Rise

“Hey, I’ll be streaming again tonight. How about you bring your laptop over and play with me?” Su Xue stacked the empty bowls and turned to Lin Feng. “I’m sure the viewers are pretty exhausted from all the drama earlier today. I was thinking of hosting an inhouse with them, so we can all enjoy a fun casual match.”

“Mhan inhoue??” Lin Feng asked with a full mouth. His eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea!” But then he paused and scratched his head with a difficult expression. “I don’t think I can join. I have homework to do.”

“Even on the weekend? Wow, you sure are a busy bee.” Su Xue sighed in admiration. Then she cheerfully nodded. “Alright, you go off and do your homework. It’s important you get high grades in high school. I’m happy to see you got your priorities straight. Hah, I still remember back when I—”

“Oh right! It’s the weekend! I can’t believe I forgot!” Lin Feng smacked his forehead. “I’ll go grab my laptop, give me a minute!”

“And here I was praising you… Can you not change your mind so quickly?” Su Xue chided.

✹

Lin Feng sat down next to Su Xue and put his laptop down on the desk. Meanwhile, Su Xue had put away the dishes and booted up her computer. While starting the stream, she also opened her QQ chat stream group and typed an announcement.EveningSnowfall:「We’re doing a viewer inhouse. Who wants in?」

The viewers exploded like water on a hot pan. Dozens of them flooded the special viewer group chat, scrambling over one another to participate.

Su Xue giggled happily when she saw the flood of messages coming in.EveningSnowfall:「Calm down calm down, guys. Hop on the stream first. I’ll create the custom game.」

Viewers came in the stream one after another. There were the 70-odd who already watched Su Xue for the last month, a handful of them even longer. As for the rest, most came from Ol’ Black’s stream. She had officially won them over with how she handled the matter earlier that day. Even now, while Ol’ Black was still streaming, they chose to be in her stream. Then there were another hundred viewers, the remnants of LovelyRose’s troll army. They were the ones who had kept a somewhat neutral stance. The ones who hadn’t blindly flamed Su Xue, but rather quietly observed everything that happened. In that time, their loyalty had shifted to Su Xue, the heroine of today. All in all, Su Xue’s viewership had grown tremendously.

Su Xue turned on her facecam and announced to her viewers what she had already said in her group chat, leading to a whole new wave of viewers flocking over to participate in the inhouse.

「will that guy from before also join??」

After this first message, many more of its kind followed. Everyone forgot a moment about participating themselves, and were more concerned whether Lin Feng would join. His perfect Rengar game had left an extremely deep impression on them, to the extent that many of them believed he wasn’t any worse than the top Rengar in China.

Su Xue groaned . “Yes yes, he’s playing. Don’t worry.”

Lin Feng moved his head in the frame of the camera and waved his hand. “Hi guys. I’m here!”

「the god has arrived!」

「oh my god, he is so handsome!」

「PLEASE TEACH ME RENGAR!!!!!!1!!」

「oi, maid! what’s this all about? why is he sitting off to the side and not in front of the camera!!!!??!?!?!?!?」

“Hey! Am I not pretty enough? Why do you need to see him?” Su Xue erupted.

「Pfft! The lowly maid wants to seize the throne!」

「have you poured him his water yet?」

「if we wanted to see a pretty girl, there are other places for that. LIL BRO OR RIOT!!!!」

「just give up maid!」

In this lively atmosphere, the inhouse finally got underway. Lin Feng would captain the red team, while Su Xue would take charge of the blue team.

Lin Feng brooded over what role to play. The Morgana from last game, Grunting Corpse, called the support role. So, he had to pick a different role. “Alright, I’ll go ad-carry!”

“Hey, no way! If you play ad-carry, how the heck am I supposed to go up against you! No, go a different role!” Su Xue said, wide-eyed.

“Okay okay, I’ll jungle,” Lin Feng replied.

“Uh.” Su Xue quickly shook her head. “No! Your jungle is too good too. Pick another role!”

Lin Feng scratched his head. “But I’m good at every role.”

Su Xue rubbed her chin before her eyes lit up. “I know, you can play mid!” She was convinced this plan was bulletproof. Her mid laner was Water Wraith, the Diamond 1 player who had helped her beat LovelyRose. Plus, she’d seen Lin Feng play almost every role, but she’d never seen him play mid. He couldn’t possibly be that good in mid too, right?

Lin Feng hesitated. Then he looked at Su Xue and nodded. “Oh, okay.”

“Hey hey! Why are you looking at me like that? What’s up with that look of sympathy or something!”

Su Xue would soon come to learn the answer. Water Wraith locked in Yasuo while Lin Feng chose LeBlanc. It couldn’t even be called a match. There was no suspense, only slaughter. At four minutes into the game, LeBlanc solo killed Yasuo, and at six minutes she repeated this feat. Two minutes later Lin Feng had LeBlanc roam bot, where he assassinated Caitlyn—played by Su Xue—and Thresh with the help of his own bot lane. Another two minutes later, and he was already 6/0/0. By the 15th minute, he reached legendary with his eighth kill. And at minute 20, while pushing into the blue team’s nexus towers, Su Xue had seen enough and started a surrender vote in frustration.

The viewers were dumbstruck. Lin Feng’s LeBlanc was on a whole ‘nother level.

Su Xue bitterly messaged Water Wraith.EveningSnowfall:「Hey shitty Wraith! I thought you were Diamond 1? Weren’t you supposed to keep him in check?」

WaterWraith:「Hey, don’t blame me! he’s just crazy good! i’ve played against master rank leblancs who weren’t nearly as good...」

Su Xue turned her head and shot Lin Feng a glare. “Why are you so good at mid?”

“Eh, didn’t I say I was really good at every role?” Lin Feng scratched his head. “But mid is my best role.”

“Fuck! Do you really need to go so tryhard on us!” Su Xue cried out in grief.

LeBlanc, the Deceiver. A couple of patches ago, she was even stronger. However, no matter how badly she got nerfed, she would always fill an extremely important niche among midlane champions. Lin Feng hadn’t told anyone, but the first time he started truly putting his all into learning her was when he saw a certain pro mid laner put on godly performances that shook everyone in both season 2 and season 3 Worlds. That person was his greatest rival back in season 1. The only person who could compete with him for supremacy. And today, that person stood at the very top of the Four Emperors.