July 22nd, Friday…
The team members of the H4 E-Sports Club stepped onto Jingzhou’s soil for the first time.
Team Leader Su and two team managers led the GOG and IOI teams from the club. They were here to take part in the Jingzhou competition over the weekend.
The competition schedule was very simple. The finals would be ‘best of five’, and the other rounds would be ‘best of three’. There would be eight teams competing in the single-elimination format for seven rounds in total. The entire competition would take two days—Saturday and Sunday.
The schedule was quite tight, but it made sense. After all, if they kept the events close together, they would be able to sustain the popularity of the competition, and the audience would not lose patience.
What Team Leader Su found more ridiculous was that the GOG and IOI competitions were taking place at the same time. Both were to be conducted this Saturday and Sunday!
Were they made to overlap so that the audience would have to choose either one?
What’s more, both of those were Tengda’s games. Was it trying to steal attention from itself? Was there an internal battle going on?
Wouldn’t it have been better to schedule the competitions for separate weekends?
Team Leader Su found this very confusing. However, what everyone didn’t know was that there was indeed an internal battle going on between GOG and IOI at the moment.
There was a reason behind such a schedule.
To organize a competition, organizers would have to contact teams, prepare a venue, set the program, and so on. Both organizers required approximately the same amount of time.
Whoever’s competition took place first would enjoy more attention!
If GOG players knew that there would be an IOI competition this weekend and a GOG one next weekend, they would probably watch the IOI competitions over this weekend, just to observe the situation.
The same went for IOI players.
However, by the next week, when the GOG competition started, IOI players would not necessarily tune in.
The competition that took place first would inevitably enjoy more attention. It could be likened to cell phone manufacturers fighting to release their new model.
Thus, Tengda Games and Shang Yang Games refused to give each other any leeway, and both tried to hold their respective competitions first.
However, neither could shorten the preparation time required, and the competitions had to be held over a weekend when there would be a higher number of visitors. Since neither wanted to fall behind, both fought and struggled to be the faster team and used the minimum time required for preparation. In the end, both competitions were set for the same weekend.
Once the dates were set, it was too late to make any changes. They had no choice but to see it through!
Based on the gamers’ data, GOG was undoubtedly the winner.
However, IOI had poured a huge sum of money into publicity as well. Apart from inviting a few local first-tier clubs, they had also invited several foreign clubs to join the competition. Now, they could use the title of an ‘international competition’.
That was quite attractive to many people as well. After all, external battles were always the most entertaining and exciting.
Since both teams had run large quantities of advertisements to draw more attention to the competitions, whether IOI could be revived or not boiled down to this.
If GOG continued to suppress it, it could be much harder for IOI to run publicity in the future.
“Team Leader Su, we’ll go to the hotel first. Let’s work hard together and bring the trophy back. We’ll be triumphant!” Once the team manager finished speaking, he left in a car with the other team members.
The two competition grounds were in different locations in Jingzhou, and they were quite far from each other. Obviously, this was to dissuade the audience from sitting on the fence. Everyone had to choose one competition to watch.
Thus, the H4 Club’s two teams rented two different hotels to stay in, so that traveling to the competition grounds would be more convenient. Of course, the organizers would cover all expenses for accommodation and food.
Team Leader Su prepared to hail a taxi and go to his hotel as well.
At that moment, Captain Pang Ling said, “Team Leader Su, it’s still early. We don’t have to go to the hotel yet. Wouldn’t it be better if we go to the DGE Club to train with Huang Wang, Jiang Huan, and the rest?”
Team Leader Su paused for a moment and then nodded. “That’s true! We can grab the chance to check the results of the training we have been doing.”
Since the DGE Club left Shanghai, the H4 Club had been training extremely rigorously. They repeatedly watched the recording of the DGE Club while they participated in mock competitions against other clubs online.
They had improved rapidly!
Both of the DGE’s teams could beat H4 despite having 4-6 members due to many reasons. Some of those reasons were powerful individual skills, good teamwork, and unexpected battle strategies.
On top of that, there was another very important point: they understood the game very well.
When they should do what, what each person’s role was, and how they should administer their battle tactics… everyone at the H4 Club had benefited a lot from observing all of those things.
Having learned from what they had observed, the H4 Club had employed the same tactics to fight other clubs and achieved excellent results.
Thus, their confidence had ballooned, and they itched to fight against the DGE Club’s teams again, just to see how much they had improved.
Team Leader Su sent a message to Zhang Yuan who happily agreed and sent their location over.
The H4 Club’s GOG team headed straight towards Ming Yun Villas.
“When the time comes, we can just have the mock competition in a random internet cafe, right?”
“I heard that there’s a famous internet cafe chain in Jingzhou called the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. It’s said that it has good hardware and a good environment. I wonder if we will go there for the mock competition.”
“Is the hardware really good? How good can it be?”
“Who knows? I think the internet cafe is overrated online. It would definitely be better than the internet cafe we often visit, but it can’t be that much better, right? Anyway, we’ll find out when we get there…”
There were a total of six members in the H4 team. They hailed two taxis and then arrived at Ming Yun Villas half an hour later. Since they had nothing to do during the journey, they enjoyed the scenery outside the window.
The biggest sense that they got was that it was really different from Shanghai!
After all, Jingzhou was a second-tier city without the skyscrapers one could see in Shanghai. There were also no special-looking buildings like the Oriental Pearl Tower. As they looked around during the journey, they only saw ordinary city landscapes and nothing special.
That made all of them feel better about themselves. In fact, it made them all feel slightly superior.
That was because they had always heard about Jingzhou being a convenient city to live in, with internet cafes, take-out, and deliveries being easily within reach. In fact, some even said that Jingzhou was nicer to live in than Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. That caused the H4 club to feel slightly indignant.
Now, from the looks of the situation, or at least in terms of the buildings; Shanghai was far better than Jingzhou.
The two cars stopped at Ming Yun Villas one by one. When they saw the wide and spacious villa, the first hint of admiration appeared on the team member’s faces.
It looked much more impressive than the villa they were staying in on the outskirts of Shanghai!
However, they quickly recalled that land here was much cheaper. The cost of one villa in Shanghai was comparable to two over here. At once, they felt better again.
As H4’s Captain Pang Ling surveyed the villa in front of him, he realized that he had been in an inexplicable state of competition ever since he stepped onto Jingzhou soil.
Once he realized that, he became shocked.
However, on further thought, it was not strange to feel this way.
That was because the H4 Club’s team members had been miserably defeated by the DGE Club before. Of course, they would feel all sorts of indignance!
Everyone was a skilled master. They had only joined the H4 Club after undergoing rigorous training. The H4 Club was one of the longest standing clubs in the country. How many young internet addicts dreamt of joining this club and becoming professional gamers?
Pang Ling and the others had been extremely proud to become members of the H4 Club’s GOG team.
However, the DGE Club’s team had ruthlessly crushed their pride. Individually and as a team, H4 had been utterly defeated.
How could the H4 Club’s team accept that?
They felt like a bunch of martial arts talents who had trained intensely from a young age to get into a proper sect. Yet, a small sect that had seemed to pop out of nowhere tore down their school and defeated them miserably.
Of course, they would feel emotionally unstable!
Thus, everyone in the H4 Club developed insecurity and began comparing subconsciously.
At that thought, Pang Ling became cautious. He warned himself to remain objective. As a professional esports athlete, managing one’s emotions was the most important lesson.
Pang Ling sucked in a deep breath and told himself not to overthink but to focus on the mock competition that they would be having with the DGE Club.
Zhang Yuan walked out and welcomed them.
“Team Leader Su! Please, come in.”
Zhang Yuan was very passionate. After all, DGE Club would have to build strong connections with many other local esports clubs in the future. He could not go wrong with nurturing those relationships now.
“Our training ground is very simple. Please take a seat wherever. It’s going to be lunchtime, and so I’ve ordered take-out for everyone. We can go to Fish-Catching Internet Cafe for the mock competition once we’ve eaten.”
Team Leader Su nodded. “Alright, we’ll go with the host’s plan. Brother Zhang, just do as you see fit.”
H4’s team members walked in and looked around with interest. The villa had a yard with well-maintained greenery. Obviously, a professional had been hired for that.
When they arrived at the training hall, everyone stopped speaking. Pang Ling had no idea how to express his feelings at that moment.
Is this what you meant when you said your training ground is simple?!
This villa had been Boss Li’s, and they had kept the renovations the same after buying it over, instead of adding more luxurious decorations. However, the original renovations were already very exquisite!
Zhang Yuan had even bought various furniture and computers so that the entire training hall looked legitimate and harmonious. It looked nothing like a mere guesthouse.
Pang Ling compared it to H4’s own training ground and immediately noticed a huge difference! H4 Club’s villa was rented, and it contained the landlord’s furniture and random items. Since they couldn’t throw them away, they had no choice but to put them to good use.
Thus, the entire place looked quite haphazard.
They had furniture from the landlord and newly purchased furniture which were different in style. What’s more, they didn’t look that nice.
Needless to say, the hostel’s conditions were even worse. Some slept on bunk beds, and some slept alone on double beds. Many team members also had to buy their own simple wardrobes because they did not have any.
Yet, look at DGE’s villa! It was completely different!
All the furniture—including the computer tables, wardrobes, sofas for resting, beds for the team members, and so on—had obviously been bought at the same time. They were all the same style, and they fit perfectly into the villa.
Although there were more than ten computer tables in the training hall, it did not feel squeezy at all. Instead, everything looked like they belonged there. Every computer was flashing with the impressive RGB lights, making them look extremely futuristic and at least ten years ahead of H4 Club’s computers.
All in all, the environment here was not much different from what one saw in movies. It looked like an intentionally created set, and nothing looked like it had been placed there by coincidence!
Pang Ling could not help but wonder what H4 Club’s training ground would be called if this was ‘simple’.
Would it be called a slum or a rubbish dump?
Manager Su felt the worst. To him, this looked like a venue dedicated to whipping people while they were down.
When the DGE Club had gone to look around the H4 Club, he had proudly brought the former around. The more he thought about his boasts back then, the more awkward he became now. He wondered how Zhang Yuan and the others had tolerated him…