Heartless’ real name was Wang He. He was a student at East China University of Science and Technology. Right now, he sat behind his desk letting his rage take full control of him. He Alt F4’d out of the game of League and gripped his mouse tightly, lifted it up, and then slammed it down on his desk. “FUCK!” he screamed, picking his mouse back up and slamming it down again. “FUCK!” Something cracked as his mouse hit the wood of his desk for a third time. “FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUCK ALL OF THEM! USELESS FUCKING TEAMMATES!”

The loss against the two female streamers cut at Wang He where it hurt the most. He truly believed that the only reason his stream wasn’t gaining viewers was because there were female streamers who hogged all the viewers by showing off their cleavage. And he’d just lost against exactly this kind of streamer. Those fucking thots can’t play for shit! Fucking bullcrap! Wang He wouldn’t be Heartless if he accepted the loss of the game and of his viewers. He ground his teeth and punched his keyboard. Fucking teammates! If they weren’t so goddamn useless I wouldn’t have lost this game! Fuck!

Wang He turned to his webcam and raged, “It’s those shitty-ass teammates! That stupid Leona! Why did she have to engage at Level 2? She got me killed! And then that Jarvan… Don’t get me started on the Jarvan! That piece of shit just threw his life away in that gank! Didn’t he see we were stuck behind the minions? We couldn’t do anything! Yet he just went in there all by himself and gave the fucking Draven a kill!” He took a moment to catch his breath, then continued on full tilt, “And what were mid and top doing? Were they blind or something? Couldn’t they see Draven was getting fed? What did they think? Just ignore and pretend it’ll be fine? Idiots! They’re all idiots! If they’d been half decent players, they’d come to the bot lane and helped me turn this fight around! We would’ve gotten a kill or two on the Draven and shut that thot down!”

There were still well over 50 viewers watching Wang He’s stream, sticking around purely for the epic meltdown. And Wang He wasn’t finished yet. He started jabbing his screen and screaming at his camera, spit flying everywhere. “I SWEAR! You can’t fucking climb in ranked because of all the brainless fucktards! They gave that Draven four kills! What was I supposed to do? There’s nothing I could do! She was too fed! The game was over! There is no fucking reason to keep playing! I did the only sensible thing!”

「bro, you know you played like shit too, right?」

「who’s the dumbass who got hit by the nami Q first? loooool」

「hahahahha this is epic dude. Keep raging please. Gimme more of this sweet salt XD」

「Hahahahhahah… man you suck」

「stop being a shit streamer. Fucking own up to your shit. scrub」

「if you cant tell why that draven and nami get all the views, then you in for a harddddd time my very not friend」

“You’re all fucking blind!” Wang He shouted at his screen. He flicked his mouse and deleted every single message that had anything else than supportive words in them. Then he took it a step further, banning everyone whose messages he didn’t like. “I don’t need noobs telling me shit! NO NOOBS ALLOWED IN THIS STREAM! And if you can’t tell that those two thots were trash, you’re a noob!”

The people who were left in the stream after the ban purge were those who hadn’t bothered to type in chat. But they’d seen enough. Watching Wang He’s epic meltdown was enjoyable for a bit, but it was growing stale. They hit the unfollow button or simply left the steam. There was nothing here worth seeing. None of them were planning to come back.

Wang He saw the number of followers drop as did the number of viewers, until there was almost no one left. This only served to further infuriate him. In his mind, his stream was the best. They should be fucking happy to be here! It’s their good fortune to see me play! He shouted at the top of his lungs, “FINE! FUCKING LEAVE! YOU THINK I FUCKING CARE? I DON’T! GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE! GO JERK OFF TO YOUR TITTY STREAMS! LOSER—”

The door to Wang He’s dorm room suddenly swung open and a male student walked in. He had a big grin on his face and said, “Yo, Wang He! Hear you’re still streaming. How’s it going, mister big time streamer? You getting more popular yet?”

Wang He didn’t know half how fast he had to close his stream. He then turned around to look at the male student and laughed awkwardly. “Oh, uh, heh. Hey, Hu Hui. It’s going decent, I guess. Slowly growing every day. All I really need is to be featured once. I’ll make it big.”

“Not bad. Not bad at all, man! I could hear you all excited from down the hallway!” Hu Hui said, laughing. “Anyway, I came to let you know the team captain has called a meeting. Probably something to do with the Collegiate Cup. It’s starting in a few days already. I’m guessing he wants us to practice some more.”

Wang He turned off his computer with two fast clicks and then stood up. “No worries. I was just done with streaming anyway. Let’s go see what Zhu Feng wants from us.”

The two friends left the dormitory together, casually chatting. The esports clubroom was in another building, and with the Collegiate Cup starting in only a few days, that was naturally where their conversation drifted towards. Hu Hui nodded at a few people walking by and then said to Wang He, “Did you hear? There’s three high school teams competing in the Collegiate Cup. That’s not all. It gets even better. There’s a rumour going around that the high school team from Shanghai beat the Shanghai University of Finance 2-0 in a scrim last Saturday!”

“A high school team?” Wang He asked. He then snorted and said, “Just a bunch of high schoolers. What’s the big deal? I bet Luo Yu and those guys had some first years play for them?”

Hu Hui shook his head and explained, “That’s not what I heard. Apparently the high school team played against the main roster. They beat Luo Yu.”

Wang He’s stopped walking, surprised. They beat Luo Yu? That… That can’t be! Yeah, it can’t be. He sneered and said, “Then they were probably just sandbagging for the lols. Or their good members graduated? I don’t know what you heard, but you really believe a bunch of high schoolers can beat that team? Piss off. I don’t believe it. If they got really beaten, then they don’t deserve to be the third ranked team in East China. We’ll kick them off their pedestal!”

✹

Tang Bingyao played several more games together with Su Xue. They won each one of them. Not that it was much of a challenge. Tang Bingyao was practically a Master rank ad-carry, while she was duo queuing with Su Xue who was only Platinum. That placed their shared rank somewhere in low Diamond. There wasn’t a single ad-carry at this rank who could beat Tang Bingyao. That combined with her highly aggressive style of play, and she won games before anything could even happen in the top or mid lane.

The viewers were loving every second of the stream. This more than made up for the sudden end to the stream from the night before. Tang Bingyao even started interacting with them a bit after the initial nerves wore down. She smiled and thanked them for their compliments. She even cracked a few jokes and pointed out why their opponents weren’t all that good.

Su Xue was also happy, but for another reason entirely. She was constantly looking for ways to increase the popularity of her stream. One of the tricks she’d been playing around with recently was the stream title. It could be used to trick unsuspecting people browsing HuyaTV to click on the stream. When they open the stream and see me, they’ll keep watching! I just need to get them in here! And these titles are working great for that! She smiled, glancing at the stream title.

~_^ Two Girls Duoing in Diamond and having fun! ~_^

This morning is really good! My viewer numbers are higher than ever before! For the first time, all by herself with only a little help from Tang Bingyao, Su Xue hit 10,000 viewers! She wanted to keep playing for hours and days and however long the number of viewers kept climbing. There were so many people here watching her and she hated to let them all down by going offline. But noon was fast approaching. Tang Bingyao and Lin Feng had to leave soon and she still had to make them lunch. So after yet another win, she turned to the webcam and said, “Sorry, guys. That was the last one. I need to make lunch, and these two are heading out soon.”

「TANG TANG, DON’T LEAVE UUUS!」

「PRO GAMERS DON’T NEED TO EAT!」「Have xue xue go cook! Tang Tang can stay and play a few more games of solo queue! Oh, how about having her duo with lil bro!」

「tang tang should set up her own stream! I’m getting bored of watching xue xue anyway」

Su Xue narrowed her eyes and said, “You can kiss her ass all you want! I don’t care. But how dare you say you’re bored with my stream!? I’m right here! At least say it behind my back!”

「I would, but my car only has half a tank of gas!」

“You’re not funny. I’m not fat!” Su Xue yelled. Then she closed the stream, sending a few more messages in the chat. Her viewers loved to tease her. She would act mad. They would apologize. And the cycle repeated itself. She shook her head before getting up and going to the kitchen. She said to Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao, “You kids do something. I’m going to make lunch.”

Lin Feng completely ignored Su Xue. Something else entirely was on his mind. He looked at Tang Bingyao and said, “I think they’re right, Tang Tang! You should set up your own stream! That way, if we can’t find sponsors for our superteam 2.0, we can just earn some money with that stream! Oh! Oh! And we can have BunBun stream too! We’re going to make so much money!”

Su Xue paused at the door to her room. She turned back around to look at Lin Feng and said, “You’re planning on making two girls work hard and earn money just for them to give it all to you? I dare you to tell that idea to BunBun.”

✹

The players from Team Shanghai gathered at the cybercafe around 1 P.M. Zeng Rui had already prepared a chalkboard in their private room and An Xin was standing in front of it. She clapped her hands together and smiled. “Alright! Everyone’s here! Let’s get started with a warm-up game!”

Lin Feng put his hand up in the air and, without waiting for his turn, said, “BunBun! I came up with a great plan! Listen. How about you and Tang Tang start streaming? Both a different stream! And then you give the money you make to me and I’ll spend it on the superteam 2.0! Doesn’t that sound great?”

An Xin’s expression fell. She looked at Lin Feng for a long, hard second. Her lips started curving upwards. Murder appeared in her eyes. But then she shook her head and turned to Tang Bingyao. Can’t deal with that idiot right now. Her smile became kinder, the anger disappearing from her eyes. She asked, “How are you feeling? A headache? You did get pretty wasted last night…”

Tang Bingyao felt her face heat up. She looked down at her feet and shook her head. “I… I’m fine. Thanks. My head doesn’t really hurt. It won’t affect my gameplay.” She glanced at An Xin from the corners of her eyes before quickly looking away. I’m not telling anyone what happened last night! Nothing happened! Mhm! Nothing happened! She glanced at An Xin again. She can never know that I slept at Lin Feng’s place! She chewed on her lips, her heart racing and smashing into her ribs. Please don’t say what happened, Lin Feng. Please keep your mouth shut!