Work Text:
Ye Xiu did not actually inhabit a computer, so naturally he did, in fact, go outside sometimes. With no celebrity identity to consider, he could even do it more often than most pros: He was, essentially, no different from any other guy on the street.
So yes, when “God Ye Qiu” was finally revealed to the public, some people were unearthing their great god’s true name and face for the first time.
Others were just putting a name—an identity—to a long-since known face.
To the untrained eye, the lump in front of the computer might have seemed inanimate, or at least dead.
After years of experience, the internet café manager did not have an untrained eye. “Sir, you can’t sleep here.”
“Hm?” the lump said, looking up, and the manager recognized this particular lump, since he’d found him in here so often. “I’m not sleeping.”
“That’s what you always say,” the manager replied blandly, though honestly he didn’t mind—this was definitely not his worst-case slumped-lump scenario.
This lump-man just grinned. “And it’s always true.”
The manager rolled his eyes at him and sent him on his way: True or not, by this time the man either had to pay or leave, and he never stayed. He gave the manager a wave as he ambled out, hair messy and eyes a little puffy from his late-night exploits, and the manager watched him go.
Ai, that guy, really.
“Hey, it’s you! Perfect timing, come crush this guy for us!”
An amused but willing man was half-dragged through the crowd and shoved at a computer by the excited spectators. “You know how to play, right?” they prodded as the man looked over the interface.
“It’s been a while, but it shouldn’t be too bad,” he said, only to be met by hoots and hollering like he’d already declared his victory.
“Is that the all-around expert you mentioned?” the new café worker asked his coworker, interested. The seniors had mentioned him more than once, a guy who won any game he knew how to play—which seemed to be all of them, really, he treated excellence in gaming like it was his job.
“That’s the guy!” His coworker leaned over the counter as if that would help them see the distant computer’s screen any clearer; the new worker couldn’t even laugh, since he was doing the same thing.
“Get ‘em, expert!” they called, and the crowd cheered.
The unkempt man, as usual, bought a pack of smokes and nothing else.
“You know we sell other products here, right?” the cashier had to laugh.
The man grinned right back. “Don’t need anything else.”
“There’s no way that’s healthy,” the cashier admonished, but got only laughter and a wave in reply as the man walked out.
Eh, he’d work on swinging another purchase again next time.
“Ugh, it’s him again,” the photographer groaned, and everyone immediately responded with sympathetic hums or rolled eyes.
“Who?” asked their intern, subtly trying to catch a look over the photographer’s shoulder.
“This absolute king here has photobombed more candid Excellent Era shots than we know what to do with,” the photographer said, pushing herself back from the computer with a huff of frustration; the zoomed portion of her screen showed a nondescript man in a common mask and cap, not even dressed like a fan—almost offensively average. “And every time we have to cut him out, you know? I don’t even get how he’s doing it!”
“I still say he’s a stalker,” one of the other women said. “Look how close he’s walking to Su Mucheng, I don’t believe that’s accidental.”
“Come on, he’s not even looking at Su Mucheng,” someone else argued. “Maybe he’s just one of those guys who do it for fun, trying to get in the shot whenever cameras go up.”
“He’s hours more effort on finding good framing, is what he is,” the photographer grumbled. “Every time with this guy…”
If the hapless man hadn’t wanted to be called into every game her auntie could find, he shouldn’t have indicated he knew how to play weiqi that day, let alone every other game the street uncles could pull out.
“Mahjong now?” she asked, settling in beside her auntie’s favorite “helper,” more like “stand-in.”
Whatever made auntie happy.
“Nothing else to do,” he shrugged, and she sighed in commiseration. There was a regular meet-and-greet for pro gamers nearby, but as always she’d failed to grab a ticket.
What could she do, though, when they sold out that fast?
“Yeah,” she sighed again as the man did something that seemed to involve stealing a tile and winning the hand, given the exclamations. Ah, better just accept her fate. Meeting a pro couldn’t be that good. “Me neither.”
“Seriously, how is that guy not fired yet?” the backstage worker groused. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him work, but he’s been around for years.”
“Really?” her newest coworker asked, giving the nondescript man another glance. He didn’t stand out, but then again, slackers rarely did.
“Always going on or coming back from smoke breaks,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Sometimes he comes in with a pack of other people, but I swear I’ve never seen him do anything at all with them. I don’t even know what his job is!”
To not leave even a clue as to his purpose after years, that was a serious level of dedication to slacking.
Honestly speaking, it was almost impressive he hadn’t been caught.
“What is it that you do at work all day,” she had to ask, “that makes you feel the need to run so much?” Not that it was technically his fault, but if he hadn’t run by their store every week for as long as she could remember, would her grandparents be pushing her out to join him now?
No. They would not.
“Play games, mostly,” he laughed, and so did she. Slacking off at work was highly relatable—far more so than this “health maintenance” thing, honestly.
Still, her grandparents already knew about the desk job and his concerned coworker’s exhortations, so that wasn’t really the point. “What about when you aren’t playing games?”
“Well, I’m a team leader,” he said thoughtfully. “So there’s a lot that comes with that. Evaluations, coordination, strategizing…”
She pulled a face at him. “Ugh, boring.”
He laughed again, as she knew he would. “I find it pretty fun.”
Work planning and department meetings, fun?
Completely unrelatable.
If the neighboring man hadn’t covertly offered the distressed mother his miniature whack-a-mole game to use, she didn’t know what she could’ve done to keep her restless son diverted for the whole flight.
The excuse Ye Xiu (as he’d introduced himself, all tired eyes and messy hair) had given was that he needed a beta tester for this modified version of the game anyway, and he really did watch the dizzying lights flash rather than sleep. In fact, as the length of her son’s attempts increased over the 3.5-hour flight, so did Ye Xiu’s interest; by the time the plane landed, he waved off any attempts to return her son’s newly-dubbed “Mousey.”
“Keep it,” he said, sounding somewhat amused. “He’s really good, and I can always make another one.”
Just like that he wandered back out of their lives, oblivious to the new path he’d set her son on with his unique hand speed-training game.
Filled with gratitude as she was, even years later, she still thought he could’ve used the nap instead.
“Sir, players can’t be back here.”
“Hm?” The man paused, then looked down at his player identification as if somehow surprised to see it.
Ah, offline players, they were always like this. None of the official pros’ air of celebrity at all.
“The match’ll be starting soon,” the worker reminded. “You’d better get going.”
“Yeah, no worries, I know the way.”
He followed the guy anyway, just to make sure he actually went where he was supposed to, which was how he witnessed a pretty woman in the team’s section call out to the player with Ye Xiu.
Which he then responded to. Because apparently he was Ye Xiu, and that was Happy, and the guy could not possibly be more of a celebrity gamer even if or maybe because he, yup, had no experience interacting as an idol at all.
And that made sense, sure, but still!
Who could expect a guy like that to be the famous and reclusive Ye Qiu?
“God Ye Qiu was actually using a stage name,” her son had told her, reading avidly over an article. “Ye Xiu…it couldn’t be that Ye Xiu, right?”
It was that Ye Xiu.
The good granddaughter was staring blankly at the press conference when her grandfather walked in, and thus completely forgot to greet him.
“Hey, isn’t that the running boy?” he asked, breaking her mind a little further. Indeed, it seemed, she was not hallucinating.
“Uhhhh,” she said, eloquently.
“Oh, I’d been wondering where he went this past year or so,” her grandmother said as she walked into the room to see. “What’s this say, video game competition? Did he move to another city for that? So irresponsible, how could he just leave behind a stable job?”
“Uhhhh,” she said, quietly but also more urgently, because she really needed time to reboot and they were making it way harder.
“Not many people succeed at video games as a career,” her grandfather sighed, shaking his head. “Don’t make a mistake like him, you hear? What’s he going to do if it doesn’t work out? Ah, that poor kid, who talked him into such a thing? Really villainous.”
“Hhhhhgggg,” she said as her grandparents clucked worriedly over team Happy paying “that nice running boy” nothing at all.
“Is that the photobomber?” asked their newest intern, unaware of the absolute silence she shattered with her entrance.
“God Ye…likes photobombing?” came a voice, dazed, distant. Confused.
“How is that the takeaway?” the photographer shrieked, suddenly reanimating with a slap on the table. “He was there all along! All along! So many times we’ve wanted a picture of him when we’ve had literally hundreds from the start!”
Their image-editor moaned quietly in the background. “I’ve been editing the elusive God Ye out of my pictures for years. Years.”
There was a long, miserable pause as everyone processed that.
“I need a drink.”
The support was unanimous.
“He doesn’t even work here,” the backstage worker whispered, distraught. “He doesn’t even work here.”
Her no-longer-newest coworker patted her arm consolingly.
“Oh, my best helper!” the auntie exclaimed, heedless of anything else. “He hasn’t come by lately, do you know how many games I’ve lost? You call him up, tell him to come over next time!”
“I can’t call Ye Qiu,” her niece said hysterically, and then realized—yeah, actually, she could. Ye Qiu was on her friends list.
Her auntie had threatened Ye Qiu with a slipper.
She felt a little faint.
“Hey, the all-around expert’s on TV!” the café worker called, immediately inciting a buzz as everyone came to see.
“All-around…you mean God Ye?” The new girl was an avid follower of Glory news; her coworker, she knew, not so much.
“No, I mean the person who always—oh, shit, no way, it’s—yeah! Yeah, actually, same guy! Guys check this out!”
The cashier watched the broadcast thoughtfully.
Could they market that God Ye bought their cigarettes?
“Wow, it’s your favorite lump.”
“Nope. No relation. Entirely different.”
“Manager, living in denial isn’t going to help.”
“Nope.”
Individual as the experiences might be, the base was the same, repeated a thousand times in a thousand places, edge encounters of a person’s life lived like any other.
“Yo, isn’t that the guy?” a man said, squinting at a television.
“What guy?” his companion asked, impatient.
“You know, the one we were always kicking out for—come on, you remember, the guy!”
“Oh, that one scrub who was always hanging around for does that say God Ye Qiu?!”