Chapter 2: Selling Biscuits and a Team!

At the end of 2012, the League of Legends tutorial-video market was a stretch of golden land waiting to be broken open.

Compared to the later era's flood of homogenized strategy guides, the player base at this moment was caught up in a frenzy of rank worship. Combat power numbers hung like medals beside their IDs; net cafes pulled all-nighters just to push for a gold border; even couples might break up over the line, "Sorry, your rank doesn't match mine."

Jiang Ming, who knew the rules of this wild era inside out, also had a very methodical approach to his video planning.

Tutorial videos had to be kept to around 28 minutes and 17 seconds (exactly the ad-free limit on a certain video site at the time).

The opening needed at least three low-health outplay clips (preferably with the comedic touch of an enemy Flash-smashing into a wall).

Every episode had to carry at least one viral meme (such as the rank-shaming chain between "Children's Wukong" and "Naruto Wukong").

Take the Wukong tutorial he was currently editing — a true magnum opus of early traffic codes: the opening unleashes three tower-dive kills in a row, as if the enemy turret were Wukong's charging station, the very picture of cuckoldry.

Cut in a close-up of his own 2300-rank account's loading screen (back then, rank was displayed directly on the loading screen), and when explaining the W skill, suddenly splice in a glitched voice clip: "Watch closely, this guy's name is Handsome."

Even without the Deep Blue System's help, for someone who had lived through the internet explosion era, becoming a quality LOL tutorial video blogger really wasn't all that hard.

Add to that the advantage of foreknowledge, and Jiang Ming's hero-tutorial videos were often N times faster than other creators'. Sometimes a new hero had just launched, other bloggers were still getting familiar and gathering footage, and by the next day his tutorial was already uploaded online.

Efficiency aside, Jiang Ming also had the title of a high-rank player backing him. When players went looking for tutorial videos, they tended to factor in the creator's rank — after all, footage from a Gold or Silver lobby was far less persuasive than a showdown between top players on the Chinese server. This also kept Jiang Ming's videos far ahead in views within the LOL new-hero tutorial section.

With view counts guaranteed, in this era of rising online shopping, the sales of goods in his shop naturally couldn't be low either.

"Mm, almost done recording!"

He'd edited God knows how many videos during this stretch; practice makes perfect, so now he only needed to finish the post-production voiceover, and the rest wouldn't take much longer.

A dozen or so minutes later.

Jiang Ming rolled his shoulders, glanced out the window — the street was empty, no stars or moon in the small hours, only the occasional passing car breaking the brief quiet. He turned back to Adobe Premiere Pro on the computer, gave it one final check, clicked save, then logged into his video-site account and uploaded them one by one.

"Done. Just wait for the next wave of orders to blow up."

He shut down the computer at the speed of light, gave a light kick with both feet, and the wheeled gaming chair slid him out from his seat.

"Tch… ah!"

He stretched hard, letting out a thoroughly contented sigh.

Gotta love the body of an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old — built to take a beating. He'd been gathering footage from 10 a. m. straight through to 6 p. m., then grinded another four or five hours editing video nonstop. With his past-life body, he'd probably be stuck in bed all of tomorrow and still not recovered.

Oh wait, no — if it really were his past-life body, forget playing matches all day and then editing video, he probably couldn't even find the mouse after a few games…

Youth is wasted on the young!

Knowing his body was the capital of revolution, Jiang Ming worked out on the spot for a good while, bouncing and jumping to ease his fatigue as much as possible.

Once that tired feeling had mostly faded, he went to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. Seeing the phone screen's clock creeping toward 11 p. m., he scrolled through his contacts and dialed one saved as "Zhang Fried Rice."

"Yo, bro, same as usual tonight?"

From the other end came the voice of an extremely gruff middle-aged man.

Jiang Ming blinked. "Fried rice as usual, six portions, no change. Add an extra cold dish."

"You got it!"

Hanging up, Jiang Ming casually grabbed a jacket from the rack, walked out of the room, and headed toward an old-style tube-shaped apartment building not far away.

……

He arrived at a narrow tin roller door, fished out his keys from his bag — creak… accompanied by a harsh screech, the somewhat rusted latch finally gave way.

Jiang Ming pushed open the rust-streaked iron door; the motion-sensor lights flickered on one by one with his footsteps, but after blinking twice they went out again.

"Damn it, landlady, would it kill you to change the bulb!"

Behind the door was a staircase so narrow that two people walking shoulder to shoulder would find it cramped. He glanced up at the unlit second floor — with no choice, Jiang Ming had to use his phone screen's glow as a flashlight and head down toward the basement.

The narrow stairs stretched downward; the white paint on the walls had yellowed and peeled, and the air carried a musty smell mixed with the dampness unique to underground spaces.

On the basement wall, a spray-painted "certificates 136xxxx" lingered; in the corner sat three cartons of Youchen pork floss biscuits — both online-shop inventory and the team's strategic reserve rations.

Inside the room, five bulky CRT monitors glowed with a faint blue light, casting the mottled S2 World Championship poster on the wall.

The water dispenser in the corner was performing its classic signature act: emitting a tractor-like roar while heating.

A few young men sat in front of the computers, eyes glued to their screens, fingers flying across keyboards, the click of mice rising and falling.

"Holy sh*t, Lao Zhang, where the hell's your Teleport? You saving it to breed?"

"Save me, save me, this f*cker has it out for me, just keeps targeting me!"

"Stop yelling, stop yelling, barking all day — if the enemy keeps walking into your jungle, you gonna fight back or what!"

"Ahhh, don't miss the CS, bro, you missed a cannon minion that big, might as well give it to me!"

"……"

"Push push push… one more wave, one more wave!"

What reached his ears was the players' communication, one hundred percent pure national-treasure profanity. He was a bit helpless, but he also knew that for this era's players, with their unique way of talking, it was hard to demand they completely change in a short time.

The little room before him was Jiang Ming's esports Jiangshan.

That's right — just like a certain Boss Dong who made his millions selling biscuits, after earning a bit of modest capital on the biscuit-selling road, Jiang Ming had also chosen to start his own esports team.

Top: norsha; Jungle: stone; Mid: yihan; AD: sorry; Support: door.

These five were players he'd poached in advance from the Chinese server's high-rank ladder, averaging around 2200 rank. A bit of a pity he hadn't managed to snag one or two star players with real skill from his past life's timeline.

"Ming-ge!"

"Boss!"

"Ah-Ming… Ming-ge!"

The players, finishing a ranked game, took off their headsets. Perhaps thanks to keeping eyes and ears on everything, the sharp-eyed jungler noticed his boss walking in and stood up a little nervously.

The others were likewise pulled out of their games by the jungler's shout, and chimed in greetings one after another.

"Mm…"

Hmm?

Jiang Ming, suddenly catching a whiff of a pungent smell, frowned slightly.

As he walked closer, his gaze swept the room like a torch. Soon, a few cigarette butts not fully burned down in the corner trash can came into view.