The first two games had been downright ugly. Many GEN fans, fuming with anger, began leaving the venue one after another. No one believed that a team which clearly hadn’t even figured out the current meta could possibly pull off a reverse sweep against PNG. When the GEN players walked off the stage, their faces were blank, betraying none of their thoughts.
Seeing this, Qing Ci hurriedly said, “Hopefully, GEN can pull themselves together as soon as possible. There are still three games left—they really need to think hard about how to break the deadlock!”
“Once they get back to the backstage lounge, the coaching staff should sit down with the players and discuss new strategies. We have to believe in GEN’s think tank!”
——
Perhaps the think tank really did come through. In the third game, GEN finally drafted a lineup that fit the meta. In mid lane, they broke with convention and picked Electromancer, a long-range physical damage mid laner. He boasted strong ranged poke and wave clear, and after activating his ultimate to switch weapon forms, he became a close-quarters fighter with explosive burst damage—one of the better mids in the current patch. The only downside was that he dealt physical damage, which meant that together with the bot-lane AD carry, GEN’s two cores were both physical DPS.
“With both cores dealing physical damage, GEN absolutely has to draft an AP hero in top or jungle,” Qing Ci said. “Otherwise, their damage profile is way too one-dimensional. Once PNG builds a few armor items, no one on GEN will be able to hurt them—it’ll all be tickle damage!”
In the end, Wu Quan picked a frontline tank for top lane, and Zhong Ye locked in a heavy AP jungler.
This match point game didn’t last very long.
Sui Ning was a little surprised—Chen Xiaoyun’s Electromancer was played extremely well. His laning details were crisp, his poke angles razor-sharp. This was clearly not a last-minute pick. So why hadn’t they chosen it earlier?
Unfortunately, no one could answer that question. At 31 minutes, PNG cleanly closed out the game.
“Congratulations to PNG for advancing as the top seed of Group A!” Chao Mi said with a smile, leading the applause. “As the regular-season champions, PNG skipped the first three rounds. This was the fourth round of the knockout stage, and next up is the semifinals! We’ve also just received news from the director—Group B started an hour earlier and has just finished. HTG defeated Navic 3–1, which means that four days from now, in the semifinals, PNG will face HTG at their old battleground, Shanghai Central Sports Arena!”
“They’re old rivals from the regular season,” Qing Ci added, clearly having spent plenty of time surfing online. “Last time they met, it just so happened that Boring wasn’t playing. Fans have been dying to see Boring and Wind clash head-on, and now they finally get their wish!”
Chao Mi continued, “At the same time, according to the format, the losers of this round—GEN and Navic—will drop into the lower bracket. Their playoff run isn’t over yet; they still have a chance at redemption!”
In the first round of the lower bracket—the battle for fourth place—the losing team between GEN and Navic would finish fourth in the Summer Split. The winner would face the loser of the semifinals, with a spot in the grand finals on the line.
——
“Big news—huge news—this is bad, really bad!”
Lin Zhaoxu burst into the backstage lounge in a hurry. Several teammates who were packing up to leave stopped and looked at him. His face wore the stunned expression of someone who’d just seen a sow one-handedly solo-kill his own mid laner. Lowering his voice, he said, “Do you guys know where I just went?!”
There was a brief silence.
No one wanted to respond. Wei Ye swept his gaze around speechlessly; Sui Ning and Ji Yunyu both avoided eye contact, while Cheng Su simply sighed and kept packing.
Wei Ye’s mouth twitched. “The bathroom.”
Lin Zhaoxu was shocked. “How did you know?!”
“Because you literally just said you were going to the bathroom.”
“That’s not important!” Lin Zhaoxu said. “What matters is that on my way back, I heard two staff members chatting in the hallway—they said there was a huge argument in GEN’s lounge!”
Sui Ning froze, then instinctively asked, “An argument? Why?”
Lin Zhaoxu shrugged. “No idea. They said it seemed to be about the draft—stuff like not listening, usurping authority, getting too big for their boots. Apparently, the captain wasn’t listening and got into it with the coach…”
Sui Ning: …
He looked calmly at his own marksman. “Have you been watching too many TV dramas?” A coup—seriously?
Lin Zhaoxu shouted indignantly, “Hey! I’m just repeating what they said, okay? And don’t you think GEN’s drafts were weird? If they really argued, that’d be totally normal!”
“Enough, keep your voice down!” Chen Chen smacked him on the head. “Afraid people won’t know you were eavesdropping?”
Lin Zhaoxu rubbed his head. “I’m just curious. Their third-game comp was actually really good. The coach’s draft wasn’t a problem—so why argue? And all that stuff about listening or not…”
Sui Ning thought for a moment and instinctively denied it. “Probably not. Didn’t their coach look pretty confident in the first two games? That White Hidden Lord comp should’ve been the coach’s idea. The third game was probably the players choosing for themselves…”
As soon as the words left his mouth, his heart skipped a beat. He suddenly recalled the frightening level of proficiency Chen Xiaoyun had shown on Electromancer.
Chen Chen had heard him, too. Being older and having coached HDL teams before, he knew how strict the HPL was—and even then, trash like He Yuan still slipped through. The lower leagues were far dirtier than HPL, and Chen Chen had seen plenty.
After a brief thought, he understood what was going on. He smacked Lin Zhaoxu on the head again. “Mind your own business! Even if there’s a coup, it’s not your seat they’re stealing!”
Wasn’t it just a stubborn coach who thought himself superior, trying to “teach a lesson” to disobedient players? This kind of thing happened everywhere. Still… Chen Chen rolled his eyes and cursed his bad luck inwardly. Bringing office politics into esports—wasn’t that exhausting? It was already the playoffs, and they were playing palace intrigue, dumping themselves into the lower bracket. What was the point?
Always “teaching lessons,” as if a coach could snatch the mouse from a player, pick the hero for them, and then sit down to play in their place.
Did they really think anyone could just march through the lower bracket and return as king? Sure, in theory, you could win every series from the lower bracket, reach the finals, even take the championship in a miracle comeback—but in all of HPL history, it had never happened.
——
After they returned, Sui Ning sat silently on the edge of his bed, staring at his phone.
Ji Yunyu called his name several times without getting a response, so he leaned in and bit down lightly on Sui Ning’s smooth, well-shaped earlobe. “…What are you thinking about?”
Sui Ning nearly flung his phone away. He clutched the side of his face, now numb and flushed red, and stared blankly at Ji Yunyu with wide eyes.
Ji Yunyu raised an eyebrow and, without ceremony, took the phone from his hand. “Chatting with someone behind my back? Let me see—”
On the screen was Weibo, opened to GEN’s official account comment section. Scrolling down, the insults were uniform and relentless, all aimed squarely at Chen Xiaoyun. There were even coordinated petitions demanding that Chen Xiaoyun retire. After losing the match—and losing it so badly—GEN’s fans could no longer remember that this veteran captain, who had won countless games for them, had once been their pride.
Midc. Mid lane carry. Once a title of supreme honor—now the fans wanted to strip it away from Chen Xiaoyun. Ji Yunyu’s expression turned cold. He scrolled a few more times, greeted only by vile abuse. Some people were even demanding that the game’s official administration forcibly change Chen Xiaoyun’s in-game ID, saying he didn’t deserve to use it.
Sui Ning spoke quietly. “Midc played really well in the third game. White Hidden Lord doesn’t suit him. His hero pool should be pretty deep—he’s very proficient on Electromancer.”
Some things aren’t visible to the audience or the commentators. Coaches and analysts may see them but choose not to speak up. Teammates don’t have the time to look. After going full circle, the one who understands you best ends up being your opponent…
PNG kept winning, but there had never been a general who won forever. When the day of defeat finally came, what would be waiting for them then? A sudden sense of dejection washed over Sui Ning. He had always known that “this is just how it is,” and had even experienced it himself—but seeing such terrifying online violence unfold right in front of him still brought a grim sense of “so it really is like this.”
He had imagined this parallel world too beautifully, mistakenly believing that national—esports for all—would bring true understanding and tolerance.
So what can I even do? Sui Ning lowered his eyes.
Ji Yunyu was furious, and he ached—but not for Chen Xiaoyun. In an instant, he understood what Sui Ning was really looking at. Through Chen Xiaoyun, he was seeing himself.
When one of your kind is hurt, you feel it yourself. Who could guarantee that Chen Xiaoyun’s fate wouldn’t one day be his own? Sui Ning hadn’t said a word, but Ji Yunyu could feel the dense sorrow radiating from him, as if he were sharing Chen Xiaoyun’s pain firsthand. That confused him. Had someone ever subjected Sui Ning to that kind of online abuse without him knowing?
Ji Yunyu thought it through carefully. The answer was no. The person in front of him had upheld professional ethics since his debut, trained diligently every single day, given his all in every single match—a veritable iron man of the stage. Who could possibly smear him?
So why?
The young man couldn’t figure it out. Irritated, he clicked his tongue and handed the phone back to Sui Ning.
Ji Yunyu braced his hands on the edge of the bed, drawing Sui Ning into the shelter of his shadow, and looked straight into his eyes.
“Do what you want to do.”
——
Sui Ning, who had never used Weibo before, registered an account under the ID PNG_Wind. After uploading verification documents, he passed identity authentication in just five minutes.
Ji Yunyu followed him at lightning speed and added him to his one and only special follow list.
Then, despite being nearly 1.9 meters tall, he clung to Sui Ning’s arm and shamelessly pestered him, repeating over and over that Sui Ning was absolutely not allowed to make his first Weibo post about someone else.
With no other choice, Sui Ning agreed helplessly. Distracted, he even thought to himself: Has Xiao Yunduo grown taller again…? But since he rarely posted online, he couldn’t think of what to write, so he simply reposted Ji Yunyu’s pinned post.
@PNG_WindV reposted:
[PNG_CloudV: Walking alongside you.]
He glanced at the date—August 14…
The day they started dating. Sui Ning fell silent and opened the comment section. As expected, it was full of congratulations to PNG for making the playoffs. Fans all assumed those four characters were Ji Yunyu’s shorthand for “thank you for your support, the regular season is over, we finished first, and we’ll keep going together.” Only Cheng Su’s lone “hehe,” posted from his main account, stood out like a sore thumb…
Sui Ning looked up at Ji Yunyu and was met with an innocent, almost foolish grin.
Sui Ning: Yeah right, like I’d believe that.
He sighed. Someone was determined to declare sovereignty, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Suppressing the upward curve of his lips and the faint sweetness in his chest, he gave his silly boyfriend a like.
Then he edited the very first post on his newly created account.
[PNG_WindV]: @GEN_Midc’s Electromancer was played very well. Laning against him in the third game was under real pressure.
@PNG_CouldV liked this post.
Netizens: ??????
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