League of Legends: League of Unknowns

The summer holidays ended swiftly. Other than routinely helping out at Grand Linca to promote their gaming products, Yu Luocheng spent most of his spare time honing his game skills.

He had heard that the Ionia Region was occupied by stronger players so he had purposely created a new ID in that region.

Since his house subscribed to dual networks, Yu Luocheng could freely switch between regions in the Netcom or Telecom servers as he liked.

When Yang Qianqian was online, he would enter the Iron Solari and mainly focus on familiarizing himself with the champion and playstyle using that account. Most of the time though, he was fulfilling the supporting duty as requested by Yang Qianqian.

Every few days, Yu Luocheng would make all kinds of excuses to date Yang Qianqian as he strived to improve their relationship.

Unfortunately, Yang Qianqian went on a vacation with her family for an extended period after that. This left Yu Luocheng to practice alone.

***

Qin Ying had finally established his own professional team. He had recruited a new Support player to fill in the void left by Yu Luocheng.

Qin Ying knew Yu Luocheng’s prowess well so he often invited Yu Luocheng to be Team Scarlet’s part-time coach.

After all, Yu Luocheng was once an international professional player and his experience in the professional scene was extremely invaluable. Qin Ying acknowledged that fact and would not let go of such a good opportunity to utilize Yu Luocheng’s vast experience.

As a result, Yu Luocheng changed his role from an ex-player into Team Scarlet’s coach. He attended their practice sessions and instructed them from time to time.

The ranking system in LoL was very efficient. They need not worry about the lack of sparring opponents.

Yu Luocheng requested for them to play additional team and individual ranked games persistently on top of their routine practice matches.

His first target for them was to achieve personal League Points above 2000.

From Yu Luocheng’s perspective, 2000 points was the minimum requirement if a gamer wished to play professionally.

One should not blame his or her teammates if they were unable to climb the ranks in a pub game. If a professional player was unable to stand out from the mass, then that player should reflect on his or her own inadequacy.

***

After working for more than a month under Huang Junjie, Yu Luocheng was paid 8,000 yuan as his endorsement fees. Qin Ying had paid him for being his team’s part-time coach too. 2000 yuan for two months. This totalled his income to 10,000 yuan.

Meanwhile, being a runner-up at the Lecheng Grand Final, Yu Luocheng had also obtained 3,000 yuan prize money and not only that, Qin Ying had decided to give Yu Luocheng 6,000 yuan out of the sponsorship fees given to Team Scarlet.

The total sponsorship that Qin Ying had received from Huang Junjie was 10,000 yuan. This was the initial fee while the remaining sponsorship would be fulfilled later on.

This sponsorship was basically wrestled back by Yu Luocheng’s outstanding performance, so the other team members did not object when Qin Ying decided to give Yu Luocheng the largest share.

This way, Yu Luocheng managed to gather 20,000 yuan and cleared the debt he owed Qin Ying.

Earning 20,000 yuan in two months was a fairy tale to most freshly graduated high school students.

However, Yu Luocheng understood that this was only possible if competitions or sponsorships were readily available.

When he was a professional player, he had once obtained a single paycheck worth 30,000 yuan.

Unfortunately, he gained nothing after that for a whole year. 30,000 yuan as an annual salary was a joke in Shanghai, in which the lowest salary is also at least 4,000 yuan per month.

This was the norm in E-sports. Sometimes you gain a large fortune, while for the most part, you were living in poverty.

Hopefully, LoL would be able to change that.

***

In the end, Yu Jing selected Shanghai University for Yu Luocheng, which was abbreviated as S. U.

To be honest, when he first heard about the acronym, the first thing Yu Luocheng thought of was Shit U.

Yu Luocheng had received the offer letter a while ago but he paid no attention to it. All he cared to know was that classes would start on the 1st of September.

Yang Qianqian was enrolled at Zhejiang University as she wished.

Zhejiang University was in Hangzhou and it was only an hour’s drive from Shanghai. Thanks to the convenience of motor cars, Yu Luocheng was glad that he could still meet Yang Qianqian from time to time even though they were now studying in two different cities.

Two months passed by quickly and September came knocking in the blink of an eye.

Initially, Yu Luocheng had promised Yang Qianqian that they would go to Hangzhou together by train, then only would he travel to Shanghai from there.

Too bad, Yang Qianqian was going to be sent to Zhejiang University personally by her father.

Yu Luocheng did not ask his family members to escort him as this was not the first time he was going to Shanghai.

His mother needed to work while his father had also returned to the workplace after his recovery. Yu Luocheng was expecting to travel to Shanghai alone.

***

“Yu Luocheng, have you bought your train ticket?” Yang Qianqian’s sweet voice came from the other end of the phone.

Yu Luocheng was half awake when he picked up the call.

“I am asking you a question!” Yang Qianqian yelled.

“Oh… Not yet,” Yu Luocheng answered hurriedly.

“I will ask my brother to help you buy a ticket then. He will be going with you,” Yang Qianqian said happily.

“Your brother? Yang Ying?” Yu Luocheng was still not fully awake.

“Yea. He is the one who offered first,” Yang Qianqian said smilingly.

“Why is he being so kind?” Yu Luocheng asked.

“Idiot! Have you forgotten which uni my brother attends?” Yang Qianqian reminded him.

Yu Luocheng thought hard and vaguely remembered Yang Qianqian had mentioned once that her brother is a student at Shanghai University…

‘Gosh!’

Yu Luocheng was wide awake now. ‘This means that Yang Ying is my senior!!’

“Don’t worry, I’ve asked him to take good care of you,” Yang Qianqian, still smiling, said.

This was when Ian’s voice came through from a distance, “Worry not, your brother is going to keep a close eye on him and prevent him from flirting around…”

Yu Luocheng’s face darkened after he heard him…

‘Great. I am under surveillance even before I step into university.’

“What nonsense are you talking about? I’m asking you to take care of him and help him out. Who cares whether he is flirting around in the campus. Humph!!” Yang Qianqian immediately rebutted.

“I won’t, I promise. But you too…” Yu Luocheng immediately declared.

“What about me?” Yang Qianqian questioned back seriously.

“Do not flirt with other guys!” Yu Luocheng answered solemnly.

“You are not my brother. Who are you to dictate what I should or shouldn’t do?!” Yang Qianqian asked arrogantly.

Beside her, Yang Ying smiled bitterly.

‘Even I, your actual brother, do not dare to dictate your decision.’

Yang Ying considerately walked away as he heard the two lovebirds begin to tease each other.