Kar98K Upon Touchdown!

Translator’s Note: Title refers to the popular light novel/anime/manga series “Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai!” or “OreImo”, which is often translated to this chapter title.

When he finally reached home, it was around six o’clock in the evening.

The housekeeping auntie was busy making dinner. When she saw Liu Zilang enter the house, she welcomed him home.

After changing his shoes, Liu Zilang poured a cup of water and brought it to the living room. Picking up the remote control, he started idly looking through the channels.

At that time, Zhang Xiaotong’s door was still closed shut. Some singing could be heard occasionally, maybe the brat was still streaming.

Liu Zilang originally wanted to thank her for this afternoon. However, after some deliberation, he decided not to interrupt her stream. He decided to save it for dinnertime.

After some time, the housekeeping auntie finished making dinner. She took off her apron and told Liu Zilang that dinner was ready before she left the house.

Just as Liu Zilang was about to invite Zhang Xiaotong to have dinner together, she opened the door coincidentally.

As Zhang Xiaotong’s door opened slightly, she saw Liu Zilang.

Without warning, she shrieked and slammed the door shut with a loud bang as if she had panicked over something.

Still sitting on the living room sofa, Lu Zilang was absolutely startled as his hand was still left hanging in the air from waving at her. He scratched his head in confusion.

‘What was that?

‘Was she surprised by me?’

…

A brief moment later, Zhang Xiaotong once again opened the door to her room.

Her face was completely flushed. She looked over and saw that Liu Zilang was still on the sofa. She immediately rushed into the kitchen and then grabbed her food, preparing to take it back to her room.

However, as she walked past the living room once more, Liu Zilang, who was still on the sofa, said with a bright smile, “Xiaotong, let’s eat together in the living room.”

Zhang Xiaotong was startled by the invitation, and her body instantly tensed up.

However, she slowly grabbed her food and walked over to the dining table in the living room. She lowered her head as she forked through her rice, there was very timid look on her face.

Seeing this, Liu Zilang awkwardly looked her in the eye. He had no idea why the usually cold little brat had suddenly become like that.

After grabbing his own food from the kitchen, Liu Zilang sat down directly opposite of Zhang Xiaotong. He smiled as he said, “Thank you for this afternoon, I didn’t think you’d intentionally watch my stream of the tournament.”

“No… No need,” Zhang Xiaotong blushed as she frantically replied in a soft voice.

After saying that, she realized that Liu Zilang who was on the opposite side of the table was still grinning happily as he stared at her.

Zhang Xiaotong “hmphed” out loud, before turning her head to the side. She said coldly, “It’s not like I watched you intentionally or anything. I… I just accidentally clicked into your stream, and I left immediately after.”

“Errr…” Liu Zilang’s mouth could not help but twitch, he was speechless.

‘Wasn’t this brat very timid just now, why did she suddenly turn into aTsundere ¹ all of a sudden?

‘And what’s with this “leaving immediately after”, she clearly watched all the way until my competition ended before leaving. She really isn’t honest at all!

‘But, seeing her Tsundere act…

‘It’s actually quite cute.”

With that, Liu Zilang chuckled to himself, not exposing her lie.

Hearing Lu Zilang chuckle to himself, Zhang Xiaotong on the other side started to blush madly once more.

She raised her head and glared at Liu Zilang with the intensity of a palmtop tiger. Then, she lowered her head once more before angrily grabbing some food from her plate. It was almost as if she was treating the food as Liu Zilang.

What she did not know was that this entire scene, from Liu Zilang’s perspective, did not look intimidating at all. Rather, it added on to the cuteness of it all.

‘No, no, no!

‘My little sister can’t be this cute…’

Liu Zilang shook himself out of it.

‘Illusion!

‘This has to be an illusion!’

…

Halfway through the meal, Zhang Xiaotong realized something.

She peeked at Liu Zilang who was sitting on the opposite end of the table as she bit on her tiny pink lips. However, she did not open her mouth.

After that, every so often, she would raise her head and sneak a glance at Liu Zilang.

That way, no matter how dense Liu Zilang was, he would still notice it.

He curiously looked at Zhang Xiaotong and said uncontrollably, “If you continue on, you’ll cut your lips.”

Instantly, Zhang Xiaotong’s ears turned bright red.

She angrily looked Liu Zilang in the eye and then pouted before finally opening her mouth. “To… Tomorrow it’s Sports Day at my school.”

“Oh, that sounds nice.”

Liu Zilang ate a mouthful of rice before continuing, “Are you participating?”

“Mm.” Zhang Xiaotong nodded her head lightly.

Liu Zilang was silently waiting for her next line, but after Zhang Xiaotong finished nodding her little head, she stopped talking once more.

He awkwardly stared at Zhang Xiaotong, not knowing what her intentions were when she told him that.

Thinking back to his own secondary school sports days, Liu Zilang remembered that he had signed up for a long-distance track event once. Back then, even his old man went to his school to cheer him on.

‘Wait!

‘Then the reason Zhang Xiaotong is telling me this is…

‘She wants me to go cheer her on at school tomorrow?’

After Liu Zilang briefly thought over it, he came to such a realization.

With that being said, he smiled cheerfully. ” Souka ² , coincidentally, I have nothing on tomorrow. Why don’t I go to your school and cheer you on? Treat it as thanks for this afternoon.”

Hearing Liu Zilang’s words, Zhang Xiaotong’s face became filled with glee as two small dimples appeared on her cheeks. However, she immediately withdrew that expression.

Lowering her head, she said while stuttering, “No need to thank me, just… Just do whatever you want.”

Liu Zilang continued to chuckle as he heard that. Now that he knew that she was speaking as a Tsundere, he naturally added an ‘auto-translating’ filter in his ears.

Hearing her words, it meant that she was ecstatic but she did not want to show it.

However, that was fine. After all, the two did not have much of a relationship before this.

If they suddenly started to talk more intimately, it would be even more awkward. Being able to close their distance bit by bit was a good thing.

Liu Zilang originally wanted to ask Zhang Xiaotong what event she was participating in, but it was quite obvious that the brat had no plans on telling him. Hence, he did not bother asking as he would find out the next day anyway.

Speaking of which, Jianghai Junior High School was his alma mater…

With that in mind, Liu Zilang became more excited about the sports day.

…

After they finished their meal, they both cleaned the dishes and went back to their respective rooms.

Liu Zilang went back to his room and turned on his computer. When he logged into his Douyu account, he found out that he had received mail on his channel.

Curiously, he opened it. As it turned out, it was a message from Douyu admins offering him a chance to be a Douyu partner.

For the uninitiated, there were two types of Douyu streamers.

The first type was small streamers who had just started streaming and were not that popular. Hence, their usual income from the site was only from the gifting feature; the other type was Douyu partners. After signing an agreement, those streamers would have to stream on Douyu for a minimum number of hours and Douyu would pay them a salary accordingly.”

In comparison, the latter was seen as a huge pay-raise for a lot of streamers, but at the same time, it was also a restraint.

That was because after signing the partnership agreement, although Douyu would recommend the partnered channel to viewers, there was a fixed contract period. It was not advantageous to streamers who had more potential and room for development.

The reason Liu Zilang managed to get the said offer that night was most likely because he had shown his potential in his afternoon’s livestream. Furthermore, the popularity and followers brought by Zhang Xiaotong’s raid showed the platform his potential. They wanted to get him partnered before he started growing too much.

If Liu Zilang was still a newbie who had just entered the streaming business, he would have instantly started dreaming about living a good life as he had gotten a partnership offer.

However, unfortunately, he was not a newbie.

Hence, after reading the mail and contract attached to it, Liu Zilang chuckled before closing it.

At that point in time, he still did not have any financial urgencies and did not need to sign the partnership agreement yet. It was something to think about another day.

He took a step back and looked at it from a bigger picture. In Liu Zilang’s eyes, if Douyu really wanted this agreement, this small bit of sincerity was obviously not worth much.

In his next livestreams, he just needed to do his best to show his potential and force Douyu to bring out their true sincerity.

…