Rise (Web Novel CN)

It was late at night. Su Xue sat behind her computer chatting with her viewers when someone loudly knocked on the front door. She glanced over her shoulder, surprised. Who could tha– Don’t tell me—

“SU XUUEEEEEEEE! I’M HOOOOOOOOME!” Lin Feng shouted while smashing his fist against the front door.

“I’m here! I’m here! Stop knocking!” Su Xue rushed down the stairs and opened the front door.

“I’m home!” Lin Feng exclaimed.

“I can see that. I’m not blind. Or deaf,” Su Xue replied. “Why are you banging on the door anyway? You have a key! Just USE YOUR KEY TO OPEN THE DOO… you forgot your key again, didn’t you?” This kid... he definitely forgot to take keys. Again. Even after I’ve told him a billion times now to take them when he goes out. Ah, why do I even bother? It doesn’t even matter if I tell him, remind him, yell at him. No matter how often I tell him, he’s just going to skip out the door without his keys. Getting him to remember his keys is harder than climbing to Challenger! This might be the best case scenario though… As long as his keys are safe at home, he’s not going to leave them somewhere else. Or lose them over and over. Half of Shanghai will have a copy of our keys if he takes them out of the house! Yeah! Let’s just let this go.

Su Xue stood at the doorway with her hand on her forehead while she considered all of this and talked to her. Finally, she sighed and looked at Lin Feng to ask, “Did you eat already?”

“I did! I had BBQ skewers?”

“Tsk tsk, and you didn’t think about me at all, did you? I would’ve liked some skewers. So inconsiderate!”

“Oh… oh. Are you hungry, Su Xue? Let’s get some chicken cutlet delivered!”

“... Didn’t you just tell me about eating BBQ skewers!?”

“I’m still hungry!”

“Oh my god! You’re always hungry, you porky little fatass!”

The two continued bickering back and forth as they walked into the living room. Once they arrived, Su Xue turned to look at Lin Feng and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then she raised an eyebrow and asked, “So, how’d your game go today? Did you guys win?”

Lin Feng smiled and pushed his hair back before replying, “Yep! We reverse swept them 3-2! I was really awesome in Mid too!”

“Oh? So it was all you? The midlane hard carry?” Su Xue asked while grinning at him. “I might be wrong here… but wasn’t it BunBun’s Lee Sin ult that won the fifth game for you guys?”

“BunB...Oh. OH! You watched the stream of the tournament?” A surprised Lin Feng asked after he put the pieces together in his head.

Su Xue snorted. “No. I read your mind. Of course I watched the stream! But I didn’t watch because I wanted to! I didn’t think I even needed to watch. I was sitting in solo queue, getting ready to play a few games. But Water Wraith and the rest of the viewers kept going on about how you were playing and how we should watch. They got so annoying about it that I finally gave up trying to argue and pulled the tournament stream up!” She looked at Lin Feng and said, “A reverse sweep? What does that even mean? You lost two games at the start and finally got your act together to win the next three? What a fancy way of saying that you were in trouble and managed to get it together at the very end. Is that something really worth bragging about? If you were really good, you would’ve shown me a clean sweep.”

Lin Feng scratched his head. Then he brightly smiled and said, “Oh, I wanted to do that too! Next time, I guess!”

“Agh, why are you so damn cheery about everything all the time?” Su Xue looked away, defeated by Lin Feng’s sickeningly overpowering positivity and optimism. “Alright, alright, I get it. Anyway, if you don’t have anything else to do tonight, come to my room.”

Wait. WAIT. WAIT! That sounds wrong! That sounds like I’m asking him... Su Xue realized how her words could be misinterpreted and quickly added, “I’m still streaming right now. When I told the viewers I was going to get the door for you, they started raving about wanting to see you.” Then she sighed with dissatisfaction. “Seriously, why do I feel like they’re more your fans than mine. I’m supposed to be the streamer here!”

“Oh, everyone’s waiting for me!?” Lin Feng asked, already used to Su Xue’s complaints. “I’ll be there in a second!”

✹

Su Xue’s stream had recently grown, and she’d become even more popular. She wasn’t a small streamer by any definition of the term back in the day. She always managed to hover somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 viewers every time she went live. But recently, the Huya TV admins had featured her stream on the front page several times. The exposure had skyrocketed her viewership, and now she was pulling in 40,000 to 50,000 viewers regularly. There were even days when she peaked at 60,000 viewers! Su Xue had become well-known as a streaming personality and was now as big as LovelyRose! But her community was very different from the one that LovelyRose built. Su Xue’s viewers were much more loyal and significantly more invested in her. If LovelyRose picked a fight with the Su Xue of today, the entire incident would have gone down a very different path.

For tonight’s stream, Su Xue had 48,000 viewers. All of whom were sitting there talking amongst themselves when Su Xue left to let Lin Feng into the house. A bunch of the newer viewers had no idea what was going on.

「huh, where’d snowfall go?」「yeah, what’s she doing! I came to watch a stream, not an empty room!」「who’s she getting the door for, her boyfriend?」「fuck! Didn’t she say she was single! I feel betrayed!」 |「sum1 clappin that?!?!?!? PeepoSadgePepeCri」「WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! SU XUE OURS!」「That’s right! No man can come between us and Su Xie!」

Thankfully, Su Xue’s long time viewers there to explain the situation.

「No, she didn’t lie. Xuexue is still single. Can you imagine a girl like her getting a boyfriend? Hahahahha」「she went to open the door for landlady’s nephew!」「right, Lin Feng is also our lil bro!」「Who LiFeng? Landylad newophew th boyfrien?>>>!!」「No! Lin Feng is the Landlady’s nephew!」「WHO THE LANDLADY? SHE CUTE????????」「SHOW US THE LANDLADY! MILF POWAHHHH!」「Su Xue has a little brother?」

The newer viewers grew more confused as this went on.

「landlady’s nephew? Who the hell cares?」「Exactly! We want mature landlady stream!」「SHOW MOMMYMILKERS!」「lil bro? When did a lil bro pop up? The hell are you guys talking about?」「ommmmmg, i’m so lost.」

While the viewers in the chat were going back and forth, Lin Feng entered the room and ran over to the computer and sat down in front of the screen. He flashed a bright smile and waved at the camera. “Hey guys! Long time no see! Heard you were missing me!”

The longtime viewers ignored the newcomers and enthusiastically greeted Lin Feng back.

「lil bro is baaaaaaaaaack!」「we missed you! It’s been too long, but we watched your match today! You were so 666666666666!」「you actually beat a former pro! We’re so proud of you!」「hehehe our lil bro is our lil pro! We always believed in your mid! Gj gj!」「gratz on making it to the semis, you’ve qualified for the main tournament right!?」

As Lin Feng happily interacted with the chat, Su Xue came back into the room with two glasses of water. She looked at the chat and curled her lips. “Hmph. I don’t get what you guys are so happy about.Didn’t he almost lose?”

The chat completely ignored her.

「lil bro, play a game for us!」「we had to sit through a game of xuexue feeding her ass off as an ad-carry, we need to watch you to cleanse oru minds!」「play a game with Zed! We saw how great your Zed was in the tournament! Those were some sick moves!」

Sui Xue grimaced. “... Hey guys, I’m still here, you know? I’m not air!”

With the viewers begging him, Lin Feng agreed to their request right away. “Sure, I’ll play a game!”

Many of the new viewers started protesting the swap. They’d only just started watching and weren’t there when Su Xue played the stream of the East China Regional quarterfinal earlier, so they had no idea who Lin Feng was and how good he played.

「why we swapping!? This is bullshit!」「she was playing just fine earlier, y we switching?」「make xuexue stay, i love her!」

The long time viewer immediately drowned out the dissent.

「if you’re new, then don’t talk」「just watch lil bro, you’ll know what we mean once you see him play」「stop thinking with your smaller heads for once, this isn’t that kind of stream!」

Lin Feng cracked his knuckles and smiled. “Zed, huh? Alright, a Zed game it is!”

Before long, Lin Feng got into a game.

This Zed game was completely different from the tournament one. His opponent wasn’t a former pro like Shi Hang, but rather an ordinary Diamond 5 player. They also happened to be playing Twisted Fate, one of the Midlaners that Zed hard countered.

Lin Feng picked up his first solo kill on Twisted Fate at 3 minutes, then another at 5 minutes. The one-sided slaughter continued until he became Legendary at 15 minutes. He was having the time of his life. The long time viewers were enjoying all the dazzling Zed plays, and the newer viewers were completely stunned.

「woah! What was that Zed play?!」「that backline dive on the ad-carry was beautiful!」「this is diamond right? He’s stomping diamonds like they’re bronzies!」「god zed! Master ninja!」「okay, I take it back! I don’t to watch xue xue! I want to see him keep playing!」

Lin Feng managed to quickly convert many of the new viewers into fans. Most of them had mainly tuned into the stream because of how pretty Su Xue was on webcam. It was a reflex click upon seeing a cute girl. But now the stream offered so much more. With Lin Feng showing off fantastic gameplay and Su Xue sitting on the side being pretty, they got the best of both worlds in one stream!

The corner of Su Xue’s lips twitched in irritation. “Don’t get ahead of yourselves! I’m a gameplay streamer, not some pretty vase to be enjoyed in the background!”

「shut up maid!」「yeah maid! Refill lil bro’s water!」「Get as good as lil bro, and then we’ll talk!」

Su Xue gritted her teeth. “You ungrateful bastards! I was going to surprise you all with something mind blowing big, but nevermind! Once I get huge from this, I’ll laugh at all your faces instead!”