Pei Shiyu and Xu Qing exchanged glances, both seeing a look of matching confusion in each other’s eyes.
Only after the young girl in front of them asked again, using that same AI-like, unwavering tone, did Pei Shiyu hesitantly reply, “Yes.”
The girl looked coldly at the obvious signs of a stall being packed up and asked, “I am late. Can I still try out?”
Xu Qing flipped through the list in his hand, confirming that all nine people on the list had already arrived and their tryouts had concluded. Xu Qing asked hesitantly, “Who are you?” Where did you pop up from?
The girl opened her game interface and lifted her phone screen to face Pei Shiyu and Xu Qing. “This should count as receiving your invitation, right? Which one of you is Jingzhe?”
The ID on the interface was indeed Pei Shiyu’s, “Jingzhe.”
Xu Qing gestured with his eyes for Pei Shiyu to handle the inquiry. Pei Shiyu was the only one who knew the specifics of how he had selected the candidates. Pei Shiyu looked at the ID on the page, then at the girl herself, for a long moment.
“The message was indeed sent by me.”
Xu Qing raised an eyebrow, squinting slightly as he looked back and forth between Pei Shiyu and the girl, remaining silent.
Pei Shiyu added, “But it was sent by mistake. I did not expect you to actually come.”
Time had been tight, and he had accidentally clicked the invitation when selecting players from the rankings.
The girl’s ranking was actually higher than any of the nine people he had already interviewed, and she was somewhat well-known in the Tianjie game; her handle was “White Crow.”
However, “White Crow” was an entertainment streamer. While not the most famous, she had a knack for attracting drama. Any veteran player had heard the name “White Crow” at least once. She was a polarizing figure, loved by some and hated by others.
“White Crow” had never shown her face online and possessed a sophisticated, mature voice. Because she was faceless, many haters attacked her, claiming she was ugly and spewing the most piercing, foul abuse.
After Pei Shiyu accidentally sent the invite to “White Crow,” he tried to recall it, but the game interface did not support it. “White Crow” had not replied, yet here she was.
Pei Shiyu asked, “You are already in a team, right?”
Beyond the drama surrounding her, the fundamental reason for excluding White Crow was that she was tied to a club.
White Crow said nonchalantly, “I quit before I came.”
Xu Qing asked with some hesitation, “Then, shall we just do the tryout?” Since she was already here, no point in missing out.
In the Dawn team’s club training room, Wan Yi, Wan Li, and Lu Xinyu, who had been busy all day, had already slept in the dormitory. Heaven knows how much exercise these geeks, who spent their days on computer chairs, had gotten this afternoon.
Not everyone was Pei Shiyu, who could balance e-sports with daily exercise, maintaining eight-pack abs despite the gaming lifestyle.
When the three were called up, their hair was standing on end, and their faces were still dazed. Seeing the strange girl walking in behind Xu Qing and Pei Shiyu, Wan Yi looked sideways at Lu Xinyu: “Commander Yu, is this your niece?”
Given White Crow’s outfit and her height of only around 1.5 meters, she looked very much like a middle school student. Since Xu Qing was Lu Xinyu’s nephew, he simply made a direct substitution.
Lu Xinyu was speechless for a moment: “Your niece? Where would I get a niece?”
Wan Yi laughed extra naively: “I thought you had both a nephew and a niece.”
Wan Li listened to his brother’s silly laughter: “If your brain has no folds, go hit your head against a wall until some appear.”
Pei Shiyu cleared his throat twice, and the three stopped bickering. “This is also a player coming for a tryout, White Crow.”
The group looked at each other.
Wan Yi: “White Crow? Why does that name sound so familiar?”
Wan Li: “The only female ID in the top five of the Heavenly rankings, and a top-three popularity player in the gaming section of a certain streaming platform.”
After Wan Li finished speaking, Lu Xinyu and Wan Yi realized who she was and looked in astonishment at the little girl who looked like a minor.
“Is she that one suspected of having a substitute player, the one with the sugar daddies?”
After the words left Wan Yi’s mouth, he immediately covered it with his hand. Saying that in front of her was a bit impolite.
Because White Crow ranked so high in Tianjie, a game dominated by male players, she bore the brunt of malicious speculation and rumors, making it easy for people to think of those scandalous rumors that sounded so authoritative.
White Crow did not react; she had grown tired of the malice online, which was far worse than this. She sat down naturally in a chair in the training room and pulled out her phone: “Is the tryout 1v1 or 5v5? Do you need to screen-share?”
Pei Shiyu: “A 5v5 team match. No need to screen-share. After the game ends, we will evaluate based on the recording.”
White Crow nodded to show she understood. The four members of the Dawn team plus White Crow formed a five-player squad for ranked matches. They all used secondary accounts with slightly lower levels than their main ones, because their main accounts’ levels were too high; queuing as a five-player team would take forever. Furthermore, with “White Crow” and “Jingzhe” in the squad, two figures often at the center of attention, the forums would be in an uproar before they even did anything.
While waiting, Wan Yi looked at the real-life “Jingzhe” and “White Crow.”
“I cannot imagine what rumors would be on the forums if we were really a team.” Wan Yi thought of the “Jingzhe” and “Red Hair” thread that had received thousands of replies on the day of the server merge and was still floating on the homepage.
“If ‘Red Hair’ were here too, our team could debut.”
Xu Qing, having his former ID mentioned to his face once again, felt helpless: “What kind of filter do you have on that person?”
He was surprised that an account born solely for data testing would be so remembered by so many people.
Wan Yi argued: “People are always filled with curiosity and the desire to explore powerful and mysterious characters.”
Xu Qing shrugged. As the object of that exploration, he did not say anything more. He could not muster any curiosity toward himself. When he was helping with data testing, hitting the so-called Heavenly rankings was merely to add a bit of fun to the boring testing.
However, since meeting Pei Shiyu and the others, he realized that what he saw merely as digital code and one of thousands of ordinary games was different for the people in this team. Perhaps, because the initial mindset and perspective toward the same thing were different, their attitude toward the thing itself was different as well. At the very least, he would not develop great curiosity over a game ID.
Not planning to continue playing the game, Xu Qing did not respond further and had no intention of revealing that he was “Red Hair.”
During the small talk, their game began. This was the 30th or so 4+1 team practice for Pei Shiyu and the others today.
Lu Xinyu could not help but complain: “Have some sympathy for an older player.”
Playing thirty-plus games in a day is, of course, not much for an e-sports athlete. But the premise was that they had not been doing other things: picking people up, driving, and constantly commuting between the airport and the club, or the station and the club. They had covered most of Boteng City in one afternoon. Especially since they had woken up at the crack of dawn and were dragged up to play games just after finally falling asleep from exhaustion.
Wan Yi: “Why do you not pick a Little Deer to hang on my head?”
Little Deer was a hero with relatively simple operations, whose main skill involved hanging onto a teammate to essentially AFK reasonably.
Lu Xinyu shot a side-eye at Wan Yi: “Then I might as well just go AFK. Do you think it is easy to play ‘Little Deer’ as a top-tier support?”
“Why is the misunderstanding of soft support heroes in this game so deep!” Lu Xinyu said indignantly while selecting a different soft support hero, a little nurse. An equally simple hero, with two out of three skills dedicated to healing teammates, a walking blood bag.
“Before you say that, can you prove yourself first?” After Wan Yi finished roasting him, he turned and locked in an equally simple hero, “Yi.”
Lu Xinyu looked at Wan Yi with disdain: “Big brother should not mock the second brother. You are not even pretending anymore.”
If there were a ranking for the difficulty of ADC heroes, then “Yi” would also be an entry-level hero.
Wan Yi did not blush: “I said we are trying out a new teammate. If I show off my skills too much, how will she have room to perform?”
Pei Shiyu and Wan Li chose heroes that were relatively mediocre across all positions. Wan Yi was right about one thing: the purpose of their training match was to try out their future teammate, and they did indeed need to give her space to perform.
The reason Tianjie was considered relatively fair was that there were five hero roles, and as long as you had the ability, you could lead the entire team.
White Crow did not indicate anything about their hero choices, but instead quickly locked in a hero for her position: “Mulan.”
A female warrior hero in the top lane, suitable for side-laning and crowd-controlling the enemy team during key moments. Her operation difficulty is not the highest in the top lane, but she is one of the more flashy heroes. The difficulty lies in the fact that she is not a top-lane hero suited for absorbing damage for teammates in the front row, and how to coordinate well with four other people she had no previous rapport with.
After Pei Shiyu and Wan Yi mentioned “White Crow,” Xu Qing silently checked for some easily accessible online information in the search box.
“Mulan” was indeed a signature hero for White Crow; she had even taken the number-one spot in the Tianjie rankings for top-lane heroes multiple times. The second place was also a well-known streamer, and for that other streamer, “Mulan” was his specialty hero as well. Same Tianjie streamer, same specialty hero; the only difference was that one was male and one was female.
The rumors that “White Crow hired a substitute” had spread since then; as for who was behind it, who profited, and who started it, it was anyone’s guess.
Xu Qing crossed his arms and watched the game screen on the computer. As someone who had tested all hero roles while helping the data group with Tianjie ranking data, Xu Qing could confirm with 100% certainty just two minutes into the game that White Crow’s “Mulan” was absolutely played by her.
Whether it was overall awareness or the details of her hero operation, it lived up to her title as the top-ranked top-laner.
In the game, White Crow’s Mulan waited at the two-minute mark, and as soon as she hit level 4 and lit up her three skill markers, she rushed directly into the enemy hero’s face. The hero facing Mulan used a Flash to hide in their defense tower the moment they saw her charge.
However, White Crow’s timing for entering the fight was simply impeccable. She rushed to the opponent’s face while they were stunned by her skill, and ignoring the defense tower’s attacks, she secured the first kill of the match. Then, taking advantage of the damage immunity from her ultimate, she retreated to a safe position with a sliver of health.
As the only one in the training room with a god’s-eye view, Xu Qing saw White Crow’s first kill as a beautiful, perfect show of skill.
In the fourth minute, White Crow waited on the side, coordinating with the jungler, and successfully helped Pei Shiyu secure the first Big Dragon for their side.
At the 5:30 mark, “White Crow” came to the middle lane, and coordinating with Wan Li, Lu Xinyu, and Pei Shiyu, they wiped out the enemy team 4v5.
The top-lane route is often jokingly called the “orphan lane” by players, mainly because the top lane’s interaction with other positions in the game is relatively weak. Most of the time, the two top-laners are locked in a 1v1 stalemate; sometimes, you might not even see a top-lane hero in team battles throughout an entire game.
“Not joining the team fight” is not necessarily because top-laners do not want to, but because the game’s inherent mechanism dictates it. Of course, players in the KOL professional league generally do not let themselves stay this “orphaned.”
But at this moment, after the enemy’s team wipe at 5:30, White Crow completely detached herself from her orphan lane. She roamed and ran across the map, coordinating with the jungler and support from time to time to launch violent ambushes on the opposing team.
At the 13-minute mark, they successfully won the game.
In the post-game summary, the MVP: White Crow.