Chapter 29 – A Long Time Ago
When Shi Cha woke up and checked Weibo, seeing that post felt like a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head — it chilled him to the bone.
The whole situation began when the LinShi CP and Linyao CP started arguing online. Neither side was willing to back down, and both began digging into details to prove that their CP was the real one.
Fortunately, the argument was contained within the two super topics and didn’t attract much annoyance from other netizens.
Among the fans of both CPs, people began listing the strengths of Cun Yao and Shi Cha, and arguing over who was more compatible with Lin Ran.
Even though it wasn’t up to them to decide who was a better match, that didn’t stop them from wanting to outshine the opposing CP by using every advantage they could find.
At this point, things were already starting to get out of hand.
Then something even more absurd happened.
A particularly sharp-eyed fan happened to ship both CPs.
Unlike other fans who attacked either Shi Cha or Cun Yao, this person compiled a list of similarities between the two.
Two items stood out: first, both Shi Cha and Cun Yao could play jungle, and neither was weak at it.
Although Shi Cha used a Bronze-level account on the variety show, anyone who watched it could guess that it was a smurf account.
What’s more, this fan even consulted a professional esports coach to analyze the jungle heroes used by Shi Cha and Cun Yao.
From play style, starting routes, to overall game control — in every aspect — the two showed a remarkable degree of similarity.
If one of them were a professional player, you might think the other was copying them. But neither of them was well-known, and Cun Yao had only streamed for three months. It seemed impossible for Shi Cha to have watched those few months of livestreams and learned to mimic him so closely.
Aside from gaming, another common trait was their vocal ability.
Shi Cha had graduated from A University’s voice acting program and even dubbed ten different characters in French during the show.
Cun Yao’s academic background couldn’t be found online, but judging from his livestreams, although he never dubbed in foreign languages like Shi Cha did, according to data-savvy fans who went through all of Cun Yao’s stream recordings, he had used over 20 distinct voice styles.
Cun Yao was just a relatively unknown voice streamer, and before meeting Lin Ran, he didn’t have much popularity. But even so, one had to admit that his level of skill was not something the average voice actor could match.
His voice had clearly undergone formal learning and training.
If the two of them were actually the same person, that would explain everything.
However, some people did question the conclusions of this sharp-eyed fan.
Shi Cha and Cun Yao sounded quite different in everyday speech. One had a cold and clear voice, while the other had the bright, cheerful tone of a lively young man.
But this sharp-eyed fan lived up to his reputation. He pointed out that since both Shi Cha and Cun Yao were capable of disguising their voices, then the voices everyone heard and assumed were their real ones—were they really?
He then went on to extract the ten voice clips Shi Cha had dubbed on the show, and matched them with similar-sounding clips from Cun Yao’s recorded livestreams, conducting a professional comparison between them.
This analysis covered pronunciation habits, pausing patterns, frequency, and various other factors. Using the latest voice identification technology, he produced an incredibly thorough evaluation.
To prevent anyone from questioning his credibility, he even presented an official professional voice identification report.
The result: a 90% similarity between their voices!
This revelation shocked the entire online crowd.
Even the CP fans who had been arguing fiercely were dumbfounded.
The first question that came to everyone’s mind was: both Shi Cha and Cun Yao had contact with Lin Ran—so did Lin Ran know that these two were actually the same person?
While the CP fans were still in shock, Lin Ran’s fanbase completely exploded.
One after another, they came forward to accuse Shi Cha of being a scumbag who toyed with Lin Ran’s feelings.
People couldn’t find Shi Cha’s Weibo, and streamer Cun Yao didn’t have a Weibo account at all. So everyone rushed en masse to Shi Cha’s livestream room to demand answers.
But since Shi Cha wasn’t live at the time, they redirected their fury to the comment sections under his uploaded videos.
They demanded that he come out and explain himself.
Some even went so far as to post on A University’s student forum, calling for Shi Cha to publicly apologize.
A tidal wave of messages hit Shi Cha like a sledgehammer, leaving him completely stunned.
New messages kept popping up nonstop in the class WeChat group:
[Is that streamer called Cun Yao really Xiao Shi? I feel like they give off totally different vibes. Everyone knows Xiao Shi is cold and introverted. Outside of class, he barely talks to anyone. I’ve spoken to him maybe five times in our four years of college.]
[Exactly! Their styles are completely different. I just watched some of Cun Yao’s old streams — he’s this adorable, outgoing guy with major social butterfly energy. How could he possibly be Xiao Shi?]
[You clearly didn’t watch the full voice comparison video. Honestly, I didn’t believe it at first either, but now it seems almost certain — Shi Cha is Cun Yao.]
[@Du Yan, you’re close with Shi Cha, right? You must know the truth. Say something!]
[…]
Most people in the class weren’t particularly close to Shi Cha, but Du Yan, known as the class’s “social butterfly,” had always been well-connected. So everyone started tagging him in the group chat, hoping he would speak up and explain what was really going on.
Why did Shi Cha have to be so secretive about becoming a streamer?
And now, he was even being labeled as a scumbag who played with someone’s feelings.
At this moment, Du Yan wasn’t in City A either. Because of a project, he had traveled to City G.
Naturally, he’d heard the news as well. But no matter how many times he called, Shi Cha didn’t respond at all.
…
Right now, Shi Cha was sitting on the windowsill, hugging his knees, his chin resting against them as he stared out at the scenery.
The glow of the setting sun shone through the glass window, casting light across his face, but it wasn’t enough to make out his expression.
Outside, the streetlights had already turned on early, and he could see pedestrians hurrying by.
His brows were lowered, eyes downcast. He didn’t move an inch. It was as if he were deep in thought—or maybe not thinking of anything at all.
He had once thought about what would happen if his identity as an online streamer was ever exposed.
Would he be so embarrassed that he’d want to crawl into a hole and disappear?
But now that it had really happened, he realized… he didn’t care that much about other people’s words or their stares.
He wasn’t a public figure. All he had to do was end his stream, and in the real world, hardly anyone would be able to find him. He could still shut himself in and live his life the way he always had.
Whether it was curiosity or malice, those people’s comments didn’t truly affect him. He didn’t care.
But what he did have to face was the possibility that Lin Ran, upon finding all this out, might resent him—might feel like he’d been made a fool of.
The version of himself that had secretly shipped their own CP… was downright shameful.
Guilt and unease enveloped Shi Cha, drowning him in his own thoughts.
From noon until nightfall, he stayed in the exact same position, as if this posture alone could give him some sense of safety.
His phone, tossed aside in the living room, vibrated again and again. Whether it was Du Yan calling, or Lin Ran—it went unseen.
He didn’t dare imagine whether Lin Ran might be calling him. He didn’t even have the courage to check if there were any messages.
He didn’t know how to face Lin Ran, or how to explain things to him.
Surrounded by darkness, Shi Cha found his mind drifting, recalling memories from over a decade ago.
Back then, Shi Cha was only seven years old. Lin Ran, who had just become friends with Shi Jian (Shi Cha’s older brother), was brought home by Shi Jian to hang out.
It was a weekend, and the three of them were holed up in the study doing homework. Lin Ran finished his work quickly, but Shi Jian still had quite a bit left. Out of boredom, Lin Ran turned to little Shi Cha, who was playing with a Rubik’s cube off to the side.
At the time, Shi Cha was withdrawn and didn’t like to talk. He hardly said more than five sentences a day.
Lin Ran tried to chat with him for a long time, but Shi Cha ignored him completely—until Lin Ran said, “I bet I can solve it faster than you.”
Only then did Shi Cha look up, his dark, bright eyes staring at Lin Ran for a long moment before silently handing over his 7×7 Rubik’s cube.
He didn’t say a word, but the meaning was clear: Go ahead, try.
Lin Ran wasn’t bluffing—he really was fast at solving scrambled cubes, and he did manage to solve it slightly faster than Shi Cha.
Shi Cha’s little face was deadly serious. He rummaged through his toy box and pulled out a 17×17 Rubik’s cube.
Lin Ran was stunned as he took it. He turned to Shi Jian, who was still buried in his homework, and asked, “Your little brother’s already playing with this level of difficulty?”
Shi Jian briefly glanced up at the two of them, then lowered his head to continue working.
“That’s easy for him. My dad just had a 33×33 cube custom-made for him—it just hasn’t arrived yet.”
Shi Cha tugged on Lin Ran’s sleeve and pointed at the cube in his hands, urging him to hurry up.
Lin Ran did know how to solve Rubik’s cubes and had played with high-level ones before, but it had been a while since he’d touched anything as advanced as a 17×17.
Still, he had already made a bold claim. As a thirteen-year-old “adult,” there was no way he could let a seven-year-old kid look down on him.
So the two of them, heads practically pressed together, spent the entire afternoon working on that 17×17 cube. In the end, they managed to solve it.
It’s true they worked on it together, but it was mostly Lin Ran doing the actual solving. However, whenever he hit a roadblock, Shi Cha would silently point things out to help—even though he didn’t say a single word the entire time.
When the cube was finally complete, Lin Ran stretched with a groan, rubbing his sore neck and shoulders.
Shi Cha picked up his Rubik’s cube, looked at Lin Ran, and said his very first words to him:
“So slow.”
Then, without paying any attention to the suddenly stunned Lin Ran, Shi Cha ran off to his room with a thump-thump-thump of footsteps.
He left behind a thoroughly snubbed Lin Ran, and Shi Jian, who was lounging on the couch watching a movie and snacking on fruit.
Lin Ran: “Did I just get looked down on by a first grader?”
Shi Jian, completely unconcerned about whether his new friend had a fragile little heart, replied gleefully, “At least he talked to you. He hasn’t said a word to me all day.”
Lin Ran: “…”
That was the first time Shi Cha and Lin Ran met. Back then, one was a bright, sunny teenager, and the other a silent little boy.
And their second meeting came just a few weeks later.
That time, little Lin Ran saved little Shi Cha’s life.