The next day, Tong Yao grabbed her phone as soon as she woke up. Opening Weibo, WeChat, and the forums, she found her feeds flooded with news about 【Hierophant (Pope) coming to China to play professionally, joining the relegation team YQCB】. As last year's officially recognized world's number one ADC, a World Championship winner, and a living advertisement with countless fans, Korea must have offered him a hefty sum to keep him...
No one knew why he'd come to the LPL, which was currently in a slump.
“—If you ask why, it’s probably because even though two LPL teams were eliminated in the Group Stage and one team was knocked out in the quarterfinals last year, the official annual rankings still placed the ID ‘Chessman’ below ‘Hierophant’?”
Team manager Xiao Rui took a sip of congee and concluded—
“Yeah, he came for Cheng Ge.”
“...”
Tong Yao blew a big bubble into her soy milk.
It was 9:30 in the morning, and the first floor of the team headquarters was quiet. Only the ZGDX Team’s Mid Laner and the team manager sat facing each other, eating breakfast in solitude. Tong Yao, startled by the gossip, grabbed a tissue to wipe her mouth: “I don’t get it.”
“Well, ‘chessman’ and ‘hierophant,’ ‘pawn’ and ‘pope’—it’s like ‘shadow’ and ‘light’...” Xiao Rui stroked his chin. “You probably didn’t know this, but back when Cheng Ge was playing professionally in Korea, he was supposedly Pope’s substitute. There was a time when he shone so brightly that he kept Pope firmly on the bench for two whole seasons—”
“Huh?!”
Tong Yao hugged her soy milk cup, eyes widening in exaggerated surprise.
“Yeah, yeah, impressive, right? Haven’t you noticed how good his Korean is? Back then, he was also the shotcaller there... Later, Cheng Ge left only because he wanted to return to China to play professionally.”
“Why did he want to come back?”
“Patriotism, no joke. Back then, China’s League of Legends pro scene was on a decline, so he came back.”
“...”
Good lord, does this guy have any flaws?!... If you don’t count his poker face and his lack of affection for small animals.
“So Cheng Ge didn’t leave because Pope made a comeback and he got benched, forced to return home in frustration—in other words, he wasn’t driven out. He came back because he wanted to.”
“And then? And then?”
“Then of course Pope wasn’t happy. How could the ‘shadow’ outshine the ‘light’?” Xiao Rui rolled his eyes. “‘I haven’t even beaten you fair and square yet, how dare you just leave? Does that mean everything I have now is just your leftovers?’—that’s probably how he felt... Then last year, our team couldn’t make it to the World Championship for various reasons, so the two never got to face off. This season, Pope just decided to come over instead.”
“Rui Ge, your delusional speculation is vivid and well-reasoned.”"Yeah, the funniest part is these two actually get along pretty well in private—where do you think Lu Sicheng got the inside scoop on Li Junhe coming to China? Pfft, it was Li Junhe himself who spilled the beans. Yesterday, I went to the neighboring team to ask if they secretly signed Pope to compete with us for the big headlines, and their captain looked completely clueless, saying he only found out yesterday too."
"..."
"I’ve even seen fanfiction about these two on LOFTER," Xiao Rui cackled. "I thought about printing it out to show Cheng Ge—wonder what that deadpan face of his would look like seeing that kind of stuff… Probably go berserk, hahahahahahahaha—"
"You’ve got a death wish..." Tong Yao muttered, quickly grabbing her phone to download LOFTER while casually asking, "So who do you think is stronger, Cheng Ge or Pope?"
"Homegrown flowers always smell sweeter than wild ones," Xiao Rui took a dignified sip of his porridge before leisurely adding, "In my opinion, Cheng Ge is stronger than Li Junhe. He’s got a better mindset, stronger macro play, and stays unshaken no matter what—no wonder Li Junhe’s getting restless. If this keeps up, the title of world’s best ADC might just change hands sooner or later."
"Wow!"
Tong Yao put down her breakfast, looked up with deep emotion at a certain tightly shut door on the second floor, and sighed.
...
And so.
Thanks to Xiao Rui’s wild exaggerations and someone’s overactive imagination, when Lu Sicheng woke up in the afternoon and came downstairs, he was inexplicably met with the intense gaze of his team’s new Mid Laner—so bright it sent chills down his spine. Under that piercing stare, Lu Sicheng finally couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out to cover those wide eyes and said coldly, "What are you staring at?"
Tong Yao was curled up on her chair, hugging her knees. She ducked back with a grin and pointed at the computer screen. "YQCB just announced it—Pope really is coming to China to play professionally."
"Oh." The man responded with little enthusiasm, turning to boot up his computer before glancing back indifferently. "...Had enough?"
Tong Yao’s grin didn’t fade. Propping her chin on one hand, her eyes narrowed into crescents. "Cheng Ge, I heard you once benched Pope for two whole seasons."
Lu Sicheng lifted his gaze to shoot a look at Xiao Rui in the distance, who whistled and turned away. Lu Sicheng looked back. "...So what?"
"'So what'?! That’s Pope we’re talking about! Cheng Ge, you’re the man who once defeated Pope!" Tong Yao waved her arms wildly.
"Did you forget to take your meds?"
"Our Cheng Ge!"
"You’re so damn noisy."
Lu Sicheng clicked into the game with a look of disdain, ready for his daily Ranked match grind, his handsome face screaming "indifference" and "shut up." Seeing he wasn’t paying her any attention, Tong Yao lowered her arms and glanced at her own game, still in queue. She idly opened a gaming forum and started scrolling, then switched to Baidu to search a bunch of keywords, continuing her endless browsing—
Silence lingered for a while.Lu Sicheng felt something was off, so he turned his head to ask the suddenly quiet person beside him, "What are you up to now?"
"Looking up Pope's photos."
"..."
"Oh dear, your hairstyles are kinda similar," Tong Yao glanced at the computer screen, then turned to scrutinize Lu Sicheng carefully. "But Cheng Ge is still a bit more handsome."
Lu Sicheng stood up.
Tong Yao looked wary. "What?"
So you do know fear? Lu Sicheng shot her a glance. "I'm hungry."
As he walked to the fridge, bent down to grab a yogurt, and inserted a straw, he noticed the person squatting on the chair was still muttering to herself: "They say Pope's Kalista is insanely good, tsk tsk, our Cheng Ge's Kalista is also amazing, foolish humans... Oh, someone even said Pope is really tall, clearly they've never seen Cheng Ge in person, standing tall like a telephone pole... Huh, here's another saying Pope is handsome too, dude, have you even seen Lu Sicheng's face? The epitome of handsome for life, okay? Even my attached friends are obsessed, who wouldn't be, only inhuman people wouldn't... Damn, this guy's saying Pope is rich, bro, you should come check out the parking lot at our ZGDX headquarters—"
Lu Sicheng: "..."
Amidst the near-paralyzing laughter from Little Fatty and the others nearby, Lu Sicheng walked over to Tong Yao, pinched her chin to forcibly turn her face toward him, and stuffed the straw-equipped yogurt into her mouth—
"Shut up."
The muttering instantly ceased. With food at her lips, it'd be a waste not to eat, so Tong Yao sipped the yogurt from Lu Sicheng's hand. When he let go, she took hold of it herself, slurping twice before glancing at the man bending over to pick up the large cat that had somehow claimed her seat. She murmured, "I also read a fanfic about you and Pope this afternoon. Kinda eye-burning."
Lu Sicheng: "…………………………………"
With one hand holding the cat, Lu Sicheng used the other to snatch the yogurt from Tong Yao's mouth.
Placing the cat on the floor, he tossed the straw aside, peeled open the lid, set it down, and called to Da Bing, who had just lost his seat: "Chubby face, come eat."
Under Tong Yao's stunned gaze, Da Bing let out a joyful "meow" and happily hopped over, eagerly lapping up the still mostly full yogurt...
Tong Yao: "???"
Lu Sicheng: "Chatty people don't deserve yogurt."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng sat back in his seat, his expression screaming "do not disturb" as he put on his external headphones. Tong Yao watched him click open some software with his mouse and adjust the camera next to the desktop speakers. Suddenly, a flood of live comments appeared on the screen... Assuming he was watching a video with live comments while queuing, she didn't pay it much mind. Just then, her game started, so she obediently turned her head back and focused on the champion selection phase for the new match—
This round, Tong Yao was assigned her secondary role: ADC.Probably because she had just been brainwashed by the phrase "Pope can play Kalista, Cheng Ge can also play Kalista" from the Forum earlier, this time she didn't even think before locking in Kalista... After locking in, while studying the runes and talents, she reached out and slightly lifted Lu Sicheng's headphones away from his ear to ask, "Cheng Ge, how do you set up the runes and talents for Kalista in this patch?"
There was no response for a long time.
Puzzled, she turned to look at Lu Sicheng, who had taken off his headphones and expressionlessly rotated his computer screen toward her.
Only then did Tong Yao finally see what had been floating across Lu Sicheng's screen earlier—
[Who's asking about Kalista's runes and talents?]
[Holy shit, it's a girl's voice! Holy shit, is that Smiling?! Oh my god, her voice is so nice!]
[Ahhhhhhhhhh whose hand is that?! Hubby, whose hand is lifting your headphones?! I'll chop it off!]
[Her hand looks good hhhhhhhhhh]
[Cheng Ge, get Smiling to stream, the kind with a camera. Why hide when we'll see her sooner or later?]
[Smiling is sitting next to you!! Ahhhhhhhhhh I'm so jealous!!!!]
[Just tell her the runes and talents already 233333333333]
[Hahahahahahaha Kalista's runes and talents!]
—It was an explosion of live comments.
Tong Yao blinked.
Lu Sicheng: "I'm streaming live."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "With the camera on."
Tong Yao: "………………………………"
...
After that, the person sitting next to Lu Sicheng really became as quiet as a chicken, even tiptoeing when getting up to go to the bathroom—
This made Lu Sicheng feel for the first time that streaming was a good thing. He decided he would stream more often in the future.
OpenNovel