Time was tight, so Sui Ning told her to pick the best-looking jungler hero and switch her summoner skill to Smite—Smite deals extra damage to jungle monsters and is a must-have for junglers.
Ji Mengyao fumbled in panic. “Th-this one? [Coldfront Lord]? [Falcon General]? Or maybe this one, [Shadow of Vengeance]?”
Sui Ning’s voice was gentle. “Pick the one you think looks the most handsome.”
“Then definitely him, Coldfront Lord.” Ji Mengyao answered immediately.
“Remember to swap your summoner skill.”
“Skill… Smite, right? I know—eh, eh eh! Oh no, I didn’t switch it!!”
[Preparation Phase has ended. Welcome to the War of Glory!]
“I’m doomed…”
As the countdown hit zero, Ji Mengyao’s smile instantly faded to a deathly pale. On her screen, the two large summoner skill slots displayed Flash and Heal. Her fingertips trembled uncontrollably.
She was the kind of girl terrified of causing trouble for others, thin-skinned, and well aware of her own lack of skill—so when she played ranked, she usually asked for a companion to carry her.
But now, not only was she forced into the jungle position, which she had zero experience with, she had also forgotten to swap to Smite in her panic. The match hadn’t even started yet, and she already felt on the verge of breaking down.
Sui Ning immediately sensed the shift in her emotions, his heart tightening.
“Yaoyao.” He called her name. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’ll tell you what to do step by step. Don’t panic. Everything will be fine.”
The girl answered through tears, “…Mm.”
Then she turned off her microphone.
Sui Ning stared at her dimmed voice icon, brows furrowing deeply.
——
[Princess Yaoyao]: Sorry, I don’t know how to jungle.
[Soft Sweet]: Then why did you pick it?
As soon as the game began, Ji Mengyao apologized to her team. Most ignored her, but [Soft Sweet] still snapped back in annoyance.
[Feng Lan]: Can you shut up?
Sui Ning typed with rare speed while speaking gently in voice, “Yaoyao, just take the Red Buff first and clear your jungle. Don’t be afraid.”
[Princess Yaoyao]: En.
Sui Ning controlled [Three-Tailed Fox] and moved onto mid lane.
He positioned himself slightly forward, drawing the minion wave’s aggro as soon as it spawned.
The Three-Tailed Fox had long skill cooldowns, mediocre laning power, and no sustain—ill-suited for constant skirmishes in lane. But she had reliable crowd control and solid single-target damage, making her ideal for roaming and ganks.
For this reason, Sui Ning planned to push the lane quickly at the start. But he couldn’t make it too obvious, or he’d alert the enemy and ruin his setup.
That required finesse.
The best way is to use movement to manipulate the enemy minion wave. A ranged midlaner can step forward to draw the minions’ initial aggro and control their positioning. When the enemy minions’ highest-priority target isn’t your own minions, they’ll instead follow the movement of the target they’re aggroed onto.
This way, you can scatter the enemy minions into a formation that gives your side the advantage—for example, changing them from a vertical line into a clustered group, making them easier to hit with AOE, or letting a single skill strike more minions and save mana. You can also cancel auto-attacks before the backline projectiles land to avoid taking damage yourself, while at the same time sparing your own minions from the first wave of damage.
In this way, just by maneuvering, he established control over the lane’s tempo.
Such micro-tricks had long become second nature to Sui Ning—he didn’t even have to think about them. Still, being so far forward meant he had to watch for an early level-2 jungle gank.
[Soft Sweet]: ?
His team’s support, Melody Fairy, pinged a question mark at his positioning.
She had started bot lane with her ADC in a standard opener, but as a higher-rank player dropped into Bronze, she had little pressure in lane. Out of boredom, she checked other teammates and, seeing Sui Ning’s position, sneered.
[Soft Sweet]: Pushing without vision? :)
[Soft Sweet]: This is what you call a “Gold-ranked midlaner”? :)
Sui Ning glanced at her sarcasm, but remained calm. In his past life, he had often faced this sort of mockery when smurfing—he was long used to it. Ji Mengyao wanted to defend him, but she was busy almost dying to Red Buff without Smite and had no time to type.
The young man played his [Three-Tailed Fox] steadily, using skills to farm and poke, though he knew there was no immediate chance of solo-killing the enemy midlaner [Raindrops]. Instead, he was looking for roam opportunities.
After pushing the first wave and hitting level 2, Sui Ning glanced at the timer. It was only 1:48. Since the cannon wave wouldn’t arrive until 2:18, he had a 30-second window for a gank.
Whether to use that window depended on the bigger picture. This was where experience mattered.
He needed to know every hero’s strengths, weaknesses, and summoner skills. Matchups varied by time, making gank opportunities more or less viable depending on timing.
He also had to observe the minimap and teammates’ lanes, while predicting the enemy mid and jungle’s movements.
This was the basic “steel-forged” instinct of a true midlaner. In this match, his bot lane ADC was stronger, pushing hard, while his top lane was stuck under turret with a pushing enemy wave.
Given the timing, it was unlikely the enemy jungler would sync up with him on the side lanes unless they only cleared one Buff.
In this way, it would be clear whether to gank and where to gank.
The decision was clear: gank top lane.
But since Ji Mengyao had already messed up her jungle start, if the enemy jungler came faster, they’d need to finish the gank quickly before backup arrived.
Unfortunately, Melody Fairy had other ideas.
After pushing bot lane, she roamed mid at level 1, running blindly across the river while pinging signals at the enemy’s top-side Red Buff camp.
[Soft Sweet]: Come. @FengLan
[Soft Sweet]: Hurry up.
Sui Ning sighed inwardly.
[Feng Lan]: He started Red.
For once, he typed an explanation. Though support hadn’t scouted the enemy jungle path, Sui Ning had already deduced it from the enemy mid’s positioning. The jungler had clearly started top-side. Which meant the best play was to let the enemy focus top jungle, then slip into a fast top gank and retreat.
If the enemy top laner was caught at level 1, he’d never survive the collapse, even if the enemy jungler arrived. That could even create an opportunity to invade their Blue side after. After all, his Three-Tailed Fox had strong early damage and reliable CC—perfect for guaranteeing a gank.
By contrast, in the jungle, the Three-Tailed Fox was the type that “has to run after one combo, with no follow-up power,” while his teammate was the soft and squishy Melody Fairy. Their own jungler was nowhere nearby. If they tried to steal the pig now and happened to run into the enemy jungler fresh off red buff, and then got collapsed on by the enemy mid, it would almost certainly be a guaranteed double kill for the other side. Moreover, judging from his and the Melody Fairy’s hero kits, their clearing speed on jungle monsters was extremely slow—making it almost a 99% chance of getting caught red-handed.
But [Soft Sweet] didn’t think that much. She was used to pushing the lane first and then stealing the pig; in low-rank games, that was always her textbook opening, and it had never really gone terribly wrong before.
She spammed commands in chat.
[Soft Sweet]: Still not coming?
[Soft Sweet]: Don’t even know how to counter-jungle? This is Gold-ranked midlaner? :)
[Feng Lan]: Follow me.
Those were the last words Sui Ning typed.
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