Tong Yao felt apprehensive to her first ever professional match. After taking
her morning shower, she now stood in front of the mirror watching herself in
the team uniform. It felt so unrealistic, as if she had been teleported here.
Carrying her mouse and keyboard in her backpack, Tong Yao checked her
cell phone before getting out of the door. There were many messages from
friends and family wishing her good luck-- --
[I've already made plans with my classmates to sit at the back row during
class so we can watch your match. Don't let me down. Ahhhhhhhhhh, sister,
whether your brother can boast about this for a whole year all depends on you.]
This one was from Tong Yao's younger brother, who had never called her
sister before.
[Are you on your way yet? I'll be sitting in the front row this afternoon. See
you in the afternoon.]
That was from her best friend Jinyang.
[I've asked your brother to teach me how to watch a stream so I can see you
this afternoon, though I won't be able to understand what I'll be watching. Is
your uniform short sleeved? Today is kind of coolish in Shanghai and it's going
to rain later today, be sure to wear a jacket. Do good on this afternoon's game,
you have to be worth the 800,000 salary they paid you.]
…...That was her mom.
There were many other messages from her gaming friends and non gaming
friends. Those who also played games, would say things like "I knew this day
would come"; those who didn't play games all said something to the effect of
"Though I don't understand the game, I'll still be watching you"...So far,
everything on WeChat was quite normal stuff.
However, on Weibo, the comments were quite different-- --
[To tell you the truth, I have the feeling that my wife is going to get married.]
[You're wrong. It's the feeling of marrying off a daughter.]
[........Looking forward to the daughter doing well in the in-law's family.
Slap those who say 'esports is a man's world'...I also have a sense of loss that
'my daughter is so cool, why am I giving her to you guys to beat her up'!]
[Right, right, right, right, right, it's exactly like the person said above. qaq. Ahhhh,
my daughter, come back and stream. Let's not do competitions. Those stinky men
aren't good enough for you!]
[Do your best at the match this afternoon!]
[Baby, I'll be waiting in the audience. Will it be alright if I propose to you when you
win the match?]
Tong Yao: "..."
Tong Yao stuffed the phone into her pocket, put on a jacket, slung her backpack
on, and went downstairs.
Almost everyone was there already. Little Fatty was putting on his shoes near the
doorway. He looked up to see Tong Yao coming over: "...What's the temperature
today? Why are you wearing a jacket?"
"My mom told me to wear it." Tong Yao put down her bag and knelt down to get her
shoes on. "She's going to watch the stream. If she sees that I don't have a jacket on,
she'll just bombard me…...Hum, where's Cheng Ge?"
"He's sleeping on the car." Little Fatty rolled his eyeballs around. "Before he got on
the car, he said something frightening: make it a quick battle today."
Tong Yao twitched the corner of her lips. When she got on the car, she saw the man
was sitting on the last row with eyes closed. It was pinkish in color both around his
eyes and on the tip of his nose-- --He was saying two days ago that his cold would
be gone by the day of the competition. Obviously, his wish hadn't come true...
How can he play looking like this?" Tong Yao turned to ask Xiao Rui as
he followed her onto the car.
"Even if he's a corpse, he'll be carried up to the front of the computer as
long as he isn't dead cold." Xiao Rui spoke without much expression on his
face. "It's all his fault, not taking cold medicine."
Lu Sicheng heard their nagging, lazily raised his eyelids, defiantly glanced
over them, and said, "Shut up."
Xiao Rui: "After the match tonight, there's an event being hosted by a media
company that we have to go to."
Lu Sicheng frowned and turned his body in the other direction. His whole face
was concealed in the shadow: "Not going."
His answer was expected. Xiao Rui rolled his eyes towards the direction of
Lu Sicheng as if to say: So we won't be going. You're one of the bosses,
whatever you say.
During the time they were talking, the rest of the team arrived at the car and
they were soon heading to the competition stadium.
...
When they arrived at the stadium, the staff there checked their keyboards and
mouses. Then they went up to the dressing room to rest and put on makeup.
"I don't want any makeup, it feels bad."
It was the captain refusing to cooperate. However, his skin was in good condition
and he looked good, it didn't make much difference whether he had makeup on or
not. Besides, he was unusually quiet today, no one had the courage to say otherwise.
Nobody bothered to put makeup on him.
Tong Yao sat in the chair to get her makeup without any fuss. After she was done,
it was about 15 minutes before the opening ceremony. She had a slight stomach
ache and went to the bathroom, but nothing came out. It made her suspect that she
was so nervous that she was constipated. She shared her doubts to her best friend,
but only received laughter.
Tong Yao was on her cell phone all the way from the bathroom back to ZGDX's
dressing room-- --
Since it was the opening ceremony tonight, all players from all the teams were
there in the stadium. On the way, Tong Yao passed by many professional players,
some she knew and some she didn't. They all looked at her with curiosity, some
with praise…...certainly there were others looking down at her...
Tong Yao didn't care about all this.
There was no point minding them now, as long as she could play well enough to
beat them all.
After she returned to the dressing room, the opening ceremony began. Each team
lined up to walk in. The hallway to the arena was lined with carpet with photographers
by the sides taking pictures. Tong Yao followed jungler Old K into the stadium. It
didn't' feel like she wasn't going to a competition but rather the Oscars-- --
She slightly tucked in her chin, straightened up…...and prayed that no one could
hear her pounding heartbeats as if her heart was going to jump out of her chest!
ZGDX and CK were the last two teams to go in. They were standing on opposite
sides of the stage. In between, the stage was divided into two halves with 5 computers
on each side. Tong Yao and her teammates stood on the right side of the stage, next
to the computers…...At this moment, no one realize that ZGDX's mid, casting her eyes
downward with no facial expressions, was actually shouting inside of her-- --
"The cheers are so loud";
"Do we have more fans or does CK";
"Is there anyone shouting my name? It doesn't seem so";
"Is there anyone holding a support sign for me? It doesn't seem so either";
"I don't have any fans";
"That guy who wants to propose to me, why don't you call out my name now. Do you
think I'll say yes to your later on if you don't";
"Why am I standing here";
"My stomach, my stomach hurts even more now";
"Help, I want to go to bathroom";
...
Tong Yao looked down, focused on playing with her own fingers. The host
of the event made quite a speech but Tong Yao didn't catch a word. As she
was nervously blanking out, the person next to her, Little Fatty, suddenly
pushed her: "What are you standing here for, get going!"
Tong Yao abruptly came back to reality and noticed that all the other teams
had left the stage. There was only ZGDX and CK left on the stage, getting
ready to start playing the opening match-- --Old Cat and Old K had already
walked over to sit down in front of the computers; on CK's side, Jiang Yang
was looking at them...
The opening ceremony had ended and the opening match was about to begin.
Tong Yao: "..."
Tong Yao: "Little Fatty, to tell you the truth, I'm so nervous that I feel like throwing
up my lunch."
Little Fatty: "You sure are nervous. We were in a rush, we didn't have any lunch.
You're throwing up nothing?"
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng stood behind Little Fatty. He seemed to have overheard the exchange
between Tong Yao and Little Fatty and lowered his eyes to glance over Tong Yao.
Then he mockingly twitched the corner of his lips-- --Because his nose and eyes
were all reddish, he didn't look as mean as he usually would.
Tong Yao gave him a look and sat down on the chair assigned to her-- --During a
professional competition, the sitting arrangement of the players were usually fixed.
It was arranged from right to left following the positions of the players in the game,
top, jungler, mid, support, and adc. Tong Yao didn't know whether there was any
scientific reason for this kind of arrangement. It was probably more for the convenience
of communicating between coordinating positions...
Tong Yao was sitting right between Little Fatty and Old K.
The players were in their positions.
The host left the stage.
The commentators were in position.
Commentator A: [We are about to witness the first opening match of the 2016
League of Legends Professional Competition! Xiao B, it's not just our audience
but we, the commentators, are also looking forward to this bloody opening battle!]
Commentator B: [It's true. There are simply too many hot topics about the two
teams at this summer competition-- --Whether ZGDX can avenge their defeat in
the spring season? Whether CK can continue with their winning streak? Ahh, what
everyone is anticipating the most is the new mid who has just joined ZGDX and she
is a girl. A girl playing professionally, have you ever seen it?]
Tong Yao: "..."
No one had seen it, no one.
Don't mention me, don't mention me.
Damn, Tong Yao felt that a lot of people had started looking at her direction again.
She was thinking: who has a mirror? Is my makeup still intact? Has anyone commented
on the bullet comments that my face is big? My hair isn't greasy? My face looks alright?
While sitting behind the computer, she had just felt somewhat relieved because the
computer blocked her view of the audience. Now she got nervous again hearing the
commentators talking about her. She took a deep breath and swiftly put on the
earphones which were soundproof. The voices of the two commentators disappeared
and she heard the hoarse voice of Lu Sicheng in the earphones: "I'll say it again.
Make it a quick game today."
Tong Yao: "..."
That hoarse and cold voice made Tong Yao feel at home.
Tong Yao bent over slightly to check the man sitting right next to Little Fatty.
He was leaning in the chair with a cup of coffee in hand. His eyes were fixed
on the computer screen, looking quite at ease and casual...
-- --Compared to Tong Yao whose heart was jumping up and down like a
monkey...
A veteran player was truly different.
Tong Yao puffed her cheeks and forced herself to calm down. She used her
slightly cold fingers to punch in her game id and sign in-- --
After logging on, the sound que informed her that the ban & pick phase had
begun for the opening match!
...
The person who came up on stage to help ZGDX's ban & pick was Ming god.
It was also a chance for him to show his face to make his fans happy…...Ming
god, with a clipboard in hand, walked behind Tong Yao. Tong Yao heard his
voice in the earphones: "Tong Yao, first ban Come Good Luck's Maokai. It'll be
a headache if he plays that champion."
Tong Yao then realized that she was the first to ban a champion for her team.
She replied with an "oh" and quickly looked for Maokai, then banned it.
After she banned a champion, it was their opponent's turn to ban another
champion. The opponent banned Tong Yao's Leblanc without a second's notice.
Through Ming God's earphones, Tong Yao could faintly hear the uproar in the
audience. The commentators were quickly explaining something…...but the
soundproof earphones prevented her from clearly hearing anything.
After that, there were more discussion about the lineups, then ZGDX banned
"Ryze" and "Sivir"; CK banned "Karma" and "Vladimir"-- --
Altogether, they had banned 6 champions and out of the 6, four of them were
mid champions!
Tong Yao twitched her lips: "What the hell, it's impossible to play if you don't
have a deep champion pool."
Ming god burst into laughter behind her: "I'll pass your wisdom to the guy who's
watching the drinking fountain backstage,"
Her teammates all made fun of her in the voice channel and everyone seemed
more relaxed now. Lu Sicheng seldom spoke during the whole process, only
having a few comments when they were discussing which champion to pick…...
The opponent had picked Twitch for their adc, Butterfly. Twitch was a bipedal rat
champion which wouldn't be very active at lane in the early game but later on
would develop into a powerful champion in team fights in the late game-- --
Usually, adcs had less influence in the early game, therefore, it was quite smart
for the opponent to choose it!
However, Old Cat happily muttered "Don't blame me then since you've chosen
the rat" and chose the top champion Rumble whilst whistling. Rumble could, to
some extent, suppress Twitch's potential in team fights. Old Cat's choice should
make the other side think hard what to choose next...
Everyone was saying that the match had actually started at the ban & pick phase.
When CK finished choosing their champions, Tong Yao and her teammates could
vaguely tell that CK's strategy was to try to develop in the early game and drag it
on into the late game- --Tong Yao had picked Twisted Fate as her champion and
the only one left was Lu Sicheng, who had yet to pick his champion...
Which champion would Lu Sicheng choose?
Ashe? Kog'Maw? Or Ezreal?
Tong Yao slightly turned her head aslant to look at the man who was deep
in thought. Suddenly she heard his voice in a drawl through the headphones:
"Take Jinx for me."
Everyone: "..."
Ming god: "Well, with the enemy lineup, wouldn't Jinx be a little weak dealing
damage in the late game?"
Jinx was the champion for early and mid game, she had long arms and was
very useful in team fights of the early game-- --However, due to recent updates,
Jinx was rarely seen in formal competitions.
Lu Sicheng: "What late game? I said we'll do a quick game. This match has
no late game."
All his teammates fell silent.
Tong Yao commented: "Bossy Captain Lu. Best wishes, Captain Lu."
Little Fatty, with an expression of: You're the boss, whatever you say, locked
Jinx for Lu Sicheng. The ban and pick phase had ended and the players began
their match-- --
"The other side picked champions for the late game, we've chosen all for the
early game. Aw, comrade teammates, you're all quite full of yourselves." Old
Cat sighed.
"I have a headache." Lu Sicheng said: "Let's finish the match quickly so I can
go back to sleep."
Tong Yao: "I second."
Old Cat: "Little sister, what's wrong with you again?"
Tong Yao: "I have a stomachache. I want to go to the bathroom."
Everyone: "................."
Little Fatty: "I think you want to be on the best quotes montage."
Tong Yao was stunned then screamed: I've forgot those exist!
Old Cat: "To the staff backstage, did you hear it? The best material is here; it
happened right at the beginning of the summer competition before we even
reached the 30 second mark."
Tong Yao: "Don't, don't, don't. To the staff backstage, please show me some
mercy. Please cut this section out, I'm bowing to you! ! ! ! !"
Lu Sicheng adjusted the volume of his earphones: "Don't shout. Be careful you
don't poop in your pants if you're this excited."
Little Fatty: "We have one sick person, one who wants to go to the bathroom.
Teammates, can we still play a good game for the opening of this season?"
Tong Yao: ".......I'm not playing, let Lu Yue do it. I want to go home."
Lu Sicheng: "It's too late. You've already come aboard."
Tong Yao: "..."