Chapter 1 The First Game
After losing the first game, Chen Jing, who hadn't uttered a word even when Yang Sian mocked him, finally couldn't take it anymore and blurted out, "What the hell, how can he be so shameless?"
Despite his curses, it was clear Chen Jing's mentality was still stable.
But it was different for He Wang next to him.
In Lin Jing's memory, He Wang had a very good temper. Even if it wasn't his fault, he would always laugh and accept the blame, saying "My bad, my bad" whenever someone shifted it to him. Yet, the expression on his face now was as cold as if it had been covered in a layer of ice.
As for Jiang Zui, who had been a paid player for a long time and had been driven to despair countless times by trolls in peak matches, he lived up to his reputation as a player who thrived under pressure. Even though he was being ridiculed like this, he wasn't angered. Instead, he became more determined. He rolled up his jersey sleeves, sat up straight, and adopted the attitude of "I'm getting serious now."
Sheng Kuang sat beside Jiang Zui. Lin Jing pursed her lips before daring to look at Sheng Kuang.
In her imagination, Sheng Kuang's expression would be the most displeased among them, and he might even be verbally sparring with Yang Sian in the room.
However, to her surprise, Sheng Kuang was exceptionally calm, even calmer than Lan Bowen, who was the coach and supposed to be the most composed.
He was calm to the point of being almost detached.
It was completely out of character for his arrogant personality.
Lin Jing gave Sheng Kuang an extra glance, surprised. When she looked away, she noticed a new chat message on the shared screen.
yLs·Qin: Play your motherfucking water.
It turned out that Qin Yu, not Sheng Kuang as she had assumed, was the one who had started the argument.
Lin Jing paused for a moment before looking towards Qin Yu.
In the first game, Qin Yu, whose mentality had been repeatedly shattered by Yang Sian's aggressive plays, had somewhat recovered after winning the second game. Now, he had completely lost it. His lips were pressed tightly together, and he was tapping furiously on his screen.
His movements were fast, and his fingers struck with a ferocity as if he wanted to pierce through the phone and kill Yang Sian.
His phone wasn't being projected, so Lin Jing didn't know what he was saying specifically. Before he could send his message, Sheng Kuang, who hadn't clicked ready, did.
The game was instantly started by Xiao Mo, forcing Qin Yu to abandon his unsent message.
gdt didn't mess around in this game and competently banned heroes.
The first six minutes of the third game almost mirrored the first game. They started cautiously, with no significant economic difference in the first four minutes. Similar to the first game, Qin Yu was once again caught by Yang Sian around the fifth minute.
Just like in the first game, Yang Sian was still provocatively taunting. After Qin Yu died, he sent a message to his corpse, not "sorry," but "Thank you."
"Thank your ass," Qin Yu swore furiously. After respawning and exiting the fountain, with the experience from the first game, He Wang and Chen Jing came to protect him in advance. However, Qin Yu was clearly agitated by Yang Sian, playing extremely aggressively and positioning himself too far forward. Just like in the first game, he died again shortly after.
Seeing this situation, it seemed likely that yLs would, in the third game like the first, quickly fall behind in economy to gdt and be pushed into their base to be sieged.
Even though it was just a practice match, and they had said at dinner that the goal was to identify problems and that winning or losing wasn't important, Lin Jing's fists clenched involuntarily at the thought that if they lost this game, Yang Sian would definitely stir up trouble online.
The game reached the seventh minute. In the first game, it was at the seventh minute that Sheng Kuang had come to the bottom lane to help Qin Yu, who was being crushed.
Similar to the first game, Sheng Kuang and He Wang cleared the minion waves as quickly as possible and moved towards Qin Yu's lane. However, only He Wang truly went to Qin Yu's side. Sheng Kuang merely showed his presence on the map, giving dgt a false impression before heading towards Jiang Zui's lane from their own jungle.
It was from this moment that history was altered.
Yang Sian had killed Qin Yu, but Sheng Kuang, along with Jiang Zui, had killed gdt's top laner and destroyed gdt's top tower. Along the way, they had also cleared out half of Yang Sian's jungle.
Jiang Zui and gdt's top laner had been roughly equal in economy. Now, Jiang Zui's economy surpassed gdt's top laner.
By the ninth minute of the game, another team fight erupted around the marksman lane.
At this point, gdt still held a significant advantage. However, no one expected that Jiang Zui would dive and kill gdt's top laner under the tower in the top lane. Then, as the team fight in the marksman lane reached its climax, he teleported over and flanked gdt from behind.
When gdt and yLs were fighting, all their abilities were used up and were in their cooldown period. Jiang Zui, fighting four against five, wiped them out.
In this wave, only Qin Yu and Chen Jing died on the yLs side.
Sheng Kuang took the dragon, Jiang Zui went into the enemy jungle, and He Wang cleared minions. The economic gap shifted from gdt being ahead of yLs to yLs being ahead of gdt.
Jiang Zui had the highest economy. Although Jiang Zui hadn't played professionally, he was already a match for gdt's top laner in lane. Even when Qin Yu's side was being crushed in the first game, Jiang Zui had solo-killed gdt's top laner twice. With an economic advantage now, gdt's top laner struggled to perform against him. Essentially, any attempt to leave the tower with low health would result in him returning to base. Seizing this opportunity, Jiang Zui came to reinforce, and gdt was effectively playing four against five. By the tenth minute of the game, gdt's economic deficit had reached nearly four thousand against yLs.
If this continued, gdt was certain to lose.
However, at the twelfth minute, as yLs was pushing gdt's mid-lane second tower, all of gdt's defenders stood motionless under the tower, allowing yLs to attack freely.
gdt was wiped out. After gdt respawned, no one emerged from the fountain.
Chen Jing wondered aloud, "What's going on? They respawned but aren't coming out to defend the tower?"
As soon as he spoke, Lan Bowen's phone rang. It was a call from Yang Yu, gdt's coach: "Zi Zi, I'm so sorry. Our base's internet suddenly became unstable, and everyone disconnected. We're still trying to reconnect, but I guess it's too late. By the time we reconnect, the crystal will probably be destroyed..."
Yang Yu, as if afraid yLs wouldn't believe him, shouted, "Have you checked what exactly happened? We were in the middle of a practice match, and the internet just cut out..."