" You can fake a name. You can hide your past. But you can't fake how you move in a match.He knew it. And now, he was going to prove it."
Li Zeyan wasn't the kind of man who chased shadows.
But tonight, a shadow walked into his team's training room, dropped a 12-kill performance in her debut match, and walked out as if it were nothing.
And that... that irked him.
"Zeyan-ge, that rookie… You think she's from some disbanded team?" asked Zhang Rui, Nebula's ADC, as he closed his laptop and leaned back. "Or one of those solo ladder climbers?"
Zeyan didn't answer. He kept scrolling through match replays, eyes narrowed. Not the match they just played, but old tournament footage from three years ago.
"She's got the same movement style," he muttered.
"Huh?"
"Nothing."
Zeyan stood, rolling his shoulders as if to shrug off a thought. But his mind was working overtime.
Zhao Mian. That was the name buried deep in the esports archives. A name once spoken with admiration and envy until the scandal.
No one ever proved the accusations against her. Match fixing? Feeding kills on purpose? It had been convenient how fast her sponsors cut ties, how fast her team dropped her.
Too convenient.
And then she vanished.
Until now.
Meanwhile, Zhao Mian sat cross-legged on the floor of her tiny rented apartment, her headset resting beside her, her laptop open to a hidden file directory.
She clicked open an old video:
Finals 2022 - Team Orion vs. Blaze EdgeCommentator: "And there she goes again! Starfire Archer hits another blind arrow, securing the teamfight win! Unbelievable precision!"
Her face didn't change as she watched the crowd roar.
She didn't feel proud. Or nostalgic.
She felt nothing.
She hadn't watched this clip in three years. She didn't need to. It lived in her bones. In the whispers online. In the betrayal.
Her hand trembled, ever so slightly, before she closed the window.
She had promised herself that no one would connect her to Starfire again. Not until she won everything back on her own terms.
And yet, deep down… she knew someone was already watching her too closely.
The next morning at Nebula HQ, practice began early.
Zhao Mian walked in with her usual blank face and worn-out hoodie, ignoring Chen Yu's cheerful wave and the casual nod from Xiao Yiyi, the team's sharp-tongued Support.
She took her seat silently.
Li Zeyan, already seated at the far end of the row, didn't look at her at first.
Then:
"Star," he said coolly, turning slightly in his chair. "Want to scrim one-on-one?"
The room fell silent.
Zhang Rui choked on his water. "Wait, Zeyan-ge, you want to scrim her?"
"I want to see how she plays… without the team behind her."
Zhao Mian's eyes flickered. A test?
She met his gaze, calm. "Sure."
She slipped on her headset.
No expressions. No questions.
But inside, her instincts sharpened like a blade unsheathed. This wasn't just a scrim. This was an interrogation.
They loaded into the custom match.
Her screen glowed with the pixelated battlefield. It felt like stepping onto a stage, just like old times.
Match Start.
Within the first two minutes, Zeyan was aggressive. Intentionally so. No mercy, no setup, just relentless pressure.
But Zhao Mian didn't flinch. She adjusted, absorbed, struck back with eerie precision.
By minute five, they were tied in kills. 3-3.
By minute eight, she baited him into a false rotation and sniped him under the turret with perfect timing.
"First turret destroyed."
A silence fell across the practice room.
Even Chen Yu had stopped breathing.
Zeyan sat back slowly, removing his headset.
She had read his play.
Countered it.
And timed her reaction down to the half-second.
He wasn't angry. He was amused.
"You're not just a ladder player," he said finally, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"I never said I was," Zhao Mian replied.
Their eyes locked across the screens.
He smiled, but his voice lowered. "Then who taught you to read rotations like that?"
Zhao Mian smiled back, cold and thin. "Maybe I'm just talented."
She unplugged her headset. "Are we done here?"
He leaned forward just slightly. His tone dropped, meant only for her. "You play like someone who disappeared three years ago."
Her hand froze for half a beat.
He saw it.
But she didn't answer. She stood, picked up her notebook, and walked out without another word.