Chapter 613: Uninvited Guest

As the summer tournament approached, besides training, some off‑field matters began to be interleaved into the players' daily routines.

First came various shooting tasks; with the new season, all parties needed to replace their promotional materials—LPL's, the team's, sponsors', endorsement ads…… and so on.

Besides shooting, there were also some necessary LPL new‑season promotion activities that VG needed to cooperate with, after all VG had been extremely strong in the first half of the year, its popularity surging rapidly; without VG, official events would feel off.

Then the team from a CCTV program came again, but this time it wasn't an interview with Liang Yan; instead they filmed a documentary‑style piece of the entire VG squad, spending a whole day, and before leaving they said they would edit and air it before the summer tournament starts.

Busy and bustling, time flew by in the packed schedule.

In the blink of an eye it was June 6.

With two days left before the summer tournament opened, that morning someone nobody expected showed up at VG's base.

When this lightly dressed person, carrying just a small backpack, entered the VG base as an "uninvited guest," led by Gao Jun into the first team's training room, everyone instantly erupted.

"Holy shit, att!"

"Holy shit… this?"

"What's going on?"

"Um… ah… damn, I bit my tongue… no, Manager Gao, the transfer period's already over, right? How can you still bring someone onto the team?!"

Only Liang Yan reacted quickly; although his face still showed surprise, he was already smiling and standing up, leading the applause:

"Welcome, welcome."

Liu Zhihao, the LPL's number‑three player whose gaming alias is "Zz1tai," held a tiny sling bag, like a princess attending her first KTV talent show, standing in VG's training room, looking a bit shy, her posture somewhat awkward, her hands unnaturally clasped in front of her lower abdomen, knees slightly pressed together, she spoke shyly and gently:

"Hi... everyone... sorry to disturb..."

Goodness, everyone simultaneously felt a shiver run through their bodies at the aura of a capital‑city noblewoman, goosebumps rising on their arms.

But then everyone reacted, and following Liang Yan's lead they all stood up and clapped. Gangzi shouted excitedly: "Awesome! Manager Gao, you're awesome!"

Fu Lan Duo laughed and retorted: "Awesome is awesome, but ruthless is truly ruthless."

Xiao Duan, while clapping, leaned over to whisper to Sima Laozei: "Hey Ma Ge, I'm saying, will we really have to split the bonus fifty‑fifty with Snake Team from now on?"

Sima Laozei gave him a cold glance, thought for a moment, and actually nodded:

"Hmm."

……

Zz1tai's joining brought a moderate surge of surprise and excitement to VG's base.

After Gao Jun led Zz1tai out of the training room to handle the enrollment procedures—signing contracts, taking promotional photos, arranging dorms, and so on—Wang Liangyi, who was in the know, briefly explained to everyone why Zz1tai had joined.

As everyone knows, LPL players with single‑digit IDs mostly originate from the S1 and S2 eras, and Zz1tai, whose ID precedes even Uzi's, was likewise a "half‑debuted" living fossil from the S1 period.

In his early esports career, Zz1tai had joined two online teams in succession—those semi‑professional squads where a few decent‑level friends met in game, teamed up, and went looking for matches everywhere—actually they could be called professional teams, since back then China had yet to establish any truly large‑scale organized LoL tournaments.

Until the summer of S2, the wealthy Principal Wang, who also loved the game, saw promise in LoL esports, forked out money to create a professional team—IG—and Zz1tai became one of the founding members of this "professional carry‑team."

From S2 through S6, Zz1tai served with IG, not only forming deep bonds with the teammates but also getting very familiar with the team boss, Young Master Wang—calling them friends would be no exaggeration.

But starting two years ago, Young Master Wang also put aside his playful side, began wanting to pursue team results, so IG launched a sweeping overhaul, importing strong foreign players from the LCK in imitation of other LPL clubs.

In the S5 season Rookie joined; Zz1tai, whose skill was inferior, voluntarily switched to top lane, played two years, yet IG's performance still showed no improvement……

Then after finishing the S6 season, Duke arrived.

Although in this timeline SKT was snatched by G2, preventing Duke from becoming a "champion top laner" and thus his market value fell far short of that of the golden carp in another timeline, he still came from SKT, and if it weren't for Jiao Shen's earth‑shattering foot in the S6 semifinal that turned the tide, Duke could very well have been the champion top laner—his ability stands as is……

Zz1tai sensibly "voluntarily" left the team, quietly departing IG in the S6 winter transfer window and joining Snake.

To everyone's surprise, Zz1tai had come to Snake because of its reputation as "the LPL team that performed best at the S6 World Championships," but the very day after he signed his Snake contract, the two major contributors who had helped Snake reach the S6 quarterfinals—the team's two mainstays, Flandre and Kryst4l—both quit!

In an instant Zz1tai felt like dying.

And sure enough, after losing its two pillars, Snake, unable to find a suitable replacement of equal strength, saw its power plummet; this spring's regular season they not only failed to qualify for playoffs, they even dropped into the relegation zone……

And the hardest part was that they lost the relegation battle and were knocked down into the LSPL!

For a while, Liu Zhihao, who had signed a one‑year contract with Snake, felt as if crying to heaven and earth brought no response, utterly despairing……

In despair, his former boss gave him a glimmer of hope.

Principal Wang couldn't bear to see Zz1tai, who had once brought him a big score boost a few years earlier, wallowing in the mud of the secondary league, so he reached out to Zz1tai proactively to seek a livelihood for him.

Young Master Wang was on good terms with VG's boss, Young Master Ding, who thought VG was big and powerful enough with an invincible god‑level ace holding down the fort that adding one more person wouldn't matter; Young Master Wang personally placed the call, so there was no reason to refuse—and facing these two wealthy scions, Snake's manager Zuowu naturally lacked the grit to resist, especially since Snake was basically already ruined while VG's offer was quite generous……

After some discussion among the three parties, VG and Snake ultimately signed a loan contract.

Thus Zz1tai turned the tables, rose from despair, and after signing the contract he hurriedly packed a few clothes, entered VG's base feeling both bashful and thrilled, and signed a new contract.