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It started, as many things do, with Happy.
There was naturally plenty of hype surrounding the team that Ye Xiu had created and then defeated Excellent Era with, not to mention the whole issue about his name. There was also the fact that his entire team was composed of players who had their cat ears.
In theory, this could have been explained away by the fact that majority of the team was made up of young rookies from in-game that Ye Xiu had dragged along with him, but it was still a bit of a stretch. A number of older Blue Rain fans had also sworn that Wei Chen didn’t have ears when he retired, so when did he regain them?
Nevertheless, everyone said that once the rookies got older and gained some competitive experience, or when Happy pulled in an existing pro player to supplement their lineup, they would lose their claim to having a whole team full of ears and tails.
But now, it seemed like Fang Rui had regained his ears too, maintaining Happy’s record.
Wasn’t this just too unlikely?
Liu Hao threw aside the copy of eSports Home he was holding and stomped out of the cafeteria. So what if they were entering the pro league with a whole team full of players with ears? Wind Howl would still crush them like ants, ears or not.
Having cat ears was incredibly rare in the Glory pro scene.
Back in the early days it had been a lot more common, when the teams were made up of bright-eyed teens from in-game hoping to make a name for themselves and prove that playing video games was a valid profession. But sacrifices had to be made as time went on.
It was the same in eSports as it was in any competitive field. What use were naive ideals when there were fan opinions and sponsors to worry about? People didn’t care if you had ears, they cared if you could beat the competition and look amazing on stage!
By the time Liu Hao had debuted, it was a common sentiment in the training camps that you weren’t serious about Glory unless you put aside childish dreams to focus on improving and competing—for most, that meant they would lose their ears before debut. Anyone who said otherwise would be laughed out of the room.
You wanted to keep your ears and still reach the peak of Glory? That was too arrogant! Only a few of the best players had kept their ears, and they were all top gods! If you insisted that you would keep your ears, wasn’t that the same as saying you were as good as Han Wenqing, who had been there since the beginning? Even Wang Jiexi had given up his ears by Season 4!
To be the best player you could be, it was better to let go of silly ideas like that. It wasn’t anything to cry over. Wasn’t this just how the world worked?
(Liu Hao didn’t remember the exact moment he’d lost his ears, but he did remember being the first ranked trainee in Excellent Era’s training camp, looking up expectantly the second the word “GLORY” flashed across his screen to await God Ye’s praise.
Rather than looking impressed however, Ye Xiu had frowned, one of his fluffy black ears flicking in displeasure.
“Team A, you didn’t coordinate at all. You can’t simply rely on your individual strengths to win, you have to communicate.”
Liu Hao had eventually come to hate those ears, which he viewed in his heart as just another thing that made Ye Xiu think he was better than everyone.)
Halfway through the GPA’s 10th season, the buzz around cat ears in the pro scene rose up again. This time, it was about Sun Xiang, who had showed up with ears to the 21st match of the season.
Liu Hao mulled over this development. It didn’t quite make sense, when he thought about it. Hadn’t Sun Xiang stepped down in position? He had gone from being the captain of Excellent Era to just another member of Samsara. If anything, he should have gotten his ears back while he was at Excellent Era!
But Samsara was still a powerhouse, and the defending champion besides. Liu Hao told himself that maybe Sun Xiang just decided he liked his new team better. It didn’t mean anything.
By the time Season 11 came along, it was like a switch had been flicked, and people were suddenly regaining their ears left and right.
Guo Yang stared after the trio from Miracle, who seemed to be in good spirits despite their loss. They were laughing as they left the venue, shoulders jostling each other’s amiably.
“Vice Captain, isn’t that a bit…”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Liu Hao said immediately.
He Ming had been traded to Thunderclap at the same time as Liu Hao, both kicked aside by an Excellent Era that saw no use for them anymore. But this season, Liu Hao had managed to become Vice Captain of Wind Howl, a team that regularly went to playoffs, while He Ming had ended up at Miracle, of all places.
And the other two? They were just substitutes who hadn’t been able to negotiate a better deal, and ended up having their contracts bought up after Excellent Era went under.
All three of them were now on a bottom ranking new team that probably wouldn’t break out of the bottom five, and yet all of them had borne their ears and tails with bright smiles as they stood up on stage to shake hands with Wind Howl after being completely crushed.
If you asked anyone on the street, they would say that Liu Hao’s position was undoubtedly better. It wasn’t like they had suddenly become amazing players.
So why was it his former teammates had regained their ears but not him? How was it that Miracle had three players with ears, but there wasn’t a single one on Wind Howl?
He wondered.
During a match with Blue Rain, as Tang Hao controlled Demon Subduer to split off on his own, a memory came to him.
Bitterness thick on his tongue, cigarette smoke curling around an uncomfortably sharp gaze.
“When Sun Xiang’s energy was like a rainbow in the second round, did you not realize this? Did you not warn him of anything?”
He remembered wondering why it was his responsibility to take care of that idiot Sun Xiang. What sort of captain needed to be told to maintain heir rhythm?
“You can’t simply rely on your individual strengths to win a match.”
Wasn’t individual strength the whole point of Wind Howl’s lineup?
His fingers flew over the keyboard before he could think any more about it. “Captain, be careful. They may be trying to bait you.”
After typing out the warning, he threw out a Waltzing Wave Slash towards the bushes near where Tang Hao was chasing down Lu Hanwen’s Flowing Cloud, just in case. He had to held back a shout when, to his surprise, he actually hit someone!
Tang Hao seized the opportunity, turning to attack Troubling Rain, whose position had been exposed, while Liu Hao began casting formations to support him.
In the middle of his relentless trade with Huang Shaotian, his captain had time to type out a message in chat:
“Thanks.”
After the thwarted ambush, Wind Howl seemed to take on a whole new rhythm. Liu Hao began watching his teammates and playing around them, extending a stun on Tang Hao’s target here, timing a freeze to overlap with Ruan Yongbin’s silence there.
In response, the rest of the team seemed to adjust too, calling out information and trying to maintain an attacking rhythm instead of everybody going at their own pace.
Back in Excellent Era, so focused on taking down and humiliating Ye Xiu, Liu Hao had gotten used to deliberately misinterpreting orders. In contrast, at Wind Howl, there were hardly any orders given other than “attack” and “heal”. Had he truly forgotten what it was like to play in a team?
As he sent out a Nebula Wave Slash towards Blue Rain’s front liners, he recalled his memories of watching the original player of Total Darkness as a kid. Xue Mingkai had been an exceptional player, able to transition seamlessly between assisting One Autumn Leaf in his attacks and providing cover for a clean escape.
As a mid-range class with a lot of AoE skills, Spellblades could deal a lot of damage as attackers but also had a great capacity for CC and support. It had been this flexibility that had drawn Liu Hao to the class in the first place.
When had “support” become a derogatory word in his mind?
“Do you like this game?”
When had he stopped seeing Glory as fun? When had it become merely a way to prove his worth, rather than a game he loved to play?
“If you like it, then treat this all as Glory, and not as boasting.”
In the end, such a sudden change wasn’t enough to turn the tides against Blue Rain in the team arena. Coordination was not something Wind Howl had practiced much, unlike the seamless way Blue Rain worked together under their captain’s guidance.
Liu Hao was puzzled to discover that although he was disappointed, the usual bitterness after a loss was nowhere to be found. Instead, as he shook hands with the other team, he realized that in the second half of the match, he had been having fun.
He was still pondering this over dinner, poking idly at his noodles when there was suddenly a loud popping sound. Liu Hao let out a yelp as it startled him out of his chair, banging his elbow on the corner of the table as he fell to the floor.
Raucous laughter came from the other side of the table. “Liu Hao, did you just nya?”
“Shut up, I did not!” he called back as he reached up to scratch his head. Why was he itching, suddenly?
The laughter stopped suddenly, just as his hand met something soft. And fluffy.
He looked up and saw that Tang Hao had stood up to get a better look at him, no doubt to make fun of his disgraceful fall, but the dumbfounded expression on his face seemed to confirm what Liu Hao was suspecting.
Cat ears. He had his ears back.
Liu Hao had forgotten, over the years that the resentment had built up, just how much he loved Glory.
He wouldn’t forget again.