MGSFV?! Chapter 526: A Fierce Tease; Jade Soup with Pearls—Bring Your Own
[What? What??]
Everyone realized they'd just caught a glimpse of something big.
But before they could take a closer look...
That stream-exclusive surprise clip ended—abruptly—right after that tantalizing glimpse.
Same rhythm as the earlier PV.
All about ending suddenly, leaving your heart itching.
[...] *N
Naturally, a flood of ellipses swept across the stream chat.
[So… that PV didn't tease hard enough, so you aired a second clip to double the tease and create a "1 + 1 > 2" effect?]
[Someone: TEASE THEM HARD. ()]
[What was that? I couldn't even see clearly! Director! Replay it!]
Seeing the barrage of requests in chat—
Elysia instinctively glanced toward the edge of the livestream area, her gaze drifting past Hokuto, who was "smiling" as he read the comments.
Hokuto, sensing her look, turned and locked eyes with her.
A moment passed.
Hokuto gave a slight nod… signaling: Got it.
Then…
Down-down-up-up, left-left-right-right, back-back-front-front… an elaborate hand gesture sequence.
You just reversed your previous gesture sequence! (not really)
Ahem.
Anyway—what did it mean?
It meant exactly what it looked like: That was the effect he wanted. Of course there'd be no replay.
Elysia: …
Elysia: Yep, that's totally something Mr. "Otto" would do. Not surprising at all.
But—
You've got your clever tricks, and we've got our own.
Even if Hokuto had no intention of replaying it, the players had solutions of their own.
[Relax, I already recorded the screen. Gonna work overtime and drop a frame-by-frame breakdown.]
[Really?!]
[If it's true, it can't be false; if it's false, it can't be true.]
[I'm ready to smash that triple-like button!]
...
"All right, all right—let's move on to the next segment..."
Elysia skillfully redirected the flow of the stream while checking the original schedule.
"Hmm..."
Today's story update was done, and they'd just finished watching the PV.
So next up was...
Time to join up with Mei and Kiana and—
"..."
She paused mid-thought and glanced at the empty seat to her right.
Kiana hadn't returned yet.
So, after thinking a bit, she said to Mei: "Why don't we just chat for a while until Kiana comes back? Then we'll move on."
"...That sounds good."
Mei nodded lightly, then after a pause, asked, "So what should we talk about?"
"Let me think..."
Elysia looked contemplative. There were many things she wanted to talk about with Mei—but not many of them were suitable for a stream.
A livestream needed entertaining content—it's not like—
You could just have a heartfelt dinner convo with a friend and expect viewers to enjoy watching it.
For example...
Elysia: Mei, what do you want to eat tonight?
Mei: Something light.
Elysia: Jade soup with pearls?
Mei: Sure.
That kind of banter might be great in real life, like on the way to a restaurant.
But on stream? Absolutely not.
Elysia, being a veteran streamer, knew this well.
Unless—
Unless your dinner conversation is so funny it's like a comedy skit.
For example—
Elysia: Mei, what do you want to eat tonight?
Mei: Something light.
Elysia: Jade soup with pearls?
Mei: Hmm? Hokuto told you about jade soup with pearls? That's not on the miHoYo cafeteria menu.
Elysia: Huh? What do you mean?
Mei: …He once "joked" that miHoYo only serves jade soup without pearls.
Elysia: What about the pearls?
Mei: …Players must bring their own.
Elysia: ...
If it went like that—even just talking about dinner—viewers would probably love it.
But...
Being interesting isn't hard. Being interesting all the time, on-demand, every minute?
That's a bit harder.
It takes some inspiration—and a little luck.
And clearly, that wasn't the case right now.
At least, Elysia hadn't thought of anything that would make people smile.
So...
"Kinda at a loss right now..."
...
[Miss Fairy's trying to figure out how to kill time? (doge)]
[Wouldn't streaming under miHoYo's official channel be paid per session, not by time? (serious.jpg)]
["Kill time" is just a general phrase.]
[Honestly, anything Miss Fairy and Mei talk about is pretty entertaining. ()]
[If really stuck, why not do a quick Q&A? Let the audience ask questions.]
"Hm?"
"Answering random viewer questions... that's actually not bad."
Elysia read some of the comments, visibly intrigued.
As they say, two heads are better than one. A room full of brains even more so. Ancient wisdom, never wrong.
"Mei, what do you think?"
"I'm fine with that, but..."
Mei nodded—then subtly glanced at Elysia to signal something.
A quiet reminder: Don't pick just any question—some need to be filtered.
Ever since the day she first joined Elysia's stream to help promote Honkai Impact 3rd...
Back then, Mei wasn't even sure the game would be a hit.
Game quality is important—but quality only ensures the floor. Whether it becomes popular depends on many other factors.
Like... let's just say, the mystical force of luck.
That first boost from Elysia's promotion really made a difference.
Now it's mutual benefit, of course.
Ahem—off track.
Point is: since then, Mei had appeared on Elysia's stream quite a few times.
She knew that "everyone" could be absolutely shameless—asking all kinds of bizarre questions.
So she gave Elysia a quiet heads-up.
She definitely didn't want to answer anything too weird.
"Oh, oh..."
Elysia nodded repeatedly—clearly got the message.
Then she said: "All right! Let's see those questions, everyone—go wild!"
With that—
The stream chat exploded.
[We really get to ask?!]
[Miss Fairy said so—why would she lie? But... anything goes?]
[I think you guys shouldn't go overboard. I don't want to see cursed questions pop up in chat.]
Clearly, many viewers shared Mei's "concern."
[Relax, relax.]
But... can we really relax?
[Honkai Impact 3rd has weathered storms for years—I've always wondered, why did miHoYo decide to make an action game like this to begin with?]
Surprisingly serious?
[I want to know how Mei felt after Elysia stole her horns.]
[Can Mei and Miss Fairy do a 3D reenactment of that scene from earlier? You know... that one (you know.jpg)]
So much for seriousness being the norm...
[Can we change the Hyperion's food pack back? Mei's back on the team—why can't we change it? I'm sick of bitter melon juice.]
[You can puke from bitter melon juice? (Academy Head Theresa angry.jpg) Though yeah, I did puke.]
[But Mei isn't the Rice Cooker anymore ()]
[Yeah, yeah, I get all that. But how am I supposed to accept that bitter melon juice is our only stamina item?!]
[I can't take it anymore—I'm marching on miHoYo HQ!]
...
Mei: …
As expected—but still, she didn't expect that almost none of the comments would be serious...
So she was slightly speechless.
Elysia, though? Total pro. Unshaken.
She smoothly skipped the wildly unserious questions and picked a few reasonable ones.
"Hmm... I'm also curious whether stamina recovery will ever change back. Always drinking bitter melon juice... feels a bit monotonous, right?"
Mei: "..."
That sort of change would actually be simple—barely extra workload.
But the real question was whether Hokuto felt like changing it.
Still...
Between us—he seemed to be enjoying... ahem, better not roast the boss in your head.
Hokuto: First of all, I must declare—Mei, your assumption is completely wrong.
Mei: So... you're planning to change it?
"I'm not sure," she replied on-stream. "If we're optimistic, maybe the boss already has plans."
"Mmm... fair point. The story's had major changes—Mr. 'Otto' deciding to tweak some in-game details would be pretty reasonable."
Elysia felt it might be worth hoping.
[Reasonable. I mean, Hokuto clearly has OCD.]
[Now I feel reassured. Maybe we can finally say goodbye to Theresa's bitter melon juice (excited.jpg)]
[But what if even after ditching bitter melon juice, he replaces it with something even worse?]
[...Hopefully, maybe, probably, possibly—not that bad?]
Whether it really won't be that bad... time will tell.
...
Now Elysia picked the second question.
"Why did miHoYo decide to make an action game like Honkai Impact 3rd in the first place?"
That surprisingly serious question from earlier.
If you really want to get picked—don't go wild at times like this. Seriousness wins (confirmed.jpg).
"Hmm..."
Mei paused thoughtfully. It wasn't that she didn't know the answer—or that it involved any NDA-level info.
Just...
Explaining it properly would take a long time—even the short version was long.
"If it's inconvenient..." Elysia offered sympathetically.
"It's not," Mei shook her head. "The reason miHoYo made Honkai Impact 3rd—it was completely the boss's idea. Without his persistence, it probably wouldn't exist."
"Huh?"
Elysia blinked, voicing the question on everyone's mind: "But... didn't the characters already exist as your counterparts from the start?"
Kiana, Mei, Bronya—the Big Three of Honkai Impact 3rd.
And now we find out their real-life counterparts weren't even directly tied to the game's birth?
That was a bit of a shock.
Of course, there was some indirect connection. Without seeing Kiana and the others, Hokuto might never have fully committed to making Honkai—cheat code or not.
But he never told anyone else those inner thoughts. So naturally, they wouldn't know.
Hence, Mei's perspective was a bit... unexpected.
"Well..."
After thinking for a bit, Mei turned her gaze aside and gave her take on the whole thing.
"Probably to save money. Back then, miHoYo was really strapped for cash. We had to cobble it together—whether it would work or not."
"..."
Elysia froze slightly. "So the story began... like that?"
"Uh... yeah, kind of mundane, right?"
Mei added quickly: "But even though the start was down-to-earth... how should I put this..."
"How should you put it?" Elysia urged her on.
"Well..."
Mei recalled those distant days. "You've been with us at miHoYo for a long time—before the boss even showed up... So you know—before Honkai Impact 3rd, miHoYo had never made a 3D action game. We had zero tech foundation."
"So suddenly going all in on a 3D action game—and if it flopped, miHoYo might've been done for... Facing that reality, of course we were nervous."
"...Yeah." Elysia thought carefully, then nodded lightly.
"So, we went to the boss and asked if we should maybe start with something simpler... a safer project. Want to guess what he said?"
"Mr. 'Otto's' response?" Elysia pondered. "Honestly, I've never been able to fully predict his decisions. But this time... I think he told you all to go for it, didn't he?"
"Yeah... He said: 'If you really want to switch projects, I'll support you. But—'"
"'Don't you want to make something cooler?'"
Like this story Leave a review ; it would really help me out a lot.
Want to Read Ahead in Advance?
Join my Patreon!
+75 Chapters
Support me in
Patreon.com/BestElysium