Chapter 1532: Post Match What-Ifs

Paladin skill: Angel’s Might.

The skill forced the target back. It ignored Super Armor and resistance from shields.

After the Blue Rain home game against Happy, many analysts had mentioned that if Blue Rain’s healer, Xu Jingxi, had used an Angel’s Might against Boundless Sea and Steamed Bun Invasion, the outcome of that match would have been very different.

There were always all sorts of what-ifs after a match. And in this match between Happy and Tyranny, there were what-ifs as well, and Angel’s Might had once again become a hot topic.

Happy had lost.

The Angel’s Might from Zhang Xinjie’s Immovable Rock hadn’t been the only turning point, but it was the most important one in the team competition. Angel’s Might forced Lord Grim back, and Zhang Xinjie was able to take advantage of that opportunity to reach the support zone. By the time Lord Grim was able to recover, his opponent had become Lin Jingyan’s Dark Thunder.

Post-match analysis had pointed out that Lord Grim could have theoretically intercepted Immovable Rock before he reached the support zone. But in the end, he was one step too slow.

One reason was that Zhang Xinjie’s reaction speed and hand speed weren’t slow. Another reason was that perhaps Ye Xiu had gotten old, or perhaps it was because the exhaustion that Tyranny had built up onto Ye Xiu had finally taken effect.

He had been just a hair off. No one could pinpoint the exact reason, not even Ye Xiu himself.

Happy needed to face the reality of it. The outcome of the second round between Happy and Tyranny ended in Happy’s defeat.

The two teams had returned back to the starting point. This set would be decided in the third game, and because Tyranny had placed higher than Happy in the regular season, the game would be held in Tyranny’s home stadium. However, the home stadium advantage was only limited to additional morale from the home team’s fans and income from ticket sales. Neither team had the advantage of choosing the maps in the deciding match. The maps would be chosen randomly, and they would be maps that no Glory player had ever seen before. The Glory game company had created maps specifically for the playoffs. Before these maps were used, no team would have information on them. The maps would be randomly picked from this collection of playoff maps on the day of the match.

It seemed as if neither side had the map advantage. However, Tyranny consisted of experienced old generals. Their ability to adapt to maps was absolutely higher than Happy’s rookies.

With the match taking place in Tyranny’s home stadium, even though they wouldn’t be choosing the maps, the support from the crowd would certainly have a positive effect on their morale.

The break between game two and game three was two days. It would be unwise for Happy to fly to City H and then fly back. As a result, during these two days, Tyranny could adjust their mindsets to face this final deciding game in the environment that they were most familiar with. As for Happy? Their only choice was to slowly digest their recent defeat in this unfamiliar environment.

The night that match ended, in this unfamiliar city and unfamiliar hotel, there were few people on Happy who were able to sleep soundly.

Chen Guo was someone who always worried, and sure enough, she wasn’t able to sleep. She rolled around in her bed, wanting to find someone to chat with, but at the same time, she didn’t want to bother anyone else. Unable to calm down, she browsed the Internet for three or four hours. Half the time, she was simply staring at a blank page.

There was still one more game left. It could be said that the battle had only just begun. Why did she need to be so nervous?

Chen Guo consoled herself, and then took a look at the page she had just opened. What a coincidence, it was a poll showing their chances in the next game.

Tyranny – 87.3%

Happy – 12.7%

“Fuck!” Chen Guo couldn’t help but curse. The poll was too lopsided! The first game had been Happy’s home game against Tyranny. At that time, people had favored Tyranny, but in the end, Happy had won. As a result, in Happy’s away game against Tyranny, although people still favored Tyranny, the support for Happy had been considerably higher. Why did it suddenly become this lopsided for the third game?

Chen Guo was irritated, thinking that it was unfair. But in her heart, she knew that her uneasiness and worry was because she might be unconsciously thinking the same thing…

Even though half of those three or four hours were her staring blankly at the computer, she had still looked over quite a few comments on their prospects.

Chen Guo had a certain level of ability now. She was no longer the same as before, where she simply believed anything that seemed somewhat reasonable. When she read commentaries online, even when it was by a well-known analyst, she wouldn’t blindly believe it. She would think on her own and come up with her own opinion. But the more she looked, the more nervous she became because she agreed with many of these opinions. She couldn’t come up with anything to refute them.

Such as the advantage that Tyranny had with the random maps.

Such as Happy having trouble adjusting in an unfamiliar environment.

Such as the blow to Happy’s morale after their recent defeat.

These were all valid points. No matter how much Chen Guo didn’t want to think about them, they would still be there.

Especially the part about morale. Chen Guo had personally seen the disappointment and listlessness from Happy after the loss.

Everyone in Happy is strong! After a night’s rest, they’ll be back to normal! Chen Guo kept telling herself this, but she herself couldn’t fall asleep.

After browsing the Internet for those three or four hours, she still couldn’t sleep. After seeing how big the gap was between the two teams in the poll, she definitely couldn’t sleep.

Chen Guo furiously gave a vote for Happy. Nothing changed. The disparity continued to stare back at her.

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At this moment, her QQ flashed. Chen Guo checked. It was Ye Xiu.

“You’re not going to sleep?” Ye Xiu asked.

“You’re not sleeping either.” Chen Guo saw that, like herself, Ye Xiu hadn’t slept. She wasn’t happy at all about it, though – it only made her feel more depressed. In her eyes, Ye Xiu was Happy’s unshakeable pillar. No matter what situation they were in, he would never waver. But it looked like even he couldn’t sleep. It seemed like the problem was far more grave than she had imagine.

“Oh, I got up to steal veggies,” Ye Xiu said**.

“…..” Chen Guo was speechless. She had been with the guy for two years. When had he ever cared about veggies?

“Why can’t I steal your veggies?” Ye Xiu asked.

Chen Guo was furious. She hadn’t taken care of her farm for many years and hadn’t harvested her veggies in a long time. Once someone stole your veggies, you wouldn’t have any veggies left for anyone else to steal. These were the basics. Did he really think he could trick her, saying that he got up to steal her veggies?

“Go to bed. Everything will be fine,” Ye Xiu said.

Chen Guo really wanted to ask what he meant by “fine,” but in the end, she simply typed out an “Okay.”

**(TLN: The author is talking about Happy Farm, which was a very popular farming social network game in China that came out in 2008. You can steal other people’s veggies in this game. The most notable clone/rip-off of Happy Farm is FarmVille (released in 2009).

She turned off her computer and went to bed. Chen Guo tossed and turned restlessly. She would go to sleep for a bit and then wake up. Who knew how many times she had woken up during the night? When she got up to take a look at herself in the morning, she had two dark bags under her eyes.

Ah, our morale! Chen Guo thought to herself. How was she supposed to see everyone? Her nervousness and uneasiness were obvious. It might infect the others.

Chen Guo was still feeling gloomy when she heard a knock from the door.

“Who is it?” Chen Guo asked.

“Are you up, Guo Guo?” Tang Rou answered.

Chen Guo opened the door. Tang Rou was standing outside in her pajamas. When Tang Rou saw Chen Guo, she immediately let out a laugh.

“Looks like you didn’t sleep well again,” Tang Rou said.

“Why do you mean again…” Chen Guo mumbled unhappily. It was true, though. Ever since Team Happy had become official, Chen Guo had often lost a lot of sleep. Every night before a match, she would toss and turn, unable to sleep. Whenever Happy won a match, she wouldn’t be able to sleep because she was too excited. Whenever Happy lost a match, she wouldn’t be able to sleep because she was too depressed. Back when she was an Excellent Era fan, it would only happen occasionally. Now that she was completely invested into Happy, from the Challenger League to the playoffs, Chen Guo had countless sleepless nights.

“Hurry up and get ready. Let’s get breakfast!” Tang Rou said.

Chen Guo went to wash her face and asked, “What about everyone else?”

“Ye Xiu told everyone that was up to go to the practice room,” Tang Rou said.

“Why wasn’t I told?” Chen Guo was puzzled.

Tang Rou bent down and picked up a slip of paper from under Chen Guo’s door. She handed it over to Chen Guo for her to take a look.

“A slip of paper? How crude!” Chen Guo looked down on it in disdain.

“He was afraid of disturbing the others!” Tang Rou said.

Chen Guo stared blankly. It was a good method to communicate with them without disturbing anyone. There was no set time either. It was simply whenever you got up.

Chen Guo wasn’t in the mood to try go back to bed. She quickly tidied herself up. She didn’t bother putting on any makeup to hide the bags under her eyes and dragged Tang Rou out the door with her. She wasn’t in the mood to eat breakfast, but since Tang Rou wanted to, she couldn’t just let her starve.

After eating breakfast, the two went to the practice room.

In away games, the home team would provide them practice rooms. The big teams would have practice rooms specifically for away teams. In the early days, when teams seeked victory by fair means or foul, teams used to intentionally make the away team practice rooms worse to affect the away team’s practice and mood. Later, the Alliance took charge and eliminated this sort of underhanded move by investigating the practice rooms given to away teams ahead of time. Nowadays, no team would suffer from this sort of practice.

Happy had used Tyranny’s away-team practice room before in the regular season and the previous game. The room was quite nice. With Tyranny’s personality, they would never fall so low as to engage in these types of dirty practices.

When the two arrived at the practice room, Ye Xiu was already there. There was also Su Mucheng, Qiao Yifan, Luo Ji, and An Wenyi. The others weren’t there.

Chen Guo looked around. She couldn’t tell how they were doing from their expressions, but at the very least, no one had dark circles under their eyes like her.

She casually gave them a greeting. Chen Guo and Tang Rou went to find their seats. No one said anything. Only the sound of keyboard tapping and mouse clicking could be heard. Ye Xiu got up and waved to Tang Rou. “Here’s a video I want you to take a look at.”

“Sure,” Tang Rou nodded her head and opened the video that Ye Xiu sent her. It was a video of Soft Mist showing clips from last night’s match. Soon afterwards, Ye Xiu got up from his seat and headed over towards her.