January 24th, the second day of Chinese New Year.
Zhao Xuming and the Longyu Group’s inspection team’s flight from Los Angeles landed at Shanghai Pudong Airport.
After more than a month, stepping on Shanghai soil again, Zhao Xuming felt a sense of time displacement.
When they left, Zhao Xuming, Longyu Group employees, and two clubs went together, but on the return journey, only Zhao Xuming and Longyu Group employees remained.
Because those two clubs had been eliminated after the group stage ended, naturally there was no reason to continue staying in Los Angeles, and they had already flown back.
Online, there hadn’t been any news about these two clubs for a long time.
The reason was simple—performing so poorly at the world tournament, of course they had to play dead!
It had to be said, playing dead actually worked for these two teams. By now, basically no one online was criticizing them anymore, and their media environment had even improved somewhat!
On one hand, this was because the FV team had won the championship for domestic players, everyone was busy celebrating and too lazy to criticize these two teams that were just there as background; on the other hand, various news during the world tournament gradually came to light, and most people realized these two teams’ failures couldn’t be blamed entirely on the players—the reasons for failure were multifaceted.
With the blame distributed, naturally these two teams wouldn’t face concentrated criticism anymore.
So, for these two clubs, although the Los Angeles trip didn’t yield much, there weren’t any major losses either.
At least flights and accommodation were reimbursed, and the players got to compete internationally—no loss either way.
But for Zhao Xuming, the entire Los Angeles journey was absolutely terrible!
On the return trip, with fewer people, Zhao Xuming generously arranged business class for all employees, finally making up for the indignity suffered going to Los Angeles.
However, he deliberately chose a later direct flight to Shanghai because he didn’t want to run into the FV team.
Otherwise, if everyone was in business class with FV team members excitedly discussing their championship on the plane, wouldn’t that be like posthumously whipping his corpse?
By rights, as the domestic operations head for ioi, Zhao Xuming should have shared in the glory when a domestic team won the ioi World Finals championship, but the problem was, FV’s championship really had nothing to do with him—instead, it was a slap in the face!
If the other two teams had won, Zhao Xuming would definitely have happily piggybacked on the hype, claiming some credit for the championship.
Only with FV team winning could Zhao Xuming not claim any credit.
He couldn’t say “Because I didn’t bring them to Los Angeles for early training, forcing Mr. Pei to pay for their logistics team, FV was able to win the championship—I deserve bloody genius credit” could he?
So, Zhao Xuming could only choose to slink away from FV club’s entourage, staggering their return times to Shanghai.
Thinking about it this way, this Los Angeles trip was a complete failure for Zhao Xuming!
Originally didn’t plan to bring FV team, but they self-funded the trip and he ran into them at the airport;
He flew economy, they flew business;
He stayed at Marriott, they stayed at Ritz-Carlton;
He booked a small corner on the first floor of the internet café, they booked the entire second floor;
He walked to training, they had dedicated cars and bodyguard security;
He had to beg and plead for practice matches with Western teams, they brought their own practice teams and had better training results;
The two teams he supported were both eliminated in group stage, while they went 9:0 without dropping a single game to win the championship.
This was a complete domination visible to the naked eye!
What’s most infuriating was that during the Spring Festival holiday, FV team spent it meaningfully in Los Angeles; while Zhao Xuming spent his Spring Festival in Los Angeles highlighting nothing but misery!
So, Zhao Xuming now had only one thought—quickly return to headquarters to report, then go home to rest well and comfort his severely wounded spirit.
Leaving the airport, his subordinates had already arranged for Longyu Group’s business cars to pick them up.
Zhao Xuming got in the car without a word. After buckling his seatbelt, he closed his eyes to rest, not wanting to speak another sentence.
The flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai took about twelve hours. Business class allowed comfortable sleeping and resting, so Zhao Xuming didn’t feel physically tired.
His fatigue was mainly mental.
The accompanying Longyu Group employees were all core members of the ioi operations cooperation department. One important task for their Los Angeles trip was visiting, exchanging, and learning at Pointing Finger Company headquarters, naturally they’d followed the entire ioi World Finals closely.
Others weren’t as defeated as Zhao Xuming—after all, they weren’t directly responsible, basically treating it as a paid vacation.
Earlier on the plane, everyone had been sleeping and watching movies with their phones off. Now back in Shanghai, many people finally turned on their phones to check the latest online news.
Suddenly, an employee said somewhat frantically: “Mr. Zhao! Big trouble! Our company seems to be trending with criticism! PR department is looking for you!”
Zhao Xuming, who had been resting with eyes closed, immediately opened them at these words: “What?!”
How could they suddenly be trending with criticism?
What happened during these dozen-plus hours on the plane?
Obviously being trending with criticism had to be related to the ioi Global Finals. As the head of ioi operations cooperation department, Zhao Xuming dared not delay and quickly took out his phone to check.
Indeed, Longyu Group was really trending with criticism!
Many netizens were viciously attacking Longyu Group, especially Zhao Xuming. Among them, one particularly representative post directly dredged up past grievances, lumping Pointing Finger Company, Longyu Group, and Zhao Xuming together for comprehensive criticism!
“Let’s look at what domestic ioi operator Longyu Group was doing while FV struggled and brought glory to our country!”
“Based on currently revealed information, we can confirm at least the following points:”
“First, Longyu Group brought two other clubs to Los Angeles but didn’t bring FV at all—complete discrimination and unfair treatment! If not for Mr. Pei’s generosity in paying out of pocket, FV might have faced having no practice matches!”
“Second, Pointing Finger Company and Longyu Group arbitrarily changed the version, not only exposing ioi’s failed original gameplay design but also severely harming all veteran players’ interests! Yet they’ve been using delaying tactics, hoping to use the ioi Global Finals’ popularity to cover up this topic!”
“Finally, and most disgusting, Pointing Finger Company actually secretly sent game balance designers to coach FRY team! I ask, when the host personally coaches a club, where’s the fairness in competition?”
“Obviously, Pointing Finger Company officials didn’t want FV team to win this championship, so they resorted to such despicable methods!”
“And as a partner, could Longyu Group’s Zhao Xuming not know about this? He absolutely knew! But he didn’t stop it—what does this mean? It means he felt guilty, knowing his discrimination against FV would get him criticized to death, so he didn’t want FV to win. In his heart, national and ethnic honor in competitive gaming was less important than personal interests. In the past, we called such people ‘traitors’ and ‘national betrayers’!”
“If not for FV team being capable enough to win the championship despite these circumstances, if not for someone exposing this matter, probably right now, ignorant masses would still be criticizing FV team while these two masterminds, Longyu Group and Pointing Finger Company, laugh in the shadows!”
“This also reveals the true nature of these two companies:”
“Pointing Finger Company not only harbors discrimination and prejudice against domestic teams but is also a company that can’t handle losing—when they can’t win through fair means, they resort to underhanded tactics;”
“While Longyu Group, as a major domestic company, acts as an accomplice for personal gain in such circumstances, extremely disgraceful!”
“Faced with such incidents, as players, beyond online condemnation, the only solution is boycott!”
“Players who don’t play ioi should boycott because Pointing Finger Company and Longyu Group discriminated against our champion team; players who do play ioi should boycott even more because Pointing Finger Company and Longyu Group have never truly respected player rights!”
Zhao Xuming stared dumbfounded, his hands and feet turning cold.
What was this situation!
How did the matter of Pointing Finger Company arranging balance designers for FRY get exposed?!
He roughly skimmed through all the trending discussion posts online, his hands trembling slightly.
The public opinion was completely one-sided, pointing fingers at everyone!
For both Longyu Group and Pointing Finger Company, this was an unprecedented PR crisis. If not handled properly, the consequences would be unimaginable!
Looking carefully at the hot topics in discussion, most content had actually been gradually exposed before.
For instance, when ioi first pushed the new version, sacrificing veteran players’ interests sparked widespread online condemnation.
After quarterfinals ended, someone exposed that FV’s trip to Los Angeles was entirely self-funded, Longyu Group didn’t bring them at all.
After semifinals ended, FV used tactics from GOG, someone used this to refute the “ioi’s design is superior to GOG” argument, believing GOG’s gameplay and tactics were ahead of ioi.
At the time, these posts had already created some impact online, but since the finals hadn’t been played yet, the influence was limited and could still be suppressed.
But now FV team won the championship, netizens naturally dredged up all these incidents for accountability!
And the key triggering point was the foreign media report about “Pointing Finger Company sending balance designers to help FRY develop strategies”!
Clearly this news directly exploded all the previously accumulated resentment!
Because while netizens found those previous incidents despicable but barely acceptable, this matter was absolutely unacceptable!
After all, Pointing Finger Company was the tournament organizer. The organizer sending game balance designers to coach FRY team, directly interfering in the finals between two teams—wasn’t this blatant favoritism?