Jiang Juan watched the barrage of comments gradually fade and breathed a sigh of relief. Yesterday’s live stream mishap had lasted only minutes, yet it still caused him significant trouble.

The hefty hospital fees he paid today strained his already meager savings further. His upcoming streams couldn’t afford another accident.

“Congrats to Chaoyang’s Wu Yanzu for winning! Wu Yanzu, are you here? DM me your ID on KK.”

“Here.”

“I’m here.”

“Who’s calling for me?”

“I’m Xi’an’s Peng Yuyan, and I object!”

“I know, I know,” Jiang Juan joked. “Everyone in our chat’s a Wu Yanzu or Liu Yifei.”

Switching screens to log into a fan account, Jiang Juan was about to pull a few badged IDs to piggyback on when an airplane gift animation flashed.

“Thanks for the airplane, Bro Gu! Thanks, Bro Gu! Here to support again today, huh?”

Bu Gu Niao didn’t reply, and Jiang Juan didn’t mind. Some viewers just dropped gifts, then left the stream running while multitasking.

Only after Jiang Juan started queueing for a match did Bu Gu Niao’s delayed comment appear.

Bu Gu Niao: “I’m having an exceptionally unlucky day.”

“I’m unlucky every day.”

“Every raid has you in it!”

“What’s up with Bro Gu today?” Jiang Juan pondered briefly. For patrons like Bu Gu Niao with zero romantic interest, he happily played bestie, bro, and therapist.

Bu Gu Niao: “I took the bus today but forgot my card.”

“Taking the bus yet a big spender here—so worldly, so worldly.”

“Even whales ride buses?”

“Heh, isn’t there a bus in-stream too? Same thing.”

“No card? Phones have transit codes now.”

“Bro Gu, you can scan with your phone. Didn’t you know?” Jiang Juan hadn’t queued in yet, so he chatted with Bu Gu Niao.

Bu Gu Niao: “Really? I don’t get that. Do you always scan for buses?”

“Me? I carry a wallet, so I use cash,” Jiang Juan replied casually.

“Girls have it easy—tiny bags hold so much. We guys only have two pockets.”

“True. One for the phone, one for smokes. No room left.”

Bu Gu Niao sent no more comments. Just then, Jiang Juan entered his ranked match, attention diverted.

Guyen silently exited the stream, opened the app store, and downloaded a beauty filter app.

After installing it, he dragged a clear frontal photo of Juan Er Mao from the KK Live streamer forum into the editor, face blank.

Guyen took a deep breath, fingers sliding on-screen. He cropped everything below the neck, then trimmed the long hair to ear-length. Glancing at the vaguely familiar face, his mouth twitched.

Hands moving, he frowned and slightly enlarged the soft cheeks. Recalling Jiang Juan’s world-weary face, he lightened the skin tone—paler, like the real person.

Staring at the seventy-percent resemblance, Guyen photoshopped the gray pupils to lake blue, as if breathing life into it.

“Where’s trust between people? You swore you were pure-blooded Asian—why the hell are you wearing colored contacts?!”

Zhao Zhuoyang turned toward the top bunk. “What’s wrong? Why the outburst?”

“Zhuoyang, why do makeup and beauty filters exist?” Guyen tossed his phone aside, muttering.

“Why? Because of girls?”

“Prejudice! Boys need it more.”

“Ahhh! So why wear colored contacts?!”

“Will you quit? Did the contacts seller offend you?!” Zhang Ning’s voice cut through the bathroom’s running water.

“It’s the contacts! He added colored contacts!”