Chapter 124 124, 131

Shen Jian's Brawler, Wangchuan, moved towards the coordinates Tang Rou had announced, but his speed was neither fast nor slow, his sluggish movements revealing his inner hesitation. He was almost there, but he didn't reveal himself directly, searching for a route, switching angles, as if trying to find a good position for a sneak attack.

Announcing your position openly to your opponent, and then sneaking up for a sneak attack, was something that most normal people would find despicable. Fortunately, it was Team Magical's home stadium, and the booing from the audience was relatively controlled.

Shen Jian fussed around for a long time, finally finding a position that made him feel secure. Then, he charged out!

No one?

The coordinates 124, 131 were within sight, but there was no sign of Hanyanrou.

"You liar!" Shen Jian was instantly enraged, feeling that he had been tricked. This must be a trap, a snare. He scolded in the team chat while frantically trying to control Wangchuan to retreat quickly.

"What, you're here?" Tang Rou replied in the chat.

Shen Jian ignored her. *Don't even think about distracting me with words,* he thought, forgetting that it was he who had started talking in the chat in the first place.

"You're too slow, I'm going to walk around, or I'll be called for a foul," Tang Rou added.

Shen Jian didn't believe her, but the audience knew it was true. After Tang Rou announced the coordinates, Hanyanrou had been waiting there, but Shen Jian's Wangchuan had been dragging his feet, and after nearly arriving, he had started choosing a position, dawdling around. Tang Rou had waited quite a while before moving Hanyanrou.

"I'll be right back, you wait there," Tang Rou said again.

Shen Jian panicked. Wangchuan spun around in place, his vision sweeping 360 degrees, searching for where Tang Rou might appear. The audience was bewildered by his appearance. Wasn't this supposed to be a duel? Looking at his posture, it felt like he was playing hide-and-seek, trying not to be found!

Shen Jian had no intention of making Wangchuan wait obediently. After scanning around twice, he felt that there were too many places where his opponent could appear, and there was no place to set an ambush. And so, this guy ran away...

The home audience was on Team Magical's side, so they tolerated it once again.

However, many people were already looking forward to the good show to come, because the route Shen Jian had chosen to run away happened to intersect with the route Hanyanrou was taking to return. The audience with God's perspective could see this very clearly.

The two sides finally met on a narrow road. This unexpected encounter threw Shen Jian into another panic, but Tang Rou didn't even say hello before charging over.

Howling Dragon Pierces the Firmament! (hao long po jun)

In an instant, the attack was upon him.

Shen Jian's Wangchuan retreated desperately, barely managing to dodge. Then, his character looked around, as if searching for an escape route.

Even at this point, this guy still wants to run?

What on earth does he want to do in this match?

At this point, even the home audience was starting to disapprove, and the booing gradually increased. They weren't completely opposed to the Wretched style of play, but even Wretched style players didn't show such cowardice when facing their opponents head-on. Their evasion was a clear tactical intention, but what about Shen Jian? No one could sense that he had any plan. From the beginning, he had been showing a hesitant, at a loss appearance. Now that his opponent's spear was right in front of him, he was still acting like this.

How could he win with this attitude?

*Boom!*

A Falling Flower Palm (luo hua zhang) struck out, and Shen Jian couldn't react in time. Wangchuan was blasted away, but behind him on three sides were walls. Wangchuan was blasted onto the wall, and immediately rebounded back. Hanyanrou's Furious Dragon Pierces the Heart (nu long chuan xin) struck, and with one spear, Wangchuan was nailed back onto the wall.

"What's going on?"

Now it wasn't just booing, but gradually some cursing started.

Even He Ming and Wang Ze, Shen Jian's former teammates and his closest friends after joining Team Magical, couldn't stand it anymore.

"What's wrong with this guy?" He Ming asked Wang Ze. Who could Wang Ze ask? His performance on the field made it seem like Shen Jian was the one being condemned by everyone, timid and hesitant. What about Tang Rou's Hanyanrou? Her temperament, fighting style, and momentum were no different from before. Shen Jian's gaze turned to the Team Excellent Era's player area. The *eSports Times* lay quietly on the seat that Tang Rou had been sitting on.

What's going on? Was the wrong book given to her?

He Ming still couldn't believe it. Other players were one thing, but he really couldn't believe that Tang Rou, a rookie player, seemed completely unaffected by such public pressure.

"Little Tang is playing quite relaxed," Ye Xiu commented on Team Excellent Era's side.

Would Tang Rou be affected by this pressure? Team Magical wasn't the only one concerned; Team Excellent Era was even more concerned. Now it seemed that it couldn't be said that Tang Rou was completely unaware of it, because she had made some adjustments.

For example, in the dialogue during the match. In the past, Tang Rou wouldn't deign to engage in this kind of communication that was unrelated to the actual battle. But now, she would teasingly make fun of Fang Rui, and she would also chat with Shen Jian. This was an adjustment in mentality. She wasn't urgently trying to prove herself by facing those public opinions head-on. Instead, she was competing with a more relaxed attitude than before. With her personality, this kind of mentality might not stimulate her maximum combat power, but this intentional adjustment and control of emotions was a transformation that made her more mature.

Shen Jian's timidity caused him to be suppressed from the start. His ten percent lead vanished instantly. Then, he fell behind. And then, he started to panic even more. In this vicious cycle, Tang Rou easily won the match.

"What are you doing?" Shen Jian was reprimanded mercilessly by He Ming as he came off the stage. It wasn't that they couldn't afford to lose, but in the end, Shen Jian had only managed to whittle away twenty percent of Hanyanrou's health while putting up a struggling resistance. This kind of garbage performance was simply giving points to the opponent. He Ming couldn't understand what was affecting Shen Jian's state. How could he suddenly plummet so drastically? Team Magical had prepared very well for today's match, and they had also built up their mental state quite well, seeing that their opponent was in the eye of the storm of public opinion. The newcomers in the team who had entered the alliance with Team Magical, even if they lost, had shown great effort. But Shen Jian, in the position of the final defender, was so unbearable.

Shen Jian didn't know how to explain. He had been entrusted with an important task, but he had discovered that he simply didn't have the confidence to shoulder such a responsibility. This was really embarrassing. In Team Magical, he was quite proud, posing as a senior expert. He didn't want his tall image to collapse so easily.

"We can't lose the team competition! Are we going to be swept clean by them?" He Ming saw that Shen Jian didn't say anything, so he didn't say much more and began to encourage the whole team to play well in the upcoming team competition.

But... after a round of matches that they were quite confident in, they had been completely wiped out in the individual competition and the arena competition. The psychological advantage that Team Magical had built up before the match was long gone. In particular, their act of hiding a copy of *eSports Times* to give to their opponent was not a good look. As a result, this trick had not worked at all and would probably only become a joke. In this round of matches, Team Magical's players felt like clowns.

"Team Excellent Era's team battle strength is much worse than their individual combat ability. Their team is far from being fully coordinated. This is our chance," He Ming said.

But this problem was already well known. He Ming's repetition didn't have any effect.

Sensing this low morale, He Ming was also at a loss. To be honest, his confidence had also been shattered a lot, but because of his position as captain, he was trying hard to remind himself not to be weak.

"What are you afraid of! The worst that can happen is that we lose! We're just a new team, we're approaching this with a learning mindset!" At this time, Guo Shao, that kid, jumped out and shouted. He was still as energetic as ever, looking forward to the next match. He dared to say anything. "The worst that can happen is that we lose" was probably not something that any team captain would easily say. But these words actually made the other players of Team Magical relax a lot. Even Shen Jian seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. He wasn't in the category of "newcomers"!

"Cheer up, cheer up!" Guo Shao simply jumped onto his seat to cheer for his teammates, attracting a lot of attention from the audience.

The team competition started soon after. Guo Shao's shouting really worked. With the mindset of "the worst that can happen is that we lose", Team Magical's players were able to let go and play freely. But the problem was that once these guys let go, they couldn't pull it back. After all, they were also a new team, with coordination problems and all sorts of inexperience. He Ming, Shen Jian, and Wang Ze were experienced players, but they weren't experienced core players. Their ability to control a situation that was getting out of hand was clearly not as good as top players from truly core backgrounds, such as Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, and Fang Rui.

The advantage of choosing the map at home didn't help them either. Team Excellent Era won the team competition in the end, achieving a 10-0 victory over Team Magical.

The other matches that took place on the same day also ended one after another. In the ninth round of matches, an extremely bizarre scene appeared. In this round, there were as many as five 10-0 sweeps, and all of them were strong attacks by the away teams.

Team Excellent Era won 10-0 away against Team Magical;

Team Blue Rain won 10-0 away against Team Yueyun;

Team Tyranny won 10-0 away against Team Lightly;

Team Samsara won 10-0 away against Team Mingqing;

Team Tiny Herb won 10-0 away against Team Lanhai.

Putting aside the match between Team Excellent Era and Team Magical, the other four matches were all clashes between strong and weak teams, but it was still surprising that the home teams, who had the advantage of playing on their own turf, couldn't even get a single point. After the match, the media commented that the gap between the strengths of professional teams was getting bigger and bigger with the rapid development of the league. The strong and wealthy teams had received more resources of all kinds than the weaker teams in the overall prosperity and development of the league, and then used them to build up their teams. In this cycle, the strong teams became stronger, and the weak teams became weaker. It seemed difficult for new teams without the support of powerful financial backers to break through and emerge from these strong teams. Team义斩 (Yi Zhan) was originally a team that was quite optimistic, with a strong backing, but no one expected that the boss himself would personally take to the field. The expectations for Team义斩 (Yi Zhan) could only wait until their boss lost interest in his own entertainment.