Love Bitstream: Chapter 33 - Summer Vacation Begins
Chapter 33: Summer Vacation Begins
The reason Chi Zhen hesitated was simple: He had social anxiety. That was the only reason. There was nothing else.
Just imagining turning on a webcam and having thousands of people looking at his face while he couldn't see any of theirs made him start feeling uncomfortable, nervous, and panicked in advance.
But—
There was money to be made.
And countless streamers had already proven through personal experience that streams with webcams attracted more viewers. If the streamer happened to be good-looking, it was even better.
Chi Zhen looked at the balance in his bank account. Then he looked at the unclaimed gift revenue in his streaming dashboard.
The amount was astonishing.
His earnings from the past half month were already approaching what he used to make in an entire year.
Chi Zhen had heard plenty of stories about top streamers earning millions annually, but he'd never imagined anything like that happening to him. Even now, staring at the numbers in the backend, it still didn't feel real.
Of course, his mind couldn't help wandering. If I earned this much every month, then after a year, I could buy a small apartment back home.
He wanted money. He wanted it desperately.
When he first started editing gaming videos and streaming, his goal had simply been to earn his own tuition and living expenses. He hated asking his parents for money. You could even say he resented it.
During his freshman year, he covered his living expenses through part-time jobs and never asked for help. But when tuition came due, his father and mother pushed responsibility back and forth between each other. Both claimed they were struggling and insisted the other should pay.
Chi Zhen knew they weren't lying. After all, both of them had new families now. New spouses. New children.
The children born into those remarried families were still young, and life wasn't easy.
In the end, Chi Zhen applied for a student loan. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
By his sophomore year, his gaming videos and streams had begun generating enough income to cover both tuition and living expenses. Living frugally, he'd even managed to pay off his freshman-year student loan ahead of schedule.
He'd been incredibly happy.
Perhaps only someone who had truly experienced financial hardship could understand that feeling.
Three thousand yuan a month was already enough to make Chi Zhen feel comfortable. Not to mention now— He was making nearly three thousand yuan a day.
Yet Chi Zhen still lacked a sense of security. This money felt like it had fallen from the sky through some inexplicable stroke of luck. He had no idea when that luck would disappear.
So while it lasted, he wanted to earn as much as possible and save it for the future.
If only this popularity could last for an entire year...
Chi Zhen picked up a calculator and started figuring out how much would remain after taxes.
Then he sighed.
Daydreaming was fun.
Putting down his phone, he finally made up his mind. He clicked the participation button and filled out the registration information. Immediately afterward, he sent Luo Song a message asking about webcams and streaming lights.
Even though he wasn't a looks-based streamer, he couldn't appear on camera looking too rough.
At the very least, he'd have to tidy up his tiny room, hang up a backdrop or something, and get proper lighting so he wouldn't look terrible on camera.
Luo Song was a hardworking man. Every evening at six o'clock sharp, he started his sales livestream and didn't end until midnight.
After messaging Luo Song, Chi Zhen logged into the game and started streaming.
The first thing he did after opening the stream was change the title: Final Exam Week Incoming—Stream Schedule Will Be Irregular...
The viewers immediately erupted.
[What?! Your popularity is exploding, and NOW you're going on hiatus?!]
[If you don't stream, what about your Endless Time?! Is Endless Time supposed to play games all alone?!]
[The Little Veggie Guild is leaderless! Leaderless, I tell you!]
Chi Zhen quickly explained, "It's not a hiatus, everyone. Just irregular streams. I'll still come on for an hour or two every day, depending on the situation. Some subjects might require me to bury my head in the books..."
"Final exam week only lasts about half a month. Once it's over, I'll make up the streaming hours during the remaining half of summer vacation."
[Looks like you're actually a serious college student. I thought you just slacked off and played games all day.]
[Vocational college student, plenty of free time.]
[What's wrong with vocational college? Among streamers, that's already considered highly educated. #doge]
As soon as he logged into the game, a guild announcement appeared in chat.
[Guild] Join Guild YY Channel 54233 as soon as you log in! Ask Blue Sky Beyond for the password! Viewers, please do not disturb. Thank you!
[Blue Sky Beyond is incredible.]
[Not gonna lie, I actually tried joining the YY channel and discovered I couldn't get in.]
[Isn't the Little Veggie Guild recruiting? You have so few members you can't even run a ten-man raid.]
Chi Zhen felt a little anxious.
That was true. With their current numbers, forget ten-man raids—they couldn't even field a proper five-person battleground team. They didn't have a single PvP healer and had to recruit random players whenever they wanted to queue.
Lime played healer, but she insisted her hands were too clumsy. She never participated in PvP and had no interest in it.
Since joining the guild, Endless Time seemed to have done nothing remotely serious. He just completed daily quests, chopped trees, and carried rocks.
Everyone else was similar.
The ten-man and thirty-man raid lockouts had already reset, yet they still hadn't gone.
But Chi Zhen didn't have time to worry about it. Final exams were right around the corner.
After joining the YY channel, Chi Zhen once again suggested handing the guild leader position to someone else.
Only Blue Sky Beyond, Sister Dog, and Lime were online. After hearing him out, Blue Sky Beyond lazily replied, "Brother Chi, look, not everyone's even here. Endless Time is working overtime, and Thousand Feathers's probably like you—busy with final exams. Let's talk about it during summer vacation. You'll have plenty of time then. Endless Time has been busy lately too. Honestly, you don't need to worry about him. Office workers only get to play for a little while each day anyway."
Sister Dog sighed. "Same here. I'm exhausted today. I can only do daily quests and haul rocks around. If you ask me to raid, I don't have the energy."
Blue Sky Beyond snorted. "Who doesn't feel that way?"
And so the Little Veggie Guild entered a period of stagnation.
To maintain his streaming hours, Xiao Chi logged in every day to complete dailies, harvest crops, and water the Unknown Seed.
The Unknown Seed had already sprouted. No one knew how much longer it would take to grow.
Several times, the moment Xiao Chi logged on, Endless Time would send him a message saying that the snow had already been gathered and stored. He'd gone to lure the Zhēng beast and had collected it along the way.
Blue Sky Beyond had a lot of friends and had already run several raids outside the guild, so his gear was mostly complete. He and Xiao Chi agreed that once Xiao Chi finished his final exams, they would go play battlefields together.
But Xiao Chi wasn't in the mood for raids or PvP. He wanted to do well on his exams and maybe earn a scholarship. Third-tier, second-tier—it didn't matter. Either one would look good on a résumé.
Besides, there was still something he hadn't decided.
Students at vocational colleges generally entered internships during their third year. Should he start looking for a job? Or should he prepare for the vocational-to-bachelor's transfer examination?
Several of his classmates had begun preparing as early as sophomore year, enrolling in training programs and studying continuously ever since.
When finals season arrived, it felt as though every possible problem came rushing in at once. Everything became chaotic, and Xiao Chi had no mood to play games. Still, for the sake of meeting his monthly streaming-hour requirement, he forced himself to stream for an hour or two every day. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to make up the missing hours later and would lose his guaranteed base income.
Since he hadn't been streaming much these past few days, his viewer count quickly dropped back to around one thousand.
Before his English exam, Xiao Chi buried himself in studying. He was so nervous that he ended up livestreaming himself studying instead of playing games. English had always been his weakest subject. A very, very weak subject. The kind of weak where every exam had him praying to heaven just to pass. He didn't even dare register for the CET-4 exam because he knew he'd definitely fail.
He wasn't worried about his major-related courses. He did fairly well in those and was good at the software and practical skills his major required. It was subjects like English and mathematics—the foundational courses—that he'd struggled with ever since middle school.
To pad his streaming hours, he fished in-game while memorizing English vocabulary.
The chat was filled with question marks.
After some thought, Xiao Chi turned on his webcam and pointed it at his English textbook. On screen, The Light Boat Has Passed still sat by the water holding a fishing rod.
"Friends, I'm attempting the English dungeon. Please bear with me."
[What? How did you know I'm also memorizing English while watching the stream?]
[Aren't you a gaming content creator?]
[Are you fishing or studying? How can you notice the fishing rod moving while you're memorizing vocabulary?]
[Am I the only one who noticed Xiao Chi got a new webcam? Is this his first time using one? Is he joining Pineapple's annual event?!]
[Seriously? Does that mean we'll finally get to see what Xiao Chi looks like?!]
[Waaah, I'm actually a little scared. Right now Endless Time × The Light Boat Has Passed is such a great ship. If a real-life face appears, I'm worried I won't be able to ship them anymore…]
[Same…]
[Xiao Chi, promise me you'll clean yourself up properly, adjust your webcam filters, and ask professionals for lighting advice…]
The new webcam and simple lighting equipment had already arrived. Luo Song had helped him pick a cost-effective setup. Since Xiao Chi was a gaming streamer and only needed a small webcam frame in the corner of the screen, he didn't need the perfectionism expected of appearance-based streamers. As long as it looked decent, that was enough.
Xiao Chi's head hurt from studying English. He had no energy left to read the chat.
Meanwhile, Blue Sky Beyond had become busy again.
[Guild] Blue Sky Beyond: Brother Chi, why aren't you on YY?
[Guild] Blue Sky Beyond: Brother Chi, are you joining the event and turning on your webcam?!
[Guild] Blue Sky Beyond: You've been staring at the same page for twenty minutes. Are you actually studying?
[Guild] If A Dog Wants To Leave I Dont Stop It: He's studying. If he joins YY, you'll annoy him to death.
[Guild] Blue Sky Beyond: What? I'm an overseas-returned elite! Teaching Brother Chi a little English is child's play! Brother Chi, come to YY, and I'll teach you English~
Whenever a fish bit, the fishing rod vibrated and emitted a soft bzz. Hearing the sound, Chi Zhen looked up to reel in the fish, only to notice the guild chat messages. After hesitating for a moment, he joined the YY channel.
Blue Sky Beyond immediately greeted him enthusiastically. "Don't be shy, Brother Chi! Come on, ask me anything. My college English is pretty solid!"
Chi Zhen marked a few questions he couldn't understand, placed the textbook under the webcam, and enlarged the image.
Blue Sky Beyond glanced at them and began explaining.
Both Xiao Chi and the viewers were stunned.
Even people with poor English could tell—Blue Sky Beyond spoke with a flawless London accent. His English was astonishingly fluent.
[HOLY SHIT, Blue Sky Beyond, you're actually an overseas-returned elite?!]
[Elegant. Too elegant!]
[My entire image of Blue Sky Beyond as an idiot has been overturned. A London accent is genuinely elegant!]
[Holy crap. You're classmates with Endless Time. Don't tell me Endless Time is also some overseas-returned elite? If someone existed who's good at studying and gaming, I'd be so jealous I'd die!]
[Forget that. Get Endless Time over here to tutor Xiao Chi's English!】
After finishing the explanations, Blue Sky Beyond began reading the chat without the slightest embarrassment. "Ah, thank you, thank you for the compliments, everyone. My English is alright, I suppose. Back in secondary school, I often participated in English speech competitions and stuff. I'd casually take first place from time to time, nothing special. Ahem. Oh, I'm not an elite. Just saying that casually. I only did a two-year master's degree in the UK. Nothing worth mentioning. Nothing worth mentioning~"
Chi Zhen knew he was being modest. He probably just didn't want viewers asking too many questions.
"Endless Time? Pfft!" Blue Sky Beyond scoffed. "His rustic American accent isn't even one ten-thousandth as elegant as mine~ We were classmates in secondary school, not university classmates~"
"Brother Xiao Chi, if you ever have study-related questions, come ask me. Math too! I'm great at math!"
"You are?" a deep voice suddenly interrupted, carrying the faintest trace of amusement. "How come I never knew that? Do you even know what major Brother Xiao Chi is studying? Could you actually tutor him?"
It was Endless Time.
Endless Time rarely used voice chat. He had probably just entered YY and heard Blue Sky Beyond secretly talking trash about him, prompting him to finally unmute.
Blue Sky Beyond refused to back down. "My math is pretty good! Not compared to a freak like you, obviously, but it's still good, okay?!"
Xiao Chi hurriedly played peacemaker. "No matter what, you're definitely both better than me..."
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Thousand Feathers unmuted his microphone. "Math? Guild Leader Xiao Chi, we can discuss and exchange ideas together. I'm a graduate student in mathematics."
Sister Dog also joined in. "What's going on, Guild Leader? Lime studied foreign languages. She's fluent in four languages. Come on, ask her how to pronounce your English."
Chi Zhen nearly coughed up blood.
[HAHAHAHAHA Is your guild doing a comedy routine again?]
[An entire guild of elites and the guild leader is the only vocational college student?]
[This script is way too rough. Maybe don't give everyone except Xiao Chi such overpowered backgrounds. It's too easy to spot the plot holes.]
Sister Dog immediately spoke up. "I graduated from an ordinary second-tier university. No cheats here. What, are you kicking me out of the guild now? But my friend really is that amazing. There's no reason for her to brag about that stuff in a game."
Some viewers still didn't believe them and started mocking them.
The members of the Little Veggie Guild immediately took offense. In the end, they all swarmed Xiao Chi together. Two overseas graduates. One mathematics graduate student. One foreign-language graduate fluent in four languages. Together, they surrounded Xiao Chi and spent an entire hour carefully tutoring his English.
And in front of the stream, Chi Zhen boldly declared: "I'll score at least seventy on my English exam!"
Soon enough, final exams finally came to an end.
Chi Zhen's summer vacation had officially begun. And Pineapple’s annual platform event was about to begin as well.
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