Chapter 70: Reality (2)
That afternoon, the little assistant bought back an entire truckload of sweet sugar pastries. This had been a decision Jian Yuntai made only after careful consideration.
In the instance, he had discovered that the Red Lotus absorbed nourishment at different rates depending on the food. Fruits and vegetables—natural crops—provided the greatest nourishment, followed by meat. The least effective were artificially processed foods high in cane sugar, such as various pastries.
Even lower than that were foods without cane sugar but meant to fill the stomach, such as compressed biscuits and low-fat dairy products.
However, fruits, vegetables, and meat were all far too expensive in the real world. Jian Yuntai, as he was now, simply could not afford that level of consumption.
This livestream had earned a total of 470,000 Coins, which converted into 4.7 million in cash. Of that, he used 4 million to purchase various sweet sugar pastries, keeping 700,000 in reserve for emergencies.
At the same time, the little assistant brought over the compiled information on the new dormitories for Jian Yuntai to choose from.
“Streamers from the ‘lowborn’ tier live in old three-person buildings. Ordinary citizen tier streamers are being relocated to standalone two-person villas. The locations are all in the core area of the civilian district, with convenient transportation nearby, and an Inspection Team stationed separately for protection. Which one would you like to choose?”
In the underground garage, the little assistant held a form in his hands and looked at Jian Yuntai eagerly.
—He had gone above and beyond to sort out these materials ahead of time, all for this very moment! Before tonight’s livestream, he absolutely had to get Jian Yuntai’s answer, or he would have no way to report back to Auntie.
There were simply too many sweet pastries. The cargo boxes were piled up in the garage, and Jian Yuntai nestled himself in the innermost corner.
He took the form through a gap between the boxes and glanced at it.
There were 500 people in the Livestream Team. Of those, 243 were currently in the ordinary citizen tier. Most already had roommates. Of the remaining singles, either their personalities were too difficult and no one was willing to live with them, or their former roommates had died.
After eliminating the single female streamers as well, only six villas remained available for Jian Yuntai to choose from.
The environment and transportation were more or less the same. The only difference lay in the roommate.
Among them were several notoriously infamous streamers. After looking for a while, Jian Yuntai asked, “Are there any other options?”
“No.” The little assistant answered cautiously.
Jian Yuntai pondered for a moment and said, “Put this on hold for now. I don’t have time to move within the next three days. I’ll choose after I return from the next instance.”
The little assistant let out an “Ah?” “What difference would that make?”
Jian Yuntai replied, “After the next instance, some streamers will die. That will free up new spots. I’ll have more options then.”
“……” The little assistant stared, mouth hanging open.
You could do that?
He suddenly understood Auntie’s intention in sending him into the Livestream Team to broaden his horizons. With Jian Yuntai, he learned something new every single day.
He stood there for a long time.
Jian Yuntai held a folklore book in his left hand and a sweet pastry in his right. Without lifting his head, he asked, “Do you have anything else?”
The little assistant snapped back to attention and finally gathered the courage to say, “You still haven’t answered the question I asked last time!”
“What question?”
“Well… I mean, what exactly did you think about Cui Yu?”
“…………”
Jian Yuntai paused his movements and turned his gaze toward the little assistant. His eyes were utterly calm.
Yet the little assistant suddenly felt as if Mount Tai were pressing down on him, an inexplicable and overwhelming pressure descending upon him.
And even greater pressure followed.
Jian Yuntai stared at him for a long moment before asking, “Who told you to ask that?”
“?!” The little assistant’s face filled with shock.
How had Jian Yuntai figured it out?
That was far too perceptive!
He still tried to argue, “No one told me. I was just curious—”
Before he could finish, Jian Yuntai interrupted him, drawing out his tone. “If you don’t tell the truth… If I remember correctly, staff members who pry for intelligence or steal streamers’ private belongings to sell outside are sent to a military tribunal.”
There was no such law.
Jian Yuntai had made it up.
But the little assistant was kind-hearted and unable to withstand even the slightest fright. Like a hamster spilling nuts, he blurted everything out at once. “It was Auntie who told me to ask! Go ask my aunt!”
Jian Yuntai frowned. “Why would your aunt care about something like this?”
“Isn’t it because the Xiang’an Team has been making too much of a fuss? Wei—” Halfway through, the little assistant suddenly realized that Wei Shenglu was a confidential figure within the Xiang’an Team. He hurriedly changed his words, awkwardly saying, “Hey! Don’t forget about tonight’s livestream!”
“……”
Jian Yuntai stared at him for a full half-minute, until the little assistant felt his scalp go numb, before slowly speaking.
“You were about to say… Wei Shenglu?”
※※※
With a bang, the underground garage door closed.
The little assistant sat blankly in front of it, then suddenly grabbed at his own hair in a frenzy.
Ahhh! Liang Yan had actually mentioned Wei Shenglu to Jian Yuntai! Why had she said that?!
Just as he was drowning in confusion, Auntie called. “Did you get the answer?”
Still shaken, the little assistant glanced back at the garage door and said, “No.” Before Auntie could scold him, he struck first. “Are Jian Yuntai and Wei Shenglu on opposing sides?”
Auntie fell silent.
The little assistant asked in astonishment, “The Zhao’an Team bailed Jian Yuntai out—could it have something to do with Wei Shenglu?” Otherwise, why would Liang Yan specifically bring up that person to Jian Yuntai?
Auntie remained silent.
Then, without warning, there was a beep—she said nothing at all and simply hung up.
The little assistant stared at the darkened phone screen. Only after a long while did he feel a shiver of cold run down his back.
A terrifying speculation suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Could it be… that the Zhao’an Team and the Xiang’an Team were engaged in an enormous game of chess behind the scenes, and all of them were merely pieces?
He himself was just the most insignificant piece among them. How could a chess piece possibly guess the thoughts of the players?
Of course.
That was only his speculation.
Inside the underground garage.
Jian Yuntai deliberately starved himself for an entire day. By evening, he indeed entered that precarious, suspended state again.
It had become increasingly easy for him to enter the lotus pool. No longer did he have to be on the brink of death to do so.
But as he stepped closer to the lotus pool, his expression suddenly darkened.
This was terrible.
The black lotus was in even worse condition than last time. Jian Yuntai did not even need to touch it—when a light breeze passed over it, the inky black petals crumbled into powder and drifted away with the wind.
Only a bald, bare black lotus core remained.
Even worse was the red lotus. After appearing once, it seemed to have exhausted all its energy and had reverted back into a bud.
That was the very sight Jian Yuntai least wanted to see.
Because that meant the nourishment provided by food was only temporary.
He needed more money and more food to nourish this lotus pool, in order to ensure that he could continue thriving without decline.
Jian Yuntai did not examine the lotus pool closely. He immediately started eating again, speeding up as he devoured the sweet sugar pastries.
The Zhao’an Team had scheduled the livestream for 11 p.m. The closer it drew to that time, the more anxious he felt.
Why was the red lotus not growing?
If the black lotus did not grow, that was nothing unusual—it had always been like that. But the red lotus… the red lotus clearly could be nourished by food.
Knock, knock, knock—
There was a knock at the door outside. The little assistant reminded him, “There are only twenty minutes left before the livestream starts!”
Jian Yuntai did not respond.
Frowning, he entered the lotus pool once more to take a look. He had already eaten fifteen boxes of sweet sugar pastries from the entire garage, yet the red lotus was still just a bud, not a single petal having unfurled.
It definitely was not a problem with the pastries.
In the instance, Cui Yu had also prepared sweet sugar pastries for him, and at that time they had indeed nourished the Red Lotus.
Then whose problem could it be?
It could not possibly be the Red Lotus itself, could it?
“There are only ten minutes left before the livestream starts!” The little assistant’s voice grew noticeably more urgent. “Jian Yuntai gege, there are hundreds of thousands of fans waiting for you in the livestream! You can’t stand them up!”
Jian Yuntai stood up and prepared to head outside. Before leaving, he glanced once more at the pastries filling the garage. Still unwilling to accept it, he closed his eyes again.
A thick mist hovered over the lotus pool.
Jian Yuntai walked closer to look. In the pool, the black lotus and red lotus grew side by side, extremely close to each other.
Both looked more dispirited than the other.
The water in the pool was slightly murky. He could see faint points of light spiraling in circles around the two lotuses. They first circled the black lotus, as if trying to surge up along its stem, but were blocked by an invisible force.
Then the light points surged toward the red lotus.
There was no obstruction near the red lotus. It even seemed to welcome them, its bud trembling as it tried to absorb the light.
Yet every time the light points approached and were about to cling to the red lotus’s stem, they would suddenly veer off in another direction. The red lotus wanted to keep them, but no matter what, it could not.
Jian Yuntai stood and followed the drifting lights.
After circling the lotus pool once, he lowered his gaze—and his pupils trembled slightly. As if unable to believe what he was seeing, he crouched down for a closer look.
“Brother Jian Yuntai!” Outside the garage, the little assistant was nearly on the verge of collapse. “There are only two minutes left before the livestream starts!”
Jian Yuntai heard none of it.
At that moment, his eyes saw nothing but the lotus pool before him—or rather, the small flower base at the bottom of the pool.
It was not the black lotus.
Nor was it the red lotus.
It was a new lotus.
A lotus that had not yet revealed its color. Like a prematurely born tiger cub fighting for milk, it continuously “devoured” the light produced by the sweet sugar pastries.
It slowly extended its branches as it grew. The black stem gradually turned green, and the flower base began to emerge from the water’s surface.
Tender, exceedingly young lotus petals began to grow.
What color was this?
Jian Yuntai narrowed his eyes and could not help but extend half his hand into the pool, leaning in for a closer look.
※※※
Countless netizens waited inside the livestream. Even though the screen remained black, their enthusiasm did not diminish in the slightest.
“I spent the whole day fast-forwarding through the ‘King of Helll’s Wedding’ instance. No wonder it stumped so many people—it was seriously hard… Jian Yuntai was insane.”
“There are rumors online that the Life Crystal shattered. Is that true? Something like that has never happened before!”
“Piercing the Soul Contract Record at the end basically destroyed the foundation of the instance. No wonder the entire instance got wiped out.”
“I’m just curious about Jian Dadan’s Sinister Type. I bet so much money on it. Ahhhh why hasn’t he started streaming yet? Once he goes live, the Livestream Team will simultaneously announce his Sinister Type. It has to be Sinister Ghost Type!”
“I’m hoping for an upset. I voted for Sinister Human Type. Sinister Spirit Type really doesn’t seem to match him—I don’t know what those people who voted for Spirit were thinking.”
“They were probably hoping for a dark horse too. But no matter how crazy the upset is, there’s no way it’ll land on Spirit. Too many people voted for Ghost this time. You won’t earn much money from that.”
“Two minutes until eleven!”
“One minute!”
“Fifty seconds!”
By the end, no one was in the mood to discuss anymore. Everyone excitedly shouted the countdown.
Forty seconds.
Thirty seconds.
“Please, please let it be Sinister Ghost Type. The odds aren’t high, but I bet a lot!”
“Human Type, Human Type! The odds are huge, hehe.”
“I’m dying here. He really knows how to cut it close.”
Twenty seconds.
Ten seconds.
From ten seconds onward, the audience began counting down in unison, all the way to one. Eleven o’clock sharp!
The livestream screen was still completely black.
“??? What’s going on?!”
“Wife, you can’t ditch us! One day apart feels like three thousand autumns. I want to see Wife’s pretty little face!”
“Licking Wife through the screen and making money at the same time—this is the life! Wife must be Sinister Ghost Type!”
Just as the public chat was filled with wails, someone suddenly spammed a string of exclamation marks: “Even though Jian Dadan was late, the Livestream Team wasn’t! His basic profile has already been updated on the homepage! Sisters, go, go, go!!!”
“!!!”
The moment that message appeared, the chat filled with exclamation marks.
Many people immediately switched to the homepage.
They focused their eyes and looked closely.
【Jian Yuntai】
【Age: 18】
【Height: 182 cm】
【Weight: 62 kg】
【Livestream Ranking: 237】
【Livestream Bookmarks: 1.29 million】
【Born in an orphanage in the lowborn district. Parents unknown. Imprisoned by the Xiang’an Team for one month due to committing a major crime, then bailed out by the Zhao’an Team and became a public-service streamer.】
【Record: D-level instance — Six Suns】
【Record: C-level instance — King of Hell’s Wedding】
“Wife was over twenty centimeters taller than me and actually weighed less than I did. That wasn’t scientific at all, ahhhh!”
“This body fat percentage was way too good. The key was that his figure was amazing too. I suddenly remembered what he looked like soaked through in the Ice Mountain Hell during King of Hell’s Wedding—hiss, hah—”
“I want to lick those abs!!!”
“Put your pants back on! Is there no one left in this world that you care about anymore? Hahahahaha.”
“Born in an orphanage? Does that mean Jian Dadan grew up in an orphanage his whole life? Ahhhh I don’t understand. Eighteen years ago, the world hadn’t even mutated yet, and conditions in the slum district weren’t that bad. Couldn’t they even afford to raise one child? What kind of heartless parents would throw away such a beautiful Wife into an orphanage?”
“Maybe he wasn’t even left at an orphanage. Irresponsible people could’ve dumped him anywhere.”
“Oh my god. I thought Jian Dadan just grew up in the slum district, which was why he developed such a resilient personality. I never expected… an orphanage? Maybe you guys don’t know what orphanages in the slum district were like. They were basically arenas—survival of the fittest. Strong kids were respected, weak ones were bullied to death.”
“I can’t even imagine how he survived all these years… No wonder his vitality was so tenacious. He had been forced into it.”
After discussing it for quite a while, someone finally realized something. “Wait, where’s his Sinister Type?”
“Yeah… why hasn’t his Sinister Type been announced?”
Everyone frantically refreshed the homepage. After refreshing for a long time, not only did they fail to see any information about his Sinister Type, they instead received even more explosive news.
The online betting pool had been shut down by the Alliance.
The netizens exploded on the spot.
“Holy shit? I’m shocked for a hundred years straight. The Alliance personally stepped in to shut down the betting pool? Was that necessary? The total amount this time wasn’t even high enough to attract the Alliance’s attention, right?”
“The money’s already been refunded. Is the Alliance just cracking down on gambling chaos, or… does this have something to do with Jian Dadan? Didn’t he come out of the Xiang’an Team? I heard a lot of his matters were classified and couldn’t be easily disclosed.”
“Damn it, what difference does it even make whether it’s classified or not? So many people have already guessed—it’s Sinister Ghost Type! What’s there to hide? I’m seriously speechless about the Alliance.”
“Wait… didn’t they say that once he was promoted to ordinary citizen status, they’d announce his Sinister Type? That’s an explicit rule of the Livestream Team. The Alliance is really hilarious. If they weren’t going to announce it, why did they post on Weibo earlier saying they’d reveal an important piece of information about Jian Dadan today?”
“Could they be announcing what crime he committed? If it’s that, I can forgive the Alliance.”
“Yeah, compared to his Sinister Type, I’m more curious about what he did back then to get arrested by the Xiang’an Team. And the crime rating was A-level. There haven’t been any large-scale mass-casualty incidents in the past half year, right? Even if there were, those crimes were all claimed by other members of the Xiang’an Team.”
“Stop talking—Wife just went live!!!”
“?!” The fans were like cats who had caught the scent of fish. They immediately rushed back to the livestream without hesitation.
So the moment Jian Yuntai went live, he saw the bullet comments flooding past in a blur. They were moving far too fast—he could only vaguely make out high-frequency words like “Wife” and “late.”
“……”
Being late this time truly wasn’t his fault. He had timed it carefully when he went upstairs; he should have made it for the 11 p.m. livestream.
However, right before going live, Manager Liang Yan had hurriedly come to find him and held a meeting that lasted nearly twenty minutes.
The conversation had been chaotic and nonsensical.
The core message was only one thing—the Alliance had issued an emergency document requiring everyone to keep Jian Yuntai’s Sinister Type confidential. Jian Yuntai himself was forbidden from mentioning it.
That document was still lying on the table, red background with black lettering, marked as the highest level of urgency.
The camera couldn’t capture it.
After watching the barrage of comments for a moment, Jian Yuntai said helplessly, “Slow down your comments. I can’t see what you’re saying.”
The scrolling speed did indeed slow down. There were far fewer meaningless exclamation marks and exaggerated screen-licking noises.
But meaningful questions kept coming:
“Ahhhh Wife, what exactly is your Sinister Type? I’m really, really curious! Can you secretly tell us?”
“What was that important thing the Livestream Team said they were going to announce on Weibo? Why can’t we see it on the homepage?”
Jian Yuntai glanced up at Liang Yan.
Liang Yan stood behind the camera and crossed her arms in a big “X,” silently mouthing, “Sinister Type.”
Jian Yuntai understood. He gave the camera a lazy smile and said, “I can’t talk about my Sinister Type. Not even secretly.”
After a pause, he added, “As for that important matter, the Livestream Team wanted me to say it myself. This livestream is only thirty minutes long, so I’ll explain it briefly.”
“Okay!!!” The fans were practically ready with their little stools. Just moments ago, they had been on the Livestream Team’s homepage cursing the Alliance with open mouths and the Livestream Team with closed ones. Now they were all obedient beyond belief.
Jian Yuntai organized his thoughts and said, “I also saw some of the speculation online. At the end of the King of Hell’s Wedding instance, I didn’t revive.” That was what the Livestream Team had instructed him to say.
Not only could he not mention his Sinister Type, he also couldn’t mention revival. Anything that might hint at characteristics of a divine Sinister was strictly forbidden.
After he said that, he glanced at the comments again. As expected, they were full of question marks.
“But the livestream screen had already gone black at that time! The screen only goes black when the streamer’s heartbeat stops.”
Even Jian Yuntai felt the Alliance was being ridiculous.
He was confused himself.
Jian Yuntai could understand why Wei Shenglu’s identity as a Divine Sinister could not be made public—Wei Shenglu had always kept everything about himself strictly confidential.
But he… why could his identity as a Divine Sinister not be revealed?
Moreover, this urgent document had not been issued by the upper ranks of the Zhao’an Team, nor even by the upper ranks of the Xiang’an Team.
It had come directly from the Alliance’s highest authority.
Why would those who held the greatest power and voice in the world not want him to disclose the Sinister Types?
Jian Yuntai truly could not understand.
These thoughts only flashed through his mind for a brief instant. Very quickly, he continued, “The black screen might be related to my awakened ability. That was also the ‘important matter’ the Livestream Team mentioned.”
Facing the countless curious gazes behind the screen, Jian Yuntai steadied himself and said, “I have dissociative identity disorder… what people commonly call split personality.”
“???!”
The moment those words fell, the bullet comments froze for an instant.
Then they refreshed even faster than before:
“No wonder! The things I couldn’t figure out before finally made sense. No wonder Jian Dadan changed so drastically at the end of the King of Hell’s Wedding instance—it turned out he had a dual personality!”
“The one with the red pattern on his forehead at the end—that had to be the other personality. And the livestream screen also went black once during the Six Suns instance. It was just that the second personality appeared for too short a time that no one reacted.”
“!!! Oh my god! I was just discussing with a friend today whether it could be dual personalities, and it actually was. Please call me a prophet hahaha…”
“So Wife is a Sinister Ghost Type then? If it’s related to the mind, it could only be a Ghost Type, right? Damn it! If the Alliance hadn’t abolished the betting pools, I could have made a fortune to support wife!”
Jian Yuntai watched the comments for a while.
Impressive.
All wrong.
He did not have a dual personality. He had three—no, four.
Even now, less than twenty minutes earlier, the image of the newly sprouted lotus in the lotus pond stretching upward was still vivid in his mind. That delicate, almost sickly white lotus had burst forth with astonishing ambition, devouring every speck of light.
Red Lotus had been completely unable to compete with it. And the time the screen had gone black during the Six Suns instance had not been Red Lotus either—it had been Black Lotus.
Black Lotus had been on the verge of death. That incident in Six Suns had drained all of its life force. According to Liang Yan, if it were not nourished soon, it would be completely erased.
Jian Yuntai did not say any of this aloud. Some things, once said too clearly, would only lower his chances of survival when encountering enemies in future instances.
Because his enemies would only understand him better.
If it had not been for the Livestream Team, he would not even have wanted to mention his split personality at all.
After the initial shock, the bullet comments asked many more questions.
Jian Yuntai read through them one by one.
“Can’t say.”
“Confidential.”
“That’s confidential too.”
Finally, Jian Yuntai reminded them, “There are only five minutes left before the stream ends. You’d better ask something I’m actually allowed to answer.”
It was only after his reminder that the fans realized in shock how quickly time had passed. Twenty-five minutes had flown by in the blink of an eye.
“Ahhhh I can’t bear to part with Wife. The next time we meet will be three days later, sob sob sob…”
“Don’t end the stream! Chat a little longer!”
Jian Yuntai was in a hurry to eat sweet crispy candy, and after that he still had to cram folklore books. At this moment, his mind was filled with nothing but pastries and books.
He shook his head repeatedly. “No more chatting, no more chatting. You all should go to bed early later. Any other questions?”
As he spoke, he glanced at the time.
Just as the viewers had counted down waiting for him to go live earlier, he was now counting down in the same way, eager to end the stream.
Four minutes left.
When he looked back at the screen again, Jian Yuntai froze slightly. A rare trace of hesitation appeared on his face.
“Cui Yu! Wuwuwu, surely you can talk about Cui Yu’s matter, right? I really want to know whether you ever liked Cui Yu.”
“If you did like him, then at the end, in the part about Do Not Speak of Weakness, why couldn’t your heart’s blood merge? If you didn’t like him, then how could you have chosen to give up the side quest for Cui Yu?”
“Finally, a sister brought this up. I held it in all night without saying anything, wuwuwu. Thinking about the ending of the instance still makes me feel awful. How is Cui Yu doing in the instance now? We can still see Wife, but he never can again.”
“Cui Yu counted as your first love, right? Wuwuwu why did first loves always end without results!”
Jian Yuntai leaned back slightly, resting against the back of his chair.
The smile on his face could barely be maintained.
At the same time, inside the Xiang’an Team.
Auntie held a tablet in her hands, waiting for Wei Shenglu to choose the next instance mission. Yet he had not spoken for a long time.
Her phone was in Wei Shenglu’s hand.
On the screen, Jian Yuntai’s livestream was playing.
Auntie glanced at Wei Shenglu nervously. The latter had lowered his eyes slightly, his long white hair cascading loosely at his side.
The hazy moonlight poured over the edges of his white hair, diffusing into specks of starlike radiance. A breeze lifted the strands, like a sacred and noble unicorn bending to drink water, only to be startled upright again.
—The one Jian Yuntai liked was Cui Yu, not you.
Auntie herself had been the one to say that. Now she only wanted to slap herself several times. If she had known, she would never have said it!
If what Jian Yuntai was about to say truly carried that meaning, Auntie could not imagine what Wei Shenglu would do.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound of the clock.
It felt like awaiting a sentence.
Every second of suffocating silence tested the limits of Auntie’s heart. She felt her heartbeat growing faster and faster, almost beyond control, as if she wanted to flee the place entirely.
Finally—
“Cui Yu? Although I don’t know why our heart’s blood didn’t merge.” The young man’s voice came through the phone, tinged with faint disappointment beneath its smile. He paused for more than ten full seconds.
“But I did… once like him.”
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