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Lord Grim is Ye Qiu.

This news could shock the entire Glory world. Those in the upper echelons of the scene already knew this information though. Those in the lower and middle echelons had only heard the rumors long ago. Whether or not they believed the rumor didn’t matter. They would still be mentally prepared if the truth came out. This news originally wouldn’t garner too much of a reaction.

But Excellent Dynasty chose to jump out at this moment to verify the rumor. This timing contained a few subtle hints.

Team Happy would be participating in the Challenger League. There was no doubt that Team Happy regarded Team Excellent Era as an enemy. Because of this reality, people overturned the rumor of Lord Grim being Ye Qiu for this reason: Lord Grim couldn’t be Ye Qiu. How could Ye Qiu fight against Team Excellent Era?

Excellent Dynasty confirmed that Lord Grim was Ye Qiu, making the heads of many people spin. Now people were certain that Ye Qiu and Excellent Era had a huge conflict. Wasn’t he locked in a deathmatch with Excellent Era now?

Players, who weren’t Excellent Era or Ye Qiu fans, watched the spectacle as a matter with no concern to themselves. Countless discussion threads popped up. At this moment, numerous Excellent Era fans were like Little Ming from before. When they heard the news, they started to lose self control.　

In the past few days, Excellent Era fans had vilified Team Happy. In their eyes, Team Happy was an evil enemy that could commit any misdeed imaginable, but this enemy suddenly changed shape with a single shake. The boss of this despicable team actually turned out to be Excellent Era’s beloved God Ye Qiu. A year ago, they had waved their flags and given their support to that very same ace player. How could Excellent Era fans accept it?

Some questioned it, some started swearing.

Team Excellent Era getting relegated was without a doubt the biggest crisis that the team had ever faced. At this moment, not only did their team’s former captain not provide help, he had even formed a new team from scratch to take down Team Excellent Era in the Challenger League.

Because of this reason, Excellent Era received a lot of support. No one was discussing how to crush Team Happy. Instead, everyone was denouncing Ye Qiu for his contemptuous actions. In comparison, the voices supporting Ye Qiu weakened.

Excellent Era was very satisfied with the outcome. Cui Li and Chen Yehui were looking out from the window and seeing a crowd of fans surrounding Happy Internet Cafe, demanding Ye Qiu to explain himself.

What a familiar scene!

Last season, when Team Excellent Era’s win record was in shambles, these zealous fans had also gathered in front of the Club entrance not just once or twice. It seems like Ye Qiu had reached this point. Cui Li and the others felt refreshed. What followed next would depend on Happy’s PR ability. Happy was just an insignificant Internet cafe though. How could it have a professional PR team on call for emergencies?

Excellent Era reckoned that Happy would at best expose the conflict between Ye Qiu and Excellent Era, pointing out that Ye Qiu had been forced to retire, but this was only Ye Qiu’s perspective. There was no concrete evidence. Even if Su Mucheng chimed in, it was just two people. Excellent Era could argue back and forth with them until the outcome was inconclusive.

Excellent Era had made preparations for this debate. There was nothing to fear. The PR department had taken precautions for this day! No one feared Ye Qiu’s influence more than Excellent Era. Before Ye Qiu’s influence faded completely, it was necessary to be on guard against the possibility of a leak. If Ye Qiu revealed the truth about his retirement to fire back at them, it would be exactly what Excellent Era was hoping to happen.

Tao Xuan, Cui Li, and Chen Yehui all hid in the Club, observing the commotion. Excellent Era didn’t stop taking action. After Excellent Dynasty confirmed Lord Grim’s identity, the Club’s spokesperson Wang Sheng put out a statement, verifying that Lord Grim was Ye Qiu. He even mentioned that when Team Excellent Era’s situation was looking grim, they contacted Ye Qiu, asking for him to help the team. Unfortunately, Ye Qiu rejected their offer. Wang Sheng pointed out that Excellent Era felt it was a shame that he had refused, but the Club respected Ye Qiu’s decision.

It didn’t matter if Excellent Era had actually done this. More importantly, it brought up another issue at this moment, beautifully seizing a good opportunity. To the fans, the team asked you to come back, yet you refused. Now you’ve created your own team to participate in the Challenger League. Are you sincerely planning on becoming enemies with Team Excellent Era?

Countless fans felt bitterly disappointed. Reporters rushed over to Happy Internet Cafe and Club Excellent Era. The transfer market recently hadn’t been too interesting. Who would have thought that such a juicy topic relating to the Challenger League would pop up? With an enormous entity like Excellent Era being a central part of the news, the media did not need to worry about no one caring.

Of course, the reporters couldn’t speak without thinking. Doing their homework could enrich the contents of their report. As a result, reporters rushed to the two locations, while searching for any information on Team Happy, especially information relating to the Challenger League. The media directly asked the Glory Alliance.

They were greatly taken back when they heard the results. The Glory Alliance clearly expressed that the identity registered to Lord Grim wasn’t Ye Qiu.

The Glory Alliance wouldn’t know about the details of Ye Xiu’s origins. The Challenger League only required an effective identity card to register. If the team passed through the registration process, Ye Xiu’s name and identity card number were genuine. Ye Xiu was a real person and was the person using Lord Grim. What relationship did he have with Ye Qiu? The Glory Alliance had information on Ye Qiu. They would keep files on all registered pro players. The two names were similar and the identity card numbers were extraordinarily similar, but they weren’t the same. Both identity cards were different, meaning Ye Qiu and Ye Xiu were two different people.

For the Glory Alliance, the identity cards were legitimate. There was no reason to question it. As for the outside world, the Challenger League did not publicly reveal information on names and surnames of participants because, in the beginning stage, the identities of the participating players weren’t necessarily trustworthy.

This allowed for more players to participate. The Challenger League only required a valid identity to register. The early stages of the league were done online. The company relied only on the players themselves to abide by the rules of the early stages. If someone was doing something fishy and playing on the behalf of someone else, it was difficult for the company to prove anything.

However, in the later stages of the Challenger League, the matches would take place in an offline studio. Thus, it wouldn’t be possible to do anything like playing on the behalf of someone else. Teams that reached this step through dubious means would have no way of hiding it. As a result, the Challenger League would only publicly reveal information in the later stages, after verifying the identities of each player offline.

The person who registered Lord Grim was called Ye Xiu, a legitimate identity. The staff members of the company could only question it in private, but from a company perspective, there was no reason to doubt it. They could only tell the media about what information that they had: Lord Grim was not Ye Qiu, at least according to the registration information. According to the rules, the player using Lord Grim could only be the person called Ye Xiu. If Ye Qiu was playing on his behalf, according to the rules, the company would ban the account and investigations into fraud would be made. The team would also be disqualified.

The media looked in dismay at the information that they had received from official sources. This was information from the Glory Alliance. The media obviously knew that the company was using Lord Grim’s registration information as evidence. Their credibility was undeniable.

This piece of information was soon reported by the media. The Glory Alliance was certain that the player, who was registered as Lord Grim, was not Ye Qiu.

The fans were suddenly dumbstruck. They had been shouting and cursing all day, but it turned out that Club Excellent Era had made an unexpected mistake?

Club Excellent Era.

From Tao Xuan to Chen Yehui, all of them were feeling great. Revealing Ye Qiu’s identity at this moment was undoubtedly a perfect opportunity. Tao Xuan was overjoyed upon seeing the crowd surrounding Happy Internet Cafe.

Just when everything was looking pristine, he suddenly saw the crowd become more and more restless.

What were they going to do? Tao Xuan looked forward to it. Then, he saw the crowd start to expand outwards. Players were turning around and talking about something. Soon afterwards, the crowd turned and crossed the street, straight towards Club Excellent Era’s entrance.

What’s going on? Tao Xuan was startled. He immediately thought that the fans were looking for Excellent Era to say something because of Ye Qiu’s reveal.

”Thinking of this point, Tao Xuan didn’t get angry. He had made preparations for this, after all. Ye Qiu ah. Ye Qiu. In the end, you couldn’t remain calm? Tao Xuan thought. He returned to his desk and grabbed the phone. The PR department would start the next step in the plan. Before he could even punch in the numbers for the call, he suddenly heard a knock on the door.

”Come in.” Tao Xuan dialed the numbers while speaking. The door was pushed open. The manager Cui Li rushed in; his expression was gloomy. He clearly didn’t have any good news.

”What’s wrong?” Tao Xuan stopped dialing. He suddenly felt a bad premonition.

”News was just released. The media reports that Lord Grim is not Ye Qiu, but someone else. The Glory Alliance has already confirmed it.” Cui Li said.

”What? What news? Which media reported it?” Tao Xuan was startled.

”ESports Home...” Cui Li said.

Tao Xuan couldn’t call it into question. ESports Home was the the country’s most reputable eSports news outlet. They weren’t tabloid newspapers, publishing gossip. If ESports Home was giving the report, they must have obtained proof from the Alliance themselves.

”What’s going on? Get Chen Yehui over here!” Tao Xuan was furious. Lord Grim was Ye Qiu. This news had come from the guild. Tao Xuan was going to get to the bottom of this. 　

As for the fans crowded around the entrance of Club Excellent Era, Tao Xuan obviously knew that it wasn’t because Ye Qiu had said anything. The fans had seen the news and immediately ran over to Excellent Era to criticize them.