The little kitty leisurely and contentedly lounged on Camille, and even the game screen seemed much more pleasing to look at than before.

After leaving that useless ADC, Jian Rong was finally in the mood to interact with the barrage.

[The hell was that ‘oh’, consider this as laozi begging you, go back to the fountain and flame him, okay?]

[What are you doing? Are you playing a typing game??]

[The empathy level for this game is way too strong, I’m already digging this e-couple’s grave]

[Why does your keyboard have a backspace key? A proper troll never leaves a way out for himself, understand?]

[Didn’t you say that points could be gained back, but you could never let a dumbass slip by? Going back on your word??]

Jian Rong turned off his in-game mic and, after opening the livestream room to confirm that Road wasn’t there, he finally spoke lazily.

“Tsk… the reason why the game environment has been so shallow these past few years is all because of players like you people,” Jian Rong said. “If a teammate only makes a small mistake, how can you insult their parents? Brothers and sisters, maintain some quality when on the web, okay? You should be magnanimous and amicable, and give your teammates a chance to grow.”

[Just shut the fuck up already, if you say another “okay?” laozi will blow up your livestream room]

[What? Is the room mod holding a knife and standing behind you watching you stream?]

[How come I keep getting deja vu from this disgusting behavior of his? I feel like he also acted like a weak chicken the last time Road came to the stream.]

[Of course he’s pretending to be well-behaved~ he’s scared that his idol won’t duo Q with him in the next match.]

“How am I pretending?” Jian Rong lifted an eyebrow. “Haven’t I always been like this…”

Before he could finish, someone suddenly spoke from headphones. “Anyone there.”

Jian Rong rushed to turn on the mic. “I’m here.”

Lu Boyuan killed a monster and glanced at the high-spirited accessory hanging off of his body. “Why aren’t you typing anymore?”

Jian Rong: “…”

The barrage was full of “hahaha”, and Jian Rong clawed at his hair again. “I was chatting with a friend just then.”

A few seconds later, he added, “I’m done now.”

“Oh.” Lu Boyuan looked at his own stream’s barrage. “Your water friends came over here again.”

Jian Rong: “?”

Lu Boyuan said, “They said that you wrote an entire book in the chat.”

“………”

Jian Rong silently rubbed his face before he lifted a hand and banned the people who were laughing the most joyfully in the barrage.

After leaving the bot lane, Jian Rong never attached himself to anyone else. Even in the team fight, he only followed Road, and he didn’t even spare a single glance at the low health teammates next to him.

In the last team fight, their other three teammates were engaged in the jungle. By the time Road made it over, the only one remaining on their side was a low health ADC. The ADC kept inching towards them, wanting Jian Rong to attach to him and give him a heal.

Jian Rong didn’t move. After healing Road back to full health and releasing his ult, he simultaneously flashed a Mastery Emote at their team’s low health ADC.

Even though he didn’t type anything, the meaning was approximately— “Go die, dumbass.”

After the game ended, Lu Boyuan had just returned to the lobby when he felt the person next to him staring at him.

He tilted his head. “What is it?”

Xiao Bai was looking at him resentfully. “Ge, the little fan that you were talking about earlier who you said smashed enough gift money on you to buy an illegal internet cafe, does he have dyed blue hair, is he super scrawny, and does he also really like to scowl?”

Lu Boyuan didn’t say anything, but it could be considered as a tacit agreement.

“Why is that little bluenette still lingering around!” Xiao Bai said, “Is he bothering you? Ge, I’m not trying to badmouth someone behind their back, it’s just that this person really doesn’t have any character. It’s better if you don’t get involved with him, so you can avoid…”

“I was the one who asked him to queue with me.” Lu Boyuan interrupted him.

Xiao Bai was stupefied. “?”

After two seconds, Lu Boyuan seemed to remember something else. “Also, my in-game mic is still on.”

Xiao Bai: “………”

When Xiao Bai sat back down, he was still comforting himself.

It’ll be fine, in any case they didn’t have anything to do with each other. They wouldn’t even see each other in the future, so at the most he would just be insulted a bit in that little bluenette’s livestream.

What’s more, everything he said was true!

That tiny bit of confidence that he managed to recover completely vanished the moment he and Qian-ge entered a new game.

Only to see the ID next to the enemy’s jungler, Graves, read: Road.

And the ID of the enemy’s mid laner, Talon, was: Just Watch My Gameplay.

Meanwhile, for this game, he had ended up filling in as the mid laner.

Black streaked across Xiao Bai’s vision, and he wanted to immediately quit the game.

Yuan Qian said, “Can you do it? Want to change lanes?”

“Your champion can’t play mid.” Xiao Bai crinkled up his face. “It’s fine, I’m more useful than he is in late game, I’ll just hide under the tower¹ and farm… as if he could forcefully kill me from there?”

Five minutes.

[Just Watch My Gameplay has slain P-Baby’s Little Support.]

Nine minutes.

[Just Watch My Gameplay has slain P-Baby’s Little Support.]

Twelve minutes.

[Just Watch My Gameplay has slain P-Baby’s Little Support.]

Fourteen minutes…

After being solo killed seven times, Xiao Bai was grabbed by the enemy jungler, Graves, while trying to take his own side’s blue buff. Soft vaulted over from the other side of the wall and easily took Xiao Bai’s dog head.

Xiao Bai collapsed. “Ge—I’m already this tragic! Yet you still helped him gank me!!!”

“There’s no helping it.” Lu Boyuan’s tone of voice was casual. “Right now, I’m his jungler.”

The moment he said that, Jian Rong, who was in the middle of stealing the enemy’s blue buff, abruptly tossed out a flash skill on the spot.

Thankfully, Lu Boyuan had already left the jungle, so for the time being nobody in the game realized that he had wasted a summoner spell.

[Damn, your hand shook just because Road said one thing, grow up??]

[I’m going to go to Xiao Bai’s livestream and tell him that you don’t have a flash.]

[Son, you just wait, Dad will go over to God Lu’s livestream right now and help you propose marriage]

“The other side’s mid laner is too noob, I’ll let him have a flash.”

After Jian Rong finished woodenly saying that, he opened the livestream webpage and bestowed a nice 99-day speaking ban present on the water friend who mentioned proposing marriage.

—

On the weekend, Lu Boyuan was called into the meeting room by Ding-ge the moment he woke up.

“I took a look at the videos that you sent, and I also sent a copy over to the other coaches.” Ding-ge paused briefly. “All those livestream replays, you found them yourself?”

Lu Boyuan was still sleepy, and he let out an “en.” “I only went through this year’s, there should be even more if you go back further.”

“Soft does play well. He reacts very fast, and his playstyle is better than all of the new trainees we found this year.” Ding-ge wasn’t stingy with the compliments, but he added, “However, his temperament is too reckless. Even while he’s playing a farming-type champion like Orianna, he still dares to run straight over to the enemy and attack head on, completely disregarding whether his teammates are there or not… You should also know, competitions cannot be dependent only on one person’s ability. Good teamwork and overall situational awareness is more important.”

“You can train teamwork and awareness,” Lu Boyuan said mildly. “Innate talent is different.”

“True. But he’s never participated in any professional training before. There’s no way I can allow a player who’s never had any experience before become the team’s starting mid laner…”

“I was a newcomer back then as well.” Lu Boyuan interrupted him.

Ding-ge was rendered speechless for a moment. “There aren’t that many natural talents like you in this world.”

“So we have to find them.” Lu Boyuan said, “Ignoring everything else, if you chose any mid laner in LPL right now and asked them to solo him, there’s no guarantee that they could beat him.”

Ding-ge hadn’t expected his evaluation of Soft to be so high, and he lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

Lu Boyuan was correct; Soft’s personal ability was extremely strong. Ding-ge had gone back and asked the others in the team before, and he’d learned that Soft had quite the reputation about a year ago on the Korean server. In addition, rumor had it that he was also very young, so he had enormous potential to grow in the future, which was why he had been included in the team’s consideration list.

“I know. So my current recommendation is: recruit him into the team first, let him train a little, and then go from there.” Ding-ge took out a piece of paper. “But… he might not necessarily want to join either. I asked around and found out that three teams wanted to recruit him before, including PUD. He rejected them all.”

Speaking of that, Ding-ge paused. “Reportedly, one of those teams asked him three times, but he thought they were being too annoying, so he blacklisted them.”

The corners of Lu Boyuan’s lips tugged up silently.

Ding-ge also laughed. “Whatever, I’ll try to contact him first. If he’s willing, we can continue discussing from that point on.”

After Ding-ge left, Lu Boyuan went to the kitchen to heat up the congee that the auntie left behind.

He leaned next to the stove and pulled out his phone to forward their sponsor’s Weibo .

Before locking his phone, Lu Boyuan remembered something, and entered “Soft” into the search bar.

Soft had very few posts on his microblog. The newest one was posted half an hour ago.

[Soft: Cat. [photo]]

The photo was of a slightly dirty cat. The youth’s hand was slim and pale, and it was currently scratching the cat under its chin.

Even though Soft seldom posted on Weibo, he interacted quite a lot with his fans, to the point that his most recent reply was only a few seconds ago.

[Met a dumbass in ranked today, the way he spoke was really similar to you.]

[Soft: Am I similar to your dad]

[The kitty is so cute!]

[Soft: En]

[Soft’s Only Fanclub: I sent your mini essay and spiritual flash from the other day to Road already, don’t know if your idol looks at PMs or not, waiting for a reply [prayer hands]]

[Soft: Blacklisted, get lost]

Jian Rong laid on his bed while he fought with his fans in the Weibo comments.

After he lazily responded to one comment, ten more would appear. He yawned and casually took a glimpse—

[TTC ་ Road replied to Soft’s Only Fanclub: Didn’t find your PM.]

Jian Rong’s mind went numb, and he almost deleted Weibo then and there.

Yan: Hahahaha Xiao Bai can’t wait for you to eat your words 🙂

Wei: Who needs enemies when you have friends like Jian Rong’s fans….