Team Shanghai returned to their gruelling schedule of training every day! There was no rest for the wicked! The Winter Collegiate Cup was right around the corner and they were still a long way away from being able to compete for the title. And that was exactly what they were going for. Anything less than winning the championship was unacceptable! Not just for Team Shanghai, but also for Fang Hao and Chu Fang. They were well aware of how good Lin Feng was at League of Legends. If Lin Feng really gave it his all, they were convinced he would lead his team to the title.

But Lin Feng wasn’t thinking too much about practicing. He was celebrating the victory against Shanghai University of Finance together with Tang Bingyao and Zhang Hao. That win was a big confidence booster, lifting the pressure right off their shoulders. Zeng Rui was fortunately a realist. He quickly put an end to the joy by reminding the team that the Shanghai University of Finance was only a top 8 team in China. “We’re not playing to get into the top 8. We play to win. Right now, we can’t even win the regionals. There are two other teams in the East China region that are far better than the Shanghai University of Finance. You might’ve heard about them before. They are Fudan University and Zhejiang University. I’ve only seen them play in the last Collegiate Cup, but we should assume they’re better now than they were then.”

An Xin nodded along with everything Zeng Rui said. She spent much of her free time watching replays from the previous Collegiate Cup. And the rest of her free time went towards discussing what she’d seen with Zeng Rui. She looked at Lin Feng and said, “The skill differences between those two and Shanghai University of Finance is really big. I don’t think we can confidently beat them, or at all. It’s a toss up really. A 2-1 result that could go either way. And remember, they only made it to the semis last year. I also watched the finals… Those two teams were good.”

“Really? No! We can’t let that happen!” Lin Feng exclaimed. Then he shook his head and continued, “We have to practice harder! We’re going to win this tournament! Top 4 means nothing!”

Zeng Rui stared at Lin Feng, ready to erupt. That’s what I’ve been saying! Thundering dumbass! Do you always have to be this stupid? Why can’t you use your brain for once? He sighed and massaged his temples. Calm, calm. He finally looked at Lin Feng and said, “Of course we want to win. But it’s not easy. There can be only one!”

An Xin smiled and said, “Yeap. There can be only one! Now let’s focus on our training.”

It was the sign for everyone to sit back down behind their computers. They then turned to look at Zeng Rui and An Xin, who started explaining the strategy and tactics the team were going to practice next. Before long, they were putting the game plan into action against Master and Challenger rank teams. And they won. They always won. The tactics looked perfect, the execution flawless. No one could beat them! Lin Feng got excited again! But then An Xin and Zeng Rui hit the team with a dose of reality. Their opponents weren’t tryharding, nor did they have a Lin Feng on their team. An Xin then pulled up a recording of the game and pointed out all the mistakes they made, so that they could learn from them.

Team Shanghai used this method of planning, playing, reviewing, and adapting to improve as quickly as they could. They played game after game, day after day. The only distraction to the monotony was their old teammates who would occasionally drop by to watch the games. To be impressed. Both the players from Shanghai High School and High School 13 were absolutely amazed by the immense progress Team Shanghai had made in only a few weeks of training.

Ouyang was particularly stunned. He remembered High School 13’s training regime for the Shanghai 16 School Tournament. Back when they started, he was only Gold. But the training had helped him climb up the ladder to Platinum. That practice was just right for him. He understood what was expected of him and how he could improve. But when he listened to Zeng Rui and An Xin discussing tactics and then relaying that to the rest of the team, he was drawing blanks. The level of micro management was so high that he was completely lost. But he could see that it worked. The team won just about every game! He smacked his forehead and said, “Sweet Brosus! It’s like I’m watching my best bros becoming a professional team! I bet the LSPL doesn’t have anything on you! How are you all this good?”

Lin Feng laughed and said, “I told you! I’m really good at League of Legends too! And the others are okay too!”

An Xin glared at Lin Feng. She wanted to say something. HMM? What was that? I dare you to say it again! But Zeng Rui’s old teammates and Wei Dong changed the topic before she could. Their eyes were on Zeng Rui and Tang Bingyao.

“You two are playing so well together! It’s like you two have been at it for years!”
“I’ve never seen Botlaners with such good synergy!”
“You two are the perfect couple! Like a match made in heaven!”
“Right, right! Zeng Rui is the shield who holds down the fort! Nothing gets past him!”
“Yes, yes! And Tang Tang is the spear! She’s sharp and deadly! No one can stop her! All perish in her way!”
“Uhh, yeah, something like what they said. You two are playing really well together!”

Lin Feng was about to say something stupid, An Xin could see it. She raised her finger and grabbed his attention. “Don’t!” she mouthed.

Lin Feng wasn’t entirely braindead. He swallowed back the words that were on the tip of his tongue. I’m really good too! I Supported Tang Tang against a university team during our scrim and totally carried us to a win! You should’ve seen my Support! I’m really good at Supporting too! He instead grinned and said, “Zhang Hao is also doing really well in the top lane!”

It was one of the most sensible things Lin Feng had said. Team Shanghai really was doing well. The bot lane was making large strides, but so was Zhang Hao in the top lane. He was putting in better and better performances, and he almost never lost his lane matchups anymore. An Xin was doing even better. She was the quiet carry of the team, always arriving in time for a counter gank or to help a teammate pick up a kill. But the most impressive player of the team was still Lin Feng. There was just something about the way he played that was different from everyone else. No one on the team could quite explain how it was different, but they all knew they were witnessing something very special when he really started playing.

Liu Yue suddenly clasped Lin Feng’s shoulder and exclaimed, “My god! I bet there’s almost no one in the entire Collegiate Cup who can beat you guys! WOOT WOOT!”

An Xin giggled and said, “We just have to make sure that we beat the few teams who do stand a chance against us. It’s not going to be so easy. We still have a lot more training to do.”

“BunBun is right! We have to beat everyone!” Lin Feng agreed. Then he struck his victory pose and shouted, “And we’re going to beat them all! First place will be ours! No one can stop us!”

✹

Tian Tian was back to work after his short holiday break following Worlds. The new LPL season was around the corner and he had to practice for that. But more time consuming were the large number of sponsorship events KG had lined up for him. He went from one event to the next and barely even had the time to call Lin Feng, let alone meet up with him for an afternoon of gaming. But he did want to talk with his best friend, so he eventually made the excuse that he had to go to the bathroom for a number two. Once inside, he took out his phone and dialed Lin Feng’s number.

The two good friends talked briefly about random subjects, until Lin Feng couldn’t contain himself any longer and shared that he was playing in the Winter Collegiate Cup after all. “Y-you’re really going to play in the Winter Collegiate Cup?” Tian Tian asked, incredulous. “That’s so unfair for everyone else, haha! You’re the best player in the world. Y-you’ll easily win this!”

“I know, right? I think so too!” Lin Feng replied, grinning. “Oh, right! Fatty? Remember Tang Tang? She’s going to be our team’s ad-carry. Well, her birthday is this weekend. We’re giving her a big party! You should also come! It doesn’t matter that you don’t know her yet! You’re going to be best friends when we make the team anyway!”

Tian Tian sighed and said, “Sorry. I-I can’t. I’m really busy. Maybe I can meet her some other time? When I’m not so busy. I-it’s all these sponsorship events…”

“Oh, okay,” Lin Feng replied, disappointment thick in his voice.

Tian Tian didn’t want to linger on this particular bit. His time with Lin Feng was short and he wanted it to be good. So he asked, “What are you getting her? Y-you know, a birthday present.”

Lin Feng forgot to reply to Tian Tian. He stared at the wall, utterly confused. A birthday present? Huh? Why would I have to give someone a birthday present on their birthday?

✹

“Are you actually stupid?” Su Xue asked Lin Feng, who was wolfing down a late afternoon snack. “What were you planning? Going to Tang Tang’s birthday party to stuff yourself? A birthday party is to celebrate her birthday! Not to stuff yourself!” She rolled her eyes and lectured, “Of course you need to bring a present! And you better put some thought into it! If I hear you bought her a gift card, I won’t ever make dinner for you again! You need to get her a gift that means something to her!”

Lin Feng scratched the back of his head and said, “Oh, I see. I didn’t know…” A gift that means something to her? What even is that? Where do I get that? Is there a special store for those kinds of gifts? Maybe I can search online for them.

Su Xue noticed the confused look on Lin Feng’s face. He looks like he really doesn’t know. Is it really that… She frowned and probed, “Don’t tell me you’ve never given someone a birthday present before…?”

Lin Feng stopped eating for a moment and looked at the food in his bowl. He finally said, “I think I have, once. I gave BunBun something when it was her birthday when we were young…”

“You did? What did you get her?” Su Xue asked.

Lin Feng smiled sheepishly and said, “Oh, uh… I gave her an eraser, I think? It was something like that! Something for school! But you can’t blame me for not remembering! It was all the way back in elementary school! That’s just too long ago!”

“You’re stupid. You’re actually stupid,” Su Xue said. She stared at him, trying to think about what to say. She finally shook her head and asked, “In what world does an eraser count as a birthday gift? How did that gift mean something to BunBun!?”

BunBun! Lin Feng started grinning, a mischievous glance shining in his eyes. He ignored Su Xue and started planning out his next moves in his head. BunBun is great at buying gifts! She’ll know what I should get Tang Tang! This is perfect! She’ll know what a meaningful gift is too, so I won’t have to look it up online!

✹

An Xin held her phone to her ear and listened to Lin Feng blabbering about needing help to buy Tang Bingyao a meaningful gift. Does he even know what meaningful means? She shook her head and asked, “So you want me to help you pick out a birthday present for Tang Tang? Why should I?”

“Because I don’t know how to pick one out myself!” Lin Feng replied, excited as always. “You know I don’t have any experience buying birthday presents!”

An Xin curled her lips and asked, “Oh, is that so? I seem to recall you have a lot of experience. Like back in third grade, when you got me an eraser… That was a pretty meaningful gift, don’t you think? Very meaningful.”

Anyone could hear the thick sarcasm in An Xin’s voice. But Lin Feng wasn’t just anyone. He was someone special! He laughed and said, “Yeah! I got you a birthday present back then! So now you can return the favour!”

An Xin was speechless. Dumbstruck. Everything was a blank for a brief moment, and then a world of abuse flooded her mind. She forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. But they didn’t help. She only got more upset the longer she thought about it. I NEED TO PUNCH YOU!

“Please! BunBun! I need your help! I’m no good with these things and you’re the only one I can turn to! I’ll even treat you to dinner as thanks! How does that sound?” Lin Feng begged.

Dinner? An Xin’s anger and rage disappeared, replaced with a smile. Dinner sounds good. I’d like that. But I can’t let him know. He’ll just think he did something right… She said in a stern voice, “Fine. I’ll help you. But only this once.”

“REALLY!?” Lin Feng exclaimed in excitement.

“Yes,” An Xin said. She then paused for a brief moment before adding, “But you better treat me to some really fancy dinner after we get you a present for Tang Tang. And I swear, if it’s not fancy, I’ll make your life hell!”

Hey guys! Rise Shanks, Devshard, and Sietse here! (Holy shit, we sound like we belong to an actual org when we include the Rise as a prefix to our names. Instant +25 to the cool modifier right there.)

Okay. That mild bit of our usual nonsense aside, this is a mid-translation interlude to have a serious conversation and gather some real feedback from you guys. We’ve always been open with you guys about everything going on behind-the-scenes and keeping everything to do with Rise absolutely transparent. Obviously there are things that we cannot share because they deal with WuxiaWorld as a whole. But those things usually have very little to do with Rise so it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The reason we’re making this particular mid-translation chapter is because we’ve been publishing Rise for almost 6 months now and there’s a little bit of a troubling trend with the numbers.

As most of you already know by now, we worked on Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World before Rise. And in all honesty, our release rate for Rebirth was god awful. For most of that translation, we bounced between 3-5 chapters/week. And we didn’t even do that at a regular release schedule. There would be some weeks where no chapters would show up for 5 days and then 3 chapters would drop almost one after the other. It was an absolute shitshow, and that is putting it mildly.

With Rise, we’ve been insanely regular. Unless something insane happens, there is a chapter released every single day. On the few occasions where something insane has happened, we’ve made announcements so everyone is aware. All in all, we’ve made huge strides in the professionalism department. It would even be fair to say that Rise is much less of a shitshow.

Here’s the deal though. The numbers show that people actually liked us more when we were constantly fucking up and releasing fewer chapters on an absolutely unpredictable schedule. Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World averaged around 2,000,000+ pageviews every month. Not too shabby, right?

When it comes to Rise, we’ve been doing abysmal compared to Rebirth despite improvements across the board. Just as a numbers comparison, Rise has gotten 105,000 pageviews in February. We’re a LONG way away from where we were with Rebirth (Dev Aside: PP got much smaller). And to make things even more confusing, Rise got 134,000 pageviews in January (Dev Aside: Smol PP lost 3 inches in 1 month, become even more smol. Sadbois 😐 ).

Full disclosure, there is some fuzziness in the Rise pageviews because of how app views are counted and those views being excluded from the numbers that we have and all that. But regardless of app views or not, we’re not even close to doing as well with Rise as we did with Rebirth. And as a fun coincidence to make this sting just a little bit more, the completed translation of Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World received 95,000 pageviews in February. Which is insane.

So it is clear that something isn’t working here. The problem is that we have no idea what that is. Which is why we’re coming to you guys. We legitimately do not know what we can change/improve on/issues to deal with to make Rise have similar reader numbers to Rebirth. And this is a weird place to find ourselves in because we started this translation out with the assumption that Rise was going to do insanely better than Rebirth did.

We’ve got a little questionnaire-type thing below. Three super simple questions. If you have anything extra to add, any thoughts or ideas beyond the questions, any other comments or concerns, feel free to throw those on. This is our 6 month translation team-reader check in to figure out how we can make this novel and the community around it bigger and more fun for everyone.

1. Is what we’re doing with Rise, the translator thoughts, the community, and community events working? (Super simple Yes/No question with a little expansion. Don’t need to write essays or be super goddamned detailed. If we done fucked up, tell us where and we’ll figure it out from there.)
   1. IF YES – Which one would you say we’re doing especially well on and you’d like to see more things in that direction.
   2. IF NO – What would you say isn’t working for you?
2. Have you recommended Rise to friends/acquaintances/other readers in the community? 
   1. IF YES – Did they like the recommendation and start reading Rise?
   2. IF NO – Is there anything that you’d like to see improved with the novel that could get Rise to the point where you would strongly recommend it to friends/acquaintances/other readers in the community?
3. Did you find yourself losing interest in the novel at any point in the previous 260 chapters?
   1. IF YES – Do you recall around which chapters/arc this happened? (You don’t have to be very specific. A general idea is plenty.)
   2. IF NO – Awesome! Don’t need anything more after this.

Rise Devshard here! Thanks for taking the time to read this and answering the questions/throwing some ideas out in the comments for us. We’re also looking in the comments and available on Discord if you guys have any questions or things you want cleared up. Plz help make smol PP big again! Seriously. Views/reader counts/subscriber numbers are literally the only way for content creators to have big dick energy. We would like to walk around like we packing, and we need your help to figure out how to make that happen!

Shanghai University of Finance’s clubroom was abuzz. Everyone had their eyes locked on the large LCD screen above the stage. Two players from Team Shanghai were caught out in Blue Team’s bottom side jungle! Qiu Le’s Jinx ran at them from the bot lane, Gnar teleported in from the side, Huang Yang’s Lee Sin came running from the top side jungle, and Luo Yu’s Orianna charged into the jungle from the mid lane!

“GO GO GO! GET THAT SHUTDOWN GOLD!”
“We’re finally getting some kills back! Serves them right for being so cocky!”
“There’s no way they’re getting out of this, right?”
“HAHAHA! FINALLY SOME SWEET JUSTICE! SWEEEEEEEET JUSTICE!”
“Who do you think will get the kills? Jinx, right? Or maybe Orianna?”
“I don’t care. All I care about is that we finally turn this damn game around and win! GO QIU LE!”
“DAMN RIGHT! We need to beat those high schoolers!”

None of these roars penetrated the double glass of the soundproof booths. There were no distractions for Team Shanghai, only the game in front of them. Lin Feng flicked his mouse to look at his surroundings. His Thresh and Tang Bingyao’s Lucian were behind enemy lines. Four champions from Shanghai University of Finance’s team were collapsing on them. There were only two ways out of this situation. Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao could either run into the Blue Team’s base and commit sudoku, or they could fight their way through Shanghai University of Finance’s team. Lin Feng chose to go with this second option. He said to Tang Bingyao over the team’s voice chat, “Click my lantern right after I hit the hook.”

Lin Feng placed down his Lantern next to Tang Bingyao and then flashed towards the Red Buff Camp. He walked into the clearing, pulling the string of his lantern to its maximum range. There he waited for a brief moment. He had no vision on the other side of the wall, but he knew when Orianna had left the mid lane. She should walk on the other side of this wall in 3, 2, 1… He activated Death Sentence. Thresh threw his scythe over the jungle wall and hit a blind hook on the Orianna. “Click it!” he shouted over the team’s voice chat. Then he activated the second part of Death Sentence, pulling himself towards Orianna.

Luo Yu stared at his screen, dumbstruck. Then he quickly shook his head and pressed on the Alt and E keys! With alt he targeted himself and with E he cast Command: Protect! Orianna’s Ball attached to herself, granting a shield! Luo Yu wanted to follow up with all his damage abilities. He wanted to kill the Thresh and Lucian! But before he could activate another skill, the edges of space warped around his Orianna and materialized in a cage of dark energy!

An Xin’s Veigar had followed Orianna into Blue team’s bottom side jungle. After landing the stun with Event Horizon, she unleashed her full damage combo! W! Q! R! Veigar called a great mass of dark matter to fall from the sky! Then he gathered dark energy at the tip of his staff and hurled it at Orianna with Baleful Strike! He finally unleashed his ultimate skill. PRIMORDIAL BURST! Dark magic gathered around his staff into a miniature star! He fired it at Orianna, the massive explosion of magic draining away nearly all of her health!

Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao arrived in front of Orianna. She was still stunned and Veigar’s damage had taken away 99% of her health. Both Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao clicked on Orianna, the kill stealing habit strong in both of them. It was Lucian’s higher attack speed that landed him the kill.

《Unstoppable!》

The university students spectating the match all fell silent. They stared at the large LCD screen in a daze. Team Shanghai’s Botlaners were completely out of position. By all rights, they should’ve died! But not only did they survive, they even picked up a kill on their way out of enemy territory! The awareness required to make the right call and the skill to execute it flawlessly was far beyond what these students were capable of.

“What…?”
“Did that just happen? Lol. What? How?”
“That hook on the Orianna. How did he know she was there?”
“Told you he was cheating! Tell me, how else could he hook Orianna?”
“Right! He’s a cheater! Like maybe he can look five seconds into the future or something!”
“Idiot, stop reading so many webnovels…”
“But how else did he know where the Orianna was!? That was so crazy!”
“Probably because he saw her walk away from the mid lane. He just made an educated guess…”
“Bullshit! He’s a cheater! HE HAS TO BE! NO ONE IS THAT GOOD!”

Back in Team Shanghai’s soundproof booth, Lin Feng was patting himself on the shoulder. He  grinned and said over the team’s voice chat, “I’m really good at escaping too!” Then he turned to look at BunBun and added, “That was a great save! You really helped us out there! I bet that really tilted them!”

✹

Shanghai University of Finance’s team had been pretty annoyed before the first game of the scrimmage even started. That annoyance grew further in the first game, where they were completely outclassed by Team Shanghai. And now, in the second game, they lost it. Team Shanghai had changed their lineup, which felt like the biggest slap in the face to Shanghai University of Finance’s team. As if Team Shanghai were saying that Shanghai University of Finance’s team wasn’t good enough to face Team Shanghai’s main team.

There were only 10 minutes played in the second game, but Team Shanghai was already pulling far ahead. Their Veigar and Lucian especially were far stronger than their counterparts on the University’s team. That was the breaking point for Shanghai University of Finance’s team. They were raging and started making stupid mistakes, like taking fights they knew they shouldn’t. But the tilt dictated their play, blind hatred for Team Shanghai causing them to run in every single hook Lin Feng’s Thresh threw at them.

After 15 minutes, Shanghai University of Finance’s team was at a 4,000 gold disadvantage. This difference grew to 6,000 in the following five minutes. It was clear to everyone watching that Team Shanghai was going to win. If this were a normal game, Shanghai University of Finance’s team would surrender. But this game was too important to them. They absolutely couldn’t lose it! So they continued playing, continued making mistakes, and continued falling further and further behind.

Team Shanghai spent the next 10 minutes destroying towers and two out of the three inhibitors from Shanghai University of Finance’s team. They then took Baron Nashor, using the strong buff it gave to storm Blue team’s base. The university team made their last stance beneath the two Nexus towers. It was a short scuffle. A stomp, for it really couldn’t be considered a fight. Team Shanghai got five kills, giving away none, and then destroyed the two towers.

The energy in Blue team’s nexus twisted and twirled, smashing against the glass cage that contained it. When Team Shanghai broke the barrier, this energy rushed out and morphed into the victory emblem. Team Shanghai had won the best of three series versus Shanghai University of Finance with a resounding 2-0!

✹

Team Shanghai walked out of their soundproof booth into an absolutely silent university clubroom. A hundred pairs of eyes were on them, but no one said anything. Then the door to the other soundproof booth opened. The players from Shanghai University of Finance’s team walked out, their gazes steady on the floor. They walked up to Team Shanghai and shook hands with the players, trying very hard to look away from their fellow students in the clubroom.

Luo Yu shook Zeng Rui’s hand and said with a bitter smile, “Good game. You guys were the better team.”

Zeng Rui nodded and replied, “Thank you. You guys played well.” But the smirk on his face told another story. “Haha! We beat you! Suck on that!”

Lin Feng walked up to Luo Yu and asked, “Hey, you said something about your second team, right? Are we going to play a best of three against them next? Are they better than your team?”

Everyone in the university’s clubroom turned to look at five people who were trying to sneak away. The five players from Shanghai University of Finance’s second team stopped where they stood, their eyes shifting around. Then they scratched the back of their heads, whistled and looked up at the ceiling, pretending like they hadn’t a clue why everyone was looking at them.

“Ah, u-uh, man, the weather sure is great today!”
“Hey… Oh, hey, there. Is that a cobweb? We should go and look for the janitor…”
“Yeah, his office is right around the corner. Let’s just go and tell him…”
“Right! We should do that! Come, we don’t have any time to waste!”
“Exactly! We can’t let guests see how poorly this place is kept. Let’s go yell at the janitors!”

Tang Bingyao looked at the members from the university’s second team and said, “Pff, what terrible acting.”

An Xin winked at Tang Bingyao and said, “See? What did I tell you?” She didn’t wait for a reply and continued, “That they were going to pay for underestimating us girls! Look at them paying!”

✹

Qiu Le watched the players from Team Shanghai leave the clubroom. He then turned to his teammates and said, “Don’t tell me the other two high school teams at the Collegiate Cup are going to be this good…”

Xie Qing nodded wide-eyed and mumbled, “I hope not…”

Huang Yang scratched his forehead, using his arm to hide the embarrassment on his face, and said, “Can’t be. These five have to be the best. They just have to be. It can’t be any other way. It can’t be!”

Luo Yu didn’t join in the conversation with his friends and teammates. He watched the players from Team Shanghai walk away until long after they’d left the clubroom. I guess we should’ve seen this coming. I knew how good Zeng Rui was. If he came to me for a scrim, it was because he was confident in his team. We should’ve never underestimated them! But how couldn’t we? They had two girls on their team! You just don’t see that in competitive League… You don’t even see it in normal League! But it’s good we found out about this now. The Winter Collegiate Cup is only a few weeks away. It’s going to be interesting. We should prepare for anything.

With a loud sigh, Luo Yu turned to his teammates and said, “Alright, quit the moping. We learned a valuable lesson in this scrim. There is still plenty of time until the actual tournament. Let’s take the lessons we can from today and focus on our training.” He paused for a brief moment and then continued, “And when we play against them the next time, we’re going to beat… them…” Luo Yu suddenly turned back to look in the direction that Team Shanghai left in. “Don’t tell me…” he mumbled. Don’t tell me they did the role swap in the second game just to throw us off? Was that just a tactic to keep us guessing at how they’re going to play at the Winter Collegiate Cup? Are they thinking that far ahead? No… It can’t be. Or can it? Was this second game all a trick to throw us off?

✹

Team Shanghai was walking back to the train station, chatting about the scrimmage against the Shanghai University of Finance. The main topic was the role swap, with Lin Feng, Tang Bingyao and Zhang Hao guessing as to why they did it. Lin Feng suddenly smacked his head and shouted, “I know! We wanted to hide how good we are!”

An Xin nodded at Lin Feng and said, “Yep! You’re right! For once. We did the role swap to prevent them from getting too much information on us!”

Zeng Rui chimed in, “Correct. They’re our opponent in the East China regionals. That role swap was a smokescreen, because I didn’t want them to use these two games to make a game plan against us. I think it worked. They should have a nice headache.”

Zhang Hao looked in surprise and shouted, “Oh, I see! That makes sense!”

Tang Bingyao nodded and said, “Mhm. Smart plan.”

Lin Feng, on the other hand, shrugged and said, “Eh, what does it matter? We’re going to stomp them anyway!”

Zeng Rui felt his eyebrow twitching again, something that was happening a lot in recent weeks. He gritted his teeth and wanted to punch Lin Feng, but he held himself back. He took a deep, calming breath and looked at Lin Feng. He always has a big mouth and he sounds like a thundering dumbass! But he also always wins. He’s better than everyone else. And he’s only getting better. I don’t even know how exactly, but he’s winning… easier? I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s far better than we are. He has a reason to be so confident. He shook his head. But that’s no reason to be cocky. He should learn from BunBun. He finally said, “In any case, we just have to keep practicing. The tournament starts on December 8th. That’s in a week and a half already and we’ve got a lot more room for improvement.”

“Oh!” Lin Feng exclaimed. “That’s only a few days after Tang Tang’s birthday! Her birthday is on the 4th of December! That’s only a few days!”

An Xin glanced over at Lin Feng and mumbled, “Idiot.”

The goal of a scrimmage was to practice tactics and strategy, so it wasn’t strange to see Team Shanghai try out different things. But there was a difference between trying out stuff and changing the entire lineup! What Team Shanghai did felt like a massive slap in the face to Shanghai University of Finance’s team! As if their opponents were taunting them! Poking fun at them! And not taking the match one bit seriously. But there wasn’t anything Shanghai University of Finance’s team could do about it, not after their painful loss last game. So they focused on their monitors, grimacing.

Qiu Le narrowed his eyes and mumbled, “Their mid is now playing Support, huh?” He turned to look at Xie Qing and continued, “Xie Qing, we’re gonna have to play the best game of our lives. Those high schoolers are looking down on us! Fuck! I’m pissed! We need to beat some sense into them! And make them realize they can’t look down on us!”

Xie Qing glared at the Thresh portrait on the loading screen. Maple… I’ll remember you. He then turned to look at Qiu Le. He snorted and said, “Exactly! We’re going to teach those brats a lesson they won’t forget! It’s like they’re trying to make fun of us! This is so distasteful!” He turned back to his monitor and continued glaring at Thresh’s portrait. “Yeah, kid, you’re a good Midlaner. You beat Luo Yu. We were wrong and you are good. But just because you know how to play in the mid lane, that does not mean you can also play Support! They’re two different roles, with different things you have to learn and master! We’re here to help you practice, so at least show us some respect by playing your normal role! Shit! I’ll show you what it takes to be a good Support!”

Huang Yang nodded at Xie Qing and chimed in, “We’ll make those brats pay for being so cocky! I got your back!” He then turned to look at Luo Yu and asked, “You should be ok in mid, right? I can put my focus on the bot lane, yeah?”

Luo Yu nodded in affirmation. “Yeah, I think so.” He stared at the portrait of the Veigar. Why does this feel like last game all over? Don’t tell me she actually knows how to play mid… If her mid is anywhere near as good as her Jungle, then I might actually need help from Huang Yang… He  took a long, deep breath, trying to calm the worries rampaging in his mind. He listened to his teammates, who were talking about smacking Team Shanghai down a notch. We’re talking about stomping them again. This game is different, but it also feels exactly the same. Are we making the same mistake again?

✹

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

It didn’t take long for Luo Yu to realize why he was so worried about this game. The role swap didn’t weaken Team Shanghai. Quite the opposite, really. It helped them improve on their synergy so dramatically that they were playing better than in the previous game! And his teammates knew as much, a constant stream of complaints flooding the team’s voice chat.

Luo Yu zoned the noise from his teammates out and focused completely on the mid lane. He was a Challenger. Teams from the LPL were watching him closely, and one of them had even reached out to him. There were very, very few Midlaners in all of China who could beat him. But one of them was apparently the Midlaner from Team Shanghai. A kid from high school had outplayed him to such an extent that he never even really got into the game. He was still searching for himself, even after the second game had already started. And it wasn’t any better now. She isn’t him. But she’s got some of his traits… Her positioning, wave control, last hitting… I don’t get it. Where did these two come from? I’m missing CS and I can’t even get any poke damage in. She’s just outplaying me. I’m even missing my abilities…

Luo Yu took a deep breath and held it. He wanted to focus and win, but he wasn’t just playing against the girl on Veigar; he was also playing against himself. I should be better than this. I’m one of the best Midlaners out there. Why am I losing to that kid last game? Is he that good? Or am I just having an off-day? Is that it… There was a constant buzz in his head, distracting him. All right. He puffed out all the air in his lungs. She’s a good Midlaner. I need to accept that. Ignore everything else. Just focus on playing against her.

An Xin sat in Team Shanghai’s soundproof booth, smiling. She had her Veigar walk back and forth, last hitting minions while also looking to land some poke damage on Luo Yu’s Orianna. Mid, huh? This has been a while. Lin Feng always takes mid. But it’s always fun when I do get to play here! Her smile grew wider and her eyes started shining. She moved her mouse and lightly grazed the buttons on her keyboard. Luo Yu is good. This is going to be double fun!

✹

The surprise Luo Yu felt in the mid lane wasn’t anything like what Qiu Le and Xie Qing were experiencing in the bot lane. They’d been fired up and wanted to teach Lin Feng a lesson. In their minds, he was a cocky high schooler trying to show off. But they soon found out just how wrong they were. Lin Feng was a far better Support than they’d ever believed possible. And right now, he was schooling them and not the other way around.

Four minutes into the game, Xie Qing’s Janna pushed up to the middle of the lane, creating room for Qiu Le’s Jinx to land some last hits on minions. Thresh suddenly walked out of the middle brush along the bottom side of the lane. He was on top of Xie Qing’s Janna a moment later and flayed her towards Red Team’s outer tower, slowing her.

Tang Bingyao had played enough games together with Lin Feng to know exactly what to expect from him. She had her Lucian run forward before Thresh’s Flay even connected with Janna, and then closed the final bit of distance with Relentless Pursuit. Lucian lifted his two relic guns and fired a double-shot at Janna! This was the effect of his passive skill. Every time he cast an ability, his next auto attack became a double-shot. Lucian took aim at Xie Qing’s Janna again, this time shooting a Piercing Light through her! And followed up with another double-shot!

Xie Qing’s screen flashed red, warning him of his Janna’s low health. He mashed on his keyboard and had his Janna flash towards the safety of Blue Team’s outer tower. She didn’t run straight for her tower, instead taking a sharp turn left. He hasn’t used his Q yet. I ne—

Lin Feng grinned and pressed down on his Q key–Death Sentence! Thresh wound up his scythe and then threw it to Janna’s left. As the scythe flew through the air, Janna walked right into the hook. He then threw his lantern towards Tang Bingyao before dashing at Janna with the second part of Death Sentence! He followed up by igniting Janna, an unquenchable flame burning away at her health!

Tang Bingyao clicked on the lantern. Her Lucian dashed through the Dark Passage to arrive right next to Lin Feng. She targeted Janna with an auto attack, followed by Ardent Blaze. Lucian raised his relic gun and shot a missile at Janna! It exploded in a star shape. Then he raised both his guns and aimed at Janna for a double-shot.

《First Blood!》

“Awesome!” Lin Feng exclaimed, grinning. “I made a great play there! And your follow up was ok too, Tang Tang!”

“Mhm!” Tang Bingyao said, nodding. She glanced at Lin Feng and smiled. It’s so much fun to play with you in the bot lane. We should do this more often… She’d played together with a lot of different Support mains over the last few months. There were Wei Dong, who was far too defensive for her liking, and Zeng Rui and An Xin, both of whom were rather methodical in their approach. It always clashed with her far more aggressive style, and she found herself having to adapt constantly. But when she played with Lin Feng, she could be as aggressive as she wanted. And he was usually even more aggressive than her! He played the exact kind of style that she loved the most! He’s the best, mhm!

The Botlaners in Shanghai University of Finance team’s soundproof booth stared at their monitors, dazed and numb. It was only several minutes ago that they were discussing how they were going to stomp Thresh. The Midlaner who came to troll in the bot lane, that was how they initially saw him. And then he started pressuring them. Qiu Le found it hard to get last hits, and Xie Qing was forced to play more aggressively just to help his ad-carry stay even in creep score to Lucian.

“How the fuck did he hit that hook…?” Xie Qing mumbled.

“What do you mean? You walked right into it! You should’ve just walked straight to the tower!” Qiu Le cursed, annoyed.

“I was dodging! It’s like he knew where I was going to dodge!” Xie Qing argued.

The same discussion was being held by the players on Shanghai University of Finance’s second team. They were watching the game on the large LCD screen in the university’s clubroom. They could all tell that Xie Qing was trying to dodge. And they agreed none of them would’ve landed that hook. They would’ve thrown it in the wrong direction entirely. But this high schooler had somehow managed to hook Xie Qing’s Janna.

“What the hell! Man, is that Thresh cheating or something?”
“How can he? He’s on our computer…”
“Then tell me how he hit that hook!”
“I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T!”
“Right, man… Because that was ridiculous! No one is that good!”
“He’s a fucking cheater, I’m telling you!”
“Yeap! That’d explain so much!”

✹

Huang Yang had spent the first six minutes of the game farming his Jungle to get some levels and his first big item. Now he was ready to gank. He ran down the river and arrived in the bot lane just as Lucian was pushing the minion wave towards the blue outer tower. His Lee Sin landed a Sonic Wave on Lucian, locating onto his position, and then dashed at him with Resonating Strike!

Tang Bingyao smiled. Zeng Rui was the Jungler for Team Shanghai this game and he spent most of his gold on wards. That was why she knew Lee Sin was coming long before he reached the lane. And right now, after waiting for him to dash at her, she clicked on Thresh’s lantern that was waiting right next to her. She dashed at Thresh and pulled Lee Sin with her.

Huang Yang’s pupils contracted. He placed a ward down as fast as he could and hopped towards it mid-dash–Safeguard! And then Thresh’s scythe hooked him. In the brief moment where he didn’t have control over where his Lee Sin was going, Lin Feng’s Thresh threw a Death Sentence and hooked him! “WHAT THE—”

Lin Feng activated the second part of Death Sentence. He flew towards Lee Sin, whose skills were now on cooldown, and then flayed him in the direction of Red Team’s outer tower. “Baited!” Lin Feng said over the team’s voice chat, laughing.

Zeng Rui’s Jarvan IV and An Xin’s Veigar appeared at the river entrance in bot lane. An Xin twisted the edges of space to create a cage around Jinx and Lee Sin. Janna was too far away, unfortunately, and got away. Zeng Rui followed up with a flag-toss combo, knocking Jinx and Lee Sin up into the air, before coming down on them with Cataclysm!

Tang Bingyao’s Lucian quickly dashed a short distance forward in a Relentless Pursuit! Then she ran the last bit to catch up to her teammates. Jinx and Lee Sin were both almost dead. More importantly, they were standing right behind each other! She took aim at them with both her guns. A piercing light fired from them, shooting through both of them and killing them!

《Double Kill!》

✹

Lin Feng and Tang Bingya destroyed Blue Team’s outer tower after 8 minutes. Jinx and Janna had already retreated back to their inner tower, too scared to get near the Botlaners from Team Shanghai. But Lin Feng wasn’t satisfied with just the outer tower. He grinned and said over the team’s voice chat, “Tang Tang, let’s keep pushing! We’re going to take their inner tower too!”

Tang Bingyao nodded at him and said, “Mhm!” This was exactly what she’d been thinking too. They’re being so defensive. We just need to keep pushing as far as they let us. Maybe we can just take their inhibitor! Hm. The inner tower is more likely though. We can at least give it a try and see how far we come. She pushed the minion wave towards the inner tower and tried to get a few auto attacks on it, but was stopped by Shanghai University of Finance’s Botlaners.

“Come!” Lin Feng said over the team’s voice chat. His Thresh was already moving up towards the jungle right above them.

Tang Bingyao had her Lucian follow after Lin Feng’s Thresh, smiling. We still have to ward. And now we can do that and also take the jungle camps! I want to see that asshole’s face after this! Hmpf!

Xie Qing was listening to his teammates cursing at Team Shanghai’s Botlaners while carefully following Lin Feng’s Thresh to keep vision on them. And then he lost vision of them. Quickly followed by a comment from Huang Yang that had him looking up. He was distracted and walked past a brush without getting vision on it. That was a big mistake. Thresh walked out of that brush and Flayed Xie Qing backwards into a spectral wall. This was one of the five walls from the Box, Thresh’s ultimate skill, which applied a powerful slow. Xie Qing knocked himself in the forehead. I’m fucked.

Tang Bingyao appeared a moment later. She fired a Piercing Light at Janna and followed that up with a double-shot from her two relic pistols. Then she continued with Relentless Pursuit and another double-shot. The damage kept on coming and Janna had no teammates or defensive structures nearby to hide behind. She threw the skills she had at Tang Bingyao, but that didn’t save her. Janna’s health plummeted and hit rock bottom.

《Rampage!》

The words from the voice announcer echoed in the headphones from Shanghai University of Finance’s team. The four players still alive had had enough. They were being toyed with, and they wouldn’t have it like this any longer! There was no discussion about it. Everyone was on the same page. Huang Yang charged from his top side jungle down towards where Xie Qing’s Janna died! Luo Yu’s Orianna followed right behind him from the mid lane! And Gnar teleported to a ward that Qiu Le placed inside the bottom side jungle!

Lin Feng saw the Gnar teleporting, Orianna running down into the jungle and Jinx running up into the jungle. “Huh?” he mumbled. Then he chuckled and said over the team’s voice chat, “Looks like they’re angry.” He turned to look at Tang Bingyao and added, “We should probably run… Tang Tang, let’s run! Now!”

Luo Yu stared at his screen, wide-eyed. W-where did he come from? He shook his head and slammed down on his keyboard. There was no plan or tactic right now. He mashed all his fingers into the keyboard, hoping for something to happen. What that something was, he didn’t quite know himself. All he knew was that there was a Yasuo on top of him that was emptying his health bar! Not like this! Not like thiiiis!

Lin Feng was comfortable, relaxed and in his element. He was surrounded by three enemy champions, but he wasn’t the slightest bit worried. He aimed at Twisted Fate and activated Sweeping Blade in combination with Steel Tempest. He dashed through Twisted Fate and then swept his katana out in a circle around him! His blade easily bisected Twisted Fate, whisking The Card Master’s life away.

《You have slain an enemy!》

“One down!” Lin Feng cheered over the team’s voice chat. Then he cast Sweeping Blade again, this time aiming for the Fiora. He dashed to her and followed up with an auto attack. Steel Tempest was off cooldown again. So, he stabbed out straight in front of him and pierced through her! A storm brewed around his blade. He turned away, and the Grand Duelist collapsed to the ground. He set his sights on the next target, Jarvan IV.

《Double kill!》

Huang Yang clicked away frantically, not even considering helping his teammates. He knew he couldn’t save them. E-Q! E-Q! E-Q! He kept slamming the two buttons on his keyboard that would have his Jarvan IV perform the flag-toss combo. Though rather than using it to engage, he wanted to escape with it. And then a large percentage of his health bar just disappeared, leaving him with less than 10%. “W-WHAT!?”

Tang Bingyao had just activated Rend. Her Kalista had pulled out all the spirit spears from Jarvan IV’s body, damaging him and more importantly slowing him. She smiled and nodded. “Mhm, kill him, Lin Feng!”

“I’m really good at getting triple kills too!” Lin Feng replied over the team’s voice chat, laughing. He chased after the slowed Jarvan IV, quickly catching up to him. Then he used the Sweeping Blade into Steel Tempest combo again. He dashed through the Jarvan IV and knocked him up. One auto attack. Two auto attacks. Steel Tempest! A wild storm gathered at the tip of his blade again. It whined to be released. To take a life. Lin Feng released it, calling forth the storm that would take Jarvan IV’s life.

《Triple kill!》

Tristana and Morgana were the only two Champions from Shanghai University of Finance’s team who were still alive. But they were in Team Shanghai’s Jungle, surrounded by four Team Shanghai Champions. The only fortunate part was that they’d arrived late to the fight, and as such were on the edge of it. They turned around and ran past the Red Buff Camp. Down a thin path walled in by trees and boulders. Towards the tri-brush connecting the jungle to the river and the bot lane.

Zhang Hao’s Teleport had been on cooldown at the start of the fight. But it was finally available. He had his Rumble teleport to a ward that was placed in the tri-brush where the Morgana and Tristana were running towards. “I’m coming to help!” he shouted over the team’s voice chat. His Rumble arrived before Tristana and Morgana did. He threw down his ultimate skill, The Equalizer! The rocket launchers on his shoulders fired six shots! They exploded on the Jungle floor, creating a wall of flames that dealt damage and applied a slow.

Qiu Le saw the Rumble ultimate in time, and his Tristana still had Rocket Jump available. She aimed her cannon at the ground and fired, its recoil hurling her into the air and over a wall into the Dragon pit. From there, he managed to escape. But Xie Qing didn’t have any skills available to jump over that wall. His morgana was caught in the middle of Rumble’s ultimate. And the Rumble was now running straight at her!

“Hao Bro! Wait up! Don’t kill her! Give it to me!” Lin Feng shouted over the team’s voice chat. He ran after the Morgana, trying to get to her before his teammates killed her. Morgana’s health was dropping fast. “My quadra, please!” Lin Feng yelled, spamming his E key. And then, just as it looked like he wasn’t going to get the kill, Sweeping Blade finally activated. Yasuo dashed through Morgana, the damage of the skill killing her.

《Quadra kill!》

The audience watching the scrim game in the university’s esports clubroom felt their jaws collectively drop to the floor. Their team had started the fight. They’d caught Team Shanghai’s ad-carry completely out of position. And they’d somehow still lost. Zero kills. Four deaths.

“Oh, shit… That’s game, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much. Gg to the high schoolers, I guess.”
“Dang! That was such a cool teamfight! That Ali setting up the Yasuo ultimate? So cool!”
“You think that ad-carry girl was baiting Huang Yang? Those high schoolers responded so quickly!”
“Fuck! You might be right! What if they baited that fight? Shit man, that’d be fucking scary as fuck!”
“I know, right! They’re good!”

The players from the university’s second team looked over their shoulders, listening to the conversations behind them. Then they turned back to look at the large LCD screen above the stage. They weren’t dreaming, or having a nightmare. Their team had really just lost that teamfight. They finally turned to look at each other, finding the same dismay in each others’ eyes that they felt themselves.

“Fuck… I thought they had them when Huang Yang got that pick on Kalista… I thought we had them!”
“I know, man. I know. I thought so too. But how they turned that around… I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”
“Imagine if we’d played them. That would’ve been far more embarrassing…”
“They can teamfight. And that Yasuo… Such an overpowered shit champ!”
“Man, I wanna agree. But… Let’s face it, man. That Yasuo played that perfectly. That entire team of high schoolers and girls somehow played that fucking perfectly, man. I don’t get it. Since when are we losing to a bunch of kids?”

Hang Ying was watching the game in the back of the esports clubroom with a couple of her friends. The girls were excitedly chatting together. Because for the first time, a couple of girls were standing up against the guys, showing them that girls could play League of Legends competitively!

“Those two girls are as good as the guys!”
“I still think that Yasuo is really cute…”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get you his number after the games. But those two girls! Did you see how they played that?”
“Right! They survived for so long! It looked like they were going to die several times! But they always just survived, and then the others came! That was so impressive!”
“I can’t believe how good those two are! The guys got nothing on them!”
“I wanna play now! GO, GO, GIRL POWER!”

Hang Ying smiled as she listened to her friends. They’re right. The two girls did play that incredibly well. Huang Yang should’ve never taken so long to finish them off. But they kept dodging the important skills. I don’t know how they managed that. Just that they did! She looked at the two girls in the soundproof booth. She couldn’t really make them out as they were hidden behind their screens, but she imagined them looking all serious and focused. It’s so good to see girls beating those guys. That’ll show them that girls can also play League! We’re really not any worse! There just aren’t as many girls playing, that’s all. But we’re just as good!

✹

The lost teamfight was a terrible result for Shanghai University of Finance’s team. Not just because they lost the teamfight, but also because all four kills went to the Yasuo. Luo Yu chewed on his lips as he stared at Yasuo dashing through the minions in the mid lane and shook his head. He’s the best player on their team and he’s playing the strongest carry champion of their team. If anyone else had gotten the kills, we might’ve still stood a chance. But on him? It’s over. We’re done. He sighed and said over the team’s voice chat, “Let’s give it a few more minutes, guys. See if that Yasuo gets too confident and throws, or if he keeps playing like he is…”

The rest of the university’s team agreed with Luo Yu. They played the game, farming minions and looking for opportunities to make a play. But there was nothing they could do. Every time that they engaged a Champion from Team Shanghai, Yasuo would inexplicably appear out of nowhere. There was nothing they could do to stop him. They lost their towers in all three lanes. Then they lost two inhibitors. And finally, 25 minutes into the game, Luo Yu led a surrender vote.

DEFEAT!

The players from Shanghai University of Finance’s main team looked at their screens, lost. Their original plan was to stomp some humility into Team Shanghai, and then hand over the reins to their second roster. But that seemed silly now. They’d lost, and resoundingly so. Luo Yu glanced over the edge of his screen at the players from the second team. They were standing right in front of the soundproof booth. He could see their bleak expressions. There’s no point in having them play. They know it and we know it. He chuckled self-depravedly and then turned to his teammates. “Well, we got what we deserved for underestimating them. But now we know how good they are. We have to win the next game.”

A heavy silence hung over the soundproof booth. They all knew Luo Yu was right, and mumbled as much. More than that, they were ashamed of themselves. Losing to a high school team was bad enough, but losing to a high school team after calling them out and poking fun at them, that was far worse. They didn’t even want to step out of the soundproof booth, because then they’d have to look at their fellow students. The thought alone was too embarrassing. So they gritted their teeth and joined the lobby for the next game.

✹

The computer monitors in Team Shanghai’s soundproof booth all read ‘victory’! Lin Feng was the first to jump up from his gaming chair, balling his fist and throwing it up into the air! “We beat the university team!”

“Mhm!” Tang Bingyao nodded, clenching her fist too and pumping it in the air.

Zhang Hao laughed and shouted, “Hell yeah!” Then he noticed that both Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao were punching the air. He looked at his hand and slowly balled it into a fist. Then he grinned and threw it up in the air. “Hell yeah!”

Zeng Rui looked at his teammates and said, “Good work, guys. Let’s prepare for the next game now. I suggest we try a role swap in this game.”

Lin Feng left his hand hanging in the air as he turned to look at Zeng Rui. He asked, confused, “A role swap? Why?”

Yeah, why? An Xin observed Zeng Rui for a short moment before her eyes lit up. Oh! She started smiling and said, “Alright, sounds good! Let’s go with the role swap!”

✹

Luo Yu led his team through Champion Select. Nothing strange happened. The strongest Champions in the current meta were banned, including Yasuo, and they got to pick the lineup that they wanted for this second game in the best of three series versus Team Shanghai. But when the game moved to the loading screen, the confidence they’d built up during the last few minutes disappeared again.

Game 2
Shanghai University of Finance (Blue) versus Team Shanghai (Red)

Top lane: Gnar versus Mundo
Jungle: Lee Sin versus Jarvan IV
Mid lane: Orianna versus Veigar
AD-carry: Jinx versus Lucian
Support: Janna versus Thresh

“What the fuck are they doing?” Huang Yang blurted out.

“Wha-huh?” Xie Qing mumbled.

The Champions Team Shanghai had chosen were strong Champions in their respective roles. They also came together nicely to form a powerful team. That wasn’t what had Shanghai University of Finance’s team confused and caught off guard. It was who were playing the Champions that came completely out of left field for them. Zhang Hao was still in the top lane and Tang Bingyao in the bot lane as ad-carry, but everyone else had changed their roles. Lin Feng was now the Support, Zeng Rui the Jungler, and An Xin the Midlaner!

The scrimmage against Team Shanghai was going anything but great for Shanghai University of Finance. They found out that this group of high schoolers did have what it took to compete at the university level! But Luo Yu and his team weren’t going to give up just because the game was a bit difficult to win. They gritted their teeth and gave it everything they had, slowly closing the gap that had been built up over 12 minutes by Team Shanghai. And by the 17th minute, Shanghai University of Finance’s team was back in it. The gold gap was reduced to only 3,000 gold, and one good teamfight could complete the turn around!

This teamfight had to happen around the Botlaners. The current landscape of the game didn’t really allow for another option. There was nothing really happening in the top lane. Zhang Hao’s Rumble played as defensively as he possibly could, and Team Shanghai didn’t seem especially interested in helping him. His only goal was to build his core items, which he’d finished a minute before, and keep the Fiora from snowballing any harder. So there was no way to force a teamfight here for Shanghai University of Finance’s team.

The mid lane was the polar opposite of the top lane. Luo Yu’s Twisted Fate had fallen far behind Yasuo in both kills and minions. And he kept getting pressured harder and harder. The worst part was that Yasuo had destroyed his outer tower a few minutes earlier. So now he couldn’t even stay in lane, except for when Yasuo went back to buy items. But those few seconds weren’t going to help Luo Yu get back into the game. He needed to find ways to initiate a teamfight and pick up multiple kills just to become relevant again.

Luo Yu stared at his monitor and frowned. His Twisted Fate huddled next to the mid inner tower, the only place where he felt somewhat safe. Who is this Yasuo? I don’t remember seeing his name on the Challenger leaderboards. Maple… Maybe he’s new? He is only a high schooler, so I suppose that could be it. I need to look this up. He shook his head. How is knowing who he is going to help? I’ll just know that it’s not some random player but a Challenger who kicked my ass. No, his rank doesn’t matter. Right now, all I need is to find a way to beat him. We can’t lose this game! We’re still the university’s main team! It’d be way too embarrassing if we lost to a high school team.

Luo Yu wasn’t the only one starting to worry. No one on Shanghai University of Finance’s team wanted to lose this particular game. This was for their pride! They didn’t see themselves ever leaving this booth if they lost, because then they’d have to endure the contempt and mockery from their fellow students. Nor would they look at their phones, for the internet was far more cruel than their peers could ever be in person. It was with that knowledge that their faces burned red as they pushed every last bit of their focus towards the game. If they wanted to walk out of this game with their heads held high, they had to not just beat these high schoolers, they had to stomp them!

“We’re going to become a joke if we lose this,” Qiu Le mumbled over the team’s voice chat. He hit the TAB key and looked at the score. His Tristana was down on kills and almost 40 CS behind the Kalista. He slammed his fist down on his desk. “FUCK!” He gritted his teeth and said, “I want that Kalista dead! I’m not going to lose to some high school girl!”

“Yes. She needs to die,” Huang Yang nodded slowly, furious. His last death was still fresh on his mind. Kalista had baited him, and then killed him. I got careless because she was a girl! He smacked his cheeks and focused on the game again. The Seju too, She messed with my Jungle pathing, and counter jungled the crap out of me.! He looked over the edge of his screen through the window of the soundproof booth. There are so many people watching. I won’t let those two beat me in front of so many people! He looked at Qiu Le and said over the team’s voice chat, “We’re going to kill her. Just keep vision on her. She’ll make a mistake. We just have to be ready for it! I want to see her dead!”

✹

Tang Bingyao cleared the minion wave in the bot lane and then glanced at the minimap. The Red Buff was up. The first two were usually for the Jungler, but after that the ad-carry started taking them. So when the game clock said 17:45 minutes, she tracked into the Blue team’s bottom side Jungle and started attacking the Red Brambleback.

Huang Yang had learned from watching professional teams that keeping tabs on when the various important monsters respawned could give the team a big advantage. Following this logic, he’d paid close attention to the Blue and Red buff respawn times for the Blue team. He panned his camera towards Team Shanghai’s Red Buff Camp and had his Jarvan IV run towards it. That should be up right about now. Let’s hope Kalista is being greedy and taking it by herself.

Huang Yang placed a ward in the brush right next to the Red Buff Camp, giving him vision of the monster. And of Tang Bingyao’s Kalista attacking it by herself. The Red Buff was at half health. Huang Yang smiled. He pinged on the ward and said over the team’s voice chat, “Tp, Fiora!” Then he dashed at Kalista with his flag-toss combo!

Tang Bingyao was fighting the Red Brambleback, but never lost focus. She scanned the map and noticed the Botlaners moving up into the river. Something’s wrong. She focused her camera on Kalista and then glanced at the minimap, searching for a sign of Jarvan IV. Then she saw him, jumping at her from the brush next to the Red Buff Camp. She flashed away, dodging the knock up.

“FUCK!” Huang Yang cried out as he slammed on his R key! Cataclysm! His Jarvan IV leaped up into the sky, right above Tang Bingyao’s Kalista, and then slammed down to the ground! He struck the ground with such force that it terraformed into a massive arena, locking the two Champions within!

Luo Yu said over the team’s voice chat, “I’m coming!” Then he activated Destiny, Twisted Fate’s ultimate. The fog of war evaporated. Shanghai University of Finance’s team knew exactly where everyone on Team Shanghai was. There was no hiding from Twisted Fate’s all-seeing eyes. He followed up with the second part of his ultimate, Gate! Playing cards spread out in a circle around him, opening up a portal.

The crowd watching the game in the clubroom, including the university’s second team, erupted in cheers again! Their team had fallen behind early, but that made the game only that more interesting to watch! Especially since their team was making the comeback happen!

“NICE! GET THAT KILL!”
“WOOOOOOOO! We’re winning again!”
“KILL THAT BITCH!”
“SWEETNESS! YEAH!”
“DAYUM! The timing on that TF and Fiora! Crazy perfect!”
“Don’t forget Huang Yang! He created that opportunity!”

Shanghai University of Finance’s team had planned the gank perfectly. Not just because they found Tang Bingyao’s Kalista alone and out of position, but also because they could have their Fiora Teleport in, while the opposing Rumble was stuck in the top lane. Rumble had used his Teleport earlier to get back to lane. This fight was the opportunity for Shanghai University of Finance’s team to close the gold gap completely!

Fiora finished channeling her Teleport. She Lunged forward, closing the distance towards Tang Bingyao’s Kalista. Jarvan IV cancelled his Cataclysm to allow Fiora in. There was no escaping for Kalista, even without four walls locking her in. Fiora targeted Kalista with her ultimate skill—Grand Challenge. All four vitals points on Kalista’s body were revealed to Fiora. She thrust her rapier at Kalista’s heart, piercing the first Vital.

Tang Bingyao’s Kalista was quickly losing her health. The Jarvan IV was hurting and now the Fiora, who packed quite some damage, was also slashing away at her. But she didn’t panic, or lose focus. She stared at her screen, refusing to blink, afraid to miss even the most minute detail. When her health dropped down to half, she used the Summoner Spell Heal. Her health was right back up. I’m still alive. I won’t let him kill me. Mhm! This isn’t over.

Luo Yu’s Twisted Fate stepped through the portal and arrived right next to Kalista, a Gold Card already hovering over his hand. He targeted Tang Bingyao’s Kalista and—

An Xin had arrived at the fight. She charged forward, straight through a jungle wall, and slammed into Twisted Fate–Arctic Assault! Twisted Fate was flung up into the air, cancelling his attack. An Xin then activated Sejuani’s ultimate, Glacial Prison! Sejuani threw her bola at Twisted Fate and froze him solid! An ice storm erupted around the Twisted Fate, slowing and damaging all nearby enemy champions!

An Xin had thrown caution to the wind in a desperate attempt to save Tang Bingyao. And she’d succeeded in the initial charge. But the last two members from Shanghai University of Finance’s team had arrived. Morgana cast a Dark Binding, rooting An Xin’s Sejuani, and Tristana Rocket Jumped into the fight and then activated Rapid Fire. Her cannon’s muzzle ignited, flames blazing along its body. She fired cannonballs at Team Shanghai at a frightening speed!

Tang Bingyao bit her lips. She was caught in a 2vs5. And the only reason it was a 2vs5 and not a 1vs5 was because An Xin charged in at the risk of her life. I can’t let her down. And I won’t let him kill me! Mm-hm! Her mouse clicks went faster and faster, each next one more accurate than the last. She glanced at her minimap. Come on. We need help. Please don’t let them kill us like this! Her health was dropping fast. The Fiora was on her and one attack away from striking the fourth Vital on Kalista. If she succeeded in doing that, a large healing field would appear on the Rift. Team Shanghai would lose if that happened.

Right then, Zeng Rui arrived. He flashed towards Tang Bingyao’s Kalista and then Headbutted the Fiora away before she could slash at Kalista’s fourth Vital. And then a familiar voice sounded out over the team’s voice chat. It was Lin Feng’s. “Tang Tang! Let’s kill them all!”

“Mhm!” Tang Bingyao activated her ultimate skill, Fate’s Call! Kalista reached out towards Alistar, pulling out his spirit from his physical body and storing it in her own body.

Zeng Rui waited a brief moment. Then his eyes flickered. Three Champions from Shanghai University of Finance’s team were standing too closely together. He barreled towards them, his Alistar regaining physical form after erupting from Kalista’s body. He slammed into Twisted Fate, Fiora and Jarvan IV! Then he balled his massive fists and slammed down with every last ounce of power in his body. PULVERISE! The earth cracked beneath his fists and the three enemy champions around him were tossed up into the air again!

Tang Bingyao smiled. This wasn’t a game in the solo queue, she was playing together with a team! Four other players she trusted with her life! And they trusted her. They came to save her. They’re all here! We’re winning this! She glanced at her minimap. There was only one more person she was waiting for. He was almost there. Luo Yu also saw this. His pupils shrunk. Fuck.

“Nice job, ZengZeng!” Lin Feng shouted. “Now it’s my turn!” The Twisted Fate, Fiora and Jarvan IV were still in midair. He targeted them with Yasuo’s ultimate skill. Last Breath! Yasuo blinked towards the three enemy Champions and suspended them in midair. He followed up by slashing at them with his katana. And again. And again! Then he raised his weapon high above his head and with all the power he could muster, he hacked down on the three champions from the university team. The immense force slammed them into the ground!

Zeng Rui had spotted the Jarvan IV walking down the river towards bot lane. He also noticed Tristana and Morgana attempting to freeze their minion wave ever so slightly. They’re setting up for a gank. I wouldn’t have noticed it, if it wasn’t for Jarvan walking by that ward. He looked over at Tang Bingyao and wanted to tell her that they should retreat. There’s no point in taking this fight. We’ve got the lead, let’s steadily build on that. There’s no need to risk it all on a random fight. But… I know how she likes to play. She’s good at these kinds of fights. He asked, “Your call, Tang Tang. Fight or retreat?”

“Fight,” Tang Bingyao said over the team’s voice chat without turning her head. She stared at the fog of war, around the area where Jarvan IV was. I can beat him. And I’ll show that asshole that girls are just as good at League of Legends as guys! I’m a good player! Mhm!

Zeng Rui hesitated for a brief moment but then nodded. “Alright.” We’re a team now. I can’t force her to play my style. We need to find a middle ground on which we both excel. That means me trying her way, just like she’ll try mine. He looked over at her. She looks focused and ready. Time to win this fight together, as a team, with skill.

✹

Xie Qing was playing Morgana, a strong Support mage with skills to lock opponents down and to protect allies. But since the start of this game, she’d been utterly useless. And this was mainly his own fault. He’d learned Dark Binding at Level 1. It was an aggressive choice that he believed would pay off. Their opponents were only high schoolers, after all. But these high schoolers were far better than he’d ever expected. I should’ve learned Black Shield at Level 1. Then I could’ve made this damned Headbutt tactic from the Alistar useless! But by the time he learned Black Shield, the damage was already done.

Xie Qing smiled, wickedly. He’d been searching for an opening or mistake from Alistar or Kalista, but had come up empty. But now he finally found the opportunity he’d been looking for. They’ve kept us down long enough! It’s about time we show them what we’re all about! Huang Yang is coming and when that minion in front of the Alistar dies, I’ll get him! This is finally going to be our show!

Kalista was the only Level 6 champion in the bot lane, and as such the only one with her ultimate skill unlocked. The rest of the champions were all Level 5. But Xie Qing wasn’t worried about this. Kalista’s ultimate provided utility, not damage. It was incredibly powerful in a teamfight, but not so much in this specific scenario. Of course, that was on the condition that Shanghai University of Finance’s team played it right. Plus… Xie Qing glanced at his minimap. Seju just walked towards the top side of the map and the Rumble is being locked down by Fiora. There won’t be any follow up from those high schoolers. This is going to be a 3vs2 for us.

Xie Qing kept careful track of the minion manipulation Qiu Le was exerting. Then, right as another minion was about to die, Xie Qing said over the team’s voice chat, “I’m rooting the Alistar. We’re going in!”

Qiu Le fired at the minion standing right in front of the Alistar. Before the cannonball killed the minion, Xie Qing cast Dark Binding. The dark magic flew over the grass, straight at the same minion. There was almost no gap between the cannonball draining the last of the minion’s health and the Dark Binding flying past it and rooting the Alistar behind it.

“Nice one!” Qiu Le exclaimed, while activating Rocket Jump. His Tristana aimed her cannon at the ground and fired. The recoil launched her into the air and she arced towards the Alistar, landing right within attack range. Then she activated Rapid Fire. Flames erupted from the muzzle of her cannon and blazed over its body, greatly increasing Tristana’s attack speed. She placed an Explosive Charge on Alistar and charged its damage up by firing cannonballs at it. The bomb’s pale yellow colour grew more and more intense, until it exploded after the fourth shot, dealing a frightening amount of damage!

Kalista’s passive skill was called Martial Poise. Whenever she auto attacked or used Pierce, she would lunge a short distance. Tang Bingyao used this method on minions to close the distance to Qiu Le’s Tristana. And then she started auto attacking him, her spirit spears remaining lodged inside Tristana’s body.

“Haha, she fell for it! She fell for it!” Qiu Le exclaimed over the team’s voice chat. Then he added, “Huang Yang, knock her up!”

“On it,” Huang Yang replied. His Jarvan IV came running from the river entrance into the bot lane. Team Shanghai’s Botlaners were near the edge of their outer tower’s range. So he had to get the knock up right. He threw down his standard behind Kalista and then waited for half a second. When Kalista was lunging, she briefly had no control over the direction in which she went. That was his cue. He struck out with his lance, hitting the standard, and then dashed towards it!

The students watching the game in Shanghai University of Finance’s club room erupted into cheers! Their team had been on the backfoot all game. But now for the first time it finally looked like things were about to change!

“Haha! They fell for it!”
“I knew that Kalista was being too aggressive! Good on Qiu Le and Xie Qing for noticing it!”
“A 3vs2! We’re going to get the double kill and then WIIIIIIIIN!”
“That Alistar was so dumb. How could he get caught by that Dark Binding? What a noob!”
“Right? Even I could’ve dodged that! And I’m only Plat! Hahaha!”
“I wonder if they saw the J-Four on the minimap. It looked like they might’ve… But then why engage?”
“Because they’re cocky high schoolers! That’s why! Haha! We’re going to win this! Serves those arrogant kids right!”

✹

Tang Bingyao’s Kalista had used her black spear on Zeng Rui’s Alistar at the start of the game. This created a bond between them at the spirit level. One that Kalista could activate with her ultimate skill. When Tang Bingyao saw Jarvan IV appearing from the Jungle, she quickly hopped back toward her tower. Good. The bait worked. Then she activated her ultimate, pulling Zeng Rui’s Alistar to her side and allowing his spirit to rest inside her body.

Jarvan IV’s Demacian Standard stuck in the ground between Kalista and the outer tower, and Jarvan IV was already flying towards his standard. But Tang Bingyao didn’t worry; she smiled and pressed down on the D key. Kalista disappeared with a mottled flash of light right as the Jarvan IV completed his flag-toss combo. Then she reappeared under her outer tower. She’d dodged the knock up! And the Jarvan IV now stood at the edge of the outer tower’s range!

It was time for Zeng Rui to make his play. He was still inside of Kalista’s body in spirit form. The second part of Fate’s Call, Kalista’s ultimate, was all on him. He aimed at the Jarvan IV and barreled towards him! As he left Kalista’s body, his Alistar regained its physical form. And then he slammed into Jarvan IV, knocking him up! He followed up with Pulverize! Alistar balled his fists and slammed them into the ground with every ounce of strength in his body. It carried such an immense force that Jarvan IV was hurled back up into the air before he even landed. Alistar then ran past Jarvan IV before turning back around and Headbutting Jarvan IV towards the blue outer tower!

The outer tower targeted Jarvan IV and started firing energy shots at him, each consecutive one dealing more damage. Tang Bingyao hurled a fast moving spirit spear at Jarvan IV–Pierce! And then followed up with auto attacks. Jarvan IV tried to run away, but his flag-toss combo was still on cooldown. And to make matters worse, Zeng Rui’s Alistar cast Exhaust on him. A debilitating aura fell over him, decreasing all his stats including his movement speed! More and more spirit spears pierced his body and remained lodged there, until his health fell to 10%. Tang Bingyao activated Rend. Kalista ripped the spears out of Jarvan IV’s body with a flick of her wrist, shearing away the last of his health!

《You have been slain!》

The game announcer’s voice rang in Huang Yang’s head as he stared at his grey screen, dazed. The gank had looked foolproof. A surekill. An easy way to get back into the game! He only had to land his flag-toss combo and his Botlaners would do the rest! She was running away! Why… He didn’t know what to say or think. There was only a jumbled mess in his mind.

The players from the university’s second team fell silent. They stared at the large LCD screen above the soundproof booths, absolutely speechless. Just a moment ago, they were picturing the glorious scene of their team picking up two kills and then maybe a tower or the Dragon. They’d already been saying as much to their friends around them. And now, the university’s main team lost the 3vs2. Jarvan IV died and it remained to be seen if Xie Qing’s Morgana and Qiu Le’s Tristana could save their own skins.

Zeng Rui glanced at Tang Bingyao and smiled. He said over the team’s voice chat, “Good job.”

Tang Bingyao nodded at him. Then she looked back at her screen, at Jarvan IV lying dead on the ground, and smiled. “Mhm!”

Zeng Rui also looked back at his screen and added, “Let’s focus.”

Tang Bingyao and Zeng Rui shifted their sights on Morgana and Tristana. They chased them down the lane, until the two players from the Shanghai University of Finance team reached underneath their outer tower. All the while, Lin Feng’s Yasuo and An Xin’s Sejuani had run down the river and into Red Team’s Jungle. They’d arrived behind the bot lane’s outer tower. Together with Tang Bingyao and Zeng Rui, they towerdove Qiu Le’s Tristana and Xie Qing’s Morgana.

An Xin’s Sejuani was already strong enough to take a couple of energy shots from the tower and survive. And with the four of them together, they were more than strong enough to burst both Champions from the Shanghai University of Finance down. But Tristana still had her Flash and Rocket Jump up. She jumped over the Sejuani and then Flashed away, reaching all the way back to the inner tower in a matter of seconds. Team Shanghai didn’t give chase. They killed Morgana and then shifted their focus to the Dragon, which they killed uncontested.

The spectators in the university’s clubroom couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Their team, one of the best university teams in all of China, was getting their asses handed to them by a high school team! More embarrassingly, the high school team had two girls on its roster! And both girls were playing better than their counterparts on the university’s team! This went against everything the audience knew about the game!

“Those girls… They’re great!”
“Shit man… Is this really happening?”
“Oh my god…”
“I can’t believe my eyes…”
“They’re actually good!”
“Keep it up, girls!”

✹

Shanghai University of Finance’s esports team was one of the best in all of China. But they’d gone into this game vastly underestimating their opponents. This mindset was easy to fall into, and incredibly difficult to get back out of. But they were really good players and they formed a very strong team together. They talked through the problems over the team’s voice chat and recognized that they had to take this game seriously. This game was going to be a lot more difficult now than it should’ve been, seeing that they were already at a large deficit. But the game had still only just begun. There was plenty of time to make up for their mistakes. And they were fully convinced that they had the skill to make up for those mistakes!

Over the next several minutes, Shanghai University of Finance’s esports team finally showed up. It started in the top lane, where Fiora picked up a solo kill on Zhang Hao’s Rumble by beautifully outplaying him. This was followed up by Luo Yu showing to the world why teams from the LPL were scouting him. He found an opening to activate his ultimate skill, Destiny! The fog of war dispersed from the map. He could see everything and Teleport anywhere within a large circle around him. He chose the bot lane.

Playing cards spread out in a circle on the ground, opening a gate. Luo Yu’s Twisted Fate stepped through it and appeared right next to Tang Bingyao’s Kalista, a Gold Card already hovering over his head. He threw it at her and stunned her, then killed her with the help of Liu Ye’s Tristana and Xie Qing’s Morgana.

Luo Yu’s timing was perfectly in-sync with the respawn timer of Dragon. Huang Yang was already waiting there for them. The four players from the Shanghai University of Finance took the second Dragon of the game. The advantage that Team Shanghai had built up was quickly disappearing.

Luo Yu stared at his screen, focused. He’d made mistakes early on in the game because he didn’t expect Yasuo to be all that good. Now he was trying his hardest to make up for those mistakes. And it was working. But there was still a way to go before they could  think about winning this game. He said over the team’s voice chat, “We have to bring that Kalista down a bit more. Look for a chance to kill her again.”

Huang Yang glared at his screen. At the Kalista. He said, venom thick in his voice, “Leave that to me. I’ll get her!”

Much of Summoner’s Rift was covered in a thick, dark fog. Team Shanghai only had vision around their own structures, minions, wards, and champions. But none of them were inside Shanghai University of Finance’s Jungle. They had no clue where Huang Yang’s Jarvan IV was going to appear next. But similarly, Shanghai University of Finance’s team had no vision on An Xin’s Sejuani either. Both teams were in the dark. Both Junglers were setting up the same gank. And the only ones who knew were the people in the university’s clubroom watching the game on the large LCD screen.

The students at the Shanghai University of Finance started to worry. Their team was facing a high school team, which should’ve been an easy win. But the start of the game was anything but easy. Team Shanghai was pulling ahead, especially in the mid lane. And now Luo Yu was looking to do something about that. But little did he know that he was walking right into a trap!

“Back! BACK! RETREAT! GO BACK! DON’T GO IN, LUO YU!”
“Luo Yu knows something is up, right? Tell me, he knows, right?”
“Are we really going to give away first blood? Please tell me they’re baiting the high schoolers!”
“ShitShitShit! This is bad! Seju and Yasuo are way stronger right now! SHIT!”
“LUO YU! WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT! BE CAREFUL!”

✹

Lin Feng had carefully kept the minion wave frozen on his half of the mid lane. His eyes drifted to the minimap every few seconds, scanning for signs of Jarvan IV and to see what was happening in the other lanes. That was also how he noticed that An Xin was pathing towards the mid lane. His eyes narrowed. Let’s set up a gank opportunity for her. He had his Yasuo stab out with his katana, piercing through two low health minions and killing them! A storm started brewing around Yasuo’s katana. If he hit enemies twice in a row with Steel Tempest, a storm would gather around his katana, allowing him to unleash a tornado onto the Rift.

Luo Yu grinned. Good. Killing two minions with your Steel Tempest. You finally made a mistake. About time. He glanced at his minimap and saw that Huang Yang’s Jarvan IV was coming to the mid lane for a gank. Huang Yang always knows just when to gank. This is good! I’ll go up a bit and pretend to last hit that caster minion in the back. That should be believable enough, yeah? He clicked on the caster minion and his Twisted Fate walked forward.

Huang Yang’s Jarvan IV arrived in the brush right above the mid lane. He moved to the edge of the brush closest to Team Shanghai’s side of the map, and then he waited for the Yasuo to move a little more forward. Come on. Go for that minion. Be an idiot. He said over the team’s voice chat, “Typical high schoolers. Don’t even know how to ward. Let’s punish him for that.” He laughed, still waiting. A little more… Just a bit… He slammed down on his E key and then his Q. Jarvan IV threw his standard down on top of Lin Feng’s Yasuo, then dashed towards it with Dragon Strike!

Lin Feng didn’t panic when the flag came down on him. He didn’t think. He moved. Sweeping Blade! His Yasuo dashed through a nearby minion, avoiding the knock up from Jarvan IV, and then he dashed again toward Twisted Fate! There he stepped to the side, dodging Twisted Fate’s Wild Cards before they were even thrown, and stabbed out with Steel Tempest! The katana piercedTwisted Fate as a storm gathered around the blade.

Huang Yang cursed over the team’s voice chat as he chased after Yasuo. But with his gap closer on cooldown, he needed a few seconds to catch up. Luo Yu, on the other hand, wanted to open a gap with Yasuo. But he couldn’t. Twisted Fate didn’t have any mobility skills, except for Flash which he wanted to save for later. So he threw an auto attack at Yasuo as he kited back towards his outer tower.

Lin Feng shouted over Team Shanghai’s voice chat, “BunBun! TF! TF!”

“I know!” An Xin replied. She charged up the river into the mid lane. Twisted Fate was still a good distance away from her. And he was about to step inside the range of his outer tower. So she activated Arctic Assault! Sejuani charged forward, then disappeared with a mottled flash of light. She carried her momentum with her as she reappeared right on top of  Twisted Fate, knocking him up into the air!

“Oh shit! What the—”
“Woooooo—”
“Dang! Ho—”
“Bloody sweet bej—”

Lin Feng landed an auto attack on Twisted Fate, the storm still brewing around his katana. Then he cast Ignite. An unquenchable flame burned on Twisted Fate’s body, damaging him over time and more importantly reducing the effects of heals!

Luo Yu had brought the Summoner Spells Heal and Flash to the game. He had cast Heal the moment he got Ignited, greatly reducing its effect. Shit! Should’ve used it earlier! It felt like an eternity had passed before his Twisted Fate finally landed back on solid ground. FLASH! Twisted Fate blinked towards his outer tower, arriving almost underneath it, and activated Pick a Card. Three cards appeared above his head. From left to right they were blue, red and gold. The blue lit up shortly before going dull. Then the red card lit up.

Lin Feng’s finger was already hovering over his D key. He’d been in similar situations often enough to know how to play this. He flashed after the Twisted Fate and then activated Steel Tempest. Yasuo swept his blade out, unleashing the storm it contained. A tornado blew through the Rift, slamming into Twisted Fate and knocking him up into the air!

The red card dimmed above Twisted Fate’s head and the gold card lit up. Luo Yu slammed down on his W key, his Twisted Fate still Airborne, and selected the Gold Card! Throw the card! Stun him! Twisted Fate landed back on the ground. And with a flick of the wrist, he threw the Gold Card at Yasuo.

Lin Feng’s Yasuo wielded the air itself. He slashed out with his blade, conjuring up a wall of wind that blocked every projectile! Twisted Fate’s Gold Card smashed into it and disintegrated! Yasuo then struck out with Steel Tempest and an auto attack.

《First Blood!》

“Oh my god… What…”
“Did he just? Huh…”
“Damn that was good! These high schoolers, dude! Fucking crazy!”
“DAYUM! Sick play!”
“Wut? What just happened? How did he get the kill?”

Luo Yu stared at his grey screen, speechless. The Yasuo was still at full health when he dove the tower, so the energy shots had no chance of killing him. He walked away at half health. Then Luo Yu noticed Huang Yang was still chasing Yasuo. His eyes went wide and he shouted over the team’s voice chat, “Back off, Huang Yang! The Sejuani is still there! They’ll kill you!”

Huang Yang gnashed his teeth and said, “I know.” He still chased after Yasuo for a few more steps, but then stopped himself. He wasn’t suicidal, or a bad player. He was just very upset. He cursed over the team’s voice chat, “Shit! How did they get so lucky ?We can’t let them get away with this!”

Luo Yu shook his head and smiled bitterly. Should’ve seen that coming. He played so well and then suddenly hit two minions with Steel Tempest. It was such a small ‘mistake’. He took a deep breath. That wasn’t luck, Huang Yang. He knew what he was doing. And exhaled. They planned it and executed it perfectly. I gave away first blood because I didn’t think he was baiting me. I underestimated him. But I won’t make that mistake twice! He focused back on his monitor as vibrant colours filled his screen once more. I have to win this.

✹

First blood happened in just under four minutes. The game quickly broke open. Shanghai University of Finance’s team was desperate to get a kill back. Huang Yang scanned across the map. Bot lane is pushing too far and the Alistar can just Headbutt me away. That’s a waste of time. He looked at the top lane. Rumble and Fiora were fighting each other in the middle of the lane. I just have to knock that stupid kid up. He probably doesn’t know how to ward either. He ran up the river and found that Team Shanghai’s Rumble had indeed not warded the river entrance to the top lane. He flag-tossed onto the Rumble and knocked him up. Then he helped the Fiora pick up the kill. “That’s it!” he shouted over the team’s voice chat. “Show those little snots what we’re all abou—”

《An ally has been slain!》

An Xin’s Sejuani had gone down to the bot lane after helping Lin Feng pick up the kill on Twisted Fate. There she helped Tang Bingyao’s Kalista kill the opposing Morgana, while also forcing Tristana to Heal, Flash and Rocket Jump away.

 “Did you guys not ward? How’d you die from that gank? You knew Sejuani was just mid!! Now they’re one kill ahead again!?” Huang Yang said in frustration.

Xie Qing pursed his lips and shook his head. He took a deep breath and said, “They’re not playing like high schoolers.” He stared at his monitor and waited for colour to return to the screen. They’re outplaying us. That girl, the Kalista, she’s more than 10 minions ahead of Qiu Le. And we can’t touch her. That Alistar is always there protecting her. What are we supposed to do when I can’t even hit a Dark Binding on her? 

“They. Are. Little. KIDS!” Huang Yang shouted into his microphone. “We can’t lose to them! We just can’t!”

Qiu Le stared at his screen in shock, not even registering what Huang Yang was saying. He was just staring at Tang Bingyao’s Kalista. The way she was moving around, constantly repositioning herself. The way she was always just in range to last hit a minion, while also staying out of range for him to land poke damage. The way she knew exactly how much damage she could do without taking a risk, and then backing away. Shit. ShitShitShit! I shouldn’t have been so cocky. It doesn’t matter whether she’s a guy or girl! She’s a really good ad-carry. And she’s outplaying me! I’m getting outplayed. I’m getting fucking outplayed by a girl! She’s fucking good! Damnit!

✹

Luo Yu’s Twisted Fate hit Level 6 seven minutes into the game. He unlocked his ultimate, and grimaced. I need to have space to use my ultimate. It’s useless to activate it when I’m being pushed into my tower. And I can’t walk forward or th—

An Xin’s Sejuani suddenly appeared next to Twisted Fate. She’d flashed over the Jungle wall right underneath Shanghai University of Finance’s outer tower. Then she charged into the Twisted Fate with Arctic Assault, knocking him Airborne.

Lin Feng had watched An Xin approach the mid lane through the Red Team’s Jungle. His mouse was already hovering over Twisted Fate and he was just waiting to activate his ultimate skill. LAAAAST BREATH! Yasuo dashed to Twisted Fate and suspended him in midair, unleashing a series of strikes. Then he hacked down on Twisted Fate, slamming him back to the ground. He followed up by Igniting Twisted Fate, and throwing out a Wind Wall. The wall of air appeared just in time to block an oncoming Gold Card. It came, just as he’d expected. He smiled and had his Yasuo land one more Steel Tempest and auto attack before leaving the outer tower’s attack range.  That should be eno—

《You have slain an enemy!》

Luo Yu stared at his grey screen, stunned. A-again? He blocked my Gold Card twice now! How are his reflexes that fast? Did he know I was going to do it? But even if he did, he shouldn’t have been able to react. There wasn’t enough time! Unless he knew it was coming before the fight even started! Before I even knew where the Sejuani even was… He stared at Yasuo who was back to farming minions in the mid lane. Did I really just underestimate him again after telling myself not to…?

✹

Shanghai University of Finance had completely lost the mid lane. Luo Yu recognized it and told Huang Yang to focus on the other two lanes. There was no point in ganking the Rumble, since Fiora was beating him already. So Huang Yang turned his attention to the bot lane. He did his best to evade the wards as he made his way down through the river.

Zeng Rui was a really skilled and talented Support. His friends sometimes compared him to Autumn from the North American team Season, and he agreed with their reasoning. Just like Autumn, he approached the game from a methodical point of view. There was nothing he liked more than to see a carefully planned plan being perfectly executed. Part of this was placing his wards in the right spots at the right times. His careful attention to detail paid off right now as he spotted Huang Yang’s Jarvan IV passing by the outer edge of a ward he’d placed high up in the bottom side river. He nodded to Tang Bingyao and said over the team’s voice chat, “Careful, J4 is coming.”

“Mhm, I see,” Tang Bingyao replied. But she didn’t back away. She stared at her minimap, at the place where they’d just caught vision of Jarvan IV. He’s that annoying jerk from before! The one who made fun of us for being girls and high schoolers. She narrowed her eyes and licked her lips. We’re ahead right now. Let’s teach him a lesson. Mhm!

The esports clubroom at the Shanghai University of Finance was jam-packed with students. News about the main roster scrimming against another team competing at the Winter Collegiate Cup had circulated around campus, drawing a lot of attention. But it was the argument between Luo Yu and Zeng Rui that created the bigger influx of students. Most didn’t really know what happened, they only arrived when the sparks were already flying. But the university’s second roster quickly filled in those blanks. They stood at the front of the clubroom and were loudly talking with each other.

“These kids really don’t know what’s good for them! Hahaha!”
“Did you hear that one guy talk to Luo Yu? Like they’re equals! How did a high schooler get so cocky?”
“Lol. I heard they won some small high school tournament. That’s probably why!”
“Hahaha! I remember when I was in high school. Our esports team sucked back then!”
“I don’t get what the Collegiate Cup organizers were thinking when they invited high schoolers… It’s a waste of everyone’s time. They’re just going to get knocked out in the first round of the qualifiers…”
“Eh, who cares? It’s a nice warm-up match for whoever gets to play against them.”
“Real talk, though. Those two girls are hot as hell! Should I ask the one with the long black hair out?”
“Dude… They’re high schoolers. Don’t be a perv. And who cares what they look like? League isn’t a beauty contest. It’s a game of skill and teamwork!”
“Tsk. Such a shame we didn’t get to play them.”
“How long do you reckon we’d need to beat them? Five minutes? 10?”
“Five. Tops.”

Han Ying sat in the back of the room. She glanced in the direction of the second team and briefly listened to what they had to say. Guys bragging. What’s new? She turned to look back at her friends sitting around her. She’d called them over after finding out that Team Shanghai had two girls on its roster. They were busy gossiping.

“Are those on the right really high schoolers?”
“That’s what the guys from the second roster are saying. Didn’t you just hear them?”
“Hehe! Can’t you tell? They even look like little kids! But those girls are kinda pretty.”
“For high schoolers. I’m surprised they’re actually playing though.”
“Me too! I wonder if they’re any good.”
“Check the guy in the middle out, the one with the messy hair. He’s hot! What do you girls think?”
“That you like them young, haha!”
“I always knew you were a bit of a cougar! But that’s why I love you so much. You like who you like!”
“You should go and get his number after the game. You’re sexy. He’ll fall for you in an instant!”

Han Ying shook her head and giggled. Then she looked up at the large LCD screen that was affixed to the wall above the two rows of soundproof booths. Those two girls should be good, right? The esports association wouldn’t choose them if they suck, I think? I hope they’re going to do well. The screen showed the final champions being locked in, after which the game went into the loading screen. The lineup looks promising at least. Come on, girls! Win this one! It’s about time a few girls entered the competitive scene!

Team Shanghai (Blue) versus Shanghai University of Finance (Red)

Top lane: Rumble versus Fiora
Jungle: Sejuani versus Jarvan IV
Mid lane: Yasuo versus Twisted Fate
AD-carry: Kalista versus Tristana
Support: Alistar versus Morgana

✹

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

The start of the game was rather uneventful. Zhang Hao’s Rumble went to the top lane where he met Red Team’s Fiora. They kept a distance from each other and waited for the first minion wave to arrive. It was a similar situation in the mid lane, while both bot lanes were empty; they were helping their Junglers clear the first camps of the game.

An Xin played Sejuani who was a brutal, unforgiving iceborn warmother. She rode across the Rift on her drüvask boar Bristle and wielded her True Ice flail. But she wasn’t an offensive-minded Champion. Sejuani was a tank, someone with a lot of health and defense and very little in terms of damage. So An Xin didn’t follow her usual tactic of invading at Level 2. She instead focused on clearing her own Jungle.

The crowd watching the game grew confused. They understood that Team Shanghai wasn’t playing overly aggressive in the early stages of the game. But they couldn’t comprehend why their own team wasn’t being more aggressive. And that confusion turned into dismay as they watched the game develop over the next few minutes. It wasn’t anything like the one-sided stomp that they were expecting.

Shanghai University of Finance’s team wasn’t pulling ahead in the top lane. Their Fiora was staying even with Zhang Hao’s Rumble. They weren’t even really trying to damage each other, instead opting for farming minions. And this was already a far better result compared to what was happening in the mid lane. Luo Yu couldn’t seem to find any opening to attack Lin Feng’s Yasuo and was even forced to stand back. But most worrying was the bot lane. Qiu Le and Xie Qing were getting straight up bullied by Tang Bingyao’s Kalista and Zeng Rui’s Alistar.

Qiu Le’s Tristana kept losing the trades against Tang Bingyao’s Kalista, and his health bar was showing it. He grunted and complained, “Shit! Why is that ad-carry so aggressive? I can’t do anything! And she’s a girl! A GIRL! What the…”

Xie Qing had his Morgana walk back and forth, searching for an opening to cast Dark Binding. But he couldn’t find one. Tang Bingyao’s Kalista always hid behind a minion. I’m basically useless here. All I can do is throw a few auto attacks that do virtually no damage. But that Alistar is doing a ton of work. He lets Kalista deal some damage and then Headbutts Qiu Le’s Tristana away. Fuck, this is frustrating! It’s like a 1vs2 for Qiu Le and there’s nothing I can do about it. I could just as well not be here. Damnit! How is that Kalista so aggressive without making a mistake? It’s so controlled…

Qiu Le’s Tristana took another chunk of damage. Xie Qing glared at his teammate and said over the team’s voice chat, “Stop trying to trade! You’re going to give them a kill!” He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, and then continued, “Can’t you see? They’re toying with you. And I can’t help you. We need levels. Just focus on farming minions and try to take as little damage as possible. I’ll keep looking to hit a Dark Binding, and I’ll tell you when to engage again!”

✹

Lin Feng was having a good time in the mid lane. He was actually really happy with how Team Shanghai had come together. An Xin and Zeng Rui were very serious about tactics, strategy, and shotcalling, which gave him the opportunity to wholeheartedly focus on improving himself in the mid lane. This is great! Finally an opponent who’s actually good! I can see why an LPL team is interested in him. He really is quite good. But I’m really good too! He grinned as he had his Yasuo dash through a minion to dodge a volley of wild cards from the Twisted Fate. There was a strong sensation flowing through his veins. A kind of tension that was exhilarating. This is how it’s supposed to feel! This is great! I’m finally starting to get there again!

Lin Feng took a deep, long breath in. He let the air fill his lungs as he looked at his monitor with a wide grin on his face. Then he slowly breathed out, the grin disappearing. He flexed his mouse hand and carefully placed his other hand over his keyboard. His eyes locked onto Luo Yu’s Twisted Fate. One step at a time. Beat the opponent in front of you. No distractions. Just you and me. I’m going to kill you.

Several months ago, Lin Feng started to get back into League of Legends. It was the first time in four years that he took the game seriously. But he was far from being a top player when he returned. And it didn’t help that his initial games were against players so far under his basic skill level that he really wasn’t learning anything from them. He was just having fun playing with friends or on stream. But little by little, he started challenging himself. He climbed up the ranked ladder and he joined High School 13’s club team. Still, he rarely ever played against truly good opponents.

Luo Yu was a truly strong player. Lin Feng was forced to focus on just the mid lane, and for the first time in a long time that came easy to him. Because he trusted his teammates. They were capable of winning their own lanes, and they could take the tasks upon them that he wasn’t all that good at. And he trusted them to do that. I’ve only got the obstacle in front of me. Something that was gone for four years suddenly returned to him. He didn’t even realize it himself. It was the most miniscule aspect of his game, yet also one of the most important. It was the pressure that only the real Maple could put on his opponents.

✹

Luo Yu tightly gripped his mouse, sweat popping up on his forehead. He gritted his teeth and controlled his Twisted Fate, searching for an opening. Many players believed that Twisted Fate was at a disadvantage in lane versus Yasuo. But this was only true at the lower ranks. Luo Yu knew very well that a skilled Twisted Fate had every opportunity to outplay a Yasuo. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t find that opportunity. Lin Feng’s Yasuo didn’t make a single mistake. Every trade he engaged was perfect, and his positioning was flawless. Luo Yu bit on his lips. Zeng Rui said he was good. But what is this? How is this possible? I can’t do anything! Everything misses! I’m not even getting through his shield! This is insane! He has to make a mistake. I just have to find it. But he hasn’t made one yet! How is he doing this?

Luo Yu knew early on in Champion Select that he had to play against Yasuo. And he’d prepared for just that. The plan was simple. Yasuo was a melee-ranged champion, while Twisted Fate had ranged auto attacks. So all he had to do was let the Yasuo push the first wave and then freeze it right outside his own outer tower. That would force Yasuo to stay back and miss out on last hitting minions, which in turn would see him getting ahead. From there it was going to be an easy game.

But Lin Feng’s Yasuo didn’t push the minion wave. He did something far more impressive. Before the first minion wave arrived in the mid lane, he blocked his minions’ path ever so slightly. This resulted in them arriving in lane a second later. The wave was pushing towards Blue Team’s outer tower because of this. And from there Lin Feng perfectly controlled the wave to never pass the halfway line of the lane.

If Luo Yu wanted to last hit minions, he had to move forward. He had to be the aggressive one. He had to leave himself open to potential ganks. All the while, Lin Feng’s Yasuo could farm minions and engage only when he chose to.

Luo Yu stared at his screen, focused. I need to know where the Sejuani is. If she ganks, I’m dead. And I need to somehow break this freeze. I can’t keep pushing like this. I’m playing right into his game. How is he even doing this? It doesn’t make any sense! He should be the one pushing. He’s playing a Yasuo! Yasuo’s always push and go for their 0/10 power spike! Why is this one playing so defensively! And why… He took a deep breath. Why is his defensive play putting more pressure on me than any aggressive style I’ve ever played against?

“Alright, we’ll have our second team play them,” Luo Yu said to his teammates. They were sitting in the room next to the university’s esports clubroom, discussing what to do about the scrim against Team Shanghai. Qiu Li, Xie Qing and Huang Yang were already feeling apprehensive about playing against a high school team. But after learning that the team had two girls on its roster, they outright refused to play them.

Huang Yang said, “Fine.” Then he looked at his watch and snorted. “We’ve made them wait half an hour. If we’re lucky, they’ve already left. Haha! Oh, I’ll send the guys from the second team a text.”

Luo Yu stood up and walked past his teammates out into the hallway. “Let’s go.” He didn’t wait for them to follow as he strode to the next door over and placed his hand on the door handle. Only then did he glance over his shoulder to make sure his teammates were there. They were. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. And as he did his entire demeanor changed. He straightened his back, becoming the tallest person in the room, and an air of confidence appeared around him. This was his arena. This was where he belonged.

Just as fast as the confidence appeared on Luo Yu, it lapsed. Han Ying had told them that there were two girls on Team Shanghai’s roster, but it was only now that he really believed her. He had to take a second take and then searched for Han Ying to get confirmation. She nodded at his questioning gaze. So she was right. They do have two girls on their team. And, they’re pretty! He felt his heart skip a beat. They’re high schoolers. Control yourself! He scrunched his eyes and forced his surprise down. Then he scrutinized the two girls. Why do they have two girls on the team? Isn’t this supposed to be the team representing the Shanghai Esports Association? Was this really the best roster they could form? It’s good we’re having the second roster play them. He forced himself to stop this line of thought. Don’t think like this. Just because they’re girls, doesn’t mean they’re bad. Maybe they’re really good. It’s just… You rarely ever see a high elo female player. Let alone two of them. And they’re both high schoolers! It just… It doesn’t make any sense. They can’t be that good. Can they?

Luo Yu shook his head ever so lightly and straightened his back again. This is my place. He nodded at Zeng Rui with an apologetic smile and extended his hand. “We’re a little late. My apologies. Something came up at the last minute that kept us busy.”

Zeng Rui accepted Luo Yu’s handshake and calmly replied, “It’s fine. But next time, give us a head’s up. Messages on Wechat are free. I don’t like wasting my time.”

Luo Yu nodded, smiling wryly. I know. I should’ve sent you a message. But I didn’t expect that discussion to take so long… He’d played with Zeng Rui on the Rift before and they’d met in person on occasion too. They were acquainted at the least, maybe even friends, and he was being anything but a friend. He wanted to say something about it, but his teammates beat him to the punch.

Qiu Le narrowed his eyes. He looked over at Huang Yang and said loudly enough so that everyone could hear him, “Can you believe these high schoolers, Huang Yang? I swear. Luo Yu told them we were busy. He even apologized! What more do they want? We should just tell them to piss off!”

Huang Yang nodded at Qiu Le. Then he turned to look at Zeng Rui and said, “If you don’t like waiting, you can walk right outta here. We’re not forcing you to stay. And also quit the tournament while you’re at it. I can’t believe the esports association invited high school teams…”

Luo Yu coughed and glanced over his shoulder, signalling his teammates to tone it down. Then he looked back at Zeng Rui and said, “It was just an unfortunate combination of events. We screwed up, okay? And for that, I do apologize. Please don’t take it personally.”

Zeng Rui nodded and said, “Ok. It happens.” He wasn’t happy about it, but he also understood that there was nothing he’d gain from pushing this matter any further. So he changed the conversation to the main topic. “Since we’re both here, let’s scrim.”

“About that,” Luo Yu said. He hesitated briefly, glancing past Zeng Rui at the two girls. “Well, there is a slight change of plans. We were talking about the scrim and felt it might be better if you guys play against our second roster first.” He hesitated for a brief moment, then added, “We… Since you guys only just formed your team, it seemed unfair to pit you against us right away. Our second roster is pretty good too and probably more at your level.”

Zeng Rui puffed out his chest and stared at Luo Yu. He’d had enough of the way they were being treated. He said, “That’s not what we agreed to. I very specifically asked to play against your main roster. And you agreed to that.”

Luo Yu smiled wryly and explained, “Er… I know. I agreed to that. But the guys and I talked about it and we realized you guys were a new team. You don’t have much experience playing with each other yet. We think you’ll learn more from playing a game against our second roster. I think it’s unfair to make you play u—”

Qiu Le interrupted Luo Yu with a loud snort. He glared at Zeng Rui and said, “What? Got a problem with it? Don’t get ahead of yourselves because you won some silly high school tournament. Oh, wait, you didn’t. You lost. Ha! Show some respect. Just be happy we’re even here. Now stop wasting our time and play against our second team.

Zhang Hao had been holding himself back for more than 30 minutes now. But now he’d finally had enough. He shouted, “Don’t screw with us!” He then took a short breath before continuing, “We don’t want your faked pity. We came here to play your main team and you agreed! Stop making these weak excuses! This is all bullshit and you know it! If you don’t want to play against us, just say so! We don’t have to waste our time here!”

Huang Yang shrugged and said, “So what if it’s bullshit? What are you going to do about it?” He paused and nodded at An Xin and Tang Bingyao standing behind Zeng Rui. “We initially planned to play against you ourselves, since Luo Yu had already agreed to. But then we heard you guys don’t even have a serious team. I’m not going to waste my time on playing around with a bunch of kids.” He snorted and added, “You know you guys are crap. Just look at your lineup. Our second team will kick your ass, and you might learn something from that. So are you going to play, or what?”

It was clear to everyone that Huang Yang wasn’t impressed with Team Shanghai having two girls on their roster. The way he looked at them and then snorted in derision was telling enough. This was a common theme in League of Legends. There were many girls who played the game, but very few of them reached a competitive level. The LPL didn’t have a single team with a female player on it. And it hadn’t been any different in the Shanghai 16 School Tournament, with the exception of High School 13. It was with this knowledge that it became very hard for Huang Yang to even consider the possibility of a woman being good at League of Legends. I won’t entertain some fucking high school kids. We should be practicing against a good team and get ready for the Collegiate Cup!

Tang Bingyao pursed her lips and frowned. This is just like the Shanghai 16 School Tournament. They always talk and make fun about me being on the team, just because I’m a girl. It’s always, “Oh, she’s a girl. She can’t be good. This will be easy.” She glared at Huang Yang. They just called him Huang Yang. Asshole. All people like him are assholes. Mhm! I’m going to show him just how wrong he is!

An Xin took a completely different approach from Tang Bingyao. She smiled, warm and friendly, and pretended as if it didn’t bother her. But her hands tensed up and she grit her teeth. Every single time. “Oh, she’s a girl! They must only have her around because she’s a pretty face!” I’m tired of it. Why can’t a girl be good at League? It’s this stupid mentality that makes girls not want to play. Or when they do play, pretend they’re a guy. We always get singled out. It’s never, “Oh that dude looks like a buffoon, he must be bad at the game.” I’ll make this stupid buffoon eat his words!

“Thanks for your ‘consideration’,” Zeng Rui said. He looked at Huang Yang and Qiu Le before turning back to Luo Yu. “But we didn’t ask for your ‘consideration’. We came to scrim against your main team. And that’s the only team we’ll be playing against.”

Luo Yu was about to look over his shoulders at his teammates, but stopped himself at the last second. I’ve been a terrible friend and host for long enough. It’s time to start fixing that. He took a long, calming breath and said, “You’re right, Zeng Rui. You asked for a scrimmage against our main team and I agreed. So that’s what we’ll be doing. We’ve wasted enough time talking. Let’s play a best of three.”

✹

To recreate the environment in which the Winter Collegiate Cup was being held, Luo Yu decided to use the soundproof booths for the scrim against Team Shanghai. He showed Zeng Rui and his teammates to their booth and explained how it worked before joining his teammates in their booth. They all turned to him and he could see in their eyes that they were about to complain. He sighed and said, “Come on, guys. It’s just a best of three. And after we stomp them in the first game, we’ll tell them to play against the second roster in the second game.”

Qiu Le glanced over at Team Shanghai and chuckled. “I can’t believe how rude high schoolers are these days. I wouldn’t have dared to talk like that. They really deserve a good beating.”

Huang Yang laughed and added, “This is going to be so easy. They’ve got girls on their team! But whatever, we gave them a way out, they should’ve taken it. Now I’m itching to see their faces after the game.”

Luo Yu sat down behind the middle computer, shaking his head. Zeng Rui should’ve told me there are two girls on his team. I know he’s good. We’ve played together plenty of times. But there just aren’t many strong female players. He can’t have found two of them. It just doesn’t make sense. And the other two didn’t look all that impressive either, though I suppose looks say nothing about skill. Just look at God Roundy… Right, I need to focus. It’d be really embarrassing if we lost here because we got careless. He looked at his teammates who were still making fun of Team Shanghai’s line up. We have to focus, if only to keep Zeng Rui down. “Guys, focus up. We’re going to play against them like we would in a normal scrim.”

Huang Yang snorted a laugh and said, “You must be joking. They’ve got two girls on their team! If we need to play seriously to beat them, we might as well drop out of the Collegiate Cup…”

Xie Qing grinned and asked, “Zeng Rui is the Support, right? So what are the girls going to be? Ad-carry and mid? That’d be hilarious! Imagine, two girls being the carries!”

✹

There was no laughter or joking around going on in Team Shanghai’s soundproof booth. Zhang Hao and Tang Bingyao were both glaring through the glass windows at Shanghai University of Finance’s team, while Zeng Rui and An Xin frowned, staring at their monitors.

“Assholes,” Zhang Hao said. He looked at his teammates and continued, “Talking shit like we weren’t even there. Who do they think they are?”

Tang Bingyao nodded and said, “Mhm. I don’t like them.”

Lin Feng scratched the back of his head, confused. He said, “I don’t get what the problem is. We could’ve played against their second team too.” He shrugged and continued, “We would’ve beaten them and then the main team too. Same result but double the games!”

Zeng Rui turned to look at Lin Feng, stunned. Did he just say something sensible? He shook his head. No, that can’t be. But it does make sense. He opened his mouth to say something. The words came slowly and were incredibly hard for him to say. But he did. “You’re not wrong, Lin Feng.” He felt a cold shiver rush up his spine. What did I just say!? He shook his head and continued, “Let’s crush them and see if they want us to play their second roster next.”

An Xin smiled warmly at Lin Feng for perhaps the first time. Then she looked at the rest of the team and said, “So we all agree, let’s play our absolute best.” She then turned to Tang Bingyao and added, “And you and I are going to make them pay for looking down on us. Screw them and every other guy who thinks girls can’t play video games!”