Rise

“Mid? You’re not jungling?” Tang Bingyao asked in surprise. “Your Rengar is really good…”

“Right? My Rengar is awesome! So you watched the game? I really taught that girl a lesson!”

“Could you teach me Rengar?” Tang Bingyao asked.

“Huh? You want to learn him too?” Lin Feng was surprised that after Su Xue, Tang Bingyao also wanted to learn Rengar.

Tang Bingyao vigorously nodded.

“No! You have to keep practicing your ADC!” Lin Feng flatly refused.

“Oh.” Tang Bingyao’s face crumpled with mild dejection. After watching Lin Feng’s game yesterday, she felt that if she could play Rengar at that level, elo boosting would become so much easier. She thought for a moment. Not willing to give up, she added, “I can pay you.”

“You really want to learn him that badly, huh?”

Tang Bingyao earnestly nodded. “Just tell me how much.”

Lin Feng rubbed his chin. “Alright, ¥1,000,000.”

“You’re not even taking me seriously,” Tang Bingyao said with a slight pout.

Lin Feng chuckled and moved his hand through his hair. “Well, if that’s too expensive, let’s focus on your ad-carry training for now. Don’t forget , you’re going to be the ad-carry of my team!”

“No. I won’t. It will never happen!” Tang Bingyao said in a rare huff.

Lin Feng didn’t appear the least bit discouraged. “Oh, it will. Trust me! I’m really good at recruiting people too!” 

✹

Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao queued up for a ranked match. When they got in the lobby, Tang Bingyao claimed the ad-carry position. She would continue practicing her Twitch today. As for Lin Feng, after the inhouse matches the night before, he felt an itch to play mid. His appetite whetted, he called mid and locked in Yasuo.

Lin Feng would go on to put on such an awe-inspiring performance that it left waves of shock battering at Tang Bingyao’s heart. Four minutes into the game he killed Ziggs, his lane opponent. Two minutes later, he rushed to Level 6 and picked up another kill, this time with his ultimate. At the tenth minute, his score reached 5/0/1. If this wasn’t incredibly enough, then the fight at the dragon pit a few minutes later was. He knocked three enemies up and locked them down mid-air with his ultimate. When they fell back down, they were dead. A triple kill.

The game went on for another 13 minutes. Lin Feng moved Yasuo around the map on a relentless path of slaughter. Every engage ended in a kill, or two. Finally, at the 25th minute, the enemy team couldn’t endure it any longer and surrendered. Yasuo had single handedly crushed their fighting spirit.

Ziggs, a Diamond 2 player, didn’t believe for a second that Lin Feng was as low ranked as his account made him out to be. While his nexus exploded, he typed into all chat:

「Yasuo, you smurfing?」

After the game ended, Tang Bingyao couldn’t help but shoot Lin Feng a second glance, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she invited him and they queued up for a second ranked match. In this game, she went with Twitch again, while Lin Feng switched to Zed, the Master of Shadows.

《Killing spree!》

《Double kill!》

《Dominating!》

The announcer’s voice continuously rang out across Summoner’s Rift, symbolizing the unending massacre of the Master of Shadows. It was a lopsided massacre and the enemy team surrendered directly at 20 minutes.

Tang Bingyao stared at Lin Feng again, but still didn’t say anything. Instead, she invited him for another ranked game.

The third, the fourth, the fifth game… they played until late into the afternoon, with Lin Feng solo carrying with various mid champions. There was no suspense. He was playing so well that even professional players would be left speechless. Every game another champion, and every game a hard carry.

After every game, Tang Bingyao would fall silent for a moment and stare at Lin Feng before entering the queue again. At some point, Lin Feng scratched his head and asked, “What’s up? Why do you keep looking at me?”

Tang Bingyao wore a complicated expression. She stared at Lin Feng for a good while before saying, “You’re really good at mid.” Her words contained heartfelt admiration.

Tang Bingyao’s skills with Twitch had improved by leaps and bounds today. She was able to consistently gain an advantage at bot lane, and during the team fights in mid and late game, she’d often pop off with massive damage. But compared to Lin Feng, she was like a background character in a play while he was the main star.

✹

The same evening during dinner, Zuo You broke out in laughter after hearing Lin Feng’s retelling of the day. Lin Feng stared at the red-headed beauty across the table from him and then to Su Xue with a confused look. “Su Xue, why is Zuo You here today again?”