Pretending To Have A Certain Persona Can Be Tiring - Chapter 12

After twenty missed calls, the phone rang again. Song Yang gathered his courage and tremblingly answered Xu Man’s call.

He forced a smile and spoke as calmly as he could, “Hello, Cousin, what is up?”

She was silent for a few seconds, her tone unfriendly. “You are quite calm. Do you know why I am calling?”

Song Yang shrank back. “I think so.”

“You breached the contract, do you realize that? A breach means you have to pay five thousand! Where are you going to get that kind of money? Let us see what you do now!”

Song Yang grew anxious. “Phooey! If the company had not smeared my reputation without my consent, would I have been pushed to lose my temper like that? You try it; if you can stay silent without cursing people when being provoked, I will call you Dad.”

“If you cannot handle a little pressure, what big things can you achieve?” She sighed, sounding helpless. “Regardless, according to Clause 3 of the contract regarding the First Party’s obligations, the streamer must strictly maintain the persona designated by the company. You may not distort, change, or sabotage this persona. Serious violations are considered a breach of contract and require payment of damages.”

Song Yang felt as if he had been struck by lightning. He shouted back, “Blackhearted company! Predatory terms! I am not paying you a single cent!”

He flopped onto his bed, heartbroken as he checked the meager balance in his bank account.

He was unwilling to pay the fine, but after thinking it over, he could no longer stand being oppressed by this crappy company. Given their track record, who knew how else they would try to screw him over? To stop the bleeding, he had to break free from these evil capitalists immediately.

Even an early termination required a penalty. It seemed the five thousand was unavoidable. He would just have to consider it a lesson learned and the price of his freedom. It was worth it.

The only problem now was where to get the money. He could not bring himself to ask Auntie Xu. Xu Man said she could advance the money for him, and he could pay her back slowly.

Song Yang sighed at the ceiling. Who carries a five-thousand-yuan debt at such a young age? My streaming career has not even taken off, and I have already failed before I began.

Worrying would not help. He would just have to scrimp and save, take on more part-time jobs, and work hard for a year or two to pay it off.

Besides, once he left the company, he could stream on his own. Without the company and the constraints of a fake persona, would he not be free to show what he was truly capable of?

He felt a bit more comforted. Suddenly, he remembered the Big Boss who had tipped him during the stream. After a moment’s hesitation, he opened his phone, found Lis’s account, carefully worded a message, and sent it:

Ceil: Teacher Lis, are you an adult? If you are a minor, you can contact the platform for a refund on your tips.

He saw that Lis was online and waited for a long time before finally receiving a notification.

Lis: I am an adult. Ceil: Then you can add my private contact, and I will refund you.

About ten minutes later, Lis dropped another brief sentence:

Lis: Why refund? Ceil: I assume your finger slipped. I am a streamer with principles; I earn money with a clear conscience. I do not want a single cent that is not rightfully mine. Lis: Who said my finger slipped?

Song Yang was surprised.

Then why throw away such a fortune? He could not figure it out. His own unhinged verbal rampage had been the height of embarrassment. He was worried the platform would label him a clown tomorrow. What could this big shot possibly see in him? Did the guy have a masochistic streak and enjoy getting yelled at?

Lis: When is your next stream?

Song Yang paused for a second and instinctively typed:

Ceil: Sorry, there will not be a next time. I am terminating my contract with the company.

He waited for several minutes, but there was no reply. He worried that Lis might be unhappy; after all, the person had spent a thousand yuan only to be turned away.

Just as he was pondering what else to say, the phone vibrated again:

Lis: Oh. Ceil: But I might start as an independent streamer with a new avatar later. Lis: Hmm. Lis: Contact me when you open a new account.

Song Yang: ?

Song Yang furrowed his brows. He felt this was strange; it did not sound like something a fan would say. It felt more like… could he really have encountered a legitimate sugar daddy?

And a male one at that!

He scratched his head, unable to guess what was going through the person’s mind. Feeling slightly awkward, he abruptly changed the subject.

Ceil: Thank you for your gift tonight. May I ask, what was the reason you tipped me? Lis: You have character.

Song Yang choked. “…”

Immediately, an image popped into his mind: a man in a suit sitting with his legs crossed, swirling red wine in a high-stem glass, saying with a cold, aloof gaze, “You have character. You are the first person who dared to talk back to me. Little streamer, you have successfully caught my attention.”

Song Yang was drenched in sweat from his own overactive imagination, to the point that seeing Lis’s profile picture now gave him the urge to slap it twice.

He could not keep talking. He hurriedly closed the private message window and tossed the phone to the foot of his bed.

Streamer is offline and climbing Mount Kongtong overnight!

Over the next few days, Song Yang used most of his connections to find part-time work. He finally set his sights on an art training institution not far from his rental house, applying to be a teaching assistant for their broadcasting and hosting class. He interviewed immediately and successfully landed the job.

He did not rest over the weekend either. Hearing that a new creative stationery store had opened at C University and was looking for people to distribute flyers for 150 yuan a day plus lunch, Song Yang jumped at the opportunity.

The shop owner handed him a thick stack of flyers. “You have to finish handing these out. Lunch is a soda and a burger; come to the shop to get them.”

“That good?” Song Yang’s eyes lit up. He took the stack immediately. “Thank you, Boss. Guaranteed to complete the task.”

“By the way, student, there is this too.” The owner pulled a giant mascot costume out of a box.

Song Yang’s smile froze. “This is?”

“Wear this while you hand them out. Dress up as our C University mascot, Brownie.”

“Huh?” Song Yang looked at the slightly rugged brown bear suit and frowned. “Can I refuse?”

“It is a school creative shop, after all. It has symbolic significance, and it is more efficient this way. Plus, nobody will recognize you in this thing; you will not feel embarrassed even if you run into someone you know.”

Song Yang compromised. Clad in the bear suit, holding a heavy stack of flyers, he arrived at the plaza in front of the library and found a suitable spot to stand guard.

It was late autumn, but the temperature had risen quite a bit. With the sun blazing in Nanzhou City, Song Yang was hot and stifled inside the thick costume. Before long, he started to sweat. He worked hard, running around distributing flyers, enduring the curious gazes of passersby, and being forced to take photos with strangers.

Damn it, doing two jobs for the price of one, he muttered to himself. But times were different now; he could not complain too much, so he gritted his teeth and endured it.

In a library seminar room:

The Student Union’s executive committee and department heads were meeting to conduct a stage summary. Ji Ting arrived early. He sat down and opened his drawing software to practice sketching while waiting for the others to arrive.

“Did you see that bear downstairs?” Yin Wei pushed the door open with a stack of files. “It is actually Song Yang. He startled me when he came over to say hello.”

Someone nearby chuckled. “The one who argued with the President? Why is he dressed as a bear?”

Ji Ting did not speak. He turned his eyes slightly, subconsciously looking down through the glass window.

The golden sunlight was blinding. The brown bear on the plaza dragged its heavy body, running back and forth to hand out flyers. Passersby shook their heads and walked right past him. He paused for a second, his back looking a bit dejected, before slowly raising a hand to reach into the headgear to wipe away sweat.

“He said he was working to pay for his studies.”

“Is his family condition not good?”

“I do not know. I did not feel comfortable asking.”

Ji Ting spun the pen between his fingers, his gaze still fixed on that little bear. He heard Yin Wei ask, “Ji Ting, how are you getting along with him since you took over the Literature Department?”

“Average.” Ji Ting arched a brow imperceptibly and kept his answer brief.

“Do not mention it, Senior,” He Jia Miao said from further away. “That kid gives me the biggest headache. If the President asks him to do something in the group, he starts acting sarcastic, calling everyone Your Majesty and this servant. I have told him several times, but he does not listen.”

Just then, downstairs, a few boys snuck up behind the bear and gave his butt a playful pat. Song Yang turned around belatedly, but the boys were already giggling and running away. He chased them for a few steps, raising the stack of flyers as if to throw them, but seeing them run off, he could only stomp his feet in a fit of irritable helplessness.

Watching the little bear jumping in frustration, Ji Ting had already imagined Song Yang’s string of insults. He propped up his chin, his bent fingers masking the curve of his lips.

The Organization Department head joked, “Senior Ji, do you regret recruiting him?”

“No regrets.” Ji Ting hid his smile and withdrew his gaze, his expression as calm as water.

“I am afraid of encountering members like that. They are troublesome.”

Ji Ting spoke coldly: “My criteria for choosing people are not singular. I combine personal strengths with their positioning within the group to avoid personality clashes. For a department to run efficiently, it must contain a few leaders and directors, creative thinkers with strong intellectual capabilities, and the majority must be silent, reliable workers. At the same time, we need a few extroverts to enliven the atmosphere, as well as troublemakers like Song Yang who are radical and have high output. A complementary and harmonious team produces results much greater than the sum of its parts.”

“The senior is right.”

“Agreed.”

Two department heads whispered to each other: “The senior said so much; is he indirectly making excuses for Song Yang? What a generous spirit. He really is not holding a grudge.”

“Otherwise, how do you think he became President?”

Ji Ting added: “However, being too flamboyant is never a good thing. I hope a year of tempering in the Student Union will smooth out his rough edges.”

As he spoke, he could not help but glance downstairs again, but the plaza was empty. That frustrated little bear had vanished.

Chatter filled the room as they moved to the next topic, but Ji Ting drifted away from the discussion. He propped up his chin again, his eyes wandering slowly across the empty plaza through the glass until they locked onto a spot behind a flower bed.

He saw Song Yang sitting alone on a flower ledge, having removed his headgear, his back hunched, face buried low.

Ji Ting frowned, sensing something was wrong. Song Yang lifted a hand to wipe his eyes, his shoulders heaving, his head bobbing slightly as if he were sobbing.

Crying?

He narrowed his eyes. It was as if an unknown force had fixed his gaze. Transfixed, he watched the sobbing back in the distance, the swaying branches blurring his vision.

He vaguely remembered that evening in the art studio, the reddened eyes hidden in the darkness, brimming with a faint, shimmering light like fallen stars. It was the first time Ji Ting had captured such fragility in someone so stubborn.

He realized he did not understand Song Yang at all. He looked like an unrestrained troublemaker—a volcano churning with magma, ready to erupt, covered in spikes and a hard shell. Yet, when the overwhelming wave of cyberbullying hit, he could fight back without fear.

In front of others, he was always burning with vitality, his energy seemingly infinite. Nobody knew that he could also act cute in front of a computer screen, showing his soft side.

Similarly, everyone knew that if he were knocked down, he would certainly crawl back up, but they might have overlooked that when he was hurt, he would also hide away alone to shed tears.

Ji Ting withdrew his gaze, and unnamable emotions churned in his eyes. He heard the noisy chatter around him, but he did not take in a single word.

Somehow, a strong impulse surged within him; he wanted to know the real Song Yang, to understand him better. In his entire life, he had never met anyone with a personality like Song Yang’s.

Perhaps out of pity, he now wanted to go downstairs, hand Song Yang a tissue, and ask why he was crying—was he tired from distributing flyers, or had he encountered some other hardship?

At that moment, Song Yang sneezed, and the burger in his hand almost fell.

He sniffled and rubbed his eyes again, the sauce stinging his skin. He cursed aloud, “Damn it, the sauce got in my eyes. I should not have eaten while wearing the headgear. Grass!”