Inside the Jingzhe Esports Base.

Looking at the word “VICTORY” popping up on the screen, Fang Zhengqing let go of his mouse, leaned back into his gaming chair, and began yawning repeatedly. He was used to sleeping until 2:00 PM, so being forced to wake up before 10:00 AM filled every pore of his body with intense irritation; he didn’t even feel like petting his cat.

Beside him, Xie Yuan was quite energetic and actively asked the coach: “Brother Chen, how was it?”

Coach Chen, sporting two dark eye circles, wore a completely bewildered expression: “I was spectating in Xiao Bai’s live stream room just now. In this match, he didn’t shotcall at all, and this Xiao Rui queuing with him—how does he look like a complete newbie?”

Li Yunmo, the most composed support in the league, opened the match replay, quickly dragged the mouse to just before the team fight, and pointed at the screen, saying: “I was squatting in the river brush earlier, and Xiao Rui walked right past me without even using a skill to check the brush. On top of that, he tethered his Q skill onto his invisible jungler, completely exposing his own jungler’s location.”

Xie Yuan couldn’t hold back his laughter: “Hahaha, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a [Blessing Priest] support use an attack-buffing chain on a stealth jungler, practically telling people: See that? My jungler is right here.“

The spectating crowd: “…”

Li Yunmo turned back to look at the coach and concluded: “Xiao Bai should just be an expert casual player, not a pro player. Xiao Rui is a total beginner with zero awareness of vision control in high-tier games.”

Coach Chen nodded and turned to the yawning captain: “Captain Fang, how did it feel laning against Xiao Bai?”

Fang Zhengqing took off his glasses, rubbed his sleepy eyes, and delivered a twelve-character evaluation: “Flexible positioning, sharp reactions, precise anticipation.”

Not many mid-laners received praise from Fang Zhengqing. After all, he was a world-class mid-laner himself; many opponents looked like scrubs in front of him and were suffocated under his laning pressure.

In today’s game, Fang Zhengqing hadn’t played with total focus since he was still half-asleep. However, to hold out against his laning pressure, Xiao Bai’s mechanical skill and awareness were undeniably impressive.

This evaluation was already remarkably high.

Coach Chen felt conflicted: “It’s a good thing he isn’t a pro player. If he’s just a top-tier casual, that makes things much easier. Let’s keep paying attention to him; who knows, maybe we can snatch him up first.”

Inside Xiao Bai’s live stream room.

A series of glittering gift notifications suddenly flashed in the bottom-left corner—

【Square and Proper gifted Streamer Xiao Bai Deep-Sea Torpedo × 10】

【Square and Proper: Streamer’s cat is very cute, just a small token to buy canned food for the kitty】

【Square and Proper: Can I get a friend slot in-game?】

The moment this message swept through, the stream chat was instantly dumbfounded—

【Holy crap, Captain Fang! Streamer Xiao Bai actually caught God Fang’s attention?!】

【Captain Fang definitely just fell for our Xiao Bai’s cat!】

【Didn’t they say Captain Fang is the laziest Alpha in the entire league, sleeping until 2 PM every day?】

【Old Fang, Old Fang, if your account got hacked, just squeak once!】

【The league’s #1 cat scooper Fang Zhengqing waking up this early—is he trying to scoop poop for Xiao Bai’s cat?】

Ye Shaoyang said politely: “Thank you Captain Fang for the gifts, your Cobra King is very formidable. I’ve accepted your friend request.”

【Square and Proper: Streamer plays well too, let me know if you want to play together sometime】

In-game, Square and Proper added Xiao Bai as a friend and then logged off.

The viewers in the stream began chatting wildly—

【Old Fang can actually see the morning sun? This world is unscientific!】

【Maybe they’re preparing for the playoffs, waking up early to work on tactics?】

【If other teams hear that the Jingzhe trio woke up at 10 AM to hit ranked, will someone wake up at 8 AM tomorrow?】

【Is the wake-up time for esports players about to start an internal rat race? [Doge.jpg]】

【Everyone switching to a normal sleep schedule? Might as well schedule official matches for 7 AM from now on, hahaha】

Chi Shuo glanced at the chat area and typed in-game: “Xiao Bai, you don’t know about the Poison Comp?”

Ye Shaoyang answered candidly: “I really don’t know much about the Poison Comp, I haven’t run into it in previous ranked games.”

Chi Shuo typed very fast: “The Poison Comp consists of two mage heroes with poison mechanics paired with a strong healing support, constantly stacking poison to wear down opponents. Because everyone’s magic defense is very low in the early game, poison counts as magic damage and hurts severely. Once poison stacks up, it’s easy for opponents to collapse.”

Ye Shaoyang understood: “This lineup must be hard to counter, right?”

Chi Shuo said: “A mid-jungle joint dive for an aggressive kill can break it, disrupting their tempo.”

The Poison Comp had been popular for a period during Season 8-1 when [Cobra King] was overpowered. Fang Zhengqing had claimed MVP multiple times using [Cobra King], forcing coaches across all teams to permaban [Cobra King] that season.

It was also one of Fang Zhengqing’s signature heroes.

The fact that he ran a Poison Comp setup against Xiao Bai today showed how much importance he placed on him.

That lazy bum Fang Zhengqing usually slept until 2:00 PM, yet he woke up at 10:00 AM today to trio-queue, clearly intending to bump into streamer Xiao Bai on purpose.

With everyone’s hidden MMR being exceptionally high, pressing queue at the exact same time made it very likely for them to be matched together.

It seemed the video Reporter Zhao posted in the group chat last night had already caught the attention of major pro teams.

Last night’s King promotion match actually contained many flaws; some players’ mechanics were even painful to watch, but that only highlighted Xiao Bai’s clear, composed shotcalling logic.

It was exceptionally detailed macro management, tempo differential play, and split-pushing execution. Masterminds who could oversee all three lanes to pull off split-push strategies were rare to begin with, so it was no surprise Coach Chen of Team Jingzhe was curious about his origins.

Thinking of this, Chi Shuo continued typing: “The opposing mid-laner you just met is named Fang Zhengqing, the captain of Team Jingzhe and a world-class mid-laner. You don’t recognize him—do you not follow the professional league much?”

Ye Shaoyang thought to himself, I just transmigrated here recently, I haven’t had time to pay attention. He typed back: “I only downloaded this game a short while ago, so I really haven’t watched any matches.”

Chi Shuo asked: “Then besides [Abyssal Lord] and [Frost Goddess], do you have any other heroes you’re good at?”

Ye Shaoyang: “I can play [Illusionist] as well, but I haven’t used him in ranked.”

Chi Shuo: “Any others?”

Ye Shaoyang: “No more.”

Chi Shuo: “…”

Only three mages?

Seeing this response, Coach Lin’s face was also filled with surprise: “Players in Diamond rank usually know how to play at least seven or eight heroes, right, and he only knows three? Is he just being modest?”

Chi Shuo had checked Xiao Bai’s match history last night; he only had records for [Abyssal Lord] and [Frost Goddess], both with extremely high win rates, so he had assumed this was an alt account.

Turned out the guy really only knew three mages?

How could anyone hit King rank on a win streak with only three heroes?

Ye Shaoyang also knew his match history was unbelievable, so he added a line: “I read a lot of guide materials and practiced for a long time in custom bot matches privately. I started playing ranked two days ago and realized I’m actually quite talented ^_^“

Looking at the final smiley face, Chi Shuo felt like this guy was talking nonsense without a single word of truth. He fell silent for a moment, then typed: “Hitting King in two days is very impressive. Can you carry me? I want to reach King 20 Stars.”

Ye Shaoyang readily agreed: “No problem. Since the boss showered me with so many gifts, carrying you is only right.”

Chi Shuo: “Thanks for the carry, streamer.”

Ye Shaoyang: “You’re welcome. Come on, boss, let’s keep queuing.”

He had turned off his stream’s screen share earlier, so the chat with the boss wasn’t seen by the viewers. Chi Shuo had only asked these questions privately after noticing the stream screen went black.

Yet the more he asked, the more baffling it became.

Ye Shaoyang didn’t elaborate further and directly pressed “Start Match”.

Right at that moment, Qin Rui’s phone suddenly rang. The voice on the other end said: “Xiao Rui, we’re having a gathering at Xiyuan Restaurant today at noon. Let me grab a meal together before school starts, are you coming?”

Qin Rui looked at his older brother and said in a low voice: “Brother, I’m going to a classmate gathering this afternoon.”

Ye Shaoyang asked: “Is this classmate a close friend of yours?”

Qin Rui: “He’s my best friend, we grew up together.”

Ye Shaoyang asked out of concern: “Is he an Alpha, Beta, or Omega? A male or female classmate?”

Sigh, asking about gender in this world is way too complicated.

Qin Rui froze, hearing gender asked like this for the first time.

He scratched his head in confusion and answered: “He’s a male Omega.”

Same secondary gender? Ye Shaoyang waved his hand generously: “Go ahead then, come home early tonight, don’t stay out too late.”

Qin Rui said into the phone: “I’ll be over in an hour.” He hung up, stood up, and said: “Brother, it’s still early, so I’ll go prepare lunch and dinner right now. You just need to heat it up when it’s time to eat, don’t keep ordering takeout.”

Ye Shaoyang beamed: “Awesome, thanks for the hard work, Xiao Rui.”

Qin Rui turned and headed into the kitchen.

With Xiao Rui gone, they were missing a support.

However, Xiao Rui’s support skill hadn’t even reached Diamond level; Ye Shaoyang had forcibly carried him up.

In earlier ranked games, Xiao Rui always used his Q skill (attack buff chain) on his brother Ye Shaoyang. Today, when told to follow the jungler, he habitually chained the jungler instead.

The jungler was in stealth at the time, and the moment he cast the Q skill, the enemy instantly spotted the jungler’s location.

By the time Ye Shaoyang wanted to warn him, it was already too late.

Xiao Rui was very obedient, but a personality that was too submissive wasn’t suitable for competitive esports. He didn’t know how to think or adapt flexibly; he only knew how to obey his brother. Once Ye Shaoyang couldn’t manage him, he had no idea what to do.

In earlier lower-tier games, carrying him to an easy win was relatively relaxed.

Once King tier unlocked the hidden MMR matching rules, someone like Xiao Rui—who had sky-high hidden MMR but lacked actual skill—would easily run into top-tier god stacks on the opposing team, resulting in consecutive throw-away losses.

Furthermore, ranked rules stipulated that trio-queuing would guarantee matching against an opposing trio.

Pro stacks and boosting stacks often queued in trios, making it extremely hard to rank up while carrying an incompetent support. Duo-queuing was actually much easier, because duo-queuing wouldn’t match against trio stacks, meaning opponents would at most be duo-queuing as well.

Ye Shaoyang pressed ready again.

Very quickly, they found a match.

During the few minutes of silence earlier, the stream chat had been flooded with messages. Ye Shaoyang unmuted his mic and said: “Sorry for the wait, everyone, let’s keep playing ranked. My younger brother was called away by his classmate, so I’ll be duo-queuing with the boss.”

—Please select your hero.

This time Ye Shaoyang was on the Red side, positioned at Slot 2 while Chi Shuo was at Slot 5.

The opposing Blue side picked [Holy Spirit Archer] for their marksman slot first. When it came to their side, Chi Shuo at Slot 5 sent out a request-swap message: “Please help me pick the hero [Bloodstained Assassin], matches played: 0, win rate: 0%.”

Slot 1 teammate: “???”

The stream viewers were nearly dying of laughter—

【The boss is hilarious! If I were your teammate and saw this swap message, my mental state would instantly collapse!】 【Boss ah, you have a 0% win rate, how do you have the nerve to ask for a swap pick?】 【Teammate is like: Are you pulling my leg? 0% win rate!】 【The boss has such a unique style!】

Chi Shuo: “…………”

He forgot this was an alt account.

He didn’t know which youth academy rookie leveled it up, but [Bloodstained Assassin] had never been played in ranked at all. Although all assassin heroes had their proficiency grinded against bots to 100, making them immediately usable in ranked.

Suppressing a smile, Ye Shaoyang said: “Your 0% win rate is about to shatter our teammates’ mental sanity.”

Chi Shuo typed: “Sorry, alt account, didn’t notice.”

Ye Shaoyang had long guessed he was on an alt account since his match history was also filled with massive win streaks.

When it was Slot 2’s turn to pick, Ye Shaoyang directly locked in [Bloodstained Assassin] for him.

Teammates could swap-pick heroes.

When Chi Shuo sent the swap request, the random Slot 1 teammate saw his 0% win rate, ignored him, and picked a fighter for himself. Fortunately, streamer Xiao Bai at Slot 2 secured the jungle hero for him.

Chi Shuo typed: “Thanks Xiao Bai.”

The stream chat popped off continuously—

【Streamer is spoiling the boss so much, he actually locked it for him?】 【Our Xiao Bai is so nice, even with the boss having a 0% win rate, he still locked the hero for him】 【A 0% win rate jungler, the teammates’ mental state has already exploded, hahaha!】

Spoiling the boss? Of course.

After all, the gifts the boss showered on him were real money.

To keep their teammates’ mental state from collapsing, Ye Shaoyang quickly typed out his own match record—

[Xiao Bai]: Mid-jungle duo, jungler is on an alt, won’t troll. [Xiao Bai]: Leave mid for me, thanks. [Xiao Bai]: Hero record: [Abyssal Lord] matches played: 41, win rate: 98%, ranked #1 in Mingzhou Province.

A provincial #1 mid-lane mage was more than enough to stabilize the teammates’ mental sanity, right?

Sure enough, upon seeing this, the teammates flooded the chat with “666”.

Everyone yielded the mid and jungle roles, conscientiously picking other positions.

—Mid-Jungle synergy, the most classic carry combination in 5v5 matches.

There was no reason not to yield.