translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
The third match in the morning was between group B’s Xiao Han, and group F’s Xu Lang.
Xu Lang had attracted a lot of attention from esports reporters at the beginning of the group stage. In this individual competition, he was the only folk expert who had advanced, and was called the ‘strongest dark horse’.
His pride soared after winning against two professional players in group F, sending out a Weibo to remark on how professional players were ‘only at this level’. In his last match, he fought against Lu Boyu, Whisper team’s vice captain, and drew 1:1 in the first two games. Lu Boyu won a thrilling victory in the third game, with only a 5% blood volume gap between them. Therefore, Xu Lang had always thought that if he played another game, he would definitely be able to beat Lu Boyu. He even felt that his level was actually better than Lu Boyu, and that Lu Boyu won only because the random map gave long-ranged players an advantage. From this, his arrogant and conceited personality was clear; just because he had won two matches, Xu Lang had already raised his tail to the sky.
Since he qualified as second place from group F, he was matched with Xiao Han, who came in first from group B.
Qin Mo had watched all the group matches from before. The reason why Xu Lang could win so easily in Group F had to do with the arrangement of players in the group—— in truth, Group F was the weakest group of all. Lu Boyu was the Whisper team’s vice-captain, but his team was once created by folk experts, and Lu Boyu had never experienced the formal training of an esports club. The other two players in the group were Liu Xi of Graceful Beauty, and Li Mengshu of Interlude team, who were also folk players and had no experience in big competitions. Xu Lang’s ability to win against these two players didn’t prove that he was better than most professional players.
According to Qin Mo, Xu Lang was sure to lose against professional players such as Qiu Zongping, Yuan Xi and Lin Yao, who had only played for several years. In fact, even if he faced off against Shen He, Xu Lang would not have a high chance of winning.
The message sent on his weibo, ‘professional players were only at this level’, won him the praise of many ‘fans’, most of whom were black fans of the professional players. They lauded him as a folk expert with ‘genuine temperament’ who specialised in slapping the faces of players in the professional leagues, but from Qin Mo’s point of view, Xu Lang was an extremely arrogant and self-righteous fool.
Today, he was sure to be badly beaten up by Xiao Han, and Qin Mo was very happy to be able to watch a good show.
***
During the intermission, Ye Chao took the initiative to find a topic. “God Wei, the next match will be between the strongest black horse of the league, Xu Lang, against a great god of the professional circle, Xiao Han. Who do you think will win?”
“Just now, the audience said that I was giving poisonous milk in the comments,” Cheng Wei replied, faux-aggrieved. “So, I will guess that Xu Lang will win this game!”
The audience was immediately cheerful. “Xiao Wei has opened his big move again! With this poisonous milk, Xu Lang has been cursed!”
“Whomever he says will win will definitely lose, so god Han will definitely win this match!”
“Xiao Wei’s curse is very powerful, Xu Lang is expected to suffer!”
“God Wei, your apprentice was poisoned by your poisoned milk. What kind of master are you?”
At this moment, the director showed a chart on the screen, causing Ye Chao to sigh. “90% of our friends in the audience support Xiao Han, while the remaining 10% support Xu Lang. This is the first time for such a difference between the two players’ support rates to appear in the league.”
“It’s not very surprising. After all, god Han’s popularity is one of the highest in the esports circle. He has also participated in several world competitions.” Liang Ru followed immediately.
Cheng Wei smiled. “Xiao Han is a very much good professional player.”
Xiao Han: “…”
Cheng Wei deliberately imitated Xiao Han’s way of speaking. Back then, Xiao Han, who had just returned to China, was not very fluent in Chinese. Reporters often asked him, “What do you think about the match?”, and were replied with an extremely serious “Very much good.”
Later, this sentence became a famous saying in the esports circle, and was repeated by many fans. Every time people mentioned Xiao Han, they would use the phrases ‘very much good’, ‘very much handsome’, and ‘very much like’.
Hearing this, Ye Chao burst into laughter. “Our very much handsome god Han, seems to have not said this phrase of ‘very much good’ in a long while!”
“I still miss the little Xiao Han who was full of nonsense,” Liang Ru lamented. “Today’s god Han is so cool, and speaks without flaw during interviews!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Ktja’r yfmjerf afjmtfg Hlc Zb tjr ajeuta tlw kfii!” Jtfcu Qfl qblcafv bea.
Tf Jtjb jugffv, ijeutlcu. “Ktf qijsfgr jgf ralii qgfqjglcu yjmxrajuf. Ofa’r kjamt jc jvnfgalrfwfca olgra.”
Ktf jvnfgalrfwfca rtbkc kjr cb ibcufg bo rbs rjemf Ite Hlcusef’r OJG ilutarmgffc fcvbgrfwfca. Pcrafjv, atf vlgfmabg rtbkfv atf jvnfgalrfwfca bo atf cfk NE uijrrfr pblcais fcvbgrfv ys Wljb Ljc jcv Hlc Zb. Ktlr mbwwfgmlji kjr afc rfmbcvr ibcu, jcv tjv j rml-ol offi ab la, rtbklcu atf akb qijsfgr rlvf ys rlvf lc j alwf aeccfi atja vlrqijsfv lcmgfvlyis gfjilralm 3G lwjufr. Vfflcu atlr, atf ojcr lwwfvljafis yfmjwf nfgs fzmlafv. “Yt ws ubv, la’r atf Kklc Vajgr!”
“Han and Mo have shot commercials together; fans of six years really want to cry TAT.”
“Buy, buy, buy, I’ll go and buy it!”
At the end of the advertisement, Cheng Wei immediately commented. “The advertiser has good eyes, Xiao Han and Qin Mo are really well matched.”
Qin Mo: “…”
Cheng Wei, don’t make trouble; captain Tan is calling you home to have dinner!
In order to prevent Cheng Wei from continuing to stray off-topic, Ye Chao coughed pointedly. “Xu Lang is a player from the Zhuge Family’s Bone Fan flow. This particular cultivation route has no group attack skills, but has the highest single target output among all professions, and has a very strong explosive ability. Thus, the bone fan flow is more advantageous for players fighting one-on-one battles. Xu Lang’s performance in the group match was quite remarkable. His hot-blooded playstyle favours close combat and violent suppression, which is exciting to watch.”
Liang Ru smiled. “God Wei knows more about Xiao Han, so why don’t you analyze his characteristics?”
The unreliable Cheng Wei didn’t know what a commentator ought to do, but he was indeed very familiar with Xiao Han. Hearing Liang Ru’s words, he immediately offered an analysis. “Xiao Han is a very calm assassin. His movements are sharp yet erratic, his playstyle unpredictable, and he has an amazing explosive ability.
In fact, Cheng Wei had parroted Li Cangyu’s evaluation of Xiao Han word for word, without missing even a single one.
Ye Chao had no choice to cut him off. “The match is about to begin. Let’s turn our attention to the big stage!”
As the background music played, the lights on the big stage lit up again.
Xiao Han and Xu Lang stepped onto the stage. Xiao Han walked up to Xu Lang, shaking hands with this folk expert, and offered him a gracious smile. “Thanks for letting me win.”
Xu Lang: “……”
The match hadn’t even started yet, what did Xiao Han mean by such a remark?!
Heading for his seat, the confused Xu Lang frowned. Still, he was very excited for the match; if he could defeat Xiao Han today, he would be famous in the esports circle.
Both of them rolled the dice. Xiao Han rolled 88 points, while Xu Lang only managed 22 points, which was very amusing for the audience.
Qin Mo believed that this difference was reflective of the gap between both people. If Xiao Han’s chances of victory were 80%, Xu Lang only had a 20% chance of winning—— naturally, this included unexpected factors such as Xiao Han’s computer suddenly crashing, the network suddenly disconnecting, or Xiao Han accidentally falling off a cliff.
Qin Mo was very confident in Xiao Han. He knew Xiao Han would definitely win, but he wanted to watch Xiao Han win beautifully.
***
The first match began shortly. Xiao Han, who rolled a larger number, had the priority to choose a map first.
Xiao Han picked the Sword Altar map, an aerial combat map that appeared frequently in the professional league.
On this sort of map, the summoner’s chariots, the swordsman’s flying strike, Xuanbing Palace’s whip throw and other such skills had the ability to knock the opponent off the pumice, but Xiao Han’s assassin had no such displacement control skill. Xu Lang’s bone fan flow was also without such a skill, making it impossible to rely on control skills to push the opponent off the pumice for a quick win.
“Assassins don’t have any displacement skills,” Liang Ru wondered. “Why do you think god Han chose this map?”
“Positioning on an aerial combat map is difficult,” Cheng Wei replied straightforwardly. “He can rely on his flexible movements to confuse and beat his opponent!”
“That’s right,” Ye Chao also felt that Cheng Wei’s response was reasonable. “God Han’s movement skills are world-class. Under the premise that neither side has strong displacement control skills, he chose the aerial combat death map. Thus, he can rely on his movement skills to pressure his opponent.”
The match started. Xiao Han and Xu Lang were refreshed on pumices in the northeast and southwest simultaneously.
As the pumice moved rapidly, Xiao Han used the sect qinggong skill ‘Darkness Valley’ to turn invisible.
From the audience’s perspective, the invisible assassin in black jumped across the pumice stones at a dazzling speed. Even if the stones were moving, Xiao Han was still able to stand firmly on the stone surface, never once missing a step.
Xu Lang guessed that Xiao Han would sneak attack, and quickly turned his camera around. Ready to fight back at any moment.
Without pausing, Xiao Han quickly jumped across ten pumice stones, silently going around to stand behind Xu Lang’s back. The moment Xu Lang spun his camera around, Xiao Han attacked with his dagger—— Meteor, Meteor, Deadly Ice Silkworm, Phantom Dreaming!
In a flash, blood splattered across the ground. The two consecutive strokes of Meteor, coupled with Deadly Ice Silkworm, triggered the critical hit effect of Xiao Han’s weapon, consuming half of Xu Lang’s health in an instant!
A series of skills was capable of eating away half the health bar; this output really was terrible!
Looking at his blood volume that had been cut in half, Xu Lang felt a chill down his spine. What was even more disgusting was Xiao Han’s follow up, immediately controlling him with ‘Phantom Dreaming’ and placing him under an illusioned state. With his computer screen full of blooming flowers, Xu Lang was unable to see the pumice under his feet.
If they had been on flat ground, he could use qinggong to distance himself, but now, they were on an aerial combat map. If he jumped randomly, he might miss the pumice, then be stabbed by the spikes on the ground, which would be an instant loss!
Xu Lang didn’t dare to move, but he couldn’t sit there to wait for death. In the end, he could only open the big move of the bone fan flow—— Dongpo Painted Fan!
This was a very strong targeting skill that could automatically lock onto enemy targets within a specified range, launching a huge bone fan to directly smack the opponent in the face, causing dizziness.
A targeted skill couldn’t be avoided. Sure enough, Thousand Miles Ice was knocked dizzy, and unable to follow up with more skills.
However, because Xu Lang was still in seeing illusions, he was also unable to follow up with an attack, which was equivalent to wasting his control skill. However, Xiao Han’s big move of Shadowless Dragon was still available at this time. If the control skill hadn’t been used to preserve his little life, Xiao Han might have killed Xu Lang directly.
The three seconds of control time seemed to pass by very slowly, causing Xu Lang to feel extremely anxious. The moment the illusory effect ended, Xu Lang immediately turned to face Thousand Miles Ice, attacking with a ‘Whirlwind Fan’ combo!
His hand speed was indeed very fast, and the tip of the dragon bone fan in his hand was as sharp as the tusks of a wild beast. Xu Lang decisively threw out the bone fan, continuously striking the assassin for three seconds and interrupting any skills that might have been cast at this time. Because of the continuous damage, Thousand Miles Ice’s blood volume fell to 70% very quickly!
This combo was followed up with another skill, ‘Throat Locking Slice’. The bone fan suddenly unfolded, the sharp edge cutting across his opponent’s throat in an instant!
In addition to the huge amount of damage dealt, this skill could also inflict a ‘bleeding’ state on the opponent; as long as Thousand Miles Ice was hit, their blood volume could be levelled. However, Thousand Miles Ice used qinggong at the last second, flying ten metres backwards, perfectly avoiding the ‘Throat Locking Slice’ skill!
Seeing this, Xu Lang was shocked.
Without looking at the location of the pumice stones behind him, Xiao Han dared to fly backwards blindly. Wasn’t he afraid of falling off and dying?!
However, facts proved that Xiao Han didn’t fall, instead landing firmly on another moving pumice, almost as if laughing at Xu Lang’s stupidity.
Xiao Han’s exquisite operations caused Xu Lang to flush with anger—— without looking at the pumice stones, Xiao Han dared to fly backwards, while he could only stay in place, not daring to move after having been blinded by illusions. This was the gap between a professional player and a folk expert!
“Xu Lang’s movement skills are far beneath Xiao Han’s,” Cheng Wei commented.
Seeing god Han easily jump across the various pumice stones without hesitation, the audience had the impression that this aerial combat map was like flat ground to him.
But Xu Lang was unable to accomplish this feat. He didn’t dare fly backwards or forwards, especially not when he couldn’t see, because the pumice stones were not static. He hadn’t memorised the routes of the various stones, and couldn’t judge the next landing point that would be the most convenient for him in an instant…
Playing guerrilla warfare would cause him to suffer a great loss. Still, Xu Lang could only chase after Xiao Han as he ran away, wanting to engage in a head-on battle.
The reason why the Zhuge Family’s bone fan flow was very dominant in close-combat, was because it had four single-target attacking skills. If they could be connected in a combo, the resultant output would be extremely explosive.
Using his qinggong skills, Xu Lang chased after Xiao Han. With a wave of his hand, he activated the skill ‘Watercolour Feathered Fan’!
The bone fan unfolded. As if painting a masterpiece, it made three strokes, which connected with Thousand Miles Ice’s face, chest and torso, making a beautiful three-hit combo!
It had to be said that Xu Lang’s combos were very smooth.
However, by the time his combo was finished, he had only just managed to hit his opponent into a half-blood state, only to realise that the figure standing before him was not the assassin in black, but was instead a shadow.
——Not good!
Alert, Xu Lang attempted to retreat, but Xiao Han wasn’t going to give him the chance.
Using Thousand Lights Ghost Walk, the assassin split into five shadows to surround his opponent. Simultaneously, five daggers stabbed Xu Lang in the chest!
This scene was extremely shocking. The damage caused by five shadows at the same time was also quite considerable, and Xu Lang’s 50% blood volume fell by half again.
—— the first time, Xiao Han directly cut away half his blood; the second time, the remaining blood volume was cut in half yet again. If this continued, wouldn’t Xu Lang be directly killed the third time?
Having come to this realisation, Xu Lang immediately used his qinggong skill, jumping to another pumice to dodge.
However, his movement speed was far slower when compared to Xiao Han’s. Many times, the time taken for him to jump once was equivalent to two of Xiao Han’s jumps.
Rainbow Through The Sun, Rainbow Through The Sun, Rainbow Through The Sun!
What was even more frightening was the fact that Xiao Han could attack and jump at the same time!
The dagger flow’s most basic long-range attack skill, Rainbow Through The Sun, was chained into a three-hit combo. The assassin threw out his hidden weapons, drawing bloody arcs in the air, and stabbing into his opponent’s back with incomparable precision!
——[Thousand Miles Ice] has killed [Roaming Sand]!
Unexpectedly, Xiao Han made quick work of his opponent during the chase, and a set of skills was enough to completely empty his opponent’s health.
Looking at the gray screen, Xu Lang despaired.
What made him feel worse was not his loss, but rather, the frustration of having put up no resistance—— he had been completely suppressed by Xiao Han from the start, and played very passively. Xiao Han’s flexible movements also showed Xu Lang very clearly what level professional players were truly at. Compared with his opponents in group F, the god he encountered in the knockout stage today was extremely terrible, causing him to almost lose the confidence to continue playing!
Hehe, Cheng Wei ah~ Shitian is calling for you~ Dont come out to expose our Momo and Xiao Han in front of everyone ah hehe
Shameless Cheng Wei repeating what Cangyu said abt Xiao Han, its almost as if you aren’t a pro player who also knows how to evaluate people…. cough, also Xu Lang really deserved it //who am i to talk when i fall off every cliff possible ingame
Xiao Han jiayou!! Thank you for this chapter la~
hahaha, Cheng Wei is so cute, right? Just go back, Tan Shitian is waiting for you~ 🤣
Li Cangyu is his idol, thats why, what his idol said he will repeat it lol 😈
Agreed, i also the one who always fall off the cliff in the game.. owo
You’re welcome~ ❤
Thank you for translating!
You’re welcome~ ❤
Xu Lang is too arrogant~ (￢_￢;) I hope that Cheng Wei‘s curse will work out~ Cheng Wei eventually did something good lol
But I really wonder why Xu Lang acts like this towards the professional players… Is he really just a fool? Hmmm….
Ahhh I also really miss the old Xiao Han who couldn’t speak chinese well! In the past he was so cute~ What a pity~
Hehe Cheng Wei was this time on point when he said that Xiao Han and Qin Mo match each other well!~ ✧٩(•́⌄•́๑)و ✧
Thank you for the chapter!
agreed, Xu Lang is too arrogant, he will lose to Xiao Han!
Cheng Wei’s curse is effective lol 🤣, I don’t know why is he like that, maybe he just an arrogant teenager?
Now, he can speak chinese well but pretend not to in front of Qin Mo, i think 🙈
+1 for Cheng Wei ~
You’re welcome~~
Xiao Han: Your previous opponents were all like little babies. Watch this!Thank you for the chapter!!!
Xiao Han: Thanks for letting me win. 🤣
You’re welcome~
I laughed out loud when Qin Mo said what would be the unexpected factors for Xiao Han loosing the match 😂 he has zero expectations for this Xu Lang
God Han is amazing~ thanks for the chapter 💕
Lol, he just trust Xiao Han, his husband 😏
You’re welcome~
ah showing the arrogant child the difference between a professional player that’s had to hone their craft versus a folk expert that’s playing for fun. Not saying you can’t be good as a folk expert, but the hours the pros put into improving their skills should not be disrespected.