DPTBG Chapter 11

Zuo Tao ran from the scene of the crime immediately.

He slumped on the sofa of the rest area of the training room, his face flushed. He could still hear Song Shihan’s teasing voice, as well as remember the foolish look on his face when he looked at it through the screen.

Damn, he really did look stupid.

Annoyed, Zuo Tao grabbed his hair and gave in to temptation. He took his phone from his pocket and connected to his earphones, opening Little Bear TV.

There wasn’t even a need to search. Due to the large number of views in a short period of time, Song Shihan’s stream was already on the homepage’s recommendation list, ranking first on the real-time views ranking.

Glancing at Song Shihan and confirming that he hasn’t noticed anything, he immediately joined the livestream. The first thing that caught his attention was the rapid barrage of comments.

【Wildfire really can’t find anyone else? He looks so stupid, will he really be able to compete?】

【Not optimistic about the choice (2)】

【Although there aren’t that many good supports these days, you shouldn’t settle, right?】

【Fun fact: REBORN next door signed the support of former world champion TM from Europe. Can’t Wildfire do the same? It’s not a big deal to sign foreign players.】

【Not gonna say anything about his history, but just judging from his appearance, RONI can beat this pink head in seconds, right?】

【God Han, please be careful!】

【He looks so weak. Is he gonna cry if he loses?】

Zuo Tao bit his lip. He wasn’t really afraid of people talking trash about him. He’d anticipated this exact situation before he came to Wildfire. But now, faced with all these comments, it was unavoidable that he’d feel somewhat hurt.

And… faced with such heavy inquiry, it wasn’t like he could refute anything.

TM, short for THUNDEROUS MIGHT, was a team that had won one world championship in the run of competitive 《Rising Wind》. As someone who played support, of course Zuo Tao knew RONI. He became famous at a young age, since there was no age limit in the competition rules back then. He was only fifteen and he’d already gained a reputation in the esports industry. He suffered few defeats playing solo and was once hailed as one of the most talented supports. He even single-handedly made unpopular heroes in the game become playable.

【Don’t be stupid, God Han. There’s still time to replace him.】

【Who even is this fenmao¹? Why have I never seen him before?】

【If not, you can always contact WIND. He played abroad for so long, maybe he knows a good support or two.】

【The pink-haired kid might have a sweet mouth, but I really doubt he can play.】

Zuo Tao’s head lowered as he read through the comments, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He tapped at the comment, wanting to give the commenter a cyber beat up — Idiot, you can’t play, your whole family can’t play — however, just as he was about to send the comment, a deep voice flowing through his earphones interrupted him.

“Alright.”

Zuo Tao’s heart skipped a beat.

After all, all the comments flying on the screen were berating Wildfire and suggesting they replace him. For a moment, he thought that Song Shihan was agreeing with these comments, and Zuo Tao stopped typing immediately. His heart sank, the anger that had accumulated so much that he wanted to confront the commenters disappearing all of a sudden.

“He can do it.”

Song Shihan’s figure leaned against his chair, one hand propping his chin up and the other moving the mouse lazily. He was barely visible through the dense comments on the screen. He continued: “Our support is pretty good.”

He lowered his gaze such that he was looking straight at the camera. His face was blank. Obviously, he wasn’t affected by the comments on his screen. He answered a different question entirely: “Yes, we’ll be competing in the preliminaries. En, trying for the championship.”

The brief disappointment disappeared. Zuo Tao clenched his hand, his nails digging into his palm.

Even such words had the ability to stir his heart. His eyelashes trembled for a moment, but he finally stopped paying attention to the comments. His heart was beating hard, his mind replaying Song Shihan’s words over and over.

Ahhhhh. He truly is the god I’ve been a fan of for so long. Even his deadpan speech was seductive.

Zuo Tao’s ears warmed once more. Zuo Tao was so excited but he had nowhere to vent. He tapped on his phone a few times and sent five rose gardens to the stream.

The rose garden was one of the most expensive gifts on Little Bear TV. Zuo Tao was using his companion account. He sent five gifts, and five roses fell on the screen one after another, followed by a rain of pink petals. The screen was soon covered by the special effects triggered by the gift.

【ZZ sent five Rose Gardens to the streamer】

There was a slight pause. Song Shihan squinted and read the account ID, and after a few seconds, said: “Thank you ZZ for the gift.” After a pause, he added: “You don’t have to spend money.”

Zuo Tao felt like a manic brain-dead fan, and he couldn’t help giggling when he heard Song Shihan announce his name on the broadcast.

He decided that he was going to stay up late tonight to cut this video and keep it as a memento!

【ZZ?】

【Is it ZZ the companion player?】

【FIRE, you can also take a look at ZZ. This guy’s strong, and other teams have already contacted him for signing. PS: It’s just that no one has been successful.】

【It’s no loss if you invest in him!!】

【But ZZ doesn’t seem to have a good temper. I once commissioned him, but he got mad…】

【Uh, same…】

【If he has a bad temper, then he has a bad temper. Have you ever seen a good player who doesn’t have a temper? Whoever can bring my rank up is my father.】

Zuo Tao leaned back on the sofa, suddenly feeling refreshed. He gave that comment a like.

Send an invite. They’re both this great one, anyway.

Song Shihan was only live for half an hour. When he ended the broadcast, Jiang Ming had just arrived at the training room, holding his notebook and looking dumbfounded.

“I asked you to find a time to livestream, so you start one at 9 in the morning?”

For any major livestreaming platform, 9 am can be considered to be one of the worst in terms of traffic, which is probably why Song Shihan chose this time to stream. It was suspiciously slacker-like.

Song Shihan hummed, standing up with his mug to get some water.

Jiang Ming: …

He calmed himself and decided to let it go; the activity he’d pulled made up for it, anyway. On his way here he’d taken a glance at Weibo and saw that several entries have already begun to trend one after the other. The team was also promoted well enough.

“Where’s Zuo Tao?” Jiang Ming asked, looking around and unable to see him. “Auntie said he’d already woken up.”

Song Shihan looked at the sofa.

Their midlaner, Wang Qiu, was a romantic at heart. Shortly after arriving, he’d taken all the pink stuffies he’d won from the arcade and displayed them all on the training room sofa. Thus, when Jiang Ming looked over, he had to check closely before he finally found a pink tuft of hair among the pile of toys.

Jiang Ming walked towards him with worry.

He was also watching the broadcast. Although Song Shihan spoke up for him, there were still a lot of doubt and negativity. Zuo Tao was young, just coming out of high school. Facing such online attacks, Jiang Ming worried that Zuo Tao would simply crumble.

He couldn’t be secretly crying, right?

“Zuo Tao?” Jiang Ming patted Zuo Tao’s shoulder from behind, thinking over what he was about to say. “Don’t worry about those comments. Everyone goes through it, anyway. Don’t take it to heart, they’ll all change tunes when they see your strength during the preliminaries.” He paused. “Actually, maybe you should uninstall Weibo for now…”

Before he could even finish his suggestion, Zuo Tao turned his head and looked at him.

His face was lively, his eyes shining as he smiled. He showed no signs of sadness at all.

Zuo Tao took out one of his earphones and spoke crisply: “Coach, you were saying?”

All the words of comfort he was spewing fell back into his stomach, and he calmly changed tunes: “The team’s making an announcement of the official roster for the preliminaries later. Give me your Weibo account and follow the team’s account, too.”

Zuo Tao didn’t hesitate. “I’ll register for one later.”

It wasn’t like he didn’t already have one that already had a following, it was just that his online persona was a little too close to home and it would be inconvenient to use.

Jiang Ming nodded and agreed without thinking about it too deeply. Many players would prefer not to use their personal accounts as their professional ones, especially now that more and more people were paying attention to the esports industry. If someone liked them, there would also be others who hated them. A brand new account would mitigate future exposure.

“We can also just give you an account, but there’s one thing I’d like to clarify: Whether it’s your own account or team-provided, we will ultimately be managing it. Rest assured that we won’t interfere with it too much, unless it’s for promotions.”

Zuo Tao nodded, having no problems with the arrangement.

Jiang Ming took his phone out. “I didn’t get to do it earlier, so let me add you to our group chat. If you need anything else in the future, you can just ask everyone for help. The HR department is here today, so find time to handle your onboarding, like your biometrics and such.”

Zuo Tao also checked his phone. As expected, he found himself part of a new chat on WeChat. The group was named simply: Wildfire Internals. There were six members, including Jiang Ming.

The chat was alive when he opened it.

【Zheng: The captain was live?】

【Zheng: Zuo Tao, you’re here. You’re up so early.】

【Autumn² Won’t Come Back: With the amount of traffic, all I can do is cry in envy.】

【Autumn Won’t Come Back: I noticed that when Zuo Tao called ‘captain-gege’ it got even worse.】

【Autumn Won’t Come Back: Captain, you should share the spoils with our baby brother /evil_smile.jpg】

Zuo Tao was about to send a message when a new one popped up.

【FIRE: If you’re up, come upstairs and start training.】

【FIRE: En, I’ll remit it later.】

Zuo Tao glanced at Song Shihan who was already in a rank game. He had put his phone down after sending those messages.

【PINK: There’s no need! It’s not like I did anything…】

【Autumn Won’t Come Back: Taking money won’t make you a bastard, Zuo Tao. Let me add you on WeChat.】

【CAT: Here it comes.】

Wang Qiu’s friend request came quickly, followed by Si Zheng and CAT. Zuo Tao was about to open their requests when Song Shihan knocked on the table with his finger, calling, “Zuo Tao.”

“Yes?” Zuo Tao answered, getting up to walk closer.

Song Shihan: “We’re having a practice match with GGF this afternoon. Sit down and start training.” He looked up at Zuo Tao and added: “I’ve said what I said.”

Zuo Tao was stunned. “What are you talking about?”

Song Shihan locked on the hero he wanted to use before leaning back with a smile. “Didn’t you tell me last night that you were also very strong?”

Realization dawned on Zuo Tao that Song Shihan was referring to what he’d said on his livestream. Taking a seat and recalling what had happened, he felt his heart thump in his chest. He made a sincere promise: “Captain, don’t worry, I won’t let you be humiliated!”

Seeing the confidence in his eyes piqued Song Shihan’s interest. “How confident are you in facing RONI?”

“I can play against eight RONIs.”

Song Shihan’s eyebrows rose in surprise, the amusement in his face growing. “That confident?”

Zuo Tao wanted to say something more but realized that it might sound like he was boasting. He restrained himself a little and finally said, “En, having confidence is a good thing. I’ll work hard and train even harder, so I should be able to do it.”

Song Shihan’s game started during their conversation. After a casual response, he focused on his game.

Song Shihan was playing an unpopular ADC in this game, since his more playable heroes were banned during the B/P stage. If this happened, he always practiced the more unpopular heroes, and then he’ll continue spamming using those heroes.

Although you could be born with talent, no one was born successful. It was obvious that Song Shihan reached his current position through blood, sweat, and tears.

Zuo Tao took a moment to accept the friend requests from the others before asking, “Captain, can I add you on WeChat?”

Song Shihan: “Yeah. Send a request.”

The training match with GGF finally happened at 2 that afternoon.

It was the first time Zuo Tao was playing against a professional team. When they got into the lobby, Wang Qiu asked, “Who’s Zuo Tao picking? Xu Wu?”

“I don’t want to use Xu Wu today,” Zuo Tao answered after seeing the opposing team’s lineup. He looked through his hero pool and chose one, but he didn’t immediately confirm. He asked, “Can I use Fairy Song?”

Fairy Song came from the Kingdom of Fairies, a little girl with three pairs of transparent wings. Her lore was set with fairytale elements and her game model was also soft and cute, which made her a well-loved hero by female players.

However, only one of her four skills dealt damage, and all her other skills were either crowd control or team buffs. She was squishy and had no escape skills, making her famous for being a fragile support.

Other players gave her the monicker of ‘beautiful trash’.

Song Shihan said, “If you want to play her, play her.”

Si Zheng glanced at the burst damage lineup of the opposing team and watched as Song Shihan locked on another relatively squishy and aggressive ADC. He kept his silence for a few more seconds before finally saying, “Are you sure you can even maintain your lane?”

Jiang Ming was holding his notebook, standing behind the team. He hesitated for a moment before nodding and saying, “Let’s try it.”

He hasn’t seen Zuo Tao play many support heroes, so he wanted to take this opportunity to learn more about him. It was just a training match anyway, so winning or losing didn’t matter much.

Meanwhile, in the GGF training room.

STAR looked at the support that Wildfire chose and was surprised. “Huh? Did they change supports? Why did they choose the beautiful trash?”

The game started. STAR threw a few testing attacks on the fairy who dodged quickly, hiding behind the AD timidly to develop peacefully, occasionally using a skill to heal FIRE. She never fought STAR head to head from beginning to end.

It was completely different from the last few times he’d encountered that violent maniac with the random ID.

GGF’s jungler asked: “This is the super support you were talking about?”

STAR was just as confused. “Team Wildfire wouldn’t be afraid of sharing tactics so they switched to a youth trainee, right?”

It wasn’t that they looked down on Fairy Song as a hero, it was just that this hero was never played in high-points games before. She had low damage, low endurance, and fragile defenses. Such squishy supports would never be chosen over utility supports.

The match reached the ten-minute mark.

After trying a few more times and confirming that the other party wasn’t falling for the bait, STAR was finally relieved and decided to play more aggressively.

Without his knowledge, Zuo Tao had already built a magic item. He rushed out of the base down the bottom lane, healing Song Shihan when he came into range. After clearing another wave of minions, he finally had enough EXP to upgrade his only damage skill.

He calculated the damage he could deal and glanced at the opposing AD’s remaining HP. He could do it within seconds.

His main concern was that he didn’t know if STAR was going to be able to escape. He was hesitant because this play could hurt him as well, and he might get killed instead. If that happened, then won’t Song Shihan get left behind? Maybe, he could just lower the HP?

Zuo Tao was still hesitating. Song Shihan, meanwhile, saw through his thoughts and said, “Kill him if you can. You don’t have to leave the last hit to me.”

Zuo Tao: “Then I’ll start?”

CAT, having just finished farming her jungle creeps and planning on ganking their lane, heard their conversation and silently turned back to head to the midlane instead.

Poor STAR had no idea what he was about to suffer, and excitedly called on his teammates to gank from the jungle. He grinned as he said, “Get ready. The support isn’t good, even her only crowd control hasn’t been used. FIRE alone isn’t someone to be scared of. Brothers, let’s get the kill!”

As he spoke, he took a step forward with their jungler flanking him.

Just as STAR confidently prepared to dish out his damage on the little fairy in front of him, the little fairy — who until just now had always been timidly avoiding him — suddenly moved towards him instead of retreating. First, she replenished her health with a revitalizing potion, then used her ultimate to immobilize him. It was quickly followed by her damage skill and a basic attack.

The jungler and support were intercepted by Song Shihan.

A strong sense of unease rose in STAR’s heart. He hasn’t even fully digested the scene before his screen darkened.

【You have been killed by Wildfire-PINK(Fairy Song).】

STAR froze, looking at his empty health bar, and said in disbelief: “Is this even the same fucking fairy?!!”

He watched the familiar behavior of the support recalling to base on top of his corpse, and he smiled calmly.

Very good.

A similar recipe, the familiar taste.

TN notes

So!!! I’ll be cutting down to 1 chapter a day after this update just to make sure I have enough to post as frequently as I plan to~ I hope you enjoyed the chapter/s! (if you want to, you can also show support by clicking the link below~ I have a set goal for extra updates!)