Chapter 163: Unt.i.tled
Though at the end, he was killed together with the mid-laner by Lan Guang and Xiaoye.
Lan Guang built up their advantage on the lanes very quickly, each of Wan Chuan’s lanes remained in a pa.s.sive position.
In that period, Wan Chuan’s ADC appeared to be tempted to break out of the restraint set by Tall Boots’ top laner, yet at the same time as he was about to strike out, an arrow suddenly came flying from Tall Boots’ bottom lane, hitting Wan Chuan’s ADC right in his shoulder, the ADC’s health instantly dropped by half, under the glare of Tall Boots’ top-laner, he could only retreat to a safe range.
Henceforth, the pace of the match was completely controlled by Tall Boots.
But it had only been 20 minutes since the match began.
Afterwards, similar to the previous match, all the members of Tall Boots completely developed and took over the game, Wan Chuan began to feed on all levels.
Seven minutes later, the second match between Tall Boots and Wan Chuan, also came to an end.
Ji Zhiyao spectated the entire match delightfully from Tall Boots’ point of view. With regards to the control of every lane and in terms of skills, control of damage or cooperation within the team, Tall Boots controlled each aspect very well. To beat such an opponent, it would not be easy.
Sighing, Ji Zhiyao pulled out his phone as they were in the midst of a break and found that Mo Huaifeng had sent a text in the battleteam’s WeChat group chat.
[DB.MHF: Let’s return to the base now?]
[Xiao: Sure, unless the G.o.ds possess Wan Chuan battleteam, there’s nothing much to watch about their match anymore.]
[LittlePrinceDominatingTheNorth-East: Even more troublesome than last year, virtually s.h.i.+vering in fear.]
[ManagerYuanWei: Then let’s go, the driver is waiting outside the entrance. We’ll leave earlier to go back for some rest, we’re competing in the afternoon too.]
Reading till here, Ji Zhiyao saw that Mo Huaifeng had already stood up and hence followed him outside too. Everyone in Mix boarded the van, those who yawned, yawned, those who were thinking about the compet.i.tion, did so, all of a sudden, it became a little still in the van.
It wasn’t even 10 AM when they arrived back at the base, still quite some time from their usual lunch time. Because they were sleepy, they all returned to their rooms for a nap.
Ji Zhiyao slept till 12 PM, then headed downstairs. The auntie had already prepared a bowl of curry beef rice for each, only Xiaofei and Xiao were seated in the dining room, eating. Smelling the aroma of curry beef rice, Ji Zhiyao realized that he was starving. He hastily greeted them and took a bowl, eating voraciously.
Midway through the meal, Heng and Mo Huaifeng came downstairs into the dining room to eat. When he was done, Ji Zhiyao copied Xiao and the rest, leaning back into his chair and crossing his legs, contentedly nibbling on fruits. At this time, Nuo and K then walked belatedly into the dining room.
“I’m so sleepy, if the sound of Captain leaving the room hadn’t woken me up, I would be able to sleep into the night,” said Nuo as he dug in.
Heng came up with a rotten idea. “When we see that you can’t get up, we’ll go compete by ourselves. Anyhow we have many people in our battleteam, you as a support also misappropriate mid-laner and jungler heroes for your use all the time, Xiaofei and Noh.o.m.o can totally take turns replacing you.”
“I can earn a salary without having to compete, perhaps I would see Nuo and Xiaofei playing like trash and there will be fans on Tieba and Weibo missing and praising me, such a great thing, if possible, please arrange it for me as soon as possible.”
“What the f*ck, Nuo, do you still know some shame? Aren’t you afraid that Xiaofei and Noh.o.m.o would join hands and beat you up?”
Nuo hummed a little tune merrily, but simply refused to answer Heng’s question. His obnoxious manner meant K could not help but give him a kick.
When everyone was done eating, they went to the living room for a short rest. Once it was time, they boarded the van to the gymnasium.
The first compet.i.tion of the afternoon began officially at 2 PM, it was also the match where Mix would be going against Nx. Entering the waiting room, Mo Huaifeng announced that the mid-laner and jungler positions would be rotating turns, Xiaofei and Ji Zhiyao were to go on for the second match.
With everyone’s agreement, the five people set to go on for the first match checked their own equipment then organized their wrist guards. Once it was time, they entered through the partic.i.p.ants’ pa.s.sageway.
Ji Zhiyao looked towards the screen in the waiting room.
They’d met Nx battleteam during the performance tournament tour previously. To date, Ji Zhiyao only remembered that this battleteam had bought two Korean reinforcements at the start of the summer season tournaments, jungler and top-laner positions, yet their capabilities was still so-so.
Feeling like having his own battleteam defeat Nx was totally not a problem, Ji Zhiyao’s tightly tensed back relaxed slightly and he leaned back lightly.
Before the compet.i.tion began, Ji Zhiyao saw the members of Nx battleteam interacting through the screen, as if coming up with a countermeasure.
Yet in front of absolute strength, the countermeasure seemed to have lost its initial effect that it should have.
Once the match began, Xiao directly scurried towards the opposite jungle to counter-jungle, but his actions were covert enough that he was already done before the mini-map was completely loaded. Nx’s jungler was like an idiot, like he usually preferred, he went to the opposite of Xiao at the right side of the jungle for the red buff. Xiao swiftly escaped after successfully taking the buff, not forgetting to strike the Nx mid-laner who came chasing several times.
With a stolen red buff, Nx battleteam suddenly became terribly suspicious, before entering a bush, they must attack it first, for fear that someone would jump out again from somewhere.
After such a happening, Mix and Nx suddenly became very courteous to each other.
Harmoniously developing till level five, Nx’s jungler then secretly moved towards the little dragon cave, still thinking that Mix had not caught it.
Yet Ji Zhiyao saw it extremely clearly, even through the screen, Xiao had obviously smiled disdainfully.
Nx’s jungler crept over and started attacking the dragon while no one was in the surroundings. Till there was a stir, did Xiao notice and rushed over combatively. Nx’s jungler seemed to be frightened and retreated right away.
Xiao took over the little dragon, and started to attack.
At present, Ji Zhiyao, like all the audience under the stage, due to the omniscient point of view, had a totally clear view of Nx’s jungler’s whereabouts.
He pretended to return to Nx’s jungle, then made a turn midway, groping his way through the dark bushes and crept closer, preparing to s.n.a.t.c.h the little dragon.
Yet Xiao seemed as if he did not see anything at all, busying himself with attacking the little dragon.
At the moment when the little dragon was left with the two bars of health and Nx’s jungler prepared to dashed out for his s.n.a.t.c.h, Xiao suddenly turned back, releasing a set of combined abilities in the direction where Nx’s jungler was at, directly sending him to the West.
A beautiful counter play, officially completed.
With the little dragon taken down, Mix’s gold began to take flight, their initially dirt-poor wallet was now bulging, essentially everything was exchanged for equipment.
25 minutes into the game, Xiao and Mo Huaifeng joined hands to finish off the big Dragon. With their advantage from the big Dragon and in their gold and level, Mix pressed on without letup till they all rushed into Nx’s base through the bottom lane which Mo Huaifeng pushed down.
Less than 30 minutes since the match began, Nx’s base was leveled out, the entire battleteam wiped out.
Ji Zhiyao looked towards his own Captain who appeared calm and peaceful and Nx’s jungler who had exasperation flash across his face, and involuntarily smiled.
Everyone returned to the waiting room, Ji Zhiyao and Xiaofei checked their equipment and put on their wrist guards. Once the break ended, they entered the stage together with Mo Huaifeng and the rest.
One: “For the second match Mix battleteam has already made a change of members, now coming on is mid-laner reserve Xiaofei and jungler reserve Yao. Honestly speaking, though Yao is a new face on the competing stage, but I finished watching the matches from the opening round a few days ago and a great deal of antic.i.p.ation for his upcoming performance has emerged.”
Two: “Actually it’s the same for me as well.”
One: “Both teams are ready to go, then I shall announce, the compet.i.tion officially begins.”
On the side of Mix battleteam, Mo Huaifeng said lazily into the ear-mic, “Let’s end it fast. Quickly finish it, I’ll treat everyone to hotpot.”
The eyes of the others instantly lit up, even the champions they locked were those that they were more skilled in.
Ji Zhiyao locked an a.s.sa.s.sin who was highly dependent on handling speed, he had been practicing this champion recently and his results weren’t too bad, it was probably more than enough to deal with Nx battleteam. There was a distinguis.h.i.+ng feature for this a.s.sa.s.sin in black, as long as the handling frequency was high enough, shadows would appear while he was attacking, a very beautiful sight.
Ten minutes into the game, Ji Zhiyao who turned into a little daddy after working with Xiaofei to take the first kill at the middle lane rushed into the opponents’ jungle and began to vie for resources with Nx’s jungler, after which he remained completely unharmed. Mo Huaifeng had already build up an advantage at the bottom lane, thras.h.i.+ng the Korean reinforcement top-laner for every single minute. Whereas K remained as solid as a mountain at the top lane, even when the opposing ADC’s high burst damage champion kept him trapped under the turret, he continued to develop peacefully from under it, not missing a single minion and also not letting the opponent gain any advantage.
Thus Mix was extremely stable regardless of whether it was the lanes or the jungle.
And the camera cut to show Mix’s side, the audience could see that each of their expressions were so relaxed that they didn’t seem to be playing an advancement match but just a regular training tournament, Xiaofei even said something with a dumbfounded expression that amused Nuo so much, he almost fell under the table from laughing. The most annoying of it all was that this did not affect their performance at all, dragging till the later phase, all five members of Mix battleteam were little daddies, killing whoever went against them. In all of Nx, with the exception of the high burst damage ADC who dared to take on Mix, the rest all could not afford to.
The second match was an equally easy win for Mix.
The match ended, Ji Zhiyao pulled of his ear-mic, preparing to leave the stage when he heard a din suddenly coming from the audience and hence s.h.i.+fted his vision over. Many supporters of Nx battleteam hatefully threw the cheering sticks and banners in their hands to the ground, as if cursing unhappily with their heads down.
Such behavior expressed the disappointment towards a battleteam, and at the same time their expectations too. Ji Zhiyao involuntarily paused in his steps, but after hearing Xiaofei behind him ask, “Brother what’s wrong”, he quickly returned to his senses and continued following behind Mo Huaifeng.
During the third match, Ji Zhiyao and Xiaofei stayed in the waiting room and made themselves a cup of coffee, then played with their phones, not giving a single glance to the LCD screen that was currently showing the compet.i.tion.
Ji Zhiyao took a sip of coffee and scrolled Weibo.
The moment he did, he found huge news.
He recalled seeing the prequel of this news a few days ago, it was the revelation of Skitters battleteam’s member sleeping with a fan. Because this player was rather good-looking, many of his female fans in the scene called for concrete evidence, no b*tching without concrete evidence.
You get what you ask for.
The person who made the revelation bought a set of photos reposted by several marketing accounts, the photos of Skitters’ jungler sleeping with and kissing a girl whose face was pixelated, and the most explicit one which was also the one placed at the end, the conversation of the jungler flirting and another of him coaxing his girlfriend to sleep placed side by side.
The display pictures and contact names were different, the tone in which the jungler spoke also differed.
Trying his best to turn on video camera for a match when he was flirting and the superior, ‘I am the first in the world’ tone he used with his girlfriend.
It could be said that he was the original drama queen.
Ji Zhiyao “tsk-ed” and opened the Weibo comments, completely expecting the sea of criticisms—
[So that abstinence expression of Skitters’ jungler was all a f*cking pretense? The conversations were extremely flirtatious hey!]
[Hur hur, why aren’t all those idiotic fans who were b*tching a few days ago talking, isn’t it utterly satisfying to get what you asked for?]
[Skitters’ jungler is abstinent? He obviously looks like he’s been overindulgent please? Speaking about abstinence in the scene I only look up to Fi-G.o.d, going around with a solitary expression of “please stay away from me”, the only person he got into a scandal with was his same team, same gender teammate… Oh d.a.m.n it, the more I say the more my heart aches, please wipe the tears for my Fi.]
[All the females in the eSports scene are generally younger, if all professional players are jerks like this jungler, then the ethos of the scene would be entirely ruined. I hope Skitters’ battleteam gives an upfront answer, we need to see Skitters’ jungler being punished.]
[Why is a professional gamer so rotten?]
This “having a foot in both camps”, “intentionally seducing a fan” incident of sleeping with a fan, seemed to have incited some bad impressions from the public towards professional players.
Ji Zhiyao frowned and sighed deeply.
The current state of the scene was already bad enough and such an incident had to happen. If more of such incidents took place, professional players might be sweepingly generalized to be given the odd t.i.tle of fan-f*cking monsters.
Truly vexing.
Hence when the rest return chattily with laughter from competing and saw Ji Zhiyao appearing to be in deep thought while leaning against the sofa with his hands crossed, Mo Huaifeng asked, “What’s wrong?”
Ji Zhiyao pointed to the phone screen. “Concrete evidence has been revealed of Skitters’ jungler sleeping with a fan, I’m currently deliberating about life.”
“So exciting?” Nuo grinned. “I remember last year or the year before, I saw him at the backstage saying something to a fan who gifted flowers, teased her till she was flus.h.i.+ng red. That time I thought this ice mountain had a change in character, who knew it was actually like this.”
Mo Huaifeng wasn’t too mindful of it. “So I told you guys to stay away from women usually, in case you do some things that would anger both G.o.ds and men.”
“Then I have something I don’t understand at this point, everyone in our team evidently doesn’t look worse than any celebrity out there, yet n.o.body has a lady by his side.” Yuan Wei said absorbed in thought. “But it’s better this way, very good, you guys can continue to maintain this.”
Ji Zhiyao smiled while packing his equipment. “Brother Yuan Wei, you’d better think it through, everyone in our team is slightly reckless, once you make such a remark, it’s very easy for you to have to choke back on your words.”
“… Take it that the wind had never blown and I’d never been here.”
The few of them boarded the van as usual. Once they were settled in, Nuo looked towards Mo Huaifeng. “Captain, hotpot hotpot hotpot hotpot!”
Mo Huaifeng turned his body, evidently not wanting to be tormented by Nuo’s annoying voice. He replied lazily, “Got it. Whichever place you want to go to, pick yourself.”
Hence Nuo shrank back into his seat with a victorious cry, then gave Xiao and Heng who were confused a vivid description of how it came to Mo Huaifeng treating them to hotpot… The few people at the back discussed for a long time and gave an address that wasn’t too close to both the gymnasium and Mix’s base but had a great taste, the driver agreed and began to drive.
It was yet to be 3:30 PM when they arrived at the hotpot place