I Can Do It Chapters 1-7

In this episode we are discussing the first 7 chapters of the Danmei: I Can Do It by Jiang Zi Bei. Enjoy!

Book Summary: At just seventeen, blue-haired streamer Jian Rong, alias Soft, had already built a name for himself with his amazing mechanics and even sharper tongue. He’s roasted nearly every pro in the scene… except for one, and if someone so much as says one bad word about them in his stream, he makes sure to drop down the ban hammer without hesitation.

That person was Road, the legendary jungler and calm-faced ace of China’s top LoL team, as well as Jian Rong’s longtime secret idol.

One day, a random email flipped Jian Rong’s world upside down, and he suddenly found himself standing on the center stage, shoulder to shoulder with Road.

And while he remained that trash-talking gaming prodigy who wowed esports fans everywhere, another side of him came out just in front of his idol. That swagger melted away, replaced with flushed cheeks. He said, “I won’t run my mouth again. I promise…”

Link to book: https://yiggybean.com/products/i-can-do-it-vol-1-gilded-edges?_pos=16&_sid=0d0b28c9e&_ss=r

I use Yiggybean as the USA’s distributor for Haitang translated books, but you can look on their website (see below) to order from them directly and ship internationally.

https://nebelland.myshopify.com/products/pre-orderi-can-do-itvol-1

Intro and Outro Music: New Year | Chinese New Year by Alex-Productions - youtu.be/zsKpO3KDzEQ - Music promoted by onsound.eu/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hi everyone and welcome to the 10th episode of the Donmei Digest, where I talk about whatever Donmei novel catches my interest. I will be discussing I Can Do It by Zhang Zhibei, translated by Hai Tong Books. You can read the full summary of the book in this podcast description. This author really likes doing gaming themed Donmei books. I've read another book by them called Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating, but that's more of a fantasy role-playing game-inspired book. This book is based on League of Legends. While I am a gamer, I more so play console games, so I have zero previous knowledge of League of Legends. With that being said, this book translation does a pretty good job introducing you to the mechanics and the terms. There's an extensive glossary of all the terms at the end of the book, trying to help the newbies like myself. But even then I still feel a bit lost at times. However, I wouldn't let that stop you from giving this book a try. Our two main characters are both League of Legends players. Jen Rung, online name Soft, is a streamer known for his flaming of other players and his sass. The other main character, Lu Bo Yan, online name Road, is a pro player for a group called TTC. TTC plays in competitions and is a very famous group in this novel. Just a heads up, I'm going to use Jen Rung and Soft and Lu Bo Yan and Road interchangeably, purely based on vibes. The book starts off with TTC playing an official match, but their mid laner does badly on purpose to throw the game and make some extra money. So of course, after this loss and a thorough investigation, the team now has to find a new mid laner. Since Lu Bo Yan is the most respected and skilled player on the team, he's given a list of potential mid laners to replace him. At the bottom of the list is Soft's name, but crossed out. Lu Bo Yan checks out his stream and finds that he likes how Soft is both skilled and not afraid to take high risk for high reward. So he puts forth Soft as his recommendation, which is perfect because Soft actually sends in an application for the team as well. There are a couple things you notice right off the bat. As we already know from real life, the internet is brutal. And just because this is a book, it doesn't mean fake digital people are any nicer than real people. The internet in this book is full of haters, but there is a lot of humor to balance it out because of Soft's personality. I wish I could come up with clapbacks as savage as him. It's a level of petty we can only aspire to be. Someone insults him, Jen Rung kills them over and over and over again with a weak character in League of Legends. It's like his hallmark move, never insult Soft or you will regret it later. This happens time and time again, and it's funny and satisfying every single time. As you can tell from the book description, Jen Rung isn't afraid to flame any other player, but he idolizes Lu Bo Yan. So in front of him, he's all obedient and, well, soft. Once Jen Rong joins TTC on a trial basis, we get to see a lot of interactions between the two. One second, he's typing furiously to insult someone who mocked him. The next second, Lu Bo Yan shows up, and Jen Rong is quiet and obedient. The contrast between his sweet facade and his internal thoughts raging against an online person is hilarious, and actually quite sweet. Honestly, I live for these interactions between the two main characters. I'll say it, this book didn't magically make me a League of Legends fan. So the matches, while interesting to see how it goes down and the outcome, aren't enough to keep me interested in this book. But the interactions between Soft and Road just makes me smile. It's not all one-sided affection. Road is quite gentle and caring towards Soft as well. And you can tell that while Lu Bo Yen is a nice person, the way he takes care of Jen Rong is unusual. He makes sure Jen Rung eats, gives him a new fancy keyboard, two new fancy keyboards actually, and gives him his jacket and hat when it's cold outside. After the trial period is over, Jen Rung officially joins TTC as their new mid laner. To celebrate, the whole team goes out to Hot Pot. Jen Rung gets really drunk and is crashing into things. Lu Bo Yan follows him to the bathroom and helps Jen Rung zip up his fly when he's having trouble. He also brings him back to the living quarters and escorts him to his room. Of course, Jen Rung is super embarrassed the next morning, but it's super cute. And like I said earlier, I really don't think Lu Bo Yan would do the same thing for his other teammates. Jen Rung seems to be special in his mind. Whether Lu Boo Yen sees Jen Rung as a potential romantic interest, or just someone to protect since he's young, I don't know yet. At this time, we don't really know a lot about these two characters' backstories. Both of them haven't really mentioned their families at all. I think there was a comment about Jen Rung taking care of his grandfather, but I can't tell if he was being serious or if it was a joke. We also know that Lu Bo Yan's hand is injured, making his retirement from League of Legends a possibility in the future. They don't mention what kind of hand injury it is, but it could have come from gaming itself. Or of course it could have just happened randomly. We'll have to see. So Jen Rung's first competition approaches, the Spring Split. After doing a brief internet search, the Spring Split is a real competition for League of Legends. To prepare, TTC scrimmages against a bunch of teams to test out new strategies. They match up against this team called Squid, but Squid is full of gamers who say a lot of below the belt insults, like insulting people's appearances and going further beyond just sassing people. TTC loses since they are testing out a new strategy, and Squid insults everyone on the team. Squid also destroys the Nexus in the game, which is a big no-no for scrimmages, because it makes the game official, I guess, and reveals the plays that were made. So now TTC's experimental strategy gets revealed. Although Jen Rung's contract says there's a ban against swearing and flaming other players, he just can't help but be himself, which is why we love him so much. He gives a savage clap back to Squid, which definitely pisses them off. To no surprise, they get matched up against Squid for the first game of the spring split. After heavily training and leveling up, the team is ready to take on Squid. In typical fashion, Soft chooses the least likely choice as his League of Legends character, taking a big risk. Only Road supports his out-of-the-box choice. And together with the rest of the team, they crush Squid in the match. The fact that Soft uses such an unorthodox pick makes the beatdown even more savage. Once again, it's just so satisfying to see people who underestimate Jen Rong get their asses kicked by him. I didn't think I would, but I have really come to enjoy Soft's fans. Earlier in the book, Soft is playing a match against someone, and after destroying them, he puts in the chat a question mark. His fans take it upon themselves to translate this. Here's the exchange. Soft. Question mark? Fan one. Let me translate my son's question mark. You think you're ambushing me? Fan two. To spell it out for you, imagine thinking you can just walk into our jungle. In the match against Squid, Soft's fans once again stand out. They are a tiny force, but very mighty. Having a less refined but unique presence. But that makes them kind of endearing in my mind. What's also hilarious and made me laugh out loud is Soft's sensitivity about his height. He's not even that short to someone like me who's 5'4. Jian Rong is 5'8 and 6 tenths. The 610ths is very important for him. But I guess compared to Lu Boyan, who's 6'1, that's a decent height difference. I mean, we love a height difference though in a romance story. Every time someone makes a comment in the chat about his height, soft bans them. Of course, Squid makes fun of his height, so what's his solution? Wearing shoe inserts at the competition. It's like what? Did he think no one would question it? Everyone is like, there's something off about you. How did you grow like three inches overnight? And of course the fans notice too. There's a really cute image at the end of the book of a fan post with soft and road next to each other before the inserts and one image with them next to each other after the inserts. Speaking of the images, this book has a lot of really nicely drawn pictures throughout the book. They are drawn in slightly a more simple and cartoonish style, but I think they're really cute. The images are not full page, but I think that actually suits the style of this book better. It's almost like a pop-up on a computer screen. I've heard a lot online about this translator, and I don't really know enough of the full story to comment. But from my viewpoint, the book printing and translation is pretty good. There weren't very many errors, at least none that disrupted the story flow when I was reading. The book looks and feels nice, has a nice um spray-painted edge, which is always fun. And I think the cover is very interesting and fun to look at. Also, they put a lot of effort into the internal design of the book and the glossary. But I do feel like I'm easy to please. I mean, honestly, I'm just happy to have a physical book translation. Let me tell you a story. One time I was trying to read an online translation of a Don May, and ad pop-ups were literally appearing on the screen that covered the text, like actually covered part of the text, so you couldn't even read that section. And you couldn't X them out. I was actually losing my mind and I and I just gave up, which sucks because I was really enjoying that Don May, but I'm like, I I can't take this. I I I actually can't take like just having it makes no sense, part of the text being covered up, so you actually can't read it. You could tell I'm still very salty about this. So honestly, this book is heaven in comparison to that, and I really enjoyed my experience. I would rate this book a five out of five, but I think my lack of investment and knowledge about League of Legends brought it down a bit for me. But the interactions between Jen Rong and Lu Boyen made everything worth it, so I'd give it a four out of five. But if you're a major League of Legends fan, you will really enjoy this. And if you're not like me, I think you'd still enjoy it, or at least it's worth giving the first novel a try if you're able to. So, yeah, the next book I'll be reading is Thrice Married to a Salted Fish. Thank you all so much for listening, and until next time.