GTRSH Chapter 67

The two sat quietly for a while longer. Then a couple came up and sat not far in front of them, and started kissing.

“Don’t look at what you should not see,” Yu Xinche thought while peeling a few chestnuts.

He peeled them slowly, and when he finished eating them and looked up, he found that the couple was still kissing.

…

They have such a good relationship.

Kissing was quite normal for couples, but as Yu Xinche had never been in a relationship before, he felt awkward watching them.

After thinking for a moment, he decided to talk to He Ci about the competition to distract himself.

He Ci picked up a fallen leaf and played with it in his hand. The two were talking at a normal volume when the couple in front of them finally noticed someone behind them and got up to move to another spot.

“Let’s go too.” He Ci put the leaf back on the ground and stood up.

Yu Xinche sealed the chestnuts tightly, intending to say “okay,” but suddenly remembered something.

“Wait a minute, I have another question.”

“What?” He Ci sat down again.

“Well… um, I recently came across some highlights of your early career.” Yu Xinche paused, organizing his thoughts, “and it seems like your style has changed quite a bit. Was there some kind of catalyst?”

Actually, he could have found the answer by reading through the post himself, but there were always some moments when his emotions overcame his reason, just like now.

He suddenly wanted to know what things were like from He Ci’s perspective, so he asked.

He Ci didn’t answer directly, but first asked him with interest, “What do you think about the past me? What was your impression?”

“He’s cool. He likes to push the limits and show off his skills,” Yu Xinche replied.

“So I’ve become a coward now right?”

“Not really. You’ve become much more stable. I feel like you would consider a lot of things before deciding to engage. But before, you might have just subconsciously thought that if you could win, you would just go for it.”

“Yes.” He Ci nodded, speaking slowly but clearly, “There has been a change because of the desire to win.”

Yu Xinche frowned slightly.

He could understand that He Ci was becoming more composed as the game progressed, but He Ci had changed too much. It was like a boiling, turbulent body of water turned into a calm and vast sea. This was going from one extreme to another.

“Search for the S1 Spring Split finals, game 5,” he suddenly said.

Yu Xinche had only watched the S1 Autumn Finals; he hadn’t had time to watch the Spring Finals yet.

He took out his phone, searched for it, and clicked play.

“Let’s watch until the 23rd minute,” He Ci said again. “Before that we fighting against Wind.”

Yu Xinche dragged the progress bar; the head count was 7-13, and the economy was 7,000 behind—it was indeed a disadvantage.

The enemy team was attacking Baron Nashor. At this point, delaying would be tantamount to waiting for death, and TZ’s team knew this. They did not retreat, but carefully positioned themselves and moved towards the Baron pit together.

At a crucial moment, TZ’s jungler flashed into the dragon pit and successfully stole the Baron!

The others did not linger in the fight and decisively abandoned him to retreat, but the jungler was still pursued and killed en route.

At this point, the enemy still had three members. On TZ’s side, He Ci and the support were still at full strength. Seeing that the enemy was relentlessly pursuing them, He Ci directly activated his ultimate skill and flew to the enemy’s face, attempting to fight head-on.

If they win this, they could turn the tide.

He did the same thing in the fall finals last season, flying into the enemy ranks to get a quadra kill and save the day from defeat.

Yu Xinche saw that his operation was flawless, and his skills and positioning were optimal. However, the equipment disadvantage was too great, and the support arrived too late, so He Ci ultimately failed to win.

This resulted in a team wipe, and the opponents then destroyed the crystal and ended the game.

Next came the shot of the winner lifting the trophy. Yu Xinche casually dragged the progress bar forward a little and then paused the video.

He resisted the urge to rewatch the team fight, looked up from his phone, and said carefully, “I feel… it’s just one game, and that can’t change the play style you had in so many previous games before.”

Furthermore, his judgment wasn’t necessarily wrong; high risk, high reward—to turn a disadvantageous situation around, one must take on the risk.

“Besides, there is definitely room for maneuver in this wave, I think…” He hesitated for a moment before finally stating his true thoughts, “I think if the support had flashed to you immediately, you can win.”

He glanced at his phone screen subconsciously; the support player for this match was none other than Swan, the one who was always mentioned. When He Ci entered the arena, he hesitated for half a second before turning around and following He Ci into the crowd.

“Hmm.” He Ci nodded. “I also don’t think I did anything wrong.”

Yu Xinche looked at him in surprise.

“I wanted to attack, but the support wanted to avoid battle, which meant he couldn’t arrive in time. Of course, it’s not that he didn’t want to protect me, but subconsciously he didn’t have the idea of ​​attacking. When he saw me attacking, he was surprised first, then hesitated, and finally caught up to me. Sometimes it might just be a second or two of reaction time.”

“What you said just now isn’t quite accurate. I did not used to just subconsciously think that if I could win, I would act. I would also make an assessment beforehand.”

“But before this match, I was only assessing myself, whether I had room to deal damage, which skills to pay attention to, and who to prioritize attacking… After that match, I started considering other people, whether my teammates could keep up, and if they couldn’t, whether we could win.”

“Sometimes I also feel that this play style is boring. But if I want to win, this is the most efficient way for me to play.”

He simply didn’t trust his teammates as much anymore. He worried that his teammates wasn’t on the same wavelength as him, and he’s afraid of repeating past mistakes and experiencing more failures like this.

Yu Xinche propped his head up with his hand and stared at the leaf on the ground for a long time without saying a word.

He felt that He Ci hadn’t revealed everything. Based on his understanding of He Ci, he knew that He Ci wouldn’t run away from such a problem the first time he encountered it; afterwards, he would definitely try various methods to solve it.

If the final result was that he compromised, it only meant that the problem was not resolved smoothly and he did not succeed.

Since he doesn’t want to talk about it, then… let’s save this for later.

However, before saving the file, he felt it was necessary to say something to He Ci.

Yu Xinche placed his hands on his lap, sat upright but turned slightly towards He Ci, and earnestly assured him:

“I’ll definitely be able to follow you. If you decide to fight, I’ll definitely be behind you.”

He Ci’s eyes widened slightly as he stared intently at Yu Xinche.

He Ci’s face was still quite charming, and Yu Xinche was a little uncomfortable being stared at so intently by him. He touched his nose and used words to cover up his abnormality: “Ahem, whether you believe it or not, I will prove it with actions.”

“I believe you,” He Ci replied without hesitation.

“Okay.” Yu Xinche picked up the maple leaf that He Ci had been playing with, held it in his hand as if making a vow, “Then I will keep my word.”

*

The next two matches were pretty much a foregone conclusion, with TZ winning both 2-0, prompting fans to praise them as “a sure-fire success.”

After the final match, TZ’s undefeated regular season came to a perfect end.

As it was customary in the HPL, the media interviews for the last game of the regular season for each team would be conducted via live stream.

After the match, the five of them didn’t even have time to eat. They just ate a couple of bites of bread and biscuits before heading into the interview room.

To facilitate interaction, a screen was placed in the middle of the room, displaying real-time bullet comments.

【15-game winning streak, 0 losses, who else can match that?!】

【TZ is awesome! TZ is awesome! TZ is awesome! TZ is awesome! TZ is awesome!】

【It’s unnecessary to mention this 15-game winning streak every day. Mentioning it constantly makes it seem like I’m showing off. But the playoffs haven’t even started yet, and this 15-game winning streak is just a regular season achievement, nothing to brag about (TZ is first in total points with a 15-game winning streak!!)】

【Look closely, a handsome young man’s face suddenly fell, and he started to show off.】

【Hahaha, Young Master always has this world-weary face after a match, whether he loses or wins, he’s still world-weary.】

【They’re all pretty much the same; everyone seems quite tired.】

【Today was alright, we dominated both games, and the two younger ones seem to have a lot of energy.】

【My baby always sits very straight and upright, kudos!】

【So well-behaved, I love it!】

[No, what are they saying? Why are you laughing so happily?】

【Judging from the lip movements, it seems like Xiao Ou is saying Baby Fish.】

【Hahahaha, it seems that’s really the case; the baby is utterly despondent again.】

The audience guessed correctly. Xiao Ou leaned to the side and said to Yu Xinche, “The comments are calling Little Che Baby again, hahaha.”

“Oh.” Yu Xinche ignored him.

“Be careful, he might get his fans in his livestream to call you ‘baby’ too,” CONTROL said to Xiao Ou with a half-smile.

He Ci said calmly, “Tsk, you’re just making veiled insults.”

CONTROL glanced back at him indifferently: “I wouldn’t call it an insult. You seem to be enjoying it.”

“Really?” Yu Xinche interjected, “If you like, I can ask them to continue calling you that later.”

He Ci, perhaps in a good mood, only hummed and didn’t reply.

The interview began soon after. To facilitate control of the live stream, all questions were reviewed in advance, and no overly provocative content was included.

However, this also means that the questions are all very official and lack originality, leaving little room for contestants to elaborate and forcing them to simply give standard, bureaucratic answers.

“I’d also like to ask our bot lane duo, how did you communicate about that lane kill five minutes into the second game?”

He Ci had already answered two personal questions, and now that he finally encountered a question targeting the two bot laners, he decisively handed the microphone to Yu Xinche.

【?】

【Are you trying to avoid laning, huh?】

【The baby is confused.】

Yu Xinche was caught off guard and forced to start talking: “At the time, we guessed that their jungler was not there, and the two opponents’ flashes were just knocked out. Moreover, the minion wave was well controlled, and we felt that we had a chance to kill them, so we went in.”

【OK】

【Good job!】

Yu Xinche always answered seriously, which the media and his teammates liked. After that, whenever there was a team-related question, they would hand the microphone to Yu Xinche and insist that he speak on their behalf.

He Ci was the one who slacked off the most, since the bottom lane team had been tied together since the first day of the game’s operation, and it was rare to have a topic that only involved one of them when talking about the bottom lane.

Yu Xinche neither liked nor disliked these interviews.

He knew, of course, that giving a nonchalant answer was time-saving and easy, but he still believed that he needed to take his work in the media seriously and should respect every viewer watching the interview, so he answered each question carefully as if he were facing an exam question.

As for being He Ci’s interview stand-in, Yu Xinche glanced at the people around him and thought it wasn’t out of the ordinary.

He had already helped him in the game, so helping him with this little thing again isn’t a big deal.

However, the fees that should be collected still need to be settled.

In the final segment, the host asked each contestant if they had anything to say.

After CONTROL and Xiao Ou spoke in turn, when it was He Ci turn, Yu Xinche picked up the microphone and spoke first:

“I think I can answer this question on behalf of FIX as well.”

He Ci raised an eyebrow in slight surprise, then smiled helplessly, put the microphone CONTROL had handed him back on the table, showing a degree of indulgence that allowed him to say whatever he wanted.

【So pampering!】

【I can’t take it anymore, I’m laughing like a crazy auntie】

Yu Xinche suppressed a laugh and said with a serious expression, “He Ci just saw the comments and said that he misses when everyone calls him ‘baby’ in the live stream. He hopes that everyone can fulfill his wish.”

 

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