After the training match against RE finally ended that night, even the members of RE realized that something was seriously off and they immediately started flooding the big group chat for professional esports players.
【RE.Xiaoqi】: No, seriously, are you two sure the people who just played against us were actually you? You didn’t get TheOne and Kina to substitute for you, did you?
【RE.Xiaoqi】: In all three games, I didn’t even manage to switch onto Safer once! Not even once!!
【RE.Ranxi】: The bottom lane got completely crushed. My ADC came back and cried the whole time.
【RE.Dongtu】: I didn’t cry!
【Yuan Che–Deep Sea】: What happened? You guys played a practice match? What was the score?
【DG Safer】: We were merely fortunate enough to win.
【RE.Xiaoqi】: Three to zero! 🖕🏻
【Yuan Che–Deep Sea】: Holy shit, don’t scare me like that. Who got the three and who got the zero?
【RE.Xiaoqi】: Who do you think? Good luck next week.
【RE.Ranxi】: Don’t tell me DG is actually going to put together a Galaxy Battleship. How are we supposed to play against that?!
【Yuan Che–Deep Sea】: Seriously? You guys are making it sound terrifying.
Xu Sheng was in the group as well but he didn’t believe what the members of RE were saying. After all, didn’t he already know An Ke’s level of skill?
It would be far more believable to him if they said RE’s players had simply gotten worse.
While the professional players’ group was buzzing with heated discussion, the DG coaching staff was hardly idle either.
After the three practice games, Yuanshan’s entire face was flushed with excitement. He stared at the statistics on the screen, where Duan Chi had once again broken the damage output record for the game and suddenly slammed his fist down on the table.
Pangda jumped in fright. “Wh wh what’s wrong?”
Yuanshan couldn’t even find the words to speak.
As a retired professional player who had once played support, no one understood better than he did just how terrifying the synergy Duan Chi and Lin Anke had displayed in those games was.
Every single wave…
Every single one of Lin Anke’s intentions and movements had been picked up by Duan Chi!
They didn’t even need to communicate verbally. Their movements were almost perfectly synchronized! That meant that in an actual match, they could react faster than other players, with their skill combinations fitting together seamlessly!
As long as Lin Anke found an opening, the probability of taking down the opponent was practically one hundred percent!
The last bottom lane duo who had left Yuanshan this shaken had been TheOne and Kina.
Just thinking about that comparison made even Yuanshan, who had spent eight years competing professionally, unable to stop his hands from trembling slightly.
He stared fixedly at the statistics panel and murmured, almost as if he were in a dream, “I think… we really did buy the final piece of the Galaxy Battleship.”
In the break room, Lin Anke looked at Duan Chi with some hesitation.
He had been the one to call Duan Chi out in the first place yet after actually getting him there, he had no idea how to begin.
A faint smile curved Duan Chi’s lips. He placed his cup beneath the coffee machine, then casually tore open a packet of biscuits and held it out to Lin Anke.
“Want some?”
Lin Anke shook his head.
After thinking for a long while, he decided to ask about the one thing he wanted to know most first.
“That two million yuan contract from before… was that your decision? Why?”
Duan Chi tossed a biscuit into his mouth, his gaze settling on Lin Anke’s serious expression. He smiled lightly.
“Why what?”
“Why did you want to sign me? Before this…” Lin Anke paused for a moment, choosing a slightly more tactful way to put it. “Our relationship wasn’t exactly very good.”
In fact, the relationship between the two of them had been far worse than simply “not very good.” It could be said that if SEL hadn’t established fighting and physical altercations as one of the lines professional players absolutely could not cross, Lin Anke would have wanted to pick a fight with Duan Chi long ago.
There was no other reason for it. Duan Chi was simply too damn annoying.
He was always finding ways to provoke Lin Anke, as though he absolutely had to push him to the point of losing his temper, forcing him to finally shed that cold, distant shell that kept everyone at arm’s length.
After Lin Anke finished speaking, however, he hadn’t expected Duan Chi to reveal an expression of genuine surprise.
The fingers holding the biscuit paused. A trace of disappointment flashed through Duan Chi’s eyes, only to be quickly concealed. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Pretty bad?”
Duan Chi deliberately let out a sigh, putting on an exaggeratedly aggrieved look. “I thought our relationship was actually pretty good. Fine, my mistake.”
Lin Anke looked at him, inexplicably puzzled. “So you…”
Duan Chi said, “There was no particular reason. I thought you were worth two million yuan, so I signed you. It’s as simple as that. I already told you that the day I gave you the contract. Now that I think about it, it seems my judgment wasn’t wrong at all. If anything, you’re the one who should be wondering whether you asked for too little signing money. It’s still not too late to change the contract.”
Lin Anke didn’t really care about the signing fee. There was something else that bothered him more and the confusion in his eyes deepened as he asked, “Back at the youth training camp… we played against each other quite a few times. I remember that your playstyle wasn’t like this back then. On the day of the trial, I thought it was just a coincidence.”
A person’s approach to the game was generally quite fixed, especially for professional players who had already developed their own rhythm. Their instinctive reactions were not something that could easily be changed.
That was why, when there were habits that might affect the rhythm of a match, coaches would arrange for players to undergo numerous repeated training sessions until those habits were corrected.
But there hadn’t been anything wrong with Duan Chi’s rhythm back then. So how could he have suddenly changed his entire playstyle for no apparent reason?
And not only had he changed it but his rhythm was now almost perfectly aligned with Lin Anke’s own.
Duan Chi’s tone remained casual. “Is that so? Maybe my game sense improved. Back then, I was just a youth trainee. I was terrible.”
Lin Anke couldn’t help feeling helpless. “You weren’t that bad back then, were you?”
He clearly remembered that Duan Chi had ranked first in that year’s youth training camp. If even Duan Chi counted as terrible, then what did that make everyone else?
The faint aroma of bitter coffee drifted past the tip of Lin Anke’s nose. He took half a step back as Duan Chi turned sideways and reached past him to retrieve his cup, which was now filled to the brim with coffee.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Duan Chi lightly tapped his fingertips against the side of the cup. Then, all of a sudden, his tone shifted as he asked, “Who do you think is better, me or Xu Sheng?”
Did he really need to ask?
Lin Anke answered without the slightest hesitation. “You.”
Duan Chi froze for a moment. The tip of his tongue pressed against his teeth and in the end, he still couldn’t suppress a soft laugh. “Then…”
“Encore, are you two done talking? Today is your first day on the team and the platform wants you to stream for a while tonight to help build up some popularity.”
Pangda’s voice came from outside the break room.
The door opened and he immediately saw the two of them standing face to face. There was something distinctly strange about the atmosphere between them.
He instinctively shrank his head back as he looked at the little boss’s expression, which had gone dark enough to resemble the bottom of a cooking pot. He stammered, “N Not done talking yet?”
Lin Anke looked toward Duan Chi. “What were you about to ask just now?”
Duan Chi shook his head. “Nothing. You should go first.”
Lin Anke nodded, grabbed a bottle of iced drink and followed Pangda back to the training room.
Duan Chi didn’t follow them.
Pangda secretly breathed a sigh of relief, then hurriedly began reminding Lin Anke of the things he needed to pay attention to.
“Since this is your first livestream, interact with your fans a little more and remember to post the link on Weibo after you start streaming.”
“Okay.”
This was Lin Anke’s first livestream since transferring to his new team and his fans had been waiting for it for a long time. Although it was a new platform for him, the number of viewers online still broke one hundred thousand very quickly after the stream began.
Danqing was absolutely stunned. He was so envious he looked like he was about to drool. “When am I ever going to have this many fans?”
Adam shook his head and sighed. “You should be satisfied. The number of followers I have on Weibo hasn’t even reached a fraction of yours.”
Danqing comfortingly patted Adam on the shoulder. “Heroes are destined to be lonely. It’s not just you. Every top laner in the entire league is like this.”
Jiangnan finally couldn’t take it anymore and peeled him off Adam. “Are you playing or not?”
Danqing immediately nodded like a chick pecking at grain. “Playing, playing! Jungle daddy, wait for me!”
Lin Anke logged onto the Youyou platform using the account and password Pangda had given him. All of his identity information had already been set up in advance, so all he needed to do was click the button to start streaming.
【Is Keke at DG?】
The camera in the training room was much clearer than the old one Lin Anke had used before. Lin Anke glanced at it and said, “Yeah, I’m at DG. Today is the first day of the season.”
【Keke seems to be in a really good mood today?】
Lin Anke froze for a moment.
How could his fans tell?
He pursed his lips and said, “I’ll be streaming for two hours today. I’ll end the stream at midnight.”
【Come on! I’m ready. Let’s see what kind of bizarre ADCs SE has produced today.】
【I feel like Keke gets along pretty well with the other people at DG. I told you all there was nothing to worry about.】
【Can you really blame us, though? Who wouldn’t be scared after seeing Safer’s attitude before?】
Was it really that obvious?
Lin Anke pursed his lips.
His new teammates were indeed much easier to get along with than he had expected and they were also much more casual around him.
He opened the game and asked the chat, “Do you want to watch ranked today, or should we play something for fun?”
The chat immediately flooded with the same answer: “Fun!”
Watching Keke play ranked was entertaining in its own way, of course but if they had the chance to watch him play a casual game, who wouldn’t choose that?
Although, even when Keke played casual games, he was still frighteningly serious about them.
“An god, take me with you.”
Just as Lin Anke clicked into the casual mode, Duan Chi suddenly spoke from beside him.
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Fleurveil
[Translator]
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← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · He was substituted off the fieldChapter 2 · I’ll avenge youChapter 3 · Leaving TIGChapter 4 · Point and shootChapter 5 · Join DGChapter 6 · Live stream collisionChapter 7 · MysteriousChapter 8 · Transfer NoticeChapter 9 · Want the championshipChapter 10 · Galaxy BattleshipChapter 11 · Be my DogChapter 12 · Post match ConflictChapter 13 · ReportedChapter 14 · Weibo CodeChapter 15 · Live Streaming to attract FansChapter 16 · Duan Chi’s horse was exposedChapter 17 · Emotional articlesChapter 18 · Match voice recording