Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Sihwa had only seen [Watermelon] once in the live broadcast room, but she hated his domineering look a lot. It was one thing to come into the live broadcast room and only look around without giving any gifts, but what right did he have to act as if he was a lifelong mentor and point fingers at her? She felt like her unlucky streak had begun as soon as she met the person with that ID. From then on, practically nothing went well!
When she saw the ID again, she wanted to pull him out from the screen to give him a beating, then strip him of his clothes and throw him in front of the shop to show the public… However, the anonymity of the Internet made it impossible for her to do that, so she could only glare at the screen angrily.
“The host’s angry look is so pretty! I feel like I need to change to a 4K monitor to make it more convenient to lick the screen!”
“Tut-tut! Every expression can be used as a wallpaper…”
[This Old Man Is Unrestrained]: “Continue! Don’t stop!” *gave a hairy crab and left a message.*
Sihwa originally wanted to continue being angry––to use her glare to make [Watermelon] scared––but when she saw someone sending presents, she instantly smiled brightly.
There were also people asking her what city she was in; they could not tell from her accent, as she spoke perfect Mandarin but had the occasional weird Korean words.
She still remembered the instructions that Zhang Zian gave: she should not expose what city she was in––and even more importantly, she should not expose her specific location. Otherwise, if the Live Broadcast Platform found out, they might close her account. She did not mind that, but the problem was that, after her account was closed, the money other people gave her could no longer be retrieved.
Sihwa did not really understand why people were willing to listen to her read out fairy tales, but the reason was simple: listening to a broadcaster read fairy tales and listening to a broadcaster sing were not that all that different. In essence, the viewers still looked at the face of the host and listened to their voice. It helped, too, if the host knew how to act cute. Although she did not know how to act cute, her face and her voice were at the level that would crush any competition.
She took up a fairy tale book and cleared her throat. “What kind of fairy tale do you all want to hear?”
“I only want to hear the host speak more. Anything is fine.”
“To be honest, I want to hear a horror story. I’m currently at a rest stop on the highway, so I desperately need to lift my spirits up…”
“How about The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants?”
“I want to hear **Pure… F*ck! Why is ** censored?”
For a short time, the audience’s opinion was divided, but out of what the audience suggested, practically none were fairy tales––or at least none were the fairy tales she had heard of before.
[Watermelon]: “Anchor, aren’t you cosplaying a mermaid? Then just read The Little Mermaid.”
Sihwa did not want to acknowledge [Watermelon]. She planned on scolding him as soon as she finished broadcasting, but quite a lot of the audience supported his suggestion.
“The Little Mermaid? What book is it in?” Sihwa flipped to the contents page of the fairy tale book she was holding, but could not find that name. After all, the book she was holding was a compilation of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
[killme]: “Is the anchor acting cute? Although I have never read the story before, at least I know to find it in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales.”
[Split Second of Darkness]: “This fairy tale is quite famous, but I haven’t read it before, either. I only saw the animated version by Disney, and I found it quite average.”
[The Grim Reaper Is Here]: “Actually, the story itself is quite average. It’s just a story about a prince and a princess, but the tragic ending is quite different from normal fairy tales.”
[Sour Pineapple]: “Times have changed. Now it’s no longer the prince and princess that’s popular; what’s popular is an overbearing CEO and a Mary Sue.”
[Dragon Knight Yin Zhiping]: “I don’t like Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. All the fairy tales he writes are tragedies, like The Little Match Girl and The Little Mermaid. Why are books that are written for children written as tragedies?”
[Two Dogs]: “What the f*ck! The one who sent the bullet screen––you have the guts to say that? I saw the picture of you riding the dragon and I really wanted to tear the book at that moment!”
[Dragon Knight Yin Zhiping]: “Comical emoji!”
[Watermelon]: “Actually The Little Mermaid isn’t considered a tragedy, right? I remembered that Andersen left this fairy tale open ended… He hinted that the mermaid had risen to the elfin world, which is much better than staying in the human realm with the prince and the greasy and crooked woman giving birth to a whole bunch of naughty kids, right?”
[Wind Maker]: “Haha, naughty kids must die!”
Sihwa noticed that particular bullet screen, even though it came from the ID she hated the most.
“Elfin world?” She became interested, and opened her mouth to ask, “What’s with the elfin world?”
Most of the people in the live broadcast room were men, and even if they had read the fairy tale before, it did not leave a deep impression. For women, even if they had read it before, they were often more concerned with the mermaid’s sad ending; they generally did not notice the ‘elfin world.’
No one could answer her question, and the only person who seemed like they could answer, [Watermelon], became silent.
Horrible!
Sihwa had no other choice. She found Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, then found The Little Mermaid from the contents page. She flipped to the corresponding page.
“It’s so long! And there are so many words I don’t recognize!” She quickly skimmed through it. As if she felt discouraged, she wrinkled her brow; reading that fairy tale was going to be a really big challenge.
Of course, when she wrinkled her brow, many fans took a screenshot to remember the moment.
However, [Watermelon]’s words made her very interested, and she wanted to know what the ‘elfin world’ was. She saw that the audience’s bullet screen mentioned that The Little Mermaid was a tale regarding a mermaid, which made her care about it even more. She did not see the ending of the Korean drama with the mermaid, but at least the fairy tale definitely had an ending, right?
“All right, then I’ll start reading…” She cleared her throat once again, then began to read the story out. She talked slowly, as she stumbled over many words as she read. “In the faraway sea, the water was very blue, just like the most beautiful corn… flower petals…”
When she met words she did not know, she could only read them according to the Pinyin. She cared about the reactions of the audience, so she was not entirely focused. She would pronounce a word incorrectly from time to time, or she would entirely read the wrong word, which caused the audience to send bullet screens to vent about it.
However, it was precisely because she did not read well, and some of her mistakes were very outrageous that the story felt almost like a comedy. The most important thing was that she did not pronounce the words incorrectly on purpose, and her awkward and suffering expressions nicely incited the audience’s desire to vent about her pronunciation. The bullet screen comments were very close together, and there were often people sending gifts.
Her timbre was beautiful––like the surging of clear spring water; like the dripping of water onto stones; like the rustling of tree leaves; and like the echoes of the tides––and her vocal range was shockingly large. No matter how picky a person was, they would not be able to find a problem with it.
Someone with that kind of voice and that kind of looks reading a fairy tale was enticing. She often made the audience members unable to control their smiles. Even if it was the morning with very little people watching live broadcasts, there were still a lot of people coming to her room from other live broadcast rooms.
She was unknowingly immersed in the fairy tale and did not notice that her number of fans was quickly increasing. As she was very concentrated, she got into the character of the female lead in the story. Although she often read words incorrectly, her voice already had emotions, unlike the emotionless and energy lacking voice she had at the start.
