The match officially began.
Old K still started with his usual Blue Buff in the top jungle... However, it was a relief that this time he didn’t call Tong Yao for help and instead headed straight to the Blue Buff, where he found Old Cat already waiting obediently.
The two silently began taking down the Blue Buff.
Tong Yao refocused her attention, carefully laning against Ai Jia—as mentioned before, this guy was as steady as a mountain in lane and even had the alternative nickname "Mid Lane Turret"... Players like this were usually either the team’s weak link, forced to play passively and wait for other lanes to carry in late-game team fights, or genuinely steady, personally preferring and excelling at this playstyle.
Ai Jia belonged to the latter category—skilled in mechanics, with a composed style that starkly contrasted his otherwise impatient personality. He excelled at defensive counterplays, and aggressive players like Tong Yao had stumbled countless times against him.
In the past, YQCB was a team that played passively, mindlessly conceding resources until they slowly bled out, so Ai Jia’s playstyle wasn’t particularly noticeable. But now, with YQCB’s team style completely revitalized—a whole squad of aggressors—Ai Jia stood alone like an unshakable foundation, highlighting his true role and presence. Because of this, Tong Yao didn’t dare let her guard down against him. The need to be extra cautious made her play slightly restrained...
Commentator A: [Three minutes into the match, everyone is in a stable laning phase. We can see in the mid lane, even though Smiling has Vladimir, she seems a bit hesitant...]
Commentator B: [Well, if it were me facing defensive players like Ai Jia or Lu Yue, who have solid mechanics, I’d also be more careful about choosing my moments to engage—especially if I were an aggressive player by nature.]
Commentator A: [I kinda miss the fearless Smiling from when she first joined the LPL!]
Commentator B: [...That’s just you. I doubt the Operator Team misses that at all—I heard there was a period when Cheng Ge would stand behind her with a feather duster during her ranked matches. Every time she recklessly inted, he’d smack the back of her hand. Reckless int? Smack. Reckless int? Smack...]
The live audience burst into laughter.
Commentator A: [HAHAHAHAHA where did you hear such a ridiculous rumor?!]
Commentator B: [Of course, that doesn’t happen now. Nowadays, we just see Cheng Ge clinging to Smiling’s chair like a gecko, gazing at her affectionately...]
Commentator A: [Every livestream is just dog food at this point.]
......
Meanwhile, in the match, the players naturally couldn’t hear the commentators. Tong Yao simply took every opportunity between last-hitting to trade with Ai Jia. However, compared to Vladimir, Viktor had a longer attack range, so after several forced and unforced trades, Tong Yao ran out of Health Potions first without finding any real opportunity to kill Ai Jia—
Right at that moment, the bot lane duo, who had just hit level three, suddenly engaged in a fight.
The trigger was Little Fatty going to ward the river. On his way back, his positioning ended up slightly misaligned with Lu Sicheng.At the same time, Pope likely reached level three about two seconds earlier, just a small lead of one or two minions' worth of experience. With Sivir's E shield now available, dealing with Ashe became effortless, so after securing level three first and activating all his abilities, Pope didn’t hesitate to engage—Lu Sicheng seemed to have anticipated this. Years of synergy with Little Fatty meant they didn’t need much communication. Lu Sicheng simply said calmly, "We can fight," then clicked the ground, and the two decisively counterattacked—
Lu Sicheng cleared the minions immediately, also hitting level three, while Little Fatty followed up with his ability, knocking Pope up and locking him down. At the same time, Lu Sicheng began retreating, using Ashe’s range advantage to stack buffs with auto-attacks while looking for an opening to strike back—this was a battle of reflexes, lasting barely two seconds. Pope had already chunked down most of Little Fatty’s health, who had positioned slightly forward, but by then, Pope himself was fully stacked with four buff layers. Lu Sicheng instantly triggered his lit-up Q ability, halting Pope’s aggressive advance!
Pope’s health wasn’t in great shape either, and his shield (E) had already been used to block one of Lu Sicheng’s W damage abilities.
Given that Ashe’s W cooldown was only 15 seconds while Sivir’s shield was 22 seconds, during their sustained pressure, the enemy support Braum stepped in front of Sivir, raising his shield—
"Count five seconds for Exhaust, switch to the support once the shield drops. Five, four—"
The man watched as his own health rapidly dwindled, his calm voice ringing through the headset. As the countdown ended, Braum’s shield vanished. Ashe’s auto-attacks landed swiftly on him—at only level three, Braum wasn’t as tanky as expected. After a few hits, his health was nearly gone. Braum managed to land Exhaust on Lu Sicheng before retreating, but at that moment, Lu Sicheng’s W damage ability lit up again. He didn’t give the enemy support a chance to escape—nine light swords shot out, securing the kill on Braum, who had already retreated some distance!
First blood!
ZGDX’s fans erupted in excitement—
Caster A: "What a beautifully executed target switch and counterattack! Chessman’s timing was absolutely precise! This was calculated—every single hit, even the auto-attack damage, was accounted for!"
Caster B: "No one could’ve predicted this—Sivir versus Ashe, with Sivir hitting level three first and initiating on Ashe, yet they lost their support in the trade..."
"Nice!"
"That counter was clean!"
On the stage, praises from ZGDX’s teammates echoed through the headsets.
Caster A: "Honestly, if Chessman secures first blood here, Pope is at a huge disadvantage. That’s 400 gold, and with the wave cleared, Cheng Ge will return to lane with a small item advantage. The inherent champion disadvantage in lane will instantly be—"
Before the casters could finish—
At that moment, the enemy Sivir made a shocking move—with a "bang," she flashed forward, landing a Q to forcibly execute both Lu Sicheng and Little Fatty, who were already under their tower with slivers of health, recalling to base!
Then, she died to tower shots!Tower dive! The score instantly shifted from 1:0 to 2:2, restoring balance between both lanes!
Both ADCs secured two kills each, and the previously subdued YQCB fan section erupted in cheers!
Commentator A & B: ["…………………………"]
Commentator A: ["Honestly, that flash trade just left me speechless."]
Commentator B: ["Didn’t you notice I didn’t even dare to speak?"]
Commentator A: ["Seriously, most ADCs would just back off in that situation. Only someone with an extremely deep understanding of Sivir’s damage output and absolute confidence in their mechanics would attempt such a flash trade!"]
Commentator A: ["Folks at home, have you noticed? For commentators who constantly risk being proven wrong, this match is a bit hard to call, hahahahaha…"]
While the commentators joked outside the arena, the atmosphere on the battlefield was far from relaxed. ZGDX’s initial advantage had dwindled to just Lu Sicheng’s 100-gold first-blood bonus and Little Fatty’s single assist lead.
"He didn’t even get to use Heal. That Li Junhe," Lu Sicheng remarked calmly. "Their AD has no flash now, but Old K, don’t force a gank if it’s not safe. Their Jungler will probably camp bot from now on."
Lu Sicheng’s prediction was spot-on. Over the next two minutes, the enemy Jungler harassed bot lane twice, forcing Lu Sicheng to retreat even with minion waves available. Falling behind in levels and experience, he was eventually pressured into backing due to low health, helplessly watching as the enemy AD took down their bot lane’s first turret.
"Their Top laner recalled. Old K, come top for a turret trade."
Old Cat’s tone was urgent, seemingly wanting to coordinate with the Jungler to push the enemy’s top turret. But Old K finished clearing a camp before heading top—a delay of mere seconds. By the time Old Cat arrived, the enemy Top laner had teleported back, forcing him to retreat. Seeing Old Cat’s low health, Old K rushed to assist—
Only for the enemy Jungler to counter-gank, effortlessly securing another 0-for-2 trade!
Eleven minutes into the game, the gold gap stood at 1,300 in YQCB’s favor.
At this point, ZGDX’s top and bot lanes were struggling. Unlike other ADCs who might let Lu Sicheng rotate for farm, Pope pinned him down in bot lane, making escape impossible.
The only lane holding steady was mid, where Tong Yao was evenly matched against Ai Jia.
But they couldn’t capitalize on mid. Sacrificing the first Elemental Drake for a mid turret push, they were met with lightning-fast enemy rotations. The fight was abandoned mid-way, leaving only the Jungler to solo the Drake while the rest of YQCB swarmed mid, forcing ZGDX to retreat.
From that moment Old K arrived a few seconds late, ZGDX seemed cursed. The enemy’s mid and top turrets hung by a thread, yet refused to fall—YQCB moved like machines, out-rotating and out-executing ZGDX at every turn, always arriving first to claim objectives.
Twenty-five minutes in, the gold gap widened to 2,500.Lu Sicheng said, "Stall a bit longer. Taking down the turret will make this less difficult."
Normally, the team would just encourage each other and prepare to push forward, but today, no one responded. Tong Yao frowned, switching her map view to look at those two turrets hanging by a thread—after ten minutes of pushing, they still hadn't managed to take them down. A sudden thought crossed her mind: Will this game even reach the late stage?
This unprecedented doubt made her heart skip a beat, her palms sweating.
At the twenty-seven-minute mark, both teams finally engaged in a teamfight. The combination of Janna and Kindred worked well—Kindred's ultimate made everyone in a small area invulnerable, and once the barrier was up, Little Fatty's Janna followed with her own ultimate, blowing the enemy's low-health champions out of the zone while simultaneously healing their team.
Then, Tong Yao and Lu Sicheng took advantage of the enemy's disorientation to clean up the remaining low-health targets.
Little Fatty: "Nice, nice."
Old Cat: "This Bronze-tier strat works surprisingly well… Never seen it in pro play before."
Little Fatty: "But I bet we can only use it once. Who the hell is gonna clump together at low health for a teamfight next time?"
Little Fatty wasn’t wrong. After winning that teamfight, they finally took down two of the enemy’s weakened turrets—but from then on, unless either Janna or Kindred had already used their ultimates or one of them died, the enemy refused to engage head-on again.
The game returned to its earlier oppressive state. Wherever China Telecom went, the enemy responded instantly, bullying them with their superior items until they were forced to scatter. Tong Yao stared at the pitch-black map, the vision they couldn’t even establish, and for the first time, felt like stealing their own Blue Buff in their own jungle was like committing a crime—or buying a lottery ticket.
What followed unfolded exactly as expected.
—Forty-two minutes into the game.
Old K got caught while warding, and the enemy immediately started Baron.
Knowing that losing Baron now meant the enemy could push straight to their High Ground, ZGDX’s remaining four had no choice but to contest. Ashe fired her ultimate, hoping to lock down one enemy and reduce the numbers disadvantage—Lu Sicheng’s Ashe arrow was precise, but Pope was on the enemy team. Sivir simply walked out of the Baron pit and used her spell shield to block the arrow. Tong Yao heard the man beside her swear in-game for the first time ever.
They lost Baron, of course.
Then came the desperate, do-or-die teamfight—
Little Fatty’s tornado knocked up three enemies. Tong Yao used her W to dive in, trying to assassinate the enemy ADC, but a tiny misstep in positioning meant she didn’t even graze Pope. As soon as her Sanguine Pool ended, Braum ulted her into the air, and Sivir’s Q crit twice, followed by Ekko’s stun—she was deleted mid-air.
—Forty-three minutes into the game.
Old K respawned and rushed over, but with one carry down, ZGDX couldn’t fight YQCB with Baron Buff. They were quickly aced, leaving the freshly arrived Old K to flee for his life under pursuit…
Outside the arena, the casters lamented, saying that if the Vampire had waited three more seconds for Kindred, the outcome might have been different.
The audience sighed—why was the Mid Laner the one engaging while Maokai lagged behind?
The live comments were ruthless—cursing Tong Yao’s garbage positioning, Old Cat for sleepwalking through the match, Old K for getting caught while warding like an idiot…
—Forty-four minutes and twenty seconds into the game.Lu Sicheng remained calm as he said, "Next game."
Then YQCB launched an assault on the High Ground.
With Sivir present, their minion clearing speed was as fast as could be. Accompanied by countless Minions, they pushed through the mid lane High Ground Turret, destroyed the Nexus, and directly moved to take down the Nexus turrets beside the team headquarters.
—44 minutes and 45 seconds into the match.
The blue side's Nexus was destroyed.
Tong Yao: "..."
They lost.
Watching helplessly as their headquarters was destroyed by the opposing AD carry Pope and top laner Rong Rong, Tong Yao found it difficult to articulate exactly what she was feeling—
It wasn't that she had taken Lu Sicheng's words as a joke and thus wasn't mentally prepared for the possibility of losing; it wasn't that she hadn't experienced dropping the first game in a league match before coming back to win the series; it wasn't that she hadn't been the target of opponents' focused aggression that led to losing matches in the league before;
—But.
—None of that mattered.
She had been through all these situations before and should have remained composed, yet when she saw their headquarters explode, her mind went blank for a moment... Suddenly, the entire 45-minute match condensed into a short film replaying from the very first second in her mind. Sitting in place, she desperately tried to recall exactly which moment had sealed their fate...
Had she initiated team fights too early?
No, earlier than that.
Losing Baron?
No no, even earlier.
Had she mispositioned and been instantly killed in the mid lane team fight?
No no, perhaps even further back...
Maybe it was the very first second after leaving the fountain at the start of the game, when she used her first ability to trade damage with Ai Jia?
The entire match, the opponents' flawless defense and zero mistakes had created overwhelming pressure. Compared to their own frequent positioning errors, coordination missteps, and delayed rotations...
—There was no way to win playing like this.
—Making it to 45 minutes was already impressive.
—With all three lanes being evenly matched, if they couldn't coordinate properly and kept making mistakes, they might very well lose the next game too.
...
—Losing like a complete clown.
This thought flashed through her mind, and a suffocating sensation instantly filled her brain—an inexplicable panic... As Tong Yao removed her headphones with numb fingers and stood up, the lights, the cheers and shouts from the audience suddenly felt distant. She swayed slightly before a large hand grasped her arm.
Lu Sicheng didn't speak, almost half-carrying her inconspicuously back to the players' lounge—apparently she wasn't the only one who sensed this loss was different from before, as the entire lounge was unusually quiet...
The air conditioning in the lounge was set a bit too cold.
Tong Yao sat down in the lounge without saying a word. Uncharacteristically, Lu Sicheng didn't immediately use his exceptional memory to mentally replay every mistake from the match during the short break. He just put on his jacket and scanned the room with a cold gaze like a mafia prince. Everyone remained silent or whispered among themselves.
Only Old Cat and Old K sat together again, their expressions calm as they had their first normal conversation in days—
"Why did you decide to trade towers in that first wave?"
"I thought their top laner didn't see me.""Made me run over to save you, ended up losing both lives."
"Ahh yeah, that one's on me." Old Cat lowered his eyes, his expression gentle with an apologetic smile at the corner of his lips, not questioning why Old Cat had insisted on taking that small jungle creep before coming to assist.
Old K seemed slightly surprised, raising his head to glance at him without speaking—though of course he didn't lose his temper or anything, just reached out to pat his shoulder—a gesture that likely carried deeper significance.
The break room grew relatively quiet. Outside in the hallway, the sounds of staff moving about and chatting mixed with the commentators' discussions about the previous match...
"I know whatever I said before, you all wouldn't really take it to heart. So how about now?" Lu Sicheng's cool voice cut through. "After personally verifying with your own hands, do you feel like you played like a pile of shit?"
His tone was calm.
Devoid of any mockery or "I told you so" undertones—he was simply posing a question with what was probably an appropriate analogy.
"Overconfidence." The man dropped this two-word summary lightly, paused, then added airily, "If we go to the World Championship in this state, we might as well forfeit like last year. The outcome would be the same anyway."
Little Fatty raised a hand, frowning as he scratched his head in frustration.
Old K and Old Cat exchanged glances, simultaneously seeing "my bad" reflected in each other's eyes.
Tong Yao sat with her head bowed, fingers twisting in her lap—suddenly transported back to about a month ago, when Lu Sicheng had confined her to the Black House during her suspension to conduct some "quality education."
"Alright, ease up on the scolding." Lu Yue stood, patting Tong Yao's shoulder. "Can't you see your Mid Laner here shaking like she's got Parkinson's?"
As Lu Sicheng turned to look at Tong Yao, she lifted her head in confusion toward Lu Yue—only to feel a warm jacket draped over her shoulders the next second. She averted her gaze, then sensed the tall figure before her crouching down... When she looked up, her eyes met deep brown ones at eye level.
Lu Sicheng grabbed her hand—icy fingertips but sweaty palm—forcing open her stiff fingers to give them a squeeze. "Should we sub in Lu Yue instead?"
His gaze remained steady.
Tong Yao paused, then under the man's watchful eyes, slowly shook her head...
She saw his expression soften slightly as he reached up to pat her head—likely conveying one simple message: he'd gotten the answer he wanted.
...
Tong Yao understood this.
What terrified her was that for a moment, she hadn't known how to win against YQCB—she still didn't know now, but she understood that running away wouldn't solve anything.
Either fight personally to reclaim victory.
Or face utter defeat and start over.
They always said running away was shameful but effective, yet now she suddenly realized this "effectiveness" was only temporary—
Eventually, she would have to confront it.
OpenNovel