Tong Yao climbed back onto the van with a full stomach, burping.
When she sat down on her seat, Lu Sicheng, who had been on
WeChat, raised his head and announced helplessly, "I have to go
home this weekend."
It was off season for them and all the team members were basically
on vacation. Anyone could go away for a few days. However, Xiao
Rui asked as if he knew something wasn't right, "Did they ask for
you to go back?"
"My dad said that my mom has run away again." Lu Sicheng answered
with a very calm voice, "It's the third time this year. The first time she
tried, she found it to be very effective on my dad. So she keeps doing
it…...So you simply can't pamper a woman, you give her a ladder,
she'll go up to the sky."
It seemed that everyone knew something about his family's problem,
no one was paying much attention. Xiao Rui leaned against the seat
and said, "But before you go, shouldn't we finish the skirmish with
YQCB next door?"
"When?"
"We're set for the day after tomorrow."
"Then I'll book the flight for the day after that."
As he was spoke, he happened to turn his phone on speaker phone,
the voice of a middle aged man came through-- --
[I'm telling you that this time I definitely won't humor her. If I do that,
I'll be a laughingstock. Last time I coaxed her to come home, she maxed
out my credit card the very next day. It's not just to hurt my feelings but
also my purse...]
Everyone: "..."
Lu Sicheng turned off the speaker.
The van was silent.
"A henpecked husband." Lu Sicheng spoke without any expression,
"Sorry to let you listen to this."
"It's nothing. It's Chinese traditional virtues, traditional virtues!"
"Hear, hear!"
"For an upperclassman, it's not called henpecked husband anymore.
It's called pampering the wife and kids!"
Since Xiao Rui started by waving his hand, everyone else chimed in.
Tong Yao twitched her lips, "You all better remember what you've said
today when you get married later on-- --henpecked husbands is a
Chinese traditional virtue-- --If you forget, I'll help remind your spouses."
"Don't expect your future husband to be a henpecked one." Lu Sicheng
glanced at her.
"Why? We live in the same world!"
"You're too gullible."
"..."
Tong Yao thought about it, then blushed and used her hands to cover
her ears. She turned to stare at the man in the dark who was focused
on purchasing an airline ticket on his cell phone…...Tong Yao saw the
destination was a southern city not too far from Shanghai. It was said
that in that city, a rock dropped from the sky would kill 3 billionaires.
...
Two days later, it was the day of their skirmish with YQCB.
This time they had chosen a weekday afternoon when the vpn wouldn't be
crowded. Everyone sat down and got onto the game room that YQCB had
created-- --It was the same people, same id. They didn't know whether
YQCB was talking about them, the ZGDX players hadn't stopped talking
since they sat down in front of their computers-- --
Old Cat: "Little Fatty, why do you think Pope wants to join a relegation team."
Little Fatty: "Don't call them a relegation team. When their team played
the world tournament, you were still being breastfed."
Old Cat: "Alright, alright. Why do you think Pope wants to join this…...elite
team that is now in decline?"
Little Fatty: "I heard it's because he wants to find the best support and
teammates to help him defeat Cheng Ge."
"Then I'm doomed." Lu Sicheng said without any expression, "I have only a
juggler Support who has a bottomless champion pool and a Yasuo Mid
who's 0/7/0."
Tong Yao: "...Speak nicely. What does that have anything to do with me-- --
It was an accident with Yasuo that time. Today, watch me explode and carry you."
Lu Sicheng: "Just don't do things halfway, just an explosion and no carrying."
Tong Yao: "..."
Old K: "You're all so talkative. Do you want to be on the famous quotes
montage everyday during the summer competition?"
A "Famous Quotes Montage" was an indispensable element from
professional competitions. The organizer would record the players'
conversations during a match, then edit them into a short video clip to
put online so the audience could find out what the professional players
were chatting about during a match-- --
Usually, the conversation went along the lines of, "Ahhhhh" or "beat
him up, beat the ad up" or jokingly taunting each other...
Tong Yao: "I love watching famous quotes."
Old K: "Believe me, wait till you're the center of those clips, then
you won't like it anymore."
Tong Yao: "..."
Ming god clapped his hands to get everyone to quiet down, "Enough,
enough, be more serious. So much nonsense, are you all letting it to
go to your head? Nothing good will come out of it. I heard from the team
next door that they had discovered a lot of their shortcomings after the
skirmish last time and they have tried to correct them-- --
Little Fatty: "We only played about 10 minutes, how can they discover
problems already?"
Lu Sicheng: "It only shows that they have lots problems."
Ming god: "Cheng ge, you do talk like you've already let it to go to
your head-- --How couldn't they? Ten minutes can cover most of the
early laning phase..."
The skirmish began amid Ming god's nagging as they entered the
ban and champion select screen. Surprisingly, the first champion the
opponent banned was Tong Yao's Card Master. While everyone sighed,
Tong Yao happily discovered that it was very likely she could get what
she wanted, Leblanc.
In the end, she did.
Once the game began, everyone was calmly harvesting minions.
Once in a while, there was some small clashes, but both sides would
pull back and keep some distance away from each other. When
everyone was reaching level 4, bot was becoming apprehensive-- --
"Li Junhe is going to rush the turret and die." Lu Sicheng said in a
low voice.
"The enemy's Mid disappeared, you guys at bot be careful."
While she was talking, Tong Yao clicked to notify them, the
disappeared Mid was really hiding in the bush like a ghost behind
Lu Sicheng and Little Fatty, plus the enemy's Jungler-- --
"Damn, four at bot! When did they set up ward behind us? ! The
enemy's Mid used Teleport (*A summoner's ability, to move to any
ally on the map.) to come down!"
Little Fatty shrieked when four YQCB players swarmed him. Lu
Sicheng used his escape ability to get away. Little Fatty was left
behind and dying under his own outer turret. The game announcer
spoke, Pope got his first blood.
-- --The scale was starting to tilt towards the YQCB at bot.
Tong Yao didn't take Teleport and so couldn't match Ai Jia's mobility.
She knew that she couldn't get there in time to help, so she chose
to stay at mid and continue harvesting minions. Then she would
bring their own minions to the enemy's turret to let the turret kill
all the minions-- --Then when Ai Jia came back, he would find that
there weren't any minions to harvest anymore. His experience and
economy would freeze, that's the price a Mid had to pay when he
chose to move to other lanes.
When the game was into its 7th minute, Ai Jia went down to bot again.
This time, YQCB's Mid plus Bot ADC and Support worked
together to kill Lu Sicheng and push bot's first outer turret while
they were at it.
ZGDX was losing their advantage after losing two people and a
turret in the early stages of the match. What's worse was that Pope,
with two kills in hand, was strong enough to be a small boss!
Ming god was right, YQCB really had learned their lesson and quickly
corrected them: It was dangerous for Pope to bring the Support
together as he tower dived? Doesn't matter, then we'll bring the Mid
and Jungler along too! It won't be dangerous if four people attack together?
"Damn, who said they are a relegation team? What kind of illegal
drug are they on to play so aggressively! Ahh, Cheng Ge, stabilize
bot." Tong Yao muttered, "Wait for me, I'll-- --what?"
Tong Yao found out, quite surprisingly, while she was talking that Ai
Jia hadn't come back to base to renew his items after going to bot
and getting an assist. He noticed that there were many minions at mid,
so he turned around to try and harvest those minion to make up for
his lagging economy and level!
At this point, most of Ai Jia's abilities were on cool down and he
didn't have much of his mana left!
Without any hesitation, Tong Yao instantly gave up on killing the
minions in front of her and threw a combo of abilities onto Ai Jia
who thought no one had noticed him. Ai Jia was chained by Leblanc's
Ethereal Chains and could not get away. After losing most of his health,
he tried to slash her a couple of times before he died!
"Nice!"
"That's what happened when you're greedy!"
"Smiling, nice, ahhh!"
Amidst her teammates' praises, Lu Sicheng, who was waiting to be
revived, glanced at the minimap at the lower right corner and
reminded her, "Their Jungler is coming."
Under usual circumstances, the best choice after getting a kill,
when another opponent reinforced the lane, was to retreat. Yet,
Tong Yao didn't do so. She turned around and used a Summoner's
ability, Flash, to distance herself from her opponents. Then she
turned back to run towards her own turret last hitting on the way back.
Seeing her run away, her opponent flashed right after her in pursuit-- --
What the opponent didn't expect was that Tong Yao suddenly
leveled up to level six right at that moment!
When any champion reaches level 6, they could acquire their
ultimate ability. For Leblanc, her ultimate was called Mimic,
allowing her to cast a previously used ability again. Within a short
time, the enemy's Jungler was chained by Ethereal Chain, just
like what had happened to Ai Jia earlier-- --
The situation changed instantly!
Just a second ago, ZGDX was worried about losing two champions
and a turret. The next second, Tong Yao had killed both the enemy
Mid and Jungler, covering their earlier losses!
Siince YQCB's Jungler was dead, Old K rushed in to kill the
monsters in YQCB's upper jungle, including their blue buff. In
addition, YQCB's mid outer turret was already down to half health!
After this wave of fighting, YQCB had already lost the lead
they had gained earlier!
Just from a wrong decision by Ai Jia, Tong Yao had grown to
be a major counter to Pope-- --At the following team fight over
dragon, she constantly kept Pope on her chain, easily finishing
him off. The rest of the YQCB either ran away or died.. Tong Yao's
team took down their first fire dragon and destroyed the enemy's
first outer turret at mid...
ZGDX had totally turned the game around!
What followed was a series of destroyed turrets, killing enemies,
and snowballing their economy to be far ahead of their enemy.
In the end, they had pushed all the way to victory, they had won
the skirmish!
After the skirmish was over, everyone collapsed in their own chair,
breathing out a long breath: they had won the match, however the
sudden change of YQCB's fighting style was quite a scare for them...
At the summer season, YQCB wouldn't just be satisfied with
moving up from being a relegation team!
Xiao Rui rolled up a magazine to hit Old K, Little Fatty, Old
Cat, Lu Sicheng, and Tong Yao, one after another on the
head, "I told you not to let it get to your heads! You almost
got smashed by a declining elite team! I dare you let it get
to your heads in the future!"
"Ay." Tong Yao covered her head, "I carried the match.
Why hit me!"
"Are you letting it get to your head again?"
"...Sorry."
...
That night, Tong Yao happily came out after a shower, still
immersing in the glory that she had carried the team to victory.
She made a bowl of instant noodle, coming out of the kitchen
slurping on the noodles to find Lu Sicheng sitting on his
chair holding his knees. Tong Yao wondered whose stream
he was making trouble for...
When Tong Yao got closer, he turned around as if he had
eyes at the back of his head. He pointed his own computer
screen, "The Mid next door is singing praises about you."
"..."
Tong Yao spit out the noodle in her mouth back to the bowl.
Lu Sicheng made a disgusted expression-- --
Tong Yao hurried over and stretched her head to take a look.
Indeed, Lu Sicheng had Ai Jia's stream on. Ai Jia was bragging
with the fans while playing a ranked game…....
"Right, right, right. We played a skirmish again with the
telecom team next door today...This time we didn't get
dropped. We can't possibly get dropped every day, right?...
Yeah, we lost, but we were leading in the beginning. You better
believe it, we really had an advantage!"
…...
"The way Pope plays, you can tell he's an expert at turret
diving…...However, there's someone next door even hotter
than Pope, it's that little sister-- --Yeah, it's Smiling. Damn,
just as we were happy to get two kills, she came out from
nowhere and killed me! Then she effortlessly turned around to
kill our Jungler!"
...
"I should've recalled right after that fight. I didn't have blue,
I was on cooldown as well, she took the opportunity. She's a
scary woman…...That was the turning point of the skirmish. I
lost my blue buff, Xbang's jungle was cleaned out. My captain
almost scolded me to death-- --"
...
"I'll never be greedy for minions again, I'll go home after I
get my kill. Really, nothing good will come out of being greedy
for minions, I'm living proof of it."
...
"The skill of the little sister next door? She's definitely good.
She killed me then killed Xbang when he was still at fully
health. She was so fast that we didn't even see how she
did it. She's truly the number one Leblanc in the nation!"
...
"Whoever in the future tells me that girls can't play LoL well,
I'll stuff today's skirmish video down his nostrils!"
He kept going.
Tong Yao in his words had become someone only existed
in the heaven.
Tong Yao couldn't stand it anymore. Bending over to turn on
her own computer, she went to Ai Jia's stream and began to
swiftly type-- --
[ZGDX Smiling: Friend, I won't put in any good words for you
to your girlfriend, no matter how many good things you say
about me.]
She sent it.
A half second later, the bullet comments that followed were, "I
see something strange", "Here she comes", "Smiling, ahhh, I'm
your little fan", "Little sister, teach me how to play Leblanc, please"-- --
One of the comments picked out the important information from
the message: ...Ai Jia, what's the relationship between Smiling
and your girlfriend?
"Evil friends." Ai Jia said, "Lately my girlfriend is at odds with
me. I feel like she's purposely trying to split with me so she
can have a lesbian relationship with Smiling. I'm so angry! To
top all that, I lost to her today. I feel like I have lost all the hope
in my life!"
Tong Yao was greatly amused by him, standing in front of her computer.
Ai Jia kept going on, boasting about how strong she was-- --
Tong Yao was enjoying the praise, then suddenly someone
turned off the stream. She was taken aback and turned to look
at Lu Sicheng. He was slowly moving his arm back, "You've
had enough fun. Keep listening and you'll really start believing
what he says."
"No one has ever praised me after I graduated from elementary
school." Tong Yao said, "Let me listen some more..."
She tried to get back on her computer as she spoke.
The back of her neck was pinched by that man. She had
difficulty turning her head, seeing only Lu Sicheng's perfectly
curved chin. He said, "Don't listening to him. You want praise?
I'll praise you."
"..."
The struggling Tong Yao quieted down.
"Praise me." Tong Yao blinked her eyes, with an expression
that she was very much looking forward to it.
Lu Sicheng: "..."
"Come on, praise me." Tong Yao urged.
Lu Sicheng: "..."
After staring back at that pair of sparkling, expecting black
pupils for 15 seconds, Lu Sicheng released Tong Yao,
bend down to turn on Ai Jia's stream again for Tong Yao-- --
Tong Yao was stunned to hear Ai Jia's raucous voice again
and looked at the man who had already sat back into his own
seat acting as if nothing had happened earlier.
"What's this?"
Tong Yao grabbed his sleeve and shook it.
Lu Sicheng ignored her.
"I had an outstanding performance today, Mr. Captain,
where's my praise?"
She shook his sleeve again.
Lu Sicheng still ignored her.
"Don't I have any merit that's worthy of your praise-- --"
Before she had finished, Lu Sicheng suddenly grabbed
the oily marker on the desk, which he had used when he
analysed the skirmish in the afternoon. He took off the cover
of the maker, grabbed Tong Yao's hand over, and quickly
drew the ugliest flower she'd ever seen on the back of her hand-- --
Tong Yao: "? ? ? ? ? ?"
"A little red flower from your captain." Lu Sicheng threw
down Tong Yao's hand and the marker at the same time.
He calmly said while fixing his eyes on the new match that
was just starting on the computer screen, "Try harder next
time, I'll draw it on your forehead."
Tong Yao: "................."
She stared at him for 5 seconds to make sure that he
wasn't kidding, then she turned around and quietly went
to the bathroom.
Then she found out that the little red flower from Mr.
Captain…...couldn't be washed off.
She tried everything, liquid hand soap, body wash,
makeup remover, soap, but the red flower was still on
her hand. She raised her hand standing in front of the
washbasin, finally she had lost it and shouted, "Shit, Lu
Sicheng, I can't wash this ugly flower off! ! !"
"You asked for it, then you want to wash it off. Why are
you so difficult to please?" Lu Sicheng was focusing on
his game and spoke without turning his head, "Besides,
a young girl is not allowed to curse."
"..."
"...You don't want a little red flower, next time I'll draw
a turtle?"
"Bah!"
"I'll draw it on your forehead."
"..."