Yu Jin didn’t send any more messages asking about it.
Yun Qi’s suspended heart finally settled.
His hero had idled long enough for the system to flag him as AFK, automatically recalling him to base. His teammates asked in voice chat what he was doing and told him to move. Yun Qi sluggishly came online and focused on the match.
Meanwhile, Yi Yang was playing alongside Yu Jin, with Liu Ying standing behind Yu Jin and watching intently in silence. Yun Qi occasionally glanced up and saw Liu Ying’s troubled expression, knowing the pressure he was under was immense.
Of all the positions, jungler was always the most fiercely contested. Ever since Yun Qi had gone pro, he’d seen plenty of jungling prodigies. Back at SK, before Chen Xia, there had been a revolving door of junglers coming and going. Chen Xia had only secured his spot through sheer overwhelming strength. Yet even he was powerless against Liu Ying. And above Liu Ying loomed Yu Jin—one after another, an endless ladder.
Yun Qi figured he had it easy; he hadn’t run into any ridiculously overpowered rivals. If he’d been born into the jungler role competing against Yu Jin, he’d want to bash his head against a wall and die.
The game dragged on for thirty-six minutes, but Yu Jin’s side had ended theirs long ago. The next one started with a full five-stack, and they were already rallying everyone.
Yi Yang and Yu Jin overlapped on position, but Yi Yang preferred playing support to learn from Yu Jin’s game sense. He picked Guardian Elf, which could latch onto a hero’s head, and stuck with Yu Jin the whole game. That forced Rong Rong to play mage while Chang Shu stuck to shooter.
After heroes were locked in, Yun Qi eyed Yi Yang’s Guardian Elf pick. The elf offered control and protection, but she was fragile. Once she detached, she had three seconds of damage immunity—but if she couldn’t escape, she’d die in the teamfight. She dealt no damage herself, only shields and crowd control.
This hero was a duo specialist, requiring a specific team comp to shine. As a soft support, she meant Yun Qi, the top laner, needed to pick a tanky frontline. But warriors all shared one flaw: tanky meant low damage. Yun Qi didn’t go tanky not because of that, but because he trusted his teammates. For now, team comp didn’t matter—they could just play whatever.
Yu Jin was on his famous main account, its gleaming World Championship Badge standing out from the rest. The loading screen was eye-catching. Yun Qi thought the enemy team was probably screaming right now. If he were a random player seeing that ID, he might not stay calm either.
Sure enough, as soon as the game started, the enemy chat exploded.
【Holy shit!】
【WTF, why’d the system match us against a monster like this?】
【AHHHHH E God! OMG, screenshot!】
【Eidis? For real? World Championship Badge? Fake, right bro?】
The enemies still couldn’t quite believe it.
Yu Jin beelined for the jungle. Yi Yang’s elf couldn’t attach yet and needed level two. Once he hit it, he tagged along with Yu Jin to leech jungle camps. The two roamed the jungle while Yun Qi had barely reached lane. He hadn’t even cleared the first wave when Yu Jin showed up.
Yun Qi had been shoved under tower. Yu Jin dove right in, and Yun Qi followed up. They tower-dived and burst down the enemy. As the defense tower chipped them to low health, Yi Yang landed a precise heal. No one died, and they retreated smoothly.
“Bro, don’t go so hard—I haven’t bought boots yet, can’t keep up,” Yi Yang said, arriving fashionably late. Yu Jin fed him a jungle camp, and he finally hit level two, latching onto Yu Jin’s head.
The duo ganked mid next, playing aggressively. Yi Yang asked, “Not counter-jungling, bro?”
Yu Jin was curt: “Nope.”
Whoever he ganked died. They even forced the mid laner. Rong Rong snagged the kill and said, “Love you, Captain Yu.”
That kill put him a few hundred gold ahead of the enemy mage.
Yun Qi finished farming and grabbed the river crab, then watched the duo merge on the map. Yu Jin jungled with brilliant map awareness and fearless aggression. Every gank, retreat, or commit was instantaneous—no time for the enemy to react. With Yi Yang in tow, they farmed nine thousand gold by the six-minute mark.
【Can’t take this, is this even human?】
【Nine thousand… at six minutes. E God, we’re a booster squad—this loss costs us fifty bucks. Go easy pls.】
【I can’t take it anymore, who’s this Milk Cap? Killing me.】
Yi Yang wasn’t with Chang Shu, who got tower-dived bot lane too. The kill score was now 2-9.
Yun Qi farmed safely top, biding his time. Once his economy ramped, he started dueling the enemy. A flurry of skillful plays later, they realized they couldn’t win, flashed out, and barely escaped with sliver health.
Yun Qi didn’t chase. A skirmish broke out mid; he chugged a health pot and rushed over. Four versus three with a gold lead—they took the teamfight easily.
A few minutes later, the second tower was gone.
Yun Qi had queued with Liu Ying before. Liu Ying played flashy and could sometimes be suppressed, but Yu Jin was a whole different story. No matter what champion he picked, he exuded an overwhelming sense of pressure. It was probably because his style was so brutally aggressive—he treated the counter matchup chain like a joke, instantly sized up whether a fight was winnable, and backed it up with precise mechanics that turned even outdated picks into absolute meta tyrants.
【Why! Why do we run into pros in the last game?!】
【Bro, didn’t you go abroad…?】
【Bro, please, just throw this one?】
【Yi Yang: No dice. Smurfing wrecks balance. Gonna smash you.】
【Fine, whatever.】
Yi Yang clung to Yu Jin like a shadow, keeping his hands free. He didn’t fire off a single skill—just slapping on a shield was enough to send Yu Jin soaring. What terrified the enemy most was a player with mechanics like that paired with a Guardian Elf. The two stuck together from start to finish, wreaking havoc on the opposition.
Once they realized they couldn’t touch Yu Jin, the enemies quickly shifted their focus to Yi Yang.
【Yi Yang, you big dude playing pocket support? I look down on you.】
【Nyah nyah nyah. Learning map awareness from my bro. Quit whining.】
Chang Shu groaned in exasperation. “Can’t you peel for me for a bit?”
Yi Yang opened his mouth to reply, but Yu Jin cut in. “Go.”
Yi Yang felt abruptly abandoned. “Captain Yu—”
“He’s rotating up. Peel for him a while. I don’t need the shield anymore.” At Yu Jin’s order, Yi Yang had no choice but to head toward Chang Shu. On the way, he tugged at the vision and spotted Top Lane pushed way too deep.
Fortunately, Yun Qi’s game sense was sharp. The moment the map showed a missing enemy, he pulled back and stopped pushing aggressively.
Yu Jin ganked with ruthless aggression. Yun Qi didn’t tunnel on the First Tower; instead, he stuck with Yu Jin, collapsing on other lanes and skirmishing in the Jungle. Their synergy was flawless.
Rong Rong’s brow furrowed as he noticed something off. “You two… have you teamed up before?”
Yun Qi’s nerves tightened at Rong Rong’s words.
Rong Rong kept an eye on their movements. “That coordination is insane. That Tiger Head gank—total mind meld? No pings, and you’re still perfectly in sync.”
Yun Qi stayed silent. Yu Jin made no sound. Rong Rong couldn’t get over how tight their play was, so he pulled up vision to watch.
It was like they’d rehearsed it. No communication whatsoever, yet their skills chained seamlessly—no random spam, no dumping everything on one target and wasting it. The instant Yu Jin’s cooldowns kicked in, Yun Qi followed up perfectly. Controls landed right on cue. You didn’t get synergy like that without grinding together constantly, inside out on each other’s habits and styles.
The game clocked fifteen minutes, and they started shoving High Ground. Rong Rong locked down the enemy Shooter with pinpoint control, chaining into Chang Shu’s massive burst to delete him in a flash. Yun Qi ulted in to force the fight. The team steamrolled straight to the Nexus Crystal, won the clash right underneath it, and watched their minion wave march into the tower. Victory.
The chat box flashed for a split second before the screen cut away—no telling what the enemies typed. Everyone loaded back into the results screen.
Yun Qi opened chat and fired off a message to Yu Jin.
【Hand hurting?】
【Numb.】
【Good.】
No one caught their quiet exchange. A warm flutter stirred in Yun Qi’s chest. He hated drawn-out ambiguity, but with Yu Jin, it felt different.
Yu Jin holed up in the Training Room all afternoon, queuing with the team straight through until dinnertime.
They cycled through waves of teammates—Ziwu and the others queuing up one by one. It was the best way to get a clear read on everyone’s individual skill.
Everyone felt the heat queuing against Yu Jin. He held veto power over the Grand Tournament roster, personal vibes be damned. The quieter ones pushed extra hard to prove themselves; the substitutes overperformed across the board, no weak showings.
But substitutes were substitutes. None outshone the starters. By the end of the session, Yu Jin had a solid sense of where things stood.
Training wrapped up that evening, and a cluster of players surrounded Yu Jin, peppering him with questions about their play.
“Not bad. Some real progress.” To Yu Jin, they all had massive headroom left. But to Liu Ying and the rest, they’d already hit their personal ceilings—squeezing out even a sliver more was brutal.
“I feel a tad stronger than before,” Liu Ying admitted, “but I’d still get smoked by those Foreign Server monsters.” He knew his limits. Domestically, they had no peers. Globally? Top dogs from every corner made a world title anything but a cakewalk.
“Then don’t slack off.”
Liu Ying gripped the back of Yu Jin’s chair. “Got it. I won’t.”
Yi Yang sidled up. “What about me, bro?”
Yu Jin shot him a glance. “You’re not hitting the bar I set for you.”
Yi Yang pressed. “Where do I need to step up?”
Yu Jin said, “You’ll see if there’s room for improvement after playing a couple games with Liu Ying. Maybe I set my expectations for you too high.”
Yi Yang lit up with joy. “Hehe, keep those expectations high, bro. That means I’m pretty good, right?”
He craved Yu Jin’s approval more than anything. Getting even a single compliment from him was harder than ascending to heaven, so Yi Yang was content with just that one kind word.
Yu Jin offered advice to each person one by one. The most certain pick for the starting roster was Rong Rong. His support play was beyond reproach—awareness on point, mechanics sharp. He and Chang Shu formed an unbreakable golden duo, and Yu Jin instructed them to spend this time honing their synergy instead of solo queuing.
Both agreed.
Yun Qi listened quietly as Yu Jin advised the others, not interrupting. He paid special attention when Jiu Ke’s turn came. Yu Jin had only one thing to say: extra practice.
It was exactly what Jiu Ke had expected. He knew his spot was on thin ice. He glanced up at Yun Qi, their eyes meeting.
Neither said a word.
Yu Jin offered no evaluation of Yun Qi. To the others, it seemed his position was the most uncertain.
