PUBG Online Romance of the Century

Edited by Divetus and Noks

After rejecting the computer delivery, Yu Yan felt that he had nothing to do at home anyway, so he put his cellphone into his pocket and left for the Internet cafe early.

On the bus, his cellphone kept vibrating. The notifications for the "1YanTang" group chat had reached 99+.

Tuantuan: Why do I think your information is very reliable? I sent a message to the administrator, and he hasn't replied to me even after half an hour has passed. This person probably had me on special notifications before, because every time I sent a message, I'd get a reply back in a second.

Lulu: Please, when has my information ever been wrong? Didn't you notice that the real-time ranking list is frozen right now? The numbers don't update when gifts are sent.

Sheepy: It has changed though, my popularity points have decreased.

Tuantuan: They can decrease?? What kind of manipulation is this?

Sheepy: Don't know but I don't intend to care about it. It can do whatever it pleases ba.

Yu Yan just realized that everyone's messages in the group chat seemed to be making the same remarks.

Tuantuan: Holy shit, but mine didn't go down ah….

Tuantuan: !!! Xiao Yan's popularity points [email protected]! It decreased a lot wtf!!

He had originally wanted to just scroll through the chat log; he hadn't expected to see his name being mentioned. Yu Yan started typing and sent out a question mark.

Yu Yan: I just saw these messages. What are you guys talking about?

Tuantuan: Lulu said that today StarTV is doing a big reorganization with a focus on combating data fraud and underhanded competition tactics. Right now, all the administrators are away, so they're probably all in a meeting… Where are you? When are you going to turn on a computer? Your popularity points in the anchor competition have decreased by more than 200,000…

Yu Yan was stunned and replied: I'm almost at the Internet cafe.

He opened the StarTV app with his cellphone, and sure enough, his popularity points had decreased by over 200,000, returning to number they were yesterday.

He calculated in his heart. It seemed that… the amount of popularity points removed was exactly the same amount he had gotten from 1's gift spams.

He pursed his lips and opened the chat with Administrator 03. At the top of his profile was a status indicator that said "Away".

He suddenly remembered that he still hadn't asked the administrator about the matter of his stream notice being removed. Since the notice wasn't much of a deal to him, he had forgotten all about it.

yanxyan: Are you there? My anchor competition popularity points have directly decreased by 200,000. Can I ask if the system has been frozen?

A second later, he received an automatic reply from the other side, which was sent when someone was away.

He frowned and continued asking.

Yanxyan: Also, did the previous notice have a time limit? Why did it suddenly disappear?

Yu Yan still hadn't received a reply from Administrator 03 by the time he arrived at the Internet cafe. He hesitated for a moment but didn't rush to start his livestream. Instead, he went to check the other anchors' livestreams.

The first stream he checked on was laoshu's. His numbers had also decreased, but they had only dropped a little more than 100,000. His rank had surpassed Yu Yan's again, and he was now back on top. After thinking about it, Yu Yan went to check on banana's livestream and found that banana's popularity points hadn't decreased at all, and instead had even surpassed the number one LoL anchor's popularity points.

Although his reason for participating in the competition was purely for the chance of being on the recommended lists on the homepage, anyone who lost 200,000 popularity points would grow frantic.

During the first half hour of his livestream, he didn't speak very much. He also repeatedly refreshed his livestream page on the StarTV mobile app to see if the points bug had been resolved.

[What's wrong with Xiao Yan today? He keeps looking at his cellphone.]

[Why did his anchor competition points fall back to 270,000? I remember that it was almost at 500,000 yesterday?]

[I'll fill you in. StarTV has been in the midst of a reorganization in the past two days. This anchor's numbers were falsified and were thus cleared up by the staff! This stinking anchor has definitely been given judgement.]

[Is something wrong with the previous person? You think that an internal staff reorganization means an anchor reorganization? Was an announcement made? Where did this news come from? It turns out that antis just rely on their mouths?]

[Is it really true? Were his numbers really faked? Why ah? Just his livestream content could obviously attract people…]

“Nothing was falsified.” Yu Yan said, “Maybe it’s a platform bug; a lot of anchors’ popularity points have decreased.”

As he said that, he finished off a match. He went back to the game lobby to start his next match.

But then he received a team invitation from Lu Xiuhe.

Yu Yan clicked and accepted the invitation. As soon as he saw Lu Xiuhe's character appear, Yu Yan asked, "Not playing LoL today?"

Lu Xiuhe said, "Sigh, don't mention it. I'm sad."

"What's the matter?"

"I quarreled with her." Lu Xiuhe said, "I felt shitty the entire night. I wasn't able to fall asleep at all, so I just got up to play games, but I feel kind of sad when I log into LoL…"

Yu Yan wasn't too interested in his friend's personal affairs. He simply let out an "en" and asked, "Queue into Miramar?"

"Anything is good." Lu Xiuhe urgently needed someone to rant to, so he poured out his complaints without being asked. "When we were chatting last night, we started talking about exes… and she sent me a picture of her ex. Hey, I didn't want to admit it, but that bastard was kind of hot! He looked pretty tall and a lot like a male idol."

Yu Yan: "…"

"But tell me man, how could I directly praise my love rival?" Lu Xiuhe said, "So Laozi made it his mission to curse him out. I criticized her ex from the beginning to the end; from the top of that flat cap to the bottom of that lousy pair of AJs."

"Who would've guessed that right after I finished cursing him out, she just ended up turning against me! She still doesn't want to talk to me right now!! I've already apologized all night long!!!"

Carrying a shotgun and an AK-47, Yu Yan swept across the boxing gym and asked, "Have you found a gun yet? There's a SCAR-L where I am."

"I have a gun." Lu Xiuhe wasn't deterred from talking by the game at all and asked, "Xiao Yan, do you think she still likes her ex ah? If so, then what am I considered ya?"

"…I don't know," Yu Yan replied.

"I really like her a lot. Although she's always cold and indifferent when we chat, I can tell through her in-game actions that she really cares about me… Just a very tsundere girl."

Yu Yan paused, and his curiosity was finally aroused. "What kind of in-game actions?"

[Xiao Yanyan's emotion class has begun la!]

[Why do I find the anchor's friend so comical…?]

[I'll tell you the problem—you're probably not as rich as their ex!]

"There's a lot! Flashing to block attacks for me, or flashing to heal me. She acts so cold and indifferent, but she'll even quarrel with teammates for me."

Yu Yan asked, "Isn't that just normal gameplay?"

"How is it normal la?!" Lu Xiuhe blurted out, "It's just like when you go out of your way to pick 1 up, or when you drop something for him but it's the M24, and even risking death by going outside the circle just to pick 1 up…"

"?!"

[Wtf bro, I suddenly feel like you have a point!]

[One look and you can tell this relationship isn't pure!!]

[If someone treated me like that, sigh, even I would absolutely marry the anchor.]

Yu Yan became anxious, afraid that his shameful little desires would be revealed. "Don't talk nonsense. 1's a novice, that's why I would take care of him more."

Lu Xiuhe let out an "oh" and replied, "Then, I'm also a noob. Give me the 98K on your back bei."

"…"

Yu Yan opened his inventory and repeatedly looked at the 98K equipped with the 8x scope that he had just found. He hesitated for a full half a minute.

Then, he gritted his teeth and said, "Alright I'll give it… you can come and get it."

[???]

[Why do I feel like you're really burying your head in the sand here?!]

[You can cover it up, but there's no point.]

"Forget it, you keep it ba." Lu Xiuhe sighed, "I'm in a really bad mood right now, can't play well."

Yu Yan was relieved and hurriedly picked up the 98K that he had just dropped on the ground, fearing that Lu Xiuhe would change his mind.

Lu Xiuhe could be considered self-aware. His maneuvers were much slower than usual, and he only managed to get out of the boxing gym with great difficulty by relying on Yu Yan. But then in the blink of an eye, he got headshotted by the person in the opposite building and was killed off before he could react.

They had queued into duos, so now Yu Yan was left alone.

Currently, those stream followers who had piled their bets on 'Can eat chicken' weren't happy, and joked that they would make Lu Xiuhe compensate them for their beans.

Lu Xiuhe said, "Yes, it's my fault, you can blame me. I didn't see the enemy there, but I won't compensate any beans."

"No problem." Yu Yan hid in the building beside him, used a painkiller, and took some time to look at the barrage. "When I duo with him, I always just play as if I'm in solos. He didn't make a big mistake… it's his normal performance. You guys can just bet your beans as usual, eating chicken has always been a matter of fate."

Lu Xiuhe: "?"

Although he knew that Yu Yan was speaking up for him, why did he feel like it just didn't sound right??

At the same time, the management of the StarTV subsidiary was holding an emergency private meeting.

They had suddenly received news yesterday that the big boss was going to start investigating the little schemes that went on between StarTV administrators and anchors. As soon as they heard this, the majority of StarTV's management panicked—privately cooperating with an anchor not only allowed them to earn money, it also made their own performance look better. Most people couldn't resist this kind of temptation.

But they were just panicking, it wasn't as if the sky had collapsed yet.

After all, their leader, the StarTV division manager, had also done a lot of dirty things in private. If the people at the top really wanted to settle accounts, they would still be slightly delayed in getting to them.

The meeting went on for several hours until the StarTV division manager finally made a decision—carefully check each anchor's data. After screening the data, clear out all suspicious numbers and then deal with this surprise inspection first before doing anything else.

After the meeting concluded, everyone but two people left the office.

Administrator 03 waited for everyone else to leave before asking with a frightened expression. "Ge, what should we do now? We won't be found out, ba?"

"No, so don't panic," the division manager replied. "If it was really that big of a deal, why would they let me be the one to inspect everything? When the time comes, I'll just write whatever in my report. Once I hand it in, won't all this be over?"

Administrator 03 was relieved when he heard those words. "You're right…"

"But this situation gave me a wake-up call. The main company is starting to manage the platform now, so we should be more careful with our actions in the future." The division manager pondered for a moment before saying, "After the anchor competition ends, go and tell banana to not be too showy during this period of time and that we'll be basing the homepage on actual real-time data."

"No problem. banana is popular now, so even if we don't do anything, he should still be able to get onto the homepage, you can rest assured."

Administrator 03 finished saying that but then paused. "It's just, what about his distant relative…?"

"Just leave that guy alone." The division manager frowned.

"But, banana just sent me a message asking us to find a way to protect him." Administrator 03 said, "That laoshu is actually a diamond in the rough, and we promised to give him the Kills King of the Year award. If we take it back now… that wouldn't be too good, would it?"

The division manager frowned. "That award ah… I forgot all about it. If he wants that dumb little award, then just give it to him ba. I remember that the gap between him and second place was pretty big ah?"

"Got overtaken yesterday," Administrator 03 whispered, "By that yanxyan."

The division manager's expression grew complex. "… How did he also get mixed into this?"

That anchor was very popular with the big boss, and they had all taken note of that in their minds.

"Actually…" When Administrator 03 saw the division manager's silence, he said, "Just before I came here, I decreased yanxyan's numbers."

The division manager was stunned and reflexively asked, "Are you crazy? Why did you have to go and mess with him?"

Administrator 03 replied, "No, don't worry. Listen to me, yanyanx received more than a dozen gifts that totalled up to more than 200,000 points from a side account. If he asks me about it, I could just say that it's a background system error and can't be restored."

The division manager asked, "Would he really accept that 200,000 points disappeared just like that?"

"I have observed that this anchor is very easily persuaded." Administrator 03 continued, "I'll think of some type of compensation to give him and it'll definitely be fine! What's more, that account that we gave to the main company before may not always be used by President Yi. President Yi is usually so busy ah, how could he run over to that livestream to hang out every day?"

The division manager thought that sounded reasonable.

After a long time, he hesitantly let out a breath. "… Alright then."

—

Juurensha: Manager and Admin 03, you guys forget that while Boss Yi is busy, he has literally no other hobbies other than his new gaming buddy. And I feel like LXH is tsundere-sexual hahaha.

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And there's an audio drama for PUBG that came out! It's more condensed than the novel, but it's fun!