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Her stomach growled, the sound echoing through the live stream. For a moment the room went quiet. Then a flood of comments buried the camera.
Earlier, someone with too much time on their hands had spread the news across various chat groups that a wild Qinglin had been caught, drawing a huge crowd into the stream. By now the viewer count had already reached over 120,000.
The dense comments and constant gift notifications dazzled Guan’er. Bai Ling was so flustered she wanted to crawl under the table.
It couldn’t be helped. After that stunning appearance at the comic convention, Qinglin had vanished into thin air. No streams, no posts, not even updates. People had started to wonder if she’d quit the internet for good.
She had heaven-sent traffic delivered to her door and didn’t take it. No, it wasn’t that she couldn’t take it. She just wouldn’t.
A normal person riding that kind of heat would immediately start streaming, build an account, and rake in money in three steps. At the very least they’d sign with an MCN or a guild and let them package and market them hard. Then they wouldn’t have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of their life. They might even make it to the big stage.
This girl, though, treated everyone to nearly half a month of disappearing from the face of the earth.
Her starving fans had no choice. They asked around for any trace of her, leaving tomb-sweeping visits in her comment sections and under old posts every few days.
That video of Qinglin’s convention performance was analyzed frame by frame over and over. Bloggers riding the trend were about to ride it all the way into the Top 100.
The original video was passed around by these fans like a pair of collectible walnuts, handled until it had developed a patina.
So when they heard someone had spotted a wild Qinglin in Guan’er’s stream, they all rushed in at once. Some even opened a Governor subscription just so Guan’er would move the camera closer.
The sudden surge of traffic left even the streaming section’s operators at a loss. A mid-tier streamer who usually had one or two hundred regulars, how did over a hundred thousand people pour in within minutes?
Confused or not, they couldn’t pass up this suddenly exploding traffic. They quickly hung it on the homepage banner.
Then even more people poured in. Guan’er no longer knew how to handle it.
Her stream used to be so empty that she could remember every viewer’s ID. Even if they changed their name and avatar, she could click into their profile and figure out who they were.
She loved the feeling of being a streamer. She would earnestly and enthusiastically welcome every viewer who entered. But…
Watching the entry notifications scroll beneath the comment box like F1 tires, Guan’er knew that even if she grew eighteen more mouths, she couldn’t welcome them all.
She couldn’t even thank them for the gifts fast enough!
“Mrs. Qinglin is hungry! Get her something to eat!” The guy who had opened a Governor subscription to make Guan’er move the camera closer renewed for another month. Afraid his comment would get lost in the flood, he spent a few thousand more on a Super Chat.
Guan’er snapped awake and started patting herself down. She finally found the snack she’d brought that morning on the makeup table nearby. It was a small bread roll worth two yuan.
Admittedly, this rich guy’s thought process was truly strange. He spent tens of thousands just so Qinglin could eat a two-yuan bread roll.
“Um, if you’re hungry, I have bread here…” Guan’er awkwardly held out the small bread, afraid that giving Qinglin a two-yuan bread roll would make the stream’s furious fans climb through the internet to eat her alive.
“Oh, thanks.” The makeup artist finally finished her lip makeup. Bai Ling could finally open her mouth to speak. As she took the bread, the phone on the dressing table suddenly buzzed.
– @Qinglin Start streaming now!
Messages like this flooded several fan groups. Even the newly bought latest tri-fold phone couldn’t handle these idiots spamming the screen. It froze for several seconds.
The one called Ye Yuan was the loudest, contributing at least several hundred +1 messages alone.
What was wrong with these people?
– Admin has muted everyone.
– Qinglin: No. Goodbye!
Bai Ling angrily bit into the bread. Someone who got nervous around strangers like her did not want to start a stream and stare awkwardly at fans with nothing to say.
But she had no idea that her cute, angry bread-biting was all being watched by everyone in Guan’er’s stream.
“Cute, handsome, and strong. She even draws comics!”
“Marry me!”
The comments exploded again.
But Guan’er’s mind was no longer on the stream or the comments. Her guild operator’s messages were making her backup phone buzz nonstop.
– Grab the traffic! Grab the traffic!
This operator guy usually only came online after twelve to follow the stream. That was how the industry worked. Prime time started at six in the evening. Morning and noon traffic was actually pretty low.
Only people like Guan’er chose to stream in the morning. Morning traffic was low, but so was the number of streamers. For new and small streamers, splitting the uncontested morning traffic was clearly more worthwhile than fighting big streamers at night.
But it wasn’t even ten yet. How was this guy already awake? Didn’t he start work at twelve? Wasn’t he completely missing from two in the morning to noon?
Clearly, this guy had been jolted awake by a call from the operations director. The moment he woke up he saw the heaven-sent traffic. Not 120,000 views. 120,000 concurrent viewers!
No, by now it had soared to 200,000.
He still hadn’t figured out how the traffic had suddenly exploded, but his instincts as a stream operator made him immediately remind his streamer: “Grab the traffic! Get Captains, Admirals, Governors!”
“But everyone in my stream is here for Qinglin. Isn’t it a bit wrong to fleece them like this?” Guan’er typed back quickly.
The heaven-sent traffic did overwhelm her, and the viewer count was still exploding exponentially, but all of it belonged to the girl in front of her, nibbling bread like a hamster. Riding her traffic like this made Guan’er’s conscience uneasy.
“Qinglin?! That Qinglin?!”
The operator guy replied quickly. Clearly he also knew Qinglin’s name.
“Quick, quick, get me an autograph!”
“?”
“Ahem, so, could you ask Qinglin if she’s interested in joining our guild?”
“¿”
“Don’t push it too far!” Guan’er sent two replies in a row.
Qinglin had never streamed before. That made it clear the girl had no intention of eating from this bowl.
But this farce soon reached its end… right?
No, it was more like an upgrade.
Bai Ling, completely unaware of the storm in the stream and in Guan’er’s heart, finished her bread under the witness of two hundred thousand people. She had just changed into her cosplay outfit and stepped out of the changing room when a camera that looked very expensive was shoved right in her face.
“Qinglin! Look here! Smile!” The guy carrying the camera was dead serious, as if he were shooting a work of art.
If Fatty were here, he probably would have recognized this guy. He was the same one who had used professional equipment to film Bai Ling and Gu Xiyan’s entire performance last time.
With clarity and professional camera work that crushed the other phone shooters, this guy had racked up tens of millions of views with just that one video. By year’s end, he probably had a spot in the Top 100.
Bai Ling was stunned.
What was going on?!
The excitement doesn't stop here! If you enjoyed this, you’ll adore The Dragon’s Song Echoing in the Heavens. Start reading now!
Read : The Dragon’s Song Echoing in the Heavens
