Zhou Paihuai didn't know what she was thinking, but she actually sent out what was on her mind. There was no need to take it back; the two of them had been getting along very well, and it wasn't a big deal for her to want to talk to the hater.
Such honesty left Ji Anxi speechless. After racking her brains for a long time, she finally blurted out, "Actually, I think you're pretty good at games."
When Zhou Paihuai saw her message, he burst out laughing and replied: No wonder people say that haters are the real fans. Have you been watching my live stream every day lately?
A stream in front of the door: Stop being so narcissistic. Who has time to watch your live stream every day?
Ji Anxi was almost so angry at her words that she decided never to speak to her again. Just as she made that vow, Zhou Paihuai sent another message.
Nobody knows me in this foreign land: Do you like playing games? I'm really bored right now, want to play games together?
Ji Anxi, who had recently finally reached Gold rank but couldn't climb any higher, was immediately intrigued. Zhou Paihuai, despite streaming low-ranked matches, seemed to have really good skills, and perhaps she could help her climb higher.
A stream flows in front of the door: Great!
Chapter 25 Censored Words
Time always flies when playing games, and Zhou Paihuai seemed to have forgotten all his worries. Although Xiao Heifen's skills were really bad, it was still a good experience to play games with her. After all, she was very obedient, doing whatever he asked, and guarding the wards when asked. She was also fearless when it was time to fight.
So what if a support like that is a little bit bad? Zhou Paihuai is capable of carrying the team. Another win! The next game seems to be Xiao Heifen's Diamond promotion match. Zhou Paihuai rubbed his hands together, ready to play well and help Xiao Heifen reach Star Master in one go.
Just as Zhou was about to enter the game, Xiao Heifen typed: Still playing? It's almost nine o'clock.
Zhou Paihuai glanced at the time; it was already 8:50. He hadn't expected time to fly by so quickly. Before the room was closed, Zhou Paihuai typed a reply to her: "Looks like we can't play anymore. Let's do it next time. I'll definitely help you reach the King rank."
Just as I was about to leave the room, I saw another message from a hater: Are you still streaming tonight? Aren't you afraid of being criticized?
Zhou Paihuai knew she was concerned about him, but he felt a little awkward. He smiled and typed back: Don't worry, it's not that easy for you to smear me.
It was already nine o'clock when Zhou entered the live broadcast room. However, he hesitated to open the live broadcast room.
"What are you doing?" Ningluo, who hadn't started her live stream yet, was very curious. Zhou Paihuai was always very punctual, and although the situation was special today, she insisted on going live, so it was strange that she hadn't started yet.
Zhou Huai kept moving his hands, multitasking as he said to him, "Just like you said, someone might curse me tonight, so I'm taking precautions."
When Ningluo got closer, she realized that Ningluo was setting up a list of blocked words. She had already set up a long list, and even abbreviations like "sb" were blocked.
"Your censored words are way too comprehensive! Where did you learn all of these?" As a professional gamer, Ningluo certainly knew all these swear words, but Zhou Paihuai was an actor. Although the fan circle also used swear words, they didn't seem to use the same language as their competitive circle, right? Where did she know them? "You didn't spend the whole day surfing the internet and searching for them one by one, did you?"
"How is that possible?" Zhou Paihuai was speechless. It would take more than ten days or half a month to accumulate all this information, let alone a day of surfing the internet. It was all thanks to her love of watching competitions; afterward, when she had nothing to do, she liked to watch the drama unfold in places with lots of juicy gossip. She didn't participate in the discussions, but she basically knew all the inside jokes. The censored words she set today were all summaries she'd compiled from years of watching these kinds of gossip.
“Then what… ” Ning Luo still didn’t understand; there were some words he had never seen before.
While setting up censored words, Zhou Paihuai said, "Anyway, I just know. As for how I know, don't ask. Go back now, I'm about to start broadcasting."
"All right."
After finally writing down all the censored words he could think of, Zhou Paihuai clicked to start the live stream. He had been playing ranked matches all day, and he really didn't want to play anymore. He thought he might as well have some simple entertainment and enjoy the scenery of the live chat.
... ...
Ji Anxi quit the game and immediately opened a live streaming app. She had to admit that she was a little worried about Zhou Paihuai. Although she said it lightly and didn't care about these rumors, if she really didn't care, why would she have chatted with her all day and played games with her?
After opening the live streaming app, Zhou Paihuai didn't start broadcasting for a long time. Was she not going to broadcast today? That shouldn't be the case; when Ji Anxi reminded her to broadcast earlier, she didn't deny it. Just as Ji Anxi was feeling very puzzled, the live stream finally started.
Zhou Paihuai doesn't talk much during her live streams. She usually just posts what she's going to do today in the title, then plays ranked games or does some casual entertainment. She'll only reply occasionally when a teammate talks to her, otherwise she remains silent. But today, her live stream title was surprisingly "Entertainment + Chatting".
"... ... It seems that Zhou Paihuai hasn't been criticized enough by public opinion; this is Ji Anxi's only thought."
The haters usually ignore Zhou Huapai's barrage of insults, so they never expected such a good thing to happen today. They don't want to waste any time, so they start stirring up trouble right away. They're not afraid of getting their accounts banned by the moderators, since they have more than one account anyway.
However, things didn't go as they expected. The inflammatory messages were edited and sent out, but they didn't appear in the comments section. Instead, the comments were filled with ****************, occasionally interspersed with pronouns like "you," "me," and "him."
What's going on? Did she get a virus? Both the people sending and receiving comments were shocked by what they saw, or was her live stream being maliciously attacked?
"Tsk—" Zhou Paihuai herself was also very surprised. The live broadcast room in this world is very good. If the streamer doesn't want to see something, he can set up a censored word. She added so many censored words just in case, but she didn't expect that these comments would be full of censored words in an entire sentence. How much hatred do they have for her to go to this extent?
Soon, everyone realized that Zhou Paihuai had set up a censored word list, but they didn't expect her to have set up so many. The entire sentence couldn't be displayed at all. Helpless, they had to switch to full pinyin, but although Zhou Paihuai hadn't censored all the pinyin, she had censored some common and less pleasant-sounding pinyin words, resulting in comments like "zhoupaihuai you***".
"Looks like you guys don't really want to chat with me, so I'll just focus on playing games. I'm really good at it, anyone who wants to learn can follow me!" Zhou Paihuai said innocently yet shamelessly, practically trying to infuriate his haters.
Ji Anxi never expected Zhou Paihuai to do something like this. No wonder she was so confident saying she wasn't afraid of being criticized. With this method, no one could possibly criticize her! She had just been worried about her, really...
The original owner of this body was at least a third-tier actress. Although she had a lot of haters, it was impossible for her to have absolutely no true fans. However, her true fans were probably all rather laid-back, and they didn't interact with her that much. If she had chatted with fans in the past, there probably wouldn't have been many responses, because there were just too many haters, making it really difficult to find fan comments.
But today, all the content posted by the haters was blocked, so they gave up and moved on to other platforms. Gradually, some casual viewers started clicking in to praise her gaming skills, and some genuine fans began chatting with her sincerely.
True fans were mostly just admiring his looks, lining up in the chat to request Zhou Paihuai to post a nine-grid selfie. Zhou Paihuai neither directly agreed nor explicitly refused, playing coy with his fans while also focusing on the game. After three hours of streaming, the livestream was finally coming to an end.
"Thank you everyone for telling me the censored words today, I'll continue tomorrow!" Zhou Paihuai said this before ending the broadcast.
The live stream chat was filled with ******** again, and the trolls in the chat were furious. Judging from her words, she was going to update the censored words again tomorrow, clearly trying to silence them.
Chapter 26 Jiang Fei is looking for me?
Jiang Fei is looking for me?
Zhou wandered off after the broadcast, intending to return to his dorm. After walking for a while, he realized that Jiu'an seemed to be following him. Actually, they took the same route back to the dorm, but Jiu'an usually walked with Chu Shang. Now that only Jiu'an was without Chu Shang, it wasn't hard to guess.
"You need something from me?" Zhou Huaihuai suddenly turned around, startling Jiu'an so much that her face turned pale.
Zhou Paihuai once again doubtfully wiped his face. Was he really that fierce? Surely not, so why were they all so afraid of him?
Fortunately, Jiu'an was only startled by her sudden turn around, and quickly said, "Actually... actually it wasn't me looking for you, it was... it was... it was..." He stammered for a long time, unable to clearly explain who was looking for her.
"Jiang Fei is looking for me?" Zhou Paihuai interrupted him directly, making a guess.
"How did you know?" Jiu'an was surprised that he could guess it.
"... ..." What's so hard to guess? He's looking for me on behalf of someone else. Ningluo and the others don't need him to relay messages. The only person I have any connection with besides Jiang Fei is probably no one else. "Give me his contact information. I know what he's up to."
"Oh!" Jiu'an had thought she would need to persuade Zhou Paihuai, but it was unexpectedly so simple; she hadn't said much at all and had already achieved her goal. "Flying Eagle—"
“He wants to apologize to me and make up with me,” Zhou Paihuai interrupted Jiu’an again. “I’ve told you, I know everything.”
"You...you're amazing!" Jiu'an looked at her in astonishment.
Zhou Paihuai smiled. Actually, Jiang Fei's purpose was all too obvious. He definitely knew about her actions tonight. If what Jiang Fei had done before was taking advantage of her being a novice who didn't understand the esports scene, then what she did tonight was a warning to him. She understood the esports world very well, and dealing with him would be easy for her.
After parting ways with Jiu'an, Zhou Paihuai immediately added Jiang Fei on WeChat upon returning to her dorm. Some things couldn't be delayed; the sooner the better. Jiang Fei, being perceptive, accepted her friend request within minutes.
Jiang Fei was probably trying to figure out what to say to her, so the message next to his name kept showing "typing...". Zhou Paihuai didn't have time to wait for him to hesitate and made a call right away. If Jiang Fei wasn't stupid, he knew there was no one else around right now.
"Hello—" Jiang Fei's voice came through the microphone, his mouth babbling, "I...I'm sorry."
"Jiang Fei, you should be glad I didn't want to hold it against you. You should think things through more before you act in the future." Zhou Paihuai cut to the chase, not bothering with any other pleasantries. A belated apology was meaningless; she didn't have a kind tone towards someone who had framed her.
Moreover, Jiang Fei's video about wanting to participate in the training match, besides stirring up trouble for Zhou Paihuai, was undoubtedly digging a hole for himself. Zhou Paihuai couldn't understand why he would do something so self-destructive.
Jiang Fei was taken aback by Zhou Hei Pai's response. He asked incredulously, "You mean, we're just going to let it go like this?"
"How could that be? Do you think I'm dumber than you? Even though you're the one who sticks out, you're not my target. If you were smart, you'd listen to me."
"What do you want me to do?" Jiang Fei felt this was reasonable, knowing that Zhou Huaihuai wouldn't let him off so easily.
What can Jiang Fei do? Unless he's willing to admit he conspired with the production team to frame him, he's practically useless. But even if he were willing to admit it, he wouldn't be trying to contact him. Besides, admitting it would essentially mean Jiang Fei's end to his career in the entertainment industry, and Zhou Huaipai couldn't bring himself to do it.
"Fine, just don't get involved in this anymore and behave yourself for a month. After that, we'll keep to ourselves."
After hanging up the phone, Zhou Paihuai felt she had been too kind. If she were more ruthless, she should have dealt with Jiang Fei and the production team together. But she had heard a lot about Jiang Fei from Ning Luo and the others, and he wasn't as hopeless as she thought. Now, she could only assume he had gone astray and let him go.
This makes it really difficult to attack the production team from her own side, but fortunately she still has a backup plan, and the progress is going well so far.
... ...
Several days passed, and due to Zhou's constant updates to the censored words, the controversy failed to gain traction in her live stream. However, the anger of the haters couldn't be suppressed, so they shifted elsewhere, with forums and online communities now buzzing with activity.
When Zhou Paihuai had nothing to do, she would go to Tieba (a Chinese online forum) to read posts about herself. After reading them, she couldn't help but sigh. She used to say that she was hated by the entire internet, but compared to this, what was that? Now she was truly hated by the entire internet. Fortunately, this person was herself, not the original owner of the body. Otherwise, with the original owner's sensitive, fragile, and vain personality, she would probably have developed depression.
But it doesn't matter. Soon, all those people who are criticizing me will have to kneel down and call me daddy. Let them be smug for a week first!
Cheng Minxin called, and Zhou Paihuai answered.
"Sister Cheng, how's everything going?"
"It went smoothly," Cheng Minxin replied, then asked, "But are you really planning to suppress this news for now? To be criticized for two weeks for nothing?"
"Rather than suppressing public opinion now, I'm more looking forward to seeing the 'Life Exchange' program team receive 'two gifts' at the same time." To put it bluntly, I want to see a show.
Cheng Minxin knew her temper and said, "That's good. Be more assertive so you won't encounter this kind of thing again in the future." She noticed that Zhou Paihuai's personality had changed a bit. Although she was still just as stubborn, she used to be inflexible and only followed one path. To put it bluntly, she was a bit inflexible. But recently, she had become much smarter and more vengeful—probably because she had been pushed to the limit. Even a clay figure has some temper, let alone a living person.
"Sister Cheng, I really owe you a lot this time, otherwise I would have been in a real predicament." Zhou Heihuai finally spoke her mind. She had considered bringing up Li Wen, who had previously participated in the show, to join in criticizing the production team, but their voices were too weak to be of much use. However, Sister Cheng had used her connections to uncover evidence that the production team had deliberately bribed the internet company to make things more difficult for Li Wen in order to boost ratings. "Thank you so much."
"No need for thanks. Just focus on improving your acting skills and helping me earn more money is better than anything else!"
"Don't worry, I'll try my best!"
Chapter 27 Chicken Soup and Passion
Zhou Paihuai has always had a dream of becoming an e-sports player, but unfortunately, she is too old, her hand speed is too slow, and the games she plays don't have any professional female teams... She never imagined that this dream, which she had always considered a luxury, would actually come true in this strange world. And the one who helped her was actually the "Drama Life" program team. The world is becoming more and more magical.
The story begins two days ago. The Autumn League, which was originally scheduled to start in two weeks, was suddenly brought forward, catching all the clubs and teams off guard. Zhou Paihuai, who was originally just swapped with Jiang Fei for a month and was only supposed to train for him for a month, suddenly had a match to play. On the last day of filming the show, she was to play in the match.
Although Zhou Paihuai was very excited, Cheng Minxin knew that something was amiss. She used her connections again and found out that the program team and the event organizer had conspired to add fuel to the fire in Zhou Paihuai's public opinion. The program team could vent their anger, while the event organizer could gain unexpected popularity.
It has to be said that the production team of "Drama Life" really wanted to skin Zhou Paihuai alive. However, this time, her plan backfired, and Zhou Paihuai became grateful to them for helping her fulfill her dream—even if it was just one match, even if the outcome was unknown, she could still boast in the future that she had played in a real professional match.
However, the team's atmosphere hasn't been very good these past few days, with a gloomy mood. Even Zhou Paihuai could only suppress his excitement and try his best to appear calm.
... ...
With three hours to go before the match, Zhou Paihuai and the rest of the TKL team had arrived at the arena's rest area. However, the atmosphere in the team was still as lifeless as before, and Zhou Paihuai finally couldn't stand it anymore.
"Hey, am I really that bad? You guys have been acting like I'd definitely lose if I played?"
Ninglu shook her head and said, "It's not your problem, it's that our opponent in the opening match is too strong."
This time, TKL's opening match opponent is KPY. It's worth noting that these two teams have faced each other countless times, with TKL never winning. TKL's biggest fear is KPY. They aren't actually afraid of losing, but the thought of Zhou Huai Pai leaving after this match, and them not being able to be there for her in a victory, is a real concern.
How can you be afraid of a strong opponent in esports? How can you win if you're like that? Zhou Paihuai felt that their mentality was off and he needed to teach them a lesson: "I'm telling you, what do you mean by the opening match being too strong? Which team that can compete right now is weak? Isn't the process of competing about striving to climb one mountain after another to reach our destination? How can you back down just because one mountain is too high?"
Zhou Paihuai spoke with great passion, but his teammates' reactions were not strong. It wasn't that they hadn't tried motivational speeches before, but if you can't beat someone, you can't beat them. It's not like drinking motivational speeches will guarantee a victory.
"We don't even qualify to schedule a practice match with them." Chu Shang said with a bitter face, feeling that Zhou Paihuai had no idea how serious the problem was. "We're bound to lose."
Zhou Paihuai had never dealt with such a tough nut before. They were completely impervious to reason and pressure. Honestly, if they were going to continue like this, what was the point of the competition? They might as well go home and farm. The more Zhou Paihuai thought about it, the angrier he became, and he even wanted to beat these people up.