Ryan Cooper had barely finished speaking when the screen was almost entirely filled with barrage comments attacking him.

　　[You could brush off your usual trash talk as jokes, but now you're slandering someone's reputation—this is going too far.]

　　[I just called to report you, this streamer is disgusting.]

　　[It's not right to say things like this without any evidence...]

　　Ryan Cooper couldn't be bothered to argue with the barrage. After watching these four matches, he had a headache, so he simply got up and went to the fridge to grab a bottle of iced coffee.

　　When he came back, the lineup for the fifth game for both teams had been announced.

　　TTC subbed in two substitutes in a row: a substitute mid-laner, replacing the "underperforming" Kan.

　 A substitute jungler, replacing the team's backbone, Road.

Author's note:

Here we go.

1. I'm just an ordinary player; all the gameplay and matches are made up and written freely, but I'll try to keep things realistic.

2. The story is set in a parallel world of my own creation. Aside from the tournament format and game settings, everything else is unrelated to reality.

200 red envelopes in the comments to celebrate TTC's return to business~

Chapter 2

　　Seeing two unfamiliar players walk on stage in TTC jerseys, Ryan Cooper held the freshly opened can of coffee and, for a moment, forgot to drink. The barrage in the livestream chat was spamming question marks so fast that Ryan Cooper's computer lagged for a few seconds.

　 It wasn't just the viewers—even the two TTC substitutes who had just gone on stage—especially the one replacing Road—seemed a bit bewildered.

　 The three commentators wore awkward and confused smiles, exchanging glances.

　　"TTC must have some kind of strategy here, right?" Commentator A stiffly tried to start a topic.

　　Catching the cue from his colleague, another quickly nodded: "They must have practiced some secret move. But if I remember correctly, isn't this the first time TTC's substitute jungler is playing?"

　　"That's right. This jungler is also very strong—a player who's great at initiating team fights."

　　The match hadn't officially started yet. Not wanting to listen to the commentators' awkward banter, Ryan Cooper muted the stream and asked, "Since when does TTC have a substitute jungler?"

　　Actually, this substitute jungler for TTC had already stirred up discussion before.

　　Back when the team registered for the tournament, fans noticed a new face at the bottom of TTC's roster. Rumor had it he was a jungler promoted straight from the youth team. Because of this, TTC's official Weibo was bombarded by fans—or more accurately, by Road's fans.

　　After all, with Road as their star jungler, TTC had never put a substitute jungler on the roster since he joined.

　　[Looks like this sub has been here since the summer split.]

　　[If they'd let the substitute mid-laner play last game, maybe TTC would've had a better chance.]

　　[The substitute jungler is finally here. After sitting on the bench all season, if he didn't play now, I'd think TTC just put him there to fill the numbers.]

　　[What secret weapon does TTC have? I'm curious.]

　　Ryan Cooper raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

　　Even if TTC really had some secret move, they shouldn't bench Road and let a substitute who's never played before try to coordinate with the team.

　　His phone chimed. Ryan Cooper turned the stream sound back on and openly picked up his phone to slack off.

　　[石榴: Bro, how the hell do you dare say anything?]

　　Evan Clark was one of Ryan Cooper's few friends, also a male streamer on Xingkong TV. He used to play LOL, but now he'd switched to the PUBG channel.

　　[艹耳: What's up?]

　　[石榴: Did you really just imply in front of hundreds of thousands of people that Kan was match-fixing?? Aren't you afraid his fans will come after you?]

　　[艹耳: I'm not even afraid of him, why would I be afraid of his fans?]

　　Evan Clark wanted to reply "You're badass," but then remembered his friend had always been this badass.

　　[石榴: Just try to keep your mouth shut a bit, okay? I'm really afraid one day these LPL players will band together to hire a hitman.]

　　[艹耳: I wasn't trash-talking Kan, I was complimenting him.]

　　[石榴: ...How so?]

　　[艹耳: He used to be bad, but at least he played at a diamond level. But those plays he made today? You'd need ten years of brain thrombosis to pull that off. When I said he was match-fixing, wasn't I actually saying his real skill should be way above what he showed?]

　　"..." Evan Clark put his phone away with a blank face, thinking, forget it, no point arguing with a troll.

　　Ryan Cooper wasn't wrong—TTC hadn't prepared any "secret weapon," at least not for this game.

　　At 5 minutes, TTC's jungler was wandering in the jungle and got solo killed.

　　At 12 minutes, TTC's jungler tried to gank mid, but got counter-ganked and the enemy took a double kill.

　　With their core missing and two starting players subbed out, the other three starters were clearly off their game. On top of that, the team couldn't coordinate. In the first big team fight at 20 minutes, TTC got wiped.

　　Ryan Cooper glanced at the gold difference between the teams and knew there was no hope for a comeback. He couldn't be bothered to waste his breath commentating. He opened the barrage assistant, planning to have some "friendly interaction" with the viewers.

　　[TTC is seriously trash.]

　　[Why isn't the streamer flaming anyone?]