Chapter 835: Following the Crowd

VG crew watched the excitement at the training hotel, and they were having a great time.

Only four days remained until the group stage opened, so after enjoying themselves, training continued.

The day after National Day, a small incident occurred in the domestic streaming scene—55kai didn't go on air. Although 55kai is a top-tier streamer, he is actually quite diligent, but on October 2nd, for some unknown reason, his stream remained black.

The next day, 55kai appeared on camera, looking perfectly normal, and continued to exaggerate his talk with the audience.

After going live, 55kai opened Steam as usual, launched PUBG to prepare for the game stream, but when the game loaded to the login screen, a red warning popped up:

【Your account "lubenweiwudi55" (Steam ID 7412365ddw129874) has been banned by the system for using illegal scripts, permanent.】

The chat exploded instantly.

55kai froze for a moment, then reacted quickly, hurriedly shut the game, then pretended to be extremely angry and started shouting, explaining that a friend had used this account with cheats, causing his own ban.

Many viewers doubted and posted a few challenging comments, but as soon as they posted, the moderators muted them, and their doubts were quickly drowned out by the flood of 55kai's fans' comments.

This incident caused a minor stir online, but since 55kai had impersonated Liang Yan at the recent celebrity exhibition match, his reputation was already poor, most casual netizens held no fondness for him and couldn't be bothered to pay attention. Thus, it didn't raise much of a wave, and it seems it will simply be forgotten by netizens as something unremarkable.

Another day passed, October 4th, Mid-Autumn Festival.

That evening, Jinyibo brought several people carrying big and small bags into the LPL training room; this was a feast he had ordered outside, packed for everyone to bring back.

Mooncakes were naturally not missing.

This year's Mid-Autumn came a bit later than usual, placed after National Day, but the two holidays happened to be consecutive, so the nation uniformly took off, enjoying a continuous eight-day break.

It coincided perfectly with the opening of S7.

October 5th, the 2017 World Finals officially began.

……

The sun shone brightly, a gentle breeze blew, and the League of Legends banners hanging on the roadside flagpoles fluttered loudly.

The VG crew boarded a bus from the training hotel, and through the glass windows they could see S7 promotional posters everywhere outside, colorful and varied in design; occasionally they could even spot their own team's flag, and those on the bus grew excited and noisy.

The whole city was enveloped in a thick tournament atmosphere.

Upon arriving outside the Wu Han Sports Center arena, this feeling grew even stronger.

Figure: Wu Han Central Sports Arena

People, people everywhere, a crowd like an ant colony.

This description is no exaggeration. Looking down from above, with the white abalone‑shaped stadium at the center, its surroundings are packed solid with people, like the entrance of a giant anthill, and countless more keep streaming in from the surroundings.

Not all of these people were necessarily spectators about to enter the venue; after all, even if the arena opened all its seats, it could hold only tens of thousands, yet the crowd pouring in clearly already exceeded a hundred thousand. Fortunately, the authorities had prepared in advance, so the sudden surge of visitors did not overwhelm order, and the city continued to run smoothly.

But Wu Han city really hasn't been this lively in a long time.

Chinese people love to join the excitement; even if many cannot get into the venue, coming beforehand to soak up the atmosphere is also nice, since for many, the chance to participate in such a grand event is something they might encounter only a few times in a lifetime.

The high popularity of this World Finals is naturally due to the joint promotion by the authorities and tx, but if people aren't really interested in the event itself, no amount of promotion would help; clearly the key is that people love this event.

In the discussion about this event, what people mentioned most were precisely VG, who were just entering the backstage area through an internal passage at that moment, and a certain person within the VG team.

"Holy crap, my grandma's leg!" Gangzi seemed to be complaining, but his face was full of excitement: "There are just too many people; good thing we don't have to enter through the main gate, otherwise I doubt we'd even get in today!"

"This is just the group stage," Easyhoon said, "and the knockout stage could be even more extreme……

Backstage was just as crowded, with people lining both sides of the passage—some staff, some reporters or other personnel from outside—but the majority were still team members looking at the door signs to find their own lounges.

"Excuse me, excuse me! Thank you!"

Gao Jun asked two foreign ladies with press badges hanging from their necks for passage, sidling his body through the gaps between people, while anxiously turning back and shouting to the crowd:

"Hurry up, you lot—don't get lost later, quickly help find the lounges! Hey, Little Liang, Marquis, you two are the tallest, also take a look!"

Liang Yan waved his hand to politely decline a photo request from an unfamiliar player, stood on tiptoe and lifted his chin, his gaze sweeping over the door signs, his face also full of resignation.

Backstage is actually quite large—otherwise Gao Jun wouldn't worry about the crew getting lost—but there are simply too many people, and importantly many foreigners, each big and tall; Liang Yan's 1.8‑meter stature is hardly noticeable here, and even without standing on tiptoe his view gets blocked.

The backstage buzzed with the murmur of the crowd and the roar of the air‑conditioning at full blast, stirring a sense of unease in everyone's heart.

After much effort, they finally found their own lounge; upon entering, a rush of cool air greeted them, making everyone sigh with relief.

But by then everyone was already drenched in sweat, the backs of their uniforms soaked through.

Fortunately Wang Liangyi had prepared in advance; as soon as they entered he set down the big bag on his back and took out a spare uniform. Gao Jun pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his sweat, loudly calling, "Hurry up, hurry up—change your clothes, put on your jackets, or you'll catch a cold!"

"Damn, I really envy EDG—being able to lounge comfortably in the hotel and watch the stream," Fu Lan Duo said while changing clothes, a hint of envy in her voice.

In the group stage all matches are Bo1, with only six games per day, two per group; in other words, only three groups play each day while the fourth rests. EDG's Group C had no match today, fortunately avoiding the chaotic opening day.

The organizers likely arranged the schedule this way to compensate for Group C's overall strength being too high, and likewise they compensated Group A by placing its final showdown on the last day, as can be seen from the officially published schedule.