The League's Hei Yueguang Has Fought His Way Back [E-sports] Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Habit – If This Isn’t Love

Bleach signed with SG later, but regarding Nine’s “glorious achievements,” there probably wasn’t a single person in the entire IDL who didn’t know them.

After Mu Jiu agreed to his duo-queue invitation, Bleach typed to ask: Are you joining UU voice chat? Room number 36570.

Then he spoke up again to remind: “Fans, don’t enter, fans, don’t enter.”

Mu Jiu knew he was currently SG’s boss faction player. Since he decided to come back, he would inevitably have to interact with him in the future, so he hesitated for a moment but still agreed.

After inputting the room number and entering, he said, “Hello? Can you hear me?”

The youth’s clear voice sounded in the stream. At the same time, because Shi Wen had ended his stream early, the people from over there flooded into Bleach’s stream like a tide.

[I’m here, taking a group photo as a souvenir.]

[It really is worth a souvenir, after all, he’ll soon be scolded into quitting the internet again.]

[If you do that kind of thing, don’t be afraid of people scolding you, right?]

[Shameless. Trying to cozy up to Bleach now, is he planning to ruin SG again?]

“I can hear you.”

Even a good-tempered person like Bleach couldn’t help but feel a burst of anger upon seeing the bullet screen. There were quite a few purely venting their emotions, but even more directly escalated it to his parents and family.

After responding to Nine, he muted his microphone in the voice room. Bleach looked displeased, “Room managers, work hard for a bit, ban all those who are cursing.”

[Room managers, time to work.]

[Wait, no one mentioned Nine’s voice sounds this good, a voice-con passing by, siha.]

[Greedy girl, Nine doesn’t just have a nice voice.]

Following the room managers’ swift and decisive actions, the public chat finally became a bit cleaner. Only then did Bleach return to chat with Nine, “Then I’ll start it?” Bleach’s words held a faint sense of eagerness.

“Okay, start.” Mu Jiu, who still didn’t understand what was about to happen, replied in a fairly brisk tone.

The fans, who had personally witnessed how Bleach drove SG’s members crazy one by one over the past few days, silently sent Mu Jiu their blessings.

[Victims Alliance +1]

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They quickly queued into people. On the character selection screen, Bleach confidently picked the Clearer he was most skilled at (in his own opinion), “Spirit Guide” (Língdù). Her appearance was of a frail, transparent lady. In her background story, she devoted herself to the Posuo Cult, offering her everything to the Holy Venerable, thus gaining perception beyond mortals. However, the price she paid was the continuous consumption of her mental energy, gradually growing weaker.

In the game, she could consume her spirit to continuously acquire the position of the Instance Controller. The longer she perceived, the slower her interaction speed for vaulting pallets and windows, and the slower her speed in deciphering instance fragments.

She could be considered a bottom-tier character. The Controller’s position could already be learned through teammates reporting locations via communication, yet “Spirit Guide” still had to sacrifice her own interaction and deciphering speeds.

But if one wanted to play hide-and-seek with the Controller, it was a good choice.

Bleach saw the bullet screen and retorted, “What do you mean victim? Once the number one Spirit Guide on the national server makes a move, you’ll know what’s up.”

[Okay, okay, okay, I’ll believe you first.]

[Spirit Guide has no self-preservation, why are you still playing Spirit Guide.]

Mu Jiu took a look at the selections on the field. If Spirit Guide didn’t use her perception at the start, her fragment deciphering speed was still quite substantial; she could be used as a decoder. The other two teammates chose “Pharmacist,” a character who could help teammates rapidly recover health, and “Scholar,” a character who could stably rescue teammates from the Dissociation Table after their health bar emptied, they fell to the ground, and were placed there by the Controller to enter the elimination countdown.

Decoder position, Rescuer position, Support position, Kiter position—the four major roles for Clearers in Wuxian Weidu.

Finally, he picked “Shrine Maiden” (Wūnǚ).

Seeing Mu Jiu’s choice, the bullet screen instantly began to question it.

[Wait, tears of the era, I really didn’t expect someone to still play Shrine Maiden nowadays.]

[Shrine Maiden has been nerfed to the ground. Nine has been away from the game too long and can’t keep up with the meta, right?]

[Believe first… Never mind, I’ll just doubt it first.]

Seeing Mu Jiu’s choice, Bleach was also startled. After struggling for a while, he still warned, “Nine, Shrine Maiden has been severely nerfed these past few seasons. The hitbox for her black and white stakes has shrunk, and the cooldown has been extended by a lot.”

The implication was to have Mu Jiu change characters. After all, he was streaming; if Mu Jiu didn’t play well, those haters would latch onto him like starving dogs seeing a meaty bone.

Mu Jiu could naturally hear Bleach’s good intentions. It was just that when he clicked open the character roster, it was sorted by the game’s default character release order. The newer, stronger characters that came out later were all grayed out.

He simply didn’t own them, and even if he did, he wouldn’t know how to play them.

Bleach had thought Nine would at least use a smurf account to familiarize himself upon returning to the game before daring to log into his main account, but he didn’t expect Mu Jiu to literally just be returning.

“It’s fine, I’ll just play this one.”

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Since Mu Jiu said so, Bleach couldn’t really persuade him otherwise. After chatting like this, the preparation time was almost up, and they directly entered the instance interface.

The instance they queued into this time was “Lin Yang High School.” Bleach breathed a sigh of relief; fortunately, it was an old instance, one that Nine had played before retiring. But after he activated his perception, that breath he hadn’t fully exhaled hitched back up.

“Nine, the opponent is the newly released boss ‘Snow Woman’ (Xuěnǚ). Her ability is throwing ice pillars within the instance map and continuously releasing cold air to humans near them. When the cold air accumulation reaches 100%, it’s equivalent to causing one basic attack’s worth of damage, halving the health bar. Being hit directly by an ice pillar causes one basic attack immediately, and the pillar disappears. Snow Woman’s main body also acts like an ice pillar, continuously releasing cold air. One hit from her main body can cause 50% damage to the health bar,” Bleach explained.

He picked Spirit Guide partly because he liked playing her, and partly to see the boss in advance to give Nine information. Encountering the “Snow Woman,” who perfectly countered “Shrine Maiden,” could only be described as extremely unlucky.

The “Shrine Maiden’s” role was a Support. Her ability was very similar to the Snow Woman’s. She could throw black and white curse stakes within the instance map. The “Shrine Maiden’s” stakes could be thrown at teammates and the boss. After the hitbox reduction, the difficulty of landing them was only higher, not lower, than the Snow Woman hitting with ice pillars. Curse stakes of different colors attracted each other, forming a speed boost; those of the same color repelled each other, forming a slow. If they overlapped, they would directly disintegrate, causing a 3-second stun.

Because she could apply hard crowd control to the boss, supports with this positioning often observed from the side when teammates were kiting the boss, waiting for an opportunity to strike and help the teammate kite—an Observer, also known as the OB position.

If a teammate wanted to coordinate with the “Shrine Maiden” to receive a stake, it was essentially equivalent to coordinating with the “Snow Woman” to get hit by an ice pillar. Did they want the speed boost or their life? Pick one.

[The OTP Shrine Maiden from three years ago is probably going to become the tears of the era right alongside Shrine Maiden herself.]

[Pity, respect, understand.]

Bleach’s Spirit Guide, as the character with the fastest initial deciphering speed in the entire match, and possessing a built-in kiting debuff, naturally drew the Snow Woman charging straight at her right from the start.

And Bleach’s “OTP” Spirit Guide naturally didn’t disappoint. Taking one pillar and one hit, her health bar was cleared, falling to the ground immediately upon face-checking, and was swiftly placed on the Dissociation Table by the Snow Woman.

When the dissociation progress reached 100%, the character would be declared dead within the instance, meaning elimination.

When Mu Jiu heard Bleach’s explanation, he controlled the Shrine Maiden to find the nearest fragment and began deciphering. Then, while splitting his attention to watch the game, he opened the mobile browser and searched for “Snow Woman’s” ability introduction. After roughly understanding it and coming back, Spirit Guide’s status bar had already changed to “Dissociating.”

“…”

Silence could represent his feelings.

[Actor, reported.]

[Hahahahaha, another person got griefed. Next, we can enjoy the following program: It’s because you’re too trash, I can’t carry you.]

[Let me tell a joke: an OTP Spirit Guide player can’t kite the Snow Woman, applaud if you get it!]

“Ah, um, the feel is off, it wasn’t on purpose. How about you just sell me and don’t rescue me,” Bleach wasn’t that close to Mu Jiu, after all, so he couldn’t crack jokes. Dying this quickly made him feel somewhat apologetic, and he scratched his head awkwardly as he spoke.

Mu Jiu was expressionless, controlling the Shrine Maiden to rush toward Spirit Guide’s Dissociation Table while sending a message to his teammates: “Fragment deciphering progress here: 5%.”

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He said, “It’s fine, I’ll go protect you.”

[Okay, okay, okay, the unique 5% massive inheritance of the OB position.]

[Does no one else feel a huge sense of security from this sentence? I also really want an OB who comes to protect me even if I go down instantly.]

[He has to actually be able to protect him first. If he can’t, isn’t he just feeding?]

Bleach swallowed his words of dissuasion. Rationally speaking, with his downing speed, the safest option was definitely to leave him to be eliminated. The remaining three of them would still have a chance; as long as two successfully escaped, a draw was guaranteed.

If Nine came to OB and failed, dragging himself down with him, this match would definitely be lost.

But just as he prepared to speak, Nine had already arrived.

The Snow Woman stood before the Dissociation Table, having placed many ice pillars around it. Any living person approaching would see their cold air rapidly increase. After the Shrine Maiden’s figure appeared in her field of vision, she stopped placing ice pillars and instead kept her hand raised; that was the motion for preparing to release an ice pillar.

She wanted to use the ice pillar to smash the Shrine Maiden to half-health, then take her away with one hit, making it impossible to even rescue the person.

Mu Jiu clearly saw through her intentions as well. The Shrine Maiden he controlled also kept her hand raised; that was the motion for preparing to release a curse stake.

For a time, the two characters stood with their hands raised, staring at each other. Neither dared to move first; it was extremely comical.

[The Spirit Guide on the table: Does anyone care about my feelings?]

[Hahahaha I beg you to look at the Spirit Guide, she’s about to wither away.]

While Mu Jiu was engaging in mind games, his peripheral vision was actually locked onto Spirit Guide’s elimination progress bar. Finally, when it approached 50%, he gave a fake movement forward, successfully baiting out the Snow Woman’s ice pillar. After taking a hit, he rescued the Spirit Guide from the Dissociation Table.

Spirit Guide recovered to a half-health state, still one hit away from death.

When the elimination progress approached 50%, both the boss and the humans would panic. Because once the progress bar exceeded 50%, being put on the Dissociation Table next time would result in direct elimination. But if it didn’t exceed 50%, the next time they were placed on the table, the bar would resume from 50%.

As Mu Jiu controlled the Shrine Maiden while Spirit Guide was getting off the table, he swiftly threw a black stake onto the Snow Woman. Then, anticipating she would chase after Spirit Guide, he slammed down a white stake.

The black and white stakes overlapped and instantly disintegrated, plunging the Snow Woman into a 3-second stun on the spot, buying precious escape time for the Spirit Guide.

[Wait? How did he hit that?]

[Is this the hand speed of the youth? I’m so jealous.]

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Everything happened in the blink of an eye. After Mu Jiu controlled the Snow Woman, he didn’t have time to tell Bleach over the mic. The pace of a game of Wuxian Weidu was very fast, and Mu Jiu was previously accustomed to Shi Wen understanding his intentions without him having to speak.

The moments where the two shared a brain were edited into clips that were still brought out for reminiscing on the forums to this day.

Bleach himself played Snow Woman. Judging by his own experience, considering the Snow Woman’s high movement speed and the harsh conditions for the Shrine Maiden to land stakes, he didn’t even consider the possibility that the Shrine Maiden could land the CC. The root cause was a lack of trust in the Shrine Maiden.

Therefore, he didn’t choose to transition to a larger area and head for the long window further away, but instead delayed for time at the nearest short pallet. Short pallets, being low-quality locations for kiting the boss, made mind games very difficult.

In the game, the boss’s base movement speed was higher than humans’, so humans could only rely on pallets and windows to kite and stall for time. Bosses couldn’t vault pallets and could only destroy them to pass, and their window vaulting speed was also slower than humans’.

Because it was Nine’s debut after returning, and quite a few people wanted to ride this wave of popularity, upon hearing Nine was in Bleach’s stream, many streamers put down their ranked matches and started spectating.

Seeing Bleach’s transition, they all shook their heads. “Now Spirit Guide is just a moving corpse.”

Mu Jiu finally noticed Spirit Guide’s positioning. Fully concentrated, he calculated the distance between Spirit Guide and Snow Woman, as well as the skill cooldowns, and pursed his lips.

He remembered the Snow Woman’s ability introduction he just read; the ice pillar had an 8-second cooldown. He decisively came to a conclusion: “There’s still time, go directly.”

It wasn’t just Bleach who was stunned; the people watching the stream were also stunned.

“Ah? Go where?”

When Bleach chose to play mind games at the short pallet, he actually hadn’t planned on surviving. He would stall for as long as he could. Nine’s OB had already played its role; even if they lost this match, it would all be his fault. And since he wasn’t a dedicated human player, it was just for fun, so the pressure would be much less.

The OB position also required teammates’ cooperation. Clearly, Bleach couldn’t keep up with Nine’s line of thought.

But Mu Jiu was busy operating and simply had no time to explain to Bleach. The instant the Shrine Maiden’s cooldown was up, he directly threw the ability at Spirit Guide.

Bleach didn’t understand his meaning and was made dizzy by the skill visual effects hitting his screen.

[Is this Shrine Maiden crazy? Why throw skills at a teammate?]

[Must be retaliation. He finally managed to CC and Spirit Guide didn’t leave; anyone would be angry.]

At Bleach’s most helpless and lost moment, a cold voice rang in his ears: “Rotate to the sports field.” It was like a savior.

Shi Wen had come down from upstairs at some unknown time and had already walked over to Bleach’s side, pointing a slender finger at the computer screen.

He didn’t trust Mu Jiu, but he trusted Shi Wen 100%. As soon as Shi Wen finished speaking, Bleach controlled Spirit Guide and ran toward the sports field without a second thought.

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[Ahhh Captain Wen is here, he just said he had something to do, if this isn’t love~]

[The sports field is entirely empty space, rotating there, seeking death?]

[The sports field makes it easy for the Shrine Maiden to OB. Captain Wen definitely saw that Spirit Guide’s kiting was a mess and could only pin his hopes on the Shrine Maiden.]

[That’s too whimsical. If he survives this, I’ll eat shit on the spot…]

Most people still thought the Shrine Maiden triggering the curse stake disintegration the first time was more due to luck.

Mu Jiu also heard Shi Wen’s voice.

The wrist he used to operate suddenly stiffened, and his pupils trembled, as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head.

The only fortunate thing was that he didn’t have a camera on his side, otherwise people would definitely notice his abnormality.

Translator’s Notes

OTP (絕活 – juéhuó): “One Trick Pony” or specialty. Refers to a player who exclusively plays one character extremely well.
Kiting / Stalling (牽制 – qiānzhì): Keeping the killer distracted and buying time for the team by leading them on a chase.
Actor (演員 – yǎnyuán): Gamer slang for a “griefer” or someone who deliberately plays badly, as if they are acting to throw the game.

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