CHAPTER 17

The next morning, Tong Yao grabbed her cell phone after she opened her eyes. She saw the news as she browsed the web [Hierophant (Pope) is coming to China to play professionally, joining the relegation team, YQCB] flooded every site she visited. As the official number 1 ADC in the world, the champion of the world finals, and a living billboard with millions of fans, the Korean side must have offered a large sum of money trying to keep him in Korea...

People were wondering why he decided to come to the LPL which wasn't doing very well currently.

"-- --As for why, it's probably because even though all the LPL teams got eliminated last year, on the official ranking, 'Chessman' is still ranked next to 'Hierophant'?"

The team manager, Xiao Rui, ate some porridge and concluded-- --

"En, he came because of Cheng Ge."

"..."

Tong Yao blew a big bubble into the soy milk she was drinking.

It was 9:30 in the morning, all was quiet on the first floor of the base. Only the team Mid and the team manager were sitting across from each other, eating breakfast. The confused Tong Yao wiped her mouth with a napkin, "I don't understand."

"Uhm, 'Chessman' and 'Hierophant' are like 'shadow' and 'light'..." Xiao Rui stroked his chin, "You probably don't know it, while Cheng Ge was playing professionally in Korea as Pope's alternate, there were actually two whole seasons where Cheng Ge was playing so well that Pope was sitting on the alternate seat instead-- -- '

"Really? !"

Tong Yao widened her eyes while holding the glass of soy milk.

"Yeah, yeah, isn't he awesome? Haven't you noticed that he speaks fluent Korean? He was also the lead over there at the time…...He left later simply because he wanted to play professionally back home."

"Why did he want to play professionally back home?"

"He's patriotic. No joking. At the time, the LoL professional league in China was taking a downturn, and he came back."

"..."

Wow, this person was simply too perfect!...Except for his expressionless face and the fact that he doesn't like small animals.

"So, Cheng Ge didn't come back because Pope retook his position or something like that-- --in other words, he wasn't forced to come back, but came back on his own."

"Then what, then what?"

"Well, of course, Pope was pissed off. How can the 'shadow' cover the 'light'?" Xiao Rui rolled his eyes. "He probably thought-- -- 'I haven't even defeated you face to face yet, how can you leave? It makes it look like I'm just picking up what you threw away.'... Then last year, our team didn't make it to the world finals for various reasons, so they didn't get the chance to face off. So this season, it seems Pope decided to come over himself."

"You have quite the wild imagination Rui Ge, though it makes sense if you put it that way."

"Sure. The most interesting thing is that the two of them are actually on very good terms privately-- --Where do you think Lu Sicheng get the news that Li Junhe is coming to China? I bet Li Junhe personally told him. Yesterday, I went to the team next door to ask them whether they kept the news about Pope a secret because they were trying to get their own name in the headlines this time. Their captain told me he only found out that Pope was coming yesterday."

"..."

"I even saw a fanfiction about the two of them on LOFTER." Xiao Rui giggled, "I was thinking of printing it out to show Cheng Ge. I can't imagine what his face will look like after seeing it…...He'll probably go crazy. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha-- --"

"You must have a deathwish..." Tong Yao quickly downloaded the LOFTER app from her cell phone as she spoke, "Then, who do you feel is stronger, Cheng Ge or Pope?"

"Our own is certainly is better than the outsider." Xiao Rui had some more porridge then slowly continued, "As far as I can tell, Cheng Ge is stronger than Li Junhe. Cheng Ge has a good attitude, good map awareness, and is always stable no matter what happens-- --So I'm not surprised that Li Junhe can't wait any longer. If Cheng Ge keeps playing like this, the world number one ADC will change hands sooner or later."

"Oh!"

Tong Yao put down her breakfast and looked up to the closed door on the second floor, then sighed.

...

The result of their conversation was that, when Lu Sicheng woke up and came downstairs that afternoon, he was saluted by the gaze of the team's new Mid-- --the glistening eyes gave a chill to his spine-- --He walked down the stairs under her gaze until he couldn't take it anymore. He raised his hand to cover the pair of eyes that were locked on him. He spoke coldly, "What are you looking at?"

Tong Yao was squatting on the chair with her hands holding both of her knees. She leaned back trying to avoid his hand and pointing to her computer screen while madly giggling, "The YQCB official site just announced it; Pope is really coming to play in China."

"Oh." The man didn't seem to care, bending down to turn on his own computer. After he straightened back up, he turned to ask unconcerned, "...Are you done looking?"

Tong Yao was still smiling, her eyes were narrowed into slits. "Cheng Ge, I heard that you forced Pope to stay on the alternate seat for two whole seasons."

Lu Sicheng raised his eyelids to glance at Xiao Rui, who whistled and turned his head away. Lu Sicheng looked back down, "...So what?"

"What do mean so what, it's Pope, ahhhhhhhh!" Tong Yao waved both of her arms. "That's Pope! Cheng Ge, you're the man who has defeated Pope before!"

"Should you take some medicine?"

"Our Cheng Ge!"

"You're too noisy."

Lu Sicheng logged onto the game, ready for his daily ranked game with an

annoyed expression. His handsome face had 'indifference' and 'shut up'

written all over it in capital letters…...Tong Yao wasn't getting any response

from him, so she put her arms down. Since she was also still waiting for her

own ranked game, she started to type some keywords into a search engine-- --

She was quiet for a while.

Lu Sicheng felt that something must be wrong here. He turned to ask the

person who suddenly quiet down, "What are you up to now?"

"Searching for Pope's picture."

"..."

"Wow, you two even have similar hairstyles." Tong Yao checked her computer

screen then turned around to look at Lu Sicheng carefully, "But, Cheng Ge is

more handsome."

Lu Sicheng stood up.

Tong Yao was alarmed, "What?"

She knew fear? Lu Sicheng thought and glanced at her, "I'm hungry."

He took out a yogurt drink from the refrigerator and put in a straw. When he

got back to his seat, he found that person squatting on the chair was still

muttering, "They said that Pope used Kalista very well, tsk, tsk, but our Cheng

Ge also plays Kalista well. Stupid people…...What, some said Pope is tall, you

haven't seen our Cheng Ge in real person, he's as tall as an electric pole…...Gee,

someone said that Pope is handsome, have you ever seen Lu Sicheng's face, who's

handsome with a capital H…...Wow, someone said Pope had money, boy, you should

come to our parking lot at the ZGDX base to take look-- --"

Lu Sicheng: "..."

The other players were all laughing so hard that they almost collapsed. Lu Sicheng

walked next to Tong Yao, holding her chin to forcefully turn her head around then

stuffed the straw into her mouth-- --

"Shut up."

Tong Yao couldn't talk anymore. Since the straw was in her mouth, she sucked some

of the yogurt drink out of Lu Sicheng's hand. When he let go of the yogurt drink, Tong

Yao took it and continued to drink it. The man bent down to pick up the big cat who

had occupied his seat. Tong Yao quietly spoke, "I read the fanfiction about you and

Pope this afternoon. It stings my eyes."

Lu Sicheng: "........."

As he held the cat with one hand, Lu Sicheng used his other hand to grab the yogurt

drink away from Tong Yao's mouth.

He dropped the cat on the floor, threw the straw away, torn open the yogurt, and said

to Dabing, "Alright big faced cat, come eat it."

Under the stunned gaze of Tong Yao, Dabing happily jumped over to lick the leftover

yogurt…...

Tong Yao: "? ? ?"

Lu Sicheng: "Talkative people don't deserve to drink yogurt."

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng sat down in his own seat and put on his earphones with 'do not disturb'

written on his face. Tong Yao saw him use his mouse to click open some software

and fiddle the camera head on the desk next to the stereo, then all of sudden there

were a lot of bullet comments appearing across his screen…..She thought he was

watching a video with bullet comments while he was waiting for a game to start and

didn't pay much attention to it. Just then, her game started, so she turned her head

back to face her own screen and got ready for another game-- --

This time Tong Yao was assigned to her second preferred position, ADC.

Probably influenced by all the talk about Kalista earlier, she decided to play Kalista

without a second thought…...After she had locked in the champion, while studying

the runes and abilities, she stretched her hand to pull Lu Sicheng's earphone a little

bit away from his ear and asked, "Cheng Ge, how do you click for the runes and abilities

of Kalista in this version?"

There was no answer for a long while.

She turned to look at Lu Sicheng, baffled. He took off his earphones and turned his

screen around to show her.

Tong Yao could finally make out what were all those comments across his screen-- --

[Who was asking about runes and abilities of Kalista?]

[Darn, it's a girl's voice! Darn, is it Smiling! God, her voice sounds so good!]

[Ahhhhhhhh, who's hand is that! Who pulled up your earphone! I'm going to cut

that hand off!]

[What a nice looking hand, hhhhhhhhhhhh]

[Cheng Ge, let Smiling live stream, the kind with the camera on. Don't need to hide,

we'll see your face sooner or later!]

[Smiling is sitting next to you! ! Ahhhhhhhh, I'm so jealous! ! ! !]

[Come, tell her the runes and abilities, quick!]

[Hahahahahahahaha, Kalista's runes and abilities!]

-- --The bullet comments exploded.

Tong Yao blinked.

Lu Sicheng: "I'm live streaming."

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng: "The kind with the camera on."

Tong Yao: "..........."

...

From then on, the person next to Lu Sicheng was so quiet that she even tippy

toed when she got up to go to the bathroom-- --

This was the first time that Lu Sicheng felt live streaming to be a good thing. He

decided to do more streams in the future.