Chapter 146 - Live Broadcast
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
Hudi shivered. He trembled as he handed over the terminal so that the other party could scan the code.
For a moment, even though the other party was wearing the program’s sungla.s.ses, mask, and t-shirt, Hudi didn’t think that he was another guest contestant from .
The man’s presence was too powerful. He gave the sense that he was clearing the scene just by standing there in the crowd. Beneath the sungla.s.ses, his facial features were sharp and angular, and his back was as straight and strong as a knife.
Zhuang Fan stretched his head out to take a look and smiled happily, “Thank you. Our team 12 and team 22 are brothers for life. Fellow brother, thank you for supporting Little Witch––Little Witch, Little Witch, come here!”
On the other side, Wu Jin was once again reading out the advertis.e.m.e.nt in front of the camera, “White’s Hot Pot, Blue Moon Bay building 67, mushroom soup base…”
Wu Jin exclaimed when he heard Zhuang Fan, his gaze darting quickly towards his captain. When he saw who had come over, he couldn’t help his movements from turning a little excited. The small curls beneath the baseball cap fluttered in the breeze as he looked over, then darted his gaze away, his small round face incomparably serious as he said thank you.
Wu Jin had just finished dancing. His t-shirt was damp with sweat, and people were unable to move their gazes away from where he was sitting there lazily on the steps.
Wei Shi’s expression couldn’t be seen beneath his sungla.s.ses. He lit up his terminal, while Hudi, who was closest to him, sniffed the air. The air seemed to be filled with the scent of sulfur and smoke…
Wei Shi withdrew 500 points from his terminal.
“!!!” Everyone from team 12 froze.
How was this anything like helping out the poor?
This was simply like having a domineering president smashing down 5 million onto team 12’s faces and taking away their little dancer––
In the surrounding area, the camera operator that was following Contestant Wei fell into a daze.
In the Snow Leopard Entertainment building, the backstage of , the stage manager ran off anxiously to find the director, “Um, are transfers between players permitted in the rules?”
The director was caught off guard, “Transfer? Wait a minute, 6000 credits? Where did he get so many credits?! Is money so easy to make these days? He wants to transfer 500 credits? No, we can’t let him transfer––”
One second before the 500 credits could be transferred, Wei Shi and Hudi’s terminals beeped at the same time.
“……” Hudi was stunned. Team 12’s team captain Zhuang Fan was the first one to protest, “Hey hey hey, the rules didn’t say that you couldn’t do transfers in the beginning!”
At this time, the 500 credits had already been withdrawn from Wei Shi’s terminal. The man was expressionless as he reduced the amount for the transfer. 300 credits. The crew gave another warning. 100 credits––
The donation was accepted.
Wu Jin breathed a sigh of relief. They needed 1000 credits to finish the task. Transferring one tenth of the total as a donation was within the scope of not destroying the game’s balance, but the big boss had withdrawn an extra 400 credits. He wondered if it could be returned…
Wei Shi waved towards the side of the road.
The retail robot who’d been watching the crowd, noticed this summons and ran over to the waving rich man. These retail robots were similar to the vending machines from centuries ago, but they had legs and could move around. They were well stocked and could provide a full set of products, ranging from fresh drinks to drugs and condoms.
‘Rich man’ Wei casually used the remaining 400 credits and placed an order.
The retail robot stopped just short of sending out red hearts from its eyes. 400 credits was almost equivalent to all the profit it made in an entire day! Moreover, this rich man had only placed one order, and everything extra was considered a tip––
The robot immediately became extremely attentive as it pulled out the goods from the storage area behind it.
A delicate and tender champagne rose still stained with morning dew.
There was the buzzing of an electric current as the robot carefully trimmed the rose and handed it to Wei Shi.
The man walked straight over to Wu Jin.
Team 12 exploded instantly!
Zhuang Fan murmured, “This-where did this man come from? He really can play––which entertainment company came up with this kind of new character design??”
He was in a trance, “His aura is powerful. How come I can smell firearms on him? Is this really a trainee? He seems more like the mercenaries on TV––”
Wei Shi handed the rose to Wu Jin. The sharp thorns on the flower stem were unable to cut into the palms covered in gun calluses.
The cameras buzzed as they flew up. At this time, not only team 12, but even the members of team 6 who’d just admitted defeat in the dance battle were all staring at Wei Shi. Unlike Wu Jin, who didn’t appear aggressive most of the time, team 22’s rich tyrant who’d come here to donate a reward was so aggressive that he’d basically drawn all the attention from the cameras that had managed to follow him within one minutek2013;k2013;
There was n.o.body like this across the entire Azure entertainment industry. This person seemed to have been born superior. If he made a debut, he would instantly become popular. If he was a trainee, then he was a strong opponent for everyone else currently in the field.
“!!!” Wu Jin nearly tripped as he accepted the rose.
Wei Shi ordered, “Put your clothes on properly.”
Wu Jin quickly pulled on his jacket.
Wei Shi nodded, then turned to go.
After Wei Shi left, everyone from team 12 swarmed around Wu Jin, “Isn’t it a bit too exaggerated? Giving money and buying a rose just to say a single sentence?”, “Little Witch, do you guys know each other?!”
Wu Jin nodded repeatedly.
“Same group?”
Wu Jin immediately shook his head.
Zhuang Fan seemed to suddenly understand something and was struck dumb with awe, “Which entertainment company are you two from? You’re both hidden so deeply. You and that brother just now are both S-level, right? I haven’t heard a single word about it. This will hit the headlines when you make your debut––”
However, Chen Shao was able to grasp the point, “You’re not from the entertainment circle, right? Little Witch even has a scar on his body…”
Zhuang Fan pointed at Wu Jin, “A survival show trainee? Little Witch and that brother just now can both make a living based on their appearances alone. Why would they go and fight for their lives in a survival show?!”
Chen Shao: “Weren’t they wearing sungla.s.ses just now? How can you tell?”
Zhuang Fan: “Based on his bones, his bone structure!”
Hudi, who’d been very active earlier, suddenly began to tremble and quiver. “Just now, when that player pa.s.sed by, I seemed to smell the scent of sulfur around him. Say, how did he manage to make 6000 credits in one morning? This isn’t something that an ordinary person can achieve…”
Wu Jin hastened to help the big boss explain, “No, no, no! Don’t worry, there’s a shooting range over there. They probably held a shooting compet.i.tion for the weekend.”
Everyone looked across the street. There was a crowd gathered around the shooting entertainment venue. They all showed respect when the big boss pa.s.sed by, and at the entrance, Ming Yao could be seen hollering loudly, “Doesn’t the bonus acc.u.mulate? Why was it only 12 credits?”
The owner retorted, “It does acc.u.mulate, but just now, someone came and won our prize pool for the entire week! Here, it was him. If you aren’t convinced, then find him and duel it out!”
The fountain square.
Eagle Blade gave Wu Jin a tiny nod, and then turned to lead his team away without looking back. Team 12 continued to work hard for the task.
The team’s performance soared after they were able to use the music from the fountain as an accompaniment––however, just as they neared their goal of 1000 credits, Eagle Blade’s team 6 was ultimately still one step faster than team 12.
“They had a better starting point.” Zhuang Fan comforted the team, “They already had a few hundred credits before we came!”
After Hudi’s credit collection reached 900, Lolo, who’d been playing virtual games all morning, came back. The group’s total finally reached 1100.
“Please complete the second half of the round of tasks. Log in to the livestream room allocated by the system and obtain 100,000 traffic popularity within one hour.”
“……” The team was about to explode, “100,000? 100,000?!?! There’s only one hour?!”
Wu Jin almost dropped the rose. It wasn’t easy for a small broadcast anchor to acc.u.mulate 100 views. Even if there had been a population explosion in the 31st century, how could they acc.u.mulate 100,000 so quickly?
To one side, Lolo, whose hand speed was the fastest within the team, had already input the pa.s.sword for their live studio account. The name for the studio that the program group had a.s.signed team 12 was nothing but a long string of random letters and numbers. The livestream name could be changed, but the profile picture, which showed Snow Leopard Entertainment’s logo, couldn’t be modified.
Number of people in the live stream room: 0.
Zhuang Fan turned serious, “We’ll first explore the situation. See how our opponents are doing.”
Lolo quickly exited the page. It seemed that the live broadcast was still new, and there were singers, dancers, and game experts at the top of the list. Zhuang Fan glanced at the room names for several anchors and changed the name for their live broadcast room to: ‘Behind the scenes of a potential boy group’.
Number of people in the live stream room: 1.
The five of them all smiled slightly to greet the newcomer.
Number of people in the live stream room: 0.
Zhuang Fan instantly broke out in a frenzy. He thought about how team 22 and team 6 were both broadcasting at the same time and was once again spirited. He renamed the studio again: ‘Click me~ Little sisters~ Click me click me~’.
Number of people in the live stream room: 0.
Wu Jin reminded him, “It might be too direct.”
At this moment, their watches rang out again. Five other teams had completed the first round of the task and were now in the second round. At the same time, team 22 had taken the lead and had already completely finished the task––
All of them froze for a moment, then they quickly entered the home page for the live broadcast website. They were surprised to see that in the top 50 list, there was a room with a t.i.tle that was just a series of random letters and numbers whose popularity had just hit 100,000. There was nothing but empty ident.i.ties in the room, and their IDs were messy and strange.
“What’s this?!” Zhuang Fan’s expression was incredulous.
“Contracted accounts.” Wu Jin suddenly thought of something. Before, he’d shared a dorm with Thin Fire, who was very clear about the live broadcasting circle. Thin Fire had told Wu Jin that on live broadcasting platforms, the flow for large anchors was usually exaggerated. There were workshops that specialized in opening up thousands of accounts to idle in rooms and create popularity. Those were the so-called ‘contracted accounts’.
The big boss had completed the second round of the task, but he probably hadn’t even shown his face. He directly rented 100,000 contracted accounts using the 6000 credits they’d earned in the first round––
Wu Jin fell silent. The big boss was very eager to win the variety show! No, that wasn’t it. The top two teams could battle other teams. The big boss probably didn’t want to be picked to solo for dancing… Wu Jin was distracted for a moment as his brain came up with the scene of the big boss dancing in the street. He was interrupted when the terminal beeped again.
Team 6 had completed their task and had been promoted successfully.
Zhuang Fan was stunned, “What did they do? It’s been less than 15 minutes. Although Eagle Blade is popular, he can’t take off his mask and sungla.s.ses––”
Wu Jin suddenly thought of something and repeated the rule, “It costs 100 credits for any team member to remove their mask, and 200 credits for sungla.s.ses.”
Four gazes suddenly sped over to look at Wu Jin.
Wu Jin took two steps back, “What are you looking at me for!”
Zhuang Fan didn’t hesitate to send 300 credits to the program group, “Take it off! Take off your mask and sungla.s.ses for our team!” After that, he quickly pulled off Wu Jin’s sungla.s.ses and mask and changed the name of the studio: ‘Let’s all watch the beautiful youth with the round face’.
Wu Jin: “……”
Number of people in the live stream room: 2.
Three seconds later, the number of people in the room: 5.
Hudi was delighted, “Change the name to something more eye-catching!”
Zhuang Fan: ‘Surprise! In Azure’s public square, a beautiful youth with a round face did this…’
Number of people in the live stream room: 79.
Wu Jin: “……”
Zhuang Fan continued to change the name: ‘Surprise! These kinds of things can even be done to the beautiful youth in the studio in broad daylight…’.
Wu Jin was going crazy, “Will we get banned?”
In the live broadcast, there were visitors actively typing and talking, “Wow, I originally just wanted to stop by and tear into it, but there really is a beautiful youth in here! Summoning @friend group. Also, the cool guy beside him, can you take off your sungla.s.ses?”
Zhuang Fan’s expression was cool, “When the popularity reaches 1000.”
Hudi and Chen Shao who were to the side all jumped to enter the camera. Even Lolo was pulled in, and the audience was soon very motivated, calling in their friends and chattering at Wu Jin.
“So cute, wuwuwu!”, “Is this beauty really something that exists in this world?!!”, “Little brother, are you an artist? I feel like I can eat two more bites of lunch when looking at this face––”, “Who gave you the rose? I’m so jealous wuwu! This darling wants to give you 99 flowers!”
Wu Jin: “……”
Inspiration struck Zhuang Fan. He asked his teammates, “Are you guys hungry? Do you want to have lunch?”
The four hungry teammates all nodded together.
A few minutes later, the traffic flow finally soared to 1000. Zhuang Fan kept his promise and removed his sungla.s.ses, and activity in the studio surged again. The captain of team 12 bought them hot and steamy chopped meat buns, and then aimed the camera at Wu Jin.
Wu Jin opened his mouth and gnawed at the bun.
Zhuang Fan instructed him in a whisper, “Eat s.e.xily.”
Wu Jin frowned and gnawed some more.
Zhuang Fan: “… Be more seductive.”
Wu Jin opened his amber eyes wide and gnawed at the bun.
“……” Zhuang Fan felt like he was bullying Wu Jin and explained patiently, “We have to find a selling point. The popularity is only at 3900 right now, and we’re still quite a way away from 100,000. There’s no helping it; we aren’t Eagle Blade, and we don’t have several hundred thousand fans. We can only rely on our looks. How about I make some sacrifices, and we sell some rot…”
The public screen for the live broadcast suddenly updated. Someone was typing, “… Son?!”
The team didn’t pay attention to it at first, but then the public screen comments went by faster and faster, “Is it really… my son?! Ahhhhh mama actually found my darling Little Witch in a live broadcast room!”
Zhuang Fan was curious and gestured at Wu Jin, “Who is this?”
Wu Jin choked, then blushed and nodded to the audience.
The public screen fell silent.
Zhuang Fan: “? You scared her away?”
Crosson Show forums.
The moderator was still making an urgent announcement: “Everyone, please don’t visit the show without first organizing yourselves. Please learn from the fans of the boy groups next door. Special reminders: 1. Do not bring any simulation guns as props. Someone has already been fined by the city management. 2. Little Witch fans, please don’t gather together to sing karaoke; your fan group manager is stuck in a traffic jam and is currently riding a shared bicycle and making their way over. 3. Caesar fans, please do not organize a barbecue at the entrance of Snow Leopard Entertainment. You all clearly know that Caesar can’t eat it, and you guys are the only ones who can eat…”
A post suddenly appeared in the forums, “Live stream room 7039x.x.xXX882. You can watch Little Witch eating a bun. Come quickly!”
“There’s only half a bun left! You’ll miss it if you don’t come now!”
“Report––there’s only one third of the bun left!!”
At the edge of the public square.
After finishing the chopped meat bun, Zhuang Fan glanced at the studio and was almost shocked into throwing the paper wrapper.
Popularity 530,000.
The scrolling comments on the public screen had been flooded. It was as though a million troops had arrived––
“Little Witch wuwuwu––Go Little Witch wuwuwu––”
“Son, mama has come to see you––my son still looks so handsome eating a bun wuwuwu––”
“Go, Little Witch––Scarf girls, charge––”
Zhuang Fan: “……”
Zhuang Fan: “!!!”
Zhuang Fan looked at Wu Jin in shock, “Why do you have so many fans…”
“No way, your fan count might be higher than that of our company’s lead dancer!!!”
Hudi was also startled.
Only Lolo, who had quick eyes and hand speed, swept through the audience’s comments in the public screen and read out in a curious tone:
“White Moonlight’s cutest a.s.sault position!”, “To be your shotgun, to be your knight’s sword, hoping you can kill all the demons in the sky, may you be young forever––”, “From the start of the Crosson Show until the end of infinity––”
“Kiss, mama loves Little Witch the most, my little war G.o.d, may you head to the vast stars and be crowned with the League Championship Cup.”
Hudi paused for a full five seconds, and then spoke incredulously, “Crosson Show, I’ve heard of this. Brother Wu, are you really-really a survival show trainee???”
Juurensha: Mama fans unite!
xiin: finally! they believe that he’s a survival show contestant! bada.s.s, Little Witch!
pst, guys, there’s a CG giveaway event going on right now!
there’s three separate contests: fanart contest, fanfic contest, and a random draw~ the prizes are free nitro subscriptions (for discord), and you can check out the details here!