Sweetest In The Universe Chapter 9

A week before the summer tournament, Zhou Tian only had four things to do every day: eat, sleep, train, and rank with Xie Yi.

Normally, the five of them were in perfect condition, so she and Xie Yi didn't need to train that hard at night. But when Xie Yi insisted, she had to train with him. Especially, with the summer tournament so close, she found herself a bit nervous.

For Zhou Tian, when she didn't have anything to distract her with, it'd make her feel more nervous. So, spending her free time on ranking wasn't really that bad.

At least, when she concentrated on the game, she wouldn't think about stuff as much.

A week later, since the resting season was finally over, this year's LpL summer tournament officially began.

The YYg team, which had made a lot of commotion during the resting season, was finally arranged to play on the starting match after many years. The opposing team happened to be the first opponent that Zhou Tian had met since stepping into the professional gaming circle. It was the same SF team, that'd also made a lot of commotion during the resting season.

The SF team stood for Staunch Faith, meaning firm belief. It might've sounded weird, but on the gaming background, it looked lit. 

It was the new season opening match, and two giant teams were against each other. The match was, of course, high antic.i.p.ated. 

On the day of the tournament, the YYg team had arrived three hours earlier to the tournament area. After they went backstage, and into their team's resting room, Zhou Tian found out that they had to put on makeup before the match.

"Can't help it, the officials made it a rule." Yin Yuanxia shrugged, "Maybe it's because they think that because eSports players don't sleep, if we'd go on stage, we'd look terrible."

Zhou Tian: "……" She looked at her reflection in the mirror, then saw the very obvious dark circles under eyes. She couldn't refute him.

Speaking of this, she really thought that G.o.d was unfair. Both she and Xie Yi slept around the same time, yet you couldn't even see a trace of dark circles on his face.

He only needed a bit of foundation to look handsome. You wouldn't even be able to tell that he pulled all-nighters all year long.

"Ugh." Zhou Tian had to sigh.

"Is something wrong? Are you nervous for the match?" Yin Yuanxia was in charge of hyping the team up, so he spoke. "It's actually not that bad. Once you sit on your chair, you won't even be facing the audience. It's just the computer screen. So, just play like it's a practice match, and remember, we won more than once during practices."

Zhou Tian: "I know, I'm not nervous for the match."

Yin Yuanxia: "?? Then why are you sighing?"

"I'm just jealous about how Further's skin is so perfect, despite him sleeping so late." Zhou Tian said, "He and I sleep together everyday."

She meant that the two of them powered off their computers at the same time everyday. But, in her makeup artist's ears, it was a totally different meaning.

TL Note: Yes, yes, Zhou Tian and Xie Yi DO NOT sleep together in the bed. It's a different meaning, okay?

When she finished speaking, her makeup artist's hand was shaking.           

The other teammates didn't think too much about it. Instead, they all laughed and said: "We can't really do anything about it, though. Even the game host wants to know Xie Yi's skin routine."

Zhou Tian was eager to ask: "So, do you have a routine?"

Everyone in the room was looking at Xie Yi.

Xie Yi's mouth twitched and said: "No."

"……So, basically, it's natural beauty." Zhou Tian was very disappointed, "Ugh, that's even more maddening."

"Natural beauty?" Yin Yuanxia almost spat out the water that he'd just drank.

"Then, what would it be?" Zhou Tian thought that her word usage was very precise and accurate, "It's natural beauty."

Yin Yuanxia: "……"

He looked at Xie Yi, saw the face that he was making, then looked back at Zhou Tian. Finally, he decided to remind her, "We eSports players pay attention to skill, not beauty."

Meaning that Xie Yi normally didn't like people complimenting his appearance.

Zhou Tian didn't understand, "But I didn't say that he lacked skills. I was just complimenting his looks."

Yin Yuanxia was speechless again. Ah, she really didn't fear Xie Yi at all!

The truth was, ever since her idol, Ye Bo, told her about Xie Yi's true personality, and how he'd helped her, Zhou Tian didn't fear her cold-hearted teammate anymore.

During the nights that they'd ranked on, when Xie Yi made a mistake, she'd just point it out.

Although Xie Yi wouldn't apologize for his mistakes, when she did point them out, he'd definitely wouldn't make the same mistake again in the next round.

As for her mistakes, he never went soft on her because she was new. What needed to be said, would be said. There was no hesitation.

Going back and forth like that made their relationship grow closer.

After doing their makeup, the team went onto the stage to check on the equipment. Once they made sure that there were no errors, they quietly went back to the resting room to prepare for the match.

At this time, the audience had already begun to head to their seats.

Zhou Tian looked down at the stage, not knowing what or how to describe what she was feeling.

She reminisced of when she had just started as a small video game streamer, with her family endlessly demanding for money, while also making fun of her for not getting a proper job, constantly repeating the words: "How are you going to live like that?" And scolding the well-known sentence, "You'll never get married."

Interestingly enough, she'd managed to last through all those problems. Adding onto that, Zhou Tian walked on a path that she had never imagined of before.

She didn't want to fail the people that had given her these chances and opportunities. She didn't want to fail herself either.

At exactly 5pm, the summer tournament would start.

After quite a lot of babbling from the host, Team YYg and Team SF both entered the stage, heading to their seats.

Both coaches stood in their positions, beginning to arrange positions and characters for the ban-pick selection.

The summer tournament had the same rules as the spring tournament. Winning two out of three matches would lead you to victory. Team YYg was on the red side for the first match.

In this subversion of the game, the red team had a minor disadvantage. After both teams decided on which characters to ban, the blue team would choose their players and characters for this round.

This meant that the blue team could use the best hero and decide not to ban it while giving the selecting option to the red team.

If the red team chose to ban a character, then the blue team would be given a free BP (ban-pick) selection s.p.a.ce. If red chose not to, then during the selection time, the blue team could take down the best heroes immediately, therefore, adding strength to their team.

"This game, though, won't really affect the whole tournament," the coach said, while smirking. "We can just put JM. They won't want to take it, because if Boss Su goes, then their whole team has only JM left, allowing them to only be able to take the midroad. This gives us a great chance to counterattack them."

TL Note: JM is a character from the game. As for Boss Su… I don't know. Maybe another character?

The team's mid, w.a.n.g Ren, spoke: "Yes, yes. Just wait 'till they take JM, then I'll beat them to death. Hah!"

And so, when JM was not banned, Team SF hesitated and ended up leaving JM. Instead, they chose a Jungler hero, Qian Jue. 

"Wow. Taking Qian Jue. Did they become so afraid of Zhou murdering everyone with Qian Jue because of the practice round? Haha!" After seeing the opposing team sigh and make their final choices, Yin Yuanxia hollered, "Zhou is amazing!"

TL Note: Zhou = Zhou Tian

Zhou Tian stuttered, "Uh.. It's my first time in a battle. Is there really a need to draw attention to me?"

The coach laughed: "You were a beast on the practice rounds. The opponents are scared of you, so they chose Qian Jue. Their team also has a member that's good at using QJ."

Zhou Tian thought, "Then I'd like to see how 'good' they are."

After both teams finished ban-picking, the match officially began. The audience started to excitedly chant for their teams.

Because Zhou Tian was crazily targeted during the BP section, she took on the role of the "nerfed" character, QGY.

TL Note: QGY is also a hero from the game.

Actually, it wasn't really that much of a deal. Since SF chose to target only her, they couldn't target anyone else. So, all four of her teammates had successfully acquired characters that they were good at. 

The coach said, "I believe in you, Zhou! They haven't seen what you've done with QGY, but we have! Didn't Ye Bo also say that you playing QGY was pretty good, so you'll do fine this round." He patted her shoulder.

Other than Xie Yi, the rest of her team went along with the coach's words, while complimenting her. Only Xie Yi did not speak.

Zhou Tian said nothing either. She nodded her head, took a deep breath, then readied herself into the game.

The opponents made it obvious that they wanted the newest player to be the key to their success. They practically forced her to spend all her time into farming XP and power for a higher chance of survival.

Ironically, QGY was a difficult hero to get a head start in the start of the match. It was slow on increasing levels and was hard to control.

Yet Zhou Tian stood her ground. "I'm not giving them a single chance." She quickly increased her levels and headed toward mid-road without hesitation. Before the opposing side had reacted, she and w.a.n.g Ren already got a kill together. "I'm just gonna take this kill, or else it'll be hard to survive before level 6."

"Got it, got it," w.a.n.g Ren said, laughing as he killed off a squadron of soldiers. "You can head down to the lower pathway now."

"The low path can handle without me, since Further doesn't need any help right now." She said as she moved her character towards the lake, checking in on the area. "I don't need to go."

"If we win today, then the compliment you just gave for Xie will definitely make it to the microphone." The match had just started, yet, Yin Yuanxia was already thinking about what would happen when it ended.

The rest of the team members didn't shame him, though. Everyone believed that their team would win.

After twenty-nine long, hard minutes of staring at a screen, the match ended. Zhou Tian performed admirably well during the match by ganking well for the first few minutes. She retrieved back the resources that they had lost in the early stages of the match and only died once in the whole round, giving her amazing stats.

This, of course, made the opponents immediately ban QGY for the second round.

 The coach was very pleased with their performance for the first match, so the conversation for the second BP round arose.

"So, should we wait for them to give Qian Jue to Zhou?"

"Yeah! Our Zhou is the best Qian Jue on the Korean server. Let her play one of the most famous heroes, eh?"

Zhou Tian actually didn't really mind about which hero she needed to play. Winning matches and getting good feedback was more important. But her teammate's words gave her a bit of hope.

Yet at the moment ZT was most excited for, Xie Yi, who'd never left the left corner of the screen on the map during the entire match, opened his mouth and spoke.

"It's gone." Xie Yi said. "Play something else."

Not knowing if she was hallucinating, Zhou Tian heard a bit of laughter from their team's ADc…

credits: katimu, dora, & akiyo

It's quite sad to see you leave, Akiyo, but your efforts were appreciated.

On the other hand, I apologize for the late update. WordPress really hated me yesterday, so it didn't allow me to upload the chapter. We were also unable to update last week due to various circ.u.mstances, so once again, I apologize.