CHAPTER 49

Tong Yao carried her backpack back to the resting area for players. Most of the

people, including the staff, were packing up and ready to leave. The teams for

the next match were on their way here. Little Fatty asked Tong Yao why she had

come so late.

"My keyboard wires got tangled up with the computer's. It took me a while to

separate them." Tong Yao, while talking, swept all the empty lunch boxes on the

table into a trash bag. "Shall we take this with us?"

"Oh, oh. Damn, I almost forgot about it."

One of the staff hurriedly took the trash bag from Tong Yao-----There was no

cleaning crew to keep the resting area tidy when there was a competition going

on. It relied on each team's staff members while they were using the area to keep

the place clean.

Lu Yue: "Queen of class in the esports circle."

Old K: "I feel like our team is a classy team-----strong, and with class."

Little Fatty: "Perfect."

Old Cat: "Hello? I just asked you guys whether we should put those boxes away

and no one paid attention to me! I'm going to the esports committee to file a complaint

about your gender discrimination!"

Everyone jokingly pushed the unhappy Old K to get out of the resting area. Tong Yao

was the last one to leave. She turned to see that Lu Sicheng was still in the middle of

the interview and hadn't followed them------She wasn't worried that the team would

leave without their captain. She took out her cell phone to check her messages...

There were many unread messages. Tong Yao received praise from her brother, the

support from her mom, congratulations from her girl friend, and compliments from friends

all over. She replied to all the messages and logged on to check Tieba...

She was planning to see if there was anyone singing praises of her performance in

the match.

It was a total shock for her to find that no one really mentioned about her, but rather all

about the other team------

...

Tong Yao: "..."

Her finger kept flipping upwards and all she saw were similar titles. Almost all of the

posts were busy talking about the 5 players from King-----

Some said King's ADC moved like a snake charmer nine out of the ten seconds team

fight.

Some said King's Support was invisible, not even bothering to use exhaust. (One of

Summoner's skills, able to halve an enemy's attack speed and damage.)

Some said King's Mid was behind Tong Yao in farming minions and could only stay at

his own turret trembling. He could farm only when Tong Yao would let him.

Some said King's Top didn't contribute anything as if he didn't know what he was doing...

The one who received the most ridicule was certainly King's Jungler Ah Guang.

Ever since Ah Guang got killed at the beginning of the match when he tried to steal

ZGDX's golem, his movement throughout the whole game seemed to have been

exposed to ZGDX-----To be an effective jungler, one should move about in stealth and

ambush the enemy to create an advantage for his teammates in the early game. For

a jungler who could only farm in the jungle in the early game then disappear from the

jungle, it was no wonder that he would be criticized so badly!

And that was exactly how Ah Guang was behaving during the second round.

------He disappeared from the jungle in the early game. Then when he finally showed up,

the match was already a goner.

Tong Yao figured that King must have discovered the problem after the first round of the

match-----But it must be very difficult to immediately come up with a new strategy to counter

the situation. Therefore, in the second round, Ah Guang, knowing that he couldn't gank

anybody, could only devote himself to farming and grow stronger, waiting for a team fight.

There wasn't much else he could do...

However, those people on the Tieba didn't care about all that.

Those posts were the direct reaction from people who were in the audience

watching the match------

During the first round, Ah Guang died when he tried to steal from the enemy's

jungle and barely left a scratch on the enemy.

During the second round, Ah Guang only farmed in the jungle and did nothing

else. He was almost nonexistent in the game. It was as if King was playing a 4

versus 5.

That was the most obvious thing that the audience could see. Therefore,

Ah Guang received the most nasty comments.

Tong Yao: "..."

She found one of the most derogatory comments and was going to write a reply

to it. When she finished typing and sent it out, Little Fatty came to look for her:

"Why didn't you follow us? Hurry, we're going to have a party. Xiao Rui is buying,

Korean food!"

"Oh, I'm coming." Tong Yao put her cell phone away and stopped at the restroom

on her way out: "You go ahead. I'm going to the restroom."

Little Fatty answered: "Come quickly." Then she turned to go in the restroom. After

she finished her business, washed her hands, and was walking out while wiping her

hands, she suddenly heard a weird sound coming from the men's restroom next door

-----It sounded like someone was dragging his feet on the floor inside the restroom.

…...These restrooms were basically for the players from the competing teams. At

the moment, the teams for the next match had just come in and the teams that just

finished playing were leaving. Who could be in there?

Out of curiosity, Tong Yao took a look inside the men's restroom as she passed by.

She noticed from the reflection on the dark colored tiles on the floor that there was

someone squatting against the door of the first stall-----

That position was exactly the same as the squatting position of the ghost kid in the

closet from the movie, The Grudge.

Tong Yao: "? ? ? ? ? ?"

Tong Yao thought she had run into a ghost and the thought almost made her hair

stand on end. As she stood there, stupefied, a flash of white light lit up right in front

of the squatting shadow-----

Obviously, it was someone who was playing with his cell phone while squatting

down on the restroom floor.

Tong Yao: ".........."

Tong Yao: "Who's there?"

With the sound of her voice, the light from the cell phone abruptly turned off. The

person nervously moved a bit and lifted his head to look out…...Tong Yao in the

meanwhile had already started to walk into the men's restroom with light footsteps,

slightly bent forward-----

There was no one else there.

Except a young man, squatting in front of the first stall, who was looking up at her

in confusion-----He still had his backpack on his back with all his equipment inside.

He had a cell phone in one hand and a half-burned cigarette in the other. His body

curled into a ball. When he looked up, his red bloodshot eyes and red nose like the

Santa Claus were all telling signs that he had been crying just a few minutes ago...

-------He was the King's Jungler, Ah Guang.

When his eyes met with Tong Yao's, both of them were embarrassed.

Under the confused gaze from Ah Guang, Tong Yao pulled the straps of her backpack

then pointed to the outside: "I just passed by and saw someone squatting down here

but didn't look like he was going to the bathroom..."

Tong Yao stopped half way through her sentence. She blushed out of embarrassment.

Ah Guang kept looking up at her with a strange look in his eyes. After a while, he

suddenly burst into laughter and turned his head away: "I have embarrassed myself."

He extinguished the cigarette.

Tong Yao shook her head and searched for a pack of tissues from her pocket

to hand it over to Ah Guang. Then, she sat down on the floor at his side: "Why

are you hiding in here crying all by yourself?"

"You know very well why."

"Because you lost the game?"

"Yeah." Ah Guang said flatly. "And also because of these terrible comments.

This was the first match in the summer season for our team in the major league.

We already felt sad about losing it so badly, then I turned around to see all these

derogatory comments-----"

As he was speaking, he scratched his head, messing up his gelled hairstyle. He

laughed at himself: "Though I've seen those comments on Tieba before and

prepared myself after losing the match------it's still hard to accept when it happened

to myself. I feel like telling each one of them that I had no choice but to keep farming

and wait for the team fight. And the reason I couldn't gank is because I didn't have

the chance to gank. We'll do better next time when we prepare ourselves better. But

in the end, there's just so many posts, so many comments…...I can't reply to everyone."

Ah Guang's voice became lower and hoarse again. He sniffled and, though he was

answering Tong Yao's question, it seemed that he was mumbling more to himself...

Tong Yao: "..."

Tong Yao turned to check the young man next to her. She had heard before that he

was only 16 years old. He had just reached the eligible age to play professional leagues.

He had led his team from the city leagues all the way to the professional major league…...

From the data she had collected before, she also saw a lot of praise, calling him King's

carry, the one who set the tempo for his team-----

Tong Yao: "You know very well that they'll praise you when you win and become nasty

when you lose..."

So why let it bother you this much?

Ah Guang forced out a smile: "Because in the past, they always said that I'm the one

who carries the team to victory, who creates opportunities for my teammates. They

even said that it was because I ganked dragon in the last match that King could turn

the game around and enter the major league…...I know ZGDX is very strong and we

were probably going to lose. But I thought that even if we lost the game, we would still

have the chance to have a good fight with you guys, not lose that badly-----"

Tong Yao: "Oh." She nodded her head, beginning to understand what was going through

this young man's head: He had been praised so highly all the time and now he was having

a hard time accepting the feeling of being stepped on.

She was familiar with this kind of feeling-----When she first joined the team, she had easily

let their winning streak over a few skirmishes get to her head until she met that Korean,

Ah Tai. It almost crushed her confidence. Even nowadays, when she played ranked games,

if she saw that id she would still have sweaty palms and a rapidly beating heart like having

a nightmare...

And she hadn't found a cure for her mental condition so far.

When she recalled her own experience, Tong Yao lifted her hand to pat Ah Guang's

shoulder like a big sister trying to comfort a little kid: "It's only the beginning of the

competition, as a newcomer to the major league, you'll learn a lot of strategies and

patterns from different professional teams. There will be a lot of room for you to improve,

at least you'll be much stronger as a team."

"....," Ah Guang buried his head between his knees: "What's the use of it. See how

easily you defeated us."

"...They said on the Tieba that we won easily and you think it was actually that easy?"

Tong Yao chuckled: "You trust everything they say on Tieba? I'm the most eligible person

to say whether it was easy or not------in order to study your normal route and style, I

watched all your after season games and the finals at least 5 times. All the data I collected

was what I had collected after watching dozens of games..."

Tong Yao pointed to the area under her eyes: "I was reviewing your finals at the spring

competition right before I went to bed last night. You see? My black circles?"

Ah Guang turned to glance at Tong Yao. Indeed, there was a light blue color under her

eyes...

Ah Guang: "..."

The young man became silent, surprised. He was about to say something but stopped

himself.

Tong Yao now had a clear smile on her face.

"So don't cry over it. What's there to cry about? You now have a clear direction to improve.

All you need to do is work hard toward that goal. This is a good thing. That's also the

reason why we play so many competitions, isn't it?"

"...," Ah Guang sulkily said: "I envy you. You joined such a strong team when you turned

pro and you're strong yourself. No one would say anything bad about you."

"The one who never gets a single bad comment is our captain." Tong Yao

rolled her eyes. "Wait till one day when ZGDX loses a match, people will

have all sorts of terrible things to say about us. You think they'll let us off

the hook?"

"We're being trashed online right now. Some people are saying that we're

a waste of a slot in the major league------"

"Didn't you fight hard to get into the major league?"

"We did."

"Then what do you care whatever they said."

Tong Yao pulled out her cell phone as she spoke, afraid that Little Fatty and

the others would be looking for her. What she found instead was 20 replies

to her comment on Tieba before she'd entered the men's bathroom-----

...

Tong Yao: "..."

She calmly finished reading all the derisive replies while crouched on the floor.

Then she sneered and put her cell phone away, flatly saying: "What the hell do

they know." She stood up and patted Ah Guang's head: "There isn't any easy win

for any of the teams. No need to belittle yourself-----You earned your position in

the major league with your own ability, just make sure you can sit tight on it."

Ah Guang looked up at her after she finished talking with a sincere expression.

Ah Guang: "You're a bit too nice to a fault."

Tong Yao: "I just don't like seeing such unreasonable comments."

Ah Guang: "Isn't it better to let other teams dread yours?"

Tong Yao: "Why is it better? I almost went blind staying up at night watching all the

videos just so I could be pretentious in front of other teams?"

Ah Guang: "..."

Tong Yao clicked her tongue a couple times and shook her hand as if she couldn't

stand the thought of it. Without knowing why, after comforting Ah Guang, Tong Yao

felt much better about herself, even Ah Tai didn't seem that formidable anymore------

She thought to herself, who knew how much studying Ah Tai had done before

defeating her? They're all human beings, how could anyone be so strong like an

alien from outer space?

The thought made Tong Yao curve her lips up and she began to whistle happily------

She started to walk away, suddenly she noticed a tall figure standing at the door of

the restroom. He had one of his hands tucked inside his pocket, quietly staring at her.

Tong Yao's smile froze on her face. She stopped and raised her head, meeting a

pair of quiet, dark brown eyes-----He was wearing the blue and white team uniform,

holding the cell phone in one hand which was calling someone right at that moment.

Tong Yao took out her own phone which was on silent mode-----

Lu Sicheng ended the call and on Tong Yao's phone, it showed that there were 4

missed phone calls.

Tong Yao: "..............."

Tong Yao looked up to see the large sign showing "Men" on the door.

Tong Yao: "I.........…."

Tong Yao raised her head again to look at Lu Sicheng nervously.

Tong Yao: "........No, he--------"

In the end, Tong Yao blankly turned to look behind her.

Tong Yao: "Damn!"

She decided to give up explaining.

"If you're playing hide and seek, no one would expect you to hide in here."

Lu Sicheng flatly said: "Smart."

Tong Yao: ".................."