Chapter 147: The Promise-Keeping Playstyle

"Who the hell is this Baili Shouyue? How can he snipe me in every single team fight?"

Meng Lan instantly transformed into a furious deity, stomping his feet in anger.

His resting teammates cast curious glances his way.

"What's wrong?"
"Trapped in Peak Tournament hell again?"
"What's going on?"

After calming down a bit, Meng Lan settled back into his chair.

"It's nothing. The Shouyue on the enemy team in Peak Tournament is just too absurd, I lost my cool for a moment."

After dying, Meng Lan's perspective remained firmly locked onto that Shouyue.

To say he was cheating—using some kind of auto-aim or similar program—didn't quite fit either.

Because while the hero Baili Shouyue is known for sniping, he is far from just a sniper. Map awareness, vision clearing, and team-fight positioning are all critically important.

Yet the enemy Shouyue had executed all of these aspects brilliantly, something clearly witnessed by everyone throughout the entire match.

In other words, only those lacking skill resort to cheats to gain that kind of boost. But judging by this Shouyue's overall operations throughout the game, he was a master—undoubtedly a prominent figure who had no need to resort to cheating.

Once the match ends, I'll have to see who this Shouyue really is.

That was Meng Lan's sole thought.

In the game, following Meng Lan's death, the enemy team instantly collapsed.

Among the three remaining members, Li Yuanfang had fallen, while the surviving Hou Yi and Yang Yuhuan lacked sufficient damage output.

Mu Bei, who had triggered his Golden.Body, respawned and immediately activated the item's invulnerability effect.

That brief two-second window of invulnerability allowed Zhong Kui and Westar to arrive just in time.

Westar managed to latch onto Yang Yuhuan first. After a second or two of pulling and maneuvering, Lin Hao's third shot arrived, easily sniping the CC'd Yang Yuhuan.

Next came the explosive damage from Westar's second skill, directly blowing up Yang Yuhuan.

Hou Yi, seeing Luna's Golden.Body expire, attempted to deal damage, only to be flown away by Mu Bei, who had refreshed his ultimate.

Mu Bei's health bar was dangerously low, so naturally, he wouldn't foolishly trade blows head-on with Hou Yi.

Meanwhile, capitalizing on the recovery animation of Hou Yi's second skill, Zhong Kui immediately unleashed his second skill, pulling Hou Yi straight toward him.

Westar applied a slow effect.

Lin Hao continued to snipe from his position, landing two consecutive shots on Hou Yi, who was entangled by Zhong Kui and Westar, securing the kill!

Aced!

At this moment, Westar, Zhong Kui, and Luna were all left with only a sliver of health!

It was an absolute, razor-thin survival!

"We can push and end the game!"

Mu Bei called out. Unbeknownst to the others, he had already rotated into the enemy's red buff jungle, cleared two neutral camps to recover health, and smoothly flown toward the mid lane to escort the minion wave forward.

Zhong Kui decisively sold his items to purchase a Running Wolf Charge, rushing forward while leading Lin Hao.

The enemy still had over twenty seconds before respawning, and the mid lane high-ground tower was exposed with minion waves already arriving—this was a guaranteed game-ending push.

"Who is that Shouyue? So insanely good!"
"Even though that Shouyue hid in the back just shooting cannons this wave, every single shot was crucial!"
"Push, push! You guys are amazing!"

Lin Hao received public shout-outs and praise from his unmuted teammates at the end.

Lin Hao swiftly switched his equipment to attack-speed items and ultimately destroyed the enemy crystal.

"See that? In the absolute highest-tier Peak Tournament matches, this is how you play Shouyue." Lin Hao glanced at the chat stream. Although the screen was flooded with 666s, he had caught sight of several skeptical voices lingering in his peripheral vision while he was crouched down sniping earlier.

"In that last team fight, if I had followed what some people in the chat suggested and just run up to use basic attacks, what do you think would have happened?" Lin Hao continued, "Hou Yi and Yang Yuhuan would have blocked the front, Yang Yuhuan outranges me and could have poked me down, while Li Yuanfang comfortably sat in the back looking for a safe angle to dish out damage."

"You'd find that playing Baili Shouyue as an on-hit basic-attack hero, restricted by attack speed, results in a DPS during team fights far lower than Li Yuanfang's."

"By sniping from the back like I did, everyone saw the results: I only fired crucial shots, acting like an assassin, waiting for the right moment and pulling the trigger at the optimal time to directly take down the enemy Li Yuanfang."

"And once Li Yuanfang died, the enemy team instantly collapsed."

Lin Hao's fans were also discussing this playstyle.

"Even so, I have to say that's only because the streamer's aim is too insane. If it were an ordinary person, playing like this would only result in constantly missing shots."
"Indeed, I feel like if I played Shouyue, I'd rather just run up and use basic attacks in team fights, so at least I wouldn't get flamed."
"Basic attacks provide much more stable output, after all."

Lin Hao looked at the comments and shook his head. "This isn't an issue of aiming skill; it's an issue of game awareness. When you play sniper-style Shouyue, don't just fire randomly during team fights. Use your brain, assess the situation, and decide whether to target the front line or the back line."

"Don't fire recklessly without absolute certainty; that only disrupts your output rhythm. Pay attention to your teammates' crowd-control skills and the enemies' casting recovery animations during team fights, and base your shots on those. Practice more, and you'll get the hang of it."

At that moment, Lin Hao spotted another prominent message in the chat: "Playing Shouyue like this is essentially professional-style gameplay, so why not just take him mid lane and play him as a physical mage?"

Lin Hao chuckled, half-amused and half-exasperated. "Pros play mid lane Shouyue because they design their entire team composition around him as the core system. Who cares about that in Peak Tournament? Besides, most importantly, in the current meta, playing Shouyue mid lane guarantees your economy will drop to the fourth position, and your teammates will mercilessly leach your mid-lane minion waves."

...

At the CK training base, the CK coach, who had just returned from outside, was pulled by Meng Lan to watch this particular Peak Tournament match.

"The enemy Shouyue's playstyle is very reminiscent of Jiucheng," the coach said with some surprise. "Yet it's also a bit different. How should I put it? Jiucheng's awareness of farming economy is relatively passive; most of the time, his teammates consciously cede economic resources to ensure his growth. But this Shouyue maintains tremendous pressure while keeping his economy right at the top one or two spots in the team."

"Although the enemy team had a specialized utility Westar this game, Luna's resource-consumption capability is equally formidable. In solo-queue matches without communication and economic allocation, for a Shouyue to farm his economy to this level speaks volumes about his understanding of the game."

"Yeah, he's a recently rising Honor of Kings streamer, Shark Haoran." Meng Lan nodded and told the coach, "I feel like his talent is exceptional. Should we consider recruiting him?"

"A Shouyue playstyle isn't unviable, but even if we were willing to extend an invitation, the current streaming environment is far better than it used to be. Would he really abandon a thriving streaming career to pursue a professional career with an uncertain future?" The coach patted Meng Lan's shoulder and said, "I'll keep an eye on him. You focus on your training. Next week in the second round of the regular season, we play against LCD; in the compositions we're preparing, you still need to practice your Di Renjie more."

...

After finishing that match, Lin Hao naturally queued up for the next one.

The subsequent matches went surprisingly smoothly. After three consecutive wins, Lin Hao's Peak Tournament rating reached 2,628.

The current rank-one player in the Peak Tournament was Yifan, with a score of 2,634.

This meant that if Lin Hao won just one more match, he would become the new number one in the Peak Tournament.