Chapter 28 – Who’s Being Despicable?
At the same time, the moment they entered battle mode, Little Blue, Little Black, and Little White surrounded their team leader, their differently colored eyebrows flying with urgency. “So… how do we play this round?”
In different rooms, Yang Sa and Shao Zhan responded almost simultaneously: “We play it how it’s meant to be played.”
“This… probably isn’t…” Tangyuan cautiously bit the collar of his shirt, his chubby body twisting as if about to take off. “…a good idea.”
“What’s not good about it?” Shao Zhan asked in confusion. He curled his long fingers and gave each teammate a knock on the forehead, then pushed open the door and entered. “Get your spirits up. LAP isn’t an easy team to deal with.”
In another operations room just ten meters away from Team Xinghai, Yang Sa stood with his arms crossed.
“Win first before you start boasting.”
His lips curled in their usual sneer—but this time, the target wasn’t someone else.
“Xinghai is a formidable opponent. That person…”
Yang Sa didn’t finish his sentence. He knew too well that beneath Shao Zhan’s refined appearance hid a terrifying strength.
Facing Xinghai, he wasn’t confident in winning. But the match had just begun—who said he didn’t stand a chance at fighting them on equal footing?
“It’s starting.”
The team captains calmly issued instructions to their players.
The plane drew a sharp straight line down the map. The flight path was short, concentrating the teams more closely, which typically meant fiercer battles.
“Does it have to be this intense?” Tangyuan fiddled miserably with his headset, muttering under his breath, “This is just the first round…”
Captain Shao Zhan remained unfazed, silently studying the map he already knew by heart.
He was a skilled fighter, but he never rushed into battle.
He was using the flight path to guess the opponent’s strategy. After a few rounds, LAP’s strength was obvious to all—they could no longer rely on eccentric appearances to catch the enemy off guard.
Against a strong opponent, most teams would focus on early-game development and wait for a chance to exploit Xinghai’s weaknesses.
Shao Zhan marked a spot on the map. He wanted to test for himself just how much that long-absent boy had improved.
At the same time, in a different operations room, Little Black, also suffering under his headset, irritably fiddled with the mic. All ten of his fingers were covered in flashy gemstone rings. He smacked his lips in frustration and tilted his head.
“This flight path sucks. Straight lines drive me crazy.”
Yang Sa was unaffected. He had studied this map overnight before—every resource point, every garage along the route, was etched into his mind.
He was guiding the enemy’s thoughts—because he knew that right now, Shao Zhan must be trying to read his.
When facing a team as strong as Xinghai, most teams would choose to avoid conflict early on. They’d focus on farming in the wild areas, hoping to leverage superior equipment to gain the upper hand in later fights.
That’s how most people think—and Shao Zhan would surely expect it. But Yang Sa refused to give him that chance. He was determined to take the fight to Xinghai head-on.
No one at the scene knew it, but if this cold-faced young man were sitting at a poker table, he would undoubtedly be the wildest gambler of them all.
He was familiar with Shao Zhan’s tactical style. At least in this match, he was certain Shao Zhan wouldn’t launch an aggressive early game—after all, Xinghai’s players had just come off a previous match and needed some buffer time to adjust their rhythm.
Since Xinghai wanted to take it easy, Yang Sa wasn’t going to let them.
He marked the air-raid shelter at the center of the map—a location that allowed easy access whether Xinghai jumped to M City below or to Y City in the opposite direction.
He had no time to waste on slowly gearing up at the airport. He was here for a showdown with that person.
Following Yang Sa’s instructions, LAP hit the ground like unleashed tigers. Wherever they went, enemies fell into boxes one after another.
Watching the flood of kill announcements on screen, Tangyuan quietly rubbed his feet together.
“Uh, Captain… didn’t we drop a bit off the usual route?”
While LAP dominated the kill feed, the Xinghai team was still high up at 10,000 meters, enjoying the view.
Jiang Ranan wore the same worried expression, nodding repeatedly in agreement.
Only Shao Zhan adjusted his equipment unhurriedly, his reaction speed rivaling a dinosaur’s. After a moment, he finally responded, “What did you say?”
“I said…” Tangyuan took a deep breath, but the moment he saw Shao Zhan’s look, all his bravado deflated.
“Nothing, I didn’t say anything. Just pretend I farted.”
In that moment, Tangyuan felt like he was being overly fussy. Whether the team was good, whether the marker was right, how the match went—what business was that of his? He was just a stuffed rice ball, only useful during Lantern Festival. No need to think, just close his eyes and play.
But Zhuang Bai, silent as always, had already figured out Shao Zhan’s intentions.
Yang Sa had stirred up the entire Jiangling esports scene with his team—but had carefully avoided Xinghai the whole time. That likely wasn’t just out of fear of the team’s strength… but of a certain someone.
Now that they were face to face, whether it was part of the plan or not, there was no backing down. If there were grudges, they’d be settled. If there were debts, they’d be repaid.
If it were an ordinary person, they’d naturally try to buy time to gear up before engaging in battle. But Yang Sa wasn’t just any ordinary person. It was no surprise that he’d want to go straight for Xinghai right from the start. Besides, LAP had been winning back-to-back matches and was riding high on momentum. With that surge of morale, a swift and decisive attack might just lead to victory.
Shao Zhan had accurately guessed Yang Sa’s eagerness to fight, which was why he chose the mountaintop ruins at the edge of the map. Though the loot there wasn’t the most abundant, its high elevation gave it a natural advantage.
Of course, it still depended on how the safe zone shrank—but from the looks of it, some people wouldn’t wait for the circle to close before coming to trouble Xinghai.
After landing, the frontline player Tangyuan quickly took out enemies who had dropped at the same mountain peak. Shao Zhan and Zhuang Bai scouted the area for weapons, while Jiang Ranan headed to the vehicle spawn point to find a car.
If it weren’t for being on a battlefield, Tangyuan would’ve thought he’d wandered into a farming novel. Life here was just too peaceful—sunbathing, enjoying the breeze, and when you got bored, you could take a drive and admire the scenery. If it weren’t for the occasional appearance of a few little robots to spice things up, he might’ve actually dozed off.
Meanwhile, as Tangyuan blissfully imagined himself in a farming simulator, LAP’s team was locked in a bitter struggle.
Climbing up from the lower-middle portion of the map wasn’t something that could be accomplished in one go.
Comparing the battle reports with the map, Yang Sa realized he’d made a miscalculation. He had guessed Shao Zhan would avoid early conflict—he just hadn’t expected him to be this thorough about it.
The plan to intercept Xinghai had to be postponed. LAP had no choice but to hone their aim and wear down opponents over several rounds, waiting for the final showdown.
Yang Sa knew as well: the more he chased a fight, the more the other side would avoid it.
That guy was really…
“Despicable!” came Tangyuan’s curse in the otherwise calm team voice chat.
Driving a blue Dicia toward the rendezvous point with the others, Jiang Ranan coughed lightly. Seeing that Tangyuan was still stuck in his own little fantasy, unaware of how serious the situation had become, he suddenly turned up the in-car speaker volume.
Startled, Tangyuan jumped and yelled, “Jiang Ranan, are you crazy?!”
Mission accomplished, Jiang Ranan turned off the speaker, jumped out of the car, and rejoined the teammates hidden in the building. He distributed the loot he had picked up from an airdrop zone along the way.
“Fatty,” came a deep voice over the team channel, accompanied by Jiang Ranan’s light footsteps.
“Who exactly are you calling despicable?”