Pretending To Have A Certain Persona Can Be Tiring - Chapter 11

Song Yang could not describe the feeling of such cathartic release. It felt like the sudden loosening of a long-term blockage. It was a sudden flow that left him refreshed, as if his soul had been scrubbed clean of filth.

It turned out that once you discarded all pretense of decency, you glowed with a new radiance. Going insane was truly a miracle cure for a miserable life.

He took several deep breaths, the sense of relief rushing straight to his head. He turned his attention back to the computer screen, only to see the chat box, which had previously been scrolling at lightning speed, suddenly frozen. Aside from Ceil’s animated avatar, the entire livestream had fallen into an eerie, deathly silence.

“Did the internet lag?” he frowned and muttered to himself. He leaned down to check the connection. “Dammit, even the internet speed is conspiring against me?”

Song Yang glanced at the broadband connection and saw it was working perfectly. He prepared to turn on the mic to ask what was going on, but as his mouse hovered over the button, his pupils suddenly contracted. His finger froze, and a stiff numbness spread from his fingertip up his arm until his entire body was locked in place.

Like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, Song Yang’s legs gave way. A wave of weightlessness hit him, and he dropped to his knees with a loud thud.

I did not turn off the mic?!

Huh?

Song Yang felt as if his nerves were being seared off one by one. His brain went blank, his throat felt like someone had clamped it shut, and his lips parted, but he could not emit a sound—only a muffled, choked sob.

If the mic was on, then…

Then everyone heard that entire explosion of verbal abuse!!

Song Yang knelt on the floor, clutching his head in panic. A voice screamed in his mind: It is over! It is over! You stupid, foul-tempered donkey, Song Yang!!

Immediately after, his phone began to chirp with notifications like rapid-fire gunshots. Song Yang felt like he had been riddled with bullet holes. He guessed how Xu Man would berate him, and the relentless noise made his brain ache. In a fit of defiance, he snatched the phone and hurled it far into the mattress.

He collapsed onto the floor in despair, contemplating how to gracefully end the stream and find a nice spot to bury himself alive. In the next second, an untimely firework sound effect erupted from his speakers.

Song Yang’s eardrums trembled. Drawing on his remaining willpower, he struggled like a dying man to crawl up from the floor, kneeling straight until he could peek over the edge of the desk.

The sight before him stunned him once again. A brilliant display of fireworks burst across the computer screen. White rings of light illuminated the display, thousands of glittering stars gathering and dissipating, reflecting in his obsidian eyes. In a flash, the fireworks turned into shimmering golden sparkles that faded away with a wisp of smoke.

“What is this, cyber fireworks?” Song Yang knelt, huddled at the desk edge like a terrified gopher, still unable to process what was happening.

The long-silent chat box suddenly began to scroll rapidly:

System Message: Lis sent Brilliant Galaxy x1 System Message: Congratulations to user Lis for becoming the room’s top fan. System Message: Congratulations to streamer Ceil for reaching the Trending List, currently ranked No. 85.

Lis: You are pretty good at cursing. Lis: Curse one more time.

Song Yang: ?

Song Yang’s eyes went round. He furrowed his brows and could not help but ask in confusion, “Huh?”

Is this a dream? Is it a hallucination?

He reached out a trembling hand and hurriedly hit the mute button. Then, he looked at the dollar amount on the screen, his voice shaking. “One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand…”

He gulped hard, struggling to swallow.

Ten thousand diamonds—that was one thousand RMB. This Brilliant Galaxy was worth a full thousand! Had he really run into a gold-tier sugar daddy who threw money around like it was nothing?

Before Song Yang’s brain could catch up, the chat area exploded like a pot of boiling water:

This is the first time I have seen Teacher Lis type in chat. Someone tell me he was hacked. Teacher Lis, you… forget it, I respect your personal taste. [Fist bump] Is Lis-shen not following the gossip?! This guy is garbage, he backstabbed Xiaodai!! Why would you send him money? Amazing. I have been shocked twice in just a few minutes… Teacher Lis, please tell me your finger slipped. He is not worth your thousand yuan! WTF, that scared the crap out of me. Everyone stopped typing, so I thought the stream glitched. Is this the real face behind Ceil? Was the cute act all fake? I thought it glitched too, damn. He is such a good actor! The vocabulary for cursing was impressive—typical two-faced behavior! Hard to imagine he is even a person. Turns out he has no class. I guessed he was not a good bird from the start. He is triggered, he is triggered! I love watching people break like this. Will he keep cursing, Mr. Broken-Down? I am going to grab some sunflower seeds to watch the rest of your show. Rnm, hurry up and refund Lis his money!

The chat scrolled faster and faster, so quickly that Song Yang could barely read the words. His temples were damp with sweat, his heart beat like a war drum. He took a few sharp gulps of air, hurried to hit End Stream, and fled like a coward.

The screen went dark, and Song Yang collapsed onto the floor, completely drained.

Great. Now I am socially dead across the entire internet, without even a corpse left to bury…

He looked up at the window, silently calculating which method of departure would be the least painful.

In the C University male dormitory:

“Baby, why do you not trust me? It is really not what you think. I only wanted to get closer to Song Yang because he is your friend.” Cheng Ran had been缠着 on the phone for an hour on the balcony, his voice hoarse. “I am sorry, baby. I will be more mindful next time, okay?”

Inside the room, Ji Ting was annoyed by the noise. From all the nonsense, he only gathered four words: He has not had enough fun yet.

He clicked his tongue lightly, removed his Bluetooth headset, and stood up, walking to the balcony to slam the door shut.

Cheng Ran outside was startled. He glared at the closed door, let out a sneer through his teeth, and continued complaining to the person on the other end, “Baby, your president just slammed the door on me. Stop being angry, okay? If I keep talking to you, he is probably going to come up here and beat me up. Do you have the heart to see me get hurt, hmm?”

“What? Ji Ting bad-mouthed me to you? Damn, baby, you believe that? Our room relationship has been bad from the start; I do not even talk to Ji Ting. Is it not normal for him to talk trash behind my back?”

Ji Ting returned to his desk, put his headset back on, and found Ceil in his following list.

His gaze remained as cold as ever, showing no emotion, though his long lashes fluttered slightly.

He entered Ceil’s home page and opened one of the livestream highlight videos, setting his phone on a stand next to him before looking back at his screen to work on student union documents.

“Ceil is bringing you a whispering ASMR. You have worked hard today, sister. You must be tired, right? Let Ceil hold you and give you warmth. Does that feel better? Hmm… Ceil missed you so much today too.”

The streamer’s soft, sweet voice drifted from his headset like cotton candy—light and tender, tickling his ear canal like a feather.

The sound of his typing slowed. His thoughts drifted away from the document. Ceil’s shallow, gentle breathing lingered in his ears. A faint, imperceptible curve appeared on his lips as he rested his chin on his knuckles, his eyes harboring a strange, unreadable amusement.

After a long while, Ji Ting leaned back in his chair, his index finger tapping rhythmically on the desk as he carefully distinguished the gentle voice in his headset. He simply could not connect this to the brash, little troublemaker he knew in reality.

“Quite miraculous…” he murmured with a faint smile, loud enough only for himself to hear.

Whether it was Song Yang as a person, or the connections in this world, everything was just too miraculous.