Jiang Shi listened to Han Yuze’s explanation and fell into an unusual silence for quite some time.
After a while, he furrowed his brow and muttered, “Let her play if she wants. Anyway, she handles things like she does relationships—often with short-lived enthusiasm. I doubt she’ll last long.”
Han Yuze asked, “I noticed she casually joined a guild herself. Should I invite her to join Seven Silver Coins?”
“No need,” Jiang Shi replied to this question almost instinctively. “Nianhua Cup is about to start. If she sees my online activity in a guild, she might… well, kill me.”
Han Yuze chuckled.
Jiang Shi glanced at him.
Instantly, Han Yuze restrained his smile. “No offense, I just find your situation of being monitored by elders while online… cute.”
“If you’re interested, that ‘cute situation’ can be yours,” Jiang Shi retorted coldly.
Actually, for Jiang Shi, Jiang Yan’s sudden decision to play the game was indeed unexpected. Especially at this crucial moment right before the Nianhua Cup.
However, at this moment, he clearly didn’t have much attention to spare for Miss Jiang. During the final push, he focused on improving equipment along with other team members, discussed team compositions, and days swiftly passed by in this manner.
From this perspective, Han Yuze being there with Jiang Yan surprisingly made things more manageable.
Unconsciously, the days of the Nianhua Cup had finally arrived.
As in previous years, a few days before the first round, the official <Genesis> website released a separate win-rate prediction interface.
All participating guilds were uniformly displayed there. Each user could allocate their ten votes as they pleased. The predictions would be tallied after each round, and rewards distributed according to the proportions guessed correctly.
Nianhua Cup comprised eight rounds of matches. The first four were the weekly zone score-grabbing matches, followed by rounds five to seven, which were the top four rankings’ elimination rounds. The eighth round marked the final championship.
The official prediction activity followed the eight-round structure. The farther into the tournament, the higher the value of each vote.
The release of the prediction interface indicated the official start of the Nianhua Cup’s prelude.
This led to a fervent discussion among internet users.
As mentioned earlier, Night Raiders, the fallen aristocrat from the previous Century Cup who had relegated to the Nianhua Cup, the consistently competitive Old Dream Time Guild, regardless of the edition, were highly anticipated contenders. However, what garnered more attention than these guilds during this time was the suddenly rising Seven Silver Coins Guild.
In anticipation of the Nianhua Cup, some individuals had already set up discussion threads on forums, waiting to chat, gossip, and speculate once the matches officially commenced.
Under such widespread anticipation, the event organizers finally released the schedule for the first phase of the competition.
This announcement immediately sparked a storm of discussions.
It’s well known that the first four rounds of the Nianhua Cup are known collectively as the zone-score-grabbing matches. During this stage, all registered guilds are divided into four zones: A, B, C, and D, each competing for the slots to advance to the second stage. Although it was said that these zones were randomly drawn by the AI, the popular guilds from each edition were usually not placed in the same zone.
However, this time, Seven Silver Coins, along with the four hot teams, were allocated to Zone C together with Old Dream Time Guild, leaving doubts about the organizers’ judgment.
[22L: Just as expected, the popularity of Seven Silver Coins is just a façade; the organizers don’t see them as a strong team.]
[35L: How can you be so sure? Maybe the organizers consider the weaker side as Old Dream Time Guild?]
[66L: Ridiculous! While Old Dream Time often got eliminated in the Century Cup, they usually secured a place in the primary event at the Nianhua Cup! If they’re weak, wouldn’t the other guilds at the Nianhua Cup be all noobs?]
[89L: The Nianhua Cup is commonly known as the Cup of Noobs fighting. If you don’t know this basic fact, maybe you shouldn’t watch the matches.]
[102L: There’s really nothing special about Old Dream Time’s strength. Even if Night Raiders suffered demotion, their strength still surpasses them. Ultimately, the first round is just a minor slaughter. Given the uneven standards of the Nianhua Cup, the real excitement usually starts in the second round, or maybe even in the finals.]
[155L: Wait, do you genuinely think Seven Silver Coins are weak? Even if they’re not that strong, they have God Yu leading them. A god-tier professional player in the Nianhua Cup should be enough to steamroll some average teams, right?]
[198L: Laughable! I think Yu Weize is here to wreck some fish. Look at the likes of Spring God and Snake God; any of them casually entering this competition would crush the amateurs.]
[222L: Stop being pessimistic for no reason… Being a master at sneaky tactics, does that make you a god? Only you fans calling someone God Yu, and bystanders hearing it would just laugh.]
[298L: Senseless negativity. Watch and see, Seven Silver Coins will definitely outscore Old Dream Time. I’m saying it here!]
[300L: Tsk tsk, making bold claims? So impressive! I’m so scared!]
As the match approached, the online community was inevitably filled with heated debates.
This time, even just discussing the situation within Zone C had led to a fierce quarrel.
Of course, judging from these remarks, it’s not that the fans of the Old Dream Time guild are numerous, but rather, among these supporters, the black sheep of the Seven Silver Coins faction make up a significant proportion.
Part of it is due to the extremely provocative nature of Yu Weize itself, and the other part is because, recently, Jiang Shi and these returning players have been too divergent, providing the highly irritable online users with a new target for venting.
In any case, it might not necessarily be hate, just a simple desire to find something to vent about.
Jiang Shi had no interest in these non-substantive verbal attacks. However, after looking through the entire guild list for this round in Zone C, he furrowed his brows slightly.
Vaguely, something seemed familiar: “Old Dream Time… Is this guild very famous? Why does it feel like I’ve seen it somewhere?”
Gentleman Fan chuckled directly, “You’ve seen it indeed. Back then, we were still rescuing heroines at the entrance of the dungeons.”
Finally catching on, Jiang Shi looked towards Scavenger, “That’s the guild that chased after you last time?”
Scavenger replied, “Yeah.”
At this moment, Jiang Shi recalled and asked, “So why were they chasing after you at that time?”
Scavenger, in her usual concise manner, replied, “One of their members, a dog-type character, clashed with me in the wilderness, I counter-killed and looted their equipment, and they got rabies.”
Jiang Shi sincerely remarked, “Scavenger, your tongue is sharper than mine.”
Scavenger accepted this praise without any thought burden, while catching Gentleman Fan’s gaze and asked, “What are you looking at?”
Gentleman Fan replied, “Just enjoying the drama.”
The wrench in Scavenger’s hand promptly landed with a “clang” on Gentleman Fan’s head, “Still joking around?”
Before Gentleman Fan could react, they were chased, covering their head, throughout the place, “A gentleman doesn’t get tangled with you. I’ll tell you, don’t take an inch and reach for a mile.”
Scavenger smirked.
Jiang Shi stood by, observing for a while, then turned to Muchuan Pants, “Scavenger’s equipment damage is impressive, but is there a chance to improve the movement speed?”
Muchuan Pants was busy recording their actions at lightning speed, and upon hearing this, earnestly tapped the tip of the pen on the notebook, “I’ll try.”
Their thoughts immediately shifted to equipment improvement, completely forgetting about the affairs of the Old Dream Time guild, lost in their endeavors.
It wasn’t until the end of the first round of voting that evening when the officials announced the betting rankings.
The win rates in the other zones had no connection to the Seven Silver Coins. After all, the first round was an internal competition within each zone. However, what no one had anticipated was that the Old Dream Time guild, ranking first in the betting, had firmly secured 82%, a significantly high proportion, in stark contrast to the 15% of the second-place Seven Silver Coins.
Just a few days ago, netizens were racking their brains on forums, debating which of these two guilds was No. 1. The result amused everyone: with so much discussion about the Seven Silver Coins, one would have thought they had a significant number of supporters, but it turned out to be this?
On this matter, Han Yuze saw through it at a glance, “Someone bought votes.”
“Bought what votes?” Having retired from gaming for many years, Jiang Shi was naturally unaware of these intricacies.
“It’s the voting for the bets,” Han Yuze explained. “This kind of situation is not very common in the Century Cup. After all, each guild is a top professional guild, and their fan base alone is enough to bankrupt their opponents. Besides, everyone is already famous, and there’s no need for such small events like betting to attract attention from the operation department. However, it’s different in the Nianhua Cup. The popularity of secondary guilds is generally low, and since the league is their only springboard for promotion, sometimes they are willing to invest in buying votes to boost their visibility.”
Jiang Shi still thought this behavior was purely due to excessive wealth.
“I think the Old Dream Time guild’s move is quite profitable. After all, our guild’s recent popularity is so high. If they can rise by stepping on us, their attention will surely be high. It seems that the Old Dream Time has also attracted investors and is ready to make a formal move.” Han Yuze, with the air of someone experienced, smiled silently, “It’s a pity, though. In e-sports, whether it’s in the keyboard era or the holographic era, it has never relied on popularity but on strength.”
Speaking of which, he suddenly remembered something, “Oh, by the way, about our sister, didn’t I tell you earlier that she found a guild on her own?”
Jiang Shi was surprised that Jiang Yan had actually continued playing. He nodded upon hearing Han Yuze’s words, “Yeah, what about it?”
“It’s not really a problem.” Han Yuze replied, “The Sky Vine Guild also signed up for the Nianhua Cup this time. Look, they’re also in Zone C.”
Jiang Shi raised an eyebrow.
One has to admit, it was quite a coincidence.
ry’s note: Recently, I heard that Century Cup and Nianhua Cup are actually just different names for the same tournament, but from the netizens’ dialogues in the chapter, I think the author meant for them to be the names of different tournaments, so I’m going to keep translating them as different tournaments.