Former Glory

Season 12, and Han Wenqing finally retired. The last of the Pioneering Generation, Song Qiying to succeed him.

Season 13, and the flowers of Blood and Blossoms departs. Zhang Jiale finally won a championship, his bad luck too weak to beat him down again. He too had lost too much of his strength and fighting spirit. Yet though he was gone, in Hundred Blossoms Zou Yuan and Yu Feng were resurrecting that iconic duo.

Season 14, Tiny Herb's team dynamic saw a drastic change. Though Wang Jiexi was captain, Gao Yinjie became leader. Slowly, the Junior was succeeding the senior.

Season 15, Su Mucheng stepped down as captain of Happy. Qiao Yifan took her place.

"I only want to play a small role." She said.

Season 15 of the Alliance, 17 years of Glory.

Season 15 meant that this winter, there would be a 17th server. The team guilds would be busy.

In G City, the sky was icy blue. It was the dry season, the afternoon before the 17th Server was about to be released.

"I don't understand." Blue River sighs. "Why did you have to make me go with you to the bubble tea house?"

"It looked like you had nothing to do!" Indeed, his junior saw him on his phone in the break room, and dragged him outside without much persuasion. "Besides, it's good to go outside from time to time. Maybe I won't have to pay for my drink."

His wallet cries enough by sitting in his pocket, friend. "Yang Hua—"

"Call me Yang Zhan."

"That's a boy's name."

"I am a guy."

Your face has the delicacy of a girl's, he wanted to say, but what difference would that make? He sighed internally. "Yang Zhan, ah, tonight the 17th server comes out. You're the guild leader, why are you out here getting a drink?"

"It comes out at midnight, yeah? I'll just come out for some food, and when night falls I'll make some final preparations."

He found that hard to believe. Even if he did have a little free time on such an important day, why would he make the 10th Server's guild leader accompany him outside? What were they, schoolgirls gossiping in the bathroom?

"... To be fair, though," Yang Zhan pulls his jacket a bit tighter around himself. "I wanted to ask you about something."

"Ah? What about?"

"You pioneered the 10th Server. This... The original Lord Grim, do you remember him?"

Where did this question even come from? Blue River almost coughs blood. Since God Ye Xiu retired, and the Unspecialized no longer roamed the world of Glory, his days as guild leader were far less painful. He didn't want to remember those years when Happy's old captain practically robbed them blind. "I knew him." Far too well, he'd say. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you asking this?"

"By this point, the Unspecialized is no longer viable, right?" It doesn't matter who played, or what modifications are made to that famous Silver weapon. The gap between Lord Grim and other max-leveled characters has become too large. "I want to hear about the days when it could still stand eye-to-eye with former gods."

"You came here two years ago; you should remember a little of it."

"I wasn't here to remember the Unspecialized in the League." And it was true. After Happy's championship in Season 10, Lord Grim no longer appeared in competitions. Sometimes, over the summer, the character might be seen stealing bosses in the Heavenly Domain, but it wasn't Ye Xiu's Lord Grim. He left the account with Happy when he retired, and their Brawler liked to play with it most.

Perhaps Yang Zhan wasn't interested in Glory five years ago,when Happy won the championship. They were only acquaintances, but Blue River knew enough about him to know that his Heavenly Domain account, an Exorcist, stemmed from the 13th Server. Perhaps he only began playing then.

At that moment, Blue River realized that tonight, there would be another generation of players who weren't there to witness the Alliance's greatest rebirth.

"I first met him in the 10th Server. He soloed a dungeon, or set some record... Whatever it was, it caught my attention back then, and I wanted to recruit him to Blue Brook."

"How long was it after he retired?"

"He appeared the day before the news was announced. He immediately became some kind of legend, putting us in a bidding war against other guilds over who could break the record. Tang Rou, Luo Ji, Bao Rongxing, they all came from the 10th server. He found them there."

"And Qiao Yifan?"

... It wouldn't be fair to say that, would it? "At one point, Lord Grim raised enough of an uproar that Wang Jiexi figured out he was Ye Xiu. He took Tiny Herb to meet up with them, and I suppose... Qiao Yifan got poached.

"He made my existence in the 10th Server living hell. You wouldn't believe how many rare materials he asked for; I think the whole Server thanked Guanyin when he left for the Heavenly Domain.

"To be honest, I'm not very familiar with his activities in the Heavenly Domain. But he did form that Small Guild Alliance," air quotes, Guild Happy might as well be part of the Three Great Guilds now, "and he killed Deception enough times that he somehow got Mo Fan to join the team."

"More poaching?"

"Probably. They went to the Challenger League in Season 10, against old Excellent Era. You know what happened there."

"Sun Xiang surrendered." At that Yang Zhan frowns, as if noting a discrepancy. "He… If he didn't, would Happy still be here?"

"If he didn't…" Would Happy have tried to enter the Alliance the year after? Would Lord Grim's legacy been rubbed out prematurely, or simply postponed? "If Sun Xiang singlehandedly killed Lord Grim and the Cleric, I believe Ye Xiu would have continued fighting until he couldn't. If the old Excellent Era won that year, Happy would've tried again next year, again and again until they either succeeded or could no longer continue."

"How many more years?"

"... Unless something unexpected happens, probably only one. Lord Grim, Ye Xiu's record in the individual rounds, that legacy… It was inevitable." The only difference was that if Happy came a year later, Samsara would've had a dynasty, and gone would be that rivalry between the fans.

"37 rounds. He left one out."

Only the gods would know why. "He left one out." Blue River echoed, at a loss for what to say. "If someone could, they could beat that record. To break it… You become the new Glory Textbook. The greatest player the Alliance has ever seen."

"But nobody can."

They come close. "But nobody can."

The two guild leaders sit side by side, on the bar stools that face outwards towards the storefront windows. Yang Zhan with his cup of bubble tea, Blue River with his hands in his pockets.

"... Then what about Tyranny?" Yang Zhan's cheeks are slightly puffed, full of tapioca pearls.

"Lin Jingyan retired. At one point, he was the number one Brawler, but in those last years his downfall was fast and jarring." Truly a pity, Blue River thought. If only he knew Tyranny would be the champions of Season 12, would he still have retired?

"Tang Hao sent him off bad in Season 8 All-Stars, didn't he." Two more years was all it took.

"'The junior succeeds the senior'. It should have been a gradual process, but the way he fell ⁠— too cruel. An assassination more than a succession. For Zhang Jiale, I wonder how he felt landing so close to number one again. Only for him, he was finally spared his suffering the year after."

"Did he cry?"

He doesn't remember. "I won't be surprised if he did. Nine years of coming so close only to fall short at the last step, and then for once, his bad luck couldn't bring him down. Maybe it got tired of all the times he tried, but he definitely got tired of reaching for the peak, to the point that once he got there he had to rest and leave.

"... The first Blood and Blossoms was just that hard to kill off; even Sun Zheping eventually returned to the Alliance. They would only burn out on their own terms." Blue River takes a deep breath, his voice turning to a softer, more reflective tone. "To me, it looks like as long as there's a Hundred Blossoms, the Alliance will have a Blood and Blossoms. Sun Zheping and Zhang Jiale. Zou Yuan and Yu Feng. In the future, the successors they raise. Players can leave, and their glory forgotten, but so long as their team remains… So does their legacy."

"Then, their legacies… Do they still say Ye Xiu and Han Wenqing were equals?"

"... The problem is, Ye Xiu doesn't have a single legacy. He has ties to Happy and New Excellent Era, three god-level players that could be considered his successors⁠— before he retired, he and Han Wenqing were equals. When he returned, he took down Samsara before they could build a dynasty.

"In the public's eyes, Ye Xiu is something greater than Han Wenqing. He reestablished himself as Glory's number one, while his rival was battling old age, no longer leading the charge. Look at it by the numbers only, and it seems as if Ye Xiu has no equal.

"But perhaps that's just the progression of fate. Ye Xiu reached the peak first, and then he fell, and built himself back up again. But Han Wenqing… For twelve years, Tyranny had always been strong. They have less championships to brag of, but under Han Wenqing's lead, they never fell like the old Excellent Era did. When those two retired, they were both some of the greatest players the Alliance had ever seen. Ye Xiu's legacy is flashier, that's all."

"Was he satisfied, then?"

Nobody can think of Han Wenqing without thinking of his determination. "He stayed in the Alliance for as long as he could, before it became clear Sonq Qiying was the better candidate for Desert Dust. If he could play for an eternity, he would stay for all those years.

"It was in the team's best interest for him to retire, so he did. He could have kept on fighting, but by Season 13 it would've harmed Tyranny more than it helped. I wouldn't call it dissatisfaction, because he would've known that the day would come. Did he have any regrets? I'm not sure. It doesn't seem very much like him to wish he could play for a little longer. He doesn't seem like the kind of person that dwells on what-ifs. But a part of him has to look back on his days as captain of Tyranny, and it probably thinks of how nice it would be, if he was able to keep on fighting."

"Is that how they all feel? The ones that retire?"

"Ah... Do you know of Wei Chen? He was Blue Rain's first captain, he retired sometime in Season 3, and nobody heard of him ever again until Ye Xiu dug him out of the Heavenly Domain. He was far past his prime, yet he played Warlock for Happy in Season 10. He still wanted to play, even after all those years. Was it some kind of regret? Nostalgia? A chance to prove himself, and win the championship he was never able to have in the early years of the Alliance? I don't know, but when I think of retired players, I think of him.

"Glory remains a part of them, no matter what they do for the rest of their lives. Some of them may dream of competing onstage again, others may think of the past and feel nothing but satisfaction. They might take the Gaokao, get a job, marry, have children, no longer have time to follow Glory, but sometimes, I think they walk to the supermarket, and they see Zhou Zekai advertising some beverage or another, and a part of them asks, 'do you remember?' And they remember the Alliance and the game, and they go home and see if the account they left behind still remains. Perhaps they'll tell their children about their former glory, and open an account for them. Perhaps that child would some day join the Alliance like they did, with stories of the earliest players carried on his back, and the older employees of his club would marvel at his resemblance to some team member that retired after the 2nd Season. And he'll smile, and laugh, and tell them about a forgotten legacy."

"Well, if you're going to say it like that." Yang Zhan breaks into a wide grin. "What if Wei Chen has a child, and that child ends up replacing Captain Yu as Blue Rain's Warlock?"

Blue River scoffs, sliding off the barstool. "Don't be ridiculous. It's already 7 o'clock, I'm not talking anymore. We better start heading back. Tonight, you have to start Blue Brook Guild's legacy in the 17th Server, remember?"