[Esports] I Started an Online Romance with a Big Shot After Retiring Chapter 79

Chapter 79

Even when Duan Mingyue wasn’t streaming, there were quite a few people hanging out in his stream room. Since most of them were fans, they used it as a chat room, and the bullet screen was even more active than in some active streams.

It was currently the season, and fans originally didn’t hold out much hope. Plus, Mi Yonghui was busy running around with this and that matter, unable to attend to urging him to stream to maintain popularity.

Who knew red rain would fall from the sky—Duan Mingyue actually started streaming on his own initiative.

[Wow, he’s really streaming!! I thought Kai was lying to me wuwu!] [Please turn on the camera!] [Usually he doesn’t stream during the season, what’s up with today?] [Probably because there’s a long gap before the match with FTK. Since they won against WOF yesterday, relaxing a bit doesn’t matter.] [Wait, what’s with this stream title?]

Duan Mingyue hadn’t synced the screen yet. He only took a moment to look at the bullet screen and smiled slightly. “It’s exactly what the title says.”

Kai, feeling uneasy at his station behind him, heard this and couldn’t help but run to Duan Mingyue’s stream room to take a look.

In just five short minutes, the popularity of Duan Mingyue’s stream had grown to over two million. Gift effects were non-stop, making the page stutter slightly. And at the very top, in large font, was written “Duo Queue with UOOW.”

Kai instantly felt a bit suffocated.

He comforted himself: It’s all a coincidence, I’m just overthinking it.

Just as he was thinking this, a soft female voice rang out.

“Moon… God,” the girl’s voice carried unconcealable shyness. If one listened carefully, it even seemed to tremble slightly. “Can you hear me?”

Hearing this voice, Duan Mingyue could barely contain the curve of his lips. He pressed his knuckles against his lips, coughing lightly twice to suppress his laughter. “I can hear you. The volume is just right.”

“…That’s good.”

Shen Yanjin didn’t know Duan Mingyue was streaming. He just assumed it was a sudden whim of Duan Mingyue’s, so he reluctantly accepted it as a bit of fun between the two of them. After all, since they started dating, Duan Mingyue hadn’t made any requests of him, and Shen Yanjin didn’t want to refuse him.

Before, he could be uninhibited because no one knew. But now, using a voice changer when both parties were fully aware of the situation… this was too shameless.

Duan Mingyue heard the uneasiness in his tone and thought he shouldn’t tease him too much. He turned on the screen sync and said, “I’ll queue directly, okay?”

“Ah, um, okay.” Shen Yanjin clicked ready, then looked at his pink avatar, sitting on pins and needles.

Doing it before was one thing; doing it now was another matter entirely.

In comparison, Duan Mingyue was much more composed than him. “Grab Tata for me first, you play Bell.”

Shen Yanjin was Player 1, the first to pick a character. He silently secured Tata, took a deep breath, and surrendered in his heart. “Brother, why do you insist on me today…”

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“Cough,” Duan Mingyue suddenly interrupted. “I’m streaming.”

A thunderbolt struck down from the clear sky. Shen Yanjin instantly shut his mouth, his face flushing crimson. His body temperature rose several degrees, as if he were being roasted over charcoal.

The bullet screen had gone crazy along with Kai.

[? Brother?] [Holy crap, haven’t seen them for months. I thought Moon-U was a bad ending (BE), turns out it’s not?] [So Moon-U will never lose.] [Huh? Don’t lie to me. I’ve been following UOOW for months to see if she comes online. Her avatar has always been gray!] [Maybe they aren’t cultivating feelings online. What if it’s offline?] [Is Moon God really in love?? Then why didn’t UOOW join the team?] [Probably didn’t pass the entry test. I saw it long ago, this woman is all show. Not even one ten-thousandth as good as Lucida, OK?] [Damn… how does this female match-fixer dog still have fans? Mods, kick them out!] [Hahaha am I the only one coming from Kai’s stream? The little fatty was stunned. Looks like the KW members didn’t know Moon God had a partner either.]

Kai was indeed stunned.

He dumbly took out his phone and scrolled to the official Weibo post announcing Sliver. In the photo, the young man’s brow still carried a gloominess, his chin slightly raised, his expression cold, indifferent, and severe.

Then he turned his sluggish gaze back to UOOW’s pink bear avatar on the screen. He clicked into her profile; it was also a sea of pink, with soft support characters displayed as her frequently used heroes.

In the stream, Duan Mingyue was still coaxing UOOW to talk.

That soft, cute voice, sounding like she was going “QAQ” with every word.

Kai fell into deep thought. Then, the conversation from the three-person group chat a while ago flashed through his brain.

At the time, he had lamented that he still couldn’t believe Lucida and UOOW had ultimately lost to a man.

Tans had suddenly added, “That’s not necessarily true.”

And he had thought Tans was just being a simple Riddler. Looking at it now, this guy… was not simple.

So he cast a horrified look at Tans.

Tans seemed to have expected him to look over, lazily turning his face sideways and smiling at him.

Kai’s hair stood on end. With a tingling scalp, he closed the profile page. Before exiting Duan Mingyue’s stream, he posted a comment with heavy grief: Moon-U, Eternal God.

—

Shen Yanjin endured the shame and managed to reply to Duan Mingyue with two sentences. Finally unable to bear it, he picked up his phone and typed a message.

[Sliver: Captain, what are you doing!] [RedMoon: Not calling me Brother anymore?] [Sliver: . Not calling.] [RedMoon: Angry?] [Sliver: .] [RedMoon: You didn’t want to go public, so I’m using this method to show off our love.] [RedMoon: QAQ Don’t be mad at me. We’ll stop after this game, okay?]

“…”

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Shen Yanjin really couldn’t imagine Duan Mingyue typing “QAQ.”

And mentioning going public, he did feel somewhat guilty.

[Sliver: I’m not mad at you. It’s just… hearing this voice, don’t you find it strange?]

Actually, what Shen Yanjin wanted to ask was: A grown man using a female voice, don’t you find it disgusting?

Duan Mingyue’s reply was very concise.

[RedMoon: As long as it’s you, it’s fine.]

The game map loaded. Shen Yanjin’s rank on this account wasn’t high. Because he hadn’t played for too long, he had dropped more than ten points. The opponents matched were mostly low-tier players—of course, that was relative to his main account’s tier.

In recent months of frantic ranking, the Sliver account had reached Challenger 1000 points, while the UOOW account was still struggling on the edge of Master.

With the previous conversation, Shen Yanjin didn’t resist speaking as much, though he still spoke very little, focusing all his attention on the match. In the viewers’ eyes, it looked like Duan Mingyue was unilaterally being attentive.

So the rhythm started up again.

But this kind of rhythm didn’t even count as a tickle to Duan Mingyue and Shen Yanjin.

They won the first game easily. After queueing into the second game, Shen Yanjin looked at his teammates’ IDs and froze.

4th Pick, Aiai.

Song Aiyu had left abruptly, disappearing completely without playing a single preseason match. Although Shi Feng replied to messages and played duo queue, whenever the topic of Song Aiyu (Aiai) came up, both would tacitly avoid it.

So, seeing this ID now, Shen Yanjin was momentarily confused.

He raised his hand to type.

[UOOW: 4L, do you need to swap roles?]

Then, as if to salvage his persona, he added a line.

[UOOW: QAQ]

At that moment, he clearly heard Duan Mingyue’s stifled chuckle through the headphones.

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Song Aiyu replied quickly.

[Aiai: No need, you play Support ^_^]

Shen Yanjin didn’t say more and locked in Faerie Cat.

He noticed that the “TWG” prefix before Aiai’s name was gone.

Although one shouldn’t meddle in other teams’ business, after locking in his character, Shen Yanjin still sent a message to Shi Feng.

[Sliver: Did Aiai leave the team?] [TWG-Wind: No.] [TWG-Wind: Not yet.]

Players couldn’t voluntarily disclose contract terms to each other, but Shen Yanjin understood the meaning behind Shi Feng’s words.

Not yet—that meant soon.

Song Aiyu’s contract was expiring, and he was about to leave.

He didn’t know what to say; this wasn’t something for outsiders to comment on. After thinking about it, he sent a comforting sticker. “I’ll carry your AD to rank up another day.”

Shen Yanjin remembered when Shi Feng’s mentality was hit, he had learned from Yue Fengling to spam AD games, only to be hammered by Aiai and Duan Mingyue carrying a random player. He couldn’t quite understand that method of stress relief, but for a brother, he would do anything. He had carried Yue Fengling; surely he could carry Shi Feng?

Shi Feng sent back a question mark full of confusion.

People in the esports circle could pretty much guess Aiai’s situation, but those outside were still confused.

Aside from being out of form in the first match, Shi Feng and the new support Recall had been in hot form in subsequent matches, their coordination getting better and better.

Combined with the fact that major teams like KW also changed their starting supports, this matter hadn’t caused much of a splash except among Aiai’s fans.

But the problem was, Aiai’s team prefix was gone now. This didn’t look like a standard rotation anymore. Even a fool could see that Aiai was leaving.

Rhythms emerged endlessly in the bullet screen, wondering what was going on. They were pushed back by Duan Mingyue’s and KW’s fans, telling them not to spam about other teams’ business here.

Shen Yanjin was close with Shi Feng, but he wasn’t very familiar with the support player Shi Feng liked. If compelled to compare, FTK’s Alan might be slightly more familiar to him than Aiai.

So, despite being full of concern, he couldn’t voice it.

Song Aiyu locked in Chrono, playing Mid lane.

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Seeing this, Shen Yanjin couldn’t help but click on his match history. He discovered that in recent months, Aiai’s match history was entirely Mid lane champions; he hadn’t played a single game of Support.

An absurd thought arose in his mind: Does Aiai want to switch positions?

But he remembered Song Aiyu would be twenty-five in two months. Switching positions at this time was tantamount to suicide.

What exactly is going on…

Shen Yanjin suddenly snapped back to reality, feeling he had really been infected by Kai. Why was he caring more and more about other people’s gossip?

He hurriedly focused his mind on the game in front of him.

Duan Mingyue at 5th Pick took Card Queen last. This character had high mobility and maneuverability, not suitable for Jungle-Support roaming because the support usually couldn’t keep up. But Shen Yanjin was playing Faerie Cat, who could attach to people, so this problem didn’t exist.

At the start, Duan Mingyue swaggered into the enemy jungle with the kitten on his shoulder. Their combination didn’t need much coordination; with shields and heals, they could just brute force it.

Song Aiyu came over and placed a ward at the Raptors camp. The jungle monsters spawned, and the game officially began.

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