Unfortunately-
"Guys, we misjudged Liuli. This guy is the real lazy bum! He's been sleeping on the rooftop all morning since the stream started, and he hasn't moved an inch!"
"Streamer, streamer, everyone else has gone to the cafeteria to eat. Aren't you going? Hurry up and find Liuli so you can eat together. We want to see Liuli!"
"Guys, I'm switching to Bai Lili's stream! I'm telling you, it's ridiculous!!! She can't even see her toes when she looks down! Liuli's figure is amazing too, but compared to Bai Lili, they're not even in the same weight class!"
"From this day forward, I'm Miss Bai Lili's dog!"
When Qiji saw Bai Lili's name start to flood his chat, he couldn't resist clicking into her stream.
He hadn't known what to expect, but one look was a shock.
It had been hard to tell when the girl was wearing her loose coat, but now she'd taken it off to eat. That size, that visual impact, especially when she set them on the table and they went "duang duang duang"...
All he could say was that it was downright absurd.
To draw viewers, the production team had gone all out on her model. They had pulled out all the stops.
Still, nicely done.
He was a simple man. He liked what he saw.
Qiji waited until nearly one in the afternoon, when the cafeteria was about to close, before he leisurely stretched and slowly got up.
Instead of heading for the stairs, he shoved his hands in his pockets and leaped straight off the edge of the rooftop, dozens of meters above the ground.
In midair, the hem of his long coat whipped fiercely in the wind.
He showed no sign of panic, nor did he use any supernatural power.
Relying solely on his "Max"-level physique, Qiji descended gracefully and landed without a sound.
He looked indescribably composed and dashing.
A string of question marks instantly flooded the chat:
"Holy shit? A leap of faith?!"
"He did that with pure physical strength? He really didn't use a single skill?"
"The streamer wasn't bragging. He's actually a fucking genius?!"
"Damn, that move had zero windup! Zero recovery!"
"He's in a completely different league from the streamers jumping off buildings in the other channels!"
"The contrast is brutal. The difference is obvious!"
When the lunch break bell rang earlier and the students rushed to the cafeteria, Qiji hadn't been the only one to jump from a building.
But those people had jumped from no higher than the third floor, nowhere near the height of Qiji's rooftop. On top of that, they'd either needed to push off several times on the way down or had lost their balance on landing and had to follow up with a full tactical roll.
Not a single one of them had managed it as calmly and effortlessly as Qiji.
Doing the same thing, Qiji looked far cooler than they did.
That deliberately displayed move immediately won over the power-focused viewers in his stream.
"Guys, if you like putting yourselves in a genius's shoes, following this streamer is the way to go!"
"And there's the immersion!"
Qiji had chosen this time to visit the cafeteria partly because there were fewer people, making it quiet and peaceful.
The other reason was that most dishes in the cafeteria were discounted at this hour.
In the stream, everyone watched Qiji walk into the empty cafeteria, deftly pick up a tray, and make a beeline for the discounted dishes made from scraps and trimmings.
The chat surged again:
"???"
"Holy shit, the immersion just got even stronger!"
"So the streamer's a broke bastard like me? I'm tearing up."
As Qiji ate his lunch, he quietly waited for the first plot conflict of the first season to unfold.
Meanwhile, the main camera followed Huomu, the first to finish lunch, back to the classroom.
The moment he stepped inside, Huomu froze.
The expensive instrument on the podium used to test aptitude had somehow been smashed to pieces, and the valuable Echo Crystal inside had vanished.
Before Huomu could make sense of what had happened, the other students began returning to the classroom in twos and threes.
As soon as they entered, they saw the scene-
The expensive instrument had been destroyed, and Huomu was the only person at the scene when it was discovered.
Given the well-known "reputation" of Huomu's father in the City of Kindling, Huomu was almost immediately singled out as the suspect.
"Huomu, what are you doing?!"
Faced with their questions, Huomu hurriedly tried to explain. "No... it's not what you think!"
But not a single person believed him.
"Like father, like son."
"You've got some nerve! You even dared steal from the academy!"
"Heh, I guess that's what you'd expect from the Fire Thief's son."
"It wasn't me! I didn't do it! I just got back from lunch, and it was already like this when I came in..."
"You just finished lunch? Where did you eat? How come I didn't see you in the cafeteria?"
"I... I didn't go to the cafeteria."
"Why didn't you go?"
Pressed by everyone's questions, Huomu was embarrassed for a moment. "I... I don't have any money."
"No money? Does that mean you can steal the Echo Crystal from the instrument?"
"I told you, I didn't do it!"
"If not you, who else could it be? You're the only one in the class who tested at F! You were unhappy with the result and short on money, so you smashed the instrument and stole the crystal. Am I right?!"
"The son is just like the father!"
As accusations flew at him from all sides, Huomu grew so anxious that sweat covered his forehead. "I already told you it wasn't me. What... what will it take for you to believe me?"
As the scene unfolded, the volume of chat in the main stream skyrocketed.
"Classic bullying plot. My blood pressure's rising."
"I can vouch for him. Huomu didn't do it. I was in the stream the whole time."
"Yeah, exactly. If you don't believe us, check the stream replay."
"This protagonist has it rough. So who actually stole the crystal?"
Just as the chat filled with furious viewers wildly guessing who the culprit was, a highlighted message suddenly floated across the top of the main feed:
"Guys, stop ranting! Hurry over to Qiji's stream next door! There's a guessing game going on!"
"Seriously? The official stream doesn't even have that feature. How can a personal stream have a guessing game?"
"If I'm lying, I'll eat shit!"
The viewers in the main stream were stunned. Then a huge crowd of people looking for fun and others who didn't believe it flocked to Qiji's personal channel.
After putting on his little act and posting the message to draw viewers over, Qiji unhurriedly swallowed the last bite of his lunch.
At the edge of his vision, several lines of glowing text flickered-
[System notice: Special item "Guessing Card" used successfully!] [System notice: A large number of viewers have flooded into your stream!] [System notice: Your stream's popularity is rising rapidly! Current ranking: Top 2!]
"Done eating and drinking..."
Qiji stretched, picked up his tray, and casually returned it to the collection window.
Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the cafeteria.
His long coat swept through the air in a clean arc.
Sunlight poured down, illuminating half his body.
The stage for drawing traffic was set.
It was time for his turn.
Make his entrance.
Steal the show!
Chapter 4: The Villain
The viewers flooded into the stream and discovered that Qiji really did have a guessing game going.
But weren't there a few too many options?
Every streamer with a personal channel was listed, including the characters who hadn't started streaming yet.
"Guys, the suspect has to be this masked man. Why else would his stream be the only one with a guessing game?"
"Yeah, exactly. This evil masked man definitely did it!"
"Don't make your god of sleep laugh. I've been watching his stream all morning, and he's been asleep the whole time!"
"Seriously, the suspect has to be one of the characters who hasn't started streaming. Committing a crime while livestreaming would be way too stupid, wouldn't it? The production team wouldn't do something that ridiculous."
"Logical analysis: whoever isn't streaming is the most suspicious!"
"Also, anyone who was streaming earlier but suddenly went offline for lunch is suspicious too!"
That made quite a few of Liuli's fans' hearts skip a beat.
"Could it be Liuli?"
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
"Guys, pile your votes on Qiji. Qiji definitely did it (doge)."
The chat was guessing all sorts of people, but when it came to the votes, Qiji's name was far ahead of the rest.
When Qiji returned to the classroom, everyone was still ganging up on Huomu.
The scene could practically be called bullying.
There were two reasons things had escalated to this point:
First, Huomu's father's act of "stealing fire" had been so egregious that his son had become an object of universal scorn as well;
Second, someone was secretly using [Mind Echo], silently stirring up and amplifying the malice and prejudice in everyone's hearts.
Qiji yawned and walked back to his seat as if it had nothing to do with him, then slumped over his desk and went straight to sleep.
But before long, he seemed unable to stand the noise any longer. He dug a finger in his ear and spoke indifferently:
"You're too damn loud."
The moment the words left his mouth, the agitated crowd surrounding Huomu fell silent in unison.
That was only because the person who had spoken was Qiji, known as the "Miracle of Kindling."
Even back at the preparatory institute, he had been able to complete second-tier missions alone and had been hailed as the "City of Kindling's Number One Genius."
It was said that by the age of ten, he had already surpassed every teacher at the preparatory institute.
During the graduation assessment, he had single-handedly set an extraordinary record that no one had ever achieved before, and that likely no one would ever match again.