"Studying in your room?" Ke Jun looked at Ke Jin with suspicion. "Doesn't she have her own room?"
"Uh... She said my room has dim light and it's quieter," Ke Jin stammered, his forehead covered in cold sweat as he watched Old Ke rapidly approaching his room.
At that moment, Mrs. Ke spoke up.
"Why do you care where the kid studies? Isn't every room in our house?" Mrs. Ke glared at Ke Jun angrily, "The kid is almost eighteen, and you're the only one who's so controlling, always insisting on doing things your way."
"Without rules, there is no square or circle. It's even more important to pay attention to rules in the small things," Ke Jun said meticulously. As a middle school teacher with thirty years of experience, his rigidity and prejudice were deeply ingrained and didn't waver with the times.
"Fine, speaking of rules, you promised me that you wouldn't go fishing this weekend. Can you keep your word? Don't sneak out with some excuse again," Mrs. Ke said impatiently.
The mention of this made Ke Jun's expression falter, and his hand, poised to push the door open, withdrew from the doorknob. He then began to make gestures and faltered, "Last time... it was such a big one."
Mrs. Ke couldn't be bothered to expose his charade of buying fish from the market and instead turned to Ke Jin, who was idly watching the action, "Go tidy up the living room. We've got guests."
"Who is it?" Ke Jin asked as he sprang up from the sofa, haphazardly fixing the cushions.
"Your Aunt Zhou, cousin's relative from your third uncle's side. Her son's preparing to attend middle school here in Jianglin, and she's rented an apartment nearby to accompany him. She's coming over for the first time today; we've invited her to our place."
"Oh," Ke Jin muttered dully upon hearing about Aunt Zhou.
He did have some memory of this distant relative.
They didn't interact much, but what he remembered was that she loved to brag.
Mrs. Ke donned an apron and disappeared into the kitchen. She had only been busy for a moment when Aunt Zhou arrived with her son.
What followed was the standard cordial exchange, greeting each other and catching up on family news.
Ke Jin, caught in the middle, had to occasionally serve tea and water to the elders, feeling awkward.
At this moment, he envied his younger sister who was hiding inside her room.
Just as Ke Jin was lost in thought,
Suddenly, he heard a familiar bellow, accompanied by hysteria.
"WTF!! Hahahaha!! How am I supposed to play this game? Huh? How do I play it!!"
He glanced over and saw Aunt Zhou's son sitting on the sofa, holding a phone and chuckling stupidly at the video on the screen.
Ke Jin approached to take a closer look, and his heart skipped a beat.
The little rascal was watching a video compilation of Old Mouse losing his cool playing Iwanna the day before.
Given Iwanna's popularity on Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt's predominantly young user base, it was no surprise that a kid around ten would come across the video.
But the problem was,
Ke Jin remembered that Old Mouse had mentioned his own name during the live stream...
And he had done so grinding his teeth, repeatedly.
Ke Jun was right there; if he caught on to keywords like 'Ke Jin' or 'game designer'...
With this thought, Ke Jin felt cold sweat streaming down his forehead and hurriedly approached his young cousin, "Do you like Ultraman? I have a complete collection of Ultraman stickers in my room, let's go take a look."
Ke Jun was immediately displeased.
"Why are you always bothering your cousin? Let him watch the video if he enjoys it," he said.
Speaking, he leaned in with a smile, "Cheng, what video are you watching? Show your uncle too."
"I'm watching a game streamer. There's been this really great game designer these past few days who made a very interesting game. It's so much fun. Do you want to watch too, Uncle?" Cheng graciously made space.
"A game?" Ke Jun's expression froze.
"What's wrong, Uncle? Don't you like watching games?"
"Oh no, not at all, I love watching games," Ke Jun replied hastily, trying to appear affable to someone else's child but strict with his own. Despite a momentary pause, he quickly approached with a smile.
Watching the scene unfold, Ke Jin felt like his CPU was about to overheat.
Anxiously trying to think of a way to handle the situation,
Suddenly,
Aunt Zhou stepped forward, snatched the phone from her son, and quickly pocketed it with a hint of anger, "You're at the age to be studying, and all you do is indulge in these games, these short videos. Aren't you supposed to study? And when you're a guest at someone's house, you should offer to help!"
"Now off you go, help your auntie in the kitchen with picking the vegetables," she ordered.
"Oh..." Cheng sullenly puckered his lips and headed for the kitchen.
Since Aunt Zhou was disciplining her child, Ke Jun didn't feel it was his place to say anything.
Ke Jin, however, felt like bowing down to Aunt Zhou in his heart.
Aunt Zhou, you're my hero!
So what if she loves to stretch the truth?
It's no big deal! Who doesn't have their moments of glory?
But Aunt Zhou's next words completely fried Ke Jin's CPU.
"Kids should have some relaxation time, let him watch others play a game for a while," Ke Jun had just spoken.
When they heard Aunt Zhou say, "Old Ke, you don't know. The game that child was just watching was made by a cousin from my maternal family."
"Huh?" Ke Jin was dumbfounded.
Wait, I have that kind of connection?
"What do you mean 'huh'? Go on, go pour some tea for your Aunt Zhou!" Ke Jun glared at his son, clearly irritated.
As Ke Jin poured the tea, he eavesdropped and heard Aunt Zhou continue.
"This game has been really hot lately, even I, who know nothing about this Thunderbolt website, have heard about it. My son told me, and that's when I realized—it's made by someone... oh you know, Ke, you wouldn't know him anyway, and then I called him..." Aunt Zhou began to spin a tale out of nowhere.