Chapter 138
Chapter 138 – Pre-season Meeting (1)
The news of the Canglan team’s victory in the promotion match soon spread through the e-sports circle. As the owner of the Dragon Warriors Club, Liu Chuan personally went to the venue to watch and immediately came backstage after the match.
Once he got backstage, he saw the four teenagers of the Canglan team surrounding Li Cangyu. Their faces were full of excitement and joy, especially Gu Siming who was jumping around. Li Cangyu was very calm as he smiled and spoke to them. Then he saw Liu Chuan and came over. “Boss, we won.”
Liu Chuan smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Everyone did well. Let’s go out for dinner tonight. My treat!”
The group immediately cheered.
Just then, a handsome man came this way. Li Cangyu’s eyes light up when he saw the person and he smiled in welcome. “You also came to watch the match?”
“Yes.” Ling Xuefeng nodded and whispered, “Congratulations.”
He spoke while stretching out his arms. Li Cangyu hugged him in a natural manner. This hug seemed to be the simplest congratulations between friends. Only Li Cangyu knew how warm his heart felt the moment he gently hugged the man in front of him.
Ling Xuefeng personally came to the venue to witness Li Cangyu’s return to the league? Li Cangyu had expected him to come but couldn’t help feeling happy when he actually saw the person.
The two of them hugged for a while, forcing the teammates to wait until the hug ended.
Li Cangyu was probably aware of the sight behind him and let go of Ling Xuefeng. Then he turned back to Liu Chuan. “This is the captain of the Wind Colour team, Ling Xuefeng. Ling Xuefeng, this is the owner of the Dragon Warriors club, Liu Chuan.”
Liu Chuan smiled and held out a hand. “Captain Ling, I have long admired you.”
Ling Xuefeng also held out his hand to shake. “God Chuan, I’m glad to meet you.”
This was the first time Ling Xuefeng and Liu Chuan had met but the e-sports circle was only so big. Liu Chuan was the first e-sports player to become the owner of a club and it was said that everyone in the e-sports circle knew who he was. He was a legendary player, not to mention the size of the Dragon Warriors club was becoming bigger and bigger. Now he had signed the Canglan team to enter Miracle. Ling Xuefeng had naturally heard of this person.
Liu Chuan also had a very deep impression of Ling Xuefeng. It was due to the data on the Miracle League team members that Wu Zewen organized. Among them, the 24 year old Ling Xuefeng was ranked at the front. He also led the Wind Colour team to win the championship last season. His playing was stable and he was the strongest opponent standing in the way of Li Cangyu’s return to Miracle.
The two of them simply shook hands, not intending to talk. Li Cangyu patted Ling Xuefeng’s shoulder and said, “I will go to dinner with my team first. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ling Xuefeng nodded. “Okay, I will contact you later.”
The group had just taken a few steps forward when they saw Tan Shitian, Cheng Wei, Su Guangmo and Yu Pingsheng walk over. Li Cangyu couldn’t help laughing. “Isn’t today really lively? Such a big group is welcoming me back?”
Zhuo Hang immediately hid behind Bai Xuan and pretended he didn’t exist.
Cheng Wei saw Li Cangyu and excitedly rushed over, happily hugging him and crying out, “Cat God, Cat God, congratulations! Great, I will be able to see you in the future!”
Li Cangyu said, “You want me to abuse you on the field?”
Cheng Wei was dissatisfied. “Maybe I will abuse you!”
Li Cangyu patted him on the head. “Wake up, how can you abuse me?”
Cheng Wei boasted, “I am much more powerful than I was before. Believe it!”
Tan Shitian walked over with a smile. “Congratulations to Cat God.”
Su Guangmo also came over. “Congratulations.” Then he reached out and patted Xie Shurong on the shoulder. “Welcome back.”
Xie Shurong was puzzled. “Brother, you came to Beijing so early? Doesn’t the first division start on May 10th?”
Su Guangmo explained, “There will be a meeting for captains tomorrow. I went one day ahead to watch your match with Xiao Yu.”
Yu Pingsheng had been following Su Guangmo like a ghost. He had a low existence as always. Xie Shurong looked over at him and he only smiled gently. Xie Shurong knew that Yu Pingsheng didn’t like to talk and just returned the smile.
***
After greeting some old friends, Li Cangyu took everyone to dinner with Liu Chuan. Liu Chuan had already booked a table for the party.
During dinner, Li Cangyu took the initiative to stand up and make a toast. “This time, everyone played a role in our successful promotion. I want to toast everyone!”
The group immediately stood up and raised their glasses, shouting, “Cheers!”
In retrospect, it wasn’t easy to come all this way. However, everyone knew that the teams in the second division were weaker and relatively easier to face than the giants of the first division. The promotion was just the beginning of a new phase for everyone. There was only nine days until the opening of the seventh season’s first division. They couldn’t relax.
Everyone sat down and Li Cangyu continued speaking. “Tomorrow, I will participate in the pre-season preparatory meeting with Bai Xuan. The others will go back to Changsha to pack their luggage. I will give you a week off. Everyone, use this time to rest and recharge your batteries. Then we will go to Beijing on March 9th to participate in the opening ceremony of the first division.”
Liu Chuan had no opinion on Li Cangyu’s decision. “Tomorrow I will go back to the club with everyone. Cat God, after the meeting, remember to send me the schedule. I will arrange the team’s round-trip tickets and hotels in advance, leaving the training time to you.”
Li Cangyu nodded. “No problem. I will send the schedule to your email.”
***
They returned to the hotel and Li Cangyu went to sleep directly after taking a shower.
His spirit had been highly strained during this time, especially the days of closed door training before the promotion match. He stayed up late every night. Now that the promotion match was over, his spirit relaxed and his sleep was particularly deep.
At noon the next day, Zhang Jueming woke up up before setting off for the airport. “Cat God, it is almost time for the meeting. You should get up!”
Li Cangyu rubbed his eyes and sat up. He found it was already bright and couldn’t help rubbing his temples. “How did I sleep so long? It is already noon.”
Zhang Jueming laughed. “Vice-Captain Bai said that you should find him to have lunch once you wake up. I have to go to the airport first.”
“Yes, pay attention to safety on the road.”
Li Cangyu finished washing up and headed to the next room where Bai Xuan had already packed up. Once he heard the doorbell, Bai Xuan immediately opened the door and looked at him. “You actually slept until noon. Are you that tired?”
Li Cangyu smiled. “I’m fine after getting a lot of sleep. Shall we have lunch first?”
“Okay, we will go to the meeting after you’re done eating.”
The two people ate lunch near the hotel before taking a taxi to the venue. Due to encountering a traffic jam, almost everyone else was present when they arrived.
The first division’s preparatory meeting was held at an official hotel that cooperated with the league. Apart from the captains and vice-captains, there were a number of media reporters from well-known e-sports websites and magazines present.
Li Cangyu and Bai Xuan were surrounded by reporters as soon as they arrived.
“Cat God, what do you want to say to the fans about making it to the first division?” “Cat God, previously you didn’t get a trophy after so many years in Miracle and Wulin. This time you came back, do you have confidence in winning the prize?”
Li Cangyu smiled. “Of course I am confident that I will win the prize. Otherwise, why did I come back?”
The reporters, “…”
This sentence was really domineering! What was the point of coming back without winning the prize? He came back to get the prize!
A female reporter stepped forward and said excitedly, “Cat God, have you discovered that after the Canglan team’s promotion yesterday, your Weibo has rise by tens of thousands of fans overnight?”
“Is that so?” Li Cangyu was a bit surprised before smiling honestly. “Thank you for the attention. I was previously too busy to go online but I will post on Weibo in the future. I can’t write small paragraphs to amuse everyone like Captain Tan but I can share with you many fish eating methods.”
The reporters, “…”
Sharing the methods to eat fish? Cat God, you are an e-sports player, not a chef! We aren’t following you to see you eat fish!
A reporter ran over and asked Bai Xuan, “Vice-Captain Bai, do you have anything you want to say?”
Bai Xuan glanced over at Li Cangyu and smiled. “You can find my Weibo from Cat God’s friends list. In the future, I will also go on Weibo and share with you a wide variety of food.”
The reporters, “…”
The Canglan team should change its name to the Food team. The vice-captain didn’t know how to take about tactical related issues but was happy to talk about food… how could they have a good interview?
Li Cangyu and Bai Xuan were tacit partners and fooled the reporters with these simple sentences.
In fact, it wasn’t good to answer many questions before the matches. It was easy to be beaten by their own words if they were too exaggerated. If they were too modest, some people would say they were acting contrived. It was better to wait for the real matches before answering questions.
Li Cangyu didn’t want to be targeted before the matches started because he was too high profile. After all, the shot hits the bird that pokes its head out! (TL: Conformity is better than individuality. It wasn’t good to stand out)
***
The two of them walked into the meeting and found many captains and vice-captains already sitting down.
At the meeting place, the seats of the captains and vice-captains had been set in advance. The team seats were arranged according to the initials in pinyin. The C of Canglan and F of Wind Colour (Feng Se in pinyin) happened to be next to each other.
Originally, the seat arrangement was Ling Xuefeng, Yan Ruiwen, Li Cangyu and Bai Xuan. However, after seeing Li Cangyu, Yan Ruiwen politely stood up and shook hands with him. Then he consciously changed seats with Ling Xuefeng.
Thus, Ling Xuefeng sat next to Li Cangyu.
Li Cangyu glanced at Yan Ruiwen and couldn’t help praising in his heart, ‘You are really sensible!’
Yan Ruiwen gave him a friendly smile before looking back at the podium.
Wind Colour’s vice-captain had a relatively weak presence. After all, Ling Xuefeng was such a strong captain that he covered up the light of the vice-captain.
In fact, Yan Ruiwen was Ling Xuefeng’s best assistant. He took care of many daily arrangements in the Wind Colour team. Yan Ruiwen had debuted in the second season and was three years younger than Ling Xuefeng. He was a newcomer discovered by the former vice-captain Yuan Shaozhe. Ling Xuefeng also often guided him during his debut year, causing him to feel considerable respect for Ling Xuefeng.
He knew that the two men had a lot to talk about and consciously changed seats. This was enough to see the man’s careful nature.
Li Cangyu sat next to Ling Xuefeng and saw his handsome side profile. He couldn’t help whispering, “I can finally be with you.”
A smile appeared on Ling Xuefeng’s serious face and he spoke in a low voice, “Sit down and don’t be photographed by reporters.”
Li Cangyu whispered, “Why should I be afraid of being photographed? I will just say that I am sending you a challenge. You will end up in second place.”
Ling Xuefeng looked into his smiling eyes. This straightforward person always challenged his limits. If there weren’t so many people present, Ling Xuefeng would hold him down and kiss him speechless.
The two men faced each other. On the podium, the Miracle League’s chairman Nan Jiangang finally stood at his spot. His low-pitched voice was amplified by the microphone. “Colleagues of the Miracle League, team captains, vice-captains and journalist friends, a good afternoon to everyone. The pre-season preparatory meeting for the seventh season of the Miracle League has now officially started.”