The Cold and Ruthless Supporting Male Lead

Hai Ku simply smiled. “It’s okay. After all, she didn’t like me to begin with. The fact that she gave me some advice means she’s already done her best. You don’t need to push her too hard.”

Based on Mu Xiaoya’s mindset, she probably wanted to show some concern for Haiku Shilan. But for someone who didn’t care about Hai Ku in the first place, forcing herself to express concern was truly difficult for her. That’s why her words came out so sharp and sarcastic.

Moreover, her comments were entirely self-centered, with no thought of whether they might hurt Hai Ku after being spoken.

Fortunately, Hai Ku dismissed her words as mere nonsense and didn’t take them to heart.

“Alright~” Upon hearing Hai Ku’s response, Zhuoye Xingchen was convinced. Mu Xiaoya’s attitude indeed showed that she didn’t like Hai Ku; she was simply taking advantage of Hai Ku’s feelings for her to act out.

Luckily, Hai Ku no longer liked her now. Otherwise, he really would’ve been pitiable.

After coming up with a string of ridiculous scenarios in his head, Zhuoye Xingchen suddenly felt a bit sympathetic toward Hai Ku.

After chatting with Zhuoye Xingchen for a while, Hai Ku reminded him, “When you create your game room, set it so only two people can enter. It’s best to use a secondary account; otherwise, I’d still be worried.”

What Hai Ku had suggested to Mu Xiaoya was just that Zhuoye Xingchen agreed to play a game with her. He meant merely gaming together, not helping her live stream to gain followers.

But knowing the female lead’s personality, Hai Ku truly couldn’t predict what she might end up doing.

“Don’t worry. I’m not that dumb. I’ve been in the gaming scene for so long—I have plenty of secondary accounts. I’ll switch to another mic and lower my voice. Even if other fans see it, they won’t recognize me,” Zhuoye Xingchen assured him. Initially, he had just wanted to have a little fun crushing opponents, but after these two phone calls, he couldn’t help but worry a bit about Mu Xiaoya’s character.

Still, by the end of their chat, he didn’t forget to invite Hai Ku to meet up in person.

As a game streamer who had reached his level, meeting up in person wasn’t unheard of. But most of the time, he couldn’t find anyone he truly connected with. Either their personalities clashed between real life and the online world, or they turned out to be completely different than expected.

Having been flattered countless times, Zhuoye Xingchen had grown tired of it. He genuinely disliked those sycophants. If they at least shared common interests with him, it might’ve been tolerable. But when they had no overlap at all, not even similar hobbies, it became utterly frustrating.

Finally meeting someone he could chat with comfortably, Zhuoye Xingchen couldn’t help but think; I’m willing! I’m willing to carry you! Please, just come play games with me!

His entire demeanor radiated a desperate longing for friendship.

As someone with his level of skill, having so few friends was indeed rather pitiful…

***

“You’ve already told her to play games with you tomorrow at 6 P.M. How about I come to your place at 5 P.M?” Hai Ku suggested. They only lived in neighboring complexes, so he wasn’t worried about being late. Plus, he was genuinely curious to see if Mu Xiaoya’s behavior would change when playing games with Zhuoye Xingchen alone.

“That’s just 1 hour. I want to chat with you more! Why don’t you come over tomorrow morning instead? I bought an old cassette game machine—it’s perfect for playing CF games. I even got the cartridges, so we can record a dual-player CF game video. Come over early, we’ll have breakfast together, and then we can try it out. How about that?” Radiating eagerness, Zhuoye Xingchen was practically ready to drag Hai Ku over immediately.

(T/N: CF = Crossfire; an online tactical first-person shooter game.)

Unable to refuse him, Hai Ku relented. Gamers like him, once they started talking about games, were truly unstoppable.

Realizing that meeting in person was inevitable, Hai Ku agreed. “Alright, I’ll come over at 8 A.M. tomorrow. Wait for me downstairs in your complex.”

“Great! I’ll edit some videos from the past few days for now. Remember to contact me tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

After ending the call, Lan Bai, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly spoke up.

[Are you planning to cross-dress tomorrow?]

Hai Ku: “…”

Lan Bai, convinced that Hai Ku’s involvement in this was entirely out of anger, had fallen into deep self-blame. When Hai Ku remained silent, Lan Bai thought he was confirming her assumptions and felt even guiltier.

[Although cross-dressing is just a personal hobby, if you don’t genuinely enjoy it, I think you shouldn’t force yourself.]

“Are you poisoned or something?” Hai Ku opened his video editing software. “I’m going there tomorrow for a proper meetup. Why would I cross-dress? Even if I were to do it, it wouldn’t be tomorrow.”

Lan Bai: [I thought…]

“You thought what? That I’d show up in the flashiest red dress, stand in front of Zhuoye Xingchen, and declare, ‘I’m the sassiest chick on this block’?”

Lan Bai: […]

[I’m not! I didn’t!]

“Relax. I just want to try different versions of myself. Besides, this has opened the door to a whole new world for me. I simply want Haiku Shilan to keep pursuing what he loves, instead of sinking into sadness like before and leaving the country.” Knowing that Lan Bai cared about him, Hai Ku understood that the past world might have impacted Lan Bai too much, making it hard for him to adjust quickly.

Hoping his explanation would ease Lan Bai’s mind, Hai Ku finished speaking and then purchased a video editing tool from Lan Bai, delegating the task of editing his previous videos to the tool itself.

In this world, though he had inherited all of Haiku Shilan’s skills, Hai Ku had to admit that editing videos was a painstakingly tedious task. Having an editing tool now felt like a blessing he couldn’t refuse.

With his work handed over to the machine, Hai Ku didn’t forget to pull Lan Bai into analyzing the female lead of this world.

There were countless worlds, and each one had different characters and core values.

Hai Ku had read works that were written exceptionally well; so flawless that there was nothing to criticize. Those masterpieces stayed on his bookshelf, revisited time and time again, and all Hai Ku could say was, ‘This is amazing!’ Such were the praises he could genuinely offer.

But, as the saying goes, ‘The larger the forest, the more diverse the birds.’ With more stories came all sorts of tropes.

Take the female lead of this world, for instance. She was full of flaws. Her blunt and sharp-tongued personality, combined with her disdain for male supporting characters with a cross-dressing hobby, made Hai Ku suspect the author had inserted real-life issues into the story.

Hai Ku vaguely remembered that this particular story didn’t garner many clicks. In fact, it received a lot of negative reviews, leading to a somewhat rushed ending. After the female lead got together with Zhuoye Xingchen, they reached the peak of their lives as gaming streamers, leaving a huge impact on the community.

And then… the story just ended.

[Our system focuses on the male supporting character being cold and unfeeling. So, as long as we alter the male supporting character’s ending in any way, as long as it’s uninfluenced by the female lead, it’s considered a success,] Lan Bai said, uncharacteristically serious for once. [We’re simply helping the male supporting characters from their perspectives. As long as we don’t do anything illegal, we’re within bounds. For someone like Haiku Shilan, as long as Mu Xiaoya doesn’t interfere, resolving his situation isn’t that hard.]

The original owner had two major areas of vulnerability.

The first was his cross-dressing. If that secret were ever exposed, there would likely be a massive backlash and a wave of fans turning against him. However, to address this, Hai Ku had already copied the female lead’s golden cheat ability, which allowed him to gain maximum acceptance from fans.

The second area of concern was Mu Xiaoya’s persistent meddling.

Though Hai Ku had accumulated a decent amount of points, directly confronting the female lead was still troublesome. Hai Ku believed that if something could be resolved by others, there was no need to personally get involved.

Luckily, Hai Ku’s mind was clearer than Haiku Shilan’s had been. He didn’t put the female lead on a pedestal.

After roughly drafting a strategy, Hai Ku decided to check out the female lead’s account.

Like countless rookies, aside from her flashy verified badge, there was little else that stood out about Mu Xiaoya.

Her streaming style was fundamentally unsuitable for the gaming category. This genre predominantly attracted viewers who valued skill, with only a small subset drawn in by a streamer’s voice or looks.