It was deep into the night outside, and the room was dark.
Lu Huainan stared at the public chat, his face feeling a little hot.
He hadn’t expected her to actually kiss after he sent her the kissing gift. She had never done that before.
He rubbed his ears and left the room. A burst of noise came from the living room.
“Sure, we can go have fun together then.” His younger brother was sprawled lazily across the sofa.
He was talking to someone on the phone when he suddenly felt a gaze fixed on him. He stiffly turned his head and saw Lu Huainan standing there with a stern expression.
“Bro, what’s up...?”
Lu Huainan said politely, “Lend me your phone for a moment.”
His younger brother handed it over in a daze. His brother was rarely this polite.
Then he watched his brother send a rabbit gift to a streamer.
Then he watched Lu Huainan go upstairs and knock on the door.
“Mom, Dad, are you asleep?”
His younger brother listened to the voice from upstairs and fell silent for a while.
Even if their parents had been asleep, they had definitely been woken up by now.
The call was still connected. His younger brother whispered to the person on the other end, “My brother’s gone crazy again.”
The PK was still going on.
The atmosphere in Sanzi’s livestream was extremely tense. Sanzi sat in his chair, his face grim, without saying a word.
Damn it, how much could a Heart Rabbit cost? They weren’t even willing to send him something that cheap, yet they called themselves his fans. He didn’t need such stingy fans!
The fans in the public chat were anxious too.
[There are so many people in the livestream! Are there any bros or sis willing to send Sanzi a Heart Rabbit?]
[Save Sanzi [crying hysterically]]
[Heart Rabbits aren’t expensive, really! Are there seriously no bros or sis left? Just one is enough!]
[Why does he always pout whenever he does a PK? You should be rallying your fans instead of taking your anger out on them!]
Sanzi simply stopped asking for votes. His assistant coaxed him in a low voice. “Sanzi, there’s still a little time left. We still have a chance.”
“What the hell kind of chance is there?” Sanzi’s voice trembled with anger. “It’s best two out of three. We lost this round too. What’s the point of me trying to rally them when no one’s sending anything?”
The assistant had to soothe Sanzi while also pacifying the fans. He was practically worn to the bone.
Being an assistant really wasn’t easy.
This round ended in a loss, just as Sanzi had wished.
Once their mics were connected, Ji Zhaoxi held up her cup and took a sip of water.
“Little Sanzi, you lost.” Ji Zhaoxi had intended to comfort him, but she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “We don’t have to keep competing after this, do we?”
Sanzi stared at her. “Why not? There’s still one round left. You can’t just stop because you’ve made enough money, can you?”
He glanced at his rankings and spoke coldly. “I lost this round. I’m still setting the rules for the third round. We’ll compete based on the top ten.”
The others might not have money, but his tenth-ranked supporter certainly did. Today, he was determined to drain every last bit of money from that person.
The final round of the PK began.
Ji Zhaoxi had already started chatting with her fans. “We don’t need to send anything this round. We’ve already won anyway.”
There was no need to waste any more money.
The next second—
[L sent 15 Carnival gifts]
[L2 sent 99 Carnival gifts]
[L2 sent 99 Carnival gifts]
...
Ji Zhaoxi stared at the public chat in silence for a moment.
“Um, L2, we’ve already won. You don’t have to keep sending gifts.”
L2 completely ignored her and continued sending Carnivals with cool indifference. L2 soon hit the spending limit.
[L3 sent 99 Carnival gifts]
...
L3 began sending gifts with the same cool determination. Ji Zhaoxi was left staring in stunned disbelief.
What were they doing?
[???]
[Uh... the screen’s been taken over again...]
[Xixi, just let him send them. You can buy more beef noodles later [drooling]]
[[eye roll] [eye roll]]
Ji Zhaoxi hesitated before saying, “Thank you, L, for the shower of Carnivals.”
Across from her, Sanzi had been keeping a close eye on Ji Zhaoxi’s top ten. The moment he saw L’s three accounts, he nearly passed out from anger.
Fuck! No wonder L hadn’t replied to his private messages. So this idiot L really was one of Ji Zhaoxi’s fans.
Ji Zhaoxi’s side was filled with laughter and cheer, completely unaware of what was happening in Sanzi’s livestream.
[L sent 1 Kiss]
Ji Zhaoxi instinctively kissed the air.
[L sent 1 Heart]
Ji Zhaoxi obediently made a heart with her hands.
[L sent 1 Pinch-the-Cheeks]
Ji Zhaoxi pinched her own cheek again.
[Chaoxi's Little Train sent 1 Big Beard]
Ji Zhaoxi paused when she saw the username, then burst out laughing. “Thank you, Sis Little Train.”
She stroked her nonexistent beard.
She hadn’t expected Sis Little Train to change her username right away.
With Ji Zhaoxi’s side so overwhelmingly strong, the big spender on Sanzi’s side had no desire to send anything.
Sanzi’s voice had gone completely hoarse.
“Bros and sis, we can’t lose this round. This is a battle for the top ten. Are there any bros or sis willing to send something?”
The public chat had already begun to turn against him. Sanzi was starting to panic.
[So embarrassing. We couldn’t win even one round out of three...]
[He’s always pouting, and he’s terrible at directing too. Sanzi, can’t you learn how to rally your fans? We’ve been saying for ages that the music is too loud and makes random viewers uncomfortable.]
[Stop the PK already. I’m done!]
[Don’t send anything else. How are we supposed to fight when the other side has so many big spenders? Sending gifts now would just be a waste of money...]
Sanzi took a deep breath and picked up the microphone. “We absolutely must not give up before the very last moment, okay? We’re only five supporters short. Just five more!”
“Will a miracle happen tonight?” His eyes remained fixed on the public chat.
By the end, he didn’t even have the strength to rally his fans anymore. The number of viewers in his livestream continued to fall. Some fans didn’t want to watch Sanzi lose, so they left the room as well.
The PK ended.
Sanzi collapsed into his chair.
He couldn’t even be bothered to thank his fans. He immediately opened his mic.
Ji Zhaoxi was startled by how quickly he did it. “You’re not going to thank your fans?”
Sanzi’s face was dark. “Just tell me the punishment.”
Thank them? For what? A bunch of useless freeloaders.
Seeing how unhappy he was made Ji Zhaoxi feel even happier.
She said softly, “The punishment is actually very simple. You’ve used it on me before.”
Sanzi frowned at her.
“Search for a keyword in your WeChat chat history,” Ji Zhaoxi said, enunciating every word.
Sanzi’s face went white.
His lips moved, and he forced out an awkward smile as he joked, “Ji Zhaoxi, are you trying to kill me?”
Ji Zhaoxi looked at him in confusion. “Who’s trying to kill you? It’s a perfectly normal punishment.”
Sanzi remained unresponsive for a long time. He glanced at his assistant, forcibly suppressing his anger.
The assistant immediately understood and handed over his own phone.
Ji Zhaoxi watched the phone appear on the livestream and laughed. “That isn’t even your phone, Sanzi. Our sis sent you so many gifts. Aren’t you being a sore loser?”
The student viewers had already rushed into Sanzi’s livestream to start a fight.
[Hurry up and take out your own phone!]
[If you can’t handle losing, don’t livestream!]
[You pathetic little bastard, I ***** you!]
Sanzi’s expression grew uglier and uglier. He took out another phone. Ji Zhaoxi glanced at its rose-patterned case.
“Is this your phone, Sanzi? Don’t tell me it belongs to your auntie. Are you actually capable of playing fair or not?”
Ji Zhaoxi was at a loss for words. When he had punished her back then, she certainly hadn’t acted like this.
“You’ve got some nerve, Ji Zhaoxi.” Sanzi gritted his teeth.
Ji Zhaoxi raised an eyebrow. “Of course I do. Otherwise, my sisters wouldn’t have given me so many votes.”
“Hurry up and open WeChat.”
Sanzi opened WeChat with a grim expression, but he refused to let the chat screen appear on the livestream, waving his phone around instead.
Ji Zhaoxi laughed despite herself. “Who can see anything like that?”
Sanzi was so furious that his breathing began to quicken. He kept looking at the assistant beside him.
Assistant: ?
Why was he looking at him? There was nothing he could do to alter the chat records now.
If he had that kind of ability, he wouldn’t still be working as a mere assistant.
Ji Zhaoxi spoke up. “For the first keyword, search for ‘wife.’”
Sanzi typed stiffly. The chat history that appeared was filled with “wife” from top to bottom. Who knew how many women he had called his wife?
Ji Zhaoxi couldn’t hold back her laughter. Sanzi had even claimed he wasn’t going to take the girlfriend-fan route.
“The second keyword is ‘New Year.’”
Sanzi’s fingers froze midair. He hurriedly typed in the two characters, then immediately moved his phone out of the livestream’s view.
But Ji Zhaoxi had still seen it clearly. She said meaningfully, “Oh? So you’re spending the New Year with so many sisters?”
And he had sent the exact same invitation to all of them, asking every one of them to return to his hometown for the New Year.
Sis Little Train had been deeply touched by Sanzi inviting her to his hometown for the New Year. She had cried throughout their previous chats, believing that Sanzi treated her specially—and because of that, she felt she had to spend money on him.
Sanzi’s expression turned frighteningly dark. He stared at Ji Zhaoxi without saying a word.
Ji Zhaoxi smiled. “Don’t glare at me. The third keyword is ‘idiot.’”
Sanzi stiffly typed in the two characters. The very first result was a chat between him and his assistant.
[Those fucking fans are a bunch of fucking idiots. They’re disgusting enough to make me want to throw up!]
Sanzi immediately yanked the phone away. He let out an exaggerated cry. “Damn, the internet froze!”
Then he ended the livestream on the spot.
Sanzi’s fans: ?
Ji Zhaoxi’s fans: ?
And all the casual viewers from every fandom: ?
Whose livestream had ever “frozen” and ended so quickly?
