Chapter 36 – Official Joining Announcement
Because Qi Qiao had ended his livestream so quickly the night before, and because the audio from Pei Ming’s phone had been picked up through the stream microphone and wasn’t very clear, the incident didn’t cause a huge uproar. As planned, both Faith and Monster released their official announcements at noon.
[Faith Official Club: Welcome Ghost to Team Faith! Let’s fight side by side in the Arcana S8 season! @Ghost]
At exactly 12:00 p.m., Qi Qiao posted the official announcement Rong Qing had prepared for him.
[Ghost: I’m delighted to be joining Faith for the journey ahead. I’ll be competing as Faith’s starting mid laner in the Arcana S8 season. Thank you for having me. @Faith Official Club]
After posting it, Qi Qiao promptly followed Rong Qing’s instructions and changed his in-game ID.
The once simple “Ghost” now had Faith— in front of it.
Qi Qiao stared at Faith-Ghost for a long time.
It wasn’t until Jiang Jiang sat down beside him that he snapped out of it.
“Xiao Qiao, I tagged you in my welcome post! Come interact with me!”
Only then did Qi Qiao come back to his senses.
“Okay.”
For some reason, he felt a quiet sense of emotion welling up inside him.
It was just like when he had first met Pei Ming at the age of twelve.
Back then, he had thought he would have to face everything alone for the rest of his life.
He had never expected to find a home.
And now it was the same.
His ID had gained the prefix of a team, and there were people welcoming him.
It felt as though he had found somewhere he truly belonged.
Qi Qiao opened his notifications and, with a hint of excitement, tapped on the post where Jiang Jiang had tagged him.
[Faith-Jiang Jiang: Hehehe! I’m finally not the youngest on the team anymore! Starting today, I’m Ghost’s gege! @Faith—Ghost]
The hottest reply underneath read:
[(Reply) Ghost’s Sugar Daddy from Zhejiang: Jiang-baby, are you sure you want to replace the little brat as my precious son?]
[(Reply) Faith—Jiang Jiang: Yes, yes! Dad, send me a Brilliant Galaxy! (starry eyes) (starry eyes)]
Qi Qiao: “…”
“So… you’re going to be my brother?”
The corner of Qi Qiao’s mouth twitched.
He took several deep breaths, trying hard to keep his expression unchanged.
Jiang Jiang was still enthusiastically replying to comments on Weibo. Hearing the question, he finally looked up at Qi Qiao.
“I’m older than you…?”
“So?”
Qi Qiao asked.
“…Can’t I be your brother?”
Qi Qiao took a deep breath, just about to answer—
when a voice suddenly came from behind him.
“No.”
Jiang Jiang turned around in surprise.
Pei Ming was standing behind them, holding a cup of water. No one knew when he had walked over.
Jiang Jiang opened his mouth.
Seeing that Pei Ming was looking only at him with an unreadable expression, all the words that had reached his lips were swallowed back down.
In the end, he could only stammer, “W-Why not?”
Pei Ming took a sip of water before replying calmly,
“Mhm. No particular reason.”
After saying that, Pei Ming didn’t add another word. Carrying his glass of water, he simply walked back to his seat.
Jiang Jiang stared after him with wide eyes, spread his hands helplessly, then shook his head before lowering his voice and saying to Qi Qiao, “The captain’s like that sometimes. Totally out of nowhere.”
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Jiang folded his arms and clicked his tongue.
“I bet it was because I called myself your brother. Must’ve struck a nerve. His little brother running away from home has nothing to do with us, right, Xiao Qiao?”
Qi Qiao: “…”
Jiang Jiang had been about to complain a little more when he suddenly watched Qi Qiao stand up, drag his gaming chair over, and position it more than a meter away from him.
Jiang Jiang’s jaw dropped.
“…?”
Only after Jiang Jiang finally gave up trying to talk to him did Qi Qiao relax.
He went through Jiang Jiang’s, Ink’s, A-Kai’s, and Faith Club’s welcome posts one by one, liking, commenting, and reposting each of them.
Only then did he let out a breath and open Pei Ming’s Weibo page.
The very first post at the top read: [Welcome. Looking forward to working with you. Keep it up. @Faith-Ghost]
Although it was shorter than everyone else’s welcome message, Qi Qiao still felt as though something had gently struck his heart, filling his chest with warmth.
He gave the post a like.
Then, as before, he reposted it.
Only this time, his movements were noticeably slower.
Pei Ming rarely posted on Weibo.
But whenever he did, the posts would attract countless likes and comments.
This one was no exception.
Seeing the enormous number of replies beneath the post, Qi Qiao hesitated for a moment before tapping into the comments.
The comment sections under everyone else’s welcome posts hadn’t been anything special.
While browsing them earlier, he’d seen a fair number of hateful comments, but he hadn’t paid them much mind.
After all, he had plenty of haters himself.
But this time was different.
This was Pei Ming’s post.
Qi Qiao cared a great deal about what Pei Ming’s fans thought of him.
He opened the comment section, feeling slightly nervous.
Fortunately, the top comments were all congratulating him and welcoming him to the team.
But as he scrolled farther down, it became a battlefield.
Fans from all sides were arguing with each other.
The longest reply thread started with this comment:
[(Reply) YX Likes Green Tea: Wuwuwu, D-God, you’re so pitiful. You and Ghost clearly don’t get along, yet Faith still signed him. I honestly don’t know what they’re thinking. D-God, why don’t you consider transferring next season instead?]
[(Reply) Ghost’s Precious Son: Sis, are you okay? Since when have Ghost and D-God had a bad relationship? (speechless)]
[(Reply) YX Likes Green Tea: Of course Ghost’s fans would try to spin it that way. Ghost literally said those things about D-God on stream—there’s video proof, okay? Boo hoo… I just want D-God to have a better future. How have I offended you people?]
[(Reply) Blind as a Bat: Uh… I thought everything Ghost said on stream was pretty normal. Besides, he’s never made any videos targeting Devil. Personally, I think their relationship is at least… perfectly normal.]
[(Reply) Act Like: If you’re blind, then stop talking. If they don’t get along, they don’t get along. Isn’t that obvious? Seriously.]
[(Reply) Ghost’s Rich Mom from Guangdong: They don’t get along? Then why did Devil spend several Brilliant Galaxies on our little brat? And even if they don’t get along, so what? Our little brat can still win on skill alone!]
[(Reply) YX Likes Green Tea: Ah… but I don’t really see where that “skill” is.]
Seeing so many comments insisting that they “didn’t get along,” Qi Qiao frowned slightly.
He was just about to switch to his alternate account and argue back when another new comment popped up.
[(Reply) Devil Is My Life: Exactly. It’s not like we haven’t all seen Ghost’s ridiculous antics. Every single time, he’s just riding D-God’s popularity, okay? Like that giveaway before—why did he have to butt in? D-God invited him to duo queue, and he wouldn’t even join. Isn’t that just stringing him along?]
Qi Qiao’s finger paused just as he was about to switch accounts.
Unconsciously, he bit his lower lip.
That…
He really didn’t know how to respond to that one.
Qi Qiao remembered how conflicted he’d been back then.
In fact, he was still conflicted now.
Not unless he got to the bottom of what had happened a year ago.
He remembered every single word Pei Ming had said to him yesterday.
But actually standing in front of Pei Ming and asking him everything…
Putting aside the fact that his own identity made things complicated, just considering the state of their relationship now…
Qi Qiao let out a silent sigh.
Forget it.
He’d take it one step at a time.
At the very least, he’d wait until the Spring Split.
Once he was ready…
Then he’d ask.
The comment section was getting more and more irritating to read.
Qi Qiao decided to close it.
But just as he was about to tap the X, he suddenly noticed that the latest post on Pei Ming’s Weibo had changed.
[Faith-Devil: Ghost is an excellent player. I was the one who recommended him to Faith. If you question him, then you’re questioning my judgment as well. As for riding someone’s popularity—you can just assume I’m the one riding his.]
Qi Qiao stared at the post for a long time, unable to react.
Only after a while did he rub his face.
Suddenly…
he felt confident enough to log onto his alternate account and argue with those haters again.
…
At two o’clock that afternoon.
Rong Qing had already gone over the plan the day before.
Since it was Qi Qiao’s official debut as a Faith player, it would be best if all five members streamed a five-stack together.
No one had any objections.
Well…
Except for Pei Ming, who thought streaming was too much trouble and refused to go live.
The other four all started their streams.
Worried that trolls or paid anti-fans might stir up trouble, Rong Qing contacted Azure TV in advance and arranged for extra moderators in all four Faith members’ streams—especially Qi Qiao’s.
Only then did he feel at ease enough to let them go live.
Although Qi Qiao’s stream reservation page had only gone up at noon that day, by the time the stream was about to begin, more than 500,000 people had already reserved it—
a number he had never reached before.
The moment he went live, viewers flooded into the stream.
In less than a minute, the viewer count had already surpassed 600,000.
[“Little brat, care to explain?”]
[“Son, what have you been doing behind our backs? You just joined Faith like that?!】
[“Yo, [Faith-Ghost]! You’ve already got the team tag on your ID!”]
[“Weren’t you a Monster player before??? I was offline for half a day, and suddenly you’re with Faith? Am I still dreaming?”]
[“Pfft hahaha! Did you guys check Weibo? It’s been trending at No. 10 since noon. It’s probably still there.”]
[“It does feel surreal, but we’d already guessed it a few days ago. With the little brat’s personality, if he could be on the same team as Jiang Jiang—the guy he used to flame—and everyone gets along so well… then something would’ve been seriously fishy. (doge)”]
Jiang Jiang had just finished joking around with his own viewers before switching over to Qi Qiao’s stream to enjoy the chaos.
Instead, he was caught off guard by that comment.
Annoyed, he turned on team voice chat.
“Hey! You there in chat, what are you talking about? Just because Ghost flamed me before doesn’t mean we can’t be teammates! I even call him Xiao Qiao now. Can… you… guys… do… that?”
Professional players’ real names had to be registered with the league, which used a real-name registration system. Every season, the official roster announcements listed each player’s real name alongside their in-game ID. Besides, Qi Qiao had mentioned his real name before, so it wasn’t exactly a secret.
[“Holy crap, Xiao Qiao?! Son, you’re actually letting someone call you that now?!”]
[“Tsk, tsk. Looks like Noble Consort Jiang is finally replacing Empress Win!”]
Before Qi Qiao even had a chance to speak, Jiang Jiang had already dragged him into the joke.
Now that there was no longer any need to hide the fact that he was with Faith, Qi Qiao simply pushed off with one foot, rolled his gaming chair over to Jiang Jiang, and smacked him lightly on the head with his knuckles.
Caught completely off guard, Jiang Jiang yelped.
“Ow!”
The chat instantly exploded with laughter.
[“Alright, looks like the little brat is restoring Empress Win’s rightful status. Sigh… Noble Consort Jiang will never be anything more than a noble consort.”]
Qi Qiao: “…”
Expressionless, Qi Qiao rolled his chair back to his own desk.
He was just about to warn the chat that anyone who mentioned “Noble Consort” or “Empress” again would receive a complimentary 30-day timeout—
when the screen suddenly exploded with gift effects.
[Faith-Devil has sent you ×1 Brilliant Galaxy]
[Faith-Devil has sent you ×1 Brilliant Galaxy]
[Faith-Devil has sent you ×1 Brilliant Galaxy]
…
Qi Qiao stared blankly as the Brilliant Galaxy animation continued—
until the tenth one finally finished.
Even the livestream chat fell silent for a moment.
Only after a long pause did new comments begin to appear.
[“Holy crap! Devil’s so generous!”]
[“Good grief… He just casually dropped 200,000 yuan?!”]
[“Honest question: Do all new Faith players get this kind of treatment? Two hundred thousand yuan???”]
[“Pfft. Only Ghost does, okay? Jiang Jiang only got one Brilliant Galaxy when he joined. Hahaha.”]
…
Qi Qiao watched the chat fly by for quite a while before remembering he was supposed to thank the sender.
“Thank you, De—”
Just as the word “Devil” was about to leave his mouth, Jiang Jiang suddenly kicked the leg of his gaming chair.
Qi Qiao turned his head and saw Jiang Jiang silently mouthing two words: “Captain.”
Qi Qiao hesitated for a second before changing what he was about to say.
“Thank you… Captain, for the ten Brilliant Galaxies.”
“Mhm. You’re welcome.”
Pei Ming’s voice suddenly came through Qi Qiao’s headset.
[“Whoa! Hearing D-God on voice chat outside of a match—this is a first!”]
[“D-God’s voice hits all my buttons as always. Please talk more! I need material for tonight’s dreams”]
Qi Qiao looked at the increasingly unhinged comments flooding his chat.
He wanted to warn them to behave—
but then he heard Pei Ming casually chatting with the viewers in his stream through voice chat.
“You want me to talk more? Sure.”
“Why don’t I stream? Because streaming is a bit of a hassle. You can see me just fine in Ghost’s stream.”
Qi Qiao pretended not to be listening.
Then, out of nowhere, he heard Pei Ming say—
“Did he get his scarf back?”
His tone seemed to lift ever so slightly.
“He did.”
“And you’re asking where he got it back?”
Qi Qiao’s ears perked up instinctively.
His heartbeat suddenly sped up.
“My room.”
Pei Ming seemed to let out a soft chuckle.
After a brief pause, he added,
“Late at night.”
Author’s Note:
Jiang Jiang: Huh? Your room? Late at night? Care to elaborate???