Rise

one that they were unlikely to recover from. 

As for Gang Zi, he was incoherent with rage as he watched Garen walk away while his Jinx and LeBlanc lay dead on the ground.
His blood pressure shot up so high that he nearly fainted. 

The long and short of it all was that Gang Zi and his lads had no way to counter Lin Feng’s Garen.
If Garen didn’t want to fight them, it was impossible for them to chase him down and kill him.
But if Garen did want to fight, they had no way to protect their backline from his blade.
The worst part about all of this, as far as Gang Zi’s thoughts went, was that Lin Feng’s Garen was only a Support! Gang Zi could not even begin to fathom how a Support was somehow carrying Team Shanghai. 

As for the rest of the lads, they couldn’t figure out what to do in this game.
At this point in the game, it was like they were up against two fed Top laners.
One was Irelia, and the other was Garen.
They were caught in the lowest circle of hell, where they had no counter for either Irelia or Garen! And by the time they figured this out, 20 minutes had gone by since the start of the game.
The gold gap had widened to over 15,000. 

The lads all quickly came to the same conclusion.
They had no hope of winning this game.
Each of them looked at Gang Zi in turn.
Gang Zi nodded as he clenched his teeth.
He started the surrender vote, and every one of his lads voted yes.
Their nexus exploded.
The lads had learned a hard lesson by playing this game that they had no way of winning.
It took a brick load of humiliation for them to realize that the high schoolers they mocked were far better than them.
So much better that it wasn’t funny. 

When the Lads surrendered, Lin Feng clicked his tongue.
“Aww, already? I’m not even at full build yet!”

Fortunately for Gang Zi and his lads, they didn’t hear Lin Feng.
If they did, whatever shred of dignity they had left would’ve been obliterated. 

The so-called friendly scrim had ended with Team Shanghai’s overwhelming victory.  Gang Zi and his lads stood up with unsightly expressions on their faces.
They struggled and failed to come up with a decent excuse for their defeat, and quickly left the room without even saying goodbye.

Qian Lu laughed and shouted at their backs, “Take care! I won’t see you out! Come again!”

Right now, at this very moment, Qian Lu was incredibly pleased with himself.
Now that he’d watched this game, he was more than confident in his decision to contract Lin Feng and the rest of Team Shanghai.
He knew deep in his heart that this team was definitely more than good enough to represent his internet cafe.
More than that, he was convinced that every other internet cafe that came to challenge his branch was destined to lose as miserably as the Lads had!

While Qian Lu was lost in his thoughts and metaphorically patting himself on the back, Lin Feng got up from his seat and walked over to Qian Lu.
“So, Ol’ Qian.
Did we pass your little test here?”

Qian Lu was stunned by the question.
He was not expecting it, nor did he think Lin Feng could see his devious manipulation.
But one look at Lin Feng’s eyes snapped Qian Lu back to reality.
He clasped his hands together and nodded with an awkward small.
“Ah, yes, yes! That was marvelous! All of you got full points!” 

Lin Feng, despite how he came off, was actually not as airheaded as he came off sometimes.
The truth was that he’d seen through what Qian Lu was trying to pull the minute the Lads walked in through the door.
He just didn’t care enough to question it or do anything about it.
The whole situation was one that Lin Feng was more than familiar with.
Back in Season 1, when Lin Feng played with Tian Tian, Silent, and the rest of their team, they had to deal with people like Qian Lu all the time as they hopped from internet cafe to internet cafe.
Lin Feng understood that the deal was only official once they proved themselves. 

And now that this rote formality was over, Lin Feng smiled and extended his hand out to Qian Lu.
“Alright then, it’s settled.
We’re friends and officially working for this branch of the NetCow Cafe from now on!”

Qian Lu’s eyes went wide.
Then, he broke into a rare, genuine smile.
He grabbed Lin Feng’s hand and shook it.
“Yes! Let’s be good friends and get along from now on! Haha!”