Chapter 30 – “So, what do you think, little mid laner?”
Qi Qiao looked toward the hero selection screen.
The hero Pei Ming had chosen for this match was Njord, God of the Sea.
This hero’s defining trait was that while inside the jungle, he could remain invisible for a certain period of time.
As long as he wasn’t hit by an enemy skill, the invisibility wouldn’t break. Because of that, targeted abilities were much less threatening to him, especially around the river.
However, as the match went on, Njord’s invisibility duration in the jungle gradually decreased.
So this was a textbook early-to-mid game jungler.
His ganking potential was extremely strong.
But if the match dragged into late game, it became difficult for him to provide meaningful teamfight impact.
Qi Qiao pressed his lips together.
He remembered that Faith’s usual playstyle had always focused on mid-to-late game scaling.
Could it be because he had opened the draft by picking Frigga?
The match officially began, and the randomly selected map was Lost Atlantis.
“Move toward blue side. Check their position.”
Pei Ming’s voice came through the team comms.
This match, Jiang Jiang had picked Griffin, a tank support built for initiation.
After hearing the call, he moved together with Ink, who had picked Tyr, God of War, toward the jungle.
Pei Ming was playing an early-to-mid game jungler.
So if the enemy team wanted to drag the game into late game—or secure an early victory—
they would need to limit Pei Ming’s growth.
And the best way to do that…
was invading his jungle.
Normally, Njord should start at red buff.
But to prevent the enemy team from invading together at level one and stealing camps, Pei Ming chose to start blue instead.
Jiang Jiang moved into position at the river entrance outside blue side and placed vision.
That was when he noticed Qi Qiao had already been waiting in the bush at the front-right side of the Blue Blood Mermaid camp.
Sure enough, the red side had planned a jungle invade from the very start.
Specter, their mid laner Seven, and support player Ao Ao were all approaching blue side together.
Jiang Jiang was playing Griffin, a support that had decent base damage early on, plus naturally high health.
Originally, he had intended to jump in first and chip away at Specter’s HP.
But unexpectedly—
Qi Qiao moved first.
From the brush near blue side, he instantly cast his W ability.
The skill landed with perfect accuracy on Specter, who had been just about to enter the jungle.
Specter was stunned by Karmic Red Lotus.
Seven and Ao Ao reacted immediately, both instantly throwing their abilities toward Qi Qiao.
The moment the fireball connected, Qi Qiao immediately repositioned backward.
He barely grazed past the other two incoming abilities—
but still lost nearly two-thirds of his HP.
Although they managed to trade some damage onto Specter in that exchange—
Qi Qiao’s condition had become terrible.
Once he returned to lane, if he wanted to survive the laning phase safely, he would have no choice but to use a healing pack.
“Ah… that trade wasn’t worth it.”
Jiang Jiang spoke helplessly.
“Qi Qiao, you should’ve waited for me to jump in and poke first before using Karmic Red Lotus. And honestly, leveling Q first would’ve dealt more damage too.”
Frigga was a high-damage hero.
Her W ability, Karmic Red Lotus, was primarily a crowd-control skill.
Meanwhile, her Q ability, Fireball, was her standard damage skill—
so it would definitely have been better for trading damage.
Qi Qiao didn’t say anything.
Hearing only silence over voice comms, Jiang Jiang assumed his words might have made Qi Qiao uncomfortable.
He awkwardly cleared his throat.
“Ahem… Qi Qiao, I didn’t mean it like that. You just joined the team anyway, so misclicking or not coordinating with us yet—”
Jiang Jiang was just about to say, “Your coordination isn’t there yet,” when several sharp piercing sound effects suddenly rang in his ears, followed immediately by the explosive sound of Karmic Red Lotus detonating.
Startled, he quickly looked back at the screen.
At some point, Pei Ming had already circled around to Specter’s flank, positioning himself perfectly.
Just one second before Qi Qiao’s fireball combo ended, he cast his W ability, Sea Spike, landing a precise hit on Specter.
At that exact moment, Qi Qiao’s cooldown refreshed, and he immediately followed up with the remaining damage.
Ao Ao instantly threw out a heal from the other side—
but it was already too late.
As Karmic Red Lotus burned out completely—
[First Blood——]
The announcement echoed through the match.
Qi Qiao secured first blood.
Jiang Jiang was dumbfounded.
For Pei Ming to have arrived that quickly during that exchange—
it meant he hadn’t even started attacking the Blue Blood Mermaid camp at all.
And if Pei Ming had intended to clear jungle efficiently, he should have started with his Q skill first, since that would stack his passive much faster.
But setting all that aside—
Pei Ming’s W damage skill, combined with Qi Qiao’s W crowd-control skill—
created the absolute perfect combo.
Which meant—
Qi Qiao and Pei Ming had somehow displayed an astonishing level of synchronization.
Even the two people inside the referee room were momentarily stunned.
After a pause, Temple Team’s manager finally nudged Rong Qing on the shoulder.
“Oh? Your new mid laner works this well with Devil? Didn’t you guys just sign him?”
Rong Qing was still in a state of confusion himself, but outwardly he laughed it off.
“Yeah, I didn’t expect it either. Maybe the two of them are naturally compatible?”
Temple Team’s manager clicked his tongue.
“Damn… they didn’t even discuss it beforehand and still had that kind of coordination? That was obviously aimed straight at taking Specter’s head. How long have they been practicing together?”
“Uh… maybe they’ve been doing extra practice privately.”
Rong Qing forced out a laugh.
There was no way he could tell him they had never practiced together at all.
But honestly—
he found it strange too.
How were they this synchronized?
Even back when Cup played with Pei Ming, their coordination had never reached this level.
Arms folded, Rong Qing watched the screen as Qi Qiao, after securing the kill, immediately rotated back behind tower toward mid lane.
After quickly clearing a wave, he recalled to base to buy items—
clean and decisive, without wasting a second.
[All Chat] Specter: Nice play.
[All Chat] Ao Ao: Waaaah, D-God, how can you guys play so dirty?!
Earlier, when Ao Ao and Seven had retreated, they had placed a ward in the river.
So now, in order to protect Pei Ming’s upcoming jungle route, Jiang Jiang and Ink both rotated over first to clear vision instead of immediately returning to lane.
By the time they got back—
the minion wave was already about to crash into tower.
[All Chat] Jiang Jiang: You’re the dirty ones! If our captain hadn’t seen through your evil scheme, you’d probably have stolen everything clean—including our underwear!
[All Chat] Seven: Alright, alright, invading blue was our fault. But your new mid laner and D-God definitely had coordination there!
Jiang Jiang instinctively glanced at Qi Qiao before rapidly typing out a response.
[All Chat] Jiang Jiang: Of course. Our Ghost is naturally gifted—him and Captain are a match made in heaven!
[All Chat] Ghost: ?
Qi Qiao had been focused on last-hitting minions when he saw the message.
His hand suddenly twitched.
He missed a cannon minion.
[All Chat] Seven: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ghost is such a kind soul. Worried our gold gap would get too big, so he accidentally missed a cannon minion for us! I’m! So! Touched!
Qi Qiao: “……”
He knew this Seven.
Last season’s semifinals—
the genius who had played Sif, completely whiffed his ultimate, and then flashed forward just to feed.
[All Chat] Jiang Jiang: Wait WHAT? Our little mid laner missed a cannon minion?!
[All Chat] Jiang Jiang: Is this the collapse of morality, or the distortion of human nature?! Ghost, are you seriously donating cannon minions to Seven?!
Qi Qiao landed an entire combo perfectly, blasting Seven down to a sliver of HP and forcing him to retreat.
Then he stared at the screen and took a deep breath.
He couldn’t take it anymore—
Just as he opened chat and was about to start typing into All Chat—
a calm voice suddenly came through his headset.
“Focus on the game.”
Qi Qiao’s fingers froze above the keyboard.
[All Chat] Jiang Jiang: Captain has spoken. I must mute myself now, sob sob sob!
Then another voice came through the headset.
“Ghost.”
Qi Qiao silently closed the chat window before responding.
“Here.”
“Come with me.”
Because of their early advantage, Pei Ming helped him fix the minion wave first.
The two of them secured the river crab and headed straight toward bottom lane for a gank.
On the enemy side, Ao Ao and their AD carry had been playing aggressively, pushing the wave all the way under Ink and Jiang Jiang’s tower.
At that moment, Seven sent a warning ping to bot lane, and the two enemies began retreating.
But Pei Ming had never intended to take the normal route from the start.
Instead, he directly circled around and hid in the brush beside the enemy’s second tower.
Jiang Jiang sucked in a breath.
“Brother… are you two seriously going for a tower dive? The turret protection mechanic is still active right now.”
Pei Ming simply responded—
“Mm.”
Jiang Jiang was just about to say he’d come over to tank tower shots—
when suddenly—
A flash.
Qi Qiao had already blinked forward into tower range and instantly unleashed a full W-Q-E combo, diving straight onto their faces.
Ao Ao and the enemy AD were caught completely off guard.
They immediately tried to throw out their ultimates in response—
but behind them, Pei Ming activated his own ultimate within 0.1 seconds of landing, instantly bursting down Ao Ao.
As a result, Ao Ao’s crowd-control ability never had a chance to connect.
The turret protection mechanic was still active.
By now, Qi Qiao had already tanked two tower shots, and his HP bar was nearly empty.
But Pei Ming moved with astonishing speed.
After killing Ao Ao, he immediately followed up and secured the enemy AD’s kill as well.
Qi Qiao figured dying here wouldn’t be too bad a trade.
So just as he was about to think about what items he should buy after respawning—
a shield suddenly wrapped securely around him.
Healing immediately restored some of his HP—
just enough to block the tower’s fatal final shot.
Startled, Qi Qiao looked up.
Only then did he realize Jiang Jiang’s Griffin had somehow flashed into tower range at some point.
With a clean sequence of moves, he shoved Qi Qiao out of danger while he was hanging on by a thread of HP.
[All Chat] Ao Ao: Jiang Jiang, you can’t play like that! You didn’t leave us even a single kill!
[All Chat] Jiang Jiang: Well, that depends whose kill it is. If it’s Ink’s, you can take it however you want. But our little mid laner? Absolutely not.
[All Chat] Ink: .
Qi Qiao recalled in the brush and saw the messages on the screen.
For a moment, he felt a little awkward.
Still, he cleared his throat and said to Jiang Jiang,
“You played Griffin pretty well.”
Jiang Jiang immediately replied, “That’s fine, then can you delete that video of you roasting me afterward, little mid laner?”
Hearing that, something about it immediately felt wrong to Qi Qiao.
And then he realized the source of the problem—
Little mid laner.
“You can have the video deleted, but drop the little mid laner part.”
Qi Qiao had already returned to his usual cold tone.
Jiang Jiang practically broke out in goosebumps from how icy that sounded.
He was absolutely certain that if he didn’t correct himself today, tomorrow it wouldn’t just be a deleted video—
there would probably be several new roast videos about him instead.
“Got it, got it. Just remember to delete the video, okay?”
Jiang Jiang sounded pitiful.
Because of the advantage they had built up early game, the rest of the match went exceptionally smoothly.
Specter was smart too.
Whenever possible, he avoided direct fights against Pei Ming and Qi Qiao, focusing instead on repeatedly ganking Ah Kai in top lane.
He was probably trying to drag the game into late game.
But this match, Pei Ming’s playstyle was exceptionally ruthless.
When Specter’s team grouped up to start Baron, Pei Ming instantly dove in and eliminated Seven before the fight could properly begin.
That immediately forced Temple Team, already behind in gold, into a full retreat—
allowing Faith to steal Baron.
By the twentieth minute, Temple Team’s AD carry had finally scaled up.
But during the final teamfight, while coordinating with Specter to take down Jiang Jiang, Ink, and Ah Kai—
he was caught and killed by Qi Qiao.
In the end, Pei Ming pushed mid lane and destroyed the Central World Tree, ending the game.
The main purpose of this scrim had been to help everyone regain match rhythm.
So Rong Qing had only arranged a single game with Temple Team—
one match to decide the result.
Jiang Jiang pulled off his headset and let out a long breath.
“That felt amazing. Winning a fast-paced early-to-mid game match like that feels so damn good!”
“Hey, brother, I just realized—you’re insanely good at this early-game fast-tempo jungle style. How about we start playing like this from now on?”
The more Jiang Jiang talked, the more excited he became as he turned toward Pei Ming.
Pei Ming glanced at him and replied calmly,
“That depends on Ghost’s performance.”
Qi Qiao had only taken one side of his headset off when he heard that.
He froze and turned toward Pei Ming.
Pei Ming lowered his long eyes slightly and casually rotated his wrist, looking somewhat tired, almost lazy.
Noticing Qi Qiao looking at him—
Pei Ming smiled.
“So, what do you think, little midlaner?”
Almost instinctively, Qi Qiao bit his lower lip lightly and looked away.
After a long pause—
he finally let out a quiet, “…Mm.”
Jiang Jiang: “???”
Wasn’t it supposed to be—
Drop the little midlaner part?
Author’s Note:
Jiang Jiang: Double standards, you shameless hypocrite!!!!!