Chapter 114: I feel like Ye Wen is really amazing

After finishing the post-match interview, the group waved goodbye to the audience and commentators, and headed to the large restaurant downstairs to feast.

Ye Bo scooped a spoonful of overly sweet tomato scrambled eggs over rice, and added a bit of soy sauce for seasoning.

Magic City's local cuisine puts sugar in everything, which was still a bit hard for Ye Bo to get used to.

"Today's red-braised pork is so fragrant!" Barrier picked a chopstick for him: "This fat meat melts in the mouth!"

Ye Bo took a bite of the sweet red-braised pork; the texture was like jelly, which was indeed not bad.

However, he still missed the home-cooked red-braised pork his mother cooked.

Professional players, except for the off-season, need to be stationed in the base for most of the year.

It was also Ye Bo's first time traveling far away, and from time to time, he couldn't help but feel a bit homesick.

"Hey, hey, hey, turn on the TV, let's see, their match seems to be today!" Brother Shengqiang, who usually used Valorant to relieve stress, mentioned.

The group had originally been preparing to find some electronic side dishes to eat with their meal, and Ye Bo was also preparing to browse forums to find some fun, but now they all turned to look at the big screen.

The Valorant World Championship happened to start today, and the opening match of EDG was at 8 PM.

If it weren't for their three-game quick finish today, they might not have been able to catch it.

Ye Bo watched Zheng Yongkang, who used to come over for meals every day, appear on the screen, his confident baby face walking out of the player tunnel, waving his hands high and greeting in all directions, as if he really enjoyed being wrapped in the spotlight by the camera.

Ye Bo had actually always longed for this kind of scene.

"Where are they playing this match?" Ye Bo asked Brother Shengqiang beside him.

"Istanbul Global Championship. I really forgot which country it is," Brother Shengqiang, whose geography wasn't very good, only remembered the name and didn't have a deep impression of the country of this city.

"Their competition name is so strange. You say, if our S11 was called the 'Reykjavik Global Championship' back then, who would know where it was played~"

"It's so good, I haven't been abroad yet."

Ye Bo knew that this S12 was held in the beautiful country, but he also forgot which city it was in, and for someone who hadn't been out of the country, he didn't have much of a concept.

He continued to chat about this topic with great interest.

"So brothers, what does it feel like to play in the World Championship? Is the feeling really very different from playing in our league?"

These people beside him all had a lot of experience, and their expressions were different when they heard this question.

But they all nodded affirmatively.

Ye Bo pursued the question like a curious baby: "Is it because there are many people, or are there other feelings?"

Barrier sucked on a chicken wing and spoke unclearly: "There are many people, but before entering the semi-finals, most of the competition venues were actually not much different from our summer final venue, maybe even smaller, so it's only after the semi-finals that it becomes grand!"

"My feeling is that you can hear many different languages calling your ID and team name at the same time, and even the cheering sounds of fans in various languages... those things sound very exciting," Meiko described his feelings.

"For me, it's mainly being able to compete and play against people from other regions. This should be the most important feature of the World Championship," Viper said simply.

Brother Shengqiang had more feelings when talking about this topic: "Then it seems I am the simplest."

"Actually, my professional dream before was to enter the World Championship. That is the highest stage! Even if it's just a one-round trip, it's the dream of many players for their entire career."

Brother Shengqiang debuted in 2014 and played for a full 7 years in the Snake team without entering the World Championship once.

It wasn't until he transferred to EDG in 2021 that he entered the World Championship for the first time, and as a result, he directly won the championship!

He could definitely be considered the person who could best understand the curiosity and expectation Ye Bo had for the World Championship at this moment.

After hearing what his teammates said, Ye Bo also had many feelings.

When he was a spectator before, it seemed like he always had the illusion that "this game only has the S-series."

But now that he was a professional, he knew that it was actually not easy to just enter the World Championship; it required a whole year of challenges and accumulation in spring and summer, and finally defeating the vast majority of people to have a chance to step onto that stage.

Like the "wildcard teams" that seemed not worth mentioning in many people's eyes, they were actually the absolute overlords of their own regions before coming to the World Championship!

This was also the charm of the World Championship.

How you perform in your region has no necessary connection to how you perform in the World Championship; there are too many examples of this in history...

"Ouch, Kangkang!"

"It's over, how can Kangkang press forward like this with a half-armor Sheriff! No one can operate 1v4!"

"Hey, don't say that, Brother Shengqiang, I suddenly feel like this guy is a bit like our Master Ye, both like to do extreme operations... just not as stable as our Master Ye!"

The EDG group seemed to have played and chatted enthusiastically.

Although Ye Bo had never played this game at all and couldn't understand the professional terms in the mouths of the group, he still watched it with great interest.

The difference between FPS games and MOBA games was reflected.

If it were a MOBA game that you hadn't been exposed to at all, you would definitely be a bit confused when watching it, especially when encountering some operational playstyles, you might not understand what the people inside were doing at all.

FPS shooting games were different; who shot whom and who was killed in one shot was very obvious, and at most, you would be confused about tactics and props.

But in the end, the EDG Valorant team failed to take this opening match, losing 1 to 2.

"What a pity," Brother Shengqiang looked regretful: "It feels like the probability of qualifying is not high."

"Huh? They can't qualify if they lose one match?" Ye Bo asked suspiciously.

"They lost to this PRX, which is already a weak team in Singapore and Asia-Pacific, and the next match is against TL from North America, which is basically impossible to win..."

Brother Shengqiang explained to him: "Now this game is a game ruled by Europe and North America. The European and American regions are almost equivalent to our LPL and LCK, and others can be seen as wildcards, including us."

"Kangkang and the others want to beat TL, the difficulty is a bit like, uh, GAM being able to beat TES, can you understand how difficult that is?"

Brother Shengqiang thought of the wildcard team he was most familiar with.

"Holy crap!? Is the gap that big!" Ye Bo was very surprised.

Because he didn't pay attention to this game, but looking at Kangkang's confident state before the match, he thought their strength should be on par.

He didn't expect the gap to be so big!

"But actually, this should be very similar to our LOL, right? This should be equivalent to the S1, S2 season? It's normal for Europe and America to be powerful~"

"After a few years, our CNFPS will definitely be able to stand up!"

The other few people laughed without being too serious.

After all, everyone who understands the CNFPS project understands it, it's very difficult.

After the match, Ye Bo took out his phone and sent a comforting cat-head emoji to Kangkang, wanting to encourage the other person.

He didn't expect the other person to seem completely unaffected.

Kang: 【Awesome, Master Ye, I looked at your match before I went on stage, so fierce, wait for you to win the finals!】

Kang: 【It's a pity we were just a little bit off this match, but it's okay, we still have a chance if we take the next match!】

Ye: 【I think so too! We both definitely can, come on, come on!】

Kang: 【That's absolutely okay! Come on, come on!】

Two chicken-blood monsters gave each other a shot of chicken blood.

Ye Bo slid out of the chat interface, and then found the group chat "Loving Family (3)" at the top.

He thought for a while, and first @ his mother.

Bo: 【@Mom, I entered the grand finals! Am I awesome!】

Ying: 【Awesome!】

Ying: 【(Flower Blooming Wealth # You are great) emoji】

Bo: 【Are you coming to the finals in a few days? If you come, I'll go ask for tickets for you. This lockdown means there are very few tickets and it should be hard to buy 0.0】

Ying: 【Yes! Mom will definitely go!】

Ying: 【(Flower Blooming Wealth # Thank you) emoji】

Ye Bo couldn't help but smile when he saw his mother's middle-aged emoji.

He hesitated for a moment and then @ another person in the group.

【Is Dad coming?】

After waiting for a while, the other person answered in the group.

【Work is busy, not necessarily free.】

To be honest, Ye Bo had guessed this answer, and pretended not to care as he replied: 【Oh, anyway, there were no tickets to begin with, so I won't prepare them for you.】

He knew that his father had actually never approved of him playing professionally, even if he made money now, it hadn't changed his mind much.

And Ye Xiong had absolutely no contact with games, and the games he knew most about were probably Minesweeper and Link-a-Link. If he really let the other person come, he probably wouldn't have much fun just sitting there watching.

Anyway, that was what Ye Bo told himself.

He picked up a piece of sweet char siu and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing hard, wanting to use the pork fibers to soothe his emotions.

But this meat was stewed too tenderly, and the effect was obviously average.

In the end, Ye Bo still had to open the Tieba forum to go to the bathroom to vent.

The familiar scoring post on the homepage caught his eye, and Ye Bo habitually clicked on it.

{2022 LPL Winner's Bracket Semi-Final EDG 3:0 JDG Scoring Post (other scoring posts deleted)}

Because this JDG team didn't actually have any particularly big "traffic players," this time, according to {popularity ranking}, it was actually his turn to top the list!

Just in his scoring main post, there were over a thousand replies.

【God, God of Gods! New God of Gods! Full marks!】

【Ah, no, brother, there are six playoff matches in total, you actually got 5 MVPs? You wrapped them all up!】

【Hehe, if it weren't for that B-tier Water Ghost Blitzcrank, it should have been six!】

【Holy crap, this LeBlanc is purely bullying, really treating Yagao like toothpaste and squeezing him out!】

【Yagao: I was really looking at the sky with my butt, I had eyes but couldn't see, I neglected Master Ye who came to teach boxing!】

【Hey, hey, hey? Heard Master Ye is a flash in the pan again?】

【Blackie: Blackie, speak!】

【Absolute Key Sacrifice! The substitute I met in ranked is just like this!】

Ye Bo finished reading the comments about himself with satisfaction.

Scanning down, he found that it wasn't Yagao, whom he matched against, but a post about 369.

【369? 258! Take off the headgear! I know it's you!】

【Standing in front of you now is: the top laner who got 0 kills in three BO5 games, invisible for three games, and thinks about your broken Jayce and Gnar every day, Superman Strong!】

【You knew how to play tanks when playing against TES, why did you dare to play Jayce and Gnar when playing against Brother Shengqiang? Implying that Brother Shengqiang's laning is not as good as Dahuang? What kind of champion are you!】

【Dog-paddling Gnar human form. jpg】

【Don't say, the one who looks most like a person is the one where you played Sejuani in the end, did you play it because you reached your true form, or do you really only know how to play tanks?】

Ye Bo didn't expect 369 to attract so much firepower, after all, according to the performance in the game, it should be the mid and bottom lanes that would bear most of the firepower.

But on second thought.

Ever since the old IG disbanded and dispersed, except for EDG and BLG, which brushed a wave of presence this year due to Uzi's comeback, TES was clearly the team with the most traffic.

In the lower bracket semi-finals, JDG came back from 0-2 to beat TES, and the JDG fans didn't give the TES fans less "face," which naturally led to some grudges.

369, as a "TES traitor," receiving some main firepower was normal.

Right after that was the Yagao part.

The netizens' attack power today was not weak, clearly believing that the biggest reason JDG lost these three games was the mid lane.

【Really cooked, and saying 369 only knows how to play tanks, I think you only know how to play Azir! Everything else is just mixing the situation!】

【The only thing that can kill you is time, not saying you are old — because time is a butcher's knife!】

【Pingxiang Twin Heroes? My evaluation is that they are not as good as one root of the Prefect!】

【To be honest, it was just because there was someone in TES who would feed, otherwise they would have come back from 0-2? You would have lost long ago!】

【Next year, if you have the ability, TES and JDG swap mid laners, and you'll see if Pi Gao gets caught like Meng Huo eight times!】

The comment atmosphere was basically revolving around the evaluation of Left Hand, and didn't even mention him much.

These two had been compared since their debut, and with EDG's poor state this year, TES and JDG were also considered the two teams with the most hope in the LPL, and they had been discussed together for a whole year.

"Factory Manager, what are you doing? If you don't come, you'll be eating leftovers later~" Ye Bo turned his head and asked Mingkai enthusiastically.

Mingkai, who was frantically poking his phone screen, gave him a white look.

"The tickets have been gotten for you, VIP first row, you want two, right?"

"Send me the address, I'll have them mailed directly to your home."

Ye Bo paused, then nodded.

"Hmm, two."

Typing the home address to Mingkai, Ye Bo prepared to eat two more bites, and habitually slid back to the main interface.

A new post caught his attention.

【Rational analysis, what level is the strength of EDG's new mid laner Ye?】

The first floor of the post was equipped with several gif images.

The first one, Yone's back-turned E-two-person wind flash.

The second one, Pyke's ghost-shadow return-slash gray Z-shape.

The third one, Sylas's miracle flash-strike across four walls.

The fourth one, Syndra's control-point adjustment T's Weakest Retreat.

【Rational analysis, can a person who has made so many famous scenes in one season be called the greatest genius in LPL history?】

The comments below were still serious analysis at first.

"I'm an old EDG fan, we all thought it was over this spring, and the start of the summer season was even more like playing snakes, even losing to OMG! But just when I thought they were finished, Ye appeared!"

"There's really nothing to say after this match, he's already beaten everyone once, what else do you want? Don't tell me you're really counting on Little Cream to carry!"

"To be honest, this is a mid laner I like very much right now, such a powerful domestic mid laner is really rare, if he can keep his state, it's absolutely limitless! I'm already looking forward to his World Championship performance!"

The first few floors were still normal.

But once there were many floors, the chat below quickly went crooked.

"Suggest not being too optimistic, what's the use of being fierce in civil wars without proving yourself in the S-series? EDG wasn't fierce in civil wars in previous years? On the contrary, they were fierce when they weren't so fierce in civil wars!"

"And it doesn't count as beating everyone once, he hasn't killed Left Hand, and beating TES wasn't relying on Brother feeding? How did he get the loan for number one?"

"These B-tiers are like this, blowing themselves up as number one without even a championship, I'm waiting for their boomerang to hit their faces!"

And among them, there was a floor with soaring likes that made a seemingly reasonable boast.

【Have to admit Ye is indeed powerful, but in the end, his style is actually relying on the suppression of hard laning strength, and then using his own advantage to break the surface, but you have to know that the LPL mid lane laning has no strength at all, so he can be so like a fish in water.】

【This kind of tactic is only effective in an environment like the LPL where the mid lane is weak.】

【These words were not said by the floor owner, but by the current DRX mid laner, former BLG mid laner Zeka in an interview — (video link)】

Below was a link to Zeka's interview after the spring season ended.

Among them, there were two questions that were obviously more controversial.

<>

Zeka: "The LPL laning is not strong, or it can be said that it is just random laning, just wanting to push the lane quickly, and then go to the side lanes to tower-dive, or invade the jungle to fight."

"And in the LCK, compared to quickly snowballing in the early stage, they tend to lane slowly and meticulously, and operate slowly..."

"Besides these, another more obvious difference is that although there are many teams in the LPL, the difference between strong and weak is very, very obvious. But the 10 teams in the LCK are generally all very strong, especially the laning is more rigorous and more complex..."

Perhaps Zeka didn't have that meaning originally, but being intercepted like this, it tasted a bit wrong.

It felt like he was saying: "LPL mid laners' laning is not good, not detailed at all, only knows how to be reckless..."

And the meaning of this floor owner was also very obvious, which was to say that the LPL's laning strength was not high, so Ye Bo could do this kind of play.

However, there were also many people below the comments who refuted it.

【Messing around, taking an example of someone who was swept out by an LPL marginal team, those who don't know might think he played really well~】

【Indeed messing around, and almost didn't enter the S-series with Dai Laowu, I think the bubble match is enough!】

【This floor owner is purely a cloud-dog statement, saying Master Ye only knows how to lane can only say he didn't watch the match, Azir, Galio, Karma haven't been played? Didn't carry, right?】

【Can only say if you have the ability, don't delete the post, waiting for the day when I dig it out with a Luoyang shovel and boomerang, see if your pig face is swollen or not!】

【I haven't said this sentence for a long time, believe first, then believe! Master Ye upup!】

Ye Bo looked at the many comments below supporting him and giggled.

In this perspective, looking at the comments of netizens who didn't know each other at all, it felt quite different.

He silently clicked on the account switch in the upper right corner.

And before long, there was a new reply below the reply post.

【Wuhu Big Melon: I feel like Ye Wen is really amazing!】

The next day, the LCK finals started first.

But this final could absolutely be called an upset; absolutely no one thought that T1, which was highly anticipated before the match, would be three-to-zeroed by Gen. G with an absolute human-machine crushing momentum!

Countless people were shocked!

"Chov~~~~~~yyyyyy!" The roaring emperor dragged his tail sound and shouted.

"Chovy is really a laning monster, his laning can only be described as art! Three MVPs are absolutely the first hero of the finals..."

"Congratulations to Gen. G for becoming the LCK Summer Grand Champion! As the number one seed, they represent the LCK region and charge into the S-series!"

What was most worthy of attention in this final was undoubtedly Faker choosing a Crocodile mid in one game and an Ahri mid in another, both of which were counter-selections emphasizing shameless laning, but both were outplayed by Chovy.

This also began to make people sigh and discuss the strength of the LCK and Gen. G this year again.

And the next day, the LPL loser's bracket semi-finals also started as scheduled.

The second battle of the BO5 between TES and JDG successfully found experience and inspiration through EDG's game, changing the tactical focus of the system.

Left Hand seemed to have awakened and transformed into "Brave Hand," choosing carry hard-fighting heroes five times in a row from LeBlanc to Sylas!

The two sides were 2-3 in the semi-finals, and this time they successfully completed their revenge.

In the end, it was TES who won 3-2!

"Congratulations to TES! After experiencing multiple BO5s, they seem to have completed an evolution, using brand-new tactics to successfully avenge their opponent!"

"And JDG absolutely played all their cards today, it's a pity that they were still one move short in the end, and were stolen by TES for a Baron..."

"Then, the curtain of the upcoming LPL 2022 Grand Finals will be the battle between TES and EDG!"

"Let us wait and see, the struggle between the new king and the old emperor!"

It was also on this day.

A package from Magic City was sent to Room 0443, Fandou Garden.

Ye Ying excitedly unpacked the package after seeing the name, and shook it to show off to Ye Xiong next door: "Look, the son's match tickets!"

"Hey, why are there two? That's just right, I'll find... what are you doing!?"

Ye Xiong, hearing the second half of the sentence, anxiously snatched one: "What are you doing, isn't this definitely for me from the brat."

"Yo, didn't you say you weren't going, didn't someone say 'I don't know who will watch this thing'~" Ye Ying used the ticket to fan herself and teased.

"............ I didn't say that."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 115 =====