Chapter 49 The Alliance loves to fawn over pretty faces...

Have you ever thought about what kind of person you will become when you grow up?

Nan Zhiyi sat at her desk, barefoot, with her feet on the chair and one arm around her leg as she played on the computer in front of her.

You Xin sat on the bed behind him, eating a plate of fruit that Nan Kui had peeled for him.

Nan Kui is now used to the situation where every weekend her family goes from having one son to having two sons. Nan Zhiyi quickly confessed to her the day after the "diary incident." His mother was neither conservative nor open-minded, and it took her a whole week to accept the fact that her son's crush was actually a same-sex person.

In the end, thanks to You Xin's personal intervention, he found a stack of You Qing's autographed merchandise in some obscure corner of the house (according to him, these things were originally meant to be thrown away as trash), and gave them all to Nan Kui.

You Qing has a knack for winning over women, and he's no exception when it comes to women in their early forties.

Nan Kui distributed autographs to her girlfriends, gradually losing herself amidst their exclamations of admiration and praise. She then announced at home that You Xin was her second biological son, whom she had never met, praising his good looks and his excellent upbringing and manners.

"I hadn't thought about it."

"For example, inheriting the family business or something?"

“No.” You Xin refused decisively.

"You have to have some idea!" Nan Zhiyi lay on the table, her head resting on her arm, and looked back at him. "Don't you have anything you want to do?"

You Xin thought for a moment and said, "I want to stay with you."

"..."

Nan Zhiyi decided to curb his "love-obsessed" tendencies, and he started by saying, "Actually, I've always wanted to be a game streamer. Not the kind of gamer who's really good at it, just... I wanted to make some funny videos."

"Why?"

"Because it makes people happy," Nan Zhiyi said with a smile. "For example, someone might be in a bad mood today, but after watching my video, they suddenly become happy. If I can bring happiness to others, I will also become happy myself."

You Xin opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.

Looking at the smiling boy in front of him, the image of a woman suddenly appeared in his mind.

“You must remember that only when you gain your father’s approval can your mother have a place in the family. Don’t you want your parents to be together and reunited?”

"You should be a valuable person. A valuable person doesn't do worthless things."

"If you keep going like this, you'll never be as good as your two older brothers! Look how outstanding they are, and then look at yourself! Is this really acceptable?"

"Mom is so disappointed. You're all I have left now, don't you understand?"

"...You Xin?"

You Xin came to his senses and found that Nan Zhiyi had left her desk and walked up to him.

"What's wrong? You look terrible all of a sudden." Nan Zhiyi looked at him with concern. "Are you feeling unwell? Should I have asked you that...?"

Nearly a year after that autumn night when he bumped into the other person on the street, Nan Zhiyi learned from him that the reason he was squatting alone on the street that day was not because he was rebellious or had a spoiled attitude, but because he was sick.

You Xin's anxiety disorder is on a delicate borderline between severe and mild. This type of mental illness is difficult to cure; doctors have indicated that it can be controlled with medication, but he insists on fighting it on his own.

Helpless, the other party could only ask him to spend as little time as possible in easily triggered patterns, especially to stay away from his original environment, namely his overly repressive and distorted family.

Ever since learning about this, Nan Zhiyi has become somewhat paranoid about the matter. You Xin sometimes even feels like he's about to become fragile.

"I'm fine," he said. "I was a little distracted just now, thinking about something else."

Nan Zhiyi sat down next to him, first hugged him, then stepped back a little and looked up to carefully observe his reaction.

He blinked. Nan Zhiyi's eyes were the kind that were very round and bright. No matter what expression he had when he looked at you, you could always feel that he cared about you a lot.

The room was quiet, with only the ticking of the air conditioner. After a long while, Nan Zhiyi, as if summoning her courage, slowly leaned in and kissed the lips of the person in front of her.

Looking back, it seemed to be the first time he had taken the initiative to kiss the other person. His intention was to just give it a light kiss, as a way of comforting him. However, as soon as he showed the slightest intention to back away, You Xin pressed against him relentlessly, cupping his face with one hand and moving it to the back of his neck, pressing him forcefully against himself, kissing him back like a drowning person seeking oxygen.

When they parted, Nan Zhiyi's face was already flushed. He covered his face and fell onto the bed, taking a long time to remove his hands: "Are you... are you feeling any better?"

You Xin followed him and lay down on the soft bed. The two were very close, their noses almost touching when they were face to face.

“Why not give it a try?” he asked.

Nan Zhiyi was stunned for a moment: "Try...what?"

“A game streamer,” You Xin said softly, “If you did it, I’m sure a lot of people would like you.”

"Why are you still thinking about this?" Nan Zhiyi laughed. "I haven't thought about it yet, it was just a casual remark... There's still so much to learn."

He lay on his back, stretched out one hand, and began to count on his fingers: "You need to learn how to edit videos, interact with the audience, design live streams, and make your content unique..."

“We can start now,” You Xin said.

"Where to begin?" Nan Zhiyi pondered deeply. "Should we name them?"

A moment later, Nan Zhiyi sat in front of the computer and watched as You Xin decisively changed one of his account IDs, which was not on the leaderboard, to "AngelYi".

After choosing a nickname for his live stream, You Xin encouraged him to register a Stars account. After completing a series of procedures, Nan Zhiyi inexplicably started his first live stream.

The two of them entertained themselves for almost four hours, playing a fun mode called "Haunted House" in ROE. In the middle of the game, Youxin kept pretending that his character was a ghost and jumping out to scare him.

When the live stream ended, looking back, the average number of viewers was 3 per hour.

You Xin feigned praise, saying, "For your first live stream, you did very well."

Nan Zhiyi said helplessly, "Stop making fun of me."

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” You Xin said. “I…”

He suddenly stopped speaking and stared at his screen.

Nan Zhiyi glanced at the screen and saw it was the chat interface for friends in ROE. He leaned closer to look: "What..."

The conversation stopped abruptly.

[CG.Xu: Hello, this is Lao Xu, the youth training manager of CG Club. I've been following your ranked performance recently. I was wondering if you'd be interested in joining our CG youth training camp? My contact information: xxxxxx]

Nan Zhiyi slowly opened her eyes wide.

“This person… he had messaged me privately before,” he said. “I thought he was a scammer, so I blocked and deleted him.”

-

Nan Zhiyi and You Xin stood in the high-speed rail station hall, each with a large suitcase beside them.

“This is really crazy…” Nan Zhiyi muttered, staring at the surging crowd around her.

After figuring out that Lao Xu was not a fraudster but a real professional club youth training manager, the two made a decision almost impulsively: to go to the offline CG youth training base and see if it didn't work out, and then come back.

According to Lao Xu, he could tell whether someone had the talent to go down this path in just two days, not even two months.

If they feel uncomfortable, they can still go back to school when the time comes to start school in two months.

You Xin was more enthusiastic about this than Nan Zhiyi, but he remained hesitant. His hesitation was clearly not due to his studies. Nan Zhiyi rarely saw him so passionate about anything. Remembering his therapist's words, "Find something you're interested in," he offered to accompany him to the offline event.

The two sets of parents had completely different attitudes toward the matter. Nan's mother was very laissez-faire, saying, "You're all grown up now, do whatever you want to do, just don't suddenly die out there." However, according to You Xin, he had a big fight with his father, who cut off all his sources of income, even freezing his online payments.

“He thought I would die if I left him,” You Xin said indifferently, clutching a train ticket that Nan Zhiyi had bought for him.

Nan Zhiyi stared at him for a while, then burst out laughing.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Oh, it's nothing." Nan Zhiyi's smile faded; he had just remembered that joke about playing professionally and overcoming class barriers. "Time to check tickets."

Old Xu valued them quite a bit, personally picking them up from the high-speed rail station on a sweltering day. Nan Zhiyi recognized the sleek, balding man in the crowd from afar and greeted him excitedly, "Hello, Brother Xu, I'm South0412!"

South was his secret alternate account used to climb the leaderboard.

"Xiao Yi, right?" Old Xu smiled at him, then his gaze fell on You Xin beside him.

Nan Zhiyi quickly introduced, "This is You... North, the other one. He's a bit shy."

Since confirming their relationship, You Xin insisted on changing their IDs to symmetrical couple names, regardless of whether the ID North had any relation to her own name.

"Oh? You're shy? That's fine. You play the main DPS role, right?" he asked You Xin, who nodded. "That's even less of a problem, as long as you can communicate with your teammates in a timely manner and follow orders."

Old Xu sped the two of them to the CG youth training base in the suburbs.

He kept looking up at the two of them in the rearview mirror along the way, a satisfied expression on his face.

After getting off the bus, he told Nan Zhiyi, "If you guys play even a little better, once you make it to the league, many teams will definitely be vying for you."

Nan Zhiyi thought to herself, "They're already making empty promises before we've even entered the base: Why?"

Old Xu patted his face: "Good looks! A natural advantage! The league loves pampering good-looking rookies, hey, you'll see soon enough. If their performance is even slightly good, they'll be rolling in endorsements!"

"Wow." Nan Zhiyi exclaimed in perfect unison. At this moment, You Xin, who had remained silent until now, suddenly blurted out, "A lot of teams?"

Old Xu didn't understand what he was asking at first, and then You Xin asked again, "Can't they be in the same team?"

"Uh... well, generally speaking, it's difficult." Old Xu carefully chose his words, trying not to shatter the sixteen-year-old's beautiful fantasy. "Very few teams would replace both their carry and support with a rookie; usually, they only replace one. Buying them as a package deal isn't unheard of, but that's the privilege of star players. 'You want to buy me? Fine, but you have to take my brother with you, otherwise there's no point in talking.'"

You Xin understood: "So all you need to do is make a name for yourself."

"You rascal!" Old Xu chuckled, pointing at You Xin and saying to Nan Zhiyi, "See? All the new kids here are the same. They think they can punch Milk and kick Nova, and they're so arrogant. Then, after a couple of days, they start crying for their parents. You're one of the more mature ones I've met."

When the group arrived at the base at 5 p.m., Lao Xu gave them a unique greeting gift: a training match.

You Xin and Nan Zhiyi were each placed in a vacancy on one of the two teams and forced to play two practice matches. You Xin played his two matches first, and by the time he finished, Old Xu, who was standing behind him, was clearly looking at him strangely.

"Hello? Brother Yang, it's me, it's me, Lao Xu." Nan Zhiyi heard him quietly slip out the door and make a phone call in the hallway. "So, I found a really good prospect today, yes, he just arrived today... I'll record a video and send it to you later. I'm not kidding, he's really different from others..."

Main DPS and support are two very different positions. It wasn't until the second week that Lao Xu discovered something else was wrong.

Whenever South0412 is on a training match team, that team's performance in that day's training match is bound to be outstanding.

If South and North are in the same team, one or more teammates with broken hearts will randomly spawn in the base toilets that day.

"His game thinking is exceptionally clear," the youth training coach told Lao Xu. "It's a kind of talent, you could say. If you ask him to explain his thinking in points one, two, or three, he can't really articulate it clearly. It's just a kind of innate intuition."

Hearing this, Lao Xu was overjoyed. He thought to himself that he really had a keen eye for beauty. If he packaged these two players together and sent them to the league, they would not only be two rising stars, but two championship trophies and two huge money-making machines!

However, things didn't go as planned, and reality soon dealt Lao Xu a heavy blow.

The ambulance rushed into the CG base and then drove to the nearest People's Hospital with its siren blaring.

“Acute attack…” Old Xu stood in the ward, with Nan Zhiyi sitting beside him, sweating profusely from the pain. He looked at the attending physician holding the X-ray films and listened blankly. “Surgery is an option. I would definitely recommend surgery. Of course, conservative treatment is also an option, but recurrent attacks cannot be ruled out, and there is a possibility of muscle atrophy…”

After escorting the person back to the ward, Old Xu turned and went into the smoking room. After finishing two cigarettes, he touched his head and told himself that life is full of disappointments, and one should bravely face what needs to be faced.

He turned and went back to the ward, but at the door he heard another familiar, almost indifferent voice.

"If you're not going, then I won't go either."

...Now it's ten percent.

Old Xu touched his chest, and his vision went black.

There really is no such thing as a free lunch. He actually felt like he had eaten two meals.

—These aren't two championship trophies or two money trees, these are clearly two little devils! Living devils!! They saw him having too easy a life and came to torment him!!!

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Author's Note: Old Xu, don't rush to cry, there's more to come that will make you want to cry even more [dove emoji]

Flashback sequences are usually quite short, ending in one or two chapters.