CH 17

When Rong Yi came out from between the floors, Xiao Yin was waiting for him in the elevator. When he saw him, his slightly furrowed brows relaxed.

Rong Yi raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

“I thought you got lost, so I came up to wait for you.”

Xiao Yin casually took out a black mask, lifted his finger, and put it on for him with one hand. “There are a lot of teams coming to do paperwork today, and there are also media following us. It’s better for us to stick together.”

Rong Yi nodded.

Xiao Yin was considered the most popular player in the e-sports industry, with fans all over the world. With five years of dominance as a T0-level jungler and three years as the world champion FMVP, almost every mid-level player had heard of Yin’s name.

Due to his personality, he didn’t often appear in interviews, but now that he had returned to China and formed a new team, the media were constantly hounding him.

They had to be more cautious when appearing in public.

Rong Yi followed Xiao Yin to the first floor, where they met with the team led by Lu Feng and exchanged greetings.

It was still raining outside, and there was a tendency for it to get worse. As it was the weekend, the busiest area here was inevitably beginning to experience traffic congestion. The area outside the building was gradually filling up with cars, and many people were trapped here.

Outside the door, there were indeed media carrying their cameras and microphones, looking quite aggressive. Perhaps they had gotten wind of the news and came specifically to investigate.

There were also many fans here. The League headquarters building had always been a regular check-in spot for fans during competitions, and it was common to hear about chance encounters with players here.

Someone was even live-streaming into the camera, “Today is the last day of the regular season. Most of the teams are preparing for a new round of games. The VIT team, as well as members from well-known teams like RS and CH, are here. Let’s see if we can interview them.”

Xiao Yin turned his head to look at Rong Yi.

Rong Yi was staring tightly at the long-focus lenses of the reporters outside the window, and his face had turned pale.

He said, “I… I’ll take the fire escape.”

“I’ll go with you,” Xiao Yin said.

He grabbed Rong Yi’s wrist, lowered his head, and deftly snatched the hat off the top of Rong Yi’s head, replacing it with his own cap.

The two of them split off from the others, and Xiao Yin led Rong Yi quickly towards the back door.

Because of the rain and the traffic, the lobby on the first floor was crowded with people. They were not very conspicuous, but then the snake on Xiao Yin’s jacket suddenly cried out, “Quick, catch them! They’re trying to ditch us and run!”

Wu Dao Gu and Hui Mao quickly made a decision and chased after them. As they ran, Hui Mao discussed with Wu Dao Gu, “Right? Those two seem a bit suspicious. We need to keep an eye on them.”

“Nabbing them in a scandal would be a huge news story. Our small team can’t handle any more than this,” said Ci She when he caught up, stirring up trouble.

Wu Dao Gu was more honest: “I didn’t think that much, I just wanted to see some gossip about Brother Yin. I’ve never seen him act like this before.”

As the whole team ran away, only Lu Feng from his team was left to face the first wave of reporters.

Business activities are an integral part of esports clubs.

Complete de-commercialization, pure for competition and isolation from fans and audiences, is an unrealistic idea. The survival of the league depends on the audience it attracts. With an audience, the professionalization of the industry can be more organized and investors can enter, allowing more professional players to survive.

Once everyone steps into the professional league, they represent not only themselves but also a team, and even the hopes and passions of the audience in the region.

However, no one knows where the balance between commercialization and catering to the audience lies.

RS’s “Easy” never accepts interviews, which is only an exception in the league. Most professional teams do need to run their business, and their managers are usually happy to do so.

If we were to talk about the most commercialized team in the league right now, it would undoubtedly be RS.

Each player can earn tens of millions just from endorsement fees, making the 80 million prize pool for the world championship seem less generous in comparison.

On the other side, Rong Yi was grabbed by Xiao Yin’s wrist and successfully escaped. They met up with the driver on the other side and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

They had escaped too quickly and didn’t even wait for Hui Mao and the others. They slammed the car door shut as soon as they got in.

Rong Yi wanted to turn back and wait for Hui Mao and the others, but as soon as he leaned out of the car window, Xiao Yin pulled him back and hugged him lightly, like holding a kitten.

Xiao Yin was much taller than him, and Rong Yi almost bumped into his chin when he looked up. Xiao Yin blocked him and then his fingertips followed and gently slid into Rong Yi’s soft black hair.

“Forget about them,” Xiao Yin said casually.

Rong Yi: “?”

The driver in front was very professional and didn’t even glance at the rearview mirror.

Rong Yi looked back and asked, “What about them?”

“Let them figure it out themselves.” Xiao Yin still held him and didn’t move. His thick, black eyelashes drooped down gently and peacefully. “Let’s go first. I’m worried the media will chase us.”

Where did the media chasing come from for e-sports players?

But there are definitely private fans. When he was in RS, several popular players had a lot of private fans, and there were even internal conflicts and mutual criticisms. It eventually developed to offline chases and post-match explosions, and so on…

The club’s experience and operation team told him not to get too involved in this current trend of publicity.

Now that they just won the national championship, they are indeed at the height of their popularity, and it is difficult to say anything about this aspect.

Hui Mao, Wu Dao Gu, and Ci She were left alone on the side of the street in the pouring rain, but their mentality was very calm.

Ci She: “Aren’t we in a hurry? Without E God and Xiao Yin, we don’t know the way here.”

Hui Mao was very calm: “They will come back to pick us up.”

Wu Dao Gu: “If you can’t keep a steady mentality, you won’t be able to play professional singles.”

Ci She: “??? Okay, I’ll do it.”

He began to make a distress call and was informed by the driver that the road was blocked, and it would take forty minutes before they could possibly get through.

In the end, Lu Feng answered Xiao Yin’s call and, after the interview, brought the VIT abandoned trio over.

They arranged to meet at a private restaurant frequented by local league tournament players, owned by Lin Yi and several joint team owners.

Almost all of the A-city teams’ players would choose to come here.

When they arrived, Rong Yi and Xiao Yin were already sitting in the semi-open private room on the second floor, with half the dishes already ordered.

When Ci She went upstairs, he saw a group of people coming in at the entrance, “Hey, isn’t that the team that just did an interview at the entrance? It’s a bit lively today, do you want to go say hi?”

Wu Dao Gu looked at them and said, “I don’t know them. Which team are they from?”

Lu Feng hesitated beside them and said, “It’s RS, the former team of your captain Rong. Let’s go up first.”

Ci She nodded thoughtfully, “Right, they’re not on good terms. It’s not like they’re from Easy’s team, we don’t need to say hi.”

The VIT trio were unusually obedient at this moment.

Lu Feng walked up and glanced at his phone.

The RS side was live streaming, and the atmosphere was lively and festive.

Obviously, the failure in the World Championship had been intentionally played down by their public relations team.

After all, they were the only team in China with the qualification to participate, so expectations couldn’t be too high, could they?

Comparatively speaking, last season’s all-around victory is more worth reminiscing.

“There seems to be some noise downstairs.”

While flipping through the menu, Rong Yi glanced outside. This place was chosen by him, as the host, to invite them to his most frequently visited restaurant.

Before anyone could stop him, Rong Yi took a look and then withdrew his gaze thoughtfully. “Ah, it’s them.”

“RS is holding an event today, competing for the top spot in the recent athlete rankings, and the first prize is a sponsored fund,” said Lu Feng, explaining to Rong Yi while scrolling through his phone.

Although they had a training match last time, Lu Feng was only familiar with Xiao Yin. This was his first time seeing Rong Yi up close without a mask.

Despite having experienced numerous veteran team members, he was surprisingly nervous.

Ninety percent of the reason was that Easy was indeed a dream that many athletes could only look up to in domestic leagues, and the remaining ten percent was that Rong Yi, as Silver Wing had said, was really good-looking.

His facial features were delicate and handsome, his skin snow-white, and he had a very beautiful appearance, but his gentle and restrained temperament made people feel a sense of respect that could only be admired from afar.

“I know this. They hold it every year.”

Rong Yi didn’t have any special reaction, she just took out her phone and scrolled through it.

The league is now holding all kinds of activities in full swing.

The title of “League Popularity Star” usually requires fans to vote with their real names to the extent of tens of millions, and it is limited to IP and identity.

The player who wins the first place will not only receive a crystal trophy issued by the league, but also receive an endorsement and a game splash screen exposure throughout the entire season.

To be honest, the material rewards are not lacking for players in veteran teams, but this title represents the league’s popularity and proof, representing the commercial value behind the player, and also represents the most hopeful player for all viewers.

The reward for this award is generally in RS. The size of RS’s fan base is terrifying. Each season, fans push different players one by one, and all of them, including Li Yi as the mid-laner, Lang Bai as the jungler, Yao Cao as the AD carry, and Alex as the top-laner, have received this award.

Sometimes things just happen to be so coincidental. This season, fans are preparing to push the support player up, and Li Yi just happened to have terminated his contract.

However, Li Yi also has serious doubts about whether the die-hard RS fans would be willing to vote for him even if he were still on the RS team.

He and the entire team have had deep conflicts, and the root causes go back more than just the past few seasons.

During the lull waiting for their food to arrive, Li Yi continued to scroll through the comments.

RS’s new support player is Xiao Yun, who was promoted from the substitute position.

Xiao Yun was also a substitute player that Li Yi personally trained. With the other players all extremely unwilling to take on a substitute, Li Yi negotiated with the club to prepare one for himself. He imparted all of his command experience to Xiao Yun almost unreservedly.

At that time, he didn’t have any particular purpose. He knew he was already 22 years old, and in the e-sports industry, the golden period on the competition stage was only a few years. He didn’t know when his form would decline, so before he stepped down, he wanted to create someone for the team who could take up the main responsibilities.

Fans are discussing when to vote during that period and saving up votes to make a reasonable push when the time is almost up.

“Xiao Yun must win and send our RS players to the grand slam! They deserve it!”

“Easy left. This position could have been his. What is he thinking? We RS fans can send whoever we want up there, right?”

“Does Easy regret it now? This is what they call fate.”

“Xiao Yun is number one. Whether Easy is happy or not after leaving for another team is not important. This position is ours in RS.”