C14 Part1

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Chapter 14: Sleepless Night in Seattle (Part 1)

In August, the horn of war for the world’s largest, most closely-followed, with the deepest prize pool, esports ceremony — the Conquer Seattle Global Finals — was about to sound. After a whole year of fierce competition filled with blazing gunsmoke, at the very end, the three teams VPG, Newland, and Legend went off to represent China!

Because of they’d performed poorly in international competitions for a long time, Western media already had very low estimations for the Chinese teams. Added on to the dark media headlines that bluntly stated “Chinese Conquer is dead!”, some other countries followed the trend as well to talk big and constantly ridicule them. For a short while, domestic sentiment was indignant. Esports fans cheered wildly for the Chinese delegation online; powerful banners, support videos, and inspirational articles emerged one after another. Every person was doing their very utmost to make their voices be heard.

“Good luck Newland! You guys are the future of China Conquer! In whatever direction my dream lies, despite a million people, I move forward!”

“VPG! Don’t infight, play powerfully, play righteously! You guys were once the World Champions, open the eyes of all of those powers and let them clearly see what ‘return of the kings’ is!”

“We’ve been fans of Legend for five years, every year we cry bitterly because we just miss the trophy by a single step. Emperor Pei, we’re relying on you to fulfill Cris god’s dream of the championship! Screaming in joy ‘Congratulations Legend’ at the very end of the competition has been our dream for four years of college!”

At the same time, the list of official Chinese commentators appointed by the American gaming giant D Corp. was released! In addition to the extremely popular gold-medal commentators, newcomer Qiu Ying’s name was impressively listed as well.

When she received the mail the D Corp. sent, Qiu Ying was streaming an outdoor animation exhibit. She looked at the screen of her phone in disbelief. After reading the entirety of the text, gongs and drums immediately resounded in her head. Fireworks and firecrackers crackled. She was so excited that she nearly rolled up the leaflets in each of her hands into two balls and danced the Hawaiian hula.

She was being officially invited to participate in a competitions that was comparable to the World Cup. This was the highest affirmation for a game commentator’s ability!

More importantly, there was no Qiao Xin! Sure enough, Daddy D Corp had a discerning eye for heroes!

Online public opinion once more began to change along with it. Youxing had spared no effort in exalting Qiao Xin for one year, crying out the slogan of “strong streamer”, so this list of D Corp.’s undoubtedly slapped them right in the face. One of Youxing’s top executives was also a commentator who even announced that he would withdraw from commentating in the hopes that the organizers could give Qiao Xin an opportunity. In the end, the Conquer site’s newest updated interface still did not have Qiao Xin’s name.

For a while, there were those who clapped in joy for Qiu Ying, and there were those who were indignant on behalf of Qiao Xin. The previous “Qiao Xin substitution” incident was pushed forward as a hot topic again; the direction of the wind gradually began changing from one side to all sorts. Audience friends in front of their computers picked up their magnifying glasses one after another to target Qiao Xin’s streams, vying to be Sherlock Holmes. Within a few weeks, there were excited and passionate pre-war declarations from professional players at the front of the esports circle, and behind it was the complicatedly brilliant palace fight of beautiful female commentators — the melon-eating masses were full of joy.

The day the Chinese Conquer delegation set off for Seattle, the airport was so crowded with esports fans that not even a water drop could pass through. Young people raising up their cheer signs were everywhere. The three teams were the first to appear, players carrying sports bags and wearing team uniforms. Some were whispering, some were walking with their heads down, some were turning their heads to smile at the fans.

The grand ocean of people erupted with incessant deafening screams, each wave louder than the previous. Fans who couldn’t go to Seattle themselves wave their arms in the air; they could only scream out their throats in the last leg of the journey to shout good luck to the players.

“Qi Yue! Number one ADC in the world!”

“Emperor Pei— Emperor Pei—”

“Ahhhh! Void’s so hot!”

Behind the players was the commentators’ group. Each of them were big-name figures, in no way inferior when it came to publicity.

“I see Cris! C god! C god!”

In the countless camera flashes of the reporters and streamers, Qiu Ying held her breath in focus. She raised her head up high as she walked, imagining that her own body was being lifted on a rope. You must know, pictures and news reports of their travels would quickly be spread throughout every corner of the internet. She really didn’t want to be caught in an ugly picture and then made into an emoticon pack.

“Qiu Ying! Qiu Ying!”

Qiu Ying heard her own name and looked toward the direction of the voices. Not far away, there were many people holding LED signs with her picture on them. When they saw her look over, they shouted excitedly—

“Qiu goddess! Good luck with your international debut!”

“We’ve watched you on our screens before!”

Both surprised and delighted, Qiu Ying’s eyes flushed and she grinned, waving at them, revealing the brightest smile.

This year, she had fumbled through hardships and she had stumbled. From a flower vase with no skills at all to an industry elite who received official approval. She had experienced the most vicious slander and the most extreme doubts, but just like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon, she had bled out with countless unknown days and nights of hard sweat and bitter tears.

After the airplane touched down in America, Qiu Ying went with most of the group into the hotel. Just after she got her room card, she turned and saw Qiao Xin. Her good mood on the rood instantaneously evaporated. Her fellow commentator, Luo Tian, told her that Youxing had Qiao Xin go with the group as a staff member, in the beautiful name of “going on-site to observe and learn from the performance of commentators at the top of the world, learn and study.”

Qiu Ying nearly snapped her room card with both hands. Study, my ass! What difference was there between this and a female star who wasn’t invited running to rub the red carpet at an awards’ ceremony to get popular?!

She hadn’t completely vented out all of her dissatisfactions before she was pulled into the heavy pre-competition preparations.

The Seattle Global Invitationals officially opened its curtains two days later. The first day could even be said to be more lively than ever before. It was filled with brilliant content — the professional players’ red carpet, a grand opening ceremony, cosplay performances, autograph sessions…

But unfortunately, not long after the Chinese Conquer fans were immersed in the joy of the ceremony, they were then shattered by the grievous news of war. The three Chinese teams were basically at the bottom of the small group; none of them had entered the winners’ group, and they were all entering the Best-of-1 knockout round next Monday!

While everyone had already glimpsed their decline, they didn’t think it would be this tragic! China had continued as the Conquer overlords for so many years; how could the domestic media and fans accept this?!

Online, voices of abuse and criticism seemed to break a dam. Gradually, they overshadowed the positive cheers and encouragement, bursting out to flow for a thousand miles. Qiu Ying could feel the stifling pressure even from across the screen and couldn’t help but sweat a bit for the professional players.

**

On Sunday afternoon, when Qiu Ying went out of the lobby, there was an unfamiliar boy who told her, “Ji Xiangkong is looking for you in the VPG training room.” After he finished speaking, he turned and left. Qiu Ying didn’t even see his face clearly.

She wasn’t able to keep herself from feeling slightly happy. During the competition, other than occasionally seeing Ji Xiangkong several times at the dining hall, all other times he was studying the game footage together with his teammates while thinking of strategies to counter them.

All too many things had happened during this time. She wanted to talk to him when she had a full heart, but he was in an extraordinary period of time and couldn’t be distracted. She was planning to wait until the competition ended to have a frank and sincere discussion with him.

Qiu Ying went to the VPG training room. The VPG manager was the one who opened the door, and when he saw that it was her standing at the door, he smiled quite ambiguously. “Looking for Ji Xiangkong?”

Qiu Ying nodded. For some reason, she was suddenly slightly uneasy.

After entering the room, she saw Ji Xiangkong discussing their tactical arrangements for the following day’s knockout round with his teammates. Their exchange was so intense that from beginning to end, he didn’t have the free time to give her his attention. Qiu Ying sat there to one side and waited for a very long time, then not wanting to disturb them, she got up and left.

It came wholly unexpected that — that night, a piece of startling news shocked the entire Conquer esports circle.

[Frontline intelligence! Recording of VPG’s pre-game discussions leaked!]

When the news came out, Qiu Ying was in the same room as the other commentators, whose faces all changed drastically. The news was published on a well-known game website within China. Within that video contained the valuable results of VPG’s research and battle preparations, as well as quite a few great tricks that had been practiced for a long time yet never before been used! Undoubtedly, this was a great stab in the back of the Chinese team!

“How could there be a reporter inside the training room?!”

“Why did they make such important information public?!”

Someone suddenly slammed the door open. The VPG manager burst in, pointed at Qiu Ying, and shouted in an uncontrollable rage, “You were the only one who came in this afternoon! Why did you do something like this?”

Qiu Ying’s head exploded with a bang. All of the blood in her body seemed to surge up in that moment. She shook her head over and over, scalp prickling, so panicked and scared she lost herself. “I didn’t! I just sat there for a bit!”

The VPG manager wouldn’t let her off, his eyes bulging in anger. “Then who else could it be? They said that you were the only one next to them during that period of time!”

Inside the room, there were people who looked meaningfully at each other, there were people who bowed their heads to whisper, there were people who glared at Qiu Ying in disgust.

The commentator Luo Tian, with whom Qiu Ying had a good relationship, came forward to mediate. He pulled the VPG manager whose veins were popping out of his forehead to one side: “We’ll investigate who on earth it was who did it later on. The most urgent thing is to contact the website and take the video down!”

Another commentator echoed, “How could something like this have been made public? The website is hitting below the belt, too, just to get clicks!”

**

Under the team’s negotiations, although the website officials quickly took the news down, the recording of the tactical discussion had immediately been downloaded by foreign netizens and uploaded to every different type of forum, with even translations.

If the tactical discussions of a Conquer team and its simulated BP strategy were leaked, it meant that their entire thought process on fighting their enemy had been completely disclosed. Unless they immediately thought up a new play style — unless they did that — the team would be very likely to have their next moves be predicted by the opposing team during the game.

“Recording-gate” quickly became a top trending topic on Weibo, and the reporter who published this news actually readily insisted that Qiu Ying was the one who sent the recording to him! He claimed that he had just stepped into the workforce and wanted to work on some big, shining, news, but for a bit his obsession had led him to make a mistake.

The internet was in an uproar. Training rooms of professional teams didn’t permit unrelated personnel to enter, so one after another, everyone was guessing that Qiu Ying took advantage of her identity as a commentator to swindle the trust of the team’s staff members and record while among them. Who knows what kind of deal she’s hiding behind her back!

“It wasn’t! It really wasn’t me!”

Qiu Ying waited in the hotel room alone, still shocked. A great dread and grievance made her entire body tremble in place. The only outsider in there during that time was her, so she even began to doubt herself. If she hadn’t entered the VPG training room, would this whole thing not have happened?

An MMS suddenly appeared on her phone from an unknown number and catching her completely off guard, a picture of Ji Xiangkong and Fu Miya hugging appeared in front of her eyes. The time the picture was took, in the lower right corner, displayed the night of the All-Stars Game.

In that moment, those voices that had long troubled her resounded within her ears. Fu Miya cried out as she asked to get back together, Ji Xiangkong unclearly told Fu Miya, It’s all the past…

Her phone rang. Ji Xiangkong was calling.

An incomprehensively dull pain strangled Qiu Ying by the neck. Even breathing became difficult. Her heart was one with feelings; it could be hurt, it could hurt. Her tolerance, in the end, had its limits. She didn’t know what kind of expression she should use to face him, and he still had to compete. He still bore the hopes of countless people on him. His situation was already utterly awkward as well…

The phone rang for a very, very, long time. Qiu Ying finally pressed on the Reject Call button and sent a WeChat message with trembling fingers: “The recording truly wasn’t me. Prepare well for the game… Let’s not contact each other for now.”

In the end when she turned off her phone, she buried her head in the bed. A dozen minutes later, someone knocked on her door. They knocked for a very long time, but she never opened it.

The situation, in the end, went toward the very worst direction.

The next day, countless fans stayed up late in the night, withstanding the time zone difference, until early morning, to anxiously watch the battle on their screens. They watched Newland and Legend exit the game one after another. The hot blood they’d been filled up with slowly cooled down.

On the analysis platform, everyone’s faces were solemn. “The last round of the knockout game left, VPG! The last hope of every gamer in the entire country!”

The game began, and sure enough, the opponents aimed to counter them again and again based on VPG’s BP thinking that had been previously revealed in the expose video. But within a night, VPG brought out a new lineup that had never before been seen! While the Chinese audience was ecstatically expecting how VPG would use these new tactics to break out of their siege, the players’ performances greatly disappointed them.

It was very obvious that this new play style was one they were forced to think up of after their tactics were revealed and hadn’t been practiced very long at all. There were several communication mistakes between the team members; even more unacceptable was that Ji Xiangkong seemed to be restless. His mistakes came one after another.

The battle gradually reached at the second half of the game. During the key point of the teamfight, Ji Xiangkong made a fatal mistake and used up his ult, which led straight to his team’s annihilation!

“Oh, God!” The Chinese commentator for this game had been slightly jabbing about Ji Xiangkong to begin with, and he couldn’t keep himself from exploding with swears, “I really don’t understand, how come players like these who don’t operate well enough appear at competitions?!”

The chat barrage ignited with a flaming rage, completely uncontrollable—

“This is a fake game!”

“Stayed up all night for so long only to be fed a mouth of sh*t!”

“If you can’t win, don’t come back! Die overseas!”

Several minutes later, VPG’s highlands were invaded by the enemy, making it a GG, a complete declaration that the entire Chinese army was thoroughly annihilated!

There was no savior, there was no protagonist halo, there was no earth-shattering reversal. Reality was as cruelly resolute as this.

And on the other side, while no direct evidence was found at all regarding Qiu Ying leaking VPG’s tactical recording, forced by the pressure of public opinion, the higher-ups decided to cancel Qiu Ying’s next commentating arrangement and have Qiao Xin from the same group come up as a substitute.

When Qiao Xin heard the news and then glanced at her triumphantly, Qiu Ying instantly understood everything.

This incident wasn’t so simple as one person’s obstruction. The water behind it was very deep.

Since Qiu Ying was a contracted streamer of Tanuki and a grassroots commentator coming out of Tanuki, after “Recording-gate”, Youxing utilized its water navy to stir up public opinion and place the blame for the Chinese teams’ failures on Qiu Ying. The situation kept on getting bigger and bigger and in the end, even its result was that Qiu Ying had deliberately recorded it in secret and sold it off to foreign teams at a high price.

Sellout of the country! What sinister intentions!

The furious fans converged together as one and, like they had thousands of troops and tens of thousands of horses, rushed forward to take action. Within a short period of time they’d given Tanuki Livestream Platform’s app countless negative reviews.

While Tanuki’s reputation was greatly damaged, Youxing’s streamer Qiao Xin once more sat on the commentator’s seat and became the biggest winner.

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This chapter hurt to translate, and the hurt will continue for a little while longer. However, once you’re at the bottom the only direction to go is — up.

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