LPL History

Chapter 227 The Soul-Severing Mask Appears Before Battle, Ten Thousand Eyes Gather for the First Ascent of the Universe

2014, April 9.

China TB.

Zhu Kai hummed a little tune and knocked on Zhou Li's door.

There is only one day left until the global finals officially begin.

To prevent the athletes from experiencing any issues with adapting to the new environment, Zhu Kai specifically communicated with the hotel and agreed to personally take charge of the athletes' meals.

Zhou Li pushed open the door, saw Zhu Kai, and said with a smile:

"Chef Zhu, what are we having for dinner today?"

His gaze fell on the plate Zhu Kai was holding, and in just a second, his smile froze on his face.

It's a bowl of steaming hot noodles.

“Brother Zhou, the competition is tomorrow, so I specially made beef noodles,” Zhu Kai explained, unaware of the change in Zhou Li’s expression. “With the competition approaching, we can’t eat too much oily food, but we also can’t lack nutrition. Beef noodles are the most suitable choice.”

"Did you give this beef noodle soup to someone else?"

Zhou Li asked nervously.

"You've eaten? Team A and Team B have the same food, we're having noodles today," Zhu Kai said in a low voice, sounding mysterious. "But Zhou, yours was made last, so I specially added extra beef and a poached egg for you."

Upon hearing Zhu Kai's words, Zhou Li's nerves instantly tensed up.

Whether it's metaphysics or superstition, there's no way you should eat beef noodles at this time of day!
"Get everyone here right now! Hurry up! Don't call them one by one... Never mind, I'll do it myself!"

Zhou Li turned and went inside, picked up his phone, and started a video call in the QQ group!

After a short wait, all of the dozen or so cameras lit up.

Along with that, a dozen or so slurping sounds of noodles rang out.

Zhou Li's heart skipped a beat.

Finished!

Everything's fucking ruined!
His soldiers were all wiped out by that cook!
"Brother Zhou, what's wrong?"

Tabe, with noodles still in his mouth, asked.

Zhou Li sighed as he looked at Tabe's bowl, which was now only filled with soup.

"Have you all finished eating?"

Everyone in the video call was stunned for a moment, and then Khan spoke:

"You're done eating? What's wrong, Brother Zhou?"

Zhou Li felt his nerves pounding, and couldn't help but ask:

"Is the beef noodle soup delicious?"

"What beef noodles?" Xiao Ming was taken aback. "Didn't we say we should eat something light before the competition, so we ate vegetable noodles?"

Zhou Li's eyes lit up instantly.

"You ate vegetable noodles?"

"Yeah, what's wrong, Brother Zhou?"

Faced with everyone's questions, Zhou Li silently glanced at Zhu Kai.

Good lad, nowadays they're even resorting to this kind of class discrimination.

It's unclear whether Zhu Kai loves him or is trying to harm him.

However, Zhou Li breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that everyone was eating vegetable noodles.

After all, eating vegetable noodles can save a lot of food expenses compared to eating beef noodles.

Just as Zhou Li was relieved, the factory manager's voice suddenly rang out.

"Huh? Nami, why is there beef in your bowl?"

"Huh? I added it myself. I'm really not full just eating vegetable noodles."

Zhou Li paused for a moment, then spoke:

"Nami, you should get some rest tomorrow. Let Smile start."

Upon hearing Zhou Li's words, Nami was stunned for a moment, and her face instantly turned ugly.

"Brother Zhou, I added the beef myself. It shouldn't be that much for a bowl of beef noodles, right?"

Tabe also spoke up:

"Brother Zhou, the starting lineup for the first game has been submitted. I doubt Riot Games will agree to a sudden change."

Hearing Tabe's words, Zhou Li sighed, and to prevent Nami from misunderstanding, he said:
"Nami, I didn't mean anything by it. I just did some quick calculations and it seems like it's not a good day to eat beef. If I eat beef, I'll definitely get diarrhea tonight."
-
September 18th. 4:50 PM!
TB University Gymnasium!
In ten minutes, the first match of the 2014 League of Legends World Championship group stage will begin here!
At this moment, the stadium, both inside and out, was completely packed with a surging crowd!
After its development from Season 1 to Season 3, League of Legends achieved absolute dominance in the global gaming world, surpassing Warcraft, StarCraft, and other competitive games in terms of viewership, becoming the most watched esports event in the world.

The S-Series, as the highest honor, most prestigious, and most influential competitive tournament in League of Legends, features 16 teams from the world's top teams competing.

The group stage consists of four groups, two of which—Group A and Group B—will complete all their group matches in Chinese Taipei.

The other two groups—Group C and Group D—will complete all their group matches in Singapore.

During the group stage, each team will play two matches against other teams in the group, meaning each team will play six group stage matches, and a total of 24 matches will be held at each group stage venue.

Finally, the top two teams in the standings will travel to South Korea to enter the knockout stage.

This world championship has garnered significant attention due to the larger player base.

Zhou Li's arrogant remarks before the match attracted the attention of countless players who were not originally paying attention to the competition.

Now that such a great opportunity is presented to Riot Games, they will naturally not let it pass. Therefore, they have arranged for WE.A to be the opening match of the group stage of this World Championship!

WE.A's first opponent was NJWS from the Korean region!

The fact that the Chinese and Korean regions met in the very first match of the World Championship has once again generated a lot of buzz.

Backstage.

Xi Ye nervously rubbed her hands, looking at the sea of ​​people outside and listening to the deafening cheers, and couldn't help but speak:

"What should I do? I'm a little nervous, and my hand feels like it's cramping."

No one answered him.

Because all the other WE.A players, except for Zhou Li, were extremely nervous.

After all, they are just a group of young people, the oldest of whom is only seventeen years old. Half a year ago, they were still fighting in the top league. Who would have thought that in the blink of an eye, they would be on this world's biggest stage!

In fact, under Zhou Li's tutelage, the mental fortitude of all WE.A members is already quite good.

Even when they became the LPL's number one seed and secured their ticket to the World Championship, everyone was only excited for a short while.

But now that they are actually standing here and experiencing all of this, they still find it hard to control their nervousness.

As for the Zhou rites—

He was naturally not nervous. He was not only a regular at the World Championships, but he was also the man who soaked his feet and ate hot pot in front of a global audience on the World Championship stage back in the day.

Looking back now, his only regret is that he didn't do a gentler pose.

Seeing everyone so tense, Zhou Li spoke up to comfort them:

"What's there to be nervous about? You're getting nervous just playing against a bot?"

"Exactly, you're just playing Lulu, what's there to be nervous about?"

Khan was the first to recover.

After all, the monkey brain is relatively easy to deconstruct.

Hearing the Khan's teasing, Xi Ye's face darkened.

With WE.A entering the World Championship, WE.A's players have been the subject of various comparisons and analyses by netizens.

Xiye is now universally referred to as "that guy who plays Lulu" by netizens around the world.

Zhou Li smiled and patted Xi Ye on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, I won't let you play Lulu this time. I'll let you have a turn."

Zhou Li knew that not everyone was like him, and that public opinion could sometimes have a significant impact on the contestants.

In the eyes of outsiders, each player in the WE.A team has their own unique characteristics, but Xiye is jokingly referred to by netizens as the only "carry" player on the team. Some netizens even said that WE.A's mid laner could win even if a dog were tied to him.

In fact, for Zhou Li, the person who provided the most help to him in the whole team was Xi Ye, who was always playing Lulu in the mid lane.

However, many viewers don't care about these things; they only care about amazing plays and KDA.

Given the current public opinion situation, it is inevitable that this will have some impact on Xiye's mental health in the long run.

Today I happened to run into the noob NJWS, which is the perfect opportunity to help Xiye build confidence.

At worst, I'll just have to work a little harder today. But if something goes wrong during the knockout stage, then it'll be a huge loss.

However, this is only the worst-case scenario. In fact, during the scrims, WE.A did have a tactical lineup centered around Xiye, and the kid's performance was quite good.

Upon hearing Zhou Li's words, Xi Ye hesitated only slightly before nodding.

Xi Ye isn't Factory Manager after all. If Factory Manager were here, he would probably say something like, "Forget it, I'll just play Lulu instead."

That's one of the advantages of working with young people.

They may be impulsive and prone to making mistakes, but they never lack the courage to try.

Amid cheers from the audience, WE.A stepped onto the main stage of the World Championship for the first time!
This time, Zhou Li will lead this youthful storm from the LPL to take the world by storm!
(End of this chapter)