Chapter 171 The Final Step of the Challenger League

The Challenger League had finally reached its last step.

In the two days after the match against Zhuxian, Team Happy began to be harassed by various media outlets, all wanting to interview Ye Xiu. The Challenger League finals, the battle between the former captain of Excellent Era and the Excellent Era team, fighting for the only spot to return to the pro scene. Such explosive news could temporarily push even the pro league to the sidelines.

And among all the discussion, what was especially exciting was Happy's outstanding performance. This led people to gradually expect the impossible to be accomplished. Happy's strength didn't seem as insignificant as people had imagined. Looking at their victories all the way through the Challenger League, almost all of them had been overwhelming. This included three pro teams: Wuji, Xuanqi, and Zhuxian.

Even if these three teams were weak pro teams, it just so happened that none of them showed strength that could match Happy's. In other words, Happy's strength was above theirs, so challenging Excellent Era might not be such an unrealistic thing.

The wind was changing.

From the initial, one-sided opinion that Happy was seeking its own death, was a publicity stunt, was shameless, more and more people began to be interested in Happy and began to expect something.

This expectation was real, and no longer the initial hope that the Excellent Era they hated would be embarrassed, so they acted like they supported Happy.

At that time, their support for Happy was just to disgust Excellent Era. Deep down, they didn't believe that such a team could pose a threat to Excellent Era. But now, this support was gradually becoming real, because they were beginning to acknowledge Happy's strength. And this would undoubtedly make this group of people even more excited, because in this way, they would have a greater chance of seeing Excellent Era make a fool of themselves.

Some media went into the game and randomly interviewed Glory players, asking them for their opinions on the match. After continuously asking hundreds of players, the media finally compiled the statistics and shockingly discovered that the proportion of players who hoped for Happy to win the final match actually exceeded Excellent Era, reaching as high as 68%...

And from the reasons for support collected during the media interviews, most of them could be summarized in one sentence: the more excitement, the better.

From this perspective, a newly formed team that came out of an internet cafe, defeating the Glory powerhouse Excellent Era, was obviously much more unexpected and more interesting than Excellent Era winning.

An unexpected ending was attractive to many people.

However, this was just hope. Another media outlet also randomly interviewed players, but instead of asking about expectations, they asked about what they believed. In this questionnaire, Excellent Era took a commanding lead, with 91% of the players believing that Excellent Era would win the final victory. Although many of them had chosen Happy when answering which team they hoped would win.

The Monday edition of the Esports Weekly made a comparative discussion of these two interesting results. At the same time, in the Esports Weekly, there were also the views of Team Happy and Team Excellent Era on this match, which other media outlets did not have. Both teams had received varying degrees of media harassment on the weekend, but both teams refused all interview requests. Afterwards, they just chatted with reporters they were familiar with.

Cao Guangcheng was the one for Excellent Era, and Chang Xian was the one for Happy. Because Excellent Era had been eliminated and practically went unnoticed for an entire league, these two reporters now possessed resources that all media envied.

Esports Home had also resolutely stated that they would report on this final match of the Challenger League in a thorough and in-depth manner, even if it meant sharing the page with the pro league, which was currently at a crucial moment of concluding the season. As for the Alliance, they also attached great importance to this Challenger League match, which was the most watched in history. After urgently negotiating internally and communicating externally on the weekend, they forcibly and temporarily changed the venue for the finals. In order to better present this highly anticipated match, the Alliance decided to move the finals to the Liulingsong Sports Center in the northern district of the city.

The biggest difference between this venue and the current one was that it had the conditions to showcase the match with holographic projection. The Alliance would give the final battle of the Challenger League the same treatment as the pro league, using holographic projection technology to present it to the live audience.

This change was mainly aimed at the audience, and it didn't make much of a difference for the two teams participating in the competition. Holographic projection only changed the way the match was presented. For the players, they were still in the competition booths, looking at their computer screens to operate. They couldn't see the holographic projection, which was God's perspective.

But the enthusiasm shown by the media, the Alliance, and the players all indicated that the Challenger League had received unprecedented attention. This wasn't just because there was a powerhouse star team like Excellent Era. To be honest, the main reason for generating so much attention was the topic of conversation created by Happy.

With the match approaching, how did both sides view each other? This was what the media hoped to pursue, and it was also something that many players were curious and concerned about.

So, in the Monday edition of the Esports Weekly, they found the answer. In the interview report about Excellent Era, from beginning to end, they hardly mentioned the two words "Happy." The only name that Excellent Era kept mentioning was Ye Qiu.

"Ye Qiu was a good captain." Excellent Era's boss, Tao Xuan, said this with very complicated emotions. He asked the interviewer for a cigarette, but according to the interviewer, Boss Tao had quit smoking for quite some time.

In Excellent Era's interview, the interviewing reporter, Cao Guangcheng, described it with such emotion.

"Ye Qiu was a good captain, very remarkable. He brought Excellent Era achievements that no one has surpassed to this day. No one can deny that. If possible, I really hope that Ye Qiu and Excellent Era could be frozen in that most perfect moment, and then keep it going. But unfortunately, nothing in this world is immutable. The Alliance is developing, Glory is progressing, and we also need to keep moving forward. Sticking to the old ways and not adapting to progress, I think it's difficult to maintain a solid competitiveness. Excellent Era is actually a good example. After winning three consecutive championships, we failed to continue to break through ourselves, and only hoped to maintain the existing rhythm. As a result, we watched other teams catch up one by one, and snatched the championship from us."

"So over the years, Excellent Era has been seeking change. I hope to find a model that can better adapt to the current environment of the Alliance, so that the team can develop in the long term and steadily. This kind of change will definitely come at a price. I was mentally prepared, but Excellent Era actually fell to relegation, I have to admit, this is something I didn't expect. Relegation was an accident, but I want to say that everything has its advantages and disadvantages. The year of recuperation after relegation just happened to allow us to complete this transformation in a very relaxed environment."

"Although Excellent Era is not in the Alliance, I want to say that Excellent Era has always been positive, progressive, and never gives up. No matter where we are, our goal is only one: the championship. We will never give up the pursuit of the championship. It's just that this time the journey of pursuit is slightly longer. We need to start from this Challenger League, and here, we have encountered our most outstanding player in Excellent Era's history, Ye Qiu. And he has now become our opponent. To be honest, compared to Excellent Era's relegation, this makes me even more surprised."

"Recently, I've heard people from the team say, and of course, I've also been asked by friends in the media, saying that the outside world is very concerned and asking if Ye Qiu had any conflicts with Excellent Era? Otherwise, why would he suddenly come out of retirement after retiring, and be at loggerheads with Excellent Era in the Challenger League?"

"Hehe, why did Ye Qiu retire, and then come back? I think everyone should ask Ye Qiu about this question! Although I'm very familiar with him, I'm not a worm in his stomach after all. Of course, I also know everyone's difficulties. Ye Qiu has always been reluctant to accept media interviews, so it's almost impossible to get an answer from him."

"Specifically on this matter, I certainly can't speculate on what he's thinking, but as far as I'm concerned, I can definitely tell everyone that there are no conflicts between Excellent Era and Ye Qiu."

"Nowadays, once a team's performance fluctuates a little, or there are some transfer rumors, it will always be accompanied by all kinds of speculation, but what's the truth? The vast majority of them are nonsense. Excellent Era and Ye Qiu, there are no conflicts, but if you say we have some differences in opinion, that certainly exists. It's like I say beef is delicious, but you say pork is delicious. Can you say that this kind of difference is a conflict?"

"This kind of difference will exist wherever there are people, so I won't say much about it. Now Ye Qiu is our opponent. To be honest, I'm still a little unaccustomed to this situation. How could Ye Qiu become our opponent? But that doesn't matter. I respect his choice. This time, we'll be opponents and compete against each other. Of course, if he doesn't mind, I'd be happy for everyone to go for a drink after the match."

This interview with Excellent Era was personally conducted by their boss, which was quite rare. And in the interview, the Excellent Era boss seemed to be completely opening his heart, talking freely and positively answering many questions from the outside world about Excellent Era and Ye Qiu.

The only question he avoided was why Ye Qiu came to the Challenger League to be an opponent of Excellent Era. He kicked this question back to Ye Qiu.

Those who didn't know the inside story would certainly want to chase after Ye Qiu to ask, but those who knew the inside story, like Chen Guo, almost flipped the table after reading this report.

"Shameless!!" Chen Guo slammed the newspaper on the table, as if this slap hit Tao Xuan's face.

Tao Xuan's report said all the nice things he could say first, and then left a bare question there for Ye Xiu to answer. This approach was extremely cunning.