The Three-Percent Dragon Pit

Wanzhao removed her headset. Her audience had climbed from 1.8 million to 4.6 million. "Keeping the mask on?" she asked. Chenzhou looked at his name filling the screen and pulled it off. The face on camera was thinner than the one beneath the championship confetti, but there was none of the ruin promised by the day's headlines. "Hello," he said. "I'm Gu Chenzhou. Currently unemployed." The streaming platform froze for three seconds. Gift animations fell like a waterfall. Old fans filled the screen with the colors from his championship year. Haters demanded explanations for the seventeen losses. An account named **Solarion-King** entered the stream, said nothing, and left forty-seven seconds later.