All-Round Mid Laner

That night, the [Official Gods War Professional League – Chinese Division] Weibo account released a statement—

Season 10 Regular Season, Round One, Week One, Group B.
Tianhuan vs NTG, 2-0 victory.
The first pentakill of the season has been delivered.
Please follow the link: [highlights video]

It was Thursday, and the game had been between two teams from Group B.
Less than 20% of fans of the league actually watched the game live at the venue or online.
There was no way for this turnout to compare to that of Group S matches on the weekends.

However, many people would read the game summaries and watch the game highlights released by the official pro league account.
These highlights were only around two minutes long, anyway, and they always featured the most spectacular kills.
No one minded spending a bit of time to watch them casually.

The [Official Gods War Professional League – Chinese Division] Weibo account had over 150 million followers.
As soon as they released that highlights video, it racked up over a hundred thousand views.
A thick wave of comments started to flood in as well.

[Holy shit? This is Tianhuan's new omega mid laner?]

[A pentakill with the Abyssal Lord, that's insanely cool!]

[I can't even believe it.
First match in Group B, and we already have a pentakill.
And it was taken by this little omega gege. Dumbstruck.jpg]

[I clicked into this video to see how Tianhuan was going to lose, but they actually won? And they got a pentakill?]

The fans who'd stopped following Tianhuan earlier, due to their crushing disappointment, saw that 2-0 match score and tentatively clicked into the video.
And what they saw…

All their eyes were drawn to Tianhuan's brand new mid laner.

At the start of the first game, the mid laner got a solo kill on the enemy mid laner.
Then he went down to the bottom lane to assist, getting a double kill.
And then, when the two teams clashed over the grand dragon, he got a pentakill!

This guy was going to make a name for himself in just one game!

[Ahhhhh, I seriously regret not watching this match! Officials, hurry up and release the full video!]

[Right now all I care about is @Tianhuan Esports Club quickly giving us this little Lieyang gege's Weibo account info!]

[Tianhuan-Lieyang, I just looked him up.
But there were no results?]

[It can't be that he's so shy that he doesn't want to start a Weibo account, right? Hurry up, someone open one for him!]

At that time, Tianhuan's players were still happily chowing down on a delicious hotpot dinner in Glacier City.

Tang Can's cell phone suddenly rang.

The little mei in charge of Tianhuan's official Weibo account urgently chattered, “Can-jie, is Little Ye there? The league account just posted the highlights clip of his pentakill, and a ton of fans are running over from there to check out our team's Weibo account.
They're practically breaking down our doors! Everyone is asking us to give them our little omega gege's Weibo info, or they're going to knife us.”

Tang Can looked over at Ye Shaoyang, who was very focused on eating a beef meatball.
She offered her phone to him.
“The girl from the social media team is calling.
Shaoyang, can you talk to her for a sec?”

Ye Shaoyang took the cell phone and wiped his mouth, then smiled and said, “Hello, is something the matter?”

“Little Ye, ah.
I just took a look at your personal Weibo account, it's still called 'Streamer Xiao Bai'.
Our team Weibo needs to make an official announcement about our victory, and when we do, we'll be mentioning all the players.
We can't leave you out, right?” the social media girl said, still rattling off her words urgently.
“The boss just gave me a call and said that your pentakill in your first game made you famous right away, so this is the best time for us to make an announcement! Could you help us out by changing your Weibo name as soon as possible?”

The social media girl had such a loud voice that everyone at the dinner heard her through the phone.

Ye Shaoyang looked towards the coach, and Lin Feng smiled back as he said, “Go ahead and change it.
Your Abyssal Lord has already come out anyway, there's no way for us to continue hiding your identity.
I bet Beimu, Jingzhe, and some others have already guessed at the truth.
Other teams and netizens might not know yet.”

“Okay, then I'll change my name right now,” Ye Shaoyang said into the phone.
“But my Weibo hasn't been verified yet.”

“Don't worry about that.
After you change your name, I'll contact Weibo right away and send over your player information.
I'll ask them to get you verified immediately.”

“Mm, mm.
Thanks for your hard work.”

Ye Shaoyang hung up, then immediately logged into Weibo on his own phone.
He changed his Weibo name from [Streamer Xiao Bai] to [Tianhuan-Lieyang], and he also updated his personal intro on the page.
His new intro message read—

Formerly the streamer Xiao Bai of Whale Streaming, currently the mid laner of Team Tianhuan.

He left the avatar as his beautiful white kitty.

Their social media team worked very quickly.
They immediately contacted Weibo with Ye Shaoyang's player details, confirming that his account did belong to him.

Within half an hour, Ye Shaoyang's Weibo was verified and gilded with a shiny gold 'V' marker.

The streamer Xiao Bai had taken a few days off from streaming.
As a result, the fans who followed him hadn't seen him in a while.
Some of them just so happened to be checking up on his Weibo page, when suddenly…

Had their eyes gone bad?

Or did Xiao Bai change his Weibo name, get verified, and declare himself a member of the pro team Tianhuan?

A huge sea of comments popped up on his page.

[What's going on???]

[Am I seeing this right? This avatar is still clearly the little white cat, but the name has been changed to Tianhuan-Lieyang.]

[Holy shit, brothers and sisters, go look at his intro! Our Xiao Bai has gone pro!]

[Omg, omg, omg, our streamer has made a name for himself!]

[Wahhh, our Xiao Bai has become a professional esports player?]

[Wait, an omega? I just looked this up.
Tianhuan-Lieyang seems to be Tianhuan's new omega mid laner?]

[SuspiciousKitty.jpg]

At first, not too many people noticed the matter of Ye Shaoyang changing his Weibo name.

But he had a lot of fan group chats, and Xiao Rui was a moderator in all of those groups.
As people in those group chats started to discuss the matter, they couldn't resist the urge to poke him: [@XiaoRui, Ruirui, what's going on? Xiao Bai has changed his Weibo name?]

Xiao Rui proudly answered: [It's exactly what you see.
My ge is a professional esports player now, he's Tianhuan's new mid laner! He got a pentakill in his debut game today! Check out this link: highlights video.]

The group chats instantly exploded into chaos!

A dozen or so group chats all blew up at the same time.
As a result, a few thousand comments instantly appeared under Xiao Bai's latest Weibo post.

At exactly ten that night, Tianhuan's players finished their hotpot dinner and returned to their hotel.

Tianhuan's official Weibo, which had been harassed for a long time already, finally squeezed out an official announcement—

Congratulations to Team Tianhuan on their first victory in the S10 regular season, and congratulations to Lieyang for taking the first pentakill of S10.
Everyone played well! @Tianhuan-Zhuhuo @Tianhuan-Shuoyue @Tianhuan-Lieyang @Tianhuan-Fanxing @Tianhuan-Jiangshui

Tianhuan's anti-fans were all baffled.

Wait.
A pentakill?

A horde of anti-fans immediately went to check out the highlights video, then saw that the mid laner—who they'd dissed to hell and back for several days—had decimated the enemy on the battlefield like he was simply chopping up some helpless vegetables.

Many of Tianhuan's diehard fans were so emotional that they started to cry tears of joy.
They all started to write long comments, praising the players.

[I've been Tianhuan's fan for five years already.
I just knew Tianhuan wasn't a team of chickens who could be bullied by other people.
They definitely lost for a reason in those preseason games.
After watching today's game, the heavy weight in my heart has finally fallen away.
Good luck in S10!]

[Fire and water with the sun, moon, and stars between them.
This complete set of family names makes me laugh every time I see it.]

[The new mid laner is not bad.
Where did Tianhuan find this hidden gem? The little gege is so cool!]

[Where are all those people who said Tianhuan just signed an omega to put him on display? Do your faces hurt right now?]

[There were even people who said this omega signed with Tianhuan by using his connections.
You seriously have to have some darkness in your heart to brew up such shady theories every day.
So what if he's an omega? I love this fierce omega mid lander!]

[Let's go, sisters, let's go! Let's hurry up and go be our little gege's first Weibo followers!]

[Take me with you! I want to follow the handsome little ge too, I want to be Yangyang's number one fan!]

A bunch of people charged over to Tianhuan-Lieyang's Weibo account.

But then…

They were all dumbstruck.

How did Tianhuan-Lieyang already have five million fans?!

Wasn't he supposed to be a newbie?

All these people had wanted to rush over to become his first fan, his #1 fan.
But now they had to settle for being his #5,000,001 fan?

The fans who'd sprinted over from Tianhuan's official Weibo were all beyond confused.
They really thought they'd discovered a newbie.
Before clicking into Tianhuan-Lieyang's Weibo account, they'd genuinely believed they could be one of his first one hundred followers.

But they were ultimately stupefied by five million fans who'd beaten them to the punch.

All the fans who'd originally followed the streamer Xiao Bai received quite a fright as well.
A swarm of esports fans suddenly passed through their territory, like an invading army.
Immediately afterwards, some people who followed both esports players and games streamers started to chart the course of Xiao Bai's experiences.
Some other people started to edit together videos of Xiao Bai's best plays.
And someone even went off to start a super topic for Xiao Bai.

In the new #Tianhuan-Lieyang# super topic: [Welcome to everyone who follows the streamer Xiao Bai/Tianhuan-Lieyang.
^_^]

This was a very familiar emoticon to all of Xiao Bai's fans.

As for his new fans, they were all rendered speechless after reading up on his history.

Some of the classic moments included—

Defeating Brother Fish and writing: [Good game.
^_^]

Taking the MVP title after being dissed by a passerby, then writing: [Is that all?]

New fans also saw all sorts of diabolical plays from him, such as using the Illusionist to play jungler, becoming the National #1 Frost Goddess in a week, teaching others how to play the Destiny Goddess, and ultimately taking a total of eight National #1 titles.

The fans who followed him were excited beyond belief.
They all shrieked into the night in the super topic chat.

[This omega is way too unique, hahahaha.
Good game.
^_^]

[I really like that emoticon of his.
^_^]

[Awesome, awesome! Eight National #1 titles.
Damn, I really thought this was a cute and clueless omega support, but he's a mid lane demon king!]

[And Xiao Bai never uses dirty language to insult others.
I learned lots of ways to diss people from him.
^_^]

With so many netizens talking about the news and sharing it around, #TianhuanLieyangPentakill# trended instantly.

Making a name for himself in his very first match.
Taking a pentakill.
Getting onto the trending topics list that same night.
These were things that very few esports players could achieve.
A lot of people believed that a new star was going to rise in S10, and there were also others who couldn't help but think back nostalgically—

In S6, Chi Shuo had also risen to godhood with a pentakill.
He'd used the Bloodstained Assassin.

After that, Chi Shuo's Bloodstained Assassin had practically lived on the ban list.
Most coaches wouldn't dare let that hero out.

Then, was Ye Shaoyang's Abyssal Lord going to have a permanent spot on the ban list too?

When teams played against Tianhuan, they wouldn't have enough bans!

Ye Shaoyang pulled out his cell phone and shared the official announcement from Tianhuan's Weibo.
He also added to his own page: [Thank you for everyone's support.
I used to be the streamer Xiao Bai on Whale Streaming, and I was later scouted by Captain Chi and Coach Lin, so I signed with Tianhuan and became a professional player.
In the future, I'll continue to play as a pro player and I'll continue to do my best to improve.
^_^]

Fans all started to joke with him—

[Eight National #1 titles aren't enough? You want to improve until you have eighteen? ^_^]

[As your new mom fan, I'm elated! I'll always watch our Xiao Bai play in the future!]

[Rumor had it you were so ugly that you could never show your face, and that's why you showed us a cute cat.
But in the end, you were a hot guy all along! Drooling.jpg]

[The proof is here now.
It really wasn't his cat playing the game!]

The fans who'd followed Xiao Bai ever since he was a clueless newbie streamer were all overwhelmed by their feelings.

Especially those who'd been following him since he charged the national leaderboards with the Abyssal Lord four months ago.
When those fans looked at his new highlights clip and saw him taking a pentakill in such a cool way, they practically could have cried.

Lots of people had learned to play the Abyssal Lord from the streamer Xiao Bai.

His skillful manipulation of those three shadows, his builds, his solo kill and team fight tactics—he had truly helped many netizens improve their own game sense and skills.
Then, he took the Illusionist and the six Goddess heroes up the national leaderboards.
While playing ranked, he taught his viewers at the same time.
It could be said that he was the most professional teaching stream on all of Whale Streaming.

Among his fans, there were certainly those who were still clueless newbies in the Bronze rank.
But most of them had made it into the Diamond or King ranks, and some of his fans even did quite well in the summit tournament.

These fans had all become very impressive players.

Some people didn't follow the professional league at all.
They focused solely on playing ranked.
Since Xiao Bai had become a professional player now, these fans also decided to love him and everything that came with him—they went straight over to Tianhuan's team Weibo to give the team a follow as well.

These fans didn't know anything about Tianhuan's history, and they didn't know how cruelly Tianhuan had been insulted lately.

They only knew—

Our Xiao Bai has become Tianhuan's player, so we should support Tianhuan!

Ye Shaoyang's Weibo, now named Tianhuan-Lieyang, gained millions of new followers overnight.

Tianhuan's official team Weibo got some of that glory too.
They gained hundreds of thousands of fans that night as well!

Even Qu Jiang, Qin Yizhu, and Cheng Xing were followed by plenty of Xiao Bai's fans.

Ye Shaoyang's now-famous pentakill in his debut game had set off a chain reaction.
Tianhuan had been mired in dark clouds as of late, but they were turning a corner now.
The comments online were all bright and merry.
Old fans returned to support the team, and everyone eagerly awaited the birth of a new Tianhuan in the new season.

Of course, there were some people who remained quite pessimistic—

[You guys are so smug about your team taking a pentakill in Group B.
Once you get to Group S, you'll be blown to pieces!]

[Did these losers run off to Group B because they knew they wouldn't be able to win in Group S? I guess we should thank you on behalf of Group B's teams.]

These comments were quickly drowned out by the cheers of elated fans.

 

At the same time, in the [Gods War – Supreme Gods] group chat—

[Reporter Zhao]: @Tianhuan-Shuoyue, So your new omega mid laner was actually the streamer Xiao Bai!

[Reporter Zhao]: I was the one who discovered that sprout! It was me!!

[Tianhuan-Shuoyue]: Thank you, Reporter Zhao, for sending that video into the chat.

Zhao Xin'an nearly spat blood.

Chi Shuo's words moved all the players who hadn't originally planned on speaking out about the matter.
Everyone started to stick their heads up in the chat.

[Old Xu]: Holy crap, a pentakill! Chi Shuo, your newbie is seriously awesome!

[Rain]: Nicely done~

[Zhouzhou]: Watched the game.
He really is pretty good.

[I'm Very Square]: Get him in the chat, Chi Shuo.
Stop hiding him away like a secret baobei.

[Tianhuan-Shuoyue]: You guys don't mind if I add him to the chat?

[Zhao Xinping]: No objections.

[Old Xu]: We don't mind! Also, get Beimu's new international friend in here.
He's Chinese, so he can read Chinese, right? If not, we can use a translator to talk to him!

A moment later, two new messages popped up in the group chat—

[Tianhuan-Shuoyue] has invited [XiaoBai233] to the group.

[Reporter Zhao] has invited [Sean] to the group.

With the arrival of these two new mid laners, everyone sent out some waving emojis to greet them.

Ye Shaoyang swiftly changed his own nickname to [Tianhuan-Lieyang], then immediately sent a message.

[Tianhuan-Lieyang]: Hello, everyone.
^_^

This emoticon left everyone with some very complex feelings.

Sean also sent a message.

[Beimu-Sean]: Hello, everyone! TornFace.jpg

This 'torn face' emoji was the one that Zhao Xin'an loved to use the most.
Sean had obviously picked it up from him.
However, this international friend didn't seem to realize that there was a right and wrong time to use these emojis.
Why was his face being torn in half while he greeted new people for the first time, huh?

One ^_^ that was full of implications, and one very mysterious TornFace.jpg emoji.

These two new mid laners really made everyone else in the group feel caught between wanting to laugh and cry.

Season 10… was really going to be wild!