Having successfully turned his elder brother and sister-in-law’s faces as black as the bottom of a pot, Lu Gaoda felt immensely pleased.
On the way back, Lu Gaoda was driving with a smile that never left his face. “Let him be smug. Isn’t he just relying on his daughter being accomplished? My daughter is accomplished too—did I show off? It’s a pity we didn’t have Wanwan drive her car over, or the eldest would’ve been furious.”
???
That’s not what you were saying before you left the house.
This week it was Lu Gaoda’s turn to cook. In the morning, he made porridge in the rice cooker, then went to the vegetable market to buy groceries and breakfast. By the time he got home, Dai Yin and Lu Wanwan were still in bed.
Lu Gaoda tossed the keys on the table and started calling out.
“Get up and eat.”
After arranging the breakfast on plates, Lu Gaoda fried a few eggs. By then, mother and daughter were already seated at the dining table.
“Hurry up and serve the porridge—do I have to bring it to your hands myself?”
Ignoring her old man’s sarcastic tone, Lu Wanwan got up, took three bowls from the cupboard, and filled one for each of them.
Watching Dai Yin pick up her chopsticks first, Lu Gaoda frowned deeply.
Dai Yin used to be the model of a virtuous wife and caring mother. She handled all the chores like laundry and cooking by herself, and on ordinary days he only had to do tasks like mopping the floor once every three to five days. But ever since their daughter had instilled those messy ideas into her, their household had adopted a policy of dividing all the housework equally.
Lu Gaoda had never cooked in half his life, but now he could make ten dishes in one sitting.
Although he’d learned the skill and his wife and daughter both enjoyed his cooking, those carefree days were gone for good!
After the meal, Lu Wanwan picked up the suitcase she’d packed earlier and headed out. She was participating in the recording of a reality show, a variety program launched by Youzi Streaming Platform, the company she was signed to.
The core concept of the variety show Making Money Isn’t That Easy was to have guests earn money outside of their regular professions. During the process, most of the guests ended up in embarrassing situations, providing plenty of comedic moments for the show.
This year, Youzi Streaming Platform had officially entered the film and television industry, and this was the platform’s first foray. To make a splash right out of the gate, Youzi—being the big brother among streaming platforms—had invited all of its top streamers, along with some celebrity guests. It was safe to say Youzi had put both money and thought into it.
Unfortunately, the celebrity guests they’d invited weren’t impressive enough—the most popular ones were only second-tier at best. What’s more, these celebrity guests lacked variety sense and were frankly boring.
As for the streamers, they had no experience with variety show production. During filming, some were too nervous to loosen up, while others treated the show like their own livestream rooms and spoke carelessly, drawing a lot of criticism. As a result, the show only made a small splash when it first aired and was now almost completely ignored. Aside from circulating within fan circles, very few casual viewers watched it.
Youzi Streaming Platform’s first shot at the entertainment industry had fizzled out.
Lu Wanwan joined midway. With her level of popularity, she normally wouldn’t have qualified to participate in the recording, but one of the guests had been hounded out of the show by criticism, so Lu Wanwan stepped in to fill the spot.
Lu Wanwan didn’t mind any of this. As long as there was work, she was willing to do it.
Upon arriving at the filming location, the guests had already gone out to find work, leaving only Sang Yueyi washing vegetables.
After a brief self-introduction with Sang Yueyi, Lu Wanwan received her task: she had to earn one hundred yuan through her own efforts today. If she failed to complete the task, she would face punishment.
Lu Wanwan had never appeared on a variety show before, and even on Youzi Live, she wasn’t considered a top streamer, so few people knew her. Her arrival caused barely a ripple, and the live stream’s viewer count was only around thirty thousand at the moment.
However, the Bullet Chat was very friendly.
【Is this the new guest? She’s pretty cute.】
【Her smile is so sweet!】
Soon after, Lu Wanwan’s fans began educating the live stream audience about her background.
This time, the show was filmed in a small town. Lu Wanwan walked around the streets looking for opportunities, and perhaps because the store owners noticed she had a camera crew with her, she landed a job as a supermarket sales associate. The base pay was fifty yuan a day, with the rest coming from commission.
According to other employees, this was the largest supermarket in town, spanning two floors—the upper floor selling clothing and the lower floor selling general merchandise. Lu Wanwan was assigned to sell clothes on the upper floor.
There were few young people in the town, so the clothing sold at the supermarket was mostly for middle-aged, elderly, and children.
Few people came to buy clothes, so Lu Wanwan’s job was relatively relaxed. After a long while, an elderly woman with graying hair came up, and Lu Wanwan immediately approached her.
“Hello, welcome. What can I help you with?”
“I want @#￥￥%%*& ciwa.”
The elderly woman spoke in a thick local dialect, and Lu Wanwan couldn’t understand at first. She tilted her head with a face full of question marks, so the elderly woman had to repeat herself. Lu Wanwan caught the key word “ciwa.”
Ciwa?
Stockings?
She grabbed a pair of nude-colored stockings from a nearby rack and asked, “Grandma, are you looking for stockings?”
The elderly woman shook her head and waved her hands, looking very anxious, and continued explaining. Lu Wanwan caught the key word “black” this time.
She put the nude stockings back and swapped them for a black pair.
At the same time, she wondered to herself—would an elderly woman buy stockings? Maybe they were for a family member?
But when Lu Wanwan brought over the stockings, the elderly woman waved her hands so frantically they almost blurred.
At her wit’s end, Lu Wanwan went to find someone nearby for help. It turned out the elderly woman wanted to buy a pair of black sneakers with a frog pattern printed on them.
So “ciwa” meant “frog,” not “stockings.” Lu Wanwan repeated “ciwa” and “frog” back and forth several times—the two words did sound somewhat similar, but they were also close to “stockings”!
The Bullet Chat was flooded with “Hahahaha!” But after this little episode, the viewer count had climbed to over fifty thousand.
However, the sale didn’t go through. The elderly woman had spotted those shoes before but thought they were too expensive at the time and didn’t buy them. Now they had long been purchased by someone else.
It truly lived up to the show’s title—Making Money Isn’t That Easy.
Lu Wanwan sighed, but just then, a string of characters suddenly floated past her eyes.
【So this is the tenth victim! She’s pretty.】
【What’s the use of being pretty? She’s going to die tonight.】
【And she’s the worst off of all ten victims—her tongue was cut out. This killer is seriously twisted.】
【It can only be said that it’s all her own mouth’s fault, no one else to blame.】
【What did she say wrong? Should she keep a man like that around for the New Year? Did that hurt the pervert’s fragile ego?】
【There are only three people in the livestream, and you still manage to start a fight—impressive!】
Lu Wanwan watched as bullet chats flashed past her one by one, but these bullet chats weren’t displayed on a screen—it was as if wherever her eyes landed was the screen, and the words simply appeared out of thin air in front of her.
Could this be the bullet chat that protagonists in novels see?
Was she now getting the treatment of a novel’s main character?
At first, Lu Wanwan was baffled by the first couple of bullet chats, but when she saw the line “Should she keep a man like that around for the New Year?” she was shocked—wasn’t that something she often said?
Could it be, perhaps, possibly, that the tenth victim these bullet chats were referring to was… herself?