Tong Yao was nestled in the captain's arms, claiming she wasn't sleepy but eventually dozing off anyway—she had no idea how long she'd slept before being roused by the sound of running water from the bathroom. When the water stopped, she opened her eyes to find herself alone in bed, just as Lu Sicheng emerged from the bathroom.
The man's hair was damp, the corners of his eyes slightly flushed from the hot water, his gaze still hazy with lingering steam—he wore nothing but a pair of boxers, water droplets trailing down his flat abdomen before disappearing beneath the waistband...
Tong Yao: "..."
She couldn't fathom how someone who spent all day sitting in front of a computer and didn't skimp on meals maintained such a physique. If it were just a matter of naturally staying lean, that would be one thing, but having abs too? Wasn't that pushing the boundaries of fantasy? ...If miracles like that existed, could she also hope to wake up one day with V-lines???
While lost in these thoughts, the tall figure had already approached her, leaning down to press a kiss to her lips. "Why are you looking at me like I've committed some grave injustice?"
"Did you sneak out at night to work out and cheat your way to this body?"
"My body's that good?"
The man took her hand and guided it to his abdomen, originally intending it as a joke. But somehow, the casual contact ended up igniting a fire within him—the atmosphere shifted palpably, even Tong Yao could sense it. She watched as the lazy smirk on Lu Sicheng's lips faded slightly, his grip on her hand loosening as he let it drift lower. When her fingers brushed against something, her face instantly burned crimson. With a flustered "Ah! Ah! Ah!" she yanked her hand back and—utterly merciless—gave the offending object a sharp slap...
Lu Sicheng's expression immediately twisted in pain. Hissing through his teeth, he doubled over, clutching himself—Tong Yao panicked, worried she might have actually injured him. Terrified he'd throw her out the window in a rage, she hastily bent down to check: "Did that hurt? Really hurt? I didn't even use much force..."
"You get to touch something nice and this is how you react? This thing isn't meant for slapping," Lu Sicheng pushed away her concerned face. "It hurts. Kiss it better and it won't hurt anymore."
"………………" Seeing Lu Sicheng straighten up without any apparent serious injury, Tong Yao relaxed, too tired to comment on what exactly qualified as "something nice." She just rolled her eyes. "Can you be a little more civilized in the morning?"
"No," Lu Sicheng scoffed, glancing sideways at her. Noticing her ears were still pink, the sharpness in his gaze softened slightly. "...Awake now?"
Tong Yao ruffled her sleep-mussed hair. "Yeah, awake."
"The last time you said you were awake was three hours ago, and then you were out cold in my arms within five minutes, snoring like a hog."
Tong Yao: "...Watch your language. Who snores like a hog?"
Lu Sicheng reached out and hauled the disgruntled girl upright. "Downstairs. Practice."
Dangling from his grip, she landed with both feet planted on his—he guided her to her slippers, and she hopped off his feet to slip them on, muttering without looking up, "Duo queue? I'll support."
"Our relationship isn't at the level where I can tolerate you supporting me yet. But don't worry, that day will come—conservatively estimated, around the time our kid starts kindergarten.""……"
Lu Sicheng had asked Tong Yao to practice because there was a scrim scheduled at 1 PM that afternoon against the Korean team ritpwer (abbreviated as rp). While rp wasn’t a particularly famous team, it had been newly formed by several well-known Korean Aids who had previously completed their contracts in China and returned to Korea after Season 5. As a result, the team had gained significant popularity even in China, with many fans who had followed these players during their time in the domestic league now forced to chase the lk league and foreign streaming platforms…
Tong Yao often saw people reposting updates and funny clips from the team’s streams on Weibo.
Lu Sicheng believed that, apart from the Korean Operator Team and the meme team, rp would likely secure the third spot representing the Korean region in the Season 6 championships. Hence, he had arranged this scrim with them.
When the two went downstairs, the other team members were already in their seats warming up with ranked matches. Little Fatty looked particularly listless. As Tong Yao took her seat, she overheard Old Cat asking him, "Little Fatty, what’s wrong? Didn’t sleep well?"
Little Fatty let out an "Oh," squinting slightly: "………………Imagine one early morning, you’re dreaming about a 170 cm tall, 110 cm long-legged, E-cup, 47 kg beauty confessing to you. Just as you’re about to say yes, you’re jolted awake by rustling noises. You open your eyes only to hear your ADC from the next bed threatening to make your Mid Laner cry. How would you feel?"
Tong Yao: "……"
Old Cat immediately looked up at Tong Yao.
Their eyes met, and the atmosphere instantly turned awkward—almost unbearably so.
Tong Yao maintained a deadpan expression, resigned to her fate: "He said 'imagine.'"
Just then, Lu Sicheng returned with some food. Even from the kitchen, he had heard Little Fatty’s loud voice. Under the questioning gazes of his teammates and the team manager, he remained utterly composed. Scanning the room, he retorted, "Do I seem like that kind of person?"
The moment he finished speaking, a chorus of "Yes," "That’s literally your character," "Absolutely," and "Isn’t it obvious?" erupted from every corner of the team headquarters—
Including from a few juniors on the second floor.
Lu Sicheng: "……"
[This phenomenon symbolizes the end of the China Telecom Team’s one-voice hall era dominated by the captain as the Team Tyrant, ushering in a glorious new age of collective wisdom and diverse talents flourishing together. —China Telecom Team Manager Xiao Rui]
……
1:30 PM, scrim time.
From the ban & pick phase, Tong Yao could tell this scrim was different. She sensed something unusual—normally, unless something unexpected happened, only Lu Sicheng and Ming Shen would do most of the talking during scrims. Lu Sicheng would say, "Let’s try this strategy today," and Ming Shen would reply, "So we’ll pick X, Y, Z Champions."
Their back-and-forth, clearly prearranged, made the ban & pick phase fly by, with only minor discussions for flexible roles.
But today was different.
The team argued heatedly over which Champion to pick for the Mid Lane, faces flushed with intensity.
Ming Shen: "How about Ekko? Tong Yao still needs to practice Ekko—sometimes her ult is just randomly thrown out, painful to watch."
Little Fatty: "Leblanc’s open—why not take her?"Old Cat: "The point of scrims is to train, not to win. Does Tong Yao really need to train her Leblanc anymore?"
Old K: "Seconded. I propose Brand."
Lu Sicheng: "Pick Orianna."
Little Fatty: "What the hell with Orianna? They have Akali, don't mess around."
Lu Sicheng: "..."
They almost ran out of time during champion selection, so Tong Yao quickly locked in Ekko.
Then the same situation repeated during the ADC pick. The argument went on so long that even the kids from the second team were leaning over the railing to watch the commotion. Amidst the chaotic suggestions of "Urgot," "Draven," and "Jinx would be good," Lu Sicheng expressionlessly locked in Kalista.
Five seconds of silence followed.
Old Cat: "All that talk about listening to opinions was fake. Team Tyrant."
Little Fatty: "Team Tyrant."
Old K: "Team Tyrant."
Tong Yao gave Lu Sicheng a sympathetic look. He remained stone-faced: "I'm playing this. Who suggested Draven just now? Step forward."
Little Fatty: "..."
Lu Sicheng could play any ADC decently well—except Draven, which his teammates unanimously agreed was at best Gold III level. Little Fatty had only suggested it to stir the pot, just like Old Cat's Urgot suggestion—after all, across all five major regions in this Summer Split's regular season, Urgot's pick/ban rate was a solid 0%.
Lu Sicheng would listen to opinions, but that didn't mean he'd lost his mind.
With champions selected, the scrim began. The early laning phase went normally, given the team's individual skill levels—but throughout, Tong Yao couldn't shake a strange feeling, like back in the days of raiding 25-player heroic dungeons in MMORPGs. Once mid-game teamfights started, everything became chaotic. Everyone had their own ideas—some right, some wrong...
After the lesson from their last match against YQB, the team's execution of calls had improved significantly. When everyone agreed on a play, they followed through decisively—
For example, one moment Old Cat would be farming top lane, and the next, when Lu Sicheng called for him to teleport down, he'd immediately abandon his wave and TP—even if no fight had broken out bot lane yet. And sure enough, the instant he arrived, Lu Sicheng would initiate by throwing Little Fatty at the enemy ADC, securing a double kill. Lu Sicheng would then gift Old Cat one of the kills, compensating for—even exceeding—the gold he'd lost from abandoning his lane.
That was the good part.
The chaos in scrims came when disagreements arose about certain calls, now that other players were more willing to voice their opinions. These objections would often send Lu Sicheng into his habitual thinking mode... and since he wasn't yet skilled at handling such situations, post-scrim reviews showed that even when other players' ideas were correct—the optimal choice for the team's situation—those few seconds of Lu Sicheng's deliberation would leave the team leaderless—
In League of Legends, a few seconds is enough for everything to change.
Because of this new dynamic, their scrim against Team Integrity ended in an expected loss after fifty grueling minutes.
Everyone felt exhausted after the scrim—It wasn't just because they lost the scrims.
They were genuinely exhausted—fifty minutes of intense mental focus and constant brain activity, with teammates talking and discussing strategies in their ears the entire time... They'd never felt this way before.
Because they were strong, because Lu Sicheng was calling the shots, most of the time they just followed his lead, at most considering how to handle their own lane. But now, they had unconsciously started thinking for themselves, taking the bigger picture into account. While managing their own situations, they also had to consider what to do next, so that when Lu Sicheng occasionally made a less-than-optimal pick, they could correct it in time...
Four average minds combined could outmatch one Zhuge Liang.
After the scrims, they held an unusually long post-game discussion about that day's matches.
By the time the meeting ended, everyone looked utterly drained, so hungry their stomachs were practically touching their backs.
Little Fatty: "Physically exhausted, but spiritually fulfilled. I can feel the change in our team. After officially kicking the captain off his one-voice hall pedestal, we'll punch l and stomp lk!!!!!!"
Lu Sicheng: "Kick who? Final command authority is still in my hands. If you want to rebel, you'll have to step over my corpse."
Little Fatty: "..."
Tong Yao shook her head, ignoring the childish bickering of the bot lane duo, and returned to her seat. While flipping through her meeting notes and waiting for her teammates to order takeout, she stared at the long list of things that needed improvement before finally putting the notebook down with a headache. She sat in front of her computer and started scrolling through Weibo—originally to relax her mind.
Who knew that as she scrolled, she'd come across a post that made her entire body tense up—
**[Min Xuan hehehe: Just now, our Min Xuan (rp-jker) said during his stream: We had scrims against China's Operator Team this afternoon and won. It felt like the other side was playing in complete disarray—sometimes their rotations were fast, like a top-tier team should be, but other times they reacted a beat too slow, making decisions that would've been better if made earlier. No idea what was going on, but overall, they didn't seem in good form.
…………………Man, China Telecom's drama just keeps coming. Yesterday, there was talk about Cheng Ge apologizing to his teammates, and today they lost scrims and got criticized for playing messily. What's going on? After that apology, did China Telecom actually change their shotcaller instead of keeping Cheng Ge? Could there really be internal conflict? Worried.]**
The post had 3,000 reposts and 5,000 comments.
The reposts were all expressing concern, while half the comments were sympathizing with Lu Sicheng, and the other half were cursing the rest of China Telecom's members—even Little Fatty rolling his eyes at the captain in the past was dragged out as "proof" of internal conflict.
Tong Yao: "……………………"
A new storm was brewing.
Draw your blade—face the storm head-on.
OpenNovel