Chapter 1029: Starting Lineup
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
The crowd couldn't calm down. How deep was the friendship between Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng? Because Ye Xiu had always kept a low-profile, his fans didn't know. As a result, Su Mucheng publicly announcing her split with Excellent Era right after the group arena ended and then sitting at Happy's bench was simply too astonishing.
Why?
The crowd clamored noisily, but no one could answer the question. Pan Lin and Li Yibo were also dumbstruck by this outrageous conduct. For a moment, they didn't know what to say.
"Su Mucheng.... Su Mucheng..." Pan Lin was the first to regain his composure. He wanted to explain this crazy action, but when the words reached his mouth, he couldn't find the right words to describe his thoughts. He had never encountered such a situation before. No matter how experienced he maybe as a commentator, he was no better than anyone else at the moment.
"Does the Alliance have any rules regarding this?" After stumbling on his words for awhile, he suddenly asked a question.
"What do you mean?' Li Yibo asked.
"The... the..." Pan Lin wanted to say "The rule not permitting players to sit at another team's bench", but he had second thoughts. Su Mucheng publicly announcing her split and defecting to the enemy side had never happened before, but if you said sitting at another team's bench, that wasn't anything new. Sometimes, the players on the two teams were good friends off-stage, so they went over to each other's bench to make some small talk. However, doing that was a somewhat sensitive subject, so there was usually a special precondition required for it to happen.
Su Mucheng was definitely an exception though. She was touching on the "sensitive" subject that everyone was worried about. She displayed this "sensitive" subject for everyone to see.
What should be said for this conduct? Pan Lin was unable to say what he wanted to say. His co-caster, Li Yibo, racked his brains and finally squeezed out a few words: "In any case, Su Mucheng's conduct is inappropriate. No matter what the reason is, such an action is a heavy blow to her team and her fans. It doesn't matter if there's some sort of conflict between her and Excellent Era, this definitely isn't the way to resolve it."
Li Yibo was clearly saying empty words. For Su Mucheng to act in such a way, who would believe she had a good relationship with her team? Su Mucheng and Excellent Era definitely had some sort of conflict and it clearly wasn't a small one. The two of them weren't needed to analyze something so obvious. Everyone in the crowd knew. They were wondering what the conflict was to make Su Mucheng defect to Team Happy.
Was it related to Ye Xiu?
Many people thought that was the reason. After all, Ye Xiu had the closest relationship with Su Mucheng among those in Team Happy.
Opinions differed.
The crowd discussed with each other. The reporters were also looking at their data and racked their brains to analyze the reasons. However, the match was still going to continue. The team competition came after the group arena. The break time was a bit longer than usual. The employees nervously prepped the player booths. The six players participating in the team competition might be different than the five players participating in the group arena, so adjustments needed to be made to the setups in the player booths.
The players competing in the match also had some free time during their rest time. They could go to the restroom and so on. However, no one left. On Excellent Era's side, the color of Tao Xuan's face had already turned purple. He hadn't expected Su Mucheng to actually do something like that.
Her way of splitting with the team was too crazy. There was no precedent. The media must be very interested in digging deeper. Once they started digging, they might find a lot of problems, which had been covered up by Tao Xuan the entire time. Because once this fuse was set, it might explode in front of the public. How could Tao Xuan be calm? As for Su Mucheng defecting to Happy, he wasn't concerned about that issue because he knew long ago that this would happen. When Su Mucheng firmly refused to renew or extend her contract, he already knew it was inevitable. Unlike the public, he had a clear understanding of the relationship between Su Mucheng and Ye Xiu. When he renounced Ye Xiu, he had already been prepared to let go of Su Mucheng. Her departure wasn't unexpected, but her way of doing so was.
Tao Xuan had no idea how to handle the situation in front of him. Su Mucheng's actions affected the team. They still needed to play in the team competition. Their hearts couldn't waver right now.
Tao Xuan was busy trying to stabilize the team, while Happy was jubilant. If one only looked at the atmosphere surrounding the two teams, no one would believe that Excellent Era had just won the group arena by one point. It looked like Excellent Era was losing by a lot.
The crowd clamored noisily for however long the break time was. Everyone was concerned about the issue of Su Mucheng from start to finish. They practically forgot about the following team competition. They still hadn't figured it out, when it was announced that the team competition would be starting soon.
On Excellent Era's side, with Tao Xuan personally stabilizing the situation, the team had calmed down. As teammates, they also knew that Su Mucheng would leave at the end of the season. As a result, they were similar to Tao Xuan. They were mainly surprised by her way of doing so.
"In this team competition, don't give them any opportunities! Good luck everyone!" Tao Xuan clapped his hands in encouragement. The other worries in his heart had been buried for now. In any case, winning this match was what was most important.
"Okay, let's go!" Sun Xiang had lost to Ye Xiu in the group arena, but it looked like he had readjusted his mindset. As the team captain, he walked at the front, leading their team competition players to the player booths.
Sun Xiang, Xiao Shiqin, Qiu Fei, Shen Jian, Zhang Jiaxin. Sixth player - Wang Ze.
The lineups for the team competition had been fixed ahead of time, so they couldn't be changed at the last moment. From this, it could be seen that Excellent Era's number three All-Star player, Su Mucheng, hadn't been a part of the team competition lineup. It could be seen how doubtful Tao Xuan was of Su Mucheng. In the team competition, he didn't have any method of forcing Su Mucheng to play seriously, so he might as well just kick her to the side.
"Are you ready?" On Happy's side, Ye Xiu asked. His words weren't aimed at the entire team, but at a certain someone.
"Yes." A player on the bench nodded his head and stood up. At this moment, the Happy players were being introduced.
Wu Chen. Launcher. Dawn Rifle.
As the introduction echoed throughout the stadium, everyone in Team Excellent Era halted their footsteps.
It was not just them. When the crowd heard this name, they were also stunned.
Whether it was Excellent Era or Happy, those who had been following the matches closely were all familiar with this name. But Wu Chen... this person was undoubtedly a part of Team Happy's registered players, but in the offline tournament, he had never made an appearance. And now in such a crucial match like the finals, he would be making his first appearance?
There was no applause from the crowd.
He was a player that had never gone on stage and he wasn't a player that everyone had been looking forward to seeing. His sudden appearance made everyone puzzled rather than expectant. Even the commentators, Pan Lin and Lin Yibo, were crazily ridiculing Happy. It could be considered as them venting their emotions from not knowing what to do about Su Mucheng's actions. They did all sorts of analyses on Wu Chen and most of their conclusions were unfavorable.
"Happy is in a difficult position against Excellent Era, so they thought of putting out a surprise player. However, this player has no experience of what it's like on stage. Suddenly throwing him out in the finals is too rash. Going too far is just as bad as not enough!" Li Yibo concluded.
And at the same time, the players on both sides were walking towards their player booths.
Team Happy. Their players were Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, Steamed Bun, Qiao Yifan, An Wenyi, and Wu Chen.
Wei Chen and Sun Zheping, the two veterans, weren't participating in the team competition. Sun Zheping didn't participate much because of his hand injury. He couldn't play for too much without his injury flaring up. As for Wei Chen, his age was a reality that couldn't be avoided. His energy was limited. It wasn't obvious in the game. When he pulled an all-nighter and killed monsters, he seemed to be just as energetic as the younger players, but in an intense high-level competition, his energy clearly dropped faster than the others. Happy had fought several intense matches in the offline tournament. Wei Chen had to put in a lot of effort in them. The longer they took, the more tired he felt.
In their plan for the group arena, Wei Chen was supposed to face Sun Xiang. This difficult matchup would certainly put a lot of stress on Wei Chen, so in their plan for the finals, they had Wei Chen participate in the group arena, but not in the team competition. In the end, even though Wei Chen didn't face Sun Xiang, he still had to face an All-Star like Xiao Shiqin. Their original thinking behind the arrangement was still put to use.
Apart from that, there was Luo Ji, who wouldn't be appearing this match. His skill level was rather low, so they couldn't let him play in such a critical match.
The biggest surprise was Wu Chen.
Through this analysis, Wu Chen's appearance might not have been intended as a surprise, but rather out of helplessness.
Wu Chen quietly walked among Team Happy's players. He wasn't aware of the discussion going on because of him. As a player from Team Everlasting that had been a part of the Challenger League for several years, it had been a long time since Wu Chen had received any attention. Even when he was in the pro scene, he had never gotten so much attention.
In the eyes of the pros, his skill level wasn't top-notch.
But he had a dream and he relentlessly pursued it. Wu Chen had been ready for this match for a long time, perhaps too long. He had always been hoping for Team Everlasting to stride past this obstacle and return to the Alliance. Team Everlasting was no longer there, but the dream in his heart had never died.
Get through the Challenger League and return to the Alliance!