Chapter 294: The Importance of Game Plan
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Another year has passed and our son is now 19 years old.”
This was perhaps the first time in recent memory that they had spent the New Year together.
In the past, Yu Yu would be busy with her training and only have limited holiday days.
But now that she had already gone through the toughest part of her training, Yu Yu instead focused more on maintaining her form, rather than doing intensive drills. This gave her more free time, allowing her to return home more frequently.
‘It was around three years ago…’ Yu Luocheng vividly remembered that he was only a 16-year-old teenager when he ran away from this very house. He had been all alone in Shanghai during that New Year.
Li Yun had been busy preparing everything since early in the morning. Like it or not, the Chinese placed importance on serving sumptuous meals during the festive season. Apart from the traditional dishes, Li Yun also insisted on making Yu Yu and Yu Luocheng’s personal favourites. It was common to see the dining table overflowing with various appetizing food on New Year’s Day.
It was Lunar New Year’s Eve. They had their reunion dinner as early as five in the afternoon, right after they showered.
Yu Luocheng ate like a glutton, swallowing rapidly and moving his hand back and forth around the table to pick up dishes at an insane speed.
He couldn’t help it. He had barely eaten anything the whole day as he had been occupied with house chores and running errands for Yu Yu and his mother.
“After the first day of the New Year, there will probably be a lot of relatives coming to visit. Yu Luocheng, you better stay put in the house for the next few days, got it?” ordered Yu Jing.
“Are you serious? I don’t think we have that many close relatives, do we?” questioned Yu Luocheng.
“They are all dropping by to meet Yu Yu. She was once featured in a primetime sports program. The news quickly spread and many of our relatives informed me long before New Year that they would be coming over,” said Li Yun with a prideful smile on her face.
Yu Jing was not fond of keeping in touch with relatives, which resulted in them living apart from the other family members. As a result, they seldom had visitors, even during New Years.
This suited Yu Luocheng perfectly. He was more than glad to avoid those big-mouths and gossipers.
However, that is not how the elders in the house saw things. If a family hosted only a few guests during the New Year, this somehow implied that said family had nothing worth mentioning and thus no one cared to spend time with them.
Everyone wishes to lead a fruitful life. Yu Luocheng’s parents were not looking for flattery but at the very least, they simply wished to be respected among their kin.
As the quality of living continued to rise, with startups beginning to emerge like mushrooms after the rain, and more and more relatives returning home in better cars year in and year out, blue-collar families like Yu Luocheng’s inevitably became more irrelevant over the years.
Li Yun didn’t have extravagant expectations. She only hoped for a noticeable improvement from their current state so that people would not talk behind their backs.
Yu Jing couldn’t care less about the relatives and their small talk. But the arrogance of those who liked to flaunt their achievements did get to him from time to time.
After Yu Yu’s interview came out on TV, Li Yun and Yu Jing could feel that their neighbors and relatives treated them quite differently. Nowadays, they often heard compliments instead of sarcasm, which was a rarity in the past.
Who wouldn’t feel proud when people are commending your children? Even a dull person like Yu Jing slept and ate better recently.
“You better behave and don’t you run out constantly like you used to!” Yu Jing chastised Yu Luocheng.
“Wait a minute… they are here for Yu Yu. What does it have to do with me being at home or not?” Yu Luocheng was clueless.
‘Don’t tell me I have to entertain those busybodies!’
“Of course you have to be around. They will certainly ask about you too. Just tell them you are now enrolled in the University,” answered Li Yun.
“…” Yu Luocheng glared at Yu Yu who was eating dumplings beside him. His piercing gaze was overflowing with plain displeasure.
‘It’s one thing that you are now a celebrity but why am I being dragged into this as well? I have done nothing yet I have to be grounded because of you? Grr…’
***
After the reunion dinner, he read the status update from Da Luo and Lin Dong.
It was typical to lament during the festive season, but it was gut-wrenching for Yu Luocheng to picture the team having only frozen dumplings on the eve of New Year.
Neither Da Luo, Zhou Yan, Wu Sen, Lin Dong, nor Xiao Bei went back to their hometown for this New Year. On one hand, they didn’t want to waste the limited time they had for some final training before the LPL. On the other hand, most of their family relationships were so messy that they had rather not return.
Lin Dong has been on his own from a very young age. He had long since cut ties with his family due to his cyber-criminal record. His relationship with his family had worsened beyond the point of repair.
Zhou Yan lost both of his parents during adolescence. Not wanting to rely on his relatives, he also stepped into the real world at a relatively young age like Lin Dong. He had taken on all sorts of harsh jobs one could only imagine, including hawker, cleaner, repairman, front desk, ghost gamer, etc.
Da Luo was a typical game addict that did not find much success in the academy. His family did not have enough connections to land him a decent job either. Plus, since he has many siblings, his parents practically gave up on him after he dropped out of school.
Wu Sen grew up in a normal family. The reason he chose to stay was simply because he wanted to train together with the team before the tournament.
Xiao Bei’s home is at Xibei, an under-developed rural town. The trip itself would have taken seven to eight days.
All in all, Yu Luocheng considered himself luckier than most of them for having a complete family. Though not a wealthy one, he could still feel the warmth and care from his parents and only sister.
‘Alright! It is a brand New Year, so let me pray for the five of them under this sky full of beautiful fireworks. May they build up their own happy family in the future, so that they can escape from this tragedy of eating frozen dumplings and watching replays with other guys during the festive season.’
***
Since New Years began, Yu Luocheng had seldom seen Shallow Dream online. He wondered whether she was also busy dealing with her relatives.
Free time during the New Year holiday was considerably short and precious. Yu Luocheng was forced to accompany his parents and Yu Yu during the day and could only play a few games at night.
But when Yu Luocheng realized that almost all the people inside the café had recognized him and were waiting for him to turn up, he yielded and went home directly.
It must be because of the highlight video. Someone must have blown his cover, resulting in him being expected by a large group of eager LOL fans in the café.
It was normal for a famous player to be asked for permission to observe their games but this may be the first time someone was being hounded physically near the cyber café. Yu Luocheng figured he may need to wait for the hysteria to subside before he could visit Rising Dragon again.
***
After the eighth day of Chinese New Year, Yu Luocheng used the excuse of having a pending assignment to head back to the university early. Team Skycrown desperately needed their coach.
They had been painstakingly working on their teamwork and chemistry during Yu Luocheng’s absence. They understood that they were still far from perfect in terms of teamwork. They couldn’t execute most of the renowned champion combos flawlessly, at least not to the level of the professional LOL teams competing in the LPL.
Generally speaking, their team-fight proficiency was below par at the moment. At this rate, they would still be easily taken out by any LPL team, even without a superior strategy.
Unfortunately, they felt like they had hit a wall right now and could only improve by playing together more. But time was a luxury they did not have — the LPL would be here in less than a month.
So if they wanted to boost their competitive edge within this short period of time, their only choice was to come up with an innovative strategy.
In a professional team, the members would first be asked to elevate their skills to a certain level. Only then they would work on team play and when the team becomes a well-oiled machine, that’s when the team’s identity and core strategy would be forged.
The power meter of a team is determined by personal skills, team play, and specific game plan. These three factors worked in synergy and often improved at the same pace. Between the three, a unique game plan is the hardest to execute, yet was also the most essential element of a team.
During the fifth game against Fudan University, Team Skycrown had gained an early advantage over all three lanes. Nonetheless, due to the opponent’s better refined game plan, Team Skycrown could hardly compete with Fudan University in the late game. This demonstrated the importance of a well-crafted and well-trained tactic.
All eight teams in the LPL must have several sets of strategies on hand, especially the top four teams: Daemons, Sky, Revelation, and 71.
If a LOL team were to be viewed as a martial artist, then his raw strength and speed would be his talent, his punches or kicks would be the coordination of his strength a.k.a teamwork, while the game plan would be referring to his inner chakra. Complementing his physical moves with chakra output would certainly boost his overall potency exponentially!
At best, the current Team Skycrown was like a martial artist with an attractive fighting style. They were like children in front of the actual powerhouses in the LPL who had seamlessly melded their team chemistry and game plan.
Thus, Team Skycrown needed Yu Luocheng because he was the best when it comes to building a team identity.
He always learned more than others when analyzing replays. He could hastily decode the strategy used by the other team and assimilate any suitable playstyle into his own almost instantaneously.
He was also a very innovative player.
When they were still playing DOTA, Team Wing was only slightly better than Team Daemons at first.
But after joining the international competition, Team Wing continued to improve along the way and not long after, they substantially closed the gap between them and Team Daemon in less than a month. Team Daemon was humbled every time they had a practice game with Team Wing, whereas the latter always appeared stronger than the previous match.
Half of it was credited to Yu Luocheng’s brilliant and unorthodox game plan.
There was still about a month left before the LPL, which was rather different from DOTA. Nowadays, resources regarding game strategy could easily be found online. Team Skycrown hoped that Yu Luocheng could give them a crash course regarding the game plan in this final month of preparation.
***
Yu Luocheng used all sorts of excuses and even asked Mr. Fang to lie for him so that he could finally be freed from his house. He was still living in the university hostel, but Yu Yu had generously lent him her university apartment.
After he touched down in Shanghai, Li Meiqi generously passed her lecture notes to Yu Luocheng so that he could burrow himself in Yu Yu’s apartment for the next five days and focus solely on watching LOL replays and highlights.
A month before the competition, professional gamers from other LOL teams had kicked into gear and practiced feverishly. Friendly matches between professional teams became more frequent. Unfortunately, even when Team Skycrown managed to play with certain LPL teams, they did not get to practice at their full strength.
Their opponents were trying to hide their true power in front of potential rivals. Meanwhile, those who might play seriously had refused to deal with Team Skycrown. It was generally a very frustrating situation.
“F*ck it. This must be Sky Club’s doing. They are trying to isolate us by barring us from playing any meaningful games before the tournament!” Da Luo grumbled angrily.
