369: ‘Suffering is always by my side.’
source. profile by danneergou (丹尼二狗) for pentaq. images by yan wendi (梁文迪) and yicun (一村).
translator. in a rare moment of free time, i had the chance to watch IG vs. TES in the LPL regional finals; there was something so quintessentially LPL and yet so captivating about a team of rookies taking on the reigning world champions and the chaos that ensued. pentaq has always written these complex, sympathetic and yet strangely bittersweet portraits of LPL players and their struggles in pursuit of a dream, and this one is no different. i hope you’ll enjoy this one.
369 made a motion like climbing a mountain. "I don't know. But I will always be climbing, and I will always be moving forward."
What does the LPL stage mean to a professional player? Only just eighteen, 369 has yet to find time to think about this. All he knows is that ever since he joined TOP's LPL team last November, his life has been like riding a bullet train. Those things he once dared not even imagine - one by one, they have become reality.
"One day, I will be a professional player," 369 once boasted to his classmates; at the time, he was still a student and his account 菜鸟 (t/n: 'noob') was only Gold. Many years later, when he found himself standing on the Demacia Cup stage for the first time, looking at the tide of people below him, letting the audience's cheers for their opponent IG crash over him, "If these people were cheering for us, wouldn't that be even better?"
To listen to those cheers, he has already given up much. He said goodbye to his best friend, took on more stress and frustration, and faced his own inner demons head-on. Throughout this process, suffering has been his constant companion.
"When you play professionally, in a hundred days, maybe ninety-nine of them will be losses. And only in an hour of that one remaining day will you taste success." Little P, a coach for the academy team who watched 369's journey from the LDL to the LPL, felt that this was a road every player must walk. "All kinds of negative feedback are entangled with a player's career. For many of them, even up until they retire, they will have no way to understand this."
To an outsider, he might already seem gifted with extraordinary luck - he only spent one season on the academy team before being promoted to the main team. In the spring split, he was already a starting player; they finished third in the regular season, fourth in playoffs, and earned the chance to represent LPL at Rift Rivals. At only eighteen, this boy already had a chance that could change his life - but he had no time to celebrate; he had to hurry to the next battlefield.
"If I think about it, I've lived eighteen years. All the previous years were plain and faint; it seems only this one has a spark of light."
one. giving up, holding on.
No matter what, 369 has always said what he thought - even if, in that moment, it felt like everyone else was standing against him.
This was how it seemed in July 2018, the first time Little P saw him. At the time, Little P was the assistant coach for TOP's main team. Once, he and the team visited their academy team KOF to do a review of one of KOF's games.
During their analysis, this kid who always had something to say came to his attention. "To be honest, his analysis of the game was correct, but whether the team should prioritize top lane or bot lane was a stylistic decision, not one with a right or wrong choice. They were not trying to solve a problem, but rather having a debate."
What Little P remembered most from that day was how 369 kept asking him, "P Bro, do you also think this is correct? Do you agree with this?" While he noticed his strong desire to win, Little P also felt that he "relied too much on what others thought of him."
A little while later, Little P was transferred from the main team to KOF, and thus became 369's in-game mentor. But the first to have noticed 369 was Guo Hao, the TOP manager who instigated this transfer.
In April 2018, even as the main team played against Snake in Chongqing, Guo Hao elected to go to the LDL student and watch KOF. Because some impressive plays caught his eye, this player who went by 369 came to his attention. "The impression he gave me was someone with meticulous mechanics, who had guts and didn't panic. Even when left with a sliver of health, he would still use his positioning to juke skills." At that time, Guo Hao thought - this kid might be it.
Back then, 369 had only just joined KOF. Born in 2001, he grew up in Henan with his grandmother and little sister. His family and childhood experiences made 369 more independent, yet also more vulnerable to social influences. In the third year of middle school, he found he couldn't keep up with his studies, so he wanted to go to a vocational school. He thought to himself, "This way, at least I'll have some skills to support myself with." Afterwards, he went into a four-year automobile repair program, which included a guaranteed job assignment after graduation.
Attending vocational school really just meant he was playing League of Legends in a new location; he "felt that [he] couldn't see any hope." If he had followed this path, perhaps in four years he really would've become an auto mechanic.
Once, another player added him as a friend and told him that if he changed his ID to a certain name and played every day, they would pay him 30RMB a day. 369 was delighted to hear that League of Legends could earn him money and pay for more of his netcafe fees. "I had always felt quite disappointed in myself growing up, but playing this game, I suddenly had a reason to feel proud." At that time, he was around Diamond on Ionia.
Before he joined KOF, 369 had been a part of two different academy teams. One was LGD; the other was VG. Both experiences ended with little gained. While he as at LGD, he felt that "the team's attitude was very negative at the time," and after losing to ME in Hero of Cities (t/n: qualification tournament for LDL), he "didn't want to play any more." As for the half year he spent at VG, he once again used the term "couldn't see any hope" to describe it.
Always unable to see hope, always choosing to leave, and always reluctantly returning - this summarized the beginning of 369's career. After leaving VG at the end of 2017, he suddenly realized that he had been on the road to becoming a professional player for a year and a half, yet he had nothing to show for it. He felt that in that time, he "hadn't worked hard enough, wasn't determined enough."
So when he joined KOF, he gave himself two objectives. The first was very difficult - in July, before his birthday, he would reach Challenger; the second was even more so - to make it to LPL. At the time, 369 had better teams to choose from, but KOF's then-manager told him, "As long as you have the strength, then you will have opportunities." In the end, he chose to remain with KOF.
When he joined the team in April, 369 was remarkably hard-working and self-disciplined. He would get up every day at eight or nine in the morning, and play until one or two the next day. "Every time I lost, I would start looking for my own mistakes instead of being stubborn." By June, 369 had successfully made his way to KR Challenger, accomplishing his first goal. After reaching Challenger, he didn't play at first for fear he'd drop back down, but under his coach's encouragement, he broke into the top 50.
As the 2018 LDL season began, 369 was in perfect form. Combined with good results in scrims, he was full of confidence.
On June 29, in their first match, KOF lost 0:2 to SHA. On July 1, KOF once again lost to ME. On July 14, even after adjusting their team, KOF once again lost 0:2 to VTG. What followed was only another string of losses. Only after a month had passed did KOF finally earn their first best-of-3 victory. In the fourteen games of the summer season, KOF only won three matches.
In their first loss, what left the greatest impression on their ADC Photic was how after they left the stage, 369 tore off his glasses and squatted on the ground, not saying a thing.
As the season progressed, the pain of losing grew greater and greater, and 369's solo queue rank dropped from Challenger back to Diamond I. Once again, 369 almost gave up. As the summer season grew to a close, 369 and Photic returned to the base after one of their games and went upstairs to their room. The lights were off, and in the abject darkness, 369 called out Photic's name and asked him what he should do. As Photic was momentarily stunned, he continued, saying that nothing would keep him going, and he wondered if he should just retire and do something else.
"Are you stupid? There must be something wrong with your head." That night, Photic sat 369 down and ruthlessly poured chicken soup into his soul.
In the end, the person who truly changed 369 was their manager, Guo Hao. On August 25, Guo Hao and the TOP team arrived ahead of time to prepare to face Snake in Chongqing. Before their match, the main team used the second floor of KOF's building to practice. Meanwhile, the academy team gathered on the first floor, and Guo Hao had a simple chat with them about their plans for the future.
Guo Hao's words were very direct. He said to the entire academy team, "If any of you want to play in LDL next season, if any of you just want this salary, or if any of you think you should receive a bonus just for doing well in LDL, then you are not suited to be a part of our team." Then, he pointed at the second floor, where the main team were practicing. "Your goal is to defeat them, to get them kicked. After defeating them, then defeat the people they couldn't defeat. If any of you don't have this goal, then talk to me. You can leave the team now."
As he said that, 369 was sitting in the spot closest to Guo Hao. When he finished, tears were already in 369's eyes. "Those words must've hit home with him. Guo Hao had said some things he had always believed, but never dared to say himself," Little P recollected about those events, which he was also present for. Seeing 369's strong reaction to his words, Guo Hao invited him out of the building to have a one-on-one chat. What left the strongest impression on Guo Hao was that the moment 369 left the building, he hit the ground and started to cry again.
"At the time, I asked him what was going on. He said that previously, everyone would always say, Bai Hao (t/n: short form of 369's name, Bai Jiahao), you play so well. Next season, you'll definitely be on the main team. They all thought he could make it, and he even had this hope. But throughout this entire split, he's performed exceptionally poorly, he hasn't been able to climb in soloq, he hasn't even been able to learn new champions. So he felt he already had no chance."
In that moment, Guo Hao saw this child in his most vulnerable moment. He thought to himself about how moments ago, this person had been in tears at his very words, and he felt like this attitude "couldn't be faked." So Guo Hao chose to say something to 369 which, in retrospect, he realized were quite extreme words.
"If in this academy team, even you cannot go to LPL, then no one can."
two. friends, partings.
In the middle of 2017, a Jiangxi youth who'd made it to Masters on Summoner's Rift received an invitation to try out at OMG's headquarters. His father, who worked far away in Zhejiang, was worried, so he accompanied his son to Shanghai. The first time he saw the way the esports club looked in real life, the youth thought, "So cool."
The two weeks of his tryout at OMG passed quickly. Apart from his regular ranked games, he played eight scrims, losing more than he won. On the final day, one of the staff members told him to return home and wait for further instructions. At the time, he didn't realize this was a polite way of rejecting him. After he went home, his father showed him a conversation with the team, where they suggested that perhaps he should finish high school first. That night, he lay on his bed sadly, thinking to himself - perhaps it was better to work hard and study instead of thinking about this.
In the end, he still didn't "come to his senses." In the following year, as his rank grew better and better, while studying he secretly prepared his resume behind his parents' backs and sent it to the various large esports organizations.
It was only in March 2018 that the boy finally got his chance - his resume came to the attention of team manager for KOF. His mother and grandmother were firmly against interrupting his studies, but in the end, they were convinced by his father. His father, who was still working in a distant location, told him over WeChat that since he had chosen this path, he must keep to it and not give up halfway.
At the end of March, this boy came from Jiangxi to Chongqing and thus, officially began his professional career. A few days after he arrived, a plump little guy showed up at the organization. His first impression of the newcomer was that he was "straightforward." Since he was a newcomer as well, he was a little shy, but the other boy was exceptionally enthusiastic and greeted everyone. Later on, the two of them would sit next to each other.
This youth was Photic, and this late-arriving little plump guy was 369. In the following days, the two would become each other's best friends.
from left to right - photic, guo hao, knight9, and 369.
"At school, friendship is commonplace, but for professional players who have entered society, it is far too precious. Some players only treat each other as colleagues, while others think of it as just playing together, so there's no way to really become friends." In Little P's eyes, the way Photic and 369's personalities complemented each other allowed them to become friends. "Professional play isn't just five people playing in a five-stack together; it's five brothers-in-arms living together. If under these circumstances, you cannot find a connection with people, then it must be very lonely."
Friendship between boys often begins with rivalry - comparing their scores, comparing their records, comparing even the time they woke up. Every time 369 made a particularly stellar play, he'd ask Photic, "Isn't that impressive?" Photic might agree, but he would always respond, "Anyone can do that as long as they have hands."
Of course, they were also companions. The summer of 2018, Chongqing was so hot that "even wearing t-shirts and shorts, it was still unbearable." Every day, after they finished their practice at 5:30PM, Photic and 369 would always go to the nearby store to buy cold refreshments. The trip wasn't particularly long, and so as they walked, they would talk about their games and their lives, and then with 3RMB ice creams hanging from their mouths, they would return to continue practicing. When they finished practicing at midnight, the two of them would walk back to their room together. Before they slept, they would chat a little more; as for what they talked about, it didn't even matter to them.
That season of the LDL, KOF didn't perform particularly well. For these newcomers to the professional scene, facing the stress of a losing streak, those 3RMB ice creams and their nighttime boasts became one of their few good memories.
On September 2, KOF finished their last match in Chongqing. Photic and 369's first LDL season clocked in at 3-11, second from last in their region. After the regular season, the organization gave the players some time off; the main team got two months while the academy team got one and a half.
Before their vacation, 369 asked Photic if he were going home. Photic said he would not - he wanted to use the break to practice a little more, play a little better. At the time, he had never been Challenger in KR solo queue, and he set that as his goal. When their vacation began, 369 returned to Henan, and Photic remained at the headquarters. "I felt that if I went back for these two months, then perhaps I might disappear entirely."
He didn't expect that a few days later, 369 would suddenly message him on WeChat and tell him that he was coming back. "At that time, I was really lost. After thinking hard at home for a few days, a few things suddenly became clear to me. I wanted to come back and do them immediately." After he rushed back to the gaming house overnight, 369 spent his vacation practicing with Photic. After waking up at noon, they would train into the early morning; they'd play a few other games and then sleep. The next day, they'd start it all over again. Since there was no housekeeper to cook for them, they ordered take-out every day.
Putting aside everything to focus on the game for a month was practically a formative experience for these two teenagers. During that time, Photic often snuck peeks at 369's rank, trying to judge what the other's skill was like in the end. "He would never peek at mine, because I didn't have as much LP as he did." After half a month, Photic was still a few hundred LP away from Challenger, while 369 had brought himself back from Diamond I to Challenger.
Since a few staff members were still working during the holiday, their coach Little P learned about what was going on. When the vacation ended and they were organizing the team, the manager Guo Hao received a message Little P sent him of 369's solo queue rank - 700LP Challenger. He looked at the attachment and replied to Little P: "How about we let him come up?"
In November 2018, 369 officially received a training invitation from the main team; he had finally accomplished the second goal he'd set when he joined KOF. The day he left, he woke up early to pack his bags, then boarded a plane from Chongqing to Shanghai. On the afternoon of that same day, Photic woke up and looked at the bunk below him. His friend's bed was still there, but the keyboard and mouse on the practice desk had vanished. In that moment, he truly knew that 369 had left.
A few days ago, 369 had told him that he would be going to the main team, but Photic had thought it a joke, that it was just a lie for himself. When he realized all of this was reality, he could not stop himself from crying in front of his good friend.
"I am very happy you can play there, but right now, I really cannot be happy."
three. pain, change.
For 369 to go the main team, Photic's inner thoughts were in turmoil.
On one hand, he felt forlorn and lonely; he missed having a friend to talk to every night before bed. On the other hand, when he saw 369's excellent performance in the 2018 NEST tournament, he felt that he "had to play better in order to meet with him again." According to coach Little P's observations, after 369 left, Photic became much more focused.
On the other side, after coming to Shanghai and becoming a part of the main team, 369 was now experiencing something completely different. When he first arrived at the gaming house, Guo Wei assigned 369 and midlaner Knight9 to the same room, hoping that 369 would pick up on Knight9's focus and determination to improve.
Soon after, the "placement test" arrived. When the team attended the end-of-year 2018 NEST and Demacia Cup, 369 suddenly discovered that the teammates surrounding him were much stronger than he'd had before. He practically "lay down and got carried," and without even knowing how, he put up a good scoreline.
A greater stage brought more fans and more attention, and 369 began to secretly use Weibo to upvote the comments saying he performed well. One thing led to another, and when Guo Hao found out about it, he practically laughed until he cried. Later, he and 369 talked, and the other said, a little embarrassed, "Hao Bro, I might be a little overconfident. If you see me being too proud of myself again, please tell me."
Since they were in contact with the main team, after 369 left, the academy coach Little P would often tell Photic, who was still at KOF, what was happening to his friend. In the 2019 spring season, Little P told Photic, "369 cries quite often there." Near playoffs, Little P told him, "Recently, 369 has gone mental boom."
"That kind of mental boom was the beginning of suffering," 369 reminisced. From before the spring playoffs, to playing IG there, to once again meeting IG in the summer split, to being benched at Rift Rivals, to finally being benched against LGD in the regular season - 369 traced such a path. "If I said that perhaps there were twenty things that caused me pain this year, then maybe seventeen of them were in this timeframe." Later, because he'd dwell on the mistakes he made because of his despondent mental state, he couldn't sleep at night; he'd go to bed at 2AM and perhaps only fall asleep at 4AM. "Useless." He used this kind of language to describe himself.
From when he officially joined the main team to after the spring season, 369 and manager Guo Hao had more time to talk. They often chatted whenever they had time, and once they got started, they could go on for a few hours. From his chats with 369, Guo Hao got the impression that this child was rather "lonely."
"This kind of 'loneliness' doesn't mean that others weren't treating him well, but rather that he - how to put it - that he didn't entirely consider himself part of the team." Guo Hao recalled that once when they were talking, he told him two lines from On Chao Cuo. (t/n: a mildly famous text by Song dynasty statesman Su Shi.) The first was, "From ancient times until now, all those who have accomplished great things had not only talent, but also an unbreakable will." The second was, "Those would would call themselves gentlemen, who seek extraordinary success, must not think too much of themselves." These two lines and their meanings were the principles Guo Hao wanted 369 to realize.
The academy coach Little P had similar thoughts. After getting to know him, he realized that when 369 made some decisions, he would sometimes unconsciously try to protect himself. "When he was in the LDL, there was a period of time when he dropped from Challenger to Diamond I. Then, he told me he didn't want to play, because he was afraid that he would show unfavorable results on stage."
From despondence to pain, and the ensuing decline of his condition - this all reflected in his scorelines. In the spring playoffs match against IG, 369 played two matches before being switched out. "It was as if the barrels had exploded."
At Rift Rivals, however, 369 faced one of LCK's best toplaners, Nuguri. He had the advantage in the laning phase but could not capitalize on it once teamfighting broke out. Nuguri was an opponent he had always wanted to surpass, but during the spring split, Guo Hao had used Nuguri as an example to bring up a question: if Nuguri were so good, then why was their other toplaner, Flame, given the chance to play and even win?
After playing DWG and finishing the day's matches, their head coach BSYY returned to the scrim room to decide who would play the next today. In that night's scrims, the toplane player was Moyu - and without scrims, there were no games to play.
To help the main team prepare for Rift Rivals, Little P was transferred from KOF to the frontlines in Seoul. The day 369 was benched, Little P sat with him and watched all the games. What he remembered most from that day was that once, 369 patted him on the shoulder, said "P Bro!" and then sighed deeply.
"Honestly, sometimes you can't blame the players. He made it this far by doing things this way, so if you want him to change right away, that's practically impossible. You have to slowly find that balance. I think through this process, he can replace some parts of himself that aren't so good, and thus become a more excellent person and learn what it means to truly be a team." Seeing how 369 sighed to himself, Little P didn't offer him too much comfort, but simply told him, "Don't worry. This experience will be very valuable. But next time, if there's another chance, you must take it."
After Rift Rivals, Little P went back to KOF to continue his work with the academy team, but he continued to observe 369's LPL games. In the following games in the summer split, when he saw 369 choose counterpicks and choose strategies that would not put undue stress on his teammates, he felt very pleased.
"People have to experience things to learn." 369 didn't regret what he went through to gain this experience. "Even if I don't regret what happened, it still feels like a pity. Because I didn't do well, we didn't go further. If I had played better, perhaps we had a chance to make it to the finals."
four. epilogue.
After the new year, TOP's academy team moved to Shanghai; they were now in the same district as the main team, only five minutes away. Starting from when they moved until now, 369 of the main team and Photic of the academy team have met seven or eight times. The two of them go out for dinner and watch movies; each time, it's always 369 who takes the initiative to invite Photic. "To players on the academy team, the main team is something almost sacred," coach Little P said.
Guo Hao still talks with 369 from time to time, but now he more often takes the role of listener. Since he was a little overly strict with 369 before and noticed he was starting to evade questions, Guo Hao chose to take a different approach and allow the other to speak more.
Back to 369 - the last time I saw him, he seemed very calm, especially when talking about those things he'd experienced this past year that he wasn't entirely satisfied with. "If you asked me how I felt a year ago, maybe I would've had a lot to say, but now, after going through so much, it almost seems like none of that has left a serious impression on him." To him, 2019 can best be described as 'full;' it's as if even before the wounds from the previous fight have healed or he had a chance to look back, he found himself thrust into yet another battlefield.
And so it goes for most professional players. As Little P put it, those are the "negative feedback loops that follow their entire career." "Some things never really leave you; they will always accompany you, but you must hope you will not be affected by them. So it all depends on if you have a way to face them, if you have a way to become friends with yourself."
Did 369 find that? Perhaps he did; perhaps he is still on the road to doing so. When asked how he sees the things he experienced, he said they were "very interesting." "It's like if you talk about something sad that happened to you during school now, you will feel like it's very interesting. That pain no longer seems as deep as it once was."
And when asked how he felt now, he made a motion like climbing a mountain. "I don't know. But I will always be climbing, and I will always be moving forward."