Chapter 3 – Face to face?
[“???”]
[“You’re streaming?!”]
[“Woc, this little bastard still dares to stream!”]
[“Yo, decided to come back to the gaming category today?”]
[“Damn, you green-haired idiot, does this count as an apology?!”]
[“Kid, do you even realize what time it is?”]
Qi Qiao opened a cup of Master Kong Braised Beef Noodles. After pouring in the hot water, he launched the game client.
“What’s wrong with streaming at this hour?” Qi Qiao glanced at the time displayed at the bottom of his monitor. “The 996 crowd hasn’t even gotten off work yet.”
[“Have you no shame? Are you apologizing or stirring shit up?”]
[“No, wait—you posted that stupid apology less than two hours ago, didn’t you?!”]
Qi Qiao pressed his lips together slightly, his expression unreadable.
“What does apologizing have to do with me streaming?”
[“Nothing… but still!”]
[“Can you stop streaming and disgusting people? After seeing that apology, I seriously wanted to crawl through the internet cable and skin you alive!”]
[“Did your dad teach you that this is how you apologize to people?!”]
Qi Qiao stared at the screen. Two minutes later, he pulled the plastic fork out of the noodle cup.
“Isn’t sincerity the most important part of an apology? I’ve already shown my sincerity.”
[“Lmao. Kid, maybe go take a look at Weibo’s trending topics?”]
Qi Qiao slurped up two bites of noodles without saying anything.
There was no need to check Weibo trends.
For the past two hours, he had been staring at the account Azure TV [Faith-Devil], waiting for any kind of response.
Nothing.
The truth was, Qi Qiao had his own selfish motives for doing all this.
He figured the Devil account was an official account.
After all, it only had three uploaded videos and wasn’t following anyone.
So Devil probably wouldn’t care about something like this.
Just like over the past three months of his own streaming career—he had already gained over five hundred thousand followers in such a short time, and Devil had never once come looking for him.
Qi Qiao took a sip of water.
There wasn’t even any chili seasoning in the noodles.
So why was it still so spicy?
It stung so badly that tears were almost forced out of his eyes.
[“I’m telling you, this trash talker is just farming clout. Give him an apology pole and he’ll climb straight up it.”]
[“Can the haters shut up? Our little brat has never apologized to anyone before. This is his first time apologizing with a video—that’s already pretty sincere, okay?”]
To be fair, the only strange part was the content of the apology video itself.
Everything Qi Qiao had said in it had sounded genuinely sincere.
So for a while, people genuinely couldn’t figure out whether he was seriously apologizing or intentionally stirring up trouble.
Opinions were split.
Qi Qiao ignored the chat. After finishing half the cup of noodles, he wiped his mouth with a tissue and queued up for ranked.
[“666, brat, you’re seriously still in the mood to play ranked?!”]
[“Stop playing already. Listen to your dad for once and go check Weibo!”]
[“Quit the game while you still can. Trash talkers deserve to die!”]
Qi Qiao turned off the chat overlay and locked in Frigga.
A high-burst hero with heavy mana consumption and difficult mechanics during the early-to-mid game.
That kind of hero had always been Qi Qiao’s specialty.
Maybe because he was irritated, he played especially aggressively this round.
He repeatedly invaded the enemy jungler’s territory, hunting them down over and over.
Less than fifteen minutes into the match, the enemy jungler had already been killed by Qi Qiao four times.
After completely clearing out the enemy jungle, Qi Qiao’s gold lead had already become terrifying.
Before the random Oracle Event could even trigger, Qi Qiao led his team to win a team fight at the dragon pit, then pushed straight through in one wave and destroyed the Mid Court Tree.
As the sound of [Victory] rang out, Qi Qiao turned his chat overlay back on, only to find that it had already become a full-scale battlefield between haters and his fans.
There were now over three hundred thousand viewers in the stream.
Even the moderators couldn’t ban people fast enough.
[“Trash talker, quit the game already. Go back to the furnace and learn how to be a decent human first.”]
[“The guy above clearly wasn’t born from a furnace either, out here causing chaos everywhere~”]
[“Stop playing this game already, foul mouth!”]
[“If you’re so good, then you go compete professionally, cripple!”]
[“Stop playing for a second, little brat. Can you check Weibo already?”]
Qi Qiao hadn’t really planned on grinding ACR much today anyway.
The only reason he was streaming was because he happened to be on break—might as well stream rather than let the free time go to waste.
As for the apology incident…
Since the other party clearly didn’t care, he didn’t really care either.
Qi Qiao didn’t queue for another ranked match.
Instead, he exited the ACR game client and opened his browser.
Just as everyone in the stream assumed he was finally about to check Weibo—and the arguments in chat were escalating further—
something absolutely shocking happened.
Qi Qiao casually clicked through his browser history with practiced familiarity…
…and opened a game on 4399 Game Platform.
The screen was covered in shades of blue.
Three hamburgers were scattered beside the green “Start Game” button.
After skillfully loading his save file, cheerful background music began playing, and a black-capped employee stood smiling brightly in front of the glass shop door.
The moderators were still frantically banning people when they suddenly realized—
the stream chat had gone silent.
Then countless question marks began flooding the screen.
[“?”]
[“?”]
[“?”]
[“P… Papa’s Burgeria?”]
[“Wait, Day 1021?!”]
[“Holy shit, you trash talker are actually pretty damn persistent.”]
Qi Qiao lazily raised his eyes.
“Didn’t you all tell me not to play ACR anymore?”
[“Son, Daddy told you not to play that, not this!”]
[“Turn it off! Turn it off! We’re not playing this one either!”]
Qi Qiao raised an eyebrow.
After making the first customer’s burger, he saved the game and exited.
“Alright. I spoil my fans. I’ll listen to you.”
Just as all the “daddies” in chat were wondering why their usual foul-mouthed little menace—who normally insulted everything from heaven to earth to the air itself—was being so obedient today—
Qi Qiao clicked open the pink icon below.
Papa’s Freezeria.
The business had reached Day 1032.
Including the moderators, the entire stream fell into a strange, eerie silence.
[“…Speechless. Damn.”]
[“Speechless.”]
[“+1”]
[“+1”]
…
Qi Qiao casually swept his gaze over the chat.
At the same time, he unwrapped a lychee-flavored lollipop and stuck it into his mouth.
“Stop being quiet.”
“If you don’t erupt in silence, then you perish in silence.”
“I’m worried if you guys stay silent any longer, you’ll spontaneously combust at home. Don’t make life harder for the firefighters, okay?”
Bang was woken up by a burst of urgent ringing.
He had originally planned to sleep early last night, but because of the Ghost incident, things had dragged on longer than expected. He also had some things to deal with this morning, so he decided to make up for it with a nice long afternoon nap.
Who knew he’d sleep straight through until seven o’clock.
Still half-asleep, he picked up the call.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
“Check the message I sent you on WeChat, then get to the youth training base and catch him immediately!!!”
The other end hung up with a sharp click.
The moment Bang recognized it was the team manager, most of his drowsiness vanished.
And when he heard the words “youth training base,” his heart skipped a beat.
He quickly opened WeChat and found a long chain of unread messages.
The manager’s message was pinned at the top.
It was a video.
The apology video Ghost had promised last night.
He tapped play.
“Just like this—hit like, comment, subscribe, and follow.”
“If you’re able to, you can also send a donation.”
“I can’t afford to do that right now, but once I have money, I’ll make up for it.”
…
Bang felt like his heartbeat had abruptly stopped.
Exiting the video, he noticed an @ mention notification in the group chat below the manager’s message.
A far worse premonition suddenly rose inside him.
Group Chat — Worse Than Beasts
[Faith – Devil] : @Universe’s Most Handsome Bang, tomorrow at 1:30 PM, come for a scrim match with the youth training team. I’ll be leading the squad over personally.
The heart he’d been desperately holding together finally died.
“Ghost, you bastard—!”
He jumped out of bed, shoved on his shoes, and bolted out the door.
Outside, Wink nearly collided headfirst with Bang.
Wink had gotten to know the Monster main roster’s ADC through streaming before, and the two were pretty familiar with each other.
He had come over to ask about something, but the layout of the Monster villa was completely different from their own training base.
He’d gotten lost and almost entered the wrong room.
Wink stared blankly at Bang’s retreating figure, who looked like he was about to sprint off and save the entire world.
Then he suddenly processed what Bang had just shouted.
He immediately pulled out his phone and sent a WeChat message.
[“Fine. You’ve lost me. Former fan turned hater, thanks.”]
[“666. Little hater, let’s roast him together.”]
[“You useless child!!! You’re even trash-talking your own father and mother?!”]
Qi Qiao had just indiscriminately massacred both his fans and haters in chat and was feeling pretty pleased with himself when his phone suddenly rang.
He lowered his head.
A new WeChat notification had appeared on the lock screen.
[Wink] : Run, little brother! Your captain is carrying an eighty-meter broadsword and coming to arrest you!
Qi Qiao froze.
Truthfully, he had never cared much about internet trolls and keyboard warriors.
His mentality was rock solid.
But dealing with someone like Bang—someone who nagged like a parent and genuinely worried about people—was a completely different matter.
After thinking for exactly 0.2 seconds…
Qi Qiao made his decision at lightning speed.
“Ahem… That’s it for today’s stream. I’m ending it here.”
Qi Qiao gave two token coughs and was just about to ignore all the [“You’ve lost me”] messages flooding the chat and shut off the stream.
Just as he moved to click the X, a sharp ding notification sounded from his computer.
Qi Qiao froze for a second, not quite processing what had happened.
Then a huge notification appeared across the livestream page—
[Azure TV Faith-Devil has followed you]
Azure TV had a particular feature.
When ordinary users followed a streamer, the streamer wouldn’t receive a notification—only the backend follower count would quietly increase.
But if an official account or a major streamer followed someone, the person being followed would receive an alert no matter what they were doing.
[“?”]
[“?”]
[“The fossil account came back to life?”]
[“Holy shit, so it isn’t an official account?”]
While Qi Qiao was still completely dumbfounded, the system sent another notification:
[Azure TV Faith-Devil has sent you a private message. Click to view.]
His hand suddenly trembled.
Click.
The mouse instantly pressed into the message window.
The previously clean, empty DM interface now had a new message sitting there.
Faith-Devil: [Face to face?]