Chapter 172 – Low Period

The fourth week of the regular season would start soon. The first place in the team standings was Wind Colour while second place was Time. This week happened to be the showdown between Wind Colour and Time so many eyes were naturally attracted to this heavyweight event. Relatively speaking, there weren’t many people concerned about the confrontation between Canglan and Ghost Spirits. The match started at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning and many viewers were sleeping in bed.

The live broadcast ratings for early morning games wasn’t high but the Canglan team’s home attendance was more than 70%. The local fans gave face by going to the venue to watch.

To everyone’s surprise, Canglan didn’t choose three arena games like before. Li Cangyu chose to fight three team battles.

Everyone knew that the Lou Zhang combination in Ghost Spirits had an extremely high understanding and were fierce in team battles. The viewers couldn’t understand Li Cangyu’s choice and Yu Bing didn’t know how to explain it. She could only say that Li Cangyu never acted according to common sense and would surprise people in every match.

The layout of this match was also incomprehensible. In the three team battles, the first game was directed by Li Cangyu. During the battle, Cat God was accidentally assassinated by the Lou Zhang combination and he fell to a disadvantage from the beginning, leading to a loss.

The commander of the second game was suddenly changed to Zhang Jueming. Li Cangyu didn’t play and Zhang Jueming’s command style was partial towards being bold and unconstrained. Lou Wushuang was extremely cautious and Canglan failed to find a good fruit to eat.

In the third game, the commander was once again Li Cangyu and Canglan scored 1:2 after a hard struggle.

The fans weren’t happy with the result of 1:2 at home. However, the killer combination of Ghost Spirits was the best at killing core players during a team battle. Everyone could understand this.

In the post-match interview, Li Cangyu was very calm and didn’t explain his arrangements. Many professional players watching the live broadcast knew that Li Cangyu had started the second step of his training plan.

Of the eight players on the Canglan team, Li Cangyu was most reassured about his old partner Bai Xuan. The two of them had cooperated for many years and Bai Xuan’s healing ability was one of the best in today’s Miracle League. The second person was Xie Shurong who played in the foreign ICE Club for two years. Ah Shu’s level had matured after being honed by foreign competitors and he wasn’t much worse than his brother Su Guangmo.

Objectively speaking, Bai Xuan and Xie Shurong were on the level of gods in the Miracle League. Li Cangyu didn’t have to worry about them as they could cope with various situations in the competition.

However, the standards of the other players were somewhat different.

Li Cangyu first had to train Li Xiaojiang, who was the weakest in the Canglan team. Li Xiaojiang achieved remarkable results in the Flying Feathers and Red Fox matches. Therefore, Li Cangyu started to train the powerful auxiliary. Based on today’s match, he had shifted his focus to Zhang Jueming.

Zhang Jueming’s talent really wasn’t good in the league. In the first year, Zhang Jueming was invisible and he left the league with regrets after his team disbanded. Then he set up a studio to make a living. These years had been very hard.

The duration of an e-sports professional player wasn’t long. It was necessary to practice regularly to prevent their state from declining. Zhang Jueming had abandoned the league for a few years and he was getting older. His state wasn’t as good as the past and wasn’t enough to support him returning to the league. It was just that he felt regrets in his heart.

His level might not be good but the 25 years old e-sports player could stand on the field. This courage was worthy of respect.

Li Cangyu wanted to give him a chance to show his talents and made him commander in the game against Ghost Spirits.

Old Zhang seemed bold and unrestrained but he was still a captain. There were a few tactical ideas in his head that hadn’t been realized. Now they were working together to return to the league. Li Cangyu couldn’t always stand alone in the limelight.

As Zhang Jueming’s friend, Li Cangyu should give Zhang Jueming an attempt to command and complete the wish he couldn’t fulfill in the past.

Cat God was a person with a special loyalty. Zhang Jueming had heard this before but he hadn’t expected it to reach this extent. Letting go of the command and risk losing the match… was this necessary?

After the game, Zhang Jueming found Li Cangyu and scratched his head in a guilty manner. “In fact, you don’t need to let me command. My tactical ideas aren’t necessarily useful. I lost the game but everyone will scold you. Why?”

Li Cangyu smiled. “Results aren’t everything. It isn’t good for players to win all the time. You don’t have many chances so you should grasp them when you can. We are teammates, needless of other things, I let you command because I just believe in you.” He patted the man’s shoulder and said seriously, “Old Zhang, I believe that you can win. A few years might’ve passed but your thoughts are still valid.”

Zhang Jueming was moved to tears. As a rough man, this was the first time he almost shed tears in front of other people. He quickly reached out and wiped his eyes. Then he laughed and cried out, “Yes! I will try again since you believe in me so much!”

***

The fans were puzzled. After the 1:2 loss against Ghost Spirits, the next match was an away match with Pure Cleansing and Cat God actually let Zhang Jueming take command again.

The Pure Cleansing team was located in Hangzhou. In the past few days, the weather in Hangzhou was rainy. The Canglan team came from far away to play. Despite having the disadvantage of location and people, Li Cangyu boldly let Zhang Jueming play. This game Canglan fans a bad feeling.

It turned out that recently Canglan was surrounded by bad luck. In this game, Chu Yan chose a map that was very helpful to Pure Cleansing. The mode was three team battles and the classic illusionist flow caught the Canglan members off guard. They lost all three games!

The reporters were disappointed with Canglan’s recent performance.

However, Li Cangyu was still calm. He just smiled in the interview and said, “It is normal to win and lose. You can rest assured that the mentality of the players won’t be affected. This is the first round of the regular season. There are still more matches in the latter half and we will continue to work hard.”

His sentence was almost an omnipotent official statement. One reporter stood up politely and asked, “You let Zhang Jueming continuously act as commander. Cat God, do you feel that this is a mistake?”

Li Cangyu shook his head. “I can’t say that we would necessarily win if I was the commander. Pure Cleansing’s home match is very hard to win and the players aren’t comfortable with the illusion flow. The fact that we lost three games today was an accident. I will sum up the mistakes when we go back.”

“It’s my fault.” Zhang Jueming took the initiative to take responsibility. “I was too careless when commanding today. I will go back and reflect on it. I will work hard to win the next match!”

The reporters, “…”

The fans, “…”

The next match?

Uncle Zhang, you are old. Can’t you let go of commanding and peacefully act as an auxiliary?

Many people left messages on Li Cangyu’s Weibo. Their words were fierce as they directly said: [Old Zhang is old. Can’t you let him have peace of mind as an auxiliary?] [The ranking of Canglan has fallen. The playoffs are in danger!]

Li Cangyu didn’t care about the messages. He had his own ideas. In fact, the original ranking was so high because he unexpectedly used Cataclysm in the first match to grab the point from Time. In the second match, he used the extreme method of three arena games to attack Flying Feathers and win with a 2:1 score. Time and Flying Feathers were strong teams. Canglan won two matches and temporarily ranked in the top three.

Since the Red Fox match, Canglan continuously lost and the e-sports weekly magazine even used ‘Canglan Fell 3 Times in Succession’ to report on the matter.

1:2 against Red Fox, 1:2 against Ghost Spirits and today it was 0:3 against Pure Cleansing. The key reason was that Li Cangyu didn’t appear, Zhang Jueming was slightly rusty when it came to commanding and there were newcomers in the Canglan team. After several games, they all exposed their shortcomings and were specifically targeted by the captains of the other teams.

After returning to Changsha, Li Cangyu summoned the players and watched the games they lost.

The teenagers found that not only did they not progress, they actually became more stunned. Li Cangyu explained, “Every newcomer will experience a bottleneck. You played fairly well against Time and Flying Feathers. This is because the other gods of those teams weren’t familiar with you. After those two games, your performances were analyzed by the tactical gods of other teams. They identified your weaknesses and made targeted arrangements.”

“It is the reason why the last few games have been tough. In order to break through this bottleneck, you need some understanding and some opportunities.” Li Cangyu watched the four teenagers as he spoke. They were incredibly dazed and he couldn’t help laughing in his head.

These four people were like simple, older children. They believed everything Li Cangyu said. His words were true but there were also things that Li Cangyu added. In order to relieve some pressure on Old Zhang, he put the loss of the matches on everyone.

Li Xiaojiang’s performance wasn’t a problem and Xiao Han’s play was also stable. The key was Zhuo Hang and Gu Siming.

Li Cangyu thought this and said, “The next game is at home against Cheetah. I hope that everyone can get a good performance. I don’t want to see the headline change from ‘three losses’ to ‘four game losing streak.’”

Everyone, “…”

He could actually still laugh. Cat God’s mentality was really good!

Bai Xuan couldn’t help smiling. This man’s mentality was extremely strong. He could calmly encourage his teammates when FTD experienced a 10 game losing streak. How could he be upset by losing three games now?

“Come on, everybody.” Bai Xuan said with a smile. “The Cheetah team is the overall weakest team in the league at the moment. If we lost then I’ve decided to let you be hungry for three days.”

The four teenagers’ eyes widened. The punishment of going hungry for three days was too serious!

Bai Xuan couldn’t help laughing when he saw the four pairs of stunned eyes. “If you don’t agree then should I make it five days?”

Gu Siming immediately raised his hand. “I agree! Three days, three days!”

Zhuo Hang glanced at him. “We will only go hungry for three days if we lose. What are you anxious about? Who said we will lose?”

Gu Siming scratched his head. “Yes…”

Li Cangyu smiled and patted Zhuo Hang’s shoulder. “The Cheetah team has the best hunter in the league, Jiang Xu. Starting from today, you will watch videos of his games and study every one of his movements. This match depends on you, Xiao Zhuo.”

Zhuo Hang immediately nodded. “Yes, I understand!”

This newcomer was somewhat proud, slightly narcissistic and often boastful. Li Cangyu decided to use this match to test Zhuo Hang’s true standards.