Not a Song Dedication

After Lin Yang saw Lin Zhao off and came back home, it was practically time to get ready for tonight’s livestream.

Last night, Xu Zhitong had thought she was fine when she said it; now that she was waiting for the stream to start, she only felt unusually nervous.

Time also seemed to fly. It felt like she’d just finished dinner, and in the blink of an eye, she was sitting down in front of the computer.

Unable to hide her anxiety, she paced around Lin Yang in the streaming room until 8:58 p.m., when Lin Yang pushed her down into the computer chair.

Lin Yang sat beside her on the beanbag sofa, holding a tablet, and gave Xu Zhitong a small encouraging gesture.

At 9:00 p.m., the livestream started on time.

At least not showing her face took a little of the edge off Xu Zhitong’s nerves. She watched the viewer count and bullet comments rocket upward, blinking nonstop.

After being inexplicably offline for more than a week, the stream had jumped to over ten thousand viewers within three minutes of going live. That was more than triple the usual three or four thousand from her recorded daily streams.

The bullet comments were flying by at insane speed too.

[She’s here]

[So early]

[Open the door!!]

[Not showing your face today, baby?]

[Heard you got anti-ed offline by some big spender?]

[No face cam, is it really you?]

[Missed you so much.]

[Is this a substitute streamer?]

Yinfu’s traffic push brought in a lot of people looking for entertainment and gossip, so the public comments were a chaotic mess of everything imaginable.

Lin Yang nudged her hand and pointed toward the spot where she could send lucky draws.

Oh, right. She was supposed to send a lucky draw to settle the chat down.

Xu Zhitong sent one out.

This time, the bullet comments instantly became neat and tidy, almost entirely filled with Welcome home.

Besides that, the effect gifts under the stream never stopped.

Within two minutes of going live, the stream’s current audio points in the upper-left corner had shot straight into six digits.

Xu Zhitong was momentarily stunned.

She stayed silent for too long, and a lot of question marks popped up in the public chat.

[Is it really you? Why aren’t you saying anything?]

[Talk, baby]

[Hellooo, is the streamer there, is the streamer there, is the streamer there]

[Open the door! If you still don’t speak, I’m going to chain-send gifts]

Xu Zhitong coughed lightly, a little embarrassed. “Good evening, everyone. Long time no see.”

“It’s me, so stop sending gifts. There are too many—I can’t even keep up with the chat……”

[Turn on the camera turn on the camera turn on the camera]

[My wallet’s been fat for over a week; of course I’m gonna send]

[Is little Sleepy catching a cold? Your voice sounds a little hoarse]

Xu Zhitong picked out the comments she could read and replied, “Mm, I do have a bit of a cold. But I’m not congested, so I can still sing.”

[If you’re sick, don’t sing]

[How can you have a cold and still be offline for over a week? Is the streamer lying?]

[Did you see that local news story in Jiangshi last week?]

[Nope]

[? Nope what? You psycho, don’t come here and spread rumors]

[Mods, get to work]

The chat scrolled by so fast. In the midst of all the fan comments like [Missed you] and [Are you singing today?], the nasty ones always stood out.

This time, without Lin Yang reminding her, Xu Zhitong sent out another lucky draw to clear the chat.

“I missed you guys too. Thanks for waiting for me all these days.”

“Don’t spread rumors. I was in a minor car accident, and my phone got smashed too, so I didn’t manage to notify the mods in time. Sorry.”

That was the excuse Lin Yang had written for her, and it was basically the truth.

After all, she couldn’t exactly tell her fans that she’d lost her memory and had been unconscious in the hospital for several days.

“I have a few small cuts on my face. I don’t want you worrying, so I’ll turn on the camera once they’ve healed a little more.”

Xu Zhitong paused slightly. Only after she saw the chat fill with [Are you okay?] and [So heartbreaking] did she finally breathe out.

But with how sharp her eyes were, she still noticed a paid floating message from a fan with a level-20 badge:

[[Floating message] x: No scars, right, baby?]

The word baby made Xu Zhitong a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to such an intimate form of address from fans, and she’d originally wanted to ignore it.

But looking at the fan’s level and the content of the message, she felt a little irritated and couldn’t help reading it out loud before saying, “Just a small wound. How could I be disfigured?”

[Don’t believe it] x32

Xu Zhitong: “Then what do you want me to do, send you a selfie?”

The chat instantly exploded into a sea of [hahahahaha] and [Okay okay okay].

[[Floating message] x: Hehe, Little Sleepy really does only respond to provocation]

[[Floating message] y: See you in the fan group!]

“……”

Xu Zhitong went silent.

She was even blushing a little…… There were too many people.

Her fans knew her better than she’d expected.

Although the livestream screen in front of her was pitch-black, showing only her avatar and the countless drifting chat messages.

Behind that screen were countless viewers staring at her.

She grew uneasy, suddenly afraid of slipping up, and simply stopped looking at the chat on the right.

After glancing twice at the opening lines Lin Yang had written for her, she moved straight to the next step. “Then I’ll sing for you directly. What songs do you want to hear? I’m opening the request function.”

The chat erupted again into [hahahahaha].

[Why is Little Sleepy kind of cute today?]

[Can’t outtalk us, so you’re running?]

[All fans go to the fan group right now and wait there]

[Don’t sing; let’s just chat for a while]

Xu Zhitong said it was fine and opened the song request function in the streaming companion software.

The request function cost money; small gifts could accumulate request chances, and the more gifts someone sent, the higher up their song choice would go.

The chat mouth kept saying they weren’t requesting songs and wanted to chat instead, but their hands were very honest, sending gift sets one after another.

In about a minute, there was no suspense left in the selection; the top choices happened to be a few songs Xu Zhitong knew how to sing.

Xu Zhitong muttered the song titles under her breath, searched up the accompaniment, and started playing it.

Once she began singing, the passersby who had come to gawk and stir up trouble thinned out considerably, and the viewer count slowly dropped to five or six thousand.

The fans cooperatively flooded the chat with stickers that said "Nice" and "Go, go, go."

Xu Zhitong glanced over and saw the stickers used her own cartoon avatar—a little blue-haired figure with big eyes.

Kind of cute……

The fierce pounding in Xu Zhitong’s chest gradually settled down.

After she finished the first song, she drank some water while reading the chat.

Even some of the onlookers had stayed, and a few were complimenting her.

[I came for the gossip, but this is actually pretty good?]

[Her voice is really unique; it sounds nice. No wonder she has so many fans]

[Streamer, show your face]

[Ugh... it makes me think of my ex-girlfriend...]

[Can you sing “xxx”?]

[Streamer, can you call me baby?]

The fans on the public chat quietly liked and praised the comments complimenting her, and every positive comment got over a hundred likes. They even replied to onlookers by tagging them:

[@xx, this investment won’t lose you money; she can sing almost any genre]

[@xxx, there’s a surprise if you click into the streamer’s profile]

[Add a fan badge so you won’t get lost next time you come to listen~]

Xu Zhitong looked at it and couldn’t help laughing twice.

[??]

[What are you laughing at]

“You’re all so cute,” Xu Zhitong said earnestly.

[??]

[????]

[Why are you flirting with us????]

[Aren’t we supposed to have a pure mother-daughter relationship]

[I recorded that. If you dare to bait the girlfriend fans again, I’ll die in front of you]

“……” Xu Zhitong shut her mouth abruptly.

Shit, she’d said the wrong thing.

She turned to look at Lin Yang beside her.

Lin Yang had her arms folded, and with a half-smile she gave Xu Zhitong a shrug.

“……”

Xu Zhitong was almost sweating.

Her wife was right there! And her wife was still fighting with her!

Panic rising, she blurted, “I was wrong, I was wrong, sisters. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

[“Sisters”??]

[Say it again]

[That hit]

[Mom asked me why my phone was on the bedside table while I watched a livestream]

[Girls, am I dreaming?]

[Streamer, turn on the camera and say it again, please and thank you]

[Little Sleepy, what kind of fangirl-training camp were you locked up in these past few days?]

“……”

Xu Zhitong closed her eyes.

She was completely flushed now.

After a while, she opened her eyes again and looked at Lin Yang with a pitiful expression.

Lin Yang met her gaze, raised her brows, and slowly shook her head. At the same time, she very deliberately mouthed the words:

Du—m—b—a—s—s.

“……”

Xu Zhitong was hurt beyond belief.

She was doing this for who, exactly!

Why wasn’t Lin Yang helping her? They should be on the same side!

In indignation, she shook her fist at Lin Yang, then turned back to the screen. Amid the teasing comments and the barrage of questions about why she’d stopped talking again, she found the next song she was supposed to sing.

[Not talking to us?]

[Streamer acting cold?]

[Emotionally abusing your fans?]

[Talk, talk, talk, talk]

“Now I’m starting the next song,” Xu Zhitong said.

[I knew it]

[You’re not allowed to avoid us!]

[Teacher, is our Little Sleepy brain-damaged after the accident? Can she still be a child model?]

No matter how extroverted Xu Zhitong was, her memory was still only that of a middle schooler, and her socialization level was very low. How could she stand this much teasing from so many people?

So she simply pretended not to see it and started singing on her own.

After singing two more songs, the fans in the chat finally calmed down a little and stopped using the matter to tease her; instead, they turned into a full praise squad.

Only then did Xu Zhitong dare to chat with her fans carefully.

She hadn’t expected, when watching livestream recordings, that the fans who had behaved so obediently under the control of her pre-amnesia self would be so reckless with her.

Could it be that she and the version of herself before the memory loss were that different?

But she couldn’t exactly ask that out loud. Xu Zhitong kept the question to herself and picked through the easier ones to answer in the gaps between songs.

“Were you eating very lightly these past few days because of the injury? Ah, yes, I’ve been drinking congee and eating bland food all these days.”

“The cold? It’s because I wore too little. My body’s been a bit weak just after being discharged.”

“I don’t know if the temperature in Jiangshi dropped…… maybe? I’ve already put on more clothes.”

She chatted slowly with the fans for a while and wanted to sigh, feeling that she was nowhere near as composed as she had seemed in the recordings.

But she wasn’t as nervous as before, either.

It felt okay. The fans were as tolerant as they’d been in the recordings, even when the topic was utterly boring.

They were just genuinely getting to know her, being interested in her, liking to talk to her.

After a couple more exchanges, Xu Zhitong felt that if they kept asking, she might slip up, so she prepared to keep singing and scrolled through the request list.

At that moment, Lin Yang lightly touched her hand.

Xu Zhitong looked up and saw Lin Yang pointing at her phone.

Was she going to make a call?

Not understanding, Xu Zhitong nodded.

Lin Yang then quietly got up and walked out.

The door closed; the sound was cut off.

Xu Zhitong was left alone in the room, and after a brief pause, she suddenly felt a little uneasy.

Should she keep singing? Maybe she should chat a little longer and wait for Lin Yang to come back.

After losing her memory, her emotions were often unstable. It was as if only when Lin Yang was beside her, or for Lin Yang’s sake, could she do things normally.

Just as she was hesitating, Xu Zhitong suddenly saw a gorgeous entry effect appear in the lower-left corner of the livestream screen.

[Level 75] Cotton entered the livestream room.

Oh!

Xu Zhitong’s heart immediately skipped a beat. She took a sip of water and forced herself to suppress the urge to greet the newcomer.

She remembered from the livestream recordings that SleepyBlue never welcomed high-level users.

A vague guess rose in Xu Zhitong’s mind. She said, “Mm…… I’ll sing a little more for everyone. Anything you want to hear? Let me check the request list.”

Could she understand it? Lin Yang definitely could.

Xu Zhitong hummed a tune under her breath while waiting.

[[Cotton] sent 999 notes]

A song request!

Xu Zhitong quickly clicked into the request list. Sure enough, Lin Yang had pushed a song up to first place.

But it wasn’t the song she’d tried singing that morning; it was another Cantonese song.

“Oh, Mianmian (Cotton) requested a Cantonese song,” Xu Zhitong murmured happily.

“My Cantonese isn’t standard, so let me apologize in advance to my friends in the Hong Kong area…… just a moment, let me load the accompaniment first.”

Though she didn’t know why, Lin Yang had gone outside to request the song.

Maybe she was worried about sound leaking?

Xu Zhitong didn’t dwell on whether Lin Yang’s behavior made sense; all her attention was on the song she was about to sing.

She also didn’t notice the bullet comments expressing surprise that she knew Cantonese.

Xu Zhitong muted the mic and, while the accompaniment loaded, tried humming the chorus.

It was pretty difficult. She was worried she’d crack on the part where she switched between chest voice and falsetto in the chorus.

But she really liked this song.

When the accompaniment finished loading, she tried it once and thought it was okay, then turned the mic back on and said with a smile to her fans, “This song is pretty hard. I’m afraid I’ll crack, so if I do, don’t spread it around, okay?”

The chat was full of anticipation.

The accompaniment started, Xu Zhitong cleared her throat, deliberately lowered her voice, and began singing, afraid she wouldn’t be able to hit the high notes later.

Who would have thought it would go quite smoothly? Maybe it was muscle memory from her body; Xu Zhitong clearly noticed that she handled the turns, transitions, and changes between chest voice and falsetto very naturally.

Just as she finished the first chorus, Cotton suddenly started sending gifts.

It was a Qixi Festival limited-time carnival; pink effects exploded across the screen, with gorgeous pink blossom trees and heart-shaped balloons, once again triggering a 99+ combo.

Xu Zhitong was pleasantly surprised. Her final note curled up with laughter, and she leaned back a little from the microphone, laughing under her breath.

Taking advantage of the accompaniment, she said, “Thanks for the carnival, Mianmian (Cotton). It’s so pretty.”

Ah……

Her heart was pounding.

Even more intensely than when the stream had first started.

What was Lin Yang trying to do…… using a burner account to request songs in her livestream, even going out of her way to avoid her, then sending gifts when she sang lines about love and romance, filling everything with pink bubbles……

Oh my god.

So this is what a secret relationship feels like?

So exciting.

The reason she’d been avoided must be that Lin Yang knew she’d be unable to hold back her smile and was afraid she’d slip in the livestream and let others know about their relationship.

But right now, Xu Zhitong was even less able to contain the exhilaration surging through her.

Was Lin Yang not angry anymore?

And besides, this was practically a direct admission.

Was this the same feeling her pre-amnesia self had when Cotton used to send gifts in her livestream?

Great.

Xu Zhitong’s smile was almost impossible to hide. In a very good mood, she finished the song, even handling the hardest part of the chorus flawlessly.

After she finished, she secretly laughed for a while longer before saying, “Thanks to Mianmian for the song request. Did you like it?”

[[Floating message] Cotton: Nice.]

Xu Zhitong hummed twice. “Of course it was nice. What else do you want to hear?”

Unconsciously, she picked up the same tone she used when talking with Lin Yang.

[[Floating message] Cotton: Nothing needed.]

Xu Zhitong: “All right, then are you just staying here to listen to songs?”

[[Floating message] Cotton: You sing; I have things to do.]

After saying that, Cotton left the livestream room.

The chat, almost completely covered by the pink carnival effect, was already a sea of [?].

[Hello? This isn’t a no-man’s-land]

[When did we start calling her Mianmian? Did I lose a chunk of memory?]

[Boss, you’ve never sung this nice Cantonese song to us]

[Pure passerby here, is this a couple influencer livestream?]

[You two are really dating?]

[Streamer isn’t allowed to date…… oh, it’s Cotton Empress, never mind then]

Author’s note:

"Under the Sakura Tree" by Hins Cheung

The song in the previous chapter was "Little Legend" by Mr.

TL Note:

In case you don't know, "Mian" is "Cotton" in Chinese, which I've been translating. "MianMian" is sort-of an affectionate nickname. I'll probably keep it like that in further chapters.

anti-ed offline = harassed or confronted in person by anti-fans

Qixi Festival (七夕) = Chinese Valentine's Day