The Captain Knows How to Put Defiance in Its Place [Esports]

(My author-page story *Back to the Top [Esports]* is now open for preorders.) After getting burned by his club contract, Lin Jiang unexpectedly returns to four years earlier. He takes one look at the contract, which is a trap at every turn, tears it up, walks out, and joins the bottom-ranked team in the league. Everyone thinks Lin Jiang must have had his head messed with. Even his friends and family try to talk him out of it: “You’re turning down the number-one team in the league to join some tiny, awful team?” Only Lin Jiang knows the truth. In his previous life, he gave everything to KUG and helped build half its success, only to be betrayed by his teammates and abandoned by the club. They forced him out of the starting lineup and made him a substitute for three whole years. Reborn, Lin Jiang swears he’ll never jump into the KUG fire pit again. He joins OT. Despite everyone’s doubts, he rolls up his sleeves to repair equipment and renovate the team’s base, recruits a coach, personally scrims with the players, and repeatedly pulls his hopeless teammates back to their feet. “Get up. I’ll take you to the championship.” He casts off his former glory and makes history all over again. He leads OT to the top through sheer effort. He’ll show everyone that KUG needs him, not the other way around. Meanwhile, KUG is left floundering through one do-or-die match after another without Lin Jiang. Only then do the fans who used to flame him realize that KUG was only the number-one team when Lin Jiang was there! Without him, they’re nothing!! Everyone knows that OT’s starting AD, Shen Ju, is the undisputed esports prince: he has a terrible temper and can flame anyone in the league. Everyone assumes Lin Jiang must have a hard time as team captain. Until one day at a match, Shen Ju is walking ahead while Lin Jiang lazily calls after him, “Shen, you puppy, get me a bottle of water.” Shen Ju naturally hands him a bottle and even unscrews the cap for him. The fans waiting for him to start flaming: ??? [Reading Guide] 1. The bottom is at the top of his game. 2. Younger top, one-on-one. 3. The bottom has a savior complex and is somewhat universally adored. 4. The game is League of Legends, with detailed worldbuilding, so you can enjoy it even if you don’t play. · · Coming Soon 1: *Back to the Top [Esports]* Blurb: Just after winning the world championship, mid-laner Ye Ran suddenly announces his retirement on the spot. He takes his championship ring, dusts off his hands, and goes straight off to pursue his beautiful romance. They say the person he likes is a rich young gentleman from the scene. He won the championship to confess his feelings, but after his grand public declaration, the other guy didn’t even give him the time of day. Ye Ran is mocked as “esports’ legendary hopeless romantic.” A laughingstock in the scene, Ye Ran barely gets by for three years through livestreaming. Then one day, the top donor in his stream, a jungler from a famous club, suddenly invites him to try out. Ye Ran: “Send me a photo.” The other guy actually sends one. The lighting in the photo is intimate. It’s just a casual snapshot, but even the most unflattering angle can’t hide his striking features. A cool yet suggestive little mole sits at the corner of his eye, and the half-revealed butterfly tattoo on his collarbone makes for a powerful contrast. Just the way he lowers his gaze and slightly bends his hand is enough to make anyone’s heart race and mouth water. XG jungler: Join our team. Name your terms. The fans, already resigned to the inevitable: No use. He’s a hopeless romantic. But Ye Ran shuts off his livestream in the middle of the night and immediately announces he’s joining XG as their starting mid-laner. In the photo on XG’s official account, he’s beaming. The fans: ??? When did this dumb hopeless romantic finally come to his senses? Everyone says nobody can make Ye Ran forget that aloof, self-possessed gentleman. Then XG’s jungler, Lu Heng, appears. He makes Ye Ran break his vow never to compete again, dye his hair black, remove his tattoos, and once more set out to fight for the world championship. The fans: !!! So the cure for a hopeless romantic is to start another romance! * During the three years after Ye Ran left, domestic esports stagnated and suffered a gap between generations. The LPL entered its darkest and most despairing period. Everyone said the LPL’s glory days were over and the future belonged to the LCK, until that young man returned to the stage and proved to everyone with his skill Who the true king of esports was. #Three years away, back as a legend# #You guys have no idea, my youth is alive again# Coming Soon 2: *Hostile Relationship [Esports]* Blurb: #A kid from the start, a future Demon King# After missing out on the World Championship three times, Lin Tian is mocked by the scene as an amateur who’ll never be taken seriously. The person who crushes his dreams of reaching Worlds all three times is Lu Guiran, a rising star hailed as a genius. He’s had proper training since childhood and plays a steady game. Next to him, Lin Tian’s self-taught style is full of holes. They’re the same age and go pro in the same year, so of course people compare them. When a reporter asks what he thinks of esports dark horse Lin Tian, Lu Guiran doesn’t hold back: “He still has a long way to go before he can compete with a real pro.” Lin Tian remembers those words for five whole years. He fights his way into a professional team and declares onstage, “I’m here to beat Lu Guiran.” Right after making that bold declaration, he gets knocked out in the first round of the playoffs without even running into Lu Guiran. And Lu Guiran, as expected, wins the championship. Asked about Lin Tian again, he comments, “He really does still have a long way to go.” Lin Tian: ... Frustrated, he goes to the rooftop to drink, slips, and meets the King of Hell. When he wakes up, he’s reborn in the past, and Lu Guiran, who once swept up trophies across every major tournament, is still just a kid. Lin Tian: Of course I’m not going to let him off easy! He finds Lu Guiran, eager to take him down, but Lu Guiran glances at his account and says, “Sorry, I don’t play against Bronze players.” Lu Guiran has already joined an esports club and is halfway to going pro, while Lin Tian is still a beginner in elementary school. Lin Tian: ... Later, an unheard-of account appears in the esports scene. It racks up consecutive wins against Master players and defeats more than half the pros in solo queue. It plays only two games a day, and its owner’s whereabouts are mysterious, like those of a reclusive master. Everyone in the scene speculates that it must be a smurf account belonging to some big shot. They discreetly try to figure out who it is, only to discover that the player is an elementary school student who can play just two games a day because of the System’s anti-addiction restrictions. The pro players who lost to him: ??? Is esports doomed or what? * The esports industry is developing rapidly, with one tournament after another. Newcomers fight tooth and nail for a place, while major clubs hold the power of life and death and use brutal elimination systems. Lin Tian has talent but no way in. He fights his way into the professional scene through trial and error, earning labels from the media like “king of the self-taught” and “esports dark horse.” But in the end, he still can’t overcome the deep foundations of the established teams. When he gets the chance to live his life over, Lin Tian discovers what it really means to be a pro. A superstar who will shake the esports world is quietly emerging... Theme: Never lose the courage to start over.