——  Two days passed quickly and all members of the national team once again took the arranged bus to the venue of the World Competition. There was no doubt that this match was packed. The Italian team and Chinese team had very high popularity and many fans came here to cheer for their country.

  Li Cangyu took the players through the verification process and went directly to the backstage lounge.

  This morning there had been a match between Group D’s French team and the British team. They happened to meet the French team in the backstage corridor. Captain Stein took the initiative to come over and shake Ling Xuefeng’s hand. “Today we unexpectedly met in the corridor. I hope we don’t meet in the quarter finals.”

  Ling Xuefeng replied lightly, “Then you have to defeat the British team.”

  Captain Stein was the face of the national team. He had the typical blond hair and blue eyes. His nose was high, his facial features handsome and he had the sculptural silhouette of a European man. This appearance was definitely enough to captivate thousands of girls.

  In addition, he had the romantic cells of a Frenchmen. It was said that during the training period, he often bought flowers for the training room. He said it was to adjust the air and make the training full full of a sweet fragrance.

  Stein had many fans in France and many people liked his face and personality.

  He heard Ling Xuefeng’s words and smiled slightly. “I hope we can all hear!”

  He turned away while everyone in the Chinese team were in a daze. Cheng Wei had a worshipful expression. “Captain Ling can speak French?”

  Xie Shurong went to Bai Xuan and asked, “Did you understand?”

  “I don’t understand. My second foreign language is Portuguese.”

  Li Cangyu glanced over at Ling Xuefeng and his eyes obviously said, ‘Give me an honest explanation!’

  Ling Xuefeng explained, “Didn’t I play in the US server for a while before returning home? At the time, many world servers weren’t opened. People in many countries used proxy servers to make an account in the American server. Stein was one of them and we added each other as friends on the Internet. We have been familiar since then.”

  Li Cangyu smiled. “Oh, you have a good friend whom you know longer than me?”

  Ling Xuefeng was busy clarifying. “We are just acquaintances. I had very few contact with him after I returned to China. I only knew that he established a team in France. Now that I think about it, his age is similar to us.”

  Li Cangyu asked lightly, “Is it? he was able to recognize you after a few years?”

  The rest of the team were standing to the side in an embarrassed manner, collectively frozen. Why did it feel like Cat God was questioning Captain Ling’s feelings? Everyone was too afraid to come out. If they died, they would probably be killed by these two men.

  \r \r \r

  Ling Xuefeng reluctantly explained, “I’m not even friends with him.”

  Li Cangyu nodded. “Yes.”

  Ling Xuefeng was silent for a moment, somewhat unsure until he lowered his voice and asked, “Are you jealous?”

  Li Cangyu quietly replied to him, “There is a match. Let’s not discuss this now.”

  He was laughing in his heart. It was rare for this anxious expression to appear on Ling Xuefeng’s abstinent face. Looking at his attempt to clarify, Li Cangyu already softened. The fact that he could make such a strong man lower his head showed that Ling Xuefeng really cared about him!

  Li Cangyu naturally wouldn’t be small-minded enough to eat this type of vinegar.

  When he first met Ling Xuefeng in the online game, Ling Xuefeng was a master who had come back from abroad. He had played on the US server for more than a year and naturally knew players from other countries on the US server. This was normal and there was nothing to care about.

  All he cared about was that the person called Stein looked dangerous and was one of the world’s top three bard players. It was best for the Chinese team to not compete with the French team in the quarter-finals!

  ***

  The match would soon begin. The Chinese team walked into the soundproof room while Kou Hongyi and Yu Bing introduced the players on both sides. Yu Bing specifically emphasized, “The maps for this match are likely to be changed. According to the matches of other groups, the probability of repeating previously used maps is very low.”

  Kou Hongyi explained, “In other words, the Chinese team previously played on Mechanical City and Mount Huangshan Plank Road. These maps shouldn’t come out again and there should be new maps. The same thing will be applied to the Italian team. It seems that the league has adjusted the odds to deliberately let new maps appear.”

  The audience heard the explanation and were excited.

  Countless comments appeared in the live broadcast room. [Seeking the country’s national treasure, the pandas! Did they submit a panda map?] [Australia has koalas, Spain has bulls so we should have pandas!] [I think monkeys are more reliable. Monkeys can directly pull players into trees!]

  The netizens racked their brains to guess the map of the national team. The players in both soundproof rooms quickly debugged the keyboard, mouse and other equipment.

  The Chinese captain Li Cangyu and Italian captain Alberto were sitting at the command post.

  The referee announced the start of the match and triggered the random lottery program. The audience stared nervously at the big screen. Finally, it stopped and the system chose the order of the game. The Chinese team was first and Italy second.

  Li Cangyu calmly pressed a button on the screen and soon two maps appeared—Venice and Florence!

  The audience became excited and in particular, the fans of Italy burst out screaming.

  The two maps weren’t present in previous matches. Based on the name of the maps and the logo on the left corner, they knew these maps were those submitted by Italy.

  A moment later, the Italian captain also pressed the button and the big screen showed—Bamboo Sea, Suzhou Gardens.

  The two maps were both garden maps. Bamboo Sea’s thumbnail showed a large number of bamboo pillars while Suzhou Gardens looked more complicated.

  After the captains had randomly chosen, the remaining three maps were Space-Time Illusion, Blood Castle and Wilderness Tribe!

  These three were official Miracle maps. Space-Time Illusion was a maze and Blood Castle was a death map. Wilderness Tribe seemed simple but it was the hardest to fight due to the wind and sand.

  At this time, Li Cangyu was first and had the privilege of disabling two maps.

  Out of the Italian maps, Venice was probably a water battle map while Florence was unable to be judged. Based on the thumbnail, it should have a complex terrain with traps.

  Li Cangyu thought for a moment and disabled Florence.

  In the previous Australia and Spain matches, he released both maps of the other side because he was confident he could beat both teams. However, this game was absolutely important in determining the Chinese team’s rank in the quarter finals.

  Of the remaining three maps, Li Cangyu directly banned Space-Time Illusion.

  Kou Hongyi was surprised by this. “He didn’t ban Wilderness Tribe! Why didn’t Cat God ban the most difficult map?”

  Yu Bing calmly analyzed, “The accident factors in this map is too big. The wind and sand can change the field and there are too many barriers. It is very unfavorable to the illusion flow. Cat God did this to force Italy to ban the map.”

  Kou Hongyi suddenly realized. “Yes! Cat God is really witty!”

  In the map selection section, it wasn’t necessary to ban the map they weren’t good in. Li Cangyu banned the Space-Time Illusion map that the other side was relatively good in, forcing the other party to ban the Wilderness Tribe. In the end, only the death map Blood Castle would be left of the Miracle official maps.

  This move by Li Cangyu forced the Italian captain into a bit of a dilemma.

  He could only ban Wilderness Tribe since this map was truly too difficult to fight on.

  However, he didn’t want Blood Castle!

  The problem was that out of the Chinese team’s two maps, he could only choose one to ban. The Italian captain suddenly felt that he didn’t have enough brain cells.

  In the previous two matches, the Chinese team was always second and Li Cangyu continuously released the two maps of the opposite side.

  In this game, he had the lead and Alberto felt pressure from the selection stage alone. The Chinese captain’s thinking truly wasn’t simple and forced Alberto to ban the map he wanted to ban. Really too tricky!

  After some deliberation, Alberto had to point his map and ban Wilderness Tribe and Suzhou Gardens!

  Li Cangyu saw this and his lips slightly curved.

  Things had developed as he expected.

  The last three maps left were Bamboo Sea, Venice and Blood Castle.

  However, did they think that Bamboo Sea was simple enough to only have bamboos? They were too naive!