Chapter 23 "For You".
For about ten seconds, Zhang Li seemed to have been paused, even her hair looked stiff.
Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, and after a long while, she finally managed to utter, "Do you know who the champion of last year's Juxing Cup was?"
“I know,” Nan Zhiyi said cheerfully. “Little Bell, right? It was him the year before last.”
Xiaolingdang consistently ranks in the top 100 of the ranked ladder, making her a quintessential skilled solo queue player. While her skill level may not match that of a professional, she is undoubtedly among the top streamers.
Looking at Sister Li's expression, Nan Zhiyi knew in her heart that she couldn't keep the secret forever.
He sat down opposite Zhang Li, took a deep breath as if he had mentally prepared himself, and said, "It's like this, Sister Li, I know I shouldn't have kept this from you..."
“Two of these badges are from my third season in 2020, which was from July to September. At that time, I was training in CG’s youth academy,” Nan Zhiyi said, pausing for a moment. “I was the team’s top scorer in the commander position at that time.”
"Youth training?" Zhang Li asked in surprise. "You participated in youth training before? In CG?"
Then, she suddenly realized something: "You met Yux during youth training?"
CG and HYG are widely recognized as the two best youth training teams in roeCN. HYG is known for its lenient entry policy but strict exit policy, while CG, from the very beginning, only recruits the young players they believe to be the most talented.
Therefore, almost all the new players who have gained some fame in recent years have had training experience in one of the two youth training programs.
Nan Zhiyi nodded. This wasn't entirely a lie.
He had a premonition, and sure enough, the next moment, Zhang Li blurted out, "Then why didn't you go pro in the end?"
After she finished speaking, she suddenly realized something, immediately stopped talking, and carefully observed Nan Zhiyi's expression before speaking again: "It's... not approved?"
Nan Zhiyi was quiet for a moment, then suddenly smiled.
He lowered his eyes, looked down at his hands, and revealed an expression rarely seen on his face, somewhere between nostalgia and relief. He said softly, "No, I gave up because of some reasons of my own. I was injured at the time, just the day before the final match."
"So in the end... it's really a pity."
-
When Nan Zhiyi walked out of the office building, she felt dizzy and disoriented.
Zhang Li finally agreed to his decision to participate in the Juxing Cup, saying that she would take care of the formalities for him, and even asked him if he needed help asking other teams if they needed any more players.
Nan Zhiyi ultimately declined. He hadn't decided who he wanted to go to the competition with yet.
On the way back, he watched the video again carefully.
The video is divided into three parts. The first part mainly introduces who Angel Yi is, the second part is some so-called "evidence", and the third part is the video publisher's appeal, demanding that he come out and make a statement to explain, otherwise he will delete his account and leave the Internet.
He spoke with such conviction, as if he had committed some heinous crime.
In the second part, in addition to listing evidence of his "proxy playing", the other party also listed evidence of "cheating" and "plagiarism".
The evidence for the former is that he once had a secondary account that appeared on the "official ban for 3650 years" list, and there can only be one reason for being banned for such a long time: cheating.
...But in reality, Nan Zhiyi himself wasn't quite sure what happened to that account. At the time, he was researching an "archer support build," and perhaps because his arrows were too accurate, he was mistakenly banned by the official system for using a lock-on cheat.
Since it was a secondary account and only used for recording videos, Nan Zhiyi didn't take it too seriously. She never expected that it would be used against her at this time.
The latter was revealed by Tangyuan himself, who shared a chat log proving that he had already come up with the idea of "using the thief's movement speed bonus to coordinate with a cat-like character equipped with damage items to walk a dog around the Sky City map" on the night of October 2024.
Nan Zhiyi recalled that the earliest archive of this inspiration on her computer could only be traced back to December.
In the video, Tangyuan spoke out righteously: "We must not allow plagiarism to poison creative videos. Please restore a clean and peaceful ROE gaming community!"
He sounds quite cultured, unlike someone with only a junior high school education who could say such things. As a result, many people familiar with Tangyuan were asking him in the comments section how much the writers he hired charged per article.
After watching the video, Nan Zhiyi felt more speechless and wanted to laugh.
Not to mention that Tangyuan has never made a similar video before, nor has he ever shown any talent in designing routines, his eagerness for quick success and his desire to step on others to make a comeback in this video are so obvious that they almost overflow the screen.
The All-Star buzz hadn't died down yet, and this video really took advantage of that to become a viral sensation.
The majority of people in the comments section are more rational and are still observing. They feel that this wave of events is abrupt and sudden, and the evidence is just a bunch of chat screenshots, which can be easily photoshopped into dozens of images.
The biggest difficulty is that Tangyuan has provided the timeline records, but we can't produce any earlier ones.
Fortunately, Tangyuan's reputation is so bad and his persona is far from intelligent that almost no one believes the authenticity of his chat logs.
Even so, he still chose to step forward and participate in the Juxing Cup.
After all, out of ten thousand people, there are always a few opportunists who change their tune with the wind, and there are still so many of his fans in the comments section defending him and believing in him. It's fine if he gets criticized occasionally, but he can't just stand by and watch them get scolded for his sake, can he?
-
Nan Zhiyi returned home at 7 p.m. The house was pitch black and no one was home.
He went upstairs to feed the birds, then returned to his room and lay down on the bed, feeling somewhat exhausted.
It's alright that Qiu Cheng isn't home; Nan Zhiyi just wants to be alone for a while right now.
Sister Li told him not to take the video to heart, but he found it hard to do so. If this video had been made by an unscrupulous marketing account, he even thought he would have shared it with his friends as a joke. But the instigators behind it all were those he considered "friends."
He wanted them all to be good, but in the end they just wanted to kick him while he was down.
Nan Zhiyi sighed softly, thinking of You Xin, who was hostile towards her "friends." Perhaps he was right; he was always very good at judging people. As for herself, she was just someone who loved to spread useless kindness everywhere.
After burying her face in the blanket and lying quietly in the dark for a while, Nan Zhiyi got out of bed and reached for her cold, hard phone beside her.
He opened his earlier call log and called back the contact from the 110-minute call.
The other end answered almost immediately: "Is it over?"
“Yes,” Nan Zhiyi said, “I…”
He wanted to say that it wasn't a big problem, it wasn't really a scandal, and it could be resolved quickly, but You Xin interrupted him: "Are you at home right now?"
"I'm here, I just got back a little while ago... What's wrong?"
“I’m outside your house now,” You Xin said.
Nan Zhiyi: "…………???"
He put on his coat, put his phone back in his pocket, went downstairs in the dark, and went outside to the garden. Sure enough, there stood a tall and elegant figure.
Nan Zhiyi opened the garden gate: "What are you doing here?"
"Just passing by," You Xin said, then added as if afraid Nan Zhiyi wouldn't believe him, "I went back to my hometown, and Uncle Wang just drove me back."
Passing by...
Nan Zhiyi approached a little closer. As night fell, he smelled a familiar fragrance in the air—a men's fragrance that You Xin loved to use.
His heart suddenly started racing: "How did you know I lived here?"
He remembered that he hadn't revealed his address to the other party.
You Xin answered quickly, without the slightest hint of guilt: "I asked Pigeon. He's also worried about you, but he has a practice match tonight and can't come."
Even a deaf person could understand his unspoken meaning—"I'm very worried about you."
"Oh...is that so?" Nan Zhiyi touched her nose. "It's okay, it's not a big deal."
"It's nothing serious," You Xin said.
"Actually, it's nothing." Nan Zhiyi smiled. "I've already talked to Sister Li about it."
He reiterated the arrangements for the two of them in detail.
You Xin asked, "At the end of the video, what about the plagiarism claim?"
“Well…” Nan Zhiyi’s head ached just thinking about it. “It was probably during a meal when I suddenly had an inspiration. I felt like we were all friends, so I just said it out loud. I didn’t write it down right away. I only made a record of it a month or two later when I was organizing and archiving my files.”
At that time, the World Championship had not yet reached the finals, and they had not yet shown their true colors, so he did not expect that the other side had been plotting all this behind the scenes so early.
After listening, You Xin did not comment on his poor choice of friends.
"The Gathering Stars Cup? Is that the tournament that leads to the Contenders Cup?" he asked, his gaze lowered. "How many people are on your team right now?"
"..." A sense of foreboding suddenly rose in Nan Zhiyi's heart, "It's just me."
Sure enough, the next second, he heard You Xin say, "Now there are two. I'll go."
Nan Zhiyi blurted out almost immediately, "No way!"
You Xin seemed to have expected this: "Why not?"
Why?
Nan Zhiyi thought the reason couldn't be simpler: "You're a professional player, why are you playing in the streamer's cup? A lot of people will laugh at you if you say it!"
"I'm not afraid of being laughed at." He said it as if he were making a vow of love that was intolerable to heaven and earth.
"You're not afraid, but I am, okay?" Nan Zhiyi's chest heaved slightly, her voice a little louder than usual. "I'm playing in the competition to clear up the false rumors about me. What are you doing it for?"
You Xin: "For you."
You Xin's voice was very soft, the kind of tone that Nan Zhiyi liked very much, so much so that his heart skipped a beat uncontrollably.
But he knew it was inappropriate to think about this now: "I'm sorry, this is my team, my competition. I can decide who joins and who doesn't. You can't join, understand? Your task now is to get back to your training as soon as possible. It's still early, only February. The CG Spring Split has only played four matches. You still have a chance, even if you go to another team—"
"Okay. Who are you planning to play with?"
You Xin seemed to have taken his words to heart.
Nan Zhiyi relaxed a little: "I haven't decided yet, maybe other friends. I have a few friends I'm quite close to, and they'll agree right away if I ask them... I won't be short of people here, don't worry."
He paused, then said, "I don't care who I play against. I believe I can make it to the finals. But it can't be you."
The word "friend," or any other word, seemed to touch a nerve with You Xin.
“Oh,” he said. “Nan Zhiyi, actually, there’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
"What?"
“We’ve made up now, right?” You Xin said softly. “We’re good friends, right?”
Nan Zhiyi thought to herself, "Shouldn't I be the one asking you this question?"
“Yes,” he said.
"Since I'm your friend, then other friends are fine, but I'm not—is it because I'm not only your friend, but also your ex-boyfriend?"
The air was quiet, but Nan Zhiyi felt as if she clearly heard a "ripping" sound. You Xin had torn apart the carefully maintained boundary between them.
More than half a month has passed since they met, and the two of them have been pretending not to bring up the topic.
But now the veil of pretense has been lifted. You Xin stood before his garden, half his body submerged in the night. He stared at Nan Zhiyi, his face no longer its usual expressionless expression.
“…Please.” Nan Zhiyi took a deep breath, and he had to adopt a pleading tone. “Stop messing with me, okay? I agreed to film the video with you last time because that matter was indeed related to you. But does this latest revelation have anything to do with you at all? No. I’m very grateful that you’re willing to consider my feelings, but this is really just my own business. You already have enough troubles to deal with right now.”
You Xin: "I don't care."
The Yushin who spoke so casually about his CG card contract is gone. He's been replaced by an almost willful tone.
“I care!” Nan Zhiyi blurted out almost immediately.
“Anyway, I don’t have to play in competitions now.” You Xin looked at him seriously, without any hint of joking. “Being a professional player has never been the only option in my life.”
He was like some kind of wicked domestic animal, knowing full well where his master's trigger points were, yet still sweeping the cup lids off the table, leaving a mess, and then innocently opening his eyes to see the other person's reaction.
"So what you're trying to tell me is that you came to my door late at night just to tell me you're not going to play in your league anymore, and instead you're going to play in some random Juxing Cup?" Nan Zhiyi felt his head buzzing. He didn't know what You Xin was suddenly thinking today.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Yeah, you said yourself that he's my ex-boyfriend. We have nothing to do with each other now, and you don't need to do anything for me. If you really want to fight, then you can sign up for a team yourself."
You Xin: "Yeah, that's true. It's been gone since the day you dumped me."
Nan Zhiyi felt that she was exhausted, both physically and mentally.
He raised his hand to press his temple: "I'm already exhausted from that video, do you really have to come here and cause more trouble?"
You Xin was very stubborn: "It was clearly you who texted me saying you wanted to be friends with me."
Nan Zhiyi retorted sharply, "But you didn't agree either, did you?"
You Xin fell silent, having hit the nail on the head.
After a long while, so long that Nan Zhiyi thought he had already come up with an excuse and was about to start another round of sophistry, You Xin suddenly spoke up: "I'm sorry."
“I think we need to calm down.” He paused. “I mean, I need to.”
"I got a little too excited," he said, trying to sound calm. "I think I upset you... I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention. Please don't be upset because of me."
"I just..."
He paused, unable to finish his sentence.
Nan Zhiyi wasn't actually that angry, after all, this was always the other person's style, and he hadn't been unaware of it. But now he was genuinely surprised: when did You Xin become so understanding?
Actually, he had noticed that the other person's personality seemed to have changed a lot compared to before, when he lost his temper with her the last time they met.
In the past, You Xin would never have taken the initiative to back down. In every conflict, he was always the one who would fight to the bitter end.
In the years since they last met, Nan Zhiyi could easily learn about his life. He was there on the field, in the team's vlogs, and in photos on her friends' Weibo accounts.
But all he knew was Yux as a public figure, not the Yuxin who would stand here and open her heart to him.
"...Thank you for understanding how I feel," he said finally.
"I'll go back first." You Xin's gaze fell on the ground, and she spoke as if she had done something terribly wrong. "You should rest well... Oh, by the way, I have something for you."
He turned and walked toward the black sedan parked by the roadside. A short while later, he returned, carrying a bag.
You Xin handed over the bag: "I passed by that shop and thought you must not have eaten since you were sleeping during the day, so I brought you some food."
"Bye-bye," he said quickly. "Don't be upset because of me."
The black Bentley sped away, leaving everyone in its dust. Nan Zhiyi stood there, holding a bowl of hot porridge in her hand.
He glanced down at the packaging and realized it was a restaurant he had loved eating at since his youth training days.
-
After finishing a bowl of hot porridge, Nan Zhiyi lay in bed and suddenly regretted sleeping through the entire day. As a result, she tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep.
WeChat message notifications kept popping up, but he wasn't really in the mood to reply. He could almost picture the scene: those who believed, those who didn't, those who were worried and sending greetings…
After a while, Nan Zhiyi turned over and turned on her phone again.
He hadn't pinned any messages on WeChat. At that moment, the top message came from someone he didn't recognize very well.
[Xiaoyu: Hi Yi-ge, thank you so much for your help before. I'd like to treat you to a meal, is that alright?]
Nan Zhiyi couldn't remember who this person was for a long time. He scrolled through the chat history for a while before realizing that the other person was a relatively unknown Stars streamer, whose live stream he had once helped promote. He then clicked into his Moments and was somewhat surprised to find that he was the black-haired boy who had sat at the same table with him at the company's annual party and had defended Yux against Tangyuan.
He really wasn't in the mood to go out for any dinners right now.
Just as I was about to type a rejection, another message came from the other end.
[Little Fish: Brother Yi, there's something I want to tell you.]
As if struck by a sudden inspiration, Nan Zhiyi suddenly remembered the information that Sister Li had given him when he was still in M City—"Someone anonymously sent an email to my work email address, saying that the person who filmed that video is someone you know, and that they may have other ulterior motives."
[Xiaoyi: Hi Xiaoyu! Sure, I'm free right now. You can choose the location.]
The last location Xiaoyu sent turned out to be a barbecue restaurant that Nan Zhiyi really loves.
I don't know what this kid was thinking, choosing a barbecue stall to talk to him about something. Luckily, the stall wasn't doing much business today, and it was getting dark, so no one noticed us.
Xiaoyu came out with her schoolbag on her back and stood awkwardly in her seat waiting for him, looking more like a high school student who had skipped class.
"Hello, Yi-ge." He greeted Nan Zhiyi. "I found out you like this barbecue place, so I booked it here."
I must say, that's quite thoughtful.
Nan Zhiyi smiled at him: "The food here is very good."
He had just drunk a large bowl of porridge, so he wasn't really interested in the grilled skewers. After eating a few skewers as a token gesture and chatting with Xiaoyu about the recent matches, he decided to have something to drink.
Remembering my vow to never drink recklessly again, I casually ordered a cocktail.
To her utter surprise, this alcoholic beverage had a strong aftereffect, making her feel increasingly intoxicated with each sip. After finishing just one bottle, Nan Zhiyi was already feeling slightly dizzy.
Little Fish watched as the smile on the person opposite her grew brighter and brighter, and several times she hesitated to speak.
When the can was finally empty, Nan Zhiyi felt a little giddy.
"Thank you for treating me to dinner tonight," he said with a smile. "You want to tell me about the rumors circulating online, right?"
Little Fish was caught off guard by his sudden question and became a little nervous: "I, I..."
"Don't be nervous." Nan Zhiyi rested her chin on one hand, raised an index finger with the other, and shook it. "I promise! If you tell me, I absolutely won't tell anyone. Otherwise, I'll turn into... um... a dog..."
Xiaoyu frowned slightly, looking at him with concern: "Brother Yi, are you a little drunk?"
"I'm alright, just a little dizzy. I don't get drunk easily; last time I drank too much, I did something bad..."
Xiaoyu bit his lip. After much hesitation, he said, "Brother Yi, do you know the guild I signed with?"
Nan Zhi pondered for a moment: "A thousand years?"
Millennium is a well-known guild in Stars' ROE division, with about a dozen streamers boasting large fan bases. Tangyuan and Qiucheng are both signed to this guild.
A long time ago, Qiannian also extended an olive branch to Angel Yi, but Nan Zhiyi always felt that signing with a guild was too troublesome. She would have to create content according to the guild's operational ideas, maintain the persona assigned to her by the guild at all times, send gifts to others to attract viewers, and live stream for a certain amount of time every month...
So in the end, he only signed an agency contract with the Stars platform. Sister Li was the agent assigned to him by the platform.
“Yes, Millennium.” Xiaoyu seemed to have made up her mind. “This smear campaign against you was premeditated. Someone started preparing it several months ago. Millennium is behind it. Several of Millennium’s top streamers know about this… They let it slip at a gathering once, and I overheard it.”
Xiaoyu's voice trailed off: "Brother Yi, you helped me before, and I felt it wasn't right to keep it from you. But the boss of Qiannian has actually been quite good to me, so I..."
Nan Zhiyi blinked.
"You mean, several top streamers from thousands of years ago know this?" he repeated.
The little fish nodded.
"Does Lord Qiu know about this too?"
Little Fish: "Yes, he knows."
Nan Zhiyi took her hand off the table.
It's hard to describe his current feelings.
...He actually felt a sense of relief.
Xiaoyu was still talking, the gist of which was that the boss of Qiannian believed that as long as Angel Yi could be brought down, a large portion of the traffic in the ROE area could flow to all the streamers of the Qiannian Guild.
But Nan Zhiyi's thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.
Before leaving the studio, Sister Li saw him off at the entrance of the office building.
She asked him a question at the time: "Xiaoyi, I don't really understand. Participating in youth training is not a bad thing, so why don't you mention it at all over the years?"
-
When Nan Zhiyi was four years old, his mother resolutely divorced the man who had abused her and moved into a small alley, becoming neighbors with Qiu Cheng's family and getting to know Qiu Cheng's mother, a close friend.
His first impression of Qiu Cheng was of a gentle aunt leading a boy slightly taller than herself with a buzz cut to her, pointing at him and saying to the boy, "This is Zhiyi, your little brother. From now on, you'll be good friends. Your brother's father can't be by his side. If you ever see anyone bullying your brother, how about you punch that person?"
The two were classmates in elementary and middle school. Nan Zhiyi's mother opened a beauty salon near her home, and the business grew bigger and bigger, but Qiu Cheng's family's situation remained ordinary.
In the year of her final year of junior high, Nan Zhiyi was admitted to the best high school in the city, while Qiu Cheng failed the entrance exam and went to a vocational high school.
This seemed to be a turning point in his life. After entering vocational high school, Qiu Cheng's family's financial situation deteriorated rapidly. The gentle and refined Uncle Qiu that Nan Zhiyi remembered had somehow developed a gambling addiction, and the family began an endless cycle of borrowing and repaying money for him…
One day in his second year of high school, he suddenly received a message from Qiu Cheng, who said that he was skipping classes to participate in the ROE National Challenge.
At that time, ROE had only been released for a short time, and Qiu Cheng quickly reached the top 500 in the ranked ladder, which was considered quite talented in the game. Although he did not perform well in the later national tournament and was ridiculed for "one-banning his signature move and retiring on the spot", his team still achieved a runner-up result.
Nan Zhiyi remembers Qiu Cheng excitedly telling him that he had received an invitation to train with a professional esports team! It was HYG's youth training manager who contacted him, and he might be going to play professionally in the future!
He was genuinely happy for the other person, and the two of them talked about how Qiu Cheng would eventually enter the league, join HYG's first team, and become a hot e-sports star. At that time, he would definitely ask the other person to sign a few more autographs for him... and then...
Then……
Nan Zhiyi saw Qiu Cheng again a week later.
Qiu Cheng stood at the entrance of the alley, carrying a black suitcase, looking lost and dejected.
Nan Zhiyi put down her schoolbag and ran quickly to meet him: "Why did you suddenly come back?"
Qiu Cheng stared blankly at him.
Nan Zhiyi: "You..."
“…They don’t want me,” Qiu Cheng said in a low voice, then suddenly raised his voice, “They don’t want me! They don’t want me!!”
He became agitated, slamming the box onto the ground as he spoke. The box was of poor quality and cracked, spilling clothes, shoes, socks, and water cups all over the floor.
A group of neighbors quickly gathered around to watch the commotion. Nan Zhiyi didn't dare to offer any comfort, and quickly knelt down to help him gather his scattered belongings. At that moment, Qiu Cheng slumped to the ground, looking at Nan Zhiyi, tears streaming down his face: "Why..."
Qiu Cheng quickly returned to vocational high school to continue his studies. "Playing professionally" became a small episode in his life, like a stone thrown into a river, creating ripples that then disappeared without a trace.
Later, when Nan Zhiyi came to CG's youth training base, she truly understood the meaning of the phrase "don't want me".
Everyone who comes here harbors a grand dream of making it big, only to be ruthlessly crushed by reality. Their signature class, invincible in ranked matches, suffers a ten-game losing streak in practice games… There are always people more skilled than them, and the talents they once took pride in are nothing in the eyes of those on a higher level.
Of course, this experience doesn't quite apply to Nan Zhiyi himself. After all, back when they played training matches, he and You Xin were part of the villainous camp who teamed up to crush the opposing team's young trainees' spirits with ten consecutive losses.
That was during the summer vacation of his senior year of high school. At that time, Qiu Cheng had already left the vocational high school and gone out to work.
Perhaps out of some concern for protecting her friend's self-esteem, Nan Zhiyi never mentioned to him that she had participated in the CG youth training program.
Apart from a few people from that year, almost no one knew that he once had a game ID called CG.Y.South, and they also forgot the owner of South0412, who had two shining first place rankings on the professional rankings that summer.
But now, as if by fate, his brilliant and beautiful past, like a constellation of stars, has surfaced in his memory, returning to his life along with the biggest witnesses and participants of that story.
Fate handed him a knife, urging him to sever the long-rotted, decaying friendship.
Fate also brought the person he most wanted to see back to his side.
Nan Zhiyi lay sprawled on the greasy wooden table of the barbecue stall. Through the flickering light from the swaying wine glass, he felt as if he saw someone who looked a lot like You Xin appear before him.
This is truly strange. Could it be that Heaven heard his heart's desire and summoned the person he longed for directly to him?
Nan Zhiyi wanted to confirm whether this You Xin was real.
So he reached out and grabbed the other person's clothes.
They caught the real thing.
Nan Zhiyi's mood instantly improved. He smiled.
Yu Xin, whose haute couture trench coat was grabbed by a greasy hand: "…………"
Xiao Yu, who was still holding Nan Zhiyi's phone, was completely dumbfounded.
Ten minutes ago, he noticed that Nan Zhiyi had drunk too much, and no matter how he asked, he couldn't get her home address.
He did know that the other person and Lord Qiu were roommates. But now that the Millennium Incident had happened, Xiaoyu didn't really want to contact Lord Qiu.
After thinking it over, Xiaoyu said to Nan Zhiyi's phone, "Hey Siri."
Nan Zhiyi's phone: "I'm here."
“Call your emergency contact.”
Then he watched helplessly as Nan Zhiyi's phone dialed a contact named [Lan Xin].
—And ten minutes later, he summoned yux, Xiaoyu’s favorite ROE professional player, who had watched his matches for three consecutive years and was the only god in his heart, to the scene.
"Yu, Yux, hello." Xiaoyu stammered, and for some reason even gave a perfect 90-degree bow. "It's so nice to meet you! I'm your fan!! I watch your first-person replays every day, I really love your game strategy..."
"Is he in a bad mood?" You Xin interrupted the other person's enthusiastic fandom without any politeness.
Xiaoyu was stunned for a moment before realizing what the other person was talking about: "Uh, what, Brother Yi? I don't know, he seemed to be having a good time today..."
You Xin seemed not to hear him speak, and muttered to himself, "He drinks recklessly whenever he's unhappy," before reaching out to grab the person who was starting to climb on him to prevent him from falling to the ground.
The little fish stood there, completely bewildered by the scene before it.
After a while, he suddenly remembered what he was still holding: "Oh right, this is Brother Yi's phone..."
"..." You Xin took the phone and said "thank you".
At this moment, Nan Zhiyi started trying to scratch his face again. He had no choice but to put his phone in his coat pocket, reach out and grab Nan Zhiyi's wrist, restraining the flailing woman.
Nan Zhiyi struggled for a while, but found that she could not break free from the powerful force binding her, so she had no choice but to give up in frustration.
He simply leaned against the other person, taking advantage of the force, and refused to move.
A pleasant fragrance wafted to my nose.
Nan Zhiyi couldn't help but rub against the source of the fragrance, and he mumbled, "You Xin."
You Xin: "...I'm here."
You smell so good.
Nan Zhiyi was quite drunk and was talking nonsense, completely unaware that she was saying things that would make others want to call the police.
He rested his head against the other person's chest and remained silent for a long time.
You Xin: "..."
You Xin: "A small token?"
He called out, but there was no response. This person, who had so coldly told him just hours before, "We have nothing to do with each other," was now leaning softly against him, her eyelashes quietly closed, as if she were asleep.
After a while, You Xin released his wrist and dragged him away from the barbecue stall. Before leaving, he thanked Xiao Yu, who looked a little dazed, and told him not to tell anyone what he had seen and heard that night.
-
It took You Xin several minutes to finally get Nan Zhiyi into the car completely, because Nan Zhiyi suddenly woke up before getting in and then kept trying to hug him. Her hands would go in and her feet would come out, and her feet would go in and her hands would stick to him again, like an octopus that didn't want to be put on the chopping board.
He was completely helpless with the drunkard, so he resignedly bent down to fasten his seatbelt, otherwise he was really afraid that Nan Zhiyi would climb from the back seat to the front halfway through the drive.
A pair of cold hands covered his face. Nan Zhiyi smiled and reached out to touch his face: "You're so handsome."
You Xin froze, and it took him a long time to speak: "Behave yourself."
Nan Zhiyi looked up at him, the streetlights reflecting in his eyes like stars.
"Why are you being so fierce?" he said softly, feigning fear.
You Xin stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath.
“…Don’t move,” he said. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
Nan Zhiyi was drunk, not stupid. She understood the warning in the other person's words and reluctantly withdrew her hand.
Uncle Wang in the front row seemed unfazed by this scene. He tapped the car window sill with his knuckles and asked, "Where are you going, Xiao You? Taking Zhiyi home?"
Upon hearing this, Nan Zhiyi immediately raised her right hand as if she had been called on in class: "Go home! I want to go home!"
“Go back to the hotel, Uncle Wang.” You Xin ruthlessly rejected the suggestion, closed the car door, and then got in from the other side.
The car started. You Xin sat in the middle of the back seat, and the person next to him snuggled up to him like some kind of small animal seeking warmth, whimpering, "I'm not feeling well... I want to go home."
You Xin calmly reasoned with him: "How are you going to go home like this?"
"Then have someone else pick me up."
You Xin, who was holding his phone, stopped what he was doing upon hearing this.
After a long pause, he asked, "Who should come to pick me up?"
“You can call my mom… or have Yang Wei come.” Nan Zhiyi closed her eyes and leaned against him, looking genuinely uncomfortable. “They know where I live…”
He was probably really drunk, and even brought up his close classmates from high school, completely forgetting that he was about to graduate from university.
You Xin remained silent for a while.
"Oh." His tone turned slightly cold. "You call your friends, and then expect them to be so spineless that they practically glue themselves to you on their way home?"
"What are you saying..." As if adding fuel to the fire, Nan Zhiyi reached out and hugged him again, completely forgetting that they had broken up long ago. He spoke as if in a dream, "I don't understand."
Nam Ji-yi is 175cm tall and weighs 60kg. These figures are listed in her profile on the Stars website.
For a normal adult male, moving a person of the same sex who is on the lighter side is relatively easy, but for gamers and streamers who stay at home all night playing games and don't move around much, it's a bit difficult.
Fortunately, You Xin was not one of them, and he got the person back to the hotel room without much effort.
I had just settled the person on the sofa when the phone in my pocket rang.
You Xin took it out and saw that it was Nan Zhiyi's phone. The caller's contact name was a [pigeon] emoji.
He answered the phone.
A frantic voice came from the other end: "You finally answered the phone! I was so worried! You didn't reply to my messages or answer my calls! Do you know I checked my phone after a practice match and there were zero replies? The sky was falling! Where are you? Are you home? Are you feeling alright? Don't let that crap affect you! I've seen too many of those lousy streamers. I'm going to go on Weibo and swear at them. Go ahead and fine me if you dare!"
Song Baiyu rattled off a long string of words, then realized the other end was still silent: "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"
“I can hear you,” You Xin said.
Song Baiyu: "."
Song Baiyu: "????"
“That voice… I didn’t mishear.” He said slowly, in a detective-like tone, “You’re Little Wanderer!! Right?!”
You Xin wasn't in the mood for playing a guessing game with him: "He's drunk and asleep. You can talk to him tomorrow if you need anything."
Then, just before Song Baiyu got completely excited and started to gossip explosively, he precisely cut off the call.
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Author's Note: Actually, the two of them almost always make up the very next second after an argument, faster than light (I checked and this is the only two and last time they argued in Now! [pat on the head])
There's another 10,000-word chapter today (20,000 words today!). Updates for the next three days will be at midnight. Also, there will be red envelopes dropping in the comments section!
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