August 26, 2016, ZGDX defeated YQCB and became the winning team of the summer season. Two of the teams to represent the China region in the S6 world finals were decided right at that moment.
The first one was the champion of the summer season, Team ZGDX, which would be in the first seeded group.
The second one would be Team CK, having the highest cumulative points of the year, the next in order to receive the second ticket to S6. Team CK would be in the second seeded group.
The China region’s summer competition had come to a close. However, the other 6 teams in the major league ranked third to eighth by their cumulative points would continue to the stepladder tournament to fight for the last available ticket to go to S6. Each team’s cumulative points would decide their sequence in the ladder. The seventh and eighth teams would play the first best of five matches. The winner would move up to challenge the team ranked above them and so on. The team that won the very last match would get the precious S6 ticket.
August 31, 2016, Tong Yao was awoken by noisy voices and the roar of a car engine outside the window. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and raised her head up from Lu Sicheng’s firm chest. She moved a bit, wanting to find out what was all the bustling outside.
But she found herself unable to lift her body up because Lu Sicheng’s arm was resting on her waist which was as heavy as a dead log.
She roughly pushed the arm off of her. After considering for three second, she was kind enough not to push the owner of the arm off the bed as well. Tong Yao got up from bed, opened the window, and looked down. It was the players of the team next door who had all dressed in their uniforms and were ready to go somewhere with their backpacks on their shoulders.
Tong Yao squinted her eyes and yawned.
Then she remembered that it was YQCB’s turn to play stepladder match today.
She was reaching over for her cell phone in order to send a message to Ai Jia to wish him victory. But before she had turned around, a warm big hand landed on her calf from behind. Tong Yao shivered when the hand rubbed her calf. She turned her head and saw the man behind her had woken up with sleepy eyes. It looked like he hadn’t had enough sleep.
His hand though kept moving upwards from her calf, passed her thigh, and reached into her sleeping gow, landing on her bottom.
Tonh Yao: ................................
Tong Yao’s forehead twitched.
“What are you fussing about so early in the morning?” The man’s voice was deep and hoarse from sleepiness: “You go to bed early and get up early like an old lady. Are you 19 or 90 anyway?”
“I’m 90.” Tong Yao pushed the hand that was moving around on her bottom away: “You won’t even let go of an old lady’s butt, are you an animal? Take your hand off!”
Lu Sicheng had been playing ranked matches till 3 o’clock in the morning and indeed didn’t have the energy to keep teasing her. He moved his hand away after humphing a couple of times. He grabbed his pillow closer, pulled the blanket over him, and was getting ready to go back to sleep. But Tong Yao, who was still leaning against the window, turned around to get on top of him and touched his face to say in a small voice: When I fell asleep last night, I was all by myself.”
Lu Sicheng removed the hand on his face with closed eyes: “En.”
Tong Yao reached over again to touch the stubble on his chin: “I woke up with one more person on my bed and I was almost pushed to the ground. What’s the matter with you? Don’t fall asleep, get up. You climbed onto a nice girl’s bed in the middle of night. Let me ask again, are you an animal?
Lu Sicheng couldn’t appease her and grabbed both of her hands instead. He opened his eyes again: “What are you talking about? Your door wasn’t locked, so I came in. I didn’t do anything, just held you as I went to sleep, what’s wrong with that?”
Tong Yao: “Oh, so you blame me for not locking the door---Like a thief crying thief…… You really didn’t do anything?”
Lu Sicheng took a look at Tong Yao who was sitting on top of him with her two bare legs showing outside her sleeping gown. He calmly said: “If I had done anything, you shouldn’t be getting up and down like this now.”
Tong Yao: .....
Lu Sicheng: “Get off me.”
Tong Yao hurriedly got off Lu Sicheng but stood next to the bed and shook him, not willing to let him peacefully fall asleep yet. Lu Sicheng hissed impatiently as a warning. Tong Yao then turned to go to the bathroom. After showering, she deliberately used the hair dryer set on the highest setting. As she walked out of the bathroom, she found Lu Sicheng soundly asleep on her bed covered by her small blanket, totally unaffected by the noise.
She could tell that he must have stayed up late into the night playing ranked matches for training.
Actually after they won the championship of the summer season, Xiao Rui had given them a week-long vacation. After the week, they would start an intensive closed-door training regimen to prepare for S6. Within those 7 days--- as long as the players didn’t leave Shanghai or go out to cause trouble, they could basically do whatever they want. In the beginning of the vacation, they swore that they wouldn’t touch League of Legends, even if they played games, they would play other games, or they would go see a movie and go shopping. Little Fatty even made up a plan for the whole team to go see a movie first, then go for hot pot.
The first day of the vacation, everyone was having a great time, enjoying their free day.
The second day, they were all exhausted from having too much fun the day before and stayed at base to rest. They all collapsed on the couch looking at each other with nothing to do until dinner time. Finally they had something to do, getting their cell phones out to order take out. After dinner---they continued to slouch on the couch. Little Fatty mumbled while playing with his fingers: “I’m feeling a little bored.”
Lu Sicheng got up from the couch after hearing Little Fatty, turned on his computer, opened League of Legends, and got into the queue.
Everyone: ........
Tong Yao: “What about not touching League of Legends for 7 days?”
Lu Sicheng: “I’m bored.”
Lu Sicheng: “Never mind, since it’s vacation, I’ll play Draven to entertain myself.”
Tong Yao: “....................You’ll entertain yourself, but what about those four other players who get to be on your team? What have they done to deserve you picking Draven?”
Lu Sicheng: “Then, you come too. I’ll allow you to be my support.”
Tong Yao shook her head immediately: “Do I owe my points to you two brothers or something? You two always want to get me to lose my points. I won’t play with you. I still want to be a Challenger on the Korean server!”
Lu Sicheng: “What do you mean? You don’t love me enough after all.”
Tong Yao: “Shut up.”
Thus on the second day of the vacation, these internet addicted young people were all back in the world of League of Legends under the leadership of their captain. That night, when Xiao Rui came back to the base after having fun outside the whole day and found all the players were sitting in front of their computers doing solo or duo matches. He was so moved by their “spontaneous training.”
Tong Yao was speechless while remembering what had happened the day before. She changed into clean clothes and moved quietly next to the bed. She squatted down next to the bed and stared at the man sleeping soundly in bed for quite a while. Finally, she reached over with a smile in her eyes and lightly pinched his pointy nose tip…… When Lu Sicheng lightly frowned in his sleep, she smiled and released her hand.
She pulled open the curtain and the sunlight shone on his body. She put her bath towel back in the bathroom and left the room. She came down to the first floor which was empty at this hour and sat down in front of her own computer. She turned on the computer and got on a random stream platform waiting to watch the stepladder match between YQCB and Red Arrow.
It was 9:30 in the morning.
The match would begin at 1:30 that afternoon.
It was still quite some time before the match. Tong Yao switched to watch some news in the esports circle. The finals of the summer season had just passed. The news was pretty much about the summer season. Any post she randomly opened would be pictures of the day they won the championship. And as long as there were a group of pictures, there would be the picture of Tong Yao kissing Lu Sicheng while cupping his face.
Tong Yao blushed and clicked her mouse to quickly continue through the news.
The headlines she saw were-- --
The first two teams to go to S6 from the China region have been decided. ZGDX gets the chance to go to make up for missing it last year.
Lu Sicheng: There’s only one target, the championship.
Netizens of other countries have commented on this year’s China region: Far behind the Korean region; about equal to the Europeans.
Team CK: Got the ticket by doing nothing.
That night, the fans of CK and ZGDX were unprecedentedly friendly to each other. YQCB fans chagrined and refused to look at Weibo for three days.
Question: Which team will win the last ticket.
LCK: Team TAT got the summer championship again. After the stepladder matches, it will be TAT together with Team OP and Team RP moving onto S6-- --Fans of the Korean region exclaimed that this is the least hopeful year for the Korean region to win the world championship.
Get to know the champion mid: The thought process of the major league Mulan, Smiling.
Tong Yao: ........
Looking at those headlines, Tong Yao didn’t have the courage to read them. She was afraid that she would become too full of herself after she read it. Right now, they couldn’t and were afraid of getting conceited. She knew that the real thing only just started after the end of the summer season. The netizens were all praising ZGDX right now, but if they failed to perform well at S6, these same people would then suggest that they swim back from the US without an ounce of remorse.
After leaving the news websites, Tong Yao was wondering what she should do to pass the time till the match stream started. Suddenly, the screen of her cell phone on the desk lit up. She raised her eyebrows wondering who would message her this early in the morning since she had forgotten people outside of the esport world usually had a more regular schedules than the players. She grabbed the phone and discovered that it was Jinyang and she had already sent several WeChat messages-- --
Ah Mao’s mom: My friend, that damn Ai Jia is looking to break up again-- Damn, he even had a fight with me last night! That brat even dares have a fight with me! Just because I said he only got second place in the summer season.
Ah Mao’s mom: Guess what, I just said that and this guy got mad! Shit! They had gotten relegated in the spring and now got second place in the summer, what’s wrong with me saying “congratulations”? Is there anything wrong?
Ah Mao’s mom: He insisted that I always take your side no matter what. Then even imagined that I was cheering when you killed him during the match!
Ah Mao’s mom: I said he was so ashamed that he was getting angry and he refused to admit it, then he really flew into a rage out of embarrassment.
Ah Mao’s mom: Then he ignored me and went to bed, saying that there’s a stepladder match to play this morning. He carries the keyboard I bought for him to play the stepladder match while being angry at me-- --To hell with the stepladder match. It cost me the chance to move up to Gold.
Ah Mao’s mom: …………...Besides, I’ve been in Silver for two seasons now and was just about to hit Gold, then he won’t play the matches for me. He even refused to play the qualifier match for me, what do I need a boyfriend like him for?
Ah Mao’s mom: Damn, my chest hurts from being so angry.
Ah Mao’s mom: Where are you?
Ah Mao’s mom: Are you making babies with Cheng Ge now? It’s so early in the morning.
Tong Yao: .........
Tong Yao read through Jinyang’s torrent of complaints and replied with a “1” to tell her that she was there---
ZGDX, Smiling: 1
Jinyang instantly replied.
Ah Mao’s mom: What does 1 mean? Are you also asking for a whacking?
It looked like Jinyang was fuming.
Tong Yao shook her head and suddenly remembered that on the day she was invited to play professionally, Jinyang was also babbling like this about her fight with Ai Jia. In the end, she even asked Tong Yao.
Yaoyao, if it were you, how would you keep a good relationship with a professional player?...
Ah Mao’s mom: Yaoyao, you never have fights with Lu Sicheng, why? Damn, why can you have such a peaceful relationship with a professional player? Because you’re the same kind of people?
Uhm, history really repeats itself. Almost the same questions as then, but Tong Yao’s answer at that time was: I won’t date a professional player.
Tong Yao seemed to see her own words being thrown back at her own face. Tong Yao embarrassingly shook her cell phone in her hand, but couldn’t remove the smile on her face--
ZGDX, Smiling: ...It’s probably because I don’t need him to play the qualifier match for Gold? Shit, you can really fight over nothing. Your guy has probably been losing sleep the past two days because of that ticket to the US. You should forgive him! Don’t you have me here, give me your id. The champion mid will play for you!
Ah Mao’s mom: You’re so nice?
Ah Mao’s mom: I thought you would tell me to get lost.
Ah Mao’s mom: Shouldn’t you be holding your belly in bed shivering? What’s going on, once you hooked up with Cheng Ge, you stopped having menstrual cramps?
Tong Yao was taken aback.
ZGDX, Smiling: What menstrual cramps?
Ah Mao’s mom: ??? Isn’t today the second day of your period?
Ah Mao’s mom: What do you mean? Your period hasn’t come? ?
Ah Mao’s mom: I’m just making sure, don’t mind me. But, you do know the fact that when a man and a woman sleep together under the same blanket they can make babies?
Ah Mao’s mom: Ah, hahahahahahahaha, I can talk about this matter in such a cute way, I’m proud of myself.
Ah Mao’s mom:………...Where are you??
Ah Mao’s mom:………...Don’t you scare me. Your period really hasn’t come? Where are you! I’ll be over if your period hasn’t come!
Tong Yao watched all the messages flying by and was in a daze for quite a while. Then she looked up at the calendar and counted with her fingers--- The reality was that Jinyang was truly her best girl friend who could clearly remember when her period should be.
However, she was in trouble.
She recalled the underpants she took off while taking a shower in the morning. It was as clean as new.
Tong Yao: .............................................................
Her hand shook and the cell phone dropped to the floor. She was shocked-- --
She’s in trouble.
In trouble.
…...In trouble.