Yu Zhile pondered the phrase “Second Life,” and her uneasy heart finally settled. Looking up, she was surprised to find that the reservation “heat” for her live stream had already exceeded four digits.
“The platform provides strong support for new anchors. Please do your best, Host!” Xiao Yun explained, seemingly sensing her surprise.
Yu Zhile understood and began calculating the best time for her first broadcast. In her memory, Old Mr. Yu regularly took the younger generation to maintain and repair the ancestral house. Consequently, it wasn’t a wasteland of overgrown weeds; it was essentially ready for move-in. They could get settled today.
“Xiao Yun, post a live stream announcement. I’ll start the first broadcast tomorrow afternoon.” Yu Zhile used the system to check the upcoming tide schedules for the best beachcombing time.
As soon as she finished speaking, the live stream time appeared on the homepage.
“Understood, Host. The platform has pushed your announcement to the front page. I wish you a successful first broadcast. Xiao Yun is always at your service.”
Suddenly, Yu Zhile felt a warmth on her wrist. Looking down, she saw a new mark representing the Cloud Live platform. Through Xiao Yun’s introduction, she learned she could start a broadcast at any time through this mark and select the audience’s perspective.
With the beginner tutorial complete, Yu Zhile closed the platform interface and continued packing.
A moment later, she heard a soft knock. If the door hadn’t vibrated slightly, she might have thought she was hallucinating. When she opened it, Yu Yang and Yu Qi were standing there, looking hesitant.
“Sister Le, our parents went to the ancestral house to clean. They sent us to help you move your things,” Yu Qi said, quickly forcing a smile. He knew everything that had happened and was filled with shame, fearing he would see a look of disgust on Yu Zhile’s face.
“Come in,” Yu Zhile said with a smile.
The brothers, surprised by her kind reception, froze for a second. It wasn’t until Yu Yue spoke from behind them that they stepped inside.
“Sister Le, Xiao Yue… my father…” Yu Yang started, his voice trailing off.
Both Yu Zhile and Yu Yue understood the situation perfectly. They waved it off in unison and comforted them simultaneously: “Don’t think too much about it.”
The brothers instantly cast aside their messy thoughts. Filled with energy, they tirelessly moved small loads of luggage trip after trip.
Once Yu Haizong and his wife learned of the siblings’ plans, the frown lines on their brows softened. Later, Yu Haizong borrowed a bullock cart. After a few trips, the three rooms in the old house were empty. The final trip carried the unconscious Yu Wanqin.
This was the first time Yu Zhile had seen Yu Wanqin since transmigrating. Yu Wanqin had fair skin and delicate, willow-leaf brows. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her brow was slightly furrowed as if she were trapped in a nightmare, looking as though she might wake up at any second. She was thinner than in Yu Zhile’s memories and required regular checkups at the town hospital; currently, she was being kept alive with glucose injections.
The Yu family ancestral house was located to the west, nestled between the mountains and the sea. The only nearby structure was the village cowshed. As the bullock cart wobbled past the village fields, they were once again the center of attention, with villagers whispering about the family division drama.
After arranging the furniture, Yu Zhile finally found the time to walk through the house and inspect her surroundings. The small courtyard had only four rooms—not many, but enough. The door thresholds had already been removed. Its greatest advantage was the size of the front and back yards.
The front yard was nearly a tenth of an acre, planted with seven or eight types of fruit trees in full, vibrant bloom. In the corner sat two large vats for growing lotus roots. The backyard was the private plot; a quarter of it was fenced off for chickens and ducks, while the rest was a small vegetable patch that Yu Haizong and his wife had already tilled and sown with seeds.
What pleased Yu Zhile most was that the backyard led directly to the beach, and there were few people around. The villagers usually went beachcombing to the east and preferred a different path when going up the mountain.
The house was short on all kinds of seasonings. For their first two meals in the new home, Yu Zhile only brewed a pot of multigrain porridge. Yu Yue and Yu Chi ate it happily with the pickles Yang Suyun had brought over.
The next afternoon, the tide had receded.
Yu Zhile asked Yu Yue to look after Yu Chi at home while she headed toward the shore with a bamboo basket on her back. The mark on her wrist grew warm. Knowing the stream had started, Yu Zhile switched to a panoramic view.
“Hello everyone, I am Anchor Lele. Today’s content is beachcombing.”
“Beachcombing is the process where coastal residents go to the shore after low tide to salvage or collect seafood [1]. During this process, we will encounter various types of seafood, which I will introduce to you one by one.”
As a professional gourmet blogger, Yu Zhile wasn’t nervous at all as she listened to Xiao Yun reporting the heat levels. She kept to her own pace. The ocean of this era was free from heavy pollution; looking out, she saw crystal-clear water that turned from green to blue as it stretched to the horizon. The salty sea breeze hit her face, bringing back the familiar feeling of filming her old videos.
Bullet comments flooded the screen in front of her, but she could only make out a few.
So the ocean really is blue! It’s beautiful.
Support! I hope the anchor turns on the ‘Synesthesia’ function soon. I want to know what the sea and seafood taste like!
As she approached the shoreline, Yu Zhile switched to a first-person perspective. After years of beachcombing, she had developed “eagle eyes” and spotted splashes between several reefs from a distance.
“After the tide goes out, seafood will burrow into the sand to hide from humans and seabirds, but they always leave certain marks. You can see them if you observe carefully,” Yu Zhile explained to the audience as she waded toward the rocks.
Within a few steps, she bent over and dug into the sand, pulling out a light brown snail. Before the meat could retract, it squeezed out a beautiful spray of water.
“This is a Moon Snail (Cat’s Eye Snail). Its protrusion is quite prominent. It can be blanched or steamed. When eating it, remember to remove the gallbladder.”
Yu Zhile took several minutes to cover just a few meters, bending down every few steps to pick up a Moon Snail. She gathered seven or eight along the way. Near the rocks, the splashing became more intense, reaching half a meter high.
Tiger Prawns! Yu Zhile saw the colorful tails. Estimating that each was as long as a palm, her joy was palpable. She quickly grabbed a prawn and held it straight to show the camera. “Look, this is a Tiger Prawn. Locally, we also call it ‘Grass Shrimp.’ Its most striking features are the transverse stripes on its body and the colorful tail.”
Beautiful! I want to keep it as a collection!
I think I’ve seen these. How do you eat them?
Yu Zhile straightened up and saw a bullet comment drifting by in a dazzling pink font.
xxxx: Anchor, hello. Can you eat the ones as long as a human arm? How do you cook them?
“As long as a human arm?” Although she knew the viewers came from different planets, she couldn’t help but be shocked. “If it’s confirmed to be the same species, yes, it’s edible. The simplest way is to blanch it in water. Of course, it can also be pan-fried, sautéed in sauce, or charcoal-grilled.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the entire live stream screen was filled with countless little clouds. It took three full minutes for things to return to normal.
Xiao Yun’s voice followed: “Congratulations, Host! In your first stream, you received the most expensive gift on the Cloud Live platform from user xxxx—ten ‘Cloud Seas’.”
“Thank you, xxxx,” Yu Zhile thanked them as per custom. “Barring any accidents, I will stream three to five times a week. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments.”
She continued along the shoreline, picking up a few more Moon Snails and two short-legged octopuses. Because of xxxx’s gift, her stream remained on the platform’s front page for over half an hour, with heat levels approaching 50,000. Many viewers lived on planets without oceans and flooded the screen with questions. Dazzled, Yu Zhile had Xiao Yun randomly pick a few to answer while she focused on finding more seafood.
The waves washed over the shallows, bringing a jellyfish head wobbling toward her. Its stinging tentacles had already been knocked off by the waves, so Yu Zhile safely picked it up to show the audience.
“This is a Jellyfish, a somewhat dangerous creature. If you get stung by its tentacles, your hand will turn red and swell. In severe cases, the skin can ulcerate. Fresh jellyfish contains toxins, so I don’t recommend eating it directly.”
The jellyfish head weighed several pounds, filling her small bamboo basket instantly. Yu Zhile looked at the sky and felt the increasing force of the waves at her feet. Knowing the tide was coming back in, she prepared to say goodbye.
“Friends, the tide is coming in. We’ll meet again tomor—”
She stopped mid-sentence, her attention caught by a comment: What is that brown thing in the sea?
Before ending the broadcast, she switched back to the panoramic view. Looking up, she saw brown fabric bobbing up and down in the water a few meters away.
Yu Zhile immediately dropped her basket and ran toward it. She found a thin young boy. Without much effort, she dragged him out of the water and checked his breathing. It was faint.
She patted the boy’s shoulders, but he was unconscious. She lifted his chin to clear his airway. Unexpectedly, the moment her hand touched his forehead, he snapped his eyes open. His gaze was razor-sharp.
The boy’s face was as pale as paper, wet hair clinging to his temples. The hostility in his eyes was a stark contrast to his dark, translucent, almond-shaped eyes.
“What are you doing?” The boy frowned, shrinking back to avoid her hand.
Ignoring his defensiveness, Yu Zhile explained, “Saving you.”
The boy pursed his lips and said nothing. He climbed up and limped away. His heavily patched clothes clung to his body; he was so thin his shoulder blades protruded.
Watching his receding figure, Yu Zhile pulled his identity from her memory—Jiang Shangqing, one of the children of the “Black Five Categories” [2] living in the cowshed.
She only stood there for a moment before running back to retrieve her basket. The rising tide was no joke. She hurried off the beach, unaware that the comment section had exploded.
???
What planet is the anchor on? You can pick up beautiful boys while beachcombing? I want to go.
The user xxxx, with a glittering gold nameplate, asked a rather terrifying question: Anchor, hello. Is he edible? How do you cook him?
Seeing that Yu Zhile didn’t answer, xxxx waved a hand and dropped another ten Cloud Seas.
“Host, congratulations! Your first stream’s heat has broken 100,000! You are truly amazing!” Xiao Yun said excitedly. “The system-provided robot butler will be sent to your planet immediately. Please keep an eye out for it!”
Yu Zhile realized she hadn’t turned off the stream. When she opened the platform, she saw xxxx’s comment pinned at the top and was speechless.
She replied tactfully, “The person I just saved was a human in the water, not food.”
xxxx: Oh.
xxxx replied coldly and dropped another ten Cloud Seas. Yu Zhile was stunned; rich people were truly capricious.
“Alright, friends, that’s all for today’s stream. See you next time.” She gave her closing remarks and shut down the broadcast.
On the screen, Xiao Yun smiled gently. “Host, the system binding process caused some physical strain. Based on your current needs, the system has decided to grant you ten pounds of rice as compensation.”
In the next second, a heavy cloth bag dropped into Yu Zhile’s hand, emitting a faint aroma of fresh rice.
She carried the rice bag and the bamboo basket home through the backyard. She didn’t see Yu Yue or Yu Chi until she reached the front yard, where she met them just as they were entering. Yu Yue had some fresh vegetables on his lap, and the bamboo basket hanging from Yu Chi’s neck made a clattering sound as he moved.
“Xiao Yue and Xiao Bao were both great!” Yu Zhile praised them. She patted her own basket and said with a smile, “I had a great harvest today, too. We’ll have seafood porridge and cold jellyfish salad.”
Footnotes:
[1] Beachcombing (Gǎnhǎi): A traditional coastal activity of gathering sea creatures left behind by the receding tide.
[2] Black Five Categories: A political term during the Cultural Revolution referring to five social groups considered enemies of the Revolution (Landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists).