Chapter 6: The Russian Mathematician’s Chaotic Performance

Unsurprisingly, the comments section was rife with all manner of deranged and utterly nonsensical remarks.

[I’m good now, thanks.]

[I can’t take it anymore, time to ‘relieve myself’ in the suburbs.]

[I’m done pretending, I’ll start cultivating neotenic aesthetics myself.]

[Go go go go go!]

“Oh, dear me~!”

Confronted with this inevitable internet spectacle, Chahuayuan could only shrug and sigh with resignation.

As a girl, such comments held little sway over her; her true concern lay with her brother’s mental well-being.

“Erm, hahaha…”

The sheer bluntness of these sexually explicit comments made Chajingyuan’s eyebrows twitch in slight revulsion.

Yet, even she possessed a mental fortitude far from so fragile as to be overwhelmed by such remarks.

Internally, Chajingyuan pursed her lips, choosing to feign ignorance, and painstakingly persisted in her role-playing.

Just then, however, a rather peculiar comment scrolled across the overlay.

“…?”

Chahuayuan, too, registered its presence.

Unlike her brother’s mere bewilderment, she adjusted her glasses, her brow furrowing in deeper suspicion.

[Expected rsq, typical of you, Shai B-Official.]

Evidently, “Shai B-Official” was a crude homophone for “Cyber-Official,” while rsq, it went without saying, stood for “softcore pornography.”

This aggressively nasty remark hardly seemed like something concocted on a whim.

With Chajingyuan’s delicate sensibilities, she could hardly fail to grasp the underlying malice, but this was a live broadcast, after all.

A prominent vein pulsed faintly on Chajingyuan’s forehead as she recalled Xiaomai’s prior advice: ‘Don’t panic over crude jokes; just play along.’

Silently, she resolved, ‘Cultivating high-caliber streamers begins now’—and proceeded to interpret the comment literally.

“Eh, eh… there’s a comment here that says ‘Expected rsq, typical of you’… Is rsq an abbreviation for something? What does it mean…?”

The moment Chajingyuan uttered those words, Chahuayuan instantly realized that her brother, too, had taken note of the peculiar comment and was reacting to it.

Chahuayuan promptly unmuted her microphone.

“Brother, don’t get flustered.

You can lower your posture now, lest the super admin ‘ganks’ you.

This comment is really odd; I’ll look into it first.

Don’t engage with it, and don’t lose your temper.

Just keep talking in line with your character persona.”

“Mmm…”

Chajingyuan tacitly grasped her sister’s directive, accepting her guidance for the moment.

“Oh—I see! Thank you, comment section, for enlightening me with yet another piece of knowledge.

So it’s a water heater!”

“Indeed, indeed.

In this era brimming with cold, it is our solemn duty to be like a water heater, disseminating warmth to all.”

“Excellent, mmm, excellent.

I’m seeing many comments saying they ‘took a good shot’ with Chiyuki’s water heater.

You mean you took a hot shower, right?

You must take good care of yourselves; don’t try to deceive me…”

“…………”

“…………”

“Eh~~~ So that wasn’t it after all?

I genuinely thought it was an abbreviation for some technical term.

Back in my hometown, there are countless machines and mathematical theorems named with such letter abbreviations.

I was just a little slow on the uptake, so please don’t tease me, everyone.”

Through a succession of feigned innocence delivered in a saccharine voice, Chajingyuan, despite the throbbing vein on her temple, finally succeeded in deflecting the malicious attack, transforming it into mere comment section tomfoolery and steering the livestream back on course.

This display of resilience touched Chahuayuan deeply.

Considering her brother’s severe depression, it was a profound relief not only that he handled the situation adeptly but that he avoided losing control entirely mid-broadcast.

Subsequently, Chajingyuan launched into an elaborate discussion, boasting grandly and adhering to her persona as a “Russian girl mathematician.”

“Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm, that’s right!

My hometown is Russia, after all, and Russian mathematics is second to none in the world!”

“Truth be told, Chebyshev himself once considered bestowing the naming rights of his theorem upon me.

Demidovich’s problem collection was initially conceived as ten chapters, but upon encountering me, he was so struck by his own limitations that he condensed it to eight.

Mr. Landau, who first outlined six segments for his barrier, specifically augmented it with three more after our conversation, declaring that only a complete nine-segment Landau barrier could truly befit, *phew*, the radiance of Miss Chiyuki~”

“In fact, the Four Color Problem requires no solution at all, for as soon as a four-colored map beholds me, it spontaneously arranges itself into non-adjacent patterns, just like that, you see.”

Pfft.

Witnessing her brother’s boundless capacity for exaggeration, Chahuayuan couldn’t stifle a snort, nearly spraying her screen.

While this indeed strayed somewhat from the established persona—Makino Shibahime’s original design for Chiyuki incorporated elements of quiet dullness and social awkwardness—it was, nonetheless, rather charming.

The slow, unhurried boasting delivered in a soft, endearing voice proved quite entertaining.

Her brother, despite his usual ‘trashy’ demeanor, truly shone with unexpected showmanship in this critical moment.

Naturally, the conversation gradually drifted from Chajingyuan’s “hometown” to domestic matters.

She regaled the comment section with tales of her “battles within the local cyber world,” as well as her real life beyond those digital skirmishes.

For most other streamers, such mundane topics would, naturally, flow effortlessly.

Yet, for Chajingyuan, discussing daily life proved increasingly difficult to maintain her composure—the reason, quite simply, was that she genuinely had no life to speak of.

As common everyday topics grew increasingly unwieldy, the intensely nervous Chajingyuan resolved to simply ‘lie flat’ and gloss over the conversation with a barrage of thoughtless “good, good, good, praise, praise, praise.”

“Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm!

Hotpot is excellent, the subway is excellent, Maotai is excellent, everything is excellent…! Mmm, probably…”

“Hmm?

What are you all spamming…? ‘Laofu’? What ‘Laofu’?”

“Oh~~~~ I know!

I think I’ve seen pictures of him.

He’s that person who absolutely loves to gush, and his eyes always widen dramatically when he praises things, right?

Uh, uh, hmm?

You want me to imitate that?

I certainly can, but do I really have to…? Well, fine, just for entertainment, but absolutely no screenshots, alright?”

Inadvertently, she had stumbled upon a rather peculiar meme.

Given “Stepan Chiyuki’s” Russian persona, coupled with Chajingyuan’s recent haphazard praise of the motherland, the audience was now clamoring for her to imitate ‘Laofu.’

Yet, perhaps this was for the best; engaging in a meme-based imitation show was considerably simpler than attempting to earnestly discuss everyday life.

Even so… as it was her inaugural attempt at manipulating the model for complex changes, she remained exceedingly nervous…

“Mmm-hmm, cough, cough, cough!

I said no screenshots, alright?”

Chajingyuan began to elevate her vocal pitch, embodying a certain universally recognized, fervent Russian patriotic streamer.

Her eyes widened dramatically, and the Live2D model shifted to an exaggerated, hyperthyroid-like expression.

“—Our China is truly amazing!”

Flawless!

Discounting the minor deviation from her persona, and focusing solely on the entertainment value and meme potential, this performance was undeniably a perfect score.

The sole complication, however, was Chajingyuan’s overwhelming nervousness.

She had inadvertently pressed the wrong hotkey for model control, triggering an erroneous expression.

In her ensuing panic, she haphazardly cycled through nearly all of Live2D’s manipulation options.

Consequently, viewers were treated to the sight of a white-haired beauty simultaneously contorting her face into an open-mouthed, closed-eyed ‘ancestor’ expression, while her arms danced wildly up and down, and her polar bear hood cycled on and off.

This alone might have been manageable, but Chajingyuan truly began to panic, her flustered movements intensifying as she tried to conceal her initial blunder.

Under Chajingyuan’s frantic “Wah, ah, ah, I’m sorry!” the model was dragged off-screen, then, after a flurry of random button presses, yanked back, now a beautiful girl hanging upside down.

It was dragged off-screen again, subjected to another round of haphazard settings, and then pulled back…

This chaotic sequence repeated three or four times.

Aside from the full nudity accident she had desperately tried to avoid earlier, Chajingyuan made virtually every conceivable operational error.

The final image she managed to position on screen was a beautiful girl ‘stitched-together ball’—a grotesque composite of several identical models layered at different angles, with small hands and plump legs intertwined.