[Esports] Team Leader Xie, your mid laner is causing trouble again.

Li Zhi followed Jiang Feng into the base.

It was afternoon, and the athletes were already up, with the training room bustling with activity.

The first floor was mostly occupied by youth training trainees. A bunch of people were crammed into a large room, each forming their own teams to play ranked matches. The sounds of typing on keyboards and mice mingled with the occasional swear word.

Li Zhi's gaze swept over.

As if thinking of something, his originally lazy expression tightened slightly, and the casual smile on his lips faded.

He followed Jiang Feng through the base's front hall and straight into an office in the backyard.

There was another person sitting in the office.

Upon seeing him, Li Zhiyi instantly dropped her lazy and casual demeanor.

With his shoulders and back straight and his hands neatly folded in front of him, he looked exactly like a well-behaved child.

"Brother Shi," he called out obediently.

Shi Kai looked up and saw him, smiled, and stood up to greet him: "It's been a year, and you've grown quite a bit taller."

Li Zhi smiled, her lips pursed, revealing two shallow dimples on her cheeks, making her look both sweet and gentle.

"I'm an adult now, of course I'll grow taller."

Jiang Feng, standing to the side, stared in disbelief at the scene before him.

Is the model student in front of me, who looks like he's wearing a red scarf under the five-star red flag, really the same person as the Omega who was lounging around at the gate just a few minutes ago?

Jiang Feng was momentarily dazed, and even began to wonder if that nonchalant demeanor was just a hallucination caused by not sleeping well during his afternoon nap.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, the two sat down on the sofa in the office.

Shi Kai rubbed his hands together and finally spoke: "Xiao Zhi, you should be able to guess why I called you to the base."

Li Zhi didn't respond.

"To be honest," Shi Kai's tone warmed up, "after all these years, you are the most talented mid-laner I have ever met."

These words carried a heavy weight, and Li Zhi tensed up, but still didn't respond.

"If there hadn't been an age limit, you definitely wouldn't have been placed in the youth training team back then."

Mentioning the past, Shi Kai seemed to return to that cramped training room two years ago, facing a group of boys with burning passion in their eyes, waving his hand with high spirits:

"Back then, who didn't know about QW's youth training team's precious twin stars, you and Xie Jichuan..."

The name made Kuriyuki's eyelids twitch.

"Brother Shi," he said, abruptly cutting off Shi Kai's words.

"You don't need to tell me all this. I have no interest in playing professionally right now."

The boy raised his head, his eyebrows and eyes still showing the same obedient look as before, but there was something in his eyes that others could not see through.

Shi Kai fell silent.

Having been a coach for so many years, he has seen too many exceptionally talented players, and also too many promising talents who faltered halfway through their careers.

But this player, who used to play in the training room until 3 a.m., with the heating off at the training base, his hands frozen red but refusing to get off the machine, actually told him he wasn't interested.

"How could you not be interested?"

Shi Kai raised his voice, "Back in the day, you were the hardest-working player in the entire youth training team! And you're telling me you're not interested?"

"As you said yourself, that was back then."

Thinking of the past with the youth training team, Li Zhi was too lazy to pretend to be obedient, and he refused expressionlessly.

They didn't even bother to give a perfunctory smile.

Shi Kai sighed heavily in his heart.

He knew that some things were already broken, and he couldn't even pick them up, nor could he persuade them otherwise.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have allowed Li Zhi to leave the base when the youth training team disbanded.

"Brother Shi, if I wanted to play professionally, I would have been promoted directly to QW's second team back then. Don't overthink it."

Li Zhi couldn't bear to see Shi Kai looking so lifeless, so she offered a few words of comfort, albeit in a vague and ambiguous way.

Shi Kai finally gave in and leaned back on the sofa.

"If you don't want to play professionally, that's fine. The team is organizing a fun practice match in a couple of days, and we're short-handed. Can you help me out?"

Even though Li Zhi's words were very definitive, he still wanted to try and help Li Zhi rediscover the passion he had felt back then.

It's called helping out, but it's really just about letting him play a match in a 5v5 game when we're short of players.

Li Zhi agreed without much hesitation, "Okay."

He couldn't refuse to help with this.

Two years ago, when the youth training team disbanded, Shi Kai paid for his train ticket home out of his own pocket and stuffed his last subsidy into his backpack.

In those years, Shi Kai was in charge of a group of teenagers, acting as both a coach and a father figure.

Kurichi is the youngest and has been taken care of a lot.

Now, two years later, Shi Kai has become the head coach of training for a popular esports team.

He became a notorious entertainment streamer in the WPL.

Oh, maybe he's even more famous than Shi Kai.

Li Zhi ignored the discomfort in her heart and gave a self-deprecating laugh without much expression.

Also good.

He stood up and walked towards the door.

"It's settled then," Shi Kai called out from behind. "The exhibition match will be held at our base. We'll send someone to pick you up!"

Li Zhi didn't turn her head, but raised her hand and waved.

"Who's so big of a celebrity that they need a pick-up? I can get there in just a few subway stops."

The boy's slender figure, wrapped in a faded white coat, almost blended into the sunlight outside the door.

"Don't worry, I'll be there on time."

Two days later, Li Zhi returned to the UUC base as promised.

The venue was noisy, with teenagers sitting in front of the equipment, rubbing their hands together, their eyes full of barely suppressed excitement.

Today is a trial match. Whoever plays well will have a chance to compete for a starting position.

As soon as Li Zhi entered the room, before she could even sit down, she was grabbed and dragged away.

Jiang Feng leaned closer, a sly smile on his face, and shoved him toward the stage with his hand on his shoulder.

"Your brother Shi said he'll let you go first in the first two rounds to calm down those young punks."

Li Zhi: "..."

Before he could even react, he was forced onto the stage.

Two rows of high-end e-sports equipment were placed on either side of the stage, and the large screen in the middle was playing the full hero CG of "All Realms Showdown", with the characters' skills exploding and filling the screen with light.

Shi Kai walked over, led him to the seat in the middle, and handed him a brand new set of headphones.

Several youth training team members around looked over curiously.

Shi Kai patted Li Zhi on the shoulder, his tone carrying a hint of boasting:

"The foreign aid I invited, you guys should watch how they play later and learn from them."

Whenever there are outsiders present, Li Zhi's underlying code for pretending to be innocent kicks in.

He smiled, his eyes crinkling, looking gentle and obedient: "Please guide me."

In public places, to prevent unforeseen circumstances, Omega and Alpha need to wear neckbands and wristbands respectively to suppress pheromone leakage.

The team members responded to Shi Kai verbally, but their eyes flashed with obvious doubt when they saw Li Zhi's neck.

The pure black choker stood out against her fair skin.

A few strands of mint green hair tucked into her hair made Li Zhi appear even more harmless.

How powerful can an Omega player of similar age be?

In the esports community, almost everyone assumes that Alpha has an advantage over Omega.

Faster reaction time and stronger stress resistance are things written into our physiological instincts.

Although the league has Omega players, there aren't many of them.

Li Zhi has gotten used to being carefree and undisciplined these past two years; an honest person can't keep up the act for long.

Those unpleasant stares were still lingering on him, and he had lost all interest in continuing his business.

Just as he was about to unleash a few curses, a sudden thought struck him.

It was like some inexplicable feeling welling up from deep within my chest.

Before Li Zhi could even discern what that feeling was, her body had already reacted before her brain could.

He suddenly raised his head and looked down at the audience.

The venue was bustling with people, the lights were dazzling, and the noise was mixed together.

But Li Zhi's gaze seemed to be drawn by something, precisely passing through the crowd and landing in the corner.

There was a person standing there.

With his tall stature and broad shoulders, he is impossible to ignore even when standing in an inconspicuous corner.

Li Zhi's heart skipped a beat.

He knew those eyes all too well.

The same focus and passion as before.

The flames landed on Li Zhi like tongues of fire, from head to toe, as if trying to strip him naked and lick him clean.

But it also contained some dark, thick emotions that Li Zhi couldn't decipher.

They held him firmly in place, without letting him move.

The training team has already begun preparing for the ban/pick phase, but Li Zhi feels that all the sounds are fading away in a hazy distance.

Only that gaze, heavy and intense, pressed down on him, making his fingertips tingle.

It is Xie Jichuan.