Early morning, in Nan Zhiyi’s fan group N.
Because the streamer hadn’t gone live in a long time, and hadn’t posted in nearly two months, the once-quiet group chat suddenly came alive over a single message.
【【Admin】Maifen: @everyone Xiao Yi posted a new video~】
【!】
【!!!】
【Grandma, the streamer you follow finally updated!!】
【Holy crap, Evil Velvet’s latest masterpiece】
【Let me see, let me see, mom missed you so much】
But everyone’s excitement didn’t last even a minute. After hurriedly clicking into Stars, the group fell into a strange silence again.
In a 2,000-person group, not a single person spoke for over a full minute.
After a long while—
Someone finally broke the silence and asked the question everyone was genuinely confused about:
【Did I game so late I started hallucinating??】
At the same time, in the equally long-silent yux fan group, which had spent the past three months casually chatting as if nothing was wrong—
The group admin suddenly posted an image.
【Everybody relax~ Xiao You is currently safe and sound】
In the image, yux faced the camera, hands crossed in front of him, expression relaxed.
There were obvious crop marks around the edges of the image. Soon, someone noticed that in a corner of the picture… there was another foot.
【Where’d this photo come from?? Did yux post it himself?】
【Who’s the person next to him?】
【This clearly isn’t inside a training room… so does that mean he really hasn’t gone back to the team?】
About half a minute later, someone quickly forwarded a link into the group.
【【Share】Going Feral in Chaos Mode with the Strongest Championship Carry, yux? 【@AngelYi’s Stars video】】
And so yet another group chat fell into a brief silence.
Open the Stars platform, open AngelYi’s homepage.
Registered 3 years, 86 long videos posted, 41 short ones.
Of those, 126 video titles had never once mentioned any other streamer’s or player’s ID.
The latest episode, of course, was the exception.
The latest video was very simple. Only 18 minutes long, the first 16 of which were edited clips from 2v2v2 mode.
“Dahundan No. 001” picked the 【Thief】 class, while “AngelYi” picked 【Cat】 and stayed latched onto him. Both were utility-type roles, forming a lineup that looked completely “throwaway.”
The Cat has very weak self-protection and can only be effective staying close to a teammate.
But if both players move together, the risk of getting backdoored shoots up.
If they always stay on their own island, they effectively give up contesting the neutral island’s resources.
Very quickly, though, the other players noticed something was off.
Shortly after the match began, Island 1 sent one player to the neutral island and kept one on defense.
Meanwhile, Island 2’s Thief and Cat both moved out together.
A 2v1 naturally has the edge, and the Island 1 player was quickly wiped. After the kill notification appeared, the two players from Island 3 immediately set out toward Island 2.
Now Island 2 had no one left, the perfect moment for a base steal.
But just as the two players reached Island 2 and were about to start destroying the respawn point—
Suddenly—
A small magic staff slammed straight into their faces.
Neither reacted in time, and both died on the spot.
The Island 3 players immediately pulled up the equipment panel.
Not looking would’ve been fine, but after looking, they were stunned: why did this Thief buy full movement-speed gear?
And why did the Cat not buy a single piece of armor, but go full damage instead??
The Thief was already the fastest base-movement class in the game. With movement-speed gear, it could hit about 1.7 times a normal class’s speed.
The players from Islands 1 and 3 had thought they’d gotten an easy win.
To their surprise, over the next 10-plus minutes they were chased all over the map by a Thief in full movement-speed gear, insanely fast, hyper-agile, practically a ghost, and a “nuke Cat” riding on the Thief’s back, kitted in full damage gear and swinging a terrifyingly high-damage magic staff.
Is this even a game a human can play??
A player angrily typed in all-chat: “shi ren?” (human?)
This was just too vicious!!!
After the last enemy character was permanently eliminated, the game went to the results screen.
Then the shot suddenly cut, from the game back to reality.
It was clearly a selfie-style video shot on a phone. The background looked like a study or office. Nan Zhiyi sat in front of the screen, legs together, hands on his knees, sitting bolt upright.
In sharp contrast was You Xin beside him, one hand propping up his chin, his whole body leaning slightly toward him.
“Uh, hello everyone.” A formal wave, a sweet smile, as if the person who’d just been so dark and ruthless in-game wasn’t him at all. “I’m AngelYi, long time no see, everyone.”
After speaking, Nan Zhiyi turned to the person beside him, signaling him to talk.
You Xin thought for a moment. “What should I say?”
“…Introduce yourself!”
You Xin blinked. “I thought I didn’t need an introduction,” he said. “Hello everyone, I’m yux.”
The corner of Nan Zhiyi’s mouth clearly twitched, but he quickly mastered it. He turned back to the camera and went on:
“For next Friday’s All-Star match, both yux and I will be taking part as scheduled. You can all watch the live stream on Eternal’s official event account…”
You Xin suddenly cut in from the side. “The league should probably pay you an ad fee.”
Nan Zhiyi’s expression was already starting to slip. “…We hope everyone can support us then. So, see you all there?”
He waved at the camera, wearing a relieved look like he’d just finished reading a script.
Beside him, You Xin waved too, the corners of his mouth slightly raised. “See you then.”
The video ended there.
Because Stars gives Nan Zhiyi’s account boosted visibility, the video was immediately pushed to many people’s homepages.
【…I watched it and don’t even know what to say, so I’ll just wish you an early delivery】
【Holy crap, they actually know each other??? This close???】
【He smiled! He smiled!! It’s been so long since I saw him this happy!!!】
【So scary, feels like they’re about to pop out of my phone】
【AAAAAA MOM, I SHIPPED SOMETHING REAL!!】
【I’m really done for! So that so-called “insult video” before was just you two flirting?? So everyone else was just a prop in your act??【?】【?】】
【”Strongest championship carry”? Is he even a champion, and you’re already slapping that title on him?】
【The league champion’s been stripped of his championship now, huh】
【Forget all that, he’s way too into it, still remembering to slap on a long title at a moment like this, I’m crying】
【【Image】This girl in the thread, when are you going to start streaming and eat that keyboard like you said? I’ll even reimburse you for it~】
But at the same time, there were still plenty of discordant voices in the comments.
【…yux, what benefits did you get for helping AngelYi whitewash this? So the fans who attacked him for you when he was being insulted just don’t matter at all? …Feels like I never actually knew you.】
【? Looks like your yux isn’t clean either. He already had a messy falling-out with his old team. Isn’t this streamer video just helping him shift public opinion?】
【Everyone disperse, this is just a whitewashing video, made for exactly that. The “sponsored business” vibe is way too strong. Two people who clearly didn’t even know each other suddenly acting like best buddies? Obviously neither of them is a good person.】
【So it’s basically confirmed this EU account is being used by yux himself 【laughing-crying】. The name was clearly changed by him too, just to help clear AngelYi 【laughing-crying】. Anyone with eyes can see these two are actually super close. Fans still arguing better be careful or you’ll end up clowns later 【clown】【clown】】
…
In a single morning, the video had already passed a million views.
Besides the large crowd of enthusiastic onlookers enjoying the drama, a smaller group of fans quietly began a new operation.
Digging.
As they say, the internet has a memory, and indeed, within just half a day, someone really did dig up clues from a post three or four years old that had only three likes: a casual fan’s post about attending a secondary-league match with a free ticket.
The passerby had posted a photo of the audience seating and the stage. On the somewhat shabby little stage sat the four members of CG.Y, yux naturally among them.
And in the photo, she’d happened to catch the side profile of a boy in the front row turning to grab something from his backpack.
Although the boy had black hair, many people instantly recognized him.
—Isn’t that AngelYi himself?!
Back then, Nan Zhiyi’s hair was a bit shorter than now, and his skin a shade or two darker. According to the comments, the timing was right when he’d started university, he’d cut his hair short for military training and gotten tanned by the sun, and hadn’t recovered yet.
His face looked slightly young and unformed, and he was grinning so wide his eyes were nearly squeezed into slits.
At eighteen or nineteen, he looked exactly like a youth not yet worn down by the world.
A fresh round of argument broke out. One side insisted, “It’s just a coincidental photo. AngelYi’s always been a CG fan, so going to watch CG.Y matches is totally normal.” The other side argued, “What’s so hard to admit? The two of them clearly knew each other way back, way earlier than any of you knew them.”
Then the first side fired back, “If they knew each other that early, why have they been pretending not to all these years?”
Both sides clung to their views and argued without end.
Soon after, though, another blogger posted new “insider content.”
This blogger wasn’t a fan of yux or AngelYi. He was just an ordinary account that liked watching CN-region matches.
He posted a screenshot of AngelYi liking his video three months ago with his main account, with the caption:
“I have a theory: AngelYi probably isn’t a CG team fan. He’s actually a pure, hardcore yux super-fan.”
The video title was “CG Locker Room After the Finals.”
The content, however, was AI-generated, originally, several players sat on the locker-room sofa using their phones. A few seconds later, they suddenly flung their phones aside, jumped up, and started brawling on the spot.
In the end, AI.Yux somehow produced a giant club out of nowhere, ran a full Hong Kong-style wuxia routine, and swung it around to beat down everyone present.
Both fan groups: “………………”
For a moment, it was hard to say who was more unhinged.