades and was famous throughout Guangdong Province.

Many people didn’t know his name, they only knew that he was only eleven or twelve years old, so they called him “the legendary child”, which later evolved into the name “the child”.

At the age of fifteen, the kid set up a ring in a game hall in Shenyue and fought for six and a half hours, winning 137 consecutive games and completely making a name for himself.

At the age of eighteen, someone had a sudden idea to organize a Sino-Japanese competition in Beijing. Ten well-known KOF players from Japan were brought to China to compete with ten masters here.

The fighting on the first day was quite evenly matched. As the region with the best development of fighting games, Japan was not surprisingly slightly ahead.

It was not until the second half, in the round-robin match, that Zeng Zhuojun was the first to take the court.

I thought that as the youngest player on the Chinese side, he was here to learn and gain some experience.

As a result, at the beginning, the kid casually took out Hachiman and beat the Japanese team to 11-0.

The ten contestants who were known as the strongest players in Japan fought for a whole round but failed to take down the kid. Only three of them were able to defeat both characters of the kid.

And the kid who stood in the center of the ring was officially crowned a god that year.

Later, in various large and small competitions, the child continued his absolute dominance in the Fighting King event and won the Fighting Drama Championship in the China-Japan competition that year.

In the latest work, King of Fighters XV, he has already won three EVO championships, truly the first in history.

Ye Xiu's position in Glory is far less stable than this guy's in the fighting circle.

"Wow..." The bearded man didn't know what expression to use when listening to this series of legendary stories.

This level of monster was obviously beyond his comprehension. "Hey, so now you understand Jun's position in the fighting circle, brother." The buddy patted his shoulder with pride.

While the two of them were praising the child in various ways, they did not notice that in the crowd, there was a straight figure wearing a hat, sunglasses and mask, covering himself tightly, and he was listening to their conversation without any obstruction.

Under the mask, he had a thoughtful expression.

During the conversation, the crowd suddenly became noisy. The reason was very simple: Zeng Zhuojun's role test seemed to have come to an end.

After turning off the complicated frame rate test tool that made outsiders feel overwhelmed, Zeng Zhuojun stretched his body and heard someone shouting, "Brother Jun! How is Terry using it?"

"Um... it's not bad, just a little bit of muscle conflict." Zeng Zhuojun still spoke in his signature Cantonese dialect, scratched his head and smiled.

"Humility!" everyone laughed.

But Zeng Zhuojun is actually quite serious. Although it is a character linked with the King of Fighters, no matter how much the linkage is, Terry's operation can never be completely consistent with Terry in KOF.

Having played KOF for too long, he often subconsciously used the King of Fighters' combo moves and judgments when playing the Street Fighter version of Terry, which led to missed moves.

In a game like Street Fighter, failing a move basically means dealing half the guaranteed damage, or getting beaten up for half a point.

"Let's use Ken first." Zeng Zhuojun changed his role.

"Are there no brothers who want to give it a try?"

He looked around, eager to try.

This is a new game that has many innovations in underlying logic compared to KOF, and he is looking forward to seeing how well he can perform.

However, it is a bit regrettable that I haven't seen any well-known and powerful players around me yet.

Well, let’s just treat it as a friendly match.

Hearing the invitation from the child himself, the crowd immediately started to get agitated, but despite the excitement, not many people dared to go up and experience the child's skills in person.

Many of the old guys here remember clearly that at a comic convention two years ago, a kid was invited to participate in KOF15. He blindfolded himself and fought a standard one-on-three against a passerby.

If you challenge others without any skills, you will have to learn a lesson.

Seeing that no one came up, the child was wondering whether to add some difficulty, such as offering a hand or something.

Suddenly, a steady voice sounded: "Let me try."

The man who had covered himself tightly pushed away the crowd and walked up with the gait of a dragon or a tiger.

Although we couldn't see his expression and his tone was relatively calm, somehow, the people around him could sense a sense of dominance arising from him.

Finally, a challenger came forward, and Zeng Zhuojun also became motivated: "You want me—"

"No need, just fight with all your might." Before he could finish, the man had already sat on another fighting position and started to operate.

He did not start fighting with the child right away, but started a training session, simply familiarizing himself with the key positions and operations, and then withdrew.

Is he a newbie? Zeng Zhuojun thought.

interesting.

……

The game didn't start quickly, but it ended extremely fast.

The pace of fighting games is inherently fast, with one round lasting dozens of seconds, and one point basically taking only two or three minutes.

Even if it is a best-of-nine-game series, it usually only takes a little over half an hour at most.

Not to mention that this friendly battle is just BO3.

There was no suspense in the first game. Facing the mysterious man who chose Long, the kid casually took out a Ken. Green Chong tried with two light punches and found Long's weakness.

With a set of thunder kicks from the middle, he stood up and rushed to catch the shot, instantly hammering Long to the half side and starting to be imprisoned.

What was a little unexpected was that although the man was very unfamiliar with the operation and looked like a newcomer, he reacted very quickly and was very calm.

Facing the fact that he did not hold back, he was able to defend against a few of his moves with his reaction and tried to counterattack.

But there was nothing he could do. The gap in hard power was still too big. He didn't even have a single move to break the kid's defense. The kid hit him with two perfects in a row and he easily took the first point.

The kid was originally wondering if the abuse was too harsh and whether he should improve his emotional intelligence, but he saw that after the man lost the first point, he started the second game without hesitation: "Let's play again."

The child raised his eyebrows.

The second point started in a similar way. Long's psychology was completely grasped by the kid's Ken. After just two moves, he relied on a delayed light punch to interfere with the opponent's judgment and suppressed him to the edge of the board.

But this time it was a little different. After being knocked down again, the moment he got up, Long suddenly used a rising dragon punch.

The skill of climbing up and then following it up with a rising dragon and other moves in seconds is commonly called "ao" in the fighting circle. It is a good little skill, but novices basically don't understand it.

But this guy's Rising Dragon was very precise and the timing was perfect. In addition, the child was facing a novice and was not very vigilant, so he was actually hit by the Rising Dragon and was hit by a counterattack.

Although the kid quickly regained control of the rhythm with a precise defense, at least this time, Long would not be perfectly KOed by him.

He was so accurate in making the Shenglong the first time... The child became more and more interested in this person.

The match ended with a score of 2-0, and the challenger couldn't even snatch a light from the kid.

Even though he was defeated miserably by a kid, it was definitely not shameful even in the professional fighting circle.

"Brother, your reaction is good. Although you are a newbie, you are improving quickly. How long have you been playing fighting games?" After the competition, before the mysterious man could speak, the child took the lead in praising him.

Although the situation on the field was almost overwhelming, he really felt that the guy in front of him was quite strong.

If his operation didn't show that he was a complete newbie who had barely played fighting games, he would have suspected that it was some old guy pretending to be a newbie to cause trouble for him.

I was a little curious about the true face under the mask.

The man was silent for a while, but did not answer directly: "Can I ask a question?"

"please say."

"You are already this old, what makes you still willing to persist in the professional arena?"

"Why are you asking this suddenly?" the child was stunned.

The man hesitated for a moment, and then began to take off his mask, hat and sunglasses one by one.

Halfway through the picking, the crowd became lively again, and when the face fully appeared in front of everyone, some viewers who had already recognized this person could not help but exclaim;
"It's the King of Fighters! The glorious King of Fighters!"

　Today is my last day of hard work, so I have no choice but to write a side story to get by. I'm too busy and don't have time to check the information and competitions in the main article. Please forgive me.

　　Kowtowed.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)