111: How many faces do you have?

Holding a Gold Ring truly felt that it would be great if The Foliage is Truly White could join their team.

Back then, The Foliage is Truly White's words on the forum had directly opened up his Ren and Du meridians, giving him a sudden realization.

Later, he saw someone's edit of The Foliage is Truly White's gameplay on the forum, and it was absolutely spectacular.

That was right when Diaochan was released.

At that time, many people thought Diaochan was useless, but after The Foliage is Truly White played her, he attracted a massive crowd of people to start playing Diaochan.

They researched all sorts of things, like Diaochan's invincibility frames and Liu Bei's jungle invasions.

One could only say that although he was very arrogant back then, his arrogance was perfectly justified.

Unfortunately, after those few days, The Foliage is Truly White disappeared.

No one knew where he went or why he stopped playing Honor of Kings.

Perhaps he started playing on another account?

Or maybe he felt that Honor of Kings was too simple for him, so he stopped.

But Holding a Gold Ring always remembered him. Ever since he started forming a team to prepare for the competition, he had been trying to contact The Foliage is Truly White.

Regrettably, The Foliage is Truly White never replied to him.

“Sigh,” Holding a Gold Ring let out a heavy sigh.

“Come on, come on! Let's keep going. We have to at least make it into the global top sixteen in this competition!”

Although the prize money for the top sixteen wasn't much, making it that far would still prove their ability.

Even if they didn't win the championship, it would be a huge boost for their streams.

That's right, these few friends of Holding a Gold Ring were also Streamers.

They had long since started playing as a five-man queue every day, and they even sought out internal scrims in private to study tactics.

All for the sake of this competition, which hadn't even been officially confirmed at the time.

At this moment, the bullet chat was also very enthusiastic.

[I haven't reached Gold rank yet, sob sob.]

[Go for it, Golden Ring! Maybe our team will even run into yours when the time comes.]

[Wandering God is so badass. He just threw out two million like that. He's way more generous than those Producers who said Honor of Kings was just a money grab.]

[It's probably more than two million. The offline venues and stuff will likely cost a fortune too.]

[I can't wait already.]

[Hahahahaha, welcome your King! This time, the championship is mine!]

It could be said that following Ye Bai's announcement on Social Media Platform, all Honor of Kings players were on the move.

Those with contacts began forming teams, while others hurried to find people to help them climb to Gold rank.

Even though those Gold rank players knew their own strength, still... what if?

The championship prize was a whole million!

The news of the competition also attracted many non-Honor of Kings players.

They took one look and thought, 'Holy crap, I have to spend money to buy other games.'

'I play Honor of Kings for free, and they even give out skins, hold competitions, and offer prize money!'

'What else is there to say!'

'Pack your bags and charge in!'

That day, the download count for Honor of Kings once again topped the daily charts.

Meanwhile, Ye Bai wasn't idle either. He went to the company, and as soon as he entered, a bunch of employees greeted him.

“Hello, President Ye.”

Ye Bai nodded slightly. Hilda came out with a stack of documents to welcome him to his office.

“These are the candidates for referees, commentators, and hosts, as well as the offline venues.”

Ye Bai looked through them one by one. The offline venues were the hardest part.

First, they had to cover all seven continents, and then select venues with well-developed transportation within those continents so that players could arrive more quickly.

Of course, most of the venues were in the Central Continent. After all, Honor of Kings was born there, and it had the largest number of players.

Ye Bai looked through them and thought they were good.

Hilda had a very systematic way of doing things. She had prepared several sets of plans, and there were many choices for venues.

This way, even if a venue backed out at the last minute, they could quickly choose another.

And this time, Ye Bai had made it clear to Hilda from the start.

They would reimburse the expenses for players traveling to offline venues, and even add a bit more on top of their travel costs for contingencies.

This was for the stage with 256 teams.

The expenses for the top sixteen teams would be even higher. The 256-team stage used a single-elimination format, meaning one loss and you were out.

But the top 16 would use a double-elimination format. First, eight matches would be played to divide them into a winners' bracket and a losers' bracket—eight winning teams and eight losing teams.

Then the winners' bracket would have four more matches to determine four winners; that much was set.

Meanwhile, the other four teams from the winners' bracket would play six more matches against the previous eight losers to determine six survivors from the losers' bracket.

In total, ten teams would be determined to have a chance to compete for the grand championship.

During the time they were competing, Ye Bai would provide them with food and lodging, including round-trip travel expenses.

This was no small expense. Anyway, the current budget for travel, food, and lodging was five million.

Ye Bai really didn't plan on skimping on this. To him, the money in his bank account was truly just cold numbers now.

If he was going to do it, he would do it right.

If he was stingy and left everyone dissatisfied, how could he expect to make money later?

This professional competition was, first, because he wanted this world to align with his original world.

Second, it was to boost the fame of Honor of Kings. Honor of Kings was inherently a competitive game. Without professional matches, no matter how hard players worked, they would at most be high-level Streamers.

He had to let them see that playing games could actually earn money and turn them into famous figures.

Only then would more players be willing to fall into the pit of Honor of Kings.

“Hmm, not bad,” Ye Bai nodded. “The venues are fine. As for the others, they just need to practice more.”

“Tell them that we'll see how they perform, and then we'll select those who can commentate the grand finals.”

Hilda nodded. This esports competition wasn't just a competition between players, but also between commentators, referees, and directors.

“Right, invite some Honor of Kings Streamers from Domain of the Gods. Ask them to come watch the offline qualifiers and cosplay as characters from the game,” Ye Bai said.

Hilda: “Cosplay?”

—

Time is like those ten minutes of sleeping in during the morning; it feels like you've only closed your eyes for a second, but when you open them again, it's already six in the evening.

Ye Bai didn't expect it to be time for the Public Welfare Competition to announce the winning works so soon.

He looked at the trending topics on Social Media Platform—

【Producer of "See", Wandering God #Explosive】

【Conscientious Producer #Explosive】

【"spring has come", Ye Bai #Explosive】

【"A Grateful Heart", Ye Bai #Hot】

【Just How Many Faces Do You Have #Hot】

In his ear was a phone call from Director Hou. “'See' is your work?”

“You even filmed a commercial and wrote a song?”

His tone carried a hint of shock, mixed with a bit of bewilderment.

“Are you saying that you, by yourself, made a game, filmed a commercial, and wrote a song, and ended up winning awards for all of them?”

“Hahahahaha!” He suddenly burst into laughter. “Hahaha!”

“Good, good, good! As expected of my, Hou Su's, student.”

Ye Bai: ...He hadn't even answered yet.

Hou Su's laughter on the other end was almost uncontrollable. “Come, come, hurry over! Your master's wife said she's going to personally cook a table of good food to celebrate your awards!”

“Get here quickly! I won't wait for you if you're late!”