Tong Yao glanced through the over twenty thousand comments underneath, which were filled with all sorts of reactions.
Some were furious, directing their anger straight at Lu Yue:
[What the hell is this? I thought Ming Shen’s hand injury was due to occupational hazards, and even the official statement was vague. But now you’re telling me it was because of a fight… All I can say now is, Lu Yue, may your mother die ten thousand times.]
[A massive wave of Ming Shen’s fans is on its way. Looks like ZGDX’s team headquarters is about to be crushed.]
[I refuse to accept Lu Yue rejoining ZGDX Team.]
[Lu Yue has always given off shady vibes. Hah, people always say he looks like Lu Sicheng, but from the moment his face appeared in the video, I knew it was him and not Lu Sicheng—and I’m not even a Lu Sicheng fan.]
[Last season, the official announcement said Lu Yue was suspended for a season due to fighting, but no details were given… Fighting, my ass. So it was because of this?]
[I heard the Lu family is rich and influential. Probably had it all suppressed back then.]
…
Others were slightly less furious and began questioning the original poster after calming down:
[Wait, what’s the point of the OP dropping a video and running? Where’s the context? Did Lu Yue just kick down the door of a relegated team and smash their stuff for no reason? What’s the motive?]
[The above comment makes sense. ZGDX fans, don’t be so quick to stir up trouble among yourselves. Right now, I’m more interested in the reason…]
[I remember after JK Team got relegated last season, even their owner changed. Originally, it was a decently skilled rich kid who formed the team, just borrowing the CK Team name? So this involves some pretty big shots, huh? No wonder it was buried so well—no leaks from any media or forums, not even a whisper.]
…
Then there were those who focused entirely on Ming Shen:
[qaq Our Yu Ming’s wrist… Oh god, I started crying right in the middle of class… Why did this idiot have to jump in and stop it!!!]
[My heart aches so much. Seeing all that blood made me sick to my stomach.]
[I hope Ming Shen is okay now. Thinking about how much suffering he endured out of sight is unbearable.]
…
As Tong Yao scrolled further, the comments ranged from lamentations to mindless rants, all more or less the same. The few demanding the truth from the OP were nearly drowned out by the noise…
The most absurd comment of all came from someone who theorized that the video was posted by Smiling—that despite her usual sweet and naive demeanor, she was actually scheming behind the scenes. Maybe she was afraid Lu Yue would steal her starting spot in the Summer Split, so she eagerly jumped in to share this video…
Even in such a serious situation, someone had to crack a joke.
Tong Yao replied to them with her forum alt account: “Well said, bro. Truly, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Then she temporarily exited the forum to check her nearly exploding WeChat—plenty of people had privately messaged her asking what was going on. After replying “I know jack shit” so many times she got fed up, she simply copied and pasted the same response to everyone.Between responding to the occasional gossipers, Tong Yao spent over half an hour kneeling on her bed with her head bowed, reading through the entire post... Just then, her room door was casually knocked on and pushed open from outside. Their dear captain stood in the doorway: "Get up. Meeting."
His voice could freeze hell over.
Tong Yao obediently put down her phone and climbed off the bed to follow him downstairs. But just as her hand touched the doorknob to pull it open, a large hand reached from behind the door and pressed against her forehead, pushing her back into the room: "Wash your face. Put on a jacket."
Tong Yao froze for a moment before realizing that ever since she'd woken up, she'd been so consumed by the earth-shattering news that she hadn't even washed her face or combed her hair. She was still in her pajamas, looking a mess... Her face flushed with embarrassment as she swatted away the hand on her head and retreated, muttering softly, "Got it."
With that, she shut the door with a click.
As Tong Yao turned toward the bathroom, she faintly heard Lu Sicheng knocking on doors one by one next door. When she turned on the faucet to fill a cup and squeeze toothpaste onto her brush, footsteps could be heard shuffling about in the neighboring room. She realized the walls weren't soundproof at all, so she turned off the water. Then, Lu Sicheng's deep voice rang out as he asked someone—
"What exactly happened back then?"
Next door fell silent for a moment. The girl, toothbrush in mouth, eyes wide, one leg propped up as she leaned almost entirely against the bathroom tiles, barely managed to catch the faint reply—
"Ah Yue won't let me talk about it. If I say anything, he'll just get mad at me again... If you want to know, ask him yourself. You're the only one who can handle him anyway."
The person pressed against the tiles froze, never expecting these words to come from Ming Shen—no anger at being reminded of unpleasant memories, no resentment, no triumphant satisfaction at the truth finally being revealed. His voice sounded eerily calm, even carrying a hint of resignation.
Tong Yao: "..."
Tong Yao pulled her head away from the bathroom wall and stared at a crack in the tiles as if it were some kind of monster, eyes wide for a long time—she suddenly felt that this matter might not be as simple as they had imagined. The so-called truth from back then...
Probably wasn't even fully known by the original poster who uploaded the video.
It took her a moment to snap out of it before she yanked the toothbrush from her mouth, brushed her teeth and washed her face in a hurry, then grabbed a shirt and rushed downstairs—
By then, practically everyone was gathered on the first floor of the team headquarters.
—And by "everyone," she meant everyone they could think of. Aside from the usual faces—the team's official members, the manager, and other regulars—there were also staff from other departments whom Tong Yao had never seen before. Among them was a girl who looked up and smiled at her, introducing herself as the official Weibo manager—the girl in charge of posting and replying to messages on the team's official account...
"The official Weibo is practically exploding," she said cautiously, glancing at Lu Sicheng before lowering her voice. "Everyone's demanding an explanation. What should we do now? There's no way we can just stay silent and let this blow over..."As soon as the official blog admin finished speaking, Lu Yue, who had been curled up in the corner of the sofa munching on Wangwang Snow Cakes, stopped and glanced at Ming Shen. Ming Shen kept his eyes down without saying a word... Lu Yue clicked his tongue and reached for his phone to see what people were saying, but before he could lift it, the girl who had spoken pressed down on his phone: "Lu Yue, you'd better not look. There aren't many kind words."
Lu Yue put his phone down with a dark expression.
Lu Sicheng kicked him lightly: "Regret it now? Back then, I told you that professional players are half public figures—your words and actions aren’t the same as in school. I told you to rein it in so you wouldn’t harm others and yourself—"
Lu Yue, still chewing on his snack, expressionlessly covered his ears with both hands.
Lu Sicheng kicked him again.
Team manager Xiao Rui had remained silent and grim the entire time: "First of all, this is definitely targeting Lu Yue. He just returned to the club after his suspension, and someone released the video—clearly using media pressure to keep him from coming back..."
Xiao Rui paused before continuing: "Only people within our circle had access to this video. To be blunt, why was the news sealed so tightly back then? Because including the KTV staff and the police, no more than twenty people had seen or handled this video. The KTV security and police were all middle-aged men in their thirties or forties. To them, this had nothing to do with esports—just a bunch of young people fighting. The rest were people from our club and the JK team. The JK team definitely wouldn’t dare release this video because, in terms of public pressure, it wouldn’t benefit them at all. Back then, suppressing the incident was a mutual decision—they were even more eager than us to keep it quiet."
Tong Yao: "Why? Didn’t Lu Yue throw the first punch?"
Lu Sicheng: "But they fought back."
Tong Yao: "Self-defense?"
Lu Sicheng: "That’s not how self-defense works. Did you watch the video? At first, they tried to restrain Lu Yue, pin him down, and take the weapon from him—that’s self-defense. But then they turned around and beat him up—that’s group assault—"
Lu Sicheng shot Lu Yue a look: "In my opinion, it’s also called ‘deserved.'"
Lu Yue smirked indifferently and turned his head away.
Xiao Rui gestured for Lu Sicheng to stop talking and said calmly, "So this was done by someone on our team. I don’t know who, but I hope you step forward yourself. Then we can handle this internally and resolve it properly—right now, rumors are flying, and everyone is under scrutiny. If we aren’t united internally, something big is bound to happen."
As soon as Xiao Rui finished speaking.
Little Fatty rubbed his stomach and said expressionlessly, "I released the video."
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
Tong Yao silently adjusted her jaw, surprised that Little Fatty admitted it so readily—and that he was actually the one who leaked the video—"Why did you start a fight? Why drag Ming Shen into this? Why drag the whole team down?" Little Fatty frowned, his expression turning disdainful for the first time. "Was smashing a bottle over someone's head cool, huh? Heh, back in the day when your Fatty here had a temper, I took on ten guys at the school gates and thought I was hot shit too. But I stopped later. You know why? Because I realized I’m a professional player now. I have my teammates behind me, my boss, the club, and the entire esports community..."
Little Fatty let out a long sigh. "On a small scale, because of what you did, Ming Shen’s career can now see its end. The whole team’s efforts for an entire year—missing the S-series World Championship—are wasted. On a larger scale, how does society view esports? ‘Internet addicts,’ ‘good-for-nothings,’ ‘what future is there in just playing games?’—I hear this crap every year, and no matter how sick of it I am, I still can’t hold my head up high. You explain to a hundred people that we’re not like that, and then some idiot teammate turns around and proves to ten thousand, a hundred thousand people with their actions: ‘You’re right, we’re exactly the trash you think we are.’"
Little Fatty stood up. "I know this sounds boring coming from me, but this is how I feel—I’m sick of it. What I’m doing isn’t something shameful, so why can’t I ever hold my head up high?"
After Little Fatty finished speaking, silence fell over the room.
Lu Yue looked at him, not angry, his expression unreadable... Lu Sicheng tossed out a casual "Too impulsive," while Xiao Rui sighed repeatedly. "You kids these days—"
Ming Shen frowned and called out to Lu Yue.
Lu Yue lifted his head to glance at him.
Ming Shen hesitated, then finally seemed to steel himself, turning away from Lu Yue to address Little Fatty instead. "Little Fatty, you’ve got it wrong. There’s more to this story. Back then, A-Yue didn’t want to affect the rest of you, so he kept it quiet—"
Lu Yue, who had been slumped lifelessly in the corner, suddenly stood up from the sofa. "Yu Ming."
Lu Sicheng kicked him in the knee, making him yelp and collapse back onto the sofa. Lu Sicheng shot Lu Yue a warning look before turning to Ming Shen. "I knew it wasn’t that simple. Spit it out—what really happened back then?"
...
The story actually began right after last year’s Summer Split ended.
ZGDX Team had just won the Summer Season Champion title, securing their spot in the S5 World Championship. It should have been a time of celebration, so naturally, a victory banquet was in order. After the banquet, the group, restless as ever, headed to a karaoke bar.
Since they had the next day off, everyone had been drinking—except for Yu Ming, who hadn’t touched a drop. At one point, Lu Yue got too drunk, so the others asked Yu Ming to take him to the restroom to sober up...
But on their way back, they ran into members of JK Team—a squad that had originally been a secondary team under CK Team before climbing up from the secondary Professional League to the main league. Due to official regulations prohibiting a single club from owning two teams in the Professional League, JK Team’s slot was sold off. A rich kid, referred to as "A," bought it at a high price just so he could play in the matches himself.A had become the captain of Team JK himself. Although he played decently, he was far from professional level. So even with four other teammates carrying him, they still got utterly crushed in the Professional League... In the end, they finished last in their group and had to face another bottom-ranked team in the Relegation match. The losing team would be directly demoted to the secondary league—and unsurprisingly, Team JK lost.
Because of the demotion, they didn’t resent the team that had beaten them in the Relegation match. Instead, they hated ZGDX Team, who had already secured first place in their group and qualified for the Playoffs but refused to go easy on them—letting them win just one match to avoid finishing dead last.
"Damn it! If it weren’t for those bastards from China Telecom, we wouldn’t have been relegated after just one loss! Even if we lost in the battle between the second-to-last teams, at least we could’ve fought for a chance to stay in the league against the second-place team from the secondary league!"
"I mean, we might not be able to beat Professional League teams, but we could easily wipe the floor with those trash teams in the secondary league."
"I just saw those China Telecom guys. Seems like they’re here for a championship celebration—they came to this KTV too."
"Ha! Now that China Telecom’s got a free pass to S5, they’re all high and mighty. Makes me sick—what good did it do them to let us get relegated? What would it have cost them to go easy on us once? A-ge spent so much money to buy that league spot, and after just one season, it’s gone. All that money down the drain..."
The voices in the private room were so loud they nearly drowned out the singing from the neighboring rooms. Lu Yue, who had been swaying unsteadily while leaning on Ming Shen, suddenly stopped in front of the door and smirked—
Unaware of the audience outside, the people inside kept talking. The one who had been silent until now—the "A-ge" the JK Team members were referring to—was probably drunk too. Hearing the complaints, he let out a dark chuckle and said in a mocking tone, "Want to go to S5? Dream on. Let them taste what it’s like to get relegated too..."
As he spoke, the room fell silent, and even the music stopped.
Under the gaze of his teammates, A-ge pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and after a brief greeting, said in an eerily cheerful voice—
"Get some guys to wait outside Caesar KTV later. Yeah, I’ll tell you when they come out... No need to go too far, just break their hands. Haha, yeah—they’re pros—let’s see them keep playing with their feet... Oh, and don’t touch the two kids who look alike. They’re from the Lu family—too much trouble. The rest? Don’t hold back. Beat them up, break whatever—I’ll cover the fines or jail time. Just hurry up. I don’t want them slipping away."
Every word from inside the KTV room carried clearly into the hallway.
Hearing this, Ming Shen’s heart sank. He wanted to rush back to their room to warn their oblivious teammates to leave before the thugs arrived, while also pulling out his phone to call the police—
But when he looked down, the person who had been slumped against him moments ago suddenly had a completely different look in his eyes. Lu Yue straightened up, turned around, pushed open the neighboring KTV room’s door, and—under the bewildered stares of strangers—grabbed a liquor bottle before kicking open the door to Team JK’s private room!No one had time to react before Lu Yue's beer bottle smashed onto that A-ge's head—from start to finish, Lu Yue had only said one sentence when he entered the private room: "You think you're so tough? Come at me then. Jail time? Compensation? I’ve got money too."
What followed was the scene captured in the video—fighting, shoving, until Ming Shen got injured. Everyone stopped, called the police and an ambulance. The police arrived and took away those with minor injuries, while Lu Yue, Yu Ming, and that A-ge with his head split open were rushed to the hospital by ambulance first.
Then came the judicial injury assessment.
Despite A-ge’s bloody head, his wounds were surprisingly classified as minor, not constituting criminal liability. Lu Yue was detained for a few days for education and then paid compensation… But when this incident was exposed, Riot China (Riot Games' branch in mainland China) found out. Everyone involved, except Ming Shen, received suspensions of varying degrees—Lu Yue got the longest, banned for an entire season.
Ming Shen was hospitalized. Though it was a wrist injury, the doctors didn’t issue a death sentence for his hand—meaning he was under observation and treatment.
At this point, it wasn’t certain yet that Ming Shen would miss S5.
After Lu Yue was released from the police station, he went to Yu Ming’s hospital bed and knelt there all night. Besides apologizing to Yu Ming, he also made him promise not to speak a word about the incident’s cause and details to anyone else. They were afraid this mess would affect the team’s S5 campaign—after a year of hard work, they couldn’t let something like this ruin their results… At first, Yu Ming disagreed, but Lu Yue eventually convinced him.
Lu Yue said: I’m already suspended, and you’re injured. What was it all for? If the rest of the team finds out we have to deal with this kind of crap just to play professionally, then what I did wasn’t worth it.
That one sentence convinced Ming Shen.
But later, Ming Shen’s hand still hadn’t recovered by the time S5 roster submissions were due. So, with one Mid Laner suspended and another injured, ZGDX Team had no choice but to announce their withdrawal from the World Championship they had dreamed of.
After that, Yu Ming always wanted to tell everyone that Lu Yue wasn’t the one who started the trouble, but Lu Yue wouldn’t let him. Then Lu Yue temporarily left the team, disappearing for a full six months without contacting anyone—not even going home for the New Year.
Until today.
…
Yu Ming calmly recounted the whole story from back then. By the end, the silence was so heavy you could barely hear anyone breathing… Though you could still fault Lu Yue for being "reckless," when you think about it, he was only seventeen or eighteen at the time—a hot-blooded kid acting impulsively. There was no helping it.
It’s like if a high schooler overhears someone planning to ambush him at the school gate—his first thought wouldn’t be to call the police or tell a teacher. He’d be figuring out how to gather more people to ambush them right back.
That’s just how it is. And from the start, Lu Yue went in alone. Before entering the private room with the beer bottle, he even pushed Ming Shen out of the way. He never intended to drag Ming Shen into the fight.
Ming Shen’s injury was truly an accident no one wanted to see.So now, as Ming Shen finished telling the story, Little Fatty's expression became rather complicated. He took out his phone and deleted the post he had made in front of everyone, then turned and went upstairs, shutting his door behind him.
The heads of the PR and publicity departments, along with Xiao Rui, huddled together for a meeting. They discussed how to reveal the truth of the matter—if not completely reversing public opinion, at least letting people know that back then, it wasn’t their China Telecom Team who had acted shamelessly first.
Lu Sicheng sat on the sofa with his arms crossed, looking at his younger brother. "Playing the hero."
Lu Yue lowered his head, crunching noisily on a Wangwang Snow Cake. He frowned and shot a glance at Ming Shen, muttering, "Told you not to blab." Ming Shen chuckled and patted his head. "You've been wronged for so long—can't let you keep suffering like this."
Lu Yue pushed his hand away impatiently.
At the same time, Tong Yao felt the oppressive atmosphere that had hung over the team headquarters when she came downstairs earlier had finally dissipated.
That afternoon, while everyone was busy discussing how to handle the situation, Lu Sicheng actually went live streaming—at a time like this, it was less of a live stream and more of a press conference. His stream was nearly overwhelmed by the crowd, with everyone asking about the video from this morning...
Lu Sicheng continued playing his game as usual, but today, for the first time ever, he turned on the live comments assistant. As he played, he casually picked a few questions to answer, like an emperor flipping through nameplates—
"Lu Yue did throw the first punch, that’s correct, because the minivan with the people the other side called was already in the parking lot at the time."
"Ming Shen’s hand injury was an accident, yes, it’s definitely related to this... His hand before? There were old injuries too, like tendon tears and such. It’s normal, playing the carry role and last-hitting minions like this is normal. The team has always had a physiotherapist."
"Who posted the video? No comment. You’re way too curious—someone like you wouldn’t survive more than half an episode in a TV drama."
"...Smiling posted the video because she was afraid of competition?" Lu Sicheng’s hand twitched, causing him to miss a siege minion. He casually turned the camera. "Ask her yourself."
In the camera frame, the person next to him, munching on chips while watching an American drama, froze for a moment before turning her head, cheeks puffed with chips, and mumbled, "Wha’ the hell?"
"Someone said you posted the video," came the man’s calm voice from off-screen.
The innocent chip-eater instantly widened her eyes, rolled up her sleeves, and stood up from her chair: "The hell I did! This time last year, I was studying abroad, okay?! How the hell would I get such an internal video?! Think I’m FBI or something?!"
Man: "You’re spraying chip crumbs everywhere."
Girl: "..."
As the girl frantically covered her mouth with her hand, the camera was blocked by a large hand and turned back. Once the hand moved away, the face of the China Telecom Team captain remained as expressionless as ever: "Hear that?"
Among the barrage of live comments, aside from the initial questions, there were now waves of "LOLOLOL," "HAHAHAHAHA," and "Standing on the chair is adorable," along with some perverts who missed the point entirely, spamming the screen with:
[Did I just see Smiling’s pajamas?!]
[Ahhhh! A white nightgown!]
[Captain, what’s your Mid Laner wearing?! Is that pajamas?!]
[Let me see my wife again!!!!!]
No one knew if Lu Sicheng saw these comments. All they knew was that about thirty seconds later, their screens went black, displaying the message "Streamer is not home"—the man had abruptly ended the stream.
The viewers were stunned. Five minutes later, they refreshed Weibo and saw that the account, which rarely posted, had updated with just three words: "Internet crashed."
As for whether it was true—
"Did the team headquarters’ internet crash this afternoon?"
At the dinner table, the person who had spent the afternoon watching American dramas while crouched in front of her computer looked up from her phone, confused.
"It did."
"How come I didn’t notice?"
"Your video had buffered."
"...Oh." Tong Yao nodded and put down her phone. "Cheng Ge, why aren’t you following me on Weibo?"
"I did follow you."
"No, you didn’t!" Tong Yao held up her phone to show Lu Sicheng the one-way arrow in the bottom left corner. "See? Nothing. Could it be a system glitch?"
"Unfollowed again.""?????"
"Your Weibo is flooding my feed, it's all you."
"..."
"It's annoying."
"........."
Tong Yao put down her phone, took a few bites of rice, then threw her chopsticks in frustration after some thought: "Women just love posting every little thing on Weibo! What do you know!"
Lu Sicheng: "Don't know, so I unfollowed. Problem?"
Tong Yao: "..."
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