The match began, and under the watchful eyes of everyone, Little Fatty maneuvered his plump catfish—whose figure was a perfect match for his own—waddling and swaying toward the lane. He passed through his own jungle, crossed the river, and then squatted in the bushes of YQCB’s jungle, letting out a mischievous chuckle.
Lu Sicheng: "Show-off. If you get First Blooded for this, don’t bother coming back."
Little Fatty ignored him. When the game system announced "Minions have spawned," and both sides’ minion waves began moving out from the fountain, YQCB’s bot lane duo started attacking the small and large stone golems, planning to clear the camp before heading to lane. Little Fatty, relying on his tankiness, waited until the small golem was at Low health before hopping out of the bushes and licking it—
Of course, he failed to steal it.
Pope secured the experience from both golems with ease, then immediately turned and started relentlessly attacking Little Fatty. Little Fatty turned tail and fled, burning his Flash—only to panic-flash a few millimeters forward into a wall. The ZGDX team voice chat instantly erupted—
Tong Yao: "Ouch!"
Old K: "Ouch!"
Old Cat: "Ouch!"
Lu Sicheng: "Bronze-level play."
By now, Little Fatty was down to a third of his health. He gulped down his potion and frantically turned to cast his second Summoner spell, Exhaust, on Pope, slowing his movement and attack speed, barely managing to save his own sorry hide.
A classic case of going for wool and coming home shorn!
Tong Yao: "Bot lane just activated hard mode."
Old K: "What a mess."
Old Cat: "The moment Little Fatty crossed the river, bot lane was doomed. Old K, come gank top at level three, I’ll carry this game."
"Carry what? People are already laughing at our team for having a duo top lane, and now you’re shamelessly begging for K-God’s help? Have you no dignity?" Little Fatty grumbled at Old Cat, then wobbled his round body back to Lu Sicheng’s side in a flustered hurry.
At that moment, Lu Sicheng was calmly last-hitting minions. Seeing his Low health support cowering behind him, his eye twitched as he pinged the ground: "Why even come back? Might as well die to the enemy and AFK in fountain."
Little Fatty chuckled. "Came back to troll you."
Lu Sicheng: "..."
Three seconds of silence filled the voice chat. It was then that everyone understood why, after four seasons of supporting Lu Sicheng, Little Fatty still hadn’t earned his affection—misery is self-inflicted, one misplay at a time. The fact that Lu Sicheng hadn’t AFK’d in an official match or beaten the crap out of this fatty yet was probably already consuming a lifetime’s worth of tolerance and all the love he could muster.
By the three-minute mark, both bot and mid lane had reached level three. Knowing Pope’s personal habits, he would always look for a kill before level four—even if he played safe, he’d call his Jungler for a gank and Tower dive. Having witnessed this countless times in Scrims, the moment their champions hit level three, Lu Sicheng signaled Old K to counter-gank. Their Jungler was bound to come, because right now, Little Fatty had neither Exhaust nor Flash—like a fat sheep Exposed to a pack of hungry wolves. Not ganking him would be a crime...
Little Fatty: "I can feel the enemy’s greedy eyes scanning me up and down, lecherously."Lu Sicheng: "That's normal. After all, you were just trying to show off in their territory."
Little Fatty: "I was trying to bait Pope into using Flash to chase me, you know? Who knew he'd actually hold back and not take the bait."
Tong Yao chuckled while last-hitting minions: "He's not stupid. Besides, the only person in this world who can trick Li Junhe is Lu Sicheng."
Little Fatty snorted: "Damn blind eyes!"
As they spoke, Pope's Q ability stacks had maxed out, instantly triggering the "Ranger's Focus" buff to increase his attack speed. In just a few steps, he unleashed a flurry of basic attacks followed by his W ability "Volley," sending out a barrage of arrows. Seeing this, Little Fatty—whose Summoner spell was still on cooldown—realized the danger and began retreating toward the safety of his Turret. At that moment, the enemy Gragas finally appeared, attempting to blast Little Fatty out of the Turret's range so Ashe could finish him off—
But there was a slight miscommunication in the enemy team's coordination. After the support used Exhaust on Lu Sicheng, they were a beat too slow to enter the Turret's range and tank its hits. Pope had chased too aggressively and ended up taking two Turret shots himself, getting swallowed up by a sliver-health Little Fatty. Meanwhile, Lu Sicheng used Heal to restore some of Little Fatty's HP. By the time Pope was spat back out, his health was critically low!
Old K shouted: "I can't get there! Ai Jia's blocking me mid! Tong Yao! Come beat his ass!"
At this point, Ashe had failed the Tower dive and could only barely escape with Heal and Flash at the brink of death—letting the prey slip away. Little Fatty angrily slammed his keyboard: "Dammit, if Exhaust had been up two seconds earlier, he'd be dead!!!!"
"If Exhaust had been up, he wouldn't have gone in so aggressively in the first place," Lu Sicheng said calmly. "He's very calculated with his Tower dives. If he wasn't going to die, he wasn't going to die—unless their Jungler and support had followed up properly. Whether YQCB's Tower dive succeeded or not depended entirely on the order their Jungler and support tanked the Turret."
No sooner had Lu Sicheng finished speaking than Tong Yao and Old K, after forcing the enemy Mid Laner to recall, intercepted the retreating Jungler and happily claimed his head—
First Blood!
Following the intense Tower dive action bot, mid lane also blossomed with success!
Amid the audience's enthusiastic applause and laughter, Caster A remarked: [The early events of this match tell us that today's almanac reads: Do not initiate trouble, for trouble usually comes with a heavy price.]
Caster B: [Then if someone tries to start Baron later—]
Caster A: [………………Don’t even say it, I’m scared.]
After failing the first Tower dive and forcing the enemy bot lane to recall, while also securing the enemy Jungler's death mid, Tong Yao and Old K joined Little Fatty and Lu Sicheng bot to push down the enemy's first outer Turret—meanwhile, Ai Jia rotated top and, along with Top laner Rong Rong, took down ZGDX's top Turret. However, ZGDX's four-man push was faster, securing the First Tower bonus of 650 gold and also claiming the first Elemental Dragon.
By the ninth minute, the gold difference between the two teams was around 1,500. The bot duo swapped to top lane, and after the earlier skirmishes, the game returned to the laning phase.
Caster A: [With one kill under her belt and a CS lead of over a dozen minions, Smiling should be having a pretty comfortable time right now.]Commentator B: "Not necessarily. It depends on who you're laning against—Ai Jia is the type of player who excels at finding opportunities under pressure. If you get even slightly overconfident and try to go for a kill against him, things will go south."
As it turned out, Commentator B had a real talent for jinxing. No sooner had he spoken than Tong Yao aggressively pushed forward, clearing minions and throwing out her orb to shove the wave. Ai Jia dodged with a slight sidestep and pulled back slightly—Tong Yao, thinking she could secure the kill, went in—only to be stunned by Ekko under the turret. Ai Jia retaliated with a full combo before using his ultimate to retreat out of Tong Yao's attack range. Her health plummeted, and as she tried to back off, the respawned jungler, Gragas, followed up, knocking her back into turret range just as she stepped out, securing the kill!
Commentator A: "Ah, that was too hasty! Way too hasty!"
Commentator B: "What did I say?! Ai Jia is a top-tier player when it comes to handling pressure. No matter how much of an advantage you have, he’ll claw it back! Now the wave is pushing in, and Smiling is going to lose an entire minion wave. All her earlier lead is gone—just like that. She really got ahead of herself."
As the saying goes, the three great illusions in life are:
I have the advantage.
I can carry.
This kill is free.
After her death, a fresh wave of minions pushed in, forcing Tong Yao to signal for Old K to take them instead of letting them go to waste. She could only watch helplessly as Ai Jia’s CS caught up and even surpassed hers...
By the 12-minute mark, the gold difference had narrowed to around 700, practically negligible—what made a troublesome opponent was their relentless ability to find opportunities to close the gap. They kept making small moves, constantly feinting and diverting attention, until, before you knew it, the advantage you once held had slipped away.
After that first reckless death, Tong Yao played more cautiously. But that single misstep seemed to open the floodgates—over the next five minutes, YQCB’s jungle and support duo ganked her three times. One resulted in another kill, another forced her to burn Flash, and the last left her recalling on a sliver of health...
As she backed, watching yet another wave of minions she couldn’t farm, she felt her heart bleeding, one foot already over the edge of a cliff—amid the heavy silence, Little Fatty tried to reassure her, "Play safe, it’s fine," while Lu Sicheng’s calm voice cut in at just the right moment: "Don’t rush. It’s okay."
Tong Yao bit her lower lip. "No, it’s not okay. I’m in deep trouble."
The team: "..."
Right now, Tong Yao was having a miserable time, getting camped so hard she couldn’t even farm. Her growth rate over the last five minutes was basically half of the enemy Mid Laner’s... Meanwhile, Lu Sicheng, though slightly ahead in CS, was pinned down in bot lane by Pope, unable to move. Little Fatty’s Tahm Kench could only help her escape, lacking the engage potential of the enemy Bard to force small skirmishes...
The match was forcibly dragged into the mid-game.
Now, instead of ZGDX’s earlier minor lead, YQCB had taken control of the tempo, and the gold had started to swing in their favor.Tong Yao saw that Lu Sicheng was being locked down in the bot lane by Pope, unable to quickly take over the game, so she could only call Old K for help to find opportunities—after a few more small skirmishes, ZGDX still didn’t gain much advantage. Instead, the enemy team widened the gold gap further. ZGDX had no choice but to give up on fighting and focus on farming and macro play...
At 27 minutes, YQCB secured a Water Dragon.
At 32 minutes, ZGDX’s Top Laner teleported mid, coordinating with Lu Sicheng’s ultimate crit to take out YQCB’s bot duo. However, YQCB’s Gragas landed a perfect ultimate, exploding all four ZGDX members into low health alongside Gangplank’s barrels. Tong Yao’s Syndra pushed back an Ekko with her spheres, but the Ekko managed to dive into the fray and clean up the low-health targets, using his ultimate to reset—this fight turned into a miraculous Comeback for YQCB, trading two for four despite losing their bot duo first.
At 32:11, YQCB started Baron. Old K’s Elise rappelled into the pit but failed to steal it and was killed.
Just as the audience thought the game was entering YQCB’s tempo...
At 33:08, Old Cat’s Lissandra respawned and teleported to a ward in the Blue Buff bush below Baron. She clawed in aggressively, locking down YQCB’s low-health Gangplank with Lu Sicheng’s Jhin’s root for the kill. Meanwhile, Little Fatty swallowed Old Cat to save him as he fled. Tong Yao arrived just in time to clean up YQCB’s remaining three low-health members!
The crowd gasped: “Holy shit, it’s like a turn-based game!”
At 38:29, ZGDX’s three members ganked YQCB’s bot duo. The enemy Jungler Gragas arrived too late to help, while ZGDX’s Elise rappelled up to dodge Ashe’s ultimate, landing right on Gragas for the kill. After instantly wiping three enemies, ZGDX secured the Elder Dragon!!
With the Elder Dragon buff, ZGDX pushed down two of YQCB’s outer turrets, then killed their Top Laner Gangplank, not only equalizing the gold deficit but even taking the lead—
The crowd erupted again: “Holy shit, it’s Gods clashing!”
At 45 minutes, both teams clashed over Baron once more. This time, YQCB forced Lu Sicheng into a desperate fight and started Baron first, only for Lu Sicheng to stand far behind Little Fatty and land four solid ultimate shots, killing the enemy Jungler. Meanwhile, Old K’s Elise rappelled into the pit and smited, stealing Baron outright!
The audience rose to their feet, cheering and applauding.
Caster A: “Today’s fortune really did say this!!!!—Whoever starts trouble first gets punished!”
At 48:11, ZGDX pushed into YQCB’s High Ground with a massive minion wave, killing the Top Laner Gangplank first, then the ADC Ashe, leaving only a tanky Mid Laner Ekko trembling in fear—finally ending the game in one decisive push.
...
Tong Yao took off her headphones, her face pale instead of smiling. Early in the game, she had failed to carry despite securing a small lead. Instead, she had inexplicably thrown a fight, nearly dooming her team along with herself... Thankfully, Old Cat’s risky teleport play at Baron turned the tide with a decisive engage. Otherwise, if they had lost, the blame would have fallen squarely on her.
A player’s mentality, mechanics, and macro sense can all be trained—but their playstyle is much harder to change.
...She remembered Lu Sicheng telling her back when she first started her pro career that a steady, calculated player like Ai Jia would be her natural counter. Now, it seemed he was right.Tong Yao thought she had already forgotten and overcome the fear of losing matches in the Group Stage, but now it came rushing back to her... As she walked offstage toward the break room, her mind wandered, causing her to miss a step on the stairs and nearly fall—fortunately, Lu Sicheng, who had been watching her intently ever since removing his headphones after the match, reached out from behind and steadied her.
Tong Yao looked up, meeting those deep brown eyes. After a brief pause, she grabbed his sleeve and said, "Sub in Lu Yue for the next game."
"..." Lu Sicheng glanced at her, released her hand, and turned away. "No. Substitutions are for tactical adjustments."
"But this is the finals! Such an important match—you can't just—"
"This is just the domestic league. If you start habitually running away now when things get tough, what are you going to do in international matches where every single game matters? Do you expect Lu Yue to carry you through the entire thing?—For today's BO5, you’re going to play it out even if you have to strap your head to your belt."
"..."
Tong Yao wanted to jump up and smack him, but instead, she turned to look for Xiao Rui.
Before she could find him, she heard Lu Sicheng’s voice behind her, cold and unyielding: "I said no substitution. Begging anyone else won’t change that."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng was her boyfriend.
But the moment he stepped onto the competition stage, he became nothing but the ruthless Captain Lu.
OpenNovel