Mr. Grant: Don’t even mention it! It’s all my fault for waking up early today, then stupidly clicking into a livestream, and then like an idiot going to other streams to collect experience points, which led me to run into something super disgusting. I’ve been pissed off for two hours!

Mr. Grant: I can’t hold it in anymore, I was just about to call you!

Brian Clark: Go ahead.

Mr. Grant: Do you remember that cheater you ran into yesterday?

Brian Clark raised an eyebrow, logged into the streaming account, and quietly waited for him to continue.

Mr. Grant: The stream I clicked into just happened to be that cheater’s! The streamer’s name is Mouse! When I went in, I heard him badmouthing you. I thought I was hearing things!

Mr. Grant: Seems like he knows about matching with you yesterday. He said you suck, your mentality is bad, and that you’re just a paid companion, that anyone you grab off the street could be your boss...

Ding dong—a notification sound different from QQ’s, a message from the streaming account.

Admin03: Hello yanxyan, we’ve received reports from other streamers. The platform suspects you of slandering or defaming other streamers, so your account will be temporarily suspended for one hour while we review the stream replay.

Brian Clark frowned and checked the time. This message was already four hours old.

yanxyan: So, is the review done?

Admin03: It’s done. Your stream has been unbanned.

yanxyan: Okay, I want to report someone.

Admin03: What?

Brian Clark entered Mouse’s stream. It wasn’t live yet—probably on break.

He didn’t bother looking, just copied the stream room number and sent it to the admin.

yanxyan: Whatever he reported me for, I’m reporting him for the same thing. Go check it out.

Admin03: ...

Meanwhile, Henry Grant’s messages were flooding the chat, all silly memes.

Brian Clark: Alright, want to play a game?

Henry Grant: ?

Henry Grant: Wait, why aren’t you mad at all?!

Brian Clark: I am mad.

Henry Grant: Then where’s the anger?

Brian Clark: Bottled up.

Henry Grant: Even if you’re my rank-carrying daddy, I have to say, Brian Clark, you’re too timid.

Brian Clark: ...What else am I supposed to do?

Henry Grant’s hands froze on the keyboard.

Yeah, what else could he do?

PUBG isn’t like other games—there’s no arena, no solo mode, so the most drama you get is trash talk during matches, nothing more.

The only way is to stream snipe, keep an eye on Mouse’s stream, and queue up at the same time. But with so many players, it’s not easy for two people to end up in the same match, and even if they do, they probably wouldn’t recognize each other.

Brian Clark launched the game and sent another message: Playing?

Henry Grant went quiet and obediently joined the game room.

“Aren’t you streaming?” Henry Grant’s voice came through.

“I am, but let’s play for an hour first to warm up.”

——

After an hour of duo matches, Henry Grant felt relieved.

He’d been worried that Brian Clark would be in a bad mood after hearing about that incident and it would affect his gameplay.

He was overthinking it. Today, Brian Clark was unstoppable, taking down everyone in sight, gunshots echoing all over Georgopol, playing even more fiercely than usual.

Brian Clark took a sip of water and started the stream.

Once a followed streamer goes live, all online viewers get notified, and soon over a hundred people joined the room.

[Wow, streaming early today, what a surprise! After watching your stream yesterday, I even dreamed about playing games... but I don’t even own PUBG :)]

[Will you be picking viewers to play with today?]

[Hey, who’s that in the game room with the streamer? A girl??]

Henry Grant’s in-game character, like Brian Clark’s, was female. But while Brian Clark’s was a bald Black woman, Henry Grant’s was different—the skin was the palest option, the face had the best features, wearing a tight black top and a super short yellow plaid skirt, looking super flashy. His game ID was Niludy, which sounds cute at first, but is actually just “你卢大爷”...

“That’s my friend, we usually play together.” Brian Clark glanced at his streamer experience bar. “If I can level up to streamer level 3 today, I’ll pick viewers to play for a whole day.”

As soon as he said this, he managed to get all the daily free gifts from the hundred-plus viewers.

A beep—Henry Grant actually sent a QQ message.

Mr. Grant: Should I not use my mic? Will it affect your stream?

Brian Clark didn’t avoid it at all, just opened it right in front of the viewers, the conversation showing boldly on the stream.

“It’s fine, they don’t like watching solo streams anyway.” Brian Clark said, closed the chat, and started the game.

Henry Grant: “...I’m just shy, okay?”

Three minutes later.

Henry Grant’s voice boomed in the stream: “Shit! That bastard flanked me! Yan Yan, come save me, save me!!”

Brian Clark was in the building next door: “I only have a pistol.”

“What gun you have doesn’t matter! Even if you only had a frying pan—no, even just a sickle, you could knock everyone down.” Henry Grant said, “Daddy, hurry, this guy’s coming to finish me off!”

[Hahahaha, that ‘daddy’ sounded way too heartfelt.]