"If you had to choose, would you be a man, or would you be a teenager?

"What if, it's none of the others, it doesn't affect everyone else, it's just your own choice?"

In front of the man who once burned like thunder or volcano, the goblin whispered softly, his voice crisp, but there seemed to be a great flame of glory flashing in his eyes.

It's a difficult choice, especially for a former winner.

————————————————

July 2019, Western Capital.

It's not very hot, but it's already quite hot in the western capital at the beginning of July. The man came out of the air-conditioned room and sighed profusely.

Although he had left the air conditioner, a heartfelt chill crept up his spine from the soles of his feet and down his spine.

Failed, obviously.

Having played games for half his life and fought for more than ten years of career, failure is not a strange word for him, or failure is not a new thing for all people who play games and engage in e-sports, men have invested 12 years in this game - this project, normally speaking, this is already a professional age that can put victory and defeat aside. But the defeat in this competition was particularly glaring for him.

Defense of the Ancients, the originator of MOBAs, started as a player-created battle map within a classic real-time strategy game, and was already an important part of the world esports scene before it started as a true indie game. In 2011, the Dawn Shield production team set up its own portal, and has been operating for 8 years with its complete professional ecosystem; And if you count the time it has been expanding the map as another real-time strategy game, this game has been influencing the world for 13 years.

As long as you have a little understanding of the professional circle of this game, you have to admit that this man is a genius and a brave general, since he stepped into the professional circle 10 years ago, he has grown from a hairy boy to a successful man. How many championships have you won? He can't count it himself, he only knows that he is qualified to say that he is the most accomplished person in the world in DotA esports, and no one is qualified to say that he is not modest, because many men's youth is to watch this man win the championship.

But he didn't win the game at The International, the game's highest honor. Including this year, this time.

It stands to reason that he should have been used to losing at TI, but the TI Series World Invitational has long been a demon in his heart. In fact, he had been thinking about leaving the game for a long time, but every time he left ended in silence, he led the team to the 2017 Asian Invitational Championship in 2017 at the age of 29 - the second oldest player in the competition and the oldest in the core - and won the penultimate piece of the puzzle of the Grand Slam, but in the summer of the following year, people still saw his name in the TI2018 entry list.

This year, even though he has sworn with his family that he will no longer compete in TI2019 in person, and instead become a team manager and coach, and occasionally broadcast the role of supporting his family, the man still can't help but pull a few old brothers to form a team to start from the audition.

However, all three teams, including the team he had high hopes for, were eliminated from the qualifiers and failed to secure a ticket to The Worlds.

The whole army was annihilated, the armor was abandoned, and the body was incomplete.

The bold ambition of last October seems to be nothing more than a joke now, and the helplessness in the eyes of the sponsors who don't know whether it is a fan or a boss is gradually gaining the upper hand -

"If you want to fight, keep fighting." He had something to say.

"Either I'll talk to the organizer, and let me go up when the awards are presented at the end, take the champion shield and hand it to the champion, so that I can also raise the shield, right?" Although this sentence is a joke, but there is a bit of truth in it, the old man - this gamer who is close to middle age himself can't tell.

Indeed, he himself will occasionally look through the comments of netizens on the forum, and most netizens are saying, "This thunder is just to play to add some popularity to his live broadcast room", "Who wants to watch his blackface live broadcast, it is better to find a few big anchors to rub the heat", "I am in my thirties, it's time to think about things other than games." ”

He will also lie to himself like this: he has retired several times, this time it is just to play, not to mention that the team he led is also in the qualifiers, wouldn't it be embarrassing if the two teams met? But after all, he didn't meet it, and the team he and the old brothers didn't even play the audition. However, there was an even greater unwillingness and uneasiness swirling in his mind.

He didn't even know what that Champion Aegis meant to him—was that possible?

Lying to himself, he sat down on the floor of the already empty living room.

It's not that the man doesn't know that he is old, on the contrary, he knows the fact that he himself is old better than all the sailors who blow water in the major forums: the speed of reaction has declined, the meaningless thinking has increased, the concentration has become less and less, and even the "spur-of-the-moment judgment of the situation" for which he became famous has disappeared.

But the older you get, the more you want to pursue it.

He fumbled in his pockets and remembered that the cigarette had been placed in the training room, so he simply lay down on the floor.

How long have I been playing this game myself, 12 years. How many 12 years can there be in life? I have already handed over all the youth that I can give to this game, no, this career.

However, in the end, he did not touch the highest glory that belonged to him.

Like the ashes that burned out early, lying at the bottom of the furnace and watching the passion and flames burst out of the young people, the flames were extremely high and extremely hot, even burning through the sky and touching the glory of the clouds, and the ashes like him could only miss the youth that he once burned like a young man.

Only those who are dying of age know how precious youth is, just as only ashes know how exciting it is to burn.

It's a pity that I burned too early.

Older people, don't think about those who don't.

He supported himself with his hands and struggled to his feet:

"It's time to lose weight this summer......"

The man staggered to his feet, but suddenly there was a flower in front of him - dizziness caused by high blood pressure, he didn't care, this is almost normal, in this circle, people have high blood pressure as normal as having a nose: although the man is just thirty years old, the sedentary and irregular life brought about by his occupation has permanently or semi-permanently damaged his body. With at least 10 hours of training a day and all sorts of chores and pastimes, men have rarely slept before 1 a.m. for nearly a decade — not just him, almost all pros have a routine.

But something has to change in the future.

The man blinked as hard as he could, trying to dispel the floaters' noise, but the colored spots of light in his field of vision showed no sign of disappearing, but became denser, as if to completely obscure the man's vision.

He was a little flustered, this seemed to be a sign of some serious optic nervous system disease, and a young player he used to be very optimistic about was affected by this neurological disease, and had to say goodbye to e-sports forever -

But he wasn't young anymore.

The man who figured this out sighed and simply lay back on the ground: Anyway, this game doesn't have much to do with him, and the future may be to retreat into the background and be a pure coach or manager, and it's not unacceptable to commit this disease in this joint.

Even, thinking negatively, you can use this as an excuse to completely withdraw from the professional circle, which is not a bad thing.

Inexplicable sleepiness enveloped the man's brain with his thoughts, and he closed his eyes as he looked at the unprovoked flying points of light in his field of vision, and was immediately overwhelmed by those colored spots of light.

…… Submerge?

Wrong.

The moment the man realized this, he didn't feel sleepy, he opened his eyes suddenly, and sat up from the floor, only to find that the spots of light were still in his field of vision, but this time, they were indeed entities flying in the air.

"Hello." They greeted the man like this, even if they didn't make any sound, and the flying route was irregular, but the man could still feel that they were greeting him.

"Excuse me." The man replied casually, and he didn't know why he was so friendly to these mysterious things.

"It's this side that should apologize." The dot of light still gave his reply in an incomprehensible way, "If it scares you, please accept my apology." ”

"No, I'm still curious, what the hell are you...... What the? The excessive politeness made the man a little uncomfortable, and he peeked around, and it was indeed still the living room of the base - it was a living room, but it was rarely used for entertaining guests, and when the members of the clan were there, this room was usually used for everyone to gather for dinner or meetings.

But something is not quite right in this familiar living room.

He couldn't tell what was wrong, and he couldn't spot the subtle but crucial differences with just a peek - but it made him feel that there was something strange about it, at least not from the familiar room he knew.

"I'm a dream." The ball of light replied, simply and bluntly, "It's a dream here, too, but it doesn't have to be your dream." ”

"Huh? Am I really dreaming? ”

"You can understand it that way."

The balls of light that flew in the air suddenly came to a complete standstill, freezing in the man's familiar room, making the whole set look like the work of some modernist master.

"Forgive me, what have you been dreaming about lately?"

After three seconds or twenty thousand years of silence, Dream asked.

"Aren't you just a dream, why do you still come to ask me, I can't remember it myself." The man straightened his body and stretched his shoulders and back by the way, the process was natural and smooth, and there were no adverse reactions that his real body would have, which also made the man more convinced that this was indeed the so-called dream.

"I only know what I know." The orbs of light began to move again, this time, slowly but firmly, in unison, "But I don't know what you're dreaming about, it's normal. ”

"I dreamed, what did I dream...... Yes, I've been dreaming for the past two days that I've raised my shield - ah, it's the ......" The man, after thinking seriously about his recent memories of dreams, realized that he really only had an impression of this, or this series of dreams. But when he tried to tell those dreams, he suddenly woke up: this so-called "dream" probably doesn't know what TI and Dota are.

"I know." It's no longer like floaters, but more like the starry sky of light clusters give this affirmation, "Dota's highest-level event, the championship trophy of The World Invitational, is called the Champion Shield because of its shape is the same as the artifact shield in the game. ”

"You know that's good." The man rubbed his temples before he realized that his dream was entirely due to daily thought.

But since it's also a dream, there's nothing to be ashamed of.

"Just, I've dreamed it several times, and each time it's different. Sometimes I dream from the finals, both domestic and foreign teams have played - I also dreamed that the opponents in the finals were five kobolds, and they also chose five kobolds in the game, and there were twenty-five dogs in the late field......"

The man completely used the "dream" as a tool to pour out his heart, and before that, he had never revealed his heart like this even to his family and teammates, for no other reason, just because he would be ridiculed for saying "how old is he still thinking about the game all day long" and "is this the obsession of the strongest palace army".

But he just wanted that shield, no matter what, even in a dream.

"Just fight and fight, and finally win, we lost four of the five rounds of three and we haven't lost yet, and we have to play the last one, and the last one Lao Bai asked me what I wanted, and I said give me an anti-mage, this one I want to win...... And then I don't know how, the attack power is so high, the skill is so strong, when I go to the high ground, a big blow up kills five people, and then it wins, fireworks start to go outside, the staff comes in and says we are the champions, let's measure the size of our fingers and make a championship ring......"

The man's smile faded, and he didn't realize how happy he was when he described these non-existent dreams.

It was like he was really standing on the highest podium, draped in the flag, and the fireworks and cheers were all for himself.

"But it's all a dream, nothing else, it's all a dream, and I haven't actually lifted that shield with my own hands once."

The orbs of light gathered together silently as the man spoke, and they just listened in silence to the man's words.

"That's all, in fact, ......" The man choked, the words coming out of his throat, but refusing to break through his lips, he opened his mouth to try to say something, but there was only the bitter taste of those words.

"You didn't actually dream that you were raising your shield." The condensed ball of light spoke the words in place of the man.

"Haha......" The man finally smiled bitterly, but sighed, "That's right, I've never lifted that shield, so completely- I don't know what it's like to raise that shield, and even in my dreams, those dreams actually end in the end, after defeating the last opponent." ”

"Now that I'm old, I don't have the capital to fight for anything anymore, and it's over dreaming."

This is what he said to himself, but he was not the only one who heard it.

"And if," the ball of light solidified again, "if you were given a chance to challenge again, would you still go?" ”

"Of course." The man replied indifferently, "But no." ”

"You're just a dream, at most let me dream of winning the final once, and I may not have fate in my life for that shield."

Speaking of this, the man suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly: "It's not right, this year's TI will be held in China, maybe there will be a chance to be a special guest to present awards to the champion team, and it may be considered a lift at that time——"

"What if I say, I can really give you a chance?"

"Dream" interrupted the man's monologue, and the balls of light completely condensed into the form of a person, delicately like a puppet carved by God: "If you were given a chance to start over, what would you choose?" ”

"What?" The man was indeed horrified, an indescribable sense of certainty hovered in his heart, there was no basis, and the other party did not have any proof or confession, but he inexplicably believed that what this "dream" said was true.

It says to give yourself a chance to choose, and both ends of that choice are real.

The human form condensed from the "dream" completely revealed its own image - it was a light-colored girl who felt very similar to the "dream". Absolutely beautiful but not real, ethereal like a dream.

"In the new world, all your honors will be zeroed, everything you have done will cease to exist, and all those who are related to you will no longer remember you, as if there was never a trace of you burning in this world.

"But, of course, as a response to what you've paid so much for, a complete, fresh start.

"You'll start over at the age of 17, but of course it's now, and there's no so-called prophetic advantage, and most tricks won't work, but,

"You're going to be a genius, and I can guarantee that, in exchange for starting over, you'll still be a genius with unlimited potential, even more than you have here at 17.

"Do you continue to be a successful man, or do you start over as a teenager? I hope you can give me the answer"

The man's throat trembled slightly, and the words swirled and swirled in his mouth, and finally no answer was given, just:

"Can you give me a day to think about it...... No, just a few hours. ”

To this vague discussion, the "dream" elf's reply was very simple:

"No problem, I'll wait for you."

The last shimmer of light on her body faded, revealing a face smiling like a child.