Chapter 73 The well-known e-sports player yux is suspected of...
Nan Zhiyi stood on the stage and accepted the special headphones handed to him by the staff.
He was wearing a full white suit today—the one provided by the sponsor not long ago—with a meticulous bow tie. He looked serious in front of the camera, but the director still gave him a long close-up shot.
In the studio, the commentator exclaimed in surprise: "...Wait, HYG has changed their coach?! Now Angel Yi is the assistant coach for the draft phase, what, huh??"
"This is the first time Angel Yi has stepped onto our main stage as a draft coach this season... We haven't seen this coach's draft style before, so we don't know how he will perform. Will he continue his 'brilliant strategies' from previous tournaments?"
The audience erupted in cheers, and even the live stream chat exploded with activity.
Why did the previous coach suddenly step down? He lost his composure after just one loss?
It's just a normal rotation, right?
[I thought HYG hiring Angel as a coach was just a gimmick, a mascot, but they actually let him go on stage for the draft? Is this some kind of joke??]
[What mascot? He joined as a formal coach. He was involved in HYG's training throughout the summer split. Do you really think he's on the same level as the coaches in the chat?]
Nan Zhiyi put on her headphones, shutting out all the noise.
The map for this game is randomly assigned to the [Castle].
"CG is very good at this map." He prompted his teammates in the voice chat, "What do you guys want to play?"
Nan Zhiyi has listened to many teams' draft and ban voice messages. Sometimes when the coach goes on stage, he lacks a clear idea in mind. After asking the players what they want to play, he is completely led by the nose and ends up making a lineup that is neither fish nor fowl.
His purpose in speaking up was mainly to get everyone involved in the discussion, but in reality, he already had his own ideas about the lineup.
“Priestess, let’s go with Priestess,” Milk said. “Priestess is for the main D.”
Both teams made unremarkable first three picks. After HYG picked the High Priest, CG predictably countered with a summoner-type class.
"Now, let's see what HYG's last move will be and how they'll counter CG's blockade of their choices," the commentator speculated.
Another commentator said, "I remember that in a previous tournament, Angel Yi faced a similar choice, and he made an extremely bold idea: swap the C and the support."
"But this is a league match, the intensity is definitely different from a cup match. Doing this rashly would probably result in a crushing defeat, and HYG's current roster doesn't have the ability to switch between carry and support..."
In the voice chat, milk volunteered: "Give me the swordsman, I can play this."
"Wait a minute," Nan Zhiyi said, stopping Lemon from locking onto a profession on the 4L server.
He first asked Milk, "Milk, can you play the Priestess?"
Milk paused for a moment, then said, "Sure, I play this game. But if I use this..."
"Yux," Nan Zhiyi said again, "Red Elf, is that alright?"
Yu Xin's only response to his instructions on the field was always a simple "Okay".
Nan Zhiyi made the final decision: "If everyone agrees, let's choose this one."
When the last professional lock was made, almost everyone in the audience, including the commentators, gasped in shock.
"A red elf?!" The commentator's voice trembled with shock. "Who is this for? It's for—Yux to play!! The Red Elf! The main carry!"
"What a confident choice! The director just gave us some data: Yux has only used Red Elf three times in his career, with a record of 1 win and 2 losses, a win rate of 33%. But now, in this best-of-three match point game, he didn't hesitate to bring out this professional champion!!"
"But I feel like this pick... is a little strange?" another commentator said, puzzled. "Main Red Elf, Sub-Priestess... a rather unusual combination? I wonder what kind of chemistry this choice will produce?"
The comments section clearly shared his opinion.
【Give Yux the Red Elf? Are you crazy?!】
[Is this the new coach's drafting level? He just went up on stage and brought out a bowl of who-knows-what?]
[Even the CG team seemed completely bewildered: What the heck did the opposing team pick?!]
[Uh, this lineup is actually not bad.]
[Is this deliberately targeting Yux? They know he's terrible at playing Red Elf...]
[Fun fact: Yux will pick different drafts if he doesn't like the coach's draft picks; see last year's decisive game for example.]
[Although, let's wait and see. Angel's understanding of the game has always been very advanced, so it's normal that the commentators can't keep up.]
[meng was streaming today to watch the game, and he just praised HYG's Red Puck play as a stroke of genius, completely neutralizing the opponent's counter-strategy.]
"Alright... CG, High Priest, Red Elf, enter our castle map!!"
Nan Zhiyi took off her headphones and listened to Jie's passionate and inspiring introduction.
He quickly stepped off the stage from the edge and jogged back to the viewing room.
Mike paced back and forth inside, looking somewhat worried. Hearing the door open, he looked up and asked, "Isn't this a bit too risky?"
Nan Zhiyi himself was also sweating with nervousness. He raised his hand to wipe his forehead and said, "Trust him."
HYG's performance in this match exceeded everyone's expectations.
There was only one small-scale team fight in the first ten minutes, but the Red Elf got two kills in the fight and then established a huge economic advantage.
In the following period, CG discovered that his relatively solid lineup with sufficient health was perfectly countered by the enemy's Red Elf class mechanism - the percentage-based damage meant that they were almost always defeated by the enemy Red Elf in a finishing blow at the end of every team fight.
Yux's calculation of health is extremely precise; even if he jumps into a crowd of people while controlling his character, he can still escape unscathed.
In just 25 minutes, HYG had destroyed the enemy's respawn point.
The score was tied 1-1. Mike was so excited that he patted Nan Zhiyi on the shoulder in the spectator room, so hard that he almost shoved him into the ground; when the four HYG players returned to the rest room, they were also filled with laughter and joy. They had won the game 13-0, defeating their opponents in a crushing manner.
The chat in the main live stream room exploded with comments.
[Dude, you're really good at this? You're really amazing!]
[Such a strange lineup won so easily, it's eye-opening!]
[What's strange about this? Wasn't this main/secondary role swap a game-winner? It perfectly resolved the opponent's problem of using summoner spells to increase the team's tankiness. If you ask me, what the region needs right now is a coach who can make bold picks. Isn't this much more flexible than Zds' formulaic picks? It's simply a stomp!]
I'm seriously speechless. What kind of awful pick is this? The CG is making me want to vomit.
[Good news: Angel Yi is now a coach and doesn't have time to film his disgusting little videos anymore. Bad news: he's now playing in the league. :)]
After a resounding victory in the second game, HYG's competitive form seemed to have improved considerably, and Mike's mental state also seemed to have recovered. Ultimately, he stepped onto the stage under the anxious gaze of the opposing coach, Zds.
In the third game, HYG continued their previous performance, ending the match in 36 minutes without making any major mistakes, and successfully defeated their formidable opponent CG 2-1.
During the handshake, all four people on the other side had long faces. The director, not wanting to miss out on the fun, gave xww and yux a close-up shot, and a string of sharp comments immediately flooded the screen: "[We all misunderstood xww. He really did faint that day. He had a gaming phobia and was so scared by seeing yux that he fainted.]"
After the match, the entire HYG team went to their room for a post-match group interview with reporters.
In the past, Nam Ji-yi had always participated in this activity as a mere decoration.
But perhaps because he was on stage today, a reporter asked him: "I would like to ask Angel Yi, many viewers and commentators have said that your picks were very flexible and your understanding of the game was very advanced. I would like to ask if you have any special secrets when making picks?"
You Xingang had just finished answering the previous question, and the microphone was still in his hand.
Nan Zhiyi, sitting to his left, reached for the microphone, but You Xin simply handed it to his mouth, indicating that she would hold it for him and that he could just speak.
Someone in the crowd below chuckled softly.
Sitting on the other side of the long table, Lao Xu turned his head to look at it, his lips twitched, and he seemed to want to go over and take the microphone away from You Xin, but he was too far away to do so.
Nan Zhiyi: "..."
“Uh,” he leaned closer to the microphone, “I probably can’t answer that question for you… It’s a trade secret. If I told you, you could come to HYG as a coach too.”
The reporters all laughed.
"But actually, I can reveal a little bit."
As Nan Zhiyi spoke, he glanced at You Xin, who was sitting next to him and holding the microphone for him.
He smiled slightly and said, "I do have a little trick for BP: you can always trust Yux."
-
After their match against CG, HYG seemed to have suddenly unlocked their full potential in the second half of the summer regular season. Their teamwork improved significantly, and their picks became more agile than ever before.
Although Angel Yi no longer replaces the head coach in the draft phase, Mike revealed more than once in post-match interviews that half of his drafts now come from his assistant's ideas. "He's a genius in this area. Sometimes I don't even know how he comes up with these solutions."
Finally, after HYG's last victory in the regular season, leading the standings with an astonishing 16-2 record, the commentator, as if having made up his mind, finally uttered the thought he had previously dared not say: "This HYG team, which was rebuilt in the second half of this year, really has what we often call a 'champion's look'!!"
There is a short offseason, about a week long, between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.
On the night the match ended, Lao Xu generously took everyone to a celebration banquet—to celebrate HYG winning first place in the regular season standings, a position they hadn't achieved in nearly four years.
Milk took the lead and opened a bottle of wine at the table. Although it was still the season, tomorrow and the day after were rest days, so team leader Awen tacitly approved of his behavior. As a result, apart from the younger Lemon and Nan Zhiyi, who had already learned from three previous mistakes, everyone else at the table had a little bit of wine.
After drinking two small cups, You Xin's expression gradually became serious. He kept a straight face until he left the table. It wasn't until he solemnly announced that he was going to walk back to the base that everyone realized he was actually a little drunk.
"No way, their alcohol tolerance is that low?" The two older guys in the team were dumbfounded. They had each drunk three or four cups, and they were still acting like nothing had happened.
Seeing that You Xin was about to stand up and walk out in a huff, Nan Zhiyi quickly grabbed him: "He usually doesn't drink even once a year."
Nan Zhiyi eventually took him home.
That day, You Xin pretended to pack his luggage, but in reality, he didn't take much with him. Even his car remained quietly parked in the parking space next to the garden for several months.
Sometimes on his days off, he would go back home to stay. But every time he said "go home" in the training room, his teammates assumed he was going back to his own place in the city, not to the place where Nam Ji-yi was renting.
In a sense... they are practically living together right now.
Nan Zhiyi once pointed this out, and You Xin thought for a moment and told him, "Haven't you realized that we've been living together for almost half a year?"
"..."
Nan Zhiyi had to admit that You Xin's drinking manners were surprisingly better than her own; he was quiet and did whatever she was asked to do throughout the entire drinking session.
He settled the other person in the room, then turned and went into the kitchen to make a cup of hot honey water.
When Yu Xin returned to the room with the cup, he was still sitting motionless, head down, as if deep in thought.
Nan Zhiyi placed the cup in front of him: "Here."
You Xin looked up, but did not take the cup.
"April 16, 2023," he said, reciting the date clearly.
Nan Zhiyi: "...?"
You Xin lowered her eyes again, looking rather dejected: "There was an event that day, organized by the M brand, but I didn't attend. Everyone else did."
It took Nan Zhiyi a while to realize what he was talking about: Two years ago, an e-sports peripheral brand held an offline event, and he was invited as one of the guests. Also invited were the entire CG team at the time, including Meng, Wind, Boss, and the then-newcomer C Yux who had just debuted and was attracting a lot of attention.
However, on the day of the event, only three members of CG showed up. CG Club claimed that yux was absent due to illness, but that very evening, someone saw him training energetically on a teammate's camera.
The next day, public opinion exploded. Some said CG ostracized the new team members, some said Yux acted like a big shot (although it was unclear what big shot he was at the time), and some said the brand made a communication mistake. In the end, as time went by, the matter was dropped.
“That day, I threw a tantrum and said I wouldn’t go because I heard you were coming.” You Xin’s gaze remained fixed on the ground between the two of them. “Because at the time, I felt that if I saw you, I probably wouldn’t be able to control my emotions well, and all the efforts I had made to stay away from you would have been in vain.”
"As a result, I dreamed for a week in a row that I went to the scene, saw you backstage, and you smiled at me and said a lot of things to me."
"After I woke up, I didn't remember a single word."
Nan Zhiyi blinked.
Is this... a sudden emotional outburst, bringing up old matters again?
He put down his cup and sat down next to You Xin, who continued, "Actually, the time when I missed you the most was right after we broke up. Back then, I dreamed about you every day, dreamed that we hadn't broken up, dreamed that you would always walk with me. But every time, in the end, I would dream that you fell in love with someone else, holding someone else's hand, and then I would wake up in a fright... I never even saw that person's face clearly."
Nan Zhiyi felt a mix of emotions she couldn't quite describe, but she also felt like laughing.
He still remembered the event You Xin mentioned. Sister Li had helped him secure the collaboration, so she was unaware of the secrets between the two. Therefore, when Nan Zhiyi saw the guest list, besides surprise, she also felt a vague expectation that they could meet and reconcile.
At least as friends.
Later, he also saw some comments from fans saying, "If Yux hadn't been absent that day, Youyi would have known each other a long, long time ago. It's such a pity." Only the parties involved know that the guest list was set from the beginning, and there can only be one reason why Yux didn't attend.
Nan Zhiyi once thought that he hated her.
However, he felt there was no need to recount his feelings at the time, given that the person in front of him seemed to desperately need his counseling.
"What exactly do you..." You Xin continued, "I don't know. What is it about me that you like? Many times I can't imagine what is there about me that you would like."
He paused for a moment: "Putting appearances aside."
Nan Zhiyi was genuinely amused by him this time: "What exactly are you thinking about every day?"
He then recalled what Song Meng had mentioned about Yux always dressing up meticulously whenever she went out in public, and a smile involuntarily crept onto his lips: "Do you really want me to list them one by one? That would be too many."
After thinking for a moment, I decided to start with the most striking point to quickly get this person, who seemed quite lucid but whose mind was actually a complete mess, to bed: "For example, you're really good at games. You were the runner-up in the World Invitational Tournament last year, and there were two FMVPs in your region. Out of eight billion people in the world, no more than ten can do that. There will always be a lot of people who like you—okay, drink your water and get some rest. Don't think about these random things anymore."
You Xin stared thoughtfully at the steaming cup of honey water.
He obediently drank the water, letting Nan Zhiyi lay his limbs flat on the bed and cover him with a blanket.
Nan Zhiyi placed his clothes on his bedside table. Before leaving, she hesitated for a moment, then finally kissed him on the cheek, thinking that this way he wouldn't have nightmares tonight.
But as he lowered his head, his elbow pressed against the underside of his coat next to the pillow, where he found a hard, box-shaped object.
"...?" He looked down to touch You Xin's coat pocket. "What did you put in your bag?"
You Xin suddenly grabbed his wrist.
"It's nothing." He spoke calmly, as if nothing had happened, but Nan Zhiyi felt he seemed a little nervous. "It's probably the documents. I folded them up and put them in my clothes—you took good care of me tonight, so get some rest."
-
The next morning, Nan Zhiyi learned what You Xin's evasive secret was.
His excellent information network was thanks to Song Baiyu, who stayed up until 3 a.m. last night gossiping and still sent him messages in the middle of the night.
[Pigeon: Holy crap, bro, this is some juicy gossip!!! Come quick!!!]
[Pigeon: [Weibo link] #yuxRelationship# Famous e-sports player yux is suspected of being in a relationship, he was photographed...]
Nan Zhiyi was still lying in bed, her soul still lingering in her dream, when she clicked on the link the other person had shared with her, completely bewildered.
[@esportsxiaoguai2: #yuxrelationship# Famous esports player yux is suspected of being in a relationship. He was photographed picking out a ring in front of a jewelry store! His relationship with his mysterious girlfriend is stable, and they are suspected of getting engaged soon?]
According to the contributor, Yux usually wears rings, but the counter he was at at the time was a counter for the brand to display wedding rings and other wedding rings. When he saw them, he asked the sales clerk to buy the same style. The clerk said that Yux had chosen a custom style, with prices starting at 86,000 RMB and no upper limit.
HYG secured first place in the recently concluded Summer Split regular season, and yux, as their main carry player, deserves much of the credit. What are your thoughts on yux's new relationship?
[Images][Images][Images]
Nan Zhiyi: "…………"
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