League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Where’s your boss, how come he didn’t try to take the position himself?” Lin Dong asked.

They had all seen Team Daemons’ boss before and he wasn’t such a bad one, otherwise Team Daemons wouldn’t be so solid in their position for such a long time.

The lifespan of an e-sports team was usually very short-lived and not normally stable.

A lot of sponsors were reluctant to invest money in random teams, mainly due to the instability of the teams.

If they invested money but then something happened to the team and it disbanded causing them to lose the members, or if they violated some rules, their money was basically wasted.

This was the reason that small teams could not survive, while larger teams barely had enough sponsors.

The problem was, how could an industry grow if they only relied on the bigger teams to support it? Fresh blood was always needed to come in.

The bottom line was, e-sports didn’t have a clear specification or a benchmark.

Just throw a few people together and you could make a team, go through a few weeks of training and you could call yourself a professional player and team. But once you lost a competition, this team would disband due to arguments and finger pointings, or maybe it would be due to no stable income or other resources…

The regulations of e-sports were determined by the ACE. A simple example, if you were to let Xu Pingyang decide this kind of thing, this guy would lower the threshold to a new low for the sake of pumping money into unstable talents and non-objective players, messing up the entire circle of e-sports and finally making the sponsors so insecure that they wouldn’t dare to invest in newer teams, only continuing to invest in the bigger and already stable teams and clubs.

Daemons Club was also an old veteran club, and with their reputation, it was entirely possible that their manager or boss would be able to take the role of the ACE Head Secretary!

“Our boss did want the role, but the problem is, with Xu Pingyang showing the trophies and honors that you guys have won, how could our club fight against him?” Charon laughed bitterly.

For a moment, everyone’s eyes fell on Luocheng.

Everyone was well aware that the trophies and honors that had established the status of the Sky Club had all been won by Luocheng himself.

Once Xu Pingyang had managed to secure it all, he had made sure it sat as a crown in his own club.

Tencent and ACE had based it off of these to judge Xu Pingyang on being the head secretary, and with Sky Club’s achievements, it was hard to go up against them.

***

After their soak in the hot springs, Luocheng went back to the hotel. He grabbed a bottle of Coke and sat on the balcony, gazing at the distant city lights.

“Hey, are you still thinking about what happened just now?” Meiqi asked as she walked over to him.

Meiqi had heard the story from Lin Dong about what had transpired in the hot springs.

“There are some things that I want to get back.” Luocheng said.

The World Champion of Gaming trophy that was issued by the World E-sports Association was still within the Sky Club, and the Worlds runner-up trophy was also still there.

Xu Pingyang had taken the glory and honor that he and the others had worked so hard to obtain, going as far as to cheat them, this was really unbearable!

Also, the most unforgivable act was that he had clearly murdered an e-sports player but he hadn’t received any punishment!

Was it because the e-sports system was not perfect, that’s why he could get away with his crimes?

The closer the match with Team Sky was, the more unhappy and angry Luocheng got!

“At that time when it happened, how could he so easily take all those things that belonged to you?” Meiqi asked.

“When we joined the team, we signed a contract. This contract was for a period of two years, and for those two years, we needed to play for their club. Regardless of whether we win or lose, every month, we would only get 1,500 RMB. Competition prize money would belong to us and trophies would also belong to ourselves. Team trophies would be split between the team and the club…”

“After two years, we could choose to stay or we could leave to join other clubs. Personal trophies could be taken, but if we wanted the team trophies, we would have to pay half the cost to them, and vice versa, if the club wanted it, they would have to pay half the cost to us.”

Luocheng briefly elaborated the contract terms and conditions to Meiqi.

After listening, Meiqi said, “This contract sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah, it seems reasonable. However, we didn’t expect that Xu Pingyang would look at our young ignorant selves and then add some hidden conditions inside it. At that age, how could we have understood the large list of jargons and legal terms that were used in the contract. We just wanted some guarantee to have a stable life and play the game with a peace of mind, so we signed.” Luocheng continued.

“What kind of hidden conditions?” Meiqi said.

“The biggest one in the contract was, Party A, which was the club, what they needed to provide was: Taking care of our living accomodations, food and basic income. As for Party B which was us, we needed to play professional Dota locally within the country representing them.” Luocheng said calmly.

“Locally?” Meiqi was quick to grasp the key point here.

Luocheng nodded his head. “That’s right, locally. When Xu Pingyang showed us his true face, the hidden statement said that apart from personal trophies and teams trophies, everything else belonged to the club, and these personal and team trophies didn’t include the ones we had won overseas. In the beginning, we hadn’t expected that we would be able to play professionally overseas, so when the word ‘locally’ came out, we didn’t really give it much thought. At that time, 1,500 RMB was a huge figure to us sixteen year olds, and it was basically heaven-sent already. But even after we managed to reach the Worlds and the reputation of the club had increased by such a huge margin, our salary was still so pitiful.”

“B*stard!” Meiqi cursed suddenly, “How could he be such a sleazy b*stard!”

Luocheng had already gotten used to Meiqi’s foul words and he continued lightly, “This is still nothing.”

“There’s even more!?” Meiqi growled.

“I remember when we signed it, the term was for two years. However, following that, I don’t know why it suddenly became five years.” Luocheng said.

“Nowadays, some uni students have even more than that amount to use, not to mention you were basically working for him!” Meiqi crossed her arms angrily, pushing her bust up and making it even more prominent.

“I don’t know either, it was two years but became five years… and after five years, I didn’t even know who I was anymore.” Luocheng said,

“Sue him, that b*stard, we have to sue the sh*t out of him. My dad has a lot of good lawyer friends, we’ll sue the h*ck out of him!” Meiqi said.

Luocheng smiled bitterly, those sixteen year old kids had really been played like dogs in this cut-throat society. They wanted to sue, but the problem was that they didn’t even know where to begin. The court might have even treated their group of teens like a bunch of crazy kids.

“This can’t be the way it ends. Luocheng, you have to sue him. Do you still have the initial contract? If you have it, we can definitely bring him down, then we can take back everything that belongs to you! All those trophies that you had, they are definitely worth more than hundreds of thousands now, we have to get it back. We can’t let Xu Pingyang use your things to attain his own happiness!” Meiqi said.

Luocheng didn’t respond to that.

Meiqi looked at the expression on his face and said, “You don’t have it anymore, do you?”

“Yeah, when we went for Worlds, we left the contracts in the place we were staying at. We don’t even know when Xu Pingyang took back the contracts, but most likely it’s all with Xu Pingyang now, and the term is stated as five years…” Luocheng laughed bitterly.

“Not even one? Weren’t there five of you?” Meiqi asked.

Lin Dong was walking past them and he came over, glancing at Luocheng. It was obvious that he had overheard them talking.

“Lin Dong, aren’t you a computer expert? Can’t you go and check if Xu Pingyang has a copy on his computer…” Meiqi asked.

“I’ve already checked before, that guy is too old-school, he doesn’t put anything in his computer.” Lin Dong said, shaking his head.

With no contract, this was basically a dead-end. Whatever Xu Pingyang said would go, and all three fell silent for a moment.

Suddenly, Meiqi’s head snapped up as she was hit by a sudden thought, her eyes brightening!

“There’s one more copy and I know who has one in their hands!” Meiqi said excitedly.

Hearing her excited exclamation, everyone came back to reality immediately.

Luocheng’s face was confused as he looked at her, whether or not they had the contract in hand, wouldn’t he know? What the h*ck was she going on about one more copy?

“If you hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have remembered. Do you remember that time when the ACE Head Secretary came looking for me?” Meiqi asked.

Luocheng nodded his head slowly, still confused. Before they had started the LPL, Secretary Liang had come to find them. At that time, it was Meiqi who had been in charge of speaking to him, and the secretary had basically wanted them to join the ACE. Meiqi had taken into consideration their feelings toward clubs and other ulterior motives at that time, temporarily not agreeing to it.

“I spoke to the secretary for quite a while and he told me about ACE taking the reins, but they had existed way before this. It was even before your Team Wings was established and there weren’t many clubs under their management yet, but the materials and contracts from those clubs were under their records and jurisdiction.” Meiqi clapped her hands excitedly as she explained. She was so happy that she wanted to dance, it was as if a mysterious case had been solved by her. Her bust was bouncing as she jumped, as though her clothes couldn’t keep it in!

“There’s such a thing?” Luocheng asked, arching his eyebrow.

“Think carefully again, when you brought the contract to be stamped, how many copies were there?” Meiqi said.

“Wait, let me remember!” Lin Dong suddenly said, furrowing his eyes in concentration as he closed his eyes.

No one dared to interrupt his dive down memory lane, his memory was definitely the best out of all of theirs.

“Seven copies!” Lin Dong shouted suddenly, his expression mirroring Meiqi’s. “I remember now, there were a total of seven copies getting stamped. It was at Xiao Bei’s store at that time, I remember he asked me if I was crazy, didn’t we only have six people in our team.”

Team Wings had five people, if each one had a copy, that would make five. Xu Pingyang would have one, so the total was six, so why was there a seventh copy?

Where was that copy!?

Could it be possible that just as Meiqi had said, it was in ACE’s hands for their records purpose!?

If so, who had the copy of the contract in their hands!?