Jiang Shi didn’t expect that Jiang Lele would actually watch his livestream, and that everyone in TLG knew about it.
From their conversation, it seemed this wasn’t the first time they had watched his stream.
In other words, not only had Xie Xu heard his trash talk, but it was very likely that he had been present at the time!
Jiang Shi didn’t think much of his verbal banter back then, but now he just wanted to go back and bury himself.
No one noticed Jiang Shi’s awkward stiffness, only Xie Xu glanced at him.
Yuan Yang even kindly reminded Jiang Shi, “Xiao Shi, don’t follow Jiang Lele’s example!”
In Yuan Yang’s eyes, Jiang Shi was a perfect good boy. Just moments ago, he had been so angry, wanting to stand up for Xie Xu and teach that streamer a lesson, which made Yuan Yang quite pleased.
Jiang Shi hadn’t expected the topic to suddenly turn to him. Now, everyone was looking at him.
Jiang Shi could only force a smile and agree, “Of course, I don’t watch those kinds of streamers.”
Jiang Lele found his dry tone a bit puzzling, “You seem to be more affected than I am.”
Before he could say more, Xie Xu interrupted, “Alright, enough chit-chat. This afternoon we have business to attend to.”
“Right, right.” Yuan Yang smacked his forehead, “Xiao Shi, since the last trial training was too short, to determine your main heroes and playstyle, we’ll have a focused test this afternoon.”
In short, they wanted Jiang Shi to play several games under their watch to observe his performance.
“Do you want to play solo or pick a teammate for duo-queue?” Yuan Yang asked out of habit. As a fan of Xu, Jiang Shi would obviously choose to duo with Xu.
But as soon as Yuan Yang asked, Jiang Shi answered, “Solo.”
He really couldn’t face Xu right now…
Entering the game and seeing the familiar interface, Jiang Shi’s nerves eased a lot.
In the first game, he locked in the ADC Senna.
This hero had obvious advantages — flexible operation, capable of delivering explosive damage in a short time — but was very fragile. Simply put, either a player would shine or be so bad they’d get killed by the opposing support.
Yuan Yang frowned, “Picking this for the first game? I thought you’d choose a mid-to-late game ADC to practice your feel first.”
Jiang Shi put on his headphones, casually replied, “No need.”
Jiang Lele, hearing his somewhat arrogant tone, quietly stood next to Yuan Yang to watch. “He’s completely different from An.”
An was a steady, reliable type, and a marksman like Senna would never appear in his hands.
However, Jiang Lele didn’t have high hopes for Jiang Shi. In the professional scene, there were very few who played this hero well.
The next moment—
[Don’t Look For Abuse] killed [Soon to Be Medicine]
[First blood!]
Jiang Shi, at level 2, directly solo-killed the opposing ADC, then recalled right next to the corpse and skillfully sent: [Thank you kindly].
“I didn’t even blink!” Jiang Lele was stunned, “How did the opponent die?”
Yuan Yang, holding a tablet, recorded and explained, “Jiang Shi fought both the opponent and their minions. The opponent’s ADC was in poor condition, didn’t retreat to the tower, and tried to contest Jiang Shi directly.”
And then got shown up.
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: Are you okay? Killed me alone at level 2?
[All] Don’t Look For Abuse: Are you okay? Killed by me alone at level 2?
Jiang Shi typed while keeping his skills active, reducing the opponent’s health to a sliver again.
This retort and operation nearly exploded the opponent’s lungs.
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: You’d better not get caught by me. I still haven’t settled the score from the last trial training.
[All] Don’t Look For Abuse: ?
Jiang Shi had beaten up several people in the game that day, and he couldn’t remember who this person was.
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: …
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: I’m the one who wore the pink tie that day…
Even from the text alone, this Pink Tie guy’s frustration was palpable.
Yuan Yang could only smile and said, “He was one of the people on the trial last time. He wanted to bribe Xiao Shi to let him win, so I directly failed him on the spot.”
Jiang Shi didn’t expect that he would meet this enemy at this time.
Jiang Shi also remembered this guy. While thinking of this, Pink Tie was motionless under the defense tower, obviously furiously typing a wall of text to flame him.
The thing is, Jiang Shi’s hand speed was far superior. Before Pink Tie could finish his essay, Jiang Shi tower-dived and killed him on the spot.
Pink Tie gaped at his black screen and threw his keyboard in anger.
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: A sneak attack?
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: You stinky dog, wait for me!1since there’s obviously a dirty word censorship on the game, I decided to also censor every in-game chats + formatted it as proper as possible
So, after he was resurrected, he directly called his support to help his revenge. However, when they were walking to the middle of the second tower and the outer tower, they were ambushed by Senna who was hiding in the bushes.
Jiang Shi whistled as he quickly typed: [Stupid, /this/ is called a sneak attack]
But just as he was about to press enter, he suddenly realized something—
His heart trembled as he deleted all the words in his chatbox.
[All] Don’t Look For Abuse: Sorry, I just showed you what a sneak attack is.
[All] Don’t Look For Abuse: Next time when you walk near a bush, be careful~
After sending that, he added a cute smile emote when he was next to the Pink Tie’s corpse.
[All] Soon to Be Medicine: Darn it!
Jiang Lele was the only person in the training room who could clearly see what Jiang Shi had typed before. Seeing this, he covered his stomach and laughed. “You’re really good at talking!”
His revised words were the perfect sarcastic comeback! The polite text was so much more infuriating, much better than the previous straightforwardly rude one!
Jiang Shi recalled to buy some equipment, sneaking glances to his side. He happened to meet Xie Xu’s dark eyes, full of smile.
Immediately, he guiltily averted his gaze.
From that angle, Xie Xu shouldn’t be able to see his original words, right?
The straight-laced Yuan Yang didn’t think there was anything wrong with Jiang Shi at all. “Xiao Shi, you don’t need to be so nice to rude people like this, just directly block him.”
Jiang Shi’s eyes lit up, and he obediently blocked Pink Tie.
Since there was no longer anything to worry about, Jiang Shi killed Pink Tie again without any scruples.
[[Don’t Look For Abuse] is godlike!]
Pink Tie could only look at his black screen every time Jiang Shi sent him a [Thank you kindly] message, seething with anger that he almost broke his keyboard.
After playing like this for an entire afternoon, Jiang Shi’s account had already reached the promotion match for the Challenger rank.
Yuan Yang had collected enough data since hours ago and left the training room. Not long after, he also called Xie Xu away.
Jiang Shi looked at the empty position next to him. After the embarrassment of the previous livestreaming incident was gone, he began to regret why he didn’t choose Xu for duo-queue.
He wasted such a great opportunity to cultivate feelings!
A ding entered his ear, signaling that he had been matchmade into a new match. Jiang Shi could only clear his head.
What a coincidence – in his promotion match, he was matched with Pink Tie again. This time, they were teammates to boot!
[Soon To Be Medicine]: This is your promotion match?
[Soon To Be Medicine]: Then I have to perform well.
Pink Tie locked in Senna and sent Jiang Shi a smiling emote.
Jiang Shi filled in as the support and selected the Snowman.
At the beginning of the game, Jiang Shi was still helping the mid-laner to farm like a proper support. Then, the bot-lane fell into trouble, signaled by the first blood announcement.
Pink Tie was killed by the opponent’s ADC.
Five minutes later, Jiang Shi used up all his skills to protect himself as he retreated, but Pink Tie rushed out like crazy — only to be killed by the opponent’s jungler.
[Team Chat] Soon To Be Medicine: Stupid, why are you running? Why are you playing with Snowman if you are so cowardly? Go home and farm.
Jiang Shi didn’t rush to refute, but looked around first. Xie Xu was not there, and the other TLG members were focused on typing with their keyboard, obviously playing a game.
So, Jiang Shi let himself loose.
[Team Chat] Don’t Look For Abuse: The sky is clear and the rain has stopped, so you think you can do it again?
[Team Chat] Don’t Look For Abuse: Just now, all your skills were all in vain, but you still rushed out. Are you expecting this Father of yours2he called himself 你爹. 爹 “diē’ is a more formal way to say father to deal damage for you?
[Team Chat] Don’t Look For Abuse: Did you buy that armor shoes to make yourself appear taller? Even during teamfight, your damage pales in comparison to your Father’s basic attack. What, are you an actor3someone who was hired to purposefully lose a game so the opponent can win matches; i.e, “acting” or something?
Jiang Lele, who was next next to him, listened to the keyboard clacking next to him and muttered, “Are you playing a decisive game? So intense.”
Pink Tie was stunned. Before he could react, he saw Jiang Shi use a fancy combo to freeze the opponent’s ADC and support in place.
He reflexively went to make up for the damage.
Then, the Snowman used his first skill to get a double kill.
Pink Tie was stunned when he saw the Snowman’s damage number – it was bright red, indicating it was a critical hit.
[Team Chat] Soon To Be Medicine: You used the support to cheat in the promotion match?
[Team Chat] Don’t Look For Abuse: Who said your Father is a support?
Pink Tie was dumbfounded when he looked at Jiang Shi’s equipment panel.
Attack speed shoes, Infinity Edge, Electrocute, and even Bloodthirster4they’re all damage + crit boosting equipments basically.
His original support build had long disappeared.
[Team Chat] Soon To Be Medicine: Isn’t this your promotion match?
[Team Chat] Don’t Look For Abuse: So? Did you expect your Father will follow you around to clean up your mess since this is my promotion match?
[In-Team] Don’t Look For Abuse: Haven’t you woken up yet?
Pink Tie: …
However, they still lost this game. Without a front line5a tank + CC on the front line and with the AD underperforming, even if Jiang Shi’s Snowman played brilliantly, he couldn’t turn the tide.
Still, Jiang Shi had a blast. He even had the mood to give a thumbs up to Senna who only played 10% of the output.
[Teammate [Don’t Look For Abuse] give you a thumbs-up~ Let’s add each other and climb the ranks together!]
Pink Tie, once again ridiculed: …
Jiang Shi looked at the opponent’s grayed-out avatar and felt a wave of satisfaction.
Sure enough, this is how the game should be played!
On the other side, Xie Xu was chatting with Yuan Yang in the break room.
“We really struck gold,” Yuan Yang said with excitement. “His hero pool is very deep, especially for assassin-type ADs. His performance is completely beyond my expectations, and he’ll definitely pair well with you.”
“The key is that he remains very stable emotionally, even when taunted he can still play the game well.”
The break room was very close to the training room, and they could occasionally hear the clacking of keyboards.
Yuan Yang had no idea that Jiang Shi, who was “emotionally stable”, was playing a support hero as a damage-dealer. He thought he was diligently grinding ranks. He was relieved. “Young people are really energetic. Even after playing for an entire afternoon, he is still so full of energy.”
He glanced at the data on his tablet. “But one thing, he doesn’t like playing late-game ADCs. If he encounters a team that plays defensively, it could be problematic.”
“But it’s okay, with you here, they won’t be able to drag it out for long.”
Xie Xu’s specialty was finishing games, preventing the opponent from dragging into the late game.
Xie Xu took a sip of coffee and glanced at the training room’s slightly ajar door. “I don’t need the cooperation of the ADC.”
He didn’t want the team to mold Jiang Shi into a model that fits his playstyle, losing the unique style and approach that suits him best.
When An first joined the main lineup, he focused heavily on assassin ADs but ended up playing poorly, losing his original steadiness.
Yuan Yang’s smile faded, and he sighed. “You can’t always be the one to accommodate others.”
A few years ago, the bot-lane duo had pushed TLG to its peak. Now, whether it was the fans or himself, they instinctively wanted Xie Xu to return to his original playstyle and state.
“Forget it, let’s not talk about this.” Yuan Yang changed the subject. “An recently asked me to return to the main building’s training room. He wants to properly say goodbye to everyone after being with them for so long.”
Yuan Yang gave a bitter smile. “I have no reason to refuse.”
In less than half a month, An would leave TLG. With so many computers in the training room, having one more person wouldn’t make much of a difference.
Xie Xu nodded but didn’t comment.
“There’s one thing I’m worried about,” Yuan Yang said with a worried expression. “I’m afraid An might harbor resentment and make things difficult for Jiang Shi.”
After all, Jiang Shi’s personality was too soft; he could be scolded in games and still dutifully remind others to be careful of bushes.
And An was quite calculating…
“He won’t cry alone after being bullied, right? I can’t always keep an eye on the training room.”
The more Yuan Yang thought about it, the more distressed he became. “Maybe I should remind him to reach out to me if he needs anything, so he doesn’t end up crying secretly.”
Xie Xu looked up, finished his last sip of coffee, and turned towards the training room. “As long as I’m here, he won’t be crying.”
