Chapter Sixty-Eight: An Introduction

On the other side, Nakoruru had already taken flight, landing squarely atop Marco, who had expended all his abilities. Marco Polo possessed his passive, so even when approached by an enemy, he could still move, but with him as the last remaining threat on the field, Nakoruru pressed the assault even harder, chasing Marco all the way into the fountain and finishing him off there with her second ability!

"Swap for Resurrection Armor!"

Both Xinran and Lin Hao were outside the high ground, having narrowly escaped with barely a sliver of health. In perfect sync, they opened the shop interface. Lin Hao only needed to sell a minor item to afford Resurrection Armor, but Xinran had to sell off nearly everything she owned to scrape together enough gold for one.

Meanwhile, as Orange fell under Mengya’s barrage, Zhuang Zhou became the sole survivor on the enemy team. With just one "fish" left, it was nearly impossible to clear the waves; he could only try to stall the coming minions at the top lane. But with Nakoruru and Mengya providing overwhelming firepower, he barely hindered the wave before being instantly focused down.

"End it, end it!"

"Hit the tower!"

Lin Hao dashed straight into the enemy fountain and pressed Recall. His Resurrection Armor was about to be triggered, so he urgently called for his teammates to finish off the tower, lest his KDA take a hit in two seconds.

Fortunately, his teammates came through. With victory in sight, they quickly destroyed the enemy’s crystal.

"VICTORY!"

"We got it!"

At the same time, Lin Hao registered a surge of Rage Points in his mind.

"Rage value from Shang Jie +900!"

"Rage value from Marco Polo +700!"

Lin Hao thought, Shang Jie’s rage was most likely from that one strike—instantly killing Shang Jie’s Yuange puppet. For Yuange to deal ideal damage, he basically had to build full offense: at the very least, Black Cleaver, Breaker, Starshatter, and Master’s Might were essential.

But that also meant Yuange was incredibly fragile, and consequently, so was his puppet. Lin Hao knew Yuange inside out, especially now—the counter was to instantly kill his puppet during teamfights!

That must have been where Shang Jie’s rage originated. Had Shang Jie managed to control Xi Shi and burst her down, the outcome of the teamfight could have been rewritten.

Diao Chan might have then countered, flashing into the backline to take out Mengya, and Marco Polo and Zhuang Zhou would have immediately rejoined the fight.

Whether they would have won that teamfight would have been anyone’s guess.

...

"My puppet was instantly killed, I couldn’t even press my fourth ability!"

"There was nothing I could do this game—just a little more luck and if I’d managed to recall the puppet, taken out Xi Shi in the teamfight, we would have definitely won."

"To be fair, Ma Chao was decisive, too. I’d already noticed his damage and switched up my play, but when he struck, I was mid-cast on my second skill—the aftercast was too long, nothing I could do. Such a shame."

In Shang Jie’s stream, the lower left camera captured his constipated expression. What bothered him most about this play wasn’t the loss, but the fact that he was about to make a move only to be rudely interrupted!

If Ma Chao had delayed his attack by even a tenth of a second, Shang Jie could have recalled his puppet, knock-up chained into a cross-slash, and even if he didn’t instantly burst down Xi Shi, he wouldn’t have just stood there for two seconds and died to invisible damage.

It was truly frustrating.

"Jie-ge, you played really poorly this match!"

"All you did was defend base, and not even that well!"

"Translation: you were suppressed the whole game."

"Is the enemy Ma Chao a booster? His movement is so slick—he outplayed Marco Polo right in the base."

"Ma Chao is Haoran from Shark Live!"

"Who doesn’t know about the Hao Family Army?"

Haoran’s fans began flooding Shang Jie’s chat.

Recently, Lin Hao’s fanbase had been skyrocketing, largely thanks to viewers being funneled from other popular streamers’ rooms. How did this happen? Whenever a streamer ended up in a match against Lin Hao, he would relentlessly focus and mess with them the whole game. Even if he didn’t destroy them, he’d prance around in front of them, tilting their mental state.

Naturally, this piqued viewers’ curiosity, drawing them to Lin Hao’s stream to see for themselves.

Now, Lin Hao’s fans had come to Shang Jie’s stream, acting as unofficial promoters.

Shang Jie didn’t mind. Glancing at the chat, he asked in surprise, "Oh? The enemy Ma Chao is a streamer?"

He checked the post-game screen—the ID wasn’t the typical streamer format with platform plus name, but something novel: "Shared Heartbeat."

And honestly, Shang Jie had just experienced a racing heartbeat—he’d gotten truly riled up.

Usually, he made a lot of noise but played with a cool head. But this Ma Chao played just like him, always up to some antics. Shang Jie chuckled, "Damn, this whole match he kept recalling in front of me. If Xi Shi hadn’t caught me a few times, I’d have been the one suppressing him."

"If that were the case, it wouldn’t be him recalling in front of me, but me saying ‘Sorry’ in front of him."

At that moment, a longtime fan’s message caught Shang Jie’s eye: "Jie-ge, how about inviting that Ma Chao for the SOLO challenge tomorrow at 9 PM? It would be pretty interesting."

Shang Jie pondered a moment and replied, "I don’t really know him, but he’s clearly strong. A duel sounds good. I’ll add him and see what he says."

...

In Xinran’s stream.

After the match, Xinran studied the results screen for a while.

MVP was Haoran’s Ma Chao, with a stellar KDA and sharp in-game plays.

"Such a skilled player—I should definitely get to know him," Xinran said, sending a friend request.

"Oh, a collaboration is happening!"

"Will there be a new addition to Liu Wei’s midnight five-man squad—Haoran?"

Fans teased in chat.

Xinran smiled and shook her head. She just wanted to connect.

In these high-level matches, it was rare to see someone taunt-recalling while making godlike plays, almost as if he were smurfing.

With pros, one-tricks, and all sorts of streamers gathered in these games, everyone played with utmost seriousness. Extraneous moves like recalling or spamming pings could easily disrupt your focus and mechanical precision.

...

Lin Hao’s game was still on the post-match screen.

"Not sure if everyone noticed the details in that last teamfight. The key was two maneuvers: first, I instantly took out Yuange’s puppet, breaking his rhythm in the fight; second, I tower-dived to take down Yuange, baited out almost all of Marco’s skills, and still managed to escape."

"Of course, Xi Shi’s flash-pull to start the fight was crucial—very decisive!"

Lin Hao was enthusiastically explaining the intricacies of his play when suddenly, two friend requests popped up.

Since he wasn’t a big-name streamer before, people rarely added him, so he’d always left his requests open.

"'Fighting for 20' wants to add you as a friend."

"'TigerTooth Xinran' wants to add you as a friend."