Tong Yao returned to the break room and slumped into her seat, looking somewhat gloomy.
But her teammates were observant, so her mood didn’t go unnoticed for long—Little Fatty, the team’s all-around support affectionately dubbed the "nanny," quickly picked up on it. He handed the biscuit he was holding to Lu Sicheng before turning to ask Tong Yao, “What’s wrong?”
Lu Sicheng casually lifted Tong Yao’s chin and stuffed the biscuit into her mouth, remarking indifferently, “She hasn’t lost enough. She panics when the game goes south, afraid of taking the blame, too scared to engage.”
Little Fatty blinked, then switched to a look of exaggerated nonchalance. “Oh.”
“I’m not afraid of taking the blame…” Tong Yao mumbled around the biscuit in her mouth, shooting the man a glare. She crunched the biscuit as if it were Lu Sicheng’s head, swallowed, then took a sip of the matcha latte a staff member had bought for her. It was sweet, but it did nothing to salvage her already sour mood—if anything, her brain felt even more like mush. “I’m just nervous. I’ve never played in a finals this important before—and of course, I had to run into Ai Jia. I really don’t have a good answer for that scheming old fox… I thought about it during the match, but I couldn’t come up with a solid counterplay, so I figured it’d be better to sub in Lu Yue.”
As she spoke, she absentmindedly picked at the rim of her paper cup, her fidgeting betraying her frustration.
Lu Sicheng nodded. “All that talk, and it still boils down to not losing enough.”
Tong Yao rolled her eyes and slumped further into her chair.
Lu Yue, lounging nearby with legs just as long as his brother’s, grinned. “What, you’re volunteering to bench yourself for me? Fine by me—I can match Ai Jia’s cowardice and avoid fighting him till the game ends.”
Tong Yao grabbed an empty cup nearby and hurled it at him. Lu Yue dodged, still grinning. “It’s not like you’ve never lost to YQCB before—they were the only team you lost to in the Summer Split. And remember when you used to get bullied left and right by A Tai, the Mid Laner from the Meme team? You’d tremble at the sight of him. So what happened then? How’d you get over it?”
“That was just the Group Stage, and right after, so much other stuff happened I didn’t even have time to dwell on the loss. As for A Tai, I just reminded myself he’s human too, so I stopped being so scared—but now, every time I face the Meme team in Scrims, if I’m playing, we lose! What’s the point of not being scared if I still can’t beat him?! I’m desperate here!” Tong Yao glanced up at Lu Sicheng, who had pulled a chair over and was silently watching her. She hesitated before adding, “And this is the finals. I didn’t play well just now. I’m worried I won’t adjust in time and end up dragging you all down.”
Her words left the room in stunned silence.
“Buddy, this is esports. There are countless opponents out there. You think you’re Faker, the legendary Mid Laner of League of Legends, undefeated throughout history?—Not even Faker gets solo-killed sometimes. In your pro career, you’ll always run into opponents who hard-counter you. Instead of running away, you should learn to play safe and let your teammates carry.” Lu Yue pointed at Lu Sicheng’s stoic face. “With someone like this sitting next to you in-game, have you never once felt the urge to get carried to victory?”
Tong Yao: “...”She didn’t have one. All she had ever thought was: I’m the Mid Laner, I have to carry. I can’t slack off this game, I can’t get carried to victory either. Holding the team back is absolutely unacceptable—
But before she could speak, Lu Sicheng coldly slapped Lu Yue’s hand away. Lu Yue retracted his hand and said, “Stop thinking that you have to carry to win. You can’t carry the team forever—my brother’s right, you just haven’t lost enough. If you’d experienced losing in every possible way, you’d realize that everyone has their turn to take the blame… Even Old Cat, that old fossil, gets called the team’s weak link every day. You’re a rookie, what are you so afraid of?”
Old Cat chuckled. “Yeah, getting carried to victory makes me happy.”
Ming Shen gave Lu Yue a thumbs-up. “I’ll award you a kindergarten graduation certificate when we get home.”
Lu Yue rolled his eyes at Ming Shen, then turned back. “If you keep thinking the team will lose unless you carry, that just means you don’t trust your teammates—shorty, that’s really heartbreaking. After playing together for a whole season, you still don’t trust them?”
Lu Yue’s words made Tong Yao shoot up from her chair.
Lu Sicheng: “Sit down.”
Tong Yao plopped back into her seat with a thud .
Lu Sicheng: “He’s an idiot, but this time, he’s not wrong.”
Tong Yao lifted her eyes to glance at Lu Sicheng, then lowered her head again.
Lu Sicheng’s voice, flat and emotionless, sounded above her head: “This team has two Mid Laners. One has no shame—that’s you, Lu Yue, come over here and sit down too. If you’re thinking about getting carried during a match, why are you even playing professionally? Go home and farm. This team doesn’t need slackers. The other Mid Laner has too much shame—afraid she can’t carry, afraid to lose, afraid of dragging her teammates down…”
With a clack , the man picked up the coffee cup on the table.
After a long pause, he sighed, his tone softening abruptly. “When will you two grow up? Winning and losing are normal in professional matches. No one’s blaming you, so stop forcing drama onto yourselves.”
Tong Yao stirred and looked up.
Lu Sicheng reached over just then, pinching her nose—Tong Yao instinctively opened her mouth, and Lu Sicheng tilted the coffee cup in his hand, pouring a sip of iced coffee into her mouth. The icy bitterness of Americano flowed over her tongue, so bitter it sent a jolt through her skull, clearing some of the fog in her head.
Lu Sicheng: “More awake now?”
Nod.
Lu Sicheng: “Still insisting on swapping with Lu Yue?”
Shake.
Lu Sicheng: “You messed up in the last match. Did anyone scold you?”
Shake.
Lu Sicheng: “Did anyone complain?”
Shake.
Lu Sicheng: “Now do you understand why you always lose to A Tai in Scrims against the Meme team whenever you’re playing?”
Nod.
Lu Sicheng: “If we meet them at the S6 World Championship, do you still want to lose to them?”
Shake.
Lu Sicheng: “Can you trust your teammates to carry the next match? Can you accept winning without you as the core carry?”
Nod.
Lu Sicheng: “Do you know you were wrong?”
Nod nod.Lu Sicheng stopped talking. Muttering "what's the use of only drinking sweet stuff," he snatched the latte from Tong Yao's hand and shoved his iced Americano into hers, frowning as he shooed her to finish the coffee and sober up—Tong Yao cradled the coffee, dragging her chair with her feet to face the corner in contemplation, while the remaining team members huddled together to discuss their next match strategy... At one point, Little Fatty glanced at Tong Yao in the corner, then at Lu Sicheng: "Captain, being this harsh is why you deserve to be a single dog."
Lu Sicheng: "What right does a lifelong single dog have to criticize me?"
Little Fatty: "Worried you'll be so heartbroken you can't function. If our Mid Laner can't carry, fine, but if our ADC can't carry either, what's the point of even playing?"
Lu Sicheng sneered: "Worry too much. Instead of fretting over that, why not worry about your own Champion pool—did you see how well the opposing team's support plays Bard in team fights? Look at your own Bard, don’t you feel ashamed?"
Little Fatty: "..."
...
In the second match, it was visibly clear that ZGDX had made some adjustments to their tactical focus. Early game, the Mid Laner played defensively while the Jungler prioritized ganking top and bottom lanes—though honestly, ZGDX rarely employed this dual-core strategy when Tong Yao was on the field. Tong Yao herself wasn’t very accustomed to it. While cautiously trading blows with Ai Jia, she tried to seize opportunities to counterattack, succeeding at times but failing more often against the seasoned veteran Ai Jia... Coupled with YQCB being no pushovers, the second match ended in a regrettable defeat after forty-five minutes.
Post-match, the commentators analyzed the game.
Commentator B: "Honestly, I find it a bit odd. Throughout this match, Smiling seemed unusually restrained. If this was the intended playstyle, why not field the more suitable Lu Xuan Shou?"
Commentator A pondered before replying: "ZGDX has always had multiple tactical setups. This particular strategy is usually employed with Lu Xuan Shou... I think ZGDX’s insistence on not subbing today was likely to give Smiling a chance to learn how to face opponents whose playstyles counter hers—you might never fully master playing from behind or handling suppression, but you have to experience it firsthand so you don’t panic when it happens again. Even if you can’t win, you have to survive. It’s that simple.
At the World Championship, you’ll face all kinds of professional players. From what I know, just in the Korean and European regions alone, there are more than two high-caliber players who combine both Smiling’s and Ai Jia’s playstyles. What will ZGDX do then? Field Lu Xuan Shou or Smiling? You can’t rely on rotations to always secure mid-lane advantages and carry games.
I actually think today shows how clear-headed ZGDX’s management and captain are. That’s a good thing."
Commentator B went "Oh": "So it all comes down to preparing for Worlds."
Commentator A: "Exactly, it’s all about preparing for Worlds—Smiling hasn’t lost enough matches yet! Some lessons can’t be learned just through words or mental preparation. You have to go through it yourself to truly understand."Commentator B smiled: ["Using the Summer Split finals to train the players' mental resilience—that's a bit much."]
Commentator A patted his shoulder and laughed heartily: ["For the sake of the World Championship a month from now, it's all worth it."]
—Sometimes, the commentators could really set the tone.
—Sometimes, a single remark from them could stir up public opinion and get a player or team torn apart in the backlash. Other times, their words could just as effectively soothe the emotions of fans and spectators.
At least for now, after the two commentators finished their chatter, many fans who had rushed to ZGDX’s official Weibo to demand, "If Smiling isn’t the core of the strategy, why not just put Lv in instead?" quietly deleted their angry posts and calmed down a little.
The match moved into the third game.
Compared to the unease of the first game and the frustration after losing the second, Tong Yao actually felt much calmer now—she had used the ten-minute break to coolly analyze the issues from the previous match. Instead of shouldering all the blame herself, she tried to reflect with a broader perspective and realized the loss had come down to small details and minor mistakes.
They could be avoided.
Tong Yao took a deep breath, put on her headphones, and the match finally entered the third game’s Ban & Pick phase—
Just as she had promised her teammates, she would look for opportunities to carry hard in the game. If that wasn’t possible, she’d play it safe to ensure mid lane didn’t collapse or get steamrolled… The latter wasn’t her usual style, but she would do her best. Against strong opponents, this was probably a necessary survival tactic: knowing when to push forward and when to bend.
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