CH 73

When the news about LovelyGhost allegedly using third-party software broke, the e-sports circle of the two countries exploded in an instant.

As far as the Korean League was concerned, this news was undoubtedly welcome. In just one morning, all the Korean forums were filled with topics about LovelyGhost‘s suspended account. Many of the Korean players who have endured for days, holding back their anger, have finally started popping up again in droves.

Among so many posts, the one mentioned the most had the particularly unpleasant title, “The suspended cheater.”

The national players of course couldn’t stand the provocation and slander. The audience who watched the live broadcast recorded the whole process that day and put the video on the forums. They said that Korean noobs didn’t know to lose, so they resorted to tricks, accusing them to use a cheat even though they were blown away in minutes by the adversary? Here’s the video and the truth, what about you guys, show me the proof if you can!

The Korean side turned a blind eye to such empty shouting, and some people even initiated an academic analysis on the forums, which pointed out: from these videos, the prediction of LovelyGhost is so accurate that it is really unthinkable. In addition, the comparison of the scoring speed of the previous days was completely inconsistent with the performance of that day, especially the loss in the battle with Yan Duzhou, which really needed to be analyzed. After all, even Yan Duozhou had only advanced a few places in the rankings after so many days of fights. In this way, suddenly, an unknown player whose strength was not as good as Yan Duozhou’s, with such a perfect record of zero defeats in one day, went all the way to first place on the Korean leaderboard. So, this explanation for using a plug-in seemed to be extremely reasonable.

After all, although the Zone versions in various countries had their own operators, the main control was still in the hands of the developers. Adhering to the principle of reasonableness and fairness, there has never been a case of wrongful banning so far.

This post was kept on top by countless Korean players and has been entrenched on the homepage for a long time. After it was translated by the national players, one stone caused a thousand waves, and the entire domestic circle finally exploded.

Shit! I’ve seen shameless people before, but not like this!

Just because your idol was crushed by someone, does it have to be the other party’s cheating? If you don’t know how to lose with dignity, just say so!

At this time, after seeing the news, Devin posted a message on social media, openly stating that LovelyGhost was a very strong player, and although he did not know the cause of the plug-in incident, the other party’s ability was not inferior to his own.

When this statement was released, the current situation became even more convoluted. Motivational players expressed their support for Devin’s courageous act of taking responsibility and their willingness to acknowledge the fact that LovelyGhost did obtain first place on the leaderboard. However, there was also another category of people who ridiculed Devin’s message. They thought that Devin had already felt his power decline, and for fear of losing face in the Korean League, he resorted to this maneuver because he was ashamed to admit this fact.

Those Korean players who insisted on the cheating theory, unanimously said that a suspended account stays suspended, so why not open a new account and retake the leaderboards to prove himself, or if he was indeed wronged, why not make an official appeal?

The national league players were quite angry at this kind of blatant challenge, but after waiting a few days, they have still not seen LovelyGhost come out to speak. So some of them took the initiative to contact Korean officials to ask for an explanation, and all they got back was that there were indeed signs of third-party software detected during that day’s match, and all appeals were dismissed.

After many days of fretting, some of the more observant players checked LovelyGhost‘s battle records for the day and found that he quit the game at 9:45 PM that night after his match with Devin, but inexplicably, another bizarre matching game appeared at 1:25 in the morning.

Matching games were different from leaderboard games. Most of them were used by players to practice skill routines or new gear, and it didn’t affect the rankings. That is, they could be considered mostly recreational games.

Therefore, LovelyGhost‘s last game before being banned was not a battle with Devin, but a matching game.

After this discovery was exposed, there was a lot of speculation amongst the national players about what could have happened in this matching game. However, because LovelyGhost never showed up, this small disturbance in the general storm soon disappeared.

…

In an apartment building somewhere in South Korea, a man in a dark brown t-shirt was sitting on the sofa, leisurely drinking coffee.

Another man was in front of a lit computer screen and his hand moved uncontrollably on the mouse. Under the reflection of the light, he looked a little distorted because of his twisted smile. There probably wasn’t a single Korean player who wouldn’t recognize this face.

Jiang Minjun.

He browsed through the posts that were scolding LovelyGhost page by page, his smile growing more and more intense until, seeing Devin’s post in support of him, he frowned and snorted contemptuously: “Devin really thinks that he can influence online public opinion just because he won two championships? I’m teaching this Chinese guy a lesson saving him some face after the defeat, but he’s still so shameless.”

The man on the sofa looked up at him: “Just keep these words to yourself, don’t talk nonsense when you go out.”

Jiang Minjun laughed, “Don’t worry, I’m not stupid. It was so hard to find a way to block that LovelyGhost‘s account, so I’m not going to make the mistake of wasting this opportunity.”

The man said, “I’m glad you know.”

Jiang Minjun glanced at him with a half-smile: “And you, Huan Bingxu, I didn’t expect you to intervene in this matter.”

The man put the cup on the coffee table and sneered: “I’ve never been a fan of the Chinese, you know.”

Jiang Minjun exchanged a knowing look with him and turned his eyes back to the computer screen.

As players of the same team, MTG, Jiang Minjun admired this Huan Bingxu very much, not only because of his strength as a DPS1 player but also because of his other identity as one of the top hackers in Korea.

After LovelyGhost finished the last game with Devin, Huan Bingxu hacked into the other side’s data network to get the login password and then used a third-party software to log in to the account for an additional match.

Then reporting the account and banning it, was a piece of cake.

However, one discovery that surprised them was that LovelyGhost‘s login IP showed that he was actually registered in the Black Soul Club‘s training base, in which case, this mysterious expert was probably not a random player, but a professional e-sports player.

As far as he knew, the current Black Rose team did not have a top ghost priest player known by the public, so this made Jiang Minjun more confident to act in the current chaotic situation.

If he was a casual player and showed up to make a statement, it was unknown which way the trend would go, but if he was a professional player, it would be completely different. He was quite certain that since the other party had yet to identify himself during the process of climbing the ranking, he wouldn’t be foolish to come forward at this point in time. After all, based on the current situation, that person has absolutely no way to prove that he is LovelyGhost. And once he came forward and identified himself, it may even be considered a deliberate marketing strategy to take advantage of this hype.

Jiang Minjun was very satisfied with such a result.

Black Rose team, is it? This issue could not be solved with just a suspended account, and if they would meet at the World Championship later, he would definitely avenge the humiliation from the live broadcast!

…

Black Soul Club.

Right after the tactical meeting for the playoffs, Lin Xiao was packing his things when a small envelope suddenly appeared in front of him. When he looked up, he saw You Jing who said to him, “Take a look.”

Lin Xiao glanced at the exquisite packaging, and raised his eyebrows: “What is this, a love letter?”

You Jing’s eyelashes drooped slightly, and the look in his eyes became a little more patient.

“Hey, just kidding. Why are you taking it so seriously?” Lin Xiao shrugged and read the paper casually at first, but after seeing its content, he raised his head suspiciously, “How did you get this?”

You Jing said: “I investigated.”

Lin Xiao asked, “Is that why you’ve been out every day the past few days, to investigate?”

You Jing said: “That’s right.”

“Actually, it’s just a number, there’s no need to work so hard to find out… Ahem…” Under his gaze, Lin Xiao changed the subject, “So, the truth is really amazing! What do you think?”

You Jing glanced at the envelope expressionless and said: “The strategies come from above, we just need to comply.” After pausing, he looked at Lin Xiao: “Aren’t you angry?”

“I’m angry, very angry! I hate that everything broke onto my head!” Lin Xiao had a slight frown, but his tone indicated delight, “Besides, even our Captain Yu has spoken now, so we have to wait until the international championship to severely humiliate them! How about this proposal, is it good?”

You Jing approved: “Humiliation in front of a worldwide audience? Very good indeed.”

Lin Xiao had a “you know me” grin on his face: “That’s right, I think so too.”

If there were no accidents, the MTG team should be one of the top three in the Korean League. Since these insidious villains who only played small tricks were going to make a fool of themselves, this scene was too small and boring. Of course, it’s better to choose the global live broadcast event of the World Championship to trample on them. This was simply too cool, just thinking about it was enough to make him feel happy for a long time.

But until then, it looks like he needed to save his energy for the upcoming playoffs.

DPS is an acronym that means damage per second in multiplayer online gaming. It’s used both as a noun (a weapon type, class, or a character capable of massive damage) and as an adjective to describe a weapon’s capability.