Chapter 164

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Though they’d never had customers who came to have dinner at this time, the waitress at the hotpot place still did her utmost in taking them into a large private room and served them till they were done ordering.

The waitress left the room. Heng pulled out his phone with a sudden inspiration and raised it up high. “How long has it been since we last took a group photo together, come come come, let’s take one together.”

The others all looked up normally and fitted themselves into the frame, Nuo, in order to wash off the shadow over him left from Ji Zhiyao’s ugly photo of him, especially shrewdly drew in his jaw to make his face appear small... Whereas Ji Zhiyao very naturally hung an arm over Mo Huaifeng’s shoulder, both of them appearing to be a pair of good brothers but were actually gay. Yuan Wei who accidentally caught of glance of them involuntarily complained a little deep down about how the couple dogs were hurting his eyes.

Heng took the photo and posted it onto Weibo right away.

K directly laughed out loud with no consideration for Heng’s pride. “What is ‘Today is also a day we get to have hotpot, already cannot wait to get started’? The dishes have not even been served, you only have a pot here that you can eat alright?”

“Jeez it doesn’t matter, that line was meant for the fans to read anyway.”

“And the fans can see that there is only a pot in your photo, the few of us have yet to even open up our cutlery.”

“... Damn it!”

Ji Zhiyao was laughing uncontrollably, he took out his phone to read the comments under Heng’s Weibo post, indeed they were comments like [LOL there’s nothing except for a pot on the table, are you trying to cause me to die from laughing], [I reckon your teammates are very tempted to beat the idiot that you are to death] and [It has been confirmed, he is a person who has gone muddleheaded.]

Time passed like this day by day.

In a blink of an eye, it had already come to Mix’s fourth advancement match, against Tall Boots.

In the waiting room, the stats analyzer rolled up his book in a long hose and shouted into it, “For us, this is as good as our last advancement match. All of you sober up, keep Tall Boots under your thumbs all the way, no losing even one match.”

Heng commented, ” Your are rather full of momentum, however not being allowed to lose even one match is making things a little difficult.”

Ji Zhiyao chimed in, “Agreed!”

Usually Ji Zhiyao would never say such despondent words before a competition, this time everyone turned their gaze towards him. The corner of Mo Huaifeng’s lip twitched before he said, “If you dare to not fight back and run everywhere you’re dead meat.”

“How about I go on during the last match, I’m a little scared now, I want to do some close observation first.”

The stats analyzer made a “hm” sound. “It’s not impossible. Xiao would go on for two matches, consecutively, some details from the first match could be effectively adjusted during the second match.”

Xiao agreed readily. “Sure, I have no objections.”

Mo Huaifeng nodded as well.

Hence through the approval of the few of them, Ji Zhiyao’s stage sequence went from the second match to the third match.

However, due to Xiao’s mistake in the second match, the third match suddenly became the deciding match.

In the first match every got along harmoniously, quietly developing. Both Tall Boots and Mix, had great rapport in dragging the match into a later phase together, this match went on for an entire 50 minutes, in the end, Mix finally attained victory after using tanks K and Nuo at the front to take the damage with Mo Huaifeng making a suicide-style surprise attack on Tall Boots’ base. After this match, everyone’s expression didn’t look too good when they returned to the waiting room, Xiao swung his arm back and forth. “What the hell? Fortunately I’ve got my son, if I were to play three consecutive 50 minutes matches, this arm would definitely be crippled once again.”

Heng was similarly rotating his wrist, as he said, “Don’t talk about yourself, even I feel like I’m crippled. Let Xiaofei go on for the next match, let me take a break.”

Ten minutes later, the second match began.

Although they lost the first match, the faces of all the Tall Boots member were a state of calm, making light of their loss in the previous match. This time round, once the match began, Lan Guang headed for the top lane directly and helped Tall Boots’ top-laner to hold down Mo Huaifeng; their support picked a tank with damage, and jungled from time to time; and in the middle lane, Xiaoye had also kept Xiaofei so down so tightly that he was suffering unspeakably, two deaths appeared five minutes into the game, Mix’s gold gradually fell into disadvantage.

At this time, Xiao decided to steal the dragon, to make up for some for their disadvantage gold wise.

It seemed like Tall Boots did not notice his little tricks, Xiao moved smoothly towards the dragon cave. As his gold wasn’t high and he did not have enough equipment, his damage value was much lower than before, as such it took a much longer time. And as he was focused on killing the dragon while avoiding its attacks, Xiaofei who’d barely managed to breathe with his help had been beaten silly by Xiaoye once again, losing a turret at the same time. While Tall Boots’ support reemerged all well geared-up from the turret, tanking in the front as a semi-tank, the ADC hid behind him and finished off K right away!

Tall Boots picked their time to take action very ingeniously, taking less than one minute altogether. When Xiao reappeared from the dragon’s cave, everything had changed. Not only had the gold difference between the two forces not reduced, instead there was a trend of it growing wider and wider.

Xiao’s expression instantly became very upset.

The camera swept across the audience, several radical fans had already thrown their support boards down.

In the situation of the gold difference widening, even Mo Huaifeng’s equipment was not complete and he could only do his best to keep from feeding.

This match was a terrible loss.

Ji Zhiyao saw very clearly, when the match, the moment the camera went past Xiao, the shape of his mouth evidently showed “this one’s on me”.

If Xiao hadn’t decided to go for the small dragon, the situation where they lagged behind by two kills but their gold remained stable, there was still a chance of taking over the match in the later phase.

When the third match began, Ji Zhiyao stepped onto the competing stage with complicated feelings.

Right at the start of the match Mo Huaifeng had already gone for Tall Boots’ top-laner, forcefully wearing him out while tanking his damage to force him to miss a few minions. In such a situation, the advantage of the bottom lane was already building.

K was as stable as always; Heng was in the middle lane, as his handling speed and response capacity were not inferior to Xiaoye, he essentially faced Xiaoye head-on each time, the middle lane was temporarily in a very stable condition.

One: “Seriously speaking, I feel that the exact pace of this match, would mainly depend on the struggle in the jungle. Yao and Lan Guang, if their standards are fifty-fifty against each other, if nothing crops up, Mix would definitely win this match.”

Two: “Big brother, don’t jinx it first. Be careful of becoming an enemy in Weibo, the fans of both teams would take turns to strangle you.”

One: “I don’t mean it like how all of you took it. I wanted to say, locally Tall Boots and Mix are brother battleteams who are well matched in strength.”

Two: “You’ve brought shame to all the commentators. Look at the jungle, Yao and Lan Guang have met head on.”

That’s right.

At this time, Ji Zhiyao had bumped right into Lan Guang near the dragon’s cave.

Mo Huaifeng caught it on the mini map and instructed, “Don’t panic, your abilities are all full, the equipment you have are also not much different from his. Fight, don’t hide.”

Ji Zhiyao took the lead in rushing forward.

Lan Guang engaged Ji Zhiyao directly, refusing to be outdone, the two had a fight, each of their health left with a small half-bar, as if taking into consideration the problem of their incomplete equipment, both took a step back slightly.

In a spur of the moment, Ji Zhiyao immediately rushed forward, continuous releasing combined abilities, auto-attack, hit hit hit hit hit...

Ji Zhiyao was left with a shred of health, Lan Guang fell to the ground.

K: “Double click to give a like for our Yao-god!”

Nuo: “Piss off all those little b*tches opposite.”

Heng: “Damn! Singlehandedly killing Lan Guang! NoHomo, you’re about to become the hope of all Chinese junglers!”

Mo Huaifeng: “Not bad.”

Ji Zhiyao was also a little dazed, by the last strand of consciousness in his mind, he shakily recalled to his fountain.

Separated by the ear-mic, Ji Zhiyao could vaguely hear the uproar from the fans outside.

This singlehanded kill seemed to come as too great a surprise for them.

Ji Zhiyao inhaled deeply and calmed his emotions.

On screen, Lan Guang’s face remained peaceful, as though the singlehanded kill did not affect him too much, right now the match was of the greatest importance.

The competition was still ongoing.

Although Tall Boots did not manage to snag any advantage, they were very stable the whole time, properly dragging the match till its 45th minute.

At this point, both teams were left with one last turret on each of their three lanes.

There was still a big Dragon left, a team fight seemed to have become inevitable.

Mo Huaifeng sent a signal gathering everyone. “NoHomo change either your health regen or mana regen, then add another jungling knife, when the team fight begins later, your main priority is to watch the big Dragon.”

Ji Zhiyao changed up his equipment and made a sound of acknowledgment.

Ten people met before the dragon’s cave, Mo Huaifeng was the first to attack, one person tanking both Xiaoye and the opposite support.

Everyone was a mess, Ji Zhiyao moved to behind the big Dragon amidst the chaos, struck it once then dodged. “The big Dragon is about to go wild, you guys be careful.”

Nuo and K were a slight step slower, but they’d bought tank equipment and did not take too much damage, the ones primarily bearing the wild damage were still the several little crusties from Tall Boots. Seeing that his goal was achieved, Ji Zhiyao was overjoyed and ran to the big Dragon’s side and continued to strike.

The big Dragon’s health dropped rapidly.

At this time Mo Huaifeng, Heng and K had already fallen to the ground, their team was only left with Nuo who had a bar of health left and Ji Zhiyao, whereas Tall Boots’ surviving member was Lan Guang with a trifle of health.

Lan Guang’s movement speed was fast, dodging past Nuo, he calculatedly the time to come snatch the Dragon. Ji Zhiyao was afraid that the big Dragon that was about to collapse would be snatched away and exchanged blows with Lan Guang directly. Killing him, he himself was also left with a last bar of health.

Ji Zhiyao continued striking the Dragon, until it was left with the last 200 points of its health.

Lan Guang suddenly resurrected!

Nuo was unable to rush over, Lan Guang gave Ji Zhiyao a stab from the back.

The moment his screen became black and white, Ji Zhiyao knew, this match was a goner.

[OP:

I’ll tell everyone something interesting.

There’s a joke, known as “Mix’s current jungler reserve definitely ranks amongst the top few junglers locally”

I don’t have to say much about this person’s scandals, since joining the battleteam he has been madly trying to gain attention and popularity, I don’t know where he bought a bunch of ghostwriters to create an image of an A line influencer, sensationalizing his capabilities, talking about how no one was his match during the performance tournament tour, has never lost the training tournaments that he played.

Yet his actually standard is just downright lousy.

I don’t have to say much about this point. For more details please view the video of the advancement match between Mix and Tall Boots a few days ago.

The entire team placed the victory right before him, keeping him alive. Just one strike away and he lost it all.

I’ve never seen a battleteam who lost so terribly, just a step away from the doors of victory yet they couldn’t get in no matter how much they tried.

For this year’s national qualifiers, I stand by Tall Boots.

Can’t help it since Mix battleteam disgusts me so much that I feel like puking.

Heh heh.]

[1st comment: Neither a fan nor a hater, purely a bystander. According to what I know, Mix and Tall Boots have always been fifty-fifty with their capabilities, Mix could just gain a slight bit of advantage, so there is nothing regretful about losing the very last advancement match. And I am unsure why this OP is so obsessed with jungler reserve Yao, you can write just based on the point of Mix losing, but there is also the second match that they lost, Xiao was the jungler for that match. Why didn’t you mention his mistake in decision-making? If you’re hating for the sake of hating, it’s really quite funny.]

[2nd comment: I don’t believe the comment above isn’t an idiotic fan of a certain someone. What has it got to do with our Xiao-god, we admit that he make a mistake in his decision, but this is still better than a certain someone being so stupid that he didn’t even know that his opponent bought Guardian Angel.]

[3rd comment: Really good at raising one up while trampling on the other.]

[4th comment: I stand by Tall Boots this time. Somehow feel that after Mix’s new reserve joined the team, everyone’s intelligence level has been brought down.]

[5th comment: It’s okay to lose one match, you’ll definitely meet again in the finals later on. All the best Mix!]

...

These few days, the Tieba and Weibo app on Ji Zhiyao’s phone had been deleted personally by Mo Huaifeng.

“You’re a newbie. The expectations that others have for you will certainly be stricter.” Mo Huaifeng had said, “Train hard. The last match wasn’t your fault, none of us realized it.”

Ji Zhiyao pulled his cap lower, recalling the words that Mo Huaifeng had said, the hand holding onto the plastic involuntarily tightened.

The atmosphere at the base these few days hadn’t been much different from the past. Yet Ji Zhiyao oddly felt that there was a very heavy load on his chest. He even forewent ordering takeaway, directly heading to buy some food that couldn’t be ordered to bring back to base, letting himself get some distraction while at it.

Since they lost that match, not just the three people at the dorm had extended their regards, even Ji Qingge who was in school and mugging away specially applied for leave to come visit him at the base. To Ji Zhiyao, concern from the others seemed to have become a burden.

Because he had not completely left the incident behind.

The failure that shouldn’t have been for this match, constantly kept his mind unsettled.

Ji Zhiyao tugged at his mask and inhaled deeply.

He was still about ten plus minutes from the base, he leisurely walked back.

At the next turn, Ji Zhiyao vaguely heard a few lines of a conversation.

“I’m telling you, if I went to Mix’s base, I’ll definitely be a much better player than that trashy jungler reserve. I’m a Challenger rank in the local servers and Master rank in the Korean servers.”

“I think Yao is fine, he’s not as bad as you put him to be.”

“What’s good about him? Let me tell you something, you’ve got to keep it to yourself. I know a staff member at Mix battleteam, he said, the reason why their Captain recruited the reserve into the team back then was all because he was good looking and enough to be used to gain attention. With such a person who attracts so much hate, it’ll be much easier for Mix to attract attention.”

“Are you serious? Fi-god’s character has always been great, how is it possible that he would do such a thing?”

“Great my ass, it’s purely an image. Isn’t he a big shareholder of Mix? If the battleteam has a huge following, isn’t he the one who makes money?”

...

“Damn it, who are you? F*ck you dare to hit me, beat him up!”

...

Mo Huaifeng’s expression was icy cold. “Why did you fight?”

The entire living room was dead silent, Nuo who was usually the most talkative, opened his mouth, not knowing what to say, he closed his mouth again.

Ji Zhiyao at present had blue-black and purplish spots all over his face, the corner of his lip was even bleeding. He tugged at the corner of his lip but did not speak.