CH 10

Those comments were rapidly engulfed by the barrage. No matter how many people came to snitch, they were still no match for the enthusiasm of Road’s fans.

When the fans saw that there were people talking about some other streamer in the barrage, they were about to angrily condemn them for coming to freeload off the popularity when—

“What side account?” Lu Boyuan sat back down, gripping the empty cup.

[The side account that was cyberstalking you.]

[You all, let my son save some face, there’s so many people in this livestream room! His side account homepage is http…]

Lu Boyuan was about to click on the webpage, but the other person ended up being kicked and banned by a room moderator for sending a link.

The room mods moved too fast. Lu Boyuan scanned through the barrage again but couldn’t find the link, so he turned and asked the staff member sitting next to him, “If I jump over into another streamer’s livestream, will my video stop working?”

When Lu Boyuan entered Soft’s livestream, the other side was in the middle of investigating how to turn off the side account’s visitor access.

The youth was wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt. An elbow was propped up on the table, and he was gripping his hair, a despairing look on his face because he couldn’t find the option to private the account. “What’s wrong with this platform… I charged so much money onto that side account. Isn’t the customer God? How can you just show God’s data to anyone who wants to see it??”

[If there ever came a day when you’d treat me as your god, our father-son relationship wouldn’t be this awful.]

[Didn’t you say you were going to explain? Go ahead and explain.]

[No wonder you’re out there slandering other people every day. It turns out you’re a Road fan, in that case I can understand. All of his fans are crazy dogs.]

“Fine, I’ll explain.” Jian Rong maximized the webpage and covered up the livestream interface to the point that he didn’t even realize that the barrage had exploded.

“I’m just an ordinary fan of his, and I’ll watch his streams occasionally. If I like them, then I’ll send a gift…” At that point, Jian Rong frowned, confused.

That’s right, he was just an ordinary fan, what was there to explain?

“It’s the same as all of you coming to watch my stream. I’m just watching somebody else’s livestream, what’s the problem?” After talking himself out of it, Jian Rong’s expression also relaxed quite a bit. “Not even a girlfriend would care as much as you all do. That bored?”

Jian Rong finally found the privacy settings, and as he restricted the access, he said, “Also, even though I’m Road’s fan, nothing I say or do has anything to do with Road. Every day, you all run over to other streams to insult people while claiming to be my fans. Are you trying to make your dad bear all their grudges? Let’s not cause trouble for each other, everyone should live their own lives well, understand?”

After finishing with the settings, Jian Rong prepared himself to duke it out with his fans and closed the webpage.

There were even more comments in the barrage than he had anticipated.

But the content was somewhat different from what he was expecting.

[Dumbass, Dad helped you call over Road!!]

[Do you not know how stingy you are? It’s no problem if other people send gifts, but if you send gifts, then it’s like the sun rising from the west, pigs flying, red rain falling from the sky!]

[Road’s army has arrived—]

[Congrats darling Soft for successfully chasing after his idol!~]

[Who’s your fan? I’m your mom, you don’t have any fans, admit it to yourself already.]

Not too long ago, Soft’s female fans also used to be very lively and cute.

But because they watched Soft’s streams for too long and traded insults back and forth in the barrage with a bunch of uncouth men every day, by now they were all top-ranked sisters in Zaun1.

Usually, when Jian Rong saw female fans swearing at other people, he would say something and tell them not to use so much profanity so they wouldn’t be corrupted, but he couldn’t care less about that right now.

A certain ID on his livestream room’s money-smashing list was currently lit up.

Jian Rong’s mouth was slightly agape, and the words he was about to use to squabble with the water friends got trapped in his throat. The calm that he finally managed to regain was currently rapidly draining away.

He had just clawed his hair into a chicken’s nest, and at the moment, his entire being seemed to be a little dazed.

The barrage was in an uproar. There were people insulting him, people telling him that he had successfully freeloaded off Road’s popularity, and even people telling him to quickly welcome the boss.

Jian Rong combed a hand through his hair again and hesitantly opened his mouth after a long pause. “Welcome Road…”

[TTC ་ Road: Duo Q?]

With that, the content of the barrage unified at last as question marks completely filled the screen.

Jian Rong was startled, but his mouth moved faster than his brain. “Yes.”

“Which server? I’ll log in immediately.” After saying that, Jian Rong felt like his tone was a little too excited, and he restrained himself a bit. When Road still didn’t reply, he spoke again. “…I have an account on every server. China, Korea, Europe, I can play on any of those servers.”

[TTC ་ Road: The first server, is it still the same account as before? I’ll add you.]

Jian Rong said, “Okay.”

Road swiftly left Jian Rong’s livestream.

Half a minute later, a friend request popped up in the bottom right corner of Jian Rong’s screen.

He clicked ‘accept’ at once.

The in-game voice chat was on, and Lu Boyuan’s voice was a little distant, as if he was talking to someone beside him.

“Ge, I’m online, hurry up and invite me. I learned how to play Swain support, he’s really strong! In the lane, I can definitely burst down the enemy…” Xiao Bai paused and looked over doubtfully. “Ge, why is your lobby full?”

“Someone came last minute.” Lu Boyuan said, “Go play with Qian-ge first for a while.”

Xiao Bai: “??”

His eyes were wide. “Who came? Is he as awesome as I am? Ge, you better think this over carefully. Right now you’re Diamond 4, if you lose two more games you’ll drop to Platinum. For one of the members of the world’s top four teams to be Platinum ranked, does that even make sense???”

Pine interjected coolly, “If he queues with you, never mind Platinum, he’ll be rushing straight towards Gold.”

“What BS!” Xiao Bai asked, “Ge, who in the world came?”

“A little fan.” Lu Boyuan said, “He sent me many gifts, so I’ll play a few games with him.”

Jian Rong: “…”

With a stiff expression, Jian Rong chose his roles and turned a blind eye to the barrage’s ridicule.

Xiao Bai was also stunned. How much money would a gift have to cost for his ge to attach importance to it?

A few seconds later, he asked carefully, “How much money did that fan send you?”

“Don’t know.” Lu Boyuan seemed to remember something, and he chuckled. “Apparently, in total it’s enough to buy an illegal internet cafe?”

Xiao Bai: “?”

Jian Rong: “………??”

Jian Rong didn’t even need to think to know that it was some story his fans cooked up.

He turned off his in-game mic and coldly spat out, “…next time, can you all say something a little more high quality? Grow up.”

Xiao Bai finally shut his mouth, and a momentary silence descended in the voice chat.

“Yesterday you left too quickly, so I didn’t have a chance to ask.” Lu Boyuan suddenly spoke. “Did you get injured?”

A few seconds passed before Jian Rong realized that the question was directed at him.

“I didn’t.” Jian Rong said, “No injuries.”

Lu Boyuan let out an “en.”

For some reason, Jian Rong suddenly recalled Lu Boyuan’s sweater. He licked his lips. “I couldn’t find my footing at the time. When I crashed into you, did it hurt at…”

“It didn’t. You’re very light.” Lu Boyuan interrupted him. “You’re playing fill?”

Jian Rong: “…en.”

The second role that Jian Rong selected was fill, meaning that he would fill in for whatever role was missing in their match. To him, if it wasn’t mid, all the other roles were pretty much the same.

The rank was low, so they got matched into a game very fast.

Jian Rong took a glance at the role distribution. Road got jungler, and he was filling in as support.

Jian Rong was the last to pick. As soon as the ADC in the team finished choosing his champion, he started to type in the chat.

[Only Love Xiao Qian: Does support know how to play Yuumi?]

Jian Rong’s brows wrinkled.

Yuumi was a champion that was fairly popular in professional competitions and tested her teammates’ coordination to the max. Usually, very few people played her in ranked.

After all, Yuumi had to be attached to her teammates most of the time, and if you met someone who didn’t know how to play her, it would be the same as tethering yourself to a useless AFKer. Moreover, she was also a glass cannon and would easily die if left alone. Jian Rong felt that playing this champion was the same as just AFKing2.

Without waiting for Jian Rong to reply, the ADC sent another line.

[Only Love Xiao Qian: Pick Yuumi, fast.]

Jian Rong sneered and typed: Did I come to play a game or did I come to serve you? Get lost.

Right before Jian Rong hit send, the sound of a cup being set down traveled through his headphones.

Jian Rong slammed on the brakes just in time, moving his finger from the enter key to the backspace key, deleting all the words that he had just typed out.

[Just Watch My Gameplay: Okay.]

Jian Rong picked Yuumi.

[???]

[You don’t even curse out this kind of dumbass? I’m really looking down on you.]

Jian Rong ignored the barrage and jumped onto the ADC the moment he entered the game, beginning his endless AFK journey.

Unexpectedly, not only was this ADC quite controlling, he was also extremely trash.

By the time he let the third siege minion slip away, Jian Rong finally couldn’t bear it anymore.

He typed: Are these siege minions related to your ancestors? Don’t have the heart to kill them?

But what he sent out was—[Just Watch My Gameplay: Jiayou, don’t let any more minions slip through, okay?]

The ADC was ganked twice in a row by the enemy before he accused Jian Rong of not protecting him well.

Jian Rong typed: Even if laozi gathered all the cows on the prairie there wouldn’t be enough milk3 to keep you alive.

What he sent out was—[Just Watch My Gameplay: My apologies, don’t get ganked anymore either, okay?]

The ADC was solo killed by the enemy, and he once again interrogated Jian Rong about why he wasn’t at his side.

Jian Rong typed: Even if laozi bought ten pairs of shoes it wouldn’t be enough to keep up with the speed at which you die.

What he sent out was—[Just Watch My Gameplay: My fault, next time wait until I get there before fighting with them, okay?]

Jian Rong swallowed his anger for twenty minutes before he finally exploded after the top lane’s Teemo spoke.

[Xiao Qian: Support, are you a woman?]

[Just Watch My Gameplay: ??]

[Xiao Qian: Why on earth are you speaking so coyly when you talk to my husband? Can’t you see our IDs?]

Jian Rong never thought that he would be associated with the word “coy” in this lifetime.

Before he could free himself from the shock, the top laner sent something else.

[Xiao Qian: Get off of my husband]

Dammit.

If it wasn’t for the fact that this champion has no choice but to stay attached to a teammate, I would have long since abandoned your husband’s corpse in the fucking wilderness.

Jian Rong already felt extremely stifled after being forced to support a noob, so now, he instantly blew up on the spot.

Jian Rong stood inside his base, and the speed at which he typed grew several times faster than before.

“No way no way your husband is already this level of trash yet you’re still worried there are girls in this game who want to hook up with him? If this kind of junk was tossed into the Bronze ranks even the girls there would pinch their nose and tell him to stay away from them right? Also how do you have the nerve to pull out and play this Teemo of yours with a 20% win rate? You two should just hold a husband and wife duo master chef competition4 in the bot lane together—”

With a whoosh, their team’s jungler, Camille, appeared in the base.

“Little kitty5.” The man who had been playing the game quietly the entire time suddenly spoke up in the voice chat.

Jian Rong subconsciously responded: “Here!”

Lu Boyuan laughed very lightly. “Come onto me6.”

“…”

Jian Rong’s throat bobbed, and he expressionlessly deleted the long string of abuse he had typed out in the chat before he swiftly hit a skill and flew onto Road. “…oh.”

Zaun is the second China Telecom server for LoL. As far as I can tell, there’s a Chinese meme about Zaun players all being trash-talking trolls, but in general being a “Zaun player” is just associated with being very good at insulting and flaming others ^In case it’s not clear, Yuumi literally attaches herself to an ally, which is why it feels like AFKing ^In Chinese, they refer to heals as “milk” lol ^I think master chef competition is in reference to the fact that “trash/noob” in Chinese is 菜, which also means “food dish/veggie.” So basically he’s saying that they might as well have a noob party in the bottom lane. Needless to say, Jian Rong is really very creative LOL ^Yuumi is, in fact, a little kitty. They actually call her “kitty” in Chinese, not Yuumi (see pic below) ^

In case anyone’s curious, what he actually says here is “到我身上来”, or literally “come onto my body” more or less. It sounds a lot more awkward in English, so I’ve just left it as “come onto me,” but it’s what they’ve been using this whole time to refer to Yuumi sticking to her teammates. Though LBY makes it sound a lot more flirtatious lmao ^

Yan: Jian Rong is sooo cute in this chapter, I can’t. I love all his crazy flaming even if he holds himself back to pretend and be a good child. Also LBY calling him lil kitty hehe