CHAPTER 48

Tong Yao:"....."

Tong Yao, with cell phone in hand, looked up at the ceilling and mulled over what her best friend wrote. she then concluded that it was just slander from her friend and rolled her eyes at the phone. Afterwards, she place her phone down and continued to watch the video of king in the spring final match she had downloaded on her ipad. she would pause the video from time to time to jot down some notes on the habits from each player of king------

in addition to taking notes on the habits and behavior of king's mind, she would also note their jungler's gank route.....In general, everything in the jungle is set, therefore, each jungler had his own farming pattern. it would be a great help in preventing her own teammates from being killed or prevent their own jungle from being plundered if she knew the pattern in advance.

For example, king's jungler, probably without knowing it himself, would usually go up to mind to farm after he finished farming the first set of monster camps. he would try to farm at mid, if he couldn't, he would harass the enemy's mid a bit then went back------

That was a player's personal habit.

Tong Yao wrote down the pattern on her little notebook: farm his own jungle before reaching Level 3, relies on crab to go up to level 4, then invade enemy golem camp...she thought for a while, then wrote "there should be a counter gank here." she threw away the pen and continued with the video....

the screen of her cellphone lit up again------

...if there was pretense before, then now it's the truth.

tong yao ended the private conversation with her girl friend.

Putting her cell phone away, tong yao returned to the video and dilligently watched it in its entirety. she yawned, shut down her ipad, then went under the cover ready to sleep. but she picked up the notebook again and reviewed all the new notes she had just taken down once more before switching off the light to go sleep.

--------She was planning to go over king's positioning habits, and patterns in her head once more after she closed her eyes. but she kept hearing jinyang's voice instead, telling her. "You really think Lu Sicheng is doing all this just for the performance of the team"....

Tong Yao:"..."

A man found all sorts of excuses trying to stop her from getting back with another man?

....It was a lie that she hadn't thought about other possibilities. in fact there was a moment she had pictured in her head that Lu Sicheng had confessed and proposed and they were ready to go down the aisle. She imagined her father handling her hand into that pretty leaned hand, with a white glove on, of the man-----

she was wearing a pure white wedding gown.

he was wearing a sharp black tuxedo.

the church bells rang, mixed with well wishes from friends and relatives.....

Tong Yao: "......"

she lifted the blanket to cover her face-----

well, it wasn't against the law to let her imagination run wild. she rolled her eyes again.

On Saturday, the day before the competition, ZGDX arranged for a skirmish

with the team next door. Though ZGDX won the skirmish, it wasn't as easy

as the last time. The overall coordination of the team next door had greatly

improved, especially the improvement in their jungler and their roaming

support. During the early game, Tong Yao witnessed at least 4 or 5 times

when the enemy support passed through mid lane.

The team next door, YQCB, had improved quite a lot.

After the skirmish, Tong Yao was never going to take the 11 other teams

lightly. Who knew what each team had turned out to be after recruiting new

players and adopting new strategies------

The match against King was scheduled at 1pm, Sunday. Tong Yao rose

early in the morning and was flipping through her notes in the living room.

She had recorded all the habits of the players on King. Ming god passed

behind her with his breakfast in hand and raised both eyebrows: "You took

these notes?"

"Yeah." Tong Yao didn't even looked up from her notebook: "Know yourself

and know your enemy and you'll never be defeated."

"Very well. You're working hard." Ming god patted her head as praise.

"Usually, it's the responsibility of the data analyst and the coach. But since

the competition has just started and that team is new to the major league,

Xiao Rui told us not to bother..."

"We can't look down upon them just because it's a new team."

"En." Ming god smiled: "It's not that we're looking down on them. It's just

that we have much more stronger teams to deal with. Just analyzing the

reformed YQCB has taken up a lot of our time."

Tong Yao slightly raised her head to look back at Ming god. There were

black circles under his eyes and a cup of black coffee in his hand as part

of his breakfast…...The players had gone to bed early after the skirmish

last night, but Ming god probably had stayed up very late collecting and

analyzing all the data.

During their conversation, Lu Sicheng and Lu Yue came downstairs.

Lu Yue sniffed and went straight to Ming god and took his coffee away.

Amid Ming god's complaints, Lu Sicheng came by and pulled Tong Yao's

notebook away------

Tong Yao: "Hey!"

Lu Sicheng read out: "If get to level 3 first, the probability of ADC comes

up to farm is .8537%...Uhm, where did you get this number?"

"Why did you take my notebook without asking? What if it's a teenage

girl's diary? !" Tong Yao stood up on the sofa and grabbed the notebook

back: "I came up with the number after I watched dozens of competition

videos."

"You watched dozens of competition videos." Lu Sicheng repeated.

Tong Yao raised her chin: "That's right!"

Lu Sicheng became quiet for a moment, then asked: "...You don't have

anything better to do?"

Tong Yao put her hands on her waist: "How can you be so overconfident?

Be careful, watch out for a surprise today!"

Lu Sicheng rubbed his ears and said: "Oh. Why do you have to be so loud."

He then walked into the kitchen to get something to eat…...When he turned

around, he saw Tong Yao was still standing on the sofa with bare feet and

staring at him. He came back and looked at Tong Yao who was now at the

same height as he: "Your stomach isn't hurting anymore?"

"Uhm? What?" Tong Yao didn't get what he meant.

"Don't nag about going to the bathroom again when we're playing." Lu Sicheng

stuffed the warm milk into Tong Yao's hand: "Drink it. Then get off the sofa.

Why are you standing so tall for?"

Then he turned around to pack his equipment into his backpack.

Tong Yao stood on the sofa, milk in hand, for a while, then sat down with

crossed legs and gulped down the milk. She put down the cup and walked

behind Lu Sicheng: "No one has menstrual pains for 4 or 5 days. Otherwise,

no one could survive it."

"Oh." Lu Sicheng didn't even turn his head back: "Put on your shoes.

The floor is cold."

Tong Yao looked down at her bare feet, then turned to look for her slippers

which were left right next to the sofa. She didn't bother to get the slippers,

but jumped onto her own seat and started to take the mouse and keyboard

to stuff into her backpack------

Ming god kicked her slippers over as he was bringing breakfast to Lu Yue.

Tong Yao took her backpack and put on her slippers to go to the front door.

She looked out and saw the van waiting outside to take them to the arena.

This time Tong Yao was much calmer than the opening match. She changed

from her slippers into flip-flops and jogged to get on the van.

She picked a random seat to sit down. After a while, all the other teammates

also got on the van. Lu Sicheng was the last one. When he passed by Tong

Yao, he stopped and slightly bent forward: "Shorty."

"En?" Tong Yao was concentrating on her cell phone and didn't even look up.

"Let me take a look at your teenage girl's diary."

"..." Tong Yao looked up in a panic: "Why do you want to see my diary?"

"...Your notes about King." Lu Sicheng looked a little frustrated.

"Oh, oh. Oh, oh." Tong Yao took out the little notebook from her pocket and

handed it over to Lu Sicheng: "Didn't they say that it's not a strong team so

we don't need to study them?"

"Since you already took the notes, it won't hurt to take a look."

Lu Sicheng took the little pink notebook and waved it at Tong Yao. Then he

went to the last row of seats and started to flip through her notebook…...

Tong Yao put her chin on the back of the her seat and watched him. When

he turned the first page, he spoke without even lifting his head: "Get off the

van if you're going to keep looking at me." Tong Yao's head instantly disappeared.

The van left the base around 10 am.

Most of the passengers in the van seemed to be rather sleepy...

Old Cat was in sound sleep with a jacket covering his face. Little Fatty's head

drooped as he slowly doze off. Tong Yao was curled up in her seat chatting

with someone on WeChat. Old K sat next to Old Cat, playing games on his

cell phone-----

Lu Sicheng called Old K over to sit in the last row and both of them read

Tong Yao's notes. In low voices, and an occasional cough, Lu Sicheng and

Old K discussed the content of the notebook in the back row. Tong Yao

pricked up her ears, trying to listen to what they were saying...

But she soon started feeling drowsy herself.

Then she fell asleep while still holding her cell phone.

Old K read everything word for word: " 'After farming the first set of monster

camps, there's a very high probability he will appear at mid to farm. If he

can't farm, he will harass the enemy mid then go back' ------- 'there should

be a counter gank here'...What the hell is this?"

Lu Sicheng, supporting his head with one arm, unusually lightly chuckled:

"It's telling you to counter gank, can't you get it?"

Old K blinked: "I don't get it. This data analyst…...why is he adding an extra

scene while analyzing their game."

Lu Sicheng lazily answered: "En." He took a glance at Tong Yao, slowly

dozing not far away. When the van jolted, she suddenly opened her eyes

and spun her heard as if she had no idea where she was...

Lu Sicheng lowered his eyes, his long eyelashes hid the smile in his eyes:

"Because she was a born drama queen."

Old K: "..."

The match between ZGDX and King went very smoothly for ZGDX.

Most people thought that King, which as a team was good at dragging the

match till the late game and making a come back, might very well give a

surprise to ZGDX. But ZGDX had a very easy time winning the match-----

The entire time, ZGDX seemed to know exactly what King's Jungler's next

move was. Everytime he moved to a certain location, ZGDX's Old K would

mysteriously appear right behind him...

ZGDX also played a few tricks as they farmed their jungle.

At the beginning of the first round of the match, Old K chose to start getting

the red buff on his own side, afterwards he moved on to the monster camp

with 4 little birds known as F4. At this time, there was only the golem camp

left in ZGDX's upper half of the jungle.

Old K then went down to farm the blue buff and 3 wolves at the lower half of

the jungle. Afterwards, he gave up the other resources in the lower half and

turned around to go back up again-----

King's Jungler had reached 4th level at this point.

Old K was still at level 3.

The commentator A: "Why didn't he continue? Is he saving those for

Cheng Ge?"

The commentator B: "But he's behind in level! It doesn't make much sense

since Cheng Ge's fighting with King's bot."

When everyone thought Old K had made a mistake, Old K caught King's

Jungler near the golem camp in the upper half of his jungle who was trying

to steal from ZGDX!

The enemy's Jungler was stunned to see Old K appear unexpectedly. He

hesitantly auto-attacked a few times then decided to retreat------

But behind him, Tong Yao had arrived and cut off his path of retreat. Old K

worked with Tong Yao and killed the enemy jungler!

The first blood of the match!

Cheers broke out from the audience. King's Jungler angrily slammed his

mouse: "Why didn't you say anything when their Mid disappeared? !"

"How would I know? I saw her go away after she finished farming the wave.

I thought she had gone back to the base." King's Mid sounded like he was

in shock too. "How could I know she was going after you. How did she know

that after getting the crab, you would invade their jungle? Normally, wouldn't

Old K finish all the camps in their lower jungle then come back for the golem

camp? Are they cheating?"

The unexpected change in ZGDX's strategy had disrupted King's tempo.

ZGDX was in control of the round from beginning to end.

Since King's Jungler's route was known entirely by ZGDX, their Jungler was

useless in the next two rounds. He could only watch helplessly ZGDX take the

advantage in all three lanes and easily won each round before the mid game------

ZGDX didn't even give King any chance to drag the game into the late game.

Certainly, there was no chance for King to come back from behind.

After the match, players on both sides shook hands with each other. King's

captain, who was also their Jungler, bitterly said: "I didn't expect your team

would even study about a team like us. You're really tough, a good game."

Lu Sicheng smiled and raised his chin to point to the short person who was

right in front of him.

She was earnestly bowing and shaking hands with every player of the other

team. Lu Sicheng flatly said: "It's our Mid, she thinks every team is a strong team."

Tong Yao had finished shaking hands with everybody. She turned around and

looked at Lu Sicheng right in his eyes.

Then she went with all her teammates to the front of the stage to bow to the

audience. Afterwards, everyone started packing their gear. Tong Yao constantly

asked Lu Sicheng: "Were you saying something bad about me a while ago?"

Lu Sicheng: "Do you suffer from bouts of persecutory delusions?"

Tong Yao twitched her lips and was about to rebuff him when a staff member

came for Lu Sicheng. He asked Lu Sicheng to do an interview as the MVP of

the match. Lu Sicheng directed Little Fatty to pack his things for him, then

walked over to the media area-----

When he approached the area, he saw many fans already waiting for him there.

The fans lifted their cameras, focusing on Lu Sicheng as he walked closer…...

Tong Yao started packing slower as she took a curious look at the area-----

Host: "Congratulations to ZGDX. Congratulations to Chessman for winning the

first match of the summer season! Do you have anything you want to say to your fans?"

Lu Sicheng: "Thanks everyone for your continuous support. We will do our best

for the summer season."

Cheers and shouts came right after he finished speaking.

Tong Yao stretched half of her head out from behind her computer to check as

she was unplugging her mouse.

Host: "Cheng Ge really knows what his fans like to hear. May I ask you a question?

ZGDX as a traditionally strong team obviously studied King, one of the rising teams

which has just moved up to the major league. It's quite a surprise to most people

that ZGDX did so. What was the motive for ZGDX to study such a team? Is this the

secret to your team's success?"

Lu Sicheng: "Not exactly."

The host: "..."

Lu Sicheng: "It's our Mid. She's afraid of every team. If we don't take any team

seriously, she would say we're over confident---------This morning, before we left our

base, she even stood on the sofa and announced that we might have a surprise

defeat at today's match."

The fans burst into laughter…...Tong Yao forcefully pulled out her keyboard behind

her computer and rolled her eyes towards the media area.

Host: "It looks like our Cheng Ge is getting along quite well with ZGDX's new Mid."

"En." Lu Sicheng answered: "Well, it's just like that. We aren't that close."

As he was talking, he noticed through the corner of his eyes that a short person stood

up from behind the row of computers. She bluntly flung the backpack onto her back and

as if she was angry at something, stamped her foot several times on the floor before

she turned to leave the stage.

When that short silhouette disappeared in the passageway for competing players,

Lu Sicheng cast his eyes down to hide the smile in his eyes and continued: "However

she's very strong and very diligent. As the captain of the team, I'm very pleased to have

a teammate like her. With the addition of her, ZGDX will be even stronger this summer."