[Three Kingdoms] My Lord, Your Son Is Gay!

1. Years later, Bai Ke, locked away in a dark little room, would still think back countless times to that distant afternoon when he first met Cao Cao. If time could truly be turned back, he would have used every ounce of his strength to shout when that man came walking toward him: “My lord, your son is gay, he’s gay!!!” 2. At the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, the Han court was in decline, warlords carved up the land, and the realm lay fractured. Bai Ke was an unlucky guy who got inexplicably bound to a System. All because he’d scared a little brat into tears in the modern world, he got kicked back to the Eastern Han. The System’s mission was clear and simple: “Hey, you can stay alive if you become a top strategist.” Bai Ke said expressionlessly, “What if I don’t?” The System replied sweetly, “Then you’ll just have to wait to die, dear.” Bai Ke: “...” Could you not say something so terrifying in that sugary voice?! At first, he planned to hide away in some corner and muddle through one day at a time. But just before his new boss died, the man grabbed him and entrusted everything to him with heartfelt sincerity: “The fate of our Yellow Turban Army... is in your hands.” Bai Ke’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “What Yellow Turban Army?! Aren’t we just an ordinary rebel army?!” “Boss, say something! Boss!!” His boss had already passed on to the next world, leaving Bai Ke standing there in stunned confusion. The remaining Yellow Turbans all turned their eyes toward him, and he was forced to shoulder this enormous burden that had dropped out of nowhere. But there was an even more serious problem. His rebel army was the very Yellow Turban force Cao Cao was pursuing in Yan Province. They were the old, weak, sick, and disabled who had been left behind. To escape the disaster in Yan Province, Bai Ke racked his brains to divert the danger elsewhere. After enormous effort, he finally set off on the run with this band of old and infirm stragglers. But halfway through, his boss’s son suddenly popped out from the roadside, beaming with the look of someone who wanted to be praised. “Military strategist! I just snatched a group of people and brought them back!” Bai Ke’s heart skipped a beat. He slowly turned to look at the three people behind him: Lady Bian, watching warily; the tense young Cao Pi; and Cao Zhi, wailing in his swaddling clothes. Bai Ke was silent for three seconds, then said woodenly, “...Why not just go snatch Cao Ang for me too?” The other man’s eyes lit up. “I’ll go right now!” Bai Ke lunged at him. “Get back here!” The pairing is set: Cao Ang. No breaking them up or reversing the pairing. P.S. Technically, Cao Cao should be addressed as “Lord Cao,” but for the sake of the joke, I used “my lord.” Here’s an upcoming story: We Look Down on That Streamer! 1. How Can a Commoner Like Me Survive at a Noble Academy? This blockbuster survival game is set in a luxurious academy for the nobility and boasts an incredibly high degree of freedom. Players take on the role of a dirt-poor scholarship student newly arrived at an elite school. There’s only one goal: graduate successfully. But the real reason the game took the internet by storm was the huge prize dangled by the developers. The first player to achieve the graduation ending would take home a million in cash! Of course, the developers had no intention of letting anyone walk away with the money easily. The map was packed with all sorts of bizarre ways to die and creative Game Over scenarios, leaving players from every corner of the internet in tears: “What do you mean I starved to death because I couldn’t afford food?” “This is ridiculous! Why was I automatically expelled for failing my final exams?! I came to play a game, not go to school!” Before long, the top-tier stars of the biggest gaming livestreams were showing off their skills in every possible way: One top student streamer: “Burning the midnight oil tonight. I swear I’ll take first place in my year!” One slice-of-life streamer: “Tips for legal part-time jobs for high schoolers and extreme budgeting.” One short-tempered streamer happened to pass by and declared, “Forget playing the game. Fighting the tyrant is what really matters!” While livestreams across the internet were blooming in every direction and everyone was pushing themselves to the limit, one particularly odd livestream was singled out for universal scorn and relentless roasting. The reason was simple: The streamer named Bai Yang had shamelessly and without a shred of dignity hooked up with the most powerful student council president in the whole school! 2. Faced with a screen full of scathing comments and accusations that he was sucking up to the president, Bai Yang immediately protested: “How is that flirting? Don’t you dare sully the pure, flawless friendship between me and my good bro!” Livestream chat: Vomit.jpg / Have some shame, streamer! The viewers began listing the streamer’s offenses: 1. He spent every rare free-conversation card he earned from missions on the president, while using only the System’s preset dialogue with everyone else. Streamer, tell us yourself: does reciting “It is my honor to serve such a beautiful lady” to an NPC sound like something a normal person would say? 2. He checks in at the president’s office every single day, without fail. You don’t even check in to your own livestream this diligently! 3. What kind of good bro says, “Bro, you smell so good!” And so on. The evidence was overwhelming, too much to list. Yet the streamer kept stubbornly denying it, refusing to admit a thing. The forum even opened a high-stakes betting thread just for the occasion: “Guess when that streamer who acts so gay will finally come out.” [Day One: The streamer hasn’t come out.] [Day Two: The streamer hasn’t come out.] When the game ended and the livestream never started again, the thread slowly sank out of sight. Then one day, a bombshell reply suddenly sent it rocketing back to the top of the board: [Day 520: The streamer came out!] Thread starter [...I knew it. Hah, you sneaky gay man.] 3. Later, when people asked Bai Yang how he and Ji Quan had gotten together, Bai Yang would always look back fondly on their “romantic” first meeting: It was the first time in his life he’d met an NPC with such a vicious tongue. Bai Yang got so angry that he immediately started arguing with him online. The game’s freedom was so extensive that they nearly had a martial arts showdown right there in the plaza by the noble academy’s fountain. That was when Bai Yang knew: This NPC was no ordinary character! Thesis: May all people live in peace