Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

The Livestreamer Ah Yu is the voice actress!

News about Ah Yu as the best gamer in the country was not even at its peak yet. It was still in an emerging state, and there was much room for growth. Within the gaming and live stream communities, the news had remained as a hot topic and showed no signs of slowing. Recently, when news concerning the anime adaptation of "The Strongest King," which was also fairly popular, arose, it was also reported that Ah Yu is the voice actress for "Yu Shengfan," the iconic female protagonist. As the live streamer Ah Yu was already highly popular, when paired with such news, would turn waves into tsunamis!

In this world, it is a lot more difficult to be the best gamer in the country, compared to any other world. Other worlds would usually have separate servers for the Chinese and the Korean players, but in this world, the two servers would be merged together. With so many skilled players condensed in one spot, the competition would be immense!

However, even in such circumstances, Ah Yu was still able to come up as the best gamer in the country. To add on to the magnitude of such an achievement, she was a female player, and was not a member of any professional gaming team. This had escalated her status as a legend, and turned her name into an everyday topic.

Some of Ah Yu's retarded fans even believed that she could be the star of China's lol eSports. This was because the Korean eSports players were so dominant that Chinese players had no room to stand beside them. The sovereign country, China has been on the losing end for too long. This is just too depressing!

In his novel "The Strongest King," the author Rosemary had actually expressed his hopes and dreams that China's eSports would strive for the better.

In her live streams, Ah Yu had defeated some Korean professional players several times over. Viewers would always be brimming with excitement. Even so, there were still many other naysayers who commented on how Ah Yu would never be able to qualify as a professional player.

Of course, this was not the case. She had no interest in gaming for the glory of her country, none whatsoever. Only one person could subdue Yu Shengfan, and that would be Master Lin Feng.

After Ah Yu proved that she was indeed the one playing, and no one else was playing in her place, several professional gaming teams had invited her to join them. Some former professional players even supported Ah Yu, because they had previously fought Ah Yu in her games as she streamed. She had obviously beaten them with ease. Thus, they wholeheartedly felt that Ah Yu was fully capable of becoming the ace of any known professional gaming team. If the team just arranges their strategic planning around Ah Yu, they can win for sure…

Unfortunately, Ah Yu would have none of that. She was persistent in not wanting to play professionally.

Howsoever, it was now clear that everyone is aware of her amazing gaming talents now. They had even started to believe that she was a 3D "Yu Shengfan"!

Now, there are even rumors that say she is the voice actress of Yu Shengfan in the anime. Wouldn't it all make perfect sense?

The 3D Yu Shengfan dubbing the voice of the 2D Yu Shengfan. The planets have aligned themselves!

When the rumors arose, there were naturally a lot of people that wanted to verify the validity of the rumors. Some people immediately jumped over to watch Ah Yu's live broadcast, and compared her voice to the voice of the anime character "Yu Shengfan." Of course, there would be a difference. In a 2D world, an anime character would speak very differently from how one speaks in real life…

However, some sharp-witted viewers identified the similarities between the two voices. They even went so far as to conduct a various analysis which were logical, clear and concise!

In any case, many were pleased about this revelation. In the minds of Ah Yu's fans, their live streamer was omnipotent. So what, if she did some VA for an anime character?

As for whether she did a good job of it, of course she did. Ah Yu is perfect and all-encompassing!

Some fans who were crazy about Ah Yu obviously had very little money, but they still insisted on spamming Ah Yu with rockets, just so they could hear her say thank you.

However, Zhao Youyue was actually the one saying thank you to everyone. If she was still Yu Shengfan at that point in time, the viewers would be lucky if they could get away without being mocked or ridiculed, let alone get a word of thanks.

All the analysis that was carried out has now been rendered superfluous. This was because officials from the Tianyi Anime Production Company soon stepped up and confirmed the news. Of course, the fans soon approached other voice actors to obtain more information about Ah Yu. However, the other voice actors were all very firm and clear on one thing. They will not reveal Zhao Youyue's real identity, but they can help advertise her a little here and there.

Just like that, Ah Yu's Weibo was flooded with comments from enthusiastic fans. Zhao Youyue decided to directly tell her fans about the news. Thus she posted it on the "Small Fish Ah Yu" Weibo account, which already had around 200,000 followers. She admitted that she was the voice actress who dubbed the voice of Yu Shengfan, and also expressed that she was very honored to be able to do so.

Out of her 200,000 followers, there would be no 'fakes,' unlike her cousin Zhao Hao. He had spent money to buy a load of 'zombie' fans[1], so that he could pretend to have a huge following. However, in actuality, his popularity was nothing close to that.

On her Weibo profile, it was stated that, "Actually, since the very start, my Weibo account name had already revealed the truth. The moment I started live streaming, I was already roleplaying as Xiao Yu. When I was reading the novel, Xiao Yu's death affected me very much and made me really sad. Therefore, I wanted to let her live in the 3D world by roleplaying as her!"

A 2D illustration accompanied the post that Su Li drew for her.

Also, Zhao Youyue thanked Rosemary, the original author of "The Strongest King," as well as Su Li, who was in charge of the manga adaptation. They had made an intelligent decision in choosing her, which had seemed against all the odds. All the support she was receiving now had proved that she did a great job.

The post of her admitting to being the mysterious voice actress understandably went viral on Weibo, attracting a massive amount of likes, shares, and countless comments!

"Ah Yu, I have been your loyal fan for the longest time. I join your live stream channel every day. How many times do you plan to surprise us? I really didn't expect you to be the voice actress of Yu Shengfan. That dubbing, was absolutely legendary!"

"Talented lady Ah Yu, I hereby worship you! It doesn't matter what you look like, your talent has completely conquered my heart!"

"If I had gotten to know sooner that Ah Yu was the one dubbing, then I wouldn't have been so flustered. Well, whatever, everything is fine now. I feel that no one is better-suited than Ah Yu as the voice actress for Yu Shengfan. Mister Rosemary really has good taste!"

"I just found out that the voice actress who dubbed Yu Shengfan's voice is a popular female live streamer. This has really expanded my knowledge of female live streamers! Anyhow, the dubbing is really good, keep it up!"

"Am I the only one that realized Ah Yu has not only roleplayed Yu Shengfan, but also Chu Luoxun? Isn't this a little strange? On a side note, Ah Yu, your portrait somehow looks familiar. Just by looking at it, anyone can easily tell who drew it. You have to be careful! Remember that "death is like the wind, always by…"

"This is why I thought that the anime's ED sounded very familiar to me. I just couldn't remember whose voice it was. Now that I've seen this Weibo post, I see things clearer than ever. Wasn't this the live stream channel that I have been joining every single day?"

"I have never watched any of Ah Yu's live streams, but I came across her recorded live stream on Bilibili. To be so proficient in all kinds of musical instruments, this is real talent! I'll give her that!"

"Are there any new animes coming up? Will Ah Yu have any future roles? I can't wait to see what else Ah Yu can do!"

…

Zhao Youyue's sockpuppet[2] Weibo account "Small Fish Ah Yu" went completely viral, and in a short time, her number of followers surpassed a million. When the episode where Yu Shengfan died was broadcasted, her popularity soared even further. The song she sang, "Parallel Galaxies," also became the rage!

The songs that she had previously uploaded on NetEase Music also became top hits!

Translation note :

[1] "Zombie" fans are fans that only follow, but do not share posts or leave comments. They are "zombies" - without IQ, just like an empty shell.

[2] A "sockpuppet" is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.