Chapter 117 (2)
The match against Team Alpha was on Thursday.
Team Alpha was one of the upper middle teams in the league and was very resilient. The team was usually nicknamed by esports fans as “the major league’s quality control team” or “strong teams’ quality inspection bureau.” Those nicknames meant that one could tell whether a team was truly strong or just looked strong compared to other weaker teams by looking at the result of any team that played against Team Alpha.
It turned out that ZGDX had a difficult time winning their second match against Team Alpha. Old Cat, during the early game, was under constant attack from Alpha’s jungler. At the eighth minute into the game, his score was 0/2/0 and he was behind Alpha’s top by a level and a half. At the twentieth minute, his champion Maokai still hadn’t been able to develop well. After he was killed by Alpha’s top and three others, Old Cat threw down his mouth and moved his wrist around: “Finish up quick, let’s forget about this one, wait for the next match.”
The tone of his voice sounded like he was irritated from being targeted by the opposing team.
Tong Yao could totally relate to the feeling.
But since Alpha had focused on top, Tong Yao and Lu Sicheng’s champions had both developed quite well. Tong Yao kept silent but Lu Sicheng briefly said: “We still have a chance, try to hang on a little longer. Old Cat, after farming the minions at top, comes down to the bot to farm. I’ll go to the jungle to see if I can farm anything there.”
Old Cat: “Oh.” Old K half jokingly said: “You give your minions to him then come to take my monsters. You earn all the credit and take all the advantages.”
Everyone on the team laughed. The nervousness seemed to relax a bit. Tong Yao was about to say “let him go to the enemy side and get their monsters.” But Old Cat, who hadn’t been talking much since the beginning of this match, suddenly said: “What’s the big deal of taking a couple of your monsters? You’ve been farming monsters non-stop this match, haven’t you had enough?”
Tong Yao instantly swallowed what she was about to say. The other teammates also quieted down.
— –Old Cat was blaming Old K for not coming to help while he was being targeted by Alpha’s jungler.
Old K thought for a moment before replying: “There were four of them, it wouldn’t help even if I went over. When there were only two of them, I was at bot at the time and couldn’t make it– –Alpha’s jungler even gave up the buff in the jungle to target you, there’s nothing I can do about it. You can make up your economy in other lanes, right? If you don’t believe me, wait till we check the endgame screen after the game.”
Old Cat didn’t have much response after hearing Old K but uttered another “oh.” However, his tone made Tong Yao feel that it was probably better for him to say nothing at all.
Tong Yao felt that it wasn’t just her on the team who had issues with their period every month.
“You all shut up.” Lu Sicheng flatly said: “We’re in the middle of a game. Do you all want to go AFK and let them push our nexus?”
Both Old Cat and Old K stopped saying anything. The rest of the match was played in a rather depressed mood, only Tong Yao and Little Fatty spoke. In the end, it was through Lu Sicheng and Tong Yao’s steady development that allowed them to carry the team and turn the game around.
At the fiftieth minute, ZGDX finally destroyed the enemy’s nexus after much difficulty. At that moment, Tong Yao let out a long breath and took off her earphones. When she put her earphones down and stood up, she found that her palms were all sweaty and her body was slightly trembling– —
Lu Sicheng also stood up next to her. He immediately sensed the person next to him was unusually quiet. He lowered his head to take a look at her: “You nervous?”
Lu Sicheng was about to laugh at her for being overly concerned about winning or losing. Then he figured that Tong Yao must have read some of the comments left by extreme fans on Weibo or Tieba which had wished that she’d get crushed in the game and she was concerned with making any mistakes during the game. He stopped himself from saying anything and lifted his hand to stroke her hair, then said: “Let’s go shake hands. Don’t forget our manners.”
Tong Yao felt like she was coming out of a daze and walked somewhat stiffly towards the Team Alpha– —
They shook hands, bowed and after performing all the rituals ZGDX walked backstage. Old Cat and Old K still didn’t exchange a single word with each other.
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