The "internal injuries" from his own cousin's backstabbing had yet to heal, so Luo Li turned his grief and indignation into motivation, pouring his energy into consolidating his newly acquired Path power.
The system's [Remembrance's First Cry] mission required him to read the surface memories of three objects, which was not particularly difficult for him.
First, he picked up the mug that held years of livestreaming memories and focused, his fingertips touching its slightly cool porcelain surface.
[Remembrance Perception] activated!
Some blurry fragments immediately surfaced in his mind: the glow of a computer screen late at night, the blur of fingers tapping on a keyboard, the steam rising from coffee, and the brief excitement after each victory or helpless sigh after a defeat...
These were all his own memories of streaming, day after day-jumbled, but familiar.
Reading successful (1/3).
Luo Li breathed a sigh of relief. He felt some mental energy drain away, but the consumption remained acceptable.
He tried the chair Castorice often sat in next. What he mainly sensed were traces of her peaceful, slightly curious emotions as she quietly read or watched documentaries. Like a shallow, clear stream, they even soothed his own mood a little.
Reading successful (2/3).
Just one more to go.
His gaze swept across the living room, finally settling on the pale purple pajamas Castorice had dried earlier, then folded and left on the sofa.
This... isn't very appropriate, is it? It feels like snooping.
Luo Li hesitated, but the mission required "different objects," and these were only surface memories. They probably wouldn't involve anything too private... right?
Like a thief, he quickly brushed his fingers against the pajama fabric and immediately activated his ability.
What he sensed was not a specific image, but a sort of... warm, dry scent of sunshine, mingled with the faint fragrance of laundry detergent and an extremely faint trace of reassuring, cool warmth belonging to Castorice herself.
It was a very pure, comfortable sensory memory.
Reading successful (3/3)! Mission complete! [Ding! Mission "Remembrance's First Cry" complete! Rewards issued: slight increase in mental energy, 5,000 Longxia Currency in cash!]
A cool current flowed into his mind. Luo Li felt as though his mental energy had grown a little more substantial, and his perception of the lingering "memories" around him had sharpened ever so slightly.
His account balance had also increased by five thousand. Even a mosquito's leg was meat-he was delighted.
With the little mission out of the way, Luo Li felt much better and prepared to start streaming.
As usual, he kept Castorice off camera and sat at his computer cracking jokes, slaughtering his way through the Rift with Yuan Ge (and occasionally making some painfully bad plays).
During a break in the stream, he habitually glanced at Castorice, who sat in a corner of the sofa holding the tablet.
She had become increasingly proficient with the device lately and had learned basic video playback and web browsing (Luo Li had set up strict teen-mode restrictions and a whitelist of safe websites for her).
At the moment, she seemed to be looking down, her fingers sliding across the screen. She was so absorbed that she didn't even notice Luo Li looking at her.
Luo Li thought nothing of it, assuming she was watching a previously downloaded documentary or browsing an illustrated plant guide.
However, what appeared on Castorice's tablet screen was not natural scenery.
It was a short video with an extraordinarily alarming title-"When the Ruler of Darkness Gatanothor speaks, it's nothing but Li Dog's iconic moments!"
The thumbnail featured the hideous head of a monster resembling a cross between a giant snail and a squid, photoshopped with a ridiculous grimace from one of Luo Li's streams. Behind it was the gray death screen from a match where Yuan Ge had been killed.
This video was, in fact, a "must-watch classic for newcomers" that one of Luo Li's haters had "thoughtfully" shared with Castorice, a "new follower," through the platform's private messaging function.
Curious about the strange title and thumbnail, Castorice tapped on it.
The next moment, an extremely rhythmic, maddeningly catchy backing track began to play.
In the video, the enormous body of Gatanothor, the powerful evil god from the tokusatsu series Ultraman Tiga, filled the screen, but its roars had been replaced with assorted voice clips from Luo Li's streams.
Gatanothor slowly rose from the sea, accompanied by Luo Li's furious roar after his Yuan Ge was solo-killed: "Are you kidding me?! How did that kill me?!"
Gatanothor unleashed black mist that shrouded the world, while Luo Li boasted confidently in the background: "I'll flank them here, and they're done for! Watch this!"
Gatanothor destroyed a city with its tentacles, only for the footage to cut to Luo Li miscontrolling Yuan Ge's puppet and running into a wall, accompanied by his awkward chuckle: "Ahem... a mistake. Just a little mistake!"
Even better, when Ultraman Tiga appeared to fight Gatanothor in the final battle, Gatanothor's "dialogue" became a medley of Luo Li's most iconic meltdowns:
"Where's my team?! Where's my team?! Someone save me!"
"This game is unplayable!"
"My Yuan Ge is so handsome! Why should I lose?!"
"Guys, I'm falling apart!"
Finally, Gatanothor was defeated by Tiga's Color Timer Beam. Over the footage of its thunderous explosion played a long, bitterly unwilling wail from Luo Li's stream: "Aah-my rank points-!"
The video ended, and the bullet comments were full of [Hahaha], [Fits perfectly], and [Li Dog really is the apocalyptic evil god himself!].
Castorice: "...(⊙□⊙)"
She was utterly bewildered.
That hideous monster on the screen, the one called an "evil god"... was saying... Luo Li's words?
Luo Li... was a monster? And he was destroying the world? Then a glowing giant defeated him?
W-what on earth was going on?!
She stared at the frozen image of Gatanothor exploding, recalling all the furious and silly sounds she had just heard in Luo Li's voice. Her little head was full of enormous question marks and a trace of... indescribable confusion.
Could Luo Li... actually have some hidden, terrifying identity? Was his usual behavior all an act?
Just as her brain's CPU was about to overload, Luo Li finished another match and walked over, stretching.
"What has you so absorbed? Another plant documentary?"
He asked casually, leaning over to look at the tablet screen.
Then his smile froze.
On the screen, that familiar compilation of iconic Gatanothor moments-the one he had been meme-remixed into countless times himself-was paused at the instant the evil god exploded.
Luo Li: "!!!"
Social death! And right in front of Castorice! Social death all over again!
"Th-this, this, this..."
Luo Li pointed at the screen, his finger trembling as his face instantly flushed bright red. He tried incoherently to explain, "Castorice! Let me explain! That's not me! No, the voice is mine, but that monster isn't me! That's... that's..."
For a moment, he had no idea how to explain "meme remixes," a specialty of Earth, to a girl from another world who knew nothing about internet culture.
Castorice looked up, her purple eyes full of pure confusion and a barely perceptible hint of concern. "Luo Li... why was that huge, frightening creature... saying your words? Was it... you? Were you defeated?"
Looking into those eyes, which plainly asked, "Are you hiding something from me?" and "Are you all right?", Luo Li wanted to cry but had no tears.
He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, and sat beside Castorice. Taking the tablet, he pointed at the video and explained, "Castorice, this is called a 'meme remix.'"
"A... meme remix?" Castorice tilted her head and repeated the unfamiliar term.
"Yes, it's a kind of... um... fan creation."
Luo Li struggled to find words she could understand.
"Some people think that things someone-me, for example-says or does are funny, so they use certain techniques to combine my voice and appearance with other, completely unrelated footage-like this monster called Gatanothor-and turn it into a rhythmic, funny video."
As he spoke, he quickly opened the video's comment section and pointed at comments like [I'm dying laughing], [Li Dog playing himself], and [Fits perfectly]. "Look, when people watch this, they don't actually think I'm a monster or that I really got defeated.
"They just think... it's fun and amusing."
Castorice looked at the rapidly scrolling comments, full of "hahaha" and all sorts of funny expressions, and seemed to understand a little.
"So... this isn't a record of something that actually happened? It's just a sort of... game?"
She asked tentatively.
"Yes, exactly! It's a game! A form of entertainment!"
Luo Li hurriedly nodded over and over.
"Like the bards of Amphoreus sometimes turning heroes' stories into exaggerated songs to sing, right? It's much the same thing!"
The analogy seemed to make Castorice understand completely. The confusion and concern gradually faded from her eyes, replaced by a sense of novelty and... a faint, subtle smile.
She looked at the hideous Gatanothor on the screen, then at Luo Li beside her, looking mortified with even the tips of his ears flushed red, and couldn't help letting out a soft giggle.
"Putting Luo Li's voice into that... very imposing creature..."
She pressed her lips together, her eyes curving.
"It really is... a little amusing."
Seeing her finally smile, Luo Li felt the weight lift from his heart at last, though the embarrassment refused to go away.
He scratched his head and said self-deprecatingly, "Yeah, your boyfriend here... probably is just someone people laugh at online."
The moment the words left his mouth, both of them froze.
Luo Li wanted to slap himself! How had he let the word "boyfriend" slip out so casually?!
Castorice's cheeks instantly flushed scarlet. She abruptly lowered her head, her long silver-purple hair falling to hide her expression, leaving only her small, adorable earlobes visible as they rapidly reddened.
The air instantly grew thick with romantic tension.
"I-I didn't mean it like that!"
Luo Li hurriedly waved his hands and explained, his tongue almost tying itself in knots.
"I meant... it's just... a sort of online... term! Right! Lots of fans jokingly call their favorite streamers 'hubby' or 'boyfriend' and things like that! It isn't real! Don't misunderstand!"
The more he explained, the more tangled it became. He felt like an idiot trying to cover up evidence of his crime.
Castorice didn't look up. She merely gave a soft "Mm" in a voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes.
But Luo Li keenly noticed that she seemed... not to be angry?
[Ding! Target "Castorice" has experienced a subtle emotional fluctuation due to the host's "slip of the tongue" and subsequent flustered explanation, with shyness mingling with a trace of indescribable secret delight. Affection +3. Current affection: 80%!]
Eighty percent!
Hearing the system notification and looking at the girl before him, too shy to lift her head yet clearly showing no resistance, Luo Li felt as though a syringe of stimulants had been injected into his heart. It began to race.
Could this... be a blessing in disguise?
Carefully, tentatively, he reached out and gently laid his hand over the back of Castorice's hand as she twisted her clothes.
Her hand trembled slightly, but she didn't pull away.
Feeling the delicate, warm softness of the back of her hand against his palm, Luo Li felt his breath catch.
"Um... those meme remixes and things, just watch them. Don't take them seriously."
He spoke softly, his tone unconsciously growing gentle.
"I... I'm still me."
Castorice kept her head lowered, but almost imperceptibly, she gently curled her fingers around his fingertips in return.