The TIG fans in the venue fell into complete silence, while the cheers from the DG section on the other side were so loud they seemed almost capable of breaking through the roof of the arena.
What did it mean for the opposing ADC to be sitting at 0–3 right from the start of a match that was already match point in the finals?
It was practically equivalent to saying that Xu Sheng’s performance in this game was already finished.
And the person who had put him in that position, Duan Chi, was nothing more than a rookie who had been in the professional league for less than a year.
Commentator A said, “TIG has some serious problems here. You can clearly see that their bottom lane is completely disconnected from the rest of the team.”
Commentator B said, “This rookie Safer is incredible! He’s displaying an extreme level of individual skill on the finals stage and the aggression he’s showing in this lane matchup is practically maxed out. My God!”
Commentator A said, “I’m really curious about what DG’s coach said to Safer during the halftime break just now. How is he not showing any signs of fatigue after two games? Instead, he’s playing even more aggressively than before?”
Lin Anke stared at Xu Sheng’s economy panel, his brows furrowing.
His gaze fell toward the bottom right corner of the screen, where the director happened to cut to a shot of Duan Chi.
Duan Chi had relatively strong, well defined features. When his face was expressionless, the lines between his brows carried an exceptionally sharp, almost aggressive intensity yet the contours of his face themselves were somewhat soft, clean and distinct, still carrying the youthful air of a young man.
He looked completely different from the teasing expression he had worn earlier.
By the fifteenth minute of the game, all three of TIG’s high ground defenses had been destroyed and they were twelve thousand gold behind.
Unless all five members of DG suddenly lost their minds at the same time, TIG being swept was already an unavoidable fact.
Lin Anke did not wait for the match to end.
He slung his peripherals bag over his shoulder and returned to the team base alone.
One of the coaching staff members saw him preparing to leave and seemed about to call out to him but hesitated at the last moment and stopped himself. In the end, they could only let him leave.
Lin Anke called a taxi.
His phone rang again.
It was another text message.
【Anke, is the match over? How did it go? Dad knew you could do it!】
【By the way, I’ve been spending quite a lot lately. I can barely afford to eat anymore. You should still have some money to spare, right?】
Lin Anke lowered his eyes and typed:
【How much do you need?】
【Ten or eight thousand will do. I know things aren’t easy for you out there. Dad usually just eats whatever he can get and makes do.】
Lin Anke frowned and asked:
【Didn’t I just transfer twenty thousand to you at the beginning of the month?】
【It’s summer. I’ve been running the air conditioner and stuff like that. The electricity bill is expensive.】
Lin Anke:
【You went gambling again?】
【How could I? Dad promised you. That stuff ruins people’s lives. How would I dare go again?】
Lin Anke did not know whether he believed him or not.
But he still transferred the money.
The team base was very quiet. The only sounds came from the auntie who was still cleaning and preparing dinner.
By the time Lin Anke returned to his room, the match had already ended.
TIG had lost the finals 0–3.
The livestream chat was filled entirely with curses and insults.
【Was Xu Sheng sleepwalking during the last game?】
【Not just the last game. I think everyone on TIG was still asleep today. Is DG their actual daddy or something? They were all fighting over each other just to hand DG the championship trophy on a silver platter.】
【And swapping in that substitute for the third game was even more hilarious. I thought TIG was saving some big surprise but instead they served up a steaming pile of crap. They got steamrolled all the way to the crystal in ten minutes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was some Bronze level bot. He doesn’t even know how to tank damage.】
【At this point, just put the No. 1 Support in the country back in. At least when the No. 1 Support was playing, TIG could hold out until after the twenty minute mark before losing. I hadn’t even gotten comfortable in my chair and you guys were already eliminated!】
【Wow, brothers, today we really got our eyes opened. A top tier ADC going 0–3 and a top tier support whose hard crowd control only ever seems to hit thin air. What incredible mechanics.】
【That guy called Xingxing shouldn’t stay as DG’s substitute either. Go to the Korean league and bring glory to the country! Reviving the domestic league is all up to you now.】
【TIG has apparently collected every case of Parkinson’s disease that even the hospitals refused to take. I’m touched to tears. If TIG’s owner isn’t named one of the Top Ten People Who Moved China, I refuse to watch.】
Before long, all those curses were drowned out by the cheers of DG’s fans.
There was no doubt that the Finals FMVP went to Safer. However, Duan Chi did not appear onstage for the post match interview. Instead, DG’s captain, Yuanshan, who also played support and served as the team’s shot caller, took his place.
As a support player himself, Yuanshan could be considered one of the senior veterans in the professional scene. Lin Anke was just about to listen to what he had to say about these past few games when a WeChat notification suddenly popped up.
AAA Paid Insulter: 【Don’t worry. They won’t dare keep chasing after that girl and abusing her anymore.】
Lin Anke sent back a quick “Thank you.”
Soon afterward, another message arrived on his main WeChat account.
Lin Anke’s relationships were fairly ordinary. He had never been a particularly talkative person and aside from his own teammates, he did not have many close friends within the professional scene.
It was rare for so many people to contact him in one day and yet today, the messages just kept coming one after another.
When he opened the latest message, he saw that it was from Duan Chi.
Safer: 【Anke, did you watch the third game?】
Lin Anke assumed that this Bking of a rookie had won the game and come straight to him to show off.
He was just about to close his phone when another new message popped up.
Safer: 【I got revenge for you. Are you feeling a little better now?】
Lin Anke froze.
His finger remained hovering over the exit button for a long time but he did not press it.
At that moment, his phone suddenly began to ring.
Lin Anke looked up at the caller ID before answering.
Xu Sheng’s voice came from the other end of the line. “Anke, why did you go back alone? We just finished the match. Xingxing is feeling upset after losing, so we brought him out for hotpot. Do you want to come over?”
An indignant voice immediately sounded in the background.
“Brother Sheng, what are you talking about? When did I say I was upset?”
“Yes, yes, yes. You’re not upset. I must have seen it wrong, okay?”
Lin Anke remained silent for a moment before saying, “No need. You guys eat.”
Xu Sheng said, “Anke, are you tired? If you’re sleepy, then get some rest first. We’ll head back after we finish eating.”
With that, he hung up the phone.
Lin Anke sat alone on the edge of the bed. The room was so quiet that the only sound left was the faint rhythm of his own breathing.
After a long while, he bent down and took a contract from the cabinet beside his bed.
It was a contract for renewing his current agreement, the one the manager had brought to him yesterday.
Three years ago, after Xu Sheng finished the gaokao, he had suddenly gotten the idea to become a professional esports player. He had loved playing games since he was little and Lin Anke had been dragged along with him, eventually practicing enough support to accompany Xu Sheng while they climbed the rankings together.
As the two of them climbed higher and higher in the rankings, they caught the attention of a TIG coach.
At the time, TIG was still only a team competing in the lower tier league. After Xu Sheng pestered Lin Anke several times, Lin Anke finally agreed to join the team with him.
Three years had passed.
Together, they had led TIG out of the lower tier league and turned it into a top level team.
The contract they had signed back then was set to expire at the end of this month. When the manager had come to speak with Lin Anke about renewing his contract yesterday, he had told him that Xu Sheng had already signed his renewal.
But Lin Anke had known absolutely nothing about it.
Xu Sheng had never mentioned it to him.
In the silence, the phone sitting off to the side suddenly chimed again.
Safer: 【If you’re unhappy staying at TIG, do you want to come try DG?】
The fingers gripping the renewal contract tightened.
Meanwhile, inside a private room at the hotpot restaurant, the members of DG’s team were chatting and laughing. Their manager, Panda, raised a glass of Coke and called out to everyone.
“Everyone worked hard today. Come on, let’s raise a glass!”
Yuanshan, who had played support during today’s match, lifted his teacup.
“Come, come, come! I’m finishing mine! Thank you, everyone, for all your hard work. You’ve helped me bring my final professional match to a perfect conclusion!”
The mid laner, Danqing, looked as though he was about to cry.
“Brother Yuanshan, from now on you’re going to be our head coach. For the sake of all the years of friendship between teammates, could you give me a little more mage carry priority? I don’t want to be a utility player anymore.”
Yuanshan smiled.
“We’ll see how you perform.”
Danqing immediately let out a loud sob and went to cling to the jungler, Jiangnan, crying.
Panda could only laugh at Danqing’s antics. He turned his attention to Duan Chi, who had been playing with his phone throughout the entire meal and asked curiously, “Little Boss, who are you chatting with? Your girlfriend?”
The moment Danqing heard that, his interest immediately returned.
“Little Boss has a girlfriend? Is she someone from the scene or someone outside the scene?”
“Get lost.”
Duan Chi pushed him away with an expression of disgust before ordering Panda around.
“Go check whether the people from TIG next door have left.”
“Why bother with them? They’re just a bunch of defeated losers.”
Panda waved his hand dismissively. He was so exhilarated today that he was practically floating. In his very first season leading the team, they had already won the championship. He was so proud that, if he could, he would have walked down the street with his chin practically raised toward the sky.
Duan Chi said, “I told you to go, so go.”
Panda clicked his tongue.
“Fine, fine. I’ll go take a look. Why did they have to pick the same restaurant as us, anyway?”
Duan Chi was doing two things at once. He chatted with the others around the table while simultaneously keeping an eye on his phone, waiting for any movement.
He had not touched a single dish on the table.
He merely kept mechanically pouring fizzy soda into his mouth, barely managing to suppress the anger that had surged through him the instant he discovered that TIG had gone out for their team celebration without bringing Lin Anke along.
Dumbass.
If the team rules had not prohibited drinking alcohol, Duan Chi would have much rather grabbed a bottle and gone over there to pick a fight with Xu Sheng than sit here staring at a whole table covered in cans of Coke.
Not long afterward, Panda came back, his face full of barely concealed schadenfreude.
“Nope. I secretly listened at the door for a while. They seem to be browsing the forums. Apparently, they made that substitute cry his eyes out and Xu Sheng is over there comforting him.”
Danqing clicked his tongue and shook his head when he heard that.
“This rookie’s ability to handle pressure really isn’t that great. Unlike me. When I first started out, I got beaten up onstage every single day and never cried once. Right, Jiangnan?”
Jiangnan ignored him.
Duan Chi slammed his fist down onto the table. His expression darkened so much that it looked as though water might drip from his face.
Panda was startled.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You said Xu Sheng was comforting who?”
“Uh… that substitute.”
Duan Chi really could not take it anymore.
Lin Anke had played the first two games today, only to be suddenly replaced for the third. The pressure he was under could not possibly have been any less than what Xingxing was experiencing.
And that bastard Xu Sheng had actually left Lin Anke alone at the team base while he sat in a hotpot restaurant comforting some Xingxing guy?
The more Duan Chi thought about it, the angrier he became.
Lin Anke still had not replied to his message and all kinds of messy, unreasonable guesses began flooding into his mind.
Could he be crying alone in the dorm?
Had he gone too hard today?
Maybe he should not have suppressed him so aggressively during the early game.
It was all because the coach had given them an early game composition.
An early game composition meant they had to establish an advantage in the early stages and prevent TIG from getting the chance to develop.
That kind of one sided style of play would make TIG lose particularly badly, creating even greater public backlash than if DG had used a late game composition.
But no matter how reluctant Duan Chi was to hurt him, once they were onstage, all he could do was keep pressing forward.
Should he go to TIG’s base and take a look right now?
If things really came down to it, he could always curse at Lin Anke a few more times.
The moment that thought surfaced, the phone in his hand suddenly vibrated.
Lin Anke: 【Okay.】
Duan Chi shot to his feet.
Panda stared at him.
“Ancestor, what’s gotten into you again?”
Duan Chi pinched himself hard.
It hurt.
He was not dreaming.
“Give me your car keys.”
He held out his hand toward Panda but before Panda could even take them out, Duan Chi withdrew his hand again.
“Forget it. Your car is too cheap. I’m going home for a bit. You guys eat first.”
With that, he hurriedly left.
Panda: “…”
Danqing asked curiously, “What did the Little Boss go off to do?”
Panda replied with a completely expressionless face, “His girlfriend probably agreed to his marriage proposal. Who knows?”
Yuanshan disagreed. “Who proposes to someone over the phone? Would a girl actually agree to that?”
Danqing chewed on a beef meatball, his words slightly muffled as he spoke around the food. “Brother Yuanshan, you don’t understand. This is what young people like us are into these days, online relationships.”
Jiangnan gave him a sideways glance, casually picked up a small fried dough stick and stuffed it into Danqing’s mouth.
“Eat your food.”
At the entrance of the TIG base, the few people who had just finished their meal climbed out of the team van.
Xingxing was walking at the very front, his head hanging low and his entire demeanor dejected.
“I’m too embarrassed to face Encore. It’s all my fault. I didn’t manage to catch anyone even once.”
Xu Sheng comforted him, “It’s not your fault. Even if Anke had played the final game, we still would have lost. The fans are just using you as an outlet for their anger.”
Lin Anke was just about to head downstairs when he heard those words.
He stopped at the stairwell.
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
⚠️ TRANSLATOR COFFEE LEVELS CRITICALLY LOW ⚠️
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← 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