Chapter 4

Chapter 4: …Road is generous.

Lu Boyuan rotated his wrist and was about to exit the livestream, but his phone rang first.

Ding-ge¹ instantly asked, “Why did you run over to Soft’s livestream?!”

Lu Boyuan frowned before he looked up after a few seconds at the upper right corner of the streaming interface.

Only to see, in the user login area, several large letters shining brightly—TTC Road.

Lu Boyuan was silent for a brief moment before he explained simply, “Forgot to switch accounts.”

“I told you not to log in to your main account normally, it’s not like you need to livestream these days either… Is that the important part!!” Ding-ge said, “Right now the marketing accounts are all posting on Weibo and stirring things up!”

Lu Boyuan said, “What is there to stir up? I’m watching a livestream, that’s all.”

“That’s all? Whose livestreams have you watched before? You don’t even enter your teammates’ livestream rooms.”

Ding-ge paused for a bit before he gathered the strength to weakly continue, “And also… Soft was commentating on the semifinals in his livestream last night.”

Lu Boyuan recalled his teammates’ sleepwalking gameplay last night and understood what Ding-ge meant. Soft probably didn’t have many good things to say when commentating.

Ding-ge: “In front of several hundred thousand people, that brat said that Kan had been bribed by gamblers.”

Lu Boyuan: “…”

“He really is quite audacious. If Kan intended to press charges, Kan would win for sure.” Ding-ge expressionlessly repeated what the marketing accounts were saying. “Now all these marketing accounts are saying that you’re going to stand up for your teammates.”

The marketing accounts were being a little excessive, but nobody could actually come up with a different reason for why Road would appear in Soft’s livestream.

The other end of the line was silent. Ding-ge sighed and was about to speak when he heard a very quiet, low laugh.

He was astonished. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” Lu Boyuan restrained his laughter and said, “Then, if I log out right now, wouldn’t that really make it seem like I came to threaten him?”

Ding-ge was momentarily stunned. “What do you mean? Why exactly did you go to his livestream room?”

“Just to take a look.” Lu Boyuan said, “It’s fine, I’ll take care of it myself. Hanging up now.”

Jian Rong didn’t know what had happened. He only knew that the livestream’s barrage had exploded to the point that it was affecting his game.

This computer was something his dad left behind, and its configuration could only be considered average. It could stream with difficulty, but it lagged easily if there were too many special effects from gifts.

He didn’t even need to look at the barrage helper to know what these people were arguing noisily about. “Don’t ask, I’m not getting a new computer, no money.”

His team’s jungler had already been roasted to the point that he was AFK, and he was even threatening to make Jian Rong lose points in the chat box.

Seeing the other person’s threats, Jian Rong laughed mockingly. “When dealing with this kind of person, not only do you have to insult him until he AFKs, you also have to win after he decides to AFK, so that he clearly recognizes the fact that he’s a useless piece of trash.

“To piss off this dumbass, I’m going to temporarily turn off the barrage. There shouldn’t be any complaints, right? … okay, there’s none, I’m turning it off.”

Jian Rong ignored the countless question marks in the barrage and swiftly turned off the barrage helper before he focused on playing the game.

Actually, Jian Rong very rarely flamed strangers.

For the quality of the stream, he frequently played in the Platinum and Diamond ranks on his side account, and the players he encountered were all decent anyway.

Occasionally, there would be someone in the team who would die over and over, and after the other three players gave their greetings to the player’s entire family², Jian Rong would even send out a “don’t flame anymore, I’ll carry.”

But the jungler he encountered this match was truly a worthless good-for-nothing.

The events leading up to the incident had nothing to do with Jian Rong. Their team’s support went back to the base because of low health, so she was a bit late in coming to provide assistance in the team fight.

The result of the team fight was also still acceptable. On their side, their jungler and ADC³ had died, but Jian Rong killed off three champions on the other side, and they hadn’t lost any resources in the jungle.

Then the jungler began to attack the support, saying things like, “Just seeing that the gender on the support’s profile is female makes me want to quit the game”, “You knew perfectly well we had to team fight yet you still went back to the base”, “What version of this game still plays with sustain support Lulu, it’s clear that she’s just a rank-climbing *****.”

The support replied back with a few insults, but the girl couldn’t curse out anything too vicious. After seeing her responses, the jungler went after her even harder, his swears growing more and more vulgar.

After it developed into personal attacks, Jian Rong sent the enemy mid laner back home with a combo before he stopped in place and initiated a “friendly exchange” with this jungler. In the end, it became this spectacle.

At the current moment, Jian Rong was the only person on his team with the advantage. His teammates’ scores were all along the lines of 0/2/0⁴, 0/4/3, while his own score was 7/2/0. Since he had quite a few kills, he had gold rewards on him, making him the enemy’s target.

Jian Rong moved his champion to the middle lane and saw that the enemy mid Kassadin was currently clearing minions.

There weren’t many ways to obtain gold in the game. One way was to kill champions, and the other way was to kill monsters and the enemy’s minions.

“Their jungler is here.” Jian Rong lifted an eyebrow and gave an analysis for his water friends with a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

“Why else would he dare touch my minions.”

Even though he said that, he still edged closer to the middle lane.

And then, right in front of the enemy jungler’s eyes, he solo killed the enemy mid laner’s Kassadin.

Kassadin’s ultimate ability⁵ was a blink skill.

It was as if Jian Rong knew when he was going to escape, and at the last moment before he could flee, Jian Rong used his own ult on him, utilizing the burst damage from all his unerring skills in the previous two seconds to beautifully accomplish a solo kill.

He then slipped into the jungle and ran away. The chain of skills was very natural and streamlined, not the slightest bit sluggish.

He didn’t expect to encounter the enemy top laner and support the moment he entered the jungle. The enemy support was playing Thresh, a champion that had very strong CC⁶ and could both pull and slow. Jian Rong used his blink skill to easily dodge the enemy’s slow skill. The enemy was full of killing intent and immediately tossed out a flash to come up and throw out his scythe, managing to tether Jian Rong with great difficulty.

Unexpectedly, before the scythe’s pull special effect could even materialize, Jian Rong used his equipped Quicksilver Sash to instantly remove the CC on him, astonishingly fast.

Before the enemy and audience could recover, he had already escaped without even looking back.

Prior to leaving, he also gave an experienced, asshole-y flash of his Mastery Emote⁷ to the other side.

[[All] Baby He Hit Me (Kassadin): ?????]

[[All] Baby He Hit Me (Kassadin): Big bro, save me some face, the jungler is my wife. You’ve solo killed me three times in front of her already.]

[[All] No Way You’re So Trash (The Master of Shadows): Okay.]

After that, Jian Rong really didn’t go after Kassadin anymore.

He turned around and invaded the enemy jungle before ganking the enemy jungler three times.

[[All] Baby He Hit Me (Kassadin): Dammit, she went offline because you killed her so much! It would’ve been better if you fucking came to kill me!]

As Jian Rong purchased equipment, he said, “Why is this couple so hard to please?”

Maybe because Jian Rong spoke up for the support, ever since the jungler went AFK, the little support would occasionally follow behind him.

But the champion he was playing was extremely agile. He could rush into a crowd and rapidly dispatch the enemy’s glass cannon before emerging completely unscathed. There wasn’t much use for a support to follow him.

After that happened a few times, Jian Rong couldn’t help but type something.

[No Way You’re So Trash (The Master of Shadows): Support, go protect the ADC, don’t bother with me.]

As if she didn’t see it, the support still followed closely behind him, giving him a shield even when he was just fighting a monster.

After 37 minutes, Jian Rong carried the team and won the game with a 16/2/0 score.

Right before they finished taking the enemy’s inhibitor⁸, Jian Rong rapidly typed something.

[No Way You’re So Trash (The Master of Shadows): Did the outcome of this game have anything to do with you, dumbass?]

Upon reaching the post-game screen, the jungler immediately left without saying a single word. It seemed like he was quite angry.

Jian Rong stretched and was about to return to the game lobby when a friend request popped up in the bottom right corner.

It was the support from just then.

Out of habit, he declined and reopened the barrage helper.

The barrage was truly too crowded, so Jian Rong selected a few comments that he could read and answered them.

[Why reject her? Do you know you just missed the chance to have a beautiful and pure online dating affair??]

“I don’t add strangers.” After saying that, Jian Rong opened the gift list that he had closed before and started to express his thanks.

After he finished reading them aloud, he looked back at the barrage. The topic had already changed, and Jian Rong narrowed his eyes slightly, discovering that he actually couldn’t really understand what the barrage was talking about. “?”

[…you’re finished, Road himself came to punish you.]

[This dumbass streamer deserves to be taught a lesson, that’s what he gets for flaming people all the time!]

[Road brought Kan’s lawsuit and came to find you!!]

[Very regretful that I got to know you through this kind of method.]

[Is God Lu really going to retire?? I’m begging you, say something, whether it’s life or death just free me already TAT]

[God Lu, your livestream room has already gathered dust…]

[All Netizens Protect Weak Baby Soft (currently just one person)]

“Now what kind of scheme are you guys trying to pull? You think that’s enough to scare me?” Jian Rong laughed coldly. “Why don’t you guys just straight up say Ma Huateng⁹ came to ask me to shoot a commercial for LoL?”

He then leaned back in his chair and looked at takeout options on his phone. Occasionally, he looked up and expressed thanks for new gifts. “Thank you ‘I’m That Support From Just Now’ for the Little Star, thank you ‘TTC Road’ for the Sea…”

Jian Rong: “?”

After realizing what ID he had just said out loud, Jian Rong’s taunting smile froze on his face.

In order to prevent fans from being tricked, StarTV prohibited the use of every professional player’s name.

Only the players themselves could use the names after providing proof.

Jian Rong slowly moved his neck and saw that there was a dazzling “TTC Road” sitting on his livestream room’s Big Star List. There was also a tiny black and white crown logo behind the name.

TTC had a livestream contract with StarTV, and all the members of the team streamed on this platform. StarTV gave the players enough face; every person’s ID had a long string of grand icons behind it, including TTC’s personal team logo.

Road, who hadn’t appeared anywhere on StarTV for three months, was currently hanging out in Jian Rong’s livestream, and had even made it on the money-smashing list.

Jian Rong wasn’t the only one who was stupefied. The nearly 300,000 water friends online in the livestream were also stupefied.

[This person just mocked your teammate for matchfixing yesterday, and you come over to smash a gift worth over 10k on him today?]

[…hacker dog? StarTV can’t even protect a pro player’s account well??]

[Then that hacker dog would have to know not only God Lu’s login password but also his payment information…]

[Husband, did your hand slip??]

[What’s going on? Didn’t I come to see Soft being roasted???]

Road continued to sit on the money-smashing list silently. A few seconds later, another gift special effect leaped up in the livestream.

Before the water friends could crawl out from their thoughts full of question marks, they saw another unimaginable scene—

Only to see Soft, who carelessly nitpicked and bickered with his fans all day long, suddenly put down his propped up legs and sit up perfectly straight, adjusting his previously crooked headphones so that they sat properly on his head. He even lifted a hand and smoothed his disheveled blue hair.

“Thank you Road for the Sea of Stars.” The mouse cursor wandered aimlessly around the computer desktop screen. Jian Rong looked as calm as ever, but his gaze swept around erratically, and his voice was a bit lower than usual. “…Road is generous.”

........

Ding-ge (Ding bro) is the coach.

entire family: Meaning they insulted all his family/cursed him out.

ADC: attack damage carry. Refers to high damage glass cannon type champions who specialize in ranged attacks; the “bot lane” refers to the ADC usually (though also refers to support). 

KDA or KDR (kill to death ratio)

Ultimate ability/ultimate/ult \= a champion’s strongest, most identifying, and most game-changing ability. A blink skill is a type of movement spell in LoL – teleports and flashes are examples of blinks. 

CC: crowd control, or skills that hinder someone’s movements, like knockdown, pulls, slows, etc.

Mastery Emote: basically an emote you can unlock the more levels you master for your champion. Flashing it can either be funny or rude, but in this case JR is clearly doing it just to troll by showing off .

inhibitor: To get to the enemy’s Nexus, you have to go through turrets, inhibitors, and Nexus turrets. By destroying the enemy’s inhibitor/inhib, your own minions get a stat boost and become super minions .

Ma Huateng is the owner of Tencent, which owns Riot Games, which owns League .

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***