Only After I Was Reborn Did I Realize That I Had Childhood Sweethearts

Since Xia Yuan debuted as the virtual streamer "Yuan-chan," she quickly became one of C-Site's top livestreaming content creators. Every time she broadcasted, she would completely dominate the livestreaming rankings, effortlessly claiming the number one spot on the charts.

Afterwards, Xia Yuan would stream for two hours daily. Her main activities consisted of two things: first, playing games promoted and published by Similu Studio; second, chatting and singing with everyone while occasionally explaining some knowledge about music composition.

During this period, aside from the "[Q]" meme, Xia Yuan created many other amusing memes and various screenshot-worthy reaction images that were widely used for humorous edits. However, since Xia Yuan was a virtual avatar streamer, she was able to be very open and playful with her audience. Her extremely friendly and outgoing personality helped her gain a large wave of young fans.

[Comments shown during streams:]

["You can even compose songs? Stop pretending you're not our Yuan-bao!"]

["Is C-Site so poor they need the boss's wife to personally go on stream?"]

["If I call Yuan-chan 'waifu' now, does that count as cuckolding the site owner? As a pure love warrior, I feel conflicted."]

["Commenter above: wouldn't that actually make it more exciting?"]

["Death to all cuckoldry enthusiasts!"]

During this era, most New Year's Eve galas still featured very mainstream, orthodox programming. However, C-Site's New Year's Eve Gala was primarily organized by the platform's Top 100 creators, making it a very community-driven event full of youthful energy.

Because Mei Fang personally promised that as long as content didn't violate regulations or go against public order and morals, any theme or format could be freely explored, the selected Top 100 creators were all eager and enthusiastic to participate.

In the original timeline, Bilibili didn't launch its Top 100 Creators program until four years later in 2019. However, Yuanxi Entertainment's development momentum was far stronger than Bilibili's had been, and the personal charm and influence of the "Big Three" (Mei, Youxi, and Yuan) had harvested a massive wave of fans during the summer.

However, at this time, the ACG subculture was still a very niche ecosystem. For ordinary creators, surpassing 100,000 followers was considered an impressive achievement. A creator like Xia Yuan, whose combined follower count across her "Yuan-bao" and "Yuan-chan" accounts rivaled C-Site's entire daily active users, was truly the pinnacle of top-tier creators. Therefore, filling all 100 slots was still quite challenging.

Over half of this year's Top 100 creators were personally selected by Mei Fang. In addition to including leaders from various content categories, Mei Fang increased the selection weight for subtitling groups, gaming, anime, vocal cover artists, and otaku dance – these creators played a crucial role in preserving C-Site's ACG culture.

Thus, creators who would become famous in the original timeline like Pure Black, Lao Fanqie, Wang Laoju, Lao E, Cool Breeze, Bottle Princess, and Xiao Yuan – who might not be particularly popular at this time – were all ultimately included in the Top 100.

Of course, Ao Chang (who after 2020 would become embroiled in controversy due to various questionable actions and sponsorships, ruining his reputation) was also selected. However, his "Call of Jiong" retro gaming series held profound nostalgic value for older gamers, and Mei Fang couldn't ignore his contributions to the site based solely on future knowledge.

Similarly, anime section's so-called "Former Emperor" (who would later face scandals) was another Top 100 candidate Mei Fang couldn't overlook at this time, as his status as a top creator made his inclusion unavoidable.

When communicating with these creators who would become controversial in the original timeline, Mei Fang sometimes found them to be surprisingly sincere and straightforward – completely different from the personalities associated with their future scandals.

However, this was understandable… After all, a person's personality and behavior would inevitably change significantly before and after achieving fame.

Actually, Mei Fang had considered using his future knowledge to preemptively screen out creators who might harm C-Site's future reputation. But after carefully weighing the pros and cons, he ultimately abandoned this idea.

He wasn't just an ordinary C-Site user – he was C-Site's owner. He shouldn't focus on individual creators because even if he avoided one problematic creator, there was no guarantee others wouldn't develop similar issues.

For an official platform to take sides or express biased stances was very dangerous, as that in itself could become a black mark against the platform.

At most, the platform could show preference through selection criteria, but directly attacking or excessively praising individual creators could lead to creators leaving – which would be a minor issue – or, more seriously, trigger large-scale fan backlash that could spill over into mainstream attention, creating a PR crisis. How to handle such situations in a way that would satisfy the public was Mei Fang's primary concern.

As for why Yuan-chan and Yuan-bao didn't maintain neutrality –

This was already clearly an official platform account, so there was no discussion about neutrality to begin with.

Moreover, Mei, Youxi, and Yuan weren't included in the Top 100 themselves – the three of them were the awards presenters.

The only real-life friend among the Top 100 was Mei Fang's former classmate Wan Chaoxiong.

He was a lifestyle vlogger who filmed campus life from the perspective of his cat "Overlord." His excellent editing skills and gradually improving scriptwriting ability made him somewhat famous among lifestyle creators.

Another noteworthy point was that as Mei Fang's high school classmate, Wan Chaoxiong never used this connection as material in his videos for self-promotion, showing he was quite an individualistic person.

About 20% of the first Top 100 were "Honorary Top 100" selections – legendary fan translators and subtitlers who had made outstanding contributions to spreading ACG culture. These subtitle groups weren't limited to just anime but included games, movies, and other aspects of ACG culture. In the past, driven purely by their love for games and anime, they had completed translation work. Most had since retired to focus on careers and families, no longer active in subtitling, but were still highly respected in Chinese internet culture.

Mei Fang reserved spots for them not just to fill the Top 100 quota, but more as a way to commemorate and inherit past ACG culture, as expressed in the awards speech he personally wrote for these honorary subtitlers:

"Many younger viewers might not fully understand what these absent honorary creators mean to C-Site."

"To me, they represent cultural inheritance."

"Many Japanese-style games we played as children – those JRPGs you played secretly at home, those anime series you binge-watched in secret – the reason you could resonate with the characters, laugh with them, and come to love them was because you could understand their stories."

"All of this was possible because you knew what they were saying."

"Many Japanese RPGs have text volumes reaching millions of characters. When these games hadn't been officially released in China, there were no corresponding localization packages."

"For most of us who didn't understand Japanese, not being able to read the text made these games nearly impossible to get into."

"This is where fan subtitling and translation groups made their mark."

"Their work was often done purely out of love, without receiving or demanding any payment or recognition. The only reward was an occasional 'thank you' from community members who appreciated their translations and the way they adapted the text to convey the story's meaning – this was the greatest repayment they could hope for."

"We often praise selfless dedication, but that doesn't mean such efforts shouldn't receive any reward – that would undoubtedly be a form of moral coercion."

"The reason I established this annual Top 100 isn't just to bestow honors, but to commemorate and pass on a legacy."

"We commemorate the contributions subtitlers have made over the years, and we pass on our love for ACG culture, ensuring this passion continues."

"Therefore, I will present these honorary Top 100 creators with specially made commemorative medals and grant them lifetime C-Site Premium memberships. From now on, their viewing experience on C-Site will always be smooth and unobstructed, with exclusive prestige badges that can even be passed down through generations!"

Mei Fang's speech at the New Year's awards ceremony moved many former subtitlers to tears as they watched the livestream while rocking their children to sleep.

Seeing those familiar usernames and IDs, they couldn't help but reminisce about their days surfing the early internet ten years ago…

Time truly is the cruelest blade.