Chapter 18: Mastermo meets his sister-in-law

Zhihao was inspired to find his younger brother some friends so he decided to contact Li Ling's sister who was also a teenager—however, he didn't want to force Li Ying into becoming friends with his brother and so he paid a visit to Li Ling's house hoping to persuade Li Ying and also having a second mission; To tell Li Ling all about the Gamemaster.

At first, Zhihao had some doubts of his own; questioning if the gamemaster was actually Li Ling himself since he refused to believe that Li Ling had actually come across the gamemaster by mistake, but now that Zhihao had also been put through the same position, he was willing to trust Li Ling's story.

In Zhihao's mind this was a master plan, getting to hit two birds with one stone, but when he entered Li Ling's house and saw the little sister in question; Li Ying; His master plan was rendered to be completely useless.

Li Ling was actually living alone in his apartment and at the moment, Li Ying had only come here for some days to pay him a visit. The apartment was small yet lavish and two people could comfortably live here together. The interior was clean and the furniture was mostly painted with a blackish-brown color tone, the floor had white with golden design marble and the main hall had a chandelier hung right on top of a black marble table with grey colored sofas decorated around it, facing the huge window with the view of the city. Zhihao really liked the interior decor not because of the great color schemes or the lavish furnishing but because of the huge painting hung on the right side of the main hall, It was a painting of Zhihao's favorite gaming character from the first game he played as a pro-gamer. This might be the most surprising coincidence, maybe Li Ling also liked this game or maybe he had been a fan of Zhihao since the start of the man's career. No matter what the case was, Zhihao was pleasantly surprised by the nostalgic painting.

"Mastermo?" A girl called up to him, grabbing Zhihao's attention away from analyzing the painting.

This girl was Li Ying; A young girl with a rather beautiful face that somewhat resembled Li Ling's face—undeniably looking like the female version of Li Ling, She had big eyes that seemed to glitter with the dazzling smile that was plastered on her face, She had her hair up in two cutely tied ponytails and dressed in a pink and black colored Lolita costume....?

Zhihao felt like he had made a mistake coming here, there was no way A-Zhen would get along with this girl—it would be considered lucky if he didn't make fun of her instead.

"Umm... Hello, Li Ying?"

"Ah! Yes. Yes." Li Ying beamed, spinning around to flaunt her dress, "Do you like my dress? Cute, right?"

Zhihao was stunned speechless, he really could not make sense of it. The dress was indeed cute, but he could not understand why somebody would want to wear it at home. Aren't you supposed to wear comfortable clothes at home? This dress certainly did not look comfortable in the least, but then again, who was he to judge the girl? He had a brother who had equally uncommon hobbies so how could he judge?

"Don't tease him." Li Ling interfered, "She's a cosplayer, loves anime, manhuas, games, anything related to 2D fantasy really."

"Oh! Is that so? That's so cool." Zhihao heard that the girl also likes games and he was instantly sold; She would make a great friend for Huang Zhen.

Li Ying chuckled, amused with the reaction she received, "hehe... It's okay if you find me weird, a lot of people do."

"No! It's not like that! Really. I think cosplayers are cool." Zhihao spoke with some honesty, "I was just surprised to see one in person like this.

Li Ying, "Have you really not seen a cosplayer in real life? That's a bit hard to believe. Not even in gaming conventions or promotion Expos?"

"I don't usually attend those." Zhihao chuckled awkwardly.

It was really unbelievable how non-interactive he had been with his fans considering the fact that he was a pro-gamer with millions of fans but it was really not his forte. If he could think of one person who would've most certainly attended these said occasions and interacted with the fans, it would inevitably be BBtrash, that guy was the embodiment of liveliness, it was as if he was born with an unlimited capacity of energy that was always ready to burst out.

"Ah! I get it, you don't show your face anymore. It's kinda disappointing really. You look really handsome in person." Li Ying sighed ignoring the glare she received from her brother, "I guess you used to show it at the beginning of your career but eventually stopped...?"

This was an awkward topic Zhihao was rather embarrassed to talk about. The exact reason he stopped showing his face to the public was especially because of the way he looked.

If it had been anybody else, Zhihao would have ignored the question, but since this was Li Ling's sister, he would rather answer her honestly and deal with the temporary embarrassment, and so he answered her awkwardly, "I used to show my face but it was really pointless... Most of my early fans were usually girls who were not even interested in gaming. Actually, even after I stopped showing my face, the larger proportion of my fan base are still females. It is kinda embarrassing."

"Huh? Why is that embarrassing? Isn't that a good thing?" Li Ying, who seemed to suddenly understand the hidden meaning behind Zhihao's words, burst out laughing, "Wait! I get it! I get it! hahaha... That's so funny."

Li Ling, who had also caught on saw that his sister could not control her laughter so he decided to speak out in her stead, Although he knew the answer and was not very pleased with it, "I'm guessing there was a particular reason for these increased female fans?"

However, Li Ying didn't let Zhihao answer, "Was it because they found you attractive? Did they disturb you? Call you hot and stuff? Were you scared of them? hehe... They can't be blamed, just look at your face. I can already guess how many thirsty comments you used to get."

Zhihao's face didn't betray him, however, his ears were another case; turning bright red from the embarrassment. This further confirmed Li Ying's theory.

"Oh my god, Mastermo. You are so cute. hahaha..." Li Ying had only spoken her mind without thinking about it much, but her brother was not so happy as he heard it and so she had a flying pillow coming straight towards her face. Only God knew where Li Ling had suddenly conjured up a pillow from.

"Stop teasing him."

Li Ying wiped her laughing tears."Got it! Got it! But that's really funny... hehe..."

"It's not that funny." Zhihao scratched his head, avoiding eye contact—he really didn't want to see people point him out and laugh at him like this—even if it were all fun and games.

"Okay! Okay! I'll stop. Sorry." Li Ying apologized with a bright smile, "So I heard you wanted to ask me a favor? What is it?"

"Oh, that! It might be a bit much, but could you consider being my brother's friend?"

"..." Li Ying really didn't know how to react to such a favor, it was really nothing and could not be deemed hard at all, in fact, it was too simple but unexpected and just.... Weird, "I can help you, but..."

"But...? I'm really not forcing you or anything." Zhihao panicked and was pulled to sit on the grey colored sofa by Li Ling who pulled him down to sit beside him.

"Mastermo, It's not really about forcing—how do I say this? I would love to make new friends. If you haven't noticed already, I'm actually a really outgoing person, but friendship doesn't actually work like that."

"Huh?" Zhihao who had never really known what the art of friendship was, was dumbfounded.

"Friendship is not created, it just naturally comes to you. Ya know? Take my brother and you, for example. How did you two meet?"

"We met on the streets when I was..." Zhihao stopped himself from speaking further, what was he to say? We met on the streets when I was picking up trash? Although true, that sounded ridiculous and laughable.

"Exactly and did either of you say let's be friends?"

When Zhihao thought about it, he really could not remember such an incident happening, "No...?"

"See. So how can you two claim to be friends right now?"

"..."

"Get to the point.", Li Ling scolded.

"You don't choose your friends nor can you choose a friend for your brother, Mastermo. Friendship is created by a positive good feeling shared between the two just like you and my brother. So what I want to say is that even if you tell me to become your brother's friend, I can try, but nothing is guaranteed and sorry to say but... That favor sounds kinds idiotic." Li Ying managed to speak up, glancing at her brother every once in a while in fear that she might piss him off.

"Ah! I get what you are saying. Even I think it's stupid. As his brother, I really shouldn't be meddling in his personal life like this, but..." Zhihao sighed, "I really can't help it. I've tried making him interact with others, told him to go outside, and play with people, but he just refuses to listen to me. As a big brother, I feel like I have wrongly influenced him a lot."

Li Ling, "You are definitely not a bad brother."

"I never said I'm bad." Zhihao dead-panned.

"..." Li Ling shut up at once.

"Ever since I have been a child, I have been attracted to online games till the point it could be considered an addiction, but after I entered high school, I turned this obsession into my full-time job—further closing myself up in my room."

"Mastermo, You and your brother are different. Look at me and big brother, we are the polar opposites of each other."

"I know I can't be completely blamed, but I just can't get rid of this guilt that maybe he has been influenced by me. He looks up to me a lot, so maybe I am indirectly the reason for this?"

Li Ling once again decided to interfere, "Why do you keep saying it like it's a bad thing? At least he is not addicted to drugs, right? Being introverted is natural, not a big deal."

"Well, that's the thing, he is not an introvert." Zhihao wouldn't usually share his worries like this with outsiders, but since it was Li Ling, for some reason, he felt reassured and comfortable, "He has friends or at least lackeys whom he calls friends. He pays them to accompany him and entertain him. I just want him to know what having real friends is like." The words really seemed to sound funny coming from Zhihao like that, Even Zhihao would laugh at it. In the end, how many real friends did he have?

"That's just... Sad." Li Ying spoke as she really felt pity for the fellow, "Maybe I could try? Not promising anything tho."

"That's great. That'll be fine too. No need to force yourself." Zhihao beamed.

That day, both Li Ying and Li Ling accompanied Zhihao back to his home with the excuse of dropping him home when their real mission was to actually let the two teenagers meet.

Li Ling sighed, "Why do feel like a parent setting her daughter up for an arranged blind date?"

"I'm really sorry." Zhihao chuckled awkwardly; even he felt the same.

But unexpectedly when the two teenagers who had supposedly never met each other finally got to meet, their first reaction was to point at one another and exclaim with shock and disbelief, "You?!"