Chapter 42: Auditioning For The Film

The next day, Liu Man arrived at the Galaxy building just after nine passed, because of what Peach had said. 

Galaxy building was the headquarters of Capital City Galaxy Film and Television Ltd. It had 37 floors in total, and the building looked very huge. It could be counted as one of the landmark buildings in the city. Because there were many famous superstars in the entertainment circle who had constantly appeared here, to prevent fans from entering, the security here was very strict. Each entrance had its own security team and electronic door systems. 

Liu Man had just gotten near the front doors before a sentry who was wearing a completely black uniform came over to stop her. 

“We don’t let any random people go near this building, stay away,” The guard thought she was just another young girl trying to get a glimpse of her idol. 

“I’m here for an interview,” Liu Man said. 

Coincidentally, Galaxy Film and Television had just finished finding new super-stars-in-trainings, so the guard impatiently said, “Don’t try to lie to me with an excuse. The interviews for new-super-stars-trainees are over, and we haven’t received a notice for new interviewees.” 

The guard’s words bewildered Liu Man too. She opened WeChat to confirm that she came to the right place, and told the guard, “Professor Qiu Jing told me to come here.” 

The guard’s expressions immediately changed when he heard Qiu Jing’s name. He took a few more glances at Liu Man, “Oh, so you’re here for the audition. Why are you here alone? No one took you here? You came here on foot? Where’s your car?” 

Liu Man said, “I don’t own a car, I came here by riding the subway.” 

“That’s weird,” The guard mumbled, and said again, “You’re here too early, but that can be good sometimes. Come with me, we need to log in your information.” 

Liu Man followed him into the security office and put in her information on a chart. The guard then took out a card from a drawer, “This is a temporary key to the front doors, you can enter now.” 

“Thank you!” 

Liu Man held the card as she crossed a small plaza before arriving at the entrance of the building. The two sides of the entrance were a huge parking place. There, parked multiple kinds of expensive business cars and Alphard cars. There were even a few sports cars. 

At this time, it was when people started to work. A lot of staff members were walking towards the entrance of the building. They all looked very astute and grown-up, and they all had an elite aura on them. 

Liu Man mixed into the crowd and got onto the elevator. 

As she got onto the 37^th floor, she got out of the elevator. As she stepped onto the soft carpet, she looked around her. She realized that she didn’t know how to get to the audition room.  

A young woman who walked out of the elevator at the same time turned around to look at her before finally recognizing her. She asked tentatively, 

“You are Liu Man?” 

“Yes, I am.” 

“I remember that Manager Qiu said that they had set the time to 10 o’clock. Why are you here so early?” 

Liu Man smiled, “I think it’s better to be early.” 

Her smile was a mixture of austereness being a student, coyness, and a bit of discreetness. The young woman, who had been seeing a lot of arrogant and self-centered people lately, had a favorable impression of her. 

“Follow me then.” 

The young woman was wearing a pair of high-heels which were very high and thin, but she had a really fast pace. Liu Man followed her, taking as huge steps as she could. The young woman kept on walking as she told Liu Man, “I’m Manager Qiu’s assistant, Zhou Xi. I will put you in conference room number four for now, and I’ll depart from you as soon as Manager Qiu’s here.” 

“Thank you, sister Xi.” 

“There’s no need to thank me, this also counts as a part of my duty,” Seeing how sweet Liu Man could be, Zhou Xi felt very happy. 

Zhou Xi knew a lot about Liu Man ever since days ago. Qiu Jing had mentioned her quite a few times, and showed her Liu Man’s photos, so that was why Zhou Xi recognized her within just a glance. 

Ever since “Listen, It’s the Sound of the Wind” had been confirmed and was going to start casting, the company had put all its resources and attention on the film. Qiu Jing had put away everything else on her schedule to completely be in charge of this project. Now, all the basic preparations for this movie were done. They only needed to find actors for ‘Ji Ning’ and the second female lead. 

The auditioning today hadn’t actually been prepared for Liu Man, but mainly for the second female lead. 

Liu Man sat in the corner of the conference room, near the window, as she waited. The conference room was completely visible for people in the hallway since its walls were just transparent windows. The curtains weren’t put down. 

Ye Zian and another investor walked over, then saw the girl sitting in the conference room at their first glance. 

The girl was wearing a light gray coat. She was sitting in a great posture, her body upright, and her clothes were very clean, without a single wrinkle. Her legs were stuck together and leaned towards one side; her hands were layered on top of each other. Her appearance seemed very natural as if she didn’t pretend at all. And at this moment, she had turned her head towards the window, and her retro hairstyle on the back of her head showed. There were two sparrows standing beside the window sill and had caught her whole attention. 

Even if he couldn’t see her face, Ye Zian could still feel that her expression towards the sparrows must’ve been very soft. 

“I remember, in the script, that there was a part where Ji Ning stared at the birds outside the window while they had class. This was the exact picture I had in mind,” Ye Zian said. 

Beside him, stood a man, who was one of the producers/investors of “Listen, It’s the Sound of the Wind.” His name was Gao Jindong, and everyone in this circle all called him Teacher Gao out of respect. 

TL’s Note: Circle as in like industry. But not completely an industry, as it can refer to things that are more secluded at times. 

When Gao Jindong was young, he had been a famous male actor. His appearance was orthodox and grandeur, and even though he was over 50 years old, he still looked very graceful. When he was younger, he had been filmed in movies and TV shows about national mountains and rivers with heavy styles. After he collected enough popularity and money, he had gone backstage to become an investor. 

Gao Jindong laughed, “This girl looks like she’s come from a decent family. She’s suitable for Ji Ning.” 

“The girl Manager Qiu picked out also fits Ji Ning,” Ye Zian.  

“That’s why I came here today. To see how she looks like since you two rarely agree on anything.” 

Ye Zian checked on his watch, “It’s now nine-forty. All the actresses trying out for the second female lead should already be here.” 

The audition for the second female lead had also been set at nine-thirty. Liu Man didn’t know that while she had waited, there had been some famous stars who had arrived here one by one. 

Different from Liu Man’s shabbiness, they all had professional drivers drive them in Alphard cars. They also had assistants, makeup artists, and agents following them. The affair seemed ostentatious. 

“Uncle Gao,” A surprised voice came from behind the two. 

Gao Jindong and Ye Zian turned around at the same time to look at the girl who had spoken. 

 The girl’s appearance was, no doubt, eminent. She had bright eyes and white teeth, and she looked very excited. She had long curly hair that reached her waist, and the tips of her hair were dyed into a grayish-yellow color. She wore extremely tenuous clothing, even under such cold weather: a ginger-yellow long-sleeved sweater, and a jean skirt. They complemented her long sexy legs. 

This girl was called Yang Huayue, and she had just graduated from the Capital City Film Academy. However, she had started to take part in filming ever since her freshman year. At first, Yang Huayue had only acted as some side characters or second/third female leads. She had just stepped into the movie industry a year before. Her first movie had been invested in by Gao Jindong.

Yang Huayue sprinted over, “Uncle Gao, I didn’t expect you to be here today too. Are you here to see me audition for the second female lead?” 

Gao Jindong smiled, “Yes, you have to try your best.” 

Ye Zian thought: “So fake…” 

Ye Zian did hear a few things about the relationship between Gao Jindong and Yang Huayue. Yang Huayue’s father had been Gao Jindong’s best friend when they were children, and Yang Huayue has gotten into the film academy by using Gao Jindong’s social connections. Many TV shows had let her take side character roles because of Gao Jindong too. 

Yang Huayue probably thought that movies would’ve made her more famous than TV shows, so she changed and started to take part in movies. Gao Jindong did support her, but the box office hadn’t exactly met expectations, and Gao Jindong had almost not gotten his invested amount back.  

That was why Gao Jindong hadn’t been so eager to help Yang Huayue this time. However, the only reason why Yang Huayue had been able to attend the audition was that Qiu Jing hadn’t wanted Gao Jindong to feel embarrassed.  

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 41: Notice For The Audition

Liu Man’s old fans were mostly young girls, but her new fans were mostly male. The men were quite crude when they spoke, but they were very munificent when they spammed presents.  

The men were also quite upright. They stopped giving her presents when Liu Man told them not to. 

Her female fans, however, started to send her presents at this moment. 

Peach is a fairy gifted you 52 Hearts; 

I’m here for the shoes gifted you 52 Hearts 

I’m Tingting gifted you 52 Hearts 

Dragon’s Roar gifted you 52 Hearts 

Where there’s a cat, there’s me gifted you 52 Hearts 

… 

Otaku Boy gifted you 520 Hearts. 

“Thank you so much for giving me that calligraphy work. This year’s about to end, and I only have this bit of money right now. When school reopens, I’ll take some part-time jobs and earn more money, and then I’ll return all of the rest of the money to you.” — Otaku Boy. 

Otaku Boy discreetly wrote down this comment before sending it out. 

He was a very smart boy. Learning, up from his youth, was something that couldn’t have been simpler. After he easily got into Capital University, he became even more relaxed. He would skip classes, be tardy, play video games, and watch live-streams. Even if he studied at the last moment before an exam, he would still be able to get a really high score.  

Maybe it was at that moment when he realized, he needed to improve. He needed to learn more and learn how to earn more money. He needed to be able to deserve Princess Man’s hope towards him. 

After ending the live-stream, Liu Man received many private messages. She first selected those addresses that she needed to send calligraphy works to. The rest were asking for ways to contact her. 

“Sis, my WeChat ID is XXXXXXX, can you please friend me?” — Peach is a fairy. 

Liu Man added her on WeChat without a moment of hesitation. Peach is a fairy’s WeChat nickname was just “Peach.” 

After she sent out a friend request, Peach accepted her within just a second. 

“Wow, I was just hoping against hope. I didn’t expect you to add me! I’m feeling so glad right now.”

Before Liu Man could reply, she sent another message, “Sis, you go to school at Capital City, right? I’m also in Capital City right now, and I’m in my senior year. I go to the economic management major at Jinhua University. Which school do you go to?” 

The Capital University and Jinhua University were two of the best universities out of the whole country. Liu Man never thought that Peach is a fairy would be a top student too.  

TL’s Note: Just a fun fact, this author’s probably insinuating Peking University (Beijing University) And Qinghua University. 😀 

“I study piano at the Capital City Music University. I should be the one to call you sis since I’m only in my sophomore year.” 

“Hahaha, ‘sis’ is just a way to call someone, not someone who’s older. You should call me sister,” She sent a cute round-faced emoji. 

Liu Man really felt that the names of people who lived in the modern world were messy. She didn’t know what she should reply to. 

Peach said at this time, “During the past few live-streams, you filmed some of your interactions with Daylight. I edited them and put them into a small video. Do you want to post it onto your Weibo?” 

Liu Man felt touched and surprised. Even she didn’t consciously edit a video for her cat, “Wouldn’t that trouble you too much though?” 

“Haha, not really. I really like cats, but my family doesn’t let me keep one as a pet. I also like to edit videos. If it weren’t for my family stopping, I would’ve gone to study the directing major at Capital City Film Academy. I have to have something to do as my hobby. I’m now going to send you a video that I just edited.” 

“Thank you, really. Thank you so much.” Except for saying thank you, Liu Man had no idea what else she could say. She really appreciated, with all her heart, what Peach did. 

Peach didn’t send another message, but sent, one by one, 11 short videos. 

These videos were very delicate, Peach captured every moment of Daylight being dumbly cute – yawning, stretching, blinking, staring off to space, licking her fur… She also put on a filter that made the videos seem warm-colored. The warm light source and the clips that were closely put together, made the cat look even prettier when it had already been so cute. 

“You’re so good at this,” Liu Man typed. 

Peach jokingly answered, “Don’t compliment me, or I’ll be too proud.” 

Liu Man uploaded the 11 videos that Peach had sent her onto her Weibo account. 

Yu Zhan had been very busy that day. Because he had missed Liu Man’s live-stream, he was feeling a bit empty inside, and so he went to check on Liu Man’s WeChat moments—there was no new content. He realized he had followed Liu Man’s Weibo account, so he logged on and coincidentally saw the videos just as she had posted. 

As he watched these cute cat videos, the corners of his lips couldn’t resist but go up. His fingers clicked a few times, and he re-posted all eleven of those videos. 

These days, Liu Man had earned almost a hundred thousand RMB just by selling her calligraphy works. 

She took some time to open an account at the bank and saved all her money onto a card. She could take it out anytime whenever her mother needed money. 

She then bought some more rice-papers on Taobao, as she was planning to earn some more money with her calligraphy. She didn’t expect that Professor Qiu, who hadn’t been talking to her for such a long time, had suddenly sent her a WeChat message. 

“Hello, Ms. Liu Man, do you have time tomorrow?” 

Liu Man didn’t dare to let Professor Qiu wait, so she immediately responded, “Yes, I do. I always have time, since I’m now on winter break.” 

“There’s an audition tomorrow morning at ten. Please come to this address: XXXX Avenue, number 186 Galaxy Building, floor 23, room 417. 

Liu Man didn’t dare to ask anything else, so she only said, “Okay, I’ll be there on time.” 

Professor Qiu didn’t send anything else. 

Liu Man stared at the simple chat history between her and Professor Qiu and went into a trance. She didn’t know how to prepare for this audition. 

She wanted to ask Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina, so she opened up the group chat window. But then, she hesitated a little and exited the group chat again. 

At this time, the chat window between her and Peach had gone into her view. She thought for a moment, then started to type: 

“Good morning, sister.” 

Peach responded within a few seconds, once again, “Oh, hey. I feel so uncomfortable with such a formal greeting, but I do like how you call me. What’s up?” 

“I just wanted to ask you how I should attend an interview. I have an interview tomorrow,” Liu Man thought that since Peach was about to graduate from college, she should have had some experience on finding a job. 

“Interview? Why are you suddenly getting interviewed? Aren’t you still in your sophomore year?” 

“I found a part-time job for winter break.” 

“Oh, oh, oh… I feel like you could already earn enough just by live-streaming, but you’re also trying to get a part-time job! You’re working so hard.” 

“I really need money right now.” 

Liu Man felt that there’s nothing embarrassing to say it like that. 

“Alright, alright… Let me think for a moment. To be honest, I’ve only gone to interviews not so many times.” 

After a while, Peach sent another message, 

“First of all, don’t be tardy. When’s your interview tomorrow?” 

“10 o’ clock.” 

“Then it’d be best if you arrived at nine-thirty.” 

“Alright.” 

“You’re only twenty, so don’t put on too much make-up. Just make sure that your make-up and clothing are adequate and fitting for your age.” 

“Mhm.” 

“I haven’t gotten a part-time job before, but I guess that there must be a lot of people trying to get a part-time job these days. When you go there, you’ll probably have to wait. When you wait, don’t play with your phone. You can even stare into a wall, just don’t play with your phone.” 

“I have no problem with that,” Liu Man had never been addicted to phones anyway. 

“Also, what kind of job are you interviewing for? Is it related to your major, piano?” 

“Kind of.” 

 “Then, I can’t give you any more suggestions on the interview content. Just don’t be too nervous, and I think you’ll be just fine.” 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 40: New And Old Fans

When Liu Man finished the entire passage of “The book of songs · Daya · Hanlu”, she finally looked up and checked the comments on her phone. There were many comments, and there were also many gifts that the viewers had sent. 

At this moment, the fans who sent a lot of Fairytale Carriages were spamming and arguing about who would be the one to buy the poem she wrote today. There was only one piece of work, but there were way too many who wanted it. 

Liu Man hadn’t thought of a way to solve this issue before a long comment appeared at the very top of the comment section. 

“Hello, live-streamer. I’m a roommate of Otaku Boy. We’re all sophomore year students from the Capital University. Otaku Boy has been watching your live-stream since the first day you started, and he never missed any one of your live-streams. Now, he’s even a manager of your live-stream, he has always been your most loyal fan.” 

“He really liked your calligraphy work, but he’s just a student from a normal family. He can’t gift you with so many Fairytale Carriages like the other people from rich families, but he did spam you presents in other live-streams, and he took them out of his own living expenses. For that sake, and also for the sake of how he supported you by even watching your streams right before exams, can you please give him one of your calligraphy works tonight?” — Hello, Princess Man. 

As this comment came out, the entire comment section exploded again. 

“Wow, even the top students of Capital University watch this live-stream too. I suddenly feel like this live-stream is really high-leveled…” 

TL’s Note: There are a lot of references of real-life things in here. For example, according to Sydney, when the author says “capital city,” she means Beijing. When she says “Capital University,” she means Peking University – one of the most prestigious schools in China. She won’t directly name it, but apparently Chinese readers would understand without her having to directly name something from real life. 

“Although this person’s comment does make some sense, it’s quite unfair. He’s not the only loyal fan of Princess Man’s, and he isn’t the one who sends out the most gifts. Why should the live-streamer send him her work, just because his roommate asked for it?” 

“Yeah. First come, first serve. I still think the calligraphy work should go to the person who sends out the most gifts tonight.” 

“You do know that he’s the manager of the live-stream? Be careful, he might kick you guys out.” 

… 

Everyone started to discuss, but they were all some new fans. Liu Man’s four managers, including Otaku Boy, didn’t say anything. None of Liu Man’s old fans said anything either. 

Liu Man still didn’t talk after a long while. She was very clear, if she couldn’t solve this today, she might lose a big part of her fans. 

After pondering for a moment, Liu Man said, “I’m on winter break today, and I can live-stream ‘till twelve o’ clock. Those who gifted me with Fairytale Carriages, you can private message me your addresses tonight. I’ll write a few more copies of this poem tomorrow morning, and send them to you. Now, I’ll continue to write. From now on, everyone, please stop sending me any gifts, because this piece of work is directed at Otaku Boy. Thank you so much for all your support since the beginning.” 

Liu Man, unlike other live-streamers, didn’t use a software to modify her voice. Her voice was natural and orthodox. It also sounded soft. It seemed to calm everyone’s mind, for everyone suddenly became quiet and stopped arguing. 

Everyone paid their whole attention as they watched her spread out a new piece of rice-paper, and continued to rub an ink-stick against the ink-stone to create ink. The sharp chin of the girl appeared at some points of the video. She probably pinned all her hair to the back of her head because nobody could see any of her hair for the rest of the video. 

Otaku Boy stared at the screen numbly, looking at her chin, and at her thin fingers… 

His roommates hadn’t realized that Princess Man was so easy to persuade either. 

All the boys in the dorm room suddenly stopped studying and attentively stared at the live-stream. 

“Cyan, comes out of the blue, but people like it more than the blue; ice, comes from water, but is colder than the water. Wood is straight, like an ink string. But if you heat it up and bend it, it can become the wheels of a car. The angle it bends at is like a compass, even if you dry it up, it won’t ever become straight again because humans made it bend. So, wood will be straight after being marked out by a carpenter’s ink line, and metal utensils will become sharp after being rubbed on rock. A gentleman would learn everything he can and reflect after his own actions every day, so he would gain intelligence and not make more mistakes.” 

Liu Man wrote down an excerpt from “Persuade to Learn” by Xunzi. Everyone was very familiar with this part of the poem, so a lot of viewers could recite it without having someone to translate it. 

However, Liu Man wrote in the next paragraph: 

The red crowned crane’s sound went pass the quagmire and over to the field. Fish dived under the deep lake, and sometimes swam to the streams. They really are jocund in that stream in the garden, with sandal trees and long grass under the trees. On other mountains, there are great ores and materials that can be made into jade products. 

This was also a passage from “The Book of Songs,” it was very famous, and the last sentence was a famous adage in the modern world. 

After writing down all of this, Liu Man told her fans, “I hope Otaku Boy and his dormmates, along with all my other fans who are still in school, to study earnestly and prepare for the exams.” 

“A lot of fans know that I am also a student, and I’ve just finished my last exam for this semester. I study in an artistic major, so I’m not smart and there’s a lot of things that I don’t understand. However, I have the confidence that I will be able to pass every test, since I always pay a lot of attention during every class and try my best while studying and reviewing. I put in all of my effort. I only live-stream when I have time to, so I think you are also only watching my live-streams when you have the time. This is already enough to make me happy.” 

“There’s one more thing I’d like to say to Otaku Boy. You are very lucky to have friends such as your roommates. “There are great ores and materials on other mountains that can be made into jewelries.” You will only be able to attain more things if you listen more to your friends. Your friendship is precious, and don’t waste it. 

“There are great ores and materials on other mountains that can be made into jewelries.” Otaku Boy murmured to himself. 

“Ah, why are my eyes feeling sore…” Roommate A blinked his eyes. 

“We’re suddenly getting sentimental here. God, we are grown-up men, you know.” Roommate C hmphed, then turned off the live-stream. 

Roommate B laughed, “This girl really is different.” 

Liu Man’s poignant speech not only made Otaku Boy feel sentimental but also moved a lot of her other old fans. 

“I just realized that sis isn’t only a fairy, she’s an angel too. Her words are so warm.” — Peach is a fairy. 

“That’s why we’re all her fans.” — I’m Tingting. 

“Yeah, I’ve already bought my AJs, but I still watch her live-streams right on time every day, and it’s becoming my habit like it’s mandatory.” — I’m here for the shoes. 

“I like our live-streamer sis.” — Dragon’s Roar. 

“Me too.” — Andy my euphoria.

“Me three.” — Pancake. 

“Me four.” — Big Faced Cat.

“Me five.” — Where there’s a cat, there’s me. 

… 

“Shit, this live-stream is way too positive.” 

“Mhm, it’s too positive that I’m even feeling uncomfortable.” 

“Which female live-streamer on this application doesn’t flirt away, and try to wear as little clothing as possible? This is my first time seeing some live-streamer like this.” 

“I’m guessing that this live-streamer probably doesn’t have a pretty good appearance. But it’s enough that she has great talents.” 

“Yeah, if she looks pretty, then she probably couldn’t have waited to show her face. It’s much easier to attract more fans with a pretty face.” 

“If she looks ugly, then so be it. Haven’t you guys heard of ‘one who is filled with knowledge always behaves with elegance?’” 

“Anyways, God is pretty fair. For example, in my school, usually, the girls who get good scores never look pretty. And those who look pretty never have good scores.” 

“Nobody can be perfect.” 

“Also, I don’t trust women’s face these days. Once you put on makeup and beauty filters, and everyone would be pretty.” 

… 

All of Princess Man’s fans, no matter whether they were old or new, all reached an agreement without realizing it—Their favorite live-streamer was an ugly girl. 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 39: Request For Cooperation

When Huang Shiting handed the files to Liu Man, he had only meant it as consolation for her. He had never hoped for the young girl to achieve anything. But who would’ve known that Liu Man would’ve been able to not only force the fake cat-food sellers into a corner but also promote Cats’ Garden along with it? 

Huang Shi Ting had his assistant, John, go onto Taobao to check. Those fake cat food sellers that had always had a great business, had already taken down pertinent cat food products. Some had even closed their shops down entirely. 

Now, even the New Zealand headquarters had called him to ask about Eastern Asia’s sudden increase in sales 

So, Huang Shiting was in a very good mood. His tone towards Liu Man became even better, “Thank you so much for advertising us on the internet.” 

“No, no, I should be the one to thank you. If it hadn’t been for your files, nobody would’ve trusted me.” 

“Haha, it’s not that big of a deal, those files didn’t contain our company’s secrets anyway. Everyone who works at my company has one, but has never put it to any use,” Huang Shiting laughed, “Ms. Liu, you probably want to ask about other things in this call, don’t you?” 

Liu Man thought about how she should start, then said, “Nowadays, it’s extremely hard to buy the regular version of Cats’ Garden’s cat food from Mainland China. Almost every way to buy cat food that people know of, appears to have problems. Most people are now very doubtful and are afraid to buy some. When I live-streamed, I communicated with my fans, and they all trusted me. They really hope that they can buy cat food from Cats’ Garden through me. So, I was wondering if you could give me some resources to permit me to sell cat food through Mainland China’s network?” 

Huang Shiting laughed and said, “Do you know, in the past few years, how many businessmen from the mainland have tried to ask me if they could become legalized dealers for Cats’ Garden? They were all older than you, they were all very sophisticated, they all had well-known companies, they all had connections, and they all knew how to operate businesses. I have never given them permission, so why should I allow you instead?” 

Huang Shiting’s tone was still very kind, but his questions were still very sharp and uncaring. 

Liu Man didn’t hesitate to answer his questions, and said smoothly, “First of all, I only want to become a dealer on the network. I have almost thirty-thousand fans on Weibo and more than ten-thousand fans on a live-streaming application. As I continue to live-stream, the follower count will increase too. Most of them are potential customers, and as for the dealing rights in real life, you can still give it to someone else or operate them yourself. Secondly, you’re a businessman, and I think what you care about the most is how many benefits you can receive. Well, I can increase 10% on top of the EXW you propose.” 

TL’s Note: EXW = EX works, I believe. Some business shenanigans.  

“I think I haven’t told you about our company’s EXW yet.” 

“I believe that you will tell me eventually.” 

Huang Shiting laughed, “As a young girl, you have quite an amount of ambition. It’s like you’re luring me into trap, step by step.” 

Liu Man denied it and laughed too, “I’m only taking one step at a time and improvising as well. If my previous live-streams weren’t popular, and nobody knew me, then I wouldn’t be requesting this of you right now.”  

“I must have a meeting with the other executives in my company to decide this. At the moment, there’s no way for me to give you an exact reply. Also, the cat food in our storage room is about to be sold out, and the Chinese New Year is coming soon. Even if we decide to permit you to start selling cat food from our company, you would only be able to receive the products after Chinese New Year.” 

“It’s alright, I can wait.” 

After he hung up, Huang Shiting downloaded the Mainland Weibo for the first time ever just to see “Princess Man’s” account. He even signed up for an account, and named it using his English name, Alex. He had no choice. If he didn’t sign up, then he wouldn’t be able to see most of her content. 

Huang Shiting saw the comments of the fans supporting “Princess Man,” and saw her live-stream video which had completely exposed the fake cat food sellers. He also followed “Princess Man” just in case. 

After deep consideration, Huang Shi Ting called his assistant, John, into his office and told him to prepare for an executives’ meeting.  

…

The previous night, when “I’m a vet” had bought Liu Man’s work at an expensive price, it had left all the other viewers a thought – Liu Man’s seal characters were meaningful and worthy to be collected. 

So, on that day’s live-stream, as Liu Man started to write in calligraphy again, the live-stream had turned into a place where everyone compared how much they could pay. 

Today, her topic was “The book of songs · Daya · Hanlu.” 

Staring at the bottom of the mountain far away,  

and look at how many trees there are. 

This peaceful gentleman,  

hopes for everything to be peaceful.  

The wine cups were made so fresh and detailed,  

and under the golden spoon is the bon vin.  

Happiness comes from the heaven,  

as this peaceful gentleman says.  

The eagle spread its wings and glided under the blue sky,  

the fish shook its tail and swam in the gully.  

This peaceful gentleman,  

why would he not be teaching more teenagers? 

This sweet, sweet wine has filled the cup,  

and the red bull is ready to be sacrificed.  

Offer its sacrifice to the gods,  

in exchange for peacefulness and blissfulness.  

Look at how many trees there are,  

citizens come to cut them to burn and sacrifice to the gods.  

Such a good and peaceful gentleman,  

the godly spirits will come and visit him.  

Vine grows everywhere and circles around the branches and trunks of trees.  

Oh, how peaceful is this gentleman,  

who uses the law of the nature to sacrifice to the gods,  

not being evil. 

TL’s Note: SORRY BUT THIS WAS EXTREMELY HARD TO TRANSLATE AND EDIT. 

The comment section was filled with comments the second Liu Man had started writing this poem. 

“Sis is writing something impressive today again.” 

“I will never be able to read whatever Princess Man writes down. (cries)” 

“Ah, I just feel like these characters today are especially difficult to recognize, and they look so hard to write down, too!” 

“Anyway, it’s enough that it looks upper-end. To us viewers, we’re basically illiterate. Let’s just watch in peace.” 

TL’s Note: Upper-end = it looks high-societyish/upper class quality 

“I want to buy this.” — To drink wine and sing 

This viewer named as ‘To drink wine and sing’ copied what ‘I’m a vet’ did yesterday, and directly gifted Liu Man with 10 Fairytale Carriages. 

“I don’t own a mine, and I can’t be capricious. This is the most I can gift you. Sis, could you please sell me your work today?” 

TL’s Note: I don’t own a mine = he isn’t that rich/not rich at all. 

“That’s only 10 Fairytale Carriages… That god, ‘I’m a vet,’ had given 100 Fairytale Carriages.” 

“Haha, he probably sent presents based on how many words there were. It isn’t his fault that ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ had a lot of words in it.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that you all don’t understand. A single character that a master calligraphist writes would cost a thousand. I think that this live-streamer’s work, no matter how long it is, would always be very worth a lot of money.” 

“I’m a vet’s” gift seemed to have made an expectation. Any gifts lower than this standard would be laughed at. 

“If 10 Fairytale Carriages can buy such good work, then I’ll gift you with 15.” — A member of the South Kingdom. 

A member of the South Kingdom gifted you 15 Fairytale Carriages. 

A line of bold and red words appeared in the middle of the screen and then came the animations of 15 carriages. 

“So what? That’s only 5 more carriages, such a miser. Look at how much your bro can send.” — Quick! Call me bro. 

Quick! Call me bro gifted you 30 Fairytale Carriages.  

“66666666666666666666.” 

“Bro, do you still need a little brother?” 

“Bro, I’m your younger sister who had gotten lost a few years ago.” 

“Bro, I’ll change my first name to match yours, okay?” 

…

Compared to the female fans who loved cute animals, Liu Man’s new male fans liked calligraphy better. 

In reality, men were the ones who liked calligraphy. Some men liked tea, so they had a lot of tea utensils, tea tables, and everything that had to do with the tea in their house. If there was a calligraphy work that hung behind the tea table that looked very profound, and if the words said something like “ten thousand horses galloping,” or “life always rewards those who are diligent,” then that would be simply awesome. Also, if people who had a lot of friends that visited all the time, then while they drank tea, they would be able to admire those calligraphy works. Then, with that, they would think that the owner of the house was very sophisticated. 

Otaku Boy, who had always watched Liu Man’s live-streams right on time every day, felt uncomfortable as he saw these presents being gifted. He said sadly, “I want Princess Man’s work too.” 

As he said that, his hand had already opened the gifting section and selected the Fairytale Carriage. 

As Roommate A and B saw what he was doing, they immediately grabbed his right and left arm. Roommate C took his phone away from him, “Chill, dude, you have to calm down. We are all poor college students, and a carriage would cost more than 500 RMB!” 

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Credits: Sydney, Dora, & Kathrien

Chapter 38: An Expensive Gift

Everyone’s enthusiasm really confused Li Xiaoru. She had only just finished with her studying during the weekends and had nothing to do during the evening. She just thought of logging on to see what Liu Man was doing. 

However, when she entered the live-stream, she realized that Liu Man’s popularity had been way out of her expectations and imagination. To her, even more surprisingly, Liu Man, who was always known as the one who was only pretty and had no real skills, was writing calligraphy! Liu Man had never told any of them that she knew how to write calligraphy. That girl really was deep on the inside… 

TL’s Note: ‘Liu Man never told any of them.’ By them, she meant she and Wang Nina.

Also, Li Xiaoru couldn’t understand any of the characters she was writing. 

…If a tree doesn’t get cut by an ax, then there would be no other things that can harm it. Although there wasn’t any use of it, there wouldn’t be any hardship. 

TL’s note: We’re not really sure about what this means, but we think it’s some type of Chinese idiom/metaphor (?) 

As Liu Man wrote down the last word, her brush stopped moving, and she rubbed her sore wrist. 

“Finally, it’s finished! You deserve bouquets of flowers.” 

“Your calligraphy is so good! The words filled two whole rice-papers, and I don’t recognize a single word!” 

“My admiration for you in my heart is just like a river, rushing in and never breaking. Only my gifts will show you how much I admire you.” 

Ramble on to me if you need anything gifted you 100 Hearts; 

Cookie the biscuit gifted you 100 Hearts; 

A nest of snakes and rats gifted you 100 Hearts; 

Honey’s huge claws gifted you 100 Hearts; 

…

Everyone started gifting Liu Man hearts just like before. Within all the spamming, there, suddenly popped out: 

I’m a vet gifted you 100 Fairytale Carriages. 

… 

… 

… 
 
… 

…  

…

Everyone suddenly stopped giving gifts. 

“Did I see it wrong?” 

“No, you didn’t see it wrong, but my hands are shaking now.” 

“Oh, fuck. 100 Fairytale Carriages! I’ve never seen anyone gift any live-streamer 100 Fairytale Carriages all at once. This person must be the richest out of the richest!”  

“My god! The animations of Fairytale Carriages are playing on my screen nonstop. Is it going to replay itself 100 times??” 

“Of course, we can never compare ourselves with those who have mines in their backyards. I feel like the gifts I just sent seem too little…” 

TL’s Note: Some previous chapters mentioned that a Fairytale Carriage was worth 5200 virtual coins on this application and 10 coins is about 1 RMB. This means, 100 Fairytale Carriages would be equal to 52000 RMB.   

ALSO. 520 in chinese means ‘I love you.’ ;DDD 

Not only were the viewers stunned, but Liu Man was also way too shocked. She immediately asked “I’m a vet,” 

“Did you press it wrong?” 

“No, I did not. I did want to send you 100 Fairytale Carriages,” Yu Zhan typed out this line of words with his long and fast fingers. This was the first time he had come onto this live-streaming platform, and he had studied carefully the rules about the gifts here. The gift that costed the most was the Perfect Castle, and it costed 13140 coins. The second most expensive was the Fairytale Carriage which costed 5200 coins.  

He could actually just send Liu Man 100 Perfect Castles… But Liu Man would never accept it.  

TL’s Note: Woah, that would be 131,400 RMB… Approximately 19,000 USD, I- 

Indeed, Liu Man couldn’t even take these 100 Fairytale Carriages, “This gift of yours is way too expensive, I really can’t take it.” 

The corners of Yu Zhan’s lips went up, for he expected that. He continued to type, “Who told you I really intended to give you all this money for free? I was going to buy that calligraphy work of yours. I’ll text you my address, and you can mail it to me, using that address. Fifty-thousand and two hundred, for a really great calligraphy piece. I think that it’s really cheap, and it’s worth it.” 

His words suddenly inspired others. 

“Oh no. Why didn’t I think of buying her work? What if sis becomes a famous celebrity one day? Then, her work would really be worth a lot of money.” 

“Her work is worth a whole bunch of money, even now…” 

“Hmph, someone already did it… I’m definitely going to order her work the next time she live-streams herself writing calligraphy.” 

… 

And just like that, Yu Zhan successfully stopped Liu Man from feeling doubtful.

After Liu Man closed her life-stream, she found a message from “I’m a vet” in her direct messages on the application. His address was in an apartment at the center of the capital city, where most upper-class people lived in. In addition, Liu Man heard of the price of this kind of apartment before. They sold each square meter at more than five-hundred thousand RMB.  

On Monday, Liu Man had two exams. When she finished, she would be officially on winter break starting from that afternoon. 

Liu Man went from her house straight to the place where the exam would take place. During the exam, seats were pre-designated, and Liu Man sat in the back row. Li Xiaoru had a whole mind of questions she had wanted to ask Liu Man, but she sat too far away from Liu Man. During the exam, she turned her head around to look at Liu Man several times, and the expression she showed was difficult to be read.  

After the two exams ended, Liu Man, as promised, went with her two roommates to the cafeteria for lunch. 

Li Xiaoru opened her mouth several times as if she wanted to mention something, but she never did. She looked at Wang Nina, who was standing beside her, and who didn’t know about what she knew. In the end, Li Xiaoru never got a chance to ask the questions she wanted to ask. There had been a long time since she had watched Liu Man’s live-streams, and her impression on the live-streams was still stuck in the beginning. Liu Man, selling her AJs and filming activities with her cat. There weren’t many people watching, and it seemed a bit quiet, but there was still a bit of interaction. 

But when did Liu Man’s live-streams start to become so popular? 

Li Xiaoru really couldn’t think of an answer to her questions. She really became stunned the previous day’s night. Those thirty-thousand viewers, and countless gifts, and those spamming comments. She knew that Liu Man was now really on fire. 

TL’s Note: on fire = famous/popular 

Although she was always very confident in Liu Man’s live-streams, she had never expected it to get so popular in such a short amount of time. 

Li Xiaoru was really curious as of to how Liu Man did it, but she didn’t want to ask Liu Man in front of Wang Nina. 

Wang Nina’s personality was a bit bourgeoisie, with the aloofness of an artist. In her heart, she never really approved of things like live-streams and cyber-stars, for they seemed, to her, very ‘low.’ She helped Liu Man at the beginning, only because they were friends. Later on, she never went back online. A few days before, because she thought the application was a waste of space, she had deleted the live-streaming application. 

Liu Man didn’t live in the dorm for most of her time, but Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina did, which meant that they spent more time together. From her understanding of Wang Nina, she felt that if Wang Nina knew how popular and famous Liu Man had become, she would feel uncomfortable and things could go wrong. 

Li Xiaoru felt that she’d rather ask Liu Man on WeChat through private messages than to ask her face-to-face after winter break. 

Liu Man had no idea about Li Xiaoru’s thoughts. She finished her lunch with her two roommates, wished them an early Happy New Year, and went straight back home without returning to her dorm. 

It was now winter break, and the students were relaxed. 

However, Liu Man had just started to become busy. 

That afternoon, she called Manager Huang again. 

Huang Shiting saved Liu Man’s number. He greeted her directly right after he picked up the phone, “Hello, Ms. Liu.” 

“Hello, hello.” Liu Man said. 

“I heard that Ms. Liu had done something very unbelievable recently.” 

Liu Man paused for a moment, “Did the news reach Hong Kong already?” 

“Nowadays, the internet is very advanced. Not to mention Hong Kong, even Los Angeles, on the other side of the Earth would know immediately, as long as you posted on the internet.” 

Huang Shiting was a very busy man. Of course, he didn’t have the time to go through things on Weibo. However, Liu Man created too big a business, that now, everyone in the circle of Chinese cat food sellers knew that a Chinese Mainland live-streamer named “Princess Man,” had exposed all the entire business of fake cat food in Mainland China. 

Because she had repeatedly mentioned Hong Kong Westland Trade Ltd., these days, the customer service department of Huang Shiting’s company had been way too busy because of the calls coming in. The calls were mostly about whether Liu Man’s speech had been real. In addition, the sales rate directly increased, and now it grew higher and higher every day. It was as if it was going to multiply itself by 2 every day, and the sales rate went right over all of the other companies who sold cat food. The storage room, which stored a lot of products for Chinese New Year, almost had gone empty. They had to request for some new cat food from the New Zealand factories. 

Huang Shiting never thought that his kindness of one moment would’ve brought such huge benefits to his company. They had fought against the Mainland Chinese dealers who had sold fake cat food for many years now. They had sent emails containing admonitions, litigations, and even letters from their attorneys. However, the other side was never afraid, and they still managed to have quite a great business going on. These people were not afraid of the real cat food dealers, because they had people supporting them. 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 37: Live-streaming Calligraphy Once Again

“Except for things about cats, doesn’t this live-streamer have any other talents to show us?” A new viewer who had just come in commented. 

“Yeah. To those of us who don’t keep pets, we’re not really interested in this.” — Quick! Call me bro. 

“Then, why are you here?” — Peach is a fairy. 

 “Your live-streamer is number one on the application’s leaderboard, and this application had recommended her to us. We don’t want to watch, but we kind of have to. However, I waited for a long time, and I still haven’t seen how she really looks like. There aren’t any other talents to see, and the entire live-stream gets very boisterous too as if everyone’s feeling really angry or something.” — Quick! Call me bro. 

 “These few days, everyone’s discussing the fake cat food. It’s normal for us to argue over things.” 

 “So, what’s so prominent about this live-streamer? We, who have just entered this stream, need a reason to follow her.” 

There were a lot of people in Liu Man’s audience who didn’t know a lot about her since Liu Man had gotten popular too fast. A lot of the old users on this application, especially the male ones, didn’t know her at all. 

TL’s Note: By old users, it’s not literally age-wise old, but more of that they’ve been using the application for already a long time. 

“Hmph. You guys are underestimating her. Sis, show them one of your talents, write a few words for them to see.” — I’m Tingting. 

Liu Man had been too busy to write calligraphy during the last few live-streams. She checked the time and realized that there was still a lot of time left. 

“Wait for me for a moment, let me go and prepare.” 

Liu Man stood up to fetch her brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. 

“Oh, so she knows a little bit about Chinese calligraphy. There’s nothing special about that.” 

When Liu Man first live-streamed herself writing in Qin Seal, she had only had around 1000 viewers. However, at this moment, she had already gained 20000 viewers, and the number continued to increase. 

Yu Zhan held his phone and stared at the screen attentively. He was the one who had helped Liu Man fetch the delivery containing her calligraphy utensils. Nobody would be more excited than him to see Liu Man write calligraphy. 

What should she write? 

Liu Man pondered for a while, and then the Chinese customed song that Coco had sang, ‘The Untrammeled Traveler,’ popped into her mind. So, she lifted her brush and bent over to write on the paper: 

In the northern part of the sea, there’s a fish. Its name is Kun. They all say Kun’s huge, but we don’t know how many kilometers of the ocean it can fill. Turns into a bird, its name is Peng. Peng’s size is big, but we don’t know how many kilometers of the air it can fill. It flies when it’s angry, it’s wings as if the clouds in the sky. It migrates to the southern part of the sea when the wind starts to blow on the waves. The southern part of the sea, is the ‘sky pool.’ ‘Qi Xie’, is a book about strange things… 

From the first word she wrote, someone started to comment, 

“She’s writing ’The Untrammeled Traveler’ by Zhou Zhuang!” 

Because of how famous ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ was, this was much easier to read than that ‘Yue Ren Song’ from last time. A lot of people recognized the word from the first moment. 

The old fans continued to spam in the comments section and also spam presents. 

The new fans repeated what the old fans had done when Liu Man had first shown her calligraphy skills. They first asked what font the live-streamer was writing in, then went to search for the entire passage of ‘The Untrammeled Traveler.’ They all felt completely awed. 

However, as time passed, all the fans, whether new or old, we’re all thinking of the same thing. 

“Fuck!”  

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” 

“How is she still writing!” 

Liu Man’s hand had never stopped moving. It continued writing ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ the whole time. The tip of the brush was steady and smooth. It had never stopped like it had done this several times before. 

The entire ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ contained 1982 words. 

Not to talk about how anyone in the modern world could completely memorize ‘The Untrammeled Traveler,’ even if normal people looked at the passage and read, they could misread words, and not to mention that they would have to copy it. 

But Liu Man, at this moment, wrote from her memories – Not using any outside hints, and just wrote from her memories. It was obvious how familiar she was with ‘The Untrammeled Traveler.’ 

Everyone who watched the stream was shocked. There was a single moment of composure in the comment section that had been spamming the entire time, and then what followed were countless comments along with gifts. 

“A slap in the face, huh? Who said our princess didn’t have any talents just now?” 

“Haha, this is really face slapping. I think, probably on the entire platform, not one live-streamer can write the entire passage of ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ from memory.” 

“Alright, alright, I’m now scared. Why was I being such a jerk? Let me just send some gifts. New viewers, let’s all start giving gifts.” — Quick! Call me bro. 

Quick! Call me bro gifted you 100 Hearts; 

Keeping watch for bliss gifted you 100 Hearts; 

Trying my best to earn money gifted you 100 Hearts; 

Tsundere blue fattie gifted you 100 Hearts; 

The prince under the deep ocean gifted you 100 Hearts; 

… 

‘Quick! Call me bro’ gave a good start, and everyone followed him. They all sent Liu Man 100 Hearts. 

Interestingly enough, whenever a live-streamer received presents, the platform would set up a really good sound, something like a coin dropping into a piggy bank, “Ding, ding, ding, ding!” It was as if huge amounts of cash dropped into Liu Man’s pocket. 

But Liu Man’s brush never stopped. She didn’t even raise her head. It was as if she would never stop unless the entire poem is done. 

As Liu Man wrote, she didn’t put on any background music. She didn’t talk either. It felt very quiet, but it didn’t make anyone feel drab. Everyone could only see, from the camera, her thin wrist, moving incessantly from up to down, from right to left. Every word she wrote down seemed heavy, and they were all created 2000 years from the now modern world. 

Most of the viewers didn’t know anything about calligraphy, but they could feel the state of mind from this live-streamer. It was a really calm state of mind. Just now, they had claimed that Princess Man’s live-stream had been very messy and boisterous, but now, this moment had been where everyone enjoyed the peacefulness. Nobody was arguing anymore.  

Some viewers were timing her, some were counting the number of words she wrote, and some were translating the words. The viewer count on the top right corner of the screen kept on jumping upwards, and it was close to 30000. 

“Forty-three minutes.” 

“A thousand and four hundred sixty-two words already.” 

“There are only a bit more than 300 words left, it’s almost done.” 

“As someone who watches lots of live-streams on different social media platforms, I need to say that this live-streamer is a really talented woman. We’ve all read ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ in our Chinese textbooks before, but that was only an excerpt, rarely anyone would go online to search for the content following that excerpt, not to mention that no one would try to memorize it.” 

“Also, this sis is writing it in Seal characters! There are a lot of people around me who study calligraphy, but I’ve never heard of anyone who’s studying the lesser seal characters. Is that font going to go extinct soon?”” 

“Every swipe of each character seems so complex, and it’s so hard to recognize them. I can say nothing else except that I admire how well she can write it.” 

“Maybe she studies calligraphy in college? I hear that some universities make calligraphy a major.” 

“No, I think sis mentioned it before. She’s studying in the piano major.” 

“!!!” 

“She also knows how to play the piano? Is she going to leave anyone else any chance to get talent?” 

“Yeah, and during a few live-streams before, if you guys examine closely, you would be able to see that there’s a piano at the very corner of her room. I just don’t understand why she never live-streams herself playing the piano.” 

“I remember her first live-stream, which was in her dorm. She live-streamed with her roommates. Hehehe, no wonder they’re studying in an art school. All three of them have really pretty legs.” — Otaku Boy. 

“You can go die, you satyr.” — HeheHaha 

TL’s Note: Yes, she’s Li Xiaoru. :] The author included (Li Xiaoru) behind HeheHaha’s username as an author’s note, but we thought that that might confuse you because Li Xiaoru isn’t included in the actual username. 

“Huh, this tone sounds so familiar.” 

The otaku boy on the other side was confused for a moment, but immediately reacted. 

“You’re Princess Man’s roommate!” 

“Whoa, our live-streamer’s real-life friend is here.” 

“She’s definitely talented too. Quick, let’s follow her too!” 

“I feel like today’s live-stream is too splendid.” 

… 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 36: I’m A Vet

Liu Man said, “No, I haven’t called yet. It’s Sunday today, so I don’t think they’re working.” 

“Oh, yeah. I’m dumb.” — Peach is a fairy. 

At the start, the live-streaming room had had a good atmosphere. The audience members and Liu Man had all been talking about cat food, their own cats, and things about their experiences with cats. 

A new viewer called “Stay at home with a cat” said, “Sis, my cat has been eating fake cat food for quite some time now. He’s a male cat and doesn’t have big problems with his health, but recently, I’ve been noticing that his eyes aren’t as bright as before.” 

“Maybe it’s your brain playing tricks on you. Sometimes when the weather is cloudy, there isn’t much light, and that makes a cat’s eyes look dim.” — Big face cat 

“Maybe, but even when there’s good lighting, his eyes still look sickly.” — Stay at home with a cat 

Most people always judged the situation with their own experiences, and since nobody else’s pets had ever had the same issue, they all thought that she was only making a huge deal out of it. 

Liu Man could think of no reply to this question,  and she also thought this audience member was thinking too much. 

“You can’t blame everything on fake cat food. Those cat foods only mimic brands and factories, their basic ingredients are mostly the same as the factories too. They’d still be able to provide all the nutrients cats need, and most cats who consume those foods shouldn’t have any issues.” 

“Yeah, businessmen only want to earn money by using the reputation of the famous brands. They aren’t that immoral.” 

“I think that this live-streamer is just improvising and making things bigger than they are. She couldn’t forgive them just because they didn’t refund money for her. She’s the one who’s really on the fiddle.” 

TL’s Note: They’re basically saying that Liu Man who’s exaggerating and making things seem bigger than they actually are. 

“And also, about all of those pieces of evidence she received from who-knows-where… There’s no proof from any of the officials, so who can tell if they’re real? There’s a way to counterfeit all those signatures and stamps.”

… 

A huge number of viewers suddenly rushed in. They were mostly created recently, and they sent a lot of negative information. They instantly overwhelmed all of the previous comments as they spammed. 

“Sis, be careful! These are probably bots used by those shop keepers. I just viewed your Weibo account, there are lots of bots on there too.” — Peach is a fairy. 

TL’s Note: Peach is a fairy means that the bots are also attacking her on Weibo. (Thanks, Sydney, for the clarification!) 

“Where’s the manager? Kick them, quick.” 

Liu Man was the only manager in her live-stream. Her fans had increased too quickly; she didn’t even have the time to make others her managers. 

“Sis, click on my nickname and make me a manager. I’ll take care of this.” — Otaku Boy. 

“And me, and me! I also want to be your manager.” — Peach is a fairy. 

“I can do it too.” — Dragon’s Roar.

…

All of Liu Man’s old fans popped out to support her, and she felt very heart-warmed. 

A live-streamer could set only four managers at most. Liu Man chose ‘Otaku Boy,’ ‘Peach is a fairy,’ ‘Dragon’s Roar,’ and ‘I’m Tingting.’ 

Within just a few minutes, the bots had posted hundreds and hundreds of comments. The five of them spent a lot of time trying to delete the comments, but there were too many, and they couldn’t delete them all. 

“The cornea in the cats’ eyes contains an abundance of taurine, which has a promotional effect on the photosensory cells of the cornea. However, the cat itself cannot make any taurine, but mice meat contains a lot of taurines. Therefore, wild cats attain taurine by preying on mice. Cats as pets would only be able to get taurine from cat food. In real cat food, there would be an adequate amount of taurine. If the cat doesn’t get taurine from cat food for a long time, then the cornea would not be able to adapt. If it’s really serious, then the cat could go blind. I think there isn’t any taurine from the fake cat food.” 

A long comment suddenly appeared amid the spamming of the bots. It contained a lot of words and was really conspicuous. It also perfectly answered the question that “Stay at home with a cat” had just asked. 

Liu Man saw that this viewer was named as “I’m a vet.” She clicked to view his profile, but there was no picture of him, nor did he write anything about himself. It was a new account that had just signed in 10 minutes before this comment, and the only live-streamer he followed was “Princess Man.” 

“This viewer must be a god.” — Peach is a fairy. 

“God, how can I try to save the situation? Is my cat really going to go blind?” — Stay at home with a cat 

“Don’t worry too much. Immediately stop feeding your cat the fake cat food, and if you can’t buy any other cat food, then you can try making your own. Ocean fish contains a lot of taurine, and you can buy some sardine or salmon, a chicken’s heart, some cow liver, and boil them each at a separate time. Mix them with a small amount of carrot and lettuce leaves. This will mitigate the effects.” –I’m a vet. 

“Can we use the recipe you provided with to make homemade cat food?” — Big Faced Cat. 

“Of course. If you’re trying to make homemade cat food, it’d be best if you also put in mashed fresh beef and chicken. If you’re economically stable, then feel free to also add in an adequate amount of bean dregs and starch.” — I’m a vet. 

His comments solved the sense of urgency that many people had, since now, nobody knew where to buy good cat food. Instead of taking the risk of buying fake cat food again, they’d rather make their own. 

Of course, a lot of people were busy going to work, and it would be unrealistic for them to make their own cat food every day. They put more of their hopes onto Princess Man, wishing that she would be quicker on contacting the dealing company at Hong Kong. 

“Mr. Vet, are you a professional?” 

“Yes, I have a certificate and can be recognized internationally as a vet.” — I’m a vet. 

“Wow, 666.” 

TL’s Note: If you’ve forgotten, then here’s a reminder: 666 (or with more 6s) is a way to praise/compliment someone and how they’re so amazing. 

“666666.” 

“No wonder you talk so professionally.” 

“Mr. Vet, if we have any other issues about our pets in the future, can we ask you about it?” 

“Of course. I’m also a fan of Princess Man. I will most likely be online every single time she live-streams in the evening. You only have to @ me.” — I’m a vet. 

“Haha, thanks to sis and her charisma.” 

“Yeah. A lot of veterinarians near my house act very cold. They usually ignore me when I have questions. They’re only so indifferent because they think so few people are veterinarians.” 

“No need to fear in the future. If we have any other questions, we’ll just have to watch Princess Man’s live-stream.” 

It was probably because of what “I’m a vet” had said, but Liu Man’s followers on the live-streaming application had suddenly gone over 10000. 

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Credits: Sydney, Dora, & Kathrien

Chapter 35: She Began Her Rise To Fame

Liu Man’s Weibo account had only sent a few cute photos of Daylight. There were only a few likes and comments, all in numbers containing one digit, and there was barely anyone re-posting her photos. Now, there were hundreds of comments and likes under every one of her posts, and there were countless people re-posting her photos.  

“Anyway, let’s all follow her Weibo account, and comment, like, and repost her photos every day.” 

“Sis, we all support you!” 

“Haha, I came from WeChat. It wasn’t easy for me to find your Weibo account.” 

“I came from Tik Tok. I saw the watermark on that video.” 

…

Liu Man read the comments one by one. Her mood wasn’t affected at all by Chen Desheng’s threat, and she earnestly replied to every single comment. She really liked this feeling of being trusted and supported, and she loved to interact with everyone.  

At the same time, Yu Zhan had been welcoming his customers. One of his familiar customers asked him, “Have you seen the discussion about fake cat food on Weibo?”  

Yu Zhan shook his head, “I’m too busy to surf the internet,” Yu Zhan was the busiest during the weekend. Today, he was especially busy. The entire morning, there had been a dozen customers here as if they had all come together, all with their cats and here to do a check-up. There was still a long line out there. 

“Alright, I was planning on asking you if what they said was real, since you actually work in the pet industry.” 

Yu Zhan felt curious, “What is it about? Is it okay to tell me about it?” 

This customer immediately opened the video on his phone. It was Liu Man’s voice, which Yu Zhan recognized almost immediately. There was also Daylight, who had been lying in front of the camera and napping.  

Yu Zhan put down what he was working on, and watched the entire video with completely focused attention. 

He felt it a bit beyond his expectations. Liu Man was actually a live-streamer who quite a lot of people knew. That was the real reason why the number of cats coming to get a body check-up had increased by a huge amount, probably because everyone had become worried after seeing her video. 

The customer saw his expression and asked him again, “Is she telling the truth?” 

Yu Zhan said, “Yes. I’ve received many patients who had become sick after consuming fake cat food bought from Taobao. Even some dogs get sick too. It’s lucky that they don’t have lethal diseases.” 

“Those businessmen are so evil. To us who keep pets, pets are literally our lives,” The customer had kept a cat and a dog, and was worried that his pets would accidentally eat fake cat food. He asked Yu Zhan, 

“I saw that in the video, the live-streamer had said that she had bought real cat food from a pet clinic. I actually really want to know which shop it was, since shops in real life are more reliable. Also, are you considering selling pet food from now on? If you’re going to start selling them, then I’d definitely buy them from you for my pets.” 

The customer really trusted Yu Zhan’s moral character, but he never had realized that Yu Zhan’s shop had been the one that the live-streamer had mentioned. 

“I’ll think about your suggestion,” Yu Zhan answered. His tone included a bit of politeness of a businessman. To be honest, he was extremely confused as to how Liu Man had managed to contact the Hong Kong Westland Trade Ltd.  

At this moment, the nurse from the front desk had come into his room and announced, “Boss, there are two customers who’ve scheduled sterilization for their male dogs during the evening.” 

Most pet owners wanted to sterilize their pets before Chinese New Year, and to do another check-up in case something happened during the New Year, for at that time, all pet clinics would be closed, and there wouldn’t be a vet available. 

Yu Zhan was the only vet in his shop. Including the nurse at his front desk, there were only two of them in total. All of the stress had layered onto Yu Zhan. 

Of course, this was also partially because of Yu Zhan himself, and how he didn’t have the best plan. The reason why he started this pet clinic was because he wanted to fulfill his dreams, and not because he wanted to make a living out of it. He rarely thought like a businessman, and never wanted to rely on the pet clinic to ameliorate his life. 

So, he told the nurse, “You can tell them that today, the list is full, and that there are also way too many people doing check-ups. There’s no way for us to take them in.”  

The nurse hesitated for a moment. She created her boss’s agenda, then remembered that although there were a lot of people doing check-ups, there was still time for more pets to get sterilized. However, she didn’t dare to question her boss, “Alright, I’ll immediately reply to them.”  

The customer, who stood beside Yu Zhan, saw the weariness on his face and suddenly understood everything.  

Although he was a male, he had to admit that Yu Zhan’s appearance was almost the best he’d ever seen. Almost 90% of the people who had come here with their pets were females. Some of the pets weren’t even sick. Those female customers just wanted to have a reason to come and see Yu Zhan.  

He patted Yu Zhan’s shoulders, “Yes, you should indeed take a break sometimes. But I’ve been curious for some time now. Do you have a girlfriend?” 

This question was way too interesting, and the nurse tried to eavesdrop on this piece of gossip.  

“For now, no.” 

“That’s why. Otherwise, how would such a busy person like you find the time to accompany their girlfriend?” 

Yu Zhan laughed but didn’t say anything else. Although this customer had often visited his shop, he only knew that his first name was Ye, and that he was 24 years old, just like him. Half a year ago, Mr. Ye had graduated from England and had come back to live in the capital city. He had bought a dog and a cat right after he had come back, and Yu Zhan had been the one who had sterilized them. 

 It was probably because they had both went outside of the country for college. Yu Zhan found it easy to have normal conversations with Mr. Ye, and they had friended each other on WeChat. Mr. Ye was a very conscious person who took his pet over to do regular check-ups. Every single time they met, the duo always had long conversations, but they were simply frivolous conversations. They could be counted as friends.  

Mr. Ye, seeing how busy Yu Zhan was, didn’t want to disturb him furthermore. Before he left, he mentioned the pet food again, “Like I said before, I really hope that you’ll carefully consider it. Compared to buying pet food on the internet, I’m more inclined to buying it from you. At least shops in real life make me feel like it’s more dependable.”

That night, Liu Man went back to her bedroom and was ready to start her live-stream right after she had finished her dinner. 

The attention paid towards her on the internet had completely peaked. Just today, Liu Man’s fans on Weibo had gone above twenty-thousand. It had been at six thousand before. 

Her number of fans on the live-streaming application had surpassed 8000 as well. A lot of people commented and urged her to start her live-streams earlier, so she had reset her live-streaming schedule to 7 PM. 

It was now seven. Liu Man entered her live-stream. It had just begun, and there were already more than 2000 viewers. Seeing that she was there, everyone started to comment.  

“Sis, you were so right. It’s so hard to get a refund… The customer service won’t even reply back to me.” 

“Same thing is going on with me. I bought my cat food at another shop, and when I tried to contact the customer service, they all replied like bots. It was like the customer service were all gone.”  

“This proves they are indeed guilty.”  

“Everyone suddenly requested for a refund today, all at the same time. Maybe the shop couldn’t help them all at once.” 

“Why didn’t I see them ‘not being able to help customers all at once’ before this happened?” 

“Now, there are videos of you all over the internet. Hopefully, nobody will be lied to about the same thing again.”  

“I took my cat to the pet clinic today to get a check-up. Fortunately, she didn’t have any issues.”  

“Sis, did you contact that Hong Kong Westland Trade Ltd.? Are they willing to provide a way for us to all buy cat food?” — Peach is a fairy. 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 34: A Successful Refund

The next day after Liu Man had exposed the fake cat food sellers, she had received an urgent call early into the morning. The person who called her did not greet her, nor did they introduce themselves. They directly questioned her, “Did you film that live-stream video?” 

At that moment, Liu Man had just woken up. She immediately became completely conscious after hearing a brash and crude voice. 

That person must’ve been completely sure that she had been the one who had posted the video. They didn’t even wait for her to speak, but instead continued, “We’ve already refunded you with that 548 RMB, and you now have it on your Alipay. Please, immediately delete that video on Weibo.” 

He said the word “please,” but it was as if he didn’t have any means of supplicating. It was as if Liu Man had to listen to his orders since he gave her back her money. 

Liu Man slowly asked, 

“Who are you, if I may ask?” To be honest, she had already known when saw where the call had come from. 

TL’s Note: By where the call came from, the author meant how when you call someone, that person would see where the call came from in the country. 

“I’m the owner of “Winnie Loves Pets.” My first name is Chen.” 

“Oh.” 

Liu Man’s indifferent actions really irritated the person on the other side of the call. 

Owner Chen’s full name was Chen Desheng. Chen Desheng’s shop had been on Taobao for five whole years, and his shop was a very old one with two badges. He already had employed lots of professional managers to operate the shop because of how big his business had become, and he instead backed up to behind the curtains and was mainly in charge of other things, such as the shop in real life and purchasing more products. 

TL’s Note: Chen Desheng became a person who operates behind the public eye. 

Because his shop had a great reputation, there were a lot of orders being placed every day. He also had a lot of professional social media monitors, and they were usually quick to solve normal reports, refunds, and bad ratings. He never really cared about these things.  

 However, this morning, a sales manager in Chen Desheng’s company had disturbed his dreams and called him. He had told Chen Desheng to log onto Weibo and Taobao. As he opened Weibo, he saw a video on his homepage with a woman with a young voice and didn’t show her face. As the video began, the woman didn’t try to hide it at all and named their shop directly. She said that she bought fake cat food from their shop.  

Chen Desheng knew how bad the situation was as soon as he saw this. He then checked the most popular topics and saw: #Immoral-Businessman-On-Taobao-Selling-Fake-Cat-Food#, #Boycott-Winnie-Loves-Pets#, #Stop-Buying-Fake-Cat-Food-On-Taobao#. There were all kinds of negative news over the social media platform. 

Chen Desheng then opened Taobao and went to his homepage, where hundreds of refund requests popped out. The comment section almost broke down, and almost all of them were bad ratings. 

He didn’t have any cardiac diseases, but he was so outraged that he almost had a heart attack. It didn’t even dawn yet, and he called everyone he thought could help him. However, who would be up at this time? Even his customer service staff members had gone to sleep. 

Chen Desheng didn’t sleep at all after seeing all of the news. He spent hours analyzing the content of the video with a few of his employees. They then searched through the orders before and confirmed that the one who had posted this video was the ‘Ms. Liu’, who had boughten cat food from their shop twice. 

The old Liu Man always used to shop on Taobao using ‘Ms. Liu’ as her name. She never used her real name. 

Chen Desheng had also found the conversation Liu Man had had with the customer service staff member and became really angry at that customer service employee. Because of that 548 RMB, they had lost almost everything. He hadn’t said anything else but immediately fired that specific customer service employee. He seemed to have forgotten that the customer service employees had all been acting under the orders from him. 

“Ms. Liu, we businessmen always like to do business in a peaceful way while earning as many benefits as possible. There was an issue with the products we had gotten recently. It was just an accident. Now that we’ve refunded you with the money, your problem has been fixed. Why do we have to make our relationship so harsh and do things this way?” 

Chen Desheng had realized that this young girl wasn’t that kind and naïve, so his voice had finally had a tone of pleading. 

Liu Man said, “So now you finally admit to the fact that I bought fake cat food?” 

“Yes, you did buy fake cat food,” Chen Desheng was fast to admit, “To be honest, nowadays, which cat food shop on Taobao can say that they have never sold anything fake without lying? The customs are now stricter, and the factories outside the country only produce a limited number of products. We can’t find more resources to get cat food. Brands like Cats’ Garden have too many people trying to be dealers with them, and we barely could find any of their products in the Hong Kong supermarkets. We finally found some after some time, but it would’ve been sold out within a week. We couldn’t have only done a week of business. I have 200 employees in my company, and everyone’s just trying to make a living. You need to forgive us.” 

Chen Desheng made it sound as if he was right doing what he did. Liu Man laughed, “You lied to us buyers, and now you want us to forgive you? Then who would do the same to our pets? You’ve done the same business for many years now, and you know the importance of pets to their owners. Would you use fake cat food to feed your pets?”  

“You can’t say it like that. You buy cat food from the internet because of selfish motives too. Don’t you just want to buy it at a cheaper price, and don’t you want to spend even less money on your pets? The cat food from Cats’ Garden, no matter what type of package they’re filled with, wouldn’t be sold under the price of 600 HKD. Although lots of the customers are very clear about this, they still try to believe that they got lucky. They’d rather buy fake cat food and buy it at a cheaper price, and who’s there to blame? We, as shop owners, are also very wrongly-blamed.”  

 “It’s true, I do keep a pet. I have a dog, and I feed him dog food that is exported from overseas. I would never feed him anything that’s obviously cheaper than other dog food. You all are willing to get lied to, and I can only say, ‘One is willing to deceive, the other is willing to be lied to.’ If you had only used your brain when you made your orders, you would know that nobody would o willing to buy real cat food all the way from overseas for you. Doesn’t it cost money to bring them all the way from other countries? Doesn’t the storage room require money? Doesn’t it take money to hire more employees to do all of this?” 

“If all of these things were considered in the price, then you would have to pay at least 1000 RMB for just a bag of cat food. But if it’s really priced at 1000, then would you still be willing to buy it? You would be even more reluctant to buy expensive real cat food. This is just how it’s like on Taobao. You don’t compare the quality, but you compare the price. If it’s cheaper, then people like it. If we don’t sell fake products as well, then we would be beaten by people who also sell cat food. There would’ve been no way for us to survive.”  

Chen Desheng kept on finding excuses for what he did, and not only did he emphasize on how arduous and tiring it was for him and his business to survive, but also insinuated that all of the customers only liked cheap things, and the responsibility was on customers. 

“So, you mean that we are the ones who forced you to sell fake cat food?” Liu Man asked. 

Chen Desheng didn’t speak, so he tacitly approved. 

“You are the one who only thinks about money. If you only sold real cat food priced at 1000RMB, I believe that there would still be people who would buy it, and that you would still be able to earn money. However, interest would never be better than fake cat food, right? Because you would receive less customers, you would receive less resources. But if you did what I just said, you would still be able to make a living. But you just wouldn’t be satisfied, and you would want to earn more money. To people like you, money is much more important than morality. You only care about your dog but not others’ pets.” 

Liu Man said exactly what Chen Desheng had been thinking. Chen Desheng didn’t want to debate with Liu Man anymore and said with a livid tone, “Ms. Liu, you do talk in a direct way, and I don’t want to be voluble. How much money must I pay for you to delete that video of yours?” 

Liu Man said with a light and aloof tone, “I didn’t send those videos. I didn’t record my live-stream at all. It was my fans who did. I have no right to tell them what to do.”  

“How about this. We’ll do this according to the Consumer Protection Law, to refund customers with 1000% of the original price if the product is fake. We will refund you with a total of 5480 RMB. And with that, you will do another live-stream today, saying that you did something wrong yesterday and that there is no problem with my shop.” 

“Apologies, but I can’t do that.” 

“How about 54,800? You are still a student, and this much money should be enough for you for a long time,” Chen Desheng continued his attempts at seducing Liu Man with money. He suddenly used a heavier tone mixed with some threatening means, “Little girl, you are still too young to understand the danger of this community. You are a woman, and what do you have to fight us? By doing this, you have not only made me your enemy, but other Taobao cat food shop owners. Aren’t you worried about being threatened by many others?” 

Liu Man’s tone didn’t change, and she said without any hesitation, “Sorry, I cannot betray my conscience and lie.”  

The other person hung up as soon as she finished her sentence. 

Liu Man opened Alipay and was not surprised to see the 548 RMB refund from Chen Desheng. She then logged onto Weibo, where the first thing she saw was a bunch of notifications of new fans. Her Weibo account, which had previously been very unknown to the public, had suddenly obtained more than 6000 fans in just a night. 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien

Chapter 33: To Become A Legalized Dealer

‘I’m Tingting’ asked the same question everyone had in mind at that moment. She was an old fan of Liu Man’s. Chen Ting was a normal white-collar worker who kept two Chinese Garden Cats. Although the cats weren’t very elegant, she still adored them both. Because Chen Ting earned quite an adequate amount for work, she always bought cat food exported from other countries. She had bought them from many brands, so she had seen many fake products as well.  

Her cats now ate cat food from Cats’ Garden as well. The shop who sold her the cat food had been recommended by someone in a WeChat group filled with cat owners. She had known that she had bought fake cat food again, since it had been a bag of 15 pounds. She had already told the group chat owner to remove the person who had sold fake cat food from the group chat.  

“Although I don’t keep a cat, I do think that the most important thing right now isn’t to ask for another way to buy cat food, but to check if your cat food right now is fake or not. If your cats are start to get sick, it’s best to take them to a pet clinic.” — I’m here for the shoes. 

Liu Man said, “The cat food Daylight now consumes is from a pet clinic nearby.” 

“This is my first-time hearing of a pet clinic that sells cat food.” 

“They probably just wanted to earn some extra money.” 

“Anyway, they aren’t selling fake cat food, and they definitely do have a moral conscience.” 

“Sis, I have a Weibo account. Can I post your live-stream video there? Of course, I’ll keep it anonymous.” — Big Faced Cat. 

“I also want to post it in some of the group chats I’m in. There are many people in those chats who probably got deceived too.” — I’m Tingting. 

“I would like to post on Weibo too. You have a limited amount of people you can influence, but we have to let more people know about this.” — Pancake. 

“Then, I’ll help send a Tik Tok video. I have a lot of fans on Tik Tok.” — Andy my euphoria. 

Andy my euphoria hadn’t been commenting on the live-stream for a very long time. She had been the second person who had bought Liu Man’s AJs and had never spoken anything ever since she had received the pair of shoes.  

TL’s Note: If anyone wants to double check, she last appeared all the way back in chapter 9. 

“I feel like I need to do something too,” Otaku Boy said as he paced around in his dorm, “I feel really angry after watching tonight’s video.” 

“Drop it, what can we even do? Didn’t you hear what Princess Man said? Most of the shops on Taobao sell fake cat food, and Taobao does nothing about it. The pertinent departments of our country’s government don’t care about fake cat food either. This is a chain of benefits. There’ll be domino effects on whichever part of the chain you touch,” said Roommate B. 

Roommate C felt helpless, “Guys, we don’t keep cats, and couldn’t care less about those fluffy animals. Why are we crowding around here, watching this kind of live-stream, instead of studying for the exam?” 

“In the future, if you ever get a girlfriend that likes pets, then you probably wouldn’t have said what you just said.” Otaku Boy said in a disdainful tone. 

“So what? Is Princess Man your girlfriend?” 

“Fuck you. She’s my goddess, I would never dare to try to become her boyfriend.” 

Otaku Boy was speaking the truth. From the beginning, he had always treated Princess Man like his idol, and who would be dumb enough to go after their idols? Furthermore, he didn’t even know what Princess Man looked like. 

“I think we can upload this video of her live-streaming to our school’s website,” Roommate B thought of an idea. 

They were all students of the Capital University, and the bullet board system was very influential among the entire school. 

Otaku Boy clapped his hands, “Great idea, then it’s settled.” 

“I really admire how valiant you are. You are brave enough to say all of this, and you don’t fear the shop owners. You also spent a lot of time collecting all these pieces of actual evidence. However, right now, I’m most concerned about whether they will try to take revenge on you.” — Dragon’s Roar. 

“I’m worried too.” 

“They must have your number and address; they can see it on the record when you bought the cat food.” 

…

The audience members started to feel apprehensive. 

Liu Man, however, didn’t think about it that much, since she had already died once. In addition, she was also very poor and had nothing to fear. Even her house was going to be taken away by the bank, and every penny she was trying to earn was for the loan. She was completely broke. What did she have left?

She spoke with a philosophical tone, “I don’t have a single penny in my pocket, all I have left is my life. However, I trust that there are laws in our country, and I also believe in the police of the capital city. They can do nothing with me. I live-stream almost every night, and even if I’m too busy, I will regularly update my Weibo so everyone knows how I’m doing and whether I’m safe.” 

“Sis, you are in such a good state of mind. I’m also in the capital city right now, I want to come and protect you.” 

“I’m also in the capital, let’s go together.” 

“I’m also in the capital. Everyone else, keep up with this format.” 

…

Everyone started to spam. 

Although she knew they were commenting in a joking tone, Liu Man still felt very touched. 

“Live-streamer, I’m also in the capital city. Is it okay for you to tell me what the address of the pet clinic that had sold you cat food?” — I have a cat. 

After seeing that comment, Liu Man was going to say Yu Zhan’s pet clinic’s name. However, after recalling how the nurse had told her that they didn’t sell cat food, and remembering how she had only paid 800 for all of that cat food, she stopped herself. 

After some deep consideration, Liu Man said, “That shop probably doesn’t sell cat food anymore and is just trying to be a pet clinic now. I will try and contact that Hong Kong dealer company later, to see if they can come up with a way for us to buy cat food.” 

“Yeah, yeah, we will pay. Even if they change the price from 690 HKD to 790 HKD, as long as the cat food isn’t fake, I will always be willing to pay for it.” — Big Faced Cat. 

“Sis, we’ll all depend on you to provide us with safe cat food.” — Peach is a fairy. 

“No need to say much. I’ve never seen such good live-streamer, and I’m going to give you gifts.” 

Under the influence of this very rich fan, animations of presents started to appear on the screen in just a short amount of time. As if it was pouring down rain, as soon as this animation ended, the next one started. 

Fairytale Carriages, Perfect Castles, Ostentatious Robes, Feasts, and countless Hearts along with Magic Wands. These colorful presents almost blinded Liu Man’s eyes. She didn’t know that her account, within just a few minutes, had jumped onto the number one spot of the leaderboard on this application, since she had received so many presents. 

TL’s Note: There’s a leaderboard on Chinese live-streaming apps/social media apps for popular topics. Seems like Liu Man’s stream just got onto the number one spot for that app. And just a reminder that those things named as ‘Fairytale Carriages’ and ‘Ostentatious Robes’ are all the gifts on the application fans send to their live-streamers.

More audience members saw her profile picture, which was at the very top of the leaderboard, and then clicked in to check her live-stream out. Her viewers’ count hit the milestone of 5000 at that very moment. 

And as for her followers, there were now more than 3000 of them. 

She already felt that her fans had incremented at a very fast pace when she had live-streamed herself writing calligraphy, as she had suddenly had a few hundred more fans in just a night. Today, she realized that that hadn’t even been the fastest speed. 

Liu Man felt a sense of successfulness which she had never felt before, along with the accomplishment of earning the trust of her fans. Of course, she wasn’t a saint and was quite delighted seeing how much money she had earned tonight from live-streaming. 

And also, she was thinking about one other thing. What Big Faced Cat had said inspired her. Now that it was practically impossible to buy cat food from Cats’ Garden on the internet, then couldn’t she create a new way? 

If she could become, legally, a dealer with the permission of Hong Kong Westland Trade Ltd., then she could earn more money by taking the price differences. 

Don’t blame her for being willing to do anything for money. She had a huge debt on her back, and she only started live-streaming because she wanted to earn more money. Now that there was such a great chance lying in front of her, she needed to grasp it tightly. 

Liu Man didn’t expect that, right then, the real effects of her live-stream hadn’t been during it, but after it. 

On that evening, many Weibo accounts that each had more than ten thousand fans, had sent a video with a water print on it. They had also pinged Princess Man’s Weibo. A person who was a big fan of cats and had over a million fans had also watched this video and re-posted it. This had been an incredible move. 

The next day, #Immoral-Businessmen-On-Taobao-Selling-Fake-Cat-Food# had gone onto the Weibo leaderboard for “#most popular topics.” 

At the same time, a video appeared on Tik Tok, containing edits of parts of her live-stream. 

Group chats on WeChat with lots of cat fans had also forwarded the same video around and around in their circles. 

This was how a live-stream video which Liu Man had only made to vent off her feelings, had completely exposed the fake cat food sellers. 

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Credits: Sydney & Kathrien