Chapter 30: Coach, surely you wouldn't want to...

“Coach Nofe, you don’t want your top laner to be the kind of player who only knows how to play Maokai and Nautilus, do you? The kind who turns his opponent into a father whenever it matters.”

Hearing Lin Ruo’s voice, Nofe, who was in the bathroom, hurriedly gave himself a shake, pulled up his zipper, and walked out.

Ever since returning to the club, Lin Ruo had been hounding him nonstop.

His Korean friend, whose Chinese vocabulary was severely lacking, finally developed a question mark over his head.

Only after Lin Ruo opened a translation app and struggled through a conversation with him did Nofe understand what he wanted.

“Help…?”

“Coach Nofe, you used to coach a top laner like Smeb, one of the best in the world. Surely you aren’t satisfied with the current situation.”

Nofe stroked his sparse fringe and scratched his neck unconsciously.

“When the top laner isn’t strong, drafting is a little difficult.”

Lin Ruo turned his head away and secretly rolled his eyes.

If you’re poor, don’t blame the draft, all right?

Lucian had only just received a massive nerf before Worlds, and that idiot picked Lucian three games in a row at the tournament.

It was enough to make anyone lose his mind.

EDG had started the game zero to three, and that kid deserved at least half the credit.

As Lin Ruo grumbled inwardly, he suddenly remembered an old forum meme.

“Welcome to EDG’s fourth group-stage match. Both sides are beginning the draft.”

“What? We see Scout picking Lucian.”

“Yes, you heard that right—it’s Lucian. Is he really going to pick it? The coach and his teammates seem to be trying to stop him. He’s locked it in!”

“The crowd has erupted! The players appear to be wrestling with Scout, and the coach has kicked the monitor!”

“Useless Kai has taken advantage of the chaos to lock in Lee Sin…”

It was hilarious, and heartbreaking enough to make you cry.

The useless Nofe had contributed practically nothing during the draft. Since there was no helping it, Lin Ruo could only reluctantly make use of his extensive connections to recover a little of the damage.

“Can you set one up?”

“Set one up?” Nofe, already completely flustered, instinctively shrank back.

Lin Ruo smiled and lowered his voice conspiratorially.

“I hear KT has been on a tear lately. How about arranging a scrim and having Smeb teach Guang in his spare time? Surely he can handle that much, right?”

So that was what this was about.

Nofe relaxed and reluctantly agreed. It would not be too difficult to arrange.

Smeb, after all—it would probably only take a bottle of Maotai.

…

When he returned to the training room and saw the Light of the Top Lane once again playing that damn tank Poppy, Lin Ruo stormed over, furious after all the effort he had spent.

With his sharp ears, Ah Guang immediately hunched his neck.

“I’ll play one more game. Just one more.”

Lin Ruo immediately presented him with a multiple-choice question.

“Guang, would you rather cry your way to victory on a tank champion, or laugh your way to defeat on a damage dealer?”

Ah Guang froze. This sounded suspiciously like the kind of psychological manipulation Factory Director used on him every day.

Loving a good spectacle, Ai Luoli instantly chose an answer.

“Of course I’d rather cry my way to victory on a tank champion.”

Lin Ruo promptly kicked him and cursed.

“Zhao Zhiming, you idiot! The correct answer is to laugh your way to victory on a damage dealer!”

Ai Luoli scratched his head in confusion.

“Wait, was that an option?”

“Mind your own business. I wrote the question.”

Ah Guang nodded obediently, like a pecking chick.

“Right, right. Laughing your way to victory on a damage dealer is the fun option.”

Lin Ruo snorted coldly.

“Then hurry up and start practicing Jayce and Camille. Stop playing that damned Maokai and Poppy. I spent over a dozen pages writing that paper for nothing, did I?”

From his spot on the edge of the room, Tian Ye sighed helplessly and complained.

“You three, knock it off. You’re being so loud that everyone in my stream can hear you perfectly. By tomorrow morning, the gossip accounts will be spreading rumors that EDG is falling apart from internal conflict.”

“Let them. Better yet, have them say I’m the tyrant of the team. The bigger they make it, the better.”

Lin Ruo could not have been happier to have someone help him build an absurd public persona.

After stretching his back, he decided not to queue for ranked games. He swaggered back to the dormitory and went to sleep.

The club was paying him a salary. So what if he slacked off and took a day off?

He still had to attend an Overwatch event first thing the next morning.

He had no idea whether Abu had finished reading his little paper or thrown it straight into the trash.

The ideas were simply too novel. Someone of his age would probably have a hard time accepting them.

The next morning, after a comfortable night’s sleep, Lin Ruo put on his down jacket and left early.

He took a taxi and spent nearly an hour on the road before arriving at the venue for the Overwatch event.

While waiting in the makeup room, Lin Ruo casually opened Weibo, only to discover that people were attacking him again.

There were over a thousand comments, and fans from both sides were tearing into him indiscriminately.

Most of the EDG fans were criticizing him for disrespecting Factory Director.

“You won one MVP and now you think you’re somebody? Is Clearlove someone you can even compare yourself to?”

“I’ve watched your streams these past few days, and your gameplay really isn’t bad. But with a personality this awful, what’s the point of playing well?”

“Go play in the Overwatch League overseas already. Stop wasting your professional talent.”

“Can EDG’s precious player stop trying to leech off the RNG club? Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“RNG must have suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck to end up with a former trainee like you.”

In summary, the EDG fans both loved and hated him.

Of course, if he happened to play badly in a match, the hatred would become catastrophic.

Most of the RNG fans, meanwhile, were club-first loyalists.

After yesterday’s attack on Uzi, they could no longer tell truth from fiction. Their core GSL spirit had failed to ignite any fighting power, and they had no desire to charge into battle.

On top of that, because RNG had lost the match, their supporters lacked the confidence to launch a proper assault, and their ability to bombard him had declined sharply.

How boring. None of these comments had any real traction.

Lin Ruo opened the forums, where the discussion about how no amount of management could save the LPL was still going strong.

The forum was in a frenzy, with threads running thousands of replies deep.

Some argued that when it came to organizational management, the LCK was the founding master while the LPL was merely a grandson. Even if the LPL studied for an entire lifetime, it would never catch up.

Others retorted that refusing to invest in management would leave the league no better than the rotten fish and shrimp of Europe and North America.

Lin Ruo left the forum. Bored, he opened the official Overwatch livestream and took another look.

The viewer count was pitifully low. He could probably attract more traffic by streaming himself and deliberately acting ridiculous.

It was hard to imagine finding another game that could pull off the same double act as League of Legends: plenty of people played it, and even more watched the matches.

“Miss, could you not make me look so effeminate?”

Lin Ruo stared at his reflection as though he were looking at a transgender woman.

“Sorry. I used to work in the entertainment industry, and I only recently changed careers.”

The beautiful makeup artist gave an awkward laugh.

“All right, I’ll tone down the eyebrows and eye makeup. Then you’ll be ready to go onstage.”

“Next, please welcome…”

The host onstage clearly froze when she looked at the script.

“Lin Ruo, professional player from EDG, the powerhouse of League of Legends esports?”

The audience stared at one another, wide-eyed.

“Don’t look so surprised. Once the anniversary events come around, I’ll be showing up regularly.”

Standing onstage, Lin Ruo smiled brightly. Since he could not get his salary, he might as well squeeze every last drop from Overwatch instead.

“I saw this guy playing in the LPL just last night…”

“The Overwatch League is getting popular too. It can even piggyback on the LPL’s popularity now.”

“Now that’s upside-down logic. Actually, that isn’t wrong at all.”

“He can come to Overwatch and retire after he quits.”

“Retire on the Overwatch League’s viewership? Does it even have one finger of the LPL’s traffic? He’s just making a little extra money.”

“I watched yesterday’s interview. Overwatch had better realize what’s good for it and cling tightly to him. Negative publicity is still publicity.”