They didn't return to the base till 7 o'clock at night. At 8:30, they had a prearranged practice match with YQCB, the team next door. After putting their bags back in their rooms, washing their faces, and resting a bit, the team sat down at their computers, getting ready for the match-- --Since Lu Yue would be playing the competition against Red Arrow team tomorrow, he would be playing in the practice match tonight…...Tong Yao and Ming god watched from behind him…...and at the same time critique him.
Tong Yao: "Either Ekko or Azir, can't you use some other champions, brother? Let me see you play Orianna or Lux or Fizz before I die..."
Ming god: "He only knows those two champions."
Lu Yue: "The suspended mid and the retired old man don't talk."
Before he finished his sentence, Ming god brought his clipboard onto Lu Yue's head. Lu Yue raised his hand to block it: "I mean, those champions that Tong Yao just mentioned weren't used in any of these matches. What's the use in practicing them..."
"The fact that no one uses them doesn't mean that you can't either. Sometimes they can be very useful." Tong Yao leaned forwards against Lu Yue's chair and took a look at the opponent, Ai Jia, who had picked Syndra. She raised her eyebrows: "Haven't you being practicing Syndra lately? Think about what champion you dislike the most when you play with Syndra?"
"Fizz." Lu Yue answered.
"Then pick Fizz!" Ming god pushed Lu Yue's head from behind. "Are you an idiot. Even if you're a substitute, you're a professional player who's played two seasons last year. Why do you still need Tong Yao to teach you which champion to pick. Useless."
Lu Yue mumbled and quieted down.
He gave Tong Yao a look, then reluctantly asked Lu Sicheng to take Fizz for him…...By now the ban & pick phase was almost over. When Lu Yue called out to Lu Sicheng, Tong Yao also turned to take a look at him. From Lu Yue's seat, she could only see Lu Sicheng's back, unable to see the expression on his face-- --
Tong Yao scratched her head and messed up her hair.
After the match started, Tong Yao and Ming god chatted as they leaned on Lu Yue's chair. Ming god asked: "Is our captain still ignoring you?"
"En."
"He's worried about you." Ming god said: "Don't think that he's cold and merciless. Today, when I sat next to him on the airplane, I saw with my own eyes that he was deleting the picture of that program sheet from his cell phone. He even told me not to tell anyone..."
"...Ah? Oh?" Tong Yao straightened up from Lu Yue's chair and turned to look at Ming god, blinking: "What do you mean?"
Ming god shrugged and indicated that it was just like what she had heard.
Tong Yao recalled that Lu Sicheng had insisted letting Little Fatty and some of the others play the game according to the program in the afternoon. It was because of that decision that the fans could take all those videos and upload them online...
Tong Yao: "..."
Tong Yao cleared her throat, lifted her hand up to pinch her ear, and at the same time heard Ming god say to her: "No matter what you think, Lu Sicheng, first of all, is the captain of this team. He has an obligation to take good care of every one of you and make sure nothing happens to the team-- --Last year, when this guy (he points at Lu Yue's head) got in trouble, it was Lu Sicheng who tried everything possible to minimize the severity of the incident and Lu Yue got banned only for one season. Otherwise, it was likely that he could've been banned for life."
Tong Yao: "Mhm mhm."
Ming god: "But there are certain things that he can't help you guys or teach you. Don't rely too much on him. You have to truly understand it yourself."
Ming god: "A bunch of kids that needs to be fretted over constantly."
Tong Yao: "..."
Tong Yao blushed a little, embarrassed. As she was about to say something, Lu Yue started to yell: "Will you two stop nagging behind me. Haven't you seen me miss a bunch of minions. Ahhhhhh, my cannon minion." Tong Yao and Ming god both rolled their eyes and backed away from Lu Yue's chair.
It was a painful practice match for ZGDX. With the addition of Pope, YQCB had drastically changed-- --the new lineup made the team stand on equal footing as ZGDX on all three lanes…...The match was basically a stalemate for 50 minutes and drove everyone nuts.
"Steady, steady. Ow, Old K, brother, don't give yourself to them like that." It was the 53rd minute of the game and Little Fatty was about to cry: "I'm famished. Damn, can we finish the game already?"
In the last team fight, it was Lu Yue who came to save everyone-- --Despite the fact that in the early game, Lu Yue missed a lot of minions and was harassed by Ai Jia, by the late game everyone had reached roughly the same power and the enemy's advantage had disappeared by then…...Lu Yue was in complete control of his champion. He jumped about during the team fight and was the deciding factor in their victory.
Little Fatty happily pushed the enemy's base and turned around to look at Lu Yue as if he wanted to reach over and kiss him.
Tong Yao patted Lu Yue's back: "Not bad, your Fizz!"
She sounded like a parent finally seeing her son grow up.
Lu Yue hmphed.
Ming god finished taking notes on his clipboard and calmly said: "The first time we smashed them, the second time we won easily, the third time we encountered a little difficulty, and the fourth time, it took a lot of work to win-- --Now for the fifth time, we're pretty much even. You guys better get your heads straight. If we meet the team next door in the competition next time, we very well might not win."
Old Cat: "Say something nice."
Ming god: "Something nice? Sure, from now on, except holidays, if anyone plays connect the dots, watches manga or anime during training hours, his wages will be deducted."
Old Cat: "..."
Old K: "What about mahjong?"
Ming god: "Can't play mahjong either."
Old K: "It's the quintessence of our country!"
Ming god: "It won't do."
Old K looked at Tong Yao. Tong Yao made a face: "When I'm in queue, I usually watch competition videos and only occasionally play Minesweeper."
Old K: "You aren't a qualified mid."
While Old K and Ming god were trying to make a deal, Little Fatty said he was hungry and yelled for everyone to go with him to grab a late night meal. They had only eaten airplane food as they flew back; at this point, they were all famished. They all stood up, threw down their mouses and walked out with Little Fatty…...When Lu Sicheng stood up to walk out, Tong Yao walked to her seat next to his and bent down to turn on her computer.
"Tong Yao, what are you doing?" Little Fatty asked.
Lu Sicheng seemed to stop in mid air as he was bending down to put on his shoes.
Tong Yao wasn't sure whether Lu Sicheng had taken a glance at her direction-- --She felt he did. But, when she looked over, Lu Sicheng had already lowered his head to put on his shoes.
"You all go. I'm not going. Not hungry." Tong Yao mumbled and waved her hand: "I'll stream for a while. My wage has been deducted, so I can't afford it..."
Lu Sicheng had stood up straight after putting his shoes on.
"See, was it worth losing 100k for kicking a chair over? With that kind of money, you could buy a few bags and dresses and be happy, wouldn't that be good? Alright, go stream. We'll bring some food back for you." Little Fatty added: "Watch what you say when you stream."
Tong Yao mumbled: "I know, I know." Then the noisy base suddenly became quiet…...Tong Yao sat in front of her computer and spaced out. Then as if she had suddenly remembered something, she turned to look at Lu Yue's seat.
She fixed her eyes on Lu Yue's chair and her mind wandered off again. She didn't know why but it felt like her heart was empty. Something didn't feel right.
Before Tong Yao had the chance to figure out why she felt depressed all of a sudden, her cell phone on the desk lit up-- --
[Ah Mao's mom: My man just told me that his team had a super long match with your team and you weren't there. It was the substitute who played?]
[ZGDX, smiling: He's going to play tomorrow, of course he's playing the practice match.]
[Ah Mao's mom: In the end, he was the one who carried the time.]
[ZGDX, smiling: Uh huh.]
[Ah Mao's mom: Are you alright?]
[ZGDX, smiling: ... It's only a practice match; it's good that we won. How can I not be alright? Lu Yue has improved a lot, with me as his teacher. Now he plays Syndra pretty well and can even handle Fizz. It's quite nice.]
[Ah Mao's mom: ....... Oh, you're even putting on an act with me.]
Tong Yao: "..."
After staring at the cell phone for a while, she simply replied "get lost" and then threw her phone down. She looked at the frowning silhouette of herself reflected on the computer screen. After a while, she began streaming with mixed emotions-- --Her stream was bustling with most of the bullet comments discussing what had happened today.
Tong Yao grew more dejected as she read the comments, regardless of whether they were supporting her or dissing her. She greeted the audience and started to play a ranked match without saying any more. She was very quiet as she played and didn't respond to any bullet comments...
After she had finished two matches, she switched the screen to check on the comments. Among all the discussion about the games she just played and random chats, she noticed one particular comment-- --
[A passerby: Don't know what all these fangirls are cheering about. Smiling hit someone, so what if she hit the person to protect her teammates? All these players earn several hundreds of thousands or even millions a year, is it too much to have them play some interactive games? Pretentious and finicky.]
Tong Yao: "...A Passerby, ur, wait, moderator, don't block him, let him talk-- --A player earns several hundreds of thousands or millions, are you providing for them? Professional players earn money by playing games not doing monkey shows. We can't call it off even if the players aren't feeling well physically?"
[A passerby: Just a bunch of internet addicted juveniles. Earns so much money just by playing a few matches and have the gall to be so finicky!]
Tong Yao: "If it's so easy to earn this much money, then you come and do it. Hurry, come right away! All the major clubs are recruiting youth trainees. What's stopping you from becoming one?"
[A passerby: What's the big deal of doing an activity like that? Others have all done it?]
Tong Yao: "If you have a heart problem, would your PE teacher let you run the 1500 meter race? Others can run it, why can't you?"
[A passerby: I saw Little Fatty and the other two do the event quite happily, holding those showgirls in their arms and laughing?]
Tong Yao: "So you expect them to cry?"
[ A passerby: Where's the club's staff? They let a player fight for it? You've been used by them as a tool without realizing it. Aren't you happy that you stole the limelight but got punished for it?]
"I'm happy, super happy." Tong Yao said without any facial expression. "To tell the truth, I don't regret it all that I insisted on not letting my teammates do the event. It wasn't appropriate, it's just not appropriate, what about it? We only received the notice after we arrived there. It has nothing to do with Rui Ge. He's in no position to speak out. The only thing I regret is that the incident create trouble for my teammates and the club, making them take the blame together with me. It's true that I shouldn't have kicked that girl's chair, with so many people watching. If I wanted to hit her, why didn't I-- --"
Before she finished her sentence, the front door of the base suddenly opened.
She turned to take a look in surprise and found her captain had returned within 2 hours…...She turned back to look at her screen and saw comments a stream of "2333333333" "Well done" "I respect you courage" "I also agree that a misbehaving mouth should be taught a lesson". In shock, she clicked open the game to cover the rest of the screen-- --
When Lu Sicheng walked in, Tong Yao cleared her throat, trying her best to act normal, and turned to her stream: "I was in the wrong. I should've gently negotiated with the host at the time about our situation. It's just that several of my teammates have gone to physical therapy and truly couldn't do those kind of strenuous activities…...Once I explained clearly, they would have agreed to make some changes, right? We're all civilized people-- --Right, right, moderator, give 'A passerby' a red flower. He's right to criticize me; I also think I was too impetuous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like a bitch, really! I really shouldn't have done it! Really, really shouldn't-- --Oh, there's no such thing as a red flower here? Then forget about it."
While Tong Yao was acting sincere and criticizing her mistakes to the bullet comments-- --
Lu Sicheng walked behind Tong Yao and set a take out box on her desk. Tong Yao took a glance at it, it seemed to be seafood porridge. She quietly said thanks. Lu Sicheng didn't say anything and turned around to go upstairs...
Tong Yao: "..........."
Tong Yao was the only one left in the first floor of the base once again.
She minimized the game screen and returned to the bullet comment screen and discovered that the screen was covered with another wave of "66666"-- --
[Host, your eyes almost fell out onto his back...]
[6666666666666]
[6666666666]
[Were you acting? You changed your tone faster than a flipping page.]
[66666666666666]
[Damn, idiot.]
[Stop looking. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, so funny, the way you looked at him-- --Has Cheng Ge whipped you? You're this scared of him?]
[If you don't play professional games later on, you can go into acting. You'd probably shine in that profession as well!]
[Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, I could laugh at the look on your face just now for a whole day. Did anyone save a clip of it? Send it to my Weibo, thanks!]
Hundreds of people witnessed her wimpy reaction to Cheng Ge's presence, then laughed at her.
Tong Yao pulled on her hair in frustration. She couldn't say anything and decided to open notepad and began typing-- --
[Dammit you guys, don't start kicking up a fuss.]
[Lu Sicheng-- --]
She thought about it and calling him by name didn't feel right. She deleted Lu Sicheng and changed it to "captain"-- --
[Captain hasn't talk to me for a whole day.]
[I'm living in a frozen hell.]
[For the time being, I haven't found a way to salvage it. I'm still deep inside hell.]
[Try to pet him? You think he's a three years old kid? No way.]
[Right, right, right, 233333333, he's very good at playing Ashe. Makes me shiver miles away.]
[The one who said he's going to captain's stream to report me, moderator, do your job, block him, block him-- --Is the moderator for captain's stream here? Do your job, do your job. We have to eliminate this kind of bad influence to our team's harmony.]
Tong Yao kept typing on her keyboard.
As she was happily typing, her cell phone vibrated. She took a look at it and it was a new text message from "Ah Mao's mom"-- --
[Ah Mao's mom: Stop typing you silly kid. Five minutes ago, Lu Sicheng's id entered the chat and you're still grumbling. Are you looking for trouble?]
Tong Yao: "............"
Her body froze, still staring at her cell phone.
She felt like her body had emptied itself.
At that moment, Tong Yao wanted to scream and blow up her own computer.