In the courtyard, a green-headed fly buzzed around the sun-dried fishing net. The afternoon sunlight was so intense that even the stone table felt hot to the touch.
Jiang Yu was bent over, sanding a chipped oyster knife with slow, unhurried strokes, so focused it was as if she were carving a work of art.
Her phone lay face-down on the table. She hadn’t touched it since she got back.
“Bang—!”
The courtyard gate burst open as if a bull had charged through it. A-Wang swept in like a gust of wind, his forehead slick with sweat and his face flushed red.
“Sister Jiang! Something huge happened!”
He rushed to the table in two or three strides, shoving his phone in Jiang Yu’s face, his fingers trembling. “Look! Your livestream room is gone! You can’t even search for it! Clicking the history just throws up an account error!”
On the screen, words like “malicious script,” “fake stunt,” and “attention-seeking” scrolled wildly through the comment section.
A-Wang paced the courtyard like an ant on a hot pan, slamming his fist into his palm. “Those bastards must have gotten stung by a jellyfish! It’s definitely that Su Niannian—she’s jealous of you! What do we do now? This account was just starting to take off!”
Jiang Yu finally stopped what she was doing. She didn’t look at A-Wang’s phone. Instead, she picked up her own battered phone, flipped it over, and lit up the screen.
A red pop-up notification for a violation notice sat quietly, filling the entire display.
She glanced at it once, then pressed the screen off and set the phone back down on the stone table with a soft click.
Then she picked up the freshly sharpened oyster knife, held it up to the sunlight, and squinted at the blade.
“Wait.” Her voice was as calm as a bay after the tide recedes.
Seeing A-Wang still looking like the sky was about to fall, she lifted her gaze and added, “What’s the rush? That thing—I dug it out of the mud with my own hands.”
One sentence, like a stabilizing pillar in the sea, instantly silenced A-Wang’s panic.
Right. What’s real can’t be faked.
But he still felt wronged. He plopped down onto a small stool, sullenly opened the few short videos left on Jiang Yu’s profile, and typed a comment, manually pinning it to the top: “Sister Jiang was maliciously reported. Platform is reviewing. Justice will prevail!”
The moment the comment was pinned, the three thousand-plus “active fans” below exploded.
“Damn! No wonder the stream didn’t go live today. Which bastard did this?”
“Has to be a rival! That Su girl next door—sweet face, but her heart’s blacker than squid ink!”
“Can’t take this anymore! ‘Unlucky One’ fan group, assemble! Let’s go demand answers under the TideTV official account!”
Hundreds of accounts with the “Unlucky One” fan prefix surged like a tide into the platform’s official feedback section.
At that very moment, Su Niannian, the top streamer in TideTV’s beachcombing section, was sitting in front of a ring light, holding a palm-sized swimming crab with a delicate finger gesture, smiling innocently. “Babes, beachcombing isn’t about waiting for pies to fall from the sky. Our sea hasn’t produced anything valuable in decades. If someone suddenly digs up an old treasure from a muddy flat, everyone better keep their eyes peeled—don’t get harvested like leeks by some traffic-savvy ‘newcomer.'”
The barrage immediately erupted.
“Got it, got it—Niannian is throwing shade at that ‘Unlucky One’!”
“Support Niannian in exposing fakes! These newbies will write any script to get famous. So disgusting!”
While the internet was in full storm mode, Jiang Yu’s phone buzzed. The caller ID read “Liu Qinghe—TideTV.”
“Jiang Yu, this is Liu Qinghe.”
The voice on the other end was crisp and efficient, no wasted words. “I’ve looked into your account situation. Backend data shows the reports came from a concentrated set of IPs belonging to a studio called Niannian Media. It’s textbook malicious competition, but the platform has its rules.”
Liu Qinghe paused, her tone carrying a hint of scrutiny. “Your content metrics are strong. The platform doesn’t want to lose a streamer with potential. But the prerequisite is that you prove this isn’t a script. I need self-verification material that can shut everyone up. If you’ve got it, I can not only lift the ban immediately but also give you a homepage feature slot as compensation.”
“How do I prove it?” Jiang Yu asked.
“Two options. One: find a third party with absolute credibility to vouch for you. Two: do a fully transparent, unedited outdoor livestream with no blind spots, open to everyone’s scrutiny.”
“Fine.”
The call ended. Jiang Yu stood up, slid the sharpened oyster knife back into her tool bag, and walked straight out of the courtyard, heading down the dirt path toward the village entrance.
Under the big banyan tree at the village edge, Old Chen was crouched on the ground mending a fishing net, a dry tobacco pipe in his mouth glowing and fading in turns.
His deeply lined face was tanned dark by the sea wind, his eyes as sharp as an eagle’s.
When Jiang Yu approached, he only glanced up briefly before returning to his work.
“Uncle Chen.” Jiang Yu stopped in front of him, getting straight to the point. “I’d like to ask you to take a trip out to sea with me—to be a witness.”
Old Chen’s hands, pulling at the netting, froze. Ash nearly dropped into his crotch. He looked up, eyes full of suspicion. “What did you say?”
Jiang Yu gave him a concise rundown of the account ban and the need to prove herself.
“…I’d like to ask you, Elder, to come along as a witness and follow my livestream camera for one trip.”
Old Chen listened, then tapped his pipe twice against the worn sole of his Liberation Army shoe, knocking out the ash, and let out a cold laugh: “Little girl, what makes you think I’d go? Do you have any idea how much my old face is worth on this island? What if you pull some sleight-of-hand right in front of me and drag my lifelong reputation through the mud—who do I complain to then?”
Jiang Yu said nothing, just quietly watching him, her gaze clear and unwavering.
“The location—you pick it.”
She spoke slowly, each word landing with weight. “Pick the shoal where you’ve spent half your life working the sea, where you could find every reef blindfolded. You know better than anyone what’s there and what isn’t. Whether what I dig up was buried in advance—you’d see through it with those eyes of yours.”
She paused, meeting Old Chen’s scrutinizing gaze directly.
“The digging—I’ll do it. The eyes—they’re yours.”
These words landed like a declaration of war.
The refusal stuck in Old Chen’s throat, blocked solid.
He put the empty pipe back between his teeth, jaw clenched tight, and stared at Jiang Yu for a full half minute.
“Fine!” He slapped his thigh hard and barked in a gruff voice, “Five in the morning tomorrow, see you at the dock! I’ll personally pick you a godforsaken spot! If you really have the skill, I, Old Chen, will vouch for you! But if you dare pull any tricks…”
He didn’t finish, but the warning in his eyes carried more weight than any words.
She said yes, then headed toward the shore, carrying no tools, simply walking along the most remote and treacherous stretches of coastline.
Her secret—those eyes that could see good fortune—was undergoing a remarkable transformation.
In the past, treasures sunk beneath the sea had appeared to her as vague golden specks of light.
But now, when she focused on some wild stretch of reef-choked water, at the edge of her vision, that golden glow gathered into a faint yet distinct stream of light, as if issuing a silent summons.
Her hearing had sharpened too. Closing her eyes, she could even faintly discern the echoes of different tides striking different reefs—the natural rhythms encoded within.
This was a gift from the sea, fundamentally reshaping her perception.
That evening, A-Wang came rushing back like a gust of wind, handing Jiang Yu the information he’d dug up: “Sister Jiang! Got it! It’s Su Niannian’s MCN company, Niannian Media, behind it all! Look at these smear articles—the mud they’re slinging could cause a tsunami!”
Jiang Yu casually glanced at the ugly headlines on the screen, but her gaze drifted to the window, to the sea painted gold by the sunset.
She said softly: “Then she really should come to my livestream and learn how to pay respects to Mazu.”
A-Wang froze for two seconds, then burst into earth-shaking laughter. The frustration he’d been bottling up all day was scattered by that deadpan quip.
The kitchen curtain swept aside as Aunt Lin emerged carrying a steaming pot of mixed fish soup, her brows knit in fury: “What little wretch has such a venomous heart! Fish girl, I’m coming with you tomorrow too—let’s see who dares talk trash in front of me!”
Jiang Yu turned, looking at Aunt Lin’s fiercely protective expression, even more worked up than her own. Some corner of her heart was gently washed over by warm tides.
It was a warmth she hadn’t felt since the Jiang family had cast her out.
“No need, Aunt Lin,” she said, her tone softening, carrying a rare gentleness. “The wind by the sea is harsh. With Uncle Chen there, that’s enough.”
Late into the night, the unchanging sound of waves drifted through the window.
Jiang Yu lay on the creaking wooden bed, wide awake.
She had once thought the livestream was just a way to earn a meal.
But seeing A-Wang’s anxiousness, Aunt Lin’s protectiveness, and the hundreds of strangers behind the scenes—unlucky souls she’d never met, yet who were willing to charge into battle for her… she suddenly realized this account carried far more weight than she’d ever imagined.
She didn’t want to return to that past—abandoned by her family, alone against the world.
This window—she had opened it with her own hands, and no one was going to close it.
Jiang Yu turned over, listening to the waves outside.
In the wind, there seemed to be an ancient breath carried from the deep sea.
She slowly closed her eyes, a faint smile forming on her lips.
The east wind is ready. Tomorrow, I’ll go take back what’s mine.
At the same time, in a luxury apartment in the provincial capital, Su Niannian, wearing a luxury face mask, lazily sent a voice message to her core fan group.
“Babes, get some sleep early, don’t get worked up over those amateurs. A nobody with no team and no backing—their hype will die down in a few days. In the beachcombing scene, it’s ultimately strength that speaks. Good night~”