10 AM. Shanghai Tech Park. I was face-down at my desk in a streaming studio, devouring a bowl of yellow braised chicken.
"Chen Yixiao! Look at you! What kind of female streamer eats as much as you do?" Zhao Xiaoyu from the dance section plopped down next to me, balancing an apple in one hand. She was dressed in her usual uniform: black stockings, a mini-skirt, and needle-thin high heels.
I mumbled through a mouthful of food, "I'm a PUBG streamer! Eating 'chicken dinners' is my professional duty. Besides, I don't even show my face..."
"Stop, stop. Don't you dare get cheeky with me today. Look at this." She tapped a few times on her phone with her slender fingers and shoved a video in front of my face.
It was...
A video of me and Wang Zhanshan playing together...
I froze, slowly turning to look at Xiaoyu. "Xiaoyu... how did you get this?"
Wang Zhanshan was my online boyfriend. How on earth did Xiaoyu have a video of us playing privately?
She rolled her eyes and manually wrenched my head back toward the screen. "Look closer, you silly girl! This isn't your private file—someone posted this as an edit! Look at the game IDs. Who are they?"
"Mountain King... Wang Zhanshan... and me..." I stared at the names, my mind going blank.
"See? You've been played! This video already has hundreds of thousands of likes. If he isn't using your fame to farm followers, then I'm a saint. Who would believe otherwise?"
I stared at the phone, my thoughts a jumbled mess. "No way... Zhanshan is a good guy... maybe it was his roommate or something..."
After all, the account name didn't look like his usual handle.
But... was it really not him?
I looked at Zhao Xiaoyu, desperate for an answer. "Xiaoyu jiejie..."
It felt as if salt had been rubbed into my eyes, and a lump the size of an egg was lodged in my throat. Zhao Xiaoyu pulled out a tissue and wiped my face with a sigh.
"Listen to me. I only allow those little eyes of yours to look at hotties. I won't have you pouting over some jerk."
* * *
But denial was a luxury I could no longer afford. My fans were flooding my DMs.
"Yixiao Jiejie, you have to see this."
Dread pooled in my stomach as I clicked the link. Before I could even hesitate, I was inside a livestream.
On the screen, a man was wildly thrusting his hips in a frenetic, rhythmic motion. He had a mop of yellow hair that completely obscured his eyes, paired with a skintight outfit, a gaudy gold belt, and those infamous tacky, pointed loafers.
I was still wondering why my fans would ever send me something this cringe-inducing when my eyes snagged on the ID.
Mountain King.
Right below it was a line of smaller text: Wang Zhanshan, from...
At that moment, my vision blurred. My surroundings seemed to distort as the reality of the situation crashed down on me. I couldn't—or wouldn't—believe what I was seeing.
Is this split-screen-using clown really Wang Zhanshan?
Between the hair and the lightning-fast, jerky movements, I couldn't get a clear look at his face. Maybe it's just someone with the same name, I tried to console myself.
But then, the streamer spoke, shattering the last of my delusions.
"Double-tap that heart, bros! Show some love!"
That voice. There was no mistaking it. It was the same voice that had whispered to me through countless nights, the voice I had fallen for over the past few months.
This man—this social shake dancer—was the Wang Zhanshan who had never even sent me a single photo of himself.
"Double-tapping" didn't just generate likes; it slapped me awake. My online boyfriend was a cheesy, low-budget dancing streamer.
Fans had even given us a CP name: Yixiao Mountain Collapse.
I really did collapse. My entire world, my entire mental state—it all came crumbling down.
* * *
I really did collapse. My mindset, my world—it all came crumbling down. Within a matter of days, I had fallen from being the "Cool Queen of PUBG" to "Tacky Sister Thirteen."
The scandal was everywhere. Even my college roommates were messaging me about it.
I met Wang Zhanshan through gaming. I truly believed he was just an ordinary guy. Back then, we were just a "gaming CP"—nothing more, or so I thought.
He had a gentle temper. He never lost his cool during a match, always let me have the kills, and consistently took the frontline risks himself. If I streamed too late, he'd nag me to get some sleep. If I skipped a meal, he'd remind me to eat or even surprise me with a delivery order.
Despite the fact that we were just a digital couple who had never met face-to-face, he felt real. He was attentive. He cared. Our relationship felt like that of long-term lovers who had known each other forever.
I never imagined a man like that would lie to my face.
In the beginning, he didn't even know I was a streamer. I remember finally gathering the courage to ask him, "Does it bother you that I'm a streamer?"
"Not at all," he'd replied smoothly.
Now, the truth was a bitter pill to swallow. Of course he didn't mind—he was one too! My honesty had been met with his calculated secrecy. Was he afraid I'd look down on him? How little did he know me?
As that video went viral, I watched his follower count explode. It was nauseating. Even though I wanted to believe in him, the evidence was damning: he was using me as a stepping stone to fame.
I didn't mind losing followers over a relationship. I'd always prided myself on being a skilled, funny streamer who owned her life and her mistakes. But I couldn't stomach the dishonesty.
"Delete the video," I messaged him after taking a deep breath to steady my nerves.
"Yixiao, what are you talking about? I don't follow you," he replied.
Still playing dumb...
That was it. My heart went stone cold. Xiaoyu urged me to go public, to expose him for the clout-chasing snake he was. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just blocked him and moved on in silence.
I figured he probably had his own struggles. This industry is a den of wolves; I've seen enough betrayal and bridges burned to last a lifetime. I could only blame my own poor judgment. But my silence backfired. Wang Zhanshan's fans swarmed my accounts, screaming that I had "abandoned" their precious "Mountain King." Meanwhile, my own fans turned on me, disappointed that I'd been involved with someone like him.
During that dark period, my mood hit rock bottom, and I ended up gaining quite a bit of weight. But as the saying goes, when God closes a door, he opens a window. A new streamer on the platform, a guy calling himself "Tieling's Own Kris Wu," started reaching out to me. His banter helped me through the worst of it and even helped pull my popularity back from the brink.