Yisheng wasn’t recording a TV program this time, he was just solo climbing in ranked after some personal training. His solo rank wasn’t that high, and for whatever reason, he just couldn’t climb any higher.
Bottom lane had already been called, so he was left to go top. Top lane wasn’t his strong suit, but he didn’t pay it any mind due to his pride. With his sort of skill level, did it matter which lane he got?
Following Luocheng’s nonsensical answer, Yisheng was absolutely boiling. If he was Renekton, he would have run right up to him to bite him, stunning him for 1.5 seconds and letting him admire his attack combos plus an Ignite!
It was just as well though, he was playing a top lane Renekton, and upon seeing the opponent pick an easily bullied Xin Zhao, suddenly he was feeling pretty good.
A Renekton laning against a Xin Zhao, you couldn’t determine the winner just from a glance, it all depended on their levels, however it was without a doubt that Renekton could absolutely beat Xin Zhao in terms of wave clear, mobility, and sustaining!
Yisheng recognized the ID of his opposing laner, it was that dirty China rat’s partner.
He admitted that those two were strong, but if he had been able to play with a professional Support, he would’ve never lost that game!
They had even put “Non-professional Floor Professional at His Own Game” as the headline, and this single sentence ignited an outrage among the good citizens of Korea.
Professional players were professional players, on a completely different level from those filthy casuals!
***
Luocheng was the Jungler and he ended up choosing Vi. Shallow Dream specifically informed him to camp at the top side before the game, and so, Luocheng waited behind the minion wave as soon as he finished his double buffs.
When laning against Renekton, if you played a champion with an aggressive early game, they would pretty much just stick to clearing the minion wave, and so, having the minion wave pushed under turret was normal. The best way to gank would be to gank head on, and as soon as Renekton used up his E-skill, go forth and strike with no remorse!
After waiting for a while, Yisheng did indeed use his E-skill to move forward, and as Shallow Dream took the initiative to exchange the damage dealt, Luocheng ran in headfirst. Having been slowed by Xin Zhao, even if Renekton Flashed, he would only be able to sit there and take it, after all, it was his fault for pushing so much.
“Watch out for enemies in the bush.” Luocheng charged up his Q-skill, ramming his fist forward as he closed the distance between him and Renekton.
Yisheng Flashed without hesitation, going into hiding within the bush with Shallow Dream’s Xin Zhao following suit.
Luocheng was pinging to retreat like crazy!
They didn’t have a clear vision of the enemy Jungler’s position, there was a high likelihood of him counter-ganking by hiding in the bush. Face-checking the bush like Shallow Dream was doing would give the Jungler an opening to turn and fight back. They should have fought in the minion wave instead. If he didn’t come out, they could wait for their abilities to come off the cooldown, but if he came out, that meant the bush was empty, in which case, they could pounce on him.
Unfortunately, Shallow Dream dove right into the jaws of danger!
“BAM!”
As soon as Shallow Dream took her first step into the bush, Luocheng knew they were done. The Spider Queen, Elise, had been waiting for her prey to walk in, and with a full combo plus the damage from Renekton, Shallow Dream was completely annihilated before she could even Flash. Luocheng had charged up his Q-skill, but suddenly, he didn’t think that it would be the best idea for him to go in, however…
Double Kill!
Screw it, the hot-blooded teen couldn’t resist the opportunity for glory, and Luocheng had gone in for a 1 vs 2 but ended up getting pounced on by Renekton, unable to trade kills and even giving up his double buffs.
***
“Bro, it was obviously a bait.”
Luocheng told Shallow Dream through the QQ app.
Shallow Dream only replied with a grimacing emoji.
Giving the Renekton a double kill like this, it was all Shallow Dream could do to not lose her first turret. Xin Zhao didn’t particularly have an advantage in lane and even CS-ing was difficult, she would be better off DC-ing.
***
Luocheng farmed up a bit more, holding strong until he hit level 6.
After level 6, Luocheng decided it was time to regain his honor and made his way back to the top lane.
Shallow Dream was level 7 while Renekton was at level 8, with an Ignite, they should have enough damage to kill that d*mned crocodile!
Shallow Dream saw Luocheng coming in for a gank and she went up to bait, and sure enough, Yisheng took it, using both charges of his E-skill to dash forward.
Luocheng once again came in from the front just in time, and Shallow Dream turned to attack, slowing Renekton and knocking him up.
Just knock him up, daddy will handle the rest!
Luocheng landed his full combo and pinged for Shallow Dream to retreat. Renekton had dangerous burst potential, if he got the chance, he could even trade his death for Shallow Dream’s Xin Zhao.
But what made Luocheng’s jaw drop was that Shallow Dream had the gall to stay behind even after she had knocked up Renekton!
10 seconds later, the voice of the announcer echoed across the rift, “Double kill!”, rendering Luocheng speechless.
Ganking a teammate being bullied by Renekton during an early game was already a risky move, but to think it had ended with them giving Renekton a free double kill.
Luocheng thought Shallow Dream and himself could’ve easily finished that Renekton off with the level of synergy they had, letting Shallow Dream regain the advantage, but in reality, Shallow Dream had just gracefully fed Renekton a second double kill.
“Ma’am, be honest with me, how many games of Xin Zhao have you played?” Luocheng sent Shallow Dream a message.
“One round…against AI…” Shallow Dream’s messages were always extremely descriptive.
“…”
Shallow Dream, you win.
Playing a Diamond game with a champion that you had only played a single game of AI on!?
“I told you I didn’t play Top,” Shallow Dream defended herself.
“I thought you were just being humble…”
Luocheng was at a loss. After feeding the Renekton a few kills, he had basically made Renekton invincible for the rest of the game.
Luocheng might as well have gone to play a round of poker while he waited to surrender at 20, while Shallow Dream probably went to check on her soup or something, standing idly at the fountain for some time.
The other lanes were probably flaming them, a string of indecipherable circles and squares and lines furiously popping up in the chat. Well, at least they were indecipherable to Luocheng…
Luocheng wasn’t into the habit of AFK-ing, but they were on the Korean server, they’d only be throwing the game for the other Koreans, and so, Luocheng didn’t feel too bad about betraying his integrity as a gamer.
“You’re always talking about making soup, what soup are you drinking?” Luocheng closed the LOL client and went on to message Shallow Dream.
“Medicinal soup, it tastes horrible.”
“Bad kidneys?”
***
After these past few days of playing ranked games with her, Luocheng realized one thing as clear as day.
Shallow Dream was the classic example of an ADC main, with world class proficiency with her bottom lane champions, her mid lane wasn’t too bad either, being able to hold her own in Diamond rank. As for her Jungler, she usually hard-farmed her way through the jungle and didn’t really gank much, so probably around Platinum, and then there came her horrendous top lane, absolutely atrocious, a Bronze V at best!
Luocheng was of the mindset that to play a game well, you had to know every facet of the game. He mained bottom lane, but could do well in any position handed to him, not really having a particularly weak role.
However, there was an infamous curse in LOL which was the curse of the top and bottom lanes. Basically, if you were decent at playing top, chances were that you would be trash at bottom. Alternatively, if you were a God at the bottom lane, please, for the sake of everyone else, stay away from the top lane.
Luckily, Luocheng had a firm foundation built up from playing other competitive video games, and after the time he had spent on professional training, he could confidently say that he could play most roles.
Seeing Shallow Dream’s Bronze V potential, Luocheng suddenly came up with a new way to increase the difficulty for his team.
When Xiao Ya was busy, he would get Shallow Dream to play as their defending team’s Top and kick Da Luo to be the Support, allowing him to practice a bit of patience and care while he was at it!
When registering their team, Shallow Dream was a part of that list. Sometimes when Luocheng wanted to fully dedicate himself to researching videos and learning new techniques, he would let Shallow Dream take his place as the Support during practice matches and low-level competitions. Shallow Dream knew a lot about the inner-workings of Team Skycrown, so she was basically an honorary member of the team.
Of course, Shallow Dream supporting Team Skycrown and Luocheng supporting Team Skycrown led to two very different playstyles. Shallow Dream tended to play on the defensive, sticking to the backline. With her on the team, their ADC could focus on dealing the maximum amount of damage without needing to pay much attention to their own safety.
On the other hand, Luocheng liked to focus on more aggressive tactics. Lin Dong had to find his own spot during team fights since Luocheng’s Support would always be the first to go in hard during team fights, casting all of his skills first before returning to protect the ADC, and sometimes, he wouldn’t even do that, instead protecting the other carries.
“I’m going to Beijing tomorrow, if you could, come help us fill in for the top lane,” Luocheng told Shallow Dream.
“What are you going to be doing in Beijing?” Shallow Dream asked.
“I’m going to the General Administration of Sports.”
“You’re still hung up on not being able to create an e-sports association?”
“How did you know?” Luocheng was a little shocked.
Thinking about it clearly, Shallow Dream seemed to have made quite the name for herself in the e-sports scene and was probably a veteran gamer, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary that she knew a thing or two about the industry within their country.
“You’re wasting your time,” Shallow Dream replied.
“I just want to go take a look for myself and figure out what’s going on,” Luocheng said.
“You should know very well what’s ‘going on’. The Department of Civil Affairs isn’t going to approve of an e-sports association. In their eyes, it would basically be the same as encouraging kids to skip school to go play video games, giving them the perfect excuse to do so. Even if it got the green light from Civil Affairs, do you think the Department of Education would allow such a thing? The Education Department still bans minors from entering cybercafes, and even though everyone knows that there’s a clear difference between video games and professional e-sports, has the e-sports community really set a distinct divider between the professional gaming and non-professional gaming sectors? Even within the community, misinformation and misunderstanding spreads rampant, so I wouldn’t expect people looking in from the outside to even have the slightest clue of this difference,” Shallow Dream said.
Luocheng couldn’t move, seeing this huge wall of text from Shallow Dream. It was the first time since Luocheng had met Shallow Dream that she had sent such a long string of text in one go!
Shallow Dream had always been the type to be short and concise, but this had changed Luocheng’s view entirely!
Yeah, the e-sports community within the country didn’t differentiate much between professionals and non-professionals, so how were they going to convince the rest of society?
Other people knew that if a kid playing basketball was recognized by their district and got into CBA, then they weren’t just playing around, they had chosen a career in basketball with endless potential.
But what about e-sports? What made you a true “professional”? What sort of special privileges did you get? What sort of people would they be?
Luocheng didn’t have a concrete answer to any of these questions, could he really blame the higher-ups for declining his offer?
“Who are you? Why do you know all of this?” Luocheng asked after a slight pause.
The other side went radio silent for a long while.
“You don’t have to go to the Administration of Sports, it’s useless,” Shallow Dream said.
“Who are you?” Luocheng pushed.
To know every contradicting detail within the e-sports as an industry and as a community, this wasn’t some ordinary player, and Luocheng really wanted to find out who Shallow Dream really was.
Could she be someone like Li Tuchuan, who had tried to advocate for change in the past, but had failed?
“There’s no point in you coming to Beijing now, you’re nothing, you can’t even represent the strongest teams in China,” Shallow Dream replied.
“I just want to know,” Luocheng said.
“I’ve already told you your answer. Next year, after the qualifying rounds of S Worlds, if you get a ticket into the competition, maybe then you can make something happen in Beijing,” Shallow Dream said.
“Just tell me who you are first.”
“You don’t know me, but the day we meet will come if you manage to climb high enough in the e-sports industry and if you get enough influence within the country or even on the global stage…”
Luocheng still had so, so many questions he needed answers to, but Shallow Dreams’ profile had already gone dim.
Her words lingered in his mind.
Why did he have to climb to the top or gain an influence over e-sports for them to meet?
Who on earth was she? Wasn’t she just a player who knew a lot about e-sports, or maybe even a veteran or leader like Tuchuan?
How had she known about the Sports Bureau thing? Could she have had the same idea as he did, and had already gone to the bureau?
But if she wanted to fight for change just like he did, why hadn’t she shown up in the professional field or the e-sports scene?
***
At the same time, Shallow Dream had sparked an epiphany in Luocheng.
Indeed, he was a nobody right now, going to the Sports Bureau, what good would that do!
Okay, just wait until I’m the one representing the strongest team in the country to take part in the S International League, I’ll go and make things clear then!
