Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 119: Did You Eat a Lemon

<< Jue Jing >> was the hottest game at the moment, and all related keywords were trending quite high on the charts.
Wen Chuo spent half a month fighting monsters and levelling up, successfully rising up to number 2 on the overall ranking chart, and only after that did he have the heart to check how many views he had after uploading onto DK.

32000 views, 8000 comments and 4000 new fans subscribed, which was pretty good for a new uploader.
But it did need to take half a month to have these kinds of results, which did not quite meet up to expectations.

Wen Chuo took a look at the comments section and found that besides the ones going “gonna kneel for you king”, more were trying to pry into the person behind the account.
They were targeting whether the person in the video was the dark horse K-Da, and one comment on this had about 1000 additional replies.

— Caught the king of the overall ranking charts alive! Hearing his voice in the video, it seems he’s quite young, but his skills are so top notch.
There’s no flamboyant showing off, and he successfully avoids that murderous crowd of aggro monsters, giving off so much information for newbies.
He’s put in a lot of effort in creating this.
Liked! Leaving a comment that I was here before he blows up! 

— Actually I really wanted to see the tutorial for later levels.
The beginner ones have already been out for so long now that the tutorials aren’t worth much anymore.
<< Jue Jing >> already has three new areas.
I wonder if he’ll make more tutorials?

— If it’s really K-Da, then that’s pretty crazy! I just took a look at the ranking and he’s number 2 overall.
Rising so fast in such a short time, what an unlimited future he’s gonna have! Quick, drag Wan Ye down hahaha.
Better than showing off everyday on her stream.

Since he had not uploaded anything new in a long time, the view count on his video was already beaten by new ones, and it had pretty much disappeared like a drop into the ocean.
Wen Chuo calculated and it had been about ten or so days since he had last uploaded.
So right when there was the largest number of viewers on the platform, he uploaded two more tutorial videos.

They couldn’t really be actually counted as tutorials as many levels higher up were all dependent on technique and skill.
Wen Chuo could only point out a few traps in a few places for players, but it did not keep the audience from feeling satisfaction just from watching.

As a gaming broadcaster, a part of their income came from the view count and the other from their fanbase.
Wen Chuo updated the game and found that << Jue Jing >> had released a few new areas, and Wan Ye had already passed him by several levels.
Much like a head honcho, she tightly grasped onto her number 1 rank.

 

To the rest of the world, Wen Chuo’s background was a bit mysterious.
Always going offline after the game and never revealing any personal information.
The high ranked players on the overall chart were basically all known gamers on the big platforms, and so everyone guessed about his real identity on the down low.
They sleuthed around and came to point the target at Feng Yun’s1 gaming streamer Xi Ka.

Xi Ka seemed to be in talks with the higher ups of Feng Yun recently, discussing about the end of her contract, so it wasn’t entirely impossible for her to switch to DK, yet she had not appeared online for a very long time.

Perhaps because too many private messages were sent to her, in a rare sight, Xi Ka responded to the allegations: My grandmother has fallen ill recently, so when << Jue Jing >> first came out, I had no time to play and it had been on the back burner for me for a very long time.
Only recently did I have some free time, so my name is not on the overall ranking chart /embarrassed.
Although that K-Da’s skill is as /nice/ as mine, he’s not me~

Xi Ka has about 300 thousand and more fans, considered to be a small pillar for Feng Yun.
When she smiled, her eyes would curve up, and in private, she was a very filial piteous girl.
With her high level of fame, her gaming technique and skills were very widely known and definitely above average.

Wen Chuo didn’t really care about any of this and turned on the ability to livestream for his account.
After contemplating for a bit, he logged onto his social media account and posted:

Going live Saturday night.
<< Jue Jing >> Death’s Valley.
See you there.

 

Wen Chuo needed to uphold the quality of his videos, and that would inevitably mean that a lot of time is needed.
And with that, he would fall off the tracks, always slower than other people by a step.
So streaming is not a bad choice, as it could balance the speed of level progression and also gain some recognition.
If he was lucky, he’d have some fans drop some presents2, which could be a source of income.

The moment this was posted, there were people coming in to leave comments with the occasional likes.
Wen Chuo gave it a look and found that it was the newbie group he carried, and he smiled.
He didn’t really mind it as a new streamer would always be like this, where each step to move upwards was an uphill battle.

It had been a while now and the Wen family news had already been overtaken by other entertainment news.
The pop ups were finally no longer sending any of the related content, but as the woman in question was a celebrity, there were occasional exposés of her “outings”, which led a lot of gossip rags to start a new round of guessing and allegations every time.

But Wen Chuo did not have the heart to care about any of these, and seeing that it was still quite early, he went downstairs to go find Bai Yang.
He didn’t expect, however, that at this time of day, the restaurant would be quite full.
He stayed a distance away, not entering, only choosing to take a glance from far away.
Through the glass doors, he could see an honest looking young man beside Liu Meng Meng that looked new, helping out around the restaurant.
He thought to himself that this must be a new employee.

There once used to be a lot of bicycle shares in Lin Xian, but most of them had been stolen to be used as personal vehicles.
Wen Chuo spent a long while before he was able to find one that was not damaged, and because he had been basically holed up by himself for so long, he called Shan Dian and the gang out to go for a ride.

Shan Dian’s hair had grown out to be quite long, and he purposefully swished it around as he rode on his bike, which garnered a lot of disgusted stares from pedestrians.
He himself didn’t care one bit, only laughing and wailing out, 

“WAH WOOOO–!”

Wen Chuo was riding at about the same speed, but it looked like he was quite slow and being quite leisurely.
The corners of his shirt were flying up from the wind, which added a bit more coolness and chicness about him.
Shan Dian bemoaned at him, 

“What a busy man you are huh.
It’s so rare to see you out on the streets now.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought that you’ve turned into a goody two shoes now.”

He wasn’t that young anymore, and his family was scouring through their social circles to find him a job in a big city.
Next month, he’ll be leaving Lin Xian to carve out his own path.

“Fuck off, you sure that’s the phrase you want to use?”

Wen Chuo narrowed his eyes, finding a very familiar shadow in front of him, a hiding Da Hong, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Ringing the bicycle bell, he said, 

“Let’s go.
Let this brother find you something to do for fun!”

And then ramped up his speed, flying away.
The other young men behind him followed along, up for something nefarious, and rang their bells, pedalling faster to follow and flying like the wind.

The day that Liu Meng Meng went out for her blind marriage date, it could be conclusively said that it was satisfactory.
The man was called Qian Zhi Guo, and he worked at a company as an office worker.
He was an honest man, but a bit dull.
Yet this was exactly what Feng-shu was looking for, as he felt like this kind of man wouldn’t be hooking up with other women on the side.
This also meant that their marriage was pretty much settled, or at least more than halfway to the wedding chapel.

Qian Zhi Guo was at least not that slow in matters related to love, and these past few days, he had been working hard in front of the beautiful lady he wanted to impress, taking on any work that he could help with.

When the sky was completely dark and the last table of customers have left, Bai Yang was just clearing the table when Qian Zhi Guo quickly shot forward like an arrow, 

“Let me do it!”

And then ripped away the tablecloth and bucket from Bai Yang’s hands and enthusiastically cleaned up.
He was fast and he would occasionally look up at Liu Meng Meng, but the latter would only calmly move her gaze away, never looking back at him.

Bai Yang turned around and began to organize the messed up chairs and table which, when Qian Zhi Guo saw, he immediately threw down the bucket in his hands and quickly helped.
He energetically said, 

“No worries, no worries, let me do it, let me do it.”

Those who knew the situation would know that he liked Liu Meng Meng and wanted to show himself off, but to those that didn’t, they may think that he liked Bai Yang.

Wen Chuo stood outside, watching for a long while, and then he locked up the bike before pushing the door open to walk in.
With his glasses on him, he looked so gentlemanly, but the thuggish gangster etched into his bones would never be sanded away.
His eyes had an ill-intentioned tint to them as he looked at Qian Zhi Guo.

It was also a bit weird as when she heard Wen Chuo’s voice, Liu Meng Meng’s head that was buried deep into the accounting books suddenly perked up.
An evident smile from what she considered as a happy surprise showed up on her face, 

“Oh hey, why are you here.”

Wen Chuo found a seat to sit down and pulled out a pair of disposable chopsticks from the bucket on the table, pulling them apart with a loud snap, 

“Of course, when you come into a restaurant, you come for food, otherwise, what’s the point.”

Hearing him, Bai Yang slowly looked at him and quietly said, 

“……There’s food at home.”

With an emotionless face, Wen Chuo lowered his eyes and snapped the chopstick in half.
His eyebrows raised and very unhappily said, 

“I don’t want to eat leftovers.”

They had never been leftovers as Bai Yang had been afraid he would have forgotten to eat dinner again when he was too focused on editing.
Bai Yang had specifically come back in the afternoon to cook for Wen Chuo, and he placed it in the rice cooker to keep it warm.
But this did not bother Wen Chuo who was throwing a tantrum and trying to cause trouble.

Liu Meng Meng said, 

“Alright, order whatever you want to eat.
I’ll give you a discount.
Bai Yang, give him the menu.”

Bai Yang was just about to grab one from the cabinet when Qian Zhi Guo quickly acted faster than him and put a menu in front of Wen Chuo, 

“Sir, please see what you would like, and I’ll call the chef to make it.”

Wen Chuo couldn’t stand him being so diligent towards Bai Yang and didn’t even want to care about him.
He scanned him from head to toe and asked, 

“New employee?”

Liu Meng Meng was a bit hesitant to explain, 

“No, he’s…..
a friend, came here to help.”

Hearing her words, Qian Zhi Guo wasn’t hurt as he thought that it was only a girl’s shyness and that she didn’t feel like it was appropriate to say out loud.
He scratched his head, and didn’t add anything, silently acknowledging her words.

For some reason, Bai Yang was also ignoring Wen Chuo and only took care of his work and himself.
After he wiped the tables clean, he mopped the floors.
When Wen Chuo ordered his food, he saw Qian Zhi Guo swirling around Bai Yang and his hands slightly tightened up and ‘snap’ went another pair of chopsticks.

“Ah ah ah, put it down, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

“Since I was small, I have always helped my parents with their chores.
I’ll mop, I’ll mop.”

Somehow Wen Chuo felt that Qian Zhi Guo was like a fly, except for “let me do it, let me do it” he didn’t know any other words.
Wen Chuo coldly looked on and when Liu Meng Meng served up his food and saw him like this, she sat across from him, 

“Where do you get all this anger from everyday.
Have you eaten a cannon? Has it not caused you to explode yet?”

From this close, her cheeks were blushing from Wen Chuo’s seductive eyes.
Liu Meng Meng turned her head and looked at the average looking face of Qian Zhi Guo’s and she suddenly had an inexplicable feeling of disappointment.

Liu Meng Meng quietly asked Wen Chuo, 

“What do you think……of him?”

Wen Chuo had always been staring at Bai Yang’s serious working mode.
His appearance from the side made him look so pure and clean, with his expression so focused and serious that Wen Chuo’s heart had somehow calmed down.
Without any attention to Liu Meng Meng, he said, 

“Not bad, why.”

Seeing that Qian Zhi Guo had not paid any attention to them, Liu Meng Meng slightly tilted her body and whispered into Wen Chuo’s ears, 

“I just feel that Qian Zhi Guo’s so dumb and dull.
Not even as smart as Bai Yang.
Hoh, my heart’s frustrated and annoyed.”

The two of them were quite close together, and their actions even more intimate.
Bai Yang stared at the both of them, and his movements suddenly paused before diligently wiping up all the water droplets on the table.
He turned around into the kitchen and without a doubt, Qian Zhi Guo followed along.

Liu Meng Meng was angered to the point that she didn’t even know what to say.
She covered her face as if to cry.
Not even handsome, emotional IQ was low.
She stomped her feet, angrily cursing him, 

“An idiot from head to toe!”

Wen Chuo felt like he couldn’t stomach any of the food at all.
He remembered that he still had to livestream at 6pm, and he used his pair of chopsticks to knock on the table, 

“Bill.
Pack up the leftovers too.”

Liu Meng Meng dropped her hands and glared at him, 

“What leftovers.
You haven’t even taken one bite.
Do you even know how to live? Why are you so wasteful.”

There was nothing more that Wen Chuo loved to do than to quip, 

“If I say it’s leftovers, then it’s leftovers.”

During the time that Liu Meng Meng was packing up the food, he flipped over the curtain doorway to sneakily take a look in the kitchen at the back.
But the chubby chef was standing right in the doorway, blocking his view, and he couldn’t see anything at all.

Wen Chuo could only take the boxes of leftovers home.
He didn’t have one lick of an appetite and he finally felt that he was indeed that bit wasteful.
For no reason at all, he didn’t even know what he was angry over, wasting his money for nothing.

His livestream went live at 6pm and Wen Chuo didn’t show his face, only streaming the game.
After about ten minutes of waiting, a whole bunch of people started to pour in, even more than Wen Chuo anticipated.
He flipped through the comment section and only then did he find something weird going on.

When someone’s famous, there’s bound to be drama.
As the pillar of DK’s gaming category, there were naturally many who were envious of and contested with Wan Ye.
Some haters used Wen Chuo to spread rumors everywhere.
They said that he was going to quickly pull Wan Ye down from her number one spot and started a small wave of fights.
So when Wan Ye’s fans heard that Wen Chuo was going to livestream, they came to “check” him out.

 

>> I’m only looking to see what kind of person one could be to be able to pull Wan-zi3 down from her rank.
Fighting oh~ Don’t let us be disappointed, young man!

>> Came here to see how great he could be.
If he can’t even pass through Death’s Valley, I’m going to motherfucking make him crawl for me!

>> Yo the one above me SB? Have you even passed the beginner levels? Death’s Valley is a new area.
Your Wan Ye is still stuck there.
If he can’t pass, he’ll have to crawl for you? What a brainless child.
Can Wan Ye manage her own fans huh? A group of crazed dogs randomly biting people.

There was a lot of passive aggressiveness in the comment section and Wen Chuo only roughly took a look before closing the screen off.
He put on his earphones and entered the game.
Death’s Valley was currently the hardest level to pass right now, as besides defending from other players, he’d also have to be careful of the zombies that would randomly pop up.
On top of all this, his vision was greatly dimmed which was not an advantage at all, and it was called the most impossible area.

Wen Chuo put on his glasses and focused on his monitor.
In the game, his character moved forward in the midst of the strange land of Death’s Valley.
Here it looked like a centuries old European castle, situated in a dark and covered forest with their branches grown all crooked.
Paired with an eerie BGM, girls who had the lowest level of courage would cry from the scene.

A green poisonous swamp was “gu-lu-gu-lu” bubbling and a bone was silently swaying up and down with it.
Wen Chuo knew that if he was not careful, he would immediately be swallowed up, just like how it was impossible to get rid of parasitic leeches once they were attached onto you.
It would mean losing at least half his health and so when he was controlling his character, he would purposefully avoid the bones.

He was clean and fast with his bullets and before the audience could even clearly see the enemies hiding in the thick forest, Wen Chuo had already one-shot killed them.
Unknowingly, anxiety began to build up in their hearts and their focus was unparalleled.

On the charts, Wen Chuo had a rare undefeated battle record.
On the road, he had killed countless monsters and when he finally broke through the thick forest into the old castle, his health bar had not even taken a hit by the wandering zombies.
Quite a few people in the comment section were saying, they bowed down to his greatness, and knew that his skill was incomparable to Wan Ye.

The castle door slowly began to open, and following the heavy creaking sound, attention was drawn to what was behind the door.
It was right at this time that a weird sound began emitting into their ears and following that, a round black shadow suddenly flashed right above the character’s head.
On the monitor, it suddenly zoomed in, scaring the audience

Wen Chuo however had already been prepared and he quickly dashed to the side.
Then he shot right in midair, and a corroded crow chewing on an eyebrow fell on the ground.

The comment section immediately blew up.

>> AH AH AH MOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!! I’M FRIGHTENED TO DEATH MOMMY! How could this area be so scary.
A crow can even hurt the character, what a scam!!!

>> WOWWOW if it was me, I’d be dead already.
If K-Da had fought all the way here and died here, it’d have been so unfortunate.
Thankfully, he avoided it.

>> His reaction skill, is so top-notch.
Stanning, stanning.
It’s so refreshing to see him fight, so much so that I’m filled with so much jealousy.

There were also Wan Ye’s fans and they popped out to say a few meaningless words, but they didn’t exit out of the stream.
Following the passing of time, the number of people watching was increasing and increasing.

Wen Chuo took a look at the bottom right corner and found that it was almost time for Bai Yang to be off work.
He increased his speed to push forward into the castle and the screen was suddenly filled with zombies being shot and their blood splattering on the screen.
The audience were wide eyed as they saw this and they felt that this seemed to be easier than chopping vegetables.

Other people needed to spend an hour, and even with countless revivals, they may not even be able to go pass Death’s Valley.
But Wen Chuo only spent forty minutes to pass it in one go.
When the sweet voice of the NPC said “Congratulations on passing”, the comment section blew up again.

At the same time, the overall ranking charts refreshed and KKK was number 1, Wan Ye was number 2.

>> Fuck fuck! What a surprise! The overall ranking charts have been updated! K is now number 1 (breaking the sound barrier!!)

>> I feel like I just witnessed the birth of a god.
Quick subscribe subscribe wu wu wu, when you get famous, I’d be an old fan!

Wen Chuo took off his earphones and found that someone had started a chain of gifts.
Rockets, cruise ships all flew by his screen, filling it up with all the special effects.
He thought to himself that he should have earned back all the money he just spent at the restaurant.

It was just at this time that the front door creaked and Wen Chuo glanced over before retracting his eyes back.
He quickly put on his headphones, pretending to be staring at the monitor as, with the peripheral vision of his eyes, he watched Bai Yang walk in.

 

Wen Chuo waited for him to speak up, but he could have never thought that Bai Yang would go right around him and straight towards the bedroom.
Wen Chuo closed the livestream, rolled his chair over, blocking the bedroom door, acting more like Cheng Yaojin than Cheng Yaojin could be.4 

Bai Yang paused in his footsteps and lifted his eyes up to look at him, ever still his silent self.

Wen Chuo didn’t let him go, and he didn’t move, silently standing there, just like being punished.

One minute later, Wen Chuo couldn’t handle it and unhappily released his hands.
Seeing him turn his head as if throwing a tantrum and not looking at him in anger, Bai Yang slightly squinted his eyes before walking over and lightly hugging him.

Bai Yang’s waist was overly skinny to the point of not being real.
Wen Chuo buried his face in his embrace and messily snuggled and mushed his face around, 

“Who was that man today? Why is he so detestable? Always swirling around you.”

The displeasure in his voice was too evident, as if everything he owned was being eyed up.

“Qian Zhi Guo.”

Bai Yang was as his normal self, and he stared at the top of Wen Chuo’s head.
He lifted his hand to touch, a bit dazedly asking, 

“You…… are eating vinegar?”

 

Wen Chuo fake spat, almost jumping up from his chair, 

“I’m eating vinegar? This old man ate a lemon!”5

 

 

Notes:

 

*1 Feng Yun: Another streaming platform where the name is made up of the words “wind” and “cloud” combined

*2 It’s called “scrubbing presents” in Chinese which is pretty interesting haha but in most streaming platforms, kind of like youtube and twitch where these “presents” or really, “donations” get a special notification.
It’s like a mini cartoon on your screen.
If you have seen livestreams on twitch (or perhaps also youtube), take the sub/follow notifications that some streamers have pop up that says so and so donated/subbed/followed and make it flashier and bigger (dependent on the size of the “gift”/money given).

 

Unlike on twitch where you can have your own notifications, it’s pretty standardized between the streams (dependent on the platform ofc) where you’d have different special effects like a cruise ship, fireworks, etc.
They kind of resemble slot machines with their very fancy graphics designed to capture your attention and when there’s like a bazillion of them, it can get pretty crazy fast.
These presents will actually show up a bit later in the chapter.

 

*3 This is a nickname of sorts for Wan Ye (which is not like in volume 2 where the “ye” means an older man but a part of her name).
The “Zi” is kind of “your family”/my little kid/affectionate kind of feeling.

 

*4 Cheng Yaojin is a famous general that helped establish/found the Tang Dynasty.
A common phrase using his name is to mean that something unexpected and sudden is happening, something that you can’t stop and one that’s not welcomed at all.

*5 For this whole exchange, eating vinegar is a euphemism for being jealous while eating a lemon can mean a few things: that the person doesn’t feel good, like suffocating from a wrong, or being rejected, being envious or also jealous, feeling extremely sour over whatever happened, etc.