Chapter 107: Ranked Match

Ye Shaoyang returned to the hotel at 1:00 AM and slept until noon the next day. After washing his face, he prepared to go downstairs to the buffet restaurant for lunch. Just as he stepped out, he bumped into Chi Shuo coming out of the room opposite.

Chi Shuo seemed to have just showered; his hair wasn’t fully dry, and his handsome face was expressionless. But upon seeing Ye Shaoyang, his expression softened quickly, and a hint of warmth floated in his eyes. “Just woke up?”

Ye Shaoyang nodded. “Mn, slept too late last night.”

Chi Shuo said, “Let’s go eat first.”

The two walked side-by-side to the restaurant, where they spotted Xie Weiyu eating silently by the window.

Ye Shaoyang proactively greeted him. “Xiao Yu, you’re eating alone?”

Xie Weiyu smiled at Ye Shaoyang and said, “I just got up. Captain Xu and the others are probably still sleeping.”

Ye Shaoyang grabbed a plate, picked some dishes and pastries he liked, and turned to sit opposite Xie Weiyu.
Chi Shuo also walked over with his plate.

Xie Weiyu asked softly, “Yangyang, what time is your flight?”

Ye Shaoyang replied, “3 PM. After lunch, we’ll pack up and head to the airport. What about you guys?”

Xie Weiyu: “Ours is around 4 PM.”

Ye Shaoyang thought for a moment and said, “We’ll probably get to the base around six or seven. There shouldn’t be any training scheduled for tonight. If you’re free, let’s play ranked together.”

Xie Weiyu smiled gently. “Okay, let’s contact each other when we get back.”

Hearing them address each other affectionately as “Xiao Yu” and “Yangyang,” a trace of displeasure inexplicably rose in Chi Shuo’s heart.
When did their relationship get so good? They even made plans to play ranked tonight.
Although Xie Weiyu was a Beta and couldn’t have any pheromone attraction with Ye Shaoyang, in this day and age, love and marriage were free. There were plenty of Beta and Omega couples.

Chi Shuo suddenly realized… Is this reaction jealousy?
Shaoyang is just making friends normally.
Both of them had been attacked by paid trolls. Ye Shaoyang sympathized with Xie Weiyu’s experience, so he chatted with him a bit, added him as a friend, and played some ranked games. What’s wrong with that?
In the professional league group chat, players from different teams often played together too. There was no need to overthink it.

Chi Shuo suppressed the unhappiness in his heart and changed the subject. “Your next opponent is Team Xueying, right?”

He sat next to Ye Shaoyang, eating with his head down, his face expressionless. Xie Weiyu thought Chi Shuo didn’t want to talk. When he suddenly spoke, Xie Weiyu was stunned for a moment before answering politely, “Yes, Captain Chi. Next Saturday at the Ya’an Esports Center, the same day as you guys.”

Chi Shuo said indifferently, “That team ranked fourth in Group A last round. As long as Yueying plays normally, taking them down won’t be a problem. It’s best to win 2:0; the final group ranking will depend on net points.”

Xie Weiyu nodded. “Mn, I know.”

Then they had nothing else to say, and the atmosphere became a bit awkward.

Ye Shaoyang glanced at Chi Shuo, then continued chatting with Xie Weiyu. “Your Yueying team streams on Little Bear TV, right? How long do you have to stream each month?”

Xie Weiyu said, “We have to do 40 hours. I haven’t finished my streaming quota for this month either.”

Ye Shaoyang said, “That’s perfect. Ping me tonight when you’re free. Let’s duo-queue, and I’ll stream too.”

Xie Weiyu asked with a light laugh, “Are you going to carry me to an easy win?”

Ye Shaoyang: “You still need me to carry you? How about you carry me instead?”

This meal was extremely uncomfortable for Chi Shuo.
He couldn’t even remember what the food tasted like.
Intellectually, he knew very well that Shaoyang should have his own friends. But emotionally, intense possessiveness bounced around in his brain. He wished he could mark out a territory and fence Ye Shaoyang inside alone, telling everyone: This is mine!
Alpha possessiveness was truly terrifying.
He had to control it a little so as not to disgust Yangyang.

Chi Shuo suppressed the awkwardness in his heart. When they finished eating and returned to their rooms, he suddenly stopped at the door and asked, pretending to be calm, “Are you going to stream duo-queue with Xie Weiyu tonight?”

Ye Shaoyang said, “Mn. Xiao Yu often streams alone. He doesn’t have many friends in the league he can chat with, and we hit it off. Since we both need to make up streaming hours, playing ranked together is no big deal.”

Ye Shaoyang liked this player, Xie Weiyu, very much. Leaving his team, transferring, and then being relegated from Group S—after experiencing so many twists and turns and being blackened by trolls every day, an average player would have mentally collapsed long ago.

 But Xie Weiyu remained calm during matches and didn’t make any obvious mistakes.
Such an opponent was worthy of respect.

Ye Shaoyang didn’t have many friends in this world. Apart from his Tianhuan teammates, he wasn’t familiar with people from other teams. Xie Weiyu was the first friend he had actively reached out to make. Xiao Yu was introverted, ignored outside disputes, and played his game quietly. He felt very comfortable to be around.

 Usually, he duo-queued with Chi Shuo during team training. Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo already had enough synergy. In his spare time, he could switch things up and see what it felt like to coordinate with a marksman like Xie Weiyu.

Chi Shuo said, “Call me for ranked tonight.”

Ye Shaoyang looked up at him. “Captain Chi, you want to stream too?”

Chi Shuo: “My streaming hours aren’t enough. I’ll join you guys.”

Ye Shaoyang: “…Alright then.”

 However, if the three core positions—Mid, Jungle, and Marksman—queued together, a trio-queue was most likely to bump into professional stacks. Let’s not get matched with people like Fang Zhengqing and Zhao Xin’an again. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

Ye Shaoyang said, “How about we go to the international server?”

Chi Shuo: “Sure. I’ll go back and buy a rename card to change our smurf account names.”

After the two agreed, Ye Shaoyang returned to his room and sent a message to Xie Weiyu: “Xiao Yu, how about we go to the international server tonight? do you have an international server account?”

 “I do.”
“Captain Chi says he’s coming too. Let’s trio-queue.”
“Okay.”

At 3 PM, the plane took off on time. The Tianhuan team members caught up on sleep during the flight, and when they returned to the Tianhuan base, everyone was full of energy.

Coach Lin had everyone eat dinner, then gathered them for a meeting to review yesterday’s match.

They analyzed the Mid-Jungle synergy from the first game and the Jungle Carry from the third game, which were both played well. They focused heavily on analyzing the loss in the second game. By the time the review was finished, it was already 10 PM.

Coach Lin said, “Our next opponent is CYC. We faced this team in Group B before. They aren’t very strong, but we can’t be careless. It’s best to win 2:0.”

In the later stages of the tournament, group rankings would depend on net points. A 2:0 win gave 2 net points, while a 2:1 only gave 1 point. Group A had strong competitors like Luoshendian and Yueying, so they couldn’t be careless in any match.

Coach Lin continued, “You guys are tired from catching the flight today. Start training tomorrow; one week is enough.” 

CYC was a defeated opponent from Group B and couldn’t have suddenly skyrocketed in strength in the short term. As long as they played normally, the next match wouldn’t be a problem.

So, Coach Lin wasn’t in a rush to make everyone train late into the night.
After the meeting, he told everyone to go back and rest.

Ye Shaoyang returned to the dormitory, sent a private message to Xie Weiyu, and started his stream.
The Xiao Bai live stream room on the Whale platform lit up again. Ye Shaoyang had announced on Weibo in advance that he would stream after 10 PM tonight, so many people were waiting. As soon as he appeared, the bullet screen was filled with comments, many from old friends coming to see him.

Xie Weiyu’s popularity on Little Bear TV wasn’t high; on the contrary, he had many anti-fans. previously, he always turned off the bullet screen when streaming, but today, he summoned the courage to turn it on.

Xie Weiyu said, “Tonight, I’m going to play ranked on the international server with Yangyang.”

A row of question marks immediately flooded the comment section.

[Yangyang?? Tianhuan’s Lieyang?]

[Are Xiao Yu and Yangyang close?]

[If I remember correctly, Lieyang flashed to CC and kill you right before he died. You didn’t kill him back, and now you’re playing ranked with him? Were you throwing the last match?!]

[Ever since you joined Yueying, Yueying dropped to Group A. Don’t you know the reason?]

[So he’s an actor (match-fixer). Got it.]

Ye Shaoyang and Xie Weiyu were already in the team lobby.

He opened the Little Bear TV platform on his new phone in tablet mode and happened to see the comments.

Ye Shaoyang had a straightforward temper and was annoyed by those sarcastic remarks. He said bluntly, “A match is a match, friends are friends. Just because we have a good personal relationship doesn’t mean we have to be match-fixer in a match and feed kills to the enemy. Do you think the League Discipline Committee is blind? Don’t you know match-fixing leads to a ban?”

Ye Shaoyang: “Conspiracy theories every day. You guys must really be bored.”
Ye Shaoyang: “The esports circle isn’t the entertainment industry. We don’t give out Best Actor awards at the end of the year.”

The viewers in Xie Weiyu’s stream: “…”
This Omega is so fierce!
He scolds people without using dirty words. Will his stream get banned?

Hearing Ye Shaoyang roast the anti-fans, Xie Weiyu chuckled lightly and said, “It’s okay. No need to pay attention to them.”

Ye Shaoyang said, “Mn. I’m pulling Captain Chi in. Wait a moment.”

Now the stream exploded even more.

[Holy crap, Mid-Jungle-Marksman trio! Are you going to the international server to stomp noobs?]

[A trio-queue will definitely match against another trio-queue. I feel like this game is going to crash into a pro stack again. Plus, at this time, players in North America and Europe should be waking up soon, right?]

[Many Japanese and Korean players are also on the international server at this time!]

[But how will you distribute the economy with three cores—Mid laner, Jungle, and Marksman?]

Team economy was limited; it couldn’t be split evenly. Usually, a team could only support 2 core positions farming up. If there were 3, it would be hard to get going in the early game.

Ye Shaoyang said, “I’ll be a tool.”

Almost simultaneously, Chi Shuo said, “I’ll be a tool.”

Their telepathy worked again as they spoke in unison.
The netizens in the live stream were dying of laughter.

[Yangyang and Captain Chi are fighting to be the tool!]

[Xiao Yu be like: How about you guys stop fighting, and I’ll be the tool?]

[Hahaha, I’ve never seen a Marksman tool!]

Xie Weiyu hadn’t expected them to say the same thing at the same time either and silently watched the show.

Then he heard Ye Shaoyang say, “You do it.”
But Chi Shuo simultaneously said, “You do it.”

Xie Weiyu: “…………”
Are we playing or not, you two?

The fans in the stream were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.

[Discussion on “Synergy”]

[Hahaha, this brainwave synchronization is unmatched.]

[How about Captain Chi and Yangyang play Rock-Paper-Scissors? Loser has to be the tool?]

 [You two go fight it out first, then come invite our Xiao Yu when you have a result. Don’t show off your love here.]

Ye Shaoyang gently rubbed his forehead. “Captain Chi, you take Jungle Carry. I’ll play a tool mage to protect you, and I can also support the marksman.”

Chi Shuo didn’t argue further. “Alright.”

Having finally reached a conclusion, Ye Shaoyang pressed the queue button.
Moments later, the three entered the ranked lobby.

Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang often changed the names of their international server smurfs, so no one recognized them. Today, Chi Shuo changed his to CC7673, Ye Shaoyang to YY8998. Xie Weiyu’s smurf was easier to recognize: Rain001.

The two IDs that appeared in the team channel were also unfamiliar.
One was ZJZ555, and the other was SN333.
Messy combinations of English letters and numbers, making it hard to identify anyone.

However, a line of English text suddenly popped up in the team channel—
[ZJZ555]: 4F, Are you XieWeiyu?
4th slot, are you Xie Weiyu?

Xie Weiyu paused. He always solo-queued on the international server and wasn’t famous; the only people who could recognize him would be players from the China region. Seeing the name ZJZ555, Xie Weiyu simply turned on his mic and asked, “Reporter Zhao?”

A loud roar came through the headset: “Holy crap! Hahaha, it really is you!”

Xie Weiyu: “…”

SN333 directly sent an emoji: “[Cracked.jpg]”

The one greeting with a “cracked” emoji had to be the international friend from Team Beimu, Sean. It seemed Zhao Xin’an was duo-queuing with Sean on the international server and happened to crash into Ye Shaoyang’s trio. The five of them were matched onto the same team.

Xie Weiyu said over the mic, “Shuoyue and Lieyang are here too.”

Zhao Xin’an had just poured a cup of coffee and was about to take a sip. Hearing this, he sprayed it all over his screen.
Fuck! Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang are here too.
Can I kill my teammates in ranked? He really wanted to knife Chi Shuo and steal Xiao Bai away.

Ye Shaoyang smiled and turned on his mic. “Hello.”

Zhao Xin’an’s mood was complicated. “Hello, Xiao Bai.”

Five pros queuing together looked strong, but fighting for economy among 5 carry players would become the biggest headache. The situation was a bit chaotic.

Ye Shaoyang took the initiative. “Sean, you take Mid. I’ll play Support for Xiao Yu.”

Chi Shuo also changed his strategy and said in a low voice, “I’ll take a tool Jungler and protect the double carries.”

Originally, Ye Shaoyang wanted Chi Shuo to play Jungle Carry.
But if Chi Shuo played Jungle Carry, it meant Zhao Xin’an and Sean would have to give up resources to him. Beimu’s side lanes and mid lane were both very strong. Moreover, Sean was a player from the European region; out of politeness, they should let Sean play a Carry position.

More importantly…
Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo, with tacit understanding, wanted to see the strength of this Mid-laner, Sean.

Zhao Xin’an wiped the coffee off his computer screen and said decisively, “Fine, Captain Chi will shotcall this game. Come come, lock in heroes quickly.”