Another fifteen hundred… Another fifteen hundred…
Tan Ze chanted those three words like a mantra in his head, pressing his lips together as he stared at the screen. He gradually worked himself into such a flush that his entire face turned red. Feeling a strange flutter of nervousness, he reached up to brush back his hair, put on a composed front, and laughed, “Someone actually sent one? Looks like this Black Dog-ge is taking this question pretty seriously…”
“Well, actually, I used to be.”
The answer was completely ambiguous. Used to be—so was he now, or what about in the future? Tan Ze played a little mind game, wanting to mess around with some semantic wordplay with this “Black Dog.”
A moment later, however, Black Dog went silent. But he stayed logged into the stream, which meant he wasn’t satisfied.
[Does “used to be” mean you aren’t anymore?]
[How long ago is “used to be” for the streamer? Before you moved?]
[Doesn’t this all line up now?]
[I knew it! Can a straight guy’s face turn that red like he did yesterday with that guy? Can a straight guy wear a dress?]
Seeing how the chat was frantically dragging Liang Xubai into it made Tan Ze feel as blocked up inside as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of dog shit. Yet, seeing another Carnival spinning in the queue waiting to drop, his face flushed a deeper shade of red, and with a hardening of resolve, he confessed, “Right, I’m not anymore.”
[Black Dog gifted a Carnival in “Flossy Yanbei’s” livestream room!]
Tan Ze gave up. Why were there so many gay guys in this world?
“Thanks for the two Carnivals, Black Dog-ge. Since it’s your first time here, feel free to drop a follow, and tap the upper left to join the fan club.”
“Ge, how do you have so many tokens? Is this your first time watching a livestream? I’m honestly quite honored. Why are you so invested in this question anyway?”
Having pocketed another fifteen hundred, Tan Ze completely forgot his qualms about gays or non-gays and beamed with joy, sweet-talking him with ge this and ge that.
[Look at him go the moment money enters the picture.]
[He really milked those three grand!]
Black Dog didn’t reply again.
Tan Ze felt wonderful inside. The two Carnivals pushed him into second place overall for this PK round. Doing the math in his head, he figured there was no way he’d lose no matter how the teams were shuffled, and the anxiety of potentially having to wear a dress again instantly vanished.
“Flossy Yanbei is pulling so many points today, racking up a huge score,” Xiao Cai remarked with a hint of awe.
Tan Ze humbly brushed it off. “Pure fluke, pure fluke. I usually never pull any points.”
“Cross-dressing streams have miraculous effects. Someone come and punish me next, I want to wear one too,” Tie Cha joked, the muscles beneath his work vest rippling slightly.
In the end, the random color-pairing assigned Tan Ze and Xu Xiu to a team. Tan Ze got to issue the punishment to Tie Cha, while Xu Xiu punished Xiao Cai.
Xu Xiu made Xiao Cai post three consecutive days of content featuring Xu Xiu. Tan Ze chuckled and asked Tie Cha if he was genuinely willing to wear women’s clothes.
Xiao Cai chimed in: “A muscle guy in a dress—everybody’s dream type has arrived.”
Tie Cha quickly waved his hands in refusal. “They won’t have my size. Let’s just go with a normal punishment.”
Tan Ze set the same penalty as Xu Xiu’s. Afterward, they ran a few more PK rounds together, but Black Dog—who had aggressively dumped two Carnivals just moments ago—had already disappeared from the room.
The rest of Tan Ze’s rounds went back to normal, with low scores.
As it neared one in the morning, Xu Xiu disbanded the room.
Having cleared over three thousand yuan that day, Tan Ze had plenty of energy left for the late-night stream and sang two songs per the chat’s request.
[Flossy Yanbei’s good mood is visibly written all over his face today.]
[Who wouldn’t be in a good mood after making money?]
[Handing me two Carnivals for free? Hell, I’d be happy even if I just randomly found two grand lying on the ground.]
Tan Ze was amused by them. “No way. Actually, my mood is usually pretty good all the time—couldn’t you tell?”
[Nobody could tell.]
[The streamer usually looks like his vital life-force was sucked dry during the graveyard shift. But bringing in Black Dog-ge today totally recharged you.]
“Saying my life-force usually looks sucked dry sounds a bit too dramatic.” Tan Ze’s mood was exceptionally bright as he swept a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “But I really am super happy today, and honestly, not even because of the Carnivals.”
“It’s my first time winning a PK sweep across the board, and my followers in the stream suddenly multiplied compared to before. Things are taking an unprompted turn for the better, so of course I’m in a good mood.”
Tan Ze wasn’t exaggerating at all. After half a year as an entertainment streamer, aside from the constant stream of harassing private messages and malicious abuse, this was the first time he genuinely felt the reality of being an entertainment streamer.
In every sense of the word.
He hung around chatting with the chatroom a bit longer, then played a couple of hands of Dou Dizhu out of boredom, chatting as he played. By the time he logged off for the night, Black Dog still hadn’t come back online or re-entered his stream.
Tan Ze took a moment to check Black Dog’s profile page.
Black Dog was a bare-bones burner account: no videos, no saved favorites, no following list, no followers. The profile picture looked like the user himself—a skiing snapshot where absolutely no distinguishing features could be made out, though the physique looked decent enough.
After logging off, Tan Ze went ahead and took sign-held photos for the top ten on the leaderboard, starting with Black Dog.
The computer screen enlarged Black Dog’s avatar. Holding up the laptop, his long black hair falling naturally, he tilted his head slightly toward the lens with a faint, gentle smile playing on his lips, capturing a remarkably soft and serene portrait.
Whether male or female, nobody could possibly dislike this photo.
Feeling quite satisfied, Tan Ze used that exact template to finish snapping photos for the rest of the top ten, sending them out one by one.
Since Black Dog wasn’t following him, he could only send a single direct message.
Once everything was wrapped up, Tan Ze used makeup remover to wipe off his eyebrow pencil and lipstick, walked over to the window, and pushed it open. A night breeze carrying a lingering warmth rushed in, washing over his face.
Unhurriedly, he lit a cigarette, unlocked his phone to look at the message that still hadn’t received a reply, and swiped his thumb to browse through the earlier chat history—a sparse handful of lines, the tone distant and formal.
Glaring at the “Mom” label in his contact notes, he ended up typing nothing at all.
Tan Ze had an early morning class the next day. Dragging himself out of bed with two massive dark circles under his eyes, he washed up, sleepily threw on a short-sleeve tee and shorts, combed down his slightly messy hair, and stepped out the door with a kick to his sneakers.
Bay View wasn’t far from Jiangnan University; riding a shared bike took all of ten minutes. On the way, Tan Ze grabbed a couple of steamed buns, pedaled straight to the foot of the teaching building, and ducked into the classroom just as the bell rang, claiming an empty seat right in the middle.
Junior-year classes were almost entirely major-specific, but Tan Ze was so dead on his feet from exhaustion that his head dropped onto the desk and he fell fast asleep within minutes. By the time he woke up, the large lecture hall was completely empty, except for a few students staying behind for self-study.
Yawning, Tan Ze decided to hang out in the classroom a bit longer. Lei Miaomiao’s class was holding a league-day activity that day, which was to wrap up in about half an hour.
Figuring he’d wait for Miaomiao to finish so they could go shoot some hoops together, he replied to a message from Miaomiao, then opened his messaging app. His DMs were packed solid. Filtering out the abusive hate mail, he scrolled all the way down to reply to the fans who had gifted him yesterday.
He paused when he hit the chat window for “Black Dog.”
Twenty minutes ago, Black Dog had replied with a single [“Mm.”]
Tan Ze switched apps to find Xu Xiu on WeChat.
Tan Ze: [The big spender who dropped two Carnivals on me yesterday didn’t follow me back. It’s a burner account—how are you even supposed to cultivate a gifter like that? Since he didn’t follow me back, I don’t even know how to phrase my messages.]
Tan Ze: [Do you think he’s just a casual viewer who dropped by and just threw money around?]
Xu Xiu: [Since he’s willing to drop Carnivals on you, it means he’s pretty generous. Might be his first time watching a livestream, or maybe it’s someone’s alt account—what casual viewer just drops money like that? Just treat him normally and cultivate him properly.]
Xu Xiu: [Put some genuine effort into it; who knows, he might turn out to be your permanent top supporter down the line.]
Xu Xiu: [Follow him first, tell him that since he gifted so much, he’s qualified to get your contact info, and then write a thank-you note. Keep your tone sweet and flattering. Since he just dropped the gift like that, keeping your mouth sweet will make him happy.]
Tan Ze thought it over carefully. It made sense. The fact that Black Dog had dropped Carnivals yesterday to grill him about his sexual orientation meant he must have been somewhat curious about him, right? Even if he couldn’t quite figure out why Black Dog hadn’t followed him back.
[Flossy Yanbei: Black Dog-ge, thanks so much for supporting me yesterday and breaking the bank like that. I’m a rookie streamer, and I’ve never received a gift that large before. I’m genuinely so grateful to you, and I hope I get to see you often in the stream room from now on!]
【Flossy Yanbei sent a voice message】
Flossy Yanbei: “Usually, if you accumulate enough gifts to equal a rocket, we can exchange contact info, oh. Ge, here’s my WeChat ID—feel free to come check out my Moments!”
After sending the voice message, the status refused to show as read.
Throughout the process, Tan Ze repeatedly opened and closed the chat window, a shiver running down his spine as he felt utterly disgusted by his own tone. But the moment he reminded himself that this was all for the sake of making money, he felt a whole lot better, and even added a little heart emoji for good measure.
In this world, who on earth could truly never bow down to the five buckets of rice?
Tan Ze was just broke, short-sighted, and blinded by money.
He had no classes that afternoon. After playing pool with Lei Miaomiao for a couple of hours, he headed back to Bay View apartment, lugging along a whole bag of groceries.
Liang Xubai rarely cooked; the induction cooktop in the apartment essentially sat there collecting dust, and the fridge was stuffed exclusively with drinks and fruit, leaving it mostly empty.
When he first moved in, Tan Ze and Liang Xubai had signed a co-living agreement, which was still stuck right on the door. It included various harsh terms—such as making Tan Ze entirely responsible for cleaning.
Since he had to clean either way, Tan Ze gradually started cooking meals right there at Bay View.
All the basic cooking ingredients in the kitchen—cooking oil, rice, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea—had been bought by him. He also regularly hunted for grocery discounts at the supermarket, hauling ingredients back to stuff into the fridge for backup.
One time, when Liang Xubai opened the fridge door and saw two large cartons of eggs, he even remarked that Tan Ze must have had the soul of a laying hen possess him.
Tan Ze didn’t genuinely expect this rich kid to understand why someone would buy two giant cartons of eggs just because they were on sale; he simply divided the fridge territory in half as instructed, sticking sticky notes on all his personal items.
It was his way of drawing a clear boundary between himself and Liang Xubai.
When he got back with the groceries, Liang Xubai was at home, and Zhai Xu had dropped by as well.
These two were cut from the same cloth, birds of a feather locked in an alliance. Zhai Xu, the playboy, was Liang Xubai’s chief sidekick. Being seniors now, he had nothing better to do all day than run over to Bay View and drag Liang Xubai into playing video games.
And he talked way too much—so annoying it drove people crazy.
Tan Ze politely raised a hand to greet Zhai Xu, then headed straight for the kitchen.
Ever since Zhai Xu discovered last night that Tan Ze streamed in a dress, he simply couldn’t look at Tan Ze the same way anymore. He sat on the sofa and nudged Liang Xubai with his elbow.
Lowering his voice, Zhai Xu asked, “What did you want his account for last night?”
“Didn’t want it for anything. Just took a look.” Liang Xubai stared at his computer screen, though his mind drifted back to the messages and voice notes Tan Ze had sent him an hour or two ago. A chuckle slipped out before he could stop it.
Zhai Xu knew his personality too well and pressed on: “No way, you definitely pulled some shady move. Don’t I know you?”
Annoyed by his prodding, Liang Xubai clutched his laptop and shifted to face a different direction. “Believe it or not, not my problem.”
Seeing that Liang Xubai couldn’t be bothered with him, Zhai Xu slunk over to the kitchen to chat up Tan Ze. When he stepped inside, Tan Ze was in the middle of washing vegetables; hearing footsteps, he glanced sideways at him.
“Zhai-ge, what’s up?” Tan Ze instinctively put on a polite smile, stopping his movements to look at him.
Zhai Xu looked him up and down, completely unable to spot a single trace of the deceit Liang Xubai had spoken of. Realizing he’d been staring for a bit too long, he offered an embarrassed laugh.
Zhai Xu: “Xiao Tan, Xubai’s personality is pretty weird most of the time, right? Don’t you find it exhausting living together?”
Seeing that he was just dropping by for casual small talk, Tan Ze plunged his hands back into the vegetable basket and answered leisurely, “It’s fine, I was mentally prepared. I’m just crashing here anyway, so a little hardship is no big deal.”
“Haha, just bear with him.” Zhai Xu rubbed his nose, feeling like Tan Ze’s response was a bit too diplomatic.
“What are you cooking here? Is the portion big? Can you hook me up with a plate?”
Tan Ze hesitated for a moment. “I only bought enough for one person.”
“Oh well, I’ll just order takeout then.” Zhai Xu didn’t press the issue. He hung around the kitchen, chatting idly with Tan Ze about this and that, before slipping out just as Tan Ze was about to heat up the oil and start stir-frying.
The moment he left, Tan Ze let out a long sigh of relief and muttered a quiet, “Total weirdo.”