Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Some of the players suddenly heard a ruckus on the other side of the cafe, and one by one, their heads raised up, asking the people sitting beside them in confusion, “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Not sure, they’re shouting something about a Captain Yu. Who is this Captain Yu?”
After Luocheng became famous in the LPL, people no longer called him the Fighting Hawk anymore, instead, they called him Captain Yu. The explanation for this was simple, everyone called him that, including those in the professional circle. On one hand, it was more intimate, and on the other hand, it was showing respect to this top professional player!
“F*ck your sister, you don’t even recognize Captain Yu yet you still dare to say that you’re qualified to play LOL! Brat!” His friend slapped the head of the friend that hadn’t even watched the LPL before.
“Put it this way, he’s our LOL god in China, get it?”
“Such a great person is actually here in this cafe?” That blur guy said.
“Looks like it. Look at those people there, they’re not even playing anymore!”
***
In an internet cafe environment, if you were a Diamond player, you could basically hold your head up high as you walked past everyone.
If a Challenger or a professional player appeared, that was asking for most of the people here to look up at you in awe.
The appearance of a LPL player was basically the same as meeting a celebrity. Moreso, the captain of the LPL championship team, hailed as China’s LOL god, with him appearing in their small internet cafe, how could the cafe not explode!
Nowadays, internet cafes were all occupied by LOL worshippers, and once everyone found out that Captain Yu from the LPL championship team had appeared here, everyone left their seats just to gather around. The scene was so spectacular, it was similar to when there was an underage inspection!
“What the h*ll, what’s going on here?” A player on CF asked with a puzzled expression.
“Seems like a LOL pro-player was recognized.”
“F*ck, it’s just a pro-player for a game, why does it need to be so exaggerated as if it’s meeting some singer!”
Those people who were playing Warcraft, CF, QQ Speed, and other online games were all confused at the commotion. They weren’t playing their games anymore, these crazy bunch of people…
The Rising Dragon Internet Cafe was in an uproar for quite some time.
A large group of people gathered and surrounded the gaming area, a lot of them taking out their mobile phones and taking pictures or just directly calling up their friends.
“Hey, sh*thead, hurry up and come on over to Rising Dragon. D*mmit, do you know who’s here right now!? Just shut up, put on some pants, and come over!”
“Oh my f*ck, Captain Yu…what, what!? I didn’t borrow any money from you, I’m telling you that the LPL champion Captain Yu is in our Rising Dragon Cafe right now, we’re holding him here!”
“Luo Hao, do you know who I’m seeing at the Rising Dragon right now! You f*cking can’t even dream who it is!”
“Captain Yu, let’s take a picture, please take a picture with me!” The man who had shouted earlier said excitedly.
“Shake my hand, shake my hand and send me some god aura for ten consecutive wins in ranked!”
The scene descended into chaos and noise.
As for Xiao Bin, Lin Ming, and the others, they had reached a stage of dumbfoundedness that they were almost forgetting to breathe…
Huang Mi saw their states and said coldly, “Being able to play a game with Captain Yu, that was some great luck that you’ve overused for the next hundred years!”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Lin Ming nodded his head so vigorously that it looked as though it was going to fall off.
Xiao Bin also had a clearer head now. After knowing the identity of the other party, where he had dared to clamour for another round, hadn’t he already died enough times?
There was a saying, if one was unlucky, their teeth would drop even by just drinking water.
God d*mn, what rotten luck he had today. By simply calling out someone to play a match in the internet cafe, a f*cking LPL champion had come out instead, this was really digging his own grave!
But if you think back on it…
Since the other party was the LPL champion, that 1 vs 5 earlier didn’t seem so shameful anymore!
Other people had come from Mars and played with these people that hailed from Earth, how was that even comparable!
***
Luocheng glanced at Qin Ying with much resentment and reluctance on his face.
God d*mn, would it have killed you to have kept quiet about it!? Now what was he going to do!?
“Go, go and borrow a big camera, hurry up and take a picture to commemorate this moment, otherwise, this guy will run off again without a trace!” Boss Qin said to Huang Mi.
“Yeah, alright!” Huang Mi said.
“Boss Qin, what are you planning?” Luocheng had an ominous feeling.
“Help me out a little with my business, won’t you? No matter how things are now, you’re a LOL universal more than godlike existence, taking a picture of you in our Rising Dragon Internet Cafe and hanging it up, that’ll be my gold sign of the cafe!” Boss Qin laughed loudly as he replied.
Luocheng sweat dropped. To be hung on the wall, was that really appropriate!?
Before he could say anything else, Huang Mi really came back with a borrowed camera.
Qin Ying was also very generous, asking everyone who wanted to take a photo to gather around for a group photo!
Then, he took a solo picture with Luocheng himself and then pointed at the big wall at the entrance of the cafe, proudly saying, “I’ll have to hang you up here, hahaha! It will be extremely classy!”
“Alright, you win!” Luocheng said helplessly.
However, thinking about it, he had played a lot of times for free in this Rising Dragon Internet Cafe. Letting them have that free advertisement with his face was fine after all.
With such a big group of people, Luocheng was unable to cope very well, and in the end, Boss Qin dispersed the crowd, escorting Luocheng to leave.
Walking out from the internet cafe, Luocheng finally took in a breath of fresh air.
Can you imagine the feeling of those sweaty, smelly things that kept touching your body, how suffocating it would have been inside there.
“Haha, Luocheng, you’re practically a big star already. I reckon that if you just simply walked into a random internet cafe, I fear that everybody will be able to recognize you!” Wang Qin laughed.
When Wang Qin had told his roommates that Luocheng had sat at the same desk as him in the past, none of them would believe him at all. Up to the point that Wang Qin had managed to bring out his high school records as strong evidence, only then did he manage to convince them. This was indeed something to be shown off since Luocheng’s glory had only got higher and higher, this image made people feel more and more proud.
***
Staying In Lecheng for a few days, Luocheng couldn’t be playing games all day. Together with Wang Qin and the others as well as some of the girls from their high school days, all of them went around Lecheng together and had fun. Luocheng’s high-strung nerves were able to be well relaxed due to that.
In the past, he would train to the point that it exhausted his brain, and it had easily led him on a destructive path. Now, Luocheng was still training hard, but he would find ways to relieve the mental pressure, often going out to socialize with other people.
After playing for two to three days and handling all his paperwork, Luocheng felt that it was time to return to Shanghai.
There were only a few months left until the finals of the S International League, and within these three months, they needed to train to synchronize even better as well as improve their coordination and design more strategies.
The game was ever-changing, new champions continued to appear in the professional arena. The standards of the national team were also not standardized, making League of Legends all the more interesting.
As the pioneer of this game and the leader of the industry, naturally, they wanted to become the strongest in LOL. Their tactics, strength, and understanding all depended on their accumulated experiences over the days and months as well as competitions that contributed to their growth!
***
After roasting for a whole afternoon, in the evening, Luocheng rode a bicycle with Qianqian sitting behind him into the city.
As they passed that river, Luocheng glanced at the somewhat old building.
“Do you want to take a look?” Qianqian asked.
“It’s better to forget it.” Luocheng replied, shaking his head.
Qianqian didn’t push it any further, but as they continued on, Luocheng’s phone started ringing.
Qianqian fished his phone out from his pocket and answered it for him, she then happily placed it beside Luocheng’s ear for him to take the call.
“Yo, what’s up?” Luocheng said.
“Nothing much, I just called to ask if you were done with your documents?” Lin Dong’s voice came through.
“About done, when are you going back?”
“I might take a while longer, I ran into some trouble.” Lin Dong said.
“Can you handle it?”
“Should be.”
“Alright, if you have any problems, let me know…”
“It’s nothing, it’s just some things that I need to handle on my own.”
“Alright, if you say so…” Luocheng knew that he couldn’t really help Lin Dong much.
***
Lin Dong hung up the call, adjusting his cap, not really knowing how to walk into the residential complex in front of him.
It had been about three to four years since he had stepped foot here, the community wasn’t much different from the time he had left, but the people were mostly strangers to him now.
Lin Dong had thought that he would never need to come back here again since he really didn’t know how to face the two people who were staying on the eighth floor.
Even now, he still remembered the time when they had pulled all their savings out, bailing him out from the correction centre, watching them go from school to school, hoping that just one of them would accept him…
Lin Dong didn’t really want to face it, only, this time he had no choice because the Hukou book was needed if he was going abroad, and it was in their hands.
Lin Dong had done the same thing as Luocheng, dropping out to play e-sports, choosing to leave their homes to do so.
The difference was that Luocheng still had the option to continue to study, while he had given up on it. Besides, there were no schools that would accept Lin Dong and his parents couldn’t do much for him, and they had had to let him out into society early.
In fact, six or seven years ago, Lin Dong’s family situation had still been good.
His father was a senior programmer who excelled at deciphering and decoding. Lin Dong had been influenced by his father since young, being able to use a computer before he could walk. At that time, computers were a new thing in China and there were only few.
Growing up in such an environment, it gave Lin Dong more superhuman control with computers. Without his father’s knowledge, Lin Dong learnt a lot about the technology by himself. His parents were completely oblivious to the fact that the kid that locked himself in the room all day was actually a famous hacker in China!
In the end, the shocking cybercrime had ended Lin Dong’s seemingly ordinary and peaceful life. He clearly remembered the day it happened, he had been in school when four policemen had come to his class, taking him away in front of his teacher and classmates.
His home had also been invaded by the policemen, scaring the living daylights out of his parents as well as his neighbours.
(Translator’s note: Hukou is a system of household registration used in mainland China. The system itself is more properly called “huji”, and has origins in ancient China; hukou is the registration of an individual in the system.)
