Carry My Jungler, Thank You

“I heard the new jungler is coming to headquarters today?”

Training for today ended, and team VW dispersed from the training room. Some staggered and fell onto the sofa at the side of the room. With their legs raised, they started chatting away.

“I seem to have heard from Dog Yao a few days ago. Who knows who will catch the executive’s eyes this transfer season.”

Dog (Gou) Yao, whose name was Gou Yao, was team VW’s ace coach. Privately, he got along well with the players, and they were of similar age, so they became more and more disrespectful.

“I heard some other news instead, the new jungler seems to be–”

“Ahem.”

The two who were whispering to each other heard a light cough. They immediately looked down in embarrassment, and focused on training their fingers.

“Uh … Brother Chu, are you still playing ranked games?”

One of the handsome teens rolled his eyes and walked over. Like a lackey, he started massaging the shoulders of the man sitting in the chair. “Brother, do you know who the new jungler is?”

The gray-eyed man controlled his mid-lane mage, targeting the minions and taking the last hit, earning more rewards. He ignored his own ADC’s flattering behavior, maintaining a cold and unbothered look.

The team’s support came back, pushing the training room’s door open.

“Younger brother, catch.”

Xiao Di whistled, and caught the can that their “Mother” threw in the air. He pried open the tab of the can with his teeth, raised his head, and poured down a mouthful of the carbonated water. In the beginning, the youngest ADC was the team’s younger brother (Di Di), and he got the title as such. He did not mind the title because, with time and puberty, anyone who saw him would have to call him “Father”.

“Mother, do you know which team’s jungler the executives are looking at?”

“I know. When I was getting on the lift just now, I even saw Brother Lun bringing the new jungler around to familiarize him with the new environment.”

Brother Lun was the jungler for this season’s champion. When his team won the championship, he announced a regretful retirement due to a hand injury relapse. After he went behind the scenes, he was still one of team VW’s honorary coaches.

The jungler has always been the heart and soul of a team. A person in a position like that retiring all of a sudden did have some negative effects on team VW. The first to bear the brunt was mid-laner Chu Ke, as the team’s substitute jungler did not have good chemistry with him.

Who was Chu Ke? He was a two-time winner of the national championship and a two-time MVP of the finals. In the esports industry, he was considered a legend. If the potential of a person like that was suppressed just to coordinate with the jungler, it would be a waste. Weighing the pros and cons, the executives decided to poach a seasoned jungler from outside the team. During the transfer season, many professional players from other teams came to audition secretly, but none of them were suitable. Either because of a mismatch in playing style or because they were too individualistic and would require much cooperation from the team.

VW was not a new team, so to change their playing style for a new jungler was a joke.

Chu Ke casually moved his little mage to invade the enemy’s jungle. Earlier on, in the bottom lane, he saw the opposing jungler’s vision and timed the jungle’s refresh rate, so he wandered around the enemy’s jungle openly.

The opposing jungler’s level was nothing special, plus he followed Rafael’s style and chose a water-type.

Heck, if he were Rafael, not to mention invading jungles, you would not even be able to steal a single minion from his hands.

Speaking of Rafael, his face from the finals seemed to appear before him again.

Honestly, Yin Yu was very good-looking and was publicly acknowledged as handsome. In contrast to Chu Ke’s femininity, his attractiveness was pleasing to the eyes.

His face, which popped up in Chu Ke’s mind every day, annoyed him to no end.

He obviously defeated his mortal enemy and won the championship. But Chu Ke was not as happy as he expected it to be. These days, there was not a single news on Yin Yu’s Weibo, Chu Ke was actually a little worried that the guy might have taken it too hard and chose to retire.

Just as he was thinking about it, his teammate behind him mentioned Rafael, and the information was shocking.

Chu Ke, the mid-laner demon king, who was known to make little to no mistakes, activated flash accidentally.

“What? Rafael!” Younger brother stomped his feet, almost spurting a face of coke on Mother.

“Shhhhhhhh, keep your voice down, don’t let Brother Chu hear you.”

He then immediately lowered his voice, “Which Rafael are you talking about?!”

Mother rolled her eyes, “How many Rafaels are there who play professionally? Of course, it’s QP’s Rafael, Brother Lun’s god! Speaking of this, in order to poach this number one jungler, the executives spent a lot of money, who knows how much transfer fee they paid. Anyway, just wait for tonight’s blog announcement, it will definitely break the record for highest transfer fee.”

Chu Ke, who was engaged in a fierce team battle, was almost captured by the opponent’s top-laner again. His gray eyes darkened, and the mage on the screen expertly avoided an attack. Unfortunately, his flash was already used in the last wave, so he could not avoid the top-laner’s deadly attack at this critical moment.

The gray-eyed man stared blankly at the death countdown. He removed his headphones and casually put them on Mother’s head. Pushing away his gaming chair, he stood up.

“Brother, brother, what’s wrong?! Don’t go, I didn’t mean to cause you to die!”

Mother was dumbfounded, but then he remembered the significance of the name “Rafael” to Chu Ke. After all, Rafael was a sworn enemy with whom he had been competing with for three seasons. To hear that your enemy was becoming a teammate, this type of complicated news—even Chu Ke—who was stable like an old dog, would not be able to take it.

“Help me play, I’m going to the bathroom.”

Chu Ke picked up the coat on the back of the chair, lowered his eyes, and walked out. With a bang, the door closed, and the people in the training room were left looking at each other.

“It’s over, Chu Ke won’t go picking a fight with Rafael, will he?”

Mother was so worried, but he could only sit down and help Chu Ke finish his game.

The toilet was on the left side. Chu Ke paused and walked towards the coaching room on the right. At the same time, Coach Gou Yao happened to walk out of the room with a soft notebook.

“Chu Ke? I was just about to go find you, follow me.”

He walked to the outside of team two’s and team one’s substitutes’ training rooms. Looking through the glass wall, the seventeen-eighteen year old boys inside were typing on their keyboards frantically.

“Team two is playing a training match?”

“Yes, the new jungler came to the headquarters today. We already signed with him just now, he’s your old friend. He’s a celebrity jungler after all. His level of appearance, ability, and publicity are all of the standards, and the executives have spent a lot of effort poaching him. Fortunately, he terminated the contract with his old club first, otherwise, it’d be impossible to take advantage of this loophole.”

Gou Yao never once mentioned the name of the new jungler, but the two of them were clear about who it was. Chu Ke looked through the glass window silently. The players inside were all gathered around a computer desk. From the gap between the crowd, he could only see a pair of slender hands typing on the keyboard.

“Hey, no matter the grievances you had before, since you guys are teammates now, let it go. This time, the executives really paid a lot of money for you.”

He did not respond, pushed open the door to the training room, and walked to the computer desk of team two’s mid-laner.

“Brother… Brother Chu, hello.”

Chu Ke nodded coldly, signaling him to focus on the game.

With his idol watching him play, the mid-laner suddenly found it hard to speak properly. Although the two belonged to the same team, Chu Ke’s lifestyle had always been disciplined and routined; he was also very taciturn and had basically never seen or guided team two or the youth training team. It was difficult to see him outside of training.

With his idol by his side, the nervous mid-laner’s palms were full of sweat. He frantically kept tapping the hotkeys he had set for his skills. Ultimately, Rafael quickly killed him before he had a chance to do anything.

“Let me play.”

After watching for a while, Chu Ke frowned and took over the gaming chair. By his side, the mid-laner of team two watched his mood with trepidation.

On the other side of the training room, the teen in black lazily mowed down a wave of minions in the middle lane and demolished a tower in passing. The players surrounding him watched on with admiration. Even if they ignored Rafael’s reputation, they did witness this assassin fancily killing team two’s mid-laner three times in person. He could go wherever he wanted throughout the rift and had a complete grasp of the landscape. Although he talked a little too much, in the face of sheer competency, no one would protest.

“Mid-laner crematorium, ADC morgue.”

As soon as this wave of trash talk dropped, a notice announced that the red team’s assassin killed the blue team’s ADC through their headphones. Chu Ke did not wear his headphones, so these words traveled to his ears clearly.

He did not expect this guy to be so showy in private. Usually, he live-streamed in silence, who knew it was all pretense.

Chu Ke stared deeply at the screen.

Although the opponent was not initiating a team fight, Yin Yu was not in a hurry, as he alone led the opponent’s gold by 1,500. The snowball was naturally getting bigger and bigger, but the assassin took his time to clear the enemy’s jungle and saw a small-scale team battle break out in the bottom lane. After observing the number of people on both sides, he quietly went for the dragon pit. He was playing an unpopular light-type jungler today, and only this type of jungler with healing attributes could solo fight the dragon, although it took more time.

The team battle in the bottom lane was almost over, and the gap in gold caused the red team to sacrifice two for three. The blue team’s mid-laner had yet to use his ultimate ability and was sent back to heal by the higher-level ADC of the red team. This useless mid-laner was really a cash machine in the early game. It was all thanks to him that Yin Yu could level up so quickly. After a wave of team fights with deaths and injuries, no one noticed that the little assassin was going for the dragon.

The dragon still had the last thousand drops of blood. Yin Yu glanced, and he was about to finish up and leave. At this moment, a dark mage suddenly sprang out from the bush behind the dragon, activated his ultimate move, Eye of the Dead, and nailed the low-blooded assassin in place. The two-staged attack easily killed both the assassin and the dragon.

Yin Yu: ???

Where did this mage come from???