Chapter 441: Demoted!

After YM's match ended, in PDD's livestream, the gaming chair hosted for a long time; smoke outside the camera kept drifting, and the lighter clicked repeatedly.

Even those who usually love to see the streamer break down fell silent.

The silence was the gaming chair in front of the camera.

YM left quietly, just as it had come quietly.

Wei Shen flicked his sleeve, secured LGD's LPL spot, and incidentally crushed a domestic prodigy mid-laner, then continued to stream PUBG with his talent…

"Poor little kid~"

In VG's training room, Gangzi half-heartedly remarked about Knight, whom he'd once shared a meal with, then grabbed his mouse to open PDD's livestream, saw the gaming chair still hosting, and couldn't help complaining:

"Holy shit, the gaming chair hosting brings in a million a day, you're definitely the top earner online!"

Then he opened the gift-giving column and directly clicked a Buddha Jumps Over the Wall to liven things up.

The flashy gift effect instantly exploded in the livestream; immediately after, PDD's angry voice drifted out from outside the camera together with the smoke:

"Stop sending gifts, you son of a bitch! I don't want gifts! Send a few dicks!"

Then PDD poked his head out from outside the camera, glanced at the screen, and immediately changed his expression:

"Oh, Shuijing Ge, welcome!"

"Sorry sorry, I wasn't cursing……"

He hadn't finished speaking when the livestream suddenly went black, and a line of text appeared on the dark screen:

【This livestream has been temporarily suspended for violating community streaming rules and will be reopened after rectification.】

"Holy crap, hahahahahahahahahaha……"

Gangzi burst into earth-shaking laughter.

Sima Laozei sat beside him, turned his head for a glance, and evaluated expressionlessly:

"Double blessings have arrived."

"... pfft——!"

Liang Yan, who was drinking water, heard that, tried his best to hold it in for two seconds, but ultimately failed, spraying a mouthful all over the keyboard. He coughed a few times, embarrassed, looked at the completely wet keyboard, called out Wang Liangyi, then turned his head helplessly to look at Sima Laozei:

"Ma Ge, could you give me a heads-up next time you tell a joke?"

Sima Laozei:

"Huh?"

Pat-pat-pat.

Wang Liangyi slipped on his slippers and ran over to Liang Yan's back, bent down, and asked:

"Brother, what are your orders?"

"Change the keyboard……"

Liang Yan pointed at his own keyboard, speechless,

"By the way, could you grab some tissue?"

"Got it!"

Wang Liangyi swept away like a whirlwind, vanishing in an instant.

……

An hour later, an explosive piece of news arrived.

The second promotion/relegation match ended DAN3 1–Snake.

Public opinion exploded instantly.

【Holy crap? They could actually lose?!】

【Damn it, Snake got relegated!】

【Can't hold it together? They haven't even beaten the third-place team in LSPL?】

【This team is finished】

Now the entire VG training room fell silent.

Everyone occasionally glanced at the two brothers who had come from Snake, communicating with their eyes.

Although everyone knew Fu Lan Duo and Gangzi had broken ties with Snake, both being sentimental, the rapid decline of their old team likely still left them feeling quite upset.

Finally, Wang Liangyi couldn't bear the suffocating atmosphere, walked behind Fu Lan Duo intending to say a few words of comfort, but just as he raised his hand to pat her shoulder, Gangzi suddenly shouted from the side:

"Seems like it!"

Then Fu Lan Duo replied in a sarcastic tone:

"Yeah, seems like it."

Everyone: ……

……

The news of Snake's relegation sparked a domestic uproar, netizens expressed great sentiment, big influencers debated wildly, and LPL commentators also appeared in Snake's Weibo comment section.

Meanwhile, on Zhihu, many people with industry backgrounds anonymously commented, putting forward an opinion completely opposite to the netizens' discussion: Snake's relegation could possibly deal a heavy blow to the overall development of the LPL.

In an instant, the internet was flooded with debate over whether the LPL promotion/relegation system should be abolished, giving a sense of nationwide participation.

When Liang Yan saw the related news, he immediately sensed the key event—he of course remembered that the LPL had abolished its promotion/relegation system starting from the 2017 summer season.

At that moment, the internet suddenly flooded with news—clearly the official side had begun building momentum in advance, laying the groundwork for the big announcement soon to come.

Liang Yan privately sent a WeChat message to Lu Wenjun:

【Boss, have you recently gotten any wind of something?】

It was a nonsensical out-of-the-blue remark, but Lu Wenjun actually understood; after a moment he replied:

【This month's end, TJ and RT have a launch event in Nanjing; they'll speak then. By the way, how did you know?】

【Guessed】

Awesome. But don't make a fuss about it, huh. Right now only a few high-ups in the alliance know.

Understood.

Liang Yan put down his phone and fell into thought.

As a player whose influence is among the top two worldwide, can Liang Yan influence the direction of this historical event? Obviously not—let alone him alone; even if we combine his influence with that of Faker and Perkz, it would still be impossible to stop the wheel of history from rolling forward.

But is this matter related to Liang Yan?

Although Liang Yan will definitely not be involved in promotion/relegation no matter which team he joins in the future, this matter does indeed have a slight connection to him.

Mainly, Liang Yan has so much money on hand that he can't possibly spend it all (he can't just donate it all—that would be too flashy), so he's somewhat interested in starting his own team just for fun. Although Riot's rules prohibit one person from holding multiple positions in a club, the boss doesn't hold any position in the club, so this can be referenced from how Principal Wang did it later.

If the team's performance isn't up to par then, Liang Yan can totally roll up his sleeves and jump in himself—yeah, the boss is already warming up!

Just thinking about it sounds pretty cool.

Then, since he wants to start his own team, whether a promotion/relegation system exists is naturally related to him. More precisely, it's the difference in how slots are obtained due to the system's presence or absence that affects the difficulty of Liang Yan's team-building.

After all, if the promotion/relegation system isn't abolished, then if Liang Yan wants to start an LPL team in the future, he can only go through the TGA→LSPL→LPL progressive route, which would take too long, not to mention the various procedures would be quite troublesome.

But after the promotion/relegation system is abolished, things become much simpler. Put simply, after the LPL becomes a formal league, the entry methods are diverse; the simplest route is: gather the team members, put up enough deposit (equivalent to buying a slot), then prove their strength (financially), and they can easily obtain an LPL slot.

In the timeline Liang Yan has experienced, those big capitals basically enter this way; even the other side takes an even simpler path: directly acquiring an existing LPL team, renaming it to make it their own, thus avoiding the hassle of building a team from scratch.

But if Liang Yan were to start a team, he obviously wouldn't do that.

After all, he's not starting a team to advertise, but—

Fun.