On the deserted rooftop, a dark shadow flashed past.
Pei Du hadn’t been able to see clearly who the person running away was but in a corner not far away, he caught sight of a familiar figure.
Dark clouds obscured the moon, leaving only the stars shining overhead.
The flamboyant pink hair danced in the evening breeze. The young man’s clothes fluttered around him as he suddenly jumped into the air, twisted his waist midair and cleanly raised his leg into a side kick.
Another figure was sent flying several meters away by the kick, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
Immediately afterward came a pained groan and desperate pleas for mercy.
That voice sounded somewhat familiar.
It seemed to belong to the Korean import jungler on their team.
“Putting on an act right under everyone’s noses! You pull something this disloyal and shameless, do your parents know what you’ve been doing?”
Yi Xingran released his grip on the man’s collar.
The Korean jungler fell heavily onto the ground, curling up as he clutched his stomach in agony.
Afraid that the other man couldn’t understand the language and wouldn’t know what he was being insulted with, Yi Xingran even turned his head as he was leaving and spat out a contemptuous “Pah!”
Then, being extremely considerate, he gestured emphatically at him.
“Xi ba! Xi ba, xi ba!”
He dusted the dirt from the hem of his clothes, frowned and turned to chase after the dark shadow that had disappeared in the distance.
The Korean jungler struggled to get up.
He dropped onto one knee and gritted his teeth, still unable to stand.
Then, beneath the already dim night sky, an even deeper shadow suddenly fell over him.
What entered his field of vision first was a pair of long, perfectly straight legs.
His gaze traveled upward along the crisp lines of the suit trousers.
A narrow waist.
Broad shoulders.
And finally, a sharply defined face with an expression as heavy and still as deep water.
It was Pei Du.
The unquestioned captain of the team, a man who never accepted dissent and always had the final say.
He was notoriously fair and ruthlessly strict, with absolutely no tolerance for even the slightest wrongdoing.
He was, without a doubt, someone nobody wanted to offend.
Still on one knee, the Korean jungler felt a large hand settle onto his shoulder.
He assumed the captain was trying to help him up.
But even after trying twice, he still couldn’t stand.
A force almost like a vise crushed down on him, pinning him firmly to the ground and leaving him completely unable to move.
A pair of indifferent eyes looked down upon him.
Pei Du’s cool voice was as calm and emotionless as an ancient well without a ripple.
With one hand holding the man firmly in place, he looked down at him and asked quietly,
“What exactly should your parents know?”
“This is the personal transaction record of Park Seok ho that you asked me to investigate earlier. So far, I haven’t found anything particularly suspicious. Cross, not that I’m questioning you but what suddenly made you think of conducting an internal investigation? Is it because of everything that’s happened with LCK recently?”
Coach Zheng had also brought over the post match data analysis.
“Park Seok ho’s performance in the semifinals was indeed poor but not long ago, he was also subjected to accusations that he was planning to ‘defect’ and ‘pledge his loyalty to the LCK.’ This time, he was facing LCK, an old opponent of ours. Perhaps he became too eager to win, too desperate to reach the Finals and his unstable mentality caused his mechanics to fall apart. That’s certainly possible. It’s not as though we’ve never seen something like this happen before. Even the veterans on our team can understand that kind of pressure……”
Pei Du casually flipped through the documents.
His voice remained neither cold nor warm as he interrupted,
“What do you think of Fire’s performance in the Finals?”
“Fire? Wasn’t he investigated and found to have been involved in match fixing?”
Sensing the coldness in Pei Du’s gaze, Coach Zheng was puzzled for a moment.
Then he began analyzing the situation again.
“Fire? In the final game, that play where he circled around from behind, looking at the decision itself, I don’t actually think there was anything particularly wrong with it. Once both of the enemy carries went down, there was no way they would continue fighting. Their jungler had also pushed his positioning far too deep, so it would have been difficult for him to escape unscathed either.”
“There would only be two players left on LCK’s side, the top laner and the support and they would immediately lose the ability to contest the dragon. Once this skirmish ended, LCK could rotate from mid to take the dragon and then use the momentum to push down the top lane. With a two thousand gold lead, the advantage would snowball bigger and bigger and LCK’s offensive tempo would finally be established.
“But, ”
Coach Zheng shook his head.
“Fire’s play there really was a little too aggressive. He became separated from his teammates.”
Whenever he recalled the final game of the World Championship, Coach Zheng still couldn’t help feeling regretful.
He sighed.
“Perhaps it was simply a matter of timing and fate. If only Fire had engaged one second earlier, if only LCK’s two carries hadn’t dashed quite that far away, or if Fire had just had one more person beside him at the time, even a support. They only needed the tiniest bit of additional damage. The outcome of that team fight might have been completely different.”
“Barely any health left…………”
Coach Zheng took a sip of water before suddenly sighing,
“It was just a matter of two basic attacks.”
“Basic attack” referred to a champion’s standard, non ability attack.
Pei Du’s fingers unconsciously rubbed against the edge of the documents he was holding.
At those words, he slowly lifted his eyes.
“What if he wasn’t the one who became separated from his teammates but his teammates deliberately separated themselves from him?”
Coach Zheng nearly choked on his own breath.
He looked up in shock.
He couldn’t understand what was happening with their usually taciturn captain, a man who rarely cared about other people and was so upright that it was almost absurd.
Why was he suddenly defending someone who had been accused of match fixing?
“But but he……”
Coach Zheng coughed for a long while before finally clearing his throat.
“Aren’t you the one who dislikes people like him the most?”
“First of all, the official league authorities haven’t publicly announced the verdict yet.”
Pei Du casually tossed the investigation documents aside.
Besides, he simply didn’t believe that someone who had genuinely betrayed the spirit of competitive gaming, accepted money and deliberately tampered with a World Championship Final would completely disregard the safety of his own right hand just to teach the person who had actually fixed the match a lesson.
That was the most important right hand an esports player could have.
A person who truly wanted to win could never hide it.
On the competitive stage, opportunities appeared and vanished in an instant. Only by seizing every fleeting opening and pushing every single play to its absolute limit could a player have even the slightest chance of standing on the highest podium in esports.
Yi Xingran wanted to win.
Every single one of his bold attempts to create opportunities, every time he dared to move forward and make aggressive plays without being afraid to shoulder the consequences, proved that he was the one among LCK’s five players who wanted victory the most.
Therefore, if Yi Xingran wasn’t the problem, then the other four……
Pei Du’s brows drew together slightly.
In his hand was a short, torn piece of bandage.
The white gauze still carried scattered traces of blood.
It was the strip he had picked up beside Park Seok ho’s feet last night.
He remembered what he had witnessed at the time.
Beneath the cold, pale moonlight, the curve of a hunched back looked like a bowstring pulled taut to its absolute limit.
The furious young man had raised his arm and leaped into the air, the plaster cast in his hand smashing straight into the man’s head.
The thick plaster shattered with the impact, fragments breaking apart one after another and falling heavily onto the ground.
Yi Xingran’s eyes had been bloodshot.
His pink hair had already begun to fade and turn dry and yellowish yet it still shimmered brilliantly beneath the dim night sky.
Pei Du lowered his eyes and thought for a moment.
Then, after an account that had been dormant for years and had practically never been used suddenly came back to life, his Weibo account posted a new update:
TheX Cross Pei Du: We still don’t know the full story, so we should wait for the league’s final official announcement before drawing any conclusions, don’t you think? @LCK Esports Club League of Legends Division
A post that practically slapped the official account in the face.
A single stone had stirred up a thousand waves.
The entire esports scene exploded.
His notifications instantly jumped to 99+, with comments, reposts and private messages flooding in so rapidly that the entire backstage was swallowed beneath a sea of doubts and accusations.
Pei Du switched out of the notification panel without changing his expression.
He didn’t bother caring about how many guesses his statement had sparked or how much chaos it had triggered in yet another round of online warfare.
He simply composed another message and sent it out:
“Regarding the matter of my team’s player Park Seok ho being suspected of match fixing, how much more do you know? Pei Du.”
Recipient: Ghost Cut
There was no reply.
Pei Du waited for a while.
Considering that the person in question had an extremely irregular schedule, he figured he might not have woken up yet at this hour.
So he set his phone aside, logged into his alternate account and started a game.
After several matches, the name [Victor] had lit up on the screen countless times.
When Pei Du clicked [Find Match] once again, he got up to pour himself some water.
By the time he returned and glanced at his phone,
An obituary had exploded onto the trending searches.
#FireKilledInCarAccident
Immediately afterward, a series of related hashtags rapidly climbed the rankings.
The heat and discussion surrounding them remained astonishingly high, to the point that almost the entire trending forum had been taken over.
#LeagueOfLegendsControversialPlayerYiXingranDiesInCarAccident
#LCKOfficialAccountRespondsToFire’sDeathSaying“TheDeadDeserveRespect”
#Fire’sFormerTeamCaptainShengXufengPostsInRemembranceAccompaniedByLongWrittenTribute……
Across the trending forum:
[So his lifetime ban just became an actual lifetime ban, exactly what a match fixing player deserves!]
[Isn’t this the fastest instant karma of the year? That runaway truck did the heavens’ work! Getting rid of a menace for the people!]
[LCK is still way too classy. Why are they even mourning someone like this? He died exactly as he deserved!]
[Daily question: Is Yi Xingran still not dead today?]
[Replying to the comment above: He’s dead, he’s dead~ No need to Photoshop a portrait or buy a wreath anymore. There’s already plenty right outside his house and there’s more than enough to go around!]
[Thank goodness! The person I hated is finally dead! This is absolutely satisfying!]
[Just passing by from outside the esports scene, who is Fire? Why is everyone so happy that he died?]
[Explanation! Fire had an awful personality, was arrogant, conceited and unbelievably self important! He bullied and oppressed his teammates inside the team, acted like a big star and cursed at fans outside the team, then went onstage and played the role of an actor by deliberately match fixing! He intentionally lost to the “thieving country” for money! His record is absolutely filthy and he did every evil thing imaginable! I’ll be taking this reply with me through every comment section!]
[Thanks for explaining! This person sounds absolutely horrible. Good riddance!]
[Holy crap, it was really that outrageous? A traitor to his country? Unforgivable! Kick this garbage player out of the country! I support publicly humiliating him even after death!]
The champion who had just spawned in the fountain stood motionless.
For what seemed like two seconds, he appeared to be stunned.
Then, immediately afterward, he used Flash and flashed straight out of the fountain.
A teammate instantly typed in the lower left corner of the screen:
I Am Reverse Butterfly, Garen: ?
I Am Reverse Butterfly, Garen: Bro, is Flash free or something? Why are you using it the moment the cooldown comes back?
I Am Reverse Butterfly, Garen: Seriously, bro, you’re way too damn flashy. Fine, flashing out of the fountain is one thing but you didn’t even buy any items?
The Summoner Pei Du controlled Anivia, the Cryophoenix and slowly flew toward mid lane.
Before long, the champion transformed into a single Phoenix Egg beneath the tower.
(Anivia’s passive ability: when Anivia is about to be killed, she transforms into a Phoenix Egg. If the Phoenix Egg is not destroyed within six seconds, Anivia is reborn in a flash.)
I Am Reverse Butterfly, Garen: Fuck, did we run into a griefer?
I Am Reverse Butterfly, Garen: What the fuck are you griefing for? I’ll fucking-
That night, Pei Du lay in bed.
For the first time in a long while, the man whose schedule had always been remarkably regular found himself unable to fall asleep.
That night, Pei Du lay in bed yet the man who had always maintained a steady and disciplined routine found himself unable to fall asleep for a long, long time.
He had only a handful of true rivals throughout his professional career.
Yet one of the most unforgettable among them had died before they could settle anything.
Only after that person was gone did Pei Du realize that, despite years of clashing with each other, the two of them had apparently never truly competed against one another in a proper match.
The following morning, Pei Du opened his eyes with a faint sense of grogginess.
“Cross! Guess who’s here?”
Manager Qian cheerfully knocked on the door.
Even when faced with Pei Du’s icy, frosty expression, his enthusiasm for sharing the good news wasn’t diminished in the slightest. The corners of his mouth were practically stretched all the way to his ears.
“That pink haired trainee you had your eye on before! Oh my, he’s absolutely smoking~ He’s here for the tryout today!”
Pei Du remained expressionless, cold as frost.
He was silent for a long while.
Then, from the usually calm and self possessed man’s placid, emotionless eyes, something extremely rare appeared,
A trace of confusion.
Pei Du: “?”
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
The translator humbly requests tribute in coffee form. (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
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?