Chapter 23 ◎ Seamless Transition ◎
Jiang He was fighting heatedly with the opposing top laner in the top lane. “Stop chatting, thanks! Look at the current economy!”
“Not much difference,” Lin Sumo glanced. “We’re 200 higher than them.”
Yu Pei: “Come take the dragon. Widen the economy gap.”
Lin Sumo: “Okay.”
So, Yu Pei, Lin Sumo, and Xiao Lanyu started attacking the dragon in the pit together.
Yu Pei commanded, “Xiao Lanyu, you hide in the bush and help watch for vision. If someone comes, say it immediately.”
“Okay.” Xiao Lanyu had done this often in practice matches. Almost without needing a reminder, he consciously hid in the bush next to the dragon pit, holding vision for them.
Just as they were about to finish, Xiao Lanyu suddenly said, “Wait! Someone flashed over there, looks like…”
Before he could finish, Cheng Yuan flash-ulted into the dragon pit with a combo. Before Yu Pei and Lin Sumo could react, he slapped them to death with the help of the dragon’s damage.
Xiao Lanyu was stunned. Just as he wanted to run in the opposite direction, he was controlled by Fair’s support, who seemed to have arrived late. Cheng Yuan suddenly rushed up and knocked him into the air.
Xiao Lanyu had picked an enchanter support this game; facing this situation, he had no power to fight back. Unsurprisingly, he was sent off too.
Not only were the three of them wiped out, but the dragon was also unsurprisingly stolen.
Commentator A: “What a pity. Trust made a big mistake here.”
“Yes,” Commentator B agreed. “Now we have to see how Trust will salvage this error.”
“I really don’t understand,” Lin Sumo couldn’t figure it out. “We always had someone watching vision, and there was no one before. How on earth did he pop out?”
At this moment, Pei Yun spoke faintly, “It wasn’t that there was no one. He was there before you got to the dragon pit. He must have been waiting for a chance to strike and catch you all in one net.”
Lin Sumo was greatly shocked, then turned to question, “Wait, if you knew so clearly, why didn’t you say it earlier? Did you have to wait until we died to say it? Are you fucking acting for the other team?”
“Idiot,” Pei Yun scolded. “I only realized there was someone after you died. Otherwise… I might have thought he was farming in his own jungle too.”
Just as the voice fell, the sound effect of the mid-lane defense tower being attacked suddenly came through the headphones.
“Damn it,” Lin Sumo frowned. “Taking advantage of our peril… what kind of skill is that?”
“Stop chatting.” The four opponents were all piled in the mid-lane. Pei Yun and Jiang He were rushing toward the center of the map. “The two of us might not be able to beat them. You guys come support as soon as you respawn.”
“Okay, hold on for a bit.”
Just then, Jiang He and Pei Yun met at the mid-lane high ground. Pei Yun spoke fast: “Jiang He, you go in first, I’ll output damage from the back.”
Without a second word, Jiang He initiated with his ultimate into the middle of the crowd, knocking them up. Pei Yun coordinated perfectly, dashing in with an empowered basic attack followed by a combo. The low-health enemies were successfully taken down, but the high-damage, tanky jungler and top laner managed to kill Pei Yun with their last bit of health, leaving only Jiang He in a 1v2.
However, Jiang He figured he couldn’t beat them, so he returned to the fountain to defend, just in time for Xiao Lanyu and Lin Sumo to respawn and come out.
Commentator A shouted, “Good! Trust’s rotation can almost be called seamless. Charm has respawned too! They can totally stall Fair here and seize the opportunity to attack. It can be said that even uncontrollable factors like time were utilized by them. As expected of a top-tier veteran domestic team, they always bring us surprises!”
Commentator B nodded. “However, as a relatively new team, Fair’s operation was already quite impressive, and they will surely shine brightly.”
On the field, seeing himself and Xiao Lanyu respawn, Lin Sumo couldn’t help laughing. “Nice. As soon as they die, we respawn. Seamless transition.”
Without delay, he rushed to the mid-lane with Xiao Lanyu and Yu Pei. Fair’s top laner and jungler had already run some distance down the mid-lane. The three chased quickly and started fighting without a word. The two opponents naturally wanted to escape, fighting while retreating toward their base. But the Trust trio fought like they were possessed. After killing Fair’s top laner, Cheng Yuan found a chance to hide under a tower and run away, denying them the kill.
The second Cheng Yuan ran under the tower, they suddenly heard the warning that their crystal was under attack.
Lin Sumo shouted “Bad!” and immediately called the remaining two to rush back in the opposite direction.
Running halfway, Lin Sumo remembered that only four enemies had come to the mid-lane just now. The opponents might have planned a strategy; while they were focused on the mid-lane, the marksman had been pushing the bot lane and had killed his way all the way to the crystal.
Pei Yun and the others had fewer deaths early on, so they respawned quickly now, running toward Fair’s marksman ahead of Lin Sumo’s group. But in that short distance from the fountain to the crystal, halfway there, they suddenly couldn’t move. Then the screen shifted right, displaying the stark image of the crystal being destroyed.
Lin Sumo froze in place. It took a full minute for his brain to resume thinking.
He slowly took off his headphones, instantly feeling the tsunami-like cheers and shouts from outside. Yet, he felt detached, staring blankly at the stands filled with neon lights.
Chapter 24 ◎ Forget It, Check On Him Anyway ◎
“Why are you spacing out? Let’s go back.”
Hearing Pei Yun’s voice not far away, Lin Sumo’s consciousness finally returned. He looked at his teammate, who looked normal and had already packed his equipment bag ready to leave, and realized that perhaps only his emotions had been affected. “Mn… Oh, I’ll be ready in a second…”
Yu Pei walked over and whispered to Pei Yun, “Is Solve okay? Why does he seem dazed?”
Pei Yun looked at Lin Sumo, who was packing his gear to the side and hadn’t heard them speak, and shook his head. “Probably took a bit of a hit.”
On the bus ride back to the base, Shen Chen raised his voice to everyone: “I’m not trying to scold you, but it’s not your first time playing this game. Why are you acting like noobs?!”
The group was silent.
Sitting in the front row, Shen Chen turned his head to scan them, paused, and said, “Pei Yun, Lin Sumo, give me your phones first.”
Lin Sumo looked confused, taking his phone out of his pocket. “Wha-what’s wrong?”
Before Shen Chen could speak, Jiang He said from the side, “Little Mo-mo, just give it to him. If you turn on your phone now, you’ll absolutely be met with a bunch of people flaming you. Especially since you’re a rookie, you’re definitely the target for trolls to focus fire on. The kind that can spray you until you doubt life.”
Hearing this, Lin Sumo instantly shoved the phone he was about to take out back in. “Forget it, forget it.”
“What are you doing?” Now it was Shen Chen’s turn to be confused. “No, don’t mess around. If your mentality collapses from the flaming, who’s going to play the upcoming matches?”
Lin Sumo laughed self-deprecatingly inside. I clearly messed up the match, yet they can still talk to me so calmly. Moreover… they want to protect me.
“It won’t collapse,” he said in an indifferent tone. “What’s there to be afraid of? Isn’t there still the second team?”
As soon as the words fell, Lin Sumo felt a hand reach into his pocket and take his phone out without a word.
Lin Sumo’s face stiffened. He knew with his toes that it was definitely Pei Yun meddling. Before he could grab the phone back, Pei Yun handed it directly to Shen Chen in the front row.
“Eh, thanks,” Shen Chen took the phone happily and said to Pei Yun.
Lin Sumo: “……”
“Wait, Coach Shen, aren’t you supposed to take Pei Yun’s phone too?!” Lin Sumo realized belatedly and yelled, grabbing at Pei Yun. Pei Yun handed over his own phone directly and mocked, “Thanks, I’m not as troublesome as you.”
“……” Lin Sumo was furious.
Back at the base, after confirming they could eat before the review and that he could rest during the remaining time before dinner, Lin Sumo headed straight for his room.
Watching Lin Sumo’s back, Shen Chen said helplessly, “What kind of shock did he take? What is he going to do?”
Pei Yun didn’t speak, but based on his years of understanding Lin Sumo, he felt the guy definitely wasn’t up to anything good.
At dinner time, everyone else was sitting at the table, but Lin Sumo’s seat remained empty.
Jiang He picked up a piece of beef with his chopsticks. “Eh, why hasn’t Little Mo-mo come down yet? Any later and we’ll have finished eating.”
Pei Yun sighed and put his bowl on the table. “I’ll go call him.”
At Lin Sumo’s door, he knocked twice perfunctorily, then turned the handle down directly.
The door wasn’t locked, so it was pushed open.
Pei Yun didn’t move. Standing at the doorway, he shouted inside, “Come out and eat.”
Lin Sumo didn’t respond. Pei Yun could see him sitting at the desk in the room from the doorway. The large back of the chair blocked Lin Sumo’s body completely, revealing only half a head above the backrest.
Pei Yun leaned against the door frame and said somewhat impatiently, “Hurry up. If you starve to death, it’s not my business.”
Lin Sumo still didn’t move, as if he hadn’t heard.
Pei Yun clicked his tongue, stepped into the room, and walked to Lin Sumo’s side in two steps. “What are you doing? Deaf?”
However, as soon as Pei Yun turned his head to look at Lin Sumo, he froze on the spot.
There was a glint of light at the bottom of Lin Sumo’s eyes. Pei Yun knew clearly that those were unshed tears. The tears were barely held back by his eyelids, looking like they were about to fall but hadn’t yet, as if they would roll down uncontrollably in the next second.
His nose and cheeks looked like they had been brushed with inappropriate blush, glowing with an unnatural pale red. Sensing Pei Yun’s gaze, Lin Sumo immediately turned away, trying to block his line of sight. The tears in his left eye couldn’t hold on first and fell with Lin Sumo’s movement.
Growing up, Lin Sumo had always been arrogant and annoying in front of Pei Yun. When had Pei Yun ever seen Lin Sumo cry in front of him, looking so… wronged?
Pei Yun stood rooted to the spot, at a loss for a moment. Finally, between “mocking him directly without a word” and “forget it, check on him anyway,” he chose the latter. Pei Yun softened his voice slightly and patted his back at the same time.
“Why are you crying all of a sudden? How old are you?” Pei Yun didn’t know how to comfort people. Even though Lin Sumo appeared so aggrieved in front of him, he still didn’t know what to say at all.
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