Chapter 50

Lin Linya was playing the Spirit Cat. After tailing the Marksman and leeching experience, he reached Level 4 and immediately attached himself to the Marksman.

Seeing Lin Linya ignoring him, the Mage made a backhanded comment, “Maybe Cat should come follow me instead. You’re attached to the Marksman—won’t his girlfriend get jealous?”

Lin Linya thought the remark was a bit baffling. All he was doing was shielding the Marksman, nothing inappropriate.

Just then, the Marksman’s girlfriend burst out laughing heartily, “No problem, no problem, I don’t mind, hahaha. I only get jealous over my boyfriend. I wish Yaya would play Cat and latch onto me, too.”

Her boyfriend couldn’t help but roast her, “Give me a break. With your Mid Laner skills? You’d just bring the Support with you to feed the enemy a Double Kill.”

The girlfriend patted his shoulder, her tone gentle as she told him to turn off his mic. After a pause, she asked patiently, “Is it off?”

A few seconds later, she furiously shouted the Marksman’s full name, “Wang Chao, are you tired of living?!”

[Wang Chao, sorry to learn your name this way. (praying hands) (praying hands)]

[Laughing so hard I could die. But honestly, if my boyfriend dared to diss my skills, I’d totally beat him to death.]

The Jungler, who had been silently listening the whole time, suddenly laughed and spoke up, “Why not come with me? The Ranger plus Cat combo is very agile, with great mobility. It’s easier to set the pace in the early game.”

Lin Linya thought he made a good point. After discussing it with the Marksman, he hopped off him and bounced his way toward the Jungle.

The Ranger, who was clearing a camp in the Red Buff area, saw the Spirit Cat trotting over and turned back to escort him in.

The Mage, pulling up the Jungle vision, saw this and drawled, “Such a practiced move, turning back to pick someone up. You must’ve escorted plenty of girls, huh? So jealous of you. Me, a Mid Laner, no one wants to play with me.”

The next second, the enemy Mid Laner was solo-killed by him.

Lin Linya’s ability to detect a Pick-me girl was average at best; he just cluelessly replied, “Huh? No way, your Mage play is so good, how could no one want to play with you?”

The Mage chuckled, “I don’t know either. Maybe the Jungler is just more handsome? Yaya, you wouldn’t despise me too, would you?”

Lin Linya immediately said, “Of course not! I have a friend who plays Mid Lane too, and he’s really good as well.”

The Jungler, a good-tempered guy with a generally pleasant personality, now had his tone go cold because of the Mage’s words. “…I haven’t escorted any girls. So far, I’ve only escorted Yaya and my own sister. Can you stop making baseless accusations?”

The Mage was full of veiled sarcasm, “Is that so? You’re quite the pure-hearted one then.”

With that, he stopped engaging the Jungler and resumed flirting with Lin Linya, “Husband, between me and your friend, which Mid Laner is better?”

Lin Linya frowned. He thought for a moment, then answered honestly, “I don’t know. You two play different types of Mages. He prefers Utility Player mages and rarely plays the burst-heavy Artillery Mages.”

The friend Lin Linya mentioned who liked playing Mages was Qiao Yu. Qiao Yu usually played champions like Armando for control and Backup, not relying on damage output. While he also played Master, Lin Linya didn’t know his skill level with it, so it was hard to compare.

He just felt both were amazing. Playing Mid Lane—he’d tried it once and never wanted to again. Too tiring, and you get blamed easily.

The Mage chuckled softly, “So that’s the kind you like. I can play Utility Players too, but I don’t like others coming to soak my lane minions. However, if it’s Yaya coming to farm them, it’s okay.”

Lin Linya retorted bluntly, “What use do I, a Support, have for your minion Gold?”

The Mage was speechless. “…”

[Hahaha, as expected, natural airheads counter the two-faced.]

[Yaya gives me Straight Man vibes sometimes, even though he’s never mentioned his orientation.]

[Mage: I hate you, you dense, romance-oblivious blockhead!]

The Ranger, with the Spirit Cat in tow, passed through the Mid Lane. Suddenly, he stood still in the brush on the left side. Lin Linya thought he wanted to ambush the enemy Mid Laner here and told him his Disrupt was ready.

The Jungler said nothing. He swept his vision—his own Mage was in the Top Lane. The moment the minion wave arrived, he dashed out.

The enemy Mid Laner, about to clear the wave, was startled and Flashed under his Turret.

But the Ranger didn’t even glance at him. He headed straight for the Mid Lane minion wave. By the time his Mage rushed back, not a single minion was left in Mid Lane.

Enemy Mid Laner: “…”

After clearing the wave, the Ranger took the Spirit Cat and left leisurely. When the next minion wave arrived, he was back in Mid Lane right on time. With this back-and-forth, his Gold, which was already at the first position, quickly snowballed into a massive lead.

Lin Linya was dumbfounded. He’d never seen someone so brazenly farm Mid Lane minions. Although resource distribution was supposed to be even, his Mage had specifically rushed back without eating the Clash Lane minions, only to have his entire wave devoured.

“What are you doing?”

Bro Jungler made a puzzled “Hmm?” sound. “Nothing much. Just helping him relieve some laning pressure.”

The Mage was playing Master, a champion very reliant on Gold and scaling. Without Gold, he had no Damage. Seeing the Jungler eat his minion wave, his expression darkened. He knew it was deliberate revenge.

He gritted his teeth and swallowed his anger for the moment.

Lin Linya was on tenterhooks, terrified they’d start arguing. He hadn’t expected the seemingly difficult Mage to stay silent.

Even Lin Linya couldn’t stand it. He said to the Jungler, “Don’t farm his wave anymore, or just give him some of your Jungle camps.”

The Jungler was very obedient and listened to him, “Alright, I’ll stop.”

He even “kindly” yielded the Blue Buff to the Mage. “You take it. With Cat following me, I can just get it from the enemy Jungle.”

The Mage took the Blue Buff, his tone dripping with sarcasm, “Well, aren’t you just a saint.”

The Jungler replied good-naturedly, “You’re welcome.”

Around six minutes, the Tier 1 Turret in the Clash Lane had already been destroyed. The Clash Laner could only roam for development but neglected his own lane. After clearing his own Jungle, the Ranger took the Spirit Cat to clean up the minion wave.

Lin Linya spaced out and forgot to scout the brush for him. The right-side brush had the enemy Jungler and Mage lying in wait. The Mage landed the first control on the Ranger; once he went down, the Cat couldn’t escape either.

Lin Linya was about to apologize when Bro Jungler spoke first, his tone apologetic, “Sorry, my mistake. Got you killed along with me.”

The next second, his portrait was pinged by their own Mage. The Mage’s voice was cold, “Your map awareness is pretty low-rank, isn’t it? What are you trying to prove? You had zero vision on the map but still dared to push that deep?”

“The Jungler was already rotating top lane. Did you intentionally bring Yaya there to donate a kill?”

He had finally caught the Jungler slipping and started relentlessly roasting him. After roasting enough, he finally revealed his true motive. “Why doesn’t the Support come with me instead? At least you won’t die.”

Lin Linya hurried to defend the Jungler. “It was my fault for not scouting the brush. This one’s on me.”

The Mage’s tone immediately shifted, coaxing, “How could it be your fault, baby? Clearly, this Jungler was just too cocky and got you killed. You don’t need to make excuses for him.”

[Yaya, you sinful man!]

[Fight, fight, fight! Canyon rivalry!]

[This Mage is so good at trash-talking, such a Green Tea Bitch. LMAO. Yaya, maybe reflect on why you have fans like this.]

The two bickering practically maxed out the entertainment value. In an hour and a half, Lin Linya pushed a fan’s account up a whole minor tier. He was quite satisfied.

Before leaving, the Mage blew Lin Linya a Flying Kiss from afar. “Husband, tonight I want to hear you sing a love song. Can you sing ‘Honey Honey’?”

Lin Linya looked utterly disgusted. “Just leave, will you? I’m ending stream early tonight; there’s no song request segment.”

The Mage deliberately sounded dejected. “Not even possible? I really love your cover of this song. I’ve even set it as my morning alarm.”

Lin Linya, “…That’s really not necessary.”

The second batch of Viewer Matches finally brought in a few girls. Their personalities were great, very cheerful and uninhibited. Lin Linya was quite surprised; he hadn’t expected them to be so good at the game. One girl, playing the Clash Lane, was so cool that the Danmaku started calling her ‘husband.’

Three hours passed quickly. Before Lin Linya ended the stream, he checked his rank. He’d earned a fan eight stars that night. “See this? This is the streamer’s true skill.”

[The first Wolf Fang streamer to be carried by his fans—this is Yaya’s power.]

[Acting so reluctant, but still singing ‘Honey Honey’… You really, I’m crying.]

[That male fan—I know you’re watching—your mouth must be crooked from grinning. He actually sang ‘Honey Honey’.]

Lin Linya, who’d tacked on an impromptu song request segment, held his guitar. The silver glasses perched on the tip of his nose, his vibrant red lips curved into a smile as he waved at the Danmaku. “Good night, everyone.”

…

On Sunday, Lin Linya unexpectedly received an invitation from his Junior Schoolmate Fang Wenxue. It was a WeChat message: [Are you free tomorrow afternoon, Yaya? Treating you and Bro Chun to hotpot. (cute cat)]

Puzzled, he screenshotted it and sent it to Chen Chun, asking what this meant.

Chen Chun didn’t know either, so he replied, [She asked me too. Might be a small gathering of acquaintances, or perhaps she’s repaying the favor from last time when you went to help her out. Didn’t you say you were craving hotpot just last week? Perfect timing.]

Lin Linya agreed and asked Fang Wenxue to send him the location.

The next day at noon, he arrived at the hotpot restaurant Fang Wenxue had booked and realized she had invited quite a few people. Besides their usual group of friends who played together, there were many girls from the ethnic dance major—Fang Wenxue’s classmates.

Fang Wenxue stood out prominently among the group of girls. She was already very pretty, but her originally long black hair had been cut short and dyed platinum blonde. Her usual floral dresses were swapped for a tight crop top and denim shorts.

Her long, fair legs were crossed, and she held a glass of alcohol. This style suited her unexpectedly even more, transforming her from a sweet girl-next-door into a striking, free-spirited, and eye-catching beauty.

Fang Wenxue spotted Lin Linya the moment he walked in and raised a hand to wave.

Lin Linya walked over to greet her first, then sat down at Chen Chun’s table, utterly confused, settling next to him.

Today, he wore a black short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts, giving off a strong boyish vibe. When he smiled, his kitten-like eyes curved into crescents. His full, natural aegyo-sal and the little mole under his lip were unbearably adorable. The fragmented light in his eyes shimmered like finely crushed sugar.

Too pretty—thus the focal point of attention wherever he went.

The man himself, however, didn’t notice others watching him when he moved.

Lin Linya had overslept that morning and arrived a bit late. Only after sitting beside Chen Chun did he realize the food was already in the pot. Chen Chun looked much calmer than him, even asking, “I put some tripe in for you earlier. It should be ready now. Want me to scoop it out?”

“Yes, please!” Lin Linya was craving exactly this. After answering eagerly, he gazed hungrily at Chen Chun’s chopsticks.

Chen Chun fished out a piece of tripe and placed it in the bowl in front of him.

Lin Linya picked up the hot tripe, blew on it, and gave it a swirl in the dipping sauce bowl, coating it thickly with sesame paste.

Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, Fang Wenxue suddenly stood up. “I think just about everyone is here. Besides just getting together, I wanted to introduce my boyfriend to everyone.”

Lin Linya’s chopsticks froze mid-air.

He darted a glance at Chen Chun, but saw, other than a faint trace of disappointment between his brows, no other strong emotion. It was as if Fang Wenxue’s official announcement was within his expectations.

Lin Linya felt even worse than him.

Looking mournfully at the tripe in his chopsticks, he fell silent for a few seconds, then leaned close to Chen Chun and asked weakly in a small voice, “Bro Chen… can I still eat this hotpot?”