Ignorance or Malice

"That's right. We have two Hero Class on our team, and the individual skills of the others are all above those of their peers at Jinghai University. The reason we lost was because some members of our team had a problem with their attitude and didn't give it their all!"

Wu Chaojie's words were firm and resolute.

The reporter was breathing heavily. He was originally the unlucky guy who couldn't get an exclusive interview with Bai Xiaowen, but he came to interview the loser.

As a result, Ouyang Heng refused the interview and left early; his whereabouts are now unknown.

I interviewed other people on a whim, just to get a draft article out of it, and I never expected to stumble upon such a gem.

"If this is how the game was lost, it's truly a pity. Could you tell me the specifics, Wu Chaojie?"

Upon hearing this, Qiao Wei frowned.

"Wu Chaojie! Stop talking nonsense in front of the media."

Wu Chaojie snorted, "Teacher Qiao, you know very well whether I'm lying or not. Is there something fishy going on between Qiao Rui and Bai Xiaowen, the captain of Jinghai University? I don't believe you don't know anything about it!"

"You're being completely unreasonable! Calm down! Get out of here." Qiao Wei felt a headache coming on when she saw reporters swarming around like sharks smelling fish. While trying to stop Wu Chaojie, she dialed Ouyang Heng's number.

Qiao Wei's warning had no effect; Wu Chaojie only hesitated for a moment before deciding not to leave.

However, now that the reporters had found an opening, they certainly wouldn't let this big news slip by, and they threw out all sorts of speculative and leading questions.

Moreover, not only Wu Chaojie was besieged by reporters, but Qiao Rui was also affected.

"Are there really serious problems within the Yenching University sports team?"

"Qiao Rui, what is your relationship with Bai Xiaowen, the Jinghai University Captain? Did you take the competition seriously?"

"Did you disclose the information and tactics of the Yanda University team to Jinghai University?"

"..."

The chaotic scene of reporters crowding the venue also attracted the attention of others inside. Fortunately, the champion was decided, and the audience gradually left.

Bai Xiaowen glanced to the side and saw Wu Chaojie face was red and neck thick.

"Is it... internal strife?" Bai Xiaowen, who was surrounded by various media outlets in the center of the venue, frowned and focused his attention on the Yanda University team's rest area.

Faced with the reporters' questions, Qiao Rui remained indifferent. She simply extended her Psychic Field slightly, pushing the reporters who surrounded her back five feet away, without uttering a word.

Not long after, Ouyang Heng ran over.

"Wu Chaojie, what's wrong with you?" Ouyang Heng shouted angrily at the reporters who had surrounded them. "Come with me."

"I'm not leaving!" Wu Chaojie said loudly, seemingly aggrieved. "Boss, you can't take the blame for others! I know perfectly well the relationship between Qiao Rui and Bai Xiaowen..."

"Wu Chaojie, what you said has gone too far," Zheng Bing, unable to stand it any longer.

Xie Yixin added, "That's right, Senior Qiao Rui has done her best. We're all comrades in the same team, we shouldn't doubt each other."

Wu Chaojie interrupted the two, scoffing, "Comrades? Probably not. Qiao Rui, let me ask you, when I used the captain's character to make videos to promote him, wasn't it you who controlled Bai Xiaowen's character to cause trouble? Did you think we wouldn't recognize you just because you used Teacher Qiao Wei's online account? Do you know how ugly Boss Ouyang's face was back then?"

Upon hearing these words, Bai Xiaowen seemed to understand.

It turns out that the poster who promoted the "Navy Marshal" character was Wu Chaojie himself. His intention was clear: to use the role of the Navy Marshal to severely criticize the role of the Spirit Channeling Prince and increase the popularity of the Ouyang Heng character.

And that mysterious challenger with the online name "Qiao Wei" was actually Qiao Rui! No wonder that challenger displayed such formidable Meditation Specialty.

Ouyang Heng and Wu Chaojie were more familiar with Qiao Rui, and they guessed her identity as soon as they exchanged blows, so they immediately admitted defeat.

What puzzled Bai Xiaowen was why Qiao Rui used the Spirit Channeling Prince character to issue the challenge. He shouldn't have known Qiao Rui at that time, so it was a bit strange for Qiao Rui to "stand up" for him.

The rest area for Yanda University athletes.

Qiao Rui nodded calmly. "That challenger is me."

Ouyang Heng remained silent, while Wu Chaojie, as if he had obtained evidence, shouted loudly, "See? You actually went to this extent for Bai Xiaowen, and you still say you didn't hold back? Maybe our detailed information has already been leaked to Jinghai University! Don't you think so?" He looked at his other teammates, seeking their support.

However, both Zheng Bing and Xie Yixin avoided his gaze.

Xie Yixin said softly, "Wu Chaojie, it's because we're not as skilled as them, please stop talking."

Zheng Bing said, "Yes, we all know very well what happened in the last battle. The whole team was at full strength, and we still couldn't win even with a five-on-two advantage. This is a gap that no amount of data or tactics can bridge. No matter how many more rounds we play, the result will be the same."

Qiao Wei pushed up her glasses and said coldly, "Wu Chaojie, haven't you made enough of a scene? Doing this will only make us, Yanda University, a laughingstock for being a sore loser!"

Wu Chaojie's short, thick neck turned bright red, but he stubbornly refused to back down. Out of the corner of his eye, he secretly glanced at Ouyang Heng.

Qiao Rui remained calm, first looking at Zheng Bing and Xie Yixin: "Thank you for your trust."

After a pause, Qiao Rui looked at Wu Chaojie and Ouyang Heng.

"We've fought side-by-side for two years, and now the University Team is disbanding, and we'll all be going our separate ways. After all, we've shared two years of precious memories, and I don't want us to end up as enemies. You want me to take responsibility for the defeat in the final battle? I can take responsibility. Let's stop arguing about right and wrong."

That's all... Goodbye.

Qiao Rui uttered the last two words, got up and walked out of the venue. The reporters who tried to stop her were gently pushed aside by her Psychic Field.

Qiao Wei, Zheng Bing, and Xie Yixin all chased after them, leaving Wu Chaojie and Ouyang Heng looking blank.

In the center of the venue, Li Shuyi also noticed the infighting at Yanda University and whispered, "Poor Qiao Rui. She clearly performed the best and posed the biggest threat to us. But in the end, she's the one Ouyang Heng and Wu Chaojie are shifting the blame onto. Those two are such scoundrels."

"I just heard that Qiao Rui once used the character of the Spirit Channeling Prince to challenge the character of the Navy Marshal controlled by Wu Chaojie... With such a thorn stuck in their hearts, and unwilling to accept defeat, it's inevitable that Ouyang Heng and Wu Chaojie would take their anger out on each other. In fact, subconsciously they were shirking responsibility," Bai Xiaowen said softly.

In fact, Bai Xiaowen had seen many people with Wu Chaojie's mentality. Even in another timeline of the League of Legends game, people like this were quite common.

For example, if a top laner gets repeatedly solo-killed and snowballs, they'll blame the jungler for not ganking, saying how many times the enemy jungler came, and so on. If the jungler did gank, but the top laner still gets solo-killed, they'll blame the jungler for coming at the wrong time, not helping, and even taking away experience, causing the top laner to be behind in levels... In short, they rarely look for reasons within themselves, and admitting their own poor performance is just as difficult as admitting someone else's excellence.

"How can we help Senior Qiao Rui? I can't bear to see her like this," Li Shuyi said.

Bai Xiaowen shook his head. "If we go, we'll only make things worse. It's not a big deal. They're just teammates from the University League. They're graduating and going their separate ways; they might not have the chance to fight side-by-side again."

[The dust has settled; Jinghai University, the dark horse, has won the CUAA championship]

[Bai Xiaowen: We will eventually be crowned king]

[Shocking! The strongest player in CUAA is actually him!]

[The collapse of the Yanda University Dynasty and the founding of a new dynasty]

The first batch of breaking news articles on the internet emerged with the conclusion of the CUAA championship game.

The final battle truly shocked everyone. When Bai Xiaowen revealed his full strength, leading an elite professional player like Li Shuyi, he defeated the formidable lineup of Yanda University's team, which was led by two hero professionals, everyone realized how powerful Bai Xiaowen was.

Looking at past opponents, Duanmucheng, Bao Yiming, the Taiwan University Twin Stars... they were all too weak. They weren't even qualified to make Bai Xiaowen take the initiative.

Bai Xiaowen didn't take the initiative in the previous elimination rounds, which others assumed was normal for a summoner. They thought Bai Xiaowen focused his energy on manipulating summoned creatures and that his own combat ability was weak.

However, in the semi-finals, they first lost to Tsinghua University and then to Yanda University, and the two rounds of matches completely changed everyone's opinion.

This isn't a case of weak combat power; it's clearly a concealment of strength.

When they strike, it's deadly.

Of course, as the losers, the internal strife that broke out in the final stages of the Yenching University team was also reported online by many media outlets.

To be fair, Yanda University's defeat was mainly due to the difference in strength. If there were other reasons, it would be due to Captain Ouyang Heng's stubbornness and refusal to accept defeat. Despite being no match for Bai Xiaowen, he insisted on repeatedly giving away kills, putting Yanda University on the defensive.

However, this internal strife, and Qiao Rui's personal statement that she was "willing to take responsibility," led many people to have a somewhat biased view, gradually attributing the reason for Yanda University's defeat to Qiao Rui.

In short, they believed that no matter how strong Jinghai University was, as a dark horse, it couldn't possibly Overwhelming Crush the established Master Tier Yanda University in terms of strength. They thought there must be a problem within Yanda University, so they decided to dig deep into Yanda University to find the cause.

Online, posts and videos about Wu Chaojie's boasting of being Navy Marshal, only to be defeated by Qiao Rui using the character of the Spirit Channeling Prince, have resurfaced. This has led more people to believe that Qiao Rui and Bai Xiaowen had something going on, causing Yanda University to lose the final.

There's no ulterior motive; why would someone challenge their teammate's character and stand up for Bai Xiaowen's character for no reason?

Is Qiao Rui a hidden mole at Yanda University? Did she secretly submit some information to Jinghai University and shirk her duties during the competition?

After the conspiracy theories took hold, public opinion of Ouyang Heng improved somewhat. Many people now believe that although Ouyang Heng is not as good as Bai Xiaowen, he is still an outstanding genius awakener, and his strength is not far behind Bai Xiaowen's.

Bai Xiaowen is being interviewed by reporter Wei Xiaoxiao at the Jinshi Hotel, where the Jinghai University Team is staying.

After learning about the public opinion trends from Wei Xiaoxiao, Bai Xiaowen had a sudden realization.

He had initially thought that Wu Chaojie's public rebuke of Qiao Rui was a sign of immaturity and ignorance, but now he sensed a hidden malice.

Perhaps Wu Chaojie's words were instigated by Ouyang Heng himself.

Think about it, in the finals, Ouyang Heng was killed by Bai Xiaowen in various ways and with different techniques; his corpse could circle the earth three and a half times. Don't forget, Bai Xiaowen is three years younger than Ouyang Heng and is just a freshman.

If Ouyang Heng does nothing, public opinion will inevitably be extremely unfavorable to him, and he will undoubtedly become Bai Xiaowen's stepping stone—having awakened so many years ago, he still can't beat a newcomer. His CUAA league Master Tier reputation, built up over the years, will probably be shattered.

This was an extremely heavy blow to Ouyang Heng.

Putting aside the issue of the drastic drop in popularity of the Navy Marshal character on Virtual Battle Platform, the decline in World Fame alone will severely damage Ouyang Heng's reputation.

Not to mention, Ouyang Heng is currently graduating. With his qualifications, he could easily accept a lucrative long-term contract from any A-rank Guild in the country, giving him a wide range of options.

For Hero Class with such potential as Ouyang Heng, any A-rank Guild would welcome him with open arms.

He could choose a A-rank Guild whose core player is about to retire. After a year or two of growth and acquiring the strength of Advanced Hero Class, the guild's leader should also retire, making him the perfect successor to become the new core player and a rising star in the Class-A League...

If he does nothing and is simply trampled under Bai Xiaowen's nose, the major guilds' interest in him will greatly diminish. Will he still have so many options then?

Now, thanks to Wu Chaojie's performance, the blame for the defeat has been shifted onto Qiao Rui.

Ouyang Heng will definitely still be affected. The outside world's evaluation of him is still not as good as Bai Xiaowen's, but the gap is not big. Many large guilds will still take him as their target - this is thanks to Bai Xiaowen, who is a freshman in college this year and has three years left before graduating.

After realizing this, Bai Xiaowen felt even more sorry for Qiao Rui.

As her opponent, Bai Xiaowen knew best whether Qiao Rui had gone easy on her.

"Bai Xiaowen, what are your plans for the future?" Wei Xiaoxiao's bright eyes held a hint of inquiry as she looked at the curve of Bai Xiaowen's jawline, a slight flutter in her heart... Interviewing Bai Xiaowen was truly a delightful experience.

"Yes, study hard and make progress every day," Bai Xiaowen said with a smile.

"... I mean, what are your thoughts on the CUAA league next year and the years after?" Wei Xiaoxiao pouted. "We're old friends, so don't try to fool me with some official lines. Share your visions for the future, give me some good news material."

It must be said that young and Vitality female reporters have an advantage in interviews.

"I'm going to win the CUAA championship for the next three years and achieve the feat of becoming a four-time champion!" Bai Xiaowen said seriously, then smiled and said, "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Wei Xiaoxiao blinked. "Isn't that right?"

"For the sake of our friendship, I'll give you a big piece of news," Bai Xiaowen's smile slowly faded, and she said, word by word, "I'm planning to... graduate early."