At this very moment.
In the courtyard, the man who had been crouching under the eaves paused upon hearing the team manager's questioning, then revealed a half-smile. He directly extinguished the tobacco in his hand—lit but untouched—and said calmly, "I won’t answer you. Think for yourself whether what you just said was ridiculous or not."
Xiao Rui wore an awkward expression, as if realizing his words had indeed been absurd. Scratching his head, he considered that Lu Sicheng might have other concerns—his anger from earlier in the day subsided considerably, enough for him to calmly seek the truth: "So why are you so protective of her? Because she’s a girl? Sympathy? Pity? Or do you think it’s been hard for her to get where she is now?"
"Xiao Rui, that’s unfair to her."
"..."
"If that shorty heard you, she might jump up and smack your head."
"???? What did I even say?"
"I don’t see her as a girl, so there’s no sympathy, no pity, and no belief that she’s had some hard-won journey to get here." Lu Sicheng stood up, tossing the extinguished tobacco into the trash bin before pausing. "I see her as a promising newcomer the team can use in the future—good mechanics, solid game sense, integrates well with the team. The pro scene is a mixed bag these days, full of all kinds of people. A seedling like her, who genuinely just wants to compete and achieve results, is harder to find than a lantern in broad daylight... So I don’t want her to be cut down halfway before she’s even been polished into a gem, all because of something that could’ve been avoided."
"I’m a little confused."
"A Tai, the Mid Laner from Team TAT."
"?"
"When I was still with Team TAT, he was already infamous as the Mid Lane Devil. You probably don’t know this, but in that team, every single one of us—including Pope—had me as a substitute. The only exception was the Mid Lane position, where he sat firmly as the starter with no substitutes at all." Speaking of this man named A Tai, Lu Sicheng rarely showed a trace of disgust. "Calling him a devil isn’t about his skill or seniority—it’s because he’s like a cancerous tumor in the Mid Lane, relentless in ruining others... Team TAT once had a few Mid Lane substitutes, but before they could even step up, he crushed them all. Some lost confidence and quit pro play entirely, while others transferred to different teams."
Xiao Rui looked shocked. "How could that happen?"
"To this day, many Korean teams still refuse to play Scrims with TAT for this exact reason—he looks at every opposing Mid Laner as an enemy. In his eyes, Scrims or official matches aren’t about exchanging techniques; he’s only there to defeat them..."
Lu Sicheng thought for a moment, then added—
"Sometimes I think if this guy weren’t in esports, he’d probably be some kind of villain in another industry. You know how the S3 World Championship was won by the Korean Operator Team? Their Mid Laner back then was insanely strong. After taking the championship, Riot even made a special Azir Championship Skin to commemorate his undefeated Azir in the finals."
"...I know, God Niu, right? Didn’t he retire?""In the Spring Finals of Season 4, A Tai used Azir and specifically switched to Niu God's Championship Skin. With this champion, he single-handedly dominated mid lane and sent the Korean Operator Team straight to heaven," Lu Sicheng said. "After that, Niu God announced his retirement—the blow was too heavy. A Tai's actions felt like an insult he had no choice but to accept..."
"..."
At this point, Xiao Rui's mouth was hanging wide open—he simply couldn't imagine someone so despicable existing in this world...
"That's exactly the kind of thing A Tai would do."
"How could—"
"This time, their intentions are obvious. Tong Yao is a rookie who just joined the team. Her Scrims results are good, she has many standout plays, and her playstyle is confident and aggressive. The outside world has practically lifted her to the skies," Lu Sicheng continued. "A kid like that, if she faces setbacks and lacks resilience, will probably break down pretty quickly."
"You're saying if they play Scrims against us, they’ll definitely target Tong Yao?"
"Yes. He might even use Leblanc to crush her," Lu Sicheng said coldly, the corner of his lips curling slightly. "It's one of his favorite tricks: using the opponent's signature champion to utterly defeat them."
"What if we just ban Leblanc?"
"Leblanc isn’t a meta champion," Lu Sicheng glanced at Xiao Rui dismissively. "How do you plan to explain to Tong Yao why we’re banning her signature champion instead of the meta picks?"
"..."
"Then what if we first-pick Leblanc?"
"It's not a meta champion, and it's a Mid Laner. What’s the justification for first-picking it?"
"..."
Xiao Rui was left speechless by Lu Sicheng’s retorts. Finally, as if driven to the brink of madness, he scratched his head frantically before lifting his now disheveled head, looking utterly lost: "Cheng Ge, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have agreed to the Scrims with TAT. They set us up..."
Lu Sicheng stared at the team manager for a moment before chuckling lightly. "I told you you’d apologize."
"...Is now really the time for that?" Xiao Rui said, exasperated. "What do we do now? Should I cancel the Scrims? Give Tong Yao a heads-up?"
Lu Sicheng shrugged, signaling helplessness: If I knew what to do, I would’ve stopped you this morning.
Xiao Rui’s expression looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown!
Just as Xiao Rui seemed about to say something else, Lu Sicheng raised a hand to silence him, then turned toward the window as if sensing something—the living room curtains were tightly drawn, but there was a noticeable shadow pressed against the glass, as if something (or someone) was squished against it...
Lu Sicheng pulled the window open expressionlessly.
The figure clinging to the glass let out a startled "Ah!" and tumbled out from behind the curtains—just as she was about to fall out of the window, the man swiftly caught both her and the cat in her arms, preventing her from hitting the ground.
Tong Yao’s head, still in the same position as when she’d been eavesdropping against the window, bumped into the man’s firm chest. She froze for a second before scrambling to her feet, hastily tossing the cat aside—
"Having fun?"
Lu Sicheng stared impassively at the girl, who had clambered off the couch and now stood stiffly at attention."What," Tong Yao forced herself to stay calm as she tucked her hair behind her ear, "I was just leaning against the window playing on my phone after getting tired from gaming. Why did you suddenly open the window? You almost made me fall out!"
"You have a sofa but chose to lean on the window?" Lu Sicheng clearly couldn't be bothered with her excuses. "How much did you overhear?"
"I wasn't eavesdropping... just a tiny bit," Tong Yao raised her hand, pinching her fingers to show a minuscule gap. "You said I have great mechanics, excellent awareness, an optimistic personality, and that I'm hard to come by even with a lantern..."
As she spoke, Tong Yao couldn't stop her mouth from splitting into a grin: "You also called me a gem."
Lu Sicheng: "..."
Tong Yao cleared her throat and reined in her silly smile: "So is it true?"
"What?"
Lu Sicheng thought she was asking about the TAT Mid Laner discussion... but the girl pointed at her own nose, her eyes sparkling like little stars with their own background music: "You said I was a gem or something."
"..."
Tong Yao's voice had been a bit loud, so everyone in the team headquarters heard, including Ming Shen who was sitting on the sofa—he even paused the match replay he was watching. Everyone simultaneously turned their heads, looking bewildered at the girl standing by the window and the young man outside.
Little Fatty: "What's going on? First you deny any rumors between you two, and now you're praising her like she's a gem under the stars?"
Ming Shen: "...Why are you two standing inside and outside like this? Romeo and Juliet?"
Old Cat: "After all these years as your teammate, Cheng Ge, you've never praised me like that."
Old K: "You'd be lucky to be a stepping stone in a latrine, wake up... And Cheng Ge, that was too cheesy, seriously."
Lu Sicheng fell silent for a moment before attempting to explain: "It's not like that."
But the expressions of everyone in the headquarters didn't change, still looking at him with fresh amusement. Three seconds later, the man gave up: "Whatever, a bunch of idiots."
With that, he turned to leave, only to hear his support, Little Fatty, add another jab: "Oh, getting shy now? Glaciers melting? Iron trees blooming? Dead wood sprouting... Tsk tsk tsk, the stench of love is suffocating!"
...
Tong Yao really hadn't heard what Lu Sicheng and Xiao Rui were discussing that day. Later, Xiao Rui and Lu Sicheng each spoke to her separately, warning her that TAT's Mid Laner might do some extremely harsh things to shatter her confidence.
Xiao Rui's version included the story of the "God of Bulls," and the team manager also reminded her that in the upcoming scrims, the opponent might repeat their tactics—like using her signature champion to defeat her.
Lu Sicheng was more direct: "If you want to refuse, now's the time. No one will laugh at you. Running away might be shameful, but it works."
Faced with Lu Sicheng's suggestion, Tong Yao shook her head, rejecting the option to escape.
At that moment, she still believed she could be a righteous young heroine, her thoughts extremely optimistic: If she would eventually have to face such a person, avoiding it now would be pointless. Getting defeated now was better than collapsing in a more important match later.
And besides...
What if she won?
With this optimistic mindset, Tong Yao waited for the day of the scrims against the Korean intelligence team—
This day.When everyone arrived as promised in the custom match room created by the opposing team, Tong Yao stared at the ID "tat、tei" in her lane, swallowing nervously...
Almost exactly as Lu Sicheng had predicted, the enemy team first-picked Leblanc without hesitation.
When it was Tong Yao's turn to select her champion, she hesitated for a moment before finally placing her cursor on Azir—a champion frequently mentioned in the stories of God Niu and A Tai. Before level 6 when Azir gains his ultimate, he can hold his own against Leblanc. But after level 6, due to champion mechanics, Azir would get crushed into the ground, entering a prolonged weak phase. In the late game, while Leblanc's damage falls off, Azir can take over the match.
Being skilled with Leblanc herself, Tong Yao was well aware of the champion's strengths and weaknesses. Knowing both herself and the enemy, she didn't think anyone could use her familiar champion to crush her—until the game began.
She quickly realized reality wasn't quite what she'd imagined.
As another skilled Leblanc player, Tong Yao could anticipate Leblanc's offensive patterns. However, the opponent's hand speed and reaction time were simply too fast—this was no longer a problem that could be solved by theoretical knowledge alone... Compounding this was the fact that Tong Yao, who excelled at aggressive champions, wasn't entirely comfortable playing Azir. Every time she impulsively traded skills with her opponent, she would miss last hits...
After several exchanges, Tong Yao gradually fell behind.
Checking the scoreboard to see the enemy's last hits, she calculated that they would soon hit level 6 and gain their ultimate, likely capable of bursting her down in one combo. She began consciously retreating, attempting to abandon her aggressive playstyle in favor of playing safe and waiting for late-game team fights—but her opponent gave her no such opportunity. As if reading her mind, just as she started trying to control the minion wave toward her own side, the enemy jungler appeared!
Panicking, Tong Yao glanced at her health bar—still over half, but fearing she might give up First Blood, she immediately flashed away. Yet as she created distance, she saw in her peripheral vision the enemy Mid Laner using W to follow up, the predicted chain landing squarely on her. A few basic attacks and skill combos later, her previously safe health pool rapidly drained away—
Tong Yao retreated further.
The enemy pursued relentlessly, calmly landing a few more hits on her retreating figure until her screen turned black—she had ultimately given up the first kill of the match.
"If you can't fight, then farm," Lu Sicheng remarked coolly.
Tong Yao nodded and checked the scoreboard again. Only seven minutes into the game, she was already nearly twenty-five last hits behind the enemy Mid Laner. Combined with the solo kill and the special 400 gold bounty from First Blood going to her opponent—plus Leblanc's early-game strength—she realized her only path forward was to endure pressure, play safe, and focus on farming...
But sometimes you have to admit how uncanny gaming can be—after that first death, no matter how much you resolve to "stop overextending," "play safe and wait for team fights," or "I can still hold the lane"—once you're back in lane, you just keep getting solo killed over and over.
By the end of the match, Tong Yao had been solo killed five times.When it was time to team fight, she was as fragile as a sheet of paper—anyone could easily take her down. She became the team's weak point, the reason they couldn't pull off a reverse sweep. The rest of the match suddenly turned into torture for her. She kept glancing at the game timer in the upper right corner, praying for the scrim to end quickly...
Unsurprisingly, they lost the scrim.
By the 20-minute mark, the enemy mid laner had completely dominated her, leading by 85 minions—their mid laner’s CS was almost double Tong Yao’s, and they were two to three levels ahead of her.
Watching the main crystal in their base slowly being destroyed, Tong Yao picked up her water glass and took a sip. The cold water slid down her throat, but her mind was still in a daze...
She looked down at the glass—tiny, almost imperceptible ripples trembled on the surface.
Her hands were shaking.
Setting the cup down, Tong Yao fell silent for a moment. When her teammates turned to her with concern, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and forced a smile. "Sorry about that. I fed their mid laner into a monster, even though the other lanes were pretty even."
"It’s just a scrim, no need to apologize. Wins and losses happen—plus, their mid was really strong. It’ll get better," Little Fatty reassured her. Old Cat and Old K chimed in with similar words.
Lu Sicheng frowned, looking like he wanted to say something but held back.
Tong Yao turned to him and smiled again. "I’m fine, see? I told you I’m fine. We’ll just win next time. You guys think I’m too fragile, really..."
She trailed off, as if realizing she was talking too much, and fell silent.
After the scrim, they held their usual meeting, analyzed the data, then disbanded. The players went off to rest, grind ranked games, or stream as usual. Tong Yao returned to her seat and queued up for another game, acting as if nothing had happened.
Dinner time came and went.
Then late-night snack time.
Until finally, in the early hours of the morning, Little Fatty stood up yawning and announced, "Sleep time!"
Lu Sicheng pulled up Tong Yao’s match history on his computer. She had been playing ranked matches nonstop from the afternoon until past 3 AM. Aside from getting up to make coffee, she hadn’t eaten anything. She had lost game after game all night, dropping from Challenger back to Grandmaster with over 200 LP gone.
"Hey, 'beautiful girl,' aren’t you going to sleep?" Lu Sicheng rapped his knuckles on her desk. "It’s almost four."
"After this one," Tong Yao replied without turning around. "I’ll go right after."
Lu Sicheng hesitated, wanting to say something, but seeing her seemingly indifferent expression, he couldn’t find the right words. He just muttered, "Oh," and went back to his room to shower and sleep.
...
The next morning, Lu Sicheng woke up at 7 AM.
After a quick shower, he opened his door, intending to head downstairs for food—only to hear the rapid clicking of a mouse coming from below. Pausing, he raised an eyebrow and descended the stairs, unsurprised to find the person who had promised "after this one" still sitting in front of the computer.
Lu Sicheng: "..."Lu Sicheng walked up behind Tong Yao, who had a custom game mode open on her computer screen—playing as Azir, the Champion she had suffered a crushing defeat with the day before. It was a mode without opponents, typically used by players to practice last-hitting Minions.
Lu Sicheng went downstairs. The person sitting in the chair shifted slightly and muttered a "Morning," then—probably distracted—missed a Minion. She hissed under her breath, immediately exited the game, and restarted the custom mode to continue practicing last-hits.
Miss one, exit.
Restart.
Miss again, exit again.
Like someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
"Didn't sleep all night?"
"I will soon."
"Practiced Azir the whole night?"
"Huh? Yeah."
Lu Sicheng stood behind her, holding a cup of coffee, watching for a while before lowering his gaze. The person in the chair had bloodshot eyes, the whites streaked with red, staring numbly at the screen…
He frowned. When she missed another Minion and grumbled, "Dammit, Cheng Ge, stop talking to me—now I missed another one," he suddenly reached out with a large hand from behind and covered her eyes—
The cursor, which had been moving to click the exit button, froze.
Lu Sicheng didn’t speak, his expression cold as he pressed her head back against the chair with a dull thud . The person whose eyes he was covering struggled briefly before going limp, as if giving up… The vast first floor of the Team headquarters fell into silence, the only sounds their breathing—
His hand was dry and warm, carrying the faint scent of soap from his recent shower mixed with coffee beans.
A few seconds later, Lu Sicheng felt slow, warm liquid dampen his palm.
He paused but didn’t pull his hand away. Soon, a silent tear slipped past the edge of his fingers… The man hesitated, the usual coldness in his eyes softening as a low, gentle sigh broke the momentary silence—
"Didn’t you say you were fine?"
He withdrew his hand, watching as the disheveled girl—her eyes red and brimming with tears—tilted her head back to glare at him. The tears spilled uncontrollably, and Lu Sicheng was almost surprised at how much one person could cry—
"I lied. I’m not fine. It’s a disaster," she rasped. "I suck at Azir. What kind of ‘No. 1 Leblanc’ am I? A joke."
Lu Sicheng: "..."
She sniffled. "My fragile ego’s shattered into pieces."
Lu Sicheng: "Yeah, I can see that."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "Little liar."
Tong Yao: "..."
OpenNovel