CHAPTER 5

"That's nice, Yang god, someone came to cheer you on."

"She's here to collect a debt."

"..."

"It's quite possible that before she came here, she prayed that someone would break my hands."

"Tsk, your ex-girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

On stage, Jian Yang ignored the teasing from his fellow teammates and adjusted his keyboard with a gloomy face. After he was sure it was fully functional, he signaled the staff behind him-- --

The first round started right afterwards.

First came the champion select stage. Each side had three chances to ban a certain champion. The champion being banned couldn't be selected for that round-- --Usually, a team would ban the favorite champions of the opposing side. Other times a team might ban a champion they don't think they'll be able to pick in time or ban a champion they find particularly weak in their match up.

Since each side had studied the other team, this segment went by quickly. In no time, the six banned champions were chosen. Then it moved to the next segment, choosing champions-- --

The first player on the blue team would pick his champion first, then the second and third players on the red team, then back to the fourth and fifth players of the blue side, and so on until each side had five, a total of ten champions…...During this stage, each player might not choose the champion that he would actually play, usually they would choose the champions they needed for the strategy they had devised beforehand. They could switch who would actually play the champion later.

Commentator A: "ZGDX has gone ahead and selected Viktor, the strongest in the current meta. They have chosen a mid champion as their first pick, somewhat early don't you think?"

Commentator B: "How is it early? If they don't take Viktor, then CK will definitely take him away. Now, I think CK will choose a counter champion against Viktor…...What do you think?"

Commentator A: "Well Viktor isn't particularly mobile, so in this case I would probably choose Leblanc. She has a strong attack and can easily gank with her mobility."

Commentator B: "Leblanc? Hahahahaha, she'd work well. I remember that CK's mid plays Leblanc well-- --"

Hm?

Leblanc.

Tong Yao sat under the stage, cupping her face, and thought randomly: I'm good at playing Leblanc too. It could count as her trademark champion. When she reached the top on the Chinese server, someone even called her the number one Leblanc on the Chinese server!

She raised her eyelids slightly to glance at the large screen-- --since the jungler was in the second position of the red team, Jian Yang would be the first one to pick for his team. As expected, Jian Yang had clicked on the picture of Leblanc, but he hadn't locked in his selection.

"..."

Tong Yao straighten up slightly and crossed her legs. Her lips curved up with great interest.

The commentators began speaking again.

Commentator A: "Speaking of Leblanc, I just thought of someone."

Commentator B: "Who?"

Commentator A: "We were just talking about the issue of girls playing games. Do you remember the number one Leblanc, Smiling, on the Chinese server? I heard that Smiling is a girl."

Commentator B: "Hahahahahahahahahaha, I have heard about her. I've actually watched her play Leblanc. Truly an impressive sight. If her opponent didn't watch out for her in the early game, she would develop into a nightmare in the later game..."

Tong Yao: "..."

Without doing anything, Tong Yao, who was simply sitting under the stage, validated her existence.

In the meantime, Jian Yang, as if he could hear the commentators on the stage, was suddenly reminded of something and with a jerk of his hand, clicked another champion, Kassadin, instead and quickly locked in without any hesitation-- --

An uproar burst out of the audience!

"Shit! Yang god, ahhhhh, what have you picked!" The CK mid, Xiaohua, roared, "Why didn't you take Leblanc!"

"Ridiculous!" The CK coach standing behind the players hit Jian Yang over the head with a notebook!

"We're screwed, we're screwed. She's cursed him." The top who just spoke with Jian Yang earlier, Come Good Luck, muttered.

At the time, not only were the CK players turning their heads to check on Jian Yang, even the players from ZGDX were staring at their neighbors with surprise. Question marks were written over their faces, what was going on dude?

Commentator A: "Yang god has locked in as Kassadin! Well, now, this doesn't make sense!"

Commentator B: "What just happened, where are we-- --Why did Yang god suddenly choose Kassadin! He could've taken Leblanc just now!"

Commentator A: "Could it be that his hand jerked and missed the click?"

Commentator B: "I don't know."

Tong Yao shook her leg while crossed and raised her eyebrows-- --

After champion select was over, the game officially began.

Soon people found out that "Leblanc suddenly turning into Kassadin" was only the prelude.

Everyone was stunned to find the CK jungler was not himself today-- --

In the first five minutes of the game, the jungler hid in the jungle killing monsters. At the sixth minute mark, he ran to mid, preparing to help their mid overpower the enemy mid, Ming. Yet, he helped Ming get first blood with his death.

And that was just the beginning of the nightmare!

Afterwards, Jian Yang ganked top, mid, and bot, but lost every time, dying in the process. The somewhat balanced game gradually tilted to favor ZGDX because he contributed so many kills to ZGDX.

When the round was into the twentieth minute, the ratio of kills was "3 : 15"; Jian Yang's personal score was 0 kills, 8 death, and 2 assists-- --

He single handedly carried half of the team's deaths!

During the round, he was either dead or on the way to the grave.

All the CK fans in the audience were stupefied to realize that there was something wrong with their Yang god today...

When the game was at its 27th minute, during a fight for map control, Jian Yang made a mistake to initiate a teamfight. The entire CK team was eliminated by ZGDX which were already at a tremendous economic advantage over CK. ZGDX then followed up with a push into CK's base and blew up the Nexus. Thus ended the first round!

When the music started playing at the end of the first round, the five members of CK were still in a daze, as if they hadn't realize what had happened-- --For they were not at all inferior than ZGDX in terms of skill. Certainly, it was possible for them to lose the round, but they would never have imagined that they would lose this way: it was like they had been thrown onto the floor and brutally beaten up!

What had happened?!

Everyone, including the CK coach swarmed around their under-performing jungler to take him down the stage to have a pep talk...

Compared to the chaos of the CK team, ZGDX was much calmer. The players drank some water and slowly stood up to walk to the rest area behind them-- --

Lu Sicheng was the last one to leave. He opened the statistics of the just finished game to glance at the comparison of the two teams. The graph clearly showed the damage dealt in the game-- --He calmly went through the ADC's high number columns of his own, then glanced at the damage of the jungler of the other side-- --

The jungler had contributed 6574 damages in the whole game.

It was second to the damages of their support.

It was roughly one third of ZGDX jungler's damage and one seventh of Lu Sicheng's.

Lu Sicheng: "?"

"Cheng Ge!"

His teammates called for him from behind. Lu Sicheng paused, raised his head slightly to purposefully look at the back of the dejected person at the opponent's area, then he turned to walk towards his teammates who were waiting not too far away.

When he passed by the team manager, the manager came up to praise how great their play was. Yet, before he had exhausted the long list of compliments, he heard his ADC cynically said-- --

"Xiaorui, did you send money over to the other side yesterday?"

The ZGDX team manager, Xiaorui, was stunned, "....hah?"

Lu Sicheng: "Or, maybe you had offered your body."

"......." Beads of sweat popped up on Xiaorui's forehead. "Cheng Ge, be careful what you're saying. You can eat anything you want, but you can't speak however you wish-- --"

"6574."

"What?"

"Jian Yang's damage."

"What?"

"He was even playing Graves. During the team fight, anyone could do better than that just by rolling his face over the keyboard."

"..."

Lu Sicheng glanced sideways at his manager, then twitched the corner of his lip after a while. "Does your butt hurt?"

Xiaorui: "..............."

Xiaorui: "Hey!!! I told you, no!!! Ahhhhh, don't go, listen to me! Lu Sicheng, you have gone overboard! I'm going to cut your salary. Old Cat, go stop him-- --"

The red hair heard his manager calling his name but didn't respond at all. He was all smiles and swept the non-existence dust on the chair next to his for the man who was walking over. "Sit here, Cheng Ge, sit here..."

Lu Sicheng sat down and spread out his long legs in a comfortable position.

The ZGDX mid, Yu Ming, who had been quiet all this time in the corner, put down the coffee cup in his hand and stood up…...The noisy rest area instantly quieted down. Everyone looked over at him.

Lu Sicheng also turned to look at him. He frowned slight and asked vaguely, "You're going now?"

Yu Ming knew what he was asking and nodded.

Lu Sicheng didn't relax his eyebrows. "Actually, I feel like you can hold on for two more years."

"I just played one round of the match and my hand hurts so badly. When I got down the stage, I could barely pick up this coffee cup." Ming smiled bitterly and pointed to the stain outside the rim of the coffee cup. "I already scheduled surgery and rehab at the end of this year. I waited long enough to schedule it. Can't postpone it any longer."

Lu Sicheng became silent.

After a long while, his eyebrows relaxed and he was back to his indifferent self.

"Go ahead."

He said it calmly.

He watched, without much emotion, his teammate come over to pat his shoulder then turn around to go back to the stage they had just left-- --

On the stage, Yu Ming had enjoyed all the glory a professional player could hope for. It witnessed the most important and memorable moments of his life. In front of the stage, there was an audience in the thousands, filled with numerous ZGDX fans. Behind the stage, there were his teammates, friends, coaches, and bosses; they were all watching him.

-- --Yet, today, he would stand there, facing the audience, the fans, the whole world, and the game League of Legends, to announce his retirement.