Of course, Yu Nian hadn't called out any other streamers back then. He had simply given his fans a rough account of how he hadn't gotten an interview that day and poked fun at his own bad luck.
Clearly, everything Yu Nian had said and done fit what he had experienced at the time. It hadn't exactly been easy, either, and was nothing like Qinggang's claim that he had gotten in through connections.
After seeing this, casual onlookers were even more convinced that Qinggang's side had run out of things to attack him over and was simply making things up.
Anyone who understood marketing knew that you had to add weight to the scales little by little and let information trickle out slowly.
By that evening, another rumor had appeared online, claiming that Qinggang actually had ties to that HR manager at Sea Star and had bribed someone.
That was why he had sung Sea Star's praises before he had even signed a contract, without worrying at all about how embarrassing it would be if he failed to sign afterward.
But he hadn't expected the manager to be investigated and fired, which naturally left Qinggang out in the cold as well.
This version of events spread further and further. Some people dug up how utterly confident Qinggang had seemed before signing with Sea Star and found it highly believable.
For a while, quite a few people flooded into Qinggang's stream to demand answers.
That night, Yu Nian noticed far fewer people attacking him in his stream.
Y, who hadn't appeared all day, also entered the stream shortly after he went live.
This time, Y sent him two Deep-Sea Battleships.
[Y: Something came up last night.]
For some reason, seeing Y's message made Yu Nian feel a little more at ease.
It was like an old friend who had suddenly disappeared had returned, and everything was just as it had been before.
Actually, Y didn't need to explain anything to him. Viewers came and went, after all, and whether they watched was entirely up to them.
But hearing Y say that put Yu Nian in an inexplicably good mood.
"Thanks for the gifts. If you're busy, you don't have to come every day."
Lately, he had also noticed that Y probably barely watched his streams. Y never said anything even when others called out to Y, and probably just dropped by each day to send a gift, say hello, and leave.
Y was probably a very busy person, too.
Although he still had no idea why someone so busy would make time to visit his stream, Yu Nian had a strong sense of boundaries. If Y didn't say anything, he never pried.
[Boss Y, a girl overtook you as the top donor last night. She sent dozens of battleships in one go.]
[Boss Y isn't short on money, and that girl is a good friend of the streamer. What's with the snide comment above?]
[Exactly. Everyone's here to support the streamer, and he doesn't encourage expensive gifts anyway. Not sure what the point of bringing that up is.]
[If you ask me, the real shame is that Boss Y missed the streamer taking on all those haters last night. He fought who knows how many of them single-handedly and roasted them until they lost it.]
Yu Nian felt rather embarrassed when he saw that comment.
Y had probably never seen him insult anyone before. He wondered whether seeing that would completely overturn Y's impression of him as a streamer.
Even though Yu Nian wasn't the sort to get worked up and spew profanity when he insulted someone, it was still a departure from his usual image.
[Y: I saw it.]
Yu Nian was surprised. He hadn't seen Y enter the stream last night.
Then he saw another message right below it.
[Y: As long as you weren't bullied.]
Yu Nian felt something subtle stir inside him. Although he and Y were complete strangers, this person always gave him a special feeling.
It seemed that no matter what he did, Y's first reaction was always concern for how he was doing.
Y had showered him with gifts before out of concern that he wasn't earning enough from streaming. Later, after noticing his discomfort, Y had stopped deliberately drawing attention.
Y clearly didn't enjoy watching streams, yet still made a point of coming by every day to remind him to get some rest early.
And now, after discovering that he could get angry and insult people, Y only cared whether he had been bullied.
Yu Nian had never felt this strange way about someone online before. They were all connected by nothing more than the internet, after all. They knew nothing about each other's lives and didn't need to. It didn't matter even if they were all just empty shells.
Yet now, for the first time, he actually wanted to get to know someone.
[Ooh~ As long as you weren't bullied~]
[When you encounter a straight guy casually turning on the charm... you fight with everything you've got and still can't resist /covers mouth]
[Isn't Boss Y a woman? How did Y become a straight guy all of a sudden?]
[No idea. It's just that the way Y talks feels like a guy.]
[How do you know Y isn't... ahem.]
[Am I the only one who noticed that Boss Y actually reads chat and isn't a bot?]
[LMAO, do people seriously think Boss Y is a bot?]
When the viewers saw that Y actually answered their questions, they immediately grew curious and asked how Y had seen it.
Y was surprisingly patient in answering, too.
[Y: Video clips.]
[Even though I was busy and couldn't come to your stream, I've been quietly keeping up with everything about you /blush]
[Sorry, sorry, let me ship you two for a second. You're just too sweet.]
Seeing how far off track the chat had gone, Yu Nian felt a little embarrassed and hurried to steer it back.
Y didn't seem to have anything else to talk about either and sent the usual message: [Get some rest early.]
Yu Nian realized that Y was probably about to leave the stream again. He actually wanted Y to stay a little longer, but he didn't say it.
Always busy late at night-did Y work the night shift?
Yu Nian said goodbye softly. "Okay. You too."
Since the matter also involved the Starfish Platform, the controversy continued for another two days, with different sides offering conflicting accounts. But there was no denying that Yu Nian had become known beyond his previous audience, and he gained quite a few more followers over those two days.
Perhaps he felt that dragging it out too long wouldn't be good either. Keeping people online hanging when he clearly had evidence might make him seem less than straightforward.
So after ending his stream that night, he didn't wait until the following evening. In the early hours of the morning, he posted the statement he had prepared along with screenshots of the evidence.
Yu Nian explained in detail the circumstances and reasons behind his two interviews at Sea Star. The screenshots showed his chat history with Little Huang, as well as his discussions about compensation with the new person in charge.
They showed that Little Huang had invited him to interview, that problems had indeed arisen with the subsequent interview, and then the entire sequence of events involving the dismissal, compensation, and rescheduling of the interview. All of it corroborated what Yu Nian had said before.
Naturally, anything unsuitable for public viewing had been censored. He had also shown this evidence to Assistant Yin's side, who had confirmed there were no issues.
In the statement, Yu Nian also thanked several Sea Star staff members for their help and thanked senior management for taking the matter seriously, allowing him to defend his rights. Not only would this avoid harming Sea Star's image, it would actually earn the company goodwill among casual onlookers.
There was also an audio recording of his confrontation with Assistant Su, which further proved that he really had been treated unfairly at the time.
When Yu Nian had noticed something was wrong back then, his first instinct had been to preserve the evidence. He hadn't expected it to come in useful here.
And so a bunch of night owls who were still awake got their hands on the clarification firsthand in the middle of the night.
Before you continue