The next day was the first day of the Demacia Cup. Since the B team was attending the competition in place of the A team, everyone, including the commentators, had begun calling the B team ZGDX Blue since it was a mix of B team players led by an A team substitute, Lu Yue.
-- --The nickname was a play on an old meme.
Samsung used to own two League of Legends esports teams, Samsung White and Samsung Blue. The ten players from these two teams ruled over the Korean region with their remarkable skills and easily took the championship in that year's world tournament.
People still enjoyed talking about the splendor of both of Samsung's teams. They were nicknamed "Samsung Dynasty" at the time-- --The Riot Games even changed the rules the next year because of the "Samsung" phenomenon: Each club could not own two equal ranking teams at the same time in professional competitions.
-- -- "A powerful team" is a rather vague phrase. But when the game company would change the rules like fixing a bug because of a specific team, the teams' fame and influence were obvious.
The B team was rather excited at being called ZGDX Blue. On the way to the arena, Alkaid yelled out while looking down at his cell phone: "Shit, they're calling us ZGDX Blue, hahahahahahaha?"
"Hahahaha" "hehehe" could be heard inside the bus-- --
Little Fatty: "Alright, that's quite fancy."
Old K: "Are they implying that A team's going to be the champion this year?"
Alkaid: "Wasn't Samsung White that won the world championship that year, but Samsung Blue had beaten White in Korea-- --Isn't that right, Cheng Ge? I remember that White had won Blue one time back in the Korean region?"
"Yeah." Lu Sicheng lazily replied from the last row and glanced at an excited Alkaid: "So, kid, you also want to shove A team into the ground? Rather ambitious..."
Though his choice of words were rather unfriendly, one could tell the faint smile in his voice.
Little Fatty grabbed Alkaid over and jokingly punched him while mumbling: "I'm not over the hill yet and you're already thinking of plotting to usurp us." Tong Yao turned her head from her seat to look back at Lu Sicheng while giggling. Lu Sicheng looked up at her: "What are you laughing about?"
"I never knew that you could be a caring person."
"..." Lu Sicheng: "Oh. I always am."
Tong Yao rolled her eyes and sat back into her seat. After thinking about it for a while, she reached out to pull off one of the earbuds from the young man sitting next to her. Then she nudged him with her shoulder: "Hey, Little Dubhe, did you hear what they just said?"
Dubhe was leaning against the window listening to music with his eyes closed. He wasn't irritated from being woken up by Tong Yao. He straightened up from a daze and opened his eyes to ask: "What did they say?"
"People are calling the B team ZGDX Blue. Everyone seems to be looking forward to the day when you guys are like Samsung Blue and smashing the old folks on the A team."
"..." Dubhe's eyes brightened but dimed just as quickly: "Too bad Samsung Blue didn't get the championship in the end. In everyone's eyes, Blue will always be the one that gets defeated."
"..."
"The ad from Blue was beaten so badly by White's ad that he even burst into tears on the stage."
"..."
Dubhe rolled his eyes and said "save it" before putting his earbuds back on and leaned back into the window…...Tong Yao awkwardly stared at him for a while until she felt her cell phone vibrating.
Tong Yao received a message from her boyfriend laughing at her-- --
[fhdjwhdb2333: How do you like getting the cold shoulder, pleasant?]
Tong Yao: "..."
[ZGDX, smiling: Go away! Quite pleasant!]
[fhdjwhdb2333: There's no way you can get through to this chuunibyou kid. If you want to convert this kid with loving care, you might as well use that loving care to convert me.]
[ZGDX, smiling: Convert you to what?]
[fhdjwhdb2333: Losing to him on purpose during training matches to build his confidence and get rid of the demons in his heart.]
[ZGDX, smiling: How are you going to do it?]
[fhdjwhdb2333: I'll play with just my left hand, how's that? If he still loses to me, then he can only go back home and raise pigs.]
[ZGDX, smiling: ..........He's just a kid, why are you so hostile towards him?]
[fhdjwhdb2333: I'm annoyed whenever he calls you "Tong Yao Jie."]
[ZGDX, smiling: Oh, if you're that envious, you can call me that too.]
Tong Yao put down her cell phone to stand up and turned to lean on the back of the chair while looking eagerly at Lu Sicheng as if expecting something. Lu Sicheng lifted his eyelids to glance over her, then mouthed: out of line, get lost.
Tong Yao instantly shrank her head back.
...
Half of an hour later, the bus arrived at the competition site. The staff led the B team backstage. Tong Yao and the others were led by other staff to a special seating area in the audience-- --
Lu Sicheng was indeed one of the most popular players. The moment he walked into the dim stadium people already began recognizing him from just his silhouette. The fans that immediately recognized him started screaming "God, it's Chessman" "Cheng Ge? My hubby? Where, where?" and created a commotion...
Tong Yao: "Super Star Lu, if you decide not to play professional esports, you could go into the entertainment business."
Lu Sicheng: "Shut up."
Tong Yao took her time to sit on the seat designated for her. Looking up, she could see the big screen right in front. Tong Yao felt that the organizer had arranged the best seats for them to watch the matches and focused her full attention on the screen-- --
Right after the opening ceremony, it was the match between ZGDX B team and Team Lan. The attraction for this opening match was that both sides, all ten players, were all Chinese players; neither team had any Korean players.
When the match started, all the kids from the B team looked somewhat nervous. They probably weren't used to having live audiences cheering and shouting down the stage; the junior league competitions were, unlike the major league ones, usually not open to live audiences.
"The first time I watched a live professional competition was the final of this year's Spring competition." Tong Yao sentimentally said: "It was bustling just like this and I was sitting with ZGDX fans…...I was thinking at the time: the captain of ZGDX is as handsome as the promo photo in real life!"
Lu Sicheng: "It's doubtful that you thought that way back then."
Tong Yao: "..."
She didn't expect to be exposed so easily.
Indeed, at that time she thought Lu Sicheng didn't like human beings at all, therefore how he looked had nothing to do with her... Now it seemed a little difficult even if she wanted to flatter him. Tong Yao leaned over and spoke only loud enough that the two of them could hear: "You understand me too well which makes me so scared that I'm thinking of breaking up with you."
Lu Sicheng lifted his hand to pat Tong Yao's head as a warning-- --
The match started.
Dubhe took Jinx as his champion today-- --Tong Yao admired his courage for picking himself up after he had fallen-- --At least in her own case, it took her quite a long time before she could go back to Leblanc after being badly defeated by Ah Tai...
The ban & pick phase went quite smoothly. The ZGDX B team chose Maokai, Kha'Zix, Leblanc, Jinx, and Braum; Team Lan's lineup was Trundle, Hecarim, Malzahar, Sivir, and Thresh.
Neither side had much advantage over the other as far as their lineups were concerned-- --
Four minutes into the game, both sides had a rather normal laning phase. Dubhe was in pretty good condition today. While they were still level 1, he had a slight lead on Team Lan's ad in terms of farming thanks to Braum's help.
When they were half way to level 3, ZGDX B's jungler came to the bushes at bot. Jinx didn't make any aggressive moves and let the enemy detect that someone could be behind them. After Jinx reached level 3 ahead of everyone else, the jungler, Kha'Zix, jumped out of the bush to join the bot. With the advantage of being a 3 vs 2, they were able to kill the two Lan players at bot!
The audience burst into cheers!
Tong Yao also clapped: "Nice! Nice!"
B team's support was the first to go back to base since he was low on health. Jinx took his time to clear out the minion lane, push to the other side, and didn't return until he was outside the turret-- --
Just then there was a commotion in the audience since the audience had an overall view of the whole map. They had discovered that Lan's jungler, Hecarim, was coming. Hecarim was one of the fastest champions. It looked like that Jinx, who was at low health, would be ganked!
As the audience held their collective breath and widened their eyes in expectation that Jinx was already in Hecarim's back pocket only to find that Jinx had reacted the moment he saw Hecarim pass by a ward. He had used his abilities to hurt Hecarim while keeping him at a distance. Hecarim had barely slashed Jinx. At the fourth second, Hecarim realized that he probably wouldn't succeed and was about to retreat. But at the same moment, the scurrying Jinx suddenly turned around to chase after Hecarim and used her "w" ability to slow Hecarim followed by two attacks!
Jinx was able to come back on top with only a slim health left!
The entire dance lasted only 7 seconds back to back!
The audience roared in cheers again. Even the commentators couldn't resist chiming in-- --
[This series of maneuvers was so detailed and he even used psychological warfare!]
[This Jinx is really something. I would say ZGDX's ad position really has a qualified successor now, hahahahaha!]
[Seriously, how do we measure that play just now compared to Chessman's?]
Amid the excited commentary, Tong Yao turned her head to look at Lu Sicheng and saw him raise his chin up watching the match with his legs crossed, looking rather unperturbed.
Tong Yao: "Aren't you nervous? Little Dubhe's play just now really is on par with yours."
Lu Sicheng: "If anyone plays like that in a match against me, I can definitely outdo him. Wait till this kid plays like this and no one bothers to praise him, then it'll truly start making me nervous."
Tong Yao: "..."
People always say young and frivolous, yet it looked like an older ad could also be capable of being delusional as well.
Dubhe played rather smoothly this match with two kills and one assist in the early game. About nine minutes into the game, his first key item Infinity Edge was almost ready-- --
Tong Yao: "He's short of a few dozen gold for an Infinity. If it were you at this point..."
Lu Sicheng: "It's just the gold from getting the four monsters in the jungle."
Tong Yao: "What if I'm also lacking the same amount of gold?"
Lu Sicheng: "Then I'll let you get it. I can wait for the next wave of minions."
Tong Yao: "No, the mid has a longer minion lane. I should be the one letting you have it."
Old K: "..."
Old K listened to his team's ad and mid going back and forth being polite to each other. He thought about it then gloomily opened his mouth: "Do you guys know that I'm the jungler?"
Tong Yao, Lu Sicheng: "?"
Old K: "You know the jungler-- --the guy who fights monsters in the jungle-- --He's the person who relies on the monsters in the jungle as his own spiritual food and dignity to survive."
Tong Yao, Lu Sicheng: "..."
Old K: "The jungle is mine."
Old K: "The four monsters are the monsters in the jungle."
Old K: "Therefore the four monsters are mine too. You two are discussing back and forth about who should get the four monsters, have you asked me about what I think?"
Tong Yao: "...........Sorry."
Lu Sicheng: "What if I take your four monsters? What if I'm just lacking that much gold to get the big item to win the team fight which will be the deciding fight to win the game?"
Old K: "So that little gold is so important that without it, you would die?"
Lu Sicheng: "Right."
Old K: "Then you want to pass it onto the mid?"
"..." Lu Sicheng was quiet for a second, then lifted his arm to hug Tong Yao's shoulder: "Isn't it only natural for a father to be nice to his daughter? You aren't even willing to give up the four monsters and won't let her develop, are you the step-father?"
".............." Tong Yao slapped the hand on the shoulder: "Pay attention to the match you two."
Lu Sicheng changed his sitting position to lazily lean against the chair and continued to watch the match-- --Today Dubhe played brilliantly. Followed by his incredible play in the early game, he played as if he was hacking the game. Every move was attentive, meticulously thought out, and smashed Lan's veteran major league ad. At the latter part of the mid game, he even made 5 kills back to back, practically winning the match.
"Ahhhhhh, a pentakill!"
When the screen showed the word "Pentakill", Tong Yao jumped up from her seat and began applauding -- --
The ZGDX B team pushed all the way to the enemy's base, quickly took down the turret, the inhibitor, and the enemy's nexus exploded. The audience cheered again!
They had won the first match!
The B team players took off their earphones and stood up with beaming smiles as they hugged each other. It looked like they were quite satisfied with their win of the opening match!
"Go backstage for debriefing. We'll eat something good tonight! Let's let the B team coach treat us!" Xiao Rui was elated and came over to gather the A team players.
Tong Yao and her teammates walked towards the backstage. She stopped halfway and felt like going to the restroom. She told Lu Sicheng who was walking at the very end: "I need to go pee." Then she turned to run to the restroom reserved for players...
...
Ten minutes later, Tong Yao walked out of the stall.
She could hear the exciting voices outside from the audience and the commentators discussing "ZGDX Blue." Tong Yao washed her hands and while shaking her hands, was wondering what good food the B team coach would take them to eat. As she was walking out of the restroom, she saw a junior league team manager hastily walking out of the men's restroom right across from her-- --
His hands were dry.
Tong Yao figured that either he didn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom or he didn't come here to go to the bathroom in the first place.
Tong Yao paused, raised her eyebrows. As she was wondering what he could have been doing, she saw Dubhe walk out the restroom looking as if he was troubled by something. His hands were also dry...
Tong Yao instinctively felt that there was something wrong going on. But before she had figured out how to react, words had already come out of her mouth: "Little Dubhe?"
Dubhe jumped. When he looked up, his black pupils fluttered-- --It seemed like a guilty conscience written in capital letters.
Tong Yao's previous suspicion was confirmed. Her heart skipped a beat, but she stayed calm. She went up to grab Dubhe with a forced smile: "Congratulations on your first win. You played brilliantly today. Totally on par with your Cheng Ge. He even admitted it himself…...Ur, ur, ur, we're going to eat some good food. Was that HF's manager? What a coincidence to see him also come out of the bathroom-- --"
It was a very clumsy shift of topics. Tong Yao felt like it was impossible to pull it off anymore.
Dubhe, at that moment, lifted his eyelids to give Tong Yao a glance and with a calm tone of voice said to Tong Yao flatly: "It seems so."
Tong Yao almost lost the smile on her face and her hand on Dubhe's wrist slightly tightened: "You haven't said anything to him, have you? It's a serious violation for non-listed players to contact the other team's manager when it's not during the transfer window..."
"What can I say to him? It's not the transfer window now." Dubhe tried to pull his arm which was still in Tong Yao's grip. He slightly glanced at Tong Yao and twitched the corner of his lips: "You're worrying for nothing."
"That's good, that's good then." Tong Yao nodded: "You performed so well today and all the top management of the club would have seen it. The Demacia Cup is one of the major routes for the club to choose the future A team players. As long as you perform well..."
"-- --No matter how well I perform, as long as Chessman is here others can only be substitutes."
"..." Tong Yao couldn't find the words to respond.
"He's a shrewd player. With such a lonely position like ad, he can still carry games, in addition to being popular and having good reputation-- --He's simply the poster boy of the major league. Even when everyone praises me, they keep using 'almost the same as Chessman' to talk about me..."
His tone of voice became somewhat gloomy.
Tong Yao was somewhat stunned-- --She could swear that when she praised him earlier, she didn't mean it that way at all: "...Gee? No, I'm not-- --"
"So unless he retires on his own, another ad will never have his day! ! !" As he was talking, Dubhe suddenly had an emotional breakdown. He forcefully pulled his arm out of Tong Yao's grasp and his voice grew more intense: "But, damn, when is he going to retire? ! !"
Dubhe was rather forceful when he pulled his hand away.
Unprepared, Tong Yao was thrown off balance and staggered two steps away-- --
Dubhe paused when he saw from the corner of his eye that Tong Yao was about to fall to the ground. He reached out to try and catch her. Right then, a tall figure walked out of the corner and held Tong Yao up, steadying her.
"When I can't carry the team, I'll retire on my own. I won't shamelessly stay in the team to block the road for newcomers."
Lu Sicheng's voice was low.
His voice didn't sound irritated but was still intimidating. Though the tone was peaceful, the listeners still broke out into a cold sweat on their backs.
Tong Yao looked up at the man behind her. At the moment, he had one of his hands on her waist to support her, a tightened chin, and the pair of dark brown pupils locked on the kid near them-- --
"I admire your fighting spirit. But as the junior in the team, please watch the way you talk to your seniors. Do you need a lesson on proper etiquette?"
"..."
"You're right that the ad of the Samsung Blue had been beaten so badly by Samsung White's ad that he cried on the stage. If you want to try how that feels yourself, then I'll let you have a taste-- --"
A big hand landed on Tong Yao's head.
Lu Sicheng then said almost word by word: "If you dare to talk to your seniors in this way again, I promise I'll do exactly what I said."
...
The atmosphere among them was almost frozen into ice.
Tong Yao didn't know how Dubhe felt at that moment.
She only knew that though she had just gone to the bathroom, now she was so scared by the person behind her that she felt like going to the bathroom again.