Bab 93: CHAPTER 93
The match between YQCB and Huawei was about to begin. Tong Yao looked at Ai Jia. He seemed quite relaxed and Li Huanshuo occasionally stretched his neck to look at the YQCB fan section from time to time. Tong Yao felt even more nervous than her best friend next to her-- --
Jinyang was still checking her WeChat chat groups.
"My friend, can you be a little bit more focused? At this critical point, even I'm nervous for Ai Jia…...If he can't play this round well, you'll be the one to take the blame since you're the center of this storm."
Tong Yao elbowed Jinyang. Jinyang shook a little from the nudge, but took her time to like one of her friend's posts before looking up at the big screen: "It hasn't started yet, has it? Ow, shit, why is this cameraman giving Ai Jia such a big close up? He's been so anxious the past two days, he's gotten a few pimples popping up on his forehead..."
Tong Yao: "...The ban & pick phase is starting."
"Oh." Jinyang didn't have much of an expression on her face: "I don't understand the game anyway."
Tong Yao: "..."
A YQCB fan sitting next to them glanced at Jinyang, with a not so friendly expression-- --As if to say if you don't understand the game, why are you sitting here?...The first two rows of seats were usually reserved for the fans of a particular team, normally given out to fans and special guests of the team. The team had the right to decide who could get those fan tickets. (Usually, a pro league ticket will cover all the matches in one day, but the designated fan tickets are only valid for a particular team's matches on that day. Once the team finished playing, those with fan tickets would have to leave the arena.)
Jinyang rolled her eyes: "I'm just a Platinum player, so what? Just because I'm in a relationship with a professional player, I have to be Diamond to qualify? You think everyone is like Lu Sicheng who's only going to fall in love with someone that plays games better than him."
Tong Yao: "Er. Even if you're in Diamond, you still can't play better than Lu Sicheng."
Jinyang's eyes almost rolled over to the back of her head and she turned her head to mouth to Tong Yao: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you rock.
Tong Yao giggled. People around them didn't know what their conversation was about, it looked like they were just chatting…...On stage, they were halfway through the ban & pick phase. YQCB had picked Nidalee and Thresh. From the champions they picked, Tong Yao knew that for this match, YQCB was going to use their main strategy for this season: roaming.
-- --Normally, support would stick with ADC at bot. But if the team's communication was good enough, the ADC had enough skill and had good map sense, then support could leave bot and work together with the jungler and agiley roam around to gank, helping the other lanes pull ahead. This kind of strategy is called "roaming."
Nowadays, YQCB had a world class ADC player, Pope Li Junhe. His skills at positioning and map awareness were at the top. It was a strategy most suitable for this team.
Just as Tong Yao had anticipated, from the very beginning of the match, YQCB's support, Liangsheng, was very aggressive-- --It was the total opposite from the overly conservative style he played during the spring competition. There seemed to have a tiger presiding over YQCB's bot with a howling German shepherd at its side-- --By the eight minute mark Huawei's AD had placed himself a little bit ahead, Pope, who had reached level 6 ahead of everyone else, obtaining his ultimate, and took his time to signal to his teammates. Liangsheng's Thresh instantly flashed in and hooked Huawei's AD!
The audience cried out. Huawei's AD obviously was surprised by the move as well. He couldn't react at all, at that instant he neither retreated nor attacked. In that moment of hesitation, YQCB killed him and drew first blood!
The audience roared as the game announced the kill!
YQCB's support could now leave bot. He went back after placing wards in the river brush, then he joined up with their team's jungler, Xbang. They went to mid lane but failed, then went to grab the red buff from Huawei. Afterwards, they went up to top lane, worked with top to rush the tower and gank Huawei's top, destroying the first turret on top lane-- --
Within a short three minutes, starting from Pope's ping, YQCB successfully gained two kills and destroyed one turret back to back!
The audience was a bit restless by now. YQCB's fans were very excited. It was obvious that the team had been working and training hard to achieve this kind of coordination and performance.
[ZGDX, Smiling: The way they executed their strategy is at par with Team Lan who is famous for their ability to carry out their game plan. But it's taken Team Lan years to reach that level, it only took YQCB half a season to do that.]
[fhdjwhdb2333: You envy them?]
[ZGDX, Smiling: Yes.]
[fhdjwhdb2333: Their bot and support play duo everyday in harmony. Our support would just use his Luxanna to drive his ADC crazy.]
[ZGDX, Smiling: ...]
[fhdjwhdb2333: It's all Little Fatty's fault.]
[ZGDX, Smiling: You tell him if he continues to be so willful, the top ranking support in the league will belong to the support next door.]
[fhdjwhdb2333: I'll tell him after we go back. I'm afraid that if I tell him now, he'll take his Luxanna out and punish us. Scary.]
Tong Yao, who had also suffered deeply while playing duos with Little Fatty, quietly put her cell phone away. On stage, YQCB had firmly grasped the initiative in the game-- --Huawei's jungler, Li Huanshuo, was unable to prevent his jungle from constantly being invaded. YQCB's Liangsheng was an experienced player and could go deep into Huawei's jungle, placing wards in sneaky locations...
Tong Yao felt that she could already see the end of the match.
...
YQCB won the first match without much difficulty at the 42nd minute. During the match, Ai Jia's Ekko performed quite well in several team fights. Tong Yao earnestly tried to explain to her friend how good her boyfriend was and how he carried the game. Jinyang sat there listening, but her head was in the clouds, with a confused look on her face...
Tong Yao pinched Jinyang's face: "Can you focus more? This is one of the highlights of your boyfriend's career! See how excited those fans are!"
"...What highlights. You know it very well that when I met him, he was just a silly normal high schooler. I'm with him not because he's-- --"
Before Jinyang finished speaking, someone sitting in the row behind her roughly smacked the back of her seat. Jinyang abruptly stopped talking and turned to take a look. She saw a girl with long hair holding a bunch of YQCB support banners and LED boards smile spuriously at her: "Sorry, lost my balance."
Tong Yao raised her eyebrows, about to say something, but Jinyang pulled her sleeve and turned back without saying anything.
The fans sitting around Tong Yao and Jinyang were mostly fans who had gotten their fans tickets from YQCB. They obviously have known Jinyang for quite some time and followed her on Weibo. They also knew what had happened recently online-- --
Most of the fans knew that Jinyang was three years older than Ai Jia. When they were little, they were neighbors when Jinyang lived at her grandma's house. Due to some plot points similar to something found in a teenage romance novel, they began dating before Ai Jia started playing professionally…...Most of Ai Jia's fans quite liked her-- --Most of the surrounding fans weren't too happy about the fangirl's sudden outburst, but they didn't want to make trouble.
"Why did you do that?"
"What did I do? Nowadays, there are people who don't make any sense at all. They can't play the game, don't even understand it. But they are with players just because of their fame and even feel smug about it..."
"Hush, hush, hush, be quieter. Ai Jia's girlfriend isn't like-- --"
"I didn't say whether she is or not. But nowadays, isn't the reputation of all fangirls being smudged by these kinds of people? Look at Xu Tailun and that Guoguo. If you like the players, just focus on watching them play the game. Why do you have to entice them?"
Tong Yao and Jinyang could clearly hear the conversation behind them. Once Tong Yao heard the girl bring up Xu Tailun and Guoguo, she felt that was an insult she couldn't just let go and was about to stand up and argue with the girls behind. But Jinyang grabbed her and pushed Tong Yao back into her own seat-- --
Tong Yao angrily turned her head back and saw her best friend was sitting on her seat with a stone face: "We'll take care of it after the game. See that stupid Siberian roe deer is sitting on the stage happily waiting to play the game. If I start to diss his fans under the stage now, how would it look to others?"
Jinyang pointed her chin to the stage while talking. Tong Yao looked in the direction Jinyang was pointing and saw Ai Jia, who had just returned to the stage after the break, was putting on his earphones all the while giving Jinyang a goofy smile.
Tong Yao: "..."
It suddenly reminded Tong Yao of herself in the past. She had broken up with Jiang Yang simply because she couldn't accept all the changes and issues that came about when he became a professional player from a normal high school boyfriend…...A wave of emotions overwhelmed her. Tong Yao patted her best friend's back and remained silent.
The second match was about to begin.
In this match, YQCB didn't use the strategy they had used in the previous match. Instead, they used the 4 protect 1 strategy, with their ADC as the nucleus-- --This method was somewhat outdated at this level of competition. It was difficult to achieve success with it.
…...But with Pope or Lu Sicheng as the team's ADC, it was probably worth a try.
Tong Yao noticed that Ai Jia had picked Lulu, which he wasn't very good at. She knew that YQCB was using this match to try out a new lineup while fighting against a stronger team such as Huawei. Since this was only one match at the group phase, it was alright to lose the match when they were trying out a new lineup and strategy. One team couldn't just have one game plan. It was acceptable to make a small sacrifice in order to have a stronger team.
-- --Though the idea was a good one, it was more difficult to actually carry it out. YQCB obviously wasn't quite ready to play 4 protect 1. Additionally, Huawei's jungler, Li Huanshuo, wasn't an easy player to deal with. Once Li Huanshuo figured out YQCB's intentions, he started to attack bot from the beginning of the game!
Li Huanshuo was the kind of the players who couldn't do much to help turn the team's disadvantage around, but when the team was on the upswing, his performance was a world-class one. The match moved along quite quickly-- --
Huawei took first blood and took two more kills, pulling ahead of YQCB. It was almost the repeat of the last match but in reverse. After their support left bot, the support worked together with the jungler to attack YQCB's mid. Then they turned to the top and took down the Rift Herald.
Within a short five minutes, Li Huanshuo had five kills.
Commentator A: [It's only been seven minutes and none of YQCB's champions have reached level 6. YQCB's a bit off this match.]
Commentator B: [Honestly, if Pope breaks down, then there's not much left for YQCB to go on. Lulu hasn't dealt any damage…...Frankly, I don't understand why he took Lulu, any other champion that could deal some damage would be better than her.]
Commentator A: [Yeah, yeah.]
Tong Yao twitched the corner of her lips, figuring that the commentators didn't realize the possibility that the team was trying out a new lineup…...Unfortunately, the game went just as they said. Ai Jia couldn't get the upper hand in his lane and YQCB was powerless in team fights because Pope hadn't been able to develop well-- --
During the team fights, it looked like Ai Jia was dodging about for 8 seconds out of a 10 second team fight.
Basically, he didn't have much of a chance to do anything before the match ended.
The match was over in about 30 minutes when Huawei pushed into YQCB's base. When the match ended, the entire team except Pope seemed to be satisfied by their result...
"It looks like 4 protect 1 isn't really useful this season. Too bad, Pope didn't do so well either. He and Cheng Ge seem to come from the same mold. No matter what lineup they have, they start the round by getting ganked..." Tong Yao moved her body a bit and added: "No, he's even more aggressive than Cheng Ge."
"Hrm."
"Are you alright?" Tong Yao elbowed the shoulder of Jinyang.
"Sure, I'm alright. It's just losing a match, it's not the first time I've seen him lose." Jinyang shrugged: "He didn't win many matches during the Spring season either. What the heck, do you think that I can't take it now after just one loss. It doesn't matter. Isn't there another match? As long as he can win the next one back..."
She sounded rather careless.
But her words abruptly stopped when a stack of support banners smacked her on the head.
Jinyang was stunned and turned around. She saw that talkative fangirl earlier standing behind her in a rage. The fangirl looked down at Jinyang and said: "What do you mean by it doesn't matter? ! It's because there's people like you that players don't care how well they play. Wasn't Ai Jia's performance bad enough in this match? What's the use to have a mid like him where he couldn't do anything at the team fights? What are you protecting him for and even bringing Smiling with you to make Pope the scapegoat! We've come all this way to watch the game to see them win! Please don't make such annoying comments!"
The fangirl was loud. The arena wasn't very large and her voice could be heard all over the place-- --The audience became deathly quiet as the fangirl blew her fuse.
The two commentators who were just chatting had now stopped talking.
Jinyang frowned: She couldn't play the game well, but through what Tong Yao had explained to her during the match, she could sense that it wasn't really Ai Jia's problem...
Tong Yao took a glance at the support LED board next to that fangirl's feet, which was for Pope. Tong Yao stood up and was about to give the fangirl a detailed analysis of what had happened during the match so she wouldn't be misled by the commentators. But before she could open her mouth, she heard a frustrated shout "Ai Jia" coming from the stage behind her. The voice belonged to the captain and support of YQCB.
The next second, a tall and slim figure in black jumped off the stage and came over to grab Jinyang's arm-- --Jinyang turned to face him, flustered. She met Ai Jia's cold eyes...
This was the first time Tong Yao saw this sort of expression on Ai Jia's face.
…...Ai Jia's expression nonetheless successfully made the overbearing fangirl stop talking.
"What are you doing?" Jinyang whispered to Ai Jia and tried to free herself from his grip, but failed.
"Come." Ai Jia pulled Jinyang's arm toward himself: "Why bother talking to this kind of person?"
The fangirl: "What? What do you mean by this kind of person? I'm your team's fan-- --"
"Right! You aren't deaf!" Ai Jia raised his voice: "I can't even bear to say anything harsh to my girlfriend myself, what right do you have to grumble here. It doesn't have any damn thing to do with her whether I play well or not. If you dare, say it to my face-- --Come!"
He tugged on Jinyang after he finished.
Jinyang stood there, unmoving. She fearlessly turned to look at Ai Jia's fierce looking face which was on the verge of exploding-- --
Seeing Jinyang didn't have any response, Ai Jia uttered a "tsk" and stepped forward to pick Jinyang up and carry her in his arms as everyone looked on. Ai Jia then strode towards the break room backstage carrying Jinyang!
The audience burst out in a roar.
Tong Yao was dumbfounded.
Tong Yao stook there for quite a while without fully comprehending what had happened. Only after Ai Jia had walked away with Jinyang did Tong Yao hurriedly bend down to pick up Jinyang's bag, jumped onto stage with the bag, and dashed towards the break room...
Lu Sicheng was in the hallway playing with his cell phone. Tong Yao, carrying Jinyang's bag, rushed in as if there was fire behind her. She passed by Lu Sicheng without noticing him. Lu Sicheng reached out to grab Tong Yao's collar and calmly said: "Wait."
Surprised, Tong Yao turned to look at Lu Sicheng: "Why are you here? Let go of me. You don't know what just happened out there. I have to go check on Ai Jia-- --"
"I know what happened. Tieba is going to explode." Lu Sicheng lifted up his cell phone: "They're all talking about Korean drama 2.0…...Then what was version 1.0?"
Tong Yao thought about it and remembered "Korean drama version 1.0"[1] which had been made into a gif and was widely viewed. She slightly blushed and pulled Lu Sicheng's hand off her: "Let me go first! Let me go see them first!"
"...What's the hurry."
Lu Sicheng slowly let go of his hand and watched Tong Yao walk away. She was in such a hurry that her left foot tripped over her right foot and she almost fell down. Lu Sicheng straightened his body up immediately. Tong Yao, who wasn't too far from him, staggered to regain her balance. Lu Sicheng frustratedly sighed, put down the hand which was reaching out towards Tong Yao, and leaned back towards the wall-- --
"Slow down, you can't even walk steadily. Is your cerebellum underdeveloped?"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone