Chapter 351: A Real Confidence Booster
Su Xue joined Team Shanghai in the player seating area. In person, not in mind. She chewed her lips and fidgeted with her hands, deaf to the people around her. What if I’m a terrible caster? What if I say something stupid? There are so many people here and even more watching online! All of them will see me screw up! Those people are vultures! They’ll jump on it and make fun of me for the rest of my life! I’ll have to quit streaming and move to some hamlet in the middle of nowhere! Her stomach contracted and she felt nauseous. There’s still so much I don’t know about this game. I don’t know anything!
Lin Feng patted Su Xue on her shoulder, pulling her from her spiralling thoughts, and said, “Stop worrying so much! You stream to 50,000 people all the time! This stadium can’t even hold that many people right now! This is going to be easy for you!”
Su Xue looked at Lin Feng and smiled. She replied, “I know, I know. But when I stream it often still feels like before, you know? When I had like 50 viewers? I’m still chatting with everyone and I know so many people! I don’t just know their names but I know who they are! And they know me… That connection is missing here. If I say something stupid…” She shook her head and asked, “But enough about me! Shouldn’t you also be worrying? You’re playing against Goalie! I heard he’s really good!”
“Goalie? He is?” Lin Feng asked, laughing. He shrugged and added, “There’s nothing to it. We’ll go up on stage when it’s our turn, and we’re 3-0ing them.”
“Sure, sure, mister big mouth!” Su Xue replied, rolling her eyes back. She then asked, “You do know they’re like the favourites for the entire tournament, right? I was looking into them yesterday and everyone online is talking about them!”
The large LCD screen above the two soundproof booths up on stage flashed to life. It showed the Champion Select for the first game of the first match of the Round of 16! Zeng Rui told Lin Feng to focus, but he ignored that and continued, “We will win. Easy. And it’s okay, XueXue. You will do great too! Just be yourself. Remember all those times you commentated me playing? For your videos in the beginning and also when I was just playing solo queue? Your viewers loved that! That’s all you have to do here! They will all love you! Just keep doing your thing!”
Su Xue looked into Lin Feng’s dark eyes and focused on the small brown dot just off the center in his left eye. She breathed out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and smiled. Just smiled. He’s right. What am I even worrying about? HuyaTV hired me because I’m good at this! They don’t want just anyone with just any type of casting. They wanted me. I just have to be me! And it’s not like I’m totally in the dark either. I know Team Shanghai better than everyone else! The only thing I don’t know… She asked, “What about my analysis of the game? I’m just not experienced with that…”
“Oh, that? Easy!” Lin Feng replied. He grinned and explained, “So here’s what you do. You tell them that Team Guangzhou is a very cocky, arrogant team who believe that relying on Korean imports will win them the game. Then you go on to say that this is a stupid conjecture made by stupid people. You tell everyone that actual skill decides the game, and that there’s nobody with more skill than me playing this tournament! Then you finish it off by saying that I’ll hard-win mid by the 10th minute and that we’ll destroy their nexus by the 20th minute.” He briefly paused before adding, “Easy, right?”
Su Xue stared at Lin Feng for nearly a minute before her mouth finally moved and a sound came out. She muttered, “You sure sound confident…” She took a long, deep breath and moved her lips around. Then she nodded and said, “Alright, alright. I’ll repeat that, word for word. But if you don’t live up to it, you can bet your tiny ass on it that I’m taking you down with me!”