9: Chapter 9: Terrible positioning! A taunt from an internet cafe, a classic case of dimensional reduction.

Zhao Dazhuang was deep in the game, completely unaware that someone had appeared behind him.

The character he was controlling was a melee assassin, circling the opposing mage to find an entry angle. His hands were clattering away on the keyboard, and his tactical commands flowed from his mouth without pause.

"Ma Xiaotiao, you damn idiot, use your crowd control first! What are you just looking at?!"

"Wait for me, wait for me, my skill cooldown still has two seconds left."

Ma Xiaotiao responded in a fluster.

Fang Jiming sat less than a meter behind Zhao Dazhuang, staring at the game match on the screen for a dozen seconds.

Although he had slacked off all day in college, his roommate was in the top fifty of the provincial server for this game. He had tagged along for over two years; while his theoretical level wasn't necessarily sky-high, it was at least a tier above these high schoolers in front of him.

On the screen, Zhao Dazhuang's assassin flashed into the enemy backline. Halfway through his combo, he was pinned down by a crowd control skill from the opposing support, then instantly focused down by three people.

The gray death screen popped up.

"Fuck!"

Zhao Dazhuang slammed the table and leaned back.

"Is this support hacking? Their reaction is so fast!"

Fang Jiming spoke up from behind him.

"It has nothing to do with hacking; your timing for entering the fight was wrong."

Zhao Dazhuang shuddered.

He turned his head and saw Fang Jiming's face, which carried a hint of a smile.

It took Zhao Dazhuang about two seconds to complete the full transition of expressions from shock to wariness to annoyance.

"Teacher Fang?"

"Mm."

Fang Jiming sat with his legs crossed, leaning against the back of the chair, his gaze still fixed on the screen.

"Why are you here?"

"Looking for you."

Zhao Dazhuang took off his headphones, hung them around his neck, and turned to glance at Lao Fei by the door.

Lao Fei shrugged, conveying the message: I tried to stop him, but I couldn't.

Beside him, Ma Xiaotiao had already secretly minimized the game, taken his hands off the keyboard to rest them on his knees, and was darting his eyes back and forth between Fang Jiming and Zhao Dazhuang.

Lin Xiaoxi, in the corner, didn't react at all; she didn't even lift her head, her digital pen still Drawing something on the screen.

Zhao Dazhuang turned back around and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Teacher Fang, are you here at the internet cafe to catch people?"

"I came to see just how good the top student who manufactures the city's last-place rankings is at playing games in an internet cafe during class time."

Zhao Dazhuang froze for a moment, not expecting Teacher Fang's first sentence to be an evaluation of his gaming rather than scolding him for skipping class.

"I play pretty well."

Zhao Dazhuang straightened his back.

"Pretty well?"

Fang Jiming pointed to the gray death countdown on the screen.

"In that team fight just now, you, as the carry, entered without waiting for your support's crowd control skill. You singled out a mage with a shield, and instead of positioning yourself at the edge of the brush, you just auto-attacked straight in."

Fang Jiming spoke quickly, but every word was articulated clearly.

"The opposing support's crowd control skill has a 12-second cooldown. It was exactly 14 seconds from the end of the last team fight to the start of this one, which means the enemy support's skill had just come off cooldown."

"Did you know this information?"

Zhao Dazhuang's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Fang Jiming: (˘ ▽ ˘)

"You didn't. You only look at your own skill cooldowns and never calculate the opponent's."

Ma Xiaotiao, listening from the side, felt his scalp tingle, and he quietly closed the minimized game.

Zhao Dazhuang's face flushed red.

He had been involved in this game for over two years, ranked in the top one hundred on the entire server, and was the recognized 'big brother' of skill in this internet cafe. No one had ever dared to tell him to his face that he played poorly.

"What the hell do you know?"

Zhao Dazhuang blurted out.

"Whether I know anything doesn't matter."

Fang Jiming leaned in toward the screen and dragged the replay progress bar back to that team fight.

"Look for yourself. When you entered the fight, the enemy mage's displacement skill was just about to come off cooldown. If you had waited for Ma Xiaotiao's crowd control skill to hit first before entering—just half a second later—the enemy mage wouldn't have been able to use their displacement, and your full combo would have killed them for sure."

He let go of the mouse and leaned back in the chair.

"Not only would you not have died, but you could have gotten a double kill."

Zhao Dazhuang stared at the replay screen for three seconds and realized that the time window Fang Jiming mentioned did indeed exist.

The anger on his face slowly transformed into an indescribable expression.

Ma Xiaotiao, beside him, was completely dumbfounded.

Ma Xiaotiao: (ﾟ ◇ ﾟ)

What kind of homeroom teacher is this Teacher Fang?

Lao Fei at the door also had a slight change in expression. Although he didn't play this game much, he could tell that everything this young teacher in cheap, street-stall clothes was saying was pure substance.

Fang Jiming stood up from the chair, walked around to Zhao Dazhuang's side, and looked down at the screen.

"Your basic operations are actually not bad; your hand speed is fast enough, and your reactions are quick enough."

Zhao Dazhuang's expression softened slightly when he heard this.

"But your problem is here."

Fang Jiming reached out and tapped his own temple.

"You only know how to use your hands to play games; you don't know how to use your brain."

"Your positioning is an instinctive reaction, not something calculated."

"Do you know what real experts are thinking in their heads three seconds before a team fight?"

Zhao Dazhuang didn't speak.

"They are calculating."

Fang Jiming held up a finger.

"Calculating the key skill cooldowns of each of the five opponents, calculating the positioning and damage range of each person on their own team, and calculating where the blind spots in vision are on the map."

"This isn't a competition of hand speed; it's a competition of data processing ability."

After saying this, Fang Jiming straightened up and looked at Zhao Dazhuang.

Zhao Dazhuang sat in the chair, looking up at Fang Jiming, and retorted stubbornly.

"As a high school student, do I have to calculate probabilities just to play a game?"

"You can't even calculate probabilities; no wonder you're dead last in the city."

This cut was too precise.

Zhao Dazhuang's face flushed to the roots of his ears.

Ma Xiaotiao, beside him, almost laughed out loud but forced himself to hold it in.

Lin Xiaoxi, in the corner, finally paused with her digital pen. She glanced at Fang Jiming through the lenses of her black-framed glasses, then lowered her head again to continue Drawing.

Fang Jiming patted Zhao Dazhuang's shoulder and said in a conversational tone.

"Top one hundred on the server, right?"

"Yes."

Zhao Dazhuang replied in a muffled voice.

"Then you shouldn't have any opponents in this internet cafe."

"Of course not."

There was a remnant of arrogance in Zhao Dazhuang's tone.

Fang Jiming sat down in the empty seat next to him and took the mouse.

"How about this: you play a game and show me your real level, and I'll help you pick out your faults."

Zhao Dazhuang looked at him sideways.

"You, a teacher, are going to help me find faults in my game?"

"What, are you afraid of being embarrassed by having your faults pointed out?"

Zhao Dazhuang was provoked by this, and he snatched the mouse back.

"Fine, let's do it. Who's afraid of whom?"

He put his headphones back on and queued for a ranked match.

Fang Jiming leaned against the back of the chair with his arms crossed, watching the screen, a slight curve on his lips.

The next twenty minutes were the most painful game of Zhao Dazhuang's life.

It wasn't because the opponents were strong, but because every single one of his moves was being live-commentated by the homeroom teacher behind him, who was wearing forty-yuan canvas shoes.

"You shouldn't have chased in this wave; the enemy jungler might be camping in the river."

Three seconds later, the enemy jungler actually jumped out from the river brush.

Zhao Dazhuang's hand holding the mouse paused for a beat.

"Right now, your Flash cooldown has twenty seconds left, and the enemy assassin's ultimate cooldown is about the same. You can't take a direct fight during this window."

The smoke in the private room had dissipated for the most part. No one lit any new cigarettes, and even the air seemed to quiet down along with it.

Listening to these analyses, the rhythm of Zhao Dazhuang's fingers hitting the keyboard became increasingly chaotic.

He realized that almost every prediction Fang Jiming made had come true.

A teacher who worked as a homeroom teacher had not only played this game, but his depth of understanding was even more thorough than his, a top-one-hundred expert on the entire server.

Zhao Dazhuang began to question his life.

Zhao Dazhuang: (; ꒪ ⌓ ꒪)

In the end, he lost this game.

It wasn't because he was crushed by the opponents, but because his mentality was shattered by the interference of Fang Jiming's commentary.

He took off his headphones, slammed them on the table, and turned to glare at Fang Jiming.

"Are you here to catch truant students or to play games with me?"

Fang Jiming laughed.

"Both."

After saying this, he didn't rush to stand up. Instead, he leaned back against the chair, shifted his gaze from Zhao Dazhuang's face, and let it fall onto the screen in the corner where the Drawing software was glowing, watching it for two seconds.