“We’re only just getting started and yet the livestream server is already crashing from high traffic?
“Damn it, how painless could this be?
“Pooh!
“Has the bandwidth actually been increased?” Wang Jianhao wondered.
His forehead was already covered in sweat due to anxiety and he was dying to call the technical department right away to give them a piece of his mind.
Fortunately, today’s competition was a key project for the livestream platform and thus, the colleagues from the technical department were already prepared for the match and the problem was quickly resolved within less than 10 seconds.
With how well received the livestream was, it was obvious that their backup plan could no longer address the actual situation.
Thus, CEO Wang could only order them his employees to limit the frequency which one could send out live comments from one comment per second to one comment every 10 seconds with the exclusion of coloured live comments that users had to pay to be featured.
Along with the change in status came a flood of complaints in the livestream server.
However, as long as the paying viewers did not complain about the change in mechanisms, nobody could be bothered about the objections of the non-paying audiences.
The livestream resumed quickly.
The tiny change did not affect everyone’s mood and on the contrary, the guests who were on set watching the event grew increasingly excited and clicked their tongues in awe.
“Gosh, it seems like the server is down due to high traffic,” someone remarked.
“It’s just one of the livestream servers,” another replied.
“That’s still pretty amazing, isn’t it? Didn’t CEO Wang said before that we should focus on protecting key servers or something?” a third person chimed in.
“I suppose they didn’t do a good job then,” another person concluded.
“You have to admit that they are pretty popular. CEO Zhang and CEO Li, your business seems to be doing really well. You guys are making a lot of money,” someone noted.
“Hahaha. We have to congratulate you as well. I’m your partner while you are the advertiser so if I make money, then you’ll be making money as well.”
“CEO Wang is so young and promising… Tsk tsk!”
“He’s still a young man after all. Hands down to him when it comes to the execution of new and creative gimmicks.”
“CEO Li, the models of Beauty Ko are all young and beautiful so why didn’t you jump on the bandwagon and do some livestream? I think it’s very profitable!”
CEO Li flashed them a reserved smile before replying, “At the moment, we do not have plans to shift from offline to online. We’re too busy with all kinds of exhibitions, studio shoots, advertisements and film projects. Livestreaming is merely one form of business model and it is too reliant on the element of luck, so it’s not worth considering for the time being.”
Simply put, Beauty Ko looked down on livestreaming.
The mistress of ceremonies who were seated at their table took one glance at CEO Li when they heard this remark but quickly focused back on the projector screen in the hall.
Wang Yan, too, heard CEO Li’s comments and laughed it off.
“So Beauty Ko looks down on livestreaming?
“Sure!
“I’ll be waiting for you at the peak by the time you finally see the value in livestreaming!” he thought.
…
There were finally lesser live comments on the livestream server, but viewers could still barely manage to see the human figures on their screens.
Employees of the livestream platform who were present on set had no choice but to hide the live comments so that everyone could clearly see what was happening during the livestream.
There weren’t many complaints in public livestream servers, for the livestream was filmed in a panoramic view and it was hard to see the details clearly.
However, things were much livelier in the livestream anchors’ private livestream servers.
The fans began to compete to help their respective anchors to move up the rankings.
A rich fan led a team to send out rockets, which were e-gifts that were convertible to cash, consistently so as to constantly unlock the treasure chests in the livestream server.
Meanwhile, ordinary fans would each select a type of gift to populate the live chat with and it was such an exciting sight to behold.
Miss He simply ate two mouthfuls of icecream and commented that it wasn’t too bad before she became caught up with using her phone.
“Wang Yan, Wang Yan, when is it my turn to make an appearance?”
Young Master Wang couldn’t decide if he should laugh or cry when he heard her question and simply took her phone away and locked it before he gave her some shrimp meat.
“Enjoy your meal. What’s the hurry? The Boss level characters only make a move in the later stages of the action. Have your fill first,” he replied.
“Okay,” He Miaomiao agreed obediently.
She then stared down at the shrimp meat before her.
After taking a bite, she immediately placed her chopsticks down.
“Oh my god, the sensation of eating spicy food right after having icecream is simply driving me crazy…”
Wang Yan agreed within his heart. It was a cold, mildly spicy and crazily sweet taste, which fulfilled all the conditions listed on the special card, but this certainly wasn’t an enjoyable feeling.
“F***, this is too exciting for our tastebuds.
“But I can’t indulge a child and allow her to be picky with her food.
“I still have to depend on you to eat a sufficient amount of food so that I could at least buy one character attribute.
“If the stick doesn’t work, then we ould always go with the carrot,” he concluded.
Young Master Wang then began to persuade her patiently, “You should still try to eat more even though it doesn’t taste good. We’re seated here not only for the sake of experiencing this, but also to cheer for our anchors. That’s why we have to show some form of resolve. You could always slow down your pace of eating.”
As Miss He was a sensible lady, she nodded and picked up the piece of shrimp again.
“You’re right. Things are harder for our anchors, so I’ll have to try my best to persevere until the end!” she declared.
“Such an obedient girl!” Wang Yan mused.
In high spirits, he then made her a promise on the spot, “I’ll go to the wholesale market for fruits after we’re back home and I’ll pick ten of the best fruits for you.”
“Really?” He Miaomiao exclaimed.
Her eyes instantly lit up.
“Yes,” Wang Yan assured and nodded. With a smile, he confirmed, “A man keeps his word.”
However, He Miaomiao suddenly exploded with anger, “My ass! You’re taking advantage of me again!”
“When did I?” Wang Yan rebutted and felt extremely aggrieved.
“Miss He, why is your train of thought so peculiar?
“The word ‘man’ could refer to a father or a brother, not just a woman’s husband.
“Besides, it’s just a joke and a normal person wouldn’t think of things that way.
“She has some sort of father complex, doesn’t she!” Wang Yan thought.
…
Da Gang quickly finished a box of icecream within a few seconds and gobbled down the lobster in two bites. Smacking his lips, he frowned and slammed his fists on the table abruptly.
“Brothers, we’ll certainly be crowned champion!”
Everyone was so stunned by his declaration that comments stopped flooding the live chat for a moment. But soon after, everyone questioned, “Bro, where did you get the courage to make such a claim?”
Da Gang replied confidently, “To be honest, my stomach began to hurt right after I finished one portion of this. I could tell that I’ll definitely s*** it out later. Not that I want to brag about this, but none of you can s*** better than me. Today, I’ll put my b***s at stake and go all out to claim the champion!”
“F***!” someone commented.
“Da Gang, could you not make the competition sound so dirty?” another wrote.
Not only the live chat flooded with comments of disgust, but even the other livestream anchors also began to throw him looks of disdain.
However, that was Da Gang’s way of doing things. He had always been clear with how he positioned himself and had never walked the conventional path.
There were also many viewers who relished jokes about poop and Da Gang’s declaration immediately drew out their excitement and made them spam him with rewards that helped him to shoot up in rankings.
Peach Blossom Qianqian commented, “Good job, Brother Gang! Remember to start the livestream while you’re at it. There are plenty of rockets to cheer you on while you s***!”
…
Picking up on the topic that Da Gang had started, Ling Ya quickly cheered the fans on in the livestream server, “Brothers, keep up with sending in those rockets. Let’s give Brother Gang a new nickname—S*** for nothing.”
Da Gang’s fans immediately roared with laughter and began to spam him with gifts like crazy.
When Mi Zi heard this, she quietly shifted herself further away from Da Gang.
One of the older guys then teased her in the live chat, “What’s wrong? Mi Zi, are you afraid that Da Gang will really s*** everything out?”
Mi Zi waved her hands in embarrassment and denied, “Why would I? That’s not true. Stop stirring s***.”
She appeared rather demented as she nodded and waved her hands simultaneously.
Amused, the fans laughed hysterically and began to chant out slogans as they competed to raise their idol’s rankings.
Ah Dai simply ate with a deadpan expression on his face and reacted to nothing.
“Are you worried that Brother Gang will win with his s***?” someone asked in the live chat.
However, Ah Dai merely looked up in confusion and blurted, “Huh?”
It was apparent that his reflex arc was miles away.
Sometime after a new topic was started, he then replied abruptly in a serious voice, “If Brother Gang was to take a dump upstairs, we’ll be able to smell the stench even if we’re a storey below.”
His young and middle-aged female fans instantly broke out into laughter.
These four food livestreamers could become popular precisely because each of them had their own unique style.
They either relied on their EQ or their personalities to win over fans. They were also good at cracking jokes, which served well in amusing the audience.
Wang Yan felt rather consoled as he observed how the livestreamers presented themselves to the audience with ease.
The four little newbies who used to tremble in fear as they gnaw away on crab meat had now developed into four popular livestreamers who were terrifyingly good at earning money. Not to mention that Wang Yan was also the one who had personally groomed them into who they were today. It gave him an intensely wonderful sense of satisfaction.
“Would they still choose this career path if it wasn’t for me?
“Would they be as popular as what they are now?
“Or would they spend their youth in mediocrity as they slog away at construction sites or private enterprises?” Wang Yan wondered.
Wang Yan believed that it wasn’t entirely impossible for them to make a name for themselves even without him. However, it was clear that their life trajectories had indeed changed because of him.
This wasn’t just a type of influence, but also a form of power.
The power of money was too great.
When used correctly, it could benefit many people, prevent many tragedies and illuminate many people’s lives.
During this process, one would also experience a great sense of satisfaction that was beneficial to one’s physical and emotional health.
“In the future, I’ll still continue to spend money happily and a crazy rich man who takes the unconventional path in life and who emits positivity,” he decided.
…
One and a half hours flew past within the blink of an eye while everyone ate and chatted.
Halfway through the competition, the atmosphere suddenly became intense on set.
The six livestreamers had begun to bicker with each other as they canvassed for votes.
Meanwhile, the fans had already finished eating within the one and a half hour and were lapping away at their icecream slowly. As all of them had nothing better to do, they were more than eager to jump into the fight between the livestreamers.
Previously, a rocket would be continuously sent out in the live chat of the livestreamers’ private server once every 10 seconds.
The livestreamers would receive around six rockets per minute, which could be converted to 3,000 yuan cash. After 90 minutes, even Ling Ya, who was ranked top, only had a total of over 300,000 yuan.
When the male fans joined in the fun, it suddenly raised the intensity of the competition to a different level.
A rocket was continuously sent out once every two to three seconds and paid banners began to flood the screen incessantly.
Paid banners were flashed across all of Fish’s servers and it served to announce that a particular person had sent a rocket to one of the livestreamers and to inform everyone that they could begin to snatch the treasure chest.
The banner would be shown in all of the livestreamers’ servers and upon clicking on it, the audience would automatically be directed to the server where the rocket was sent.
This was the best way to boost the popularity of the livestreamer.
However, now that banners were shown in all of the six livestreamers’ servers simultaneously and were positioned close to one another, it was impossible for anyone to read the specific message on each of the banners.
It would be entirely up to fate as to which livestream server one would be redirected to upon clicking on the banner.
This was a ploy for mutual destruction whereby neither party would be able to win any extra popularity votes.
Right now, nobody was willing to give in.
There were only five spots on the popularity list shown on the home page. The layout of the page gave more space to one of the four spots.
The biggest space was allocated to the public livestream server regardless of its actual popularity and this space allocation would not change before the end of today’s competition.
Thus, the six livestream anchors would have to fight for the remaining four spots.
Popularity was determined by the amount of e-gifts received as well as the actual viewer count. The calculation formula does not matter, for the more viewers there were and the more money they spent would equate to higher rankings for the anchor.
Being able to secure a position on the home page would lead to an endless stream of traffic.
This was the reason why it was necessary to fight for the spot.
One would also have to fight based on the number of rockets that they receive.
Because rockets could serve to redirect traffic from other anchors’ livestream servers and had nothing to do with the traffic that the anchors were getting from the home page.
When a particular anchor’s fans couldn’t continue to support him or her with rockets, that particular anchor’s popularity would be equally split among the remaining five livestreamers and he or she would have an even lower chance of making it to the popularity list on the home page.
In the long run, the strong would become stronger while the weak would become weaker and it would be difficult to turn the tables around.
Thus, everyone was determined to give all that they’ve got to put up a fierce, tactful fight.
The viewers had decided against spamming the rockets blindly to avoid the banners from overlapping with one another and the rockets were now consistently sent out once every second instead of once every two to three seconds to one second.
The fan base of Wangting Entertainment as well as Wangting Entertainment’s ability to mobilize its fans was not inferior to any of the old, established guilds. After all, they had poached the marketing director from another livestream platform called Waiwai.
Besides, half of the viewers were male fans who were fearless and easier to organize and activate.
But ultimately, money was still the key determining factor in a game like this that had clearly defined rules.
When it came down to the final hour, the rich fans finally became impatient over how the game was hanging in the balance.
“Xin Xin Xin sent Rabbit Doesn’t Eat Grass 200 rockets. Hurry up and snatch the treasure chest,” wrote one banner.
“To Think Thrice sent Ling Ya 200 rockets,” wrote another banner.
“Black Tiger Vanguard sent It’s Mi Zi 200 rockets.”
“I love coriander sent Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Eating Coriander 200 rockets.”
“Legendary Brother Iron Hand sent Rabbit Doesn’t Eat Grass 200 rockets.”
Every 200 rockets would cost 100,000 yuan and once the rich fans joined in the fight, the battle quickly intensified.
Ah Dai and Da Gang disappeared from the popularity list on the home page within seconds while Rabbit and Coriander quickly took over their position.
The fight between the male fans was far from over and many continued to spam the anchors with 200 rockets repeatedly.
Black Tiger casually sent out 200 rockets five times before he yelped strangely and became the first to withdraw from the fight.
“Bastards, you’re just a group of fools who are using money to exchange for favors. I can’t keep up with you anymore. Master Wang, remember to treat me to a meal later!”
Wang Jianhao face darkened when he saw the colorful paid banner that was flashed on the screen of the server.
“You’re the one who wanted to play along and yet you’re actually pulling out and making things difficult for us halfway through the game? What’s the meaning of this?” he thought.
However, as Black Tiger was a rich fan, the platform wouldn’t be able to do anything about him regardless of what he does.
Although Black Tiger had withdrawn from the battle, Mi Zi still managed to retain her position as the fourth on the home page’s popularity list with the extra 500,000 yuan that she had.
Rabbit was the one who topped the list.
Now that Li Yixu was putting up a one man’s fight against Xin Xin Xin and Brother Iron Hand, he found it even harder to win them.
I Love Coriander was a name that one of the male fans had adopted at the last minute. The fan’s original user ID was A Big Brother of The Platform. Everyone was well aware that his actions were a bid to make the anchor feel indebted to him.
The current chronological order of the rankings on the popularity list was Rabbit, Ling Ya, Coriander, Mi Zi, Da Gang and Ah Dai.
Wang Yunxi found it hard to sit still any longer and subconsciously turned to look for Wang Yan.
The fans on set, too, found it hard to hold back any longer began to yell out loud.
“Master Wang! Master Wang! Master Wang!”
All of a sudden, Xin Xin Xin sent out a broadcast across all the servers using a tool coined Megaphone, which was a super banner that could be seen on all the public livestream servers.
“Master Wang, you’re partially a boss of the guild. Are you also finding it hard to hold back now? Are you dying to jump into action to send out some rockets under the name of your organization too?”
“Wow!” everyone thought.
An uproar erupted across all the servers.
Although there had long been speculation that CEO Wang was closely related to the four binge-eating livestreamers and that he might even be their financial backer, Triple Xin was the only one who dared to voice it out in front of everyone.
In fact, he wasn’t simply stating it, but actually challenging Wang Yan directly.
Triple Xin was not the average fan. He was one of the reputable male fans on the platform for a long time and his sphere of influence was incomparable.
Now that Wang Yan was challenged by someone like him in front of everyone, he was placed in a difficult position whereby it would be hard for him to do anything at all.
If he does not take action, his position as the top would be transferred over to Triple Xin.
If he reacted, it would be akin to acknowledging that he was using his organization to back up the livestreamers and mud would be slung on him no matter how he explained the situation.
Both the fans on the livestream servers and on set feared for Wang Yan while the rest of the spectators reached the pinnacle of their excitement.
“How exciting!” they thought.
Many of the other livestreamers immediately stopped playing their games, singing and selling themselves to their audience, and quickly tuned in to their livestream server or flood over to the actual livestream set.
In light of the circumstances, Wang Yan reciprocated by making an announcement in the same way.
“As the key person championing for this competition, the biggest individual sponsor and a good friend of Ling Ya and the rest, I hope that everyone will have a good time.”
Everyone was instantly stupefied when they saw his simple response.
“Dude, what is that even supposed to mean?
“Are you…” they wondered.
Before everyone could react, six banners floated across the screen within ten seconds and the viewers’ eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets.
“Wang Fugui sent Rabbit Doesn’t Eat Grass 999 rockets. Hurry up and snatch the treasure chest,” wrote one of the banners.
“Wang Fugui sent Ling Ya 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent It’s Mi Zi 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Eating Coriander 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent Da Gang 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent Ah Dai 999 rockets…”
Soon after, another megaphone banner was blasted out.
“Happiness is the most important thing in our lives. I never need a reason to explain why I spend money on others. Go for it, livestreamers!”
Rabbit and Coriander almost went crazy with happiness.
They wouldn’t benefit from rockets that were sent to them via their company and all that it would do was to help them gain some exposure.
However, they would be able to keep around 25% of the cash benefits if it was a rocket that was sent to them out of friendship. As for the remainder, they would have to think of a way to return it to Wang Yan, for it was only sensible to do so.
CEO Wang’s gift was obviously a form of encouragement for the livestreamers and it would be impossible for him to ask it back from the anchors since there were no binding terms to the gift.
How could the anchors not be happy when this was as good as receiving 200,000 yuan for doing nothing?
They began to thank him so profusely that their words nearly came out as a stutter.
“Thank you, Master Wang! Thank you, Master Wang! Come, everyone! Let’s do a round of of the ‘Wang Shen is so mighty and powerful’ cheer. Bring out your expressions, enthusiasm and emotions!”
“Master Wang, thanks for your support and love! I’m grateful to you, for organizing such a wonderful competition that allows an insignificant livestream anchor like me to have the opportunity to bask in its glory as well and make a living. Really, regardless of the outcome of today’s competition, I’ll always remember that we owe what we have to you. You’re just like a parent to me and I’ll be eternally grateful and respectful towards you. Here, bottoms up with the ice cream. Eat as you please.”
“Gobbles down a huge bowl of ice cream and flashes a silly grin. Here’s a fool for you,” wrote
All of a sudden, the audience began to urge Coriander on.
“How insincere! You should eat some coriander.”
“Right! You’ll have to eat it raw!”
“Yes. You should at least eat a bunch of it.”
“One bunch won’t do. You’ll have to sprinkle it into your ice cream and eat it together.”
Coriander, the bootlicker, instantly became so overwhelmed with terror that his face turned ashen.
…
After Wang Yan sent out six rounds of 999 rockets, everyone cheered over how cool he was and everyone quickly forgot about the earlier contentious topic of how he might actually be using his organization to back up the livestream anchors.
No matter what kind of relationship Wang Shen had with Ling Ya and the rest, at least he was honest with how he handled matters and thus, nobody could fault him.
Half a million dollars was not a small amount of money. He would be said to be using his company to back up his organization’s livestream anchors if he used the money to send them cash convertible gifts. But it was magnanimous of him to give part of the money to his opponents as well.
Ling Ya, who was the sharpest of the lot, immediately shouted, “Master Wang, thanks for reissuing the champion prize money!”
Meanwhile, Da Gang pushed his chair away and seemed as if he was all too ready to flee.
“Gosh, I feel so numb. You guys go ahead and fight it out. I’ve got my hands on the prize money now and there’s nothing else left for me. Goodbye!”
Ah Dai turned and asked stupidly, “Bro, where are you going?”
Da Gang rolled his eyes and rebutted, “Dumbass, I’m going to s***!”
A look of disgust was written all over the girls’ faces, who were feeling extremely uncomfortable at that moment.
Nobody mentioned anything else about Wang Yan after they were interrupted like that and neither was anyone in the mood to do so anymore.
Fuming, Triple Xin’s face turned ashen and, gritting her teeth tight, she sent out another announcement.
“CEO Wang is so generous! If these are the rules that you choose to play by, then we will gladly accept the position as the top in the popularity list, haha!”
Wang Yan turned aside and glanced at He Miaomiao who was, by then, rubbing her hands and wearing a look of eagerness on her face. Her eyes were practically glowing with excitement and she seemed like she could barely hold herself back.
“Haha!” Wang Yan thought.
“You’re so cute!”
Wang Yan praised and grinned as he reached over and patted her head. He then casually sent out an announcement in response.
It was concise and contained only six words and two punctuation marks.
“Wouldn’t need to hit you personally.”
Baffled, Triple Xin asked, “What do you mean?”
In the next instant, 2,000 rockets were sent out to Ah Dai in his private livestream server and pushed him right up from the last place to the top of the list.
Everyone went crazy.
Ah Dai himself was even more stupified. With a piece of shrimp dangling in his mouth, he stared at the screen with his eyes wide open and froze.
After everyone had exclaimed in surprise twice, he then spat out the meat and yelped out in gratitude.
“Thank you, Princess Kitty for your tip! Brother, please take a seat. Ah Dai will sing you a song for you! Thank god and fate for letting us meet…”
The song was certainly dumb but it sounded surprisingly good when Ah Dai sang it out loud.
Meanwhile, Miss He appeared very disgusted. “Are you blind? Why did you call me brother when I’m obviously a lady?” she muttered.
However, Ah Dai’s stupidity wasn’t annoying and thus she merely grumbled to herself.
Ignoring Ah Dai, Miss He exited the livestream room and headed over to Da Gang’s room. As soon as she entered, everyone went crazy with their comments on the live chat.
“Da Gang, Da Gang, don’t f****ing poop anymore. Hide your b***s quick and get back here!”
“The Princess has graced us with her presence. Everyone, let’s welcome her!”
“Wow! No Way! Happiness certainly strikes when you least expect it.”
“Could there be…Gasp!”
2000 more rockets were sent out and everyone was at once seized by surprise and shock.
A gay purple comment written by Da Gang floated over the other white colored comments in the live chat.
“Sis, sorry that I couldn’t receive you properly. Please forgive me, but I really can’t pull up my pants right now. It has fallen apart, boohoohoo…”
This was a rather intense comment.
Feeling disgusted, Miss He mumbled, “Wang Yan, why are all your livestreamers so silly…”
Thanks to the direction of the fanclub, the comments in the live chat were all in unison when Miss He switched over to Mi Zi’s livestream server.
“Welcome, Your Highness!”
Miss He practically had her nose up in the air when she saw this. Feeling pleased with herself, she immediately increased the number of rockets and amount of money pumped into buying the rockets. 3000 rockets were quickly released.
“F***!” everyone thought.
The fans were all taken aback for nobody expected her to react like this.
Without further ado, everyone immediately began to suck up to her once again.
However, the chaotic bombardment of flattery was quickly drowned in the sea of white colored comments and nothing could be seen.
As He Miaomiao couldn’t read the comments properly, she switch over to Ling Ya’s livestream server.
While the server buffered during the transition, the fans in Ling Ya’s server managed to coordinate their comments.
“Long live, Princess Kitty. May you unify the world, hold the stars in your hands and have the world at your feet!” they declared.
“Disgusting!
“Utterly disgusting!” Wang Yan thought.
However, while he found it hard to listen to this, Miss He was clearly having a time of her life for she was grinning so hard that her pinkish gums and two rows of tiny, white and bright teeth could be seen.
“Of course I’ll send out more rockets!” she thought.
4,000 rockets were then sent out, sending all the livestreamers, including Ling Ya, crazy.
“F***! F***! F***! Get on your knees and pray to this goddess!” someone commented.
“Holy s***! Where did this Princess come from? ! Is she a Saudi royal?” another person asked.
“This is crazy! It’s insane. From now on, I declare that I have rocket sickness.”
“Brothers, am I a little too full of myself? Why don’t I have the desire to grab any of those treasure chests now that I see so many of them?”
“Tap on it! You fools! Hurry up, and tap on it so that you could at least get manage to get your hands on a few fishballs.”
“Motherf***ker! Are fishballs all that you could think of when you see those 4,000 rockets?”
“I’m not snatching anyone. No way. I would never imagine that there would be a day when I’d be too drained to snatch those treasure chests…”
Rocket treasure chests were the most effective tool to attract people.
Each rocket corresponded to one treasure chest and it came with a cooldown period. Thus, the rich fans who usually sent out the rockets would still avoid sending them out at the same time even though they had the ability to send out 1,314 rockets at once.
They would choose to send out just a few at a time.
Aas the treasure chest had a one-second interval, this would allow the treasure chests to be sent out continuously.
However, if the treasure chests were sent out simultaneously, they would all disappear quickly before anyone could snatch many of them.
Therefore, very few people on the platform would send out rockets simultaneously, for this would cause them to lose popularity.
Not to mention, that they could send out so many rockets at the same time.
He Miaomiao practically broke several records in succession within just a minute.
The most number of rockets that were sent out on the livestream server was 2,000.
But shortly after, He Miaomiao managed to break her own record by sending out 3,000 to 4,000 rockets.
Then, the highest amount spent in one night on the server was, 5.5 million and the record number of rockets sent out in one day was 11,000.
Finally, she also broke the record for being the fastest person to level up on the server from a commoner to a knowledgeable insider and finally maxing it out all within one minute!
She won hands down and all the livestreamers chanted, “Congratulations to Princess Kitty for maxing out at one shot!”
Feeling rather underwhelmed, He Miaomiao frowned and muttered, “What, so I simply maxed out just like that? Boring…”
Wang Jianhao suddenly quivered and declared, “Change it! We’ll change it right away! Miss He, how many maxed out do you think is more appropriate?”
He Miaomiao said casually, “15 million yuan should be the bare minimum, shouldn’t it?”
Wang Jianhao almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Miss He, you’re really playing by your own rules, aren’t you…
“Most importantly, if you change things like this, it might dampen the enthusiasm of the remaining rich fans and it wouldn’t be easy for the proposal to pass through,” Wang Jianhao lamented in his heart.
Nonetheless, on the surface, he still appeared happy and quickly agreed to her suggestion.
“Okay! I’ll propose to my boss to raise the limit when I return!”
He Miaomiao was only satisfied when she heard this and started to fiddle with the loudspeaker to call out Triple Xin.
“That was pretty fun. Should we continue?”
Triple Xin was so livid and confused that his fash turned ashen.
“What’s going on? Who’s that?”
The other two fans, who were nouveau riche, were equally very baffled and they beckoned a staff member of the livestream platform over to find out more.
“What? She’s the lady who accompanied CEO Wang? She topped up with her own money?” they exclaimed.
“Yes.”
The staff member nodded affirmatively before he explained, “You were outside at that time. I saw that lady write a check to CEO Wang with my own eyes. I can’t be mistaken!”
“Then how much did she top up? Do you know?” Triple Xin enquired eagerly.
“I have no idea. I don’t have the rights to poke my nose into the affairs of the leaders…”
The staff member shook his head awkwardly.
He was truly clueless, for there was an independent area designated to the sponsors and only the sponsors and the mistress of ceremonies who were appointed to manage that region would know what happened.
Even if he knew, he wouldn’t reveal it.
It wouldn’t make sense to lose his job just for the sake of sucking up to a nouveau riche.
When I Love Coriander realized the severity of the situation, he immediately took out his phone and commented, “I’ll call CEO Chen of the livestream platform to enquire about this.”
CEO Chen replied honestly, “That girl still has about nine million pieces of shark fin in her hands. You have to focus your efforts if you want to fight her. Besides, CEO Wang still has a lot of ammunition as well. My suggestion is to give up on fighting for the first place and just focus on being in one of the higher ranks. THere’s no ned for you to offend CEO Wang.”
These were some honest advice which also hinted at how helpless CEO Chen was.
“We can’t afford to offend Young Master Wang,” he thought.
The platform could certainly be ruthless if they wanted to and to make use of their advantage of being both a judge to the competition as well as their contestants to create trouble for Wang Yan.
They could forcefully make Ling Ya second in ranking even if Young Master Wang could afford to fork out 200 million yuan.
However, if they chose to do things like this, they would only be burning their bridges with Wang Yan and even incur the wrath of the fans of the four livestreamers.
Their losses would be immeasurable once they lose their credibility.
This was the reason why the platform had to appear unbiased and to abide by the rules on the surface.
I Love Coriander sighed and asked Triple Xin, “What should we do? Are we still going to fight against them?”
“Let’s fight!”
Triple Xin gritted his teeth and waved his hand forcefully before he declared, “Even if we can’t claim the first place, we should at least get the second place. We can’t afford to lose to them.”
I Love Coriander shook his head and replied, “Since we’re not fighting for first place, I’ll definitely continue to support you Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Eating Coriander. I can’t possibly switch to another livestreamer halfway through this.”
Iron Hand Bro agreed empathetically, “Sure. Triple Xin and I will protect Rabbit and you’re free to make your own call. Coriander is a new livestreamer so it wouldn’t be embarrassing for him to be low in ranking.”
I Love Coriander voiced out another word of reminder, “Pay attention to how much you spend. Don’t burn too big of a hole in your pockets. This is actually none of our business, so it’s not really worth it.”
“It’ll only cost us a few dollars!”
Triple Xin’s anger was obviously getting to his head, for he fumed, “I just can’t f***ng accept this.”
When a livestreamer was supported by an organization or owed favours to someone, there was still a cost incurred, no matter how low that cost was.
The financial system of the platform was set out there for all to see with the intention to trick.
The nouveau riche would seek out the official internal guild of the platform to top up the value that they have. When they receive cashback from topping up a large sum of money, they would then send the money out. The platform would settle on the turnover with the guild. Based on the amount of withheld profit agreed upon in the contract, a portion would be accrued and used as reward for the turnover. The guild would receive the settlement money and return it directly to the nouveau riche instead of giving it to the livestreamer.
The platform would certainly keep some of the profits instead of giving it all to the guild. Otherwise, the platform would be akin to spending money from its own pockets to give the extra shark fins to the players.
The actual cash and not the virtual shark fins received during this process was used to adjust the accounts.
In other words, it was actually the guilds that were supporting the livestreamers and not the livestream platform.
Thus, this process still incurred a cost and the only difference as how high or low the cost was.
Even though the cost incurred by the platform’s internal guild to support the livestreamers was extremely low, the cost incurred by Wang Yan wasn’t high either. Besides, Wang Yan was supporting his own livestreamers but Triple Xin was purely trying to get even with Wang Yan.
Puzzled, Iron Hand Bro asked, “Why do you find President Wang such an eyesore?”
Triple Xin sneered and asked, “Do I need a reason to find someone an eyesore? It’s not as if I can’t afford to lose a few hundred thousand dollars!”
Iron Hand Bro was rendered speechless but after a while, he eventually nodded helplessly.
“You’re right. I often find others an eyesore too… Alright, let’s fight against them then!”
After they came to a conclusion, Triple Xin immediately broadcasted his response.
“Babe, it doesn’t reflect well on you to use Master Wang’s money to throw your weight around here.”
Triple Xin was starting to stir up some trouble again.
Wang Yan frowned and just when he was about to rebut him on behalf of He Miaomiao, Miss He immediately typed out a line of response.
“Talk is cheap. Why don’t we find a new livestreamer now and fight it out with rockets? The one who stops first will have to go up to the livestream camera to bow and admit defeat. Do you dare to accept the challenge?”
Aside from Triple Xin, even Wang Yan was stunned by how aggressive Miss He was.
Triple Xin certainly lacked the courage to take her on, for he was well aware that Princess Kitty had nine million shark fins in her account. It was impossible of him to accept her challenge and humiliate himself.
However, he also felt extremely tormented and hesitant.
“Is she really using CEO Wang’s money?
“If she is, then she probably wouldn’t dare to splurge it wilfully.
“Is it possible that she’s only playing a game of bluff?
“I’m a leader on the platform. I wouldn’t be able to show my face around here in future if I’m intimidated by something that a little girl said?”
He Miaomiao’s counter-attack placed Triple Xin in an awkward position where he could neither accept nor decline the challenge.
The insanely rich Triple Xin’s mind was in a mess and he subconsciously replied, “Hah, who’s scared of you?”
This was basically what he would say out of habit whenever he wanted to compete with wealth during a fight with others.
However, Miss He was even more decisive than him and had already gone onto the stage.
“Come here. This is the section for good looking people. To the lady livestreamer who’s ranked last on the webpage: I’ll be waiting for you!”
The live chats in all the major livestream servers were instantly flooded with comments.
The audience had come with the intention of watching a binge eating livestream and were pleasantly surprised by the dramatic turn of events.
Some livestream fans frantically cheered on, “Your Highness, wait for us!”
Others frantically urged the livestreamers, “Quick, go and check out how things are doing in their livestream room!”
Before the fellow livestreamers could conduct a manual search, a large banner suddenly floated over onto their screen.
“Princess Kitty had rewarded Green with 100 rockets. come and snatch the treasure chest!”
Right after that was an aggressive broadcast message that read, “To enable traffic to be directed to the livestream server directly!”
“Hands down to you!
“Was it necessary of you to spend 50,000 when we’re only just warming up?” Triple Xin thought.
That newbie lady livestreamer was chatting with the only audience in her livestream room, who also happened to be a newbie, when a VIP user suddenly showed up in their server. Before she could react to the situation and greet her audience, 100 rockets floated out across her screen.
She was scared silly.
Right after, a horde of people entered her livestream server to the point where the server was forced to shut down.
By the time the tech department quickly expanded the bandwidth of the server and restored it to normal, Green was already kneeling on the ground and kowtowing to the ground.
“Goddess! No matter which immortal you are, who had been tasked to salvage life on Earth, please accept my bow of respect to you. With this, I’m yours now. What should I do next? I’ve never done this before, so your wish is my command.”
He Miaomiao was practically rolling on the floor laughing, for she never expected the livestreamer whom she had randomly selected to be such an interesting person.
Meanwhile, Triple Xin gritted his teeth in anger and clenched his fists as he glared at the scene unfolding before his eyes. He was overwhelmed with rage and confusion but it was too late for him to back down now and he was utterly lost as to what he should do.
“We’re only just getting started and yet the livestream server is already crashing from high traffic?
“Damn it, how painless could this be?
“Pooh!
“Has the bandwidth actually been increased?” Wang Jianhao wondered.
His forehead was already covered in sweat due to anxiety and he was dying to call the technical department right away to give them a piece of his mind.
Fortunately, today’s competition was a key project for the livestream platform and thus, the colleagues from the technical department were already prepared for the match and the problem was quickly resolved within less than 10 seconds.
With how well received the livestream was, it was obvious that their backup plan could no longer address the actual situation.
Thus, CEO Wang could only order them his employees to limit the frequency which one could send out live comments from one comment per second to one comment every 10 seconds with the exclusion of coloured live comments that users had to pay to be featured.
Along with the change in status came a flood of complaints in the livestream server.
However, as long as the paying viewers did not complain about the change in mechanisms, nobody could be bothered about the objections of the non-paying audiences.
The livestream resumed quickly.
The tiny change did not affect everyone’s mood and on the contrary, the guests who were on set watching the event grew increasingly excited and clicked their tongues in awe.
“Gosh, it seems like the server is down due to high traffic,” someone remarked.
“It’s just one of the livestream servers,” another replied.
“That’s still pretty amazing, isn’t it? Didn’t CEO Wang said before that we should focus on protecting key servers or something?” a third person chimed in.
“I suppose they didn’t do a good job then,” another person concluded.
“You have to admit that they are pretty popular. CEO Zhang and CEO Li, your business seems to be doing really well. You guys are making a lot of money,” someone noted.
“Hahaha. We have to congratulate you as well. I’m your partner while you are the advertiser so if I make money, then you’ll be making money as well.”
“CEO Wang is so young and promising… Tsk tsk!”
“He’s still a young man after all. Hands down to him when it comes to the execution of new and creative gimmicks.”
“CEO Li, the models of Beauty Ko are all young and beautiful so why didn’t you jump on the bandwagon and do some livestream? I think it’s very profitable!”
CEO Li flashed them a reserved smile before replying, “At the moment, we do not have plans to shift from offline to online. We’re too busy with all kinds of exhibitions, studio shoots, advertisements and film projects. Livestreaming is merely one form of business model and it is too reliant on the element of luck, so it’s not worth considering for the time being.”
Simply put, Beauty Ko looked down on livestreaming.
The mistress of ceremonies who were seated at their table took one glance at CEO Li when they heard this remark but quickly focused back on the projector screen in the hall.
Wang Yan, too, heard CEO Li’s comments and laughed it off.
“So Beauty Ko looks down on livestreaming?
“Sure!
“I’ll be waiting for you at the peak by the time you finally see the value in livestreaming!” he thought.
…
There were finally lesser live comments on the livestream server, but viewers could still barely manage to see the human figures on their screens.
Employees of the livestream platform who were present on set had no choice but to hide the live comments so that everyone could clearly see what was happening during the livestream.
There weren’t many complaints in public livestream servers, for the livestream was filmed in a panoramic view and it was hard to see the details clearly.
However, things were much livelier in the livestream anchors’ private livestream servers.
The fans began to compete to help their respective anchors to move up the rankings.
A rich fan led a team to send out rockets, which were e-gifts that were convertible to cash, consistently so as to constantly unlock the treasure chests in the livestream server.
Meanwhile, ordinary fans would each select a type of gift to populate the live chat with and it was such an exciting sight to behold.
Miss He simply ate two mouthfuls of icecream and commented that it wasn’t too bad before she became caught up with using her phone.
“Wang Yan, Wang Yan, when is it my turn to make an appearance?”
Young Master Wang couldn’t decide if he should laugh or cry when he heard her question and simply took her phone away and locked it before he gave her some shrimp meat.
“Enjoy your meal. What’s the hurry? The Boss level characters only make a move in the later stages of the action. Have your fill first,” he replied.
“Okay,” He Miaomiao agreed obediently.
She then stared down at the shrimp meat before her.
After taking a bite, she immediately placed her chopsticks down.
“Oh my god, the sensation of eating spicy food right after having icecream is simply driving me crazy…”
Wang Yan agreed within his heart. It was a cold, mildly spicy and crazily sweet taste, which fulfilled all the conditions listed on the special card, but this certainly wasn’t an enjoyable feeling.
“F***, this is too exciting for our tastebuds.
“But I can’t indulge a child and allow her to be picky with her food.
“I still have to depend on you to eat a sufficient amount of food so that I could at least buy one character attribute.
“If the stick doesn’t work, then we ould always go with the carrot,” he concluded.
Young Master Wang then began to persuade her patiently, “You should still try to eat more even though it doesn’t taste good. We’re seated here not only for the sake of experiencing this, but also to cheer for our anchors. That’s why we have to show some form of resolve. You could always slow down your pace of eating.”
As Miss He was a sensible lady, she nodded and picked up the piece of shrimp again.
“You’re right. Things are harder for our anchors, so I’ll have to try my best to persevere until the end!” she declared.
“Such an obedient girl!” Wang Yan mused.
In high spirits, he then made her a promise on the spot, “I’ll go to the wholesale market for fruits after we’re back home and I’ll pick ten of the best fruits for you.”
“Really?” He Miaomiao exclaimed.
Her eyes instantly lit up.
“Yes,” Wang Yan assured and nodded. With a smile, he confirmed, “A man keeps his word.”
However, He Miaomiao suddenly exploded with anger, “My ass! You’re taking advantage of me again!”
“When did I?” Wang Yan rebutted and felt extremely aggrieved.
“Miss He, why is your train of thought so peculiar?
“The word ‘man’ could refer to a father or a brother, not just a woman’s husband.
“Besides, it’s just a joke and a normal person wouldn’t think of things that way.
“She has some sort of father complex, doesn’t she!” Wang Yan thought.
…
Da Gang quickly finished a box of icecream within a few seconds and gobbled down the lobster in two bites. Smacking his lips, he frowned and slammed his fists on the table abruptly.
“Brothers, we’ll certainly be crowned champion!”
Everyone was so stunned by his declaration that comments stopped flooding the live chat for a moment. But soon after, everyone questioned, “Bro, where did you get the courage to make such a claim?”
Da Gang replied confidently, “To be honest, my stomach began to hurt right after I finished one portion of this. I could tell that I’ll definitely s*** it out later. Not that I want to brag about this, but none of you can s*** better than me. Today, I’ll put my b***s at stake and go all out to claim the champion!”
“F***!” someone commented.
“Da Gang, could you not make the competition sound so dirty?” another wrote.
Not only the live chat flooded with comments of disgust, but even the other livestream anchors also began to throw him looks of disdain.
However, that was Da Gang’s way of doing things. He had always been clear with how he positioned himself and had never walked the conventional path.
There were also many viewers who relished jokes about poop and Da Gang’s declaration immediately drew out their excitement and made them spam him with rewards that helped him to shoot up in rankings.
Peach Blossom Qianqian commented, “Good job, Brother Gang! Remember to start the livestream while you’re at it. There are plenty of rockets to cheer you on while you s***!”
…
Picking up on the topic that Da Gang had started, Ling Ya quickly cheered the fans on in the livestream server, “Brothers, keep up with sending in those rockets. Let’s give Brother Gang a new nickname—S*** for nothing.”
Da Gang’s fans immediately roared with laughter and began to spam him with gifts like crazy.
When Mi Zi heard this, she quietly shifted herself further away from Da Gang.
One of the older guys then teased her in the live chat, “What’s wrong? Mi Zi, are you afraid that Da Gang will really s*** everything out?”
Mi Zi waved her hands in embarrassment and denied, “Why would I? That’s not true. Stop stirring s***.”
She appeared rather demented as she nodded and waved her hands simultaneously.
Amused, the fans laughed hysterically and began to chant out slogans as they competed to raise their idol’s rankings.
Ah Dai simply ate with a deadpan expression on his face and reacted to nothing.
“Are you worried that Brother Gang will win with his s***?” someone asked in the live chat.
However, Ah Dai merely looked up in confusion and blurted, “Huh?”
It was apparent that his reflex arc was miles away.
Sometime after a new topic was started, he then replied abruptly in a serious voice, “If Brother Gang was to take a dump upstairs, we’ll be able to smell the stench even if we’re a storey below.”
His young and middle-aged female fans instantly broke out into laughter.
These four food livestreamers could become popular precisely because each of them had their own unique style.
They either relied on their EQ or their personalities to win over fans. They were also good at cracking jokes, which served well in amusing the audience.
Wang Yan felt rather consoled as he observed how the livestreamers presented themselves to the audience with ease.
The four little newbies who used to tremble in fear as they gnaw away on crab meat had now developed into four popular livestreamers who were terrifyingly good at earning money. Not to mention that Wang Yan was also the one who had personally groomed them into who they were today. It gave him an intensely wonderful sense of satisfaction.
“Would they still choose this career path if it wasn’t for me?
“Would they be as popular as what they are now?
“Or would they spend their youth in mediocrity as they slog away at construction sites or private enterprises?” Wang Yan wondered.
Wang Yan believed that it wasn’t entirely impossible for them to make a name for themselves even without him. However, it was clear that their life trajectories had indeed changed because of him.
This wasn’t just a type of influence, but also a form of power.
The power of money was too great.
When used correctly, it could benefit many people, prevent many tragedies and illuminate many people’s lives.
During this process, one would also experience a great sense of satisfaction that was beneficial to one’s physical and emotional health.
“In the future, I’ll still continue to spend money happily and a crazy rich man who takes the unconventional path in life and who emits positivity,” he decided.
…
One and a half hours flew past within the blink of an eye while everyone ate and chatted.
Halfway through the competition, the atmosphere suddenly became intense on set.
The six livestreamers had begun to bicker with each other as they canvassed for votes.
Meanwhile, the fans had already finished eating within the one and a half hour and were lapping away at their icecream slowly. As all of them had nothing better to do, they were more than eager to jump into the fight between the livestreamers.
Previously, a rocket would be continuously sent out in the live chat of the livestreamers’ private server once every 10 seconds.
The livestreamers would receive around six rockets per minute, which could be converted to 3,000 yuan cash. After 90 minutes, even Ling Ya, who was ranked top, only had a total of over 300,000 yuan.
When the male fans joined in the fun, it suddenly raised the intensity of the competition to a different level.
A rocket was continuously sent out once every two to three seconds and paid banners began to flood the screen incessantly.
Paid banners were flashed across all of Fish’s servers and it served to announce that a particular person had sent a rocket to one of the livestreamers and to inform everyone that they could begin to snatch the treasure chest.
The banner would be shown in all of the livestreamers’ servers and upon clicking on it, the audience would automatically be directed to the server where the rocket was sent.
This was the best way to boost the popularity of the livestreamer.
However, now that banners were shown in all of the six livestreamers’ servers simultaneously and were positioned close to one another, it was impossible for anyone to read the specific message on each of the banners.
It would be entirely up to fate as to which livestream server one would be redirected to upon clicking on the banner.
This was a ploy for mutual destruction whereby neither party would be able to win any extra popularity votes.
Right now, nobody was willing to give in.
There were only five spots on the popularity list shown on the home page. The layout of the page gave more space to one of the four spots.
The biggest space was allocated to the public livestream server regardless of its actual popularity and this space allocation would not change before the end of today’s competition.
Thus, the six livestream anchors would have to fight for the remaining four spots.
Popularity was determined by the amount of e-gifts received as well as the actual viewer count. The calculation formula does not matter, for the more viewers there were and the more money they spent would equate to higher rankings for the anchor.
Being able to secure a position on the home page would lead to an endless stream of traffic.
This was the reason why it was necessary to fight for the spot.
One would also have to fight based on the number of rockets that they receive.
Because rockets could serve to redirect traffic from other anchors’ livestream servers and had nothing to do with the traffic that the anchors were getting from the home page.
When a particular anchor’s fans couldn’t continue to support him or her with rockets, that particular anchor’s popularity would be equally split among the remaining five livestreamers and he or she would have an even lower chance of making it to the popularity list on the home page.
In the long run, the strong would become stronger while the weak would become weaker and it would be difficult to turn the tables around.
Thus, everyone was determined to give all that they’ve got to put up a fierce, tactful fight.
The viewers had decided against spamming the rockets blindly to avoid the banners from overlapping with one another and the rockets were now consistently sent out once every second instead of once every two to three seconds to one second.
The fan base of Wangting Entertainment as well as Wangting Entertainment’s ability to mobilize its fans was not inferior to any of the old, established guilds. After all, they had poached the marketing director from another livestream platform called Waiwai.
Besides, half of the viewers were male fans who were fearless and easier to organize and activate.
But ultimately, money was still the key determining factor in a game like this that had clearly defined rules.
When it came down to the final hour, the rich fans finally became impatient over how the game was hanging in the balance.
“Xin Xin Xin sent Rabbit Doesn’t Eat Grass 200 rockets. Hurry up and snatch the treasure chest,” wrote one banner.
“To Think Thrice sent Ling Ya 200 rockets,” wrote another banner.
“Black Tiger Vanguard sent It’s Mi Zi 200 rockets.”
“I love coriander sent Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Eating Coriander 200 rockets.”
“Legendary Brother Iron Hand sent Rabbit Doesn’t Eat Grass 200 rockets.”
Every 200 rockets would cost 100,000 yuan and once the rich fans joined in the fight, the battle quickly intensified.
Ah Dai and Da Gang disappeared from the popularity list on the home page within seconds while Rabbit and Coriander quickly took over their position.
The fight between the male fans was far from over and many continued to spam the anchors with 200 rockets repeatedly.
Black Tiger casually sent out 200 rockets five times before he yelped strangely and became the first to withdraw from the fight.
“Bastards, you’re just a group of fools who are using money to exchange for favors. I can’t keep up with you anymore. Master Wang, remember to treat me to a meal later!”
Wang Jianhao face darkened when he saw the colorful paid banner that was flashed on the screen of the server.
“You’re the one who wanted to play along and yet you’re actually pulling out and making things difficult for us halfway through the game? What’s the meaning of this?” he thought.
However, as Black Tiger was a rich fan, the platform wouldn’t be able to do anything about him regardless of what he does.
Although Black Tiger had withdrawn from the battle, Mi Zi still managed to retain her position as the fourth on the home page’s popularity list with the extra 500,000 yuan that she had.
Rabbit was the one who topped the list.
Now that Li Yixu was putting up a one man’s fight against Xin Xin Xin and Brother Iron Hand, he found it even harder to win them.
I Love Coriander was a name that one of the male fans had adopted at the last minute. The fan’s original user ID was A Big Brother of The Platform. Everyone was well aware that his actions were a bid to make the anchor feel indebted to him.
The current chronological order of the rankings on the popularity list was Rabbit, Ling Ya, Coriander, Mi Zi, Da Gang and Ah Dai.
Wang Yunxi found it hard to sit still any longer and subconsciously turned to look for Wang Yan.
The fans on set, too, found it hard to hold back any longer began to yell out loud.
“Master Wang! Master Wang! Master Wang!”
All of a sudden, Xin Xin Xin sent out a broadcast across all the servers using a tool coined Megaphone, which was a super banner that could be seen on all the public livestream servers.
“Master Wang, you’re partially a boss of the guild. Are you also finding it hard to hold back now? Are you dying to jump into action to send out some rockets under the name of your organization too?”
“Wow!” everyone thought.
An uproar erupted across all the servers.
Although there had long been speculation that CEO Wang was closely related to the four binge-eating livestreamers and that he might even be their financial backer, Triple Xin was the only one who dared to voice it out in front of everyone.
In fact, he wasn’t simply stating it, but actually challenging Wang Yan directly.
Triple Xin was not the average fan. He was one of the reputable male fans on the platform for a long time and his sphere of influence was incomparable.
Now that Wang Yan was challenged by someone like him in front of everyone, he was placed in a difficult position whereby it would be hard for him to do anything at all.
If he does not take action, his position as the top would be transferred over to Triple Xin.
If he reacted, it would be akin to acknowledging that he was using his organization to back up the livestreamers and mud would be slung on him no matter how he explained the situation.
Both the fans on the livestream servers and on set feared for Wang Yan while the rest of the spectators reached the pinnacle of their excitement.
“How exciting!” they thought.
Many of the other livestreamers immediately stopped playing their games, singing and selling themselves to their audience, and quickly tuned in to their livestream server or flood over to the actual livestream set.
In light of the circumstances, Wang Yan reciprocated by making an announcement in the same way.
“As the key person championing for this competition, the biggest individual sponsor and a good friend of Ling Ya and the rest, I hope that everyone will have a good time.”
Everyone was instantly stupefied when they saw his simple response.
“Dude, what is that even supposed to mean?
“Are you…” they wondered.
Before everyone could react, six banners floated across the screen within ten seconds and the viewers’ eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets.
“Wang Fugui sent Rabbit Doesn’t Eat Grass 999 rockets. Hurry up and snatch the treasure chest,” wrote one of the banners.
“Wang Fugui sent Ling Ya 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent It’s Mi Zi 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Eating Coriander 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent Da Gang 999 rockets…”
“Wang Fugui sent Ah Dai 999 rockets…”
Soon after, another megaphone banner was blasted out.
“Happiness is the most important thing in our lives. I never need a reason to explain why I spend money on others. Go for it, livestreamers!”
Rabbit and Coriander almost went crazy with happiness.
They wouldn’t benefit from rockets that were sent to them via their company and all that it would do was to help them gain some exposure.
However, they would be able to keep around 25% of the cash benefits if it was a rocket that was sent to them out of friendship. As for the remainder, they would have to think of a way to return it to Wang Yan, for it was only sensible to do so.
CEO Wang’s gift was obviously a form of encouragement for the livestreamers and it would be impossible for him to ask it back from the anchors since there were no binding terms to the gift.
How could the anchors not be happy when this was as good as receiving 200,000 yuan for doing nothing?
They began to thank him so profusely that their words nearly came out as a stutter.
“Thank you, Master Wang! Thank you, Master Wang! Come, everyone! Let’s do a round of of the ‘Wang Shen is so mighty and powerful’ cheer. Bring out your expressions, enthusiasm and emotions!”
“Master Wang, thanks for your support and love! I’m grateful to you, for organizing such a wonderful competition that allows an insignificant livestream anchor like me to have the opportunity to bask in its glory as well and make a living. Really, regardless of the outcome of today’s competition, I’ll always remember that we owe what we have to you. You’re just like a parent to me and I’ll be eternally grateful and respectful towards you. Here, bottoms up with the ice cream. Eat as you please.”
“Gobbles down a huge bowl of ice cream and flashes a silly grin. Here’s a fool for you,” wrote
All of a sudden, the audience began to urge Coriander on.
“How insincere! You should eat some coriander.”
“Right! You’ll have to eat it raw!”
“Yes. You should at least eat a bunch of it.”
“One bunch won’t do. You’ll have to sprinkle it into your ice cream and eat it together.”
Coriander, the bootlicker, instantly became so overwhelmed with terror that his face turned ashen.
…
After Wang Yan sent out six rounds of 999 rockets, everyone cheered over how cool he was and everyone quickly forgot about the earlier contentious topic of how he might actually be using his organization to back up the livestream anchors.
No matter what kind of relationship Wang Shen had with Ling Ya and the rest, at least he was honest with how he handled matters and thus, nobody could fault him.
Half a million dollars was not a small amount of money. He would be said to be using his company to back up his organization’s livestream anchors if he used the money to send them cash convertible gifts. But it was magnanimous of him to give part of the money to his opponents as well.
Ling Ya, who was the sharpest of the lot, immediately shouted, “Master Wang, thanks for reissuing the champion prize money!”
Meanwhile, Da Gang pushed his chair away and seemed as if he was all too ready to flee.
“Gosh, I feel so numb. You guys go ahead and fight it out. I’ve got my hands on the prize money now and there’s nothing else left for me. Goodbye!”
Ah Dai turned and asked stupidly, “Bro, where are you going?”
Da Gang rolled his eyes and rebutted, “Dumbass, I’m going to s***!”
A look of disgust was written all over the girls’ faces, who were feeling extremely uncomfortable at that moment.
Nobody mentioned anything else about Wang Yan after they were interrupted like that and neither was anyone in the mood to do so anymore.
Fuming, Triple Xin’s face turned ashen and, gritting her teeth tight, she sent out another announcement.
“CEO Wang is so generous! If these are the rules that you choose to play by, then we will gladly accept the position as the top in the popularity list, haha!”
Wang Yan turned aside and glanced at He Miaomiao who was, by then, rubbing her hands and wearing a look of eagerness on her face. Her eyes were practically glowing with excitement and she seemed like she could barely hold herself back.
“Haha!” Wang Yan thought.
“You’re so cute!”
Wang Yan praised and grinned as he reached over and patted her head. He then casually sent out an announcement in response.
It was concise and contained only six words and two punctuation marks.
“Wouldn’t need to hit you personally.”
Baffled, Triple Xin asked, “What do you mean?”
In the next instant, 2,000 rockets were sent out to Ah Dai in his private livestream server and pushed him right up from the last place to the top of the list.
Everyone went crazy.
Ah Dai himself was even more stupified. With a piece of shrimp dangling in his mouth, he stared at the screen with his eyes wide open and froze.
After everyone had exclaimed in surprise twice, he then spat out the meat and yelped out in gratitude.
“Thank you, Princess Kitty for your tip! Brother, please take a seat. Ah Dai will sing you a song for you! Thank god and fate for letting us meet…”
The song was certainly dumb but it sounded surprisingly good when Ah Dai sang it out loud.
Meanwhile, Miss He appeared very disgusted. “Are you blind? Why did you call me brother when I’m obviously a lady?” she muttered.
However, Ah Dai’s stupidity wasn’t annoying and thus she merely grumbled to herself.
Ignoring Ah Dai, Miss He exited the livestream room and headed over to Da Gang’s room. As soon as she entered, everyone went crazy with their comments on the live chat.
“Da Gang, Da Gang, don’t f****ing poop anymore. Hide your b***s quick and get back here!”
“The Princess has graced us with her presence. Everyone, let’s welcome her!”
“Wow! No Way! Happiness certainly strikes when you least expect it.”
“Could there be…Gasp!”
2000 more rockets were sent out and everyone was at once seized by surprise and shock.
A gay purple comment written by Da Gang floated over the other white colored comments in the live chat.
“Sis, sorry that I couldn’t receive you properly. Please forgive me, but I really can’t pull up my pants right now. It has fallen apart, boohoohoo…”
This was a rather intense comment.
Feeling disgusted, Miss He mumbled, “Wang Yan, why are all your livestreamers so silly…”
Thanks to the direction of the fanclub, the comments in the live chat were all in unison when Miss He switched over to Mi Zi’s livestream server.
“Welcome, Your Highness!”
Miss He practically had her nose up in the air when she saw this. Feeling pleased with herself, she immediately increased the number of rockets and amount of money pumped into buying the rockets. 3000 rockets were quickly released.
“F***!” everyone thought.
The fans were all taken aback for nobody expected her to react like this.
Without further ado, everyone immediately began to suck up to her once again.
However, the chaotic bombardment of flattery was quickly drowned in the sea of white colored comments and nothing could be seen.
As He Miaomiao couldn’t read the comments properly, she switch over to Ling Ya’s livestream server.
While the server buffered during the transition, the fans in Ling Ya’s server managed to coordinate their comments.
“Long live, Princess Kitty. May you unify the world, hold the stars in your hands and have the world at your feet!” they declared.
“Disgusting!
“Utterly disgusting!” Wang Yan thought.
However, while he found it hard to listen to this, Miss He was clearly having a time of her life for she was grinning so hard that her pinkish gums and two rows of tiny, white and bright teeth could be seen.
“Of course I’ll send out more rockets!” she thought.
4,000 rockets were then sent out, sending all the livestreamers, including Ling Ya, crazy.
“F***! F***! F***! Get on your knees and pray to this goddess!” someone commented.
“Holy s***! Where did this Princess come from? ! Is she a Saudi royal?” another person asked.
“This is crazy! It’s insane. From now on, I declare that I have rocket sickness.”
“Brothers, am I a little too full of myself? Why don’t I have the desire to grab any of those treasure chests now that I see so many of them?”
“Tap on it! You fools! Hurry up, and tap on it so that you could at least get manage to get your hands on a few fishballs.”
“Motherf***ker! Are fishballs all that you could think of when you see those 4,000 rockets?”
“I’m not snatching anyone. No way. I would never imagine that there would be a day when I’d be too drained to snatch those treasure chests…”
Rocket treasure chests were the most effective tool to attract people.
Each rocket corresponded to one treasure chest and it came with a cooldown period. Thus, the rich fans who usually sent out the rockets would still avoid sending them out at the same time even though they had the ability to send out 1,314 rockets at once.
They would choose to send out just a few at a time.
Aas the treasure chest had a one-second interval, this would allow the treasure chests to be sent out continuously.
However, if the treasure chests were sent out simultaneously, they would all disappear quickly before anyone could snatch many of them.
Therefore, very few people on the platform would send out rockets simultaneously, for this would cause them to lose popularity.
Not to mention, that they could send out so many rockets at the same time.
He Miaomiao practically broke several records in succession within just a minute.
The most number of rockets that were sent out on the livestream server was 2,000.
But shortly after, He Miaomiao managed to break her own record by sending out 3,000 to 4,000 rockets.
Then, the highest amount spent in one night on the server was, 5.5 million and the record number of rockets sent out in one day was 11,000.
Finally, she also broke the record for being the fastest person to level up on the server from a commoner to a knowledgeable insider and finally maxing it out all within one minute!
She won hands down and all the livestreamers chanted, “Congratulations to Princess Kitty for maxing out at one shot!”
Feeling rather underwhelmed, He Miaomiao frowned and muttered, “What, so I simply maxed out just like that? Boring…”
Wang Jianhao suddenly quivered and declared, “Change it! We’ll change it right away! Miss He, how many maxed out do you think is more appropriate?”
He Miaomiao said casually, “15 million yuan should be the bare minimum, shouldn’t it?”
Wang Jianhao almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Miss He, you’re really playing by your own rules, aren’t you…
“Most importantly, if you change things like this, it might dampen the enthusiasm of the remaining rich fans and it wouldn’t be easy for the proposal to pass through,” Wang Jianhao lamented in his heart.
Nonetheless, on the surface, he still appeared happy and quickly agreed to her suggestion.
“Okay! I’ll propose to my boss to raise the limit when I return!”
He Miaomiao was only satisfied when she heard this and started to fiddle with the loudspeaker to call out Triple Xin.
“That was pretty fun. Should we continue?”
Triple Xin was so livid and confused that his fash turned ashen.
“What’s going on? Who’s that?”
The other two fans, who were nouveau riche, were equally very baffled and they beckoned a staff member of the livestream platform over to find out more.
“What? She’s the lady who accompanied CEO Wang? She topped up with her own money?” they exclaimed.
“Yes.”
The staff member nodded affirmatively before he explained, “You were outside at that time. I saw that lady write a check to CEO Wang with my own eyes. I can’t be mistaken!”
“Then how much did she top up? Do you know?” Triple Xin enquired eagerly.
“I have no idea. I don’t have the rights to poke my nose into the affairs of the leaders…”
The staff member shook his head awkwardly.
He was truly clueless, for there was an independent area designated to the sponsors and only the sponsors and the mistress of ceremonies who were appointed to manage that region would know what happened.
Even if he knew, he wouldn’t reveal it.
It wouldn’t make sense to lose his job just for the sake of sucking up to a nouveau riche.
When I Love Coriander realized the severity of the situation, he immediately took out his phone and commented, “I’ll call CEO Chen of the livestream platform to enquire about this.”
CEO Chen replied honestly, “That girl still has about nine million pieces of shark fin in her hands. You have to focus your efforts if you want to fight her. Besides, CEO Wang still has a lot of ammunition as well. My suggestion is to give up on fighting for the first place and just focus on being in one of the higher ranks. THere’s no ned for you to offend CEO Wang.”
These were some honest advice which also hinted at how helpless CEO Chen was.
“We can’t afford to offend Young Master Wang,” he thought.
The platform could certainly be ruthless if they wanted to and to make use of their advantage of being both a judge to the competition as well as their contestants to create trouble for Wang Yan.
They could forcefully make Ling Ya second in ranking even if Young Master Wang could afford to fork out 200 million yuan.
However, if they chose to do things like this, they would only be burning their bridges with Wang Yan and even incur the wrath of the fans of the four livestreamers.
Their losses would be immeasurable once they lose their credibility.
This was the reason why the platform had to appear unbiased and to abide by the rules on the surface.
I Love Coriander sighed and asked Triple Xin, “What should we do? Are we still going to fight against them?”
“Let’s fight!”
Triple Xin gritted his teeth and waved his hand forcefully before he declared, “Even if we can’t claim the first place, we should at least get the second place. We can’t afford to lose to them.”
I Love Coriander shook his head and replied, “Since we’re not fighting for first place, I’ll definitely continue to support you Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Eating Coriander. I can’t possibly switch to another livestreamer halfway through this.”
Iron Hand Bro agreed empathetically, “Sure. Triple Xin and I will protect Rabbit and you’re free to make your own call. Coriander is a new livestreamer so it wouldn’t be embarrassing for him to be low in ranking.”
I Love Coriander voiced out another word of reminder, “Pay attention to how much you spend. Don’t burn too big of a hole in your pockets. This is actually none of our business, so it’s not really worth it.”
“It’ll only cost us a few dollars!”
Triple Xin’s anger was obviously getting to his head, for he fumed, “I just can’t f***ng accept this.”
When a livestreamer was supported by an organization or owed favours to someone, there was still a cost incurred, no matter how low that cost was.
The financial system of the platform was set out there for all to see with the intention to trick.
The nouveau riche would seek out the official internal guild of the platform to top up the value that they have. When they receive cashback from topping up a large sum of money, they would then send the money out. The platform would settle on the turnover with the guild. Based on the amount of withheld profit agreed upon in the contract, a portion would be accrued and used as reward for the turnover. The guild would receive the settlement money and return it directly to the nouveau riche instead of giving it to the livestreamer.
The platform would certainly keep some of the profits instead of giving it all to the guild. Otherwise, the platform would be akin to spending money from its own pockets to give the extra shark fins to the players.
The actual cash and not the virtual shark fins received during this process was used to adjust the accounts.
In other words, it was actually the guilds that were supporting the livestreamers and not the livestream platform.
Thus, this process still incurred a cost and the only difference as how high or low the cost was.
Even though the cost incurred by the platform’s internal guild to support the livestreamers was extremely low, the cost incurred by Wang Yan wasn’t high either. Besides, Wang Yan was supporting his own livestreamers but Triple Xin was purely trying to get even with Wang Yan.
Puzzled, Iron Hand Bro asked, “Why do you find President Wang such an eyesore?”
Triple Xin sneered and asked, “Do I need a reason to find someone an eyesore? It’s not as if I can’t afford to lose a few hundred thousand dollars!”
Iron Hand Bro was rendered speechless but after a while, he eventually nodded helplessly.
“You’re right. I often find others an eyesore too… Alright, let’s fight against them then!”
After they came to a conclusion, Triple Xin immediately broadcasted his response.
“Babe, it doesn’t reflect well on you to use Master Wang’s money to throw your weight around here.”
Triple Xin was starting to stir up some trouble again.
Wang Yan frowned and just when he was about to rebut him on behalf of He Miaomiao, Miss He immediately typed out a line of response.
“Talk is cheap. Why don’t we find a new livestreamer now and fight it out with rockets? The one who stops first will have to go up to the livestream camera to bow and admit defeat. Do you dare to accept the challenge?”
Aside from Triple Xin, even Wang Yan was stunned by how aggressive Miss He was.
Triple Xin certainly lacked the courage to take her on, for he was well aware that Princess Kitty had nine million shark fins in her account. It was impossible of him to accept her challenge and humiliate himself.
However, he also felt extremely tormented and hesitant.
“Is she really using CEO Wang’s money?
“If she is, then she probably wouldn’t dare to splurge it wilfully.
“Is it possible that she’s only playing a game of bluff?
“I’m a leader on the platform. I wouldn’t be able to show my face around here in future if I’m intimidated by something that a little girl said?”
He Miaomiao’s counter-attack placed Triple Xin in an awkward position where he could neither accept nor decline the challenge.
The insanely rich Triple Xin’s mind was in a mess and he subconsciously replied, “Hah, who’s scared of you?”
This was basically what he would say out of habit whenever he wanted to compete with wealth during a fight with others.
However, Miss He was even more decisive than him and had already gone onto the stage.
“Come here. This is the section for good looking people. To the lady livestreamer who’s ranked last on the webpage: I’ll be waiting for you!”
The live chats in all the major livestream servers were instantly flooded with comments.
The audience had come with the intention of watching a binge eating livestream and were pleasantly surprised by the dramatic turn of events.
Some livestream fans frantically cheered on, “Your Highness, wait for us!”
Others frantically urged the livestreamers, “Quick, go and check out how things are doing in their livestream room!”
Before the fellow livestreamers could conduct a manual search, a large banner suddenly floated over onto their screen.
“Princess Kitty had rewarded Green with 100 rockets. come and snatch the treasure chest!”
Right after that was an aggressive broadcast message that read, “To enable traffic to be directed to the livestream server directly!”
“Hands down to you!
“Was it necessary of you to spend 50,000 when we’re only just warming up?” Triple Xin thought.
That newbie lady livestreamer was chatting with the only audience in her livestream room, who also happened to be a newbie, when a VIP user suddenly showed up in their server. Before she could react to the situation and greet her audience, 100 rockets floated out across her screen.
She was scared silly.
Right after, a horde of people entered her livestream server to the point where the server was forced to shut down.
By the time the tech department quickly expanded the bandwidth of the server and restored it to normal, Green was already kneeling on the ground and kowtowing to the ground.
“Goddess! No matter which immortal you are, who had been tasked to salvage life on Earth, please accept my bow of respect to you. With this, I’m yours now. What should I do next? I’ve never done this before, so your wish is my command.”
He Miaomiao was practically rolling on the floor laughing, for she never expected the livestreamer whom she had randomly selected to be such an interesting person.
Meanwhile, Triple Xin gritted his teeth in anger and clenched his fists as he glared at the scene unfolding before his eyes. He was overwhelmed with rage and confusion but it was too late for him to back down now and he was utterly lost as to what he should do.
