Chapter 42: Failure is painful, but a friend's success is even more so

Danking's mouth hung open as he stared blankly at the stage above, his face a mask of disbelief.

What on earth is going on!!!

How did Northern suddenly become a substitute player for VP out of nowhere?

Tie Dan grabbed his own short-cropped hair, stood up, and stared at Xu Beifang on the stage with a bewildered expression.

Didn't you find a job and start working, and stop playing CS?

I even specially invited you over to relax, wanting you to adjust your mood.

What the hell is this now!!

Standing in his spot, Danking did not obstruct anyone else's view.

It was as if a bolt of lightning had flashed through his mind.

"Just found a job recently, not convenient to stream..."

"Don't need your ticket, I'm invited to go over..."

Looking at Xu Beifang on the stage, he finally realized—

Finding a job meant joining VP and becoming a Professional Player; saying it like that didn't seem to be a problem.

And as a Professional Player, being invited to participate in a tournament, that was also no problem... No problem my ass!!

Who would call playing professionally a "job"! This is a dream, okay!!

Danking only now understood that all the confusion had been foreshadowed.

Looking at the Jersey in his hand with "Danking" written on it, it was the only thing he could show off right now.

He had thought he was already ahead of Northern, but only now did he realize that Xu Beifang had already stepped onto the professional stage and was about to start his first official match.

"Just asked you when you could play in a match?"

"Your 'soon' meant 10 minutes?"

Danking finally realized—the clown was actually me!

Originally, he felt that as a youth training player, at least his future was promising.

But looking at Xu Beifang, who was already warming up on stage, by comparison, his own sense of superiority vanished into thin air.

One's own failure is certainly painful, but a friend's success is even more heartbreaking.

Xu Beifang, you really deserve to die!!

……

The netizens in Danking's and Xu Beifang's stream rooms were all stunned in place.

In the official stream room for IEM Shanghai, quite a few people also noticed this information about the substitute for VP.

Because of Jinnan Jun's management on Bilibili, many CSGO fans had seen the clips of Nice, a relatively high-end player, bumping into European pros on FACEIT, and many people also knew that Nice was that "Zhengzheng Shang".

But they weren't very sure, after all, there are many players with the same ID.

The ID "Niko" already has two in European professional tournaments.

The ID "Lucky" has even appeared 3 times throughout CSGO history.

So the possibility of duplicate IDs is very high.

But in fact, they also had a glimmer of expectation in their hearts; many people hoped to see this child who diligently listened to advice appear on the professional stage, even if it was just a flash in the pan, they were all looking forward to it immensely.

When the live camera finally gave a shot to the new player Nice, that familiar lanky shadow, well... he wasn't that thin anymore! But it was still that familiar face, only now it was brimming with confidence and a hint of nervousness!

The familiar appearance immediately made the stream room boil over.

【Holy crap! Little Xu!!!】

【What the hell is this! There's a lot of information here, let me sort it out, how did Little Xu end up at VP?】

【Back then, when the trial in the country failed, someone advised Little Xu to go abroad on FACEIT to find an opportunity, and it turned out he found it!!】

【My god!! Mom, I witnessed the process of a random passerby becoming a pro step by step!】

【Little Xu's experience could be made into a documentary, it's too exaggerated!!】

Many players who knew Little Xu's experience called their friends to watch the stream one after another; they couldn't believe such a thing had really happened.

……

Xiao Ming was at home eating ice cream and watching anime; life couldn't be more pleasant.

A call from Ma Dong suddenly came through, which surprised him: "Hello, what's up, Ma Ge?"

"Watch the IEM Shanghai tournament..."

"I've been watching recently, but there's no Tyloo match today, so I didn't watch," Xiao Ming replied.

Ma Dong said concisely: "Go watch now, that VP match, there's a surprise."

Immediately after, he hung up the phone.

Mysterious... Xiao Ming turned off the anime on his phone and then opened the stream room for IEM Shanghai.

His roommate's face abruptly appeared in front of the camera.

"Holy crap!!! What is this situation with Northern!!"

Looking at the VP prefix before Xu Beifang's ID, Xiao Ming was even more dumbfounded:

"Oh my god, my foster father really became a Professional Player!!"

Since around April, Xu Beifang had been working crazily hard on CSGO, wanting to become a Professional Player.

Xiao Ming actually never really believed in Xu Beifang; after all, they were both ordinary people, and professional players were still too far away from them, so far away that it was unrealistic.

But he hadn't expected that Xu Beifang, relying on his own efforts, would narrow the gap between ordinary people and professionals bit by bit.

Now, he had even stepped into place in one go, silently becoming a real pro!

Xiao Ming called Ma Dong back and shouted excitedly: "Ma Ge, buy tickets quickly!! Tomorrow we'll go to the venue to cheer for Northern!!"

……

"Nervous?" Looking at the stiff state of the young man beside him, pasha took the initiative to comfort him, "It's fine, just imagine the people below are a bunch of dumbbell plates; doesn't that feel much better?"

As he said this, pasha stood up and shouted to the audience: "I love you, Mai Fan de~"

The audience below immediately responded, and pasha sat down, very satisfied.

Who said Huaxia fans are reserved? The feeling of competing in Huaxia is even much better than in other places; as long as you play well, they won't be stingy with their voices.

"I'm not nervous, I'm excited."

Xu Beifang slightly moved his fingers to warm up his hands briefly.

Four months of hard work had finally brought him an opportunity to play; he had to go all out and play this match well.

Entering the BP phase, 5power banned a map first, and they removed Nuke first.

VP had already considered the BP for today, directly removing Dust 2.

Arriving at the map selection phase for both sides, 5power chose Inferno first.

"Let's pick Cache again; we actually played quite well yesterday." pasha didn't continue, but everyone who understood, understood.

The second map was confirmed as Cache.

5power then removed Overpass.

VP chose to keep Train between Mirage and Train.

Thus, the maps for this BO3 were officially confirmed.

Map 1: Inferno

Map 2: Cache

Map 3: Train

The players from both sides began to enter the Map 1 server, and the match officially started.

VP vs 5power

Map: Inferno

T: dobu, kabal, qka, Brother Xiaosa, card shark

CT: byali, pasha, neo, michu, nice

"The match officially begins! It's 5power's map pick, and they start as the attacking side. Three people are going Side Path, and they are even carrying the bomb. Looking at this movement, the attacking side should be choosing to execute a rush to Second Floor," Ma Xixi analyzed while looking at the minimap, "But VP has three people grouped up at Mid on A Site; they aren't particularly afraid of this rush to the floor."

Li Wenzhe added from the side: "So now it still depends on the Gunplay performance of both sides after the engagement."

pasha and byali's playstyle was quite fierce; the two of them were directly dueling the Terrorists from the T-spawn at A1 and Connector.

Xu Beifang, on the other hand, had arrived at the Boiler Room position to help his teammates gather information on the Side Path.

Footsteps came from ahead, and a Terrorist suddenly appeared in his field of vision by jumping; Xu Beifang's muzzle instantly lifted upward!

"Bang!"

【nice used USP Pistol to Headshot kill dobu】

"There are two more footsteps at A2, there are a lot of people!!"

After getting the Entry Kill, Xu Beifang didn't get greedy for more kills and retreated directly toward A1.

The other two Terrorists on A2, seeing that you had taken out their teammate like that, naturally couldn't let you leave easily and immediately chased forward.

Xu Beifang's footsteps gradually moved away, but Shuadapai didn't realize one piece of information: the CT dueling the teammates at Mid from A1 and the CT who got the Entry Kill were not the same person.

Facing the Terrorist who strafed directly into the Boiler Room, pasha, who had jumped to the sound of footsteps, landed a one-tap.

With two people killed in succession, 5power finally couldn't wait any longer and launched a full-scale attack.

The two people at Mid began to charge.

qka, who was at A2, asked a teammate for a Flashbang and then went out directly.

But at first glance, he didn't see anyone at Pit or Bomb Site, and when he turned his head to look at A1 to help his teammate...

A bullet came from under his feet.

"Bang!"

【nice used USP Pistol to Headshot kill qka】

"qka didn't even notice that nice was hiding right under his feet and was picked off by nice in one shot. This rookie's positioning is very flexible!" Ma Xixi praised.

The three-man flank group was completely wiped out, leaving 5power with only two people supporting at Mid. After struggling for a dozen seconds, kabal forced a trade for pasha and byali, but they still lost the Pistol Round.

"nice!! Buddy, you're too accurate!" The moment the Pistol Round ended, pasha excitedly bumped fists with Xu Beifang next to him.

Although Xu Beifang only got two kills, these two kills were quite critical.

The first one gained information and also secured the Entry Kill.

The second one also protected their flank, preventing them from being picked off from the side.

Having lost the Pistol Round, 5power's average economy was only 1500, so they could only Force Buy.

But VP didn't go to close range to fight them; everyone was holding angles at the Bomb Site.

5power's dry peek into B Site was directly wiped out by neo and michu.

"Coming to the third round, the Terrorist eco round. The highest combat power everyone has is a P250 without armor. nice threw his Rifle to a teammate and took an MP9 himself, pressing down from Mid."

"MP9 takes one out, the Terrorist peeks out to Trade Kill, and takes another one out! Two! Three!! nice has finished them off; VP is going to make a fortune on this play!"

"Two bullets left, reload or not? qka strafes out and is insta-killed again. This nice is really accurate!"

The audience at the scene was in an uproar. While an eco round is certainly a time for kill-feed spamming, Xu Beifang's instant four kills were still relatively rare.

"Is there a five-kill?? He heard the reload sound and rushed out directly. What a pity, one magazine of the MP9 to kill 4 is the limit." Ma Xixi's voice made the audience at the scene expectant as well.

Xu Beifang didn't care about that; he had made a fortune on this play anyway.

An MP9 kill is 600, so 4 is 2400. Added to the round's economic bonus, if pasha wanted an Auto Sniper in the next round, he could contribute it.

In a 4-on-1 Clutch, the last Terrorist with an MP9 and no armor had no way to fight back and was easily taken down.

The score has reached 3:0, and the match will now enter the first key round, while at this moment Xu Beifang's K/D has also reached an astonishing 6/1/1.

The economy after losing a Pistol Round in '18 is not 1900, but 1400.

(End of this chapter)