Falling into Your Smile

The next day was the scrim against OP Team.

Though it was just a scrim, after witnessing the explosive drama surrounding the Great Qing Team last night, the team’s morale had taken a hit—now that they had a Korean Operator Team right in their sights, everyone in China Telecom was itching for a fight. They all woke up early to warm up with ranked matches…

The domestic league had only finished a third of its matches, and the S Series World Championship was still far off. Meeting the Koreans would require patience, so for now, they could only vent their frustrations in scrims—

At least, that was the plan.

When Little Fatty woke up in the morning, he even posted an inspiring, educational Weibo post—

"Have you ever seen Shanghai at 7 AM?"

To this motivational post, some of China Telecom’s Shanghai fans replied in perfect unison:

……………………Who the hell hasn’t seen it besides you?

Tong Yao: "I’ve never seen Little Fatty at 7 AM, that’s for sure."

"Shut up, you were the last one up today—you didn’t come downstairs till 9. Your Fatty Gege already played two ranked matches. Do you even want to win?" Little Fatty hammered his keyboard furiously, cursing without looking up. "Go in, go in! What kind of cowardly AD is this? Aaaaaah, if you’re too scared to fight, why even play AD? Go play snakes instead—I recommend you buy a copy of The Art of Being an AD , authored by Lu Sicheng."

Tong Yao circled behind Little Fatty, leaned over, and pressed the tab key to check his AD’s stats—0 kills, 4 deaths, 1 assist. Twelve minutes into the game, and with an AD performing like this, no wonder Little Fatty, the Protector, was losing his mind—

And while she was watching, this same AD kept aggressively pushing the lane, only to get ganked by the enemy Jungler again… The teammates from other lanes couldn’t take it anymore and started flaming, calling the AD a Feeder. Little Fatty finally snapped and typed: AD, your mother boom.

Tong Yao: "……Why so mad?"

Little Fatty: "If I lose this one, I’m dropping back to Diamond I."

Tong Yao: "Oh."

Little Fatty: "This month’s salary is slipping away again."

Tong Yao fell silent at that, shutting her mouth and taking a step back from Little Fatty’s seat. Sensing her retreat, Little Fatty shot her a wounded look over his shoulder: "Tong Yao, you’ve changed. When you first joined, you weren’t like this. Back then, you were willing to duo with me and carry me."

"Yeah," Tong Yao twitched her lips, "until I saw your Orianna, Yasuo, Azir, and Leblanc 'support'… Honestly, isn’t it terrifying that a Supporter’s champion pool overlaps so much with a Mid Laner’s?"

Just then, Lu Sicheng walked out of the kitchen, overhearing their conversation. He took a sip of coffee and set his cup down. "Little Fatty, you actually have the nerve to bring up that dark history of you bullying newcomers."

Little Fatty pouted and went back to his game.

Lu Sicheng returned to his seat and placed his cup down. "You’re up."

Tong Yao: "Uh."

Lu Sicheng turned his head. "Duo?"

Tong Yao: "My account’s in Grandmaster, we can’t duo."

Lu Sicheng let out an "Oh," his tone perfectly calm. "Lu Yue dropped you back to Master yesterday."

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng: "So, duo?"

Little Fatty: "What’s wrong with you two Carries duo-queuing all the time?"

Lu Sicheng: "Ranking up."Little Fatty: "Can't you guys carry this poor little support? You never show this much enthusiasm when carrying me. Admit it, you all look down on supports, don't you?"

Lu Sicheng: "I'll call you when I feel like dropping ranks."

Little Fatty: "..."

Little Fatty: "I know why Tong Yao changed. It's all your fault, Cheng Ge. You made her less friendly toward me."

"Oh," Lu Sicheng instinctively glanced sideways upon hearing Little Fatty's words. His team's Mid Laner was squinting at her friend list, searching for a specific ID. After finding it, she ticked the checkbox next to it—seeing the game invitation pop up in the bottom right corner of his client, Lu Sicheng clicked accept and nodded in satisfaction. "I'll take the blame for this one."

Tong Yao: "What?"

Lu Sicheng: "Nothing."

Tong Yao: "?"

...

In the end.

Tong Yao and Lu Sicheng still ended up starting their Rank Up journey together despite their bickering. Since both had relatively high ranks, queue times were long—by noon, they had only managed to play two games.

After finishing the second game, Lu Sicheng stood up to stretch his wrists. Tong Yao remained seated, clicking through the post-game stats while absentmindedly asking, "When are we gonna push for Korean server rank one... Oh, what time did OP Team schedule the scrims?"

Lu Sicheng: "Twelve-thirty."

The clicking stopped. Tong Yao looked up blankly at Lu Sicheng: "What time?"

Lu Sicheng deadpanned: "Right now."

Clapping his hands, the man announced loud enough for everyone on the first floor of the team headquarters to hear, calling them to their positions for the scrims—Ming Shen came downstairs carrying Tong Yao's stats notebook and a clipboard; Coach A Hou hurried over with his prepared materials; Xiao Rui scrambled up from the couch with Da Bing in his arms... purely there to spectate.

Xiao Rui: "Relax, it's Operator Team. Losing is normal—failure breeds improvement."

And to make unhelpful comments.

Tong Yao rolled her eyes and entered the custom game lobby for the scrims. Soon, the opposing team's members also took their positions—after exchanging polite greetings, both sides seemed eager to skip the small talk and jumped straight into the Ban & Pick Phase.

Since both teams had deep champion pools, the bans were somewhat casual. Everyone seemed wary of the enemy bot lane, banning Ashe, Jhin, and Sivir—three AD carries—before proceeding to ban other meta-strong champions. Then the picks began—

The most outrageous move was the enemy team first-picking Yasuo.

Tong Yao was stunned. So Jin Yuguang's champion pool is deep, huh? Picking Yasuo, huh? Fine, I'll play safe. No aggressive plays—at least I won't lose lane early. After some deliberation, she locked in Azir, a champion she had recently overcome her Korea-phobia with.

About five seconds after Tong Yao locked Azir, the enemy countered with Taliyah. She was dumbfounded.

Tong Yao: "Damn it, Taliyah! What happened to Yasuo, huh?! So Yasuo is for top lane? Top lane! And how many people even play Taliyah? He actually pulled it out. Damn it!"

Lu Sicheng leisurely locked in Ezreal, his eyes flickering slightly: "I feel like I've heard this somewhere before—where was it? Oh right, when someone was marveling at Jin Yuguang's Cassiopeia."Tong Yao raised her brows: "Taliyah and Cassiopeia are never picked in matches!"

Lu Sicheng: "Before you used Syndra, she was rarely picked in matches either. Aren’t you still proud of that to this day? Taliyah’s passive allows fast rotations, strong lane sustain, long range, and high burst—especially as a counter to Azir, who’s a meta pick. What makes you say she’s never used? Shut up."

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Yue, leaning over Tong Yao’s chair: "How does it feel to have your champion pool questioned? Welcome to my world, once again."

Tong Yao: "Shut up."

The ban/pick phase ended. ZGDX Team picked Top Trundle, Jungler Rek’Sai, Mid Azir, AD Ezreal, and Support Braum. OP Team picked Top Yasuo, Jungler Gragas, Mid Taliyah, AD Kog’Maw, and Support Taric.

After the picks, ZGDX fell into a stunned silence at the opponent’s unconventional choices—

Little Fatty: "Yasuo, Taliyah, Gragas, Taric… these picks are so troll."

Old Cat: "Top Yasuo? I respect it."

Old K: "As if anyone even plays Gragas anymore. Feels like we’re back in Spring Split."

Tong Yao: "Look at Taliyah, look at her! I don’t even see her in ranked, and now she shows up in scrims?"

The entire ZGDX team fell silent for a few seconds before collectively sighing. Only their captain remained expressionless, pausing briefly before delivering a deadpan remark: "I really want to throw you all into a sweet potato farm."

Everyone: "..."

It had to be said, Tong Yao and the others were genuinely shaken by OP Team’s audacity in drafting such off-meta champions. Even after entering the game, they still felt a bit disoriented—it was a strange feeling, like when you encounter a team in ranked with OP Team’s current draft and assume it’s a free win from the start. But now, actually laning against OP Team, they realized it was anything but free.

—OP Team’s ban/pick phase might not have completely outplayed ZGDX, but their strategy of swapping Yasuo from mid to top made life miserable for both Old Cat and Tong Yao. The frustration of being unable to kill their opponents while barely surviving themselves was suffocating.

By the time Tong Yao reached level three in a peaceful farm lane against Taliyah, she realized her opponent was even more stable than Lu Yue. Glancing at Old K, who was busy securing his jungle, she sighed and gave up on making plays, recalling instead—then switching her camera to bot lane, their most promising path to victory.

And the first thing she saw was Kog’Maw’s tail wagging like a happy little dog.

Tong Yao instantly felt a wave of despair.

—Kog’Maw was a unique champion. When a player had extremely fast mechanics, frequently clicking the ground to move while auto-attacking—a technique known as "attack moving"—it was a fundamental skill for a top-tier AD carry. When using Kog’Maw, if the player’s attack speed was high enough and they perfectly timed their movements between attacks without canceling any autos, Kog’Maw’s animation would show its tail wagging wildly while its actual model remained in motion. The attack animation and movement animation would desync, creating the illusion of the tail swinging independently.An AD's Big Mouth wagging its tail means he's at least a top-tier league AD, fully capable of handling this mechanically intensive, high-APM Champion.

—OP Team's AD didn't force-pick Big Mouth; he held his own against Lu Sicheng in lane.

Tong Yao's team had drafted a composition lacking damage output—in late-game teamfights, Lu Sicheng was their only reliable damage source. OP Team seemed aware of this, as their Jungler frequently ganked bot early game. Though unsuccessful, the pressure forced Lu Sicheng into a reckless level 6 tower dive that backfired—enemy Gragas' ultimate sent them flying, yielding two kills and First Tower.

The disadvantage began with their targeted bot lane focus. The game truly opened up at 20 minutes when First Blood and First Tower fell simultaneously.

Lu Sicheng frowned: "This one's on me."

No one commented—everyone was playing sluggishly, barely registering potential loss conditions. Mumbling "let's keep playing," they tried stalling to late game. Through disciplined rotations and macro play, they clawed back some gold deficit, dragging the game to ~35 minutes...

The kill score remained frozen at 2:0.

Macro. Macro. Macro.

Wave management. Jungle control. More macro.

At one point, neither team crossed river lines for five straight minutes...

Tong Yao grew genuinely drowsy and disoriented.

Finally, a decisive teamfight arrived—winner takes all. But Lu Sicheng overextended, and Tong Yao's misplaced ultimate accidentally shoved enemy Big Mouth right into his face. The misplay lost them the fight, leading to their Nexus being overrun in one push—

The Nexus explosion sound echoed.

Having successfully transferred blame from Lu Sicheng's early-game impulsiveness to her own hands, Tong Yao released her mouse to chew her fingernails.

Watching their Nexus shatter, Lu Sicheng side-eyed her: "You've got a real grudge against me, huh?"

Mocking her fight-losing misplay that practically delivered him to death's door. His expression seemed uncharacteristically relaxed—unlike his usual scowl after losing Scrims to Korean teams. Tong Yao scratched her head, stealing a cautious glance. She guessed he might be quietly satisfied with their near-comeback after early-game struggles...

Compared to past hopeless, slow deaths by macro, next time they might actually win.

Even if opponents pulled out niche Champions again, they'd be mentally prepared.

Also, she needed to practice every Mid Laner from left to right—except Yasuo.

Counting self-criticisms on mental fingers, Tong Yao chuckled and exited the custom game lobby for Lu Yue to play Game 2, hugging her knees to observe their next Scrim prep.

......

Ten-minute intermission.

With Lu Yue handling Game 2, Tong Yao finally relaxed enough to check Weibo during their Ban & Pick Phase discussion.

She'd meant to browse news.

One refresh later—breaking news indeed. After overnight tremors, the long-defunct "Great Qing Dynasty" team's official Weibo finally announced their official statement regarding Xu Tailun's scandal—【"Announcement Regarding Recent Violations by Player Dragon"

In light of recent complaints received by the club regarding the conduct of player Dragon (*Xu Tailun), our club has conducted an investigation into these allegations. It has been confirmed that some of the reported behaviors are true, and we hereby issue the following statement.

Player Xu Tailun joined our club during the 2015 winter transfer period as the starting jungler. However, since joining, Xu Tailun has failed to meet the club’s initial expectations of respecting his teammates, the club, and adhering to management discipline. He has repeatedly engaged in actions such as secretly insulting teammates, disparaging the club, and even making derogatory remarks about China—all of which are severe offenses.

Despite repeated warnings and guidance from the club, Xu Tailun has refused to reform, showing no improvement. Additionally, his chaotic personal life has sparked public controversy, causing an extremely negative impact on the esports environment. These actions constitute serious violations of discipline.

Therefore, in the spirit of upholding integrity within the esports community, our club will not tolerate foreign players who disrespect their teammates or hold contemptuous attitudes toward China. As a result, we have decided to deduct Xu Tailun’s bonuses for the second half of the year, demote him to the substitute roster, suspend him for the entire season, and demand deep reflection.

However, in recognition of Xu Tailun’s undeniable contributions to the club’s third-place finish in the 2016 Spring Split, the club will exceptionally allow him to participate in this Thursday’s Group Stage match against HUAWEI Team as a final formal farewell to him and his fans.

Even the wings of a mayfly can shake the mighty Maokai.

For the long-term healthy development of Chinese esports, the Great Qing Team is willing to make this sacrifice.

We sincerely thank everyone for their enduring support and love for Chinese esports and the Great Qing Team. Our club will continue to strive alongside all of you to contribute our humble efforts to the esports environment in China.】

Tong Yao: "………………"

Tong Yao: "Holy crap, oh my god, ahhhhhhh, this is amazing! Xu Tailun got suspended!!!!"

Her outburst startled everyone in the team headquarters. Lu Sicheng, who was sitting closest to her, accidentally banned Kalista—the Champion he had originally intended to pick—and his face darkened instantly: "Stop making a scene. Get lost. If you keep yelling, I’ll borrow the muzzle from the neighboring team’s Dolly and put it on you."

Tong Yao: "..."

Dolly was the Alaskan Malamute owned by the boss of the neighboring Noob team. A Mao, the Ragdoll cat owned by Ai Jia and his partner, often stood triumphantly on Dolly’s back like a circus act, much to Da Bing’s envy—

But that wasn’t the point.

Tong Yao: "You actually want to muzzle me like a dog!"

Lu Sicheng: "Wrong. I want to put two muzzles on you—one to shut you up, and the other to reinforce it."

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng: "What does another team’s jungler getting suspended have to do with you? You lost the scrims and you’re still this happy? Can you at least pretend to reflect? You used to cry after losing scrims—who are you trying to piss off with this celebration now?"

Tong Yao: "...Oh."

She put down her phone.

In the next scrim, she stayed silent as a mouse, quietly switching to solo mode to practice how to play Taliyah, successfully playing the role of a remorseful young lady who wouldn’t piss off her captain.