After settling the Dream Fulfillment Investment matter, Pei Qian went to Slackin’ Internet Café for a meal, then suddenly felt drowsy.

So he decided to go home for a nap.

He ended up sleeping until three in the afternoon.

Even after waking up, Pei Qian still felt groggy.

He yawned, forcing himself to get up.

He couldn’t sleep anymore—if he did, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night.

After getting up, he took a sugar-free soda from the refrigerator and took a couple of sips. The caffeine had a very noticeable stimulating effect.

“There are more and more things to deal with, making me a bit overwhelmed. My energy can’t keep up, and I’ve been feeling drowsy lately.”

“Spring drowsiness, autumn lethargy, summer naps, and three months of insomnia in winter. Well, now we’re in the transition phase from autumn lethargy to winter months.”

“Come to think of it, should I exercise a bit?”

“Find time to practice at Tuoguan Fitness?”

“After all, good health and abundant energy help me lose money more effectively.”

“If my body can’t keep up and my energy lags, the whole company might just go with the flow and make more and more money. Wouldn’t that be terrible?”

Pei Qian pondered. Although he was still young with healthy eating habits and sufficient sleep, he lacked exercise.

Without exercise, it was easy to feel tired and drowsy.

But if he went to Tuoguan Fitness, Pei Qian didn’t think he could stick with it.

If people discovered that “Mr. Pei has no self-discipline,” wouldn’t that ruin his image?

Of course, Pei Qian could use his busy work schedule as an excuse, but it would still be awkward…

So Pei Qian temporarily had such an idea, but didn’t have much motivation to put it into practice.

Leaning back on the sofa, he took out his phone and casually scrolled through Weibo, paying special attention to Old Ma’s account.

“Hmm? Old Ma seems to be livestreaming this afternoon?”

“He’s already started!”

Pei Qian quickly cast his phone to the big TV, following Old Ma’s livestream.

Yesterday when the money-splashing ended, Old Ma’s Weibo had more than 80,000 followers. After a day of spreading, it had now reached around 150,000.

During Old Ma’s rest period, many people had been reposting his Weibo, including some big Vs, so the rate of follower growth was still considerable.

However, this number of followers was still within Pei Qian’s acceptable range.

After all, the money Old Ma had given out was real cash.

There were indeed some things in this world that money couldn’t buy, but these didn’t include heat and traffic.

Pei Qian disliked heat and traffic, mainly because these things sometimes brought him profits.

But if the heat and traffic were on Old Ma, Pei Qian felt it might not necessarily turn into profit.

After all, Old Ma didn’t seem like the type to have real fans.

Anyway, let’s see how Old Ma’s livestream debut goes.

…

Old Ma’s livestream appeared on the big screen.

He was playing GOG with his camera on, placing it in a position that didn’t block game information, like many streamers.

From the background, he appeared to be in a Slackin’ Internet Café, with a rather noisy environment.

The most impressive thing was Old Ma’s long face.

Whether it was because the camera was positioned incorrectly or because Old Ma liked to get close to the screen and was too close to the camera, his head and chin couldn’t appear in the camera frame simultaneously.

So, the few danmu (floating comments) were all making jokes.

“Ma’s face has the look of an emperor!”

“Face too long, it’s out of frame!”

“Even hippos can livestream now?”

“Horse-faced streamer, followed!”

Besides these, there were some less friendly comments.

“How dare you livestream when you’re so bad?”

“Useless teammate, playing a matching game for twenty minutes and still 0-2-1, pure freeloader, reported!”

“Trolls get out, he’s a boss, normally doesn’t have time to play games, it’s understandable if his skills are poor.”

“The problem is he’s terrible but doesn’t know it, reminds me of brain-dead teammates in bronze tier!”

“Mr. Ma, why don’t you go back to Weibo and give out money? This game isn’t for you!”

Occasionally, arguments floated by in the comments, but because there were so few viewers, even the arguments seemed delayed.

Clearly not all were followers from Weibo; some were passersby who accidentally entered the livestream. People on Weibo were still quite polite to Old Ma, but passersby didn’t show any courtesy. Seeing how bad this streamer’s skills were, they criticized without mercy.

Pei Qian couldn’t help but smile knowingly.

Sure enough, the script matched his predicted situation perfectly!

He’d said all along that with Old Ma’s skills, if he dared to livestream, he would lose fans like crazy and only achieve the opposite effect.

But it seemed Old Ma truly had a good mindset. Although there were hardly any comments in the entire livestream, and the occasional ones were all criticizing his poor play, Old Ma didn’t take it to heart at all and continued playing happily.

As the game ended, Old Ma stretched: “Ah, teammates weren’t up to par. Everyone, wait a bit, I’ll find some capable teammates to play with.”

Ma Yang directly cut the livestream signal.

Numerous question marks instantly floated across the livestream room.

A question mark also instantly appeared above Pei Qian’s head.

?

Find some capable teammates?

Could it be…

Pei Qian suddenly had a very bad feeling, but before he could think of a countermeasure, just a few minutes later, Ma Yang’s livestream resumed.

And now Ma Yang had arrived at the DGE Club’s base!

It turned out that Ma Yang had been streaming from the Mingyun Mountain Villa branch of Slackin’ Internet Café earlier, just a few minutes’ walk from the DGE Club.

Zhang Yuan’s voice came from the livestream: “Everyone get ready, cooperate well with Coach Ma in the training match!”

“Perfect timing, Huang Wang, Jiang Huan, you’re back. Team up with Coach Ma and teach these rookies a lesson!”

In Ma Yang’s livestream camera, several familiar figures sat down in the opposite seats. From their backs, one could vaguely recognize Huang Wang, Jiang Huan, and other veteran players from the DGE Club.

More question marks appeared above Pei Qian’s head.

???

Weren’t Huang Wang and the others already sold to other clubs? How did they end up back at DGE?

Pei Qian instantly realized an issue.

When he had dinner with the new DGE Club players earlier, the veteran players had said they would provide special training for these rookies to help them quickly adapt to the competition rhythm!

This wasn’t just DGE veterans’ sentiment toward their old team; it was something all other clubs were willing to do.

For all other clubs, DGE Club’s interests aligned with theirs because even if DGE players got stronger, they couldn’t compete in tournaments, but could instead be directly bought by other clubs to strengthen their rosters.

DGE Club’s veteran players, including Huang Wang and Jiang Huan, definitely returned to the club every few days to provide guidance!

It just happened to coincide with Ma Yang’s livestream!

While adjusting his equipment, Ma Yang said: “Little Huang, Little Jiang, remember to turn on your livestreams and help boost my viewership a bit.”

The players immediately nodded: “Don’t worry, Coach Ma, we’ve got it covered!”

Soon, all four of Ma Yang’s teammates started streaming.

Although they were on different teams and different streaming platforms, these players were all-star performers in their teams and had many fans. As soon as they started streaming, countless viewers swarmed in!

Moreover, they changed their stream titles to “DGE Club Reunion, Coach Ma Directing Internal Special Training.”

The viewership instantly exploded!

Especially in Huang Wang’s livestream, where so many comments floated by that they blocked the screen.

“Is the internal boxing match about to start?”

“Just arrived, who’s Coach Ma?”

“Whoa, actually seeing Huang Babe and Jiang Babe playing together, mama is touched to tears!”

“Another male mama, another male mama!”

Looking at the screen full of comments, Pei Qian felt very uneasy.

This was bad—he’d completely overlooked the DGE Club!

He thought Old Ma would quietly start a livestream and show his true skill level, which would certainly discourage a large number of fans.

He never imagined that Old Ma had no intention of going solo, and after just two games, he came to rely on DGE Club’s star players!

Now that these major streamers from DGE were diverting traffic to him one by one, the attention had exploded!

Pei Qian picked up his water cup and took a sip, calming himself down.

“Stay calm. Even with four DGE players as practice partners, it doesn’t change the fact that Old Ma is terrible.”

“He’s so bad, completely dragging down the other four, which will surely upset the fans of these four players.”

“So, this might not necessarily be a bad thing…”

Pei Qian decided to watch a bit longer; the situation still seemed to be within an acceptable range.

The training match soon began.

On one side were the four DGE veteran players plus Coach Ma, and on the other side were four new DGE players.

Other players and viewers from several livestream rooms were all closely watching the outcome of this match.

Many viewers had just joined and weren’t clear about the situation. They originally thought that “Coach Ma” must be a very powerful, mysterious figure. Even if his operation and technical skills didn’t reach the level of DGE Club’s veteran players, he must at least have the standard of a high-ranked ladder player?

Only when the match started did they discover that this was a weak link!

Huang Wang and the other three veteran players had been frantically helping from shortly after the game began, but even so, Ma Yang was still repeatedly crushed by DGE’s new players in the bottom lane.

Originally, veterans versus rookies should have been completely one-sided, but with Old Ma joining, he had forced both sides to the same level!

“Who is this terrible player? How can he be so bad yet have Huang Wang and Jiang Huan protecting him in the game!”

“I’m jealous! I could do this too if I were there.”

“If you were there, you couldn’t even play this badly!”

“Don’t joke around, haven’t you heard this is special tactical guidance? He’s balancing the strength of both sides, giving Huang Wang and the others weighted practice!”

“Huang Babe, Jiang Babe, blink if you’re being held hostage.”

“This is Tenda’s Mr. Ma, Mr. Pei’s right-hand man, the man who made five hundred million for Mr. Pei. He’s just playing with the team members for fun. Of course, normally, he’s bad at the game. You don’t think a big company boss has as much time to play games as you gaming addicts, do you? Surely not?”

“Approaching people with billions?”

“I see, so it’s about having money! Wah, I’m so jealous. If I had money, I’d have the entire DGE Club play with me, too!”

“But this isn’t fair to Huang Babe and Jiang Babe! Reminds me of the terrible teammates I get when playing games!”

The battle between the two sides was exciting, and the viewers in the comments were quarreling just as intensely.

The viewers were divided into two camps. Many people thought Old Ma was so bad it was eye-burning and felt disgusted, but many others actually had a changed perception of Old Ma.

If Old Ma were just an ordinary, terrible player, he would be drowned in viewers’ criticism.

But Old Ma was a high-level executive at Tenda Group, a man who had invested in IOI, a right-hand man who had made five hundred million for Mr. Pei…

Being bad at playing games somehow became understandable.

Pei Qian watched the comments, feeling like he was watching an absurdist play of magical realism.

Old Ma was such a burden, yet people still liked him.

This was too ridiculous!!