Tear Jerker / The King's Avatar

Warning: Spoilers Off applies to all Moments pages.

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Web Novel and Donghua

• When Ye Xiu is forced to hand over his player account One Autumn Leaf over after deciding to retire against his will, Sun Xiang mentions his hand is trembling. He may be The Stoic, but losing his placement and job after eight seasons is a devastating situation, especially when Xiu explicitly admits down the line into The King's Avatar to other characters that playing Glory is the only thing he knows what to do with his life.
• With Excellent Era publicly announcing his retirement, Ye Qiu fully comes to terms that he's given up everything in the past with the organization. In Episode 2 of the donghua, fans of the game are in disbelief (including Ye Xiu's boss Chen Guo) since he was considered one of the oldest veterans of Glory and an irreplaceable Living Legend. Some, like Chen Guo, are moved to tears on the belief that they will never see him compete again.
• Although the donghua downplays the significance, Su Mucheng's Cleansing Rain noticing the "Myriad Manifestation Umbrella" being used by Ye Xiu's Lord Grim in Episode 5 gives her a melancholic pause, as Ye Xiu has brought out one of the last things in the world her brother Su Muqiu made before he died nearly ten years ago.
• Han Wenqing's reunion with Ye Qiu in Episode 12, not only because the former wants to know whether his long-time rival has upped and quit because Excellent Era has been slipping in the Season 8 rankings, but also because their score with one another is barely settled, especially with the Flashback when the two of them first confronted each other in the Player Vs Player arena, establishing their names in Glory first before signing onto their respective professional teams.
• In the web novel, rather than be ecstatic about defeating Sun Xiang and Excellent Era's main lineup in the game, Ye Xiu is left disappointed. For over eight seasons, he worked tirelessly for the team, sacrificing everything for their success, including himself by becoming a recluse to the public after winning so many awards and championships for the organization, while taking the brunt of the public's criticisms whenever Excellent Era wasn't doing well. He left with the hope that they can turn things around without him, but is shown only failure and rejection in return. All he wants is for them to become a true championship-winning team again, but their current roster is adamantly stubborn about changing their ways. Ye Xiu can only sadly watch as all his efforts results in the very team he once loved go into bankruptcy.
  • In the donghua his defeat of the main roster is followed by a flashback to when he first retired, with him commenting that Sun Xiang is talented and the team may be able to reform around him and return to their former glory. Interwoven are cuts to Excellent Era in their prime as the three-time Glory champion. As the flashbacks of happier times come to an end, Ye Xiu looks to the Excellent Era tower and makes one forlorn comment: “Excellent Era, is finished.”
• The tense reunion between Ye Xiu and Tao Xuan, the CEO of Excellent Era: some time following the 6th All-Star Competition, the latter wants Ye Xiu to rejoin the team despite all that Excellent Era had done to get rid of him. Ye Xiu declines, vowing to meet Excellent Era on stage next time as opponents. After Tao Xuan leaves, Chen Guo has this to say:
  Chen Guo: "You guys...were friends once upon a time, right?"
  Ye Xiu: "Yes."
• The general fate of young adolescents being unable to pursue their dreams in Glory and having to turn to mediocre jobs or other people is sobering. It's especially poignant considering its established that most of them had to drop out of school or leave home and have to make the barest amount to scrape by.
• The disbandment of Everlasting after their defeat to Happy during the Season 9 Challengers League: it's a sobering moment when its most loyal member Wu Chen, who remained with the team even when it was constantly relegated for multiple seasons, realized that despite his boss He An assuring him he will reform Everlasting in the future, Wu Chen knows it's all talk and nothing more - Everlasting is truly finished.

Live-Action Drama

Episode 1

• Things are going well for Excellent Era up until Chen Yehui rushes ahead to score the first kill in the seventh match of Season 8. Unfortunately, Tiny Herb feints a Tactical Withdrawal, leaving behind their Cleric as bait so they could kill the poor sod who falls for it. Once Yehui realizes he's been fooled and may have cost his team the match, the poor guy looks devastated. Thankfully, Ye Xiu wins the match for the team, but the fact remains that Chen Yehui nearly cost his teammates a victory means there will be repercussions down the line.
  • Back at Excellent Era headquarters, Ye Xiu goes over what they did wrong, calling out Chen Yehui for the stunt, while stating this isn't the first time he's tried to score first blood before - disobeying orders and ignoring teammates. Yehui can only ask weakly in disbelief what's happening when Ye Xiu bluntly tells him he's being kicked off the team and demoted to work in the Excellent Dynasty guild. What Ye Xiu says next ''really' hits home as he clearly doesn't like saying it himself. Sadly, any sympathy for Chen Yehui is gone when he ridicules Ye Xiu after he chooses to retire and continues to antagonizes him after leaving Excellent Era, even telling him to get rid of his uniform since he just quit.
  Chen Yehui: "Captain, I don't understand. What do you mean?"
  Ye Xiu: "The team doesn't need you anymore."
• The reaction to Ye Xiu's retirement in the live-action is much more somber compared to the donghua and web novel. In particular, Tao Xuan looks surprised as he doesn't expect Ye Xiu would choose retirement instead of staying on as a training partner for Sun Xiang. Like the web novel, it's implied that Tao knew one of the higher-ups in Excellent Era was banking on Ye Xiu choosing to retire, seeing as he no longer holds commercial value to them. Even Sun Xiang is shocked by the ordeal, clearly upset one of the best players in the business is gone.
• When Ye Xiu leaves Excellent Era headquarters, Su Mucheng comes back from grocery shopping. Although it takes her a Beat to wonder why he isn't going in, Mucheng immediately realizes what has happened, drops her bag of groceries and insists she's leaving with him, but Ye Xiu locks the door, telling her to stay, while subtlely reminding her she needs to finish her contract with the team first. As he walks away, Mucheng is visually heartbroken; made more evident when this is the first time in years he won't be in close proximity to her after her brother died and the two had only each other.
• The moment when Ye Xiu, as Lord Grim, gets his hands on the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella that Su Muqiu never completed. Whereas the moment was briefly touched upon in the donghua, the live-action has Ye Xiu be reminded that one of the best players in Glory's history is gone - all that's left of his memory is a virtual weapon that has been untouched for nearly ten years. The music that plays during the scene doesn't help matters, either.

Episode 2

• After defeating the Midnight Cat boss, Ye Xiu finally gets the remaining materials he needs to upgrade the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. Su Muqiu, Su Cheng's brother, was unable to complete it at the time because he lacked the materials and found it difficult to grind for them, leaving Ye Xiu to do the work for him. Unfortunately, Muqiu died before he could, thus leaving the weapon untouched up until Lord Grim found it. Now that he's upgraded it, Ye Xiu swears to bring out its full potential and bring it with him to the very top of Glory.

Episode 3

• Tang Rou's introduction in the series. At some point, she tried her hand at the piano scene. However, during either a competition or an audition, she hits the wrong key. Instead of continuing with her performance, she quits outright in frustration.

Episode 15

• Tao Xuan's backstory. Just like Chen Guo, he used to be the Internet Manager at a cafe, which was also where he met Ye Xiu and Su Muqiu when they were still young. He admitted that he wasn't good at his job and couldn't play Glory, but contrast to the man he is now, the Tao Xuan of old was not greedy and even saw that his manager was swindling his customers and tried to chew him out for it, only for his boss to rebuke him and tell him that what mattered in the business wasn't morality, but profit. Tao says he despised that phrase the second he heard it. Flash forward to the present day, and he's become no different than his old boss.
• The episode also hammers the point of how broken the former bond Ye Xiu and Tao Xuan had. Ye Xiu, Tao Xuan and Su Muqiu essentially became one of the very first eSport players of Glory and helped create the League. The only memento of their former bond and happier days was a broken computer monitor that now sits on display in Excellent Era's headquarters.
• Ye Xiu's meeting with Tao Xuan. The latter is asking him to come back, but Ye Xiu refuses. Why? Because Xiu doesn't want to sit out on the sidelines. They even argue about what his Signature Move Dragon Raises its Head means. In the previous episode, an Excellent Era higher-up saw it as a representation that even a failure can be turned around. To Tao Xuan, it's a representation of skill and Ye Xiu's value. Ye Xiu, however, states that it's only viable as a necessity, not something to show off constantly.
• The argument is the final straw between the two of them. If there was any chance of the two reconciling, it's impossible because of their conflicting values. Ye Xiu doesn't want to come back to Excellent Era and become a coach because he wants to fight. Tao Xuan, on the other hand, is dead set on ensuring that Excellent Era succeeds, and in the process, get profits from it. And that includes a not-so-subtle threat to Ye Xiu that if he gets in his way. And as the final act of severing their ties, Tao tells the staff to throw away the broken computer monitor, showing that, as of now, Tao Xuan is set on ruining Ye Xiu if he continues to interfere with Excellent Era.
  Tao Xuan: As for the stumbling blocks to the future of Excellent Era, I will throw them away without hesitation.
• Despite Tao's aggressive talk with Ye Xiu, even he's aware of what's become of the two, even wondering whether or not they would even be where they're at now if Muqiu was still alive.
• Why the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella was "sealed" away by Su Muqiu. Tao Xuan and Ye Xiu were arguing about the use of the Unspecialized class in the League and Xuan asked Muqiu to try and convince Xiu. His solution was to undo all the progress he made on the Umbrella, resetting its Level back to 1, then lock it away in storage. He also lied to Xiu about his research and development of the Umbrella, claiming it was a failure. All of this, just to try and ensure the three of them remained friends. He even pointed out that, as Excellent Era grew in size, the other team members wouldn't be able to sync well with a character who's tactics were so diverse.
  • Arguably even more tearjerking is the bet made between Ye Xiu and Su Muqiu, as despite Muqiu saying that the weapon and class wasn't viable, they didn't want to let the Umbrella be forgotten and made a bet: Excellent Era would become the first team, and their best member would be the one to revive the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. Seeing this scene, it makes people wonder just how Ye Xiu feels about the whole thing, since he's the only one left who can restore the Umbrella.
• Another tearjerking take is why Ye Xiu chose to play as a Battle Mage. Su Muqiu made One Autumn Leaf's greatest weapon, Evil Annihilation. And it was made with the hopes that Ye Xiu would take it all the way to the top of Glory with him. Keep in mind that Evil Annihilation, possibly one of the last mementos Ye Xiu has of Muqiu aside from the Umbrella in Glory, is now in the hands of Sun Xiang. One can only imagine how it must feel for Ye Xiu, seeing the weapon Muqiu crafted for him in the hands of another player, and a selfish Jerkass at that.

Episode 19

• Qiu Fei's flashback reveals he did not get along with his family. When he is "caught" cheating in an examination, he breaks down and reveals to Ye Xiu that he only plays Glory because he wants to prove to his father that he isn't a loser because he feels it's the only thing he is good at.

Episode 30

• After winning their first match in the Challenge round, Team Happy returns to the café in high spirits, only to see it defaced with insults against Ye Xiu for "betraying" Excellent Era fans.

Episode 31

• It gets revealed halfway through the fight between Happy and Everlasting that the latter team is cheating in an attempt to win. At first, you'd be annoyed at this and wish that they get their karma. But when they eventually lose, you might end up feeling sorry for them instead, especially for the team's captain Wu Chen. Why? He cheated because if his team lost again, due to always being the runner-up but never the winner, Everlasting would lose all its investors and be forced to disband as a result. And it's obvious that it's not the loss of revenue or reputation that he fears.
  • It's also obvious that the entire team is heartbroken by the results, but while Wu Chen remains determined to keep the team together, his teammates have all but given up, and all his manager can do is give him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Even Ye Xiu and Chen Guo can't help but feel sorry for him.
    Ye Xiu: eSports will never care about how much effort you've put in. It only cares about how much you've accomplished.

Episode 32

• Wu Chen walking back into the now-empty headquarters of Everlasting, and recalling the happier memories he and his team had there. The team manager even points out that Wu Chen set up and furbished the headquarters by himself, and sold his own high-level equipment so that his teammates would get the money to buy better equipment. It just lets the audience feel all the hard work and love he poured into the team... and now it's gone. The audience even gets to see a sad montage of every member of Everlasting now walking their separate ways.

Episode 35

• Ye Xiu deliberately losing the racing game that he and Su Muqiu used to play, because Su Muqiu was first in the ranking list and his profile image became a NPC in the game. Su Mucheng realizes that Ye Xiu continues to lose in that game because it was his way of playing with Su Muqiu one more time.

Episode 40

• Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng wandering in what was once the headquarters of Excellent Era. Despite the crap both went through (especially Ye Xiu) due to the greed of the higher-ups, both still feel melancholy over the team's relegation. After all, it was still the team they founded and stayed with for years.

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