Once the decision was made, Ling Jie acted swiftly. As soon as Qiao Jingjing's scenes in Hengdian wrapped up, the team immediately returned to Shanghai to begin special King training.
She had prepared thoroughly—new accounts, competition-specific phones, and even a coach, who happened to be her husband, A'guo.
Ling Jie and her husband had married as childhood sweethearts. Originally, A'guo had a decent job, but since Ling Jie was constantly flying around and couldn't take care of their child, A'guo had to sacrifice his career and return to the family. With his extra time, he played games and had reached a fairly high rank—Conqueror.
"I'm once bitten, twice shy. The fewer people who know about this, the better, so I asked A'guo to be your coach. If you can reach his level, you should be able to hold your own in the game."
As Ling Jie spoke, she pushed open the door to the small conference room in the studio. A'guo was already waiting inside and quickly stood up to greet them when they entered.
"You can practice here from now on. Xiao Zhu, you should watch and learn too. Once Jingjing gets the hang of it, we'll call Dan Dan—she also plays this game. With me, that makes five of us, perfect for forming a practice team."
After giving her instructions, Ling Jie went off to work. A'guo began the lesson for Qiao Jingjing and Xiao Zhu, starting off with some reassuring words.
"This game isn't actually that hard. If you focus on practicing a few heroes for over a month, you'll definitely get the hang of it. Otherwise, all the players would have left long ago."
Qiao Jingjing felt encouraged by his words.
"Let me start by explaining some basics." He opened the game interface. "You know about matching and Ranked Matches, right? Matching is just casual play, but if you want a rank, you have to climb through Ranked Matches, one star at a time."
Of course, Qiao Jingjing knew this and nodded.
"Matching exists, but most people play 5v5. In Ranked Matches, it's only 5v5."
"Ranked Matches below Diamond are similar to matching—you can pick any hero, just not the same as your teammates. Once you reach Diamond and above, it switches to Draft Mode. The difference is that in Draft Mode, you can ban two heroes first, then both sides take turns picking heroes. You can't pick a hero the other side has already chosen. When you compete later, it'll definitely be in this mode. In the Professional League, they ban three heroes first, but for your entertainment match, it'll probably be the same."
A'guo took a sip of water. "But no matter how the mode changes, they all use this King's Canyon map."
He opened the training camp and showed them the map.
"Jingjing, you've played this before. Look at this map—it's divided into top, middle, and bottom lanes. The conventional strategy usually has mages in the middle lane, Marksmen with Supports in the bottom lane, warriors or tanks in the top lane, and Junglers clearing monsters in the Jungle area."
After all, Qiao Jingjing had endorsed this game and was already familiar with many aspects, but she didn't interrupt A'guo and continued listening.
"A'ling told me the game company's plan. They'll randomly select five players from the applicants, plus Jingjing, making six people in total. They'll be divided into two teams, so each side has three players. Then, each team can freely choose two professional players to form a five-person team for the match."
"No matter how strong the players are, they can't beat professional players. The two professionals will definitely take the carry positions, so Jingjing just needs to practice Support or tank roles well."
Qiao Jingjing raised her hand to ask, "I understand what a carry position is, but does the game have carry positions too?"A'guo: "In the game, there are usually five positions: Jungler, Mid-laner, Marksman, Side-laner, and Support. The first three positions are considered carry roles."
Qiao Jingjing, who was used to being the carry: "I can't play those?"
A'guo didn't expect his student to have already developed a carry mentality before even learning the game. He gave Qiao Jingjing a complicated look. "Do you want to win?"
Qiao Jingjing nodded.
A'guo said authoritatively, "Then you play Support."
A'guo then introduced the commonly used heroes, their positions, and skills, concluding, "Among all the heroes, Supports are relatively simpler and less likely to be blamed. Jingjing, you should practice Zhang Fei first. This hero's skills are quite straightforward—mainly using the second skill to shield allies and the ultimate skill to knock back enemies."
Qiao Jingjing nodded with full confidence.
All heroes had already been purchased on the account. Qiao Jingjing entered the game with her new phone, selected Zhang Fei, and followed behind A'guo's Marksman.
A'guo nodded: "Right, Zhang Fei mainly sticks with the Marksman."
He explained while playing: "Use the second skill to shield me, place that skill circle on me... Yes..."
Soon, both reached level four. In Honor of Kings, heroes unlock their ultimate skill at level four.
"Do you see the red bar above your head? When it's full, Zhang Fei's ultimate skill is ready," A'guo said while chasing the enemy's low-health Side-laner.
"Okay, okay," Qiao Jingjing replied, then tapped the skill.
On the screen, Zhang Fei suddenly expanded in size, let out a roar, and knocked back the enemy Side-laner. The nearly dead enemy seemed to freeze for a moment before sprinting back to their tower.
A'guo was stunned: "He was almost dead. Why did you knock him away?"
Qiao Jingjing: "...I just wanted to try it out."
A'guo: "...Don't use your ultimate skill randomly."
A while later.
A'guo: "Use your ultimate to knock him back now—wait, I'm low on health, don't knock him... Shield me..."
By the time he said the last four words, A'guo was already dead.
After three rounds like this, A'guo wiped his sweat. "This hero might not suit you. Let's try another one—Sun Bin. Sun Bin is also quite common."
Three more rounds later...
"Try Niu Mo. He's tanky!"
After two intense days of trying all the common Support heroes, Qiao Jingjing was fine, but A'guo felt utterly drained.
"At least Cai Wenji and Zhuang Zhou... were passable," A'guo forced himself to stay positive. "They're not common in high-tier matches, but not every player you encounter is King Tier. Let's take a break tomorrow. I'll go back and rethink how to teach you."
"You have a commercial shoot tomorrow anyway, so you can't practice," Ling Jie said as she pushed the door open. "Let's call it a day. Jingjing, go back and get some rest early."
"I'll practice on my own phone tonight. I think this new phone doesn't feel right."
Ling Jie was startled: "Don't! What if someone records you again?"
After two days of playing, Qiao Jingjing hadn't mastered any heroes but had become quite familiar with the game's minor details. She gave Ling Jie a disdainful glance. "One, you can disable spectating in the settings. Two, can't I use a smurf account?"
Before 9 p.m., Qiao Jingjing had already washed up and climbed into bed, sitting upright to create a new smurf account.
What should she use to register?Qiao Jingjing thought for a moment, retrieved a rarely used QQ account, logged into QQ, and then linked it to enter the game.
Her QQ account was named "Can Pick the Stars," but when she tried it in the game, it was already taken. So she casually typed a similar ID—"Can Pick Cotton."
As expected, such a strange name wasn't registered, and it passed smoothly.
As a new account, she had to go through a lengthy tutorial that couldn't be skipped. Qiao Jingjing patiently clicked through for a long time before finally entering the normal interface.
Just as she was about to tap into "Battle Mode," her finger suddenly paused.
Her gaze fell on the friend leaderboard on the far left of the interface, where there was already an avatar. This avatar looked so familiar—an endless starry sky. Hesitantly, she clicked on it and saw the person's ID—
"Yutu Daoyao (Yu Tu)."
Yu Tu...
Only then did Qiao Jingjing suddenly remember that, in the very beginning, the purpose of creating this alternate account was for Yu Tu.
However, Qiao Jingjing wasn't in the mood to reminisce about distant girlish feelings now. She quickly tapped into the battle mode to start practicing. In Battle Mode, there were matches against real players and practice sessions against AI. Lacking the courage to face real players alone, she tapped into the AI mode and began practicing with Cai Wenji. After finishing one round and exiting, an invitation box suddenly popped up in the game.
Yutu Daoyao (from QQ friend)
Eternal Diamond 3
Invites you to team up for a 5v5 match in King's Canyon
Accept / Decline
Yu Tu...
He actually invited her?
Qiao Jingjing was taken aback for a moment, then raised an eyebrow and clicked to join.
But as soon as she entered the room, she was greeted with a series of question marks.
So Scared School is About to Start: ?????????? Yu Tu, you invited this? Who is this?
Yutu Daoyao: Clicked the wrong person, from QQ.
So Scared School is About to Start: A newbie? No rank?
In Honor of Kings, you need six heroes to unlock Ranked Matches, which then displays the lowest rank as Bronze III. Qiao Jingjing's alternate account had just been created, so of course, it had no rank.
Qiao Jingjing held her phone without saying a word, feeling quite pleased inside. She thought, Yu Tu, even after ten years, you can still cause trouble for me. It's only fair that I mess with you a bit later.
Shilaimei Bao: Start.
Dragon King 2001: Start.
The battle began.
Qiao Jingjing selected Cai Wenji. Over the past couple of days, she had absorbed a lot of basic knowledge—she knew that Cai Wenji should follow the Marksman.
And Yu Tu happened to be the Marksman.
So the loli-voiced Cai Wenji wobbled along behind "Yutu Daoyao." Very leisurely, utterly troll-like, using skills as soon as they were available, dying gloriously when there were no skills, completely devoid of strategy, awareness, or positioning.
Qiao Jingjing thought Yu Tu would definitely be doomed because of her.
So when, despite dying seven or eight times, she actually broke into the enemy Crystal for the first time in her life within ten minutes, Qiao Jingjing felt as if she were in a dream, utterly bewildered. Overwhelming joy swept away her rationality and restraint. Before the match ended, she quickly typed two words—"Carry me!"
Followed by what felt like ten thousand exclamation marks!!!
OpenNovel