“Apologize…?” Su Xue muttered in an incredulous daze before forcing down the unbridled rage that threatened to erupt out. She had never met a more shameless and despicable person in her life! LovelyRose’s viewers came to her stream and wreaked havoc first! What did she have to apologize for?

But LovelyRose’s tone was perfectly calm, as if this were only the natural course of things.

LovelyRose:「Apologize, and I’ll let you off this time. I’ll also call off my white knights and simps..」

EveningSnowfall:「Apologize for what? I did nothing wrong!」Su Xue gnashed her teeth.

LovelyRose:「Your viewers are coming to my stream and cursing at me. You have a responsibility for them as their streamer. Even if you are innocent, which I highly doubt, you should still apologize for those dimwitted viewers of yours!」

Su Xue opened the QQ conversation with LovelyRose on her stream. When her loyal viewers saw it, they immediately exploded in anger and furiously started typing in her special chat group.

「Fucking hell! This bitch actually wants us to apologize!??!?」
「Xue Xue ignore that bitch!」
「fuck! what the hell do we have to apologize for?」
「it was them! they started this shit! all we did was go over there and nicely ask her to stop it. AND she ducking banned us!!! if anyone should apologize, it’s her!」

Su Xue didn’t pay attention to the messages in her special group chat. Instead, she was thinking of what to say, while biting on her lips in indignation. Finally, with a look of resolve, she typed out her response.

EveningSnowfall:「Tough luck for you then. You won’t get it. Not me or my viewers have anything to apologize for.」

To say nothing of Su Xue’s long-time viewers, even the hundred or so from Ol’ Black’s stream were deeply moved, turning from casual watchers to loyal followers.

What sort of thing made a streamer gain a loyal following? It wasn’t necessarily how well they played a game or how pretty they were, but rather how closely they connected with their viewers! Su Xue was doing exactly that right now. She stubbornly persevered in order to maintain the honour of her viewers!

LovelyRose:「Tsk tsk. Still not willing to admit your wrongs? Fine, if you don’t want to apologize, I have another solution…」

LovelyRose:「Let’s have an in-house 5v5. Your stream against my stream. The loser has to apologize to the winner.」

Su Xue stared at the message, dumbfounded. Her long-time viewers were also shocked.

EveningSnowfall:「An inhouse 5v5?」

LovelyRose:「Correct. Since we’re both League streamers, we should settle it on Summoners Rift. The loser has to obediently do whatever the winner says. We’ll speak with our skills. Sounds fair enough, right? 」

Ah Mei then reclined back in her chair as she stared at the messages. Her lips curved into a devious grin. She was quite satisfied with the proposal she just came up with.

When Evening Snowfall’s viewers came over to her stream earlier, a few were saying things like, “dumb thot”, “go back to camgirling”, “typical e-girl, showing more cleavage than gameplay,” and “she isn’t even good at the game”.

What annoyed Ah Mei the most were comments like these. If she would climb the ranked ladder by herself, her main role ad-carry would get her to Platinum 5 at best. However, thanks to some people boosting her account, she sat comfortably in Diamond. So, she was extremely sensitive to people questioning her skill. Evening Snowfall’s viewers who came to her stream had to be punished, and what easier way was there than challenging a Gold-rank noob and her 200 viewers? Where she could easily find Diamonds or even Masters, Evening Snowfall would probably couldn’t even find enough Diamonds to fill her roster! This would show those viewers who dared to call her out!

Evening Snowfall still hadn’t replied. Ah Mei smiled derisively and typed out another message.

LovelyRose:「What? Don’t tell me you’re scared now?」

EveningSnowfall:「Fine!」

The moment Su Xue accepted the challenge, the sound of thunder rang out from outside the window. Rain started pouring down from the sky.

✹

After bolting out of the NetCow Cafe, Lin Feng immediately flagged down a taxi to go home. Shortly after he got into the car, the pitter patter of rain tapped on the window followed by the sound of thunder. A heavy downpour started. The sudden change in weather caused the initially open streets to jam up with traffic.

Sitting in the back of the taxi, Lin Feng fiddled with his smartphone while anxiously glancing at the time every few seconds. After 15 minutes and the traffic not abating in the slightest, he finally had enough. He threw the taxi driver some money before opening the door and rushing out into the rain. “Keep the change!” he yelled over his shoulder.

It was raining buckets. Bean-sized rain drops pelted Lin Feng, drenching him. However, he didn’t appear to care as he madly dashed home.

✹

News of the drama had already spread. Almost all the League streamers on HuyaTV had heard of the cat fight that broke out between a new streamer called Evening Snowfall and LovelyRose. Ol’ Black had just gotten online. When he saw what happened, he quickly got on QQ and sent Su Xue a message.

Ol’ Black:「you really going to do it? you really shouldn’t have agreed. since she dared to challenge you, she’s confident in winning. with her 60,000 viewers, odds are she will find way higher ranked viewers…」

EveningSnowfall:「You don’t need to persuade me. I’m telling you the truth. Me and my viewers never started anything, but LovelyRose still wants me to apologize! If she wants to 5v5, then I’ll face her!」

Ol’ Black:「alright, then look around to see if there are any good players among your viewers. I’m really not in the position to help you right now. please understand.」

Ol’ Black really did like Su Xue, she seemed like a nice person and they got along. But he’d be completely ostracized if he got involved in this. The circle of big streamers wasn’t that big in the first place. So, it wasn’t wise to go around provoking others.

EveningSnowfall:「Don’t worry. I understand. It’s the thought that counts. I’ll handle this situation by myself.」

Ol’ Black couldn’t help but bitterly smile. Su Xue was taking this situation too lightly. She was at a complete disadvantage. Odds were she wouldn’t even find a single Diamond player to help her. Suddenly, he thought of someone.

Ol’ Black:「hey, where’s that little brother of yours? if he plays, you’ll at least have some chance of winning.」
Lin Feng’s amazing Sword of the Occult Lee Sin was still fresh in his mind.

EveningSnowfall:「He’s not here.」
She couldn’t help but think of Lin Feng too. If he were here, maybe we’d really stand a chance. But she quickly shook her head, determination flashing across her gaze. Lin Feng wasn’t here right now. She wasn’t the maid being ordered around by her viewers. She was Evening Snowfall, the host of this stream! It was up to her to protect this stream and her viewers!

✹

A heavy downpour came down on Shanghai. The howling wind and rain wreaked havoc on the streets as pedestrians hastily sought shelter underneath their umbrellas. Suddenly, many looked up in amazement at the silhouette of a boy running through the storm like his life demanded it.

As Lin Feng ran, all he could think of were his past interactions with Su Xue.

“Hey hey hey! Don’t tell me you want me to pour you water like some maid?”
“You little scoundrel! I’m supposed to be the streamer here!”
“Ahem… well, it’s nothing big. I… just want to ask if you can make me better at the game.”
“Oh, I didn’t sleep last night. I got so absorbed into practicing my CSing that I lost track of time.”

Lin Feng recalled Su Xue’s nervous expression when she came to ask him for help, the large dark bags under her eyes when she stayed up all night practicing, and the excitement on her face after finally seeing her hard work pay off. All these scenes floated across his mind. What was Su Xue to him? Someone full of complaints and prone to flipping out from time to time. But for all her thorniness, she always put in the effort to make delicious meals for him every day. Even though their time together was short, he already saw her as an older sister. She was pretty much family.

The rain pelted at Lin Feng’s face and slid down his cheeks. It soaked his hair, causing his bangs to fall over his eyes. He wiped away the water from his face mid-run as he thought of the words he told Su Xue.

“No matter how stupid or unrealistic people say your dreams are, as long as you try your hardest, I think it’s worth respecting!”
There was a second half to this line. “If you’re willing to risk everything for this dream, then you’ll definitely succeed!”

But at this moment, someone was destroying Su Xue’s dream right in front of her, making all her hard work go down the drain and humiliating her. This kind of thing was… “UNNFFFFOOOORRRRRGIVAABLE!” Lin Feng bellowed out as he ran through the rain with all his might.

✹

Su Xue tightly bit her lips, her face ashen. Their nexus was destroyed almost exactly at the 20-minute mark. The large, bold letters spelling defeat stung more than she wanted to admit. The gap in skill was far larger than she expected. Though LovelyRose was a fairly mediocre ad-carry and a good match-up for Su Xue, her teammates were anything but mediocre. The weakest was Diamond 3, while she also had two Master players. Meanwhile, Su Xue only had one Diamond 1 player, the others ranging from Platinum 3 to Diamond 5. This was a difference of more than an entire tier! No matter how hard they tried, it was lost from the start.

The trolls from LovelyRose’s stream started stirring again, blotting out Su Xue’s stream with messages.

「Hahahaha! Trash!」
「STUPID BITCH!!!! let’s see what you have to say now!」
「trash streamer, let’s hear that apology!」
「trying to be a stream with this skill? hahahahhahahahhahahaha aren’t you embarrassed!」
「DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT」

Every ridiculing message was as sharp as a knife, stabbing into Su Xue’s heart. Battered and bruised, she moved her mouse over her stream and turned it off. The viewers in her QQ chat group were sending her messages, as was Ol’ Black. However, she was in no mood to look. She lowered her head, her bangs covering her face and hiding her expression. She continued sitting there motionless, save for her lightly trembling shoulders.

BAANGG

The front door slammed open. An instant later, with the sound of heavy footsteps, Lin Feng burst into Su Xue’s room, cutting a sorry figure. He was completely drenched in sweat and rain as water droplets dripped down from his clothes to the floor. Still gasping for breath, he said, “Hah… hahh…, I-i’m home!”

Su Xue stopped trembling. Slowly, she raised her head, her pretty and elegant face already completely covered in ugly tears. In an incomparably feeble voice, she called out, “Lin Feng… h-hick, help me!” The words were barely audible, but they conveyed the unimaginable grief and despair she was feeling.

Lin Feng took a deep breath, then vigorously nodded. He didn’t even grab a towel before swapping places with Su Xue and fixing his gaze on the monitor. With a few clicks on the mouse, he turned the stream back on again.

Seeing an unfamiliar face appear on the stream, the trolls in Su Xue’s chat were stunned and briefly stopped spamming the chat.

Scanning all the hateful messages, Lin Feng narrowed his gaze as a dangerous and wrathful light flickered in his eyes. He took a deep breath and stared straight at the webcam as if he were directing his gaze at the countless trolls. Then, he slowly opened his mouth. “That was the maid earlier… I’m the streamer. If you’ve got a problem. Then. Come. At. ME!”

More and more people were entering Su Xue’s stream, and a good 80% of them were trolls sent by LovelyRose. They blanketed the chat with insults and general vulgar language. Just one such message was enough to make someone’s blood boil and anger well up inside of them. Let alone thousands. A thousand trolls all hurling the most vile abuse at once. No one could endure this kind of attack.

Su Xue was on the verge of bursting into tears. Her face flushed with anger as she bit down on her lips and continued to manually ban the trolls one by one. But they would quickly come back with new accounts and bring more with them. It was like trying to put out a forest fire with a cup of water. It was truly a heartbreaking sight to see this young woman fighting back to no avail.

Don’t cry. You can’t cry! You must not cry! Su Xue kept repeating in her head. It was only this mantra that allowed her to persevere in the face of this relentless barrage.

Even the hundred-plus viewers from Ol’ Black’s stream couldn’t bear to see this any longer and spoke out.

「Hey hey. Enough already!」
「Is that your goal? Bully a new streamer into crying live on stream? You guys are despicable!」
「this is ridiculous… she never even mentioned this lovelyrose before」

Needless to say, if even these new viewers were speaking out for Su Xue, her loyal viewers were beyond incensed. After consulting with each other in the special group chat, the several dozen of them decided to storm into LovelyRose’s stream and spam her chat.

But LovelyRose wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed. She banned them all from her stream, then chuckled derisively in her usual alluring tone. “You think you can spam my chat with your little group? Very funny.”

✹

“Damn! Some juicy drama is happening on Huya right now!”

“A catfight broke out between two female streamers!”

Back in the NetCow Cafe, Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao were about to queue up for their next match when they overheard the conversation of the patrons nearby.

Lin Feng’s eyes lit up. “Oh, a cat fight? I wanna take a look!”

“What’s so interesting about that?” Tang Bingyao remarked.

“I love watching juicy drama!” Lin Feng said in high spirits. He quickly tabbed out of the game client and opened up Huya on his browser. However, when he got onto the main page, he paused. “Eh, where’s the drama?” He shot up from his seat and shouted at the patrons a row over, “Hey! Where’s the juicy drama?”

Tang Bingyao quickly turned her head, pretending she didn’t know him.

The patrons a row over replied, “Go on Huya, and search for Evening Snowfall!”

“H-huh?” Lin Feng was stunned.

Tang Bingyao turned to Lin Feng curiously. “Are you alright?”

But Lin Feng didn’t appear to hear her. He hurriedly typed ‘Evening Snowfall’ in the search bar and clicked on the only result that popped up. After the stream loaded up, he was greeted by the sight of Su Xue on the verge of breaking into tears with a blanket of abusive messages scrolling over her stream. He scanned the messages one by one, the blood slowly draining from his face. His eyes trembled as the mouse he was gripping started making cracking noises. “Despicable… Despicable!” His expression became incomparably scary. “Completely despicable! These people are too much!”

All the nearby patrons in the internet cafe turned their attention to Lin Feng.

“Hey! What’s wrong? Tell me!” Tang Bingyao asked, alarmed by Lin Feng’s sudden outburst.

Lin Feng shot up from his seat. “Tang Tang, I’m going home. We’ll play tomorrow!”

“But the match is already about to start…” Tang Bingyao said.

But Lin Feng didn’t listen to her. He’d already grabbed his schoolbag and ran out of the internet cafe.

✹

A certain apartment complex in central Shanghai. In a lavishly furnished room, Ah Mei sat at her desk dressed in her typical low-cut tank top. She was the streamer known online as LovelyRose, and this was how she attracted viewers to her stream. Right now, she opened Evening Snowfall’s stream and was looking at the barrage of messages scrolling across the screen with a disdainful smile on the corner of her lips. They were all from her viewers standing up for her!

Ah Mei was quite satisfied. She didn’t care about where this started from or who was right. Or wrong. This hundred viewer Andy who started streaming yesterday had the audacity to pick a fight with her? What a joke! But after switching back to her own stream, she saw a few messages here and there in her chat cursing her out. She couldn’t help but knit her brows. This newbie managed to gather a few loyal viewers, an irritating bunch of simps trying to turn into knights for their Queen.

She mulled on it for a bit, then opened up her QQ and found ‘Evening Snowfall’ in the Huya section. Then she hammered out a message, her fingers flying over the keyboard with elegant grace and fury, a deadly viper about to unleash venom.

LovelyRose:「Evening Snowfall, right? Can’t you control your viewers better? They’re running over to my stream and causing trouble for no reason.」

Su Xue saw a QQ notification pop up on her phone. After opening it up, she couldn’t believe what she saw. LovelyRose actually had the gall to criticize how she controlled her viewers? This kind of shameless person actually existed! She furiously typed out a response.

EveningSnowfall:「It’s your viewers who came over to my stream first! How could you have not noticed!?? All they’re doing is spamming my chat! Please do something about them! How can you have so little control over you viewers!」

LovelyRose:「Oh, really? Then how come I’ve heard that it was you who provoked me first?」

EveningSnowfall:「I never said anything! Don’t make baseless accusations!」

LovelyRose:「I’m making baseless accusations? I don’t think my viewers would go to other streams for no reason, let alone your tiny little stream. Plus, why would I waste my time caring about a little stream like yours?」

EveningSnowfall:「Fine. Let’s just say this is a misunderstanding. Then, can you please call your viewers off? They’ve already disturbed my stream enough.」

Su Xue was about to explode, but she took a deep breath and calmed down. She couldn’t handle the chaos in her stream. It had gone on for far too long. Her loyal viewers were becoming anxious and a bunch of them had started crusading for her sake. Perhaps compromise was the smart solution here.

LovelyRose:「Want me to call them off? Sure… Apologize. To me. So both your viewers and mine see it. 」

In League of Legends, there were three great blunders: No vision in the brush. The enemy has no flash. I can get the kill! In the same vein, man had three great questions in life: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I heading? Before Su Xue’s viewers was also a question. Who the hell was Rose? But her viewers couldn’t be bothered to think about this question. Fuck! Who the fuck cares who Rose is! Trash talking Xue Xue? Can’t compare to Rose? What right do you have to decide that!

Su Xue’s long-time viewers might make fun of her in her stream and viewer group chat, but that never went beyond light hearted jokes and banter. It was a testament to how close they were. This was their sole right as her friends! So, when they saw the messages of these trolls, they immediately flared with anger.

「where did these morons come from? they forget to take their medicine?」
「the fuck is rose? never heard of her!」
「obvious trolls, can’t even tell this game isn’t caitlyn’s fault!」

The several trolls in the chat chuckled coldly.

「You don’t know Rose? Fucking losers hahahahah!! 」
「how is this shitty streamer losing in gold lmaaao! Rose is Diamond. don’t even try to compare, okay?」
「trash streamer has trash viewers, seems about right」

By the time Su Xue finally noticed the situation, the trolls had already completely riled up her viewers. She was already in low spirits after losing the game due to bad teammates, but after seeing the messages those trolls typed in her chat, her mood got even worse. Why were they randomly stirring up trouble here anyway? If they didn’t like her stream, they could just leave. There was no need to purposefully antagonize others. Not to mention she clearly played well this game. So, why were they trash-talking her?

Su Xue had heard of Rose before. She was also a League of Legends streamer, a way more popular one, with her streams averaging 60,000 viewers regularly. Su Xue had even watched some of her streams before. Her stream name was LovelyRose. She was pretty mediocre at the game. The only reason she was so popular was that she was the kind of female streamer who always wore highly revealing clothing, showing off her cleavage, legs, and whatever else she could get away with without getting banned. Sometimes she didn’t even play the game and just chatted with her stream, browsing clothing websites and asking her viewers what she should buy. She was precisely the kind of streamer Su Xue didn’t want to become.

Despite her distaste for this kind of behaviour, Su Xue never expressed any feelings about it in her streams. After all, everyone was trying to make a living in their own way. What right did she have to criticize them for it? You have your own thoughts, and I have mine. There was nothing worth arguing about. Now, though, there were trolls riling up people in her stream and comparing her to this other streamer. How could Su Xue possibly accept this?

Su Xue was inwardly sullen and fuming, but she tried to maintain an amiable appearance. “Alright, alright guys, that’s enough. Let’s all just watch the stream, okay? If you have a problem with my plays, feel free to point out what exactly. I’ll try my best to improve. And if you really can’t stand it, you can always leave. There’s no need to start arguments with others in chat.”

These words failed to have the desired effect. Rather, after realizing they had her attention, the trolls became even more unbridled, launching even uglier and more vicious attacks at her.

Su Xue let them go on for a little longer before she couldn’t stand it any longer and used her stream host privileges to ban them from her stream. The stream finally settled down for a bit. But within minutes, trouble came knocking again. Just as the stream chat was calming down, a swath of messages flooded in.

「trash streamer! play like trash but wont let others point it out!」
「BANNING US??? Stupid bitch, is that all you know how to do!」
「Rose is way better than you! Can’t accept it? Doesn’t matter! Just cause she’s better, you won’t let us say it, huh? Stupid bitch!」
「butthurt muchhhh? ifff you get butthurt so easily, then don’t be a streamer!」

The trolls were back and in full force. Apparently, the several people who were just banned came back with new accounts, and it appeared they called over more helpers from LovelyRose’s stream.

LovelyRose was currently streaming. There were over 60,000 fans watching her. When they saw the messages, “Some other trash streamer is challenging Rose,” and, “They even banned us for no reason,” many came rushing over.

「Heard some trash streamer is banning people for no reason. Came here to see if i’d get banned.」
「bitch, y are you shit talking our Rose??!」
「what makes you think you’re so great?!」
「HAHAHA thinks she can challenge rose with her hundred viewers. This bitch is just looking for drama! CLOUT CHASING BIITTCHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!」

Seeing these trolls overrunning her chat, the blood drained from Su Xue’s face. Never could she have imagined that banning a few trolls would result in even more flooding her stream, and they were even making baseless accusations! When did she ever trash talk Rose?

“I never said anything!” Su Xue exclaimed.

The trolls completely ignored her. They didn’t care for her explanation and continued mocking and insulting her.

Su Xue tightly bit her lips, trying her hardest to put on a strong front. But the faint trembling of her shoulders gave away how much these insults dug at her heart.

The trolls in the chat continued insulting her, their language growing ever harsher and their messages in growing frequency. Su Xue forced herself to ignore them, focusing back on the game. Then, she switched back to the stream chat and took out the banhammer.

It was useless. No matter how many trolls she banned, more just kept coming in. All of them came from LovelyRose’s stream. Su Xue’s loyal viewers tried to defend her, but they were vastly outnumbered against the troll army. All their messages were drowned out by the trolls.

「STUPID WH0RE」
「fking bitch, keep banning us!」
「you can’t ban all of us HAHAHAHAHA」
「The Rose army is endless! How dare you try to challenge us!」

✹

Some of Su Xue’s loyal viewers finally had enough and ran over to LovelyRose’s stream.

「Hey, can you control your viewers?」
「We’re being overrun by trolls from your stream. Are you paying any attention??」
「Answer us, LovelyRose. Control your viewers!」

The several viewers from Su Xue’s flared out in anger. But no matter how much they spammed the chat, they were completely ignored. The viewers from LovelyRose’s stream even started making fun of them.

「Your streamer shouldn’t have started it」
「likes dishing it out, but can’t take it back. I heard she’s even banning people for no reason.」
「hehee that’s what u bitches get for picking a fight with rose. you think it’s bad now? you haven’t seen nothing yet!」

The viewers from Su Xue’s chat couldn’t hold back their anger and started fighting back against the viewers from LovelyRose’s stream. But before they could get more than a few words in, a message appeared in their chat and their ability to type in the chat disappeared.

《You have been banned from this chat room by LovelyRose.》

LovelyRose’s voice lazily rang out from her stream, carrying with it an obvious note of disdain and mockery. “You lot, stop disturbing my stream. We don’t welcome rude simps here.”

✹

Su Xue’s stream chat was completely overrun by trolls from LovelyRose’s stream. It was utter chaos. The trolls were throwing every insult out there at her.

Su Xue’s shoulders were faintly trembling. The corners of her eyes were already starting to turn red, but she bit down on her lips, refusing to let her emotions get the better of her. Don’t cry! No matter what! Don’t cry! Don’t cry! Don’t cry! Crying was admitting defeat! She couldn’t let these trolls win!

But Su Xue couldn’t help but feel a sense of fear and helplessness well up from her heart. She’d only been streaming for half a month, putting in blood, sweat, and tears to slowly build up her viewership. But now, all her efforts were going to be destroyed in the blink of an eye! “What do I do?” she murmured to herself helplessly.

✹

Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao were still at the NetCow Cafe. They had just finished a game. After easily picking up a victory, they were about to get into another match, when Lin Feng overheard a conversation from some other customers nearby.

“Hot damn! There’s some juicy drama happening on Huya right now! Some new female streamer is being raided. Her stream is completely overrun with trolls!”

Su Xue quickly queued into her first match. In champion select, she picked her main, Caitlyn. Out of all the ad-carries she played, she’d been doing the best with Caitlyn lately, especially at farming. Plus, it was never a bad idea to start the day on a high note. The enemy picked Jinx, a relatively easy opponent. Her mood lifted and she said to her viewers, “Hehe! Watch how I carry this match, guys!”

The viewers in the stream had a different opinion.

「haha the zero income streamer is bulsshitting again」
「watch her feed lol」
「the human ATM is bragging!」
「so confident, xue xue! r u alright? loool.」

“Screw you guys! I’ll make you all eat those words when I carry like a god!” Su Xue erupted.

The match got off to a good start. Su Xue played rather well, taking full advantage of Caitlyn’s superior range to pressure the enemy Jinx in the early laning phase. At six minutes in, she even managed to get a kill and assist when Rek’Sai came for a gank.

The viewers were startled beyond belief.

「Woah! Maid, are you scripting today!?!?!?/」
「wow, that was actually good!」

“See, what did I say? I’m going to carry like a god today!” Su Xue exclaimed smugly.

Su Xue was playing exceptionally well this game. Clearly, Lin Feng’s training these past few days was effective. When she hit 78 CS at the 10-minute mark versus Jinx’s 55, the viewers were all gasping in admiration.

Su Xue maintained a calm expression on the surface, but inwardly she was grinning from ear to ear. Hahaha! All that hard work is paying off! I can finally carry with my Caitlyn!

Ever since that match with Ol’ Black a few days ago, Su Xue saw her viewership steadily climbing, from 40-odd viewers to over 200. The new viewers also couldn’t help but nod approvingly after watching Su Xue play for a bit.

「hoh wow, her caitlyn is pretty solid」
「yea! she’s way better than those e-girl thots!」
「right? We’re on Huya to watch people play games, not play with themselves!」

Gaining the approval of her new viewers, Su Xue’s mood lifted even higher, and she started concentrating even harder on her play. It also helped that her long-time viewers were putting in a good word for her.

「Yup. Xue Xue might suck, but at least we can tell she tries hard!」
「way better than those other female streamers!」
「btw where’s our lil bro???」

Su Xue’s long time viewers started asking about Lin Feng. He hadn’t been in any of her streams the past few days. So, they were starting to miss him. The new viewers also recalled Lin Feng. How couldn’t they? He was Godlee!

「ohhhhh! Do you mean that kid who played the sword of the occult Lee?」
「that kid and her live together? r they siblings or something?」
「I came to this stream for godlee!!!」

Noticing the conversation in the chat, Su Xue curled her lips and explained, “Hmph! He’s busy picking up girls!”

✹

At the NetCow Cafe. Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao were still playing League of Legends together. Right now, they were in a ranked match. Tang Bingyao was playing Twitch, while Lin Feng played jungle Fiddlesticks.

After practicing Twitch for several games, Tang Bingyao was clearly getting better at him. Even if Lin Feng didn’t babysit her lane, she could still scale very well by herself, at times even picking up kills on the enemy laners. Twitch wasn’t a very strong laning champion. But if you could get a lead with him early on, then when the teamfights started in mid to late game, he would be nothing short of a monster.

At about 14 minutes into the game, the second dragon spawned. The enemy team gathered in the dragon pit and started fighting it.

Lin Feng seized this opportunity to leap over the wall around the dragon pit with Crowstorm and right into the heart of the enemy team. A cacophony of caws rang out in the air as the Harbinger of Doom engulfed the enemy in a murder of crows, dealing a massive amount of magic damage!

At the same time, Twitch popped out of stealth behind the enemy ranks with Spray and Pray[mfn]Twitch unleashes the full power of his crossbow, shooting bolts over a great distance that pierce all enemies caught in their path.[/mfn]. A spray of noxious bolts cut through the air!

“PINS AND NEEDLES! AHAHAHAHAHA!”

An endless assault of bolts skewered the enemy team, melting away what little remaining health they had left.

《Double kill!》
《Triple kill!》
《Quadra kill!》

The game announcer’s voice rang out across Summoner’s Rift consecutively!

“Awesome Tang Tang!” Lin Feng laughed. “See? I told you Twitch was great at teamfighting!”

“Mhm.” Tang Bingyao nodded. Then, she turned to Lin Feng unhappily. “But I didn’t pick up a single kill.”

“Oh, you didn’t? I didn’t notice.” Lin Feng replied, feigning ignorance.

“Liar,” Tang Bingyao said as she stared at Lin Feng.

✹

Su Xue encountered a snag in her first game. Her Caitlyn was doing pretty well early game, but the rest of her team lost their respective lanes. The enemy top lane Darius turned into an unkillable monster, while the enemy mid lane LeBlanc could one shot anyone she saw. So, when the first team fight broke out, even though she had scaled well, she still couldn’t turn back the tide.

《You have been slain!》

Seeing her screen going gray, Su Xue went wide-eyed. “How did it end up like this…?” She genuinely felt she was playing really well, and even her viewers agreed too! But with these kinds of teammates, there was nothing she could do to turn the tide. No matter how well she scaled, the enemy mid and top lane were just too fed! She just had to be matched up with these kinds of teammates!

The viewers started comforting her.

「don’t feel too down, xue xue. you played really well」
「it’s alright, just move on to another game」

The new viewers were also chiming in.

「bad teammates can’t be helped」
「It’s already pretty hard to shut down a darius and leblanc when they’re not fed.」
「NOT HER FAULT TEAMMATES BAD」

However, several unpleasant voices suddenly interrupted the harmonious atmosphere, catching everyone’s attention.

「trash streamer, playing caitlyn with that skill? stop feeding the leblanc!」
「what a boosted monkey! I’m way better and Im Bronze!!」
「where did this trash streamer come from? never even heard of her. such crappy play and she actually wants to be a streamer? Our Rose is way better!」

Su Xue hadn’t even noticed these messages yet before her viewers already erupted in anger.

「Fuck off! Who the hell are these people? Talking shit as soon as they join the stream!」
「rose? who da fuk is rose???」

After spending all night practicing Lin Feng lessons of CSing and laning, preparing breakfast for Lin Feng, and leaving him a brief note, Su Xue finally caved in to her fatigue and collapsed on her bed. She slept until the afternoon.

When Su Xue opened her eyes again, she pushed herself up from her soft, silky mattress and drowsily stretched her body, feeling a wave of wakefulness wash over her. Wearing pajamas, she slid her feet into her pink slippers and shuffled to the bathroom. She gazed in the mirror at her shape with a satisfied smile after brushing her teeth and washing her face.

“Mhm! Mhm!” Su Xue nodded. “Just as beautiful as yesterday! Hahahah!” Then, her eyes fell on the faint dark circles around her eyes. She hurriedly examined herself more closely. It was no surprise pulling all nighters several days in a row would take its toll. But if things continued like this, her good looks would suffer! This was unacceptable! She pulled open the drawer below the sink and ruffled around. However, to her dismay, she discovered she was all out of facial masks.

“Crap! I’ve got to buy another box already?” Su Xue muttered. They cost more than her empty wallet could miss. She grit her teeth, then conveniently forgot the last minute. After all, what was the worst skimping on her skin care routine could do? And even if that did happen, she was earning a living with her skills as a League player, not with her cleavage like those other female streamers!

After finishing up in the bathroom, Su Xue walked into the kitchen. She browsed through the fridge and picked out something filling, a custard bun, and paired it with a glass of warm milk. With brunch in hand, she walked back to her room and plopped down on her desk chair.

It was almost time to start the stream. Su Xue wolfed down her breakfast before taking off her pajamas and changing into a casual rice-coloured t-shirt. Her usual stream attire. She grabbed several pants and posed with them in front of the mirror. Then, she paused and looked around to make sure she was alone. With a naughty smile, she looked back at the mirror. Here, there was a grown woman in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear with her slender, white legs exposed, making all sorts of alluring movements in front of the mirror! Any guy who laid their eyes on her would, without a doubt, feel their hearts race and their blood pump.

“Mhm, hm! You’ve still got it, girl!” Su Xue nodded in satisfaction, her eyes undressing the image in the mirror. She was 172 cm tall with a slender build. Her standout features were her face and long legs. However, she wasn’t the kind of girl to add a second cam to her stream for her legs. So, she rarely had the opportunity to show them off to anyone.

Of course, there was still Lin Feng. But he was more like a little brother than a member of the opposite sex. Speaking of which, whenever she was fed up with him prattling on about her mistakes in a League game, she would exact revenge by trampling on him with her long, slender legs.

Su Xue couldn’t help but gnash her teeth as thoughts of her recent training sessions with Lin Feng came to mind. “That li’l punk! How is he a coach? He’s just looking for any excuse to make fun of me!” It came to the point that she now played extremely cautiously in her ranked games for fear of being scolded. But no matter how hard she tried, he would always find something and ruthlessly point it out. He didn’t hold back in the slightest! She blushed with shame just thinking about it!

At this moment, Su Xue’s phone started ringing. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered. Then, she answered the call and curtly asked, “What?”

「I’m just letting you know I’ll be home a bit late. I’m still at the internet cafe!」Lin Feng’s voice rang out from the other side.

“Huh, are you still duoing with that Tang Bingyao girl?” Su Xue asked in surprise.

「Yeah, I am!」

“You have your heart set on chasing this girl, huh…?” Su Xue was at a loss for words. “Fine, fine, whatever. Just don’t come home too late!

“Also… when you get back, you still have to coach me!” Su Xue couldn’t help but remind him. As harsh as Lin Feng’s training was, it was effective. In only a short few days, she saw clear improvements. Even her long time viewers would occasionally remark on how much better she was playing. Naturally, this drove her to strive even harder in improving. Speaking of which, it was about time she started her stream.

Su Xue plopped down in front of her monitor and turned on her computer. After opening up her browser and logging into her Huya account, she sent out a quick announcement to her viewers.「Come out! Come out! I’m about to turn on my stream! Hurry up and report in!」

Su Xue only had 47 members in her special viewer chat group. However, as soon as she sent out the message, they all started stirring.

「Eh, you’re going live?」
「hey maid. you’re getting on pretty late today…..」
「lol bet five bucks she overslept」
「LMAO! 100% that happened」
「Su Xue, you’re neglecting us viewers here! Your streams are way shorter these days! Tell us, are you cheating on us with another guy!」
「Has to be it! The gal’s in heat!」

Su Xue furiously punched down on her keys, writing a reply.「Your mother’s in heat! Who said that? Reveal yourself and accept your punishment!」

The chat stirred.

「Woah! the maid is getting a little full of herself!」
「Impudence!」
「what’s this? she dares talk back to us?」
「Fellas, is it time to mass unfollow?」

Su Xue stared at her chat in shock, then hurriedly asked for their forgiveness.「My bad my bad… Oh please let me off my kind and generous viewers! Ah, my stream is already up. So, won’t you guys come and watch?」

「Hmph! That’s more like it!」
「Don’t forget your place! There won’t  be a next time!」
「we’ll be watching you closely!!」

Su Xue smiled apologetically.「Uh huh, uh huh. It won’t happen again. I promise!」Then, she breathed a sigh of relief. “These guys… they’re getting more and more cocky. Who do they think they are!” Despite her complaints, she read the group chat messages with a happy smile. Her loyal viewers were already waiting for her in the stream.

Even though the dedicated group chat for her stream was small, Su Xue was quite close with the people that were there. Unlike many other streamers who never spoke a word, she enjoyed interacting regularly with her viewers off stream. Each and every one of them was loyal to her and she’d personally invited them to this chat. When one of them entered the chat, she would always go out of her way to talk with them.

From their names to their birthdays, Su Xue tried hard to remember everything important she could about her loyal viewers. In fact, last week was a viewer’s birthday, and she had sung them a birthday song on stream. Of course, everyone had made fun of her for singing, saying things like they could already see the light. However, this didn’t get in the way of her building a deeper bond with her viewers, to the extent it wasn’t simply the relationship of streamer and viewer but that of friends who could crack jokes and exchange banter with each other.

Snapping out of her daydreaming, Su Xue looked at her stream page. There were already more than 30 viewers, all of whom were members of the group chat. All the ones who were online were present. But the good feeling of seeing her viewers joining didn’t last long.

「you didn’t put on any makeup today either! you atleast could try a little!」
「so sloppy… disappointing」
「smh! What do you expect of a shut-in? how in the world did i end up following her?」

“Hey hey, can you not roast me the moment I open the stream?” Su Xue erupted. In this lively fashion, her daily stream began.

Over the next few days, Lin Feng basically spent all his free time helping Tang Bingyao complete her elo boosting orders for free and coaching Su Xue. Pile on all the schoolwork on top of that, and he was quite busy every day. However, with both his students showing clear improvements in the span of just a short few days, he couldn’t help but feel gratified that his hard work was paying dividends.

Tang Bingyao’s rapid improvement was no surprise. After all, she had the reflexes and mechanical control approaching that of a professional player. Plus, she was a quick learner. All Lin Feng had to do was give her some advice here and there and point out which champion she should try next.

Helping Su Xue improve, on the other hand, proved an uphill battle. Even though both were ad-carry mains, the gap between them was stark. Su Xue’s foundation was too weak. Her reflexes and reaction speed weren’t that great, and she was slow to pick up on things. So, when Lin Feng was watching over her games, he sounded like a broken record, pointing out the same mistakes over and over again.

In spite of this, Su Xue had shown remarkable progress in the past few days. This was a testament to her unwavering drive and perseverance. While others would take a match or two to understand a game concept or champion, Su Xue would need three to four matches. However, she would do that and more, putting in five times the amount of practice anyone else would. This was a work ethic ordinary people could only dream of, the kind that demanded respect. Even Lin Feng couldn’t help but be impressed. He was sure that as long as Su Xue kept it up, he could help her reach Diamond.

✹

Friday afternoon. Lin Feng had finished his first week of school since transferring to Shanghai. He sat at his desk, enthusiastically discussing the season 5 League of Legends world championship with Ouyang and Yang Fan. It was only two weeks away.

“I was on Roundy’s Weibo yesterday. He actually updated his status for once!” Ouyang animatedly waved his hands. “He posted two pics of the team practicing and even leaked that they’ll be in London next week!”

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses. “Does that mean group stages are taking place in London? I guess they’re heading there a week in advance to get used to the timezone and do some bootcamping in the region.”

“London. Man, I wish I could go there to watch them play live. I bet England’s food is great too!” Ouyang remarked with a yearning expression in his eyes.

“The food there is terrible. It’s all potatoes, and their Chinese food is fake and overpriced,” Lin Feng chimed in.

Ouyang rolled his eyes. “You act like you’ve actually been to England.”

“I have!” Lin Feng said.

“Last time you told us you were a Challenger. Now you say you’ve been to England? Why don’t you just tell us you were a pro and went to London to compete in season 1 Worlds?”

Lin Feng’s eyes lit up in surprise. He gave Ouyang a thumbs up. “Woah! How did you know? You’re really good at guessing!”

Neither Yang Fen nor Ouyang took him seriously. Ouyang rolled his eyes and was about to go off on Lin Feng, when a pleasant voice rang in his ears. “What are you three talking about?”

The trio turned their heads. Somewhere along the line, their class president Ren Rou had walked over. She stared at them curiously.

Ouyang immediately put on a flattering expression. “Rou Rou, you’re here! Oh, it’s nothing. Lin Feng was just bragging again. I was about to tell him off.”

“Bragging?” Ren Rou raised an eyebrow in surprise. She turned to Lin Feng with a mischievous smile. “Oh, right, Lin Feng. Did you think you were being sneaky? That we wouldn’t notice? Come on, tell us the good stuff! Hehe.”

“Huh? What?” Lin Feng asked, bewildered.

Ren Rou giggled. “Ah? Still trying to play dumb? You think I wouldn’t notice? I’m the class president! I know everything! Like how you and Tang Bingyao have been spending a whole lot of time together.”

“WHAT?” Ouyang blurted. Yang Fan also stared at Lin Feng, his jaw dropping to the floor.

“I saw you leave school together with her last Wednesday. And when we had that game against Class 8, while everyone else went to celebrate, you stayed behind with her!” Ren Rou puffed up her chest with pride. “So, there’s definitely something going on between you two!”

“So that’s where you’ve been sneaking off to after school! You were chasing after a girl! Damn, you player! You already snagged yourself a hottie in your first week here!”

“W-what? No, it’s not like that! I haven’t!” Lin Feng retorted.

Ouyang nudged up to Lin Feng with bright eyes. “Hey, hey. Since you and Tang Bingyao are dating, when the esports club is recruiting, how about you try and get her to join us? Good! I’ll leave this to you!”

“Oh! I also want to join the esports club!” Lin Feng replied.

Ouyang slapped his thigh. “That’s great! As long as you can get Tang Tang to join us, I promise we’ll make an exception, and you can tag along too!”

Make an exception? Tag along? Lin Feng frowned. “Tag along? You think I’m just Tang Tang’s e-girl support?”

✹

“Because none of them know how good you are,” Tang Bingyao remarked, sipping on her lemon tea. As usual the two went to the NetCow Cafe after school.

“But I keep telling them I’m really good!” Lin Feng protested.

Ignoring his tantrum, a troubled expression surfaced on Tang Bingyao’s face. “It looks like people are mistaking our relationship.”

“Well, who cares what they think?” Lin Feng asked, not appearing the least bit concerned.

Tang Bingyao thought for a moment before nodding in agreement. “Mhm, I suppose you’re right.”

Neither of the two were the type to care about such trivial matters. So, there was no bashfulness or awkwardness between them. They turned their focus back to the game.

“Today, you’ll keep playing Twitch.”

“Twitch again?” Tang Bingyao’s pretty face crumpled. Lin Feng had told her to play Twitch yesterday too. The Plague Rat wasn’t anything like the ad-carries she usually played. In fact, compared to Kalista and Draven, Twitch was the polar opposite. The former two relied heavily on mechanics, whereas the latter relied mostly on positioning.

The power of Twitch rested in his ultimate. A good one could decimate the enemy team, while a poor one would lead to an almost instantaneous loss. This meant that awareness and positioning were much more important than mechanics. As someone who liked playing mechanical heavy champions, Tang Bingyao found no joy in playing this kind of champion. However, Lin Feng remained firm. Even if she didn’t want to, she had to obediently listen.

✹

After playing two games, Lin Feng turned to Tang Bingyao and asked, “Are you even trying? You’re playing awful!” They had won the first game and lost the second. However, Tang Bingyao had been invisible in both games.

“Another game!” Tang Bingyao said, unhappy with their loss.

From that point onwards, Tang Bingyao started getting serious. She slowly entered the zone while playing the third and fourth game. Her Twitch was getting much better. In the fourth game, she even got a quadra kill and directly carried the team to victory. The good results gave her finally a reason to enjoy playing Twitch a little.

“Let’s play another two games,” Lin Feng declared, riding the momentum. Suddenly, he froze as he realized something. He smacked his head and said, “Right, I have to let Su Xue know first.”

Lin Feng’s thought process was clear cut. He’d convinced Tang Bingyao to try Kalista because he knew her playstyle suited the champion. Kalista was a champion that required good mechanics, and Tang Bingyao’s greatest strength were her high-level reflexes and control with the mouse. They were a match made in heaven. But it took more than a few days to play a new champion at the level of a Diamond. That was why he had played support until now. In fact, the greatest contributing factor to their recent win streak was that his support was just that good. So, now that Tang Bingyao was comfortable playing Kalista, he knew it was the right time to change his role. It was fine for an ad-carry to rely on their support, but never to an excess. After all, if your support was bad or had an off-day, it would be up to you to carry.

Lin Feng explained all of this to Tang Bingyao, then added with a pleased smile, “Man, I’m really good at coaching too!”

✹

Lin Feng’s coaching duties didn’t only extend to Tang Bingyao. Around dinner time, he bid her farewell and rushed back home.

“I’m home!” Lin Feng announced as he swung the door open. Then, he rubbed his empty stomach and added, “I’m hungry!”

“Alright alright! I got it! Give me a minute!” a voice shouted back. Before long, Su Xue came rushing out of her room with a slight look of guilt. “Ahem, err, just sit back. I got so busy with my stream that I forgot to make dinner. Don’t worry. I’ll whip up something quick!”

Lin Feng nodded, then curiously asked, “How did streaming go today?”

Su Xue’s face lit up with a bright smile. “I had way more viewers today! I peaked at a little over 200! And my CSing went super good! When I was playing ranked, I almost always got over 70 CS by 10 minutes!”

Maintaining an average of 70 CS at 10 minutes in Gold was commendable. So, Lin Feng gave her two thumbs up and exclaimed in admiration, “Nice! That’s proof the training from last night worked!”

“Yeah, I know right! I feel like my CSing today has gotten a lot better after last night!” Su Xue nodded vigorously. She was quite pleased with the results of Lin Feng’s coaching. “Can you give me some more tips after dinner? I’ve ended the stream for today anyway, so we’ve got all night!”

“You’re not streaming tonight? You can stream and practice at the same time, you know?” Lin Feng remarked in surprise.

“No, no, it’s fine. If my viewers see me practice, they’ll just make fun of me!” Su Xue waved her hands. Then, her lips curled into a mischievous smile. “I want to practice in secret and shock them with how good I am! Haha, you know, some of my old viewers were so surprised by my CSing today, they thought you were secretly playing for me off to the side!”

Su Xue was in a great mood today. She had immediately noticed the improvements in her CSing when she was playing ranked matches, and she couldn’t help but feel pleased with herself after seeing the reactions of her loyal viewers. Plus, her new viewers seemed pretty entertained watching her stream too. They didn’t even make fun of her for being Gold!

Su Xue was thoroughly pumped up, still riding the high of today’s success. At this pace, she might really reach Diamond in a month! And when she did, she would realize her aspirations of becoming a top female streamer!

✹

After dinner, Su Xue quickly cleaned the table, impatient to start her training with Lin Feng.

Looking at the overly enthusiastic Su Xue, Lin Feng carefully reminded, “Er… I still have some homework to do tonight.”

“Oh, alright.” Su Xue paused for a moment, but then smiled and urged, “Go! Get to it! When you’re done, come to my room! I’ll practice my CSing in the meantime!”

Lin Feng watched Su Xue skedaddle back to her room in a daze. He scratched his head and muttered, “She sure is excited today… But that’s not a bad thing!” He smiled. After all, seeing someone striving hard to achieve their dream was always gratifying!

Two hours later, Lin Feng finished his homework and walked over to Su Xue’s room. He poked his head around the door. “Hey, I’m do—”

Su Xue swung her head around and excitedly called, “Quick, hurry! Come look at my CS!”

Lin Feng walked over and looked at the screen. Su Xue played Jinx and was facing off against an AI Lux in bot lane. She currently had 94 CS at 11 minutes. This meant she barely missed any minions. Even though the opponent was only a bot, compared to yesterday’s performance, it was clear her farming had improved by leaps and bounds.

“Oh, nice!” Lin Feng praised. “It’s time for the next phase of your training!”

“Next phase?” Su Xue asked in a daze.

“Yep! It’s time for some real combat training!”

Playing against an AI and playing against another player were two different things. If you wanted to improve at the game, practicing against bots could only get you so far. Lin Feng brought over a chair and sat down next to Su Xue. He would be overseeing her games and giving advice in real time.

When Su Xue loaded into her first game, she was still full of confidence. However, how she hoped it would go and how it actually went vastly differed.

“Hey, you missed a CS there.
“You should’ve been more aggressive there. Caitlyn needs to pressure more with her range advantage.
“That Q was off-aim!
“Minimap, minimap, minimap! You need to pay more attention to the minimap!
“Ah, dead… you reacted too slow there! You should’ve flashed the moment the Leona flashed toward you, and you would’ve escaped!”

Lin Feng repeatedly shook his head and sighed as he nitpicked at Su Xue’s gameplay.

Beads of sweat formed on Su Xue’s forehead. She thought she was playing pretty well when she was streaming earlier. But the moment Lin Feng sat down beside her, he pointed out every flaw. It almost felt like there was nothing she did good! Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and protested, “Hey, hey! Do you have to nitpick?”

“If you want to improve, you have to be strict! Those flaws I pointed out, no Master would make them!” Lin Feng said self-righteously.

“Master? Didn’t you say you were only going to coach me up to Diamond?”

“Huh? Did I?” Lin Feng remarked in surprise.

Su Xue glared daggers at Lin Feng.

Lin Feng was completely unfazed. He quickly found another excuse. “A soldier that doesn’t aim to become a general isn’t a good soldier! Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars! If you want to quickly become a Diamond player, you’ll have to aim for even higher!”

“R-really…? Hey, don’t try to pull one over on me just because I wasn’t good in school!” Su Xue said, half-convinced.

“Of course! Just believe in me!” Lin Feng confidently declared.

As a result, the training continued with Lin Feng pointing out the mistakes in Su Xue’s gameplay as beads of sweat fell from her head.

“You have too little awareness in teamfights.
“Your positioning is terrible.
…

Lin Feng shook his head. “Hmm, it seems like one month isn’t enough. Let’s extend the deadline to two months.”

“Huh?! Two months?” Su Xue blurted.

“With your talent, it might even take longer,” Lin Feng evaluated with a solemn face.

“No! Didn’t you say one month? Come on. I don’t believe I’m that hopeless!”

“You told him you were a Challenger in the Ionia server?” Tang Bingyao frowned as she created a ranked game lobby. “Of course he didn’t believe you. No one would.”

“But I’m really telling the truth,” Lin Feng muttered in vexation.

“Really?” Tang Bingyao looked back at him earnestly.

“My rank in season 1 would be Challenger in the current system!” Lin Feng patted his chest.

“So, what you’re saying is that you aren’t a Challenger,” Tang Bingyao pointed out ruthlessly. Then, she became a bit curious. “You started playing back in season 1? Weren’t you like 14 back then?”

Lin Feng nodded. “Yep. I started playing back in middle school, but I was already 15, not 14. I’m a year older than you guys, I turn 19 this year.”

“How’s that something to be happy about?” Tang Bingyao asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh. I guess it isn’t.” Lin Feng scratched his head.  However, be it 14 or 15, it made no real difference back then. Even four years later, the memories were still fresh in his mind. The events and back-and-forths of those days played back in his mind.

✹

“He’s too young to participate. 16 is the minimum age. We can’t just bend the rules for one person,” an inflexible voice delivered unsympathetically, as if it’d repeated this line countless times over in a mechanical fashion.

“But he’s the heart of our team! We qualified for worlds together! You can’t just tell us to kick him out and find a new player! We won’t stand for that!” another voice protested.

Several other voices both male and female chimed in.

“I’m the vice-chairman of the Chinese Esports Association! Maple’s age is public knowledge, and we’ve made a special exception so he could play in the LPL. But for Worlds, even if I wanted to do something, I can’t. The Global Esports Association made and enforce the rules, and they are well aware of Maple’s age.”

“We demand an explanation! We’ve gone through all the proper channels. He should be allowed to play!”

“Maple is our best player! He’s the best player in the LPL! Sure, he’s not 16 yet, but can’t the Global Esports Association take a look at his performances in big tournaments?”

“I can attest that he has the skills to compete with the very top on the global stage. You can’t just wipe away all the blood, sweat, and tears he’s put into reaching this point just because of his age!”

“We won’t leave this room until you give us a proper answer!”

✹

Lin Feng snapped back to reality. He looked up to see a concerned Tang Bingyao staring at him. “Haha. Sorry ’bout that. My thoughts, they followed the wind for a bit there and I forgot to watch my back,” he said as he tried to explain his moment away.

Tang Bingyao was mildly puzzled by the cryptic reply, especially considering the fact that Lin Feng said all that while rubbing the back of his head with a stupid grin.

“I see.” Tang Bingyao said with a slow nod nod. He decided that it wasn’t the best time to dig into… whatever that was. “Can we play now?”

“Of course! Let’s go, let’s go!” Lin Feng exclaimed rather excitably.

Tang Bingyao gave Lin Feng a Diamond account to play on as the two resumed their duo-queue adventures on the Ionia server. While she stuck to Kalista, Lin Feng switched to Thresh support. The Kalista-Thresh combo was fairly powerful in both laning phase and teamfights.

But even before the game began, Lin Feng sunk back in his muddled mind. As he controlled his Thresh to move to bottom lane, scenes from the past flashed through his mind like flickering lanterns, along with the sounds of incomparably familiar voices. They gave a group of people from the Global Esports Association a piece of their mind.

✹

“What does it matter? 15 years old, 16 years old, it’s only a one year difference!”

“Why do you guys have to be so unreasonable!?”

“Look at him! He isn’t some random 15-year-old! He’s Maple! The best player in the LPL! If even he isn’t qualified to compete at Worlds, no one is!”

“Maple wants to become the best in the world! He will become the best! Can’t you see how good it would be for the game if he plays?”

✹

As the scene played through Lin Feng’s mind, a flicker of grief flashed across his eyes. He ended up misclicking with his mouse, which led to a misplay.  Several seconds later, he and Tang Bingyao were both forced to flash away at low health  back under the safety of their tower. Only then did the enemy jungle Elise, ad-carry Tristana, and support Leona reluctantly give up on the chase and turn away.

“Whew! That was close!” Lin Feng wiped the cold sweat off his brow. “We almost got doubled killed. Hahaha!”

“You seem off today,” Tang Bingyao remarked, staring at Lin Feng.

“Huh?” Lin Feng remarked in surprise.

“What’s on your mind?” Tang Bingyao asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Lin Feng scratched his head as he brushed off Tang Bingyao’s questions.

Tang Bingyao stared at Lin Feng even more closely. “You’re lying.” However, before Lin Feng had a chance to explain himself, she turned back to face the screen and focus on controlling her Kalista. “It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me. Just stop getting distracted, or it’ll be hard to win this game.”

“I got it. I got it. Don’t worry,” Lin Feng promised. ”Watch me carry this game with my Thresh!”

Lin Feng focused back on the game. What passed had already passed. More importantly, if he didn’t put on a good performance in this game, he’d be embarrassing himself in front of Tang Bingyao! Then, the odds of convincing her to join his team would be even lower! Thinking about his recruitment strategy, he was instantly fired up. “It’s time to get serious!”

✹

How good at the game was a serious Lin Feng? According to him anyway, he was really really really good! Of course, a person that couldn’t back up their words was a useless blowhard. However, Lin Feng wasn’t that sort. The enemy Tristana and Leona were about to experience a bloodbath.

At around eight minutes into the game, Jarvan IV made his way around the jungle back to bot lane. Lin Feng moved his Thresh forward to engage. However, the enemy Tristana reacted with a beautiful ultimate, knocking both Thresh and Kalista back.

“Tang Tang, use your ult!” Lin Feng exclaimed.

Tang Bingyao immediately activated her ultimate. Thresh turned into soul form as he was pulled to Kalista’s side, then launched forward like a cannonball and smashed into Tristana and Leona! The force behind the impact knocked the botlaners up into the air!

At the same time, Lin Feng threw a lantern out [mfn]The skill name is Dark Passage. It shields nearby allies and allows them to jump to Thresh.[/mfn] behind him using it to pull Jarvan IV into the fray.

The Tristana realized that they had lost the advantage, especially with the Jarvan IV in the mix. She tried to escape using her Rocket Jump[mfn]Tristana fires at the ground to propel her to a distant location, dealing damage and slowing surrounding units for a brief period where she lands.[/mfn].

“Want to run? Not so easy!” Lin Feng exclaimed as he hammered down on the E key with the flair of a concert pianist.

Thresh whipped out his chain and scythe backwards in a sweeping vertical arc, interrupting Tristana mid-jump and grounding her. Her attempt to escape death prematurely cut down before it had even begun.

Tang Bingyao’s mouth gaped open in shock. What impressive mechanics!

A pumped-up Lin Feng combined with Tang Bingyao who had become fairly proficient with Kallista became an unstoppable force at bot lane, easily sweeping through their ranked games in Diamond.

First game, ‘ggez’ as they say in chat! Second game, didn’t even break a sweat! Third game, absolute domination!

After winning three games in a row, Lin Feng declared, “I’m going to jungle next game!”

“You’re not supporting me anymore?’ Tang Bingyao remarked, slightly surprised. When a pretty girl as an ad-carry spoke these words, it would usually be delivered with sad, puppy dog eyes. After which the guy wouldn’t have the heart to refuse. However, she wasn’t like most other girls. She was simply making a casual remark.

In the same fashion, Lin Feng gave a straightforward answer. “Nope! You should practice improving without relying on me as your support!”

“No matter how unrealistic… as long as you try… something worth respecting…” Su Xue mumbled to herself, deeply touched. She stared at Lin Feng and said with a hint of hesitation, “Then what you mean is…”

Lin Feng smiled brightly and patted his chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll make you the best female streamer out there!”

“R-really…? You’ll really help me?” Su Xue asked, half-doubting.

“Yes. I never go back on my word! You can put your trust in me!” Lin Feng solemnly vowed.

“How good do you think I can become? Platinum maybe…?”

“Platinum? No, that’s too low! I promise I’ll make you a Diamond player within a month!”

“Heey hey! Do you really think that’s realistic?” Su Xue gaped.

“Don’t worry. I’m really good at coaching!” Lin Feng said confidently.

“Alright. But they’re your words, not mine!” Su Xue countered defensively. Then, her eyes lit up, her heart pumping from the prospect of becoming a Diamond-rank player. “I’ll put my faith in you! Let’s get started tomorrow!”

However, Lin Feng was even more gung-ho. He shot up to his feet and said, “Why wait until tomorrow? Let’s get started right now!”

Su Xue was quick to accept this suggestion. The two returned to Su Xue’s room in high spirits and started going over a training plan.

“Your best role is ad-carry.” Lin Feng took out a small notebook out of nowhere and started scribbling. “Mhmm, yeah. An ad-carry… so, let’s start with CSing!”

“Huh? CSing? You mean like killing minions…?” Su Xue muttered quizzically.

Lin Feng clenched his fist. “Correct! We’re going back to the basics. Let’s create a custom game and practice your CSing!”

“A custom game?” Su Xu’s expression darkened. She protested, “Hey! Don’t look down on me so much! I’m still Gold, you know! Even Bronze noobs can CS in a custom game!”

“How about we give it a try first? Then we can up the difficulty if it’s too easy,” Lin Feng persuaded.

Su Xue gave in and quickly created a custom game. She picked the ad-carry she was most familiar with, Caitlyn, and selected Leona as her bot opponent. Afterwards, she started the match brimming with confidence. “Li’l punk, just you watch. No matter how bad I am at the game, I can still easily CS against a bot!”

A short 10 minutes later, Su Xue stared at her screen while Lin Feng stared at her. She’d achieved a measly 66 creep score. Perhaps against other players this was still excusable, but against bots this was nothing short of embarrassing. She didn’t dare move her gaze, afraid she would meet Lin Feng’s. Feeling a strong urge to find a hole to crawl into, she lashed out, “Not a word! Fine. I will practice my CSing.”

Lin Feng chuckled in satisfaction. Then, he yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Sis Xue, I’m tired. I’m going to hit the hay. Good luck with your CSing.”

Su Xue was still coming to terms with the fact that she’d only achieved 66 CS at 10 minutes in a custom game against a bot. She buried her head in her arms and muttered, “Alright, good night. I-I’ll continue practicing.”

✹

The next day, Lin Feng woke up to the sound of his alarm ringing at 6:30 AM. He groggily got out of bed and shuffled toward the washroom. After brushing his teeth and washing his face, he walked into the living room with his eyes still half-closed. Suddenly, the scent of something delicious wafted into his nostrils. Noticing the poached eggs, congee, and steamed buns, his eyes snapped open as saliva drooled from his mouth. “Oh, breakfast!” All the drowsiness disappeared as he sat down at the dining table.

Su Xue came from the kitchen with a plate of steaming-hot buns. Seeing Lin Feng, she smiled. “You’re awake? Did you brush your teeth and wash your face? Breakfast is ready. You can dig in.”

“You’re the best!” Lin Feng exclaimed. He picked up a bowl and chopsticks as he looked over the dishes in front of him. “These eggs look really great! The congee smells delicious!” Suddenly, he jerked his head up and looked at Su Xue, who looked like a panda with large dark circles around her eyes. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Ehh…? Is it that bad?” Su Xue rubbed her face. A hint of red flushed her cheeks as she explained, “Oh, I didn’t sleep last night. I got too absorbed into practicing my CSing. I lost track of time.” Then, she frowned in frustration. “What am I going to do about these dark circles? I still need to stream today! Damn, I’ll put on a facial mask and maybe some make-up.”

Lin Feng was at a loss for words, needing a while to snap out of his daze. Even a League addict like him was shocked. She’d practiced CSing all throughout the night?

For a role like ad-carry, CSing was fundamental. However, it was also one of the more tedious and monotonous aspects of the game. Lin Feng was well aware of how boring it was to CS against a bot. You weren’t going against another person, but a cold, mindless AI as you last hit minion after minion. Perhaps you could derive some pleasure from beating the bot in the beginning, but even that would quickly fade. To do that for an entire night all for the sake of practicing a fundamental skill? This was certainly a type of monotony that most League players, even amongst the pros, couldn’t endure. Yet, Su Xue had done just this and without any external help at all. She was solely driven by her inner desire to get better at the game.

Lin Feng stared intently at Su Xue, acknowledging her abilities for the first time or perhaps seeing a glimmer of something special. “Sis Xue.”

“Huh, what?” Su Xue raised her head curiously.

“N-no, it’s nothing really…” Lin Feng scratched his head. He then gave her a thumbs up and smiled. “I just wanted to say I’m cheering for you!”

Su Xue was stunned. Then, her face, haggard from a night without sleep, lit up with a bright smile. She also gave him a thumbs up. “Thanks for believing in me! I won’t give up! I’ll become really good at this game!”

✹

After finishing breakfast, Lin Feng grabbed his bag and left for a school. He’d finally gotten used to his new schedule and the various classes he had to take.

Come the final dismissal bell, Ouyang was head-down on his desk, exhausted from all the learning. Yang Fan turned around. Seeing Ouyang practically looking like a zombie, he shook his head. “This guy definitely stayed up gaming too long last night.” Then, he adjusted his glasses and turned to Lin Feng with a smile. “Lin Feng, why were you in such a hurry to leave yesterday? Ouyang and I were going to ask if you wanted to walk home with us, but you’d already left.”

“Oh, sorry I missed you guys. I had something come up.” Lin Feng scratched his head.

Yang Fan didn’t seem to mind and moved on. “Right, didn’t you say you wanted to join the esports club yesterday?”

“Yeah, I do!” Lin Feng nodded.

Yang Fan chuckled. “Then practice hard in your free time, and make sure you’re in your best form. I just got word yesterday that the club will be recruiting new members at the end of next week. Only the best players will be accepted into the club.”

“Huh? There’s a selection process?” Lin Feng was stunned.

Yang Fan nodded. “Of course. Not just anyone is allowed in our esports club. Well, anyone can become a normal member, technically. But if you want to take part in the competitive tournaments, you have to earn your spot.”

Lin Feng’s eyes went wide in realization. “Oh! No problem! I’m really good at the game!”

Yang Fan suddenly got curious. “Right, I forgot, but what server do you play in, and what rank are you?”

Ouyang had asked the same question yesterday. Lin Feng didn’t spare it a second thought before answering the same way as last time. “I’m a Challenger in the Ionia server!”

“Mmphh don try ‘oo pull he ool opher my eyes,. ghi’m pree’y sharp,” Lin Feng said with a mouthful of noodles. He swallowed down his food and continued, “Just tell me what’s on your mind. I’ll try my best to help!”

Slurping down another mouthful, Lin Feng finished off the rest of his noodles and let out a burp. “That was good!” He rubbed his stomach in satisfaction.

All the while Su Xue wore an awkward expression.“Ahem… well, it’s nothing big,” she quietly murmured, finally overcoming her hesitation. “I just wanted to ask if you can make me better at the game.”

“Eh?” Lin Feng raised his head, staring at Su Xue in bewilderment. “Make you better at the game? Are you talking about me elo boosting you?”

Su Xue hurriedly shook her head. “No, no! What I’m asking is, is if you can teach me how to play better. Aren’t you always saying how you’re a Challenger? Teaching me can’t be too hard then, right?”

“Oh, like that!” Lin Feng exclaimed in realization. He patted his chest. “Of course I can make you better!” He stared at Su Xue curiously and asked, “But, why do you want to get better all of a sudden?”

Su Xue was at a loss for words for a while before quietly explaining, “Actually, it’s not sudden…”

Su Xue started streaming on Huya TV about half-a-month ago. As a new streamer, she had no one to promote her. So, she struggled to get even two or three viewers for the first couple of days, and they were the kind that only entered by chance and left after a few minutes.

Almost all new streamers faced the same experience. They didn’t have a core viewership they could rely on, nor did they have the platform supporting them. Gaining any semblance of popularity was as difficult as scaling the heavens. However, if you were skilled enough at what you did, you would eventually attract a base of viewers, and the higher-ups at Huya would take notice of you.

Su Xue sorely lacked this kind of skill. Over the past two weeks, she could only grit her teeth and persevere, streaming for close to 16 hours every day to build up a base of viewers. However, it saw barely any results, with only 50-odd viewers supporting her streams regularly now. Though this was the fruits of all her effort and she deeply treasured that, it was simply far too meagre. From her perspective, her limited skill as a Gold rank player was the main reason she couldn’t pull in bigger numbers.

In reality, many popular female League streamers on Huya weren’t all that great at the game. Some were even Bronze, But those types of girls didn’t rely on their gaming skills to make a living. Simply by acting cutesy and showing their cleavage, they could easily earn donations from thirsty shut-ins without so much as touching the game.

Su Xue was quite beautiful, but she would never use this kind of method to achieve success, if you could call it that. It was simply out of the question! As for something like singing, she’d feel too embarrassed and camera shy.

Su Xue had the occasional viewer come into her stream because of her appearance and ask her to take off her clothes or show them some cleavage. She would try to tactfully decline them. However, then they’d quickly erupt into a tirade of insults, calling her things like, “Trash streamer”, “Stuck-up bitch”, “Who the hell do you think you are?”, “Do you think you’re some kind of famous streamer?”, and “Dumb e-girls like you are what’s ruining the platform.”

Su Xue would pretend like the insults didn’t get to her while trying to pacify her regular viewers who were raging with righteous indignation and banning the troublemakers from her stream. However, every night when she ended the stream for the day, she’d crawl into her bed and curl up in her blankets, fighting back the urge to cry.

Su Xue often found herself thinking if she were as good as those pro players in the LPL or maybe had the skill of a Challenger, Masters, or even a Diamond player, she’d be a successful streamer. However, she was just a small-time streamer with only several dozen viewers. All she could do was persevere and try her best. That was until today. Su Xue finally saw a faint glimmer of hope. She’d managed to queue up with the popular streamer Ol’ Black while Lin Feng was playing on her account. With Lin Feng showing off his Sword of the Occult Lee Sin, he managed to attract many of Ol’ Black’s viewers and even the person himself. In the end, Su Xue had a chance to befriend Ol’ Black, as well as the opportunity to duo queue with him later. Apart from this, her stream also gained a huge boost in viewership.

“I gained 200 new followers! That’s more than triple what I had before!” Su Xue raised three fingers in front of Lin Feng, her tone carrying a hit of joy and satisfaction. However, her expression quickly returned to her serious self. But they just came for your Lee Sin. Who knows if they’ll be back to watch me? So, I need to find a way to make them stay!”

“Oh, I see. That’s why you want to get better!” Lin Feng said in realization.

Su Xue nodded. “Yeah. I’m afraid if they see how badly I play, they’ll leave.”

“Then how about I play for you more?” Lin Feng suggested.

Su Xue shook her head. “That won’t do. I’m supposed to be the stream host. I can’t rely on you always. Plus, you’re still a student. You won’t have as much free time, and you should put your studies first anyway. The best solution is for me to get better myself.”

“You really want to become a big streamer, huh?” Lin Feng remarked out of nowhere.

“Yeah, I do. What about it?” Su Xue replied.

Lin Feng scratched his head. “Oh, it’s nothing… I just remember Zuo You telling you to find other work. Plus, I thought you were streaming just for fun and weren’t actually planning to make a career out of it. Anyhow, do you really want to become a professional streamer?”

Su Xue was a bit taken aback, her expression darkened. “What do you mean by that…? Are you saying I’m not cut out to be a streamer? Maybe you don’t think I’ll succeed, that I’m only fooling around and wasting my time, that I’m too lazy to find a real job, and I’m just looking for an excuse!” She stared intently at Lin Feng. “I know I’m not good at the game. The 50 viewers I did get after streaming for more than 200 hours are all too happy to remind me of that. And without help, I’ll never get any better.”

She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m not good. Just like how Zuo You thinks a person like me can’t become a streamer! I don’t have any skill, and I don’t want to be just another e-girl who has to rely on her looks for viewers. So, what do I have to offer! I must look like a big joke to you right now, huh? Me, becoming a successful streamer? That couldn’t be anything further from reality!”

The more Su Xue spoke, the more riled up she became. In the end, she shot up to her feet, panting for breath. “Fine, forget I said anything. It’s my mistake for coming to you for help. I’m just trash anyway, I’ll never become good in my lifetime!”

Su Xue turned to leave about to rush back to her room, when Lin Feng’s voice hastily called out from behind. ‘Wait! Wait!”

“What do you want?” Su Xue turned around and glared at Lin Feng, the redness around her eyes betraying her inner feelings.

Lin Feng scratched his head. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you…”

“Huh?” Su Xue gaped.

“I wasn’t finished. You just kept on going and going without giving me any chance to say anything. I was just asking out of curiosity. You’re overthinking things too much. There’s nothing wrong with trying to become a professional streamer! I fully support it! Just like I said before, having a dream is a good thing. As long as you try hard, you’ll succeed. Plus…” Lin Feng scratched his hair, slightly blushing with embarrassment as he put on an earnest expression. “No matter how stupid or unrealistic people say your dreams are, as long as you try your hardest, I think it’s worth respecting!”