Falling Into Your Smile

Chapter 2

There is no such thing as love affairs in E-Sports. Or that’s what is said in the community. Tong Yao is painfully aware of that. From the minute she encountered the game she became aware of that E-Sports and love does not mix. The reason that Tong Yao began playing LoL was simple and probably the same reason as most girl start to play. She started playing because another person, that she happened to like, was addicted to it. They lived very close to each other that summer, but half way through the summer, Tong Yao realised that he had disappeared. She approached his door and knocked to no answer. She made her way into the living room to find him sitting in front of his computer frantically play the game. She couldn’t get a response from him. While he was busy practising his abilities she walked up to the keyboard while he was distracted and pressed a button. She didn’t expect him to scream.

The character he was playing with suddenly dashed towards a different group of characters with red names above them, the screen which was full of colour all of a sudden became black and white. Tong Yao couldn’t help but giggle even as his angry eyes glared into her soul. She pulled a stool next to him, just as he typed to his friends. “Sorry my girlfriend is messing around.”

Tong Yao’s eyes narrowed in on the message as she laughed. He was still annoyed as she poked him but he was afraid to complain. “Jian Yang, it looks like you’re having a lot of fun. Teach me to play so I can play with you.”

“EH?” He turned around with shock on his face. “You?”

“Yeah me” Tong Yao smiled. She can still remember the look he gave her. With little choice, he logged off and then used Tong Yao’s QQ account to register her. He reluctantly let Tong Yao sit in his chair and hold his mouse while patiently explained everything while standing behind her.

“This is a pushing tower game. There are three lanes on the map.” Jian Yang started to explain. “You only need to remember that when you destroy the towers on all three lanes, the enemy base and the enemy nexus you will win.” The champion selection screen popped up and Yao Yao looked towards Jian Yang for advice.

“Which one do I choose?” She asked him. “Is it okay if I choose that good looking one?”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t” Jian Yang protested impatiently. “Aiya, just choose a support. Support. You see that big guy with the blue armour.” Tong Yao moved her cursor over towards the character he was suggesting. “That’s it.”

“He’s so ugly!” Tong Yao protested.

“It’s alright you make up for it since you’re pretty enough.” Tong Yao felt her cheeks heat up with embarrassment.

“..... You’re really a sweet talker” She told him. “What’s a support?”

“This game has three different lanes with five people on your team. One person runs around in the jungle to kill monsters to get level up, he’s called a ‘Jungler’, one person takes the upper lane, called ‘Top’; one person takes the middle lane, called ‘mid’; and the bottom lane....”

“It’s called bot!” Tong Yao interjected. You could hear the excitement in her voice from her thinking she had gotten something right.

“It’s called ADC.” He told her. She sat staring at him not knowing what he was talking about. “Usually there are two players at the bottom lane because the ADC is the carry. How well the ADC plays in the beginning defines how well the game will usually go and so has a partner to help. So, the support.”

“Sounds like I won’t have much to do.” Tong Yao replied. “Will I be able to browse Weibo after I choose support?”

“Might as well not play if you’re browsing Weibo” Jian Yang replied in annoyance. “Haven’t you noticed that it’s pitch black in the jungle area of the map? Support has to be the eyes of the team. He has to use wards to light up the map by doing things like planting mushrooms......”

“So bothersome.” Tong Yao interjected. “Is there a position that doesn’t need to run around but has a strong presence and we don’t have to worry about being yelled at for my poor skills?” Tong Yao asked. The answer that Jian Yang gave her was clear and from that day on she became a mid player.

Jian Yang was a Jungler. When the two played together Jian Yang would hang around the mid all of the time, despite any cries for help from other lanes. He would tirelessly move about the mid lane, harassing the opponent and establishing any type of advantage for Tong Yao. He called it the mid alliance. After Tong Yao got more into the game she realized that it wasn’t a mid alliance at tall it was just the basic rule of playing with a girl. In the beginning Tong Yao would need his help all the time. Without Jian Yang by her side she would die instantly and she would get angry screaming at the screen. “I’m dead! I’m dead again!! Damn! Why? I’m dead again!” She would begin to tease him the more frustrated she became. “Jian Yang! If you keep doing jungle, you won’t have a girlfriend anymore!” Yet after hundreds of deaths and many different resets Tong Yao got the hang of it.

The game has 30 levels and after reaching the last one, a player can start playing in ranked games. Ranked games use League Points or LP, as the fundamental indicator of a player’s skill level. The different levels went from lowest to highest. You could be a bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond player with each level having five divisions within each tier. The rules of the game are very simple whenever a player wins a ranked game; he will gain 10 to 30 LP. If a player loses the system will deduct the same amount of points. For every 100 LP you acquire a player will qualify for a promotion. The best out of three games will move onto the next tier. When a player reaches diamond there are no more tiers to advance to. League points will keep accumulating though until you reach the Master tier. The top two hundred players with the highest points in each server are considered a challenger tier to the kings of their server.

Jian Yang was one of those kings in one of the toughest servers on the game. Ionia. He was one of the rare players that when he played in an internet cafe, they would actually announce he was there. “The super strong king on the Ionia server is playing at our cafe now on computer number 17.” Therefore he could do whatever he wanted with Tong Yao as a newbie mid. The days passed quickly with both of them playing side by side.

The day that Tong Yao reached level 30 was a memorable day for her. She was too excited to even sleep. The first thing she did the morning after was to run to Jian Yang’s door and started to bang on it declaring that he had to help her play ranked matched. She saw the looking of confusion on his face as he opened the door and was stunned to realise that she to had become an internet addict. In that summer Tong Yao and Jian Yang spent the time dating at Summoners Rift within the game.

The end of summer vacation was quickly approaching and Tong Yao went again to Jian Yang’s door with a yoghurt bag in her mouth. “We’re not playing the game today” Jian Yang told her as he opened his door. “Let’s do our summer homework.” She turned immediately to pick up the stack of notebooks and went into Jian Yang’s room and set the books down. She noticed that he had an open suitcase on his bed, she turned and looked at him as she saw the clothes inside and other things around it ready for him to put inside.

“Are you going somewhere?” She asked him, trying to mask the pain in her voice. “School is going to start soon and you’re going away? Aren’t you going to finish your homework?” She realised that she was beginning to lose control of her emotions. “Don’t procrastinate then beg me to finish it for you when school starts...”

“Tong Yao” He interjected. She turned to look at him with a look on her face that broke his heart in two. He paused and after a while he managed to get a hold of himself. “I’m not going back to school.” He told her.

“What?” Tong Yao asked with shock running through her. She could hear the electricity in the air buzzing in her ears. She had to have misheard what he was saying.

“A manager of a professional team likes me and wants me to go to Shanghai to try out.” He started to explain. “If I do well then I will stay there to play professionally. My parents have already agreed.” Jian Yang frowned as he scratched his head. “You know that I’m not good at studying. Even if I can get into a third tier college, I wouldn’t know what to do after I graduate. I love to play games and that is where I have more of a future there.” That was the first time she had ever heard of the LOL tournaments and this first time was not leaving the best impression. She felt that the game had taken the first person that she had loved away from her.

Tong Yao went back to school and Jian Yang went to Shanghai. Jian Yang called her a couple of days later like nothing had happened to tell her that he had passed the try outs without a hitch. He started as a substitute for one of the best teams in China and he finally he got his chance to compete on the big stage he always wanted. Jian Yang’s team not only won the match but the won it beautifully. He had to step in for the first Jungler because he had some personal problems behind the scenes. From that day on Jian Yang became the team’s starting Jungler. That night he called Tong Yao and was talking at her with excitement running through him. He didn’t even give himself time to take a breath between sentences. Tong Yao searched the internet to find the news while listening to the ramblings as her heart was shattering piece by piece. Everyone was reporting about how surprisingly good his performance was Baidu Tiebar, Weibo and APP. They all were asking the same question. Where did this Yang guy come from? He was super strong. Her boyfriend was famous now she thought to herself and she didn’t realise how famous he was to become.

Every day he was either at training or playing a match. He wouldn’t reply to her messages between 8am and 8pm. His messages would always be apology. “Sorry, I was training and didn’t see your messages.” The time that they spent talking became less and less, they didn’t even text each other anymore. When Tong Yao was at school Jian Yang would be sleeping. When she made her way home, he would just be waking up to start his training regime all over again. If they did get to talk this was the only time they would but it would be very quick and it would be for minutes before he had to go train or live stream with his fans. As Tong Yao was getting ready for bed to sleep Jian Yang would be having dinner. He became ‘Yang God’ and it was official that their relationship was now a long distance romance. In the end Tong Yao couldn’t remember who became fed up first her or Jian Yang but after a huge fight they broke up.

As she was trying to piece the parts of her broken heart back together she rarely paid attention to the professional scene but concentrated on her ranked games. She rose in the ranks from silver to gold and then to platinum before finally hitting her diamond. Tong Yao’s life slowly passed by and the hurt started to subside. She started college made new friends and a new ID.

She worked hard at school and then worked hard playing LoL as well. One day her accumulated League Points had become the highest in the Ionia server and she became the strongest king herself. It seemed like such a long time ago that she was shouting “If you keep staying in the jungle you won’t have a girlfriend anymore.” Until now that was.

“Tong Yao”

“........”

“Tong Yao” The man standing in front of her called her with no response. “HEY! Come back! What are you thin.....”

“ZGDX!” The television behind them called out. Tong Yao was still stood in her own little world when the manager of ZGDX clapped a few times in front of her to try and bring her back from wherever he mind was wandering. Tong Yao was startled as she saw the manager reach out his hand. “Welcome to ZGDX!”

“.....” Tong Yao shook his hand in a daze. The current Mid, Ming God, was a veteran player within ZGDX. He thought he was getting too old to keep playing the game professionally and was preparing to announce his retirement. He knew he wanted to finish off the season so was probably going to announce it after the end of the spring tournament finals. That was the reason that ZGDX was desperate to look for a replacement. The picked Tong Yao. The manager went onto explain to her the before they messaged her that the teams data analyst had followed her when she was playing. He followed her for several days. The analyst was satisfied with her and even suggested that she should skip the try outs. The head of ZGDX then flew from Shanghai to meet Tong Yao and her parents. They offered a 800,000RMB a year contract and guaranteed her that the first mid position of the summer season was hers. The whole signing process was kept secret and had to be until God Ming announced his retirement. She had never believed that one day she would be standing on the stage that had seems so very far away, yet right now it was within her reach. After they shook hands the manager sat back down and continued to address Tong Yao.

“There is no hurry to Shanghai. Wednesday is our spring finals with CK, why don’t you come and watch?” He invited her while looking at her parents for permission. “Get to know your teammates in advance. We will take care of the airline ticket and the ticket for the first row at the final.....”

“Which team are we against?” Tong Yao asked clearly only listening to half of the conversation.

“CK” The manager replied.

“Oh,” Tong Yao slowly nodded with no expression on her face. “Alright, I will go.” CK was Jian Yang’s team. In the past she wouldn’t miss any of the CK games. Now she was going to see how her future team mates would smash their enemy. Thinking about the way Jian Yang’s face would look when he was dejected she couldn’t help but smile and think how happy she would be and how happy she was just thinking about it.