Chapter 686: Holy shit? There's radar!

Both sides peacefully got through the opening phase.

Monsters respawned; Liang Yan started jungling from his team's lower‑half blue buff camp, dealing damage while pulling monsters toward the Magic Swamp Frog camp.

On the other side, the invasion ward VG placed at the start also spotted Peanut's Rek'Sai likewise starting in the lower half, though he was clearing the red buff.

In the LPL resting room, the players calmly analyzed.

"Pig Girl isn't weak early on; although this version isn't as strong as right after her rework, the early‑game +20 armor is still awesome—she can go even against any jungler, and with her mobility and crowd control she synergizes well with teammates."

"Jiao Shen's start, taking the route from the lower half up to jungle, will likely set the tempo for the upper half, but it's unclear whether he'll do a speed‑three clear."

"The split comes after clearing the Magic Swamp Frog: if he wants to do a speed‑three, he'll definitely skip the three wolves and head straight to the upper half; otherwise, without red buff it's hard to make plays."

As FireFox finished saying that, Sima Laozei's Ashe fired an arrow from the bottom lane into SKT's jungle, revealing the Rek'Sai that was clearing the F6 camp.

Soon, Pig Girl finished the Magic Swamp Frog, turned and ran straight to the upper half, sprinting past the three‑wolf camp without stopping.

In the LPL livestream, Guan Zeyuan exclaimed in surprise: "Sure enough, it's a speed‑three start! Jiao Shen's first engage is worth looking forward to— the question is whether he'll gank top or mid?!"

While Liang Yan was jungling, he kept an eye on the map by switching screens; the mid and bottom lanes were relatively stable, but the top lane's first clash began as soon as the minions met.

Huni's Camille went on the offensive first; as Fu Lan Duo tried to step forward to auto‑attack minions and stack her passive, a tactical sweep came sweeping over.

Fu Lan Duo didn't retreat but advanced, immediately canceling her auto‑attack to charge into Camille's embrace.

Huni pulled back, aiming to hit the outer damage of the tactical sweep while avoiding being stunned by Jax's Counter Strike.

Fu Lan Duo suddenly stopped and withdrew, trying to completely escape the tactical sweep's damage zone.

But Huni reacted just as quickly, turning around at the same time.

Fu Lan Duo had anticipated this, suddenly turned and unleashed Counter Strike.

Huni fell for the feint, and trying to create distance was already too late.

"Sheng Qiang Ge was finally nicked by the inner circle of the tactical sweep, while Huni got stunned by Counter Strike! Sheng Qiang Ge auto‑attacked Huni once and immediately pulled back, already getting into the brush before Huni recovered from the stun, denying Huni a chance to use his adaptive plating!"

"So slick, Sheng Qiang Ge! This trade not only came out pure profit, but Counter Strike also hit the back‑line minions!"

Backstage at the LPL, all the players were stunned; in the eyes of these professionals, the excitement of this top‑lane tug‑of‑war was on par with a full 5v5 team fight!

"Holy shit..."

Meiko instinctively sighed,

"Qiang Ge's play was so fine it had no friends!"

As the top domestic support who focuses most on minion aggro and, when trading, pays special attention to the wave state's impact, Meiko admired Fu Lan Duo's lane understanding displayed in this tug‑of‑war from the bottom of his heart.

"Lane priority secured." Xi Ye stared at the screen and whispered.

Malaxiangguo's expression rarely showed such solemnity: "But the enemy is baiting; if Jiao Shen believes Huni's act and goes top to counter‑jungle, mid will suffer badly!"

From the god view, both junglers almost simultaneously finished their third monster camp, but then they chose different routes.

Liang Yan, after eating the red buff in the red side's upper half, started running upward.

Peanut's Rek'Sai likewise finished another buff monster in the half, then looped halfway around, sneaking along the small path behind the left wall of blue side's mid lane—clearly aiming to strike Easyhoon's Syndra in mid.

Both junglers nearly simultaneously began to lurk.

Liang Yan's Pig Girl crouched in the red side's top‑lane triangular grass; from VG's perspective, Fu Lan Duo's Jax had already pushed the wave past the river, and the Pig Girl lying in wait behind was like a hunter awaiting prey—if Peanut really came out of the jungle after hitting the Explosive Fruit and flanked to hit that Jax, there's no doubt he'd be caught in a pincer between Jax and the counter‑jungling Pig Girl.

However, at that moment Peanut was crouching in the river grass on the right side of mid lane!

The LPL resting room became noisy:

"We're doomed, Jiao Shen really went top to counter‑jungle—we're walking into a trap!"

"Damn, SKT's start is so slick, so well‑designed!"

"It feels like they started planning this when VG placed their invasion wards."

"SKT is really fucking awesome……"

"Holy shit!"

"Holy shit? There's radar!"

"Jiao Shen moved!"

Without warning, after Pig Girl had been crouching in the triangular grass for a few seconds, for some reason she suddenly left the brush, turned toward mid lane, and to hurry she went behind the Dragon Pit, hit the Explosive Fruit and leapt into the Dragon Pit, then raced straight from the river to mid lane!

Malaxiangguo stared at the big TV on the wall, feeling completely dazed; from the god view he obviously knew where Xiao Huasheng was, but Liang Yan, being in the game, had no vision!

How could this be?

There's no sign Xiao Huasheng would act on mid! How could Liang Yan know? Coincidence? Or for some other reason?

Impossible!

If it weren't to return and protect mid, Pig Girl reaching that spot would at least have cleared the Stone Armor Beetle before leaving; the only explanation is that Liang Yan suddenly guessed SKT's real target was mid and rushed back to defend!

Even though it's probably already too late.

But Liang Yan's action still gave Malaxiangguo a huge shock.

If it were Malaxiangguo himself, he'd surely stay camping top until mid got caught before waking up!

What a pity……

Malaxiangguo took a deep breath, suppressed his shock, sighed, and said: "The Marquis is doomed; this position is a certain death."

Junglers naturally understand jungling best.

As Malaxiangguo's words fell, Xiao Huasheng indeed made his move!

The voice of Guan Zeyuan coming from the livestream also began to rise:

"Jiao Shen seems to have sensed something off, suddenly turning back to rush to mid—this intuition is too sharp! But on this mid side Peanut is already about to act!

"Faker deliberately showed an opening hoping Easyhoon would use Weakness — but Easyhoon stayed solid, didn't expend his key skill, just tossed a ball to hit him, yet it still seemed to give an opportunity!

"Peanut burst out from the shadow behind Faker after digging a tunnel!"