Love Bitstream: Chapter 1 - Welcome to My Livestream Room
Chapter 1: Welcome to My Livestream Room
Chi Zhen pressed the power button.
The moment the power connected, the mechanical keyboard lit up instantly. The lights flashed twice, then shifted from left to right in changing colors—cyan, blue, purple, green—dazzling to the extreme.
Every internet-addicted teenager’s favorite. The edgy neon effect was astonishing.
Chi Zhen lightly tapped the space bar and watched with satisfaction as the new keyboard burst into a rainbow marquee effect.
So cool!
“Call me the coolest kid, I play the coolest cards~”
Humming softly, Chi Zhen skillfully opened the streaming software, entered his room, and clicked Start Streaming. The livestream room was still empty. He opened the game client and quietly waited to log in.
[The streamer you follow, CZ Xiao Chi, has gone live! Come send some flowers~]
Fans who received the system notification gradually entered the stream. In just a short while, more than ten people had arrived and already started sending flowers.
After switching the game to fullscreen, Chi Zhen opened the bullet comment assistant.
He glanced at the comments and greeted everyone, “Hey guys, welcome to my livestream.”
[Why’d you only start at nine today? Two hours late. Thought you weren’t streaming.]
[New streamer not hardworking enough?]
Chi Zhen glanced at the chat and explained, “Not laziness. I had an evening class today. It ended at 8:30, so I rushed back to start the stream, bros.”
[Streamer’s a college student?]
[Streaming in the dorm? Your roommates don’t think you’re noisy?]
As Chi Zhen entered the game, he read today’s patch notes while answering questions. “Not streaming in the dorm. I rented a place off-campus. Brothers, send those little flowers—my rent depends on you guys~”
By then, there were already fifty or sixty people in the room, and nobody was stingy. Flowers immediately began pouring in. Little flowers were a free daily login gift from the platform. Each account got three flowers, and sending them increased a stream’s popularity score. A higher score meant a chance to appear on the platform’s hourly rankings, increasing exposure and attracting more viewers.
Although they couldn’t compare to the popularity gained from paid gifts, for a small streamer like CZ Xiao Chi, even mosquito meat was still meat.
The moment the keyboard lit up, Chi Zhen entered another world. Here, he was no longer Chi Zhen, but the game streamer CZ Xiao Chi.
Electricity surged through the machine. The keyboard clicks and Chi Zhen’s voice were captured, converted into streams of binary bits, rapidly transmitted through the network cable, then reconstructed as signals on the other end—forming CZ Xiao Chi.
CZ Xiao Chi was a gaming content creator and streamer. His livestream had over a thousand followers, with one or two hundred viewers online during each stream on average.
Chi Zhen earned money online through CZ Xiao Chi.
[Ten-man raid updated today, gonna try it out?]
[The Mount Xumi secret realm boss is out. Might as well go tease the boss~]
Chi Zhen laughed awkwardly. “Can’t do it, can’t do it. In pickup groups for ten-man raids right now, raid leaders won’t even take Spirit Cultivators. Even if you get in, you have to swallow your pride and act submissive. Forget it.”
The game Chi Zhen was playing was called Quest for the Azure Heavens, a fantasy cultivation MMORPG. There were currently ten major sects, and players could choose one of ten classes to play. Chi Zhen’s class was Spirit Cultivator, belonging to the Eclipse Shadow Pool sect.
The Spirit Cultivator class was… awkward.
It was a ranged class, and also the only class in Quest for the Azure Heavens that possessed both offensive and healing abilities. But in terms of DPS—damage output—it lagged far behind the other ranged class, Spell Cultivator. As for healing, it couldn’t compare to the dedicated healer class, Medical Cultivator.
In ten-man raids where party slots were limited, raid leaders would rather take classes with stronger DPS or better healing than a Spirit Cultivator.
[Xiao Chi’s mechanics are pretty sharp. Why not join a big guild? Running raids with friends would be way easier~]
[Game streamers get shafted playing Spirit Cultivator. No matter how good your mechanics are, it’s hard to stand out. If Xiao Chi played Boundless Dao Sect with these mechanics, he’d look cool as hell! His followers would double!]
[If we’re talking handsome, Sword Cultivators are still the best!]
[My Cangming Sect refuses to accept this!]
[The coolest class depends on which male lead appears most often in the forum’s gossip posts. Obviously, that’s the Boundless Trash Sect, famous for producing scumbags.]
[Trash Sect: pretending to be cool like the wind.]
“I have social anxiety,” Chi Zhen answered one by one. “Also, compared to raids and PvP, I prefer being a lifestyle player.”
“Stop talking about gossip posts, stop talking about gossip posts, brothers. This is a game stream, not a gossip stream. Control yourselves.”
“Of course I think Eclipse Shadow Pool is the coolest. If you like casual gameplay, Eclipse Shadow Pool is definitely the right choice! Want to know why? Hit follow and send flowers, brothers.”
“Reason number one: Spirit Cultivators might not be great in fights or raids, but out in the open world, they’re the most flexible of all ten classes. They can both fight and heal themselves. Treasure hunting, fighting world bosses—it’s smooth as hell~”
“Reason number two: among the ten sects, only Eclipse Shadow Pool has exclusive rumor sources. Every day, if you click on that Eclipse Shadow Pool NPC squatting outside the inn in the main city, you’ll get a different rumor.”
[I’m crying. Who goes to fight world bosses alone? Who actually plays an MMO without a single friend?]
[What kind of rumors does that NPC even tell? I clicked him today, and he told me the third son of Yue Lai Inn’s owner got picked by Mount Xumi to become a bald monk, and his mother cried at home for three days. Why would I want to hear that?]
Chi Zhen controlled his character as he spoke. “Come on, let me show you the exclusive gossip only Spirit Cultivators can hear~”
His in-game character was called The Light Boat Has Passed, dressed in the gray-green uniform of his sect. A gray-green ribbon tied up his ponytail neatly and cleanly. The Light Boat Has Passed had logged out yesterday in Guangling City, one of the four major cities. Upon logging in, the city was bustling with people everywhere.
Nine at night was peak online time for players.
Chi Zhen moved his mouse and directed The Light Boat Has Passed straight toward Yue Lai Inn to speak with the Eclipse Shadow Pool NPC named Xiao Bai.
Sure enough, the information Xiao Bai gave matched exactly what the viewers in chat had said. Chi Zhen clicked the NPC again, and Xiao Bai spoke once more.
[Xiao Bai: Besides his mother, Xiao Xiu from the tailor shop next door cried very sadly too. Do you know why?]
[What the hell?? I nearly broke my mouse clicking and never got this line??]
Chi Zhen laughed. “This is exclusive information only members of the same sect can get. Let’s go find Xiao Xiu and ask.”
The Light Boat Has Passed entered the tailor shop next door and, sure enough, saw a female NPC sobbing over the counter.
After a round of dialogue, The Light Boat Has Passed learned the whole story.
Xiao Xiu and the innkeeper’s third son, Da Shi, were childhood sweethearts. The two had feelings for each other, but unexpectedly, a Buddhist cultivator from Mount Xumi staying at the inn discovered Da Shi and declared that he possessed spiritual roots, wanting to take him back to Mount Xumi as a disciple.
No matter how reluctant Da Shi was to abandon mortal romance, he could not resist the temptation of cultivation, leaving Xiao Xiu heartbroken.
Chi Zhen shook his head. “Heh. Men.”
[Xiao Xiu: Esteemed Immortal, could you help this little woman with something?]
A quest appeared!
Xiao Xiu asked The Light Boat Has Passed to arrange for Da Shi to meet her at midnight on Mount Zhaoyao outside Guangling City, for one final farewell.
The Light Boat Has Passed went next door to the inn again to find Da Shi. After sighing dramatically for a while, Da Shi agreed. He left the inn and headed out of the city. The Light Boat Has Passed followed behind him at a leisurely pace.
Chi Zhen said, “Brothers, guess what item Xiao Xiu’s gonna give me? I’m betting crafting materials.”
[Damn, there’s gameplay like this??]
[There are hidden quests too??]
“They don’t appear every day. Sometimes you search all over the world for NPCs, and when you finally find them, they just say two lines and that’s it—no hidden quest. We got lucky today, brothers. Let’s see if Xiao Xiu gives us something good~”
Hidden quests did not trigger every time, but Chi Zhen loved these little surprises while gaming, like tiny Easter eggs.
And in Quest for the Azure Heavens, there were many such Easter eggs, enough for casual players to endlessly enjoy exploring.
Mount Zhaoyao was very famous in the game and considered a scenic landmark.
There was nothing particularly special about the map itself—no secret realms, no world bosses. The reason it was famous was simple: It was beautiful.
The mountain was covered with osmanthus trees. The game’s seasonal system was fairly loose, so the trees on Mount Zhaoyao bloomed with white osmanthus flowers year-round, like clouds and mist, dreamy beyond compare. It was a famous dating spot.
Xiao Xiu and Da Shi began their heartfelt dialogue sequence, progressing through the cutscene.
The Light Boat Has Passed stood behind an osmanthus tree, watching them from afar while waiting for the story event to finish.
Seeing that Xiao Xiu and Da Shi would not be done exchanging endless sweet nothings anytime soon, Chi Zhen greeted the stream, “I’m gonna grab some water.”
He picked up the cup on his desk and left the room to get water from the kitchen.
By coincidence, he ran into his roommate Luo Song returning home. Luo Song had originally been his university dormmate.
Chi Zhen streamed games; Luo Song livestreamed product sales. The two hit it off immediately and rented an old two-bedroom apartment together.
Luo Song had brought back a huge pile of packages, so Chi Zhen helped him carry them. When they reached the kitchen, they realized there was no hot water left, so they boiled another kettle. Standing at the kitchen doorway, Chi Zhen chatted with Luo Song for a bit. After waiting several minutes for the water to boil, he filled his cup and returned to his room.
Just like that, after eleven or twelve minutes away, when Chi Zhen sat back down at his desk and glanced at the stream—the viewer count had already climbed to over five hundred people, and was still increasing.
Chi Zhen’s first thought: Am I ascending to immortality?
His second thought was to scan through the livestream comments rapidly scrolling by.
[This is intense, so intense. First time witnessing the front lines of an 818 gossip thread live!]
[I’m worried for this small streamer’s future. Is Misty Autumn Rain gonna hunt him down?]
[Xiao Chi didn’t do it on purpose. He went to get water.]
[Who knows if it was intentional? Who takes this long just to get water? He streamed their whole confession scene before coming back? No webcam either, so who knows—maybe he was hiding behind the monitor secretly, watching the whole time!]
[When I entered, his stream only had a little over a hundred viewers. Now it’s almost a thousand. Damn~]
[Who cares! Misty Autumn Rain confessed publicly in local chat instead of private messaging. If she said it nearby, she clearly didn’t mind people watching~]
[Exactly! I’m sending this small streamer a gift. If not for him, I wouldn’t have gotten to witness such juicy drama~]
Sure enough, several people began sending gifts.
[Endless Time is way too ruthless. He rejected her so directly. She’s the number one beauty on this server. Has he even seen Misty Autumn Rain’s photos?]
Misty Autumn Rain? Wasn’t she a famous beauty player in Quest for the Azure Heavens?
Even Chi Zhen knew about her. Wei Yu Ning Qiu had participated in a Quest for the Azure Heavens cosplay event, and her photos were still pinned on the game forums. Stunningly beautiful.
Endless Time? Wasn’t that the number one expert on the entire server? The great god of the Cangming Sect, idol of Sword Cultivators, dream lover of Medical Cultivators…
No matter which one it was, they were both people Chi Zhen could not afford to offend.
Chi Zhen pressed the power button.
The moment the power connected, the mechanical keyboard lit up instantly. The lights flashed twice, then shifted from left to right in changing colors—cyan, blue, purple, green—dazzling to the extreme.
Every internet-addicted teenager’s favorite. The edgy neon effect was astonishing.
Chi Zhen lightly tapped the space bar and watched with satisfaction as the new keyboard burst into a rainbow marquee effect.
So cool!
“Call me the coolest kid, I play the coolest cards~”
Humming softly, Chi Zhen skillfully opened the streaming software, entered his room, and clicked Start Streaming. The livestream room was still empty. He opened the game client and quietly waited to log in.
[The streamer you follow, CZ Xiao Chi, has gone live! Come send some flowers~]
Fans who received the system notification gradually entered the stream. In just a short while, more than ten people had arrived and already started sending flowers.
After switching the game to fullscreen, Chi Zhen opened the bullet comment assistant.
He glanced at the comments and greeted everyone, “Hey guys, welcome to my livestream.”
[Why’d you only start at nine today? Two hours late. Thought you weren’t streaming.]
[New streamer not hardworking enough?]
Chi Zhen glanced at the chat and explained, “Not laziness. I had an evening class today. It ended at 8:30, so I rushed back to start the stream, bros.”
[Streamer’s a college student?]
[Streaming in the dorm? Your roommates don’t think you’re noisy?]
As Chi Zhen entered the game, he read today’s patch notes while answering questions. “Not streaming in the dorm. I rented a place off-campus. Brothers, send those little flowers—my rent depends on you guys~”
By then, there were already fifty or sixty people in the room, and nobody was stingy. Flowers immediately began pouring in. Little flowers were a free daily login gift from the platform. Each account got three flowers, and sending them increased a stream’s popularity score. A higher score meant a chance to appear on the platform’s hourly rankings, increasing exposure and attracting more viewers.
Although they couldn’t compare to the popularity gained from paid gifts, for a small streamer like CZ Xiao Chi, even mosquito meat was still meat.
The moment the keyboard lit up, Chi Zhen entered another world. Here, he was no longer Chi Zhen, but the game streamer CZ Xiao Chi.
Electricity surged through the machine. The keyboard clicks and Chi Zhen’s voice were captured, converted into streams of binary bits, rapidly transmitted through the network cable, then reconstructed as signals on the other end—forming CZ Xiao Chi.
CZ Xiao Chi was a gaming content creator and streamer. His livestream had over a thousand followers, with one or two hundred viewers online during each stream on average.
Chi Zhen earned money online through CZ Xiao Chi.
[Ten-man raid updated today, gonna try it out?]
[The Mount Xumi secret realm boss is out. Might as well go tease the boss~]
Chi Zhen laughed awkwardly. “Can’t do it, can’t do it. In pickup groups for ten-man raids right now, raid leaders won’t even take Spirit Cultivators. Even if you get in, you have to swallow your pride and act submissive. Forget it.”
The game Chi Zhen was playing was called Quest for the Azure Heavens, a fantasy cultivation MMORPG. There were currently ten major sects, and players could choose one of ten classes to play. Chi Zhen’s class was Spirit Cultivator, belonging to the Eclipse Shadow Pool sect.
The Spirit Cultivator class was… awkward.
It was a ranged class, and also the only class in Quest for the Azure Heavens that possessed both offensive and healing abilities. But in terms of DPS—damage output—it lagged far behind the other ranged class, Spell Cultivator. As for healing, it couldn’t compare to the dedicated healer class, Medical Cultivator.
In ten-man raids where party slots were limited, raid leaders would rather take classes with stronger DPS or better healing than a Spirit Cultivator.
[Xiao Chi’s mechanics are pretty sharp. Why not join a big guild? Running raids with friends would be way easier~]
[Game streamers get shafted playing Spirit Cultivator. No matter how good your mechanics are, it’s hard to stand out. If Xiao Chi played Boundless Dao Sect with these mechanics, he’d look cool as hell! His followers would double!]
[If we’re talking handsome, Sword Cultivators are still the best!]
[My Cangming Sect refuses to accept this!]
[The coolest class depends on which male lead appears most often in the forum’s gossip posts. Obviously, that’s the Boundless Trash Sect, famous for producing scumbags.]
[Trash Sect: pretending to be cool like the wind.]
“I have social anxiety,” Chi Zhen answered one by one. “Also, compared to raids and PvP, I prefer being a lifestyle player.”
“Stop talking about gossip posts, stop talking about gossip posts, brothers. This is a game stream, not a gossip stream. Control yourselves.”
“Of course I think Eclipse Shadow Pool is the coolest. If you like casual gameplay, Eclipse Shadow Pool is definitely the right choice! Want to know why? Hit follow and send flowers, brothers.”
“Reason number one: Spirit Cultivators might not be great in fights or raids, but out in the open world, they’re the most flexible of all ten classes. They can both fight and heal themselves. Treasure hunting, fighting world bosses—it’s smooth as hell~”
“Reason number two: among the ten sects, only Eclipse Shadow Pool has exclusive rumor sources. Every day, if you click on that Eclipse Shadow Pool NPC squatting outside the inn in the main city, you’ll get a different rumor.”
[I’m crying. Who goes to fight world bosses alone? Who actually plays an MMO without a single friend?]
[What kind of rumors does that NPC even tell? I clicked him today, and he told me the third son of Yue Lai Inn’s owner got picked by Mount Xumi to become a bald monk, and his mother cried at home for three days. Why would I want to hear that?]
Chi Zhen controlled his character as he spoke. “Come on, let me show you the exclusive gossip only Spirit Cultivators can hear~”
His in-game character was called The Light Boat Has Passed, dressed in the gray-green uniform of his sect. A gray-green ribbon tied up his ponytail neatly and cleanly. The Light Boat Has Passed had logged out yesterday in Guangling City, one of the four major cities. Upon logging in, the city was bustling with people everywhere.
Nine at night was peak online time for players.
Chi Zhen moved his mouse and directed The Light Boat Has Passed straight toward Yue Lai Inn to speak with the Eclipse Shadow Pool NPC named Xiao Bai.
Sure enough, the information Xiao Bai gave matched exactly what the viewers in chat had said. Chi Zhen clicked the NPC again, and Xiao Bai spoke once more.
[Xiao Bai: Besides his mother, Xiao Xiu from the tailor shop next door cried very sadly too. Do you know why?]
[What the hell?? I nearly broke my mouse clicking and never got this line??]
Chi Zhen laughed. “This is exclusive information only members of the same sect can get. Let’s go find Xiao Xiu and ask.”
The Light Boat Has Passed entered the tailor shop next door and, sure enough, saw a female NPC sobbing over the counter.
After a round of dialogue, The Light Boat Has Passed learned the whole story.
Xiao Xiu and the innkeeper’s third son, Da Shi, were childhood sweethearts. The two had feelings for each other, but unexpectedly, a Buddhist cultivator from Mount Xumi staying at the inn discovered Da Shi and declared that he possessed spiritual roots, wanting to take him back to Mount Xumi as a disciple.
No matter how reluctant Da Shi was to abandon mortal romance, he could not resist the temptation of cultivation, leaving Xiao Xiu heartbroken.
Chi Zhen shook his head. “Heh. Men.”
[Xiao Xiu: Esteemed Immortal, could you help this little woman with something?]
A quest appeared!
Xiao Xiu asked The Light Boat Has Passed to arrange for Da Shi to meet her at midnight on Mount Zhaoyao outside Guangling City, for one final farewell.
The Light Boat Has Passed went next door to the inn again to find Da Shi. After sighing dramatically for a while, Da Shi agreed. He left the inn and headed out of the city. The Light Boat Has Passed followed behind him at a leisurely pace.
Chi Zhen said, “Brothers, guess what item Xiao Xiu’s gonna give me? I’m betting crafting materials.”
[Damn, there’s gameplay like this??]
[There are hidden quests too??]
“They don’t appear every day. Sometimes you search all over the world for NPCs, and when you finally find them, they just say two lines and that’s it—no hidden quest. We got lucky today, brothers. Let’s see if Xiao Xiu gives us something good~”
Hidden quests did not trigger every time, but Chi Zhen loved these little surprises while gaming, like tiny Easter eggs.
And in Quest for the Azure Heavens, there were many such Easter eggs, enough for casual players to endlessly enjoy exploring.
Mount Zhaoyao was very famous in the game and considered a scenic landmark.
There was nothing particularly special about the map itself—no secret realms, no world bosses. The reason it was famous was simple: It was beautiful.
The mountain was covered with osmanthus trees. The game’s seasonal system was fairly loose, so the trees on Mount Zhaoyao bloomed with white osmanthus flowers year-round, like clouds and mist, dreamy beyond compare. It was a famous dating spot.
Xiao Xiu and Da Shi began their heartfelt dialogue sequence, progressing through the cutscene.
The Light Boat Has Passed stood behind an osmanthus tree, watching them from afar while waiting for the story event to finish.
Seeing that Xiao Xiu and Da Shi would not be done exchanging endless sweet nothings anytime soon, Chi Zhen greeted the stream, “I’m gonna grab some water.”
He picked up the cup on his desk and left the room to get water from the kitchen.
By coincidence, he ran into his roommate Luo Song returning home. Luo Song had originally been his university dormmate.
Chi Zhen streamed games; Luo Song livestreamed product sales. The two hit it off immediately and rented an old two-bedroom apartment together.
Luo Song had brought back a huge pile of packages, so Chi Zhen helped him carry them. When they reached the kitchen, they realized there was no hot water left, so they boiled another kettle. Standing at the kitchen doorway, Chi Zhen chatted with Luo Song for a bit. After waiting several minutes for the water to boil, he filled his cup and returned to his room.
Just like that, after eleven or twelve minutes away, when Chi Zhen sat back down at his desk and glanced at the stream—the viewer count had already climbed to over five hundred people, and was still increasing.
Chi Zhen’s first thought: Am I ascending to immortality?
His second thought was to scan through the livestream comments rapidly scrolling by.
[This is intense, so intense. First time witnessing the front lines of an 818 gossip thread live!]
[I’m worried for this small streamer’s future. Is Misty Autumn Rain gonna hunt him down?]
[Xiao Chi didn’t do it on purpose. He went to get water.]
[Who knows if it was intentional? Who takes this long just to get water? He streamed their whole confession scene before coming back? No webcam either, so who knows—maybe he was hiding behind the monitor secretly, watching the whole time!]
[When I entered, his stream only had a little over a hundred viewers. Now it’s almost a thousand. Damn~]
[Who cares! Misty Autumn Rain confessed publicly in local chat instead of private messaging. If she said it nearby, she clearly didn’t mind people watching~]
[Exactly! I’m sending this small streamer a gift. If not for him, I wouldn’t have gotten to witness such juicy drama~]
Sure enough, several people began sending gifts.
[Endless Time is way too ruthless. He rejected her so directly. She’s the number one beauty on this server. Has he even seen Misty Autumn Rain’s photos?]
Misty Autumn Rain? Wasn’t she a famous beauty player in Quest for the Azure Heavens?
Even Chi Zhen knew about her. Wei Yu Ning Qiu had participated in a Quest for the Azure Heavens cosplay event, and her photos were still pinned on the game forums. Stunningly beautiful.
Endless Time? Wasn’t that the number one expert on the entire server? The great god of the Cangming Sect, idol of Sword Cultivators, dream lover of Medical Cultivators…
No matter which one it was, they were both people Chi Zhen could not afford to offend.
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