The match between YQCB Team and HUAWEI Team was about to begin. Tong Yao watched Ai Jia sitting on stage looking completely relaxed, along with Li Huanshuo, who kept craning his neck toward the YQCB fan section. Strangely, she felt even more nervous than the person sitting beside her—
Who was still scrolling through her WeChat Moments.
"Hey, could you at least act a little tense? I'm sweating bullets for Ai Jia in this critical moment... If he screws up this game, you'll be the one taking the blame in this storm."
Tong Yao nudged Jin Yang with her elbow. The latter swayed slightly, leisurely giving a like to a friend's post before glancing up at the big screen: "It hasn't even started yet. Damn, why is the cameraman giving Ai Jia such a close-up? He's been so stressed lately he’s got a few pimples popping on his forehead..."
Tong Yao: "...The Ban & Pick Phase has started."
"Oh," Jin Yang said flatly, "I don’t understand any of it anyway."
Tong Yao: "..."
At that moment, what seemed to be the leader of the YQCB fanbase sitting nearby turned to give Jin Yang a look—one that wasn’t exactly friendly, as if questioning why she was even here if she didn’t understand the game... However, due to the existence of team-specific fan tickets (*typically, LPL live tickets allow entry for all matches scheduled that day, but team-specific fan tickets are only issued to designated team supporters and become invalid after the current team's match, requiring the holder to leave the venue), the first two rows were reserved for fans and special guests. Who could sit where was entirely up to the team’s discretion...
Jin Yang rolled her eyes: "So what if I'm just a Silver player? Do I need to climb to Diamond to be qualified to date a pro? Not everyone is like Lu Sicheng, who expects their partner to be better at the game than them."
Tong Yao let out an "Oh": "But even Diamond players can’t beat Lu Sicheng."
Jin Yang’s eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head as she turned and mouthed at her: Fine, fine, you win.
Tong Yao giggled. Those around them had no idea about their little exchange, assuming they were just chatting idly... Meanwhile, on stage, the Ban & Pick Phase was already halfway through. YQCB secured Nidalee and Thresh, and from their champion selections, Tong Yao could tell they were planning to deploy their core strategy this season: the Jungle-Support Duo Roam.
—Typically, the bottom lane consists of a support and an ADC duo. However, when team communication is seamless and the ADC possesses exceptional mechanics and awareness, the support can be freed up to leave the bottom lane and roam flexibly with the jungler, executing ganks to help other lanes quickly establish advantages and open up the game. This tactic is known as the "Jungle-Support Duo Roam."
With Pope, Li Junhe—a world-class ADC whose mechanics and anti-gank instincts are top-tier—current YQCB was perfectly suited for this strategy.
And just as Tong Yao had predicted.From the very start, YQCB's support Liang Sheng played with an aggressive edge—completely different from his overly cautious, almost timid style during the Spring Split. The YQCB bot lane seemed to have raised a tiger and a howling wolfdog aiding its tyranny. At seven minutes and fifty seconds into the game, when HUAWEI Team's AD positioned slightly too forward, Pope reached level six first and unlocked his ultimate. Without haste, he pinged a signal on the ground. The crowd then watched as Liang Sheng's Thresh decisively flashed forward and hooked HUAWEI's AD!
The audience gasped in shock. Meanwhile, the opposing AD, clearly startled, hesitated for a split second—unable to decide whether to retreat or fight back. Seizing this opportunity, YQCB secured the first kill of the match!
"First blood!"
The system announcement echoed as the live audience erupted in cheers!
With YQCB's support now freed up, Liang Sheng placed protective vision in the tri-brush before recalling. He then began shadowing his jungler, Xbang. After an unsuccessful gank attempt mid, he simply followed Xbang to steal HUAWEI Team's Red Buff. After the steal, they immediately rotated top, coordinating with their top laner for a three-man tower dive, killing HUAWEI's top laner and demolishing the top outer turret—
In just three minutes, starting from Pope's simple ground ping, YQCB executed a flawless series of plays: two additional kills and the destruction of an outer turret, all with impeccable teamwork.
The crowd grew restless, YQCB's fans electrified. Such high coordination and execution were clearly the result of relentless practice—
[ZGDX、Smiling: This level of execution rivals Storm, the team known for their rock-solid coordination in the LPL. And they’ve been playing together for years—YQCB achieved this in half a season.]
[fhdjwhdb2333: Jealous?]
[ZGDX、Smiling: Very.]
[fhdjwhdb2333: Their bot lane duo queues together every day, climbing ranks in harmony. Meanwhile, our support only knows how to drive his ADC insane with Lux.]
[ZGDX、Smiling: …………]
[fhdjwhdb2333: Blame Little Fatty.]
[ZGDX、Smiling: Tell him if he keeps this up, the title of Alliance First Support will go to the other team’s support.]
[fhdjwhdb2333: We’ll talk later. I’m afraid he’ll pull out Lux and punish us on the spot within the hour. Terrifying.]
Tong Yao, a long-suffering victim of Little Fatty’s antics, silently put away her phone. Meanwhile, on the stage, YQCB had already seized control of the game’s tempo with their early-game jungle-support synergy—HUAWEI’s jungler Li Huanshuo found his territory constantly invaded, while Liang Sheng’s veteran vision placements dug deep into HUAWEI’s jungle…
Watching this, Tong Yao felt she could already predict the outcome of this match.
…The first game was smoothly secured by YQCB in forty-two minutes, with Ai Jia's several Ekko plays to dive the backline and initiate team fights executed exceptionally well. Sitting below, Tong Yao was enthusiastically explaining to her friend just how amazing and carry-worthy her boyfriend was, while Jin Yang listened with a dazed and utterly confused expression...
Tong Yao pinched her cheek. "Can you be a bit more serious? This is your boyfriend's Highlight Reel! Look how excited his fans are!"
"...What highlight? You know when I first met that kid, he was just a silly ordinary high schooler. Being with him wasn't because he's—"
Before Jin Yang could finish, someone from the row behind suddenly slammed into the back of her seat, cutting her off. Turning around, she saw a long-haired girl holding a stack of YQCB cheering slogans and light signs, forcing a smile as she said, "Sorry, lost my balance."
Tong Yao raised an eyebrow, about to say something, but Jin Yang tugged her sleeve and ignored the girl, turning back around.
The seats around Tong Yao and Jin Yang were filled with China Telecom fans who had won fan tickets. Many had known Jin Yang for a long time, followed her on social media, and were aware of the recent online drama—
Most knew Jin Yang was three years older than Ai Jia, that they had been neighbors when she lived at her grandmother's place as kids, and that they got together through some rom-com-worthy circumstances before Ai Jia even went pro... In any case, Ai Jia's fans generally liked her. Seeing this random person with a fan ticket act this way, they were displeased but kept quiet to maintain surface-level harmony.
"What's your problem?"
"What's my problem? Some people are just ridiculous. Can't even play the game or understand it, yet they latch onto players for their fame and act all proud..."
"Shh, keep it down. Ai Jia's girlfriend isn't—"
"I didn't say she was. But isn't this the kind of person ruining female fans' reputations? Look at Xu Tailun and Guoguo—if you like players, just enjoy watching them focus on the game. Why go seducing them?"
The discussion behind them reached Tong Yao and Jin Yang's ears word for word. Hearing Xu Tailun and Guoguo brought up as insults, Tong Yao was ready to stand and argue, but Jin Yang yanked her back into her seat—
Tong Yao turned angrily, only to see her friend sitting coldly in place. "If you want to start something, wait till after the match. That dumb deer is sitting up there all optimistic playing his game—how would it look if I started fighting his fans down here?"
As she spoke, Jin Yang tilted her chin up. Following her gaze, Tong Yao saw Ai Jia, now back on stage after the break, wearing his headphones and grinning foolishly at Jin Yang.
Tong Yao: "..."
Tong Yao accidentally recalled her own past—how she couldn't bear the struggles of transitioning from a regular high school boyfriend to a pro player, ultimately leading to her breakup with Jian Yang. Overcome with emotion, she patted her friend's back and said nothing more.
The second game was about to begin.This time, YQCB didn't continue with the Jungle-Support Duo Roam strategy that had successfully defeated HUAWEI Team in their previous match. Instead, they pulled out the Four protect one strategy, a tactic centered around the ADC—as mentioned before, this strategy was somewhat outdated in Season 6 and usually didn't perform very well.
...If the ADC were Pope or Lu Sicheng, maybe they could give it a try.
Seeing Ai Jia pick Lulu, a Champion he wasn't very familiar with, Tong Yao realized that YQCB was actually using HUAWEI Team, a relatively strong opponent, to test out different lineup variations. After all, it was just the Group Stage. If they lost while experimenting with new lineups and strategies, so be it. A team couldn't rely on just one core tactic, and small sacrifices for long-term gains were acceptable.
—But.
The idea was good, but execution proved difficult. YQCB clearly wasn't entirely comfortable with this Four protect one system, and HUAWEI Team's Jungler, Li Huanshuo, was no pushover either. Once he figured out their strategy, he started relentlessly targeting the bottom lane from the very beginning of the match!
That was just how Li Huanshuo played. He didn’t do much in losing situations, but HUAWEI Team’s performance when ahead was world-class, and their snowballing speed was terrifying—
First, they ganked the bottom lane, securing First Blood and two kills—almost the same opening as the previous game. Then they freed up their Support to roam with the Jungler, ganking mid and killing YQCB’s mid-jungle duo. After that, they shifted to the top lane, ganked the Top laner, and took the Rift Herald.
Five kills erupted within just five minutes.
Commentator A: [Seven minutes into the game, the bottom lane duo hasn’t even hit level 6. YQCB’s tempo is completely falling apart this game.]
Commentator B: [If Pope falls behind, this game is pretty much over, honestly. A mid-lane Lulu has no damage output… I really don’t understand why they picked Lulu. Any damage-oriented Champion would’ve been better than this.]
Commentator A: [Yeah, sometimes you just can’t ignore the meta—]
Tong Yao twitched her lips, guessing that the commentators hadn’t considered the possibility of YQCB testing strategies. Unfortunately, things unfolded exactly as they predicted. Ai Jia couldn’t gain any advantage in lane, and team fights felt utterly powerless because Pope hadn’t scaled properly—
Watching their team fights was like seeing ten seconds of positioning for eight seconds of actual combat.
By the time the match ended, Ai Jia barely had a chance to do anything.
Due to their lineup issues, the game ended in just over thirty minutes when HUAWEI Team pushed through the High Ground and secured GG. When the match concluded, aside from Pope, who seemed unusually quiet, the rest of YQCB’s players looked relatively unfazed...
“Seems like Four protect one really isn’t viable this season. What a shame. Pope didn’t perform well this game either. He and Cheng Ge are cut from the same cloth—no matter the lineup, they’ll just push and fight aggressively first…” Tong Yao shifted slightly and added, “No, actually, he’s even more aggressive than Cheng Ge.”
“Uh.”
“You okay?” Tong Yao nudged the person beside her with her shoulder."What's the big deal? It's just a lost match. It's not like we haven't seen him lose before," Jin Yang shrugged. "They barely won any games in the Spring Split, so what's the fuss about losing one now? Whatever, there's still another match—just win the next one and it's all good..."
Her tone was casual.
But the next second, a thick stack of cheering slogans came raining down from above, hitting her head from behind and abruptly cutting her off.
She froze for a moment before turning around to see the overly talkative fan from earlier standing behind her, glaring down with fury. "'Whatever'?! It's because of people like you that players think it's okay to slack off even when they perform poorly! Was Ai Jia's performance not terrible enough this match? What's the point of having a Mid Laner who just spectates the entire team fight? Stop blindly defending him and dragging Smiling into it while shifting all the blame onto Pope! We came all this way to watch them win! Stop saying such annoying things!"
The girl had a loud voice, and since the venue wasn’t that big to begin with, her words practically echoed through every corner of the arena—the sudden outburst plunged the previously noisy venue into an eerie silence.
Even the two commentators on stage, who had been casually chatting, abruptly shut their mouths.
Jin Yang frowned. She wasn’t great at the game, but Tong Yao had given her a rough breakdown earlier, and she could vaguely tell that this loss wasn’t really Ai Jia’s fault...
Tong Yao glanced at the aggressive girl’s feet, where Pope’s light sign lay, and after a pause, stood up, ready to calmly explain the match’s dynamics and stop her from being misled by the commentators. But before she could speak, she heard a troubled voice from the stage behind her—YQCB’s support and captain calling out, "Ai Jia!"
The next second, a tall, lanky figure in black leaped down from the stage behind them and grabbed Jin Yang’s arm. She stiffened, turning her head to meet Ai Jia’s icy, detached gaze...
Even Tong Yao was seeing this silly guy wear such an expression for the first time.
...Though, admittedly, that expression did successfully shut the previously outspoken girl up.
"What are you doing?" Jin Yang whispered, trying to pull her arm free but failing.
"Let’s go." Ai Jia tugged her arm, pulling her toward him. "Why waste words on people like this?"
The girl snapped, "What?! 'People like this'? I’m your fan—"
"Yeah! And your ears work just fine!" Ai Jia raised his voice. "I wouldn’t even raise my voice at my girlfriend—who the hell are you to yap at her? Whether I play well or not has nothing to do with her! If you’ve got a problem, say it to my face—let’s go!"
With that, he yanked Jin Yang again.
But she stood rooted in place, turning to face him without a trace of fear despite his thunderous expression.
After a long moment of silence, Ai Jia clicked his tongue in frustration. Then, in full view of everyone, he stepped forward, swept her off her feet, and carried her bridal-style toward the players’ backstage area.
The crowd erupted in shock.
Tong Yao was utterly dumbfounded.She stood there in a daze for a long while, only snapping out of it when Ai Jia had already carried her best friend far away. In a panic, she bent down to pick up Jin Yang's bag and scurried onto the competition stage like a flustered bag carrier, then dashed into the players' lounge...
In the hallway, she bumped into Lu Sicheng, who was playing on his phone. Seeing Tong Yao carrying Jin Yang's bag with a face like her butt was on fire, trying to walk past him without even glancing his way, the man reached out and grabbed her by the collar, saying calmly, "Hold up."
Tong Yao froze, turning to look at Lu Sicheng: "Why are you here? Let go! You don’t know what just happened outside—I need to check on Ai Jia and—"
"I know, the Forum is exploding." Lu Sicheng raised his phone. "Everyone’s saying Korean Drama 2.0 is airing... So what was 1.0?"
Tong Yao thought for a moment, recalling the infamous "Korean Drama 1.0" that had been turned into a widely circulated GIF—where Little Fatty stepped on her slipper, sending her stumbling forward, only to be scooped up by her team captain... Ugh, damn it, so embarrassing! Her face flushed slightly as she slapped Lu Sicheng’s hand away. "Let go first! I need to see them!"
"...Why the rush?"
Lu Sicheng leisurely released her, watching as Tong Yao tripped over her own feet in her haste, nearly falling. He straightened up instinctively, but when she wobbled back to her feet, he sighed helplessly, lowering the hand he’d extended to steady her and leaning back against the wall—
"Slow down. Can’t even walk properly—did your cerebellum stop developing?"
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