The Last Person Anyone Would Recruit

The open qualifier did not fall under the professional league’s ban. Within an hour of Lin Zhou’s recruitment post, thirty thousand applications arrived. In the second hour, Obsidian published a “women’s performance stability report,” using numbers of mysterious origin to prove an all-women roster could not survive a long season. By hour three, only forty-seven applicants remained. Xu Cheng wanted to answer the report. Lin Zhou stopped her. “Let them keep every word. We’ll need something to throw back at them later.” Tryouts took place in a dying internet café. Forty applicants wanted ZERO’s attention. Six left after learning there was no salary yet. The last arrived twenty minutes late in sunglasses, followed by two streamers holding phones.