In the family’s internal group chat, after that livestream screenshot was sent out, there was an unusually awkward silence for half a minute.
After a while, one of the elders finally tossed out a message: “Forget about her. A jinx who got kicked out of the family—what waves can she possibly make? Let her fend for herself.”
That remark was quickly buried under a flood of idle chatter, and on the remote island far away, Jiang Yu knew nothing about any of it.
At dawn, the sea breeze carried a briny tang through the stone house.
Jiang Yu’s secondhand, beat-up phone lagged terribly, its casing radiating heat from the strain of running.
Last night’s livestream clips had already been picked up by marketing accounts and spread across various short-video platforms, all sporting bold red-and-yellow headlines—”New Streamer Digs Up Suspected Antique in Mudflat.”
Her backend data was skyrocketing, and her follower count had jumped to 2,800 overnight.
The comment section was already a chaotic mess.
“Pure scripted nonsense! Who goes clamming at Dead Fish Beach and digs up blue-and-white porcelain? Even fantasy novels aren’t this ridiculous!”
“People upstairs, if you don’t need your eyes, donate them. Local fishermen all say that spot has nothing. Go bury one in the mud yourself and try it!”
“To the non-believers, the door’s that way. I’m siding with the iceberg streamer!”
Fierce arguments scrolled past the screen, but Jiang Yu’s expression remained indifferent—she didn’t even glance at them.
Whether people online believed it or not was completely outside her consideration. Right now, all she cared about was how many months of food money that broken jar could fetch.
Suddenly, the shabby wooden gate outside the yard was pounded with thunderous force.
A-Wang burst in like a whirlwind, phone in hand, his voice loud enough to hit the ceiling: “Sister Jiang! We’re rich! I sent the photos to my buddy at the antique shop in town—he says it’s a genuine piece from a mid-Qing folk kiln! He’s taking a boat over tomorrow morning to appraise it in person!”
Hearing the words “genuine piece,” Jiang Yu immediately turned and headed inside.
The cleaned blue-and-white porcelain jar sat quietly in the corner. She dug out the thickest old cotton coat from the bottom of her travel bag and wrapped the jar in layer after layer, then, still not satisfied, grabbed two pillows from the head of the bed and wedged them tightly against the jar on both sides for shock protection.
A-Wang leaned against the doorframe, watching her fiercely protective display, scratching his head with a goofy grin. After saying his goodbyes, he happily ran off to his shift at the seafood station.
Not long after, Aunt Lin stepped into the yard carrying a stainless-steel insulated lunchbox.
“Girl, A-Wang told me all about what’s happening online.”
She pushed the lunchbox toward Jiang Yu and briskly wiped down the rickety wooden table with a rag. “People online have sharp tongues. You just focus on making your money—don’t listen to their nonsense. Wearing yourself out over it isn’t worth it.”
When the lid came off, steam mixed with the fragrant aroma of fresh shrimp rushed out.
Aunt Lin chattered on: “Eat it while it’s hot—shrimp dumplings I wrapped fresh this morning.”
Jiang Yu lowered her eyes, looking at the steaming breakfast in front of her.
She picked up a shrimp dumpling and took a bite. The shrimp filling was plump and sweet.
After a pause, she muttered a few quiet words: “Thank you, Aunt Lin.”
At one in the afternoon, a call came in from an unfamiliar number in the provincial capital.
“Hello, Miss Jiang Yu. I’m Liu Qinghe, operations manager at Tidal TV.”
The voice on the other end was crisp and efficient, cutting straight to the point at a rapid pace. “Your data growth curve is very impressive. Are you interested in discussing an exclusive contract? The platform offers a full suite of top-tier equipment and traffic support, plus a generous guaranteed base salary.”
The terms sounded tempting—any ordinary newcomer would have agreed without hesitation.
Jiang Yu held the phone, her tone utterly unruffled: “If I sign, do I decide my own streaming times and locations, or does the platform?”
Liu Qinghe chuckled, carrying the confidence of a major company: “If you take the platform’s resources, you’ll naturally need to comply with certain management requirements—like a minimum streaming duration, participating in a few platform PK battles…”
“Then forget it. Not interested.”
Without a shred of hesitation, Jiang Yu hung up directly.
She’d barely escaped the family’s control and hadn’t even enjoyed two days of peace. She’d have to be insane to shackle herself to a new master just for a base salary.
At three o’clock, Jiang Yu headed to the most ordinary regular reef beach by the pier.
Two consecutive days of striking gold had left her body feeling sore and achy.
It seemed this business of physically siphoning seabed providence came at a cost—it was extremely draining.
Today, she’d treat it as a slack-off day.
The moment the livestream started, concurrent viewers instantly broke a thousand.
“Debunking squad, assemble! Let’s see what you can bury in the sand today!”
Jiang Yu casually jammed her beat-up selfie stick into the sand and spat four stiff words at the camera: “Just looking around.”
Thirty minutes later, Jiang Yu carried up half a plastic bucket and shut off the stream right on schedule.
The half-bucket held two red flower crabs, a handful of wild oysters, and an ordinary black sea bream—all together worth maybe seven or eight hundred yuan.
On a normal day, that would’ve been a bumper haul. But in her livestream room, fresh off two straight days of top-tier finds, this scorecard was utterly unremarkable.
Yet somehow, the audience ate it up.
“LOL, the unlucky one ran out of mana today and didn’t unleash her ultimate.”
“That’s more like a normal person going beachcombing! But even this everyday level puts the pros to shame.”
“Iceberg Koi confirmed—picks up loose change on a whim, only dives for antiques when in a good mood.”
The screen was flooded with “Iceberg Koi” comments. Jiang Yu watched the rapidly scrolling subtitles and, for the first time, didn’t find these messy bullet comments annoying.
The next morning, Old Li, the town’s antique appraiser, lugged a large bag and followed A-Wang onto the island.
The main hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Old Li, wearing white gloves and wielding a high-powered flashlight and magnifying glass, circled the blue-and-white porcelain jar five or six times before suddenly slapping his thigh.
“Fine piece! A Qing Qianlong-era folk kiln masterpiece—blue-and-white intertwined lotus pattern jar. So well preserved, not even a single chip or scratch! Conservative estimate: eighty to one hundred twenty thousand!”
The moment the number came out, the room fell completely silent.
A-Wang’s mouth hung open wide enough to fit a goose egg. Aunt Lin clutched her chest, gasping for air: “Heavens… you can dig up a hundred twenty thousand from a mudflat?”
Jiang Yu stood off to the side, not even raising an eyebrow.
That money was enough for her to live comfortably on the island for years.
She looked at the jar and gave a fair assessment: “Not bad. Worth more than I expected.”
Old Li stared at her—how could this young woman be so calm, as if she’d just picked up an empty water bottle? Such composure?
A-Wang’s full video of the appraisal was quickly posted to Jiang Yu’s personal page.
Within an hour, views broke past the five hundred thousand mark.
“Appraised! It’s genuinely authentic!”
“A Qing dynasty antique from a mudflat—I could brag about this luck for a lifetime!”
“Haters, come out and take a walk? Faces swollen yet?”
As night fell, “Unlucky Beachcomber Finds Blue-and-White Porcelain” soared to #23 on the trending list. Jiang Yu’s follower count broke three thousand overnight, and the internet was flooded with comments from people lining up to soak up her good fortune.
Jiang Yu leaned against the headboard, staring at the word “Koi” on her screen, lost in thought.
Back on the family platform, the comments under her photos had all been bright red—”Disaster” and “Jinx.”
Now, the whole internet was scrambling to catch her luck.
She curled her lips in mild self-mockery and casually closed the app.
At the same time, Su Niannian, the top streamer in the beachcombing section of Tidal TV, was holding up a small swimming crab and putting on a cutesy voice for the camera. When the bullet comments suddenly flooded with “The neighbor dug up a 120k blue-and-white porcelain,” her sweet fake smile froze stiff.
After going offline, Su Niannian, unable to swallow her frustration, switched to her main account and posted a heavily edited beachcombing photo with a caption dripping with sourness: “Welcome to the new sister! But beachcombing is a real skill—relying on one or two lucky stunts won’t get you far. [Cute]”
The moment the post went live, the comments flipped.
Aside from a small cluster of die-hard fans still holding the line, passersby weren’t having it: “The sourness is practically leaking off the screen. She got lucky and picked up 120k—no matter how skilled you are, all you’re good for is digging up those pathetic hermit crabs every day?”
Late at night, the sea wind howled outside the stone house.
Before going to bed, a private message popped up in Jiang Yu’s inbox.
It was from the top donor who showed up for every stream, only ever sending the most expensive gifts but never speaking—Deep Sea Tide-Watcher.
Four words, abrupt and cryptic: “Keep streaming.”
Jiang Yu stared at the screen. Those cold, hard four words didn’t feel like a regular fan urging her to go live—they carried an air of condescending command.
She tapped into his profile. It was completely blank. Nothing.
Weirdo.
She didn’t reply, tossed her phone by the pillow, and went straight to sleep.
What Jiang Yu didn’t know was that at that very moment, in the abyssal depths where even sonar couldn’t reach, a blinding flash of silver light erupted violently within the ancient Coral Sealing Grand Array.
The deep-sea currents of the entire region, in response to that cold gleam, silently reversed course in absolute submission.