The Hero Appears

HongQ, the boy genius

Ping Pong the Animation

The Hero Appears!

The Hero Appears!

The Hero Appears!

It’s 27/06/25, 12:13 AM, the day just started and I swear to you, this is about HongQ.

Somewhere in São Paulo, at some bar i don’t remember the name, just the owners, my friend called him “Baby” the entire night and everytime we went there. There was this film festival thing that night, the Mostra de Cinema de Tiradentes, a film festival from another state, Minas Gerais, was showing some of the films of that year in São Paulo, for a couple of days and we went there to see a film he keep telling me was amazing when he saw at the festival.

But night is long, i don’t had any money and he knew that and, look, i’m not in the position of saying “no” to free drinks if he was willing to pay, he had a good job. So we drink beer, make the mistake of mixing it with cachaça(that one was really sweet, cachaça being like vodka, but better, and this one was made from cashew, so it was so good on tricking you), we walk to another bar, drink some more and people do mistakes, like throw up, is okay. At the end i didn’t saw the film because sleeped so good at the start of the director’s speech.

The thing is, this friend of mine, dude writes, i try, he really do it. And he being Doctor in Social Science, dude is full of things to say about everything. We were just happy, my film was finished, showed it in some film festivals, he liked so much the idea of me being a young wannabe filmmaker and doing experimental cinema. At one point we were drunk enough to talk about love, the life, the love we both have for life itself, and he turns to me and say something that later i founded be the title of a book: the world is hard, yeah, is evil and everything, but we have to fight against it, like, we have to delay the end of the world.

We will never stop it, inevitable, not any nihilist thing, don’t like the guy, but the world will end, things will crumble, mirros will crash on the floor, the books will burn, someone will scream so loud that the whole world will hear, as in some horror movie from the 80s. All we are able to do is to wait for it happen, sit, walk home, listen to some music, trying to not to think about it, delaying it, cause we can make it impatient.

The thing about LoL competitive scene that made me be here all those years, probably isn’t the results, my team always lose, even when we win. So there’s the rest of the competitive, the people that are there, the players, those who give them names, who chant and screams, those who create, make, tell what is happening, write the history with their hands and voices. That is nice, is cool, like we are things that breathe and play those games so people can talk about us, see and call us nicknames. The Unkillable Demon King, The Crownless King, The Hero.

In 2024 a friend just sent me a message, look at this guy, he’s almost a kid, look at his moves, i looked at it and the name “HongQ” always sounded cool to me, just sounds something someone should chant. And he played really well, was in the CFO Academy team at the time and you just tell, you could just tell he would be playing against the big names in the next years.

The, now, 17 years old kid from Taiwan won that first split of the year, later he was called up to the CFO main team, didn’t played that much games, was substitute for Gori. And the stories begin to have a shape, he starts the contact with the Tier 1 scene in a team with Karsa and SwordArt, two of the best players that ever came out of Taiwan, part of the Korean Killers team, Flash Wolves, a group of guys that made SKT feel some fear for once. Played with those who made 2020 Worlds semi-finals between TOP Esports and Suning Gaming so emotional, the friends that never were able to win the international stage together, but apart one from another, they reached a Worlds Finals, at least.

The year go and go, the team lose, they rebuild, next year the kid is there again, at the main roster, is a central piece of the whole thing. How a 17 years old boy can be that good and walk that free on the competitive scene in so little time, i probably don’t want to know, it ruins all the magic around the story. Because them we have he being 2 times regional champion and an, unlucky, almost Top 2 on his first international championship, trembling while playing versus past World Champions, historic players, some of the best, it before he came as The Hero.

As said before, you can’t stop the world from ending, but we may be able to delay it. The ways to do that? Too many to list there, but one of them this kid knew(or maybe don’t know till today that he’s doing that, just do) and tried, he tried to fight the past, so it isn’t able to dictate what his future will be, but the other way, he will tell what the future will become himself, and he’s kinda doing well with that.

I don’t find it fair to name him HongQ all the way till the end, as i’m talking about stories, history, is just fair to say his name once, Tsai Ming Hong, because will be cool to know his real name when he turns to be the best out there. The old stories can’t beat me, can’t reach me, cause i will make this thing, will win and make them see me, i will be eternal in their minds, will be the story they tell about and this way the world may never end.

Don’t have anymore to go from there, just telling someone something. Telling about HongQ and a cool (weird) night at the other side of the ocean, so i can co-relate all of that in one text not that smart, not even close, just a bit emotional. Just so i can say Tsai Ming Hong again, a second time, and after that how about he fight against the inevitable, delay it, his own way, by his own means. How The Hero appears to save us from the end of the world, so we may be never be able to see if the idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw and whipping cords will serve you more than ropes will ever do.