Chapter 12 – Such a Good Boy.
[““Just stretching your wrists”? Yeah right, you sure about that?”]
[“Son, maybe listen to yourself and think about what kind of joke you’re telling.”]
[“Little brat, how come you didn’t move earlier or later, but just happened to “stretch your wrists” right when the enemy core was about to go down?”]
[“What have I taught you? Be honest! Admit it — were you distracted because Little Sweetie ’s voice was too cute?!”]
[“Oh hell no, don’t tell me that… Little brat, she likes Devil!!!”]
[“Don’t you dare catch feelings for her, son!”]
Qi Qiao opened the profile of that disgusting enemy jungler and casually hit the [Report ID] button.
“Stop talking and send gifts instead,” Qi Qiao said. “Nothing’s going on, so quit imagining things.”
After saying that, he returned to the party lobby and was just about to queue up again when two notifications suddenly popped onto the screen.
[D-God Little Sweetie has requested to add you as a friend —]
[D-God Little Sweetie has invited you to duo queue —]
[“Holy crap, we were literally just talking about her and now she’s here!”]
[“Son, what are you waiting for? Hurry up and accept!”]
Qi Qiao frowned slightly.
Moving the mouse, he clicked [Decline].
[“Little Sweetie fans: ???”]
[“Little brat, do you know how ridiculously hard it is to get on D-God Little Sweetie’s friends list?”]
Qi Qiao replied flatly,
“No idea. Not interested.”
[“Good, very good. What a perfect “not interested.” Once you harden your heart, you forget feelings, abandon emotions, and stop caring about life itself.”]
[“Son, you’re way too straight! Being this straight isn’t healthy!”]
[“Ahem… has anyone considered the possibility that Ghost isn’t straight and might actually be gay?”]
[“Tsk, clearly the person above isn’t an old fan. You probably don’t know about that incident from his old streams.”]
[“Exactly. Anyone who knows that incident understands our son is 100% straight, okay?”]
Qi Qiao couldn’t be bothered paying attention to chat anymore.
After giving the comments one quick glance, he lowered his head and continued eating his noodles.
Meanwhile, Wink kept rambling nonstop in voice chat.
“Honestly, I think you shouldn’t have rejected her just now. At the very least, you could’ve kept the request hanging there — especially the friend request. If you added her, the two of you could do some stream collabs later and farm a huge wave of traffic.”
“She really doesn’t add people often. Usually she only adds other streamers when a collab requires it. Even I’m not on her friends list.”
Wink clicked his tongue.
“And if I remember right, the last person she personally went out of her way to add…”
“…was Devil.”
Qi Qiao’s chopsticks paused halfway while eating.
“She added him?”
“Yeah, she did. Why wouldn’t he accept?” Wink said casually.
Qi Qiao didn’t say anything else.
He lowered his head and silently focused on finishing the last few bites of noodles.
Qi Qiao knew that Pei Ming had always had plenty of admirers.
It was just that, all these years, he had never actually seen any of them around him.
For so many years—
Not a single one.
Well… that wasn’t entirely true.
There had been one.
One he had accidentally run into himself.
Qi Qiao finished his noodles expressionlessly, picked up a tissue to wipe his mouth, and was just about to queue for the next match.
Wink suddenly spoke up.
“Hey, wait a sec. I just noticed my stream viewer count suddenly dropped by half. Let me check what’s going on.”
Qi Qiao raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
A few seconds passed.
“Holy shit, I’m ending stream. Something huge happened — something huge happened!” Wink suddenly shouted excitedly. “No wonder my viewers dropped off a cliff. I’m going to check out the chaos!”
Before Qi Qiao could even react, Wink instantly left the party.
His avatar immediately went dark, showing that he had gone offline.
Something huge…?
What could possibly be that big?
Qi Qiao glanced at his own stream.
Just moments ago, he had over 500,000 viewers online.
Now, there were only a little over 100,000 left.
Looks like something really had happened.
Following the principle of what you don’t see can’t annoy you, Qi Qiao had turned off the chat overlay while eating earlier, so there had been no way to tell what was happening in his stream.
Now he turned the chat display back on.
Hundreds of comments instantly flooded the screen.
[“OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD — girls, he went live, he went live!!!”]
[“Slow down, who went live?!”]
[“D-D-D-D GOD!!!”]
[“Holy crap, today isn’t April Fool’s Day, stop lying just to trick little brat!”]
[“I checked myself — it’s real, holy shit!”]
[“And it’s not an official event either. Devil started the stream himself. He started it himself!!!“]
[“No way… in my lifetime, I’m actually seeing Devil voluntarily stream???”]
[“Son, your dad is leaving first. I’ll come back next time and compensate you with rotten egg gifts!”]
…
Watching the dizzying flood of comments flashing across the screen, Qi Qiao confirmed one thing.
Devil had started streaming.
Professional players streaming wasn’t anything unusual in the ACR scene.
Esports wasn’t like the old days anymore, where raw skill alone mattered and players relied solely on tournament prize money.
Nowadays, clubs actively promoted and packaged their players, building up personal brands and public image.
It was common for pro players to do community matches or stream for fan engagement.
But the person streaming today wasn’t just anyone.
It was Devil.
Among all the popular professional ACR players, Devil could be considered the most unconventional by far.
Because ever since starting his pro career—
Over the last five years, he had streamed only five times.
An average of once per year.
And out of those five, three had been official obligations requested by sponsors or the league.
Qi Qiao lowered his eyes.
If he remembered correctly—the last time Pei Ming had streamed was over a year ago.
-Flashback-
Autumn had just arrived.
The weather was gradually cooling, though the lingering summer heat had not completely faded.
The daytime was still bright and pleasantly sunny.
Only at night did traces of chill begin to creep into the air.
Since Auntie wasn’t home that weekend, around ten o’clock, Qi Qiao changed into his pajamas and headed into the kitchen to warm up some milk.
The pajamas were long-sleeved.
As the fabric rubbed against his arms, it made his skin itch slightly.
Qi Qiao hated heat.
He never liked wearing long-sleeved pajamas. Even in the middle of winter, he would wear short sleeves at home whenever he could.
Normally, the house heating would be on anyway, so it wasn’t really a problem.
But he could only do that secretly whenever his brother wasn’t home.
Qi Qiao poured the warmed milk into two glass cups, then added a spoonful of honey to each before placing them on a tray.
The pajamas were making his skin itch irritatingly.
Qi Qiao folded his sleeves upward until about half of his forearms were exposed.
If it was only this much… his brother probably wouldn’t say anything.
Qi Qiao’s room was right next to his brother’s.
After setting his own cup down in his room, he headed straight toward his brother’s bedroom.
The moment he pushed the door open, he heard his brother speaking.
“Mm. Honestly, whether I stream or not doesn’t really make much difference.”
“You can see me on stage during matches anyway.”
…Streaming?
Qi Qiao froze for a second and instinctively prepared to back out and close the door again.
“Come in from the left side. You won’t appear on camera,” Pei Ming said.
Holding the glass of milk, Qi Qiao suddenly felt his palms growing slightly sweaty.
He had never seen Pei Ming stream before.
Let alone being invited into his room while he was streaming.
Still, Qi Qiao obediently carried the milk over, staying close to the far left side of the room, and carefully made his way over to sit beside Pei Ming.
The streaming setup was positioned on the left, capturing only Pei Ming in frame.
Pei Ming was currently playing a ranked match in ACR Oracle III.
At this level of top-tier high-rank play, the pace was usually extremely intense.
Unless someone intentionally threw the match, games at this rank were sometimes exciting enough to watch like professional tournaments.
But Qi Qiao noticed—
Even while playing, Pei Ming still had enough attention to spare for him.
“Why did you roll your sleeves up?” Pei Ming glanced at him and asked.
Qi Qiao silently mouthed the words: “Too hot.”
Pei Ming nodded.
“As long as you don’t catch a cold.”
Qi Qiao’s attention was quickly pulled toward the monitor.
The game had reached the 34-minute mark, and both teams were currently fighting over the Chaos Dragon.
Pei Ming’s side had already lost three teammates and fallen into an extremely unfavorable position.
First, he used Flash to create distance while stepping in front of his low-health ADC to block an ultimate for him.
Half his health bar disappeared instantly.
Then—
With one perfectly executed combo, he crowd-controlled all five enemy players at once.
Positioning himself at an incredibly tricky angle, he unleashed his ultimate and dealt devastating AoE damage.
At the exact instant all the damage landed—
He activated Frozen Heart.
[Pentakill.]
The Victory announcement sounded.
After the game ended, Pei Ming exited the ACR client.
The livestream chat immediately filled the screen.
[“Hubby, that last play was so amazing, waaah!”]
[“Devil’s skill really hasn’t declined at all after all these years. No wonder he’s still the number one player in the region.”]
[“I clipped Devil hubby’s play just now. I officially have enough spiritual sustenance for both this year and next year~”]
[“Hubby, hubby, I love you! (kiss kiss)”]
Qi Qiao stared at the flood of comments.
Without realizing it, his brows slowly furrowed.
For some reason—his chest felt a little tight.
Pei Ming turned his head to glance at him.
Then he smiled.
“You guys should stop joking around.”
“There’s a kid here. It’s not a good influence.”
Qi Qiao froze.
“And don’t you agree, little one?”
Qi Qiao looked at Pei Ming.
Although his brother wasn’t directly looking at him, there was a faint trace of amusement lingering at the corners of his eyes.
The tips of Qi Qiao’s ears turned slightly red.
In a quiet whisper, he muttered, “I’m not a little kid.”
Unfortunately—
No one was listening to his explanation.
[“Hold on… did he just say little one???”]
[“Wait a second, we completely forgot to ask who just walked in!”]
[“Help, Devil saying little one like that is way too attractive!!!”]
[“OH MY GOD somebody tell me who this little kid is???”]
“My younger brother,” Pei Ming said while reading the chat.
Then he turned his head.
“Not drinking your milk?”
Qi Qiao silently mouthed the words: “It’s for you.”
“You drink first,” Pei Ming said.
Qi Qiao obediently took a sip from the glass.
Meanwhile, Pei Ming continued chatting with the livestream.
“How old is my brother this year? Eighteen.”
“No, we’re not related by blood.”
“His pajamas are blue — the one with the little puppy design. I bought them for him.”
Qi Qiao had been holding the glass, sipping at the milk little by little.
Hearing that, he lowered his eyes and looked at the simple cartoon puppy on his pajamas, hugging a little heart.
He didn’t really like cute things.
But…
His brother had bought it for him.
So he wore it.
Pei Ming must have gotten thirsty from talking so much.
He casually reached a hand over, and Qi Qiao handed him the glass.
Qi Qiao watched as Pei Ming naturally drank from the exact same spot where he had just taken a sip moments earlier.
His face suddenly felt hot.
Pei Ming handed the glass back.
Qi Qiao took it absentmindedly, still dazed.
Then, as if possessed by something—
He unconsciously drank again from the exact spot where Pei Ming had just touched.
“Your brother is really cute…”
“Yes, he really is adorable,” Pei Ming continued casually.
Qi Qiao’s swallowing motion stiffened for a second.
The milk that had been about to go down nearly got stuck in his throat.
His brother… had just called him cute.
“Mm? The thermos of goji berry tea I brought to the tournament last time?” Pei Ming laughed softly. “That’s right. He made it for me.”
[“Ahhh… such a perfect younger brother. I want one too!”]
[“Devil, can I reserve him as my future boyfriend? I’m exactly the right age for little brother here, hehe~”]
[“Sis above, your drool is dripping on my head. I’m signing up too!”]
[“If I can’t sleep with Devil, I have to sleep with little brother instead!”]
[“Devil, are you accepting applications for a sister-in-law? Count me in, please, sob sob~”]
Pei Ming’s gaze paused slightly.
Then he let out a quiet chuckle.
His tone was calm.
“I’m afraid not.”
“He’s my little brother.”
Qi Qiao froze slightly.
When he looked up—
His eyes met Pei Ming’s directly.
Pei Ming looked at him with a half-smile.
“Wouldn’t you agree?”
Qi Qiao blankly nodded.
Satisfied, Pei Ming reached out and gently ruffled his hair.
Qi Qiao felt a faint tingling sensation run from the tips of his hair all the way down his spine.
Instinctively, he averted his gaze—
Only to hear Pei Ming let out a soft laugh.
“Such a good boy.”
— End of Flashback —
Author’s Note:
Mm… just a loving bond between brothers, a loving bond between brothers…
That’s all it is, really. (sneaky grin)