Not Exactly Bad

Cotton’s ID was just a single, very common character, but when she searched it, there were actually quite a lot of videos. Most were edited clips of her gifting in various PK livestream rooms.

Cotton's account and SleepyBlue were mutual follows. She hadn’t posted any content, but she still had over 100,000 followers.

Xu Zhitong spent half an hour digging through the search results and roughly figured out Cotton's position, while also picking up some of the livestream “professional terms.”

Cotton was a big-spending patron; if a streamer caught her eye, she’d tip a little. She didn’t have a fixed streamer she supported, and she hadn’t joined any streamer’s fan group.

She usually only watched entertainment streamers doing PKs, preferred rooms with lots of people in them, and whenever she made a move, it was a string of Carnival gifts.

She was cold and distant, said little, spent a lot, and made no demands. Plenty of fans in the comments would try to claim this kind of tycoon for their own streamer.

SleepyBlue was apparently the only “talent streamer” she watched. She only sang, and rarely did PKs. She didn’t rely on PK gimmicks to attract followers, so there weren’t many edited clips made from that kind of content either.

So if you searched Cotton's name by itself, there were very few clips related to SleepyBlue.

It was only when Xu Zhitong searched “Cotton + SleepyBlue” together that she found some. Unlike PK streamers, Cotton's gifts to SleepyBlue were mostly “empty gifts,” meaning she would send presents when there was no PK going on, just when SleepyBlue was singing and chatting with her fans.

There was even one clip where SleepyBlue was cooking on stream, and Cotton came in, dropped fifty Carnivals, and left without saying a word.

...Impressive.

Xu Zhitong’s understanding of livestream content was completely refreshed. So you could even stream that.

And make that much money from it, too.

The video was censored, and its popularity wasn’t high. In the comments, SleepyBlue’s fans were quietly discussing how although Sister Cotton didn’t join the fan group or wear a badge, and didn’t come around often, the money she’d spent had long since made her SleepyBlue’s top donor.

It was just a pity that she didn’t like staying in the room to listen to songs, and she didn’t come especially often either.

Another fan said that Sleepy was very attractive to rich women. The sisters in her own fan base actually had the spending power to tip the same amount as Cotton, but Sleepy didn’t like going out to do PKs, and she didn’t compete either. Every day she just shut her door and stayed home, singing and chatting with fans.

Even if she went live with other streamers, she only connected with people she knew. Otherwise, she would’ve been top-tier already.

A new fan asked whether that was good or bad.

The fan replied that it was probably good. Sleepy didn’t ask for gifts, and the sisters in the room pushed her to do PKs and donate all on their own, which had become a special feature of the room [grinning]. The gift prices for song requests were already quite high even among the singing streamers on Yinfu, so there was no need to give more. Besides, with so many fans around, she could even make quite a bit of money from ads over on RedNote.

Using her left hand, Xu Zhitong carefully swiped the screen to avoid accidentally tapping like, while thinking to herself that the 25-year-old her had a point.

When she’d been cramming on livestreams earlier, she’d watched plenty of clips from other entertainment streamers doing PKs and pulling fans to send gifts. She understood that the industry existed because it had to; that was just the job.

But if it were her, whether at 17 or 25, because of her personality and the way she’d been raised, she probably still couldn’t bring herself to shamelessly push fans to spend money on gifts during a PK.

Xu Zhitong thought this fan probably knew her very well. She opened the profile to study it and found quite a few clips from her streams.

She scrolled for a while, then found one from a long time ago that wasn’t tagged with her name. The title was just a hush emoji, and in the video, several fans were chatting in a voice room, each of their names ending with the suffix zzz.

Xu Zhitong knew that suffix was exclusive to her fans. These people also seemed to be her top donors; from the replays and clips she’d seen earlier, their IDs all ranked among the top few on the thank-you board, and their wealth levels were not low either, which meant they had spent a lot on her.

A: “Hey, what do you think? Is Cotton a love-support donor?”

B: “How could she be? Shh, if you say that out loud, the fans of those other top streamers are going to swarm Little Sleepy. Cotton spends more on her favorite streamers than on Little Sleepy by a lot, and she doesn’t come here often.”

A: “That’s different. You didn’t join our private group chat. Cotton is in there.”

C: “As if I didn’t join? I just don’t tip enough, so you won’t let me in!”

B: “Huh? She even joins group chats? My friend’s favorite streamer is a top entertainment streamer Cotton occasionally tips, and she said Cotton hasn’t even added that streamer on Mikkuan.”

A: “Yeah, I thought I’d misunderstood too... but I keep feeling like the way she asked those things was like she was asking about that...”

B: “Which ‘that’?”

A: “You know, I’m just going to say it. It feels like she was asking whether Little Sleepy privately interacts with top donors—not the usual thank-you-for-the-gifts kind of contact, but real-life meetings, flirting.”

D: “Whoa, and there’s such a thing? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

C burst out laughing. “With how tiny and adorable our Sleepy Bao is, getting her to talk about real-life stuff for even one sentence in private chat would already count as her talking a lot. Whatever you try to talk to her about, she can always loop it back to what song she wants to hear. I, C Little C, hereby beg for a flirting method.”

A: “Exactly... Only X, who’s Little Sleepy’s manager, is in the same city. Last time she even went to her place to help pack up the Level 20 badge gifts. X replied to Cotton saying she’d met her, and Cotton didn’t seem too happy. I secretly counted, and after that she didn’t come to Little Sleepy’s room to tip for ten straight days.”

B: “You even counted that? You ship them?”

A: “Thank you, I ship Sleepy-Yu, okay?”

C: “Shipping Sleepy-Yu? Reported. You’re about to get your top-donor membership revoked.”

The clip ended there. When the comments were opened, there were only a few.

: Freedom of interpretation. Who dares say this is just a pure music fan? [side-eye]

Author’s reply: [disdain] Girlfriend fans are not allowed!

: To prevent screen recordings from spreading, reported. No need to thank me.

Author’s reply: Thanks. I’ll use my alt account to report it too.

: If Little Sleepy really gets to eat Cotton sis’s love-support gift, the fans of the top entertainment streamers would hate her to death, right? Over on the other platform, they post every few days asking who Cotton sis gave more combos to this month, wondering if she wants to have a favorite to protect, then keep going go go go hahaha.

Author’s reply: The Sleepy-Cotton shippers and the Sleepy-Yu shippers have been fighting like crazy over there every day, and they’ve got quite a presence in our place too [disdain].

: Cotton sis’s fans are all drawn from top entertainment streamers, but somehow three or four of the videos in her recommendations are Little Sleepy’s. She’s siphoning traffic like crazy. The other day, a new top donor sis seemed to fall for Little Sleepy through Cotton sis’s recommendations. Right after joining the badge, she tipped five Carnivals to Little Sleepy [smirk]

Author’s reply: Shh... [looking at the sky]

After reading all this, Xu Zhitong closed the Yinfu app in thought.

It felt like she’d suddenly understood something.

The connection wasn’t hard to make.

Cotton was Lin Yang’s Douyin account; from time to time, she would “coldly” come and tip gifts for her, and deliberately or not, she would also attract and funnel fans to her from other top streamers.

And her fans didn’t know that she and Cotton were very familiar in private.

Mm...

Although there were still some things she didn’t quite understand, like what Cotton meant by asking those questions, or why Cotton would go around tipping other people, and so on.

Xu Zhitong checked the prices of those gifts again, then looked silently at the ceiling.

Lin Yang’s family had always been rich. When she read the news, she often saw her mother, Madam Lin, in the finance section.

The Lin Corporation was one of Jiangshi’s biggest enterprises. They must make a lot of money.

But 100 Carnivals was 300,000 yuan.

Wasn’t that still a little too much?

When Xu Zhitong was in school, she really disliked Madam Lin.

Madam Lin almost never showed up; she even sent a secretary in her place for parent-teacher meetings.

Yet she was extremely strict about Lin Yang’s studies and conduct, having the secretary convey her “orders” with a cold face and businesslike tone: “The Lin Chairman is very dissatisfied with your fifth-place ranking this time.” “The Lin Chairman does not wish to see you still not home by nine o’clock again.”

Xu Zhitong listened from nearby, furious but unable to say anything.

Lin Yang remained obediently silent. After the person left, Xu Zhitong pulled her aside, indignantly on the same side as her. “What kind of secretary is that? Does she think she’s delivering imperial edicts? It’s fine, Yangyang. Once you’re an adult, you won’t have to be afraid of your mom anymore!”

Lin Yang said nothing. Xu Zhitong reached out and touched her hand, her heart softening.

“Don’t be sad. I’ll treat you to lunch later. There’s a really good chicken pot place nearby. I’ll bike you there, and we’ll get there fast.”

And now, several years later, she didn’t know whether things between Lin Yang and Madam Lin had changed.

Xu Zhitong curled her lip, tossed Madam Lin to the back of her mind in annoyance, and thought, forget it. Anyway, it was definitely Madam Lin’s money Lin Yang was spending. Since Madam Lin had been so awful to Lin Yang before, using a little more money now to subsidize the little home the two of them shared wasn’t a bad thing.

As for why Lin Yang wanted to ask her fans those things...

Xu Zhitong felt another strange sensation rise in her heart.

Even now, she still didn’t really have much of a sense that she was a streamer.

Seventeen-year-old Xu Zhitong did like singing, and she knew she had a gift for it.

But did she really sing well enough to deserve so many people liking her and paying for it? ...When Xu Zhitong watched the replays and saw how many people were sending gifts while she sang, she’d always been puzzled.

What did these fans like about her?

Xu Zhitong had lost too much memory. To this world, she only had a very strong sense of disconnection; even knowing that it was her future self, she still couldn’t fully place herself in it, and she didn’t really understand it.

She didn’t think she was the type who liked being adored by others. From childhood to now, she had always been more passively popular among her classmates.

Lin Yang was the only friend she had ever actively made and deeply befriended.

So when she discovered that Lin Yang had been with her through all of her livestreams, sending her so many gifts, and confirmed that Lin Yang had always been by her side, Xu Zhitong’s mood was able to settle down a little.

And beyond that steadiness, there was also a strange feeling.

If they were just best friends, then the things Lin Yang was doing didn’t seem very logical.

As if the relationship between her and Lin Yang was not the same as it had been when she was seventeen.

Xu Zhitong didn’t know whether that was good or bad.

From the perspective of her seventeen-year-old self, she wanted to be Lin Yang’s best friend for life.

They understood everything about each other so deeply: each other’s families, each other’s lives, each other’s thoughts, each other’s wishes.

Among these complicated bonds and feelings, perhaps—no, definitely—there should not be the impulse to kiss your best friend.

At that thought, Xu Zhitong suddenly flopped hard onto her pillow and covered her face with another one.

She let out a tiny whine, feeling a little broken.

It wasn’t like she’d never had such impulses before.

When she graduated middle school, she’d been so excited that she’d really wanted to kiss Lin Yang on the face.

But when she lunged at her, Lin Yang dodged and called her crazy.

Xu Zhitong had never liked anyone before at all, so she had no idea what the difference was between that impulse back then and the kind of thoughts she had about Lin Yang now that she was grown.

This was bad.

As an adult, she wouldn’t really be... falling for her best friend, would she?

Xu Zhitong let go of the pillow and stared at the ceiling in silence for a while, a little dizzy.

She needed to sleep and calm down.

-

In the car.

Lin Yang sat in the back seat and very solemnly opened Weibo, searching for the ID she had written down earlier.

It was the default username, with the word “user” followed by a string of jumbled numbers.

The corners of Lin Yang’s lips lifted; she gave a cold, faint smile.

No wonder she couldn’t find it no matter how hard she searched.

After finding the account, she saw that the profile picture was completely black, and the background was black too.

Lin Yang confirmed that the account hadn’t opened SVIP, then clicked into the homepage; her hand paused.

The page was blank.

She remembered that when she’d looked on Xu Zhitong’s phone, the homepage had shown quite a few Weibo posts.

...Were they all visible only to her?

Lin Yang was silent for a moment, feeling somewhat irritated.

But it didn’t matter; she still had Xu Zhitong’s IG account written down.

Lin Yang hadn’t expected Xu Zhitong to use IG either. After all, Xu Zhitong probably had never been abroad, and since she was a streamer, overseas livestreaming required an application for permission; it was very troublesome.

All these years, when Xu Zhitong occasionally took leave to travel, she had only wandered around different provinces within the country. Those were all public updates she could see. She would post travel photos in the fan group and on RedNote, and upload vlogs on Yinfu.

The IG account that came up in search was another jumbled ID.

When Lin Yang looked at the “follow back” button above it, she fell silent again.

...

In the quiet back seat of the sedan, the only sound in the space was the clicking of the turn signal.

Lin Yang tightened her hand, her fingers trembling slightly, and restrained herself from tapping follow back.

Xu Zhitong’s IG account had over a hundred posts, over a hundred follows, and a dozen or so followers.

The posts were mostly life-sharing snippets: food, shopping, street scenes...

Lin Yang scrolled through them, and suddenly felt a strange sense of familiarity.

She frowned slightly and opened the most recent post.

Xu Zhitong’s photography skills were average at best; she’d casually taken a few pictures of brunch: a latte with latte art, a plate of eggs Benedict, and a serving of French toast.

Lin Yang froze.

The logo on the napkin beside them was from a shop she had only eaten at a few days ago; taking a closer look, the dishes were exactly the same.

Xu Zhitong’s caption: Not bad.

TL Note:

PK (打pk) = a livestream face-off where streamers compete for viewers’ gifts.

Carnival gifts = virtual presents on the platform.

empty gifts = tipping when there isn’t a PK going on, just to support the streamer.

love-support donor (爱情票) = a supporter people suspect is tipping out of romantic or shipping-style interest.