Chapter 34: Big Melee. I Was the First One Coach Chose…
Ning Luzhao’s seat was right next to his. While Zuo Chi was still hunched over, secretly looking at the tutorial and trying hard to stifle his laughter, the other party had already moved his gaming chair next to him.
The camera on the desk framed the two of them together.
[What flew over?]
[Land, don’t you have your own stream room? Smirking-face.jpg]
[Maybe the marksman and support formed an alliance, and Fugui and Wu Yang also reached a secret deal. Land could only find Coach Zuo; otherwise, he’d definitely suffer in a 1v2 in Big Melee.]
[But if Land and Coach join forces, so be it. Why do their movements look… so strange.]
Zuo Chi didn’t know why, since he could clearly look at his phone openly, he felt the need to hide it under the desk, arching his back and lowering his head. He gave off a strong sense of “secrecy,” like a student surreptitiously reading a novel during math class in high school.
Perhaps it was because the heroes in this “Tutorial for Annoying Heroes in Big Melee” were too disgusting. Smiles wouldn’t disappear; they would only transfer from the faces of those being tortured to his own face as he prepared to disgust the other cubs with the heroes from the tutorial.
Ning Luzhao had also replicated his posture. From the perspective of the stream audience, they could only see the tops of two heads—one with messy, exploding hair and the other neatly styled.
[What perspective is this? A fly’s perspective from above Coach and Land?]
[Can someone tell me what exactly these two are doing under the desk with their heads down?]
[I seem to vaguely hear Coach’s ‘chi-chi-chi’ stifled laughter.]
[Coming from Land’s stream room next door. Good heavens, I was wondering why everyone vanished in the blink of an eye. Turns out they all ran to Coach Zuo’s place!]
[I’m keeping an eye on the Round-of-16 draw stream next door while squatting here. I’ll broadcast our VEX draw results to everyone in real-time! Right now, the draw is still in the host’s opening remarks stage.]
Zuo Chi watched the tutorial for two minutes and learned the gist of it. Fearing the other cubs would hear him discussing tactics, he whispered: “When the time comes, one of us plays Son of the Whirlwind and the other plays Masked Fiend?”
Ning Luzhao nodded and lowered his voice: “Who do we annoy first?”
“When picking heroes, we’ll annoy whoever picks the hero that looks easiest to bully.”
Everyone had found an ally. Zuo Chi pressed “Start Game,” and Big Melee entered the hero selection interface.
He and Ning Luzhao exchanged a glance and instantly locked in the two heroes they had just discussed.
Wall and Beyond had clearly communicated beforehand as well, and they quickly made their choices.
For a moment, only Fugui’s roar echoed in the training room: “Wu Yang! I was so busy bickering with you that I forgot to pick a hero in advance!”
Wu Yang: “…D-d-id I n-n-ot a-a-s w-w-ell?”
“What do I pick, what do I pick? Wuwuwu… usually when picking heroes, Coach points and I click. Now my head is empty.”
Zuo Chi was already immune to this kind of praise. He smiled and added insult to injury: “If you can’t think of anything, just pick one at random. Big Melee is all about mechanics.”
Seeing the hero selection countdown about to end, Fugui and Wu Yang bickered while hurriedly locking in two random heroes.
It was already obvious who the easiest target in this game of Big Melee was.
[Gosh, Fugui, you really look like a silly little chubby dog. Look at what you picked—you picked a support, kid. Speechless-face-palm.jpg]
[I can see that VEX’s players have been raised so well by Coach that they no longer know how to think about picking heroes for themselves.]
[Coach Zuo, restrain your smile a bit. You really look like a villain.]
[Coach Zuo is already sharpening his knife for Fugui.]
[Report—the electronic draw is about to start. The league officials actually did something interesting this year, arranging a segment for random teams to make a draw wish or talk trash.]
[Hmm? What’s the deal?]
[Before the draw starts, the host will randomly call a few team players to ask which team they want to draw for the knockouts and what they want to say to their Round-of-16 opponent.]
[Oho, the smell of gunpowder is quite strong.]
[The smell of gunpowder is indeed strong, and Fugui and Wu Yang look quite miserable.]
Once in the game, Zuo Chi frantically pinged the “Assemble” signal, gesturing for Ning Luzhao to head straight for Fugui’s lane with him.
The marksman-support duo had the same idea. Fugui reached his first tower and first circled around warily: “Eh? Why do I feel a cold killing intent around me… Wu Yang, hurry and move toward me!”
The next second, four big men appeared before his eyes.
Zuo Chi grinned. Seeing Fugui show his head, he began frantically pressing the Q skill.
The “Son of the Whirlwind” he picked had a Q skill that released a whirlwind forward, causing a brief stun and knockback. Under the “Infinite Skill Use” rule of Big Melee, he could basically stun a hero without crowd-control immunity to death.
The “Masked Fiend” picked by Ning Luzhao was a melee hero. His W skill would throw out a chain, allowing him to swap positions with the unit he hit.
Fugui first took the dizzying small whirlwinds and was stunned until he couldn’t move. Then, a chain was attached to him, and the next second he swapped positions with Ning Luzhao, entering a heavy encirclement.
“No—”
“First Blood!”
After killing Fugui, Zuo Chi turned his aim toward Beyond, who had picked a squishy little marksman.
“Land, let’s keep killing!”
Beyond quickly used Flash to try and escape, but Ning Luzhao’s chain arrived faster.
“Double Kill!”
Zuo Chi updated his equipment and glanced at Fugui’s respawn timer: “Land, I feel like we should just camp here. I see Fugui is about to respawn. Since he hasn’t been killed much in the early game and his bounty is still worth something, let’s kill him a few more times.”
“Okay. My Flash is still up. If Fugui hides under the tower and won’t come out, I can tank the tower and dive him.”
“OK!”
[Fugui: Is it appropriate to say that right in front of me?]
[Fugui being the ‘group bully’ target is confirmed. Watching the matches before, I thought Coach Zuo was a kind and gentle coach. It turns out…]
[Land, you’re confused! Now that you’re giving all the kills to Coach, when the other lanes are cleared and it’s time for you two to part ways and fight to the death, Coach’s equipment will be much better than yours!]
[Do you think Land cares? This kid’s eyes are curved up; he looks like he’s in a great mood.]
[Report—the league official has called ZAP’s Every. According to Every, ZAP seems to plan on letting Every return as a starter.]
[This is VEX’s stream room. What does ZAP changing their starter have to do with us?]
[Because the host asked Every which team he wanted to draw, and Every said he wanted VEX. Unfortunately, VEX is a first-place team like them, so they can’t be drawn together in the Round-of-16. He feels it’s a pity and envies the teams that can draw VEX.]
[???]
[Our VEX isn’t all easy targets like Fugui!]
[Fugui: Me again? Are you being polite?]
[Actually, quite a few teams on the call said they wanted to draw our VEX…]
[Can’t be helped. Who told our VEX to have poor results for so long? It’s not very realistic to expect the team’s reputation to reverse just by winning against LTY once. Even my real-life friends expressed their lack of understanding when they heard I stan VEX.]
[Speechless. In the official league stream room, Every’s fans have started spamming that VEX only made the knockouts by draw luck again.]
[Since VEX sued Every’s toxic fans last time, it feels like that side has been looking down on VEX openly and secretly.]
[Forget it, don’t mention this in the chat. Seeing it will ruin the players’ mood. Let’s just watch Big Melee happily.]
[In a corner no one is noticing, Coach has already happily taken four kills. If this continues, Fugui is going to go ‘0-10.’]
[Reasonably suspecting that before the Big Melee, Coach and Land huddling together was plotting how to pick such disgusting heroes that can coordinate.]
Fugui, who was about to go 0-10, had a mournful face: “Coach Zuo, Coach Zuo, I was the first player you chose for VEX! How can you have the heart to kill me like this? Ning-god, we are the mid-jungle duo with the best coordination; have you forgotten the beauty of our past double queues? Wu Yang, you promised an alliance, why aren’t you helping me?!”
“When were you the first one Coach chose?”
Zuo Chi suddenly heard Ning Luzhao’s voice beside him. He turned his head in slight surprise, but his hands didn’t slow down at all as he heartlessly sent Fugui back to the fountain again.
Fugui: “Coach Zuo came to the training camp and bought me first…”
“Before buying you at the training camp, Coach did an Autumn Split review for me alone and kept me in VEX.” Ning Luzhao paused, his tone sounding nonchalant. “So I was the first one Coach chose.”
“That seems true—Wow, don’t push my tower, Ning-god! We agreed to kill me a few times before pushing the tower. How did you directly tear down my second tower?!”
“I feel like you talk too much.”
“Coach Zuo, look at him—”
Zuo Chi put on an innocent face: “It has to be pushed eventually. The sooner your crystal explodes, the sooner you can send the 500-yuan red envelope.”
“Wu Yang, Wu Yang, save me!!!”
“Every m-m-an f-f-or h-h-imself w-w-hen d-d-isaster s-s-trikes, h-h-aven’t y-y-ou h-h-eard t-t-hat?” Wu Yang was busy eating minions himself, ignoring Fugui’s pitiful plight. “I’ll avenge you, good brother!”
[Hahahaha.]
[Everyone, type ‘pity Fugui’ in the public chat.]
[No wonder Land listens to whatever Coach says. It turns out Coach chose Land first before going to trial the others.]
[So childish, VEX’s cubs. They can even argue over the question of ‘who was the first one Coach chose’ hahaha.]
[Report—the electronic draw for the knockouts has finally officially started. Bad news: we drew the strongest team among the second-place teams.]
[Ah?? Surely we’re not that unlucky??]
[We really are that unlucky. We drew WIN.]
[WIN is a regular in the Top-4… if not for a player falling ill and having to use a sub in the group stage, they wouldn’t have fallen to second place. And their player is healthy now and back as a starter. For the knockouts, we’ll be fighting the complete version of WIN.]
[Heavens, our VEX’s draw luck might have been used up in the group stage. I was praying for the Top-8 before, but now hope seems faint…]
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