Chapter 273: High School Kids Can't Play League!
High school teams competing at a university tournament. The official reason was that these were some very talented players who deserved to get the experience. But it was never that simple. In this particular case, it was a pissing contest between the three big Esports Organizations in China. Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai were using their high school teams to show who's next generation was the best. A couple of old men in their big offices were betting on who had the best kids.
The Shanghai Esports Association had given Team Shanghai two objectives to achieve during the Winter Collegiate Cup. The obvious goal was winning the entire tournament and showing that they were better than everyone else! But more importantly for the Shanghai Esports Association was that Team Shanghai beat the high school teams from Beijing and Guangzhou. And if they never got to face those two teams, then they had to at least rank higher in the tournament.
Chu Fang dropped the smile and pleasantries. He looked with a serious expression around the cybercafe’s private room. He said, “The high school teams from Beijing and Guangzhou are actually really strong. They’re far better than we initially expected.” He passed around a document, allowing the members of Team Shanghai to read through it, before continuing, “On there you can see the information I gathered on the Beijing team. They have seven members on their team. From what I could find, they’ve scrimmed against both Beijing U-Tech and China University of Political Science and Law. They won every game in both scrims.” He paused a brief moment and then added, “Those two university teams were both quarter finalists last year.”
“So what?” Zhang Hao asked with a shrug. “We scrimmed against Shanghai University of Finance and kicked their asses! Sounds like we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Eh…” Chu Fang shook his head and said, “It’s not that simple. Don’t start underestimating them. The Beijing team didn’t even play with their main roster. Their strongest two players were sitting out in those games. And they crushed both teams. I’ve been told that they were really impressive.”
Zeng Rui closed his eyes and massaged his temples. It was hard to get any information on them, since we didn’t know much about them. I hoped that they were at most at the level of quarter finalists. But it sounds like I was wrong. He looked up at Chu Fang and said, “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“Uhm…” An Xin knew Chu Fang a little bit better than most others in the room. He likes to start with the good news… She observed Chu Fang’s expression briefly and then asked, “What about the Guangzhou team?”
Chu Fang smiled bitterly and replied, “Yeah… They’re better than the Beijing team. A lot better, supposedly.”
Long before esports there was the geek culture, which was little more than a group of Japanese animation, science fiction and video games enthusiasts. This culture grew faster in Guangzhou than anywhere else in China, quickly becoming a part of the city’s identity. Many people even called Guangzhou the first real cultural center of China! There were countless companies, like comic book publishers and streaming platforms, that had set up their base of operation in Guangzhou for this very reason. Yet Shanghai had overtaken Guangzhou in recent years to become the esports capital of the world. This was difficult to accept for the City of Nerds. And they were looking to bring esports back home!