Author's Note: For my friends, who wanted to see a more jealous side of Ji Xiang Kong.  ;)  

Story #9 – The Green-Eyed Monster

“How’s the teaching going?” Sun Ze Yi asked. 

Ji Xiang Kong’s answer was interrupted by the return of his older brother’s wife, Shu Wen, to the dining room area.  Trailing behind were his own wife, Qiu Ying, and their friend, Lu Yi Yi, as they returned from having gone to help put their Wen Jie and Sun Ge’s daughter down for the night.

“Hopefully she’ll sleep for at least several hours before she wakes wanting a bottle so we can eat undisturbed!”  Shu Wen said to the other two women.

Sun Ze Yi, meanwhile, was setting the dinner table with the help of his younger brothers, Xiang Kong and Lin Yi Xuan.  As Xiang Kong placed a tureen of braised spare ribs in the center of the table, he finally answered his Sun Ge’s question.  “It’s going well.”

“It’s not just going ‘well,’” Yi Xuan jumped in.  “It’s going really well.  Kong Ge’s class is so popular even students who aren’t registered for his class sit in on it.” 

“Mmmm,” Qiu Ying agreed with a knowing lilt to her voice.  She picked up a stack of chopsticks and started to set them around the table.  “And they’re all young women.” 

“Oh?” Sun Ze Yi reacted.

“I want to hear more about this,” Shu Wen added.

“What is there to say?” Yi Yi lamented as she followed her friend around to place napkins by each table setting.  “My poor Qiu Ying has to suffer the consequences of having a young and handsome husband.  One who invites attention wherever he goes.” 

“You’re all exaggerating,” Xiang Kong tried to laugh them off. 

As everyone took their seats at the dinner table, he swatted the back of Yi Xuan’s head before rounding to the other side of the table to sit next to his wife.  Yi Xuan’s head jerked up instinctively and Xiang Kong shot him a surreptitious, but pointed glare for having started the current conversation on its path.  The fact that his class was a popular one with the young university coeds was a bit of a sore subject with Qiu Ying.

“My class is enjoyed by both males and females equally,” he continued smoothly as he picked up his rice bowl and chopsticks.  “There is no such thing as it being more popular with one gender over another.” 

“That’s not how it looked to me the other day when I went by your school to wait for you,” Qiu Ying sniffed.  “I wasn’t there for more than fifteen minutes and in that short amount of time, there were no less than three girls who stopped by your office looking for you and I swear they all turned away with tears in their eyes after they asked who I was and what I was doing in your office.”

Sitting at opposite heads of the table, Sun Ze Yi and Shu Wen exchanged amused glances while across from Qiu Ying, Yi Yi pursed her lips in a knowing manner and nodded her head in sympathetic understanding.  “I bet he gets a lot of visitors during office hours.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Qiu Ying muttered.

Xiang Kong sighed as he’d already been over this once before and recently.  “It was just a coincidence.  A coincidence,” he emphasized.  “It’s not normally like that.  Usually I’m just sitting around in my office waiting for people to stop by.”

“Really?  I would think your students would want to stop by to meet you even if they didn’t need help with their coursework.  You’re iConquer’s famous Master of Battleground Tactics.  Do any of them ever ask you for your autograph?”  Yi Xuan’s clueless comments earned him a kick from Xiang Kong underneath the table. 

“Ow!”

When Xiang Kong shot him another irritated look, Yi Xuan quickly zipped his mouth and refrained from expressing his next thought.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough.”  Ever the peacemaker, Shu Wen waded into the conversation and shared her two cents.  “All your Sun Ge wanted to know was whether Xiang Kong was enjoying his new job as a college professor.  Do you all have to be like this?  Come on everybody, eat.  The food’s getting cold and you don’t want your Sun Ge’s efforts to go to waste, do you?  He made everyone’s favorite braised spare ribs just for tonight.”

Sun Ze Yi laughed along with his wife.  “That’s right.  Come, come, everybody eat.”  He then turned to Xiang Kong and asked again, “So, how is it?  Do you like the work?”

“Mm, it’s interesting.  Different.  Watching my students, some of whom are learning how to play iConquer for the first time, I’m reminded of when I first started playing the game.  In addition to sharing our world with them, I feel like they’re giving me renewed purpose by reminding me of why I joined this world in the first place.” 

“Sometimes it’s good to have a bit of a reboot,” his Sun Ge agreed.

After Xiang Kong shared with the table some of the lectures he’d given and how he’d introduced his students to the many different professions within the esports industry, Yi Yi had an idea.  “Why don’t you bring in an esports commentator as a guest lecturer?”

“That’s a great idea,” Shu Wen agreed.

“What do you think?” Xiang Kong asked Qiu Ying.

She mulled over the idea and answered, “I can ask Luo Laoshi about it.  Since he’s done game replays for Summer Ge’s Dream Journey, he’d probably agree to help out.”

“Are you dumb?” Yi Yi asked in frustration.  “I was talking about you.” 

“Me?”  Qiu Ying looked around the table and realized everyone was staring at her.

“Why not you?” Sun Ge asked. 

Xiang Kong echoed the question and added, “You’ve been a commentator for several years now.  You’re every bit as a professional as Luo Laoshi and just as qualified.”

Although Qiu Ying had been partners with Luo Tian for several years already, when it came to public events separate from their live commentating, he was still the face of GDV.  She was accustomed to him taking on all outside activities for the television station while she worked behind the scenes with the research and preparations. 

“What would I talk about?” she asked.

“There are lots of things you could talk about,” Yi Yi told her.  “It would just depend on what angle you wanted to take.  You could talk about all the research and preparation that you do before each game in order to do the running commentary and share insights for the audience.  Or you could share with the students all the different paths a person can take to becoming a live commentator.”

“You could even do a game reply like Luo Tian does for Dream Journey,” Yi Xuan suggested, earning his first look of praise from Yi Yi that night.

“I’ll help you sketch out your lecture notes,” Xiang Kong promised. 

Qiu Ying looked around the table again and was warmed by her friends’ encouragement.  She supposed they had a point and told them, “I’ll discuss it with Luo Laoshi then.”

“Luo Tian won’t have a problem with it,” Su Ze Yi predicted. 

“And if he does, you let me know,” Shu Wen instructed.  Everyone knew that if there was one person Luo Tian was scared of, it was Shu Wen.  Sun Ze Yi might have been their captain during their Pioneer days, but it was Shu Wen who had kept all the men in line.

Qiu Ying couldn’t help but laugh at her Wen Jie’s comment.  “I’m sure it won’t come to that, but thank you.”

=//=

Both Sun Ze Yi and Qiu Ying were correct in their predictions.  Not only did Luo Tian not have any objections to Qiu Ying being a guest lecturer for Xiang Kong’s class, he enthusiastically supported the idea and gave her lots of suggestions for the lecture and even helped her with a run through.

On the morning of her guest lecture, Qiu Ying could barely force down the two bites she’d taken of her breakfast.  It was only because Xiang Kong had insisted that she’d bothered to eat at all.

“Why are you so nervous?” he asked as he navigated around some traffic on their way the university.  “You started out as a web streamer, you’ve participated in a contest where you were judged by a panel and the audience, and your current job is to comment live on computer games.  Shouldn’t you be used to public speaking by now?”

“That’s not what I’m nervous about.” 

“Then what are you nervous about?”

Qiu Ying wasn’t sure she could put her feelings into words.  Her husband was correct.  Public speaking was her day job, and she was comfortable with it.  She’d also experienced too many new and unexpected events in her life