Chapter 49 (3)
Tong Yao shook her head and searched for a pack of tissues from her pocket to hand it over to Ah Guang. Then, she sat down on the floor at his side: “Why are you hiding in here crying all by yourself?”
“You know very well why.”
“Because you lost the game?”
“Yeah.” Ah Guang said flatly. “And also because of these terrible comments. This was the first match in the summer season for our team in the major league. We already felt sad about losing it so badly, then I turned around to see all these derogatory comments—–”
As he was speaking, he scratched his head, messing up his gelled hairstyle. He laughed at himself: “Though I’ve seen those comments on Tieba before and prepared myself after losing the match——it’s still hard to accept when it happened to myself. I feel like telling each one of them that I had no choice but to keep farming and wait for the team fight. And the reason I couldn’t gank is because I didn’t have the chance to gank. We’ll do better next time when we prepare ourselves better. But in the end, there’s just so many posts, so many comments……I can’t reply to everyone.”
Ah Guang’s voice became lower and hoarse again. He sniffled and, though he was answering Tong Yao’s question, it seemed that he was mumbling more to himself……
Tong Yao: “……”
Tong Yao turned to check the young man next to her. She had heard before that he was only 16 years old. He had just reached the eligible age to play professional leagues. He had led his team from the city leagues all the way to the professional major league……From the data she had collected before, she also saw a lot of praise, calling him King’s carry, the one who set the tempo for his team—–
Tong Yao: “You know very well that they’ll praise you when you win and become nasty when you lose……”
So why let it bother you this much?
Ah Guang forced out a smile: “Because in the past, they always said that I’m the one who carries the team to victory, who creates opportunities for my teammates. They even said that it was because I ganked dragon in the last match that King could turn the game around and enter the major league……I know ZGDX is very strong and we were probably going to lose. But I thought that even if we lost the game, we would still have the chance to have a good fight with you guys, not lose that badly—–”
Tong Yao: “Oh.” She nodded her head, beginning to understand what was going through this young man’s head: He had been praised so highly all the time and now he was having a hard time accepting the feeling of being stepped on.
She was familiar with this kind of feeling—–When she first joined the team, she had easily let their winning streak over a few skirmishes get to her head until she met that Korean, Ah Tai. It almost crushed her confidence. Even nowadays, when she played ranked games, if she saw that id she would still have sweaty palms and a rapidly beating heart like having a nightmare……
And she hadn’t found a cure for her mental condition so far.
When she recalled her own experience, Tong Yao lifted her hand to pat Ah Guang’s shoulder like a big sister trying to comfort a little kid: “It’s only the beginning of the competition, as a newcomer to the major league, you’ll learn a lot of strategies and patterns from different professional teams. There will be a lot of room for you to improve, at least you’ll be much stronger as a team.”
“…….,” Ah Guang buried his head between his knees: “What’s the use of it. See how easily you defeated us.”
“……They said on the Tieba that we won easily and you think it was actually that easy?” Tong Yao chuckled: “You trust everything they say on Tieba? I’m the most eligible person to say whether it was easy or not——in order to study your normal route and style, I watched all your after season games and the finals at least 5 times. All the data I collected was what I had collected after watching dozens of games……”
Tong Yao pointed to the area under her eyes: “I was reviewing your finals at the spring competition right before I went to bed last night. You see? My black circles?”
Ah Guang turned to glance at Tong Yao. Indeed, there was a light blue color under her eyes……
Ah Guang: “……”
The young man became silent, surprised. He was about to say something but stopped himself.
Tong Yao now had a clear smile on her face.
“So don’t cry over it. What’s there to cry about? You now have a clear direction to improve. All you need to do is work hard toward that goal. This is a good thing. That’s also the reason why we play so many competitions, isn’t it?”
“……,” Ah Guang sulkily said: “I envy you. You joined such a strong team when you turned pro and you’re strong yourself. No one would say anything bad about you.”
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