Rumors about “internal conflict on CG” and “yux not getting along with his teammates” were nothing new online.
As one of roeCN’s biggest traffic-drawing teams, CG had ancestors who once held a world championship title and a runner-up finish, but all of that belonged to the ancient era of four or five years ago, and the players from those title runs had long since left the team.
yux, real name You Xin, CG’s current core player and main carry, had just celebrated his 20th birthday not long ago.
He’d joined CG’s youth training at 16, been promoted to first-team substitute at 17, and by 19 already had a Spring–Summer double championship and double FMVP in hand.
For a newcomer barely two years into his debut, yux’s popularity in the league was already like the sun at high noon.
Young as he was, with all those honors on his shoulders, that sky-high popularity still brought yux no small amount of trouble. The controversy around him centered on two things.
First, the lack of a Worlds title. A lot of people, especially the fans of certain senior players who’d actually won Worlds, were unhappy with how yux’s fans liked to brag about his honors. Brag all you want, he still hasn’t won Worlds, still doesn’t have his own signature weapon skin, right?
Second, his personality.
In a word: too arrogant.
Across countless interviews, post-match voice comms, and documentaries, his presence came off as overwhelming. Arguing with the coach over bans and picks, flatly telling teammates they’d played badly in scrims, for him, that was just everyday business.
Some thought his personality was too sharp, hard to get along with. Others were all for it: If you play badly, you can’t be told? Pro play needs people willing to speak the truth.
But once it started affecting the team’s internal atmosphere, and even their in-match performance, that was another matter entirely.
【Pigeon: Aiya, word is the friction between yux and the head coach is pretty serious. Seems like yux wanted to make his own calls during picks, but the head coach figured, I’m your coach, since when do my picks get dictated by you? So you saw how CG’s drafts in the semis were an absolute mess, they nearly got swept 3–0.】
【Pigeon: Sounds like their team’s got other problems on the inside too. To be honest, making it this far is already a miracle 【shrug】】
The next day, Nan Zhiyi got up bright and early to refill his bird’s water and feed it.
The bird wasn’t in its cage. The moment it saw him open the door and come in, it spread its big, brightly colored wings and came waddling pigeon-toed toward him, affectionately nipping at his fingers.
He played with the bird for a bit, then heard someone calling him from downstairs:
“Xiao Yi? Your takeout’s here, I brought it in for you.”
“Thanks, I’ll be right down!” Nan Zhiyi called back over his shoulder.
He stood and headed out, the big orange-and-blue parrot chasing after him, biting at his pant leg to keep him there. It took everything Nan Zhiyi had to rescue his pants from the bird’s beak.
Downstairs, he found Qiu Cheng, buzz-cut, a cigarette dangling from his lips, standing by the dining table holding his breakfast.
“Up this early?” Qiu Cheng said.
“Feeding the bird, or it’ll start screeching soon.” Nan Zhiyi sounded resigned. “Why are you up so early? Didn’t you stream last night?”
“I did, not for long. Got off after watching the match with Tangyuan and the others.” Qiu Cheng shrugged. “Shame you didn’t watch with us yesterday. CG pulling off that 0–2 reverse sweep, viewership was absolutely maxed out. I figure after a match like that, nobody had the heart to watch the streams afterward, so they all just logged off.”
Qiu Cheng was Nan Zhiyi’s current flatmate, more or less a childhood friend, and also a streamer on Stars, though his following was a bit smaller, only about half of Nan Zhiyi’s.
Streaming was one reason the two of them lived together. The other was that Nan Zhiyi had to keep his bird.
Big parrots need a lot of territory and their screeching disturbs the neighbors, so despite the sky-high rent in this city, Nan Zhiyi had rented a standalone house and left an entire room empty just for the bird. Qiu Cheng’s bedroom and workspace were on the ground floor, Nan Zhiyi lived upstairs, and they split the rent down the middle.
Nan Zhiyi sat down to eat. Just then Qiu Cheng asked, “For next week’s finals they’re putting together a watch party, offline, at Tangyuan’s place. You coming?”
“Can’t make it.” Nan Zhiyi poked open a soup dumpling in his bowl. “I’m going to be out of town.”
“Oh, right, almost forgot. You did say you needed to finish off your stream hours these next couple days.” Qiu Cheng smacked his forehead.
He sat down at the table too, took a drag of his cigarette, and suddenly started sighing and groaning. “I don’t even know if yux can pull it off in these finals. If he flops again this year, I feel like the game’s viewership is going to drop another notch. We streamers really do live and die by that guy’s success. Yesterday at the start I mentioned that I’d actually met him before he went pro, queued a few games with him, that kind of thing, and then a bunch of trolls saw it was 0–2 and started cursing me out as a—”
Nan Zhiyi nearly choked on the dumpling in his mouth.
He coughed twice and cut in: “Wait, you didn’t mention me, did you?”
“—a clout-chasing dog.” Qiu Cheng glanced up at him. “Relax, I didn’t mention you.”
Nan Zhiyi let out a breath.
He went back to eating, while Qiu Cheng watched him thoughtfully. “You know, if I were you, I’d just lay my cards on the table and say I knew yux back in the day. Not just knew him, he was your junior in high school. Even if you two had some falling-out, it was years ago. What kind of blood feud could two guys possibly have that they can’t get over?”
Nan Zhiyi thought silently: It is not a “two guys” kind of “ordinary” falling-out.
“But fair enough. It’s not like you’re hurting for the extra traffic.” Qiu Cheng said, then abruptly changed tack. “Being an entertainment streamer really is the better gig, loyal fans who’ll happily shower you with gifts. Someone like me, grinding on skill, busts his ass every day for nothing, and the chat is all nitpicking trolls.”
“Last couple days have been brutal. I dropped over 200 points, every teammate I matched with was a damn thrower. No matches these two days, so I’ve got to climb it all back. Otherwise they’ll be flaming me again for not even being top 100.”
For some reason, those words landed oddly on Nan Zhiyi’s ears, leaving him faintly uncomfortable.
But he didn’t say anything, just asked, “What’s your rank right now?”
“Six hundred-something.”
“It’s only top 100, you’ll be fine.” Nan Zhiyi smiled. “You’ve made it plenty of times before, haven’t you?”
At eight that evening, Nan Zhiyi started his stream right on time again.
Normally he’d never stream this often, he’d put more of his time into making videos. But lately his inspiration felt a little dried up. On top of that, Pigeon had told him he could get them finals tickets, and the two of them were flying to Country X next week to watch in person, so for once in his life he’d started phoning his streams in.
【ROE / Ladder Grind】
Nan Zhiyi was borrowing the inspiration he’d gotten from Qiu Cheng that morning. Today he turned his camera on and logged into the smurf account he didn’t normally stream on, his main had done too much evil over the years, and the ID “AngelYi” came with a built-in aggro buff that got him chased down across the whole map, making for a thoroughly unpleasant gaming experience.
【Grinding? Such an unfamiliar word】
【Streamer got way too cocky after five straight wins yesterday, now he’s storming into the ranks of the skill streamers】
【Aaaah Xiao Yi-mommy’s here, did you just wake up? Still in your pajamas, looking all fluffy ww】
…Actually, his shirt had been chewed up by the bird again that morning, with a hole right at his belly button that showed on camera the second he stood up.
“This account’s rank is pretty high, so once I’m in-game I’ll stop reading the chat, don’t want to drag my teammates down.” Nan Zhiyi pulled up the account’s ranking.
Ladder rank: 9,000.
The chat erupted: 【Redefining “high rank”】【For him, that is high】【Platinum streamer reclaiming his glory】【Be honest, whose account did you borrow】.
Nan Zhiyi ignored the heckling and queued straight into a game.
The basic rules of an ROE match: characters who die in combat respawn at a respawn point, and that point can be relocated during the match. The first side to destroy the enemy’s respawn point and eliminate all enemy characters wins.
Once in a match, players choose the class they want to use that round, each class carrying its own special skills.
After loading in, Nan Zhiyi drew the 4th slot and was smoothly assigned the Commander role he wanted.
He’d just pre-selected his preferred class, 【Bard】, when the player in the 1st slot suddenly typed: 【Can 3L give it up?】
Nan Zhiyi checked the 1st slot’s position, this player had been assigned Tank, while the 3rd slot was Main Carry.
The 3rd slot opened his mic and replied directly: “Can’t give it up, brother. Can’t do it.”
Nan Zhiyi made a small “Huh” sound.
【That voice is so familiar, is that City Lord?】
【It’s City Lord, I just came over from his stream hhh】
【How do you even run into each other like this?? First game of the night and it’s the married couple】
The “City Lord” the chat was talking about was Qiu Cheng, after his streaming ID, 【Qiu the City Lord】.
As for the way they called Nan Zhiyi “the City Lord’s Wife” and shipped the two of them in the chat, at first he’d found it a little uncomfortable, but by now he’d made his peace with it.
Because one day he’d accidentally realized that it wasn’t just Qiu Cheng: pretty much every friend of his, from pro players down to small streamers, had been paired up by the fans into a staggering number of CPs.
…Outnumbered, Nan Zhiyi could only let the fans have their little hobby.
In-game, the 1st slot typed: 【My main is top 10, can I have it?】
Qiu Cheng saw it and let out a cold laugh. “Aiya, brother, who can’t brag? Then I’ll say my main is ladder rank 1, too.”
Seeing that, the 1st slot didn’t push for the position again, and silently pre-selected a Tank class, 【Knight】.
Qiu Cheng didn’t give up his spot. He clicked around among the classes suited to Main Carry and finally locked in 【Witch】.
Nan Zhiyi raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.
Witch was not a class Qiu Cheng was good at, nor was it a fitting pick for this 【Jungle】 map.
The jungle map was a long-range map, while Witch was a short-range class, though billed as a mage, it functionally leaned more toward an assassin.
Maybe his chat tipped him off, because after locking in, Qiu Cheng suddenly asked, “Is the 4th slot Xiao Yi? For real?”
Nan Zhiyi didn’t want to open his mic. He could only type: 【It’s me】
“What a coincidence, running right into each other. So, uh, you take Cat, just stick on me and keep me protected.” Qiu Cheng said at once. “Pick it nice and bold, at this rank I can carry no problem.”
He meant the class 【Kitten】.
In ranked, Kitten was often paired with Witch. Its special skill let it shift from human form into cat form and ride on a teammate to protect them, perfect for a high-attack, low-defense, tightrope-walking class like Witch.
Nan Zhiyi didn’t really like playing Cat. He preferred a fast, agile support like Bard.
But refusing to swap classes now would look like he didn’t trust his teammate.
Nan Zhiyi switched to Kitten. Just then Qiu Cheng spoke up again. “This 1st-slot guy looks like a youth trainee, doesn’t he? He says his main’s top 10?”
Once the game loaded, you could see your teammates’ IDs. Nan Zhiyi glanced at the 1st slot’s: CG.Y.letter.
CG.Y was CG’s youth-training second team. Nan Zhiyi recognized this “letter”, he seemed to usually main secondary carry, so why suddenly ask Qiu Cheng for the main carry slot?
“Top 10 doesn’t have him? Then he’s just bragging.” Qiu Cheng was still chatting with his chat, tone faintly dismissive.
He had his in-game mic on, as if afraid his teammates wouldn’t hear him.
The 1st slot’s mic wasn’t muted, but he gave no response either.
Once in the match, Nan Zhiyi hid the chat bar.
As Commander, he habitually checked on each teammate’s movements. The other two were starting normally, but the team’s tank, “letter,” followed his own route into the flower garden, stopped, plucked the third blue rose counting from the left, and dropped it into his backpack.
To this day, Nan Zhiyi still remembered when yux first took the league stage for an interview. The host had asked him a question: Why do you pick a flower and put it in your backpack at the start of every jungle map? Is there some special meaning?
yux’s answer back then was no, because I like it. And the facts bore him out, he really did like it, because in every jungle map afterward he did the same thing, until it became his signature move.
Nan Zhiyi couldn’t help blinking. This hour, this server… not likely, right? He should be training, prepping for the finals. And why would he use someone else’s account?
In all likelihood it was just some little youth trainee on the team imitating the senior he idolized.
Nan Zhiyi talked himself out of it. He shifted his character into human form and quickly caught up to his teammate.
Author’s note:
A few settings I couldn’t be bothered to put in the main text (feel free to skip):
1. Resurgence is an action-competitive game, 3D, third-person. There are currently four maps —【Jungle】【Sky City】【Ruins】【Castle】— fairly large and complex, but I haven’t detailed them too precisely, so… I’m winging it.
2. Every player customizes their character’s face (changeable afterward, for a fee). Pro players can’t change the character model they’ve submitted to the league, which is why Pigeon has always regretted that garish shamate [1] a gaudy, spiky-haired Chinese youth subculture style jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670418_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670418_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); look of his. You can change outfits and play dress-up, the overall aesthetic is Western fantasy.
3. You tell classes apart by the weapon in hand: 【Witch】 holds a potion bottle, 【Kitten】 a little staff, 【Knight】 a shield, sword, and horse, etc. Championship skins are all weapon skins.
4. The Pick screen shows each player’s character model, with a symbol lighting up beneath it for their class. Pro matches are generally 2-ban-4-pick, with the ban and pick phases fully separated. Normal games have no bans, but you can’t pick the same class as a teammate or opponent.
5. Different classes have different skills, stealing, archery, crafting gear, etc., plus shared movement abilities like running and jumping. Resurgence has gravity and inertia (we have the most realistic physics engine.jpg), and friendly fire too, so there are plenty of slapstick mishaps…
6. That’s all for now, I’ll add more later if there’s more to add!
References[+]