Bai Yu arrived at the youth training camp and saw a fair face.
The other person wasn’t very old, wore glasses, had wide-open eyes, and gave off a clear-cut college student vibe. Upon seeing him, Bai Yu immediately stepped forward to shake hands.
“Captain Yu, hello hello. I’m Song Bo, a graduate of XX University. I studied e-sports management programming, which matches your team’s direction. This is my resume. Please take a look.”
Bai Yu flipped through it briefly and found that while he had a high level of education, he lacked experience.
But this was also Bai Yu’s intention. Currently, he was in charge of directing the team himself. He just needed a nominal coach to assist and help with some data analysis.
“Do you have a coaching certificate?”
“Yes yes.” Song Bo quickly pulled out his coaching license and scratched his head. “It wasn’t that hard. I passed on the first try and got certified.”
Seeing how silly he was, Bai Qiang couldn’t help but smile. “With your education, just being a nominal coach on our team, isn’t that a bit of a waste of talent?”
Song Bo looked a little embarrassed from his smile. “Not at all, Captain Yu. Actually, I really wanted to be here. I’ve loved watching matches since I was a kid and even dreamed of becoming a professional player, but I wasn’t very good at games, and my family didn’t approve. So when choosing a major, I picked this direction. I didn’t expect to end up on your team.”
Bai Yu didn’t think much of him for now. He was just a temporary fit. Once they advanced to the LPL, they would definitely need to recruit a new coaching staff.
Also, the team manager had told him, “I checked with his course instructor. He did quite well in his professional courses. I was thinking if we don’t need him later, we won’t have to dismiss him. We can just shift him to data analysis or management. By then, he’ll have gained enough experience.”
Bai Yu smiled and nodded. “Alright, your call. Let’s go with him.”
He then waved to Song Bo, motioning him to come over. “Even if you’re just a nominal coach, you still need to learn well, so we can consider shifting you to other roles later.”
“Don’t worry, Captain Yu. I’ll study seriously.”
After signing the contract, he was settled in.
Bai Yu brought him back to the training room and briefly introduced him. That was considered part of the team now. Whenever they had training or meetings, he brought him along.
Song Bo had strong learning abilities. He wasn’t just a theory-based player either; he had plenty of practical experience and watched a lot of matches.
He had deep knowledge of the game and mature tactical ideas. He even served as a data analyst during routine matters. Bai Yu found him hardworking and reliable and quietly asked Zhou Xunwen to give him a raise.
Before the promotion tournament, there was a lot to prepare. Fortunately, Song Bo was there to help.
While Bai Yu was in meetings upstairs, Song Bo was busy downstairs, printing out the data analyses he compiled and handing them out to everyone, even giving copies to the staff standing on duty nearby.
Currently, there were 24 teams in the LDL, divided into the South and North regions. Each region only had one promotion slot to the LPL. If Bai Yu wanted to secure the promotion, they first had to finish top six in the round-robin to qualify for the promotion tournament and then finish first in that tournament.
Song Bo had compiled the data of all these teams into a table. Just in their region alone, there were four strong competitors.
The most ironic was that the first one was SG’s second team.
Bai Yu had spent three years at SG and personally selected many talents for them. The five players on the second team were all handpicked by him and had the potential to make it to the LPL.
But somehow, after management was handed over to Li Ming by Yan An, the second team’s performance plummeted. They ended up getting eliminated in the relegation round and became a laughingstock.
At the time, Bai Yu tried to reclaim management rights, but they refused, and the matter was shelved. The second team was originally there to supply talent to the main team. But with the supply chain broken, the main team ended up in a talent vacuum, the core duo lacked competition and got complacent, which led to that infamous top-16 result.
After Bai Yu left SG, he didn’t pay much attention to them. He only heard that their scrims were terrible, and their recent performance in the points race was also a mess. They had dropped to twelfth place.
Back when they made top 16, fans all blamed Bai Yu. But after he left, they stopped blaming anyone. At least when Bai Yu led the team, they could still make top 16. Now they were on the verge of playing in relegation.
Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s swimming naked.
Bai Yu always knew that SG’s shortsighted operations were a dead end.
But after their results plummeted, higher-ups panicked. An executive was sent in from HQ with a mission to reform. That’s how the current team came about.
In theory, this team wasn’t even a second team anymore. It should be called a third team.
Bai Yu looked at the table of players. It was still the same ones he had fought against before. He already understood them thoroughly.
There were two other teams: one was JIN’s second team, and one was FFT’s second team. They weren’t especially strong. At least Bai Yu didn’t see them as threats.
The only exception was a team named POX.
That one caught Bai Yu’s attention.
LDL teams generally fall into three categories. One is LPL second teams that exist to supply talent. Another is dream-chasing teams that want to earn promotion. POX belonged to a third type: teams created to sell promotion spots.
According to Song Bo’s data research, POX’s owner Jia Mingyuan ran a massive youth training system. Every year he selected five players to form a team and compete in the LDL promotion tournament. If they succeeded, he would sell the team’s promotion spot and players for profit. He also had a long-term partner as head coach, who was said to be the team’s core.
Bai Yu knew of Jia Mingyuan. He understood both esports and capital well. In recent years, he had made a fortune from selling promotion spots.
Building a secondary league team only cost a few million. Once they made it to the top league, their value started at a billion. The profit margin was terrifying.
But no one else dared to operate this way. It was said that Jia Mingyuan spent 200 to 300 million per year on his youth training camp. If they failed to get promoted, it would be a total loss. That kind of approach required serious guts and strength.
This time, Jia Mingyuan had picked five new players again, with hardly any data available. Bai Yu watched their few matches and had a sense that they were deliberately holding back.
Song Bo suggested, “We’ll face POX last in the round-robin. We should use a strong lineup to go head-to-head and test their real strength.”
Bai Yu agreed and was very pleased with the suggestion. “Good. We’ll go with the coach’s plan.”
—
Bai Yu was highly efficient. Once they had a plan, he acted immediately. The day after the meeting, he started a semi-closed training session. That meant on match day, everyone’s phones had to be handed in. That included Lu Sheng.
As a nominal coach, Song Bo usually handled data analysis and odd tasks. When needed, he acted as team manager. Wearing a student backpack, he stood at the door collecting phones, bowing repeatedly. “Thank you, God Shi. Thank you, Brother Xu. Thank you, Brother Xu. Thank you, Brother Qi…”
Bai Yu saw him nodding so hard it looked like his head might fall off. “You’re a coach now. Be more confident.”
Song Bo straightened up quickly. Then he saw Lu Sheng. His newly raised posture slouched again. “Thank you, God Lu.”
Bai Yu was amused and looked up just in time to meet Lu Sheng’s eyes. He suddenly felt awkward and stopped smiling. “Go eat after you’re done. There’s a team match this afternoon.”
Lu Sheng nodded, then paused. “Captain, are you eating?”
Of course the captain eats. He’s human too.
Ten minutes later, Bai Yu and Lu Sheng arrived at the cafeteria. By then, most had finished eating. Only two or three people were left, playing with their phones or resting.
Bai Yu looked and saw there weren’t many dishes left. He just ordered two vegetable dishes to get by. But Lu Sheng was tall and sturdier than him. This amount wouldn’t be enough, right?
He suggested, “Want to go eat out?”
Lu Sheng looked up. “Can we?”
Bai Yu added, “I’ll have Zhou Xunwen drive you. I’ll just eat here since I still need to train later.”
Oh, so it wasn’t an invitation to go eat together.
Lu Sheng immediately lost interest. “No need.”
Whatever Bai Yu ordered, Lu Sheng ordered the same. They ate quietly, without speaking. The only sounds were someone watching videos and people walking in the background.
Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Bai Yu tried to ask, “Are you okay with the food?” Seeing Lu Sheng didn’t plan to answer, he quickly added, “I mean compared to North America.”
He meant to ease the mood, but Lu Sheng looked at him for a long time, so long that Bai Yu started feeling awkward and lowered his gaze.
“Bai Yu, if there’s nothing to talk about, we can just chat about something else. No need to ask that every time.”
Bai Yu immediately focused on eating. He really shouldn’t have asked.
After eating, they returned to the training room quickly. With more people around, the awkwardness was less noticeable.
In the afternoon team match, Bai Yu called over Yang Kaiming, who happened to take Lu Sheng’s spot. Lu Sheng said nothing and just stood silently behind them, watching.
Yang Kaiming didn’t play well. He made many mistakes, especially compared to his teammates. He felt the issue too and was visibly frustrated.
After the scrim, Bai Yu took him for a one-on-one review. He talked until his mouth was dry, took a sip of water, then turned and saw Lu Sheng still standing behind them. He had stood for nearly four hours without even a sip of water.
He quickly kicked Yang Kaiming. Yang Kaiming finally realized and gave up his seat.
Lu Sheng didn’t say anything. He just sat down and listened to Bai Yu’s analysis of Yang Kaiming’s issues. He didn’t interrupt or give opinions, looking rather gentlemanly.
Yang Kaiming’s impression of him improved drastically. Before, he and Zhang Peng had thought Lu Sheng wasn’t easy to get along with, but after interacting, that wasn’t the case at all.
Both being mid laners, Yang Kaiming had always wanted to talk to him, just never had the courage. Now that he finally had the chance, he couldn’t help feeling a warm excitement inside, braced himself and stepped forward to ask, “God Lu, you just watched my scrim, do you think there was anything wrong with how I played?”
Lu Sheng leaned back in his chair, his eyelids finally moved a bit, his voice cold enough to scare someone to death: “Didn’t it all turn into a mess just now? What’s there to ask me.”
Yang Kaiming: "...."
Back next door, Zhang Peng poked his head out and asked, “How was it, how was it? How did it feel to play with the big shots?”
Yang Kaiming: "......"
The round-robin started quickly, format was BO3, only the top six teams in points could enter the promotion matches.
RAG’s scrims were mostly against LPL teams, suddenly dropping to this level of competition felt way too easy.
Top lane had a natural advantage, bottom lane suppressed the opponent to farm economy, Fang Zhixu’s early game always went smoothly, often securing the win before their comp even hit its power spike.
Bai Yu hadn’t played such easy matches in a long time, usually taking the lead early and then snowballing the rest of the way to an easy win.
Once, Chen Shi’an’s development was so good he solo wiped the enemy top lane, Fang Zhixu’s tempo skyrocketed, and before Bai Yu even had to think, they had pushed into the enemy high ground.
[666.]
[Who is this kid? How is he playing with so many gods?]
[With that playstyle, I think even I could do it.]
[Four god-tier teammates.]
[This is a VIP experience slot, right?]
[And he’s still getting paid to play like this.]
[Hahahaha…]
[Stop it, I’m dying of jealousy.]
The round-robin started off very smoothly, after only a few games they soon faced SG’s second team.
Song Bo had prepared ahead, stayed up late coming up with counters to a few of their comps, and cautiously handed them to Bai Yu.
Bai Yu had played against these guys back in the open qualifiers, they really weren’t great. Song Bo’s drafts were more than enough to handle them, he accepted them on the spot: “Alright, let’s go with what you said.”
—
Soon it was match day, SG was very cautious with their drafts, clearly had done a lot of prep against them, and since Song Bo was inexperienced, Bai Yu assisted on the side. In the end, the drafts from both sides came out to be a 50-50.
One glance from Bai Yu and he knew they had it in the bag.
Before the match began, Bai Yu had already said: “We just need to crush the side lanes to win this one. Top can play steady, bot will take safe picks as backup, as for Fang Zhixu, play however you want.”
When he said that, it meant no need to show SG any mercy.
Fang Zhixu was already planning on it, grinning happily, “Alright, captain, then I’ll play bold!”
In the first game, right in front of the organizers and the livestream audience, he started directly from the enemy jungle, got a 3-buff start, and turned the enemy jungler into a pretzel.
[Godlike jungle.]
[Here comes Bai Yu tearing apart his old team again.]
[LOL stop, don’t bring up SG, their main team almost got kicked to LDL.]
[Didn’t they go to Worlds every year when Bai Yu was on the team?]
[I thought they were a TOP1 team.]
[Top1 my ass, before Bai Yu joined, they were at best a mid-tier team.]
[It was Bai Yu who dragged them into Worlds by sheer force, everyone knows what level his teammates were.]
[Now they’ve dropped to the bottom, lol, their double carry keeps choking in point matches, and off-stage they’re posting vague indirect essays about each other. The fans are fighting nonstop, and the fans are depressed to death. I’ve been forced into becoming an anti-fan by their nonsense, haha.]
[Funniest part is, the team didn’t keep Bai Yu, but the manager went and shifted all public opinion onto the double carries. Upper management quietly disappeared.]
[Hard not to suspect that the cyberbullying Bai Yu got was also started by them.]
[SG is famous for being a marketing team.]
[My Bai Yu, truly tragic.]
[Tragic? He’s got Chen Shi’an and the others now, isn’t that way better than when he was in SG?]
[If you put it that way, I should be thanking SG.]
[Hahaha thanks SG for terminating his contract!]
[SG probably didn’t expect Bai Yu to rally so much support after leaving, their minds are still stuck on money.]
[It’s time our captain Yu gives capital a little shock.]
Right now the intercontinental tournament had just started, so no one was watching the lower leagues, but with RAG playing out like a power fantasy novel, they still drew a huge crowd.
As the bullet chat heated up, Bai Yu had already quietly double-killed the second teams of JIN and FFT.
Only one left: POX.
Song Bo was very cautious about this team, after analyzing them, he suggested: “Next match we could let Lu Sheng go up.”
Lu Sheng’s contract in North America had already been announced, and he had signed with Bai Yu’s side too. They could submit for official approval first and have him play next game—timing worked out fine.
After he said that, everyone looked to Bai Yu, including Lu Sheng. Bai Yu, usually decisive, hesitated on this issue, thought about it for a long time and still decided: “No need. POX probably won’t bring out their trump cards. No need to have Lu Sheng debut just yet.”
Sure enough.
POX picked a test comp, barely resisted at all and lost. RAG moved to first place, POX dropped to second. They’d still meet Bai Yu’s team eventually, but at least for now they avoided FFT.
Their decision-makers were smart, never did anything pointless. From beginning to end, they had only one goal: promotion.
But unfortunately, that was also Bai Yu’s.
The training room was full of energy, everyone was actively practicing. Bai Yu had just finished a game and took a sip of water when Chen Shi’an suddenly rolled his chair around the teammates and came over to Bai Yu’s side. “Want to watch the intercontinental tournament together?”
Bai Yu checked the time, he’d almost forgotten about it.
The intercontinental tournament was one of the bigger world-class events. Only the top three teams from each region qualified. It was not only about regional pride but also a way to gauge the overall strength of other regions that year, so it always drew high attention.
He usually kept up with it, occasionally watching a bit, but this year’s intercontinental tournament had been a mess.
After Fang Zhixu left, TIN brought in a new jungler and mid laner. Though they were still winning, they always felt like they were lacking something, like they wouldn’t make it far. IKG was doing decently, but they would run into the Korean champion team before the finals. As for TG, they weren’t even worth mentioning. Every match was a struggle, and they were eliminated early.
Chen Shi’an sat next to Bai Yu, watching with a deep frown. “How did LPL’s level end up like this?”
It wasn’t a sudden drop in LPL’s level. it had been gradually declining, slowly sliding down from its peak to the current state. Sometimes, Bai Yu even wondered if the golden age back then was just a fluke, and this slump was actually the normal state of LPL.
Leaning on his elbow, Bai Yu thought of the past and suddenly sighed. “I kind of miss being on WG.”
Chen Shi’an leaned back in his gaming chair, maybe remembering those times too. He suddenly laughed. “I used to feel nostalgic sometimes too, but not anymore.”
“Why not?”
Chen Shi’an thought seriously for a moment. His eyes sparkled, looking especially gentle and firm. “Maybe because you’re here.”
Bai Yu felt warm inside when he heard that, and just as he was about to say something, they suddenly heard Xu Bo next to them bullying Qi Yi again: “What are you afraid of? What’s there to be afraid of in your position? Do you even know how to play AD? He flashed his emote to taunt you and you didn’t even flame him back? Give me the keyboard, I’ll flame him for you. Flash in and auto him! Worst case it’s a trade kill. You’ll respawn and be a hero again…”
Bai Yu immediately got up and grabbed Xu Bo by the back of his neck to scold him: “Finished your training yet? Always bullying teammates.”
Xu Bo wasn’t convinced and looked up. “How am I bullying him? I’m teaching him how to play AD…”
“Did he ask you to teach?”
“Why wouldn’t he want me to teach him? He doesn’t even know how to flame back.”
“Xu Bo, come here, take my seat. You love flaming so much, I’ll just sit and watch until you’ve flamed to your heart’s content…”
Looking at the familiar and harmonious scene in front of him, it felt just like being back on WG. Chen Shi’an couldn’t help but smile. He leaned back and quietly sighed, “This is so nice, feels like I’m alive again.”
Suddenly, he felt a cold gaze on the back of his neck. Chen Shi’an turned and looked at Lu Sheng beside him, smiling slightly. “You feel the same way, right? That’s why you came back from so far away.”
Chen Shi’an’s gaze remained warm.
But it was as if he saw through everything.
Lu Sheng had been tossing a badge in his hand. At Chen Shi’an’s words, he froze.
The badge dropped to the floor.
---
The elimination matches were in full swing. The two teams RAG faced were no match for them. They crushed them even harder than in the round-robin stage and steadily advanced to the finals.
On the other side, POX continued with a conservative playstyle. Though the games weren’t very exciting, they kept winning. As expected, they made it to the finals as well.
Each region only had one qualifying spot. Both teams were determined to bring their strongest performance to this brutal showdown.
Song Bo stayed up late doing in-depth analysis, but there was too little data available. He couldn’t give a 100% guarantee, so he suggested, “We should let Lu Sheng play the next game. With all three lanes dominating, no matter how the opponent tries to scale late game, we can steadily push through. It’s the safest strategy.”
The original plan had been for Lu Sheng to join them for the elimination stage after the round-robin. But whether the opponents were just too weak or something else, Bai Yu had held him back the whole time.
The teammates all looked curiously at Bai Yu, wanting to know what he would decide. Lu Sheng’s gaze also landed on him.
Bai Yu spun the pen in his hand, deep in thought. After a long moment of consideration, it was as if he had seen the ending. His voice was firm: “No need. The rest of us can handle it.”
In other words, Lu Sheng wouldn’t play.
Things became uninteresting. Everyone else averted their eyes. Chen Shi’an smiled and started chatting with Fang Zhixu about something else. Xu Bo lay sprawled over the table, wondering when this boring meeting would end.
Only Lu Sheng kept his eyes on Bai Yu. His expression was unreadable, but it made Bai Yu’s scalp tingle.
Bai Yu straightened up, and seeing that no one else was paying attention, leaned toward Lu Sheng and whispered, “Not letting you play doesn’t mean I think you’re not good enough. It’s for other reasons.”
Lu Sheng gave a faint “Oh,” then said nothing more, resting his head on his hand and looking out the window. His lowered eyelashes seemed to be hiding his emotions.
Bai Yu suddenly felt like he looked a little pitiful, just like back in the youth training camp. He couldn’t help but lean in again and softly explain, “I want to wait until we’ve qualified before announcing your contract. That way it won’t count as you signing with a second-tier team.”
Bai Yu’s voice was soft and gentle, blending with the breeze by his ear. Lu Sheng looked up and met Bai Yu’s eyes, those clean eyes looking right at him, full of sincerity.
Lu Sheng instinctively swallowed, his eyes darting quickly under his lids. “Got it.”
Bai Yu walked away.
Lu Sheng’s gaze followed him unconsciously.
Among the crowd, Bai Yu shone like the bright moon
But he himself seemed unaware
Which was probably why he dared to lean in so close.