The Genius Cannon Fodder's Counterattack 14

Yang Baihua could not stand closing his eyes and seeing Cheng Yuan, could not stand speculating about endless possibilities. But Cheng Yuan was living in his parents' villa, where every security measure was worth the exorbitant annual property fees, and Cheng Yuan himself was the sort who never left the house. Give him a piano and he could stay indoors for a month.

Gritting his teeth, Yang Baihua went to find Cheng Jian.

He stopped Cheng Jian on his way home from work.

After hearing what he wanted, Cheng Jian looked him over as though he were an inanimate object. "You want Xiao Yuan to go back?"

Though Cheng Jian and Cheng Yuan had utterly different temperaments, their features resembled each other. Being looked at with such contempt by that face made Yang Baihua especially uneasy.

He drew in a breath. "I'll treat Xiao Cheng well. I..."

Cheng Jian cut him off. "Explain things between you and Xiao Yuan to your parents, and I'll let Xiao Yuan consider it."

The breath Yang Baihua had just drawn lodged in his throat.

Cheng Jian sneered. "What? Didn't you say you'd treat Xiao Yuan well?"

Cheng Jian's presence was too imposing. Yang Baihua could not help stammering. "Xiao Cheng agreed to... to give me some time to deal with this. He'll face it with me..."

Cheng Jian very much wanted to tell him to shove a pork elbow up his mother's ass, but he no longer wanted to waste breath cursing Yang Baihua. There were better uses for it.

He spread his hands. "You have plenty of time now, don't you? Go on. Come find me when you've handled it. But make an appointment next time. Don't pop out to stop my car. If I run you over, whose fault is that?"

He gave Yang Baihua no chance to keep yapping. Flooring the gas, he drove away, deeply regretting that the car's environmentally friendly system prevented him from blasting Yang Baihua in the face with exhaust.

After venting, Cheng Jian worried for a time that Yang Baihua might decide to smash the pot and come to the company spreading stories about him and Cheng Yuan.

But the facts proved that Yang Baihua was not merely quiet as a chicken; he was quiet as an egg.

Snacking on sunflower seeds, Chi Xiaochi remained perfectly composed and said with cutting accuracy to 061, "Yang Baihua has more shame than my brother does."

061 carefully analyzed the statement and, for a moment, could not tell whom Chi Xiaochi was insulting.

Chi Xiaochi added, "Teacher Six, Tang Huan's new album is coming out soon, right?"

061 had long grown used to this form of address, which was oddly similar to Tony the Hairdresser. After confirming, he answered, "Yes. A week from now is the fifth anniversary of Tang Huan's debut, just as it was in the original worldline."

The record industry here was developing much like the one in Chi Xiaochi's own world.

Because of rampant piracy and other factors, the music industry had been unavoidably sliding into decline for the past decade. Singers had no choice but to develop side ventures, participate in variety shows, or simply go into business. Fewer and fewer focused solely on music. Lean EPs containing only three to five songs appeared in large numbers, gradually replacing albums as the mainstay of the music market.

Yundu Entertainment had specifically chosen Tang Huan's fifth debut anniversary to release this "transformational work," backed it with heavy advertising and promotion, and plainly attached great importance to it.

Chi Xiaochi logged into Cheng Yuan's Weibo.

The splash screen was filled with Tang Huan's sweet smile. He tapped Skip and went straight to his own page.

He had been quite active on Weibo these days, and his followers had already passed ten thousand.

Last night, he had posted that, to celebrate surpassing ten thousand followers, he planned to hold a livestream. He would randomly choose three lucky users and give each one a song: practice pieces he had rewritten earlier, intended for personal collections only and not for commercial use, and so forth.

Twenty-five seconds after the post went up, someone immediately replied, "Will Yuanyuan show his face on stream?"

Chi Xiaochi said, "I will, I will, I will."

In the end, the post was shared more than two thousand times, most of them by people who had come to admire his looks.

Chi Xiaochi was very satisfied with the figure. "Just right."

He ran the drawing, announced the winners, selected a livestream site with relatively high traffic, and opened a room to wait for the stream to start at eight that evening.

061 asked, "What should the room be called?"

Without thinking, Chi Xiaochi casually typed in a name. "What do you think? Great, right?"

061 leaned over to look. "Lou's Reflection Enters Chi's Pond."

061: "..."

Chi Xiaochi was quite proud. "All my social media accounts use that name."

061: "..."

Chi Xiaochi said, "Teacher Six, why are you ignoring me?"

061 thought, What am I supposed to say? Should I advise you not to cling so hard to the dead, or point out that the name sounds a little dirty?

Still, he said, "It's very good."

While waiting, Chi Xiaochi played a round of the plane shooter. Before he even saw the first-stage boss, a regular enemy blew him into a firework.

He said listlessly, "I miss my cards so much."

061 smiled.

Chi Xiaochi liked 061's voice setting best: warm and mellow, with just the right trace of huskiness. Especially before sleep, as Chi Xiaochi relaxed, the voice he used to read aloud would adjust subtly, taking on a drowsy, hazy quality.

With that vocal texture, he could easily have been a male host of a late-night radio show.

Chi Xiaochi had spent ten years climbing through the entertainment industry. Even so, hearing that laugh made his ears tingle.

He asked 061, "What are you laughing at?"

061 said, "Actually, 023 sent it to me two days ago. I just kept hesitating over whether to give it to you. But after thinking it over, I decided I should."

Chi Xiaochi: "Wha—"

He did not finish the question, because he saw a very familiar-looking app icon appear on the display.

...Deity Summon.

Chi Xiaochi tapped it open. The account was still his own. Five hundred and seven heroes lay quietly in the inventory, just six short of a full collection.

061 gently said, "023 put a great deal of effort into locating your phone. He captured the signal band and connected directly to the system. Don't worry; the server is still in your original world. The signal is a little unstable, so it may lag in matches, and the friends function will be disabled."

Chi Xiaochi was deeply moved. "Teacher Six, you really are my homeroom teacher."

061 cleared his throat. "Student Chi Xiaochi has performed very well since enrolling. This is your reward."

Theoretically, the more ties Chi Xiaochi had to the real world, the likelier he was to choose to return there. But 061 had always believed that rewards led to improvement.

Sure enough, after finishing his daily tasks and brightening considerably, Chi Xiaochi finally brought up his plan to 061.

"Remember what I told you? To break the deadlock, there are the best plan, the middle plan, and the worst plan," Chi Xiaochi said.

061: "Mm."

"The worst plan is to follow the original script. His little sister steals my song, Yang Baihua feels guilty toward me, then I play pitiful and stage a suicide attempt. Yang Baihua isn't completely without conscience. I can scrape together a regret value of one hundred somehow."

061: "..."

By that account, the ten people he had handled had all used the worst plan.

After all, it was an unfamiliar world and someone else's life. Mission performers did not dare stray from the original worldline without authorization; they only wanted to play it safe.

Chi Xiaochi assessed, "That would complete the mission, and I could do it too. But it would make me unhappy."

061 wholeheartedly agreed.

As a system, he watched mission targets get bullied by scumbag gongs every day, living in constant fear and exhausting themselves to gain affection points—all so they could feel good for a few seconds at the scumbag gong's disbelieving expression when they faked their death at the end. No matter how he calculated it, that was a raw deal.

061 asked, "And the middle plan?"

Chi Xiaochi checked the time. "No rush. Take it slow."

At eight o'clock, Chi Xiaochi sat down before the computer and greeted the viewers. "Can you see me?"

There were not many people in the livestream room. Including the site's built-in traffic, there were only a little over two thousand clicks and more than three hundred live viewers. For a newcomer, that was already an excellent number.

Chi Xiaochi turned on recording software, picked up his guitar, took a sip of water to moisten his throat, and began to sing and play.

Only after hearing the opening did 061, who thought he had guessed Chi Xiaochi's strategy, suddenly freeze.

Chi Xiaochi was not singing any of the three demo songs. Instead, he sang several melodies he had often hummed while living in Yang Baihua's rented apartment, with lyrics he had quickly written himself. The result was extraordinarily pleasing to the ear.

...It really did seem to be just a practice piece, exactly as he had said in his giveaway post.

061 was somewhat puzzled.

Chi Xiaochi had livestreamed and asked about the release date of Tang Huan's new album. Wasn't he planning to release the music early, seize the initiative, and catch Tang Huan's side off guard?

Whatever 061 thought, Chi Xiaochi stayed steady in mind and hand. He wore a faint smile as he sang. His vocal cords moved calmly and effortlessly like an instrument, and when he hummed softly without lyrics, the human voice almost melted into the guitar.

Though 061 had no physical form, his 360-degree, blind-spot-free visual receivers let him see everything.

Cheng Yuan's face was naturally handsome, but it was Chi Xiaochi's self-confidence that truly made his entire person shine with a captivating light.

What kind of light was it?

...It was as though he had no need for anyone else. He did not need to please anyone, did not even need anyone at all, to live well.

061 simply stopped overthinking and focused on watching the young man perform before the camera.

The livestream room had already erupted in surprise.

"Holy shit, he isn't an autotune fraud!"

"66666."

"I came for the drama, but now I'm already jealous of the lucky people who won..."

"I'm new here. What singing streamer is this? Is he famous?"

Quite a few people were sending gifts as well. Though they came sporadically, more and more people gathered. After a dozen minutes, live viewers passed eight hundred.

Chi Xiaochi set down his guitar, took two sips of water, and calmly said, "Song requests are welcome."

061 thought Chi Xiaochi was acting a little strange.

Whether at the earlier sound test or now on the livestream, he had not said much. That did not match Chi Xiaochi's usual flamboyant, flirtatious style at all.

If Cheng Jian's presence at the sound test had kept him from going too far because he needed to maintain Cheng Yuan's shy persona, then online, where nobody knew him, he should have been able to let loose a little.

But the question was answered quickly.

061 casually scanned the terminals of the viewers and discovered that one signal source following Chi Xiaochi's stream belonged to Yang Baihua, while another came from downstairs.

061: "...Emmmm."

Yang Baihua's username was "White Birch." He did not say a word, but after Chi Xiaochi had finished three songs, he sent a yacht as a gift.

Usernames that sent streamers gifts at the yacht level or above would scroll in the donation information bar near the top of both the subchannel and main channel pages. The more high-priced gifts a streamer received, the more their experience points and income rose.

Someone said enviously, "Damn, are rookie streamers all this good now?"

Someone else reminded Chi Xiaochi, "The moderator position is still open. Why not give it to 'White Birch'?"

That message had barely scrolled by when the signal source downstairs made its move.

"Household with a Stupid Little Brother tipped Lou's Reflection Enters Chi's Pond: Villa x10."

"Household with a Stupid Little Brother tipped Lou's Reflection Enters Chi's Pond: Yacht x10."

"Household with a Stupid Little Brother tipped Lou's Reflection Enters Chi's Pond: Sports Car x10."

This was not one round of gifts. He had sent ten of each.

Immediately, the donation feed was filled with messages from "Household with a Stupid Little Brother."

The entire livestream room fell silent for a moment.

Then rows upon rows of question marks and exclamation points flooded the screen.

Chi Xiaochi remarked to 061, "Cheng Jian sure picked a straightforward name."

061 gave a soft laugh. "Ha."

Just as Chi Xiaochi was about to ask what he was laughing at, a new wave of messages flooded the screen.

"061 tipped Lou's Reflection Enters Chi's Pond: Super Rocket x50."

...A yacht cost 1,314 yuan, a villa 2,000, and a Super Rocket 2,222.

The question marks and exclamation points completely covered Cheng Yuan's face, hiding Chi Xiaochi's instant of astonishment as well.

061 said, "I don't know what you're planning, but since you held this livestream, its publicity and impact should naturally be as large as possible."

That was what he said, but 061 simply felt that Chi Xiaochi's performance was worth that many gifts.

Chi Xiaochi came back to himself. "Going this big, huh?"

061 answered honestly, "To me, numbers are only numbers."

Chi Xiaochi: "..." I give that flex full marks.

The system is great; it keeps me fed and warm.

Cheng Jian, too, was briefly stunned by the figure.

For the first time in his life, he felt like someone had thrown money in his face. Big Brother Cheng's mood was somewhat complicated.

Chi Xiaochi explained to the livestream viewers, "My friend and my brother are messing around. Bro, stop it."

Cheng Jian's hand shook.

Holy shit, how did he find out?

Cheng Jian immediately left the livestream room. But then he thought that since he had already been exposed, hiding was rather pointless. He soon plucked up his courage and entered the room again, posting a businesslike comment: "Mm. Nice singing."

But with the handle "Household with a Stupid Little Brother" and after dumping a huge batch of gifts, Big Brother Cheng's cool image had already been shattered beyond repair.

Faced with bullet comments everywhere—"Caught a little-brother doting maniac," "The streamer is totally a rich, fair beauty," "Wait, shouldn't that be rich, tall, and handsome?" and "The domineering older brother is in love with me"—Cheng Jian could not handle it and fled.

After those two successively stirred things up, Yang Baihua, who had gritted his teeth and sent a yacht first in an attempt to attract Cheng Yuan's attention, had instead become a random passerby.

He no longer cared about the expense.

The numerical ID "061" seared Yang Baihua's eyes with pain.

"61"—didn't that sound like Lou Ying?

When he was not at Xiao Cheng's side, exactly who was keeping him company?

After ending the stream, Chi Xiaochi stretched, flung himself onto the soft bed, and praised sincerely, "Teacher Six, you really are a good system."

061 smiled. "Consider it a bribe."

"A bribe for what?"

061 said, "How about you explain your plan to me?"

"Which plan?"

The moment the words left his mouth, Chi Xiaochi understood. He sat up cross-legged, supporting his long arms behind him. "Ask away. I'll decide whether to answer."

"Fifty rockets aren't enough to buy answers to every question?"

Chi Xiaochi, who had seen it all, propped his cheek on one hand and drawled, "My starting appearance fee used to be one million."

Since Chi Xiaochi put it that way, 061 asked with the mindset that he would just try his luck. "What exactly is your best plan? I thought you were going to sing 'Words from the Heart' today and release the new song early."

Chi Xiaochi smiled. "Teacher Six, you're too sweet. I signed a first-release contract. If I released it early on another platform, Su Xiulun would tear me apart."

061: "Then..."

Chi Xiaochi's mouth was truly tight; not even fifty rockets could blast it open. "...You'll understand in seven days."