Nan Zhiyi sat in the VIP audience section, clutching that hand banner in despair.
He hadn’t thrown it away.
The worst-case scenario had already happened anyway, what could possibly be more terrifying than this?
Song Baiyu was still beside him, waggling his eyebrows. “What are you doing just standing there frozen? Hey, you think yux recognized you back there? See what I told you? The guy’s got no hostility toward you at all.”
“…” Nan Zhiyi badly wanted to smack the banner into the face of the culprit behind all this. Had he known Murphy’s Law would be this reliable, he absolutely would not have followed the man backstage. “And you can still laugh.”
Song Baiyu shrugged, utterly without conscience. “Just tell me whether I was right.”
“Shut it. You don’t get it at all.”
“What could I possibly not get? There’s nothing in this world your big bro here doesn’t get.” Song Baiyu huffed.
After a thought, he tacked on, “Love excluded, ha. Us never-been-in-love types should stay humble.”
Nan Zhiyi: “…” He really didn’t want to say another word to this person.
As match time drew near, the audience gradually filled the stands.
Song Baiyu ran into a few players he was close with and went off to chat, from the sound of it, swapping gossip.
With no interest in joining other people’s small talk, Nan Zhiyi absently flipped through his phone.
There was an @-mention waiting for him in a group chat called 【Eternal Friendship Society】.
The group had twenty-some people, mostly the high-traffic streamers from Stars’ gaming section.
Nan Zhiyi scrolled up through the chat log.
【Tangyuan: Tonight Sister Xing and I are watching the match offline @TaoXing, one short of four, anyone else able to come】
【Songshi: Aren’t you guys with City Lord?】
【TaoXing: He’s got something going on, can’t make it】
【Tangyuan: Brother Qiu went back to his hometown. He just got into a drama-storm with a big celebrity, who’d dare to stream】
【Songshi: Oof, can’t cash in on this wave of traffic 【covering-mouth laugh】】
The group went quiet for a bit.
After a while, TaoXing sent another.
【TaoXing: @AngelYi Xiao Yi, want to come join us?】
【Tangyuan: Brother Yi probably won’t hang with us】
【Tangyuan: A big streamer’s got better things to do than play with us small fry 【laughing-crying】】
The messages were already an hour old.
Nan Zhiyi @-ed TaoXing and replied: 【Sister Xing, I’m out traveling with a friend, I’ll pass for today】
A new reply came quickly.
【Tangyuan: Brother Yi went off to live it up with some girl, won’t even watch the finals】
【Tangyuan: Keep this up and Sister Xing’s going to be heartbroken 【sly grin】】
Tangyuan and Qiu Cheng were streamers signed to the same guild. His usual streaming style ran heavy on the theatrical, he was always pulling stunts like suddenly leaping up and knocking over his own chair mid-stream, a loud, rowdy guy with not much sense of boundaries in chat either.
Not wanting to reveal that he was right there at the finals venue, Nan Zhiyi didn’t respond to the teasing.
【TaoXing: @Tangyuan Don’t talk nonsense】
【TaoXing: Have fun, Xiao Yi. When you’re out, stop staring at your phone all the time】
Nan Zhiyi typed back.
【AngelYi: Thanks, Sister, off to have fun 【happy】】
He sent the happy emoji, but honestly couldn’t feel happy at all.
He was a little nervous.
The finals opening ceremony was far grander than other events, complete with a song-and-dance performance.
Nan Zhiyi stared as if sleepwalking at the troupe bouncing around on stage. Only when both teams’ players began to take the stage did he come back to himself.
The heating in the venue was more than ample, yet his palms were soaked with cold sweat, his heart pounding.
The host was introducing the players in English, of which Nan Zhiyi caught only half, but when You Xin came on, the host visibly perked up. He heard the man use words like “King” to describe yux in a booming voice, and a wave of cheers surged up across the hall, each louder than the last. Although CG were the away team, the welcome they got was no less than the home crowd’s for the OTG players.
Only once the match officially began did the chatter in the venue gradually die down.
The first game went more smoothly than Nan Zhiyi, and many CN-region viewers, had imagined.
yux got his trusty Archer and ran riot across the jungle map, ending the game with a staggering 14–0–2.
In the second game, CG fell into a deficit early on, but at the critical moment yux stepped up again, taking on three by himself and forcibly turning the game around, his mechanics drawing gasp after gasp from the casters.
CG led 2–0, holding three match points.
When the word “VICTORY” popped up, Song Baiyu’s voice cracked as he shouted beside him: “Holy crap, Little! You! God! INSANE!!!”
—The very team that had once shut out WD and beaten Song Baiyu and his teammates so badly they nearly had to swim home was OTG.
Seeing his brother team avenge him, Song Baiyu was wildly excited.
“If they take this today, I officially declare yux ascended to godhood!” He grabbed Nan Zhiyi’s shoulders and shook them. “I think I’ve ranted to you about this before? OTG’s main carry, Hust, the guy’s got terrible character, I ran into him in ranked before and he camped my respawn to grief me. This is so damn satisfying…”
The 2–0 had left Nan Zhiyi a bit dizzy, but he still raised a hand to stop Song Baiyu’s halftime-champagne behavior. [1] popping the champagne before the win is secured jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670422_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670422_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); “Don’t you think beer’s form isn’t great?”
In that second game, beer had died three times right out of the gate. If You Xin hadn’t stepped up at the end, they’d probably have lost it.
“Isn’t he always like that, godlike one stretch, garbage the next.” Song Baiyu looked entirely used to it. “To be honest, behind his back we all secretly call him the Seizure Carry [2] plays like a god one minute, a ghost the next jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670422_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670422_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.”
Nan Zhiyi: “…”
Nan Zhiyi: “But what if yux can’t step up later? You can’t just keep counting on one man to carry.”
Song Baiyu went “Heh.” “It’s the grand finals, don’t jinx it with that kind of talk.”
“I’m just worried.”
Song Baiyu: “…I’ve figured you hardcore fans out, you all love to lie down ready in your coffins first, then leap right out the moment you win [3] fan slang: brace for the worst by ‘lying in your coffin,’ then spring back out if your team pulls through jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670422_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670422_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, don’t you.”
Nan Zhiyi laughed.
But very soon, he couldn’t laugh anymore.
In the third game, OTG saw through CG’s hidden strategy, and under their targeted counter, You Xin ended up with a class that was badly disadvantaged in the current patch.
The map this game was Sky City, where CG’s win rate was a pitiful 34%.
Forty minutes later, the game was lost with little suspense.
“2 to 1…” Song Baiyu wasn’t as excited as before. “Not a big deal. Surely no one gets reverse-swept from 2–0 up in a grand final? Hasn’t happened in years.”
The audience wasn’t given much time to fret before the fourth game began.
In the Pick phase, CG locked 【High Priest】 in the final slot.
“yux is playing High Priest this game?” Song Baiyu mused beside him. “I don’t remember him touching this much… oh my god, the High Priest went to beer?!!”
He stared at the big screen, dumbfounded. “—What is CG even doing?!”
Secondary and main carries mostly share a class pool, the only difference is which one the team leans toward protecting.
Some teams, when the main carry’s form is poor, will shift more of the damage duty onto the secondary carry.
But a long-range glass cannon like High Priest was almost always handed to whoever could output the most.
The stands buzzed with low discussion, and the casters’ tone turned surprised too.
The director aptly cut to a close-up of You Xin.
By the fourth game of a Bo5, most of the players were drenched in sweat, only You Xin still wore that calm, unbothered expression.
Even the way his hair fell was exactly the same as when he’d first taken the stage.
This game he’d picked 【Elemental Mage】, not as strong in output, but with decent self-preservation. On camera, he said nothing, seemingly raising no objection to the team’s decision.
Nan Zhiyi was getting restless in his seat.
He turned to ask Song Baiyu, “That last game, did the main carry play that badly? Is it really necessary to swap positions like this?”
Even in a normal playoff Bo5, few teams would make a call like that, let alone in the finals.
In the third game, although yux had been targeted and ended 0–4–2, looking at the whole game he’d only made one small mistake.
Song Baiyu stared at the screen.
His expression had turned a bit grave. “…I feel like CG’s tactics just aren’t working. They’re completely read by the other side. Even without the position swap, with these class picks, this game already looks gone.”
The fourth game could only be called a demolition.
Except OTG were the wrecking crew, and CG the rotten wood. [4] 摧枯拉朽, sweeping away the withered and rotten: a total, effortless demolition jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670422_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670422_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
The match reached an excruciating 2–2 tie.
Down in the stands, Nan Zhiyi no longer dared look at the big screen.
—He’d discovered that during the previous exchanges, whenever he watched the screen, CG took a beating.
When he didn’t watch, CG actually played decently.
If he didn’t watch the next game, maybe they’d really pull it off. He silently prayed.
In a whole lifetime, how many chances does a person get to stand in a grand final holding match point?
As if in a trance, Nan Zhiyi fixed his gaze on the second player from the left on CG’s side.
—Until everyone around him let out a startled cry, all at once.
Before he could even ask what was wrong, he glanced up to find a class locked in, glaring, above the ID of You Xin in the 2nd slot.
—Witch.
“Holy crap, has he lost his mind?” Beside him, Song Baiyu was so shocked he was nearly speechless, taking a long while to squeeze out a single sentence. “How many years has it been since anyone played Witch on stage… nobody’s touched it all year, right?”
The class demands in ranked and in competition were completely different. A class as poorly balanced and unforgiving as Witch was almost never used by any player, even in regular league play.
And now, someone had picked her in a grand final.
The director cut to another close-up of CG’s four.
On camera, You Xin, who’d just made this astonishing move, still wore that expressionless look, while the other three had already turned in unison to stare at him.
wind looked startled, beer’s brows pressed low, and the tank player, bost, didn’t even bother to hide it, his mouth dropped open into an O.
As for the coach standing behind the team, Zds, his face had already gone extremely ugly.
You Xin’s unexpected class pick seemed to throw OTG into disarray.
After long hesitation, OTG locked in two rather lackluster classes that didn’t quite suit the team’s style.
CG, meanwhile, took the Kitten, a perfect fit for the Witch, for their support slot.
Song Baiyu’s eyes lit up. “OTG’s pick here is kind of baffling… honestly, looking at it this way, maybe this isn’t unworkable after all?”
“Maybe.” Nan Zhiyi said it, but still sighed. “I think, um… it’s not going to work.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic.” Song Baiyu bumped him with his shoulder. “It’s just this one game left.”
Nan Zhiyi hesitated for a moment. If this were his stream, he would absolutely never say these words: “It won’t work.”
“wind’s Cat… isn’t good,” he said. “Not mechanically. I’ve watched so many CG games, every single time he plays Cat, fundamentally, his thinking is flawed.”
“It doesn’t show against weak teams. But against a strong team like OTG, under pressure, his thinking is going to drag the whole team off-course.”
Song Baiyu blinked. “Seriously? Tell me about it later, I never even noticed.”
The tense final game finally kicked off.
And it proved Nan Zhiyi’s sixth sense was dead-on accurate.
Not long after the start, everyone watching noticed something was off too.
—wind had clearly picked Kitten, yet he stayed latched onto secondary carry beer the entire time.
beer held the respawn point, and with the two of them moving together, they ended up abandoning the Witch, the one who needed protecting, all alone in the Castle.
Even the casters couldn’t help asking, “…Is this a new tactic CG’s developed?”
The other caster couldn’t pick up the thread. “Uh… well, this…”
Because anyone with eyes could see: rather than a tactic, this was more like isolation.
Many main-carry players knew this feeling well from ranked.
Having no support follow you in solo queue is common. So most main carries develop an ultra-loner playstyle, trying to win on their own by hard-carrying with their heads down.
And right now, yux didn’t look like he was playing a do-or-die grand final, more like a no-coordination solo-queue pub match.
Soon, OTG noticed the problem on CG’s side too.
Nan Zhiyi saw several OTG players exchanging words rapidly.
Then OTG set up their respawn point. The four split into two groups: the secondary carry, support, and tank moved to flank yux’s position, while the main carry closed in on beer.
“OTG must’ve guessed the respawn point is in beer’s hands,” Song Baiyu frowned, narrating. “But why send just one person…”
Mid-sentence, he suddenly slapped his thigh. “Oh no! They’re not going for the respawn point!!”
Nan Zhiyi had already seen through their move, his mood now extremely heavy, though he could still barely keep analyzing the game: “—They want to disrupt yux’s respawn.”
The next moment, OTG’s main carry popped out, appearing near beer, who hadn’t finished setting up the respawn point.
This was the man who’d killed beer five times the previous game.
beer got a huge fright and immediately bolted to the other side, Kitten in tow.
The instant he moved, the other three OTG players, lying in ambush along the Witch’s only path, all revealed themselves at once!
Everything happened in a flash of lightning.
Amid the venue’s screams, You Xin, facing the suddenly-appearing opponents, took on three by himself and barely traded for OTG’s secondary carry before falling in front of the OTG tank wielding a heavy greatsword.
On the other side, wind and beer had a 2-on-1, yet were so spooked they scattered every which way.
beer clutched the still-unplaced fourth stone.
The resurrection gate is only valid if activated within 10 seconds of a teammate’s death.
On the 11th second after the Witch fell, beer finally shook off the OTG main carry’s harassment and set the stone in the right spot.
—It was all too late.
【【Witch】CG.Yux’s soul has been banished from the world】
The dust settled, and the hall full of OTG fans erupted in cheers.
Only seven players remained on the field.
4v3. The loss was already decided.
Amid a mountain-toppling roar of “Let’s go OTG,” Nan Zhiyi instinctively looked to the stage.
He was seated far enough forward to clearly make out the movements and expressions of everyone on CG’s side.
The screen in front of You Xin had already turned to black-and-white forever. He stared at the game for a while, the hand resting on his mouse and keyboard gripped white-knuckle tight, as if unable to believe he’d fallen in such an absurd fashion just one step from the trophy.
After a long time, those hands loosened, slowly slid off the desk, and dropped to his sides.
“What were they even thinking,” Song Baiyu cursed the whole way back to the hotel. “Leaving the Witch unprotected? Running off to guard the secondary carry?”
The more he talked the more it lit a fire in him, until he turned to Nan Zhiyi. “If it were me, I’d have stayed and guarded the Witch, maybe we’d have won?”
Nan Zhiyi stopped walking.
He thought it over. “Still very hard. wind picked Cat, which meant he was never going to be able to carry the respawn point alone. The other two on the team aren’t flexible enough to act solo either. So this Pick had to chain the Witch into setting up the respawn point, otherwise the Cat would have to follow someone else.”
“If…” Nan Zhiyi said, then paused. “If it were me, with the situation already at this point, I’d actually have chosen to play alongside Bost. Not bodyguard the carry up close, but intercept the enemy outside attack range. If those two go step into the danger zone, generally nothing goes wrong.”
Song Baiyu mulled it over carefully. “Damn… that makes so much sense.”
“If I had a brain like yours, our team might’ve actually wriggled into the top 8.” Then something occurred to him. “Xiao Yi, wouldn’t it have been amazing if you hadn’t quit back then? Today it might be you and yux up on that stage.”
“…” Nan Zhiyi reminded him pleasantly, “wind is CG’s captain.”
As if he hadn’t heard, Song Baiyu kept imagining out loud. “Think back to those days, when you and yux were partners, you were unbeatable, weren’t you? Back in training, when were you ever not first on the team? My first time playing against you guys with the B-team, that very night I called my brother, crying that I was done, I wanted to go home, and he spent over an hour talking me out of it. Heh, if it were really you today, you’d march up there, slap-slap-slap, and beat Hust so silly he couldn’t tell north from south…”
Back at the hotel, Song Baiyu made a beeline for the bathroom, planning to wash the head full of indignation away with water.
Nan Zhiyi, meanwhile, lay on the bed watching CG’s losing-side group interview.
When he entered the stream, a reporter was questioning yux, asking how the in-team communication had gone in the fifth game when the team chose to protect the secondary carry instead of the main carry.
The camera panned slowly across the stage. wind, already put through one round of questioning, now hung his head as if he wished he could bury his face under the table. The beer beside him was pale, clutching a bottle of mineral water and just about clawing the label off.
You Xin sat at the far right of the team, looking straight ahead.
Hearing the host read out his ID, his expression shifted faintly.
Taking the offered microphone, You Xin spoke: “You’re asking about our in-team communication?”
Reporter: “Yes.”
“There was no communication within the team at the time.”
Having said that, You Xin briskly stuffed the mic into the arms of the coach beside him, in a manner that clearly conveyed if you want to ask, go ask him.
Coach Zds’s face changed instantly.
A wave of 【?】 swept across the bullet comments.
【Is this a public falling-out??】
【Wasn’t it you who botched it yourself? And now you turn around and pin it on your teammates】
【Hasn’t Xiao You God always been like this, first time watching his interviews?】
【Stating facts counts as pinning blame now?】
【Insta-locking an orphan class like Witch at the start, and still expecting teammates to protect you, huh】
【Picking Witch is just openly giving up on your teammates to carry yourself, isn’t it】
【Barking? The guy was Asia Server #1 Witch before he even went pro. And you are…?】
【Brother You’s a classy guy too, if it were me I’d have gone nuclear on the spot. Bust my ass dragging a team of bots into the finals, only for them to drop a giant turd】
【Getting reverse-swept from 2–0 is worse than just losing 0–3, I wouldn’t have had to stay up to this hour just to eat a mouthful of crap at the end】
The reporter down below was clearly stunned by the answer too.
After a good while, she continued, “The next question is still for player yux… Although today’s result wasn’t ideal, you still led the team all the way to the finals. You have one year left on your CG contract. May I ask, yux, what are your plans for the coming year?”
The mic returned to You Xin’s hands.
He’d been looking at his own hands, at the question, he lifted his eyelids and swept a glance over the people below the stage.
After a moment, he said flatly, “I’ll start over.”
Opinions on CG’s final match of the year ran wild afterward.
Some said the “ABW trio” took money to throw matches. Some said yux was a teflon white lotus [5] playing the spotless innocent so no blame ever sticks to him jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670422_1_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670422_1_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Some said Coach Zds was the No. 1 war criminal [6] the one most to blame for the defeat jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670422_1_6').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670422_1_6', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Even as the heat of match night faded, the ferocity of the debate, far from dropping, only rose.
All of it reached its peak on the day the transfer window closed and every team published its full roster.
Since yux had a year left on his three-year CG contract, the earlier discussion hadn’t centered on him.
Yet on CG’s roster for the 2025 Spring Split, right below the ID CG.Yux, glaringly, were the two words: “substitute.”
The original main-carry slot had been handed to xww, a rookie promoted from the second team who hadn’t played a single league match.
One stone raised a thousand waves.
yux’s fans never imagined that here, everything had only just begun.
—In the months that followed, yux, You Xin, this top-tier player of the new generation, the Spring–Summer double champion and double FMVP, the team’s single greatest hero in their title run, played not one match, grinded not one ranked game, and even his usual ranked accounts, big and small, never logged in again across those 100-plus days.
As if he’d vanished into thin air overnight.
Author’s note:
Xiao Yi: (leaps out of coffin) (lies back down in coffin) (leaps out) (lies back down) (starts drafting a Moments post) #What do you do when your home team IS the whole region#
References[+]