612 Lose the battle, but win the war

“Did you watch this match?” Just before the match began, Wei Chen asked Ye Xiu.

“I watched a bit of it after it concluded.” Ye Xiu said. That day, Happy Internet Cafe hadn’t broadcast this match, so Ye Xiu had watched a recording of it later.

“Oh.” Wei Chen nodded his head and didn’t say anything else. On the screen, the match had begun. It was progressing quite quickly. By the time the individual competition and the group arena ended, Wei Chen already had his hands against his forehead.

“You devil! Look at the sins you’ve committed! What exactly did you do to them?!” Wei Chen grieved.

Ye Xiu was expressionless. He continued to quietly watch the match. In the team competition, Excellent Era lost miserably. For this match between Excellent Era and Thunderclap, the final result was 1 point to 9 points in favor of Thunderclap. Their performance had been nauseating to watch. Wei Chen couldn’t even keep watching. It was so terrible that, in a post-match interview, Team Thunderclap’s captain Xiao Shiqin didn’t even know what to say. Facing the question “how did you think your opponents performed today?”, a question every player could recite backwards, Xiao Shiqin had been stumped.

“There wasn’t even one good point about that match. Everything about it was terrible. Do you have the post-match statistics?” Wei Chen asked.

“I do.” Ye Xiu opened up another folder with documents on the statistics for every match. Each document matched up with a recording.

“Wow, holy sh*t…… hurry up and get me a bucket. I’m going to puke.” Wei Chen glanced at the post-match statistics and remarked.

“Let’s watch the next match!” Ye Xiu was calmer.

“The next match isn’t going to be like this too is it? How about you give me a summary. I’m scared that my old heart won’t be able to handle it. It isn’t easy for someone my age.” Wei Chen pressed on his stomach and acted like he was an elderly grandpa. In reality, his “age” was only relative to Glory’s professional scene. At this moment, he wasn’t even 30 yet. He was a young person no matter how you looked.

“They got two points in this match.” Ye Xiu calmly stated.

“Oh, then let’s begin!” Wei Chen looked as if he were about to watch a horror film. Moments after the match began, everyone heard someone shout: “The bucket has arrived!!!”

Everyone turned their heads in astonishment. Steamed Bun had actually slipped out of the room who knew when and had returned just now. He carried a bucket in his hands and handed it over to Wei Chen: “Go ahead and puke……”

“......” Wei Chen stared stupidly at Steamed Bun: “Bro, are you serious?”

“Are you serious? Are you going to puke or not?” Steamed Bun questioned.

Wei Chen turned towards Ye Xiu: “Is he really going to be a part of our team?”

“Mmhm.” Ye Xiu nodded his head.

“You’re joking, right?” Wei Chen asked.

“Stop with this nonsense. It’s starting.” Ye Xiu said to Wei Chen before turning to speak to Steamed Bun: “Steamed Bun, put the bucket down. Let’s watch the match!”

“I’ll be putting the bucket over here. If you need to puke, just say the word!” Steamed Bun called out before placing the bucket in the corner.

The recording began. This match had been that day’s highlight match. Happy Internet Cafe had broadcast this match. It was between Excellent Era and Samsara. In the individual competition, Excellent Era had earned a total of two points. In the group arena, Zhou Zekai swept the field. During the team competition, the fight had been just as nauseating to watch as it had been in the previous match.

“This guy adjusts quickly. He performed quite well in his match.” They replayed the recording. In the second round of the individual competition, Wei Chen praised one of Excellent Era’s players.

The winner of this second round was Excellent Era’s Liu Hao. Ye Xiu nodded his head at the praise, while Chen Guo gave a snort of contempt.

Excellent Era lost the third round, but having won two points already, this loss was easier to accept. At this moment, Wei Chen was more spirited. He felt like this individual competition didn’t require the bucket. However, in the group arena, Excellent Era had been cleanly swept by a single enemy, making Wei Chen speechless. In the end, he gave a way out for Excellent Era: “That punk Zhou Zekai is looking pretty stylish now! Excellent Era isn’t in good condition either. Beating them 1v3 isn’t too surprising.”

Ye Xiu didn’t comment. The match moved to the team competition.

Even though Wei Chen hadn’t watched this team competition before, he knew the end result because Ye Xiu had told him that Excellent Era had only earned two points total in this entire match. However, they were studying the match, so the process during which it happened was more important than the end result. Right now, they needed to analyze what problems Excellent Era had encountered during this match.

“What’s wrong? Would you like the bucket?” After the team competition ended, Ye Xiu asked.

Wei Chen actually shook his head. He didn’t say anything, as if he was thinking about something.

“Keep going?” Ye Xiu asked.

“Continue!” Wei Chen didn’t express any opinions about this team competition. He only told Ye Xiu to play the next match.

The two continued to quietly watch match after match. Once the recordings finished, they would check the statistics, but none of them made any verbal exchanges. As for Chen Guo, Tang Rou, and Steamed Bun, they had been watching along too. However, whether or not they were analyzing it carefully or watching it for fun, only they knew.

They could skip over the short breaks in between the competitions, so they watched each match in one sitting. Moreover, Excellent Era usually got dominated, so the matches progressed swiftly. They practically all finished in less than an hour. They kept watching matches, not caring about the amount of time that passed, until they had reviewed all of the matches at least once. Midway through the session, Wei Chen had gotten a pen and paper. He was constantly writing stuff down. Ye Xiu occasionally glanced to see what he was writing, but didn’t do anything else.

After the final match concluded, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“Did you two discover anything?” Chen Guo impatiently wanted to know the results. For her, this was like a suspense film.

“Excellent Era kept on losing. Did we make a mistake?” Steamed Bun commented, but he clearly didn’t know what was going on. This guy was an expert in Glory, but he didn’t have much understanding of its pro scene.

On the other hand, Tang Rou didn’t express any opinions. She just silently waited for Ye Xiu and Wei Chen to speak.

“What are your thoughts?” Wei Chen asked Ye Xiu.

“I’ve watched them all before. Why don’t you tell me your thoughts?” Ye Xiu asked.

“Lose the battle, but win the war. What do you think?” Wei Chen said.

“Sounds about right…..” Ye Xiu let out a sigh.

“What do you guys mean by that?” Chen Guo asked.

Wei Chen lifted up his notebook with a bunch of arcane symbols on it and pointed at these symbols that no one could read: “The problem with Excellent Era is the mentality of their players. From these matches and statistics, we can see some of this.”

“First there’s the impact on some of them from the fight in-game. This impact could clearly be seen. That disgusting match that made me want to puke was because of this reason. The person affected the most was their core player, Sun Xiang. The impact of that in-game fight on Sun Xiang changed over time. This can be seen through his performance in this match. Initially, he had been struck a heavy blow. He was unable to concentrate during the match, so he frequently made noob mistakes, but as time went on, he slowly began to adjust. However, this doesn’t mean that the impact from that in-game fight completely disappeared. After that match, Sun Xiang became impatient to show off his skill. To put it plainly, at his current level, pursuing glory is a good choice. His skill has already been publicly acknowledged. He doesn’t need any proof, but clearly, because of a certain God, he might have started to doubt himself, which was why he appears so impatient. Simply put, in the beginning he was unable to concentrate, but afterwards, he became too focused, causing his playing to become erratic. This is how a noob behaves. Instead of maintaining his condition, he keeps up his guard against everyone.” Wei Chen said.

“A perfect example of an experienced player the opposite of Sun Xiang is that punk Liu Hao. Apart from an extremely terrible first round, he performed quite steadily. If you pay attention to his individual competition and group arena win rate, you can see all these things present. His performances have been pretty good. Even with the team being a complete mess, Liu Hao still showed moments of brilliance.

“As for the other players, most of them fit into one of two categories. A portion of them had been deeply impacted by a certain God. The others like Su Mucheng and even a few substitute players were normal. However, even if this God didn’t harm them in any way, their team brought them down. Because the team performed terribly, their normal conditions were also brought down with the team. Afterwards, they continually infect each other, resulting in Excellent Era’s current plight.”

“If we pick out Sun Xiang and Liu Hao, these two are the only exceptions. After Sun Xiang woke up, he was able to piece himself back together. Unfortunately, he was unable to piece the team back together, along with himself. There are probably a lot of reasons why. For example, he’s a new member of the team. Even if he holds the title of team captain, he doesn’t have much of an influence on the team, or maybe he was only in a rush to prove himself and didn’t think of the team’s conditions. Or he might have thought of it, but the team’s condition was so bad, that he didn’t know how to fix it, so he didn’t bother. As for Liu Hao, our God here should explain it. He clearly knows this person better than I do. His analysis would be much more accurate and trustworthy.” Wei Chen chattered a bunch and then shifted it over to Ye Xiu.

Ye Xiu let out a sigh: “Liu Hao is only thinking about his own future. He has already abandoned his team.”

“Ha ha, so it really is like that. That’s why I said, lose the battle, win the war. Even though Excellent Era performed terribly, someone like Liu Hao was able to display his strength. Not only was he dragged down by his team, he even showed brilliance in this sort of environment. By putting himself above the others, he’s probably planning on using this opportunity to climb up into a higher branch! Also, I’m afraid Liu Hao isn’t the only one with these types of thoughts. The team’s already like this. Their record is so poor already. It’d be strange if they didn’t have these thoughts.” Wei Chen said.