Love Bitstream: Chapter 3 - I Really Didn’t Do it On Purpose
Chapter 3: I Really Didn’t Do it On Purpose
To be fair, Endless Time wasn’t the only one fighting over the Migu Flowers back then.
Once the system announcements for the “One Life, One World, One Pair” fireworks started flooding the screen, all kinds of players rushed over: Players coming to watch the drama, players who had noticed the NPCs behaving strangely during the in-game Hour of Hai and waited until real-world midnight to test their luck, random passersby…
The glow of the Migu Flowers was simply too dazzling.
That was the glow of money.
After Chi Zhen’s character, The Light Boat Has Passed, leapt onto the branches and picked the first Migu Flower, Endless Time was the first to jump up after him. Then figures came diving in from every direction.
Blades flashed, swords flew, skills exploded everywhere.
The gorgeous fireworks effects bought with hundreds of thousands of spirit stones were chopped into chaos by all the flying weapons. The floating 3D hearts dissolved into a tangled mess of light beneath the overlapping skill effects.
Chi Zhen unleashed the fastest hand speed of his life. Dodging left and right, rolling and scrambling, jumping up and down, he frantically harvested seven Migu Flowers.
After everyone finished snatching the flowers, the Migu Tree—constantly struck by stray attacks—finally collapsed with a loud crash.
The fireworks’ ten-minute special effect had not yet ended. Once everyone sheathed their weapons, the rain of flowers and floating hearts regained their gorgeous appearance.
Misty Autumn Rain still stood in her original spot, motionless.
As for Endless Time, after finishing his flower robbery, he calmly drew a teleportation array and left without the slightest hesitation.
The atmosphere became just a little awkward.
[I’m cringing so hard for Misty Autumn Rain my toes are curling]
[I’m telling you, Xiao Chi, run. Misty Autumn Rain’s probably gonna put you on her kill list.]
[Reminder: the stream already has over two thousand viewers now.]
[Are you sick in the head? You ran into someone’s confession scene and streamed it? No bottom line just for money, huh?]
Chi Zhen hurriedly activated a teleport skill as well, returning to Guangling City.
Murder wasn’t allowed inside main cities, and only then did he finally feel a little safer.
Glancing at the barrage, he saw people already beginning to curse him out, so he quickly explained, “I really didn’t do it on purpose. I went to boil water while doing the quest storyline. I never meant to livestream someone else’s private moment.”
Chi Zhen glanced at the viewer count again. It had already passed three thousand.
Someone had definitely posted about it on the forums.
After thinking about it, he admitted that he truly had wronged Misty Autumn Rain. She was a girl, and getting publicly rejected during a confession was already embarrassing enough—yet he had accidentally broadcast the whole thing live. If he were in her position, he would definitely add himself to the enemy list too.
After hesitating for a while, Chi Zhen said, “Brothers, I’m gonna go explain myself.”
He opened the friends interface and entered Misty Autumn Rain’s ID, trying to send a friend request.
[This player has disabled friend requests.]
[Streamer’s acting now?]
[How could a beauty’s friend requests possibly be open?]
Questioning comments came one after another. Chi Zhen’s stream had never been this lively before. Growing nervous, he explained himself over and over again.
[Mm, what a coincidence. Totally believable.]
[I believe it too. I also entered the stream randomly. This must be fate.]
[I’m late, brothers. Where’s the gossip?]
[Heard Misty Autumn Rain got rejected on the spot? Anybody got screenshots?]
Chi Zhen hurriedly muted the people asking for screenshots. “I really, really didn’t do it on purpose! But I truly made a mistake. I apologize to both parties involved. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He ran to the courier NPC in Guangling City and clicked Send Mail, entering “Misty Autumn Rain” as the recipient.
After thinking carefully, he explained everything in detail and sincerely apologized several times. A girl going through something like this really would feel awful. After some thought, he attached two Migu Flowers to the mail.
Just as he was about to hit send, he hesitated.
Were two flowers a bit… stingy?
She had suffered such severe emotional damage…
After thinking it over, Chi Zhen painfully placed all seven Migu Flowers into the mail instead. He added a few more lines: “I’m really sorry. At the time, my brain didn’t react fast enough. I didn’t immediately close the stream or leave. When I saw that many Migu Flowers, my hands moved faster than my brain.”
Chi Zhen hit send. If he delayed even one more second, he feared he’d regret it and take a flower back out.
After all that chaos, he ended up with nothing and still got scolded.
Chi Zhen truly wanted to stare at the sky and sigh.
[Streamer’s acting is incredible. I’m moved.]
[I’m seriously crying. Xiao Chi’s usually stingy even buying materials, but today he actually gave away all seven flowers. I’m crying for real.]
[Heh. There are over three thousand viewers in here now. The gifts he got tonight are already worth more than seven Migu Flowers. What a performance.]
[Honestly, people who came just to watch the drama shouldn’t stand on some moral high ground.]
[Alright, dispersing. Going to the forums to eat melons~]
[Quick, go check if the Migu Flower quest can still be done on Mount Zhaoyao~]
The comments continued nonstop.
Since Chi Zhen started streaming, he had never encountered a scene like this before.
His stream usually only had one or two hundred viewers. Not many, but for the introverted and quiet Chi Zhen, that was already pretty good. Before signing with the platform, he had once worried that his viewer count would remain in the single digits forever.
Fortunately, thanks to the gaming videos he edited, quite a few people were willing to sit in his stream and watch him play, allowing his audience to at least reach three digits.
Chi Zhen wasn’t very good at talking while streaming. But he was extremely good at editing videos.
At first, he became popular through edited gaming videos, accumulating nearly a hundred thousand followers. Through sponsorships and platform traffic revenue, he managed to earn enough for living expenses and tuition, making two to three thousand yuan per month.
Later, the video platform he used, Bolo Bolo, was acquired by a major corporation. They began expanding into livestreaming, creating Bolo Live and partnering with game companies and animation studios.
To promote Bolo Live, Bolo Bolo contacted nearly every gaming content creator on their platform with decent popularity and offered fairly attractive streaming contracts.
The contract Chi Zhen received stated that as long as he streamed 120 hours per month and maintained an average viewer count in the triple digits, he would receive a guaranteed salary of three thousand yuan per month.
If his numbers fell below triple digits, the guarantee would be reduced to one thousand.
If he failed to even maintain double digits, he would receive only three hundred.
Three hundred wasn’t much, but for someone like Chi Zhen who loved gaming, playing four hours a day while earning even three hundred yuan with zero viewers still sounded pretty good—basically free internet and electricity money.
So he signed a two-year contract.
Only after starting streaming did Chi Zhen realize there simply wasn’t enough time. He had classes to attend, streams to run, and he couldn’t completely abandon editing gaming videos either—that was still the foundation of where his viewers came from.
After beginning streaming, the frequency of his gaming video uploads dropped dramatically, and the traffic revenue from videos shrank as well, leaving him with only a few hundred yuan per month from that side.
Fortunately, his streaming stats met the requirements, so he could at least receive the three-thousand-yuan guaranteed salary each month. Otherwise, if he only earned three hundred, Chi Zhen would be drinking northwest wind after paying rent.
Chi Zhen had also daydreamed before about suddenly becoming wildly popular and turning into a major streamer. He did not dare dream about earning a million a year—even making over ten thousand a month would be enough to make him wake up laughing.
But having his viewer count suddenly break into four digits like this—he had absolutely never expected it to happen this way.
The drama was already over.
Yet there were still over a thousand viewers lingering in the stream, reliving the gossip scene among themselves with endless enthusiasm.
[Xiao Chi, aren’t you gonna apologize to Endless Time, too?]
[Yeah, why’d you forget the male lead?]
Chi Zhen wandered aimlessly around the main city for quite a while before finally saying, “I’m thinking about how to apologize…”
[??? Just copy the mail you sent to Misty Autumn Rain and send it again?]
[Can’t copy it. Streamer already gave away all the Migu Flowers~]
[Never expected Xiao Chi to be the kind of person swayed by beauty!]
Chi Zhen was speechless. “Didn’t you guys see earlier? Endless Time’s hand speed was even faster than mine. He grabbed more flowers than I did.”
He opened the friends interface and scrolled downward until he found Endless Time’s name. After thinking for a while, he typed out several lines explaining himself and apologizing.
Chi Zhen stared at the words he had written, carefully revising them over and over. By the time he finally hit send, the barrage on-screen was already scrolling like crazy.
[The streamer has Endless Time on his friends list???]
[Didn’t Endless Time close his friend list ages ago??]
[I’m entering conspiracy theory mode]
[Bro, are you writing a love letter? Why are a few sentences taking this long?]
[You typed that apology mail to the goddess fast as hell earlier]
[This careful little behavior looks exactly like me writing to my first crush]
When Chi Zhen looked up and saw the comments, his face heated slightly. “No, I once sold materials to Great God Endless Time before, that’s when I added him. Chat, d-don’t talk nonsense…”
After sending the message, Chi Zhen kept sneaking glances at the private chat channel every few moments.
Empty.
Chi Zhen had very few friends in Quest for the Azure Heavens. The people on his friends list were either teammates he regularly raided with or people who bought and sold materials.
He wandered around the main city for a while longer, running here and there aimlessly, doing absolutely nothing else.
The three main cities in Quest for the Azure Heavens each had different scenery, and the maps were all large and exquisitely detailed. Guangling City in particular was styled after Jiangnan landscapes: willow trees swaying softly, lush bamboo groves, ornate eaves, and carved beams. Clear rivers ran through the city, where luxurious painted boats, pleasure barges, and small skiffs owned by wealthy players drifted slowly along the water.
At night in the game, these boats would light their lanterns and travel beneath the starry sky and glowing city lights, creating a breathtaking Jiangnan nightscape.
Chi Zhen stood blankly by the river watching the boats for five full minutes.
[What’s the streamer doing?]
[Not even doing dailies??]
[This is some peak slacker streaming]
Chi Zhen glanced at the chat. The viewer count had already dropped to just over five hundred.
He checked the private chat channel again. Still empty. Not even anyone messaging him to buy materials.
Pulling himself together, he entered the guild secret realm.
The guild had been created by Chi Zhen himself. It only met the minimum ten-player requirement to establish a guild. Three accounts belonged to Chi Zhen and his alts. Three belonged to Luo Song and his alts. Two were college roommates dragged in to make up numbers, though those roommates were obsessed with shooter games and barely played Quest for the Azure Heavens. The remaining two were random players he had picked up somewhere; aside from joining the guild, they had never spoken once. Their login times were so mysterious that Chi Zhen still did not know whether they even still played the game.
The reason Chi Zhen had gone through enormous effort to create his own guild was because the guild secret realm contained a small private world: vegetable fields, fruit trees, fish ponds, livestock farms—basically a miniature farming simulation game. Players who disliked raids and PvP could spend entire days happily farming inside the guild realm.
Chi Zhen wandered around tending crops, watering fruit trees, feeding chickens and ducks, scattering fish feed, and completing the guild realm’s daily tasks.
Without realizing it, forty minutes passed.
By then, the livestream viewer count had dropped to only a little over three hundred.
[I’m getting sleepy watching this. Is this streamer always like this?]
[Yes. Our Xiao Chi is a lifestyle player, thank you very much.]
[Xiao Chi does raid too, just… in a very Buddhist laid-back way…]
[He occasionally does battlefields, too!]
[I’m out, I’m out. There’s zero excitement here, can’t handle it.]
Chi Zhen laughed. “Take care, take care, brothers. Drop by again sometime, hit follo—”
Just as he was saying goodbye, a new message suddenly appeared in the chat interface, and Chi Zhen instantly swallowed the rest of his sentence.
[Friend] Endless Time: It’s fine.
Chi Zhen stared at the message for a full minute. His mouse hovered over the input box as he typed and deleted repeatedly.
“Hope I didn’t cause you trouble?”
Mm, no. Too familiar. Delete.
“Oh.”
Too cold. Delete.
“I apologized to Misty Autumn Rain, too. I sent her a mail apology.”
No, impossible. Endless Time had already rejected Misty Autumn Rain. Bringing her up now would be way too awkward! Delete.
Maybe just send an emote.
Smiley face? Too sarcastic.
Dog head? Too unserious.
Crying face? Also weird.
Chi Zhen clicked back and forth among the emotes for ages before finally deciding on a reply.
[Friend] The Light Boat Has Passed: #Happy
Endless Time did not respond again.
[Can somebody explain this to me?]
[Xiao Chi, did you get possessed?]
[No, wait. Are you secretly in love with Endless Time???]
[6]
To be fair, Endless Time wasn’t the only one fighting over the Migu Flowers back then.
Once the system announcements for the “One Life, One World, One Pair” fireworks started flooding the screen, all kinds of players rushed over: Players coming to watch the drama, players who had noticed the NPCs behaving strangely during the in-game Hour of Hai and waited until real-world midnight to test their luck, random passersby…
The glow of the Migu Flowers was simply too dazzling.
That was the glow of money.
After Chi Zhen’s character, The Light Boat Has Passed, leapt onto the branches and picked the first Migu Flower, Endless Time was the first to jump up after him. Then figures came diving in from every direction.
Blades flashed, swords flew, skills exploded everywhere.
The gorgeous fireworks effects bought with hundreds of thousands of spirit stones were chopped into chaos by all the flying weapons. The floating 3D hearts dissolved into a tangled mess of light beneath the overlapping skill effects.
Chi Zhen unleashed the fastest hand speed of his life. Dodging left and right, rolling and scrambling, jumping up and down, he frantically harvested seven Migu Flowers.
After everyone finished snatching the flowers, the Migu Tree—constantly struck by stray attacks—finally collapsed with a loud crash.
The fireworks’ ten-minute special effect had not yet ended. Once everyone sheathed their weapons, the rain of flowers and floating hearts regained their gorgeous appearance.
Misty Autumn Rain still stood in her original spot, motionless.
As for Endless Time, after finishing his flower robbery, he calmly drew a teleportation array and left without the slightest hesitation.
The atmosphere became just a little awkward.
[I’m cringing so hard for Misty Autumn Rain my toes are curling]
[I’m telling you, Xiao Chi, run. Misty Autumn Rain’s probably gonna put you on her kill list.]
[Reminder: the stream already has over two thousand viewers now.]
[Are you sick in the head? You ran into someone’s confession scene and streamed it? No bottom line just for money, huh?]
Chi Zhen hurriedly activated a teleport skill as well, returning to Guangling City.
Murder wasn’t allowed inside main cities, and only then did he finally feel a little safer.
Glancing at the barrage, he saw people already beginning to curse him out, so he quickly explained, “I really didn’t do it on purpose. I went to boil water while doing the quest storyline. I never meant to livestream someone else’s private moment.”
Chi Zhen glanced at the viewer count again. It had already passed three thousand.
Someone had definitely posted about it on the forums.
After thinking about it, he admitted that he truly had wronged Misty Autumn Rain. She was a girl, and getting publicly rejected during a confession was already embarrassing enough—yet he had accidentally broadcast the whole thing live. If he were in her position, he would definitely add himself to the enemy list too.
After hesitating for a while, Chi Zhen said, “Brothers, I’m gonna go explain myself.”
He opened the friends interface and entered Misty Autumn Rain’s ID, trying to send a friend request.
[This player has disabled friend requests.]
[Streamer’s acting now?]
[How could a beauty’s friend requests possibly be open?]
Questioning comments came one after another. Chi Zhen’s stream had never been this lively before. Growing nervous, he explained himself over and over again.
[Mm, what a coincidence. Totally believable.]
[I believe it too. I also entered the stream randomly. This must be fate.]
[I’m late, brothers. Where’s the gossip?]
[Heard Misty Autumn Rain got rejected on the spot? Anybody got screenshots?]
Chi Zhen hurriedly muted the people asking for screenshots. “I really, really didn’t do it on purpose! But I truly made a mistake. I apologize to both parties involved. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He ran to the courier NPC in Guangling City and clicked Send Mail, entering “Misty Autumn Rain” as the recipient.
After thinking carefully, he explained everything in detail and sincerely apologized several times. A girl going through something like this really would feel awful. After some thought, he attached two Migu Flowers to the mail.
Just as he was about to hit send, he hesitated.
Were two flowers a bit… stingy?
She had suffered such severe emotional damage…
After thinking it over, Chi Zhen painfully placed all seven Migu Flowers into the mail instead. He added a few more lines: “I’m really sorry. At the time, my brain didn’t react fast enough. I didn’t immediately close the stream or leave. When I saw that many Migu Flowers, my hands moved faster than my brain.”
Chi Zhen hit send. If he delayed even one more second, he feared he’d regret it and take a flower back out.
After all that chaos, he ended up with nothing and still got scolded.
Chi Zhen truly wanted to stare at the sky and sigh.
[Streamer’s acting is incredible. I’m moved.]
[I’m seriously crying. Xiao Chi’s usually stingy even buying materials, but today he actually gave away all seven flowers. I’m crying for real.]
[Heh. There are over three thousand viewers in here now. The gifts he got tonight are already worth more than seven Migu Flowers. What a performance.]
[Honestly, people who came just to watch the drama shouldn’t stand on some moral high ground.]
[Alright, dispersing. Going to the forums to eat melons~]
[Quick, go check if the Migu Flower quest can still be done on Mount Zhaoyao~]
The comments continued nonstop.
Since Chi Zhen started streaming, he had never encountered a scene like this before.
His stream usually only had one or two hundred viewers. Not many, but for the introverted and quiet Chi Zhen, that was already pretty good. Before signing with the platform, he had once worried that his viewer count would remain in the single digits forever.
Fortunately, thanks to the gaming videos he edited, quite a few people were willing to sit in his stream and watch him play, allowing his audience to at least reach three digits.
Chi Zhen wasn’t very good at talking while streaming. But he was extremely good at editing videos.
At first, he became popular through edited gaming videos, accumulating nearly a hundred thousand followers. Through sponsorships and platform traffic revenue, he managed to earn enough for living expenses and tuition, making two to three thousand yuan per month.
Later, the video platform he used, Bolo Bolo, was acquired by a major corporation. They began expanding into livestreaming, creating Bolo Live and partnering with game companies and animation studios.
To promote Bolo Live, Bolo Bolo contacted nearly every gaming content creator on their platform with decent popularity and offered fairly attractive streaming contracts.
The contract Chi Zhen received stated that as long as he streamed 120 hours per month and maintained an average viewer count in the triple digits, he would receive a guaranteed salary of three thousand yuan per month.
If his numbers fell below triple digits, the guarantee would be reduced to one thousand.
If he failed to even maintain double digits, he would receive only three hundred.
Three hundred wasn’t much, but for someone like Chi Zhen who loved gaming, playing four hours a day while earning even three hundred yuan with zero viewers still sounded pretty good—basically free internet and electricity money.
So he signed a two-year contract.
Only after starting streaming did Chi Zhen realize there simply wasn’t enough time. He had classes to attend, streams to run, and he couldn’t completely abandon editing gaming videos either—that was still the foundation of where his viewers came from.
After beginning streaming, the frequency of his gaming video uploads dropped dramatically, and the traffic revenue from videos shrank as well, leaving him with only a few hundred yuan per month from that side.
Fortunately, his streaming stats met the requirements, so he could at least receive the three-thousand-yuan guaranteed salary each month. Otherwise, if he only earned three hundred, Chi Zhen would be drinking northwest wind after paying rent.
Chi Zhen had also daydreamed before about suddenly becoming wildly popular and turning into a major streamer. He did not dare dream about earning a million a year—even making over ten thousand a month would be enough to make him wake up laughing.
But having his viewer count suddenly break into four digits like this—he had absolutely never expected it to happen this way.
The drama was already over.
Yet there were still over a thousand viewers lingering in the stream, reliving the gossip scene among themselves with endless enthusiasm.
[Xiao Chi, aren’t you gonna apologize to Endless Time, too?]
[Yeah, why’d you forget the male lead?]
Chi Zhen wandered aimlessly around the main city for quite a while before finally saying, “I’m thinking about how to apologize…”
[??? Just copy the mail you sent to Misty Autumn Rain and send it again?]
[Can’t copy it. Streamer already gave away all the Migu Flowers~]
[Never expected Xiao Chi to be the kind of person swayed by beauty!]
Chi Zhen was speechless. “Didn’t you guys see earlier? Endless Time’s hand speed was even faster than mine. He grabbed more flowers than I did.”
He opened the friends interface and scrolled downward until he found Endless Time’s name. After thinking for a while, he typed out several lines explaining himself and apologizing.
Chi Zhen stared at the words he had written, carefully revising them over and over. By the time he finally hit send, the barrage on-screen was already scrolling like crazy.
[The streamer has Endless Time on his friends list???]
[Didn’t Endless Time close his friend list ages ago??]
[I’m entering conspiracy theory mode]
[Bro, are you writing a love letter? Why are a few sentences taking this long?]
[You typed that apology mail to the goddess fast as hell earlier]
[This careful little behavior looks exactly like me writing to my first crush]
When Chi Zhen looked up and saw the comments, his face heated slightly. “No, I once sold materials to Great God Endless Time before, that’s when I added him. Chat, d-don’t talk nonsense…”
After sending the message, Chi Zhen kept sneaking glances at the private chat channel every few moments.
Empty.
Chi Zhen had very few friends in Quest for the Azure Heavens. The people on his friends list were either teammates he regularly raided with or people who bought and sold materials.
He wandered around the main city for a while longer, running here and there aimlessly, doing absolutely nothing else.
The three main cities in Quest for the Azure Heavens each had different scenery, and the maps were all large and exquisitely detailed. Guangling City in particular was styled after Jiangnan landscapes: willow trees swaying softly, lush bamboo groves, ornate eaves, and carved beams. Clear rivers ran through the city, where luxurious painted boats, pleasure barges, and small skiffs owned by wealthy players drifted slowly along the water.
At night in the game, these boats would light their lanterns and travel beneath the starry sky and glowing city lights, creating a breathtaking Jiangnan nightscape.
Chi Zhen stood blankly by the river watching the boats for five full minutes.
[What’s the streamer doing?]
[Not even doing dailies??]
[This is some peak slacker streaming]
Chi Zhen glanced at the chat. The viewer count had already dropped to just over five hundred.
He checked the private chat channel again. Still empty. Not even anyone messaging him to buy materials.
Pulling himself together, he entered the guild secret realm.
The guild had been created by Chi Zhen himself. It only met the minimum ten-player requirement to establish a guild. Three accounts belonged to Chi Zhen and his alts. Three belonged to Luo Song and his alts. Two were college roommates dragged in to make up numbers, though those roommates were obsessed with shooter games and barely played Quest for the Azure Heavens. The remaining two were random players he had picked up somewhere; aside from joining the guild, they had never spoken once. Their login times were so mysterious that Chi Zhen still did not know whether they even still played the game.
The reason Chi Zhen had gone through enormous effort to create his own guild was because the guild secret realm contained a small private world: vegetable fields, fruit trees, fish ponds, livestock farms—basically a miniature farming simulation game. Players who disliked raids and PvP could spend entire days happily farming inside the guild realm.
Chi Zhen wandered around tending crops, watering fruit trees, feeding chickens and ducks, scattering fish feed, and completing the guild realm’s daily tasks.
Without realizing it, forty minutes passed.
By then, the livestream viewer count had dropped to only a little over three hundred.
[I’m getting sleepy watching this. Is this streamer always like this?]
[Yes. Our Xiao Chi is a lifestyle player, thank you very much.]
[Xiao Chi does raid too, just… in a very Buddhist laid-back way…]
[He occasionally does battlefields, too!]
[I’m out, I’m out. There’s zero excitement here, can’t handle it.]
Chi Zhen laughed. “Take care, take care, brothers. Drop by again sometime, hit follo—”
Just as he was saying goodbye, a new message suddenly appeared in the chat interface, and Chi Zhen instantly swallowed the rest of his sentence.
[Friend] Endless Time: It’s fine.
Chi Zhen stared at the message for a full minute. His mouse hovered over the input box as he typed and deleted repeatedly.
“Hope I didn’t cause you trouble?”
Mm, no. Too familiar. Delete.
“Oh.”
Too cold. Delete.
“I apologized to Misty Autumn Rain, too. I sent her a mail apology.”
No, impossible. Endless Time had already rejected Misty Autumn Rain. Bringing her up now would be way too awkward! Delete.
Maybe just send an emote.
Smiley face? Too sarcastic.
Dog head? Too unserious.
Crying face? Also weird.
Chi Zhen clicked back and forth among the emotes for ages before finally deciding on a reply.
[Friend] The Light Boat Has Passed: #Happy
Endless Time did not respond again.
[Can somebody explain this to me?]
[Xiao Chi, did you get possessed?]
[No, wait. Are you secretly in love with Endless Time???]
[6]
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