Chapter 48: I've missed you all, old pals, let's chat. [hug]

When they reached a red light, Lu Boyuan stopped the car and shot a glance over. "Why aren't you picking it up."

"Let it sit there a little longer." Jian Rong stuffed both hands into his pockets, his expression extremely frosty.

Crossdress? Why didn't they just straight up make him do a strip dance?

Also, was there anything worth seeing about a man crossdressing? This could also count as a benefit?

After returning to Lu Boyuan's home, Jian Rong went to his room and immediately called Ding-ge to ask if there was any chance he could modify the benefit options.

"Over ten thousand people have already voted, we can't change it anymore." Ding-ge's voice was cheerful. "I took a look and saw that your Weibo has gained nearly fifty thousand active fans in just one hour... some people can't even get this kind of traffic no matter how much they boot-lick."

"Is that even traffic!" Jian Rong gritted his teeth. "How did you all come up with those conditions... dancing? Acting spoiled? Crossdressing??"

Ding-ge shrugged. "I told you about the plan for the benefits beforehand, you're the one who said we could do whatever. Later I even asked you to confirm it once, but you just never answered my message."

Jian Rong thought back briefly and shut his eyes. "...I was playing ranked at the time."

"In short, this is already a done deal, we can't change it." Ding-ge coughed and comforted him. "It's fine. As for dancing, you can randomly wiggle around a little and call it a day. Acting spoiled is also just wagging your tongue a bit. If worst comes to worst and you really have to crossdress, it's only a matter of changing your outfit. Many professional players and streamers have all crossdressed before, what's the big deal?"

Knowing there was no way to save the situation, after he hung up the call, Jian Rong sullenly logged into his side account.

He could still turn this around. As long as no one voted for it, he wouldn't have to crossdress.

Jian Rong found the post that his main account had reposted ten minutes earlier and unhesitatingly picked option #1—

[A minimum of two choices is required, please select again.]

Jian Rong expressionlessly stared at that warning for two seconds before he numbly screenshotted it and mechanically sent it to Ding-ge.

[Ding-ge: When Xiao Bai streamed on his eighteenth birthday, he had six different benefits. We took into consideration the fact that your stream popularity is guaranteed, which is why we lowered it to two benefits.]

[R-ong: So I'm supposed to thank management?]

[Ding-ge: No need, it's all due to your own hard work.]

Jian Rong wanted to chuck his phone again.

He switched back to Weibo and randomly picked two of the first four options. He closed his eyes and pressed 'confirm' before he rapidly scrolled to the top of the page.

A few seconds later, Jian Rong slowly opened his eyes and scrolled back down the screen like he was checking the winners of a lottery—

[Randomly draw water friends for a civil war—1]

Jian Rong froze for a few seconds and rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

1?!

Didn't Ding-ge say that over ten thousand people had voted? How could there possibly be an option with only one vote—and he himself was the one who put in that one freaking vote too!!!

Jian Rong was in a daze for quite some time before he finally continued scrolling downwards.

[Play ranked with designated champions—0

Pick a lucky water friend to take flying in duo queue—1

Pick a water friend to send a gift to—11

Sing a song—1,233

Dance—4,099

Stream while acting spoiled—18,424

Crossdress—23,768]

Jian Rong laid down on his bed, closed his eyes, and chanted silently to himself.

Calm down a little, you can't afford the contract termination fee, you really can't afford it.

Isn't it just crossdressing? You can just take it off after wearing it for one night, it's not like it affects your gameplay or stream quality... my ass.

Jian Rong picked up his phone again and switched back to his main account.

It hadn't been long since the poll was posted, everything could still be redeemed.

Very soon, Lu Boyuan found out the reason why Jian Rong had thrown his phone.

HT's latest match recording was playing on the computer in the study room. Lu Boyuan held his phone and was silent for two seconds. "Crossdressing?"

"Mn, management did some surveys and found that crossdressing is the benefit that attracts the most viewers." Ding-ge said, "I could tell from his voice that he was pretty unwilling. Since you're with him, keep an eye on him for me, don't let him make any trouble."

Lu Boyuan instantly recalled the image of Xiao Bai wearing a dress on his eighteenth birthday. It only lasted for a split second before Lu Boyuan couldn't bear to keep thinking about it and closed his eyes.

Remembering Jian Rong's ice cube expression from when he got out of the car, Lu Boyuan chuckled. "Would he even agree?"

"Even though he's being quite defiant, he doesn't seem like the type who would go back on his word." On Ding-ge's end, the firecrackers were deafening. "My signal isn't good here, we can keep talking about it once I get back tomorrow. Help me monitor him for the night... shit, he posted on Weibo!! I'm hanging up!!!"

After the call ended abruptly, Lu Boyuan lifted a hand and paused the match replay before he opened Weibo.

[TTC ་ Soft: Happy New Year. I've missed you all, old pals, let's chat. [hug]]

Lu Boyuan couldn't help but laugh after he saw the accompanying emoticon at the end.

The comment section was even more spectacular than the one under the original post. In the span of a few short minutes, there were already over 500 comments.

[Too late, dumbass.]

[If there's anything to say, we can talk about it in the stream. Dad is too busy creating side accounts, I have no time to deal with you.]

[Who picked #1 and #3? What fun is there in a civil war? Having a civil war with this dumbass, isn't that the same as just sending yourself over to him to be flamed for no reason whatsoever?]

[Passerby from the entertainment circle. After so many years of being in the circle, this is my first time seeing this kind of vote distribution......... as expected of the esports circle.]

[Bystander don't leave! If you pick #8 in the poll, your idol will never go bald and this year you will get rich rich rich!]

[This poll shouldn't be called "Soft's Benefit Options," it should be called "Settling Old and New Grudges Together," "What a Coincidence Do You Hate Soft Too," "If You Have a Grudge Against Him Please Come Over and Vote," or "If You're a New Dad Then Create Ten Side Accounts."]

[@TTC Esports Club the poll is wrong, the options should be "School Uniform," "Maid Outfit," or "Lolita Dress."]

[Everyone, can you vote for dance? This dumbass has kicked seven of my side accounts out of his stream before, now I have to make him kick his legs seventy times in front of me.]

[What's the fun in seeing a sack of skinny bones dance? Are you not afraid that he'll mess with you and hit you with some radio calisthenics?]

[Vote for acting spoiled ah is this even worth thinking about???]

After posting on Weibo, Jian Rong got up and poured himself a cup of water while continuously drafting his responses in his mind. He wanted to move them with emotion and enlighten them with logic, so that those dumbasses... those water friends would recast their votes.

When he got back and read through the comments, which numbered over a thousand, not a single one was using human speech.

... the situation was extremely grim.

Jian Rong gripped his water cup and contemplated for a long time before he heroically sent out a big red envelope on Weibo.

[You crazy? Can't take it? Now you're bribing?]

[I'll give you a red envelope, one that's a hundred times bigger than yours, if you crossdress + dance + act spoiled, how about it? Mommy really can't choose between dancing and acting spoiled, so if this is OK, I'll transfer the money straight to your Weibo?]

[888 yuan, 100 envelopes, do you think I'm a beggar?]

[Didn't manage to grab any. It made laozi so mad that I went and bought two more side accounts to vote with.]

What the fuck.

Jian Rong clicked on the reply button quite a few times, wanting to curse at them, but he forcefully restrained himself every time he typed out a sentence.

After that happened several times, he was staring at the last comment when a light bulb suddenly flashed in his head. As if he was clutching at his last hope, he called Shiliu.

He successfully got the contact details of the person that he wanted to find from Shiliu. Jian Rong instantly added them as a friend and wrote "extremely urgent" in the verification message section, complete with a long string of exclamation marks following after.

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: I've accepted your friend request. Now let's chat!]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: Hello, how can I help you?]

[R-ong: Spamming votes. A Weibo poll, can you mass vote?]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: No problem. How many votes do you require?]

[R-ong: Let's start with 200,000 votes.]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: ?]

[R-ong: What's with the question mark? Can you do it or not?]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: It's possible, yes, just relatively troublesome. Why do you need so many votes? I've never seen a poll where one option has over 200,000 votes.]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: Or would this possibly work? Send us the link to the poll, we can help you control the poll outcome and guarantee that the option you require gets number one.]

That was fine too.

Jian Rong let out a sigh of relief and sent the link over.

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: ?]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: We can't fulfill your1 request]

[R-ong: Why?]

After having wasted another ten minutes, Jian Rong was a little irritated. He had just typed out "if you can't even accept this kind of request what's the point of you being a water army," when his phone vibrated—

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: What do you think? Little dumbass, whose bad example did you follow? Who taught you how to buy numbers? Behave with integrity and work steadfastly, you don't even understand such a simple concept? What you're doing is fraud, it's cheating, do you know that? Now you've ended up trying to buy numbers from your dad?]

Jian Rong: "..............."

What kind of fucking bullshit was this.

[R-ong: You're just a crappy water army company and you're here trying to lecture me?]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: I'm helping other people spam, it's not like I'm spamming for my own sake. I used my own accounts to vote for you, OK?]

[Please Contact For Buying Fans/Spamming Likes+Comments/Hot Search: I've screenshotted this, if there are any issues with the poll result in the future, Dad will definitely report you hah. You should just take it easy. If you have the energy to find a water army, you'd be better off using it to pick out a dress.]

Seeing that "Typing..." was still flashing on the screen, Jian Rong suppressed the urge to voice call the other person and hurl abuse at them. He then blacklisted the water army account.

Yet another dead end.

Jian Rong could no longer think of any other ways to make a comeback, and with a deadened heart, he was about to exit out of the comment section when—

[Hahaha Doufu also came to vote, and he even shared the poll link hahahaha]

[Fighting Tiger and MFG also voted, but they didn't share the link. I just saw that they liked this poll post, but I don't know which ones they specifically voted for.]

[I took a stroll and discovered that all the pro players Soft shaded before have joined the battlefield. Is this an example of the friendship between LPL's pro players? I'm touched.]

[When disaster struck for Soft, likes came from all sides [rose]]

Jian Rong's temper was already gone.

He calmly created a side account in order to respond to one of the fans—[Hii, could I ask which pro players liked the post? Wanna eat melon seeds~]

Right away, the fan enthusiastically sent over a list of names.

Jian Rong screenshotted it, saved the picture, and stored it in his notes. He named it: "Blood feud, assassination list."

After all that, he shared the link to the poll inside the internal team group chat.

[R-ong: Vote dance for me, thanks]

There was nothing he could do about crossdressing anymore. It was only wearing some clothes, it wasn't completely unacceptable.

As for acting spoiled... Jian Rong, who usually had to mute the other person whenever he heard a voice that was even a tiny bit coy in order to concentrate on the game, truly didn't know how to do it.

[P-Baby's Little Support: Why? Acting spoiled is easier than dancing ah.]

[R-ong: Don't know how to do that crap.]

[P-Baby's Little Support: Then you know how to dance??]

[R-ong: Can't you just twist your hips and neck?]

[P-Baby's Little Support: ......... don't, bro, I really don't want to have someone suddenly send a hilarious meme gif of you over when I'm in the middle of a conversation with them.]

[Ding-ge: I also recommend that you pick acting spoiled, it's just a matter of talking a bit.]

[R-ong: I already said that I don't know how.]

Xiao Bai sent over a voice message.

Even though Jian Rong had prepared himself mentally before clicking on the voice message, he was still thunderstruck.

"Gege is so troublesome~ aiyo, don't use dirty words anymore! Gege thank you for the gift, mwah..."

Goosebumps rose all over Jian Rong's body, and he immediately stopped playing it.

[R-ong: Do you wanna die]

[Da Qian: Hahahaha]

[Pine: Disgusting, group owner kick him out.]

[P-Baby's Little Support: Hey, I was just giving him an example.]

[Ding-ge: No, Jian Rong you misunderstood me. The option said "stream while acting spoiled," but it never said you had to act spoiled towards the water friends.]

[R-ong: ...what's that mean?]

[Ding-ge: Acting spoiled towards your teammate also counts as acting spoiled, it's a loophole.]

Teammate?

Who's my teammate.

[P-Baby's Little Support: Yeah, when the time comes you can just act spoiled towards my ge. You're already so familiar with each other, you can at least put on a spoiled act with him right?]

Originally, Jian Rong thought that he was already immune to everything at this point. But in that instant, his scalp went numb once again, and his heart thumped wildly.

Acting spoiled towards Lu Boyuan...

[R-ong: No way]

[P-Baby's Little Support: Why not?]

Did this even freaking need to be asked? How could a man act spoiled with a man?!

And also, what did Lu Boyuan do wrong to have to listen to a man act spoiled towards him?

[R-ong: This is something I agreed to on my own, I don't want to involve others.]

[P-Baby's Little Support: This is nothing, my ge won't care about this kind of thing. His ability to ignore someone is top tier. The key thing is that you have to learn how to act spoiled... how about Master Bai gives you some last minute cram classes?]

With a dark face, Jian Rong was about to type something when a profile picture containing a little teacup pig suddenly popped up—

[R: You don't need to. He knows how]

Wei: Hnnn I actually can't breathe I can't believe JR got pitted so badly HAHA