King of Esports

King of Esports is a long novel about competitive gaming by the web novelist 'I'm an Ostrich'. It runs to about three hundred chapters and nearly a million characters, was first serialised to completion in 2017, and was later revised and released in full on platforms such as Chinese Online, with chapters also available on WeChat Reading. The story centres on Tang Li, a student at Lushan University who considers himself to have almost no merits other than good looks. Once at university, his curiosity is quickly worn down by empty daily life, and his hobbies are 'chasing girls' and 'stomping noobs'; he once played Counter-Strike in a small internet cafe called Hero Internet Cafe. This ordinary player, seemingly with little prospect, gradually finds his place in Warcraft III matches and team play, fighting alongside his companions at the Hero Club from campus tournaments all the way to international events, and finally completing the transformation from ordinary player to professional. The work runs campus life and the professional league as two parallel narrative lines, with chapters devoted to tactical manoeuvres such as the 'four-corner encirclement' as well as passionate milestones like 'the promise of the WCG World Cup'; woven in are adolescent emotional entanglements, clashes of values, and real-world issues such as commercial operations and industry hidden rules. It can therefore be read as a gaming novel or as an urban romance threaded through competitive gaming — a king in the game, a band of passionate companions, and a story of youth, ideals, friendship and love. Note that more than one work online shares this title, including Feng Da Luo's King of Esports: League of Legends; when buying or searching, check that the author is 'I'm an Ostrich'.