After finishing dinner, An Bo played for a while longer and then planned to leave. There was no place for him to stay here.
Before he left, An Ran stopped him and reminded him to eat more slowly in the future. An Bo nodded obediently, but whether he would follow that advice was another matter. After all, habits formed over so many years were not easy to change.
To be safe, An Ran also asked whether he knew the self-rescue method for when a foreign object blocked his throat.
An Bo shook his head.
Someone had taught him the Heimlich First-Aid Method before, but he had not listened carefully or practiced it at the time. After so many years, he remembered only that he was supposed to press on the abdomen; he no longer knew where or how.
An Ran pulled her younger brother over and found a video for him to watch. Two nurses acted out the situation in the short educational video.
The self-rescue method came first. Find a chair with a backrest. Make a fist with one hand and place it against your abdomen, two finger-widths above the navel. Press your abdomen firmly against the chair back, thrusting inward with force and repeating the motion.
If a foreign object becomes lodged in someone else’s throat, stand behind the choking person and spread their legs to form a tripod. Have them lean forward, then wrap your arms around them from behind. Make a fist with one hand and place the knuckles slightly above the navel. Grasp the fist with your other hand and thrust inward and upward against the choking person’s abdomen with force.
The First-Aid Methods for infants and children were somewhat different, and the video demonstrated them in detail.
After they finished watching, An Ran had An Bo explain exactly what he should do and demonstrate the Self-Rescue Method. Once she saw that he had mastered it, she sent him on his way.
The Physicians of the Ancient Era had assumed the First-Aid Method would not come up again after seeing the three of them continue eating and drinking during the emergency. They had planned to conduct more experiments themselves, but An Ran’s lesson gave them a pleasant surprise.
When An Ran said she would find her younger brother a video to study, the Physicians stood ready with paper and brushes. They stared at the Heavenly Screen without blinking, afraid of missing a single detail.
When the video appeared, the Physicians saw the specific procedures, their eyes lighting up as they recorded each step.
It was a simple method, yet a swift and effective lifesaving technique.
Choking could kill a person within a very short time. Poor families might not be able to afford a Physician, but even wealthy families often could not wait for one to arrive before the victim suffocated.
People from the various dynasties were watching the Heavenly Screen, so some unlucky victims whose throats became blocked by food were bound to be among them. One such victim was a child caught stealing food. When the child was discovered, the shock caused the food to lodge in the child’s throat.
At first, the parent failed to realize what was happening and assumed the child was frightened and feeling guilty, so they kept scolding him. Only when they saw him clutching his throat, his face turning purple as he suffocated, did they panic. They went behind him and struck his back, but it did no good.
The child’s mother cried out in panic from the kitchen. Her husband heard her from outside and hurried in. The moment he saw what had happened, he panicked too. The old father arrived soon after and reminded him of the First-Aid Method they had seen on the Heavenly Screen. He clumsily began applying it. Fortunately, it worked, and the child spat out the food after a few thrusts.
The young couple breathed a sigh of relief. Once they recovered, they remembered what the child had done and grew so angry that they wanted to hit him. Seeing trouble coming, the child hid behind his Grandfather and escaped punishment.
The child’s mother felt relieved despite her anger. Fortunately, the Heavenly Screen had taught them how to save someone. Otherwise, if her son had died, she would not have been able to go on living either. After all, the child had choked because she had frightened him. The guilt alone would have overwhelmed her, and the others would probably have blamed her as well—especially her husband’s family, since he was their only Grandson.
She ran outside to kowtow to the Heavenly Screen, but it had already shut down.
After dinner, An Ran lay on the sofa and played with her phone, while An Ning went downstairs to walk off her meal in the garden of the Residential Complex.
She heard a ding, followed by a faint crackling sound. She looked around, turning her head from side to side. What was making that noise?
She searched the room but could not find the source, then held her phone beside her ear. The sound was not coming from it either. After a while, the noise disappeared, and An Ran thought, Could this be another Auditory hallucination?
It had happened three times in just over half a month, and each Auditory hallucination had been unnervingly clear. Could she have some kind of illness?
As she panicked, a mechanical voice sounded in her mind.
“Ding—the Myriad Realms Livestream is now online.”
“Who?” An Ran sat up straight. “System? When did we bind together?”
She had a System? When had it bound itself to her? It had bonded with her without asking first. Was this a forced transaction? It did not feel like a good sort!
“Yes, host. I am the Myriad Realms Livestream system. This system bound itself to the host at 3:21:58 a.m. on May 19.”
The early morning of May 19? An Ran thought for a moment. That was the day she had decided to resign. With the System’s help, she recalled the words she had heard in a daze and remembered them all. So it had not been a dream or an Auditory hallucination—it had been real!
All right, she had wronged it.
However, the system had awakened from its slumber, which proved that it had earned enough points. This also meant that…
“I’ve already livestreamed?” she asked in horror. When had she livestreamed? What had she livestreamed? Could it have broadcast embarrassing moments or private matters as well?
Fortunately, the system told her that private matters would not be broadcast, which eased her mind somewhat. But what about the embarrassing moments?
She thought back over the past few days. There should not have been anything particularly humiliating, right? After searching her memory, she found nothing. Thank goodness. An Ran breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, delighted, she asked what the livestream was for and what she could gain from it.
The system explained that the livestream broadcast modern civilization to the people of the various dynasties in the Ancient Era. The system and the Host split the Points and Tips generated during the livestream in a thirty-seventy ratio. Points could be exchanged for cash at one hundred yuan per Point.
“There’s only money? Isn’t there anything else? For example, longevity pills, cultivation manuals, martial arts manuals, or something like that?” An Ran asked expectantly.
“This plane belongs to a modern technological civilization. You will not find anything in the system Shop that exceeds the existing laws. You can view the specific products in the Shop.”
An Ran felt disappointed for a moment, but quickly pulled herself together. She was not greedy; having money was already good enough. She simply did not know how much she could earn.
Speaking of money reminded her that the system had said Points could be exchanged for cash. She asked the system how many Points she had.
The system showed her the panel: points: 0. Not even a single Point remained!
The system explained that the Host had been in Life-Threatening Danger when they bonded. It had overdrawn its energy to save her, and the Points she had earned over the past few days had all gone toward repaying it.
An Ran recalled what had happened. All right, the situation had indeed been critical. Those few days’ worth of Points had saved her life, so she had come out far ahead.
However, that also meant she had earned quite a lot of Points over those days—enough to save a life. From now on, she would not need to worry much about the Livestream Content. She only had to livestream her daily life as before.
The only difference was that the previous one-way broadcast had become two-way, so both sides could communicate.
This had little impact on An Ran, but it greatly affected the Common People of the Ancient Era, especially the emperors.
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