Not Merely Passing By
Lin Yang showed Xu Zhitong how to watch livestream replays and what to watch out for when going online now.
No random likes, no random comments, and ideally, browse without leaving a trace.
Even though she was only a small-time internet celebrity, every move she made still drew attention; especially while she was on medical leave, fans were everywhere, and it was easy for them to notice her activity.
Xu Zhitong obediently said okay.
Lin Yang looked at her, paused, and checked her privacy settings again.
She was just about to say a few more things when her phone rang. It was the driver calling. “Miss, Madam Lin says she’s already on the way.”
Lin Yang glanced at the time. Her mother would need forty minutes to get to the cafe; if she left now, it would take about fifteen minutes, and she could still make one more round of checks at the shop.
Pressing her lips together, Lin Yang said, “Something came up at my coffee shop. I have to go over first... I’ll come back to see you later. Do you have a caregiver here? How are you supposed to eat lunch?”
Xu Zhitong watched her stand up and felt a little disappointed. “The nurse said the hospital cafeteria can send meals to the bedside, so I can just order for myself. When are you coming back?”
Lin Yang paused. “In the afternoon. I’ll definitely come back and keep you company for dinner. Call me if anything comes up.”
Xu Zhitong drooped. “Okay.”
Lin Yang glanced at Xu Zhitong, then turned to leave.
Xu Zhitong stopped her. “Wait, Yangbao, did you change your phone number?”
Lin Yang: “...Why?”
She was standing sideways to the bed and didn’t look back; the bow at her waist swayed lightly with her movement.
Xu Zhitong itched to touch it, but didn’t dare. “When I went to see the doctor just now, I wanted to call you. But the number you used in high school wouldn’t go through, so I thought maybe you’d changed it. This new phone doesn’t have any numbers saved, and since I lost my memory, I didn’t know your new number.”
Lin Yang stiffened, then gave a quiet mm.
“Yes, it’s a new number.”
She turned back, naturally picked up Xu Zhitong’s phone, and entered her other number.
After handing the phone back, Lin Yang smiled. “Then I’m going.”
Xu Zhitong: “Okay.”
She watched Lin Yang walk out of the ward. Only after the glass window in the door no longer showed even a trace of her did she finally look away.
The phone screen was still showing the newly saved number. Xu Zhitong frowned, then suddenly had a strange thought.
After hesitating for a moment, she tried copying the number and searching that Weixin ID in Weixin.
...Huh? There was a friend.
But it wasn’t the Lin Yang Weixin she had just contacted, the one with the star marker.
It was another Weixin account, with the remark: Cotton. ? What did that mean?
Xu Zhitong blankly tapped into the chat window and found that there were only three chat logs on this new phone.
ZZZ: [60-second voice message]
ZZZ: My voice is a little hoarse right now, haha. I’ll sing you the full version next livestream. ^^
Cotton: Mm-mm.
Xu Zhitong didn’t get it. What was this? Why was she singing separately for Lin Yang’s alt account?
The voice message was a somewhat melancholic song. Seventeen-year-old Xu Zhitong had never heard it before.
Her twenty-five-year-old voice had a slightly husky edge to it, slow and unhurried like a murmur. She sang the verse and chorus in a very gentle voice.
It mentioned livestreaming, so maybe it had something to do with livestreaming.
There was still more than an hour until the hospital lunch delivery. Xu Zhitong opened a video site and, following the method Lin Yang had taught her, found her own replay account.
Checking the replay schedule, she saw that SleepyBlue ZZZ streamed four days on, three days off, and each stream usually lasted two hours.
Honestly, that didn’t seem bad at all.
The previous livestream had been five days ago, right when she had been knocked unconscious in the car accident.
Xu Zhitong clicked open the newest replay. In the comments, quite a few fans were asking why SleepyBlue hadn’t been streaming lately.
The replay uploader replied: The streamer has some real-life matters to deal with and will be back very soon. Wait for the notice, baby.
For a moment she felt guilty, then turned that guilt into motivation. She hit fast-forward and started cramming on what twenty-five-year-old her—SleepyBlue—was like on stream.
Lin Yang really hadn’t lied. Her streaming style was like chatting with friends: very relaxed.
No exaggerated showmanship. She just sat down at the desk, opened with two songs, chatted for a bit, watched the like count rise to a certain number, then kept singing.
In one hour she sang six songs. The rest of the time was spent chatting, and Xu Zhitong touched her own throat, feeling that the frequency wasn’t even low.
Most of the conversation was answering fans’ questions in the bullet comments, then expanding on the topic and chatting with everyone.
Xu Zhitong paused the video, took out a mirror, and started copying the expressions SleepyBlue made on stream.
Mm... first, no expression.
Eyes slightly narrowed; she couldn’t look too excited. A little gloomy.
Then lift the corners of her mouth a little; smile when she saw interesting bullet comments.
The smile was about the same as when she was at her cringiest in middle school: a little pretentious. She’d let out a soft snort, and if something was really funny, she’d silently lean back a little and let the smile widen.
But it was cool.
Xu Zhitong was pretty satisfied. She was exactly that kind of cool girl; when she grew up, she even became the kind of person she had always wanted to be.
She made faces at the mirror for quite a while, then couldn’t help making the aggrieved expression she used to pull on Lin Yang.
Actually, Xu Zhitong’s eyes were very large. On stream, when she naturally lowered her gaze, they looked a little longer and narrower, and more mature.
Only when she wanted something would she widen her eyes. Sometimes when Lin Yang got annoyed with her, she would cover her eyes with a hand and push her face away, refusing to look at the pleading expression on her face, saying, Are you a puppy?
Xu Zhitong looked at the mirror and found that twenty-five-year-old her looked even more pitiful making that expression than seventeen-year-old her had.
Maybe it was because of the dark circles under her eyes; her complexion was also pale, and with that messy blue hair, she had a kind of hidden melancholy.
Was twenty-five-year-old her not very happy?
Xu Zhitong pouted at her reflection, then thought of the outrageous number in her bank account and sighed. Adults really were different; even with that much money, they still weren’t “happy.”
She kept watching the replay.
Skipping over some of the chatting and singing, a little over an hour into the stream, a lot of bullet comments were telling SleepyBlue to go out and play.
What did “go out and play” mean? Livestream outdoors with equipment?
SleepyBlue said helplessly in the stream, “I haven’t chatted at home for that long either. Are you already tired of hearing me sing?”
Someone sent a scrolling message: Don’t worry about it. My wallet can’t wait anymore.
SleepyBlue frowned and smiled. “Fine.”
She typed for a while, and soon the screen split in two, revealing a very cute girl on the other side, with straight bangs, twin ponytails, big eyes, and an equally pink, girlish background.
The girl’s Yinfu ID was Yu Dudu. She smiled brightly, her voice sweet. “SleepyBlue, you finally decided to leave the house and connect with me?”
SleepyBlue: “The fans kept urging me to come out and play, so here I am connecting with you.”
Yu Dudu: “So what’s the plan? Are we playing a round, or are you taking me to meet some new people?”
SleepyBlue: “Let’s play two rounds and then I’ll go home to sing. Just the two of us; let’s keep it simple.”
A PK start notice appeared in the middle of the screen, but the two were still chatting, and gifts kept trickling in. The bullet comments were a sea of “I knew it” and “Friendship 99.”
Xu Zhitong didn’t really understand these cryptic people. She glanced at the PK score; SleepyBlue was already over one hundred thousand, and she was a little shocked. Was that real money or fake money?
Still, after all these years, it seemed her personality hadn’t changed much. Outwardly cheerful, but in truth only bossy at home; she only liked clinging to people she was familiar with and playing with them every day.
So, in Xu Zhitong’s view, SleepyBlue choosing to play one-on-one with Yu Dudu, plus the familiar way Yu Dudu spoke, meant the two of them had a very good relationship.
The two chatted casually, and the replay uploader didn’t turn off the gift effects. One flashy gift after another poured in almost nonstop, and the PK health bar completely crushed Yu Dudu on the other side.
Yu Dudu pretended to be angry. “You’re so mean, SleepyBlue. You deliberately picked me to take the hits, huh? You say you’re bringing me out to meet some big streamers, and then you won’t even do it. They split the earnings a lot more. Why are you bullying me, a little girl?”
SleepyBlue on the screen smiled. “Sorry. Who told us to be so close?”
The effects finally finished scrolling by. In the bullet comments hidden underneath, some fans were saying: Don’t worry, Sleepy baby. Sister has already covered your little fish’s hospital fees.
Yu Dudu’s health bar on the other side also got pulled back a little.
SleepyBlue blinked. “Dudu, my sister went and tipped you hospital fees. I’ll sing you another song later, so don’t be mad.”
Yu Dudu immediately looked happy. “Really? I get to eat hospital fees again, and Sleepy baby’s singing for me too? Hehe, after the PK ends, let’s stay connected for another hour.”
Xu Zhitong was completely lost.
Just as she was about to pause and look up an explanation for livestream PK terms on Yinfu, the still-paused gift effects suddenly exploded again.
It was obvious that a user with the Yinfu ID Cotton was repeatedly sending a huge, flashy gift.
1, 2, 3, 4, ... 99+
The blood bar on the screen crushed the opponent so thoroughly that you couldn’t even see it anymore; even the score stopped displaying, only showing that SleepyBlue was ahead by 1,000,000+.
Yu Dudu’s mouth fell open in shock.
SleepyBlue also clearly froze. Only after reacting did she say, “Thank you to Sister Cotton for 100 Carnival gifts! That’s way too generous, sister. We’re just playing for fun here.”
100 Carnivals, 30,000 points each; that was 3,000,000 votes total. On Yinfu, where the recharge ratio was 10:1, that was equivalent to 300,000 RMB. In this kind of match, it was like using artillery to swat a mosquito.
Yu Dudu only had 30,000 votes, and that included the hospital fees her fans had given her in advance.
Yu Dudu gasped a couple of times on the other side, but didn’t show any negative emotions. “Your sister is insane. I’m not talking to you anymore; you’re hurting my GDP. Mute, mute.”
They muted each other. SleepyBlue smiled at the screen. “Long time no see, Sister Cotton. Has it been a month since you last came? What song do you want to hear? I’ll sing it for you after the PK ends.”
[Scrolling message] Cotton: 《XXX》
“Okay, Cotton.” SleepyBlue narrowed her eyes and smiled. “You still like hearing this one, huh? I’ve kept this song just for you all along; I’ve never let anyone else request it.”
The PK ended quickly, and SleepyBlue thanked the rankings before turning Yu Dudu’s microphone back on.
Yu Dudu sighed with a smile. “You’re way too strong. Punish me instead; don’t sing for me. I’d be embarrassed to hear a score this low.”
SleepyBlue hesitated slightly. “Change your profile blurb. I won’t punish you for more than that. I still have to go back and sing for my sister.”
Yu Dudu stuck out her tongue, picked up her phone, and typed quickly. “I knew it. Same as always. I’ll write ‘I only listen to @SleepyBlueZZZ sing on Yinfu’ in my bio, okay?”
“Fine, go ahead.”
The connection cut off. Just as SleepyBlue’s screen enlarged again, another scrolling message appeared.
[Scrolling message] Cotton: Something came up. Send a voice message later. I just passed by and saw you in PK, so I tipped a little. I’m leaving.
Right after that, the top donor in the upper-right corner really did leave the livestream room.
SleepyBlue let out a wow and said with little expression, “As expected of our Sister Cotton.”
Bullet comments: Is this the power of the top donor sister? 666.
Bullet comments: One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, damn!!!
Bullet comments: I thought Sister Cotton didn’t like watching Little Sleepy collab with other people [staring at the sky], but she left so fast. So she really just passed by and thought it was a big match?
Bullet comments: Don’t say that. Sister Cotton is the freest big sister on Yinfu; she tips a little to everyone.
Bullet comments: Then our Sleepy baby is also the only talent streamer she ever tips big money to [heart]
Bullet comments: Don’t ship the streamer and the big sister, babies.
Bullet comments: I also want a sister to drop out of the sky and somehow throw 300,000 at me [crying]!
Bullet comments: Taking applications.
Even though many fans were trying to stop the shipping, the shipper comments still got quite a few likes.
Xu Zhitong, on screen, clicked her tongue and said, “Okay, enough, don’t discuss the top donor sister. I’ll send out a lucky draw, everyone go grab one. Sister Cotton isn’t in the room listening to songs, so I’ll sing you something else.” ?
From the reaction of those bullet comments, Xu Zhitong caught a hint of something. She paused the video, hesitated for a moment, then opened the Yinfu app and searched for the name Cotton.
Author’s Note:
Where’s my comment section? (holds out hand to ask for it)
"Forget and Remember" — Chen Youli