Kassadin’s plan was flawless. He’d blink on top of the Vayne with Riftwalk and then kill him with a Nether Blade. It would happen so quickly that the Vayne wouldn’t even know what happened. There was nothing the Vayne could do to stop him. She would only have milliseconds to react before death! His plan was flawless, perfect, you could even say it was beautiful. But that perfection that existed in his mind shattered when he actually tried to do it. The instant he blinked out of the brush and got to where the Vayne was, he found himself standing alone in the river with an impotent Nether Blade. The Vayne had disappeared! She’d vanished so fast that he didn’t even see it happening. But he had no time to think or act or pivot around. A thick, heavy bolt struck him squarely in the chest and pinned him to a wall!

The muffled impact from Kassadin was the catalyst for the people watching the stream to erupt and verbally scream like they were trying to go Super Sayajin!

「666666666666666666!」
「WHAT A GOD!!!!」
「HOLY WUTT!?!?! is he scripting? he must be scripting right? That reaction spee what the actual fuk…..」
「CHEATER!!! MUST BE A CHEATER!!!!!11!」
「A QUADRA ITS GONNA BE A QUADRA!!1!!!」

The man at the center of it all was completely oblivious to the uproar in chat. All of Lin Feng’s attention was squarely focused on the Kassadin. After stunning Kassadin with Condemn, Vayne fired off a silver bolt. She followed up with a Tumble to land the third silver bolt. The three silver rings around the Kassadin detonated with true damage.

Vayne fell into a dance of auto-attacking, repositioning, and kiting. Over and over again. Not only did it whittle down the Kassadin’s health, the lifesteal from her items allowed her to heal all the way back to a safe buffer. That’s when Rumble rushed over. He plowed straight at the Kassadin and fired off two harpoons–Electro Harpoon! They pierced and electrocuted the Kassadin, simultaneously dealing damage and applying a slow. Rumble then activated his flamethrower and scorched everything in front of him–Flamespitter!

Kassadin’s health dropped fast. He tried to Riftwalk away, smashing the R key while waiting for the stun from Condemn to break. But one-and-a-half seconds were an eternity with two enemies attacking. He only had a sliver of health left when the stun finally broke. But it was enough. He blinked away with Riftwalk. Away from the river. Away from the Rumble. And definitely away from the Vayne. But he didn’t notice that single solitary silver bolt following him. Literally right when his Riftwalk ended, the arrow found its mark and emptied the last bit of his health bar. He collapsed dead on the ground.

《Quadrakill!》

✹

In his hotel room in London, Nightsong leaned back in his chair. He glanced over to Hermes and said, “Would ya look at them apples? Can I call it or what? I told you this Water Wraith shit was a fucking fantastic Vayne!”

“Yes, yes. You’re a god whose eyes pierce the veil and see truths the rest of us cannot. You were right.” Hermes nodded. He stared at his screen for another second before turning to Nightsong. “I gotta say something though. I’ve seen you play Vayne. A lot. And now I just watched this guy play Vayne. I’m thinking… well, I’m starting to think that this Vayne is so much more reliable than your Vayne. He shows up for every teamfight. Oh! He also showed up right when I needed him to help me get that kill before. He’s always exactly where he needs to be, right when you need him to be. What a team player, right?”

Nightsong glared at his friend. “My dick! You wanna start something here? I’ll show you my Vayne’s dick! Mine is bigger and better. It’s like a fucking third leg! This little shit’s got a toothpick! Nothing on me. Ya dig?”

“Well… you were dead for that whole teamfight. Damn, your Blitzcrank is pretty unreliable too now that I’m thinking about it… But you had all the time in the world to see how he played that. Think you could’ve done it better? That Vayne is Zen! Did you notice how he held onto his Flash until the very last moment? He didn’t waste a single ability. Tell me man, could you have done it better? Do you really think you could’ve played that teamfight better?” Hermes asked with a smile.

Nightsong had nothing to say. He had watched the whole fight, from how Vayne escaped from the Irelia, chased down the Nami and killed the Jarvan IV to how he held his Flash through all of this for the Kassadin. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed. This Vayne had played the teamfight to perfection and it stung. He would’ve died to the Kassadin after wasting his Flash on chasing down the Nami or the Jarvan.

“God damn! You really want to do this whole ‘fiddle-dee-dee look how much better than you is he’ thing? Go for it! You just want to mess with me and I know it. But it’s not going to work. I don’t give a flying fuck about that Vayne! My Vayne’s dick is bigger. It’s the best! I am the best Vayne player and that’s that!” Nightsong barked.

Hermes shook his head and grinned. Then he turned his attention back on the game. Or to be more precise, back onto the Vayne. “I think we’re watching the birth of a new pro in the scene. He’s got the eye of the tiger, he plays for the thrill of the fight. I think we’re going to see him rising up to the challenge.” he mumbled.

✹

Lin Feng shook his head. He was mildly miffed. The teamfight went great, he was happy with how he played that. Picking up a quadra kill was pretty fun too. But his KDA was now 7/1/1. That one death, all because he’d gotten distracted and careless. He grumbled, “If I didn’t screw up in lane that one time… Why’d I give that kill away? I would’ve gotten a godlike if I didn’t…”

The chat had no sympathy for Lin Feng. The people watching the stream jumped on the chance to make fun of him and pour a little bit more salt on his misery.

「lul! now you realize」
「Whose fault is it for showing off!」
「karmas a bitch ey? and i don’t mean the champion!!!! shes cute and hot and totally bangable」

The viewers were poking a little fun at Lin Feng. But when all was said and done, they’d come to respect him. New or old viewers, all of them were thoroughly impressed with his Vayne. Especially this quadrakill that was nothing short of breathtaking! There were several diehard Nightsong fans in chat, and even they had to admit that no one could’ve played that teamfight better than Lin Feng had. Not even Nightsong himself!

After this last teamfight, the Blue team was up two Dragons and two towers, and their mid and ad-carry were fed. The advantage they held over the Red team was overwhelming. Nothing short of a miracle or some serious griefing would let the Red team make a comeback. But that wasn’t about to happen with two professional players and Lin Feng on the same team. The rest of the game was much calmer. There were no more flashy plays, no unnecessary risks. Only solid teamwork.

The Blue team’s synergy started to shine. Nightsong had learned his lesson after overextending and dying. His playstyle changed to one that was more serious and wary. As the Support, he was the shotcaller. He led his team around the map, searching for targets to hook. Whenever he found an enemy champion, he’d Rocket Grab them. Veigar followed up with an Event Horizon. Stuns piled onto stuns with an extra side of stun. All the while Vayne would be unloading her silver bolts on them. They died so fast that Veigar didn’t even have the time to use his ultimate half of the time. Neither did Vayne or Rumble. They were just that much stronger than the Red team.

Lin Feng stayed in the backline along with Veigar. He never walked in front of his Blitzcrank, never left himself exposed to attack. He only went in on enemy champions that were within attack range and already engaged by the Blitzcrank. Vayne had such a large item advantage over the Red team that it didn’t matter who she attacked, they all died the same. There was no escape. It didn’t even matter how much armor the Red team champions stacked to defend themselves against her, it just wasn’t enough.

“Sweet! My Vayne is really really strong! I can probably 1vs5 them now!” Lin Feng exclaimed, smiling.

The chat had no response. Most of them were new to the stream, and just didn’t know Lin Feng well enough to react. They couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking or delusional. But the viewers who’d been watching for a while now had more experience with Lin Feng and his quirkiness. They knew he was different and not like the other streamers. So, earlier on, one of them had suggested a copypasta in the QQ group chat. One that they’d spam in chat whenever Lin Feng had one of his special moments.

「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」
「uWu! I’ve never seen such a shameless person in my life! uWu!」

The entire chat was blotted out by walls of this message that were constructed over and over again. This was a sort of tribute from the chat, one usually reserved for the most popular streamers who had large and very loyal communities. On that note, Su Xue’s stream was growing quickly. The viewer count was over 6,000! It was something that Su Xue never even dreamed would happen! She would have been screaming, “WHAT? OVER 6000? That can’t be!” But Su Xue was still sleeping, and this wasn’t a dream. Lin Feng, with a little help from Hermes and Nightsong, had done it!

✹

After the first game, Lin Feng jumped straight into a second, riding the momentum and chasing the high. That game was another quick and easy win. So was the third. But when it came to the fourth game, things took a bit of a left turn. In the last two games, it didn’t make that much of a difference if the other lanes lost. As long as they didn’t give up and go AFK or grief by walking into the enemy tower every time they respawned, he could still carry to a win. In the fourth game, none of that happened. But something similar and just as annoying did happen. A teammate who was so bad that all they accomplished was feeding, even while trying to play seriously. All of the kills created enough of an advantage that it no longer mattered how well Lin Feng played, the game was unsalvageable.

“Well, this was unexpected… That Tryndamere is ridiculously boosted,” Lin Feng concluded after looking at the numbers in the end game lobby.

Chat had come to a similar conclusion much earlier in the game and said so then, and agreed once more.

「Yeah! That trynd could feed an entire nation!」
「such a shame! you were doing so amazing with your yasuo」
「that game was unwinnable with how bad that trynd was 」
「Report him for inting! Report him!」

Not a single person watching the stream doubted Lin Feng. Not anymore. No one tried to argue that Lin Feng wasn’t that good either. Lin Feng had united every single person watching with his gameplay. They were happy when he was happy and angry when he got mad. He was their streamer, and they were his chat.

Lin Feng read through the chat and engaged with the viewers, a wide grin on his face. There were a lot of messages flooding in. So many that he was starting to have a hard time keeping up. At first he thought people were just typing fast, but there were just too many messages for that. He eventually got curious enough to investigate and looked at the viewer count. His eyes stopped for a moment. Then he rubbed them and looked again. “Oh WOW! This is crazy! There’s so many of you! You guys seeing how many of you there are in here? Oh. Wait. Did you guys already know?”

Lin Feng was so surprised that he shouted while saying that, and it woke Su Xue up. She rubbed her eyes, still drowsy, and then dragged herself out of her comfy cocoon of blankets and pillows. She pushed herself up and looked over at Lin Feng. “The hell are you yelling for? Trying to wake the whole neighborhood up?” She grabbed her phone to look at the time. “Oh, right. It’s almost 12? Alright. Fine. You’re lucky your shift is almost done. If you’d woken me up early…”

She stretched and yawned one more time. Then she cracked her back and shook off the grogginess. “Alright, I’m up! We can switch.” She walked over to Lin Feng, still in her pajamas, and ruffled his hair. “What were you screaming about anyway?”

“Oh! Look! You’re going to be so happy! Look! Look!” Lin Feng said while jabbing his finger at the monitor. Unfortunately, his excitement and his finger also blocked Su Xue from seeing the viewer count.

Su Xue pushed Lin Feng aside and looked at the screen. Her heart stopped for a moment as her mouth fell open. She moved a little closer as all the sleep left her face and was replaced with shock. “S-s-six t-t-thous–” The shock was too much for her. She leaned on the desk and forced herself to breathe. “SIX THOUSAND? How? Lin Feng how did you do it?”

A certain demographic of the viewers, a very specific subset, had already feasted their eyes on the heavenly sight of the sleeping Su Xue. But seeing her in her pajamas, that was an entirely different dimension of enticing. The thin fabric accentuated her curves, and the stream lights highlighted the sheerness of the material. They stopped breathing. They could only sit there drooling with their eyes locked on the screen staring at the beautiful woman who had appeared on the webcam feed.

「Woahhhh…..」
「Is xue xue going naked on stream?」
「LIL BRO TURN OFF THE WEBCAM!!!」
「I didn’t know the stream provided these kinds of services too!」
「COOMERS UNITE! OUR MOMENT HAS COME!」
「clipped it dn saved it!」
「this is THE BEST STREAM!! Nightsong, Hermes, now this. OMG!」

Su Xue noticed what was being talked about in chat before it went on for too long. Or too far. Her eyes turned into round saucers as she glanced at the webcam feed and saw herself showing off her body in her scanty and translucent pajamas! She quickly wrapped her arms around her chest and screamed at the camera, “What! You freaking perverts! Close your eyes! CLOSE THEM NOW!”

“Nice play, bro.”
Every person watching the stream read those words. This was Daybreak Hermes! The Star Emperor! One of the Seven Kings! And he’d just complimented Lin Feng! Literally every single person watching fantasized of a moment like this happening to them. A game where they’d be playing with legends, and then do so well that a professional acknowledges their skill. For Lin Feng, that fantasy was now his reality. After a pause, once their hearts started beating again, chat went nuclear!

「666666666666666666」
「OMMMG SNEPAI NOTICED US」
「Siiiiiick! Star emperor just said nice bro to us! IM STARSTRUUUUCK!」
「my life is complete i can die with no regrets. to the sleeping xue xue, i leave my most beloved gundam figurine collection….」

Lin Feng read the chat and smiled. “I know right? My Vayne is totally awesome!” he said while laughing. For the first time since the start of the game, not one message was sent that made fun of him. Every single viewer simultaneously decided that he had earned the right to gloat. When Daybreak Hermes, a professional player and one of the best in the world, told Lin Feng he was fantastic, who were they to disagree? Lin Feng had earned the right to enjoy this moment.

「nightsong is still better though.. got a ways to go」
「keep at it bro, one day you might become a pro tooo!」
「It’s okay! I’d still say he’s around as 70% as good as Nightsong!」
「we can call him the mini nightsong! cuz he’s like half as good!」

The validity of these statistical assessments that the viewers were making was dubious at best. Lin Feng did spend a minute thinking about what they were saying though. The gap between him and Nightsong was not as huge as they believed it to be, that he was certain of. But there wasn’t much of a point in telling them that. Their minds were already made up. Nightsong was one of the best ad-carry players in all of China, unquestionably in the top three. They would never accept that he could possibly be Nightsong’s equal. In their eyes, he could never match up to Nightsong.

But they are right about one thing. I’m great at being an ad-carry, but not as good as Nightsong. Nightsong was the better ad-carry, and he would never pretend otherwise. When it came down to mechanics and reflexes, he was just as good as Nightsong, maybe even better. But he just didn’t have the depth of ad-carry gameplay that Nightsong had. Lin Feng wasn’t a master at every single role in the game. He was a midlaner. Besides, he was still shaking some of the rust off. Nightsong had been playing every single day for the last couple of years, during the time he walked away from the game. Lots of things in the game changed while I was gone. New patches, new champions, and little tweaks to the flow of the game. Nightsong knows every little tiny nook of those things, and I don’t. It would take time to learn all these things. What he needed right now was practice. He was a god in low ELO games where no one knew a damn thing about the game, sure. But the way he was right now, there was no way he could stomp all over the best players in the LPL. But I ain’t done yet! I’m not going to give up, I’m going to climb all the way back to the top! All these people watching the stream, they’re going to watch me rise! The competitive drive and fire that burned in Lin Feng wasn’t dying out. It was burning brighter than it had before! If he had the choice, he’d be where the Kassadin was right now. Going toe-to-toe with Hermes. It would’ve been a glorious way to find out where he was at, testing himself against the best midlaner in all of China. God damn, that’d be fun. Going up against one of the 7 Kings. If I went all out, I wonder where I’d be compared to the top professional players in the world today?

✹

After Ashe came back to life in Red team’s fountain, she ran back towards the bot lane. The second she got there, she started farming minions. The Vayne had gone back to base after taking down the Dragon, so this was her only chance to get some gold and experience from minions. Catch back up a little before the Vayne came down with more items and a stronger build. She pushed the wave out as fast as possible with the help of Nami. The plan was simple. Get as much gold and experience as possible while pushing the wave all the way to Blue team’s outer tower. The tower would kill most of the red team’s minions, and every single one that the tower took was lost gold and experience for the Vayne. That would also help decrease the canyon between them.

The Ashe and Nami managed to get the minion wave all the way to Blue team’s outer tower, and even gotten a few hits in on the tower. That’s when they spotted Lin Feng’s Vayne running towards them. Neither Nami nor Ashe considered engaging. Both of them turned tail and ran. They knew what would happen if they tried. The Vayne was fed, and if they let her get too close she could kill both of them by herself!

Lin Feng arrived back in lane. His mind still wasn’t back on the game. He started farming his minions, accurately last hitting them under his tower. It would be a waste if he didn’t pick gold that had come to him so freely. Then he started pushing the minion wave out towards the middle of the lane.

At 11 minutes into the game, Lin Feng had pushed the minion wave back to the middle of the lane. His focus shifted to the Ashe. She was hiding behind her minions but would occasionally step forward to last hit a minion. She would probably try to escape the moment he landed an auto attack on her. He waited for her to do just this and then tumbled forward to poke at her a bit.

Ashe didn’t turn around when she saw the Vayne tumbling towards her. She didn’t try to escape. This was the moment she’d been waiting for! The moment that the Vayne would use the only movement ability in her kit. She raised her bow up and pulled back on it as the Enchanted Crystal Arrow coalesced. Then she let go. The arrow whistled through the air and pierced the Vayne, freezing her where she stood.

Lin Feng saw the Enchanted Crystal Arrow coming, but there was nothing he could do. Flash was still on cooldown and he’d just used Tumble to engage. He tried to dodge by side-stepping the arrow, but it wasn’t enough. His Vayne and the Ashe were too close together for that. The Enchanted Crystal Arrow plowed into his Vayne and stunned her.

Nami was ready with an Aqua Prison the second the Enchanted Crystal Arrow hit. Vayne was trapped in a bubble before the stun ended. The Jarvan IV came running down from the river and went right into his flag toss combo without skipping a beat. Vayne was knocked up in the air, and riddled with frozen arrows from the Ashe’s auto attacks. Then the Jarvan IV leapt up into the air and grabbed the knocked up Vayne. He threw her down with so much force that it created a crater at the impact site, his ultimate–Cataclysm! The damage piled on. Vayne’s fate was sealed, there was no way to escape.

《You have been slain.》

Lin Feng’s screen went grey for the first time in this game. For the first time in the stream, actually. The message from Hermes had distracted him too much. He’d been lost in his thoughts and not focused on the game. The viewers immediately started dogpiling on him.

「smh, shouldn’t have q’ed in.」
「hahaha dumbass thats what you get for trying to show off」
「get rekt m8!!!!!!1!」

Lin Feng scratched the back of his head. He was embarrassed at the sloppy play. “Haha. Yeah. My bad, my bad. I shouldn’t have done that. But it’s fine. No worries my homies. I still got this.” He was so distracted thinking about where his skills were compared to Hermes and the other professionals that he’d forgotten for a minute that he was playing against Diamond 1 and Master players. All of them had gotten to this point because they didn’t give up and lose hope like players in the lower ELOs did. When the cards were stacked against them, they waited and watched for an opportunity to turn things around. Which is what just happened to him.

But beyond embarrassing himself, there was no major harm that came from his death. The Dragon hadn’t respawned yet. The only thing that he’d given up was the gold bounty on his Vayne for being on a Rampage. His carelessness hadn’t screwed his team over. But something still changed. The look in Lin Feng’s eyes was just a bit different. His breathing slowed down. He said more to himself than to the stream, “Time to get serious!”

✹

The Dragon respawned every five minutes. The Blue team had killed it for the first time 8 minutes into the game. It was now 13 minutes into the game, and the Dragon would respawn any second. The Red team was still resentful over how they’d lost the first Dragon. That 3vs3 in bot lane had screwed them over, and they weren’t going to let that happen again. They had a plan. All of them arrived at the Dragon Pit early, before it had even spawned. And they started warding everything they could, maximizing their vision. They weren’t going to get ambushed or surprised this time. This Dragon was going to be the start of their turnaround!

The Blue team had no intention of letting the Red team get the second Dragon. They noticed what the Red team was up to, and started planning a counter-play. The Jungler and Support put down wards where they could to give the rest of the team some vision. But they were careful not to overextend themselves to the point where the entire Red team would pile on top of them and kill them. Unfortunately, Nightsong underestimated how extensive the Red team’s warding went and pushed his luck a little bit too much. He’d put his Blitzcrank into Overdrive and charged through the Red team’s jungle to slap a ward down near their Blue buff.

A volley of ice arrows flew out of the brush near Blue buff and pierced Blitzcrank. Ashe had been lying in wait, and her revenge was best served with her ice cold arrows. Blitzcrank started running towards the river. But before he took two steps, the Jarvan IV charged in towards him from the river entrance! Blitzcrank’s escape route was blocked. Jarvan IV dashed in with his flag-toss combo, which knocked Blitzcrank up into the air. Then jumped up into the air to catch the knocked up Blitzcrank and threw him back down to the earth with so much force that it created a crater, a cage of dirt–Cataclysm!

Blitzcrank was hemorrhaging health. The attacks from Ashe and Jarvan IV had taken out more than half of his health. That’s when Kassadin decided he wanted to join in on the fun. With the damage of the Void Walker on top of the other two, there was nothing that Nightsong could do. Flashing away would be a waste of the summoner spell. Backed into a corner like this, there was only one thing left to do. Nightsong was going to get some good hits in before he died. So he started fighting the Kassadin with his fists until his health dropped to zero. Thus, the noble Blitzcrank did die, his gears spinning to the beat of battle until his final moments.

Right when the Red team finished turning Blitzcrank into scrap metal, the Dragon spawned. They quickly grouped up and moved to the Dragon Pit. Jarvan IV engaged first and quickly pulled the Dragon out of the pit. If all five of them squeezed into the pit to fight the Dragon, they’d leave themselves open to both Rumble’s ultimate and Veigar’s cage.

✹

《An ally has been slain.》

Back in the hotel room in London, Nightsong shook his head. He looked at Hermes and said, “I messed that up, what am I doing with my life? I know a sausage when I see one, and that was a bad sausage. I’m sorry, man.”

Hermes looked at his friend and laughed, “As long as you get all of this outta your system before Worlds, I’m chillin!” He stopped and smiled, “Chillin like a villain!” Then he laughed and looked back at the game for a second before continuing, “We’re still in this, even without your Blitzcrank. Or that super special ward that you wanted to put down. Rumble has his ult, I got my cage. We’re good. If the Elise and Vayne decide to pop-off, we’ll be even better.”

Between Hermes’ Veigar and Rumble, the Blue team had two champions with powerful AoE damage and crowd control skills. There was also the Vayne who could dish out a lot of consistent damage and Elise couldn’t be underestimated either. All four of them together were more capable of taking the entire Red team out. They would avenge the noble Blitzcrank!

✹

The Blue team waited up the river from the Dragon pit. They were letting the Red team whittle down the Dragon’s health. Just to throw off suspicion, they threw out a few skill shots every now and then. But they never went in. Until the Dragon’s health got down to around 20%. That was their cue. Veigar quickly went in towards the Dragon Pit and threw an Event Horizon down on top of the Red team. The edges of space curled up and formed a cage.

Rumble was right behind Veigar and followed up. With the Red team locked inside Veigar’s cage, he had the perfect target for his ultimate–The Equalizer! He fired off a group of rockets, creating a wall of flames over them that damaged and slowed them.

While all of this was happening, the Dragon continued to slash at the Jarvan IV! All five champions on the Red team were taking too much damage. They started to back away, slowly. None of them committed to the retreat. They didn’t want to give up the Dragon, so they hesitated. The Dragon was almost dead. If they pulled out too far, the Dragon would flee back to its pit and heal to full health. They would have to push the Blue team back and then start all over again. If they just managed to get a few more hits in, they’d take it down!

Suddenly, the shadow of a spider loomed over the Dragon. The Blue team’s Jungler, Elise in spider form! She lunged onto the Dragon and gave it a Venomous Bite, while also hitting it with a Smite. That was it. The Dragon died!

《Your team has slain the dragon!》

Lin Feng’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Nice steal!” he exclaimed.

The Blue and Red team stood across the river from each other, one side wallowing in despair while the other sipped on joy. It was still. Calm. Tranquil. Then suddenly and all at once, the stillness was shattered! Attacks and skills flew back and forth, a full blown team fight had broken out! The Jarvan IV went in on the Veigar with his flag-toss combo, while the Ashe fired her Enchanted Crystal Arrow in Elise’s direction. The Arrow found its mark and froze the Elise. Both the Ashe and Nami focused their attacks on Elise after that.

The Jarvan IV’s flag-toss combo missed. Veigar flashed right over it, and straight into the heart of the Red team. The proximity to the entire Red team was ideal for him to throw his signature Veigar Combo down. He coelesed a ball of Dark Matter in the sky and brought it down on them. Then he followed up with a small and big bolt of dark energy–Baleful Strike and Primordial Burst! The Ashe took the brunt of Veigar’s attacks. She was blown up before the Dark Matter hit the ground.

The Nami tried to neutralize Veigar and possibly save Ashe. She threw out a bubble to trap the Veigar–Aqua Prison! It landed, but only after Veigar had already killed Ashe. Aqua Prison couldn’t save Ashe, but it could avenge her. Jarvan IV and Kassadin ran up to the trapped Veigar and eviscerated him!

On the fringes of the fight, Irelia locked onto the Vayne. She dashed forward with Bladesurge and was planning to stun the Vayne with a follow-up Equilibrium Strike, But her plan went the exact same way it did the last time she tried it. Lin Feng pressed the R key to activate Vayne’s ultimate, and then tumbled away from the Irelia’s Bladesurge. Then Vayne vanished into the darkness where Irelia’s Equilibrium Strike could not reach. When she reappeared a moment later, she let loose a stream of silver bolts. This was followed up with the active skill gained from the item Blade of the Ruined King, which slowed the Irelia.

The Irelia tried to close the gap. But her skills that could do so were on cooldown, and the slow from the Blade of the Ruined King meant that the Vayne was always faster. Her health quickly dropped. Between the damage from Rumble’s ultimate and Vayne’s silver bolts, she was going to die! Three silver rings appeared around her and exploded. Her screen went grey.

Lin Feng picked up his fourth kill for this game, and his score was now 4/1/1. But the fight hadn’t ended yet! He started zoning in on the Nami along with Elise who had just broken free from Ashe’s stun. With their damage combined, Nami went down to zero from hero.

《Double kill!》

The viewers were going wild in the chat! Lin Feng was quickly turning this team fight around! But their cheers stopped mid-sentence. The Elise was only one or two attacks away from dying and she was in the middle of the enemy team. They watched the Jarvan IV turn around to the Elise. He skewered her with Dragon Strike and finished her off with an auto attack.

Lin Feng wasn’t about to let Elise’s death go unavenged. He shifted his focus to the nearly dead Jarvan IV. Vayne shot three silver bolts at him in quick succession before the Jarvan IV could even reach her. The third silver ring appeared around the Jarvan IV and exploded. The true damage was enough to kill him.

《Triple kill!》 

The excitement in chat that had crashed and burned when the Elise died, it returned with added interest when the announcer’s voice rang out again across Summoner’s Rift, her tone more animated than when she announced the double kill, for the triple kill.

「TRIPPLLLLEEEE KILLL!!!!!! FCCK YEAH!」
「damn! That was a crazy ass 4v5!」
「OMG HAVE MY CHILD」
「uhhh… guys? Kassadin is still alive right?」
「WATCH OUT!!!!!! KASSADIN IS BEHIND YOU!!!!」

Lin Feng had picked up a triple kill, but the battle still raged on. The Red team still had a living champion. A violet silhouette appeared in a nearby brush. Kassadin was an assassin. After killing the Veigar, he’d retreated to let his skills come back off cooldown while searching for an opportunity to jump back in the fray. That moment was now! Vayne’s health was low enough that two attacks would be enough.

The Kassadin blinked right on top of the Vayne with Riftwalk. He activated his Nether Blade mid-blink, ready to kill Vayne before she could react.

Lin Feng was focused. Ready. He knew Kassadin was still alive. He wasn’t stupid. His finger trembled slightly on top of the D. There was only one way to outplay the Kassadin with the little health his Vayne had left. Lin Feng was going to use his Vayne as the bait in his trap! When Riftwalk activated, a dark violet portal appeared a moment before Kassadin did. Lin Feng kept his eyes trained on the screen for that splotch of purple. The instant he spotted it, he pushed down on the D.

Vayne flashed away from Kassadin, completely avoiding his Nether Blade. Then she raised the heavy crossbow on her back. A giant bolt flew out and sent the Kassadin colliding in a wall, stunning him. Condemn!

✹

Over in London, Nightsong sat up straight in his chair and stared at his screen. Amazed at the play. “Girrunafuck! This Vayne’s mechanics could fingerbang a cat!”

Vayne had just flashed through the Ashe’s Enchanted Crystal Arrow and dropped down right behind her. Lin Feng didn’t sit back and congratulate himself on a brilliant maneuver or glance at chat. His eyes were locked on the game. He wasn’t done yet, not by a long shot. Before the flash had even ended, Vayne had the heavy crossbow in her hands, ready to fire. A heavy bolt thrummed through the air and pinned the Ashe to the wall in front of her. Condemn! Vayne followed this up with another auto attack, and a third silver ring appeared around the pinned Ashe. All three rings exploded, dealing bonus true damage! Lin Feng’s play wasn’t just avoiding Ashe’s ultimate. He had chained Flash, Condemn, Silver Bolts, and auto attacks into a spectacular combo that he executed in less than a second! Ashe literally had no time to react after she fired her Enchanted Crystal Arrow!

Nightsong was impressed by the Vayne’s play, but not to the point where he forgot that he was still playing a game. He was Vayne’s support and his ad-carry had just engaged the Ashe. His Blitzcrank was in Overdrive and charging towards the stunned Ashe without any conscious thought from him. This was the same combo play they’d been doing since the start of this game. The instant that the stun from Condemn had ended, his Blitzcrank’s hand was wrapped around the Ashe. Blitzcrank pulled the Ashe back towards himself, and then knocked her up with Power Fist! Nightsong smiled. Their Vayne-Blitzcrank combo play was great at the beginning. But after running it a couple of times, it was seamless. This Vayne is great, feel like I’m playing with a teamma– Nightsong glanced at the minimap in the mid-thought. Something was happening!

Two of the wards in the bottom lane had lit up! One glowed blue and the other was red. Teleport! Two champions were teleporting to bot lane. The summoner spell Teleport was one of those used almost exclusively by top laners. Top lane was the longest lane on the map, and moving back into lane after going back to base or dying was a priority. Right now, both of the top lane champions were teleporting down to bot lane. Blue team’s Rumble and Red team’s Irelia!

“Hot diggity dog! Woooooooo! Alright, alright, alright! We gotta party going on in bot lane, boys!” Lin Feng shouted while laughing. This game was getting more and more fun for him. He wasn’t even slightly surprised this was happening though. This was a real game he was in, an actual high ELO game. Every single person in this tier had impeccable map awareness. There was never a point during the game where they didn’t have an eye on what was happening all over the map. All three of the other players on Red team knew that bot lane was in trouble during this game. So when Lin Feng engaged the Ashe, he knew there was a huge chance that other players on the Red team would show up to bail her out. He was ready for this. Which is why he didn’t back off when Irelia decided to show up. Vayne continued to attack the Ashe who had just been knocked up into the air by Blitzcrank. By the time she hit the ground, she was nearly dead.

Both of the teleport animations finished one after the other. Red team’s Irelia had shown up in bot lane first, and Blue team’s Rumble followed two seconds later. Irelia dashed towards the Vayne with Bladesurge, dealing damage with the collision. Then the Irelia followed up with a fast Equilibrium Strike! Or she tried to, anyway. The attack sliced through empty air! Vayne was already gone and completely out of sight. Lin Feng had dodged with a well-timed and empowered Tumble, and his Vayne had melded into the shadows right after because her ultimate was still active.

The Nami put two and two together real fast and threw down a Vision Ward! The ward revealed Vayne to the Red team, but it was still a little too late. Lin Feng didn’t use the brief window of stealth to escape. Vayne had continued to attack the Ashe. By the time the Vision Ward went up, another auto attack from Vayne was whistling through the air towards Ashe. The silver bolt pierced her and all three of the silver rings around her exploded, leaving her lifeless corpse on the ground!

《You have slain an enemy!》

Once again, Lin Feng didn’t stop to cheer or tell the chat how his kill was awesome. He didn’t have the time to relax. There were still two more enemy champions around, one of whom could easily kill his Vayne. He clicked on the Irelia to target her and started attacking. The first silver bolt landed. Then he cancelled the last part of the attack animation by backing up two steps. Another silver bolt pierced the Irelia. Vayne moved a step back and a step to the left this time. Over and over, Lin Feng flawlessly kited around the Irelia while the thrum of his Vayne’s crossbow created the rhythmic melody for the dance.

Blue team’s Rumble had teleported onto a ward placed in the river, just outside of the entrance to the middle of bot lane. That was the closest ward that he could teleport to. He ran into bot lane quickly, chasing after the Irelia, and then down bot lane to where the Vayne had just killed Ashe. By the time he got there, Vayne was kiting around and attacking Irelia. He wasted no time getting into range and throwing his ultimate skill–The Equalizer! A barrage of rockets rained down on the Irelia and Nami in a straight line, like a bombing run. The area they landed on boiled and erupted, turning molten from the payload of caustic jet fuel, which burned away the flesh of the two enemy champions caught in it.

Nami was still level 5, which meant that she still hadn’t gained her ultimate skill. The ultimates could only be gained at Level 6, they were locked before that. There was nothing she could do to help Irelia at the moment without her ultimate, and her already low health was now dropping dangerously low. There was only one thing she could do right now, and that was to preserve her own life. She quickly made up her mind and flashed away from the Irelia and towards her outer tower. There was nothing cowardly about it, she couldn’t save the Irelia’s life so the best thing she could do was save her own life.

In a truly unfortunate twist, the Irelia’s Flash was still on cooldown. She’d used it back in Top lane a little while ago. Not having Flash was what truly doomed her, since her movement speed was decreased while she was caught in the Rumble’s ultimate, and that meant she would constantly be taking damage while trying to escape it slowly. To make things worse, Rumble had caught up to her by now and applied a second slow by shooting two harpoons at her. She needed to escape! But every step was painfully slow. The real cherry on this shitshow sundae was that the Vayne continued attacking her. Silver rings appeared and exploded, over and over. Burning, slowed, constantly taking true damage, the Irelia started making peace with her eventual death. Then her screen went grey.

《Double kill!》

The people watching the stream saw everything, from Lin Feng’s spectacular Flash combo to the top laners teleporting into the Ashe’s death and then the double kill with Irelia. The entire play bloomed before their eyes, and the sheer excitement of the moment rendered them breathless. Once the Irelia was slain, they started talking again. For the first time since this game had started, everyone had something nice to say about Lin Feng and his Vayne.

「Wooooah! Nice mechanics! Almost as good as Nightsong!」
「that rumble ult was so sickkk!!!!11!」

The Blue team won the 3vs3 team fight in bot lane. They picked up two kills, while the Red team failed to secure even one. But the Blue Team didn’t just stop there. Since Rumble was already at bot lane, they decided to go kill the dragon. This was salt on top of a grievous wound for Red team. Their top laner and ad-carry were waiting to respawn, and Nami had recalled back to base to recover her health. They had no one who could contest Blue team for the dragon kill. They could do nothing.

✹

Back in London, at the 5-star hotel where Hermes and Nightsong were staying. Both of them were sitting at a desk, behind their laptops. When the double kill was announced, Hermes pushed himself against the back of his chair and stretched. He looked at Nightsong and said, “That Vayne, eh? He’s doing pretty good.”

Nightsong rubbed his eyes and chuckled. “Damn straight. I don’t know if ‘pretty good’ is correct. The little shit is doing fantastic with Vayne.”

“Wait. What? I was just messing with you! Look at you, saying someone else is playing Vayne well. I thought you were going to tell me ten things he did wrong in the last 30 seconds and how you would’ve done better. Hahaha! Hang on! I know what happened! Truck-kun must’ve gotten me on the way to the airport and now I’m in a different dimension, a parallel universe. One where Nightsong is an arrogant shithead.” Hermes said and then  laughed again. He’d been playing with Nightsong for a while now. Long enough to understand what kind of guy his teammate was. Nightsong was friendly and went with the flow for most things. Except when it came to League of Legends. That’s where all of Nightsong’s hidden pride and arrogance came out, especially when someone else was playing his role or his champions. It wasn’t undeserved or unearned arrogance though. He had every right to be proud. He was one of the top three ad-carries in China! He had gone toe-to-toe with Mote, the ad-carry for SSK when that team won Worlds last year, without buckling during the off-season. Nightsong was most definitely a god-tier ad-carry!

Chinese fans everywhere thought there were two Chinese professional players who deserved a chance to make it into the Seven Kings. The first was Roundy, the Uncrowned Eighth. His fans argued it was ridiculous he wasn’t already part of the Seven Kings! Right behind Roundy was Nightsong. He was phenomenal at the game and could go toe-to-toe with the best players in the world. Since last season, he was even publicly acknowledged as the number one Vayne in all of China! So when he judged another player’s Vayne, he was doing so at the standards that he held for himself. He almost never had anything good to say about another player’s Vayne.

Nightsong shrugged. “I’m the realest, and I’m just being real. I’ve been next to that Vayne this whole game. He’s good, that’s all there is to it. Just keep watching, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

✹

10 minutes into the game, Hermes had poked the Kassadin he was against nearly to death. And right now, it was time to go in. His Ignite had just come up, and his ultimate was ready to go. It was time for him to start setting the stage for the kill. The first thing he did was push the minion wave up a little.

Kassadin was a melee champion, so he had to walk right upto the minions in order to last hit them. This is what Hermes had taken advantage of. Every minion that Kassadin went to get the last hit on, it was just a little bit further out from the Red team’s tower than the last one. Just far enough from each other so the Kassadin only took baby steps, never feeling like he was overextended. He kept going, until he finally realized exactly how far out he’d gotten. Which was too far out. This was the moment that Hermes had been waiting for so patiently. Veigar went in and twisted the edges of space to create a cage–Event Horizon! Any champion that tried to pass through it would be stunned.

Earlier in the season, Veigar had been nerfed slightly by Riot Games. They had made a change to Event Horizon. The skill used to cast instantly. Now, there was a brief delay between the activation animation and when the cage would form. This window allowed any champion who would be caught in Veigar’s cage a chance to escape unscathed.

When Kassadin saw the activation animation for Event Horizon, he reacted instinctively with his ultimate–Rift Walk. The skill allowed him to blink through space and land a small distance away, similar to Flash. But he could also deal damage when he landed. Right now, the Kassadin had decided to blink towards the part of the river that connected mid lane and bot lane. He had completely avoided the stun from Veigar’s Event Horizon and saved himself from death!

Lin Feng chuckled. My timing couldn’t have been better! Holy shit! I can’t believe this Kassadin decided to blink this way. Vayne, shrouded in darkness, burst out of the river brush and straight at the Kassadin! Lin Feng decided that bot lane was going well, so he pushed the minion wave out and went roaming to mid. Just as his Vayne got to mid lane, he saw Veigar casting Event Horizon. And then the Kassadin had helpfully decided to save him some walking by blinking closer. Lin Feng chuckled again. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect! Alright Kassadin, let’s what you’ll think of this! Lin Feng pressed down on the E key–Condemn! Vayne took the heavy crossbow from her back and shot a giant bolt at Kassadin. The impact lifted him off the ground and carried him through Veigar’s newly formed cage, stunning him!

The people watching the stream had no words. Just no words. It took them a minute to process what just happened. Veigar’s Event Horizon, the cage that it formed, didn’t count as a structure. So Vayne’s Condemn couldn’t pin enemy champions to it. And without pinning, the skill couldn’t stun. But any enemy champion who passed through the walls of Event Horizon’s cage would be stunned. Which is exactly what Condemn had done. So Lin Feng had just come up with a way to use Condemn to stun an enemy with an unpinnable structure.

「WHAAAAT!?!?!??!?!!? That works!?」
「THAT”S SO BIG BRAAAIN! LUL!」
「5HEAD! 20000000000IQ! WTF? WTF? THIS IS WHY I SUCK」
「This guy gets me hard. He single?」

Hermes was surprised, then startled. He’d was planning on resetting and trying something else when the Kassadin blinked away. But then the Kassadin had come right back. Stunned and neatly packaged. He pushed down on the W, Q, R keys in sequence, the Veigar combo. Dark matter coalesced into a ball in the sky above and then rained down on the Kassadin, dealing magic damage–Dark Matter! Veigar followed this up with a bolt of dark energy from his staff–Baleful Strike. That was just the appetizer. Veigar charged up an even bigger bolt of dark energy that blasted the Kassadin away–Primordial Burst, his ultimate!

《An enemy has been slain!》

Hermes was in a good mood after picking up the kill that he thought was lost. Such a good mood that he decided to say something nice to the Vayne that had brought his runaway Kassadin kill back.
OldWorn:「Nice play, bro.」

Lin Feng chuckled. A new Ashe, huh? So I should be worried? He smiled. The idea wasn’t wrong, per se. The reworked Ashe should have an advantage over Vayne during early game. Her attack range was longer and the cooldown on her skill Volley was reduced, so she could theoretically poke and burst his Vayne down. Changes and champion buffs don’t really matter unless you know how to take advantage of them. And we’ll see if this Ashe really can do that. But there’s no way I’m throwing in the towel because of a little rework. Besides, they were down in bot lane. Lin Feng had a support champion at his side, and that support could negate every advantage from this new Ashe. He had a Blitzcrank! A robot with a flying hand that could hook and pull enemy champions. That hook made it impossible for the Ashe to position herself in the most advantageous way. And when combined with his Vayne’s Condemn, it was downright deadly.

This Vayne-Blitzcrank combo move was put on display three minutes into the game. There was a single minion defending the Ashe from a Blitzcrank Rocket Grab. Lin Feng waited, patiently, for the perfect moment. He targeted the Ashe with an auto attack, when the minion’s health dropped to single digits. NOW! He had his Vayne last hit the minion and created the opening Nightsong needed to hook and pull the Ashe. The second the Ashe was pulled forward, Vayne shot another bolt at the Ashe and then tumbled forward to cleanly dodge an Aqua Prison from the Nami. Lin Feng followed up with Condemn. Vayne pulled the heavy crossbow on her back out. A giant bolt flew out and pierced the Ashe through her chest and sent her flying backwards towards a nearby wall, pinning her to it.

Nightsong put his Blitzcrank into Overdrive to gain some extra movement speed and rushed towards the pinned and stunned Ashe. The timer on the stun was ticking down, and the Ashe would soon be free to escape. Blitzcrank continued charging forward and reached the Ashe literally the instant she broke free from the stun. Nightsong’s Blitzcrank went in with a Power Fist that connected with the Ashe just as she flashed away. The Flash had worked, but the Power Fist had also connected. The Ashe reappeared a small distance away and was instantly knocked up!

Good enough! Lin Feng wasn’t even a little upset that the Ashe managed to flash away. His Vayne’s passive increased her movement speed whenever she was chasing after an enemy champion, so the flash didn’t make that much of a difference. Vayne ran down the Ashe, nailing her with auto attacks every second and a half. Narrowing the distance between them while still taking out as much of the Ashe’s health as possible. She shot a third silver bolt at the Ashe, and the three silver rings encircling the Ashe exploded, dealing extra true damage. Then Vayne took aim again.

The Ashe was feeling both the pressure and the pain. She had to keep running, keep trying to retreat to the safety of her outer tower. But her health was dropping dangerously low! She didn’t know if she would make it. But her support Nami healed her precisely when she needed it with Ebb and Flow. Ashe also used the Summoner Spell Heal to get some extra health. Hopefully, this would give her enough health to get to the tower. But the Vayne was still right behind her, cutting away at the health she’d just gotten back. Thankfully, Nami was there to stop that by throwing an Exhaust at the Vayne. This lowered both Vayne’s movement speed and damage. That was all the opening that the Ashe needed. Exhaust had slowed the Vayne down and dropped the damage just enough for her to get under her tower. She was safe. If the Vayne tried to follow her under the tower, she still had enough health to avenge her death with her own hands.

For the people watching the stream, the engage and fight at bot lane was riveting! Not one message was sent on chat the whole time, they were too absorbed in the action to type. Until the Ashe slid underneath the safety of her tower by the skin of her teeth and Lin Feng’s Vayne backed away.

「You could’ve flashed there…」
「Yeah, wtf… you couldve gotten the kill if you flashed!!!!」
「You should have known that the Ashe was going to Flash and flanked!」
「you let all of nightsongs hard work go to waste! noob」

Lin Feng shook his head. “Nope. Guys, it wouldn’t have worked. I don’t have enough damage right now. I couldn’t kill her even if I did the towerdive. Plus, tower shots early game really hurt on this patch. I might’ve given them a kill if I did that.” He knew exactly how much damage he could dish out right now, and it wasn’t enough to towerdive and kill the Ashe.

Lin Feng’s explanation was solid, his reasoning was well thought out, and made complete sense to most of the viewers. But in the history of streaming, when had the backseat gamers ever accepted a reasonably well-thought out explanation behind a gameplay decision without trying to convince the person who was actually playing that they were wrong? Never. This stream was no exception to that rule.

「Keep making up excuses!」
「that was clearly a kill…..」
「Nightsong would’ve definitely gotten that kill if he was ADC!」

The trend of messages in chat from these guys made what they were trying to do blatantly obvious to everyone else watching. They weren’t trying to backseat, they were just trolls. They wanted to turn the tide of chat against Lin Feng. That would tilt him. Then he’d start playing poorly and they could laugh as he embarrassed himself in front of two professional players. But Su Xue’s faithful followers wouldn’t just sit there and let this happen.

「shut the fuck up you morons! Look at these armchair challengers here. Lol」
「KYS, please. Then we wouldn’t have to listen to you.」
「youre all new here right? I could tell the moment you opened your ugly ass mouths」
「Don’t talk when you don’t even know how good he is.」
「Oh, that’s right! Bronzies over here know when to go in best, right?」
「if ur mommy knew how dumb u were shed kill herself」
「if you dont like what you see, piss off! There is a red X in the top right of your screen. Go on and click it.」

The sheer venom and outrage from the other viewers cowed the trolls into silence. They tried to pivot, explain to the chat that they were only trying to have a bit of fun. Some harmless banter. But no one was in the mood to listen or make them feel better. Every message and response was quickly shut down. Any comment they tried to make that was less than sugary-sweet nice was met with an army ready to stomp them down.

It was beyond confusing for any viewer who showed up to troll. The whole thing just made no sense. The streamer was a guy! They could see it! And yet, there was an army of white knights defending him! So they tried to pivot again, explaining that they didn’t understand why so many people were defending a guy streamer. They were indignant and convinced that they had done nothing wrong, but no one was listening to them.

Su Xue’s faithful followers and long-time viewers saw this from a completely different perspective. They’d seen these kinds of messages before, met these kinds of people before. They weren’t going to make the same mistake twice. If they gave these trolls an inch, chat would end up overrun again. They had seen it happen when LovelyRose’s troll army had attacked Su Xue’s stream. They were more accommodating back then, more forgiving. That was the mistake, one they weren’t going to repeat. So they pushed back hard against any and all trolls!

Lin Feng noticed something was going on in chat. Oh? They don’t think I’m good? Well. Alright. I’ll just have to show them how good I am! He didn’t even notice that people were trying to tilt him. He genuinely believed that the trolls were upset that the Ashe kill didn’t happen, and they were starting to doubt him because of that. Which wasn’t really a problem. The game was only a few minutes old. He still had plenty of time to change their minds. Which is why he confusingly told the viewers, “Calm down guys, it’s fine. Just sit back and enjoy. I’ll kill her when she gets back to lane!”

✹

Lin Feng’s word was his bond, and he’d always follow through on a promise. He told the viewers that he was going to kill the Ashe when she got back to lane, and that’s exactly what he planned to do. Well, he was planning to do that even before he promised them. His plan went into motion the instant the Ashe recalled back to Red Base. First, he let the Red team’s minion wave push out a little. Hanging around just beyond the range of Red team’s outer tower wasn’t ideal. It limited maneuverability and positioning too much. So he shepherded the minion wave to the middle of the lane. This was the perfect spot. Between the lack of towers and the opening to the river, this was where the best possible positioning and plays could happen. That’s where Lin Feng decided to freeze the minion wave. With absolute precision and perfect control, he made sure that the Blue minions never dealt more damage than the Red minions.

At 3:40 minutes into the game, the Ashe arrived back in bot lane. She walked out from the safety of her tower and into the middle of the lane to start farming minions. She last hit one minion, and then another. Then she decided to move forward a little bit to get to one of the Blue caster minions who tended to hang back.

Lin Feng smiled. Here we go! Vayne tumbled forward and shot an empowered silver bolt at the Ashe. A single silver ring appeared around her. Then Lin Feng took his fingers off every key except D. He pushed down on it slightly, not enough to register a button press and activate the skill. But almost. He had his Vayne shoot another bolt at the Ashe.

Ashe turned around and started running when the first bolt hit. She knew it was risky to get that caster minion. But the gold was worth it, she didn’t want to fall behind this Vayne. That’s when Ashe noticed that the Vayne was chasing her. That first attack wasn’t just a poke. She needed to get away before she was forced out of lane again! She turned around and shot out a cone of ice arrows–Volley! Nine arrows that would cover her back and slow the Vayne when they hit. She turned back towards her outer tower and continued retreating.

GOTCHA! Lin Feng’s smile grew wider. His finger pressed down the D key a nanosecond before the ice arrows pierced Vayne. Flash! Vayne flashed through the arrows and ended up right behind Ashe. Then she took the heavy crossbow from her back and fired out a giant silver bolt. Condemn! It pierced Ashe through the ribs and lifted her off the ground, carrying her until it collided with a wall and pinned Ashe there.

The viewers watching the stream were blown away! Lin Feng was phenomenal! They sent messages about how they wished they could play Vayne like Lin Feng. They talked about how it would go if they tried to do what he just pulled off, and collectively agreed that it wouldn’t have gone well. They would’ve never flashed through Ashe’s Volley. Once they got hit by that, the Nami would’ve come in with an Aqua Prison. And then the Ashe would have rained arrows on them until they died.

Nightsong and Lin Feng weren’t talking to each other in voice chat. Nor were they using pings to indicate what they intended to do. Neither of them needed to type out a single thing in the in-game chat. They just understood each other perfectly. So when Nightsong saw Vayne engage the Ashe, he shifted his Blitzcrank into Overdrive and charged towards the pinned Ashe. Nightsong knew exactly what Lin Feng wanted done without words or pings. The stun from Condemn lasted for 1.5 seconds. Even with Overdrive, Nightsong didn’t know if he could get his Blitzcrank close enough. The Ashe broke free of the stun while he was still a few steps away. He was close enough, barely though. Blitzcrank’s hand blasted off his arm and flew forward until it grabbed the Ashe, dealing damage and dragging her back to him. Then he knocked her up into the air with Power Fist!

The Ashe knew that she was just too far away from her tower. Her skills were all on cooldown, as were her Summoner Spells. There was nothing she could do. She still tried to run away from the Vayne and Blitzcrank, but she knew how hopeless it was. A moment later, her screen turned grey.

《First blood!》

Literally seconds after first blood was announced came another announcement. A second kill for Blue team. This one happened in mid lane, where Hermes was playing Veigar against a Kassadin. He’d been harassing the Kassadin for the first few minutes of the game. And then the jungler, Elise, decided to come to mid lane for the gank. That’s when Hermes had gone in and gotten the kill.

The viewers of the stream cheered and spammed and rioted in chat. Both of their idols, the two professional players in this game, had gotten a kill! At nearly the same time! They got onto the scoreboard together! Hermes in the midlane with his Veigar, and Nightsong’s Blitzcrank in the bot lane!

「Star Emperor is a god! 66666666666666666!」
「Best Veigar ever!」
「Nightsong’s Blitzcrank is also pretty amazing!」

“Hey! I was the one that got first blood, you know!” Lin Feng protested.

「oh, you did okay i gues…」
「its good you didnt bring nightsong down」

“What? Really? Is this actually happening right now? I’m really good, too! You guys…” For the first time since he’d accidentally stumbled into streaming, Lin Feng understood what Su Xue went through all the time. These viewers, his viewers, had demoted him to a side character in his own stream! He even started sympathizing a little with Su Xue.

✹

Six minutes into the game, Lin Feng and Nightsong had claimed dominion over the bot lane. Red team’s Ashe and Nami could only cower impotently underneath their tower and watch minions die off in the distance halfway down the lane. Lin Feng had once again frozen the minion wave in the same spot as before. The Ashe’s creep score was falling further and further behind every minute.

Lin Feng looked at his minimap. Nightsong had warded all around bot lane, so he had fantastic vision. He noticed Jarvan IV, the enemy jungler, trying to sneak up on them and gank them from behind. He had his Vayne walk back towards Blue team’s outer tower. The Jarvan IV tried to ambush her with a flag-toss combo, but she easily dodged it with a Tumble. That’s when Nightsong decided it was time to show everyone why he was a professional player. He had positioned his Blitzcrank under the tower and waited. Once the Jarvan IV fell for Vayne’s bait, Blitzcrank used his rocket arm to grab Jarvan IV and pull him underneath the tower. Then Blitzcrank used Power Fist to knock Jarvan IV up into the air!

Lin Feng knew it was his turn when the Jarvan IV was knocked up. His Vayne was perfectly positioned. The Jarvan IV was stuck underneath the tower, a powerful structure he could be pinned to with Condemn. Vayne took the heavy crossbow from her back and fired a large silver bolt at the Jarvan IV, pinning him to the tower and stunning him. Between the damage from the tower shots and Vayne’s bolts, it was an easy kill.

While this was going on in bot lane, Hermes’ Veigar hit Level 6 in mid lane. This opened a brief window of opportunity where he had the advantage over the Kassadin. Hermes wasted no time and engaged. There was no suspense. The Kassadin was already at low health, he should have gone back to base when he saw Veigar at Level 5 but decided not to. It was a mistake that would prove deadly. Veigar’s ultimate did more damage the lower an enemy champion’s health was. The combination of circumstances had decided Kassadin’s destiny. Hermes had his Veigar blast the Kassadin to the afterlife with his ultimate–Primordial Burst!

Just like what had happened with first blood and the second kill in the game, bot lane and mid lane got a kill simultaneously again. There was so little time between the kills that the voice announcer only called out the first of the two.

《An enemy has been slain!》

“Oh wow! He’s really good!” Lin Feng didn’t say that out of surprise though. There was no reason for him to be surprised. Hermes was a member of the top LPL team in China, Hand of God. He was the best mid laner in all of China! And he was one of the Seven Kings! It would’ve been surprising if he wasn’t winning his lane in a random solo queue game. That statement was Lin Feng’s way of expressing pure and genuine admiration. Both Nightsong and Hermes, and how they were doing in this game, managed to ignite the fire of competition in Lin Feng’s soul. A fire that he hadn’t felt burn in a long time!

“We’re going to show them how awesome I am!”

✹

Lin Feng got a chance to showcase just how awesome he was 8 minutes into the game. The Ashe had once again overextended herself. Lin Feng activated Vayne’s ultimate–Final Hour. Darkness enveloped Vayne, and she disappeared. She raced towards the Ashe under the invisible cloak of darkness, the demon hunting crossbow held ready in her hands. When she got close enough, she attacked! A silver bolt struck Ashe.

Ashe was already wary. She’d been cautious since the first time she died, and that caution had doubled with her death. She’d been hanging back near her tower, and only stepped forward a little in the moments that she felt absolutely safe. And she always had one eye on the Vayne. Which is how she noticed immediately when the Vayne disappeared into the shadows. Death was coming for her. But she was ready for it this time. She waited for half a second, and then fired her ultimate, Enchanted Crystal Arrow, at point blank range. There was no way it could miss the Vayne, invisible or not. The Frejlordian cell in the arrow would freeze anything it hit. Like the invisible Vayne.

Too easy. Lin Feng knew Ashe’s ultimate was coming. He knew that was her only option, the only way she could stop him. He could dodge it though. Or just avoid it. His eyes were trained on the Ashe. He stared without blinking, searching for signs of the animation that would signal that Ashe was about to fire her ultimate. There! He spotted it before the arrow had even left her bow and twitched down on D. Vayne flashed through Ashe’s Enchanted Crystal Arrow, rendering it completely impotent. More importantly, Vayne wasn’t stunned.

The mechanical skill and balls of steel required to do what Lin Feng had done didn’t just blow the minds of the people watching the stream. Nope. Lin Feng had made waves on an international level. All the way over in London where Nightsong was sitting in his hotel room with a laptop. Nightsong watched as Vayne activated her ultimate and started to engage. Then he saw the Ashe fire her ultimate right at the Vayne he was supposed to be supporting. Just as he was getting ready to go in and save his ad-carry, he saw Vayne flash through the ultimate and gasped. “Holy shit! Wow… That. That was impressive.”

The waters of the Ionia server ran deep. Those murky depths were where the Diamond 1 and Master players gathered. But one could never know exactly what kind of monster they’d run into fishing in those waters deep. There were a lot of professional players, streamers, and famous gaming content creators at this level, waiting for the chance to finally step up to Challenger. The truth was that they weren’t hard stuck at this depth because they weren’t good enough to become Challengers. That was the furthest thing from the truth. These were the best players in all of China, some of them were even among the best players in the world.

But League of Legends was a game built around teamwork. Especially at this level. Sometimes, a game would be lost because one player on the team was having an off day, and that was enough for the opposing team to gain an advantage and snowball. Most of these players had hit the peak of individual ability in the game, so their advancement to the top of the Master rank was based more on how well they managed to synergize into a team with four other people. Some days, they’d get lucky and find the perfect team. Other days, not so much.

But climbing up to the top of Master wasn’t the only obstacle in the path to becoming a Challenger. There was a fixed number of players who could get to Challenger. In order for a player to move up from Master to Challenger, one of the current Challengers had to be forcefully thrown back down into Master. The battle never ended for those in the Master and Challenger rank. They had to fight constantly to get up to Challenger, and then keep fighting to keep their place. A single moment of weakness and all of the silent monsters hidden in the depths of the Ionia server would come out to feast.

Beyond the hurdles, there was a more practical reason why most of the professional players never bothered to hit Challenger or retain their spot once they hit it for the first time. They rarely had the time to sit around and play in solo queue. Their focus was on winning tournaments, and to do that they needed to constantly play together with their team. Playing alone in the Challenger pool would actually be detrimental to them. Their focus was on practicing as a team and scrimming against other professional teams. It built team synergy, one of the most important aspects in tournaments. Between that and all the time they spent travelling across the world to attend tournaments, they just didn’t have the time to worry about their solo queue rank.

On the rare occasion when a professional player did show up in solo queue, the entire server would start bubbling as the monsters swarmed around. Especially if the professional player belonged to a team that was playing in the LPL. Streamers would spectate the game and provide play-by-play commentary to their viewers. Fans would debate and cheer across chats and social media would end up flooded with memes and clips from the game.

That was the situation that Su Xue’s stream was in right now. The people watching the stream had completely lost their minds! The name of the player who had fifth pick! It was one of the most recognizable names in all of China! Everyone knew it! HoG Nightsong. Snowfall Nightsong. The ad-carry for Hand of God and one of the top three ad-carries in all of China!

The viewers spammed the chat in their excitement. They weren’t reading what other people were saying or responding to them. They barely knew what they were typing. This was literally the most exciting thing that could happen while watching a stream, and it was happening to them! Nightsong was their idol! Watching him play in solo queue was a dream come true! And now they’d get to see him play on the same game as the streamer they were watching, on the same team! And to think that only a minute ago they were complaining that Lin Feng hadn’t queued up with a professional player yet. The gods had heard them!

But under the waves of excitement was also a weak undercurrent. One that started gaining traction as the initial hype and shock of seeing Nightsong’s name in the champion select faded and chat regained some composure. More than a few viewers didn’t buy that this Nightsong was the real Nightsong.

「isnt nightsong supposed to be in london right now? why isnt he scrimming with his team?」
「right! this cant be him right???? is that a troll pretending to be nightsong??? it cant be nightsong??????」
「Idiots! Didn’t I just tell you! Their scrims don’t start for another two days! Go read HoG’s announcement!」
「OMG! Wiatwaitwaitwitawatiwait! LOOK AT THIRD PICK!」
「Look at third pick!」
「ITS HIM!!! LOOK!!!」
「who is that?」

The summoner name of the player at third pick was ‘OldWorn’.[mfn]The original name “久了就旧了” is a play on words in Chinese using different characters that sound similar. It translates to, “if it’s old, it’s worn”. [/mfn] The viewers of the stream felt like they’d heard this name before, but they couldn’t place where. It looked so familiar. The answer was on the tip of their tongue. Then it hit them.

「omgomgomgomgomg」
「ooooooooooooohhhhh shiiiiit!!!!」
「Isn’t that the name of Star Emperor’s smurf?」
「YEP! that’s the friggin star emperor!!!1!!」

There were players who had second accounts in lower ranks where they would occasionally play on. Smurf accounts. Different players had them for different reasons. But most top and professional players had them for the same reason. There were only so many players in Challenger. This meant that the queue times could get really long, and really boring. If they played on their smurfs, which were ranked just below Challenger, they could quickly get into a game and start having fun!

OldWorn. Star Emperor. They were just different names for one person. The player at third pick in champion select on Lin Feng’s team was Daybreak Hermes! The Daybreak Hermes. The famous midlaner of Hand of God. One of the Seven Kings. And the King who had gone toe-to-toe with an Emperor in the Season 5 Mid-Season Invitational and emerged victorious!

Two famous professional players in the same game! On the same team! ON THE SAME TEAM AS THEIR STREAMER! The people watching the stream were beyond shocked, beyond starstruck. This was the day they finally achieved Nirvana. Chat was completely still. Snowfall Nightsong. Daybreak Hermes. Not one, but two. Daybreak Hermes, Snowfall Nightsong and… Lin Feng? Two of their idols duo queueing together! They would get to see the game firsthand! Chat stirred to life again. But no words. It was walls of exclamation marks and emotes.

While the people watching the stream were losing their minds and changing their shorts from the excitement of finding out two of their idols were in the same game as their streamer, Lin Feng had been lost in his own little world and didn’t notice the hullabaloo. He was trying to figure out what champion he wanted to play. Once he sorted that out in his head, he looked over at chat and noticed that something had happened. Exclamation marks. Emotes. There were a  few messages every now and then, but they scrolled up so fast that he couldn’t read a word of them. After this happened 30 times in the last 10 seconds, he started putting the pieces together. They’re super excited about the guys in third pick and fifth pick? Hm… He looked at the summoner names in champion select and then exclaimed, “Oh wow! How awesome is this, guys? Did you notice? Oh… right. You guys already did. YEAH! This is going to be really fun! Hermes and Nightsong! This should be a pretty cool game!”

The players started picking their champions. Lin Feng was fourth pick on the Blue team. First pick locked in a Top lane champion. The Red team could now choose their first and second champion, and then the second and third pick on Blue team could go. Second pick locked in a Jungler. The players who had first and second pick on the Blue team had both decided not to choose Mid or Ad-carry as their roles out of respect. Those two roles were reserved for Hermes and Nightsong! Sadly, this meant that the only role left for Lin Feng was Support.

Lin Feng scratched his hair, a little unhappy. “Man… I really really don’t wanna play support…”

「Don’t whine and just support!」
「are you dumb!? you dont fight them for their roles!! they be legends!!!!」
「Nightsong and Star Emperor are probably trying to warm up for the tournament! Give them their roles!」
「yeah! YOU better not tilt our players right before worlds starts!!!」

OldWorn, better known as the Star Emperor or Hermes, locked in the champion Veigar. He was going mid. It was starting to look like Lin Feng would have to end up being a Support in this game. But then Nightsong typed a message in the champion select chat.
HoG Nightsong:「Fourth, can you adc? If you can’t support, I’ll do it.」

Water Wraith:「Yes yes! I can adc. I’m really good at ADC!」

Nightsong asking Lin Feng to play ad-carry was a twist that no one watching the stream saw coming. They literally could not believe that a professional ad-carry player, one of the best in China, would willingly give up his role to some unknown player. And that he was willing to add wonder on top of a miracle by offering to play support for that unknown player who would be the ad-carry. But that wasn’t even the thing that blew their minds. Not even close. The most spectacular, unbelievable, astonishing, mind-blowing thing to happen in the last five minutes was  Lin Feng’s reply.

「HOLY SHIT DUDE!!! you’re my heroo!!!!」
「the fuck… first he sulks that Nightsong probably wants to play ad-carry, and then when Nightsong let’s him play ad-carry, he starts bragging like he IS nightsong……….」
「thicccest skin on all of huya!!!!11」
「how does he walk around with balls that heavy and made of steel?」
「Nah, thickest skin in all of China!」
「Dis fuck aksually tell Nightsong that hes good at adc? how/////」

The newer viewers had completely lost it. Since they didn’t know Lin Feng, this was to be expected. But even the long-time viewers felt like they’d just been suckerpunched by Lin Feng’s ego. They knew he was good at League of Legends. They even knew that he was a good ad-carry. They also knew that there wasn’t a single player in all of Gold and Platinum who could beat him. But no one had ever seen him play a game in an ELO this high before. But whatever happened in the game, Lin Feng had done something today that was worth bragging about. He made Nightsong give him ad-carry!

Lin Feng ignored whatever was happening in chat. He needed to focus on champion select. More specifically, he wanted to see which champion Nightsong was going to use. He waited and watched, thinking the whole time. Nightsong locked in Blitzcrank. Lin Feng considered his options for a moment. He needed to make sure the champion he picked had great synergy with Blitzcrank and was a champion he enjoyed playing. He looked around the list of ad-carry champions, thinking. Then he picked Vayne and locked in.

Lin Feng decided to go with Vayne after putting some thought into how the game would be played and how he could work best with Nightsong’s Blitzcrank. But he’d also done something that once again blew the minds of the people watching the stream. See, Lin Feng had not only taken Nightsong’s role in the game. In his typical unintentional and oblivious fashion, he also picked Nightsong’s signature champion.

✹

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

While the other players were busy buying their starting items and walking to their lanes, Lin Feng looked at the stream. The number of viewers had plateaued at 1,500. Until he ended up in a game with Nightsong and Hermes. That’s when the viewer count started skyrocketing. Right now, there were more than 3,000 viewers! And it was still going up! He looked over his shoulder at the peacefully asleep Su Xue. If she were awake right now, he knew that she’d probably be losing her mind. He grinned as he pictured her jumping up and down in joy. This game was like winning the lottery for her. Her stream hit a new viewer count record every few seconds. Some of them would come back tomorrow and eventually become regulars. This game had made her viral!

The insane number of viewers flooding into Su Xue’s stream wasn’t unprecedented or unexpected. In a certain light, it made complete sense. Nightsong and Daybreak Hermes rarely ever played solo queue. Nor did they show up in a game together very often. But the timing made this particular occasion all the more special. Worlds was right around the corner! This happening right now, there was a one in a million chance! No!  A one in trillion chance! The odds of this happening were so astronomically low that there was a higher probability of the viewers meeting a kpop idol who would agree to date them. There was only one stream to watch tonight, and that was Su Xue’s. They couldn’t spectate the game from Nightsong’s or Hermes’ perspective, but they could still see them play!

Lin Feng didn’t care about the viewers flooding in or their excitement beyond the joy it would bring Su Xue. His attention was on the game in front of him. He looked at his Vayne and balled his fist. No matter what, he had to do well in this game! He still remembered his very first game with Tang Bingyao at the NetCow Cafe. The game where she picked Draven and he took over from her because she was losing to a Vayne. First Tyrant. That was the summoner name of the guy who played that Vayne. Lin Feng remembered it well. That game had ignited his desire to relearn the champion. Every game he played with Vayne since then, he’d been comparing himself with First Tyrant’s Vayne. And now that he’d shaken off the rust, he was confident he could now go toe-to-toe with First Tyrant’s Vayne in lane. But Lin Feng didn’t know that First Tyrant was HoG Nightsong’s smurf account!

On the other side of the world, Nightsong sat in a 5 star hotel in London, equally unaware that the player behind the name Water Wraith was the same one who’d given him so much trouble with a Draven. The Draven who had forced him to go all out in what he thought was a casual game. The Draven he almost lost his lane to. The Draven who had sent chills down his spine. If the game hadn’t been cut short by another player’s angry girlfriend, Nightsong knew there was a chance he might have lost to that Draven.

Call it a fluke, a crazy coincidence, or fate, but these two players were now on the same team and paired together as the bottom lane duo. They had never played together before. Neither of them knew they’d even played against each other. But their synergy was on point.. It was more than good. It was perfect! They danced and moved like they’d been married for 40 years and could read each other’s thoughts!

✹

3 minutes into the game, a silver bolt from Lin Feng’s whizzed through the air and took down a low health minion. Nightsong’s Blitzcrank timed his Rocket Grab perfectly to the instant that the minion died. Blitzcrank’s right hand flew over the freshly dead minion’s corpse and grabbed the Ashe.

Lin Feng had targeted the Ashe behind the minion before the attack from his Vayne had landed on the minion. He knew Nightsong’s Blitzcrank was going to follow up with the grab. The second the Ashe was pulled forward, Vayne shot another bolt at the Ashe and then tumbled forward to cleanly dodge an Aqua Prison from the Nami. Lin Feng followed up with Condemn. Vayne pulled the heavy crossbow on her back out. A giant bolt flew out and pierced the Ashe through her chest and sent her flying backwards towards a nearby wall, pinning her to it.

“Awesome! That was so clean! I played that perfectly!” Lin Feng exclaimed.

Chat responded with emotes of rolling eyes. They heard Lin Feng praising himself instead of talking about what a great support Nightsong was.

Killing the Ezreal was fun, but it wasn’t enough to sate Lin Feng’s bloodlust. Not by a long shot. He was hungry now, and bottom lane had two enemy champions. He wasn’t about to let the Janna walk away. She had to die too! There was no way he would let her escape! His Jinx currently had the movement speed buff from her passive–Get Excited. Lin Feng used that to chase after the Janna while switching out Jinx’s rocket launcher for her minigun. He just realized that he’d been using the rocket launcher this whole time after the chat pointed it out. The rocket launcher was only really meant for long range pokes during the early game, and there was more than one backseat pedant in the chat who attempted to remind Lin Feng of this fact. The minigun was a far better option when it came to bursting enemy champions down and killing them.

“Hahah! It’s fine! I got the kill! It was definitely intentional! Hahaha!” Lin Feng said while laughing. He did make a mistake, sure. But was it really a mistake? It didn’t matter how he got the kill on the Ezreal. The only thing that mattered was that he got the kill. He saw replies popping up in chat, but he ignored them and focused on the Janna.

Jinx attacked the Janna, peppering her with a hail of bullets from her minigun. The Janna started running, and Lin Feng’s Jinx continued chasing after her while attacking. The Janna’s health quickly dwindled down as she juked around and ran back to the safety of her tower. Her health dipped dangerously low just as she managed to get near the Red team’s tower. It was a now-or-never moment. The Janna flashed, cutting through the distance and appearing cleanly underneath her tower. She was safe.

In a different part of the map, the Blue team’s jungler Jarvan IV had just picked up Red Buff. He decided it was time to go down to bot lane for a gank. Just as he arrived, he watched the Jinx and Thresh engage the Red team’s Ezreal. So he decided to go up the river and through the Red team’s jungle until he arrived at the brush just ahead of the Red team’s outer tower at bot lane. And he waited there. If the Ezreal and Janna tried to escape, he’d cut them off! But before he could follow through on his plan, Jinx killed the Ezreal and the Janna flashed under her tower bypassing his ambush entirely. But the Janna was almost dead. That’s when the Jarvan IV came up with a new plan. He was going to towerdive!

The Jarvan IV threw his Demacian Standard down on top of the Janna. Then he dashed out of the brush, striking out towards the standard with Dragon Strike. His lance connected with the standard, pulling him towards it. There was nothing the Janna could do! He’d been watching as she used all of her skills, so he knew they were still on cooldown. His attack struck her and knocked her up into the air.

Jinx stood just outside the attack range of the Red team’s outer tower. Lin Feng watched the Jarvan IV fly out from the brush and engage the Janna under the tower. His Jungler had decided to tank the tower damage! This was his chance to jump in and pick up the kill! His Jinx ran beneath the Red team’s tower and started attacking the Janna. The rattle of the minigun was the last thing the Janna heard as bullets pierced through the last of her health and ended her short-lived escape.

《Double kill!》

“Awesome! My Jinx is going to be invincible now!” Lin Feng exclaimed in delight. Jinx was a champion who needed a bit of time before she could start snowballing. But this game was going so well that it was no longer necessary. With this double kill under her belt, Lin Feng’s Jinx went from a snowball to an avalanche. She was going to blow the Red team away!

Lin Feng farmed several more minions waves and pushed his minion wave all the way to Red team’s outer tower before recalling back to base. He had saved up enough gold to buy an expensive item. The B.F. Sword. The Big Fucking Sword. This component item gave his Jinx an insane 50 attack damage on top of her base stats.

When people watching the game saw Lin Feng buy the B.F Sword as his first item, they literally had nothing to say. Even the backseat gamers in the chat were shocked into silence. It hadn’t even been five minutes since the game started! They had no idea when and how Lin Feng managed to farm the 1300 gold required for the B.F Sword. Or how he’d done it so fast. But they did know where this game was headed. It was going to be just like the first two games Lin Feng had played on Su Xue’s account in Platinum. He was going to stomp all over Red team. The Ezreal might as well quit now. Bot lane was lost.

At 7 minutes into the game, Blue team’s top laner was looking at bot lane as Lin Feng’s Jinx was the first to hit level 6. Irelia had chosen the Summoner Spell Teleport for this game, and she was looking for an opportunity to use it. There were three brushes along the bottom side of bot lane. In the one closest to the Red team was a ward. That was where she would go.

The animation of a teleport started playing on Blue team’s ward in bot lane. The Thresh knew what this meant. He’d played plenty of games and repeated this trick countless times. He flashed forward and then used Flay, sweeping the Ezreal back towards him and slowing him. Then he completely ignored the frantically escaping Ezreal and shifted his focus to the Janna. The Flay was a distraction. A trick to lower the guard of his real target. He threw out his scythe towards the Janna and hooked her.

The Janna was focused on helping Ezreal escape. She thought the Thresh was going to hold Ezreal down until Jinx killed him again. She had no idea that there was a very different play being set into motion. So when Death Sentence came flying at her, she didn’t know what to do. It surprised her, and she stood there frozen in shock for a second. Then three Flame Chompers landed just in front of her. Thresh’s hook pulled her right into them and the grenades exploded, rooting her. Her skills were of no use to escape, and as a support she dealt no considerable damage. All she could do was watch the Jinx and Irelia attack until her health hit zero and her screen turned grey again.

In the end, The Janna died and the Ezreal escaped. He’d fled to his tower and from there recalled back to base. This would normally be an acceptable outcome. The ad-carry had survived and that was what mattered. But the Red team didn’t just give away a kill, they gave away so much more. Their bot lane now completely unguarded, since both players from the Red team were now in base. Their Jungler was on the other side of the map, too far away to do anything. All Red team could do was watch as the Blue team took down an uncontested dragon. Irelia’s top-teleport-gank play had perfectly set Blue team up for a kill and dragon.

“Wow! My teammates are awesome!” Lin Feng exclaimed. This was a huge win! His teammates during this game were much better than the players he usually found himself playing with these days. Both his top laner and jungler understood he could carry the game, so they put their focus into getting him ahead. This was paying off tremendously. His Jinx avalanche was roaring! It wouldn’t be long before there was nothing more that the Red team could do to stop him! His teammates reading the game correctly and knowing to help him get ahead was something that only happened at higher ELO. Starting from Diamond 1, there was a marked increase in awareness, game sense, and objective control.

Just as Lin Feng was praising his teammates and celebrating in his mind, an announcement rang out across Summoner’s Rift…

《An ally has been slain!》

Lin Feng quickly moved his camera towards mid lane. Veigar had died in the middle of the lane. Red team’s Syndra had gotten away with only a sliver of health remaining. It looked like they’d gone all out against each other. Lin Feng thought about it for a moment, watching as the Syndra disappeared into the fog of war. He guessed that she’d recalling back to base right now. Most likely from right underneath her tower. He pressed down on the R key. Jinx’s Super Mega Death Rocket burst out from her rocket launcher and flew across the river towards mid lane.

The viewers of the stream had enough time to start typing as the rocket cruised over the river. The Syndra was hidden within the fog of war. They didn’t know where she’d stopped to recall. It was even possible that she’d already seen the rocket and was getting out of its trajectory!

「is it gonna hit?」
「it wont! it will! it wont! plzzz hittt!!!!!」
「PLEASE let her be stupid!!!」

The Syndra player still felt the adrenaline rushing through her veins. That had been too close! The Veigar almost got her! But she’d gotten the kill and survived in the end. She relaxed a little while waiting for the recall animation to finish. Only a few more seconds. Suddenly, a teammate started pinging on top of her Syndra. She placed her hand back on her mouse and looked at what those pings were all about. It hit her before she even realized what happened. Her screen went grey. A plume of smoke and fire rose into the air. The Super Mega Death Rocket had hit her. She’d just been killed by the Jinx who was all the way down in bot lane.

《You have slain an enemy!》

Lin Feng smiled. The kill was his. He then looked over at the stream chat. It had exploded once again with the viewers telling him how awesome that was and how amazing the play was. He smiled at the webcam and said, “Well. Yes. What did you expect? I’m pretty good at Jinx too!”

✹

The game eventually came to an end. Lin Feng’s final score was 7/1/4. His only death happened during the very last teamfight because he got a little bit too cocky. He’d let Darius get too close, which was just enough of an opening for the Darius to leap forward and strike a lethal blow with his axe–Noxian Guillotine! Almost at the same time, the Ezreal fired out his ultimate–Trueshot Barrage. A powerful blast of energy that did massive damage. Two attacks hit Lin Feng’s squishy Jinx simultaneously and killed her. This didn’t change the outcome of the game though. It was a win for the Blue team.

「Hahaha! Still died in the end!」
「ezreel still got his revenge!!」
「LOL. it’s a nice change seeing you fail for once」

The messages in the stream chat were all in the same vein. Schadenfreude. They found a strange glee in watching Lin Feng make a mistake and die, and this was the first time they saw him make a big mistake. They didn’t know how long it would be before something like this would happen again, so they milked it for all it was worth.

Lin Feng didn’t mind the messages in the stream chat. They couldn’t dampen his mood. He laughed as he read them and finally said, “Alright guys, time for another game!”

✹

The ranked queue popped and Lin Feng was first pick in champion select. He called mid and locked in Fizz. Now that he had gotten his main role, he could finally show a little bit of his true skill. He played so well that the enemy team never stood a chance. It started with two early solo kills in mid lane, after which he started roaming around the map. He helped his bot lane and top lane pull ahead, taking the kills for himself. Wherever he went, every time an enemy champion came close to him, he would kill them. There was not a single one who escaped with their life.

10 minutes into the game, Lin Feng was 5/0/0. He didn’t have a single assist. Every time he went in, he picked up a kill. It got to the point where the people watching the stream started calling him a killstealer and greedy. They wrote paragraphs about how he was showing off and being an attention whore. But Lin Feng disagreed with them and said, “I’m an AP assassin. Every assist is a badge of shame!”

That was too much for chat to handle. They’d accepted a lot of Lin Feng’s bullshit by this point and let him slide.

「Man, what a lame excuse!」
「i almost believed you!」
「you’re just a KSer, plain and simple!」
「keep doing this and we’ll report you」

✹

There was no suspense to the game. Lin Feng used his Fizz to hard carry his team to an easy victory. After the game finished, he directly queued up for a third game on Water Wraith’s Diamond 1 account. While he was waiting for the queue to pop, he looked at the chat and started reading some of the messages.

「y can’t we queue up against anyone famous?」
「 i wonder how his fizz will do against a pro」
「Star Emperor is a Fizz main too, right?」
「You mean Daybreak Hermes? I think he’s in london bootcamping for worlds. why would he playing in the china server?」
「didn’t they say they only arrived in england two days ago and are still jet lagged? I saw hogs weibo acc announce that they plan to start bootcamping in two days」

The viewers were still enthusiastically chatting about Daybreak Hermes and Worlds, when Lin Feng queued into his next game. He typed his usual message in the chat.
Water Wraith:「Mid plz! Can’t supp!」

While Lin Feng was doing his what he always did during champion select, the people watching the stream had noticed something far more interesting. The flurry of messages being sent was too much for the stream to handle, and the chat started lagging! Every second or so, all the messages would disappear and be replaced by an entirely new wall of messages. Over and over.

「OMGOMGOMGOMG」
「no way! Is that really him!? The guy in fifth pick!?」
「hooooooooooooooooolyyy!」

The guys yelling in chat are right! These games are boring. It’s boring to play and dull as hell to watch. I need to get out of Platinum, obviously. But I don’t know… Diamond games also feel kinda boring. And they keep saying they want high ELO games… Lin Feng sat there thinking about what to do to make the stream more exciting for the viewers and himself. But he did not realize that his thoughts were on a completely different track from the viewers. There was an easily identifiable point of divergence too, the word ‘challenge’. To the every-day League of Legends player, high Platinum and Diamond ranked games were challenging and exciting. Most of them would never climb that high on the ranked ladder, so watching someone who was that good on stream was an experience. Lin Feng, on the other hand, was not your every-day run-of-the-mill League of Legends player. In his mind, an ‘interesting high ELO game’ was at the Challenger tier. He didn’t consider anything below Challenger as high ELO, and he wanted to test his skills against current professional players in a genuinely challenging game.

Man! Just thinking about playing a game against a pro player gets me all amped up! But… hm. How do I get there? I don’t have a Challenger account I can use right now… maybe I should make my own account and climb up? No, no. The guys on stream aren’t going to stick around and watch me climb on a fresh. That’s just going to be hours of boring gameplay. Hm… While Lin Feng thought about how to solve the problem of playing Challenger ranked games without a Challenger ranked account, the viewers on the stream started getting more and more excited. They thought Lin Feng would finally switch over to his own account. He was definitely Diamond. Maybe even Diamond 1 if they were lucky! Chat exploded with a bunch of people speculating how high his account was ranked and others arguing or agreeing to it.

Lin Feng turned and looked straight at the webcam. “Hey! Listen… this is kind of awkward. But. Any of you guys have a Challenger-ranked account I can borrow for a bit? Please?”

Chat died. The people watching the stream sat there staring at Lin Feng on their screens, trying to figure out what this guy was thinking. It took all of them a collective minute to process his request. The chat in a stream with 1,500 viewers was completely silent for a full minute. And then one viewer broke the silence.

「LOL!!!1 challenger account? why the fuk would we be here if we got a challenger account?」
「im here for the sick plays!!!! if i could play like that myself, why would i need to sit here and watch???? i would stream myself!!」

That’s all it took to revive the chat. Hundreds of messages in a similar vein followed after that. Lin Feng read through the walls of text in the stream chat, hoping there would be at least one person out there who could help him out. But it started to look less and less likely. Not one of the 1,500 viewers had a Challenger account. Or even one close to it. Lin Feng started to worry. It just did not look like he’d have an account that was higher ELO than Su Xue’s, the one he was already playing on. The excitement he felt moments ago was quickly being replaced by disappointment. Then he remembered! Water Wraith! I almost forgot about that guy! He was Diamond 1… I think. He opened Su Xue’s viewer group chat on QQ and sent a message to Water Wraith.

EveningSnowfall:「Yo Wraith! It’s Lin Feng. Gimme your account! I needa play on it for a bit. Please?」

Water Wraith was one of Su Xue’s faithful viewers who’d been around long before her popularity had surged. He was also the highest-ranked out of all her viewers at Diamond 1. The most important thing was that he was a nice guy, and he knew Lin Feng. Water Wraith’s account was the best that Lin Feng had a realistic shot at getting his hands on right now. Lin Feng sent the message and waited. Hoping that Water Wraith was around and that he would see the message.

Luckily for both Lin Feng and the people watching Su Xue’s stream, Water Wraith just so happened to be looking at his QQ messages right then. He saw the message from Evening Snowfall and opened it. When Water Wraith read what Lin Feng wanted, he immediately sent over his account information and password. There was no hesitation. He liked both Lin Feng and Su Xue and trusted them. If he could help Lin Feng, he’d do it. Then he paused for a second and started typing out a second message. He paused again halfway through typing and thought about the message. Then he sighed, finished typing out the message and sent it.

Water Wraith:「hey lil bro. ive been stuck at like 20lp for the longest time. plz help me climb. thanks!!!」

Evening Snowfall:「No problem man! I’ll get you some wins!! Trust me!」

Lin Feng used the login information Water Wraith had sent him and logged into the Diamond 1 account. Then he queued up for a ranked game. It was a moment of tense anticipation for both him and the people watching the stream. Diamond 1 was definitely up there on the ranked ladder, and that meant that a lot of well-known and famous players could potentially show up. There was also the chance that something even more special could happen. Every now and then, the professional players would jump onto their alt accounts to play in what they considered to be a low ELO. Either to experiment a little without getting a loss streak on their main accounts or to play a more relaxed and casual game. To the Challenger ranked professional players, Diamond 1 was low ELO and everything below that didn’t even exist. If Lady Luck was on their side, Lin Feng could get to play against a professional player and the people watching the stream would be in for the game of a lifetime.

The queue popped. Lin Feng entered champion select. He was fifth pick and on the Blue team. This meant that the other four players on his team could choose their champions and roles before him. It wasn’t an ideal situation, being at the mercy of four other people. If they didn’t want to be accommodating, there was a chance that you could end up with a champion or role you just didn’t know how to play well. This was more of a problem in low ELO than it was at Diamond 1, where everyone understood that having a teammate play something they weren’t good at would end up costing them the game. When the player who had second pick called out mid, Lin Feng sighed. He could play other roles besides mid just as well, but he didn’t want to end up playing support. He needed to do something. Lin Feng quickly typed out a message to his team.
Water Wraith:「anything but support plz!」

Lin Feng didn’t hate support or anything like that. He’d been playing support a lot recently with Tang Bingyao and enjoyed playing the role. It was just that carrying as a support in Diamond 1 was significantly more difficult than it was in Gold or Platinum. Teamwork and tactics were way more important in Diamond. At this level, his performance in the game as a support just didn’t matter as much. If his ad-carry was having a bad game, his team would lose. Especially once they got into mid and late game. A single screw up from the ad-carry could flush every little advantage they built up until then away.

The guy at third pick locked in on Jarvan IV. With his pick, Jungle, Top, and Mid were taken. Lin Feng hovered his mouse over an ad-carry champion while he waited for third and fourth pick on Red team to lock in. The second they did, Lin Feng smashed down on his mouse and locked in on Jinx before the player at fourth pick on his team had a chance to decide.

ColdCoffeeEnema:「the hell dude! why the fuck would you do that? im no fucking good at support………..」

Water Wraith:「Don’t worry! I’ll carry you. I’m really good at ADC!」

The chat exploded the second they heard Lin Feng say what had become his catch phrase. He’d just pulled a dick move. One that everyone, regardless of ELO, knew was poor game etiquette. It was a rude thing to do to another player, and then he used his catchphrase as an excuse.

「pfft, is there anything you’re not good at? pro role stealer」
「So crafty! HAHA I LOVE IT! show that dude who’s boss!!!1!!」
「haha there he goes again, I’m really good at!」

✹

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

The bottom lane matchup was Jinx and Thresh on the Blue team versus Ezreal and Janna on the Red team.

Lin Feng decided to go with the skill Switcheroo at the start of the game. This allowed Jinx to switch between her minigun and her rocket launcher. The minigun had a faster attack speed and dealt single target damage while the rocket launcher was slower but had a longer attack range with area-of-effect and splash damage. The other drawback with the rocket launcher was that it required mana to use.

When the first minion wave arrived in lane, Lin Feng used Jinx’s rocket launcher to kill them as fast as possible. He was going for full wave clears. He also used positioning to his advantage with the rocket launcher. Red team’s Ezreal was his opponent in lane. Every single time Ezreal stood too close behind or near one of Red team’s minions, Lin Feng would target that minion so he could use the splash damage from the rocket launcher to get some poke in.

Red team’s Ezreal wasn’t a terrible player who would stand there and take the poke, though. He figured out what was happening, and tried to counter. Ezreal searched for an opening between the Blue team’s minions that the Jinx was using as a shield so he could use the skill Mystic Shot. This was a skillshot with a long attack range. Ezreal could shoot out a damaging bolt of energy that would explode when it hit the first minion, monster or enemy champion in its path.

Mystic Shot was a powerful skill, but its primary drawback was that it was a skillshot that moved in a straight line. Lin Feng predicted the line that Mystic Shot would travel down, and his Jinx easily juked around it. Then he had his Jinx move forward a little bit to launch a rocket at the Ezreal. He cancelled the last part of the animation and pulled his Jinx back a little to make sure that she remained outside the Ezreal’s attack range. This three-step dance, this waltz was one Lin Feng did over and over again with the Ezreal.

Red team’s Ezreal was starting to feel the pressure. He tried over and over to get some poke in back, but Lin Feng’s Jinx continued to waltz around him while carving his health down. The pressure was starting to build on the Ezreal player. His champion had lost a giant chunk of health and he had nothing to show for it! At the level they were playing at, it was obvious that the Ezreal player knew that Jinx had a range advantage over his Ezreal with her rocket launcher. But he had no idea how to counter a Jinx who pushed that advantage to the extent that Lin Feng was currently doing. Backed into a corner, all he could do was try and push his minion wave out as fast as possible before recalling back to base.

Lin Feng, on the other hand, continued to dance around the Ezreal. As the game continued on and he fell deeper into the dance, more and more immersed in the flow of the game, his Jinx’s aggression and pressure mounted. An unending barrage of rockets rained down. He whittled both the Ezreal and Janna down to the point where they absolutely had to recall back to base. Then the game changed. One of his rockets landed on a minion with low health, killing it immediately. There was another minion that was also at low health next to it, and the splash damage from the rocket killed that one also. Jinx and Thresh both hit Level 2.

Lin Feng immediately started pinging on the nearly dead Ezreal. They had to go in now! If they waited any longer, the Ezreal and Janna would recall back to base and their chance for a kill would vanish!

The Thresh understood and knew what needed to be done. He flashed towards the Ezreal while simultaneously using Flay and Ignite in quick succession. The Thresh’s chains swept out and pulled the Ezreal towards him while also slowing him, and Ignite set the Ezreal ablaze. Then the Thresh used Death Sentence to throw out his scythe and hook the Ezreal, stunning him and pulling him in even closer.

Lin Feng’s Jinx followed up immediately after without losing a millisecond. She launched another rocket and then threw three Flame Chompers down on top of the Thresh. The combo crowd control play synergized perfectly! The moment the Ezreal broke free of the stun from Death Sentence, he was rooted again by three exploding grenades.

The people watching the stream were awestruck by the precision of the play! It was seamless! They were starting to understand that Lin Feng was just as spectacular playing in Diamond as he was playing in Platinum, and that blew their minds even more.

「6666666666666666!」
「awesome engage and follow up!」
「HOLY DAMMMNNN!!!!! that’s first blood for suurreeee!!!」

Right after that perfect engage play, Lin Feng continued to shred the Ezreal’s health. Every attack that landed made it seem more and more likely that the Ezreal would be giving First Blood away. To Lin Feng.

Red team’s Janna tried to save Ezreal with a Howling Gale that she threw at Jinx. The intended outcome was that it would knock the Jinx up, which should hopefully give the Ezreal enough time to escape. The Ezreal saw the animation for the skill and understood what to do. Before the tornado from Howling Gale even touched the Jinx, he flashed towards his tower. As long as he could get under the safety of its turret, he would live. He didn’t think the Jinx would tower dive. He also used the summoner spell Heal to build a little bit more of a buffer between him and death. But the Ignite that the Thresh hit him with was still active, which greatly reduced the healing.

Lin Feng saw animation for Janna’s Howling Gale start up. He saw the tornado forming, and watched the Ezreal flash away. But none of it bothered him. He was calm, serene, and detached. He was in control here, and all he had to do was wait for the perfect moment. His finger hovered over the D key, waiting. The tornado howled towards him, and he still waited. Still calm. Just as the tornado from Howling Gale was about to touch his Jinx and knock her up, he hit D. His Jinx flashed through the tornado and now stood safely on the other side. And the Ezreal was also in attack range. What a happy coincidence, Lin Feng thought before firing another rocket at the Ezreal.

Meanwhile, the Ezreal had run to the point where he was only a single step away from safety. One more step and he’d be under the protection of the tower. One more step and the Jinx would have to give up. The Ignite had ended and the Ezreal no longer had to deal with continuing burn damage thankfully. He had less than 10 health remaining. He was going to escape death! Then a final rocket spiraled towards him.

《First blood!》

The chat on Su Xue’s stream exploded! They were cheering, raving, congratulating Lin Feng, and spamming. It was an epic play and an edge-of-their-seats kill!

「6666666666666」
「OMG THAT WAS SO SICK!!!1!1!!」

The sound of a minigun rang out across bottom lane. “Everybody get excited!” Jinx’s shrill laugh cut through the smoke and gunpowder. Jinx had gotten First Blood, and this triggered the activation of her passive skill–Get Excited! Whenever an important objective, like an enemy champion, tower, or dragon, was taken down within three seconds of her damaging it, she would gain an enormous burst of movement speed and a slight increase to her attack speed for six seconds.

Coach Lin Feng was ready! But he wouldn’t just be training a few people in the club who also happened to be his friends. Absolutely not! The esports club had to become stronger. That was the only way to fight through the Shanghai 16 School Tournament. There’d be a lot more people grumbling in Coach Lin Feng’s Legends Bootcamp. Not just Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou. For starters, Tang Bingyao needed to show up too. She was the main ad-carry of the esports club and as ad-carry she needed to be strong enough to carry. She’d already played a ton with Lin Feng, and had fought her way to Diamond 1. But that was far from enough. Odds were that they would face far stronger opponents in the upcoming 16 School Tournament, and it was up to Coach Lin Feng to make sure she’d be ready. There was no way he’d be letting her slack off!

“That’s why you need to train too!” Lin Feng stated.

Tang Bingyao nodded. She’d been a part of ‘Coach Lin Feng’s Legends Bootcamp’ for a while now, before it was even called that. She knew the drill.

Beyond Tang Bingyao, the other members of the main team would be attending the Legends Bootcamp. Including the substitute players. There was, however, one minor issue with that plan. The list of players. Ren Rou hadn’t had time to finalize the list with all the new people from the tryouts the esports club had just held. That would take her another day or two.

“Just leave it to me!” Ren Rou said, reassuring them that it would be handled as quickly as possible.

“I can help!” Ouyang exclaimed. He was riding the wave of euphoria now that it looked like things would turn around for his esports club, and wanted to volunteer and help out as much as possible.

Ren Rou shot Ouyang a mean glare. “You, help? Please. Actually? You can help. How about you help me by not starting any more problems or causing trouble? Oh! And you’d better be taking training seriously! If I so much as hear a whisper about you slacking or goofing off, I swear…”

Ouyang scratched his hair, looking sheepish at her response. He did have a minor gift for making any situation bad or taking a bad situation and making it worse, he knew that. But he couldn’t help himself right now! He hadn’t felt this good in a long time, he was all fired up! “Don’t you worry, dearest Rou Rou! I’m not just going to give it everything that I’ve got! NO WAY! You just keep-on-keepin’ and watch me! I’m going to surpass my limits! I’m gonna stake a claim on my spot on the team!”

There was another minor issue that Ren Rou, Yang Fan, and Ouyang needed to consider. Lin Feng had dubbed himself “Coach” Lin Feng once he decided that he’d be training them. The three of them were more than willing to let Lin Feng help them get better. But they knew Lin Feng. The other members of the main team and their substitutes, they did not know him. So the three had to consider if they’d even accept Lin Feng as their coach and train with him. Then they dismissed the concern completely from their minds. When the list was finalized in two days, they would inform the team of Lin Feng’s true skill level. Between the godly LeBlanc plays that Lin Feng had shown off the other day and the title of Challenger, there shouldn’t be anyone who objected to him. Even Diamond and Master would fall in line.

✹

These days, Lin Feng’s normally chill schedule had become way more packed. School started early in the morning and that took up most of his day. The afternoons were dedicated to his bootcamp, where he was training the esports club team. Then he’d rush home for dinner, and quickly finish up his homework after that. The next thing was helping Su Xue out by filling in for her on her stream while she napped. That’s when he’d finally be done with everything and go to bed.

“EAT! Come on, come on–Hurry it up! Stop taking such dainty bites. Girls eat like that when they’re on a date cause they want to look cute. I know you can eat faster!” Su Xue urged Lin Feng. “Finish already! You need to take over my stream for a bit!”

When Lin Feng shoveled the last spoonful of food into his mouth, Su Xue grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him into her bedroom. “Alright! Good enough! Let’s go!”

“Hrey! I hafunt frinishud!” Lin Feng protested.

“Eat eat eat! Is that all you can think of? Do you dream of food too? You’re going to explode if you keep eating so much!” Su Xue raved while struggling to drag Lin Feng into her bedroom. “Please, help me stream. You can always finish the leftovers later!”

“But I want to eat chicken cutlet later.”

“Fine! You’ll have your chicken cutlet. I promise! I’ll get it for you when I wake up, alright? But first you have to help me with my stream!” Su Xue persuaded. She finally managed to get Lin Feng inside her bedroom and shoved him down into her gaming chair. “Hahhh, finally.” She let out a deep sigh and clapped her hands. “Alright, stream is all you for the next couple of hours. Mama’s finally going to get some sleep!”

Lin Feng was sitting in the chair and someone would be entertaining her viewers. The only thing on Su Xue’s mind now was sleep. Nothing mattered more than sinking into her soft cloud of a mattress. She completely forgot that Lin Feng was now in her bedroom and whipped off her clothes. She sorta pulled on some pajamas and leapt into her bed. The soft and comfortable mattress bounced a little, gently rocking her to sleep. She burrowed her head into her pillow. Pure bliss. “Ahhhh, how I missed you!”

Lin Feng heard Su Xue mumble something and turned around to ask her what she said. Then he froze. He stared at Su Xue sprawled out on her bed practically naked without a care in the world. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out what to do in this awkward situation. Then he yelled at her, “Hey!”

“Phwaat!?” Su Xue’s muffled voice came from behind her pillow.

“You should probably get underneath your comforter, or pull up your blanket. Basically, uh, cover yourself up a bit more before I turn the webcam on,” Lin Feng advised.

“Hm? What? Oh my god! HEY! You little pervert! Turn around! Don’t look!” Su Xue screamed while she scrambled to dive under her blanket.

The exhaustion from the past couple of weeks finally caught up to Su Xue. She relaxed again once she was under her blanket and the comfort of her bed lulled her to sleep in seconds. Locks of her long hair fell over her face, some swaying rhythmically and peacefully from her breaths. In sleep, she was relaxed and untroubled. Even without her make-up on, she was beautiful. Her eyelashes were long and gracefully arced up, and they fluttered every now and then. Even asleep, Su Xue was just as captivating as she was on stream.

Lin Feng turned around to look at Su Xue one more time, just to make sure it was safe to start the stream. Then he turned back around to face the computer. He opened up the browser and used the information Su Xue had written down to log into her Huya account. After he clicked on the button to go live, viewers immediately started flooding the stream. A good 70 within seconds, and more than 200 a few minutes later.

Su Xue’s stream had grown quite a bit recently. There were many more viewers than before, and a portion of them had never heard of or seen Lin Feng before. So it was easy to imagine their surprise when they opened the stream and saw a young man in the webcam feed. A young man who looked nothing like their beautiful host!

「who r u!? HACKER??」
「what did you do with our xue xue!」
「why’s it a guy!?」

In stark contrast to the angry and confused messages from the viewers who didn’t recognize Lin Feng, there were many more who did know him and were happy and excited to see him.

「lil bro! you’re back!」
「we missed you! where’d you goooo???」
「We were getting tired of watching the maid play! Thank god you’re back!」

Lin Feng chuckled and waved at the camera. “Hey, guys! Long time no see. How you guys been? Everything good?”

「who dat? I thought xue xue was the streamer?」
「He the nephew of xue xue’s landlady! our respected lil bro streamer!」
「xue xue is just the maid. he’s the real streamer!」
「he’s really fcking good at the game!!」
「this kid is better than snowfall?? Really?」
「he a qtpie… but he’s got the look of a feeder」
「STFU BISH!!! HES NOT MORE CUTE THAN SU XUE!!!」
「Defo not cuter than xue xue」
「Probably sucks at the game too. Su Xue keeps him around for eye candy!」
「just wait, you’ll understand when you see him play」

“Oh, right. Let me explain. Su Xue needed a small nap, so I’m filling in for her until she wakes up. She’s sleeping right now,” Lin Feng explained. Then he pointed the webcam towards Su Xue’s bed and added, “Can you guys see? She’s fast asleep.”

「woah is that our xue xue!???」
「sleeping so early! Is she deranged>?????」
「haha she’s become a sleep streamer! I wish I could make money by pointing a camera at my bed!!!!」
「ahaha! Screenshotted!」
「this is brilliant! we’ll never let her live this down!!」
「this pic of sleeping beauty will go up above my bed!」

Su Xue was most definitely not one of those streamers. She never did ‘sleeping streams’ or any other stream of that sort. In fact, if she’d known that her viewers had taken screenshots of her sleeping, she would have flipped out on them! She’d find every nasty word she could in the dictionary and give the perverted scumbags who did that something way more spicy to remember! But she wasn’t awake. She was peacefully asleep, unaware of what Lin Feng had just done.

Lin Feng turned the webcam away from Su Xue and back to himself. He then looked through it at his viewers and declared, “Alright! Enough of that! Let’s play some League!”

Lin Feng logged into Su Xue’s League account. She’d managed to climb all the way to Platinum. He queued up for a ranked game. The first game popped up, and he decided to go with Yasuo. Even at Platinum, the game was too easy for him. There just wasn’t any challenge to it at all. Lin Feng’s Yasuo toyed around with the opposing team. He managed to intimidate them so much that they surrendered in 20 minutes. It was short, easy, and carrying that hard made things a little boring for Lin Feng. So when the second game popped up, he decided to change it up. Instead of Yasuo, he locked in on Lee Sin. Even with the change, the same thing happened in the second game too. 20 minute surrender. Two short games where he carried his team. Hard.

The new viewers watched in shock as Lin Feng outplayed his opponents and picked up kills and assists left and right. Finally, they couldn’t hold it in anymore and erupted in excitement.

「woah dude! you’re friggin amazing!!!」
「screw the maid! I only wanna see you play now」
「Seee? What did we say? Is our lil bro a god or what!」
「the other day he wrecked a master」
「our lil bro here is definitely at the challenger level!!!!!!!! he’s also funny as hell, and he’s like way better than most of the streamers out there. you guys really lucked out popping into the stream today!!!!!」

The new viewers were sold. They completely forgot all about the hot girl they’d come to see. Now they’d given themselves heart and soul to the Cult of Lin Feng. Watching a pretty girl try her hand at gaming was fun. Watching a pretty girl who was actually decent at playing a game was even better, that’s the kinda girl they fantasized about wifing up. But watching someone play the game at a god-like level? That was an entirely different electrifying experience!

Over the next two games, the number of viewers kept climbing until 1,500 people were watching Lin Feng stomp all over Platinum players. The chat was frenzied from all the excited viewers trying to talk to Lin Feng, each other, and sometimes just trying to say something to be part of the fun. It eventually turned into walls of 666 spam every time Lin Feng did something insane or outplayed his opponents. But there were also a few who started complaining. It was a small minority at first. But their complaints started to gain steam, and it soon turned into a vocal minority. More and more people started joining in. This was boring to watch. Lin Feng was just too good. There was no thrill in watching these games, no suspense. There wasn’t another player who could make Lin Feng sweat a little. There was no pressure! The people watching the stream wanted to see Lin Feng actually trying! They wanted to witness him struggling to win and finally clinching it at the last second!

「STOP SMURFING BRO」
「go play on your main!!!!」
「GO KICK ASS IN CHALLENGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!」

“You guys want me to stop smurfing?” Lin Feng asked the chat. Then he smiled. “Alright.” Then he smiled a little bit more. “Yeah. That sounds way more fun, right guys?” His smile grew until it was positively beaming. “Alright! Yeah! That sounds like a plan! I agree! Let’s go play some higher ranked games and make this more exciting!”

Ren Rou was President of the high school esports club. She handled the logistics and day-to-day operations of the club, making sure that everything was in order. But when it came to actually playing League of Legends, that’s where she took a step back. Not because she hated playing the game or anything like that. She loved playing League! It was more that she wasn’t very good at it, definitely not good enough to represent the team well. She’d been hardstuck in Silver for more than a year. Sure, she could have pushed herself onto the team if she wanted to. She was the President. But she wanted the esports club to succeed, and her playing the game would not accomplish that. So she helped out as best as she could, taking care of the other things so that all of the other people in the club who loved the game just as much as her could keep playing on the team and keep fighting for glory.

Ouyang found himself on the same boat as Ren Rou. He loved League of Legends, he was all about gamer culture, and he loved the esports club. There was nothing that made him happier. But he also never made it onto the main team because he was never one of the best players in the club. His Gold 3 rank placed him solidly in the middle of the pack within the club. The role that he took on was similar to Ren Rou’s, where he assisted the club in administrative ways. It also gave him the opportunity to keep playing the game he loved with other members of the club.

Yang Fan was a little different from the others. He did have administrative duties within the club, but he also made it onto the main team. He was a Platinum player, and participated in the qualifiers for the 16 School Tournament last year.

“We have to take part in the training too?” Ouyang asked in surprise. He figured that Lin Feng would devote his time to people who would be representing the club at the tournament, and that he wouldn’t be included at all.

Ren Rou was similarly startled. She pointed at herself and asked, “Even me?”

“Correct!” Lin Feng said. Then he jabbed his finger on his chest and said, “I’ll be in charge of your training plan!”

Yang Fan looked at Lin Feng, hesitant. “The tournament starts in a couple of weeks. Don’t you think we’re a little bit late with this?” He trusted that Lin Feng really was a Challenger and he understood that being trained by a Challenger was sure to see their skill improve by leaps and bounds. The issue, the one that worried him, was about the time constraints. Or to put it more bluntly, he simply didn’t see how Lin Feng could turn them into contenders for the 16 School Tournament. He definitely didn’t see how Lin Feng could get them to the point where they’d be in the Top 4 in a little more than half a month.

“I can get you to Diamond! No problem-o!” Lin Feng said. Then he pounded his chest and added, “Trust me! I already have coaching experience!”

Lin Feng really did have experience coaching. He’d recently taken two students under his wings and they were both performing phenomenally after receiving his guidance. The first was Tang Bingyao. She’d been playing with him at the NetCowCafe, and gone from Diamond 4 to the point where she could hold her own against players who were Diamond 1. Then there was Su Xue. She was struggling in Gold when he first met her. Then she spent some time playing and learning from him. Now? She’d spent the last two days climbing from Gold to Platinum 5. And she was still playing phenomenal games. She could get even higher!

Ouyang stared at Lin Feng in disbelief. “Two weeks to reach Diamond…? WHAT? OKAY! Alright. Hold on for a second, pump the brakes. BRO! You tellin’ me your plan is to boost our accounts? What’s that going to do? WE STILL HAVE TO P-L-A-Y AT THE TOURNAMENT!”

Yang Fan was still skeptical. He adjusted his glasses and argued, “Lin Feng, I know my level. I know my skill. I’m realistic and pragmatic. There is no conceivable way—”

“Don’t wanna hear it!” Lin Feng cut him off. “All I want to know is if you trust me. Do you?” He looked over at the three of them, just standing there in silence. “Do you trust me, Princesses?” He waited for a couple of seconds, and then the corners of his mouth started twitching. “Don’t you want to take a magic carpet ride with me? See a whole new world?”

Ren Rou and Yang Fan stared at him.

Lin Feng giggled and said, “Sorry, sorry, so sorry. The joke was just there, I had to make it! But let’s be serious about this.” He giggled again, and composed himself. “Don’t you guys want to take home the trophy?”

Ouyang stammered. “O-of course we want to! bu—”

“Good! That’s all I needed to hear.” Lin Feng pumped his fist in triumph, then continued in a more serious tone, “Now, I don’t want to hear any more what-ifs. Don’t tell me something is impossible if you haven’t even tried it! You don’t know if it is impossible unless you try it and give it your all. So let’s do that!. Let’s give it our all!”

It was the same mantra that Lin Feng kept on repeating. If it wasn’t something amazing and worth achieving, could it really be called a dream? Dreams were meant to be giant! They had to be huge! They had to be so big that they set your soul on fire when you thought about them! It didn’t matter if you tripped. It didn’t matter if you had to take a step back. It didn’t matter if you failed once. Or twice. Or three times. All that mattered was that you never gave up, that you kept on trying no matter what! As long as you kept on the path, kept travelling through the journey, all of it would be worth it in the end.

“Haha! At the very least you guys will look cool!” Lin Feng cheered on. “Give it your all! NO REGRETS! FORRRRRR DEMMMAAAAACCCCCIIIIAAAA!”

Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou felt Lin Feng’s infectious passion and determination blazing through them. All three of them had dreams they’d given up on, regrets they nursed, and things about themselves that they wished they could change. But they never believed they could. Somewhere along the way, they’d given up. They still talked about their dreams, still had those dreams, but they’d stopped chasing after them.

Yang Fan remembered the qualifiers from last year. How helpless and frustrated he felt as his team was losing, how he could do nothing to change that. How nothing he did was enough back then. How he wasn’t enough back then.

Ouyang also knew that gnawing pain. He was a founding member of the club, but his mediocre skills had him sitting in the bleachers. He was a background character in the story of the club that he helped to create. Even though he was all smiles on the surface, behind all that enthusiasm was an intense desire to stand in the spotlight and raise the team on his shoulders.

Ouyang gnashed his teeth. “Dammit! Lin Feng is right! How will we know if we don’t try? We gotta try! Lin Feng bro, this is cringe. But I’m feelin’ it! FOOORRRRRRRRRR DEEEEEMMMMAAAACCCIIIAAA!”

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses. He still appeared calm, but his face radiated unbending determination. “Yes. We’re not going to end this with regret! I am not going to shout Garen’s battle cry though. I’m with you. But I am not doing that.”

Ouyang and Yang Fan turned to each other. They read the same resolve in each other’s eyes. A quick nod. An unspoken understanding between two best friends. They cried out in unison,
“We’ll do it!”
“DEEEMMMMAAAACCCIIIAAAA!”

Lin Feng turned to Ren Rou, who rubbed her temples in frustration before gritting her teeth. “Fine! What’s there to be afraid of? I’m your president anyway. I might as well keep you guys some company.”

“Good!” Lin Feng smiled. “Then that’s settled. Don’t worry. I’m really good at coaching!”

✹

After leaving the NetCow Cafe, Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao walked home in the same direction. Tang Bingyao looked down at the pavement, counting the bricks before putting her foot down on them. Suddenly, she asked, “Do you really think you can do it? You know, helping the club win the trophy?”

“Oh, hm. That. Well, I guess–haha.” Lin Feng scratched the back of his head, then smiled. “No. Not at all.”

Tang Bingyao looked up at Lin Feng. “Then what you said before…” she said, puzzled.

“I don’t know how things will turn out. But it’s because I don’t know how things will turn out that makes the future interesting!” Lin Feng replied. He raised his fist into the air. “IT’S A DREAM! That’s enough! All we can do is try, and maybe one day we’ll achieve it!”

“Then what’s your dream?” Tang Bingyao asked.

“I’m going to become the best professional League of Legends player in the world!” Lin Feng replied without the slightest hesitation.

“Oh,” Tang Bingyao replied. She then lowered her head back down and continued counting the bricks she passed.

They walked on in silence for a while until Lin Feng turned to Tang Bingyao and asked, “Tang Tang, what’s your dream?”

Tang Bingyao seriously considered the question before ultimately shaking her head. “I don’t have one.”

“Really? How can you not have a dream?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t.”

“Eh…” Lin Feng solemnly reflected on her answer, then suddenly halted his steps. He slapped his thigh and shouted, “I know!”

Tang Bingyao also stopped when she heard Lin Feng shout out behind her. She turned around to look at the young man, slightly tilting her head.

“Since you don’t have a dream, I’ll lend you mine! At least until you’ve found one for yourself. No need to thank me!” Lin Feng said with a bright smile.

Tang Bingyao quietly thought about Lin Feng’s words for a minute. Then she shook her head. “How can you lend me your dream?”

Lin Feng dismissed the question completely, “It’s fine! Don’t even think about it. I’m lending it to you, and that’s that. No need to give it back!”

“How can there be two best pros in the world?”

“Easy. You can be the world’s best ad-carry!”

“What a boring dream…”

“Just give it a try. Who knows, you might end up liking it!”

“I won’t.”

“Well, we won’t know unless you try!”

“I won’t.”

“Oh, right, Tang Tan—”

“The answer is still no.”

“Hey! I haven’t even asked anything yet!” Lin Feng complained.

Tang Bingyao started walking again. She didn’t look back at Lin Feng as she said, “I won’t join your team.”

“Ahhh, how did you know I was gonna ask that…?” Lin Feng asked, dejected. But he quickly returned to his cheerful self as he caught up to her. “That’s okay too. I never give up! You’ll be my team’s ad-carry!”

The Shanghai 16 School Tournament was incredibly important to the high school esports clubs in Shanghai. There were three reasons for this. First, this was the only official sanctioned League of Legends high school esports tournament in all of Shanghai. Some schools organized smaller events, like the Haiwan 4 School Tournament or the Pudong 8 School Cup, but those were local events for friendly competition. The 16 School Tournament was an entirely different sort of event. It was comparable to the national University tournaments in terms of scale and production value. The venue was huge! It had plenty of room for fans to come and watch, and the gaming equipment was of the highest quality. This was the stage to compete on for the high school students in Shanghai. It was a real professional tournament, nothing like their locally organized events. Victory on this stage also held meaning. Winning meant everything from further opportunities to team rewards. There was also the moment when they’d hoist a trophy up in front of hundreds of screaming fans. A trophy which would become the most valuable treasure in their club’s cabinet.

The second reason the different esports clubs put such importance on this 16 School Tournament was the prize money. The Shanghai Division of the Chinese Esports Association was the organizer for this tournament, and they sponsored a huge cash prize that would go to the teams who made it to the semifinals and finals. First place would earn a whopping ¥80,000. Even the fourth place prize was nothing to sneeze at, a respectable ¥20,000. On top of that, there was also the individual MVP award with a prize of ¥20,000 attached to it.

The third and final reason was that this tournament was the stage for any young player who dreamed of making it to the professional competitive circuit to showcase their skills. This was the tournament where they could get scouted. The tournament organizers invited famous professional analysts, players, and coaches to make guest appearances as commentators. Just last year, one of the members of the winning team had caught the eye of a top LSPL team’s coach.[mfn]The LSPL is the League of Legends Secondary Professional League with the LPL serving as the main professional league in China.[/mfn] That player was now part of that coach’s second team and a real professional gamer! This was THE dream for countless high school students in Shanghai.

The Shanghai 16 School Tournament was the first step on the path to glory. If they got scouted by an LSPL coach or player, an LSPL team might pick them up. From there, they could qualify for the LPL. Once they made it into the LPL, the World Championships were only a step away. That’s where they could fight on the highest stage in the world, playing at the highest level, millions of fans cheering them on. To fight for the highest glory and take home the biggest trophy, this was the dream of every avid League of Legends player!

The funny thing was the name of the tournament was a bit of a misnomer. It had grown considerably since its inception. The Shanghai 16 School Tournament currently had far more than 16 schools participating. There were roughly 200 high schools in Shanghai, and 70 of them participated in the 16 School Tournament. The sheer number of schools and teams required the introduction of a qualification series before the official tournament could begin. During the qualifiers, teams from the 70 participating schools would duke it out to earn one of the coveted 16 spots in the official tournament.

“So. What you’re saying is that we didn’t even make it out of the qualifiers last year?” Lin Feng asked, eyes wide in shock.

Ouyang awkwardly coughed. “Well… if you really wanted to be technical about it, yeah bro… you could say that.”

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses. “There is no other way to put it, Ouyang. It’s not a technicality. Correct, we were knocked out in the first round of the qualifiers.”

The first round of the qualifiers for the Shanghai 16 School Tournament was a group stage between four teams. The top two from each group would move on to the next round and the losers would go home. Last year, High School 13 only had one win and did not make it through the first round of the qualifiers.

“BRO! I know! Okay. I know. But it’s still embarrassing to admit!” Ouyang said.

Ren Rou patted Ouyang on the shoulder. “It wasn’t entirely our fault. I mean, we got really unlucky in the draws. Our group was basically impossible. First we had to play against those jackasses who sent a spy to steal our strategy. We lost that game before it even started. And the second match was even worse. We had to play against the team who went on to place 2nd in the main tournament. We had no chance against them.”

Yang Fan nodded and sighed with a complicated look on his face. “Yes. I suppose that’s just how the cookie crumbles. Those guys from Shanghai International were absurdly good.”

“Hell yeah! We had shitty luck! That’s why it’s a technicality! I read something online about something called the return of Mars causing shitty luck. That’s what probably happened. If Mars didn’t return and our luck was better, we’d have been in the main tournament!” Ouyang exclaimed. He then shot out of his seat, blazing with fighting spirit. “With you and Tang Tang joining us, it won’t matter if Mars, Venus, or even Neptune returns! We’ll wash away the stink from last year’s disgrace! This year, we’ll get that trophy! I can already taste it in my mouth, before I even kiss it!”

“How good were last year’s champions?” Tang Bingyao asked.

Ouyang froze. Tang Bingyao’s question stole all the thunder and bravado he had moments ago.

Ren Rou shot Ouyang a disdainful glare before turning back to Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao. She took a deep breath and then started explaining the League of Legends scene in Shanghai. Specifically the high school esports club scene.

Shanghai was known for being the heart of China’s esports scene. Most of the professional teams in the LPL and LSPL had set the city as their base of operations. Riot Games had even held a League of Legends All Star event in Shanghai. The city’s competitive environment allowed the high school esports clubs to evolve until they were better than anywhere else in China. The teams who managed to qualify for the Shanghai 16 School Tournament reflected that evolution.

“So, for example, Shanghai International had a Challenger and Master on their team. Their weakest player was Diamond 2,” Ren Rou explained. “Even with a stacked team like that, they only got second place. The champion was Shanghai High School. They had two Diamond 1s, two Masters, and a Challenger. Their best player is called Tiny Teacup. I heard he climbed all the way to the top 10 on Ionia. He’s a prodigy at the game…”

Yang Fan nodded and sighed. “Comparison really is the thief of joy.”

“Then what about our team?” Lin Feng asked.

Ren Rou’s expression turned awkward. “Well. That. Look, it’s obvious that we’re nowhere near Shanghai International or Shanghai High School.”

Ren Rou found it difficult to admit but High School 13 and the top schools in Shanghai were simply on different levels. They were so far apart you couldn’t even compare the two. Before Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao joined the team, the average skill level of High School 13 was low Platinum. Yang Fan was currently their best player. It wasn’t always like this. They used to have several Diamond rank players, but those guys either graduated or quit the esports club to focus on their studies. Only the weaker players like Ouyang and Yang Fan stuck around, refusing to let go of their dream of winning the Shanghai 16 School Tournament.

“So how are we going to win?” Tang Bingyao asked, intense as always.

Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou looked at each other, but none of them opened their mouths. Although the tryouts a few days ago were a massive success and they’d recruited several promising players, they needed a lot more than that to beat the likes of Shanghai International or Shanghai High School.

“I think even getting into the Top 8 will be hard,” Tang Bingyao said.

Ren Rou sighed. “All we can do is try our best. I don’t want to leave any regrets behind.”

“NO!” Ouyang gnashed his teeth. “That isn’t enough! I won’t settle for just doing our best. This is our final year! Screw the Top 8, we have to get into the Top 4! At the lowest! I want to leave something behind for the club. Something they can be proud of!”

Yang Fan shook his head. His eyes betrayed the sadness he felt inside. “I understand how you feel. I feel it too, Ouyang. But statistically speaking, Top 4 is impossible. It’s so far away that you cannot even consider it a pipedream. We’ll never get that far.”

Lin Feng listened to the exchange with a puzzled expression. “Is it that hard?”

“I know you’re amazing Lin Feng. But even if you’re a Challenger, the rest of the team can’t keep up with you. And we can’t count on you to hard carry us to the Top 4, can we?” Ren Rou said.

Ouyang and Yang Fan nodded. The euphoria of finding out Lin Feng was an actual Challenger had clouded their judgement. Reality was kicking back in. At the end of the day, their team consisted of a Challenger, a Diamond, and then some random low rank players. If they got lucky, they might possibly make it to the quarter finals. But anything more was just wishful thinking. League of Legends was a team game. They didn’t have a team. They had two talented individuals. Nothing more.

In the background, the sound of other customers at the internet cafe chatting could be heard. But Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou kept quiet. Their expressions were sombre as they stared at their hands. Lin Feng rubbed his chin, looking at his three friends, then suddenly broke the silence. “I don’t think it’s too hard!”

“I don’t mean to offend you here or sound like I doubt how good you are. I know you’re a great player. But if you think about it for a second you will understand. Think about it and tell me what it is you can do? You’re a Challenger. A Platinum player like myself would end up dragging you down once we get deep into the tournament.” Yang Fan sighed. “You know… I would really like to have the skills of a Master or Challenger and help out the club, but I don’t. I’m a Platinum player. There’s nothing I can do to change that fact.”

“Well, if you’re not good enough, just get better!” Lin Feng said as a matter-of-factly. Then he swept his gaze over Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou. “I can help you guys come up with a training plan!” Feeling as though that didn’t sound convincing enough, he pounded his chest. “I’m really good at coaching too, you know! Isn’t that right Tang Tang?”

Tang Bingyao slightly tilted her head. Then, thinking seriously for a moment, she nodded. “Mhm.”

Yang Fan, Ouyang, and Ren Rou stared at Lin Feng, dumbfounded. A training plan? Coach Lin Feng?