Chapter 1 Becoming Optimistic

December 30th, Friday, 8 AM.

Pei Qian turned off the alarm clock and struggled to get out of bed.

His determination to study these past two days had finally yielded some results. At least he had gone through dozens of pages of notes, which was a good start.

Today would be the same. He'd get up early and take advantage of his clear morning mind to review as much as possible, so he wouldn't just want to slack off in the afternoons and evenings.

He brushed his teeth while checking his phone.

"Huh? The IOI Global Finals started in the wee hours of the morning yesterday? Oh, right, I guess it's today."

"The matches seem to be still going on."

The matches started yesterday at 11 AM Los Angeles time, which was 3 AM today in Jingzhou. Six matches would be played in a day, and they were already on the fifth.

Domestic viewers who wanted to watch the matches had to stay up all night, watching from the early hours until morning.

Pei Qian wasn't that interested in the IOI matches. After all, he hadn't played the game, so he didn't understand it very well. The timing wasn't good, and FV Club didn't need to play in the group stage.

So, he hadn't paid much attention to it. It was only after seeing the relevant news pushes today that he clicked into the live streaming platform to take a look.

Clearly, with Longyu Corporation's strong promotion, the IOI Global Finals were quite popular domestically. Major news clients were pushing news, and various live streaming platforms were giving it a lot of recommended resources, making it seem very popular.

In addition, the GPL preseason had just ended a few days ago, and the spring season hadn't started yet. During this gap, many players with nothing to do would choose to watch the IOI Global Finals.

Pei Qian entered the live stream and found that two foreign teams he didn't recognize were playing, and they were currently evenly matched, in a tense stalemate.

The scene looked tense, but the comments were not discussing the match itself at all. Instead, fans from both IOI and GOG were fighting like crazy.

"Garbage! Swept in the opening match, don't even bother playing the rest, just swim back!"

"They're playing so ridiculously. Why aren't they picking their signature heroes, and why aren't they using their original tactics? They're trying to learn from the foreign teams? And they're doing a bad job of it!"

"It's just like the story of Handan, they've even lost what they already had! They're playing so ugly!"

"Such a great venue, such a cool opening ceremony, this competition is so prestigious, but the domestic teams are getting beaten badly. Isn't this disgusting?"

"Everyone, be a little more tolerant. It's only the first match. And they have to learn, the meta has changed. If they keep playing the old way, they'll only lose even worse."

"Damn, I stayed up all night, and this is what I watched? If the GPL spring season hadn't started, I wouldn't have come to watch this crappy match and get angry!"

"Then go back and watch your GPL! It's a trash game that only Chinese people play."

"Oh, let me tell you something. IOI and GOG have already reached parity in foreign market share. GOG isn't only played by Chinese people, you know. It's just that GOG's domestic teams are crushing the foreign teams."

"Did you see the GOG logo on the foreign clubs' team uniforms? Or are you blind and can't see it?"

"Wearing a GOG logo to play in the IOI Global Finals is outrageous. Finger Company must be furious."

"There's no other way. The clubs have already accepted the sponsorship. They can't force people to pay a penalty for breach of contract, right? Finger Company didn't think of this before, and didn't prohibit clubs from accepting GOG sponsorships."

"Stop arguing. GOG's results are good, but that's because Tenda is only strong domestically! If the IOI e-sports environment wasn't so suppressed, how could they be so weak?"

"Classic case of blaming the environment when you're not good enough. Didn't Longyu Corporation say they took the team to Los Angeles early to practice? And this is what they practiced?"

No one in the comments was discussing the match itself; they were all just fighting.

Pei Qian looked at the previous match results and found that the two domestic teams each played a match today, and both lost.

One was the opening match, which was swept in 30 minutes. The other was the fourth match, which lasted for more than 40 minutes, but in the end, they couldn't hold on and were caught by the opponent in a team fight that ended the game.

Two losses, it was a disastrous start.

Because the schedule for this competition was special, each group had three teams, and only one team would advance. Although it was a double round-robin Bo1, every point was extremely important.

Losing the first game already made the situation for qualifying very difficult.

And more importantly, the two teams that lost were not the strongest European and American teams, because the European and American number one seeds, like FV Club, didn't need to play in the group stage and were waiting in the quarterfinals.

If they couldn't even beat the non-number one seed teams from Europe and America, wouldn't they be even more useless against the real strong teams?

Many viewers stayed up until three in the morning to watch the match, and after waiting for so long, they ended up watching two frustrating matches. They must be too angry to sleep and had to go on a rampage in the live stream.

And it wasn't just the live stream; on major forums and video sites, players had obviously already vented their anger.

"Is the gap between domestic teams and European and American teams really that big?"

"Hmm, good, good."

"FV team's strength is similar to these two teams. Since these two teams were crushed, then FV team is probably just a quarterfinals one-round tour level, and won't have too much popularity."

Pei Qian couldn't help but become optimistic. He used his phone to cast to the big TV and planned to quickly watch the highlights of the previous matches.

On Aili Island, the official IOI account had already updated the opening ceremony of the IOI Global Finals and the highlight reels of the previous matches.

The opening ceremony featured a European and American singer performing the theme song, and there was also a dance troupe doing Cosplay performances. The overall feeling was not bad, and it was quite impressive.

The venue was large and crowded, so it looked even more grand. Compared to GOG's global invitational tournament back then, it had obviously improved, so the comments were quite enthusiastic.

But when it came to the main event, the overall situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

Pei Qian skipped through the two matches that the domestic teams lost and found that these two teams really deserved to be scolded. If he had stayed up all night to watch these two matches, he would definitely have cursed them too.

The first match was a complete stomp, and the second match was a back-and-forth affair that missed many opportunities before being taken away by the opponent in one wave. It was hard to say which was more infuriating.

The key was that, whether due to nervousness or some other reason, these two teams didn't seem to be performing at their best. Their decisions were hesitant, and their operations were restrained.

Moreover, in terms of lineup selection, the heroes that Pei Qian had seen didn't seem to appear at all.

Pei Qian had watched the IOI domestic qualifiers in Modu before and was relatively familiar with a few traditional lineups. Although he didn't know what the hero skills were, he could barely recognize them.

But this competition didn't use them, and it didn't match Pei Qian's impression of the matches he had watched before at all.

Pei Qian suddenly wanted to know about the situation with FV Club.

Since FV Club arrived in Los Angeles, Pei Qian hadn't paid much attention to them. After all, the two places had a time difference of more than ten hours, so it wasn't very convenient to contact them.

But now was a good time, so Pei Qian made a video call to Wu Yue.

Pei Qian was a little worried, because the signal inside most sports venues was not good. If Wu Yue and the others were still at the competition site, this video call might not go through.

But after waiting for a while, the video call connected.

"President Pei!"

Wu Yue was obviously not at the competition venue, but in the hotel, using the hotel's Wi-Fi to make this video call, so the signal stability was not bad.

Pei Qian nodded: "How are things going on your side?"

Wu Yue immediately understood: "President Pei, did you see the other two domestic teams losing so badly, so you're worried about our condition?"

"Don't worry about that. Our players have been working hard to train. I can't say for sure that we will win, but we will definitely show our style."

Wu Yue didn't dare to brag too much, after all, FV Club had always been practicing against SUG, and had never faced European and American teams, so he didn't know what it would be like when they actually played.

If he bragged too much in front of President Pei, and they ended up being eliminated in the quarterfinals, it would be too embarrassing.

Pei Qian nodded. Wu Yue looked like he didn't have much confidence, so there shouldn't be a big problem.

However, Pei Qian didn't think that FV Club would really be eliminated in the quarterfinals, after all, he always had bad luck, and the things he expected had never happened.

If they could hold on, they might be able to make it to the semi-finals.

If they were eliminated in the semi-finals, it would be passable.

At that time, the netizens' firepower would definitely be concentrated on the other two clubs, and FV Club would still be the strongest IOI club in the national server...

That won't do!

Pei Qian suddenly felt that the current situation was still not very stable, mainly because the other two clubs were performing too poorly, which suddenly set off FV.

Even if FV Club didn't win the championship, getting to the semi-finals would still mean they were the best-performing domestic team.

Thinking of this, Pei Qian said, "I saw that our club's official Weibo has been posting some daily photos and videos recently."

Wu Yue immediately understood: "Understood, President Pei, you mean that with the competition imminent, we should post less of this kind of thing, to avoid attracting hatred and affecting the players' mentality? I'll tell them to stop posting on Weibo."

Pei Qian raised his hand: "No! That's not what I meant."

"I mean, this is being handled very well, and we must increase our efforts!"

"We must post on Weibo with high intensity every day, and we must maximize our presence in front of the players."

"Not only that, but we must also do something on Weibo, mocking the other teams and commenting on the recently concluded matches, specifically picking on the winning teams."

"Jokes, emojis, whatever we can do, we must do it! The higher the traffic, the better!"

Wu Yue was a little confused: "Ah? President Pei, this is attracting hatred!"

He could imagine what the result would be if this content was sent out. They would definitely be scolded by the players, and the players would also take screenshots and wait to dig up the graves!

Currently, FV Club was the number one seed, and they could sit back and watch the tigers fight before the quarterfinals. Of course, it was no problem to talk trash to other teams, but this would definitely offend the fans of other teams, and even cause the disgust of passers-by.

At that time, it would be fine if FV Club won the match, but if they lost, wouldn't they be torn apart?

Wu Yue hesitated: "President Pei, this... doesn't seem very good. Domestic players don't like this kind of high-profile behavior."

Pei Qian thought for a while: "Hmm... you mean that domestic players don't like it, but foreign players do? Hmm, that's right, what you said makes a lot of sense."

"Then let's do this. Your club should also register all those foreign websites, like Twitter and so on, and do the same thing as Weibo, make English versions!"

"Coincidentally, we have invested in some overseas clubs here. I'll have their official accounts interact with you, so there's no need to worry about no one watching."

"Okay, it's settled. We'll start doing it after the match today, and I'll check it tomorrow. I'm hanging up first."

Wu Yue: "President Pei..."

Before he could finish speaking, the video call had already been hung up.

Wu Yue was a little helpless, but there was nothing else he could do, so he could only do as he was told.