translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
In the first three weeks of the competition, Mojue won against Graceful Beauty with a score of 2:0, and won against National Grace and Whisper with a score of 2:1. These results could not be considered good for a team that had previously won various championships, because Dynasty, Frost Moon, and Without Fire were all teams with strong comprehensive strengths. None of these three teams had lost a single game in the first three weeks, even winning two of their games with a score of 2:0.
On the scoreboard, Mojue’s ranking temporarily fell to third place, only 2 points away from fourth.
Before the match between Mojue and Interlude on Saturday, many netizens predicted that Qin Mo and Xiao Han would definitely play this week. Because Mojue’s rank has fallen, Qin Mo as the captain had to face great pressure from public opinion. If he did not play now, when would he?
However, when it was time for the competition, the audience soon realised—— Qin Mo still abstained from playing, and also chose not to ban players.
The audience knew that Interlude’s unique feature was their guqin and flute ensemble played by martial brothers Su Cheng and Xie Changming. Su Cheng was responsible for large-scale group attacks to suppress their opponent’s blood, while Xie Changming was responsible for remote control and single point breakthroughs. The both of them could bring along a healer to play a slow game of attrition, or bring along an output for a fast break. These were some of Interlude’s most common lineups in their playstyle. When facing Interlude, most opponents would ban Su Cheng from playing in order to successfully break up the guqin and flute combination.
Teams with fewer core players suffered greatly with the ban stage of the three-player team battle. In the first three weeks of competition, Su Cheng was banned in almost every game. Without him, not only could the guqin and flute ensemble not be played, the team also lost their pillar of support. Without Su Cheng as their commander, their disastrous results could be imagined. The Interlude teams with and without Su Cheng were like two completely different teams.
Many netizens predicted that Qin Mo would follow suit. As long as Su Cheng was banned, Interlude would surely collapse.
However, Qin Mo did not do this. He released Su and Xie’s guqin and flute ensemble, sending Liu Hong, Pei Yu and Li Muran up to fight. Su Cheng, who was close to suffocating after being banned for three continuous weeks went all out in this game, winning the first match with a strong showing of their guqin and flute ensemble. Next, Mojue used their home map to pull back one game, but the Twin Stars once again sat out during the tiebreaker game. In the final game, Interlude used the transmission flow to spring a surprise team battle, winning against Mojue with a score of 2:1.
—— After the fourth week competition, Mojue’s ranking dropped to fourth place.
Because of this, the doubting voices on the Internet had become more intense. Many fans reminded Qin Mo on Weibo that it was alright to train new players, but he couldn’t deliberately play around. If too many points were lost in the three-person competition, it would not be easy to catch up in the later group battles. Others felt that Qin Mo had looked down on Su Cheng, and was beaten soundly in the face by captain Su.
Having long guessed that he would be scolded by the netizens, Qin Mo didn’t bother to post a response on Weibo.
He had his own ideas, all of which were laid out after taking into consideration the competition schedule. None of them were made on the spur of the moment.
Looking more closely at Mojue’s schedule for the three-player team competition, Mojue had played against the weaker second-line teams such as Graceful Beauty, National Grace, Whisper, Interlude and Sword Song in the first five weeks. The points Mojue lost at this stage could be controlled within a range of 10 points. In the next few weeks, they would encounter four strong teams continuously, namely Sky, Without Fire, Frost Moon and Dynasty, and points must be taken from the strong teams.
The current fall in their rank didn’t matter much, because the rankings would once again change greatly when the strong teams began to fight each other in the next few weeks. As long as they won against these strong teams and caused them to lose points during their fight against Mojue, Mojue’s rank would quickly rise.
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.
Under the most ideal circumstances, Mojue would return to first place.
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Qin Mo greatly appreciated Li Muran’s analysis. He sent a conclusion of Muran’s writeup to the group chat for everyone to study carefully, so as to prepare for the group war against Interlude later.
***
A week passed by quickly. Mojue met Sword Song in the fifth week.
Before the game, netizens began to guess once more, with the topic being “Will god Mo play this week?”
Many people were still debating on the forums as to whether Qin Mo would play or not. During the pre-match commentary, Ye Chao couldn’t help but make a joke about this matter. “Now, the trending topic is no longer ‘will Mojue’s ranking drop’, but ‘will Qin Mo play or not?”
“Qin Mo has been resting for a whole four weeks, and Xiao Han has only appeared once. I have the feeling that they are still hiding their big moves,” Liang Ru mused.
Ye Chao nodded in agreement. “Although Mojue has now fallen to fourth place, many players in the league know that Mojue is still a BOSS-level opponent that cannot be underestimated. The BOSS’s ultimate move needs time to cast, but Twin Stars’ casting time is a bit too long.”
“Do you think that Mojue’s ranking will drop after this match?” Liang Ru asked curiously.
The director broadcasted the current ranking. After four rounds of competition, Dynasty was now ranked first, followed by Without Fire and Frost Moon. Mojue ranked fourth, with Sky in fifth and Whisper in sixth. Seventh to ninth were the famous National Grace, Interlude, and Sword Song, all with similar points, while Graceful Beauty was still at the bottom.
Ye Chao looked at the scoreboard. “Interlude and Mojue’s points are very close,” he analysed. “If Interlude can win 2:0 and take 4 points, and Mojue fails to do so, Interlude will overtake Mojue.”
“You really have a crow’s mouth!” Liang Ru huffed.
Ye Chao smiled. “The key is whether Qin Mo will ban players. If he doesn’t let Lin Shuangcheng play, it will be very easy for Mojue to fight Sword Song.”
Sword Song was also a non-governmental team, and they faced a similar problem as Interlude—— they had too few first-class core players.
At least Interlude had two core players, Su Cheng and Xie Changming. However, Sword Song only had one player who could be considered a great god, Lin Shuangcheng. Although Xiao Song had an outstanding talent, he was still in the stage of rapid growth, and couldn’t afford to take up heavy responsibility just yet.
In this three-player competition, Lin Shuangcheng had also been banned continuously for the past few weeks. Song Changdong had no choice but to bite the bullet and lead the team. Without captain Lin’s help, Xiao Song’s state was very unstable; sometimes, he could lead an extraordinary fast break to win against the opponent, but at other times, he was completely crushed by the other side. Because of this, Sword Song’s performance had fluctuated a lot in the previous weeks.
As Ye Chao had said, as long as Qin Mo banned Lin Shuangcheng from playing, sending out one of the Twin Stars was enough to break the three-man team led by Xiao Song.
However… Qin Mo still refused to ban any player.
The moment Qin Mo skipped the ban stage for the fifth time, a bunch of ellipses floated across the bullet screen. The audience were madly spitting out comments: “God Mo can never refrain from fighting head-on against the opponent’s core. Is he deliberately increasing the difficulty of the game?”
“Mojue’s captain Qin is asking for trouble again, and taking the initiative to beg his opponent to hit him in the face!”
Qin Mo’s approach was very decisive. He released the guqin and flute ensemble when facing Interlude, and once again released the melee swordsmen combination led by Lin Shuangcheng when facing Sword Song.
He allowed the other side to send their strongest lineup, but at the same time, he himself chose not to send his strongest lineup, continuing to give the newcomers a chance.
As a result, Lin Shuangcheng gave it his all, winning the match 2:1 with his long and short sword combination.
“Congratulations to Mojue for successfully falling to the fifth place.” Ye Chao gloated.
Liang Ru sighed. “Qin Mo’s actions are difficult for many people to understand. However, I believe he has his own considerations, and it’s too early to draw a conclusion just yet. It’s better to wait for the final results.”
“Yes,” Ye Chao agreed. “The three-players competition is just a transitional event, and has no trophy. Fans, please don’t be too excited. Qin Mo cannot deliberately release water to force Mojue to lose. Upon closer analysis, his arrangements should be related to the team battle in the later stages.”
“In particular, Li Muran has been playing almost every game, and has made great progress after five consecutive rounds of competitions,” Liang Ru noted. “If the healer cannot keep up, it will be very difficult to fight in a team battle. It seems like Qin Mo intends to let Li Muran practice.”
Both commentators helped Qin Mo to make excuses. When interviewed, Qin Mo offered a calm explanation. “Mojue is not a team of me and Xiao Han alone. If the both of us play in every game, Mojue’s score will definitely be much higher than it is now. However, in the later team battles, if we cannot cooperate well, more points will be lost.”
“Yes,” Xiao Han nodded. “There is no need to worry. Trust in Xiao Mo, he will definitely give everyone a satisfactory result.”
As Twin Stars voluntarily stepped forward to appease the fans after the game, the negative feelings of their fan base gradually subsided. People slowly began to wonder whether Mojue could slowly climb back to the top of the scoreboard.
***
Backstage, Lin Shuangcheng took the initiative to approach Qin Mo. “You are a little too crazy, right? It’s already the fifth round. If you don’t come out now, there may not be a chance to do anything in the end.”
“Xiao Song has made rapid progress, and his cooperation with you has become more tacit.” Qin Mo calmly changed the subject. “I am very optimistic about your performance in the team battle.”
“That’s enough, don’t praise Xiao Song so much,” Lin Shuangcheng laughed. “I know his strength very well, and I doubt Sword Song can win the prize this season. The most important thing is to participate.”
“As usual, your thoughts are very clear,” Qin Mo smiled.
Every captain in the league wanted to win a prize, even Graceful Beauty, who still dreamed of winning a championship despite being at the bottom of the rankings. However, Lin Shuangcheng alone had never said that he “wanted to win a prize”. His smiling appearance was not serious in the slightest, but he was the most rational person in the league. He was well aware of Sword Song’s strength, and had his own conclusions about Sword Song’s placement in the league.
—— Because he didn’t pursue what he couldn’t get, he was able to be so relaxed.
In fact, Qin Mo envied him and admired his open mind.
In this cruel competitive circle, it was very difficult to play for enjoyment alone, and not pursue any rankings or trophies. Lin Shuangcheng could do it, but Qin Mo couldn’t. Qin Mo was responsible for many more things, and the burden on his shoulders was heavier than Lin Shuangcheng’s.
Since he had returned after leaving for three years, Qin Mo couldn’t say that he came back just to play—— he needed to prove himself and realise his dream. While he appeared not to care about Mojue’s rank falling, Qin Mo was actually under great pressure. If they couldn’t climb the ranks again later, in the eyes of the fans, he would become a sinner.
Lin Shuangcheng evidently understood his thoughts, for the man smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Relax a little. I believe that Mojue will win the championship.”
Qin Mo nodded. “Thank you.”
After Lin Shuangcheng left, Qin Mo took a deep breath and looked up at the team scoreboard, which was updated in real-time—— Mojue had fallen to fifth place, which was the worst-case scenario that he had laid out. There were still problems with the members’ teamwork. Fortunately, it was only the three-player competition, and their points could be recovered slowly.
??? I was confused for a moment… Why wasn’t it edited? 🤔
So they dropped to the fifth place hmm… But I’m sure Mojue can definitely catch up! So Qin Mo, don’t stress yourself too much over it ~
Thank you for the chapter 💜💜💜
Lol, I’m sorry, in the middle of editing the post and i forgot because of works 🤣 Already fix it~
Yes, they drop to fifth place, but they will do their best to catch up!
You’re welcome~ ❤
I see… 😅
I don’t mind ~ 💜
Worst case scenario… so he had higher expectations for the newcomers..