Chapter 20: The Little Newbie Becomes the Platform's Top Traffic Magnet
A sudden wave of suffocation hit him. The man lying down abruptly sat up, clutching his chest, gasping for breath.
When he looked up, he saw a circle of people surrounding him, one with a terrified expression staring at him. The next moment, they screamed and scattered in all directions.
Tang Xu could hardly believe it. He looked at his hands, then touched his face.
No way!
He swiftly swung his legs off the bed and glanced around, nearly falling over in shock.
A crematorium?
Can you believe he was almost cremated?
Wasn’t he dead? Didn’t he lose consciousness after leaving the Time General Store? How could this be happening?
Could it all have been a dream?
No, no...
Cold sweat dripped down from his temples.
Two major events had occurred today in Jing City:
Top actress Dong Zhenzhen suddenly died of illness.
Tang Xu, the actor who fell from a building, was resurrected at the crematorium.
Online speculation was rampant and wildly varied.
“Do I even recognize the Chinese here? Why can’t I understand it all together?”
“Are we even living in the same world?”
“Wasn’t Dong Zhenzhen posting a nine-grid on Weibo just a few days ago? She looked fine! How can she just die like that?”
“I heard it was because Han Lu played too dirty and ended up on his deathbed.”
“Stop spreading rumors—did you hide in their closet and see it with your own eyes?”
“I don’t care about Dong Zhenzhen, but what about Tang Xu? How on earth can someone completely dead come back to life? Are we all secretly cultivating immortality behind everyone’s back?”
“Tang Xu is the real oddity. He even posted a notice saying he has a special constitution? Are you all part of some elaborate game?”
“I don’t believe it unless Tang Xu comes out and clears things up.”
“I don’t believe it unless Tang Xu comes out and clears things up.”
“I don’t believe it unless Tang Xu comes out and clears things up.”
...
At this moment, the person at the center of the discussion was sitting in a meeting room inside the Supernatural Bureau building.
Tang Shuo thoughtfully poured him a cup of hot tea.
“You don’t need to be afraid. We’ve met before.”
Tang Xu had just awakened at the crematorium a moment ago. Before he could fully recover, a group claiming to be from the Chinese Supernatural Bureau brought him here.
“You’re the one who was at the cemetery that night.”
Tang Shuo sat opposite him, greeting him warmly. Tang Xu, infected by his bright smile, relaxed slightly.
“We didn’t bring you here to do anything harmful. It’s to protect you. Your experience is too extraordinary, and the internet has exploded. To prevent further public panic, the Supernatural Bureau will step in if necessary.”
“By the way, you probably don’t know what the Supernatural Bureau does. You can think of it as a mysterious department of China, specialized in handling supernatural phenomena. Our director, Xu Zhi Ting, you also met him that night.”
...
After Tang Shuo finished the introduction, he got down to business.
“There are a few important questions. Can you answer them?”
Tang Xu nodded.
“You entered the Time General Store…”
Something strange happened. Whenever the Time General Store was mentioned, those memories became blurred like pixelated mosaics. Tang Xu clearly remembered everything but could not express it.
“Sorry, I don’t know.”
Tang Shuo was unsurprised and closed his notebook again.
“It seems to be the same case. You’re not the first person we’ve encountered who came out of the Time General Store.” Almost everyone gave the same answer.
“Is that so?”
...
“Regarding your death and resurrection, other departments have already issued statements to temporarily calm the netizens’ speculations. But I advise you not to go out recently. After all, someone who fell from a high building and came back to life can be explained as a special medical miracle. But for all the injuries to disappear completely within a day—that’s starting to look like you’re cultivating immortality in the air, according to the internet.”
At Tang Shuo’s request, Tang Xu cooperated by taking a photo wrapped in bandages all over, with makeup simulating injuries even on his face.
If netizens still wouldn’t believe it, they would release the photos to prove that Tang Xu was indeed not dead, but far from recovered.
Cases of death and resurrection have historical precedents worldwide.
Tang Xu found himself once again at a crossroads.
But there was no grand quadrangle courtyard before him.
If not for Tang Shuo, he would have thought it was all just a dream.
Tang Xu left feeling dejected.
He did not notice that after he left, the faint outline of a quadrangle courtyard appeared behind him.
Yan Ye pulled a hamburger candy from her pocket and popped it into her mouth, while her other hand grabbed the antenna on Jin Yuanbao’s head.
“Stop staring and go home to cook.”
Jin Yuanbao screamed wildly.
“Stinky Yan Ye, let go of my hair!”
—
Tang Xu arrived home and collapsed wearily onto his bed.
He tentatively asked about that night in the fan group using a secondary account, but everyone who was there seemed to have lost that segment of memory simultaneously and all said they didn’t know.
Just as Tang Xu threw his phone aside and closed the door, someone knocked.
He responded weakly.
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Tang Xu, your delivery has arrived. Please sign for it.”
Tang Xu replied irritably, “I’m not expecting any delivery.” The knocking continued relentlessly, as if they would not stop until he answered.
Fuming, Tang Xu opened the door only to find no one outside.
Only a lone box lay abandoned on the ground.
The box gave him an inexplicably familiar feeling.
The delivery person had vanished—gone so quickly?
Tang Xu bent down and picked up the box. Inside lay a golden microphone quietly resting. His hand trembled slightly as he took it out.
The next moment, he rushed back inside, grabbed his phone, and checked his bank account.
Upon seeing the balance, the grown man burst into tears.
The sky was falling!
After decades of hard work, he was back to square one overnight.
But as he cried, he also laughed, sitting on the floor, crying and laughing like a fool.
He clutched the microphone tightly.
At that moment, he truly realized how real everything that had happened was.
...
Bored at home, Tang Xu opened the most popular live-streaming app, prompted by Yan Ye’s casual mention of live streaming.
He thought it would take some time to find anything, but to his surprise, a familiar background appeared in one of the recommended sections on the homepage.
Tang Xu clicked in and his vision darkened.
This was the live stream Yan Ye mentioned, the one with barely any viewers and falling followers to the point of having none left.
Those seventy or eighty thousand viewers were probably all paid bots.
Yan Ye herself was bewildered.
She originally just wanted to quietly be a lazy merch seller, but overnight, the platform had made her a breakout star, seen by others as a rebellious yet fresh presence.
You and I had no prior connection—it was all because a big spender had poured money in.
Today’s opening: the big spender dropped 520 flower seas again, drawing another crowd.
He could have sent 100 luxury cruise ships or even 1,000 of them, but he insisted on sending a confession of 520 flower seas.
One live stream alone gave the platform millions.
After two live streams, Yan Ye, a small rookie, was turned into the platform’s major traffic star.
Why bother selling merchandise? Keeping the big spender happy makes money much faster.
Ignoring the flood of messages demanding she show her face, Yan Ye took a bag of crispy rice crackers and held it up to the camera.
Many viewers were just there for the fun. Seeing her never show her face made it boring, and the numbers stabilized at around twenty to thirty thousand.
“Today’s top recommendation: these rice crackers. Everyone who’s tried them says they’re delicious. Some loyal fans have bought dozens of packs multiple times.”
“Can the streamer try them?”
“Selling rice crackers! Streamer, taste one live, please. I’ll buy 100 packs.”
...
Xu Zhi Ting frowned at the deliberate comments, about to continue tipping to remind her not to show her face.
Suddenly, the screen wobbled.
The next second, the camera flipped around.