Before dawn, Li Yao’s internal clock roused him from his sleep.
A flash of fatigue crossed his eyes. As he always did, Li Yao stared blankly at the ceiling for a while before getting up to wash. The cold water against his cheeks washed away that lingering exhaustion.
Xi’an, known as the capital of carbohydrates, was filled with a dazzling array of breakfast options. After ordering a bowl of spicy soup and a *roujiamo* (meat burger), Li Yao sat down on the sofa in his living room, picked up the remote, and switched on the 55-inch television. He scrolled through the channels aimlessly, though his thoughts had already drifted far away.
Li Yao had researched it online: many people can resume a dream if they wake up to use the restroom at night and then return to bed. Some could even pick up a dream the following night where they left off. But Li Yao had never found anyone like himself, someone who for three consecutive years had been trapped in the same dream—a long, drawn-out dream.
In the dream, he seemed to be living another man's life: strange environments, strange people, yet one thing remained intimately familiar—a game.
Strange players, strange teams, strange coaches. Yet, within this unfamiliarity, there was a faint, persistent sense of recognition. The combination was contradictory and complex. At first, Li Yao even worried he was losing his mind. But three years had passed, and instead of spiraling into madness, he felt no conflict with this other self in his dreams. Aside from those faces that were both strange and familiar, he truly seemed to be that person, and that person truly seemed to be him.
Given his situation, modern science offered only one conclusion: he was obsessed.
Indeed, for three years, Li Yao hadn't touched League of Legends. Yet, the self in his dreams had played it countless times. The Summoner’s Rift—vivid and illusory—and the sensation of standing on a professional stage were all incredibly clear.
Why did Li Yao hold onto this fixation after three years? On one hand, he had been persistent since childhood. Either he wouldn’t do something, or he would do it to the absolute best of his ability. Growing up, there was little that challenged him beyond mathematical problems. On the other hand, there was that other self in the dream—crashing before the championship trophy in an arena of tens of thousands. The intense sense of unwillingness actually made the Li Yao who woke up in the morning feel the same sting.
It was just like in Season 7, when a then-novice Li Yao witnessed the LCK teams SKT and SSG meet at the Bird's Nest. At the time, Li Yao was just an ordinary player, an ordinary spectator. For average players, they could never change the outcome of a match; the only thing they could do was cheer for their favorite teams and players. Even when their teams fell, they could only vent their anger before helplessly accepting reality.
But the version of himself in the dream was a professional player. Li Yao had witnessed the entire journey of that "self" growing from an ordinary player to a professional. Perhaps because the dream was so realistic, it was easy for Li Yao to identify as a professional player himself. He had been reining in this feeling, and the three years of wrestling with his dream-self had allowed Li Yao to achieve a level of calmness that far exceeded his peers.
Only by staying calm could the mind remain clear. Once a person loses their composure, they become impulsive and prone to making wrong judgments.
The delivery arrived quickly. The sound of the doorbell interrupted his train of thought. After finishing breakfast, Li Yao grabbed his keys and headed downstairs. There was a supermarket not far away; he had noticed it from the car the night before.
After stocking up on daily necessities and buying some fruit and soda, he returned to his temporary home, put the soda in the fridge, and cleaned the place up. Once finished, he took out a chilled soda and enjoyed a refreshing sip.
Li Yao enjoyed this feeling. He liked to set external rewards for his actions in advance. The supermarket had cold soda, but he had chosen to buy room-temperature bottles specifically so he could accomplish tasks while waiting for them to chill, using the cold drink as a reward for his labor.
With a sip of soda in hand, Li Yao prepared to head to an internet cafe to experience his "first time." People always said that the first thing to do after turning eighteen was to proudly slam one's ID card on the counter, but Li Yao had yet to do that.
Before he could even step out the door, his phone rang. It was sask. Through the phone, sask’s voice still sounded sleepy. "Come to the base and get the computer," he said before hanging up.
Li Yao was just about to head down when a WeChat message popped up.
"Bring me two baskets of soup dumplings on your way down (sheepish grin)."
Li Yao: "..."
The residential complex was very close to the WE base. sask was decent enough to have called a car for him in advance.
"Oh, your Korean server account is probably long gone, right? Use mine for now. I’ll send you the details on WeChat later," sask said, still in his pajamas, as Li Yao sat in the car with the computer.
"Okay," Li Yao replied. His Korean account from three years ago was almost certainly gone. To quickly regain his feel for the game, playing at low Elo wouldn't work, so sask’s account was a thoughtful gesture. Although sask rarely played himself since becoming a coach, the MMR would still be there.
Back home, Li Yao carefully wiped down the computer, rearranged the desk in the room, and plugged it in. The computer's specs weren't top-tier, but they were sufficient. The hard drive was huge but already half-full, which puzzled Li Yao. He took a quick look and paused when he saw a folder named "Study Materials."
A moment later, the innocent Li Yao expressionlessly opened the Korean client, typed in the account with lightning-fast speed, and realized he hadn't turned on his VPN. He calmly started the VPN, logged back in, and finally got the account running.
During the process, Li Yao washed his face to ensure he was as clear-headed as possible for his first ranked game since his return. Opening op.gg, he looked at sask’s rank with disdain: Diamond III. That was sask’s rank for the season. Checking the previous seasons, he found sask’s record from 2017: "849 wins, 831 losses." Even with Li Yao’s abstract grasp of math, he couldn’t see how that amounted to a 54% win rate.
The friend list had quite a few people on it, but only one was online, sporting a Korean ID. After a brief look at the key bindings, Li Yao clicked "Solo/Duo" and began queuing.
The version of him in the dream played ranked every day. His hands had been itching for a long time. The seven-minute estimated wait time in the top right corner made him sigh. At this hour, the pros hadn't woken up yet, and given the account's hidden MMR, the queue would naturally be long.
Just then, his only online friend sent him a message—two in a row.
"?"
"gaoliangba?"
Li Yao clicked on the profile to take a look; his screen was filled with a sea of red. The rank was Diamond II, 75 LP. Clearly, the player had just demoted. Judging by the position, this was a jungler.
...
mlxg had been feeling restless lately.
Having transformed into an angel investor, he had been doing quite well, but for a young man, such early success was sometimes fatal. Especially when watching the numbers soar, aside from a sense of unreal joy, he felt more anxiety and fear of loss. His contract was stuck, and since he wasn't particularly good at streaming, his mood would often explode, leading to arguments with the audience. He had wanted to win some big games to spite his haters, but his luck had been terrible all night; not only did he fail to climb, he had dropped from Diamond I to Diamond II.
Under these circumstances, conflicting emotions grew. On one hand, mlxg undeniably loved League and had a strong desire to win. On the other hand, those rising numbers seemed to be telling him, "Stop playing this damn game; at this rate, you might become a stock market genius." Trapped between these two trains of thought, he couldn't focus on the ranked games. He had been playing since last night and was too angry to sleep; he had promised himself he'd go to bed after one win, but one game led to another until dawn.
Just then, mlxg saw an old teammate from his days at King team pop up on his friend list. He knew sask had become a coach and rarely played ranked, but surely an old pro teammate was better than some random idiots in solo queue, right? He decisively sent a duo invitation.
There was no response. Just as mlxg was about to type something else, "sask" canceled the queue and sent him an invitation instead.
mlxg clicked accept immediately, and they selected their roles to begin.
Li Yao had already checked the stats. He didn't know who this was. The account had only started playing last season. Li Yao took a photo of the ID and asked sask about it, but sask didn't respond. After a moment of hesitation, Li Yao accepted the invite. It was just a game; it was more fun with others. He hadn't played in a while, so if he struggled, at least this duo jungler—who seemed to know sask—might actually coordinate with him.
Three minutes later, they entered the BP screen. As the fifth pick on the red side, Li Yao watched the jungler lock in Lee Sin and ultimately decided on LeBlanc. For his comeback debut, Li Yao planned to play it safe. He opened the rune page, his fingers moving rapidly as he selected his setup. It wasn't until he finalized them that he snapped out of his trance.
Runes had been overhauled in Season 8. Li Yao had "quit the game" by then. Yet, facing the Season 11 runes, he felt no sense of unfamiliarity or awkwardness. It was as if... they were meant to be this way. Especially the feeling of selecting them row by row—it was identical to the experience of his dream-self.
While the timer ticked down, mlxg sent another message: "The mid laner on the other side is Dopa's smurf. Why aren't you playing Fizz?"
By the time Li Yao deciphered the message, the game had already begun.
At the same time, an early-morning streamer on the Douyu platform, bored while waiting for the pros to come online, unexpectedly discovered a gold mine. The streaming platform listed professional players and coaches; if a coach had an active Korean account, they were also included. Like the previous case with Easyhoon—his master-tier rank as a coach made countless other coaches tremble.
The streamer noticed that WE coach sask was actually playing ranked, and he had queued up with his former teammate mlxg. Was it a coincidence? It didn't matter. Seeing that the opposing mid laner was Dopa, the streamer realized this would be excellent content for the boring pre-pro-player-waking-up hours.
He quickly changed his stream title: "WE Coach and Former Pro Jiaoshen Teams Up with Former Teammate mlxg to Battle Dopa's Twisted Fate on the Rift!"