The announcement from the Great Qing Team sent another minor shockwave through the industry.
Even fools knew that the Great Qing Team relied on Xu Tailun to carry and stir up trouble to win matches. Xu Tailun was the team's engine—without this jungler, the team would at best linger on the edge of relegation, if not outright drop to the secondary league... The decision to suspend him was akin to cutting off a chunk of their own flesh.
Thus, this move genuinely surprised the spectator masses, who had assumed domestic clubs prioritized profit above all else. Most had expected nothing more than a slap on the wrist—some formal reprimand, a salary deduction—but no one anticipated the Great Qing Team would actually dare to ban this Korean Aid for an entire season.
As a result, the initial response overwhelmingly supported the team’s decision. Positive media coverage flooded in, setting a commendable example for the industry—
[Karma’s a bitch. Making an example out of him—whatever the case, I stand with the Great Qing Team on this one.]
[Ahaha, so used to relegation battles that placing third feels weird. Might as well ban the carry and go back to fighting for survival! —Great Qing Team management, probably.]
[If even a small team can show this kind of resolve, maybe the mid-to-upper-tier teams in the league should take notes.]
[Hope everyone can actually support the Great Qing Team with actions, not just words. They’re taking a real financial hit here…]
[Oh please, the club’s reputation matters too. If they find a decent jungler next year and go All-Chinese Team, as long as they avoid relegation, they’ll gain a ton of fans. You think management’s stupid? Hell, I’m already a fan now!]
And so on.
Similar comments were everywhere. On a well-known esports forum, threads about the incident dominated the front page—some seriously analyzing the state of domestic esports clubs, others digging deeper into Xu Tailun’s past. The more they dug, the worse it got: screwing fans, verbally abusing teammates, running a one-voice hall where he’d threaten management with “If you don’t do XX, I won’t play,” and routinely demanding luxury gifts from fans—
The original thread exposing Xu Tailun’s antics had already ballooned to 5,000 replies, a towering skyscraper of outrage. By the end, the spectator masses were frantically tagging the female fans they’d seen defending Xu Tailun in the forum. Some responded with [I was blind, I’ve un-fanned], others with [Heartbroken, please stop tagging me], while the remaining few stayed silent from start to finish.
Xu Tailun had officially become the Twitch of the LPL.
……
In a sparsely furnished room.
A phone tossed onto the bed buzzed incessantly—text messages, QQ alerts, WeChat notifications, incoming calls—
Yet the room’s sole occupant, a young woman with her hair tied up and slippers on her feet, continued packing the last of her clothes into a suitcase. The noise from the phone might as well not have existed.Everything around was in disarray, as if someone had hastily packed and rushed to leave. The walls were mottled with traces of things that had once been pasted on them—likely photos or posters, judging by the torn remnants left behind. The photo clips on the walls hung empty, and the makeup mirror still had a few Cheering slogans dangling from it, bearing the messy handwritten signatures of team members.
They had probably been carefully preserved once.
The young woman closed her suitcase and stood up, her gaze cold as she surveyed the now nearly empty room. Eventually, her eyes settled on another large box behind her—on top of it lay several hard drives filled with high-definition recordings of the Great Qing Team members' live streams over the past six months. Beneath the hard drives were stacks of photos taken down from the walls. In them, five young men in matching team uniforms smiled, embraced, bowed to the audience at the front of the stage, sat behind computers cheering for their victories, or slumped in disappointment after defeats.
These photos had once been meticulously captured by a DSLR, carefully selected, edited, and printed.
Then treasured with care.
Now, they were crumpled and discarded like trash in the waste box, still clinging to scraps of wallpaper.
The phone on the bed continued to ring.
The woman, whose Weibo username was "Guoguo," walked to the box and raised her foot to close it. But then her gaze froze on a thick notebook inside. She paused, leaving the box open, and instead bent down to pick it up. Flipping to the first page, she saw a photo of the now-disgraced esports figure, Twitch, wearing the Great Qing Team uniform, beaming with joy—
It was Xu Tailun’s smile after his first victory in the LPL after joining the Great Qing Team.
Beneath the photo, fluorescent markers in Chinese, English, and Korean read: Happy Birthday, Tailun-ge!
Flipping through the pages revealed more photos and handwritten messages— Xu Tailun is the best :) , Thank you for coming into our lives , Our little angel Tailun, do your best in the Summer Split too , Thank you for bringing me into the wonderful world of League of Legends esports. I’ve seen many sights, but in the end, I choose to stay by your side ...
The last page.
No matter what, I’ll be by your side—Guoguo.
The final date marked was August 31st of this year—a date that hadn’t yet arrived. This notebook had been part of a collective birthday gift from fans for Xu Tailun. Starting in February, it had been carefully shipped by express delivery to over forty cities, collecting handwritten blessings from fans across the country before finally returning to Guoguo. The thick notebook was filled with the hopes of every person who had contributed, eagerly awaiting the moment it would be handed to their favorite player.
Now, it was all useless.Guoguo placed the notebook back into the box when her phone vibrated again with another message. She paused, then finally turned around to pick up her phone and read through the hundreds of unread messages that had piled up over the past dozen hours—
【Guoguo, are you okay? QAQ】
【You cleared your Weibo—are you quitting the fandom? Please don’t, wuwuwu...】
Quitting? Of course she was.
【I don’t understand why you did this.】
【Didn’t we agree not to expose these things? I never thought you’d be the one to betray Xu Tailun in the end… You betrayed us too, you traitor.】
【Xu Tailun got Suspension.】
【We’ll never see him again.】
【Thanks to you.】
【You’re really a vicious woman.】
When had things turned out like this? Because of her blind devotion, even after learning his true nature, she had accepted it calmly—even acted like a lunatic, covering for him, keeping his secrets. Was it because she refused to admit that the idol she worshipped was actually like this? Or was it simply that she couldn’t accept that she had been so blind from the start?
【He’s trash, not worth it. Guoguo, just let it go. If I’d known he was like this, I would’ve never been a fan. No matter how good he is at the game, it’s not worth it.】
And I was the one who meddled in someone else’s relationship. Pathetic. Trash and trash, what a perfect match, huh?
【This week is his last match. Are you coming?】
Guoguo’s gaze lingered on the last message.
A long moment passed.
As if she had made up her mind, she opened WeChat and entered the ticket-buying platform—her fingers trembled slightly over the screen. Suddenly, she remembered the Monday morning when she had first decided to attend an LPL match in person. She had woken up early, showered, put on makeup, and met up with friends at Starbucks. They waited and waited, staring eagerly until noon, counting down the seconds on her phone, heart racing, rushing into the ticketing system the moment the clock struck twelve just to snag front-row seats…
But now it was already Wednesday.
Entering the ticket page, only a few back-row seats remained for Thursday’s match between Great Qing Team and HUAWEI Team. After a moment’s thought, Guoguo randomly selected one in the very last row, clicked confirm, verified the details, and completed the purchase.
Her mind flashed back to that day—herself, cheering and hugging her friends in excitement after securing front-row tickets, overwhelmed with indescribable joy, her head filled with thoughts like:
What should I wear that day?
I have to do my makeup perfectly!
Even if he doesn’t see me, I’ll still look my best!
Xu Tailun, I’m really, really happy to meet you.
……
……
Thursday.
Another opening day for the LPL regular season’s cross-group round-robin matches.
Early in the morning, Tong Yao received an interview assignment about Xu Tailun and the current state of Korean Aid in the scene. Even though today wasn’t ZGDX’s match day, she dutifully dragged herself out of bed and boarded the club’s van, heading to the competition venue that had long become familiar to her.
…All while carrying Lu Sicheng’s parting words before she left:
"...Xu Tailun’s last match, thousands of fans going wild at the venue—aren’t you afraid his fans will beat you to death when you go there for an interview?"
"Well said, thanks for the blessing. So, are you coming to protect your Mid Laner or not?""I don't want to," the man holding a cup of coffee said expressionlessly. "I'm afraid of death too."
...This internet-addicted old man knew nothing about the romance of saving a damsel in distress.
Tong Yao rolled her eyes as she arrived at the competition venue. Since there was still some time before the interview, she put on a mask and sat in the audience to watch a match between the Great Qing Team and HUAWEI Team—whether Xu Tailun was genuinely in poor form or doing it on purpose, Li Huanshuo lived up to expectations and crushed Xu Tailun into the ground. The match resembled a traditional powerhouse team facing off against a traditional relegation team, and including breaks, the entire BO3 between the two teams was completed in just about an hour and a half.
When the match ended, the fan section of the Great Qing Team was silent—a silence that carried an eerie, unsettling feeling. It was as if this wasn't just Xu Tailun's farewell match, but the entire Great Qing Team's.
As the winning team, the HUAWEI Team members shook hands with their opponents and then moved to the front of the stage to bow in gratitude to the audience. While bending down, Li Huanshuo, sharp-eyed, spotted Tong Yao sitting in a corner with only half her nose and eyes visible behind her mask. He immediately grinned like an idiot and waved at her...
Behind them, the Great Qing Team members quietly exited the stage.
Tong Yao checked the time and saw that the interview was about to start. Since she was also hungry, she stood up to go buy some bread and dried fruit from the building next door. Outside, dark clouds loomed, and rain began to fall. She borrowed an umbrella from a staff member and walked out alone.
Because it was the intermission, the crowd was dense, and she was afraid of being recognized and getting stuck. So she took a side exit, making a big detour to reach the other building—the path she took should have been deserted, until she rounded the back of the building with her umbrella, stepping through puddles, and spotted a girl curled up in a corner under the eaves.
At first, Tong Yao was so startled she nearly dropped her umbrella—until she got closer and realized the drenched figure wasn't just a living person, but someone she knew.
"......Hey, girl?"
Tong Yao stopped beside her, tilting her umbrella slightly to shield the girl from the rain. Hesitating, she asked—
"Are you okay?"
For a moment, everything was silent except for the sound of pouring rain.
After a long pause, when she almost thought the girl wouldn't respond, she looked up at her own umbrella and steeled herself to bend down and hand it over. But just then, the girl moved—lifting her head, her face completely wet, whether from rain or tears. She squinted slightly at Tong Yao, and after a long silence, she spoke in a hoarse whisper, "Did I destroy him with my own hands?"
"......"
"It takes two to tango," Tong Yao said, pressing the umbrella into the girl's hands. "If you knew this would happen, why did you do it in the first place?"
......
Ten minutes later.
Tong Yao sat alone in a bakery, soaked to the bone, nibbling on bread while scrolling through Weibo. She had originally wanted to see how the Great Qing Team's fans were reacting to Xu Tailun's departure, but as she scrolled, her fingers suddenly trembled—she had just refreshed to a new post.
She read it carefully.Then even the act of swallowing the bread paused for a moment, an indescribable feeling welling up inside—just that split second when it suddenly seemed heartbreaking... Liking someone, disliking someone—sometimes it isn't as simple as black and white, the way one might imagine.
Several hours later, nearly everyone in the esports circle saw this post on their Weibo homepage:
【In Your Name:
Humans are too greedy.
At first, I just wanted to see you a little more. Gradually, it turned into wanting to be with you. I tried to restrain my possessiveness, but sometimes I still wanted to claim you. Then came dissatisfaction, nitpicking, and because none of it could be realized, frustration, anxiety, and hysteria took over...
When we unknowingly use the name of love to justify all these acts of emotional and moral coercion, we should think back to the very beginning—when I simply stood gently among the crowd, hoping you'd glance my way with kindness once more.】
...When did it all start?
From pure admiration to gradual obsession.
Desiring more and more, until the original intent was lost along the way, forgetting what was truly sought in the first place—just wanting to see him shine on the competition stage—somehow, such a simple thing was forgotten.
Blinded by selfish desires.
Allowing decay, ugliness, jealousy, and darkness to fester, becoming a stranger even to oneself.
Dragging him down, plunging together into ruin, reaping what was sown.
By the time nostalgia for the past arose—for the self who once cheered at just a distant glimpse of him, and for him who once radiated brilliance on stage—it was already too late.
Reaping what was sown?
Truly, it was just that—
If only I had known earlier, why did it have to come to this?
OpenNovel