Chapter 165 (1)
The results of the matches from the first day of the competition for the Chinese teams were quite gratifying. Chinese fans were feeling optimistic and started to analyze the groups in this year’s competition on Tieba……
For a moment, many who had posted before about the previous teams and their performances came out to discuss this year’s competition. Some were simple talking nonsense and some were giving serious analysis. Nonetheless, they made hopeful predictions for three of the four groups in this year’s competition. They had left out group D since there was no team from LPL in that group– —
Group A: The top one should be, without a doubt, Korea’s TAT since it felt like the S series competitions were held just for them. The other European and American teams weren’t very strong, so YQCB should be able to take second place in the group.
Group B: If ZGDX couldn’t get first in the group, then it was suggested that the whole team, including the substitutes and coaches, should swim back home so they wouldn’t shame themselves. Second place should belong to Taiwan’s Team C.
Group C: This group had Korea’s OP and Taiwan’s FZ, it was hard to be optimistic– –FZ had gotten into the semi-finals several times in the past and was as strong as CK. Though CK had defeated OP in the first match, it didn’t mean OP was easy to take down…… The conclusion was that it would be fine for CK to make it into the quarterfinals. If they couldn’t, then it was fine as long as they had tried their best……
— –From the conclusion regarding CK, it was foreseeable that in the coming month, the fans on Tieba would try their best to be as kind as possible.
Tong Yao: “………………………………….Why is it fine for CK as long as they try their best and we have to swim back home just for losing one match?”
No one paid attention to her.
Everyone was resting on the bus, getting ready for the skirmish against TAT after they got back.
On the way back to the training room, Tong Yao was happily checking posts that were analyzing the matches on her cell phone. Some comments were correct, some were just nonsense. What amazed her the most was that there was even threads with fortune telling on Tieba– –Someone used Eight Trigrams[1] to predict that though there were many strong players in this year’s competition, there was an indication that “a single red flower in the midst of the thick foliage” would stand out and win overnight fame!
……Even an idiot would know who “a single red flower in the midst of thick foliage” was talking about.
Tong Yao was elated by the prediction, whether it was believable or not– –She used her alternate id to post a comment pretending to just be a random fan: This is talking about Smiling, right? I also think she’s very strong, no worse than Jin Yuguang.
She happily kept checking other posts while nudging the man next to her who was resting with his eyes closed: “A fortune teller says that I’ll gain fame overnight.”
Lu Sicheng opened his eyes, though still sleepy, and stretched his head over to look at the cell phone in Tong Yao’s hand: “Which fortune teller?”
Tong Yao: “A fortune teller on Tieba.”
Lu Sicheng thought about it and couldn’t help but ask: “You’re looking for a fortune teller on Tieba?”
Tong Yao lifted her hand up, wanting to slap him. But she put her hand down after thinking it over and thought Lu Sicheng did make some sense: “You never know. A master sometimes hides in the most common places.”
Lu Sicheng: “You would be better off begging me than trying to find a master.”
Tong Yao: “What do you mean?”
Lu Sicheng smiled and kindly patted her head: “You’ll know by tomorrow.”
Tomorrow ZGDX had a match against Taiwan’s Team C. In theory, Team C was the only good team in their group other than ZGDX. The Taiwan region has always performed well, in some years even better than the China region. Therefore, if ZGDX didn’t perform well tomorrow, there was the possibility that they would lose the match……
Tong Yao didn’t think too much of what Lu Sicheng meant at the moment.
They arrived back at the training room around 11 pm that night.
They played a skirmish with TAT and as usual, they lost to the Koreans. The problem was still at the mid lane– –In the past half year, Tong Yao had been improving, however, her nemesis Ah Tai from TAT had also been improving quite impressively…… When the two met again, Tong Yao was still staggering at learning how to play safe during the laning phase while Ah Tai had already developed into a mature player who was good at both offense and defense.
[1]: 八卦 (bāguà), literally “eight trigrams”. It’s eight symbols that’s commonly used in taoist cosmology to represent concepts. It is also commonly used in fortune telling and in feng shui.
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