Potato Wants Revenge

Lin Xiao logged into his precious "Hui Qi Lian Dao" account, created a room, and invited Potato to join. The two of them quickly queued up for a match.

In this match, they were assigned to the Purple Side. Lin Xiao chose the mid lane champion Syndra, while Potato went to the jungle.

"Hey, I heard Garen jungle has been quite popular lately," Potato asked Lin Xiao enthusiastically.

Garen jungle is popular?

Where did he "hear" that from...

The corner of Lin Xiao's mouth twitched. "If you play two more games of that, it'll be a luxury."

Potato said regretfully, "Oh right, then forget it..."

In the end, Potato chose his signature champion, Olaf, for the jungle, just as Lin Xiao had chosen in their first match this afternoon against the Sea God Trident Team.

At the 1-minute mark, the red buff spawned. Potato controlled his jungle Olaf to directly invade the enemy's jungle, successfully catching the enemy's jungle Lee Sin. With his Q skill, he threw an axe that slowed the opponent, forcing them to use Flash. Without hesitation, he activated Ghost to continue the pursuit, slaying the opponent right in front of the enemy's top lane turret to secure First Blood.

"The enemy jungler is ruined!" Potato announced excitedly.

Lin Xiao praised happily, "Well done."

At the 3-minute mark, after stealing the enemy's blue buff, Potato ran directly to the mid lane. Lin Xiao controlled his mid lane Syndra, using his Q-E combo to push back and stun the enemy mid lane Orianna. Immediately, Potato's Olaf emerged from the river brush, wielding his dual axes.

Boom!!! ——

With his Q skill, "Undertow," the heavy axe slammed into the ground, kicking up a splash of pale blue water, while also slowing Orianna.

Right after, the second kill for the Purple Side went into Lin Xiao's Syndra's pocket.

At the 6-minute mark, Lin Xiao reached level 6 and solo-killed the enemy mid lane Orianna.

Meanwhile, Potato's jungle Olaf invaded the enemy's jungle once again, successfully catching the enemy Lee Sin and securing another kill.

At the 10-minute mark, when Jiang Ran walked into the private room from the internet cafe lobby holding a cup of instant noodles that had finished steeping, Lin Xiao and Potato had already accelerated the game's tempo. The Purple Side swept through from the jungle to the mid lane, and even the bot lane was ganked by Olaf and Syndra, securing a double kill and destroying the enemy's outer turret.

After securing another Dragon, the gold lead between the two sides reached 5,000.

Jiang Ran sat down beside Lin Xiao with his cup of instant noodles. Instead of opening his own game to play ranked, he silently watched their duo-queue match.

At the 15-minute mark, Lin Xiao's mid lane Syndra had 8 kills and 120 CS, while Potato's jungle Olaf had an even more exaggerated score of 10/0/3.

At the 20-minute mark, the enemy team surrendered.

Only then did Jiang Ran, who had been silently watching the entire ranked match, speak up: "He knows how to play Olaf jungle?"

Lin Xiao turned to look at Jiang Ran and explained happily, "Ah, actually, I got the inspiration for today's Olaf match from Potato—so, how was his performance this game?"

Hearing Lin Xiao mention Potato, Jiang Ran's expression couldn't help but darken. After a moment, he reluctantly nodded. "Not bad."

...

"Not bad" was, of course, not enough to describe Potato's performance as Olaf jungle in this match.

Although he was still playing his signature champion, shifting from the top lane to the jungle completely changed Potato's playstyle, making it incredibly fluid and unpredictable.

When playing top lane, the sheer madness of Potato's Olaf was something even Lin Xiao couldn't keep up with during their match against the Trident Team this afternoon. The evaluation of "mindlessly pushing and killing all the way" was by no means an exaggeration.

But when he switched to Olaf jungle, Potato displayed a completely different style from his usual "mad dog" persona.

To be precise, it was the same playstyle Lin Xiao had witnessed when he first met Potato in ranked, back when the latter was playing Lee Sin jungle—various creative gank paths with brilliant ideas. In his hands, Olaf jungle would always leap out from a blind spot or a brush that the opponent completely did not expect, leaving them utterly dumbfounded and defenseless.

Fairly speaking, this kind of jungler with wild, unconstrained ideas was extremely rare on the professional stage. Once they appeared, they would definitely become the most headache-inducing and unpredictable existence for the opposing team.

Having just played a duo-queue match with Potato and witnessed his jungle mechanics, Jiang Ran was naturally well aware of this.

But he was simply unwilling to admit it.

Because this guy's personality was truly too easy to drive someone crazy!

Jiang Ran even wondered where Lin Xiao had found such a person, and if he had done so to temper his mental fortitude...

Compared to duo-queuing with this "Shredded Potato," Jiang Ran would rather endure the non-stop verbal bombardment of Lin Xiao's voice chat.

...

In the VIP room of the Great Wall Internet Cafe, while Lin Xiao and Jiang Ran were talking, Potato suddenly spoke up on the YY voice channel:

"Hey, who are you talking to?"

Lin Xiao smiled. "With Jiang Ran. He was just praising you."

Potato was delighted. "Oh, really? What did he praise me for?"

Lin Xiao: "He said your Olaf is not bad."

Potato said casually, "Oh, of course! That's my signature champion! By the way, isn't he having dinner? What is he eating?"

Lin Xiao glanced at the cup of instant noodles Jiang Ran was holding and replied, "Instant noodles."

Potato said in a caring tone, "Instant noodles have no nutrition! Eating too much is bad for your health. Tell him to eat less of it!"

Lin Xiao let out an "oh" and turned to relay the message to Jiang Ran: "Potato says you should eat less instant noodles; he says it's bad for your health."

Jiang Ran's face grew even darker. "What I eat has nothing to do with him."

There was no need for Lin Xiao to relay this; Potato on the other end of the YY channel had already heard it. He remarked regretfully, "Sigh, why is he so childish? I'm only doing this for his own good."

Lin Xiao couldn't help but laugh, but seeing Jiang Ran's extremely annoyed expression beside him, he held it in.

Potato spoke up again to report his rank progress: "I'm in my promo series again!"

Lin Xiao said happily, "Ah, congratulations~"

Potato: "Hey, tell Little Jiang to stop eating instant noodles. Let's play a 3-man queue!"

Lin Xiao said, "You can't play 3-man queue in high elo."

Potato: "It's fine, then let's just coordinate!"

Lin Xiao: "Aren't you in your promos?"

Potato realized, "Oh, right, promos. In that case, why don't you invite two more people and let's play a 5-man flex queue!"

Lin Xiao reminded him, "Flex queue rank doesn't affect your solo queue promos."

Potato suddenly understood. "Oh, right, right. In that case, let's just continue our duo-queue."

Lin Xiao smiled. "Sure, let's continue."

Beside him, Jiang Ran looked at Lin Xiao as if he were looking at a deity.

To be able to converse so naturally with such an eccentric person, Lin Xiao was probably the only one on Earth who could tolerate Potato's personality..."