In Brother Yu’s live stream, the atmosphere had turned somewhat eerie.

Brother Yu, who had thrown out bold words earlier saying, “Watch me solo-kill the Abyssal Lord with Illusionist,” hadn’t managed to kill the Abyssal Lord even once the entire game. By the end of the match, his score was 8 kills and 1 death—the Defeating Side MVP. Yet, he felt a burning, stinging pain on his cheeks, especially from the final words Xiao Bai had typed out—

This is a five-player tower-pushing game.

Not a solo showcase.

It was practically like getting slapped straight across the face!

The tone in the bullet screen chat had completely shifted as well:

【It’s a five-player game. If you want to show off and carry the whole lobby by yourself, you’d better make sure you actually have the skill. Heh.】

【Just wants to get kills to show off without giving a damn about his teammates—Brother Yu’s always been like this~】

【Slapped in the face, huh? That’s what you get for talking trash at the start!】

【This is the consequence of a streamer who only cares about getting kills and completely ignores the lane waves!】

【It’s a tower-pushing game, not a killing game. Is this dumbass streamer blind? The top lane was pushed all the way through while he was fighting in the mid lane!】

Brother Yu’s stream had high popularity, but more than half of that traffic came from haters who found him obnoxious. Seeing him get humiliated, these anti-fans instantly grew ecstatic, rushing over in droves to follow the opposing streamer, Xiao Bai.

The follow count in Xiao Bai’s live stream shot up like a rocket.

Xie Yu cursed under his breath: “Fuck! Our marksman was way too garbage. In two crucial team fights, he straight-up vanished and dealt zero damage!”

He casually hit the report button and said, “I’m tired today, so I’m signing off early. See you all tomorrow.”

Xie Yu closed the stream directly, leaving the anti-fans and die-hard fans to start arguing once more in the chat section.

Under his subtle guidance, people indeed began flaming the marksman—

【This marksman really was terrible!】

【Exactly! If it wasn’t for the marksman being so garbage, we could’ve won this game!】

【Brother Yu’s fans are truly shameless. When he wins, it’s ‘God Yu is awesome,’ but when he loses, ‘his teammates are trash’?】

【Both mid laners targeted the marksman at the exact same time. The enemy deleted yours while you failed to kill theirs, and now you blame your marksman for being bad?】

【Is it so hard to admit Streamer Xiao Bai is better than your streamer?】

Watching the flame war in the chat, Xie Yu’s expression was unsightly—yet, negative publicity was still publicity. In this era where traffic was king, traffic meant income. He consoled himself with this thought deep inside.

It was just that the flow of that match made him feel terribly uncomfortable, as if he had been led by the nose the entire time. Even though he grabbed plenty of kills, he looked like a complete clown in front of his opponent.

Xiao Bai? Where did this guy pop out from?

Driven by confusion, Xie Yu logged into an alt account and clicked into Xiao Bai’s stream.

——Congratulations to player [Xiao Bai] on successfully ranking up to [Supreme King]!

The system notification that appeared in the stream happened to be this exact line.

Seeing Xiao Bai reach Supreme King, countless viewers hit the follow button and sent congratulations over the bullet screen. The stream’s popularity had already broken past 300,000—an unthinkable metric for a newcomer streamer.

Among these newly added followers, there were definitely a massive number of his own haters! Xie Yu bit his teeth in fury; he hadn’t gained a single benefit from this match, and instead helped this new streamer score a massive wave of attention, turning himself into a stepping stone for the newcomer’s rise!

In the game, Xiao Bai’s rank icon updated to a glittering, golden [Supreme King].

Seeing the rank tier update to [Supreme King · 1 Star], Ye Shaoyang finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He had finally hit Supreme King.

Thankfully, his younger cousin had played support to duo-queue with him, protecting him from start to finish. Otherwise, if he had solo-queued alone, he might not have reached Supreme King this quickly.

Qin Rui was also incredibly thrilled to see his cousin reach Supreme King: “Ge, you went on an unbroken win streak straight from Bronze to Supreme King—that’s insane! Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone play games this ridiculously well!”

That’s because the classmates around you are all noobs. You’ll meet plenty more in the future.

Ye Shaoyang patted his shoulder with a smile: “Thanks for the hard work, Xiao Rui, playing support for me over fifty matches. Take a rest now. Playing for a full day makes the eyes go blurry.”

On the right side of the stream interface, dense rows of system notifications were scrolling past—

【Jungle King followed the streamer and became a channel member】

【Just Wanting a Pentakill followed the streamer and became a channel member】

Watching streams on the Whale Platform was free, but becoming a streamer’s “channel member” meant becoming a little fan of that streamer. Once the streamer went live, the system would send automatic notifications. It cost 1 yuan a month. One yuan wasn’t a lot, but only viewers who wanted to watch him regularly would buy this membership card.

When Ye Shaoyang opened his backend analytics, he found that within a brief half-hour, his channel membership count had actually broken past 100,000! Meanwhile, the live chat section was completely plastered over with a dense, wall-to-wall blanket of bullet messages—

【Didn’t you say you’d be stuck on the Supreme King promotion series for a month? Are we playing the same game?】

【A 100% win-rate Abyssal Lord, godly! Truly godly!】

【He got a Provincial Badge! This streamer is an absolute monster!】

【Such a huge disadvantage at the start, and he actually managed to stall until the late game to win in one push? I’m sold!】

【Where are God Yu’s fans now? Do your faces hurt?】

【Your God Yu has already been turned into a dead fish [Doge.jpg]】

In the game, a system message popped up as well. Ye Shaoyang opened the system mailbox to check—

Congratulations! Your hero [Abyssal Lord] has achieved 7,300 hero power, currently ranking #1 in Mingzhou Province.

The National Leaderboard has been unlocked for you.

Every Monday, the nationwide hero power rankings will settle and refresh.

Please keep up the great work!

A glittering gold Provincial Badge, ranking first in the entire province.

Mingzhou Province was a heavily populated southern province in China, making the gold content of this Provincial Badge exceedingly high.

The top ten players of each province were qualified to enter the national rankings.

Today was Thursday, meaning there were three days left before the national rankings settled next Monday.

Ye Shaoyang addressed his live stream: “Thank you to everyone who bought membership cards and sent gifts. It’s almost 12 o’clock, so I’m heading to sleep. Friends who want to learn how to play [Abyssal Lord] can follow my channel, and I’ll be back streaming tomorrow morning at 10 AM. For those who like my cat, I’ll bring Xiao Bai along then as well. Goodnight, everyone!”

With that, he decisively logged off.

Bullet screen chat: “????”

He won so brilliantly, and he’s not even going to brag or show off a little?

He’s just logging off directly like that?

Streamer Xiao Bai’s departure was so sudden that the viewers couldn’t react in time.

Consequently, even more people ended up following his channel.

Ye Shaoyang rubbed his sore neck and walked out onto the balcony.

The residential complex he lived in was situated right in the city center, offering a view of the city’s most beautiful night scene. Even though two days had passed since his transmigration, looking out the window occasionally still brought a strong sense of unreality.

After playing ranked for an entire day, he was exhausted, yet undeniably thrilled.

A long-absent passion was boiling in his bones.

Sure enough, even after living a second life, he was still deeply in love with esports.

Supreme King.

In his past life, he owned over a dozen Supreme King alt accounts, frequently duo-queuing with teammates to practice team compositions.

To professional players, Supreme King wasn’t the finish line.

——It was the starting point.

Supreme King 50 Stars, Supreme King Peak Matches, Professional League, all the way to the World Championship!

Only those stages packed with top-tier experts could truly sharpen his mechanics and macro awareness.

Right now, he had merely climbed to the Supreme King tier using the [Abyssal Lord] hero, not even touching the threshold of the esports scene yet. For next Monday’s national hero rankings, he had to secure the title of “#1 National Abyssal Lord.” After that, he would need to continue practicing other heroes.

If others knew you were good at [Abyssal Lord], they would just ban it straight away during matches, leaving you completely stumped.

A pro player’s hero pool was a vital benchmark of assessment. In his previous life, his hero pool was deep; he could play every single mid-lane hero, earning him the title of “All-Rounder Mid Laner” from many league coaches.

Reborn anew, his hero pool couldn’t fall behind.

Which one should he learn next? Let’s go with [Illusionist], so Brother Yu—who brazenly claimed ‘even the World Championship isn’t as good as me’—could see how [Illusionist] was truly meant to be played.

Ye Shaoyang opened the window to let the night breeze hit him, taking a few deep breaths of fresh air.

Turning around to pet his cat, he finally went to the bedroom and fell asleep contentedly.

At the exact same time, at the Whale Live Platform headquarters.

Whale Company maintained night-shift staff on duty every single day. Many streamers were night owls; if someone said something inappropriate or broadcasted inappropriate content, the night crew had to step in immediately. Otherwise, if the cyber police summoned them for a chat, the entire platform could face disciplinary action.

A night-shift worker in the data department was currently yawning when the backend data column suddenly began skyrocketing like a rocket. The staff member froze for a moment, clicking open the data metrics to take a look—

It was in the Gods’ War gaming section. A streamer named [Xiao Bai] had drawn a massive influx of fan attention in a short period. In just a few short minutes, he gained 100,000 new membership card subscribers!

The staff member in the data department rubbed his eyes, thinking he was seeing things.

Checking the backend details, this streamer had streamed for just one day, yet his total revenue—including gifts and membership card fees—had already shattered the 150,000 yuan mark! One had to realize that many new streamers didn’t even make 20,000 yuan a month… and he pulled in 150,000 in a single day?!

What on earth did this streamer do to achieve such a terrifying record for a newcomer stream?

Sensing something unusual, the data department staff immediately forwarded the metrics to the Streamer Management Department.

The management department was equally astonished by the figures, escalating the report to the duty manager.

Chen Feiyun clicked into the stream VOD to examine it carefully—she saw an adorable cat, and she also saw the streamer Xiao Bai collide with streamer Brother Yu in ranked, where Xiao Bai ultimately won the match and typed out a message taunting Brother Yu at the end.

Chen Feiyun came to a sudden realization: “Brother Yu has always been a highly controversial streamer with tons of die-hard fans and anti-fans alike. Analyzing the data, around 200,000 people migrated over from Brother Yu’s side to follow Xiao Bai, while the remaining 100,000-plus clicked in from the front-page newcomer recommendations.”

Her duty colleague, Zhang Qi, remarked: “A cash flow of 150,000 in a single day—Streamer Xiao Bai has the potential to blow up big time!”

It had been a long time since a streamer with this much potential appeared. Chen Feiyun’s eyes sparkled as she pulled up the streamer’s registration files from the backend: “Contact him immediately so we don’t get poached by other platforms!”

Online platforms required real-name verification. When Ye Shaoyang registered the “Xiao Bai” stream account, he had filled in his ID card information and phone number, making it extremely easy for the platform to reach him.

Ye Shaoyang was just drifting off to sleep when he suddenly received a call from an unknown number.

Puzzled, he pressed the answer button: “Hello, who is this?”

A very gentle female voice came through his ear: “Hello, is this Mr. Ye Shaoyang?”

In the middle of the night, Ye Shaoyang assumed it was a telemarketing call and was about to hang up, only to hear the other side say: “I am Zhang Qi from the Streamer Department at Whale Live Platform.”

Ye Shaoyang paused, realizing her identity, and politely said: “Hello. I didn’t curse at anyone during my stream, nor did I do anything illegal.”

“…” Zhang Qi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “It’s not about that. We’re reaching out because we’d like to formally sign a contract with you. We noticed in our backend that you haven’t signed a streamer contract with our platform yet.”

Now Ye Shaoyang was completely awake.

He sat up and asked, “You’re reaching out to sign a streamer contract with me?”

“Yes. The platform’s newcomer recommendation system automatically rotates accounts registered within the past week across the front page. Once formally signed, we’ll offer dedicated signed-streamer promotion slots,” Zhang Qi explained gently. “Our manager believes you have immense potential, so we’d like to sign you. Upon signing, we’ll put you straight onto featured promotions.”

“Afterward, there will be various channel recommendations to help drive traffic your way. In addition, we have professional streamer managers and assistants to help boost your popularity and manage your fan club.”

Hearing this news, an average person would probably be thrilled, but Ye Shaoyang wasn’t moved in the slightest—his goal was never to be a streamer. Ye Shaoyang politely replied: “Thank you, but I don’t plan on signing for now.”

Zhang Qi was stunned, asking in confusion after a brief pause: “You don’t plan on signing? For unsigned streamers, you can only keep 10% of the gifts sent by viewers, and the platform won’t invest effort into promoting you. After all, if you aren’t signed, you could jump ship at any moment.”

The other side made a fair point. During today’s stream, he had seen the dense wall of membership cards and gifts flooding his screen—that was all real money. Signed streamers could split revenue with the platform according to set percentages, whereas without a contract, he could only take 10%, which would be a huge loss.

After all, the viewers sent those gifts out of affection for him, with many even buying cat food for his kitten.

Ye Shaoyang thought it over and said, “Could you send me the contract first so I can take a look?”

Zhang Qi: “No problem. I’ve sent a WeChat friend request, please accept it.”