Chapter 31: Coach This, Coach That. How Does Coach Know He Has Talent?
“Sister, sister! Look, look! VEX really won! Coach Zuo won! Ning-god won!” Fu Yang pulled his sister toward the front row while saying excitedly: “If there’s a chance in the future, I definitely want to go for a trial at VEX!”
“That won’t be easy. I heard that out of hundreds of trainees in a training camp, the number of those who finally make it to the professional league stage can be counted on one hand. Didn’t you say you wanted to chat with Coach Zuo again after the match?”
“Mm-hmm—Eh? Where is Coach Zuo? Weren’t they just at the coach’s seats over there…”
Zuo Chi went backstage with the two cubs. Reaching the door of the interview room, he stopped his steps: “You two go in. I’ll wait for you right here.”
Ning Luzhao repeated: “Wait for us.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to run away, right?” Zuo Chi chuckled softly and found a bench in the hallway to sit on. From this angle, he could just see the scene inside the interview room. “During the interview, look after Beyond a bit.”
“Okay.”
He watched Ning Luzhao and Beyond walk in, then he opened his phone and found the livestream of the post-match interview.
The host responsible for the interview signaled the two to take their seats: “First, congratulations to VEX for securing their first win in the Spring Split group stage, and against LTY no less. I want to ask Land, did you expect this 2-0 score before the match?”
The youth’s eyes, gazing at the camera, were like dark grey obsidian: “Before this match, Coach told us to just give it our all. I didn’t think about it this much during the match.”
“Land mentioned Coach Zuo Chi—during the Autumn Split, you said in an interview that you hoped to meet a coach who could lead you to a championship. Do you feel Coach Zuo Chi meets your expectations now?”
Ning Luzhao answered almost without a pause: “Completely meets them.”
Zuo Chi quickly closed the bullet chat and then looked up at the interview room—the youth seemed to sense something, and his gaze shifted a few degrees, searching straight for him. Their eyes met, and Zuo Chi gave a helpless curve of his lips.
His little jungle-king really wouldn’t praise people normally, but once he did, it was world-shaking.
The hype from their upset victory over LTY was already high. Once this interview answer from Ning Luzhao was broadcast—he couldn’t imagine how lively the bullet chat would be.
[They just beat a broken Top-8 team; those who don’t know would think VEX won the championship.]
[I admit VEX played pretty well today. Coach Zuo Chi indeed has some skill to lead a new team like this, but he’s still far from being a championship coach.]
“It seems Coach Zuo Chi is very popular with the players at VEX—Beyond, you were previously in the ZAP second team. After the transfer, how do you feel the team’s synergy is while getting along with your new teammates?”
Beyond’s gaze was shifty, and his whole being was tensed up: “Mm, mm—the teammates all look after me very much; we get along very well. Coach Zuo also takes special care of me; he makes me drink two bottles of milk every day…”
Toward the end, Beyond was speaking incoherently, almost blurting out the dinner menu.
[Is this little VEX marksman this socially anxious?]
[Turns out professional players can be socially anxious too? Won’t they die of nervousness playing games in front of so many spectators?]
[Socially anxious person says: As long as you don’t make me talk to people I don’t know, I won’t be nervous.]
[Speaking of which… what the heck is with drinking milk? Is Coach Zuo Chi a kindergarten teacher? Is he even responsible for the players’ daily diet?]
“Beyond can take his time. We don’t eat people in interviews,” the host made a joke. “Let’s talk about today’s match. In the first game, Land pulled out a very niche hero, ‘Abyssal Fire.’ Why did you think of picking this hero then?”
“Coach had me pick it.”
“Do you usually practice it specifically?”
“Mm. Coach developed many niche heroes for us and has us practice them usually.”
“Today’s jungle invasion at the start and the side-lane start also had miraculous effects. Was that your own arrangement?”
“Coach deployed it.”
“Beyond holding the pressure alone while Wall roams to help other lanes was also Coach Zuo’s deployment?”
“Yes.”
[What’s going on? I feel like the whole interview is filled with two words—’Coach.’]
[If you ask, everything was done by Coach Zuo Chi.]
[Old VEX fans are already crying tears of joy. God knows what kind of miserable days we had before. Beating LTY? I didn’t even dare to dream this big before. As long as he can lead the players to win matches, he is a super invincible good coach!]
The host was also amused by the omnipresent “Coach”: “Thank you to the two players for accepting our interview. I see Coach Zuo Chi is waiting for the two of them outside the room… I hope you can achieve even better results in the matches to come!”
The cameras were turned off, and Zuo Chi exited the livestream and walked to the door of the room.
Beyond had already sprinted out, trying hard to level his breathing. Zuo Chi patted his shoulder: “This nervous?”
“Mm, I almost couldn’t speak clearly,” Beyond said with some lingering fear. “Did I answer very poorly, Coach Zuo…”
“You answered quite well. Look at Land; he looks all serious, yet he pushed everything onto me.”
Ning Luzhao gave a low laugh and walked to his side: “Coach means I didn’t answer well? I only spoke a few words of truth.”
“Truth?” Zuo Chi raised an eyebrow. “When did I make you practice ‘many’ niche heroes?”
Although there were two or three niche heroes that could be used in this meta, and he had made the cubs practice them for a while, it definitely hadn’t reached the point of being “many.”
“Setting a smoke screen.” Ning Luzhao paused. “After today’s match, many teams might start practicing Abyssal Fire.”
Other teams would more or less pay attention to their match against LTY today. With Abyssal Fire slaughtering everyone in Land’s hands, teams would naturally start studying this hero. Just now, while the two cubs were in the interview, he had taken a look at several video platforms. People were already analyzing the advantages of Abyssal Fire on the professional stage.
Some were also lamenting, saying VEX shouldn’t have shown their hand so early and that keeping Abyssal Fire for the knockout stages might have had a miraculous effect.
However, if other teams focused on a niche hero like Abyssal Fire, they really were looking at the wrong focus.
Zuo Chi took a look at his WeChat messages: “Let’s go to the parking lot first. Manager Li said they’re already waiting for us in the car—this smoke screen was well-placed.”
He couldn’t tell, but Ning Luzhao actually had a lot of tricks up his sleeve when accepting interviews.
Once in the car, Manager Li hummed a song while driving them back to the base.
The cubs chatted excitedly about the scenes from today’s match. Zuo Chi occasionally heard a few shouts of “Awesome, brother, awesome!”
Listening to them, he actually felt a bit sleepy.
He rolled down the car window and tilted his head to rest on the seat cushion.
The air conditioning was on in the car, and a bit of night breeze blew in from outside, just enough to dispel some of the stuffiness.
the young man closed his eyes, his slender eyelashes trembling slightly in the breeze. There was a light layer of faint darkness under his eyes, and his fair skin appeared even colder in the chilly wind. The tip of his nose was a bit red, though whether it was from the wind or from being accidentally pressed by his finger was unknown.
Fugui was discussing his “god descending to earth” play in a team fight with Wu Yang when he suddenly saw Ning Luzhao make a silencing gesture. Looking at the seat by the window, their Coach Zuo had his eyes closed and was breathing steadily; clearly, he had already fallen asleep.
He quickly stopped talking, and the cubs tacitly began typing in the group chat.
[Fugui: We were this noisy, and Coach Zuo could still fall asleep?!]
[Wall: He’s likely tired. Coach Zuo hasn’t rested properly since the draw ended.]
[Wu Yang: Then wh-wh-at a-a-bout the g-g-roup d-d-inner t-t-onight? W-w-e’re a-a-lmost a-a-t the r-r-estaurant.]
[Land: You guys go eat. I’ll stay in the car and come over when Coach wakes up.]
[Fugui: Isn’t this a bit bad?]
[Land: It’s fine. If Coach keeps sleeping, just pack some food for us to take back.]
[Beyond: Okay, I’ll pack more delicious things for you.]
When Zuo Chi opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the deeper night outside the window and a row of colorful shop names and neon lights on the snack street.
The scent of cumin, chili powder, and various meats mixed together surged in through the gap in the car window.
His stomach gave two uncooperative growls.
He rubbed his neck, which was a bit sore from sleeping, and was about to ask in the group where everyone went to eat when he turned around and saw Ning Luzhao sitting beside him.
The youth sat next to him, not even pulling out his phone. A peripheral bag and two bottles of mineral water were placed on his knees. His three-dimensional features had extremely sharp contours in the night, and his phoenix eyes were slightly lowered, looking as if he’d been frozen in the car by some hero’s skill.
“You… why didn’t you go eat with the others?”
He vaguely heard the cubs saying they were hungry and booking a snack restaurant before he fell asleep. Now the car was parked at the entrance of a food stall, and only he and Ning Luzhao were left in the car. The other cubs must have gone to eat.
Ning Luzhao turned his face: “Coach was sleeping.”
“I don’t know what happened either; I just fell asleep in a daze.” Zuo Chi fumbled for his phone. “I’m a grown man; what could happen while sleeping in a car? Are you hungry?”
“I’m okay.”
“If you’re ‘okay,’ then you’re hungry. I’m hungry too—where are Fugui and the others eating?”
“Over there. They said they wanted to eat garlic clams with vermicelli.”
Zuo Chi opened the car door: “It should still be in time if we go now, right? In the future, if you find me asleep in the car, don’t wait for me.”
Ning Luzhao followed him out of the car but didn’t respond.
Zuo Chi walked two steps and remembered something he’d forgotten: “That kid we met before the match today who’s going for training—did you add him?”
“…I did.” Ning Luzhao narrowed his eyes, his gaze falling on the ink-black ends of the hair of the young man walking in front of him. He said seemingly casually, “He was sitting in the row of spectator seats right behind the coach’s seats. Didn’t Coach see him?”
Zuo Chi tried to recall but had zero impression: “Is that so? I really didn’t notice.”
During the match, he was only concerned with watching the cubs’ performance and had no energy to care about the spectator seats behind him.
“You can usually chat with him more about game-related matters. If you have time, it’d be even better to give him some guidance.”
“Coach hasn’t even seen his in-game mechanics…” Ning Luzhao’s tone was slightly heavy as he reached Zuo Chi’s side in two steps. “And you already think he has talent?”
Translator’s Note:
- Abyssal Fire (深淵之火): As explained, this is a hero that is very “squishy” (low health) but has high burst damage. In many games, these are high-risk, high-reward heroes.
- 0-10 (超鬼): In the Chinese gaming community, going “chao gui” (literally “becoming a super ghost”) means dying many times without a single kill.
- Smoke Screen (煙霧彈): This refers to giving out false information to mislead opponents. Land is already acting like a veteran pro by playing mind games in his interview!
- Late-night Snacks (夜宵): This is a huge part of Chinese culture, especially for gamers who stay up late. Street food like garlic clams and barbecue are staples.
- Social Anxiety (社恐): Beyond is the classic “shè kǒng” (socially anxious person). It’s quite common in web novels to have a character who is a beast in the game but a shy kitten in real life.
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