On the night of the end of the group stage, YM packed their bags and prepared to head to Rio de Janeiro, the venue of the semifinals.
The journey was not long. The two cities were only 430 kilometers apart. YM and the other three teams in the semifinals would arrive in Rio at 11 p.m. local time.
Lin Yan sat on the official bus and leaned against the window. He put on his Bluetooth headset and listened to music. Bored, he scrolled through his phone.
On Earth, Su Cheng had already finished her breakfast and was on her way to the school building.
Lin Yan had already gotten her class schedule. He knew that his girlfriend's first class was Mathematical Analysis II, and her second class was Analytic Geometry.
During the professional class, Su Cheng was temporarily uncontactable. Unless it was an emergency, there was no way to get her to reply.
By the time Su Cheng finished her class at noon, Lin Yan would have already arrived at the Rio Hotel and fallen asleep.
Being in a foreign relationship was torture.
Su Cheng knew that his game was over, so she sent him a WeChat message first.
[Look at what this is.]
There were a few photos attached. A row of cocoa rolls were placed in a long box. The cocoa-colored rolls were stuffed with matcha and sprinkled with snow-like frosting.
Both the cocoa rolls themselves and the photography were excellent.
[Where did you buy this from?]
Lin Yan was a little envious, but Su Cheng did not reply immediately.
Sitting in the swaying bus, he took a few more glances at Cocoa Rolls and suddenly felt a little hungry. He snatched an Oreo from Little Tian beside him and stuffed it into his mouth.
Phyllostachys Pubescens looked at the two remaining Oreos in the box. His mouth twitched, but he did not dare to say anything.
He lowered his head and continued to look at My Teenage Love Story on his phone.
Snow is so cute.
Xiao Tian laughed. He was intoxicated in the two-dimensional world and forgot the pain of losing an Oreo.
"What are you looking at, Wonderful Frog Seed?"
Suddenly, the voice of a Shiba Inu came from above his head.
Just as Little Tian subconsciously raised his head to look at the source of the sound, a dog's paw slapped the biscuit box and snatched the last piece of Oreo from it.
"F * ck Li Liang!"
Xiao Tian ignored the bumpy bus heading towards Rio and got up to look for Jack. "This is the last biscuit!"
It was a five-hour journey from São Paulo to Rio. They had skipped dinner in order to maintain their condition for the match. After the match, they were dragged onto the bus by Fist.
Xiao Tian was counting on these two biscuits to last until he reached the Rio Hotel. Who would have thought that YM and CS, two resource-eating dogs, would devour the Oreo like they had devoured his jungle during the game?
Jack's hands moved quickly, stuffing the Oreo biscuit into his mouth before Phyllostachys Pubescens turned around.
Lin Yan glanced at his phone and realized that his girlfriend hadn't replied yet. He hurriedly dealt with his two teammates.
"Don't worry, don't worry …" He stroked Xiao Tian's hair. "I still have Snickers. Do you want some?"
"Here, some potato chips for you." Jack also took out a can of Cheerios from his backpack.
"Why are you taking mine when you have something to eat?" Xiao Tian was going crazy.
But his hands weren't idle. He wanted both the Snickers and the Cheerios.
"Things are always other people's good food." Jack pretended to be enigmatic. "Those who understand understand, understand."
Xiao Tian was finally appeased. Lin Yan looked at his phone.
There was still no reply.
He was a little worried.
Su Cheng couldn't have fallen into the pit, right?
He didn't know that on the other side of the world, Su Cheng had just finished a sprinting exercise.
In late May in Shanghai, the warm air had reached 20 degrees Celsius. Su Cheng was panting. Sweat slightly dampened her temples.
That was close.
She took a deep breath and sat in the first row of the classroom. She straightened her chest and raised her head. She took out her tablet, smart touch capacitor pen, and textbooks from her bag.
The whole process was calm and extremely relaxed. The slightly raised corners of her mouth were like the ugly face of the winner.
Behind her, a boy with a crew cut broke into the classroom. His excellent hairline and the thickness of his glasses showed his strength.
He was also panting. As far as the eye could see, the first row of the classroom was full of heads.
The only seat left was occupied by the winner of the 50-meter sprint competition, Su Cheng.
F * ck!
The boy with the crew cut pushed up his glasses with some resentment. He took out his phone and set the alarm for tomorrow morning by 10 minutes.
At this time, the time shown on the phone was 7: 20 in the morning. There were still 40 minutes before the morning class.
Su Cheng was satisfied with the seat in the first row. She opened her phone and looked at her boyfriend's reply.
Then the slightly raised corners of her mouth flattened again.
【？】
She first replied with a question mark, then began to type on her phone.
[I baked this myself, okay?]
[I bought an oven last week, then went online to find baking tutorials. Yesterday, I tried it out and made it like the picture.]
[I can only say, as expected of me!]
Lin Yan was listening to the garden party when he heard the sound of his phone vibrating.
He opened his phone and glanced at it.
He immediately tried to salvage the situation.
[I guessed it long ago. I said that sentence on purpose.]
[The purpose is to praise Teacher Su. Your strength is comparable to the bakery outside.]
It was followed by a silly Shiba Inu emoji.
Lin Yan looked at his first reply again and felt proud.
As expected of me.
Even this can be salvaged.
This time, Su Cheng's reply was quite fast.
[I also bought some raw materials. When you come back, let's make duck together.]
After five seconds, the next message appeared.
[I can't talk to you anymore. I have to study for a while. I've been under a lot of pressure recently. My hair is falling out.]
She ended up with an emoji of Tom Cat — it was too boring.
(Here's the emoji.)
Lin Yan thought of her bald appearance and couldn't help but want to laugh.
[Come on. You may not be the strongest, but you must be the baldest.]
Five seconds later, he didn't get a reply.
It seemed that she really went to study.
Xiao Tian, who was beside him, finished eating potato chips to catch up. Sleepiness urged him to lean back on the seat and close his eyes to rest. His body swayed back and forth along with the bus.
Lin Yan definitely couldn't sleep in this kind of road. He could only look at the domestic forums.
He saw a translation post of "foreign forum reddit". The interface looked like a Russian nesting doll.
The maggot baby in the toilet was willing to do anything for the + 3 experience on the forum. He could even use this kind of trick to sell something that was exported to the domestic market.
Lin Yan roughly flipped through the forum and found that he and Lin Weixiang were magic weapons that were useless.
It was purely brainless. Lin Yan didn't know how many times he had seen the GIF of VN rolling forward.
His brother was also doing something new.
He didn't know where they found two pictures and then connected them with the GIF of VN rolling. The visual effect was quite stunning.
VN rolling forward gave Perkz a head. The picture was complete.
Lin Weixiang was wearing the team uniform. His big face was facing the camera. His eyebrows kept twitching, and there was a silly smile on his chubby face.
There were a few words photoshopped next to it — Brother Ran, did you see the 6 I sent you?
The picture finally stopped at the scene of Lin Yan sitting in the player's seat, holding his forehead with a sad face.
Lin Yan couldn't help but laugh. Why did this group of netizens have all kinds of pictures?
He stopped laughing when he looked down.
How to evaluate the performance of Ran from World No. 1 High in the 2017 MSI?
There were all kinds of strange comments below.
[World No. 1 High?
You gave them the title?]
[Spring and Summer LPL champion + German Cup champion + S6 champion. They still have some face, right?]
[I'm laughing. Even the champion Faker is here?
Count how many league champions they have?
Two S-Class champions + one MSI champion. Won't they easily crush them?]
[If Ran wins MSI + S7 champion this year, I admit that his honor is better than Faker's. After all, he has one more MSI champion.]
[In terms of honor, Faker is indeed better, but it's not a crushing.]
[In terms of honor, Ran is also the number one player in LPL. This is based on the condition that Fat General left the team. After all, he is also an S-Class champion + MSI champion.]
Lin Ran couldn't tell what kind of people were speaking in the meeting.
In terms of honor, he couldn't catch up to Faker now. If he wanted to complete the reversal, a grand slam this year was necessary.
LPL Spring – MSI – Continental – LPL Summer – S7 – German Cup.
Lin Yan had already thought about it.
He wanted all the trophies this year.
He and his teammates had entered the second year of their professional careers. They were gradually getting rid of their immaturity and entering the mature stage.
Whether it was personal strength or professional attitude, the five of them were now in the rising stage.
The team's goals and the players' goals were highly overlapping. With enough personal strength and teamwork, it was the most promising year.
Lin Yan knew that the professional career of e-sports players didn't have a long shelf life. The peak of an individual's career was about three years. Through talent and hard work, it could only be extended by another one or two years.
During this time, e-sports players who wanted to reach the great realm of perfection needed a stable competitive environment — a continuous competition schedule, sufficient exposure, and audience watching.
It couldn't be said that the players practiced hard. When they looked back and saw that the game company had closed down, all their hard work would have been for naught.
In addition, they also needed strong teammates — this could be omitted in individual competitions.
As a team game, LOL was in its seventh year. It was no longer the barbaric era of the previous few years.
It was impossible to win the championship with individual ability alone.
A compatible version of the game and reliable teammates were indispensable.
With such harsh conditions for success, the trial and error time was at most five years. Lin Yan had to seize the time to accumulate achievements.
He was no longer in the mood for this post. He opened Pounce Tiger and found that someone was translating an external forum.
But this time it wasn't about Russian dolls.
It was about the North American division.
Ever since the start of the international competition, they had not achieved any decent results in the past seven years. However, the North American audience still supported the teams in their division without hesitation.
Normally speaking, these audiences were big-hearted. However, they could not withstand the online mockery this year.
The racial knight being humiliated by YM and Lightning Wolves was nothing. After all, it was his own fault. The North American audience would be angry for a while and forget about it.
However, the Europeans' poisonous tongues and antics broke their defenses.
G2 was the first to take revenge.
Last year, when they were eliminated from the MSI 2-8, these North American trolls had the most fun mocking them. After all, EU (Europe) and NA (North America) had been competing in e-sports for a long time.
G2's boss sang a song with Jingle Bell. He repeated EU > NA 15 times. As he sang, he used scissors to tear apart TSM's team uniform and threw it into the trash can.
[It's time for TSM to taste the pain of being eliminated from the MSI 2-8. Of course, we can't imagine the pain that Svenskeren endured. After all, we don't know how to say certain forbidden words.]
G2's officialdom was one of a kind. The other teams did not even have the ability to touch them.
This was because they were always in an invincible position.
G2 mocked SKT and YM before the MSI. Then, they were defeated by Lin Yan's team in the group stage. The officialdom removed these two teams from their list of victims.
G2 never formed a team if they could not win the competition.
They only targeted teams that were weaker than them.
The Vietnamese were too lazy to do anything. They targeted their enemy, TSM, from the NA division.
The European netizens also started to play their part. All kinds of emojis were posted on TSM's official Twitter.
The North American audience who had their defenses broken also vented their dissatisfaction.
[I don't understand why the teams that participate in international competitions every year are so bad. Last year, CLG made it to the semifinals. This year, TSM's five players are like a pile of sh * t.]
[The average annual salary of an NA player is hundreds of thousands of USD. Is that money used to feed a bunch of trash?]
The comments section was not only filled with criticism. Some North Americans had given up and were making fun of themselves.
[What's the best thing for a Korean eSports player?]
Below, someone automatically replied to the dragon.
[Debut in the LPL and become brothers with your teammates. You don't have to eat leftovers, and you don't have to endure the cold eyes and mockery of your older teammates. You might even gain a large number of fans in the LPL.]
[Return to the LCK division two years later and be the boss of the team and the father of the newcomers. You can bully them as much as you want without being punished.]
[Come to North America when you're old. Our stupid boss will give you an annual salary of millions of USD. You only have to play one match a week, live in a villa, drive a luxury car, and enjoy everything.]
Lin Yan was moved by the last comment.
They had finally left São Paulo. The bus drove onto the intercity highway. The road conditions were much better than in the city. At least the bus was no longer shaking violently.
Xiao Tian's mouth was wide open. He had fallen asleep.
The air-conditioning in the bus was very strong. Lin Yan's limbs were stiff after not moving for a long time. He rubbed his fingers and adjusted the direction of the air-conditioning.
Suddenly, he thought of something. He took out a black hoodie from his bag.
Su Cheng had asked him to bring this piece of clothing, and now it finally came in handy.
After putting on the long-sleeved shirt and the hoodie, Lin Yan lowered his seat. He lay back and closed his eyes to rest.
Five hours later, they finally arrived at Rio de Janeiro.
Lin Yan was awakened by the whispers of the people around him. He took off his dead headphones.
"The scenery outside is quite good. Do you want to take a few photos?" Guo Hao was discussing with them.
Lin Yan opened the curtains. In the distance, the long bridge winding on both sides of the bay looked like a fiery red crouching dragon under the light of the night.
Moonlight poured down, and the vast Atlantic Ocean sparkled. From time to time, huge ships sailed across the surface of the ocean, and small islands of different shapes and sizes appeared and disappeared under the lapping of the waves and tides.
On the other side of the highway was Monte Cristo.
Under the light, the statue of Jesus in the dark night looked even bigger and more striking.
He looked down and stretched out his arms as if he was protecting the city of Rio under the mountain.
"This is the 14-kilometer-long Niteroi Bridge. There's a statue of Christ behind it. Isn't it spectacular?" Guo Hao couldn't wait. He asked Winston to act as a translator and instructed the driver to stop.
Behind them were the buses of the other three teams. Everyone stopped when they saw this magnificent scene.
More than 20 team members got off the bus to breathe fresh air.
Lin Ran hurriedly took off his hoodie as the sea breeze carried a hint of heat with it.
"Let's take a group photo!" Guo Hao instructed a few of his teammates to gather with Winston.
They leaned against the railing. Behind them was the brightly lit Niteroi Bridge.
In front of them was the statue of Monte Cristo.
The SKT team members couldn't help but exclaim when they saw the magnificent bridge. They took out their phones to take photos.
Li Xianghe was chatting with his teammates. At the same time, he also stretched his body.
Bang seemed to have told a joke that wasn't too bad. The SKT team members around him were expressionless, but Faker couldn't help but laugh.
Then, he twisted his waist even more.
"Ouch …" Li Xianghe looked like he was in pain. He held his waist and didn't say anything.
The YM team witnessed this scene and couldn't help but laugh.
Perkz's laughter was especially loud.
Fortunately, Li Xianghe's waist was fine. Kkoma helped him move left and right, and he was back to normal.
After the delay at the Niteroi Bridge, it was almost midnight when they checked into the hotel.
Guo Hao and the Lightning Wolves' coach, Steak, had a discussion. The two teams went out for supper.
There were about twenty thousand Chinese in Rio. Logically speaking, there should be authentic Chinese restaurants. However, just like the Niteroi Bridge, Rio was too big.
The Chinese lived in scattered places. Without a fixed flow of customers, there were very few Chinese restaurants. Now, even Yonghe Soy Milk was nowhere to be found.
Brazil's nightlife was full of danger. Fortunately, the Grand Hyatt Hotel that Fist booked for them was located in a wealthy area. There were no slums around, and the security was relatively good. Therefore, there were many barbeque restaurants that were still open at night.
The two teams found a barbeque restaurant nearby and had a meal. Lin Yan saw that his teammates were having a good time. He didn't dare to go back to the hotel alone. Lin Mingdong and Su Cheng's warnings were still ringing in his ears. He was afraid that he would be robbed.
The Lightning Wolves and YM team quickly established a strong friendship. Guo Hao and the Lightning Wolves' coach, Steak, almost called each other brothers. White Crescent, who was at the side, stared at the two with a vigilant and dangerous gaze.
Casa and Shiba Inu seemed to have similar interests. The two of them got together and looked at their phones after a few words. During this time, they whispered something that no one could understand.
They dawdled until two o 'clock in the morning. After checking out and returning to the hotel, Lin Yan took a shower. He didn't have time to enjoy the sea view outside the window. After drying his hair, he lay on the bed.
Lin Yan was so tired from the long journey that he fell asleep as soon as his head touched the soft pillow.