Shanghai International’s Jungler escaped from High School 13’s pursuit. Tang Bingyao’s Jinx didn’t get the pentakill. But that didn’t change the outcome of the teamfight. The four kills she got gave her a lot of gold. On top of that, High School 13 killed the Dragon. This gave the whole team gold. Then they turned their attention to Baron Nashor, the strongest monster on the map. Killing him gave a teamwide buff that increased the stats of Champions and minions that were near Champions. High School 13 pulled so far ahead after this teamfight that there was nothing Shanghai International could do to stop them anymore. Right before the teamfight started, Shanghai International had been hopeful. They thought that after 10 minutes of desperately trying to scale up and getting to a point where they could contend against High School 13, they could finally turn this game around. But there was nothing that could stop High School 13’s unyielding momentum.

After recalling back to base and spending the gold they’d earned, High School 13’s team split up in two. Lin Feng had his Olaf go to the top lane, where he pushed towards Shanghai International’s base. He destroyed the inner tower and came knocking on the inhibitor tower’s door. In the meantime, the rest of the team pushed down the mid lane. They destroyed two towers and only stopped when they reached the inhibitor tower. The inhibitor towers were easier to defend than the outer and inner towers due to the terrain surrounding them. So Shanghai International’s team had decided to make their last stand here.

Shanghai International’s Fiora was switching between helping the mid lane defend and trying to keep the top lane inhibitor tower from falling to the Olaf. She was trying to do two things at once. Her attention wasn’t entirely on the top laner, nor was it on the mid lane. This was a mistake. At 23 minutes, Lin Feng had his Olaf towerdive the Fiora and killed her before she even realized what was happening. He escaped with more than half of his health remaining. This was the signal for the rest of High School 13’s team to go in. They used the brief moment of confusion on Shanghai International’s team to towerdive them in the mid lane. The Thresh, Jarvan IV, and Lissandra used their crowd control skills to lock down Shanghai International’s players. Tang Bingyao followed up with her Jinx, unloading a thousand and one bullets and killing the Orianna, Rek’Sai, and Morgana.

《Triple Kill!》

Westwind sat at the caster desk overlooking the venue. The audience had been up on their feet for the last several minutes. This was clearly the end of the game. High School 13 was pushing for the win. He laughed to himself and then brought the microphone to his mouth, shouting, “IT’S A T-T-TRIPPLEEE KILLL! I think we all know what that means. High School 13 is closing out the match! High School 13 is going to the FINALS!”

Silent Reed couldn’t even hear her own thoughts anymore over the deafening sounds of the audience. She smiled and shouted slightly louder than usual, “Whoever said that ad-carries are weak this patch hasn’t seen this game. Jinx is clearly as strong a Champion as ever!”

Tang Bingyao’s Jinx wreaking havoc had nothing to do with ad-carries being strong or weak on the current patch. Every Champion became strong after picking up 7 kills within two minutes. That was just how the game worked. But it took skill, or very bad opponents, to get those kills and become that strong. Tang Bingyao had succeeded in doing that, while Liu Zhengjie had failed. His Tristana wasn’t worth much anymore, even after his desperate struggle to scale up. All he could do in this last teamfight was Rocket Jump away and then dodge the Jinx’s Super Mega Death Rocket by flashing over it. Now he stood on the fountain, watching High School 13 destroy the inhibitors in the mid and top lanes.

This stupid fucking bitch! DAMMIT! Why does she always get so lucky? If I’d gotten that first blood, this game would’ve been different! If my team had made a decent engage, I could’ve grabbed a quadra… It would be me! I would be the one pushing for a win! NOT that stupid fucking bitch! FUCK HER! Liu Zhengjie gnashed his teeth, fuming. He was Shanghai International’s star player. He was favoured by his peers to become a professional player. He was approached by a professional team! But Tang Bingyao was stealing his thunder. The Shanghai 16 School Tournament should’ve been the stage for him to make that step to the professional scene after winning the whole tournament! And now, now he was on the verge of being eliminated in the Semifinals. He looked around the map. Minions were pushing into the base. All five champions from High School 13 were attacking the two nexus towers. The death timers on his teammates were still more than 20 seconds. It’s over. Fuck.

The first nexus tower was destroyed. High School 13 pushed on to the second nexus tower, which fell shortly after. Three Red minion waves spawned from the Nexus, but they did little to slow down High School 13’s advance. The Tristana stayed on the fountain. She watched the Nexus tremble and shake until it shattered, the red energy contained within exploding outwards and morphing into the victory emblem for High School 13.

VICTORY!

The audience was split into three groups. First there were the students from Shanghai International. They slumped back in their seats, embarrassed at their team’s performance. High School 13 was the butt of all jokes. They were the single worst team in all of Shanghai! They were the kids who spent more time looking for excuses for their poor performances than practicing the game. Yet Shanghai International’s team had just lost against High School 13. Shanghai International had lost to the worst team in Shanghai! At that very moment, it genuinely felt to Shanghai International’s students like they were the single worst team in all of Shanghai. They’d lost to High School 13. They’d lost to High School 13...

The second group in the audience were the neutral fans. They were for the most part students from Tonji Affiliated High and Shanghai High School. They were jumping up and down and cheering their lungs out! The games weren’t perhaps as exciting as they would’ve liked, but Lin Feng had more than made up for that. This series was an astonishing display of skill by him, and he deserved every bit of praise!

Finally, there were the students from High School 13. They didn’t cheer or slump back in their seats. They just sat, staring, dazed. They’d grown so accustomed to losing that they didn’t really know what to do now that they’d won. Despite the victory in the first game. Despite the victory in the second game. Despite the massive advantage High School 13 had procured in the third game. Despite all of that and more, High School 13’s students in the audience were expecting another loss. Until now, they were cheering because they rarely had the chance to do so. But they cheered for a good play, a nice trick, a perfectly executed gank. They hadn’t ever cheered for winning a series. Nor for their team making it to the Finals of the biggest high school esports event in Shanghai! They started smiling uncontrollably. They started laughing. They were crying tears of joy. But in this moment of pure bliss, they forgot to cheer.

✹

As was custom, High School 13’s team walked over to the other side of the stage to shake hands with the players from Shanghai International. But there was little response. Yan Liang was staring at his screen, dazed by the reality of the situation, while Liu Zhengjie was cursing at everything and everyone he could see and think of. The other three players weren’t very happy either. But they forced themselves up from their seats and bowed slightly.

In the meantime, Ouyang and Liu Yue had recovered from their shock. They turned around to look at the silence behind them, and were met with hundreds of happy faces. Ouyang grabbed Liu Yue and Ren Rou by the shoulders and they stood up from their seats. They wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders. Then they started dancing and singing, “AND IT’S SWEET, SWEET, SWEET VICTORY, YEAAHHHH!” The students from High School 13 followed by example. They stood up and started jumping to Ouyang’s beat and began singing with him.

High School 13’s team walked down the stage, watching the audience jumping and dancing and cheering for them. They smiled and laughed and threw their hands up in the air, waving at the audience. Chen Ze and Wei Dong walked up to Ouyang and joined in with him, while Yang Fan followed a step behind. He was his usual self, though he couldn’t hide the joy in his expression. Lin Feng ignored all of them. He walked towards An Xin with his arms wide open and shouted over the noise, “BUNBUN! WE WON!”

An Xin stared at him, her eyes widening further with every step he took. He tried to hug her, but she pushed him away just in time, yelping, “What was that?” She glared at him and added, “I get it, we won. Great. Let’s celebrate it without hugging!”

Lin Feng looked at An Xin and rubbed his chest painfully. Huh? Well, then… He turned around, showing an even wider grin, and walked over towards Tang Bingyao. He opened his arms wide and shouted, “Tang Tang, we won!”

Tang Bingyao wasn’t as quick as An Xin. Lin Feng’s arms wrapped around her before she realized what was happening. She glanced past Lin Feng at An Xin and then quickly pushed him away, asking, “Hmm? What do you think you’re doing?”

Lin Feng took a step back and looked at the two girls. He turned from one to the other and back to the first again. Then he said, “What am I doing? Celebrating, of course! We won! We beat Shanghai International!”

“Oh. Hmm…” Tang Bingyao looked at Lin Feng and then at An Xin again. Finally, she shook her head and said, “We can celebrate. But no hugging.”

Two beautiful girls and a guy getting turned down by them. Ouyang wouldn’t be Ouyang if he didn’t notice it. He slipped away from the others, somehow pulling Ren Rou with him, and started grinning, relishing in Lin Feng’s schadenfreude. “Yo, Lin Feng, bro. Tell me how it feels getting rejected by two girls in a row! Hahaha! And here I thought I had to be jealous of you! Haha!” Then he pulled Ren Rou, whose arm was still around his shoulder, a little closer to him and said, “Hey, Rou Rou, how about we have a celebratory hug?”

Ren Rou pulled her arm away and glared at Ouyang, then slapped him across the cheek. “Screw off! All you did was warm the bench! What do you have to celebrate for?”

Ouyang grimaced and shrunk back a little as he moved his arms in front of him. “H-hey… It’s not like I had a choice. I wanted to play. But the others are better… I mean, at least my heart was up on the stage with them, right?”

Ren Rou didn’t get a chance to reply to Ouyang, because Liu Yue interrupted her. He tapped on her shoulder and shoved into their little circle. Then he pointed behind him and said, “Yo, guys, look who’s coming.”

All nine members of High School 13’s esports team fell silent. They huddled up together and watched quietly as Shanghai High School’s team approached. Zeng Rui walked in the front, with the four others stalking behind him. He moved with a steady, strong gait, looking calm. The players from High School 13, bar for Lin Feng and An Xin, started fidgeting, nervous. They’d seen Shanghai High School’s team from a distance, always performing up on stage. But they’d never actually met them. Yet today, they’d secured their place in the Finals and would be going up against Shanghai High School for the title. High School 13 suddenly found themselves amongst the big names, and that was quite intimidating. So they looked at the ground, shuffling around, not really knowing what to say or do.