Honey Stewed Squid

Chapter 32 - Songstress!

The next afternoon, one of the four great cutie-girls of the Japanese cover-singing circle and singer who had a crazy-large number of diehard fanboys and fangirls—Fish Playing in Sealed Chambers—unexpectedly released a new song. Seeing the song title, her entire fan base exploded into pandemonium.

Ren’ai Circulation [Love Circulation]!!!!

Three years ago, during Dada’s interview when she had turned sweet sixteen and her fans had cried out over and over to her to sing a cover of this song, she had personally answered, “I’ve never been in love so no feelings for this song, never been in love so no feelings for this song. Only after I’m in love will I cover it, only after I’m in love will I cover it, aaaaaaah!”

Within ten seconds of this release, her Weibo was overtaken by frenzied fans…

[Goodbye] Completely unprepared for this. My little cutie-girl has been married off just like that.

[Goodbye][Goodbye][Goodbye][Goodbye] Nothing worth living for anymore.

[Goodbye] Those of us in Shanghai, see you all on Jin Mao Tower[1].

[Goodbye] Those in Taipei, let’s just head directly to TAIPEI 101[2]. Remember to do the countdown together before we all jump off.

Which guy did it?! Show yourself! I’m going to beat the hell out of you!!!! Frick!! I’ll wait—wait for you guys to break up!!!!

[Goodbye] The goddess I loved since primary school is now in love.

[Soap] FRACK FRICK FRICKIN’ FOOCK.

Tonight, we’ve all lost our love…

[Furious] Little Squidie is mine mine mine MIIIIINE!!!!

[Cries] Hey, that guy, you must have saved the entire Milky Way galaxy in your previous life…

[Goodbye] Hey, guy, show yourself. I promise I won’t bite you to death!

……

While waiting at the airport for their flight, 97 held his mobile phone and sputtered out in guffaws. All the team members in the waiting lounge had been leaning back, every one half-dead from exhaustion, and using various positions to lie in his chair. Now, though, hearing this sound, they immediately sniffed out that there was something peculiar, and all of them leapt up and flocked around 97. “What’s going on, what’s going on?”

“Leader’s being bashed really badly on Little Sister-In-Law’s Weibo.” 97 was grinning widely, rejoicing in his leader’s misfortune.

“The name of the song is pretty good, eh? What does it mean?” demo was bewildered.

Taking the mobile phone, grunt ran a quick glance over it, then tossed it back. “PDA [public display of affection]. Didn’t Leader head home last night? I’m guessing he got to third base yesterday and got to ‘experience’ the ‘true essence’ of love, eh?”

Light bulbs went off in everyone’s heads.

Dang it! Jeaaloooous!!!!

The bunch of poor, single dudes wallowed in their states of dying anguish…

With a cup of coffee in hand, Gun, his head lowered and playing Texas Hold’em on his phone, was walking in their direction. The burning gazes of the group that were filled with reverence caused him to detect that their eyes were on him. When he raised his lids, they all immediately returned to their own respective spots.

What the heck was going on?

His gaze roved once around the entire group and then locked on demo. “Say it.”

“Ah?” An expression of dismay covered demo’s face. Dammit, how come I get picked every time? I came to K&K to win gold medals. Don’t tell me I’m going to die young first before I’ve taken a single gold medal, am I? “Just… Little Sister-In-Law just did a little PDA, and we were all just happy and having some fun about it.”

Oh sheet—

Everyone bowed their heads reverently… and offered up a moment of silence in tribute to little demo.

* * * * *

Today she did not need to go to the university.

However, she realized after the fact that she had disappeared yesterday while she was supposed to be monitoring an exam. Feeling ashamed, she called her teacher, but to her surprise, her teacher replied directly, “I heard that your brother or maybe your uncle from your family came to find you? Said there was something urgent and picked you up to take you away? No worries. You’ve already been working so hard, and you still helped me out with setting the exam questions.”

She felt terribly abashed and apologized repeatedly.

After this call came to an end, she held her mobile phone between her little paws and, lowering her head, sent off a WeChat text message to him: Meow. Have you arrived yet?

Gn: Yes.

Her: *raises paw* May I put in the request to video chat with you tonight?

Gn: ……

Her: *poking fingers together* Just… to watch and look at you for a little bit, please?

Gn: ……

Her: Video calling in WeChat will do, as long as you have good reception… If your reception is poor, how about QQ[3]? Do you have QQ?

Gn: We’ll talk about it at night.

Her: Mm~ I’ll wait for you.

Tong Nian was practically in max-HP mode. She passed the entire daytime immersed in her feelings of bashfulness from her first-ever public display of affection. It was past ten o’clock at night when she finally logged into Weibo using her alternate account to read the comments that had been left under her official, main account. She felt as if every part of her was submerged in a honey jar, sweetness infusing her. How she wished she could tell everyone how wonderful he was, how great he was! He… Anyhow, he’s the most unequalled, awesome, and handsome man in the whole, wide world! Covering my face with my hands!!

Completely disregarding that great, monstrous army of commenters that was online or the thousands of people who were occupying the top level of Jin Mao Tower, she pulled out her pen and, sprawling on her desk, began to quietly write in her journal. Sketching all sorts of little chibi characters, she wrote down, sentence after sentence, what the two of them had said or done together. When… she had drawn a cartoon car with two little chibi people inside, caught in each other’s embrace, she at last thunked her head against the desk.

Too…

She could not refrain from leaping up and stamping her feet. Plopping down in her seat once again, she offhandedly refreshed the Weibo page of her alternate account.

To her surprise, the people she was following with this alternate account had all flooded the screen with posts.

These people were all ones she had followed in order to help her understand Gun’s professional and social circle and setting: various famous professional gamers, various eSports magazines, official Weibos accounts of various video games, etc. There were more than one hundred different accounts that she followed…

And they were all… spamming the screen?

97: @Gun, Leader said he was opening a Weibo account…

grunt: @Gun, once one of the first-generation Bonjwas[4] of CS. K&K Global’s boss makes his appearance.

demo: @Gun, Leader, welcoming you on bended knees.

Dt: @Gun

Solo: @Gun, welcome back.

appledog: @Gun, awesome! Con Man is back!

inin: @Gun, = = the Great Demon Overlord. Me scared…

……

In the very beginning, it was all K&K people, but gradually, everyone within the eSports circle started to notice. All the god-status figures of the various events and video games, including CS [Counter-Strike], StarCraft, WoW [World of Warcraft], CrossFire, Need for Speed, DotA [Defense of the Ancients], FIFA, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, LOL [League of Legends], etc., etc., were all fired up and began forwarding the post.

The guy was an ancient legend in the professional gaming circle, you know?!! Many of the current pro gaming gods were all God Gun’s diehard fans, you know?!!!!

The official eSports Weibo account.

The official Weibo accounts of all the various major video games.

The official Weibo accounts of all the various competitions and tournaments.

……

The entire eSports circle was boiling over in excitement.

This was too exhilarating.

It had been ten years, oh, ten years. This man who had forged a new way to open up the world of professional gaming was finally willing to publicly announce his return.

While many people knew that he was the boss of K&K, this was different. So long as he did not openly and publicly declare his identity, everyone would voluntarily remain quiet, silently watching and standing guard over this former “God Gun.” Now, though, he was willing to have a personal Weibo account and make it publicly known on the Internet. This was super exciting, you know?! They had to support him, ’kay?! How many people were there for whom he was the one who awakened them to gaming? How many people were there for whom he was their beacon of guiding light? How many people were there for whom he was their idol in their youth?!

Tong Nian was completely stunned by what she saw.

Here, as she stared at her computer screen, it was as if she was watching a wild party that was taking place in another world.

Although Baidu Baike had written things out clearly and she had also read through all those online interviews and forum posts, the feeling right now was totally different. Right at this second, she finally became aware of… what sort of person this man—the one whom she had fallen in love with at first sight—really was.

What was his purpose for opening a Weibo account?

As promotion and publicity for the club? To attract and recruit people onto the team?

Speculating, she clicked on @Gun.

His entire Weibo homepage popped up. There was only one post.

Gun: [Link]

She clicked on the [Link]. It was K&K’s official website.

Indeed, for promotion purposes. But this was being a little too flippant about his work. Shouldn’t he at least say a few words of something?

Nevertheless, within a few short hours, his number of followers had already broken one million…

That was just too… formidable…

Wordlessly, she glanced at her follower count for her main, official Weibo account… one tenth of his.

Huh?

Wait…

0.0?

Why were there more than 30000 comments under her latest post where she had released her song? … Same thing for forwards… Was Sina [service provider for Sina Weibo] acting up and just going crazy?!

Disbelievingly, she clicked on the post. At once, the comment area beneath it scrolled open.

Random person: Part of the group checking out the sights.

Random person: Gathering around to check out God Gun’s one and only follow.

Random person: Male god’s only follow.

Random person: Part of the group checking out the sights.

Random person: Male god’s only follow.

Random person: Male god’s only follow.

Random person: [Brokenhearted] Don’t want to say anything. I hope that you will treat my man well.

Random person: Gathering around to check out K&K’s lady-boss

Fan: WTF?!! What the heck is going on???????? Has my dada been hacked???? @SinaCustomerService