Recently, Qiao Liang’s schedule had been quite casual. He would sleep until he naturally woke up around 10 AM, eat breakfast while watching videos, play games after digesting, feel sleepy at 1 PM after lunch, sleep until around 3 PM, bask in the sun on the sofa, and before he could do anything else, it would be dinner time. After dinner, the GPL matches would be about to start.
There was no helping it—often, scrolling through his phone watching short videos and browsing forums would consume two or three hours without him realizing it. It was hard to control his idle hands.
Although Qiao Liang was well aware of this situation, he still had to scroll through his phone. This resolute resistance against fragmented entertainment wasn’t something everyone could easily achieve.
“Hmm? Rabbit Tail Streaming is holding a match at 3 PM? The ten original DGE members are reuniting?”
“Is this an event to regain popularity?”
Qiao Liang hadn’t used Rabbit Tail Streaming for a while because he couldn’t be bothered to stay idle on it for an hour every day.
He was very dissatisfied with this “mandatory one-hour” rule and had complained about it multiple times in his fan groups. He had even thought about speaking to Mr. Pei directly to ask him to cancel this completely unreasonable rule, but ultimately decided against it.
If it were a gaming-related matter, Qiao Liang felt he might have some right to speak up, but how a streaming platform should be managed was entirely Tenda’s own business. If he were to speak up, it might seem like he was overstepping his boundaries, which wouldn’t be appropriate.
Moreover, Qiao Liang felt that Rabbit Tail Streaming wasn’t Tenda Group’s core business anyway. If they insisted on making poor decisions, so be it. After hitting enough walls, they would surely revert back to their old ways.
So after that, Qiao Liang hadn’t used Rabbit Tail Streaming for quite some time. Once netizens got tired of complaining, the online buzz gradually died down.
However, this new event had clearly made Rabbit Tail Streaming the focus of discussion among netizens once again.
Qiao Liang briefly scanned through the players’ comments, which were still predominantly negative.
“There’s a match with the ten original DGE members on Rabbit Tail Streaming from 3 PM to 5 PM. They’ve already put out promotional images, check it out!”
“Is anyone still using Rabbit Tail Streaming? Seriously?”
“You can actually endure being forced to idle for an hour every day? You’re really something.”
“Has Rabbit Tail Streaming lost their minds? Do they have too much money to burn? Their popularity was fine before, but they ruined it with that mandatory one-hour rule, and now they’re bringing out DGE members to boost their popularity again. Pure idiocy!”
“Exactly! These players still need to train daily. Scheduling these special entertainment matches doesn’t help maintain their form or skills. The players are only doing this because of Mr. Pei’s influence. Rabbit Tail Streaming, have some self-awareness! Stop bothering these players!”
“Nobody go watch it! Don’t boost their popularity! If no one watches and their popularity drops, they’ll naturally stop these events!”
Although some fans were looking forward to the match, the overall sentiment was predominantly negative.
There was no helping it—Rabbit Tail Streaming had seriously offended casual viewers previously.
Just as the complaints had nearly died down, the promotion of this match reminded casual viewers of Rabbit Tail’s ridiculous rule. Combined with the impression that DGE members were being asked to help clean up Rabbit Tail’s mess, there were even more critics.
“Today’s viewers are really demanding.”
Although Qiao Liang was also dissatisfied with Rabbit Tail Streaming’s rule, his reaction wasn’t as intense as others’.
After all, as a freelancer, it was easy for him to keep his phone idle for an hour—he could just set it aside while playing games.
If it were any other event, Qiao Liang wouldn’t bother idling for an hour, but the DGE members hadn’t played together for several months. Despite it being a promotional gimmick, Qiao Liang still wanted to watch.
So he opened the Rabbit Tail Streaming app that he hadn’t logged into for a long time, turned on Focus Mode, and dutifully idled for an hour, planning to watch the match at 3 PM.
After entering Focus Mode, a countdown appeared on the screen along with an image of a cartoon character meditating, accompanied by two lines of text.
“The reason why geniuses stand out as extraordinary in people’s eyes is not because they are naturally superior, but because they have put in continuous effort. Ten thousand hours of practice is a necessary condition for anyone to transform from ordinary to world-class master.”
“Working eight hours a day, it takes at least five years to become an expert in a field; if you spend an extra hour each day studying a specialty outside your profession, after thirty years, you will also achieve something in this field.”
Qiao Liang couldn’t help but reflect: “Although this feature is quite stupid, these words do make some sense.”
The first paragraph was actually the so-called “10,000-hour rule.”
Although people have different levels of natural talent, and the effort needed to succeed can’t be generalized, the “10,000-hour rule” still had its merits.
Because no matter how talented a person is, achieving results requires accumulated daily effort. Even the historical geniuses were no exception.
The second paragraph seemed more like an extension of the “10,000-hour rule.” In fact, as long as most people do their regular jobs well, and as long as the work is cumulative and improvable rather than repetitive labor, they can become professionals in a field within five years.
And in their spare time, if they could theoretically spend an hour each day studying other fields—as long as they weren’t aimlessly busy but systematically learning and understanding knowledge—perseverance would eventually yield results.
With his phone set aside and unable to scroll, Qiao Liang had no choice but to open his computer and do something productive.
He had been wanting to create a chronology table of Chinese game development, organizing the evolution of domestic games, which would also accumulate materials for his future videos.
But this task had been delayed for several months. Each time, he would only manage to sort out two or three entries before giving up and quietly starting to play with his phone again.
This time, although Qiao Liang still couldn’t resist the urge to pick up his phone, when he saw the “Focus Mode” page displayed on the screen, he withdrew his criminal hand and continued working diligently.
An hour passed quickly.
Qiao Liang found himself still somewhat reluctant to stop and continued working for another half hour before saving his work and preparing to rest.
“This Focus Mode seems to be somewhat useful. If you can resist playing with your phone, you actually end up with a lot more time each day…”
Even though he had only worked for a little over an hour, Qiao Liang was already satisfied and clicked on the DGE match livestream on Rabbit Tail Streaming without any guilt.
It was then that Qiao Liang discovered that the previously obscured livestream title had been revealed: “Rabbit Tail Cup BP Proof Match”!
“BP Proof Match? What kind of competition is this??”
Qiao Liang was stunned. Previously, he had assumed this was just an ordinary entertainment match or fan match, with the ten DGE members playing their signature heroes to satisfy the audience, but now it seemed the situation wasn’t as simple as he had thought!
This match was using ICL league’s secondary stream broadcast channel on Rabbit Tail Streaming, so the production team, commentators, and other staff were already in place.
The two commentators were already introducing the match rules.
“As the name suggests, the ‘BP Proof Match’ allows two top teams to test the strength of certain draft compositions and prove whether the problem lies with the coach’s drafting or with the players’ performance.”
“Today is the first match of the BP Proof Match. We’ve carefully selected a classic matchup from last week’s GPL. The blue side had an early-game poke composition with almost no team fight initiation—a composition that many viewers denounced as a ‘cursed BP.’ Today’s two teams will each use this composition against each other once, using the ‘controlled variable method’ to verify whether this BP is truly ‘cursed’ or not.”
“If the team with the ‘cursed BP’ loses both matches, then we can prove it’s a problem with the draft. If the team with the ‘cursed BP’ wins, then we can prove it’s a problem with the players’ skill and tactical arrangements.”
“If the results are split with one win and one loss, we can analyze both matches to determine how balanced the drafts really are, how much room for error this ‘cursed BP’ has, whether it’s stable or unstable…”
“Afterward, we’ll provide a voting feature in Rabbit Tail Streaming’s BP Proof Match livestream room, allowing viewers to select the most ‘cursed’ BP composition. The composition with the most votes will be the next one we verify…”
As the two commentators introduced the rules, the livestream screen also displayed the specific team compositions for this match.
The rules of the BP Proof Match were that the ten heroes and their respective positions couldn’t be changed, but everything else—including specific talent configurations, playstyles, and item builds—was unrestricted.
Qiao Liang had watched this match last week and still remembered it vividly. At that time, the blue side’s coach had selected an early-game poke composition with only two unreliable crowd control abilities across the entire team and no true frontline. After mishandling the level one fight and giving up a kill and two jungle camps, they were quickly steamrolled by the opponents.
Moreover, on paper, the blue side was clearly stronger.
So after that match, the blue side’s coach was criticized mercilessly, and the composition was mockingly called the “five protect one coach” composition—and they couldn’t even protect him.
This time, DGE Team One would first play with this “cursed BP” composition, while DGE Team Two would use the opponent’s composition. Then they would swap compositions and play another match.
Of course, since Old Zhou, the shot-caller from the original DGE Team Two, had already retired to become a coach, a talented young support player from the current DGE club filled in to ensure the two teams were close in strength on paper.
Additionally, both teams were hastily assembled and hadn’t practiced together beforehand, relying solely on their chemistry, which made it essentially a fair matchup.
After hearing the rules, Qiao Liang instantly perked up.
This “BP Proof Match” sounded really interesting!
If it were a fan match or entertainment match, it wouldn’t be that interesting—you wouldn’t see proper tactics, and the professional players might not take it seriously, reducing its watchability.
But this BP Proof Match was being played exactly like an official match. Both sides would definitely try their best to win, maximizing the intensity and excitement of the competition.
Most crucially, this match could finally solve a series of unsolved mysteries to some extent:
Was losing a match due to poor drafting or poor player performance?
Should the blame fall on the coach or the players?
When the “draft coaches” in the chat constantly complained about “brain-dead BP,” in terms of game understanding, was it a case of “the eyes of the masses are sharp” or “truth is often in the hands of the few”?
Qiao Liang suddenly became interested because he also wanted to know the answers!