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Chapter 965 - Controversy

"Excellent Era has no shame!!!"

When Chen Guo heard what Ye Xiu had said, she immediately tore the newspaper into pieces.

"How should we counter that?" Chen Guo asked Ye Xiu lividly. 

"Beat them." Ye Xiu said.

"Uh… what else?" Chen Guo asked.

"Isn't that enough?" Ye Xiu was astonished.

"That's a must, sure? But what about right now? How should we strike back?" Chen Guo asked.

"We don't really need to." Ye Xiu's expression seemed as if he feared more trouble.

"Do you have a future? Why are you always taking the blame. You're being smeared to sh*t!" Chen Guo yelled.

"Too vulgar!" Wei Chen watched with disdain, while he laughed hysterically.

"Stop laughing!" Chen Guo glared. She wasn't in the mood to joke around. She was actually angry. 

Wei Chen hurriedly refrained himself from laughing, and seriously analysed the situation. "It's not that easy to strike back on this matter. We can't actually tell the truth, right? This was something Excellent Era chose to do."

"I'm so angry." Chen Guo looked around, as if she was searching for something to smash. However, they would need to pay for things they break at a hotel, so Chen Guo couldn't find anything suitable to throw around. In the end, Ye Xiu stuffed a pillow into her hands. Chen Guo received the pillow without throwing it, she merely held it while being lost in thought.

"Don't be angry. We have a competition tomorrow, so let's just leave these matters to them. Don't be distracted." Ye Xiu consoled for the first time.

"We must beat Excellent Era!" Chen Guo said.

"Of course, of course." Ye Xiu agreed.

Chen Guo left. After hearing Ye Xiu's analysis, she knew what sort of storm Excellent Era's manipulation would bring up. Chen Guo also knew that whatever stays unseen, remains clean, but she couldn't help but to care about the matter. But after taking a look online, she deeply regretted why she couldn't control herself.

Last time Excellent Era revealed the fact that Team Happy was recruited by Ye Qiu, the fans got worked up.. They even went to besiege Happy Internet Cafe in order to protest. However, Excellent Era and their fans' face were brightly slapped from the Esports Home paper. Now, Excellent Era finally found a chance to return the new and old grudge, and had a reasonable explanation for the unfinished matter last time: See? We weren't in the wrong. This guy changed his name, so he managed to slip through it.

As a result, it seemed as if using the name Ye Xiu was to avoid responsibility. This was why the reaction from Excellent Era's fans was even fiercer than last time. A lot of fans even expressed having complete heart break, and that they would change from fans to haters. Chen Guo was annoyed! She explicitly organized what information she knew about the situation, and posted on the forums. She hoped that the fans would reflect on it objectively and logically.

The reaction from the post was quite fierce, and there were countless replies. When Chen Guo looked through them, she nearly died from anger. Though there were some who believed her words, the majority of the players were mocking her. Chen Guo thought what she wrote was reasonable, but those people picked some quotes out to mix up truths with lies. Chen Guo tried to speak up and argue, but after disputing for several pages, Chen Guo received a nickname: Qiu's Dog.

Chen Guo wasn't sure if it was someone from Excellent Era, since they deliberately twisted black and white after seeing the truth. She didn't want to give up, so she continued to debate according to the facts. After several pages, Chen Guo upgraded. She was no longer 'Qiu's Dog'. Someone gave her a new nickname: Ultra Villain.

Chen Guo finally gave up.

On Tuesday 4/23, the offline tournament finally began.

There weren't any opening ceremonies. The league's chairman Feng Xianjun personally came and announced the start of the tournament.

There were four groups of five teams. Two pairs of teams went against each other, so there would always be a team without an opponent. Apart from pro teams, the majority of the players didn't have experience on stage, so even if that team wasn't required to come, they would still like to witness the stadium atmosphere.

Team Happy managed to pick an empty slot on the first round, but they still came. The biggest difference between the stage now and on match day was naturally the crowd. For many, being watched so attentively by so many people made everything feel unnatural. As a result, this was something the newbies had to learn to adapt to.

For Team Happy, it was obvious that people like Ye Xiu wouldn't have such obstacles. As for the newbies, Ye Xiu felt that it wouldn't be much of a problem for Tang Rou and Steamed Bun. So the ones who needed to adapt were the remaining members.

Despite being a participating team, they couldn't just go onstage to look around since they had no opponent this round. Happy could only sit in the dedicated seats for the contestants on the side and enjoy the match like a crowd member.

The stadium didn't have too many people, but there were teams like Excellent Era who were competing, so the number of seats occupied was already much better than the years before. The Alliance had considered making an exception by setting the Challenger League in City H, so there would be a good box office. However, on second thought, it meant that they were making it a home ground for Excellent Era. They would be siding with Excellent Era too much, so they could only drop the idea.

However, Excellent Era was a powerhouse, so they had fans supporting them all over the country. Let alone those fanatical fans who would pursue their teams everywhere to watch their matches and activities. Many fans in the crowd held up banners and placards in support of Excellent Era. Other teams could only take part in admiring and envying. There weren't on the same level, so they wouldn't fantasise about those treatments.

The eight matches began at the same time, but they didn't finish at the same time. Excellent Era, who was the strongest team here, undoubtedly finished the quickest. Simply put, it was instant destruction for the other team. As for the other seven matches, some were even tangled up in the individual competition still, while Excellent Era had a complete victory of 10:0. The difference in strength was fairly great. When the pro players of Excellent Era went off stage, they weren't really proud or arrogant. The team that lost also wasn't dispirited or crestfallen. It was as if all of this should happen.

"What losers!!" Chen Guo just had to look down contemptfully at such attitudes.

The ones that Team Happy cared about most had to be the two matches within their group: the two matches form Group B: Team Trader versus Team Ten Steps One Kill; Team Mysterious Fantasy versus Team Cloud View Pavillion.

Teams that could make it to the offline matches had to be fairly strong. They were worthy of being watched. Every year, quite a few pro teams would pick out players that made it this far, and would immediately sign them as pro players. There were active players that entered the pro scene with this as the springboard. The most well known players had to be Li Xuan of Team Void, and Fang Rui of Team Wind Howl. Those two were discovered at the Challenger League, and they were now All Stars. They were constantly used to advertise Challenger League.

Ye Xiu had the same intentions. He paid attention to every match in the competition. Compared to the victories and losses, he cared more about every player's performance. However, until now, they wasn't anyone who could make his eyes light up. Even if they were especially outstanding, Ye Xiu didn't dare to have high hopes. It was unknown how many teams were sitting in the crowd searching for potential stars.

It took over an hour for the eight matches on the first day to completely finish. After the matches in Group B, Team Mysterious Fantasy gained nine points, and was ranked first. Team Ten Steps One Kill was ranked second with seven points. Team Trader was ranked third with three points, and Team Cloud View Pavillion fourth with one point. After watching, Ye Xiu had a clearer idea of the strength of the four teams. Team Mysterious Fantasy was a pro team, so their strength was obviously stronger. However, they were only strong to a certain point. They weren't able to get a clean set of ten points like Excellent Era. Instead, they had lost a point in the individual competition.

The second round would take place Friday night. In this round, Team Cloud View Pavillion of Group B would be vacant. Team Happy would go against Team Ten Steps One Kill, while Team Mysterious Fantasy would go against Team Trader.

In the few days before their match, there was no peace at all. There was a huge wave of controversy over Ye Qiu-Ye Xiu in the Esports Home. This wave had nothing to do with the matter of Ye Xiu's identity, which everyone had been worried about earlier. No one had any suspicions about this matter. What people cared about was that God Ye Qiu was clashing with Excellent Era in Challengers League. The fans weren't able to understand, while other people merely watched for fun. As a result, it was extremely heated. As for Happy, they immediately received many requests for an interview from media all over the country. They wished that Happy would make some sort of response towards the matter. The majority of the requests for interviews was ejected. It wasn't until the Esports Home paper with a page layout just like last week's did everyone see an interview with Ye Xiu from Happy.

The interview was with Ye Xiu, who was also Ye Qiu, which was something very rare to see. However, no one really cared about this fact at this point.

In this interview, everyone was able to see Ye Xiu's response towards the heated question.

"I created a team to join the Challenger League. Excellent Era also joined because they were eliminated, so we happened to meet. That's all."

"So you're saying that, you were already preparing to create a team before Excellent Era was eliminated?" The journalist asked.

"That's right. After I left Excellent Era, I picked up my current character in the newly opened tenth server. I met some companions along the way, so we decided to create a team."

"Judging from what you just said, you guys didn't have that ambition at the start?" The journalist asked.

"Yep, everyone was just playing for fun in the beginning. If I had such ambitions, why would I retire?"

"What was it that caused you to make such a big resolution in the end? From what I know so far, your team was formed in an Internet cafe across street from Excellent Era. There was even a lot of unpleasant disagreements with Excellent Era fans at the time." The journalist mentioned. 

"That's because I later found out that the people in my team had a lot of potential. They definitely had the skill, so they should have the opportunity to perform on a better stage. That's why I decided to give it my all in the Challenger League."

"Then why are you targeting Excellent Era in particular? Some people think that it's your way to promote the hype." The journalist asked. 

"Of course we need to target Excellent Era. This is because Excellent Era is undoubtedly the strongest opponent in the Challengers League. By targeting Excellent Era, we can show our ambition."

"But you were once a core member of Excellent Era. Now you have to compete with Excellent Era in the Challengers League to get the one and only spot. How do you feel about it?" The journalist asked.

"Do all I can to beat them. This is my respect towards Glory."

"Have you ever thought that doing this would hurt a lot of people?" The journalist asked.

"This is not something I can decide. This is the nature of competition. There can one champion."

"Then what about the champion of this season's Challenger League?" The journalist asked.

"I would like to say that it's going to be Happy, but wouldn't that seem disrespectful towards our opponents? Let's wait and see..."

But you still said it... This remark came from Chang Xian, the interviewer.

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