Chapter Thirteen: The Ace Hunter

Several people moved their positions to sit opposite Lu Mingfei and Su Xiaoqiang.

“So, how should we set it up? How many versus how many?” The guy with the “Airplane” hairstyle opened StarCraft and rubbed his hands excitedly.

“3 versus 5? Mingshen is so strong, he can handle three opponents by himself,” said the guy with the “Pineapple” hairstyle.

“But Mingshen has a girl with him,” said Airplane. “Maybe we should do 4 versus 4?”

“No need,” Lu Mingfei suddenly spoke, lazily interrupting their discussion.

“You six take one side, I’ll just take my classmate.”

The others were stunned, thinking Mingshen was putting on airs.

They knew he was skilled at StarCraft, but StarCraft wasn’t like Meteor Butterfly Sword where a top expert could take on a whole group alone.

In an RTS like StarCraft, victory depends entirely on how many units you can produce.

No matter how skilled you are, there is a limit to how many units you can build in a given period.

And in such a context, each additional opponent means facing an entire extra enemy army later on.

So the difference between 3v5 and 2v6 is not just about having fewer teammates and more enemies.

It’s a shift in force ratio from 6:10 to 1:3, making the challenge increase almost exponentially.

Seeing Lu Mingfei raise his eyebrows sluggishly, even looking a bit sleepy, their confidence wavered further.

It was like when you go to the Huashan Sword Tournament—you might not fear the burly, fierce men brandishing swords and spears.

But suddenly facing an old, frail, filthy man empty-handed might unsettle you, making you unsure of his true skill.

“Impossible, absolutely impossible,” Airplane shook his head. “I believe Mingshen can handle one versus two or one versus three, but one versus six? No way.”

“Could it be…” Pineapple spoke up, “that the girl beside Mingshen is also a pro?”

Airplane’s body trembled.

“That’s it!”

Airplane’s expression brightened with realization.

“Who could the girl next to Mingshen be but a formidable player? If she’s also an expert, then Mingshen saying ‘let’s do 2 versus 6’ makes sense.”

“Who’s creating the room?” Lu Mingfei asked from the opposite side.

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” Airplane volunteered.

He chose a classic StarCraft 1.08 map called “Big Game Hunters,” known in Chinese as “Ace Hunters.”

This map was adapted by the community expert SnakeT from the official map “The Hunter.”

The biggest change was converting the originally limited mineral deposits into infinite resources.

Airplane had his reasons for choosing this map.

The original “The Hunters” had scarce resources.

If one side played defensively, the game would often reach a stalemate with no minerals left, resulting in a draw because no new units could be produced to break the deadlock.

But “Big Game Hunters” was different.

Since resources were unlimited, if the game went late, Airplane’s side—with its numerical advantage—could produce an almost endless stream of units, relying on overwhelming numbers to crush Lu Mingfei.

“Mingshen, the room is ready,” Airplane reported the room name to Lu Mingfei.

“Oh, oh, oh,” came Lu Mingfei’s casual reply.

Watching Mingshen directly across the screen, Airplane felt nervous, worried Lu Mingfei might see through his plans.

Yet Lu Mingfei joined the room as usual, as if unaware of anything, which made Airplane breathe a secret sigh of relief.

“Have you all picked your races? I’m starting now.”

“Go ahead,” Lu Mingfei responded.

With his command, both sides entered the map loading screen.

Lu Mingfei chose the Human race and assigned Protoss to Su Xiaoqiang.

Initially, Lu Mingfei wanted Su Xiaoqiang to pick Zerg.

After all, Zerg could develop fleets with Mutalisks and use Lightning units combined with Psionic Storms to gradually wear down enemies.

Even a novice like Su Xiaoqiang, with just basic mouse skills, could provide considerable fire support.

But Su Xiaoqiang strongly resisted because she found Zerg units too grotesque.

So Lu Mingfei had no choice but to settle on Protoss for her.

The game loaded quickly.

As soon as it started, Lu Mingfei immediately checked Su Xiaoqiang’s position on the minimap.

In a 2 versus 6 match, Su Xiaoqiang could easily spawn in a poor position, surrounded by enemies.

Fortunately, their luck was decent: Lu Mingfei spawned at the nine o’clock position, and Su Xiaoqiang was right next to him in the lower-left corner, with only two enemies directly adjacent.

“What should I do?” Su Xiaoqiang asked nervously, still a beginner who didn’t even know the building order.

“First do this, then this…” Lu Mingfei patiently broke down each step for her.

The six people sitting opposite exchanged glances.

Only now did they dare believe Su Xiaoqiang was truly not an expert, just a complete novice who had barely touched the game.

Lu Mingfei was actually daring to bring such a rookie into a 2 versus 6?

Trying to show off in front of a girl wasn’t done like this, was it?

“So, what do we do?” someone asked. “Should we change our strategy?”

Before the game started, they had agreed to play cautiously in the early game, then push hard in the late game.

StarCraft is a game that heavily rewards micro-management.

The difference between a skilled player and a novice could be greater than that between Earth armies and Trisolaran fleets.

Some of them had watched Lu Mingfei play and knew his micro was exceptional—he had once used a Dog-Poison rush to outmaneuver a Mutalisk army as if walking a dog.

His screen switching was so fast it was like skipping frames; before you could see what command he gave, the view had already jumped elsewhere.

Because they knew Lu Mingfei’s skill, and with Su Xiaoqiang’s abilities unknown, they chose not to risk an early rush.

Instead, they planned to play safe early, then overwhelm them with superior buildings and population later.

After all, with limited population early on, two top players coordinating perfectly might drag down six average players.

But in the late game, when population numbers snowball, two players won’t be able to hold off six.

However, when they confirmed Su Xiaoqiang really knew nothing, some began to get impatient.

If the opponents were two experts, rushing early would be risky.

But with one expert and one inexperienced girl, a 2v6? Even a basic worker rush could crush Lu Mingfei’s side.

Airplane hesitated too.

Knowing Su Xiaoqiang was a newbie, he wanted to gather his team to push directly into Lu Mingfei’s base.

But he quickly shook his head.

“Let’s stick to the original plan: develop early, push late. It’s 2v6 after all; let’s at least give Mingshen some time to build up.”

He had already found a tactical advantage on the map; using a cheap win now would be disgraceful even if they won.

What Airplane didn’t know was that just a few minutes later, he would regret this decision deeply.