As July came to an end, the Summer Split entered its final sprint. In mid to early August, each team still had 10–13 matches left, and with only ten playoff spots up for grabs, every player was fighting with everything they had.
But for teams stuck at the bottom of the standings, the chances of a comeback at this point were already vanishingly small. It was basically certain that they would miss the playoffs.
Fans of every team refreshed the rankings daily with their hearts in their throats, terrified that their team might drop out of the top ten in the blink of an eye.
Comment: Good lord—won one game yesterday and was 12th, woke up today, lost one game and dropped straight to 19th. This has the same vibe as my college entrance exam, where one point meant a hundred ranks.
Comment: The middle of the pack is way too tightly packed. Around 30 wins, one extra victory can bump you up several spots, QuQ.
Comment: Sigh, but even if you fight like this to the end, it’s still pointless… there are only 10 playoff spots.
Comment: Daily ritual of flaming the HPL format for being unreasonable. With this many teams, they should open more playoff slots!!
Comment: What’s the point of more slots? The extra teams still can’t beat the ones at the top anyway… I actually think the number of teams should be reduced. The skill gap between the top and bottom is huge—some teams really should go back to the HDL.
Comment: Putting everything else aside, this format really feels like raising poisonous insects—only the most vicious kings crawl out at the end.
Comment: Can a format like this really pick strong teams to represent Huaguo?
Comment: Why not? Bro, this is a points league… If you’ve beaten every other team once and that still doesn’t count as strong, you might as well just post PNG’s ID number already!
For fans whose home team was hovering around the “playoff cutoff line,” the closer it got to the final few matches, the more nerve-wracking it became. Sometimes their ranking even depended on how other teams around them performed; their fate was no longer in their own hands.
Weibo even opened a dedicated page to dynamically display the current standings.
Almost every hour, the mid-table rankings would undergo a major reshuffle. In the comment section below, fans exhausted every possible way to pray for their players—whatever god you are, as long as you let my team win, you’re a good god!!
Amid all this frenzy, only two kinds of fans stood apart.
The first were fans whose teams had already been mathematically eliminated.
These fans were very Zen about it, already advising their players to start studying tactics for next season.
The second were fans of the team whose name shone brilliantly at the very top of the standings, rock-solid and unshakable.
No.1 – PNG 46/0 (92/2)
“Man, this feels good—” PNG fans looked at their team’s ranking, feeling happier the longer they stared at it, bubbles of joy rising in their hearts.
After tearing into haters from all directions for so long, they had finally reached the sweet end after the bitter beginning. They even learned from Chen Chen’s classic backstage “villainous smile,” reclining elegantly on the sofa, taking a refined sip of iced cola with the air of drinking fine red wine, the cool refreshment seeping straight into the soul.
Unfortunately, the people who once mocked them as bottom-feeders, weak teams, and “finally showing their true colors” had long since disappeared. Otherwise, they would have loved nothing more than to smash this diamond-studded first place straight into those haters’ faces.
——
August 14th, 1:00 p.m., Longhu Esports Arena, Shanghai.
“To all the viewers here at the venue and watching on screen, welcome to the final round of the HPL Summer Regular Season!” Chao Mi’s round, smiling face appeared on the broadcast right on time. He waved his chubby little hand at everyone. “I’m your caster, Chao Mi.”
After speaking, he turned to his new partner beside him.
The tall, slender young man seemed to be wearing formal attire on camera for the first time, under the gaze of so many broadcast lenses. He looked a little stiff, nervously gripping the briefing folder on the desk.
He tugged at the corner of his mouth and forced out a polite smile. “I’m commentator Clear Soup Mapo Tofu. You can just call me Tofu.”
“Tofu is actually an old acquaintance of ours,” Chao Mi joked, giving a brief introduction. “He’s been streaming on the Little Shark platform for a long time and is a very famous solo-queue AD player on the national server. With him helping out on the analysis, I won’t be so afraid of getting slapped in the face all the time!”
His old partner Qing Ci had been assigned to cast another match, so the two strongest ‘cross-talk’ casters in HPL couldn’t reunite for this game.
Tofu smiled awkwardly but politely. “Y-you flatter me, Teacher Chao Mi.”
“So—today’s match is the points-league leader PNG, defending their home court, versus EPG (Eclipse Gaming)!”
Chao Mi nodded and steered the topic back. “EPG are currently ranked 31st in the league, so today’s match is absolutely a huge challenge for them! It’s also worth noting that this is PNG’s final regular-season match of the Summer Split!”
Chao Mi continued: “The current points situation is extremely tense. If EPG win, they can climb at least four places in the standings! And if PNG win, they will achieve something unprecedented—finishing the Summer regular season completely undefeated!! This match is incredibly important for both teams!”
At this point, PNG fans in the stands were already so excited they were practically jumping.
…Sure, people always say we’re beating up on bottom-feeders, but this finale really is a true bottom-feeder!! A perfect season is right within reach!!
“PNG—let’s go, victory—!!”
“—Winnnnnnd!!”
The excited chants echoed throughout the entire arena.
Compared to the handful of fans they had at the start of the season, PNG’s fanbase was now worlds apart.
Thinking back to the first summer match against AQ—even on their home turf at Longhu, the crowd had been split about fifty-fifty, and sometimes the cheers from the opposing side even drowned them out.
But now?
—The arena was a sea of PNG colors. Nearly everyone was dressed in PNG support gear; out of the 25,000 seats, only the small section reserved for EPG had a few scattered “opposition fans” sitting there…
Some PNG fans couldn’t even get tickets and had to apologize to EPG before sitting in their extra empty seats.
…There was no helping it. EPG’s home court was all the way in Rongcheng, and with their current results, it just wasn’t realistic for large numbers of fans to travel across Huaguo to watch an away game.
Chao Mi laughed. “Wow! Looks like for this final match, the fans are really fired up too!”
The moment PNG was mentioned, Tofu immediately perked up as well. “That’s right. PNG’s performance this summer has been incredibly dominant—so much so that a lot of people who hadn’t paid attention to them before have been completely converted into fans!”
[If I say Feng-bao’s looks account for 30% of that, that’s not an exaggeration, right?]
[His singing and dancing are 50% though, I’m dying]
[True. I used to never watch esports at all—I got dragged in purely by the pretty boy’s face… and now I’m already Feng-bao’s dog and Son Xuxu’s dad]
[Borrowing a phrase from the idol fandom: started with the looks, stayed for the talent]
[ Stayed for the mechanics, more like it. Feng-bao’s singing-and-dancing “talent” is… kind of that. Even as a solo stan I can’t lie with a straight face…]
[Earlier, the Little Shark platform ran a stream poll: “If you go undefeated and win the title, what do you want the streamer to do?” Who the hell voted Feng-bao doing a girl-group dance to first place?? You people really are committing murder and then stabbing the heart!!]
[ That poll got voided, didn’t it? Someone bought votes.]
[I’m convinced—brushing votes for some idol’s debut I’ve seen plenty of times, but brushing votes just to watch Feng-bao’s dumb penguin dance… are you people even human?! …Please drop a link, I want to see it too (lol)]
“Of course, the result of this BO3 doesn’t affect PNG’s ranking.”
Tofu, completely unaware of what cursed nonsense the chat was discussing, explained seriously. “The current second-place team, HTG, have already completed their final match. This season they also posted an astonishing 46 wins and 1 loss! If PNG weren’t standing ahead of them like a priceless gem, HTG would undoubtedly be the most eye-catching team of the summer.”
“But since they lost head-to-head against PNG earlier, even if PNG were to lose today, with both teams at 46/1, PNG would still rank first due to the tiebreaker,” he added.
[Even if they don’t play, they’re still first… honestly, when I watched PNG’s first match of the Summer Split, I never imagined things would turn out like this.]
[As an old fan, I’m really crying this time.]
[This is the first time in team history they’ve ever made it into the top ten of the standings, right?! This is amazing! Everything really will get better!!]
What Tofu was describing was one of the key rules of the HPL regular-season standings: rankings are primarily determined by the number of BO3 match wins.
If those are tied, the head-to-head result decides the order, with the winner placed higher. Because of that, even if PNG were to forfeit this match entirely, they were already locked in as first place.
Tofu shook his head regretfully. “It’s a shame. HTG still couldn’t break free of the ‘eternal runner-up’ curse this regular season.”
The audience laughed good-naturedly.
[LMAO, back when Cpyhc was around, Navic always kept HTG under their thumb. Now Navic’s fallen off, HTG got excited thinking their time had come—PNG: haha, didn’t expect that, did you?]
[Fatal blow: you’re still second (lol)]
[PNG taking over Navic’s role and suppressing HTG—does this count as Wind becoming the successor to Crispy Duck on another level? QuQ]
[??? You’re stabbing us again, aren’t you?]
[Putting everything else aside, at least Navic played pretty well in the latter half. Otherwise they might not even have gotten a playoff ticket…]
[ That really would’ve been a reverse breakthrough—first time in team history missing the playoffs.]
Although this was both the final match and the last step toward an undefeated season, because the opponent was… frankly not very strong, the fans watching were much more relaxed, completely different from the tense atmosphere when PNG played TL or HTG.
Chao Mi tried to give EPG some face. “Of course, we can’t forget that EPG came to Longhu Esports Arena today as challengers. No matter the final result, they deserve our applause!”
——
Soon, the match entered its final preparation stage.
Compared to DP, who had been beaten to tears, EPG’s voice channel sounded fairly cheerful.
“Honestly, I’m a bit hungry,” jungler Ruan Zhou rubbed his stomach. “Should’ve eaten something before coming up.”
The cool-headed support Yu Zhengqing replied flatly, glancing at him from afar. “Not a big deal. We’ll be heading down soon anyway.”
“Holy crap, Brother Qing, what are you implying?”
“Damn it—talking up the enemy and killing our own morale before the match even starts, huh?!”
“Where’s Yangyang?” After laughing, Ruan Zhou teased the mid laner, Jian Yang. “Say something, Yangyang! Don’t tell me you’ve already mentally collapsed just from seeing the ID across from you!”
Earlier, DP’s in-game comms had been broadcast by the tournament microphones. The line “Our mid laner kind of loses his mental the moment he sees the opponent’s ID, PNG_Wind” had completely turned into a meme after Sui Ning completed the brutal feat of 46/46—solo-killing every opposing mid laner in the HPL.
Jian Yang was nervous too, forcing out a smile. “Nonsense—that’s my idol, Brother Wind!”
As he spoke, he craned his neck to sneak peeks toward PNG’s side of the stage.
“Isn’t it supposed to be exciting to play against your idol?” asked the marksman, Liang Linyue.
Jian Yang rolled his eyes. “If your idol pins you under tower at level two and kills you, do you think you’d still be happy?”
“Pfft—!”
Laughter burst out one after another over the comms; even the referee standing behind them couldn’t help lowering his head with a grin.
Coach Zhang Ming laughed as well. “Once BP is done, I’m heading down to eat. You guys play hard—drag it out a bit. Don’t let it end before I’ve even finished my first bowl of food!”
Ruan Zhou wailed, “What the heck, even the coach doesn’t want our team to do well!”
“No way! I’m cheering for you guys!”
“I don’t buy it,” Ruan Zhou pouted. “By the way, why ‘first bowl’? Are there a second and third bowl too? Xiao Ming, can you even eat that much?”
Zhang Ming ruffled his hair. “Normally, one bowl is enough, but today I need to watch you all! With your level of gameplay, I’m afraid I’d just choke back in the backstage!”
“—Damn!!”
“Oh no, the coach just started attacking the players!”
Marksman Liang Linyue laughed like crazy, typing in the match chat to try and flirt with PNG.
[EPG_Xigua]: Hey big brothers~~!
As soon as he sent it, Liang Linyue regretted it. “Ah—sigh, I shouldn’t have sent that. I heard PNG’s pretty high-cold… what if they think we’re just trying to ride their popularity?”
[PNG_Mior]: Holy crap! Finally, someone’s talking!!
Liang Linyue: ?
[PNG_Mior]: I literally cried tears of joy
Lin Zhaoxu was ecstatic. Ever since PNG climbed to first place, opponents seemed unable to type. Every match, the chat box was dead silent—whereas in the Spring Split, everyone liked to chat a lot!
[PNG_Myerii]: @EPG_Xigua, crazy dog in the house, sorry for the rudeness
[PNG_Mior]: I solo-killed your horse
EPG: …?
Ah, this…
…PNG… really has this kind of vibe??
Seeing that everyone seemed to enjoy “attacking teammates,” EPG gradually “opened up.”
Jian Yang excitedly typed in the chat:
[EPG_Farcry]: Hi Brother Feng!! I’m your fan!!
[EPG_Farcry]: I’m so excited ahhhhh!!
Sui Ning: ?
Wait a minute, this line looks familiar?? Isn’t this exactly the iconic line from a previous mid-laner veteran? Are you seriously trying to drill me this match?
Sui Ning twitched at the corner of his mouth, hesitating, then replied.
[PNG_Wind]: Hello, thank you
[EPG_Farcry]: Ahhhhhh
[PNG_Cloud]：……？？
[PNG_Cloud]: ……??
Ji Yunyu clicked his tongue lightly. “The person on the other side… really that excited?”
“Fans seeing their idol,” Wei Ye chimed in casually. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. Half of the mid-laners in HPL are Feng-bao’s fans, it’s totally normal.”
Still, Fizz is really strong. I, an old Treant switching to warriors for half a summer, can’t even compare to him playing one game of Aeria, one game of Fran! Wei Ye shook his head in admiration.
No choice, who told our mid-laner’s assassin can pierce someone’s tiny heart in one hit?
Gone with the wind—who wouldn’t love that?
——
Once the chat opened, the two teams were buzzing. The rapid typing even made the referees repeatedly glance up at the screens—are they arguing?
…Ugh, laughing this disgustingly, it can’t be… what are they talking about that’s so fun?!
Unfortunately, the referee’s curiosity went unanswered as the match began quickly.
“Alright—welcome to the official HPL broadcast! Today’s match: PNG versus EPG. PNG has the higher ranking and thus the first pick advantage—”
Chao Mi paused, “This one’s a bit surprising, PNG voluntarily chose the red side!”
Tofu: “Actually, in the latter half of the Summer Split, PNG often chooses red first. They might be practicing for the playoffs, or even later matches!”
“EPG gets the first ban and pick. First ban… no surprises, still goes to Aeria!”
“Oh my god!”
Chao Mi couldn’t help laughing. “It’s already the last match of the regular season, and they’re still not letting her play?! Back when they faced AQ, I said ‘this is Aeria’s last appearance,’ and it came true. PNG’s almost played 100 small games, and Aeria’s only played once!!”
[Help, hahahaha, poor Aeria, Chao Mi it’s all your fault!!]
[Joke: Aeria’s matches in the national league: 1 (lol)]
[Opponent: Why does one of my five ban slots have a Stellar Sprite icon stuck on it? Can’t remove it! Designer, your game’s broken!]
[100% ban rate, 1 appearance—are the heroes trolling you? I can’t take it]
[I don’t know who else besides the Glory designers would dare face Feng-bao’s Aeria ^^?]
[ Wuhu, yesterday he was Feng-bao, today he’s Brother Wind?]
[Otherwise? With that in-your-face playstyle, who wouldn’t call him ‘bro’ after getting wrecked? LOL]
[On the field he’s the Tyrannosaurus Wind, off the field he’s sweet Feng-bao, those who know, know]
[Too bad just one championship short. I’ll bet fifty cents that after the Summer Split, he’ll be officially promoted to God Feng.]
“Hahaha, poor Aeria! I really think PNG should give her an award! Because of her, other teams automatically lose a ban slot when facing PNG!” Tofu laughed uncontrollably. “But oh well, nobody wants to repeat AQ’s mistakes!”
Chao Mi stifled a laugh. “Yeah, I also heard that in June and July, whenever Wind streamed ranked, every single time the opposing top laner would get three ban slots for mages! Later on, even high-rank players in the national server wouldn’t care if they got him—they’d just lock Aeria in the ban slot, forcing Wind to play on Cloud’s account!”
“That’s right! Haha, a few days ago I saw Cloudzz’s ID on the national server Aeria leaderboard and was totally shocked—!” Tofu excitedly gushed about his idol.
As soon as he said that, the live stream and comment sections went crazy sharing the latest August national server leaderboard screenshots.
[National Server’s Strongest Aeria]
1. Fenglan – 22,700
2. AeriaKing– 18,900
3. Cloudzz – 18,860
4. Ecas_FengbaoVIP_Lickdog – 18,500
5. This broken leaderboard is too hard to climb – 18,100
6. Don’t come near here or you’ll get unlucky – 17,500
7. I am unworthy – 16,250
……
Comment: This national server leaderboard is so funny every time you open it.
Comment: Other national server players: change a bunch of heartbreak IDs; Aerie players: tall building, small window, run!!
Comment: Friendly reminder: this 20k score was from mid-June, and it’s already August now, get it?
Comment: ‘I’ll give you two months to surpass me.’
Comment: The most ridiculous thing about Wind is, when you think he’s already insane, he always comes up with something even more unexpected…
Comment: Sandwiched by Feng-bao top and bottom, what’s the mental shadow area for a national-level mid? (lol)
Comment: National rank 4, what’s going on? Changing your ID won’t make Feng-bao notice you! (angry)
Comment: First change your ‘Feng-bao Super Lickdog’ ID before calling out others, haha…
“To compare with when he first went online, now Aeria has a pretty sizable player base. And as a strong mage in this patch, many high-rank players pick her, so the national server leaderboard naturally gets very competitive.”
Tofu, a longtime Feng fan, recounted eagerly: “But even if players compete, they can’t beat Wind! I heard Wind and Cloud are super close—they switch accounts when they have time. But I didn’t expect that switching would make Wind hit the national server! If this were my gaming partner, I’d love him to death! But, technically, isn’t this boosting?”
Chao Mi shrugged. “Apparently, HPL and the Honor official team initially wanted to treat it as account boosting, but PNG explained the situation—no cheating, no gain—so they handled it leniently.”
[Hahaha, Wind almost lost his account!]
[Lots of HPL players switch accounts, none get banned, except you, Feng-bao. You know why? (lol)]
[I’ll answer: Because others lose points when switching, but our Feng-bao is so honest, he actually gained God Yun a ton of points!!]
[Yun, doesn’t giving Feng-bao the national server make sense??]
[“Wow, others do couple skins, your team just goes and plays couple hero national servers!!]
[?? Aeria and Coldfront are a couple in the story??]
[No, but they should be.]
[Playing each other’s main heroes to national server rank—that’s sweet and shows skill. As long as accounts don’t get banned, everything’s fine (lol).]
[Glory officials furious: So it was you who lured the Japanese players here?!]
The chat atmosphere was light and playful, and PNG wasn’t nervous. They were used to seeing Aeria -1 situations.
“PNG’s ban… uh, a bit unusual, banning two supports,” Chao Mi scratched his head, trying to phrase it diplomatically.
Tofu was bolder. “This ban strategy probably means PNG is thinking about the last game, and wants everyone to play freely!”
Chao Mi smiled wryly. “That could be, but it seems EPG won’t give them that chance—”
Right after, EPG banned two mages: Phantom Trickster and Shadow Dancer.
[Here we go, standard procedure, sit down!]
[Every team facing PNG thinks banning three mages first round will stop Wind…]
[Wouldn’t it be faster to just not ban them?]
[TL set a good example; after that, so many followed the five-mage ban trend (lol).]
[But it’s useless, hehe.]
As expected, EPG continued the excellent tradition of the latter half of the regular season, banning five mid-lane mages.
The camera focused on Sui Ning. The young man showed a faint smile—no confusion, no surprise, and certainly no panic.
For him, this was just a minor situation. Fans used to get nervous, but every time they saw Sui Ning, they calmed down—Feng-bao’s face practically said: “Everything’s under control.” If he’s not nervous, why should we be?
PNG first picked ADC, jungle, and support, leaving top and mid for the second round. Chen Chen shrugged, “So, what do you want to play this round?”
“Anything.”
“And Wei Ye?”
“Give me a warrior, I’ll mess them up!”
Chen Chen nodded. “Alright, let’s give him a Verdant Treant.”
Wei Ye: ?
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