Chapter 495

"How is it that you shatter at a single touch? Is there no one who can actually stand up to me?" Luo Quan looked at the camera with a mocking expression, her tone sarcastic to the extreme: "You guys are really pathetic."

For a man, being called short, poor, or ugly doesn't matter, but being told he "can't do it" is the absolute bottom line for a male's pride.

Being told she "can't do it" by Luo Quan in front of so many people was something no self-respecting male summoner could endure. For a time, friend requests and challenges flooded in.

She checked their ranks, and they were all Diamond or Master—already in the realm of experts. However, Luo Quan was a Master of the Rift; unless they were Challenger, it was almost impossible to defeat her with random champions.

After another dozen or so brothers fell at her hands, the surging emotions of the boys in the chat finally calmed down significantly.

Just like math problems, if you can't beat someone in League of Legends, you just can't. Skill isn't like other superficial things; it's something honed through countless ranked matches and laning phases.

As an old player who has played LOL since the server opened, with nearly ten years of experience combined across two lifetimes, how could an average person withstand her?

Seeing that those who mocked her had all quieted down, Luo Quan felt much more comfortable. Although the fans adding her as a friend to participate in the tournament were still endless, the first Luo Quan Cup Rift Solo Tournament ended there.

These participating summoners weren't all trying to restore male pride; many came for the tournament prizes.

In fact, for Luo Quan herself, the prizes weren't anything valuable—just a few autographed photos she had taken recently. But because she rarely gives autographs anymore, the value of these prizes was very high to her fans.

Unfortunately, no one could defeat her, so these prizes weren't given out immediately. However, since everyone's emotions were stirred up, Luo Quan didn't want to be a killjoy, so she held a free giveaway in the chat. The method of participation was to send bullet comments, and she would draw fifty lucky viewers to each receive an autographed photo.

After the countdown for the giveaway began, the screen was covered in bullet comments like "Wife, wife," "Luo Bao, Mom loves you," and "No male moms."

And after the fifty lucky winners were revealed, the bullet comments turned into "Congrats to these 50 bastards," "Damn, nice, I won!", and "You animal, how did you win!".

A bunch of silly netizens, even though not everyone won a prize, filled the stream with a joyful atmosphere.

After the giveaway, Luo Quan entered the "Rift of the Peak" and began her long-awaited climb up the ranks.

Because she hadn't played for too long, the Master rank she had worked so hard to reach had dropped back to Diamond. Moreover, with the MSI just finished, the Rift of the Peak was a mix of fish and dragons, with both high-level players and pros. With her current skill, it would likely be troublesome to return to Master.

Speaking of which, last year's S7 World Championship was held on home soil. Although it was a bit embarrassing to have two Korean teams competing for the championship at the Bird's Nest, this esports extravaganza caused LOL's popularity in the country to surge.

Starting from S8, the LPL gained the favor of numerous investors. Many familiar brands began naming and sponsoring teams, and everything in the region became professionalized. Both popularity and viewership grew at a visible rate.

Especially after the GNR team won the MSI a month ago, the LPL finally defeated a Korean team in a BO5 of an international tournament again after many years.

This joyous event, celebrated by the entire esports world, caused quite a frenzy in the country. On the night of the victory, countless universities and high schools were shouting: "GNR is awesome!" It also directly landed at the top of the Weibo trending list, with over 100,000 comments!

Unfortunately, Luo Quan was fully immersed in filming a movie at the time, so she didn't watch the finals live, and she missed the celebration when everyone else was celebrating.

However, she is actually very passionate about esports, especially LOL. The day after the victory, she posted a congratulatory status and tweet.

She originally thought her connection with LOL would just be this: playing ranked matches to climb when there were no tournaments, and cheering for her home team like everyone else when there were. That was until she received a call from Mr. Zhou Zhou Yangwen.

"Took that game; winning was so difficult." Luo Quan stretched and looked happily at the increased LP on the game interface.

A hard-fought battle, leading teammates to defeat a strong enemy, and finally taking the MVP—the thrill of gaming lies exactly in this.

Of course, that's assuming she wins. If she had lost, Luo Quan would probably have turned into a "Zu'an player" and greeted those "noob" teammates.

Just as she was preparing to take a break before continuing to climb, Mr. Zhou, whom she hadn't been in contact with for a while, suddenly called her.

"Hello, Mr. Zhou." Luo Quan muted the stream's audio and answered the phone, "Is *Creation Youth Era* already in its final episode? If so, I'll get the song to you right away."

"Not at all, there's still half a month before we film the final episode. But if you haven't written it yet, you can start preparing," Zhou Zhou Yangwen said with a smile, "The reason I'm calling you this time is mainly for another matter... I heard you really like playing League of Legends."

Luo Quan admitted it directly: "Yes, I just finished a game when you called."

Hearing this, Zhou Zhou Yangwen felt much more at ease: "Then are you interested in participating in a new hero's production plan?"

Luo Quan was stunned: "You're in charge of this too?"

Zhou Zhou Yangwen smiled: "It's not that, but the China branch of Riot Games asked me to ask you. League of Legends is currently the world's number one esport, and it's becoming more and more popular both domestically and abroad. If we could have a big star like you collaborate, it would definitely be a world-renowned news story."

As the saying goes, "Flattery never hurts." Hearing such compliments made one feel physically and mentally pleased, and since they were already acquaintances, she was quite interested in this win-win collaboration:

"Then tell me, how should I participate in this plan?"

Zhou Zhou Yangwen immediately said: "The League wants to form an idol group with female heroes. Since a new hero is coming out, we'll have four veteran heroes bring her along. You just need to provide one or two songs for this virtual idol group as their debut tracks."

"Additionally, the voice acting for the new hero will also be done by you. You can also do a cosplay and promote it on Twitter or domestic social media platforms."

"Actually, it's not a very complicated job."

"No problem. For the song, just pay the market rate. I'll do the voice acting and cosplay as a favor for free; consider it a gift." Luo Quan was very straightforward and agreed immediately.

Zhou Zhou Yangwen said happily: "Haha, I love working with you. You never talk nonsense; you're so straightforward!"

After the verbal contract was settled, Zhou Zhou Yangwen immediately arranged for the formal contract. Soon, the relevant plan materials were sent to her email, but because she was streaming, she didn't open them right away.

After streaming until noon, Luo Quan said she had some business to handle and ended the stream early.

Opening the email, what Luo Quan saw was a female hero with pink hair. She was very beautiful, but her idol image and her in-game image were quite different; it seemed the designers weren't the same person.

Actually, there's no helping that. League of Legends is popular, but the game engine isn't actually that great, and the game is 2.5D, so the in-game character models aren't really that good.

However, since this new hero is to be operated as a virtual idol, her idol image definitely won't be subpar.

Speaking of which, when Riot headquarters learned that their "Penguin Daddy" (Tencent) and Luo Quan had a very good relationship, they intended to have Luo Quan directly be the face model for this virtual idol female hero.

Nowadays, many AAA game protagonists have their appearances based on handsome men and beautiful women as face models, so the characters created can have higher attractiveness.

However, considering that Luo Quan had taken out such a high insurance policy on her face, the cost to purchase her portrait rights would likely be in the millions. After weighing the options, they decided to only use her voice.

As for the face model, cosplay would be enough to make up for it.

Actually, even if Riot headquarters were willing to spend a fortune to have Luo Quan be the face model for the new hero, Luo Quan wouldn't agree.

It's not about the money; it's mainly because if she did the modeling, her facial data would have to be handed over. It wouldn't be a big deal if it were only used in the game.

But, there is currently a category on P-site called "3D," where many protagonists of small movies use the female leads of the hottest games, and their appearances are indistinguishable from the characters in the game's CG.

Luo Quan doesn't know what kind of "black technology" this is, but if this technology were used on a female hero made with her face, that would be a huge problem.

By then, who knows what kind of "Goddess of the Dark World" title might be pinned on her.

Actually, because Luo Quan has a good reputation with the public and has donated so much money both domestically and abroad, making her a great philanthropist, the AI face-swapping technology rampant on P-site hasn't been used on her by anyone.

Even if "lecherous fans" love "NSFW content," they actually have their bottom lines.

However, if the target is a female hero, then everyone wouldn't care.

Therefore, Luo Quan would absolutely not hand over her facial data to anyone, and naturally, she wouldn't do face modeling for a game character either.

As for the cosplay, Luo Quan looked at the new hero's image in the email: long pink hair, a very impressive volume of hair, and according to the setting, she is of mixed Chinese and Western descent. She is a newly debuted creative female singer and comes with a "full of energy" attribute, with a smile that is quite approachable.

This setting actually has quite a few similarities to her own. I believe that when the new hero's background is announced, many fans will find it surprising.

After observing the new hero's fashion characteristics, Luo Quan began to work on the cosplay.

On the other side, after Tencent signed the contract with Luo Quan, the official League of Legends account also released the news that they would be collaborating with Luo Quan. They stated that the upcoming new hero would have a dual identity: she is both a new hero in the Rift and a virtual idol. Luo Quan will create her personal theme song and provide the voice acting, and will release a cosplay image later.

For the massive global LOLer community, this is undoubtedly a bombshell.

The boys who like playing League of Legends and the boys who like Luo Quan are highly overlapping in every region. After all, among young people, who doesn't like gaming and beautiful girl singers?

Moreover, Luo Quan herself is a high-level League player. Anyone who pays a little attention to her knows that she has appeared many times in domestic LOL highlight reels, such as "Streamers Explode" or "Streamers Really Know How to Play."

Although her streaming tag on Bilibili is "Celebrity Streamer," whenever she streams League of Legends, she is the "Big Sister" of the Bilibili LOL section, and at her peak, her traffic is no less than that of platforms like Douyu or Huya that specialize in streaming.

Therefore, her popularity among League of Legends players is actually quite high; many top-tier players and big streamers can't compare to her.

And now that Luo Quan and Riot are collaborating to launch a new hero, it is a good thing for everyone.

For League of Legends, having such an international superstar provide voice acting for a new hero is definitely a very prestigious thing. When facing mockery from players of other games, this is definitely a powerful weapon.

And for her own fans, there are even more things to be happy about; new songs and cosplay are both very good.

Especially cosplay—whenever this word is mentioned, the hearts of otaku fans ignite with excitement like a flame.

Whether they are Bilibili fans or Japanese fans, they are in the disaster zones of ACG culture and have a love for cosplay that comes from the bottom of their bones.

Unfortunately, Luo Quan has been debuted for so long, and while she has done swimsuit shoots, she hasn't really done much role-playing.

But since she is in this circle, she will experience it sooner or later, just like cross-dressing; it's something she can't avoid.

However, after she finishes cosplaying the character from the game, the vast fan base is still quite hopeful that Luo Quan will try other characters after this, such as a succubus, a cat-girl, or 2B. These are all good "characters" that can provide benefits to everyone!

Regarding these unrealistic thoughts, if Luo Quan saw them, she would probably only respond with: "You guys are dreaming!"

Even if she starved to death or died outside, she would absolutely not cosplay such characters, and there is no such thing as a "true fragrance" (changing one's mind) situation!

After the collaboration news came out, the next day Luo Quan took the script provided by Riot Games and recorded the hero's lines.

Basically, she just had to read according to the set lines; only some interactions with other heroes or special situations like casting spells or dying needed emotional adjustments. There wasn't much difficulty.

Luo Quan spent half a day recording most of the lines. Because she was recording normal human speech, the "ventriloquism" she had just acquired didn't come in handy.

In the afternoon, Luo Quan went to a hair salon to dye her hair again.

Previously, for filming *Rurouni Kenshin*, she had dyed her hair red. Now, to cosplay the new hero, she had to dye it into a "maiden pink."

In just two months, her hair color has changed twice, and each time it's more vibrant than the last. She doesn't know when her hair will return to its original state.

"It's still quite pretty." After the hair was dyed, Luo Quan looked at her long pink hair in the mirror.

Sure enough, no matter what color she dyes it, she can pull it off. With this face, even if she shaved her head, it would definitely be the most beautiful bald head in the world!

PS: The pictures have been found. Interested readers can check the comment section; the author will pin the photos. If you are not satisfied, don't take it too seriously; just consider it for fun.