The training match had ended and Coach Zheng had not even had the chance to start the review meeting before a phone call from Coach Yang held him up.
During the break, Yi Xingran said he was going to use the restroom. Somehow, though, after wandering around for a while, he ended up on an outdoor terrace where hardly anyone ever came. He pulled out that pack of dark blue cigarettes.
Under the cover of night, the hard shell packaging revealed a color reminiscent of the deep sea.
Cool white moonlight spilled down over it, its soft, lustrous sheen giving the pack a silky, satin like texture. With the cigarette between his teeth, Yi Xingran thought to himself: What could possibly be so different about expensive cigarettes?
A tiny flicker of flame flashed before his eyes for an instant and bluish purple smoke rose slowly into the air.
Yi Xingran took two drags, then secretly widened his eyes in the deserted corner.
Fuck?
It really was completely different!
Coach Yang refused to believe him no matter what, practically shouting himself hoarse as he insisted that Coach Zheng was deliberately keeping him in the dark. “We’ve known each other for how many years now! What is it that you can’t tell me?”
At first, he had assumed that person was Park Seok ho. Then he thought perhaps Old Zheng had signed a new starting player but no matter how many questions he asked, Coach Zheng stubbornly maintained that the player was nothing more than a new substitute they had signed this year and that he was still a rookie.
“Impossible. Absolutely impossible! This style of play, this sense of rhythm, this game awareness… There’s no way someone could play like this without at least three to five years of experience and refinement!”
Coach Zheng was rendered speechless. He let out a deep sigh and said helplessly, “Maybe he’s just exceptionally talented?”
“Old Zheng, fine, you can fool outsiders but me? I’m not some idiot who’s never seen a talented rookie before! What rookie could possibly have this kind of thought process and awareness before even making their debut? This kind of extreme individual heroism may still not be enough to make him the kind of spiritual leader capable of carrying an entire team but his ability to find openings and control the pace is far too strong! You can’t just brush all of that off by saying he’s talented!”
Old Yang tried to lay out the facts and reason with him. “Forget everyone else. Let’s talk about Cross. He’s recognized throughout the league as a top tier prodigy, right? Even he signed as a starter at seventeen and still needed an entire year of adaptation before he could fully demonstrate his strengths within a team. Then, at eighteen, after only that one year, he made his debut on the world stage and won the World Championship in his very first international appearance and even took the FMVP title. A genius like that is practically impossible to find a second time anywhere in the world and you’re telling me your team has two of them now?”
“Even if you really have two! You’re still telling me that he isn’t a starter, that he’s only some little substitute on your roster?!”
Coach Yang was so furious that his entire state of mind shattered. “Old Zheng! I’m only middle aged! Are you seriously treating me like I have senile dementia?!”
Coach Zheng helplessly rubbed his forehead, utterly worn out. “How about… you wait until our team makes the official announcement and see for yourself?”
Coach Yang let out a string of profanity before hanging up directly.
It was infuriating!
After having his ears assaulted by that booming voice, Coach Zheng stared at the darkened phone screen. At last, he could no longer maintain his stern expression. He broke into a wide grin and began to chuckle to himself in the silent night.
It was not hard to understand why Old Yang had completely lost his composure. Yi Xingran’s performance in those three training matches had simply been far too dazzling. Whether it was because Zhuang Du had been holding the fort or for some other reason, the instances of their previous failures to synchronize when initiating team fights had rarely occurred during tonight’s training matches. Coach Zheng had spent the entire night watching with his heart in his throat. Several times, when Yi Xingran initiated a fight first, the teammates behind him had not become too badly disconnected from him. Even when they were a little late, they could still barely…
It was no wonder Old Yang had completely lost his composure. Yi Xingran’s performance in those three training matches had simply been far too dazzling. Whether it was because Zhuang Du had been there to hold the fort or for some other reason, the disjointed team fight initiations that had appeared in their previous losses rarely occurred during tonight’s training matches. Coach Zheng had watched anxiously the entire night, his heart in his throat. Several times, when Yi Xingran initiated a team fight first, the teammates behind him had not become too badly separated from him. Even when they were a little late, they could still barely keep up, without completely breaking the team’s overall rhythm.
Could it be… that a reckless, high risk, zero room for error lineup like this really was worth trying?
Coach Zheng had been a head coach for ten years. His heart had long since become colder than a knife that had spent ten years cutting fish at RT Mart. Every consideration he made was centered on the team and he had long abandoned those adolescent, chuunibyou fantasies of becoming some lone, fearless hero who would chase his dreams to the end.
And yet, for some reason, all those rational considerations, error tolerance, team operations, tactical systems and everything else, could not overpower the stirring in his heart at this very moment. It was as though a seed had quietly fallen into the water, sending ripples across the previously tranquil surface of a lake, one layer after another, growing increasingly turbulent. Something was on the verge of bursting forth.
Light.
A fantasy that he could no longer suppress was beginning to stir restlessly.
If they won, they would make a name for themselves in a single battle. The script of the genius young prodigy would be played out once again and he would become the future hope of the LPL,
This was a reckless gamble.
Results, reputation… It was not only Yi Xingran who was putting everything on the line but also the reputation Coach Zheng had spent ten years building as a coach known for pursuing stability and victory through careful play.
But since ancient times, there had always been sparks that could eventually spread into a prairie fire.
Once he made this decision, he would practically be dragging the names and market value of every TheX player, along with the team’s collective honor and commercial value, into the gamble, wagering all of it alongside Yi Xingran.
…………………Should he gamble?
That night, several related trending topics quietly climbed into the upper ranks of the hot search list: #YiXingranBitesTheHandThatFedHimAndTransfersBehindTheScenes#, #YiXingranBetraysHisFormerTeamAndOnlyCaresAboutMoney#, #ExpertsPredictLCKCouldBecomeTheBiggestDarkHorseAtThisMSI# and #AllRoundJungleKingLinZhinuo#.
Manager Qian, who had been enjoying her beauty sleep, instantly shot upright in bed the moment her phone rang. After reading through the related posts, her eyes lit up. She tore the sheet mask from her face in one swift motion, then charged straight toward the operations department in her silk pajamas.
It’s here! It’s finally here!
With MSI approaching, the war on the actual battlefield had yet to officially begin but a war of public opinion without a single shot being fired had already fired its first bullet.
Qian Deshuai planted one hand on her hip, her eyes gleaming with exactly the satisfaction she had been waiting for. “This is exactly the day I’ve been waiting for! Hahaha! Proceed according to the original plan. They want to step on our TheX to build up their own momentum, don’t they? Then I want to see whether LCK can stomach such a massive campaign of dragging us down just to climb over us!”
“Give me war!!”
The public opinion frenzy fermented for three whole days. Yi Xingran, as the only ‘outside’ player who had not participated in the qualifying matches, was nevertheless the one being cursed at most viciously across the forums, to the point where the posts about him were practically taking over the entire discussion space.
At first, everything had remained at the level of speculation and mockery but gradually, it escalated into personal attacks. All kinds of accusations came pouring out: that he had abandoned his former team and repaid kindness with betrayal, that someone who was disloyal once could never be trusted again, that his actual strength was unknown while his marketing was outrageously strong, that perhaps he had signed with some entertainment or management agency because he seemed to be on the hot search list every single day.
Even Sun Sheng had not expected the wave of hired accounts to steer public opinion so successfully. The emotions of some mindless little fans online were simply far too easy to manipulate. Taking advantage of the momentum, he continued to fan the flames and raise the stakes, producing every possible comparison between Lin Zhinuo and Yi Xingran’s statistics.
With the narrative that Yi Xingran had terrible character and poor skills, they then conveniently tied the two together and directed the flames of the controversy straight toward TheX Esports Club, boldly proclaiming that the reigning world champions’ waters were simply too deep, while LCK, the Spring Split runner up, was the team with the greatest hope of representing the LPL.
Manager Qian was practically laughing at what she was seeing. They really were shamelessly trying to leech off their popularity, weren’t they? TheX was a veteran team that had never once been absent from a major tournament. How many times had LCK actually made it to the World Championship? How many editions of MSI had they fought their way through?
With a single order from Manager Qian, the one sided tide of public opinion that had been stoked for three whole days was instantly detonated.
“Seriously? Fire is just a rookie who hasn’t even been in the scene for half a year yet. He’s barely played a handful of matches, so why are there suddenly so many people attacking him?”
“Isn’t this a little strange? If there isn’t someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, I don’t believe it… He’s just a pretty good looking kid. Who exactly did he offend?”
“When this trending topic first appeared, it only had a little over six hundred discussions. There’s absolutely no way someone didn’t deliberately pay to push it! I even took screenshots!”
“This has been going on for three days and you people still aren’t done? I’m seriously sick of it! I just want to discuss a player’s performance but every time I click on a post, it’s nothing but insults. Did this Fire kid destroy the entire planet in his past life or something? Why do so many people hate him?”
“I’m laughing too. Every single post insulting Yi Xingran has to drag Lin Zhinuo into it afterward. Seriously, is signing a starting player for LCK really something worth bragging about? What level is LCK even at now that they think they can sit at the same table as TheX and be mentioned in the same breath?”
“You played one Spring Finals and suddenly think you’re qualified to go head to head with our World Championship winning team, huh? I’m honestly sick to my stomach seeing this! Just because TheX fans usually don’t say anything doesn’t mean we’re dead, okay? Let that be known! LCK, why don’t you try leeching off us again and see what happens?”
“I’m out, I’m out. Don’t give them any attention. It’s obviously just a team trying to ride someone else’s popularity. Who even knows where this bargain bin team came from? They’re so desperate to get famous that they’ve lost their minds. If you love leeching off other people’s popularity so much, how about you actually make it through the qualifying stage first?”
“LCK Gets Off to a Winning Start! Genius Jungle King Lin Zhinuo Scores Seventeen Kills!”
“Rising Star Lin Zhinuo Pulls Off a Godlike Rescue Play! This Could Be the LPL’s Year of Greatest Hope for a Championship!”
“LCK! The Dark Horse!”
“Ahhhhhhh! Brother Zhinuo is so handsome, I love him so much! This is exactly the kind of jungler who deserves a starting position! Unlike that piece of shit Yi Xingran! LCK really got the short end of the stick, otherwise the Spring Championship would have been ours!”
“Yi Xingran is the real culprit! The LPL owes us a Spring Championship! LCK, the uncrowned kings! Justice will prevail!”
“…You guys are seriously making me want to root against you at this point. Your LCK bot lane got completely demolished and you’re blaming the other team’s rookie jungler? What, you couldn’t take a shit, so now you’re going to blame the Earth for not having enough gravitational pull?”
“Yi Xingran has already transferred teams and you people are still dragging him out to curse at him. He’s only eighteen years old, what the hell did the kid even do to you? You’ve been attacking him for three months already. Aren’t you done yet?”
“Just a passerby here, no allegiance to any team, so there’s no need to randomly target me. I simply can’t stand all this manufactured hype and marketing you people are doing. This whole ‘Lin Zhinuo gets seventeen kills’ thing… are you seriously counting the kills he got across two entire BO3 series and adding them together? I’ve watched esports for so many years and this is honestly the first time I’ve ever seen someone calculate a player’s kill count like this, haha!”
“Holy shit, I’m seriously opening my eyes today! It’s the combined total? Even if they won both matches 2–0 and you average it out, that’s only 4.25 kills per game. Seriously, is that kind of record really worth bragging about? (Adding a disclaimer here: I don’t support any team, so there’s no way to identify me. Anyone who comes after me, I hope your favorite team never wins a championship in this lifetime!)”
“The funniest part is that they’ve already lost one of those two matches, okay? As everyone knows, the qualifying stage uses a double elimination format. After losing one match, they enter the round robin stage directly. Now they have to play against all the remaining teams in a round robin battle until only one team is left and only then can they qualify for the main event. Aren’t they basically about to be sent packing already? How exactly does that make them a dark horse?”
“The main event hasn’t even started yet and LCK has already started rehearsing their victory speech. Enough with the bundled marketing and popularity leeching, already! And you say we owe you a championship? Better be careful that you don’t even make it out of the qualifying stage. Won’t your faces hurt when that happens?”
“Focus on our own TheX and don’t give them any attention. Stop helping them raise their profile. I’m looking forward to seeing how our players perform in the matches ahead! Ahhhhh!”
“Insider news! The former starting jungler whom LCK benched has apparently gone to TheX! Is TheX some kind of recycling center for esports players? Why are they picking up every piece of trash they can find?”
“??? TheX’s coaching staff must have lost their minds, right? Don’t they know what kind of person that Yi Xingran is? How could they possibly sign him?”
“Fuck, TheX is doomed!!”
“To the person above, calm down first. Don’t let yourself get swept up in the hype. We should wait for the team’s official announcement regarding everything. Even if they really did sign him, let’s at least see what explanation the official account gives first… Doesn’t anyone else think the direction of public opinion lately has been really strange?”
“+1. The mockery and abuse have been completely one sided, as if that Yi Xingran had committed every possible evil under the sun. There’s also a suspicious attempt to tie him to TheX and use the team’s popularity to boost himself. I’m starting to suspect that LCK paid for all these fake accounts to stir things up!”
“If it were only a few people insulting him, I might still think there really was something wrong with this Fire guy but when an entire crowd has been attacking him across the internet for this long, it actually makes me wonder whether Fire might not have done anything wrong at all! How many times have we seen marketing accounts deliberately stir up emotions and manipulate public opinion, only for the truth to be completely reversed afterward? Sisters, don’t blindly charge in and start a war the second you see something! Wait a little and see how things develop first!”
“Exactly! Don’t blindly rush in! The main event hasn’t even started yet and TheX is still actively preparing for the competition. This isn’t the time to let ourselves get shaken or undermine the team’s morale!”
Gradually, neutral onlookers began stepping forward to voice their opinions on the forum. Sun Sheng continued escalating his efforts, determined to nail Yi Xingran firmly to the pillar of shame while dragging the entire TheX team into the mess along with him.
Qian Deshuai, meanwhile, kept releasing one after another of these supposed bystanders into the chaos, muddying the waters and fishing for information in the confusion. As the initial wave of heated emotions gradually settled, she had managed to plant a seed of doubt in the hearts of everyone who had been paying attention to the scandalous trending topics.
Every person had a set of scales in their heart. Once the needle on those scales was no longer pointing completely and unquestioningly to one side, all it took was a single doubt to make it begin swaying back and forth.
The moment people’s positions were shaken, every instance in which they had once spoken out sincerely for “justice” would transform into anger at having been manipulated. With all that resentment and indignation having nowhere else to go, the anger would inevitably turn toward its original target. A rumor campaign of such enormous proportions would eventually suffer backlash ten or even a hundred times greater in return!
Human nature.
Qian Deshuai finally changed into a fresh satin silk pajama set, luxuriated in a long bath and treated herself to a face mask. Despite having stayed up night after night, she remained energetic and radiant, her entire being seemingly caught in an intensely excited state of battle readiness.
On the final day of the qualifying stage round robin gauntlet, LCK faced RVC, the biggest dark horse team from the LCK, in a battle for the final qualification spot. They were shut out completely, losing 0:3 and being eliminated from the competition.
Sheng Xufeng’s eyes were clouded with gloom, while Sun Sheng’s hands were trembling with anxiety. He kept making phone calls to purchase more fake accounts and water armies, desperately attempting to launch another round of reputation cleaning and public opinion damage control.
Manager Qian appeared in the training room after getting herself completely ready, looking radiant and full of energy. “The battlefield that belongs to me is finally going to erupt in full tonight! My dears~ are you all ready for battle?”
After nearly a week of intensive training, Yi Xingran was sprawled limply in his gaming chair, his pink hair sticking up messily in every direction yet those eyes of his remained as bright and clear as ever.
Fight, fight, fight! Kill, kill, kill!!
TheX was completely prepared!
They were setting out for MSI!
This was a debut battle that belonged exclusively to Yi Xingran. There was simply no reason for him to lose.
After building up momentum for so long, Manager Qian did not even need to spend a single extra cent. With nothing more than one personnel change announcement from the team’s official account, she sent Yi Xingran’s name straight to the top of the day’s trending searches.
@TheX Esports Club Official: “The stars never fail those who journey beneath them; now is the time to ignite our dreams! Following tactical adjustments and a decision by the coaching staff, our substitute player Yi Xingran (ID: Fire) will take the starting jungler position for our first match of this MSI. At the same time, this will mark Fire’s professional debut at a major tournament since joining TheX!”
@TheX Esports Club Official: The stars never fail those who journey beneath them; now is the time to ignite our dreams! Following tactical adjustments and a decision by the coaching staff, our substitute player Yi Xingran (ID: Fire) will take the starting jungler position for our first match of this MSI, marking Fire’s professional debut at a major tournament since joining TheX!
The final piece of the puzzle is now in place and our hidden trump card has officially been revealed! Let’s look forward to @TheX Fire burning through his opponents on the battlefield and claiming the first victory that belongs to him!
#Fire’sDebut#
#TheXOfficiallyRevealsItsTrumpCard#
#ASecretWeaponDescends!#
@TheX Fire Yi Xingran: Reposted @TheX Esports Club’s Weibo //: Cute Cat Head.JPG
See you on the battlefield ^^
Immediately afterward, while the topic was at the height of its popularity, another formal lawyer’s letter bearing an official stamped seal across the pages quickly shot back up the trending charts, faintly showing signs that it was about to explode in popularity.
@TheX Esports Club Official: Regarding the false statements concerning our player Yi Xingran that have recently been circulating online, we hereby issue the following clarification… We have zero tolerance for fabricated facts and malicious defamation! The internet is not beyond the reach of the law and the relevant matters have now entered the investigation and evidence collection stage.
The public opinion storm that had raged for days was completely ignited at this moment. Yi Xingran, who had been smeared and vilified for so long, finally entered everyone’s field of vision in his official capacity as a professional player. Everyone was waiting to see exactly what kind of background this Fire had and how he could possibly have been kept hidden for so long as a trump card by a veteran World Championship winning team, even while public opinion across the entire internet had been overwhelmingly against him, only to finally be unveiled now.
For the first match of the MSI Mid Season Invitational main event, TheX would face RVC, the biggest dark horse team from the LCK. The number of viewers who had already reserved the match had reached one hundred million.
It was a level of anticipation and audience scale that had previously been difficult to reach even for matches at the finals.
Yi Xingran’s debut was definitely going to be worth watching.
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
✧ Your mission, should you choose to accept it: FEED THE TRANSLATOR. ✧
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Fire the hole!Chapter 2 · Dude, I’m here to save youChapter 3 · Plaster HeadChapter 4 · I’m well behaved, I don’t talk muchChapter 5 · It’s what Cross needsChapter 6 · What are you barking like a dog?Chapter 7 · “Ah! It’s so… so damn cold~”Chapter 8 · What are you looking at, you pervert!Chapter 9 · The cat I bought for free got dirty.Chapter 10 · Oh no! I forgot to switch to a smaller account!Chapter 11 · It’s my turn to performChapter 12 · Insults? That’s slander! This is slander!Chapter 13 · He’s a very nice personChapter 14 · Hunting TimeChapter 15 · A straight man sells himselfChapter 16 · The number one person who doesn’t eat stressChapter 17 · He is so vividChapter 18 · War! War! War! Kill! Kill!Chapter 19 Part 1 · What’s wrong with guys rubbing against each other?Chapter 19 Part 2 · What’s wrong with guys rubbing against each other?