CS: I’m Only 16, and You Want Me to Stage an Old Veteran Comeback?

October 5, 2021, Tuesday.

Auspicious for: Worship, Bathing, Haircuts, Travel...

Well, scratch the travel part—Golden Week had officially begun, and office workers were seizing this rare holiday to go on revenge-fueled vacations.

Jiang Yang walked into the house carrying two cups of lemonade.

His mom, looking puzzled, asked, “What took you so long?”

“You should see how many people are outside our place.” Jiang Yang handed a cup to his mom and complained, “I almost got squished into a meat patty out there.”

Their family had settled in Suzhou, and as luck would have it, their home was located on a street that had become a viral tourist hotspot in recent years.

Now that National Day had arrived, the entrance to their home was practically drowning in waves of tourists every single day.

Even though Jiang Yang had pre-ordered from the bubble tea shop, it still took him quite some time to squeeze in and grab his drinks.

Jiang Yang rolled his eyes right back.

Sure, tourism boosted the economy, but how much did it actually help their family’s bun shop?

His parents didn’t have high levels of education and never took up any fancy jobs—they simply ran a small bun shop on this tourist street.

But Jiang Yang didn’t bother arguing with his mom.

With his lemonade in hand, he headed straight to his room.

The moment he opened the door, the cool air from the AC hit him, making him feel alive again.

After standing under the AC for a few minutes, letting his body temperature drop, he finally sat down at his computer desk.

He booted up Aimbotz, warming up with about 500 bot kills to get his aim back in shape.

Then, he ran through every map for about 10 minutes, making sure his utility lineups were all still on point.

With warm-up complete, he launched 5E Matchmaking, queued for all maps, and started searching for a match.

Currently, Jiang Yang’s 5E rating had climbed to 2783, meaning he had reached A+ rank.

However, 5E’s ranking system was a bit different from Perfect World’s.

In Perfect World, once you hit S rank, your rank points didn’t determine stars.

An A+ rank on 5E would already be a high-star S rank on Perfect World.

After reaching Rank #1 on Perfect World, the Comeback System had given him a new task—join a pro team.

Technically, Jiang Yang could already apply for tryouts at this point, using his #1 ranking as a resume booster.

But he had other concerns.

At that time, he had only truly mastered one map.

His situation was like Vincent in League of Legends—

Vincent only played Draven, and Jiang Yang only knew how to dominate Mirage.

He knew he could eventually master other maps, but pro teams might not see it that way.

Jiang Yang preferred having control over his own career, so he decided to improve his skills first, then try out.

Initially, he had been grinding all maps on Perfect World, but that platform’s matchmaking was kind of warped.

Matches relied too much on aim duels, so even on less popular maps, games were still brute-force aim battles.

But Jiang Yang remembered watching his cousin play 5E during the summer.

The strategic depth in 5E’s high-rank matches was much better.

Plus, more pro players were active on 5E, making the high-rank scene more competitive.

So, Jiang Yang decided to climb 5E’s ladder too.

With his current skill level, he blazed through the ranks, destroying lower-level players like a smurf.

In fact, the only reason he wasn’t at top rank yet was because he had been reported too many times, and 5E’s system kept freezing his account.

Still, Jiang Yang wasn’t smurfing on purpose—he was just ranking up his own account.

As he adapted to 5E’s ranked environment and studied pro player POVs, he gradually got comfortable with maps beyond Mirage.

He wasn’t as dominant on other maps yet, but at least, he wasn’t a liability.

Now that his map knowledge was coming together, he started considering where to try out—Tyloo or VG?

Before he could decide, his match queue popped.

Match found: Inferno.

Despite his strong performance lately, Inferno was a simple map where Jiang Yang’s AWP skills gave him a huge advantage.

Even in near-S rank games, he could completely take over on this map.

Pistol round: Lost.

On Chinese matchmaking platforms, tons of players were insanely good at pistol rounds.

Jiang Yang still needed more practice in this area.

For Round 2, he considered buying a Scout, but a teammate suggested ecoing instead.

Since his teammate was communicating properly, Jiang Yang held back despite his confidence in his Scout skills.

Keeping the team in sync was sometimes more important than individual play.

Gun Round: The Enemy’s Star Player Appears.

An opponent named "Cha Bing Cha Bing" went full beast mode, wiping out B-Site in a crazy push.

Anyone who plays B-Site on Dust2 knows the pain of watching teammates rotate in after you’ve already died.

Their B-Site defense crumbled—Jiang Yang took a quick glance at the enemy roster and realized they were a coordinated stack.

This was going to be a tough game.

But that only made him more excited.

For the past two weeks, he hadn’t just been grinding ranks.

He had been training daily, pushing himself through the brutal Hextech: Dungeon Boss simulator, sharpening his mindset to handle high-pressure situations.

Jiang Yang took charge.

“Force buy this round. I’ll take a Scout. Let’s leave A-Long alone.”

Since he made the call, his teammates followed along without complaints.

Once the buy phase ended, Jiang Yang rushed to Mid with his Scout.

His closest teammate jump-spotted B-Site.

Boom! Enemy AWP fired.

Jiang Yang immediately peeked, catching a Terrorist retreating behind the Right Box in Underpass.

With his new Scout techniques, he instinctively flicked for a headshot.

“—BOOM!”

[Ma Xixi Wo Ding Si Ni used SSG 08 to wallbang headshot Himura Kenshin!]

“Nice shot!” His teammate cheered, relieved that they now had the numbers advantage.

Jiang Yang didn’t react much, keeping his Scout trained on Underpass, waiting for another pick.

With recent map changes, Valve had added a high wall to Underpass, reducing CT pressure at Mid.

Jiang Yang figured the enemy would try to recover the dropped AWP.

Sure enough, an opponent jumped down to grab it and tried to cross Underpass.

Jiang Yang snapped his crosshair up—

“—BOOM!”

[Ma Xixi Wo Ding Si Ni used SSG 08 to headshot Headshot Machine Ren Yuduo!]

Meanwhile, on the enemy team’s livestream—

A long-necked guy muttered in shock, “Damn, that Scout player wrecked me.”

“NMMDW! How the hell was that so accurate?! I jumped across, and he still domed me?!”

Hearing that, Hamburger, who was duo-queuing with him, responded, “No big deal. We’ll just full-send A-Long. That Scout won’t have any room to work with.”

After all, their team had full rifles and utility, making them much stronger in combat.

As long as they smoked off key angles, the CTs wouldn’t be able to contest the map control.

The T-side executed a fast A-Long push, using utility to force the defenders back.

Two CT Spawn smokes deployed, giving them safe passage onto the site.

As Hamburger sprinted up A-Site, he reassured his teammates, “As long as we get to the bombsite, this round is in the bag.”

But before he could even finish his sentence, a Scout bullet whizzed past behind him.

That shouldn’t have hit me, right? A sudden sense of unease crept up on him.

The next second—

A shot pierced through the smoke, landing squarely on his head.

“—BOOM!”

[Ma Xixi Wo Ding Si Ni used SSG 08 to smoke headshot Cha Bing Cha Bing!]

Hamburger fell silent.

The remaining three Ts had planned for him to plant the bomb while the other two held angles from Pit and A-Long.

A 1-formation setup would have been easy to execute.

But now, with Hamburger dead, a bad feeling settled over them.

Wait… Is this Scout actually about to clutch the round?!

A T-side random player rushed to grab the dropped bomb, but while doing so, he got tagged through the smoke.

Luckily, he still managed to reach the site.

But too much time had been wasted—the CTs had already rotated back.

As the bomb-carrier tried to plant, he got jump-headshotted by a CT’s Desert Eagle from L-Position.

Instantly, only one last Terrorist remained.

But before he could even react, the sound of an AWP echoed across A-Long.

The CT from B-Site had flanked all the way around, retrieved the fallen AWP, and landed the final kill.

In the CT voice chat, a wave of celebration erupted.

“Holy sh*t, bro! Did you seriously Scout them all to death?!”

“Dude, you’ve got some insane hacks on, don’t you?!”

“Bro, do you want an AWP? I picked one up for you.”

“WTF, your stats are inhuman. I’m just gonna chill this game.”

Jiang Yang grinned inwardly at the compliments.

This is exactly the kind of recognition that comes with a highlight play.

Otherwise, what was the point of grinding so hard in training?

Then he thought about the future—

If he became a pro player, moments like these would be broadcasted on massive stages—with thousands, maybe even millions of fans cheering for him.

Just imagining it sent a rush of excitement through his veins.

Of course, he wasn’t at that level yet.

He still had a long way to go—but he would get there.

While the CT side celebrated, the T-side voice chat fell into silence.

“Kai-ge, we just ran into some freak of nature!!” Hamburger whined to Leonkai, seeking comfort.

Leonkai chuckled, “I really liked what you said earlier—‘This round is in the bag.’”

Their three random teammates also groaned in frustration, venting about the Scout player.

After all, the only reason they lost the round was because of that insanely cracked Scout.

Even if he hadn’t killed all of them, he had completely disrupted their attacking rhythm.

Still, they weren’t too upset yet.

But in the following rounds, even as Leonkai and Hamburger started playing seriously, they couldn’t stop the enemy AWPer from taking over.

The "Ma Xixi Wo Ding Si Ni" guy was going crazy with the AWP.

Even when he switched to a rifle, he was laser-precise, frequently pre-firing and deleting opponents on sight.

No matter how hard they tried to make a comeback, the match ended with a 16-9 scoreline.

After the game, Hamburger vented on his livestream.

“I need to watch that replay. That dude was an absolute freak—I kept getting pre-fired into oblivion.”

“I swear, his game sense is too sharp. He even caught me on timing plays.”

Leonkai wanted to tell Hamburger to chill.

Accusing people of cheating was easy when you looked at things with bias.

As a CS:GO content creator known for his aim, game sense, and overall sportsmanship, Leonkai didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

But then, he glanced at his chat.

And there, a flood of messages filled the screen—

【This ‘Ma Xixi Wo Ding Si Ni’ guy is definitely sus. I saw him destroy Donggua Qiang the other day.】

【Kai-ge, check his stats. This guy is 100% hacking.】

【I ran into him in ranked too—I couldn’t even touch him.】

【Lots of people have already called him out for cheating. Kai-ge and Hamburger just got unlucky this time.】

【Judge Kai, bring down the hammer of justice!】

Seeing the chat’s reactions, Leonkai opened Jiang Yang’s stats.

The moment he saw the numbers, he blurted out—

“NMMDW! What the f* is this ridiculous statline?!”**

The numbers were so absurd that even he couldn’t hold back.

• 60 games played
• 1.51 rating
• 73.3% win rate
• 118 average damage per round (ADR)

“Is this even humanly possible?!”

For the first time, even Leonkai started having doubts.

PS: These stats are actually based on a real reference.