/

Chapter 16




Chapter 16: My Teammates Are All Crazy Chapter 16
******
For your reference: (Solo, Mid, Marksman, Jungler, Supp) pL, wing, gY, Fly, hI : Mad Bones, Black Serpent, Centaur, Burial Sword, Ariel QF, YH, LYM, GF, HL : Lilith, Scarlet Fury, True Arrow, Frozen Heart, Sariel
*******
Ye Hong is well aware of his own strengths: He’s responsive in all situations; he’s adept at offense; shrewd and calculative. Under any disadvantageous circumstances, he is able to take the situation into his own hands, playing the enemy till they’re running around in circles.
At the same time, he is acutely aware of his own flaws: He gives up too easily.
The moment he feels the odds are stacked up too high to win, even the slightest will to struggle vanishes into thin air.
“We’ve lost.” He weakly spits these words. Hands faltering, his Scarlet Fury slams head-first into a stone wall. This is an amateur mistake no pro-gamer should ever make.
Nevertheless, right after his words have fallen, before his mind can even get the chance to fill in the blanks on how he’ll be lectured by Qin Fei later, an unfaltering voice chimes out of nowhere: “No. We still haven’t.”
Collected; Indisputable; Not leaving a single room for doubt.
— That is the impression Ye Hong has of this voice.
And the owner of this voice is precisely Jing Yu.
“Don’t give up. We can still win!” He steadfastly declares, floating Frozen Heart down to the Bottom Lane, “Clear the dragon army. Don’t let them infiltrate the tower!”
At this point, Jing Yu has already abandoned all thoughts of who’s in command. Only one thing remains in his heart — He can’t lose! He definitely can’t lose!
Not because losing would mean that that he’s unable to go pro. But because — He just doesn’t want to lose. Just that, only.
“Mage, don’t be distracted. Return to the turret and replenish your health.”
“Marksman, go clear the army in the Mid Lane.”
“Support, don’t come here. Back up the Marksman.”
“Mage, head to the Bottom Lane.”
Within pg‘s training room, for a long time, only Jing Yu’s collected voice can be heard. His directions have always been concise. Yet, in this moment, they bear an unshakable tenacity and perseverance for victory.
“Assemble. Protect the Top Lane.”
“Mid lane. Marksman, you’re up.”
“Bottom Lane.”
“The second wave is reaching the Top Lane. Marksman, clear them up.”
“Mid lane. Support, use Ult here! Hurry!”
“Bottom Lane, Bottom Lane.”
Just like that, under Jing Yu’s command, pg unrelentingly fends off the invasion of the dragon army, suffering a loss of only two turrets.
“They’re going for the Phoenix! Don’t let them succeed!”
After throwing down these words, Jing Yu speeds back to the Mid Lane.
When three Demonic Disks have been conquered, the heart of the map refreshes to give rise to the Hades Phoenix. Upon taking down the phoenix, the succeeding team will acquire the blessing of the Nirvana Flames, enabling them to fend off a critical hit each.
“Support, you take lead!” Jing Yu orders sharply, simultaneously flicking his eyes to the mini-map.
Han Leng’s Sariel flies into the vicinity of the Phoenix’s location and, as expected, picks up traces of the enemy’s trail – The five enemies are currently beating up the Hades Phoenix, and by the looks of it, they’re a second from succeeding!
Jing Yu gives up waiting for his teammates, automatically surging forward. Using 2nd ability Snow Allure to link up to the one closest to the phoenix, Mad Bones, one Flash brings him up to them and he instantly releases his Ultimate! Managing to freeze three people in one breath, he ignores them to face the phoenix. His blade pierces the bird right through, then, he uses Smite!
【System】Frozen Heart has conquered the Hades Phoenix!
【System】Nirvana Flames has been acquired!
Once Frozen Heart’s CC is lifted, the enemies surround Frozen Heart.
Sariel’s Ultimate is still on cooldown, so he can’t do anything but open up his shield.
Nevertheless, Frozen Heart really is too squishy. Even with a shield protecting him, he still can’t tank the assault from enemies surrounding him on all sides.
【System】Centaur, First Kill!
【System】Your ally Frozen Heart has been killed!
“Assemble while there’s a chance!” Jing Yu barks, glaring at the timer on his own corpse, harried to the point of itching to pace.
With his hands tied, right now, there’s nothing he can do but trash-talk.
【Team】Gold Fish not Salted Fish (Frozen Heart) : Isn’t it just losing? Even I know how to do it.
【Team】Gold Fish not Salted Fish (Frozen Heart) : Why don’t you come ace us if you’ve got the guts~?
【Enemy】Ane – hI (Ariel) : Okay. You are the one who said it.
“Pei Ling, cover us. Li Wen and Ah Ye, follow me.” hI coldly orders. The team welcomes pg‘s invasion head on, not the slightest afraid of them.
Qin Fei’s Lilith aggressively forces his way in. Without so much as batting an eye at Mad Bones, he instantly PKs the enemy marksman. Ye Hong follows it up with his Ultimate but didn’t expect his mouse to slip at the eleventh hour, making a huge miss.
Qin Fei uncontrollably lets out a “Che!” The last ray of hope falls upon Luo Yiming. Yet unexpectedly, Luo Yiming also loses control over his character and is knocked out of the way by Mad Bones’ ability.
The team formation is broken!
“Retreat!” -Is Jing Yu’s immediate reaction.
No sooner had his words fallen, Qin Fei raises his voice in an even louder command: “Charge! Gank Centaur!”
Qin Fei: “Ye Zi, why the hell are you panicking? Where’s your combo attack?!”
Like a conditioned reflex to that call, Ye Hong smashes a few keys on his keyboard. A relentless stream of attack abilities accurately smashes into Centaur one after the other.
Qin Fei: “Yiming, you little rascal, can you do it or not? Get your ass over here!”
With a tremor, Luo Yiming executes a series of motion control, dodging Mad Bones’ attacks cleanly to miraculously catch up with the team.
Qin Fei: “Han Leng, you motherfucker, you can’t even suppress a single Mad Bones?!”
Han Leng’s Sariel erupts in a flurry of attacks. Despite being a support, he actually charges forth to clash head to head with Mad Bones, a tank.
“Centaur’s mine! Kill Black Serpent!” Qin Fei roars as he smoothly eradicates Centaur. Four people aggressively lodging attacks at Black Serpent, they briskly finish off the last of Black Serpent’s HP.
By this time, the team has already exhausted their Nirvana Flames. Be it Scarlet Fury or True Arrow, they’re only left with a thin skin of health. Yet, pg doesn’t even remotely have the intention of retreating.
At this critical moment, Sariel’s Ultimate finally cooled down. Blood-lock activates!
“Attack!!!” Qin Fei roars, spearheading the tower-dive, ganking the escaping Ariel.
“Kill Mad Bones!”
Within a matter of seconds, Mad Bones is dead. But just before he died, he also collected the heads of Scarlet Fury and True Arrow.
“Destroy the towers!” Qin Fei issues this next order. With the support of the Sariel, they tear down the second turret in the middle lane, swooping down upon the third turret.
Having borne witness to this entire process, Jing Yu is left staring, speechless.
This… This…
As expected, this is a play style only pg is capable of. Just looking at their demons on the screen, he’d already thought they’re pretty aggressive. But to think Qin Fei’s directions are even more aggressive…
After the initial shock dies down, Jing Yu’s lips can’t help but upturn.
The first half of the game made him lose all faith in Ye Hong. It made him lose even more faith in Luo Yiming. He feels that if not for him, they certainly would have ran straight to their deaths.
Yet, from start to finish, he whole-heartedly trusted Qin Fei and was never once disappointed.
With Qin Fei here, they can win this game! Without a doubt, they can definitely win!
Yet, faith and victory are two different matters.
Under Burial Sword’s persistent tampering, pg fails to conquer the enemy’s third tower in the end.
Not long after, the two Top 8 teams once again launch into yet another team battle over the third tower. Ane beats pg 3 for 5, acing pg.
“They’ve changed their strategy.” Jing Yu gazes at the ground littered with corpses on his screen, unable to refrain from crinkling his brows.
Perhaps they’ve seen through pg’s strategies. From there on, Ane‘s mage and marksman no longer move in tandem.
Frozen Heart also never finds another opportunity to freeze both of Ane‘s mage and marksman together. Each time he catches one, the other will immediately dash out to gank him.
Moreover, Ane even begins the act of selling out their mage. After letting pg take down the mage, they release the marksman to counter-attack.
The team battle just now is a prime example: Frozen Heart managed to freeze only Black Serpent, then the marksman Centaur ganked him from behind.
Subsequently, the enemy support protected the marksman. Under Mad Bones’ violent assault, pg‘s line-up was targeted ruthlessly and finished off by Burial Sword.
In a flawless exchange of 3 for 5, the ones left standing are Mad Bones, who’s in critical health, and Centaur, who still has half his health bar remaining.
The solo-laner and marksman co-op the Demonic Dragon.
【System】Centaur has conquered the Demonic Dragon!
Visit lightnovelreader[.]com for extra chapters.
【System】The Dragon Army is infiltrating the Battlefield!
This time, they’ve really lost.
Even Jing Yu can’t bring himself to say optimistic words like “Can Win” anymore.
Qin Fei “ah's once, typing out two letters in the message box.
【Team】pg – Sleep (Lilith) : gg
Swiftly, Ane gives their reply:
【Enemy】Ane – hI (Ariel) : That was a good game.
【Enemy】Ane – hI (Ariel) : If the jungler is you, we really wouldn’t have won.
Seeing this line, Jing Yu holds his breath, unable to come back to reality for half a day.
Unexpectedly, the next message briskly shows up in the message box:
【Team】pg – Sleep (Lilith) : You can stop sowing discord. Our family’s jungler is very excellent.
【Enemy】Ane – hI (Ariel) : Oh, sorry. My phrasing was slightly ambiguous.
【Enemy】Ane – hI (Ariel) : What I really mean to say is, if the jungler isn’t Frozen Heart, we really wouldn’t have won.
Without waiting for Qin Fei to reply, their turrets collapse. “Defeat”, this blood-red word, surfaces on the screen. It’s incredibly piercing to the eye.
Jing Yu expressionlessly lowers his head. The hand which cradles the mouse uncontrollably trembles a few times.
And then, his teeth sinks harshly into his lip.
He wanted to use Frozen Heart to win the Championship and make this demon respectable, but now, it’s because of Frozen Heart that they lost this game?
It’s unbearable**…
(** It’s unbearable 好不甘心 – conveys a feeling of ‘it’s such a pity’, but is also used to express a feeling of ‘dissatisfaction’. Mostly, Jing Yu’s reluctant to let go of it here)
Within the training room, it is silent as a grave. Then, the sounds of headphones being taken off follow one after another.
Jing Yu is the last to remove his headset. He has just pulled it off when he heard Fang Luofan’s even voice saying: “The latter half is still too weak. More practice is needed. Rest for half an hour. I’ll go organize the data from this game. We’ll review it in half an hour.”
“Ai**, I’m dead beat.” Luo Yiming rises first, stretching while heading towards the living room.
(**Ai 唉 : a sigh)
“We played more than 40 minutes. That’s way too many close calls.” Han Leng also gets up to follow Luo Yiming.
Ye Hong sneaks a glance at Qin Fei sitting by his side. Seeing as if he’s still looking at the post-battle records, he tactfully slips away.
In this game, they fought for a full 43 minutes. The final score is 36 : 29. pg‘s headcount outnumbers Ane’s by far, but they failed to protect their turrets.
The losing MVP was awarded to Qin Fei’s Lilith. Despite her damage to the foe being the highest, the damage she took didn’t lose out to Ye Hong’s Scarlet Fury.
Behind him, the next best player is Sariel who died the least. Then, thereafter, is Frozen Heart.
Qin Fei patiently looks through every individual’s battle record then meaningfully tips his head towards Jing Yu, only to find him dazing out while staring at the screen.
In the beginning, Qin Fei still thought he is too diligent. Then, seeing as if he had maintained that same posture with unblinking eyes for a long time… Qin Fei snickers and catches Jing Yu’s neck with the crook of his arm in one fell swoop, patting his shoulder: “Stop looking. Get up and take a stroll.”
Jing Yu suddenly comes back to himself, “En“, and rises to leave with Qin Fei.
“It’s just a practice match. A loss is just a loss. It doesn’t matter much.” Qin Fei releases him, heading down towards the living room. His head doesn’t turn back even once, his tone nonchalant, “Pay attention during the review session. In a formal match, we’ll win it back.”
“Okay.” Jing Yu obediently answers, but his eyes are still gloomy.
It’s just a practice match — This isn’t wrong.
Losing doesn’t matter, just win it back next time — This is also not wrong.
However…
— If the jungler isn’t Frozen Heart, we really wouldn’t have won.
hI’s last message during the game makes Jing Yu incapable of shrugging it off no matter how hard he tries.
“Right.” Suddenly, the man who is walking at the front halts, turning his head to look back at him.
“En?” Jing Yu looks up in confusion.
“When are you moving in with us?”
“Ah?” Jing Yu doesn’t react in time.
Qin Fei’s next line is: “Didn’t you want to become a pro-gamer? Let’s sign the contract today. Tomorrow, you move in to stay with us ba.”
“! ! !” Jing Yu’s beautiful amber eyes lights up all of a sudden, peering at Qin Fei in disbelief: “Really? But I, I… lost…”
“You’re not the only who lost.” Qin Fei reasons, amused. “No matter what the others say, anyways, I’ve decided on you.”
Jing Yu feels faint, thinking this might all be a dream.
“Your answer?” Qin Fei prompts.
******
The author has something to say: Did anyone notice? When Jing Yu’s the one in command, he never once ordered Qin Fei around~
Translator Notes:
Frozen Heart (Who has severe anxiety from being a Flower Vase): It’s all because I set myself a flag. Yes, it’s all because I set myself a flag. My goldfish master deserves better than this.
******
If you like what I do, please kindly donate to Rocket Cat Rescue!
In addition, I will release a new chapter a day earlier for every 3 ko-fi’s bought, so don’t forget to include in your ko-fi message, and drop a comment to let me know you donated!
Current Donation Count: 2/3