Over the next few days, aside from making time to reapply for his documents, Nan Zhiyi spent his days going out and having a blast with Song Meng, and at night returned to stay temporarily at You Xin’s place.
He hadn’t relaxed like this in a very long time.
So much so that when he got another message from Sister Li, it felt like a whole lifetime had passed.
【Stars-Zhang Li: Xiao Yi, the All-Star schedule is out. I got word here that yux will be participating as normal. Do you know anyone who could find out about yux’s situation in advance? There’ll be a team-up competition segment, and it’d be best to use the chance to clear up the misunderstanding between the fanbases】
Nan Zhiyi had almost completely forgotten about the All-Star event.
The voting had ended three months ago. As expected, he’d taken first in the streamer category, leading second place by a full double in votes.
On the player side, yux had also edged out HYG’s championship main carry, milk, by a slim 40,000-vote margin.
milk’s fans were very unhappy with that ranking, and had deliberately chosen the moment right after CG lost the finals to kick up a fuss on Weibo.
As the league’s two most popular teams, the long-standing rivalry between CG and HYG traced back five years, to 2020, the second ROE World Invitational. HYG lost to CG in the quarterfinals, and that same year CG won the championship.
Back then, CG fans had mocked HYG fans relentlessly. But the following year, after HYG swapped in a rookie main carry named milk, they beat CG 3–2 in that year’s finals and took the title.
After that narrow finals loss, the members of CG’s championship roster gradually left, and well before yux arrived, the team had already been in decline for a long time.
So one of HYG fans’ favorite lines was: “milk disbanded the old CG.”
Still, Nan Zhiyi felt they weren’t really in a position to mock the rebuilt CG that had clawed its way back to a runner-up finish, after all, HYG had done even worse last year, failing to even qualify for Worlds.
Controversial as the result was, it was already settled fact that AngelYi and yux would team up for the 2v2v2 entertainment segment.
Nan Zhiyi stared at the words “find out in advance” and thought about how to reply. Should he say, What a coincidence, yux is with me right now, I’ll ask about his plans when he’s back from class?
After a moment’s hesitation, Nan Zhiyi replied:
【Thanks, Sis. I actually have a friend who knows a bit about yux’s situation, I can ask what the arrangements are】
He didn’t reveal more about You Xin’s current circumstances.
【Stars-Zhang Li: You can reach him? That’s great.】
【Stars-Zhang Li: Also, you need to be really careful with your words lately, especially at the All-Star event. Try to avoid bringing up anything controversial.】
【Stars-Zhang Li: Someone anonymously emailed my work inbox saying the person who filmed that video is someone you know, and that they might have other moves planned too. I’m guessing it’s one of your streamer friends trying to warn you but unwilling to say who. In any case, be careful these days.】
Nan Zhiyi: “???”
Finding it a little hard to believe, he read Sister Li’s words over again from start to finish.
Had he offended someone?
He sent the question over.
【Stars-Zhang Li: Not necessarily that you offended anyone. Your traffic in ROE is just too high. Plenty of people are jealous. Everyone’s streaming, who wouldn’t want a slice of the pie?】
【Stars-Zhang Li: Alright, enough talk while you’re out. Just enjoy yourself. Contact me anytime if anything comes up.】
Sister Li’s words kept circling in Nan Zhiyi’s mind, so much so that he had a nightmare during his afternoon nap. In the dream, several old fans he knew well accused him of becoming more and more boring, asking whether he’d made too much money and lost the original heart of a content streamer.
It was only a dream, but his mood inevitably soured after he woke.
Nan Zhiyi played with Kenken in the living room for a while, then sat there in a daze.
He went back to the sofa, opened his phone, and dug out his long-unused Weibo alt, meaning to quietly search his own name and see what people thought of him.
But before he even reached the search bar, his attention was snagged by a trending topic highlighted in red on the homepage.
【Streamer Tangyuan teams up to trash yux】
Nan Zhiyi froze.
He read the trending topic from start to finish again, confirming he hadn’t misread.
【@Streamer Clip Machine: Breaking! Streamer Tangyuan flat-out starts a heated rant in front of CG members: yux is just a roadside nobody, CG’s the same with or without him!
City Lord @QiuCityLord resumed streaming after a long break, playing a four-man entertainment squad with @ROE Tangyuan @CG.Wind @CG.beer. During the stream, Tangyuan said: yux is already a “roadside nobody.” Isn’t CG’s xww doing pretty well in matches? Bluntly, yux just rode on his teammates’ performance and couldn’t handle being benched.
In the last regular-season match before the break, CG beat HYG 2–0 by a wide margin, currently riding a four-win streak in the Spring Split……】
The video was a clipped segment from a stream.
The angle was Tangyuan’s stream camera. With that eye-catching dyed-blond hair, one foot up on his gaming chair, Tangyuan laughed as he read the chat:
“What do you mean I’m being toxic? Am I not allowed to say it when someone dragged the team down in the finals?”
“You-fans, stop coming to my stream to whitewash him. It was clearly his fault at the time, no communication with teammates, one bad play and the whole game was gone. The teammates grind all year, who’d want to see a result like that?”
“Brother Yi? Brother Yi isn’t going into hiding lately, he’s just not streaming.”
“And stop dragging Brother Yi into this. Aren’t you afraid you’ve hurt him enough already?”
“You really think yux is some precious treasure everyone wants? Brother Yi usually just cuts you slack. You curse him every single day, how could he not hate you?”
Nan Zhiyi didn’t even need to look to know what the comment section would be like.
【Isn’t this too explosive? He said that about wind and beer and they didn’t react at all? Doesn’t this basically confirm CG’s internal conflict?】
【People already exposed that yux doesn’t even check in with the team anymore 【laughing-crying】— it’s definitely been dysfunctional for a long time.】
【wind and beer are going a bit far though. Whatever else, they were championship teammates last year. Going to play four-man squads with this kind of streamer…】
【Don’t drag the CG players into this. It’s got nothing to do with them. This is an event organized by CG and Stars, they were required to take part, and neither of them even turned on their stream.】
【Tangyuan’s a friend of AngelYi, right? AngelYi even apologized on Weibo last week for that video. Doesn’t this basically confirm AngelYi was deliberately clout-chasing yux and actually dislikes him behind the scenes?】
【As if Tangyuan never clout-chased yux himself.】
【These people are all the same gang, two-faced and gross.】
【I’m genuinely curious, will yux still play the All-Star match? If he does, doesn’t that mean he has to team up with AngelYi?】
【…I can’t even imagine how explosive it’s going to get.】
【yux won’t put up with this kind of person anyway. That mouth’s basically venomous. I’m already looking forward to what he’ll say in the interview.】
The stream had ended just half an hour ago. Nan Zhiyi felt his head buzz, as if blood were rushing straight to his face.
He exited Weibo and opened the group chat 【Eternal Friendship Society】.
【AngelYi: @ROE Tangyuan ?】
Nan Zhiyi kept typing in the input box, deleting, typing, deleting again.
He wasn’t good at completely falling out with people, especially when the other party was someone he knew well.
Tangyuan was actually only 19 this year.
His family situation wasn’t good, both parents had passed away, and he had a seriously ill grandmother at home who needed long-term dialysis.
The family had no money at all, so after finishing middle school Tangyuan went out to work. Later, by chance, he started streaming on Stars. After he signed with a guild, Nan Zhiyi had heard about his situation from Qiu Cheng and invited him to co-film videos.
Back then Tangyuan had only tens of thousands of followers. When Nan Zhiyi duo-queued during his streams, he deliberately didn’t go live himself, to funnel traffic to him. The 17-year-old had been especially sincere, forever saying “Thank you, Brother Yi,” calling him his great benefactor on his streaming journey.
Nan Zhiyi carefully typed out a long message:
【I hope you’ll stop bringing up me and yux in your streams. The part about me hating him is entirely your own assumption. Maybe you didn’t mean any harm, but doing this only intensifies the fights between both fanbases.】
The instant he hit send, a red exclamation mark appeared beside the message box.
【You cannot send messages in a group you have left】
Tangyuan was the group owner.
He’d kicked him out of the group.
Nan Zhiyi froze for a moment.
A strange, indescribable sense of absurdity rose in his chest.
In that instant, he suddenly remembered that Qiu Cheng had also been in that stream on voice chat.
Why hadn’t Qiu Cheng stepped in to push back on Tangyuan’s words? He clearly knew Tangyuan was twisting his meaning.
They’d known each other for so many years. There was no way Qiu Cheng didn’t understand him… so even he, too…
“What happened?”
A voice suddenly came from behind him.
Nan Zhiyi nearly jumped off the sofa.
You Xin was standing behind it, holding Kenken, looking down at him.
“When did you get back? Why didn’t I hear anything, you scared me…” Nan Zhiyi pressed a hand to his chest and turned off his phone screen.
“Just now.” You Xin covered Kenken’s face with his hand, blocking it from enthusiastically licking his chin. “I called out to you twice when I came in, but you didn’t hear me.”
So he had been that distracted.
“It’s nothing, just…”
For a moment Nan Zhiyi didn’t know how to explain, then suddenly remembered what Sister Li had said.
“Are you taking part in the All-Star match in a few days?”
You Xin nodded. “I’ll go back for it then.”
Nan Zhiyi drew out his reply. “Oh…”
“I don’t have class this afternoon. Want to queue a few games with me?” You Xin extended the invitation. “Just treat it as early training.”
Nan Zhiyi had never imagined that even an entertainment event like All-Star would come with “pre-training.”
You Xin’s gaming room had two computers. He picked the one that looked less used, booted it up, opened the ROE client, and logged into an EU-server alt he hadn’t touched in ages.
This account had a grand total of three lonely friends.
“I’ll add you,” Nan Zhiyi offered.
You Xin recited a string of numbers.
“You can just tell me the name.” Nan Zhiyi entered it twice before finally typing the account correctly. He glanced at the man’s nickname. “Huh, you’re called D, Da, Hun—”
He stopped mid-sentence.
Nan Zhiyi seemed to understand why the man hadn’t just said his name out loud.
In the center of the screen, the searched nickname sat glaringly:
【Dahundan No. 001】 [1] “Dà-hún-dàn” = “Big Bastard”, the exact insult Nan Zhiyi drunkenly hurled at him on video jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2670429_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2670429_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
Nan Zhiyi: “…?”
Nan Zhiyi: “?????”
Author’s note:
When a kid goes unusually quiet, he’s definitely up to something.
References[+]