After Leaving the Entertainment Industry, I Decided to Become an E-sports Champion

[Column: Please follow my upcoming novel, Making Games, Then Becoming Number One in the Galaxy. Blurb at the bottom ↓]

World champion Sui Ning became a nobody trainee in a parallel world. His agent waved the termination contract sent by the show in his face. In black and white, it stated: a penalty of fifty million!

Sui Ning felt the 500 yuan left in his pocket and calmly said, “I don’t have any money.”

The agent sneered. “Then go lay bricks and take a few more jobs. Maybe you’ll pay it off before you die!”

Sui Ning said, “Perfect. I’m going pro.”

The agent: “...?”

The agent immediately called a psychiatric hospital.

Sui Ning calmly hung up.

From then on, the entertainment industry lost trainee Sui Ning, while the esports scene gained Wind, the mid-lane demon king.

**

After Sui Ning left the entertainment industry, fans of every kind assumed he’d chickened out. They never expected to see him again so soon on the homepage of a popular streaming platform.

A fandom hater was shocked. “Holy crap, why is this nobody still out there showing off?”

Game fans were furious. “A nobody? Watch your mouth! You think you can badmouth our Wind? Do you even understand how overpowered he is, if the designers had to nerf him overnight?”

Competitive gaming fans were furious too. “You’re hating on a champion who brought glory to our country? Do you even have a heart?!”

After being roundly cursed out, the haters belatedly realized: the person the whole internet used to mock... had somehow become everyone’s male idol?

*

“An unprecedented debut at his peak, and his peak never fades,” “The first player in history to win the league, the world championship, and the Olympics,” “The mid lane’s eternal shooting star in broad daylight”...

On the night he won the championship undefeated, the entire national server leaderboard changed its name to “Sui Ning’s Coronation.”

Sui Ning looked at his agent and smiled lazily. “Still want me to go back to being a trainee?”

His agent smiled back and bashfully pulled up a video of him singing and dancing, the one that had ruined his social life. “Well... it’s not entirely out of the question.”

Sui Ning: “?”

Reader’s guide:

* Career-driven, emotionally clueless bking bottom x puppy-like top who adores his wife and is always all over him

* No secondary couples. Don’t speculate about real-life inspirations.

* Important: feel-good power fantasy with a male bottom protagonist. Nobody is stronger than him.

* A satisfying rise-to-the-top story + Esports, with a great many game matches. Truly, a great many.

All characters in this story are adults.

Upcoming novel: Making Games, Then Becoming Number One in the Galaxy

Blurb:

After returning from Earth to the interstellar era, Rong Jing realizes he is living in a rebirth novel.

The original male protagonist is reborn as an interstellar game developer. He releases his games before their original creators can, seizing the advantage, making a name for himself, and becoming a genius rising star adored across the internet.

The original creators, meanwhile, are branded as plagiarists.

As it happens, Rong Jing is next in line to be “borrowed from.”

Rong Jing: “...?”

Thanks for asking. Since when am I not a genius developer?

*

Because of war, the Interstellar Federation’s records of its glorious past have long been broken and lost.

The Historical Origins Association has been searching for the roots of Huaxia. Then one day, a new designer appeared on the Star Network

In Chang’an Streets, players take off their star-war mechs, put on coarse hemp clothes, return to the Tang dynasty, order a bowl of plain noodles, and listen to a performer sing sweetly from a distant tower;

In The Palace, players can become imperial consorts dressed in delicate gauze, or servants bowing and scraping, and experience the endless pleasures of scheming against one another;

In Prosperous Age, brilliant and ambitious warlords rise up to contend for supremacy. Who will unite the land?

Then players journey through Journey to the West, enter Investiture of the Gods, and explore the Classic of Mountains and Seas, as lost myths gradually awaken.

As for The Path to Immortality...

Player A: “Fellow cultivator, how does your M-81G mech compare to my Sword of Supreme Detachment?”

Player B: “Haha, you fool! I’m a body cultivator over level 300. One strike from me can break through the hull defenses of the L25 star destroyer in the star-war game next door!”

Player A: “Damn, fellow cultivator, you’re incredible!”

*

Players follow in his footsteps,

from the lowest F-rank rookies to legendary A-rank players, then to the one and only 3S rank in the galaxy,

accompanying him as he ascends the throne and rules the gaming empire.

Until at last, they become restorers of a history lost to time and inheritors of a vanished civilization.

When Rong Jing has made his name once more and is thoroughly satisfied, a discordant voice quietly pipes up:

...Can you come home tonight?

Feng Yu has had a crush on Rong Jing for years.

He watched him grow, became his rock, and took pride in everything he achieved.

He watched the precious treasure he held in the palm of his hand grow up. A beast of desire struggled within him, yet he never dared take a single step forward.

Feng Yu repeatedly warned himself: Jing is young and outstanding. An old man like you isn’t good enough for him...

Being his older brother is nice, too.

It’s nice.

It’s also...

Butler: “Um, Third Master, is this package yours?”

Butler: “The label says, ‘Win Their Heart in Three Seconds: Muscular Man’s Chest Harness with Ring.’ There’s also an instruction manual.”

Feng Yu: “...”

Feng Yu: “Silence!”

Reader’s notes:

* Career-focused power fantasy, plot-driven, with lots of game content, like a story within a story

* The ancient culture of Huaxia revives in the interstellar era

* Cool-faced, adorable, aloof beauty bottom who’s a competitive workaholic x older top who’s been secretly in love with him for ages, insecure and jealous

* Includes an age gap and a size difference. The tall, burly older man is frantic to woo his sweetheart, while his sweetheart only cares whether he’s cold

Thematic message: A shooting star in broad daylight keeps this long night shining.