Zeng Rui’s jaw muscles pulsed with fury. He was incredibly frustrated with himself. I should’ve seen this coming. I should’ve seen this coming! But he hadn’t. And as a result, his entire team died. He had lost his team the first teamfight against High School 13 in the Finals of the Shanghai 16 School Tournament! He was so caught up in self-directed rage for this turn of events that he barely noticed the Tristana jumping towards him. But he didn’t really care. There was nothing he could do, especially considering that his health was already really low from trying to save his teammates. He glanced down at the minimap one more time, just to confirm. Mostly out of habit. He knew he wasn’t going to reach the safety of a tower before she killed him. And even if he did, it wouldn’t change things. The rest of his team was dead. So instead of worrying about how to preserve what little remained of his life, he started thinking about how to turn this game around.

《Triple kill!》

《Aced!》

“WOOOO!” Westwind screamed into his microphone. “What. A. Teamfight! Show me those High School 13 posters! Show everyone the posters!” And the High School 13 students happily obliged. They were on their feet, holding the posters up above their heads that read: “HIGH SCHOOL 13 CHAMPIONS!” A line that was screamed out over and over again by the other students, booming through the arena.

Whistling, jeers, and boos. Shanghai High School did everything they could think of to shut High School 13’s section of the audience up. But it had quite the opposite effect. The venue was far too small for the amount of people there. So anything they shouted was drowned out by everyone else that was shouting. All anyone could hear was a massive reaction to the teamfight win by High School 13!

Silent Reed giggled and said, “The Tristana picked up a very nice triple there, though Zeng Rui should’ve tried harder to escape. Still…” She shook her head slightly before continuing, “That fight was all Lin Feng. He won that fight for High School 13.”

Westwind laughed and said, “That is WIN FENG for you! Right, guys?” He was trying to bait the audience into starting a WIN FENG chant to serve as the background to the rest of his commentating. Unfortunately, the audience did not bite and continued their unintelligible shouting and cheering. Westwind didn’t care though, he was just thrilled to have the audience reacting to him. Any cheering and noise was good enough as far as he was concerned. He decided to continue whipping the crowd up, “A crazy 3-man ult to win the fight! WIN FENG was the bait and the trap! HOW AWESOME WAS THAT?”

An Xin was up on her feet, together with Ren Rou, Ouyang, and Yang Fan. They were cheering for the team, for Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao who’d turned the losing teamfight around into a win. An Xin looked over her shoulder at the audience. The excited and happy expressions on their faces left her smiling. She turned back to look at Lin Feng and mumbled, “Not bad, you blockhead. You won the match.”

Zeng Rui knew, just like An Xin, that the game was as good as played. He’d prepared this teamfight specifically to deal with the Wukong who was the only real nuisance on High School 13’s team up until that point. Everything was going as planned. They got a couple of kills and baited the Wukong into action. Then they used their high cooldown skills to burst him down before he could do anything. That was where his plan fell apart. Zeng Rui stared across the stage at Lin Feng. Outplayed by him… He gritted his teeth and focused back on the game. His team needed him right now. They had to come together and find a way to stop the Wukong.

“Shit,” Zeng Rui cursed over the team’s voice chat. He rarely cursed, but he really needed to vent out his frustrations. “That went terrible, guys. Now we focus. We’re going to shut that Wukong down.” But how…? I didn’t see it coming. That’s the second time now where I didn’t expect his next move. How is he doing this? Is he just really lucky? No. Once, maybe. But not twice.

✹

High School 13 got the clear lead after winning the teamfight and securing the second Dragon. But getting an advantage wasn’t the same as winning the game. Shanghai High School started playing more defensively and made sure to give nothing away. For the next couple of minutes, this worked to great effect. High School 13 didn’t achieve much more than widening the creep score gap with their lane opponents. Then High School 13’s team recalled back to the fountain and bought the items they’d been saving up for.

At 18 minutes: High School 13 destroyed Shanghai High School’s outer tower in the mid lane.

At 20 minutes: Lin Feng helped Chen Ze pick up a kill on Shanghai High School’s Orianna, after which they took down the inner tower in the mid lane.

At 23 minutes: High School 13’s team, with the exception of Lin Feng, killed Baron Nashor. Shanghai High School’s team had vision of it, but they were too far behind to contest it and were instead pushing out the mid lane while they had the chance. The Jinx tried to steal Baron Nashor from the mid lane by firing off her Super Mega Death Rocket. The team that dealt the last hit got the reward for the kill. But she was too early. Her attack didn’t do enough damage to kill the large purple wurm. High School 13 dealt the killing blow and secured the Baron Buff. All the while, Lin Feng had snuck around Shanghai High School’s wards and arrived behind them.

“GoGoGo!” Lin Feng shouted over the team’s voice chat. He was looking at the back line of Shanghai High School’s team. All five were huddled up closely together in the mid lane. He grinned and pressed down on the E key, quickly followed by the R key–Cyclone! His Wukong jumped at Shanghai High School’s team and then started turning in circles, knocking everyone up in the air!

Wei Dong was at the front of High School 13’s team. He flashed forward, straight into Shanghai High School’s team and activated Morgana’s ultimate skill–Soul Shackles! Chains of agony erupted out from her and latched onto the five Champions that were still Airborne from Wukong’s ultimate skill. All the while, Tang Bingyao was firing away, helping her teammates blow Shanghai High School up.

Chen Ze activated Twisted Fate’s ultimate skill–Destiny! The entire map was revealed to High School 13, with five all-knowing eyes appearing above the five Champions from Shanghai High School. Three died in the next few seconds, with Tang Bingyao picking up a triple kill. The other two broke the tethers connecting them to the Morgana before she could stun them. Lin Feng was chasing after the Irelia and almost had her. But the Jinx was about to get away. Chen Ze smiled and pressed down on his R key again–Warp Gate! The cards opened up a portal for the Twisted Fate, allowing him to step through time and space and arrive right in front of the Jinx. He’d already selected the Gold Card from Pick a Card. It was the single target stun. The Jinx had used all her skills to escape this far. She got stunned by Chen Ze, and then killed by him.

《Aced!》

It was clear that Shanghai High School’s team had mentally tapped out after they lost the first teamfight. This last teamfight just underlined that fact. There was no scenario in which they should’ve allowed the Wukong to completely blindsight them again, especially since they had vision on Baron Nashor and could see he wasn’t there. But that wasn’t something Lin Feng concerned himself with. He just wanted to win this game and move on to the next one. “Let’s finish this right now!” he shouted over the team’s voice chat. Then he started pushing into Shanghai High School’s base. The rest of the team helped him, attacking the inhibitor tower followed by the inhibitor. They pushed towards the nexus and blew it up before Shanghai High School respawned.

VICTORY

“V-V-VIC—TOOOOO—RY!” Westwind shouted into his microphone. “Give it up for WIN FENG AND HIGH SCHOOL 13! WOOOOOO!”

The High School 13 students in the audience happily obliged. Their team was up 1-0 in the Finals of the most important esports tournament in Shanghai! It was only one game, and their emotions had been played with multiple times already. But still. They were up 1-0! Maybe. Just maybe, they could win this whole damn thing! That fickle hope flared. Today was going to be their day! “WIN FENG! WIN FENG!”

The Shanghai Esports Association had invited several eliminated teams to come and watch the Finals. Tonji Affiliated High’s team was one of them. They sat together at the very front of the venue, stunned by the display of pure strategy from High School 13. This game was nothing like the game they played against High School 13. It wasn’t a one man show with Lin Feng hard-carrying High School 13 to a win. This was a team effort. It wasn’t LeBron James playing the whole game with the rest of the Cavs only there to fill out the numbers and pretend it was a team game.

Tonji Affiliated High’s Jungler said, “Wow, they’ve gotten so much better… It’s like they’re a completely different team…” His teammates agreed with him.

Shanghai International’s team was also invited to watch the Finals. They didn’t really want to be there and they wanted to turn the invitation down. But Chu Fang was hosting the event, and Chu Fang was a big name in the professional League of Legends scene. Not just in Shanghai but in all of China. Showing up to the Finals was a fantastic opportunity to build a connection with him for Shanghai International’s star players. They had no choice but to accept the invitation. They grumbled and complained about having to go the entire way there, but they did show up at the Finals. Now they were seated near Tonji Affiliated High’s team and watching the game.

Yan Liang was stewing, forced to watch High School 13 play the Finals against Shanghai High School. This is physically painful to watch! I know exactly what to do! I already had a strategy to beat Shanghai High School ready! But I’m up here… IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME DOWN THERE! I would’ve won this game already if I was down there. ARGH! I don’t know… Why’d it have to turn out this way? ISH! Just win already, Lin Feng! We’ll have some dignity left if you win. I’ll feel better knowing that we lost to the winners! But… we still lost. I lost to Lin Feng. Is he a better midlaner than me? Midlaner… toplaner… whatever he is...

Liu Zhengjie glared at Tang Bingyao and mumbled under his breath, “That stupid bitch got lucky again! How lucky can she get? Fucking hell! Just give me one game where she isn’t so damn lucky. One game! Everyone’ll see how shit she is! Fucking noob bitch whore! Only reason this slut seems good is cause Lin Feng’ll do anything to keep her on his cock!”

✹

After a brief intermission, High School 13 and Shanghai High School’s teams entered Champion Select for Game 2 of the Shanghai 16 School Tournament Finals. The two teams had switched sides and Lin Feng was back in the mid lane while Chen Ze went up top. There were no further changes from the first game. Shanghai High School stuck to the same tactic as they had before, banning out three strong mid lane assassins. This was to the surprise of An Xin. But she didn’t say anything about it and instead focused on High School 13’s team. Finally, both teams locked in their line-ups.

Game 2 of the Shanghai 16 School Tournament Finals:

High School 13 (Blue) versus Shanghai High School (Red)

Top lane: Rumble versus Darius

Jungle: Lee Sin versus Rengar

Mid lane: Lissandra versus Orianna

AD-carry: Lucian versus Jinx

Support: Thresh versus Morgana

Perhaps the biggest surprise in this second game of the Finals was that Zeng Rui let High School 13 pick Thresh. He picked Morgana. Other than that, both teams played strong Champions in the current patch. High School 13 was more focused on teamfights, with Champions like Rumble, Thresh and Lissandra offering powerful area of effect crowd control skills. While Shanghai High School was more focused on picking people off before it could ever get to a teamfight. It was going to come down to execution. The game went into the loading screen.

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

Shanghai High School decided to start the game with a lane swap. Their Botlaners went to the top lane and their Toplaner to the bot lane. This created a situation where the Toplaners from both teams had to play against two Champions, which was an impossible situation. But Darius had an easier time staying in lane and getting experience than the Rumble.

At 3 minutes: Shanghai High School’s Botlaners were pushing the minion wave in the top lane towards the Blue team’s outer tower. Chen Ze was hiding underneath it, unable to pick up any last hits on the minions. But he was still getting experience for being near the minions when they died. He thought he was safe farming like that. They were all still at Level 2 and didn’t have nearly enough health to towerdive. That was, until the Rengar snuck into High School 13’s topside Jungle and appeared behind the outer tower. He worked together with the Jinx and Morgana to kill the Rumble, perfectly trading aggro with the outer tower so that none of them died. First blood went to Shanghai High School.

At 5 minutes: Tang Bingyao and Wei Dong failed at pressuring the Darius. They could push him back to his tower, but there he farmed up relatively safely. They tunnel visioned on the Darius, searching for a way to trip him up. The ward in the river wore off, but they didn’t notice and stayed there for a few seconds longer than they should have. That was all the time the Rengar needed to sneak up on them. He jumped on the Thresh and helped the Darius kill him. Tang Bingyao’s Lucian got out, but that was little solace. Shanghai High School’s lane swap had worked out and left both High School 13’s top and bot lane at a disadvantage.

Shanghai High School was pulling ahead of High School 13 in these early minutes of the game. The only lane that was doing decent for High School 13 was the mid lane. Lin Feng, as was to be expected of him, had gotten a small lead over the Orianna. That wasn’t anywhere near enough to make up for the losses High School 13 had sustained elsewhere on the map. And he couldn’t exactly push for more. His Champion wasn’t an assassin like Fizz, who could towerdive at Level 3. And Shanghai High School’s Midlaner was playing Orianna who was one of the most defensive options available in the mid lane. All in all, this game was going terribly for High School 13.

At 7 minutes: Shanghai High School destroyed the hopes and dreams of all the High School 13 students in the audience. After taking down the outer tower in the top lane, the Botlaners went down to the bot lane. But rather than walking up to the outer tower and defending it from the Lucian and Thresh, they walked into the river where they met up with the Rengar and Orianna. The four of them went down to the bot lane and flanked Tang Bingyao and Wei Dong. Lin Feng still tried to help his Botlaners by Teleporting down. But there was little he could do. In the end, High School 13 lost all three Champions while only getting a single kill in return. Making things even worse, all three of those kills went to the Jinx. Seven minutes since this game started, and High School 13 was already tipping towards a loss.