You Zhi’s hands kept moving over the mechanical keyboard without pause, yet he still had time to chat with the comments.
[How tall is the streamer?]
You Zhi: “181.6.”
You Zhi had measured himself that afternoon—not only his height, but what was below too.
Yeah, a man’s lifelong dignity.
[Streamer, do you have a partner?]
You Zhi: “A whole pile of them.”
[Streamer, would you date a beta if you’re an O?]
You Zhi: “Love whoever you want.”
Gift effects flashed across the screen. You Zhi clicked his tongue, missed the vision in the brush, and got ambushed and killed by the enemy.
He turned off the gift animations and glanced at the viewer count while he was at it: 800.
He looked over the gift leaderboard, pressed a key, and a mechanical voice played.
[Thank you, ‘StillWorseThanYou,’ for the Starry Sky! May the boss enjoy great fortune, promotions, and wealth!]
You Zhi had learned this from his former team captain before they retired. His old captain always used this kind of system voice to thank viewers during streams.
[Is this a looks streamer or an esports streamer?]
His game character revived, and You Zhi resumed playing.
Comments: Probably looks. That first-blood play just now was awful. I don’t think he counts as an esports streamer.
The comment floated directly beneath You Zhi’s eyes. His eyes narrowed, the corners of his lips curling into an unreadable smile as he repeated slowly, “Skill. Is. Awful.”
You Zhi entered esports at fifteen, joined the XG competitive circuit as a trainee at eighteen, won the national championship with his team and entered international competition at twenty, then won the world championship at twenty-one. That same year, You Zhi was named the server’s strongest SMVP jungler.
It was not that he could not bear hearing words like “awful skill.” It was that those words had absolutely nothing to do with him. Against this enemy team, You Zhi could beat them even if he played with his toes.
The enemy had grouped up. After You Zhi finished taking this buff, he entered the enemy jungle and crouched in a bush. When the enemy support came over, they cast their first skill to check the brush.
You Zhi used a spell that made him temporarily invulnerable, so the enemy support failed to reveal him and continued forward. Their marksman followed right behind.
You Zhi’s hands moved at terrifying speed. He rapidly swapped equipment, switched blades and battle-axe, rushed forward, and with one slash dealt ten thousand damage, instantly deleting the squishy ADC.
The enemy support stood there utterly lost in the wind, not knowing what to do.
[Holy shit! Less than one second! He swapped two pieces of equipment!]
[That hand speed! Even the keyboard couldn’t keep up, right?!]
You Zhi kept pushing forward. He had practically moved into the enemy jungle and treated it like his own home, stealing experience, camping bushes, and occasionally helping his marksman secure a few kills.
Their ADC was an absolute orphan who ignored the support’s positioning and charged straight ahead alone with all his might. His path was straighter than a cannon minion’s. He did not dodge or reposition at all.
The support could not stop him and eventually could not even be bothered trying.
With that level of skill, the ADC still had the nerve to flame people: Can you people even play? Jungler, would coming bot to gank kill you? Are you in the jungle dancing with the pigs?
The comments were all condemning the marksman. Unfortunately for him, this was exactly the kind of asshole who landed right in You Zhi’s line of fire.
When You Zhi played games, he was the type who felt physically uncomfortable if he did not roast someone. His team had fined him quite a lot over it in the past.
The marksman had given him an opening, and You Zhi did not indulge him in the slightest.
He turned on voice chat and said in an exceptionally calm tone, “Bro, didn’t you see the support constantly calling retreat? We had no vision. Why were you charging forward? Are you a cannon minion? Calling you a cannon minion is already flattering you. Cannon minions are worth more than you. What was that positioning? You think mid lane is your personal runway?”
The marksman typed: None of your business.
You Zhi killed the enemy mid laner with one hand on the keyboard while the other rolled the lollipop between his lips. “True, it isn’t my business. I don’t work at a garbage dump. Trash like you would make me burn incense just to cleanse the bad luck after running into you.”
After a while, the marksman typed: Jungler, dive the backline.
During the previous team fight, You Zhi had originally planned to dive the enemy marksman, but their ADC had stood too far forward and got deleted by the enemy mid laner’s full combo, donating a free kill. Before dying, the idiot had thrown out an ultimate that did less damage than the nearby cannon minion.
You Zhi lazily kept tapping the keyboard as he said, “Can you shake your brain until the slurry mixes evenly before you speak? You fed their backline until they’re dripping with oil and you still want me to ‘cut the backline’? What do you think this is, a restaurant? You want me to carve up the beef sirloin?”
[Fuck! That felt amazing!]
[Every time I run into this kind of braindead idiot I’m speechless. Daddy Zhi, you’re my mouthpiece!]
Even with someone dragging them down, You Zhi still carried the match as usual. As long as the jungler controlled the early-game tempo well and helped all three lanes, there was basically no way for things to go too wrong.
You Zhi took off his headset and glanced at the viewer count. It had already passed one thousand.
He was streaming in the Looks category, so most viewers had come to look at his face anyway.
[I’m following! I love the way he dresses. He looks straight out of a comic!]
[A boy this handsome is obviously meant to be the one doing the fucking!]
You Zhi chuckled softly. “Exactly. A boy as handsome as me obviously has to fuck boys.”
He lifted the end of the sentence slightly, the corner of his eye arching in a teasing glance—pure seductive charm!
Gifts exploded across the livestream.
You Zhi played more than a dozen matches in a row. He was the winning-side MVP with the highest damage every single time. When everyone looked at his win rate, they saw that he had played dozens of matches consecutively with a one-hundred-percent win rate.
Only then did everyone finally realize: this was a god-level player slaughtering the beginner zone.
[Holy shit! I didn’t even understand that move just now!]
[How did he know that guy would be hiding there?!]
[He stole the Overlord—holy shit, pentakill!]
After scoring yet another pentakill, You Zhi raised both hands and let out a long whistle.
[Is this really the level of play that belongs in the Looks category?]
You Zhi spotted the comment, pressed the tip of his tongue against his cheek, and said, “Are you saying this face of mine isn’t at the level the Looks category deserves?”
[Yes! Yes! Yes! You’re handsome, so whatever you say is right.]
[Waaah, I clicked in because of his face! Who understands?! He’s like a pink-haired boy who walked straight out of an anime!]
You Zhi laughed. He had always liked hair in flashy colors. The last color he had dyed it in his previous world was silver. It all depended on his mood.
Just like that, You Zhi successfully entered the livestreaming industry. On his first day, he made a net profit of nearly ten thousand. Enough to buy a pretty decent keyboard. Not bad, not bad.
You Zhi tasted success and streamed continuously for a month. Yan Fan came to see him several times in the middle of it, but You Zhi did not even open the apartment door. A sign hung outside.
“Leveling up and fighting monsters. Do not disturb.”
Yan Fan: ……
You Zhi shut himself away for a month and played three game accounts at the same time. All three reached first, second, and third place among junglers on the national server. He also gained more than a hundred thousand followers, and each stream now had regular fans.
As for his stream category…
He was still absolutely a Looks streamer.
You Zhi had just crushed another retired technical esports player with a million followers. The man challenged him to a one-on-one PK and got brutally demolished, 8–0.
You Zhi snorted. With skills like that, the guy was probably only third- or fourth-tier even in professional esports. These days, any random nobody could retire and come to livestreaming to make money.
Comments: Lately so many streamers who follow the esports category have been running over to the Looks category just to PK our Daddy Zhi, hahahaha.
You Zhi laughed. “Looks like this magnificent face of mine has driven development across the entire Looks category.”
Comments: Bro, don’t be too arrogant. I’m scared the haters will start cooking up drama.
Without pausing his hands, You Zhi took off his headset with one hand and said, “The esports streamers can’t beat me, and the Looks streamers aren’t as handsome as me. If I’m not arrogant, who gets to be?”
Comments: This unhinged state of Daddy Zhi is exactly what I love!!
You Zhi streamed until the early hours of the morning. He had already been playing for about three hours and was getting more exhausted by the minute, the kind of exhaustion that made his whole body go weak. Suddenly, a strange rush of heat surged through his lower body. His whole body grew hot, and a thin sheen of sweat appeared across his forehead.
You Zhi thought, Could my recent chaotic sleep schedule have actually made me sick?
Don’t die from overwork again. He had only been in this world a little over a month.
[Daddy Zhi, you’re sweating so much.]
[He looks kind of unwell. His face is all red.]
[This reaction looks like… a heat.]
[Don’t start. Our Daddy Zhi is a beta.]
Only after You Zhi swept his eyes over the comments did he realize what was happening. He had actually forgotten about this. He was no longer an ordinary person; he was an omega who had heats and mating cycles.
You Zhi could even smell that strand of milky sandalwood on himself. It actually smelled pretty nice, like milk mixed with pinewood.
This time You Zhi genuinely panicked. He kept playing, but his fingers stopped obeying him, trembling and spasming slightly.
You Zhi gritted his teeth and cursed under his breath. Why the hell was his stomach starting to hurt too?!
[Daddy Zhi, are you okay? Do you have a fever?]
You Zhi forced himself through the final match, hurriedly ended the stream, then began tearing through drawers and cabinets looking for the suppressants Yan Fan had given him last time.
Those were for heats, right…?
But was this condition actually a heat?
You Zhi called Yan Fan.
Yan Fan picked up quickly. “Brother Zhi, what’s wrong? I’m working at the café right now, and I still have—”
“Yan Fan.” You Zhi could no longer hold himself up. He had collapsed onto the floor, one hand braced against the bedframe. “This feeling where I’m weak as Lin Daiyu, kind of feverish, and my stomach hurts like hell—is this a heat?”
Yan Fan froze. “You… what’s wrong with you?”
Before You Zhi could say anything else, he lost consciousness.
When he woke again, he was in the hospital.
You Zhi blinked. His first thought: Did I transmigrate again?
“Okay, I’ll make sure he pays attention.” Yan Fan was talking to the doctor at the doorway.
When they saw that he was awake, both of them walked over. Yan Fan looked at You Zhi with a complicated expression.
You Zhi: ?
“Brother Zhi.” Yan Fan called him softly, looking worried and cautious.
The doctor sighed and said, “Mr. You, last time, after you gave birth, your gland did not fully recover. On top of that, your irregular sleep and eating schedule…”
You Zhi’s heart rose into his throat. It was over, over, over. Was he going to die again?
What illness was it?
Cancer?
A myocardial infarction?
Pancreatic disease?
“As a result, you will no longer be able to become pregnant in the future.”
You Zhi’s breath fell heavily back into place. Once he understood, he actually laughed. “There are good things like this?”
Doctor: ?
You Zhi let out a deep breath and waved a hand. “I thought it was something serious. You had me all nervous. Next time you have good news like this, skip the buildup and just say it. I can take it.”
The doctor had never met anyone like him. He drew a breath and seemed about to say something else, but Yan Fan gave a few awkward laughs and escorted him out.
When he came back, You Zhi was already sitting cross-legged with one ankle over the other, playing a game on his phone.
“Brother Zhi, please care about your body a little. Look what you’ve done to yourself.” Yan Fan pouted.
You Zhi snorted. “What’s wrong with my body? I couldn’t get pregnant in the first place. I don’t care how you humans evolved to this point. If I say I can’t give birth, then I can’t. Whether I have those organs or not, I. Will. Not. Give. Birth.”
“But you already did,” Yan Fan muttered under his breath.
You Zhi clicked his tongue and looked up at him. “That wasn’t me. That was the idiot cannon fodder.”
Yan Fan: ……
“Speaking of which, why does my stomach still…” You Zhi’s abdomen still felt wrong.
Yan Fan suddenly remembered. “Oh, right! I almost forgot. What you’re experiencing now isn’t a heat. The doctor said your body was depleted after giving birth, and your gland already had developmental problems, so you developed postpartum stress disorder.”
“What disorder?” You Zhi stared at him.
Yan Fan explained, “Postpartum stress disorder is a pheromone-cycle disturbance caused by childbirth. The doctor just said your case is pretty severe. It’ll flare up at least once a month, maybe even earlier. The symptoms are stomach pain, whole-body weakness, irritability…”
You Zhi’s brows slowly knitted together. Why did this explanation feel suspiciously similar to a certain familiar concept?
“Anyway, you absolutely have to take care of yourself from now on. It’ll happen every month. You need to drink plenty of hot water. Ginger water is best; it warms the abdomen…”
The corner of You Zhi’s mouth twitched. So, basically a disguised period?
Fine. He accepted it. In this shitty world, he had already given up resisting. They could slap any concept onto him and he no longer cared. Compared with giving birth, this was easier to swallow.
“Fuck, why does my stomach hurt this much?” You Zhi could not keep playing. He tossed his phone aside, clutched his stomach, and sprawled across the bed. “Does every omega get like this after giving birth?”
Yan Fan poured him a cup of water and handed it over. “Probably not. I’ve never given birth either.”
You Zhi took a sip.
“But I heard this might have something to do with how rough the alpha was. Maybe when the reproductive cavity was breached, he used too much force?”
You Zhi sprayed every drop of water out of his mouth.
