The giant fireworks effect of the Carnival gifts instantly filled the live chat screen. One after another, twenty in total, leaving both Qu Yang and Shao Yu completely dumbfounded.
“Holy crap—thank you, thank you to ‘YangBao’ for the Carnival!”
“Wait, there’s more?! Thank you, ‘YangBao’, thanks for the Carnivals! Thank you, thank you! Qu Yang, hurry up and show your abs to the top donor!”
Shao Yu was over the moon, babbling out dozens of thank-yous before finally realizing he needed to offer some fan service. He spun around and yanked Qu Yang’s shirt up.
Qu Yang instinctively pulled back, but not before his sharply defined abs flashed on screen, giving the viewers a feast for the eyes.
Shen Ci, watching on her phone, was entertained. But the next second, Shao Yu suddenly ended the stream.
She blinked. What? Twenty Carnivals and all I get is that? Isn’t this basically fraud and a run-off with the money?
Meanwhile, Qu Yang had snatched Shao Yu’s phone and shut the stream down himself.
“What are you doing?” Shao Yu protested. “We finally found a rich patron, and you kill the stream?”
Qu Yang’s expression was complicated. His gaze shifted toward the top bunk. Li Xiao was lying there, staring at the ceiling with a dark look.
Finally, Qu Yang said, “No stream tonight.”
“But you’ve got to at least follow the top donor! ‘Follow so you don’t get lost!’” Shao Yu grabbed his phone back, mumbling: “YangBao, YangBao… that’s the username, YangBao—”
Before Qu Yang could cover his mouth, Li Xiao suddenly sat bolt upright, face dark as thunder.
“Who did you just say your top donor was?”
Shao Yu always felt intimidated by Li Xiao—the man’s family background was too powerful. And now, with Li Xiao fresh from a breakup and glaring at him like that, Shao Yu shrank back nervously.“Uh… it… it was someone named YangBao.”
Li Xiao leapt down from the bed, snatching the phone from his hands. He pulled up the DouDou live backend, scrolling through the gift records.
‘YangBao’ sent: Carnival ×20.
He clicked the profile. No videos uploaded, but the username, the avatar, the profile line—“This world can’t be without kittens”—he knew it instantly.
Shen Ci.
Twenty Carnivals. You really splurge, don’t you?
Li Xiao’s eyes turned bloodshot. His face twisted with suppressed fury, trembling with rage. Shao Yu froze, terrified to even breathe. Qu Yang only frowned, watching silently.
The next moment, Li Xiao slammed the phone down on the desk and stormed out of the dorm.
“What… what’s wrong with him?” Shao Yu whispered, still shaken.
Qu Yang pressed his lips together. “The one who sent the Carnivals… was Shen Ci.”
“What?!” Shao Yu shot up in shock. “Shen Ci? That YangBao is Shen Ci?”
Qu Yang nodded.
Shao Yu was dumbfounded. Impossible.
One Carnival cost thirty cents. Twenty in a row—that’s six yuan!
Why would Shen Ci randomly spend six yuan sending gifts to him?
Then it hit him, and he stared at Qu Yang. “Wait—you knew YangBao was Shen Ci? That’s why you suddenly killed the stream? You remembered her account name?”
Qu Yang didn’t deny it. He explained, “A long time ago I stumbled across one of her posts. She uploaded a short video, then deleted it quickly. But her username stuck with me—two characters, and one of them was ‘Yang’, same as in my name. Easy to remember.”
Shao Yu’s face went pale. “I’m doomed. If Shen Ci’s giving me gifts, Li Xiao’s gonna blame me for it, isn’t he? He’s the heir to the Li Group—I can’t afford to offend him!”
Qu Yang wasn’t sure either. He and Li Xiao weren’t that close, but judging by Li Xiao’s reaction just now, he was furious. Understandably so—yesterday he’d just broken up with Shen Ci, and today she dumped twenty Carnivals into another man’s livestream, his own roommate’s no less.
But what Qu Yang couldn’t understand… was Shen Ci herself.
Shen Ci, what on earth are you doing?
At that very moment, Shen Ci was lounging in her hotel suite, browsing real estate listings in her silk robe.
After working sixty-five long years in her last life, she’d only managed a cramped flat under a hundred square meters—fine for one person, but always too expensive to upgrade.
Now, things were different.
On her laptop, the listings for Lóng City’s top luxury properties scrolled by. The best standalone villa in the “Ten Thousand Lights” estate was barely ten thousand yuan. A five-hundred-square-meter river-view penthouse? Just over three thousand yuan. With her current fortune, it was practically free.
She wasn’t even looking out of need. She just wanted to buy them for fun.
But while she was happily scrolling through listings, Li Xiao was already storming to the girls’ dorm, seething with fury.
“Shen Ci!”
“Shen Ci, come down here!”
“Shen Ci!”
His voice tore through the night, hoarse and hysterical, drawing every girl in the dorm to their windows.
What now? Another drama? Didn’t they just have one yesterday?
Li Xiao shouted until his throat was raw, but Shen Ci never appeared. Instead, Yu Xinxin came out.
She wore a light yellow dress, with glossed lips and painted brows, clearly dressed up on purpose.
“Li Xiao, stop yelling. Shen Ci isn’t in the dorm.”
She stepped closer, eyes full of faux concern. “Why torment yourself like this? She doesn’t care, she can’t even see you.”
Li Xiao ignored her, grabbing her wrist instead. “She’s not in the dorm? Then where is she?”
Yu Xinxin winced, eyes watery, voice soft and pitiful. “Li Xiao, you’re hurting me…”
Startled, Li Xiao let go. She rubbed her wrist, then sighed. “I don’t know where she went. She packed her things last night and left. Never came back. Looks like she won’t return anymore.”
Her voice dropped to a sympathetic tone. “Li Xiao, you’re too naïve. You don’t understand Shen Ci at all. A girl like her, adored by so many boys—how could she ever settle for just you? Yes, your family background is good, but you’re not the only one. Maybe Shen Ci has already…”
She trailed off, but the implication was sharp.
Combined with the twenty Carnivals she’d sent earlier, Li Xiao’s mind snapped.
Shen Ci, spending money like that? Impossible.
He knew her family situation. If she had money to waste, it must’ve come from someone else.
(End of Chapter)