Rise

Su Xue slammed one hand over the lens of the webcam, and then used her other hand to turn it off. Those goddamned perverts! They should’ve closed their eyes! I can’t believe they didn’t have the decency to do that. I know some of them clipped it too. The stupider ones probably took a bunch of screenshots. GAH! Su Xue was embarrassed and upset. She knew it was her fault, she’d been careless. But her eyes still teared up when she thought about all the people watching the stream seeing her like that. Knowing that some of them had pictures and video of her exposed like that just made it worse. Okay. Webcam is off and those perverts can’t see anything anymore! There’s nothing I can do about what they’ve already seen, but at least I’m not giving them any more. Wait! Lin Feng is still here... Su Xue shot a glare at Lin Feng to make sure he wasn’t looking at her the same way the lonely losers on her stream were. He wasn’t. That’s a relief. Looks like those degenerates haven’t corrupted Lin Feng yet. Okay! Now get dressed and deal with this! Su Xue stormed out of her bedroom and into the bathroom to change.

Seconds after Su Xue turned the webcam off, chat started protesting. Quite a few of the people watching demanded that the webcam be turned on. They kept up the demands for a few minutes, and then decided to pivot when they saw that their strategy wasn’t working. They made promises of donations, tips, and gifts that they’d send if the webcam was turned back on. Some of the amounts were beyond absurd. But that didn’t matter, they never intended to follow through on the promise. When that didn’t work, they started pleading. Three of them even wrote extensive sob stories about how their wives had died and Su Xue’s beauty had rekindled passions that they thought were gone. One talked about how he was paralyzed, but Su Xue made him forget how terrible his situation was. It was… something.  Once Su Xue returned and started to turn her webcam back on, the anticipation peaked! Then they saw that she was dressed normally, and they made their disappointment known in the chat.

「Where’s your pajamas?」

「you looked so cute!!! put them back on」

「keep providing us with your special service!」

「hahaha! lewd stream!」

The viewers who’d been watching Su Xue’s stream for a while now knew that she didn’t spend hours putting makeup on and dressing provocatively to draw people into her stream. Most of the time, she wore cute outfits that were comfortable and casual. And the makeup she did use, it was the bare minimum to look presentable on camera. Her stream was about her gameplay, her personality, and her interactions with people watching. But Su Xue was beautiful even without trying. None of her viewers would deny that. She was just as gorgeous as most of the popular e-girl streamers. The fact that she didn’t flaunt her body or her looks, that made her all the more alluring. Even her most faithful viewers weren’t going to complain about a chance to appreciate just how beautiful she was.

Su Xue started reading the messages in the chat and got angrier with each one. Her eyelid started twitching. Then she hit her breaking point. She looked straight at the webcam and yelled, “Alright you perverts! You got to see more than enough! Did you enjoy yourselves? Are you happy? Did I satisfy you? Good! NOW, tell me which of you looked! Don’t try to hide! Start typing! Who looked?”

「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」「Typing with both hands to prove innocence!」

Su Xue stared at the wall of the same message being sent from thousands of viewers. She read over it again, not understanding. Then she addressed them, “Huh? What? What do you gu–” Su Xue snapped her mouth shut mid-sentence. Starting to say the word “guys” had snapped all the pieces together in her mind.  Her face turned a deep shade of red and she screamed, “YOU PERVERTS! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS? DID NO ONE EVER TEACH YOU HOW TO TALK TO A LADY? How could you say something like that!”

“Su Xue?” Lin Feng tugged on Su Xue’s arm. “What do they mean? Typing with both hands? Isn’t that how everyone types normally?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT!” Su Xue snapped at him. Then she took a deep breath and continued in a more measured tone, “Think about it for a minute and you’ll figure it out. If you can’t, that means you’re too young to know. But I’m not going to explain it to you.” Then she took another deep breath.

Su Xue was embarrassed. She was annoyed at herself for letting something like this happen. She was also annoyed at some of these assholes, so much so that she wanted to tear them a new asshole. But beyond that, she was also happy. She started out happy when she woke up and saw the view count. Then she was embarrassed, then angry, and then annoyed, and then angry again. But the memory of her gaffe was fading and she was starting to feel happy again. No, more than that. She was ecstatic! Lin Feng had helped her shatter her view count record! 6,000 viewers! It was a dream come true!

Once chat settled down, they started talking to Su Xue about everything that happened while she was asleep. That’s how she learned that most of these viewers joined after Lin Feng ended up in a game with Nightsong and Hermes. She understood that the stream had blown up because people came to see the two professional players. That meant that her viewer count would start dropping soon. Many of these viewers had only shown up to see Nightsong and Hermes, and then they’d stuck around for Lin Feng. They weren’t here to see her, they didn’t even know who she was. But that didn’t mean that this wasn’t an opportunity. If she played this right and entertained them, she could probably convince some of them to stick around. That could net her anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand new regular viewers. This was a huge win! She could double her average view count!

“I did good, right?” Lin Feng asked.

“Yes. Yes! You did amazing!” Su Xue ruffled his hair, full of energy.

A low growl came from Lin Feng’s stomach. He looked up at Su Xue and said, “Can I get that chicken cutlet now?”

“I should’ve known. Food! That’s all you can think about. Here, take my card and order your chicken cutlet,” Su Xue replied.

Most of the people watching the stream right now had never seen Su Xue before and had no idea who she was. They had joined the stream while Lin Feng was playing and thought he was the streamer. When she took his spot and shooed him away, they got even more confused. To them, it looked like she was taking over and kicking their steamer out!

「Is li’l bro not going to stream anymore?」

「whats going on???? whos that girl?」

「i thot this stream was different with actual content….. turns out its just another THOT stream」

Su Xue knew this was going to happen. Her stream had gone viral with Lin Feng’s face on webcam. But she was ready for it. She explained to the viewers, “Lin Feng here needs to do his homework. And he has school in the morning. He can’t be late for that…” Su Xue had one eye on the chat while she gave the speech she rehearsed in her head, and she saw the tide of resistance to the change rising. But she had a card up her sleeve just for this! “Don’t worry! Don’t worry! He’ll be back tomorrow! He’ll be switching places with me every night!” She tugged at Lin Feng’s arm. “Isn’t that right?”

Lin Feng looked at Su Xue for a moment. She looked right back at him, her eyes pleading for him to say yes. He waited another second and then held up two fingers. “Two! I want two chicken cutlets and I’ll fill in for you!”

Su Xue’s smile disappeared. “You little punk! Are you trying to extort me? Can you even eat that much?”

Lin Feng scratched the back of his head. “Eh, that’s nothing. I know someone who can eat way more than that. Two really isn’t much.”

✹

Over in London, inside the Brighton Hotel, Hermes and Nightsong were still in their room and on their laptops. They’d just finished playing a ranked game. Nightsong cracked his back and sighed. “Great galloping galoshes, man. That was a good game. Only because I was awesome in it. Did you see how fucking fantastic I was at support? If I can’t play as an ad-carry anymore, not that it's ever going to happen. But if I got so bored of being the most amazing ad-carry in China or something like that, I’ll try playing support.”

“You? Support? Trying to take Ol’ Eight’s job now? Sure. Go tell him you’re going to be a support. And then stand there for an hour while he tells you the three hundred different ways he’s going to defile your mother, your sister, your grandmother, and any other relatives you can think of,” Hermes replied, and then broke down laughing.

Nightsong shrugged, uncaring. “There’s only one rule, my HoG brother. Don’t be trash. And my support game is the furthest thing from trash. But it doesn’t really matter anyway. My magic fingers and insane skills are meant to be playing ad-carry. It’d be a tragedy to waste all of this raw talent anywhere else.”

Hermes shook his head with a wry smile. Typical Nightsong. Could this guy be any more of a narcissist? He’d gotten used to it by now. Arguing with Nightsong when he was in this kind of mood was beyond pointless, it was an exercise in futility. Hermes sighed. If Nightsong’s ego gets any bigger, his head might explode. Then we wouldn’t have an ad-carry for Worlds. But he also knew that pride and ego was well-deserved and hard earned. The guy was an amazing ad-carry. Top three in China, just as good as any of the other great ad-carries in the world!

The players who had a shot at becoming one of the Four Emperors and Seven Kings, all of them had a single common trait. When they played at the highest level and competed under metric tons of pressure, they didn’t just play at their best. They played better. When these guys went all out, it was at 120%. Being able to play at 100% under that much pressure when the stakes were that high, that made a player great. These guys were beyond great. They had found something within themselves that let them go to a level beyond that of a super saiyan, and that’s where their absolute confidence came from.

Take Nightsong for example. He knew exactly how to get into the right mindset for a competition. He knew exactly what worked for him. There were two days until the bootcamp for Worlds started, and he was preparing himself mentally. Instead of decompressing completely by drinking a beer on the beach or going out partying, he played ranked games with Hermes. As a Support. That’s how he relaxed and reset his headspace. By playing games where he didn’t have to worry about his performance as the ad-carry.

It was exactly because Nightsong knew what worked for himself that Hermes had so much trust in him. He had no doubt in his mind that Nightsong would be ready when Worlds started. They had a real shot at winning! At least in the group stage and maybe even in the round after. Making it all the way to the finals, that was probably pushing it. The other teams were just as good as them. Some were even better! They would be playing against the best teams in the entire world! Then there was SSK, and their Midlaner. The Emperor who sat on the throne of Sovereign. Just thinking about that guy sent shivers down Hermes’ spine.

Hermes shook his head. Worrying about the other teams and how they’d do against them was meaningless. All they could do, all he could do, was to give it his all. To keep pushing and never give up. As long as he did that, nothing else mattered.

✹

After finishing one ranked game, Nightsong didn’t feel like playing anymore. He stretched and spun around in place on his chair before turning to Hermes. “Hey, you think the buffet is open?”

Hermes nodded before replying, “I think so, yeah. Didn’t they say something about serving tea and pastries in the afternoon? Why? You hungry?”

Nightsong got up from his chair and patted Hermes on the shoulder. “Come! It’s not like we have anything better to do. Let’s go stuff ourselves!”

Besides Nightsong and Hermes, there was one more Chinese player in Hand of God. Their support, Eight Saltspoons. They went to ask him if he wanted to join them for a quick snack, but found him passed out on his bed in the room next door. As for the other two members of the team, they were Korean and had gone to tour the city after lunch with the team’s translator. Nightsong and Hermes took the elevator down to the second floor together.

The buffet was being served in a large dining hall on the second floor. Nightsong and Hermes stepped inside and looked around. The place was practically empty. Not that it mattered to them. All it meant was they wouldn’t have to spend as long waiting in line. They loaded up their plates with cake, tarts and biscuits. Then they picked up some coffee. Nightsong slapped Hermes in the chest and pointed at the label for the coffee, “You know this coffee, there are monkey-cats that eat the beans and shit them out. They collect the coffee beans from the shit of a monkey-cat! That’s what makes it so good! Super expensive stuff, this is a nice hotel.” Hermes sighed. “They aren’t monkey-cats, the animals are called civets. They have an enzyme in their stomachs that makes the coffee good,” he replied. Nightsong did not look at all convinced by Hermes’ explanation and continued talking about monkey-cats. 

They finished picking up their afternoon snacks and started looking around for an empty table in a nice spot. They had prime pick since there weren’t that many people in the dining hall. That’s when they spotted a familiar figure sitting in the corner by himself and eating. The table he was sitting at was full. There was enough food to feed an entire team, and this guy was eating it all by himself. Nightsong called out to the guy, “Roundy!”

Anyone with an iota of interest in League of Legends would know the name. One of the greatest players to have ever come out of China! Everyone, from fans on the street to other professional players, called him by his online handle as a show of respect. 

The person eating alone in a corner of the banquet hall was Tian Tian! Roundy Round! God Roundy! He was the top laner of KG and also known as the Uncrowned Eighth. There was no better top laner in all of China, and there were only a few in the entire world who could go toe-to-toe with him. When he heard his name being called out, Tian Tian looked up and saw Nightsong and Hermes.

They walked over and put their plates down on the table. “Hey man!” Nightsong smiled. “I see you’ve come down for a snack. That’s good. I’d start worrying if you lost weight. Me and Hermes here got bored up in our room, so we decided to see if there was anything good here.”

Tian Tian wiped the crumbs from his mouth and swallowed a giant mouthful of food. Then he smiled at them and said, “Hey! You guys! Hi! Here, pull up a chair! We’ll eat and talk!”

Tian Tian was the number one top laner in China. But at first glance, he didn’t look even remotely special. He was chubby with a baby face and wet round eyes. He looked like the mild-mannered kid people would forget was there. Or the target of the school bully. A timid young man who usually minded his own business.

Everyone in the professional scene knew that Tian Tian was a shy and reserved guy in real life. There was even a funny story about him that went around and everyone knew it now. It happened after an LPL match. A beautiful female fan walked up to him for an autograph. He signed whatever she gave him and handed it back. Then the girl asked him if he’d like to join her on a lunch date sometime. When the word ‘date’ registered in Tian Tian’s mind, it went haywire. He started stumbling over his words and his face turned red. The girl asked him again and stood there waiting for his answer. But poor Tian Tian never managed to get the words he wanted to say out. He wanted to say, “YES! I would love that!” The girl was beautiful. He never thought a girl like that would walk up to him and ask him out. She was out of his league. But what he actually said was nothing, and the poor girl walked away thinking she’d been rejected.