October 28, 2021, Thursday.
Jiang Yang vaguely heard his phone's notification sound. He saw that his desk mate, Li Hua, had messaged him and tapped to open it.
Li Hua:
"Mom and Dad aren't home. I'm lonely all by myself!"
"Hot, thrilling, exciting games! Give me a rush like I've never had before!"
"Crazy Thursday! Send me 50 on WeChat and I'll chase your blues away!"
The messages above were decorated with a bunch of hearts and flames.
The first line instantly woke Jiang Yang up. But by the time he got to the end, he realized he'd been tricked.
"You woke me up early in the morning before I was even properly awake," Jiang Yang complained over WeChat.
Li Hua sent Jiang Yang a picture of KFC. "It's already noon here... I forgot about the time difference."
Stockholm wasn't in the same time zone as China. The time difference was about six hours.
It was already noon in China, but here it was only a little past six in the morning.
Neither of them paid it much mind.
Li Hua casually chatted with Jiang Yang. "Yesterday's match was a bit of a shame. Little Su and Xiao-Ge weren't feeling it, so it seemed like you were under a lot of pressure."
"It's fine. They just played better than us." Jiang Yang didn't blame his teammates.
Li Hua, though, said, "Your teammates were just too weak. If they could hold their own in a straight-up fight, or at least not die so quickly, I feel like you would've won that Mirage."
As Jiang Yang's good desk mate, Li Hua had followed his progress ever since finding out he'd made it to the Major. Whenever Jiang Yang won, Li Hua would message him to offer his congratulations.
He was practically Jiang