Old Man Geng hesitated and decided to return to the third level, his main reason being better public security. At least they wouldn’t be encountering street fights on the third level. Of course, the more important thing was that he had to give the seller feedback after he discussed the transaction with Mr. G.
And Zhang Heng had to return to Xu Qian’s apartment as well. So, Miss F sent four men with a clear background to escort Old Man Geng back to the third level.
At the House of Old Things, Old Man Geng paid Zhang Heng fifteen shellac records in one lump sum. This was the reward for his protection. Coupled with the records that served as the deposit, Zhang Heng received six extra shellac records. These were a token of gratitude from Old Man Geng for protecting him from the violent mobs.
“These are all the shellac records I’ve collected. That’s all I have.” Old man Geng handed over the records to Zhang Heng. His tone was more polite than before. After all, he did witness Zhang Heng singlehandedly killing the mob. “I will give you those building blocks as well. You don’t have to pay rent anymore.”
Zhang Heng did not reject all those gifts. After he took those records, he heard a system notification reminding him that he had earned another 150 points.
“Do you have any other ways to collect more shellac records?” Zhang Heng asked afterward, “I can find a way to raise money to buy them, or, as in this case, provide my services as a form of payment.”
“Why are you so enthusiastic about shellac records?” Old Man Geng eyeballed at Zhang Heng curiously. “There are now extremely few left in this city. It’s not that easy to collect all of them. Usually, they are collected by rich individuals from the fourth and fifth levels. I do want to help you. If this transaction goes smoothly, I guess I will leave New Shanghai 0297.”
“Why do you want to leave this place?” Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows.
Old Man Geng, however, seemed hesitant to tell Zhang Heng the reason.
“Forget it. I have no interest in exploring your personal affairs. Just tell me who I should be looking for to collect more shellac records after you leave.”
Old Man Geng thought for a while before replying, “This is my trade secret. If I decide to leave here, I will send you his name and contact information the day before I depart.”
…
Zhang Heng returned to the Yacheng community at about 11 at night. Xu Qian wasn’t done with her livestream yet.
Zhang Heng placed the golden hamster that Miss F gave him on the table. After that, he took a bath, cleaned up the bloodstains on the skin, and walked out of the bathroom with his newly bought bathrobe. He then got himself a glass of water, sat on the sofa, turned on the projector, and entered Xu Qian’s livestream room like what he’d done for the past few days. At the same time, he clicked into the fan chatroom.
In her streaming studio, Xu Qian had just finished dancing, and her cheeks were flushed. Now, she was chatting with her fans about a game that had just been released. As far as Zhang Heng knew, Xu Qian had no interest in playing games. However, after looking at most viewers’ backgrounds, he realized that they were mostly made out of avid gamers. So about half a month ago, Xu Qian started to talk about the trendy games to prevent her fans from declining. And for this reason, she had deliberately learned a bunch of gaming jargon from the internet.
Her strategy was proven to be very effective after a while. When a cute girl like her began using gaming jargon while chatting, she’d become irresistably attractive to the gamer. As a result, for the first time ever, Xu Qian managed to stop the decline of her fans. In fact, her livestream viewers had even started increasing slightly.
After realizing how effective the method was, Xu Qian officially decided to adopt this strategy. Every night, she would chat about games on her stream. However, after a while, more began to realize that she was merely a fraud and deliberately learned all that gaming jargon. Hence, her viewers started to criticize her, and the number of her viewers began declining again.
But compared to the rate of her previous viewer drop, the decline had indeed slowed down by a little. Thus, Xu Qian ignored all those haters in her livestream room.
She also talked about this when she was chatting with Zhang Heng last night. In her own words, people were contradictory creatures. The audience who came to her livestream room always mentioned that they wanted to see the true her. But that was actually not true.
Xu Qian gave an example, saying that she did not understand how things worked in this line when she first signed the contract. She was just a rookie back then, and whenever she went live, she would just make use of the natural lighting and put on her usual makeup. She even wore a dirty sweater and wrapped herself tightly in it. Usually, her topics revolved around a female.
Since she was a rookie, she was always full of confidence. At that time, she studied all those famous streamers and thought that they were hypocrites. At first glance, she saw that they were not acting like themselves. She felt that they were not as sincere as her.
She also believed that the fans would prefer to watch a streamer willing to show her true side. As a result, reality hit her hard. The number of people that watched her livestream was pathetic. And some of the streamers who started at the same time as her had already recruited throngs of fans by relying on the innocent personality they had crafted for themselves. Some even gave themselves a coquettish personality.
So Xu Qian decided to put away her naive thoughts and used her first month’s salary to buy a set of expensive cosmetics, gifting them to a veteran streamer on the verge of retirement. The veteran streamer saw that she had bought a meal and costly cosmetics. Hence, in return, she related her experiences and routines accumulated over the years working as a streamer to Xu Qian. Since she was about to retire, she had no intention of taking those trade secrets to her grave. And Xu Qian did benefit a lot from her.
Xu Qian then relied on these experiences and routines that she learned and gradually established her own personality, dressing style, and chatting skills. Finally, she was slowly climbing towards the peak of her career.
“All the people you see on the Internet are not real,” Xu Qian said. “Do you really think that I like wearing cattails and pose in front of the camera in all kinds of stupid postures? And why would I want to force myself to talk about those games that I don’t care about?”
“Sometimes, I feel that there is no difference between me and a product on the store shelf. We are created by market demand and data. The packages are beautifully packaged and come in different types of packaging to cater to different needs. Sometimes, when you lay your eyes on a product, you somehow think it is very special. Still, it is just a product designed in a way to attract customers with special needs. And once a specific product becomes popular, countless products will follow suit, appearing in the market like mushrooms after the rain.
“I still remember the first sentence the veteran streamer said to me that night. No one cares what kind of person you are. When people enter your livestream room, they already have a purpose in them, even if they don’t realize it sometimes. Either they are lonely, feel the need to satisfy their primitive impulse, or want to fantasize about a pure and innocent person. Find those desires, give them what they want, and then you can get what you want.”
