Chapter 21
Thanks to my editor Gold Fairy~
[SPL China Pro League Tournament]
It still was not the time to be onstage. EG and WG members were separated backstage in two specialized rooms prepared for them. They listened as the two shoutcasters fanatically praised the two teams, forcefully analyzing the situation.
The two teams who were hiding in their rooms felt an awkward speechlessness.
Until, all of the sudden, the shoutcaster unknowingly changed the subject to the WG mid laner Lier, the two team’s ears perked up.
“Did you hear that? They said they want to replace you.”
They heard those two commenting on Lier with incomparable impassioned praise. In the end, they didn’t even hesitate to bring out Siler to compare. Qi Chen, who was leaning on a table playing with his phone, used his elbow to poke at Gu Zixing who was sitting down.
Gu Zixing did not say anything, on the contrary Qin Xiangnan muttered these two phrases.
“It's still too early for Commander Gu to retire. Saying ‘replace’ is a bit crazy.”
“Don’t say that.” Qi Chen put down his cellphone. Pointing at Gu Zixing, he looked at Qin Xiangnan. “It’s this person, maybe he’ll retire before the end of the Spring Split. Who can understand him?”
“Retiring is good ah. Retire and go home and enjoy life.” Tang Xuan smiled from the side. When this group of people would retire, Tang Xuan didn’t know, but Tang Xuan had already decided to retire after this season.
“I have a feeling that if our team doesn’t have Commander Gu, our days won’t go well.” Fu Xiaohai currently was the youngest rookie on the team. Thinking of this problem, he couldn't help but be a little worried.
“What are you guys worrying about all day long!” Coach Chen frowned fiercely and yelled at them, “You’re not allowed to learn from Yao Le! Almost time for the competition and you’re still chit chatting!”
The Coach’s tone had not faded when they heard a beep inside the room, indicating for them to go onstage.
“Let's go, let's go.” Qi Chen put down his cellphone and stretched his body.
The five team members lined up in a row with Coach Chen and went onstage together.
The athletes bowed and saluted to the audience then separated to take their seats. They then entered the daily segment of a competitive MOBA game: pick champion, ban champion, first pick, second pick, fan support, slogan shouting, then entering the game…
Actually when Gu Zixing was choosing his champion, his mind was a bit muddled. Normally he only needed to show up for the competition and the enemy team would 80% first ban Orianna. But this time, WG generously left Orianna available.
Furthermore, Lier unexpectedly picked it first.
Coach Chen, who was standing behind them helping them during champion selection, was also a bit dazed. To actually pick Orianna in front of Gu Zixing, it seems that this Lier really did have an inflated ego.
“If he wants to show off, then let him show off.”
Gu Zixing was unexpectedly calm and collected. He sat there thinking for a bit, before finally moving his mouse to click on the portrait of a snake woman.
“Are you sure?” Coach Chen looked at Gu Zixing.
“80% ba.” Gu Zixing smiled and finally locked in. It was obvious that this embarrassing situation was beyond his expectations.
Cassiopeia in League of Legends is one of the champions with the highest difficulty. Although operating this champion was very hard, it was easy to tell if a person could play her well or not.
You only needed to stare at the tail of the snake girl. As long as the tail was always twisting even during the boring moments of farming, then the player was an expert. But if this tail was not twisting most of the time, then basically she was half-wasted.
Gu Zixing’s snake girl was the kind of tail that would twist from one house to another.
And for the top lane, it really was like what Gu Zixing expected. WG first banned the very flexible and buffed Camille, then selected Maokai.
Fu Xiaohai obediently listened to what Gu Zixing said earlier and selected Kennen.
“I’ll say this WG mid laner is a bit crazy.” Qiao Yanzhou, sitting in front of the TV knitted his eyebrows.
“Crazy still has a reason for being crazy.” Liang Dong was acting as WG’s fan. Seeing this scene felt very refreshing. After all, if Lier could really teach Gu Zixing with Orianna then Gu Zixing could say goodbye to his career.
The competition officially started and every laner went to their respective positions.
They didn’t clump up as a group and no one decided to stroll through the enemy jungle. Both teams of five clearly knew the enemy’s strength and carried stable minds into the game.
In fact Gu Zixing, towards these amusing talks about some new rising mid laner from WG, something something King of Midlane, simply didn’t care about it at all. In front of his eyes, everyone was the same. He was simply a person in the competition and someone he was facing. That's all.
Who replaced who, Gu Zixing would not even pay attention.
However, it wasn’t until they actually entered the game did Gu Zixing realize that some things that were not paid attention to were really not good.
This Lier, in the early stage of the game, was so vicious. It was like he had killed his dad and was his personal enemy. At almost every position he was looking for an opportunity to hit Gu Zixing with a skill.
“This looks a bit serious ba.” Qi Chen who happened to be near the middle lane also seems to notice a bit, couldn't help but speak, “Boss Gu, want some help?”
“Go top lane, quick.” Gu Zixing said without even moving his head.
Originally Qi Chen was still hesitating, but immediately afterwards he saw Fu Xiaohai pinging and calling, “Brother Chen save me!”
(T/N: Pinging means to signal. It's a quick way to alert your team of something.)
Sure enough it was as Gu Zixing said. It was similar to the HNG Competition and the enemy jungler ganked top lane.
Although Fu Xiaohai’s Kennen was very flexible, it was the early stage. Adding on that WG’s Jungler Wolf was using the champion Kha’zix, he suddenly jumped onto Fu Xiaohai. Even if he didn’t have his jump, he could still flash in.
Now matter what, Fu Xiaohai’s head was already in the bag.
Qi Chen, wanting to help, was already too late.
First Blood!
“Fuck!” Qi Chen, who had immediately wanted to go top lane, could only drop it at this point.
“Overkill ba.” Bottom lane Tang Xuan frowned.
Yao Le continued not to say anything, because at this moment bot lane did not look too optimistic. WG’s ADC was using the champion, Caitlyn, who was strong in all three phases of the game and currently they were using it to the extreme.
“Jungler, go farm the jungle. Top lane, don’t push the minions past river. The WG jungler is still top lane.” Gu Zixing said, never relaxed in what he was doing. “I’ll give bot lane to Yao Le. I don’t have that many eyes.”
Gu Zixing said this and spit out a poisonous dense cloud at Lier, immediately following it up with Twin Fang.
“Amazing, my star (1).” Qi Chen was killing the jungle minions and quickly looked at the gold. Although Lier had been playing very aggressively, he was still being pressured by Gu Zixing.
If it stayed like this for awhile, Gu Zixing would build up gold and dominate. Afterall, when he reached level 6 he’ll have his R skill, then it will be very difficult for the jungler to come gank.
Lier probably also perceived this. As a result, the second time this happened he had already changed his mindset.
But this time, Gu Zixing didn’t want to spare him.
Sending out Noxious Blast underneath Lier, Lier originally thought that Gu Zixing would follow it up with Twin Fang to damage him, thus he subconsciously moved backward. But he didn't expect that Gu Zixing would simply twist his body around and leave, not following up with the regular combo pattern.
And because Lier made this one tiny positioning mistake, he also missed a minion.
Lier’s expression instantly turned very ugly.
“Jungler is mid lane, Qi Chen go gank top.” Just as before Gu Zixing was still calm and collected, even still directing the jungler.
Take a look, this is how a snowball rolls up. Seeing that with this tempo he had already beaten Lier into a mess, the corners of Gu Zixing’s mouth raised.
But also fortunately, Lier, who had made a small mistake, still hadn’t corrected himself yet.
To tell the truth, Gu Zixing secretly was actually hoping for this Lier to to be more aggressive because the more aggressive he was, the more weaknesses he would expose.
Qi Chen, after hearing Gu Zixing’s order, hurried to top. He put a ward by the side of the river and waited for WG top laner to push in the wave of minions.
“Mid has no ignite, after ganking top, come mid. Jungler is bot lane, pay attention to controlling the wave.”
How exactly did this person get the mid laner to use ignite… Qi Chen was a bit bewildered.
Soon the top laner had pushed the minions past the river. Qi Chen’s Elise sent out a cocoon to stun the top laner. Fu Xiaohai’s Q ability, Thundering Shuriken, hit the top laner and he quickly followed it up with an auto attack.
Kennen’s fifth auto attack along with his other abilities would trigger a stun. And for the purpose of this auto attack, Fu Xiaohai even gave up the cannon minion.
An enemy has been slain!
WG’s top laner fell into Qi Chen’s hands.
“The enemy jungler is coming.”
Not even waiting for the jungler and top laner to take a breath, Gu Zixing opened his mouth again.
“Still able to kill.” Qi Chen looked at his own situation and firmly said.
“Go back to base from the tower. The bush up there has the tree saplings.”
Being vetoed by Gu Zixing, Qi Chen bit his lip. He couldn’t do anything about it, even if he could get a double kill. But during a professional game, he could only listen to Gu Zixing.
Although Qi Chen’s entire face showed unacceptance, Fu Xiaohai who continued to stay top understood the situation and obeyed. Even if Gu Zixing just now didn't say to have Qi Chen go back to base, Fu Xiaohai would have definitely said it.
He clearly remembered seeing in the topside bush, the enemy top laner harboring evil intentions and throwing a couple of saplings in.
But if he himself could discover this then fine. Afterall, he stayed top lane and understood the situation. But how did Gu Zixing, who continued to be mid lane know? Fu Xiaohai sometimes was really skeptical if his own top lane had a spy from Gu Zixing.
“Jungler appeared bot, don’t need to come mid.”
Gu Zixing didnt even finish talking when they heard the ice cold tone of the female announcer on the computer.
An enemy has been slain!
“WTF WTF Solo kill! Solo kill did you see!”
Qiao Yanzhou was sitting in front of the TV. He was so excited the coke was about to be squeezed out of the cup.
Gu Zixing, in the first 9 minutes of the game, solo killed that legendary new rookie midlaner Su Wenzhi. The operations were ruthless. The stronger the tower, the more stable one was.
Seeing that Lier, who had been aggressively looking at Gu Zixing, was now laying underneath his tower, the audience members couldn’t help but let out an ear splitting scream.
Qiao Yanzhou at home similarly shouted.
It made Liang Dong annoyed and stuffed french fries into Qiao Yanzhou’s mouth. “If you choke to death then you won't be able to cry out. Annoying!”
'If you choke me to death, then how am I supposed to marry my little star!!'
Qiao Yanzhou internally shamelessly kept repeating this phrase.
On the TV, the broadcast was at this time having a replay of Gu Zixing solo killing Su Wenzhi.
Only seeing Gu Zixing’s Cassiopeia somewhat back off and withdraw a bit to separate from the minions, Lier thought that Gu Zixing would move to a bad position. As a result he used his R ability, wanting to deal massive damage to Gu Zixing and follow it up with two abilities to solo kill him. However, he didn't think that Gu Zixing’s R ability would be cast faster than his, a Petrifying Gaze met him head on and froze him on the spot.
At practically the same time, he released Noxious Blast to pair with the Twin Fang to knock off more health.
Lier’s flash was very decisive because he guessed that Gu Zixing’s earlier damage had not finished yet. Originally thinking he could escape with his life, he didn’t think that because of earlier, his positioning attracted the hatred of the minions. His eyes looking at himself, he immediately flashed towards the tower. But he just didn't expect that the attacks of those few caster minions would chase him under the tower and finish off the little HP he had left…
Being killed by a minion, this was one of the top three worst things to see on a professional broadcast.
This couldn’t be done deliberately by Gu Zixing ba…
Qiao Yanzhou thought for a bit, and suddenly felt that this person was a bit frightening.
***
- Star: The “Xing” in “Gu Zixing” means star. So it can mean “My Xing” or “My Star”. Also side note, the word for star and heart sound similar so maybe it can also be “My heart” in the future
JADE: I'm running out of ways to differentiate things @.@ So I've linked the wiki page to each champion mentioned so you can just click on them to see what they look like or learn more.
"Speech"
'Thought'
Ability names
Game Announcer
