“There isn’t much that I can make, but it’s unlikely to poison someone to death. You see Captain ate my food the other time, isn’t he still alive and kicking now.” Ji Zhiyao comforted Nuo. “Then I’ll just make a few dishes for you, make do with it.”

Nuo exclaimed, “Thank you daddy!”

Mo Huaifeng interrupted, “I want to eat too!”

Ji Zhiyao turned towards him. “Hm?”

Mo Huaifeng’s countenance was peaceful as he explained, “Suddenly feel like my diet for these few days has been too greasy, I’ll have something light to clear my stomach.”

“But didn’t you find the taste awful the last time?”

“That’s because you refused to add seasonings for me.”

Ji Zhiyao thought for a moment, it seemed like he had made the food especially bland the last time since Mo Huaifeng was sick, hence he decided, “Alright then, I’ll make enough for two.”

Ji Zhiyao first ordered takeaway for himself, then sneaked into the kitchen, going through the fridge to check what edible ingredients there were.

He found two tomatoes, two eggs, a bag of black fungus, a box of mushrooms and two chili. Deciding that they were enough, he put them all into the sink and washed twice. Then he rinsed a pot of rice and left it to simmer.

Then he took 40 minutes to make a tomato and egg soup, a dish of stir-fried black fungus with egg and another dish of stir-fried mushrooms with chili.

Ji Zhiyao had just brought the dishes out when Mo Huaifeng walked into the dining room with a plastic bag in hand. “Your takeaway is here.”

“Okay.” Ji Zhiyao said, “Captain, get Nuo here too, lunch is ready for both of you.”

Mo Huaifeng looked towards the dishes on the table, his expression slightly distressed. “I don’t eat mushrooms.”

“It’s okay, there are other dishes, just make do and eat some.”

“Why can Nuo have three dishes? Do you have something against me? For so long, you’ve never realized that I don’t eat mushrooms.”

Ji Zhiyao felt like he was doomed.

What’s with the odd grievance in Captain’s tone?

Ji Zhiyao pledged in an extra loud voice, “I’ve committed it to memory, I definitely won’t feed you mushrooms next time!”

Mo Huaifeng then dragged out a stool, sat down, picked up his chopsticks and picked up his food leisurely.

Ji Zhiyao was slightly dumbfounded from the sight, yet he did not dare to instruct the already aggrieved Captain to go get Nuo again and could only ran obediently out of the dining room himself, then shouting, “Nuo, time for lunch!”

Nuo responded very quickly, “Coming bro.”

The entire villa was filled with echoes from each of them.

Nuo ran hurriedly into the dining room, thrilled when he smelled the aroma. “Feels like it would be very delicious, thanks NoHomo.”

“No problem.” Ji Zhiyao opened his own takeaway box, then said, “Aren’t you suffering from diarrhea? There is chili in the stir-fried mushrooms, don’t eat too much of that.”

“Boohoo, this is really too touching! NoHomo, from now on I will willingly be your lackey.”

“… There’s no need.”

Nuo’s word, “need” hadn’t even formed when Mo Huaifeng threw chilly daggers through his eyes at him, he instantly shriveled. Yet after just swallowing a mouthful of rice, Nuo appeared to have thought of something and became extremely excited. “Captain, there is actually mushroom here!”

Ji Zhiyao pursed his lips. Turns out that he was the only one who didn’t know that Mo Huaifeng doesn’t eat mushrooms?

He suddenly even more guilty, burying his face in his takeaway, simply not daring to lift his head again.

After lunch, Nuo took the initiative to do the dishes, Ji Zhiyao returned to the training room following behind Mo Huaifeng.

He launched the colored block program and began his practice for the day.

Now the duration that he could hold on for had already hit 40 seconds and this number has no sign of stagnating as of now. The longer the duration, the faster his response capacity. Each time he saw the timing he clocked at the end, Ji Zhiyao was genuinely grateful towards Kang Kyung Chwa.

Following colored block training was matches.

Hence in the week after the opening rounds, each day was spent in such an enriching manner.

The advancement round came very quickly.

As they had to draw lots in the morning to decide on the sequence in which they would take on each of their opponents, as well as the sequence of all the matches taking place, everyone in Mix woke up bright and early. When Ji Zhiyao caught sight of Nuo who always slept in for the first time at 7AM, he couldn’t hold back and pulled out his phone, snapping a photo of Nuo who was sleeping with his eyes open on the sofa then posted it onto Weibo with a caption.

[IndefiniteFutureV: This is the consequence of waking up early. [who am I where am I what am I doing.jpg]

A few minutes later, he drank a mouthful of milk and saw that the comments below his post had already exceeded 2000.

[Damn it, suddenly especially unwilling to admit that this damn thing sleeping with his eyes open is my Nuo.]

[All the best for the competition melonrind darling xoxo!]

[Are you really happy being mischievous for that while?]

After browsing several comments, he put his phone down. Yuan Wei stood at the door of the villa, shouting at the top of his voice, “Stop sleeping all of you! If we still don’t leave for the drawing of lots all of you can only pick the leftover lot!”

One remark rousing everyone from their dreams.

The drowsy bunch instantly jerked up and pulled themselves to their feet.

Mo Huaifeng was the first to stand up and walked towards the outside of the villa, only because of his morning temper, his expression wasn’t too friendly. Ji Zhiyao saw Nuo wake up and hurriedly followed behind Mo Huaifeng to sneak out of the living room, making his getaway.

The remaining five people took their own time behind. Nuo completely sobered up after walking for a distance, grabbing tissue to wipe off his saliva as he walked. “Have I evolved till I am able to sleep with my eyes open?”

Xiaofei looked at him, his expression suddenly looking like he had a long story to tell. “Brother, why don’t you take a look at NoHomo’s Weibo?”

“What’s up?”

“Um… actually…”

At this point K had already seen it, and burst into a loud guffaw. “NoHomo really! You’re really mischievous!”

Nuo appeared dumbfounded as he found his phone and scrolled through, when he saw the topmost post on Ji Zhiyao’s Weibo profile his body abruptly went stiff, followed immediately by a shout, “Ji Zhiyao!”

Ji Zhiyao who was seated in the van at present suddenly had an ill premonition.

He patted Mo Huaifeng’s arm, saying in a soft voice after rousing him from his sleep, “Captain, let’s swap seats?”

Mo Huaifeng tightly knitted brows gradually relaxed. “Why?”

“Someone is going to beat me up in a while.”

Mo Huaifeng gazed at him, then resignedly stood up and shifted outwards, Ji Zhiyao successfully sat into the seat closer to the windows.

He vaguely heard Nuo’s raging voice from the outside and quickly closed his eyes to feign sleep.

Nuo pulled opened the rear door. Sweeping around the interior, he found the person he was looking for in the second last row, he walked over with grief and indignation. “Ji…”

He had just said one word, Mo Huaifeng who was seated on the outside suddenly opened his eyes and stared blankly at him.

Nuo instantly shriveled up, and walked to the back, sat down and pretended to be a sculpture.

Ji Zhiyao who was feigning sleep with his eyes closed was very pleased.

Captain was a natural defence.

The vehicle headed smoothly towards the gymnasium, everyone on board was knocked out. Till half an hour later, they were all woken up by Yuan Wei.

It was the same for Ji Zhiyao.

He wasn’t sleepy at first, yet the moment the van began driving, the drowsy atmosphere in the van forcibly led to him falling asleep too.

He alighted behind Mo Huaifeng, stopped by Nuo the moment he got off. “NoHomo, I took you as a brother, yet you only wanted to use me as an emotive!”

“… Originally wanted to delete it on the van, but I fell asleep.”

“Can we sever ties for three minutes?”

Ji Zhiyao fished out his phone to delete the Weibo post, taking time to reply at the same time, “Sure thing honey, welcome to come again next time xoxo.”

Once “xoxo” was said, Mo Huaifeng turned back and narrowed his eyes at Ji Zhiyao.

Ji Zhiyao instantly became obedient.

The advancement rounds were to start officially at 8AM, the drawing of lots was set to start at 7:50AM. Entering the waiting room, Ji Zhiyao glanced at his wrist watch, 7:45AM, exactly five minutes before the drawing of lots.

After all of them settled down, the stats analyzer stood by the sofa, looking at the notebook in his hand and said, “There’s Tall Boots, Wan Ning, Skitters, LA. Nx in group A, for group B it’s Bug, Rocket, Mix, Miao Pai and Wan Chuan. Hopefully our Captain will get us a good lot, leave the tough nut Tall Boots till the end, so as to spare ourselves from frustration from the very beginning.”

Heng “tsk-ed” twice, “Yet I believe all the other battleteams are definitely thinking things like ‘Hope to meet Mix at the end, they’re really too strong, it’s entirely impossible to beat them’.”

The stats analyzer laughed. “Nothing wrong with that.”

They chatted for a while more, when someone knocked on the door, a staff member came to notify the captains of each battleteam to go draw lots. Mo Huaifeng stood up and followed the stage member to the backstage.

Ten minutes later, Mo Huaifeng returned to the waiting room. The stats analyzer had a pen in hand as he asked, “How was it Captain? Tell us about the sequence?”

“3rd match Nx, 8th match LA, 11th match Wan Ning, 19th match Tall Boots, 22nd match Skitters.”

The stats analyzer recorded as he listened to Mo Huaifeng. When he was done, he looked at the sequence on the notebook, touching his jaw as he concluded, “Not too bad a sequence, very good.”

Then the stats analyzer started to come up with a schedule. “Based on the calculation of four matches every weekend, this round will go on for five weeks. Our matches would be taking place today afternoon, tomorrow afternoon, 20th afternoon, 27th afternoon and 28th morning, basically we have a match on every competing day for the first three weeks, rather concentrated.”

Xiao commented, “Feels like our schedule is a little full.”

“Actually it’s quite alright when it’s spread out. Six matches of 5v5 per week, the number of games that you guys play for training in a day already exceeds that. No one is allowed to fumble the ball.”

Mo Huaifeng responded with a lazy grunt.

There were two minutes left before the competition officially began. As Mix wasn’t competing in the morning, they agreed to leave after watching the very first match in the morning.

Because the first match was played by Tall Boots and Wan Chuan.

One of the most anticipated battleteams by eSports players. Tall Boots.

Everyone in Mix moved closer to the audience seating through the small door at the back then went towards their seats which they had sat in last week.

Tall Boots and Wan Chuan happened to be preparing to begin.

The commentators on stage had changed, Ji Zhiyao did not know then and differentiated them into “one” and “two” in his mind.

One: “Welcome all fans to the live venue of the national qualifiers, this is the first match of the advancement round, Tall Boots battleteam against Wan Chuan battleteam.”

Two: “Right now both teams have already entered the preparation mode for the game. We can see, both teams have already picked their champions, entering the last loading period.”

A few seconds later, the match began.

Ji Zhiyao lifted his head and looked towards the large screen.

Tall Boots always had the habit of treating each competition with their most earnest attitude, this could be seen from the champions that each of them picked. For example, Xiaoye’s choice of champion was strong in damage but weak in defense, so Lan Guang specially picked a very tank-like assassin in accordance with him.

On the other hand, it was very evident that Wan Chuan’s execution ability wasn’t as strong, their choices of champions all varied. But they were rather spirited, dashing like stags to the front most turret at each lane once the match began.

However Wan Chuan seemed like they weren’t quite on form.

Take for example their jungler, ten minutes into the game he kept staying in the jungle with his head bowed choosing to be selectively blind. When Wan Chuan’s mid-laner was about to be killed by Xiaoye, he was completely oblivious, still killing his creeps. And when the mid-laner respawned, Wan Chuan’s jungler seemed to have finally remembered the middle lane and ran towards the turret, wanting to work with the mid-laner for a 2v1, yet it was turned into a double kill by Xiaoye who had already developed thanks to his first kill.

However, this was merely the start of their nightmare.

The competition carried on, Wan Chuan’s jungler seemed to sense that the middle lane wasn’t one that was good to mess with, and began to roam the top and bottom lanes, taking up his second best option. But his level was at least a level beneath all the Tall Boots players, dying each time he tried to go for someone, his KDA became an unbearable sight.

At the same time as their jungler was really too idiotic, he completely did not develop, causing the levels and gold of his teammates to be extremely miserable. However, at least the remaining four people did not feed, while the jungler was on the course of sending warmth to Tall Boots the entire time.

At the end, the number of times that Wan Chuan’s jungler died become half of the total death toll of the two teams, his damage on Tall Boots not even as high as that of their team’s support.

Losing the match became inevitable.

Ji Zhiyao felt that it was slightly hurting his eyes and shifted his gaze, catching Mo Huaifeng staring right at him as he turned his head.

Mo Huaifeng asked, “Remember the first time you played against Lan Guang?”

“… What about it?”

“Even sillier than this Wan Chuan’s jungler, turned on your heels and ran away the moment you caught sight of him. Though this jungler was no match too, at least he dared to fight head on.”

The corner of Ji Zhiyao’s lips twitched.

Mo Huaifeng continued to threaten, “If you end up playing this way against Tall Boots, I will consider severing ties with you.”

Ji Zhiyao went silent.

He rolled his eyes, sneering at Mo Huaifeng’s remark.

The half time break was set to be 15 minutes. 15 minutes later, the players from both teams entered the stage once again.

For this match, all five members of Tall Boots straightforwardly picked early game champions.

So called early game champions, are champions that are strong in all aspects in the early phase, yet the closer to the later phase, the more worn out they become. If a battleteam picks all early game champions, it’s either they’ve gone so mad to throw the game or they’ve decided that there won’t be a later phase for this match.

Undisguised contempt.

Yet for this match, Wan Chuan battleteam seemed to have gotten into form.

With the exception of the ADC picking a burst damage champion, the remaining champions chosen were all rather balanced in all aspects. Seems like they’re planning to play a 4-for-1 match.

This time the jungler wasn’t as fidgety like a monkey. Though he was helpless towards Lan Guang and Xiaoye working together and digging into Wan Chuan’s jungle, but it was as if he had recovered his intelligence as he knew to signal for his teammates to come back him up and did not jump in all alone and feed.