The End of the Universe Is Live-Streaming E-commerce – CH17

Chapter 17: The 17th Day of Livestream Selling

Less than an hour after the stream began, Lin Zhao’s gift exhibition hall was maxed out again.

This was something he had never expected before going live.

Wasn’t I supposed to be doing a livestream selling goods? Why does it feel like I’m about to take the route of getting rich just by receiving gifts?

The black-haired young man looked somewhat blankly at his friend and system beside him.

Was organizing and storage really this popular?

As expected, he still did not understand the internet.

When he looked again at the livestream data across the platforms…

On China’s side, the highest peak number of online viewers was twenty-seven, with an average of fifteen online. Gifts and income were both zero.

On StarNet, the viewer curve at first was about the same, basically staying flat at around ten to twenty viewers. It was just that among those people, there were nine or ten extremely firm viewers. Once they entered, they never left again. Their stability was terrifying. But no one spoke. They only kept throwing gifts with ku-ku efficiency, while gorgeous gift effects flashed again and again.

As for the income, let’s put it this way: in the blink of an eye, it had already covered the cost of Lin Zhao “annexing” the little supermarket, with even some profit left over.

And it was not only one account sending gifts.

After the leading account named “Shitty Boss Will Drop Dead Sooner or Later”—clearly a corporate slave who had suffered deep torment—sent gifts, the accounts behind it all followed neatly and sent gifts too. At the very least, each sent a cat tree.

The livestream gifts on StarNet came in all kinds of varieties, but the most popular were still the cat series: from one-yuan dried fish, ten-yuan cat cans, to fifty-yuan scratching boards and three-hundred-yuan ordinary cat trees. Higher up, there were things like villa castles and pet parks. In short, even though 1114 said that people in the 3S region were all rich on average, Lin Zhao still felt that three hundred was not a small amount.

If they started by sending three hundred, then what would they send later?

Lin Zhao finally understood.

It was not that he did not understand the internet.

He did not understand rich people from developed regions.

When this group of rich people was sending gifts, Lin Zhao had been working with his head down and had not noticed the grand occasion, so he had not had time to thank them for the gifts. But as the administrator, 1114 was extremely qualified. At the very first moment, it expressed thanks to all the bosses in the livestream comment section, pinning floating bullet comments to the top. It could be said to have maximized emotional value.

Unfortunately, the bosses’ style was as concise with words as ever. Anyone who did not know better might think they were plants Lin Zhao had paid for.

Of course, they definitely were not.

As one of the regular viewers, Adjutant Carlos really wanted to interact with Lin Zhao, but did he not also have his own troubles? Otherwise, he would definitely have asked Lin Zhao whether he had some special ability, or whether he was similar to people from that neighboring star system with the special distinction between sentinels and guides. Otherwise, why did watching his livestream give them a subtle sense of mental soothing?

Yes, the feeling His Highness Reinhardt sensed, that his restlessness had been soothed, was not his illusion. But it was also not some special experience unique to him.

Perhaps what he felt was a little stronger and deeper than what others did, but in short, all beings were equal. Every Yasa person watching the stream felt it.

The reason all eight crew members on the bridge had remained crouched in the livestream room was partly because the return voyage was on autopilot and was too boring, so of course they could not miss eating their superior’s melon from the front row. On the other hand, it was also because they truly felt an unprecedented mental relief in Lin Zhao’s livestream room.

The effect was not large, nor was it very obvious, but it genuinely existed. It was just that for the time being, everyone had not found a more suitable word to describe this feeling.

Only the knowledgeable Adjutant Carlos said that the person opposite was like a guide, the kind who could calm the wounded mental power of sentinels.

“Are guides that magical? I went there during my search journey back then too. Why didn’t I feel anything?”

“Which neighboring star system?”

“Is there no isolation between a guide’s abilities and ours? Then why doesn’t His Majesty cooperate with the neighboring side?”

Among the pile of questions, it was truly difficult to tell which one belonged to His Highness Reinhardt.

Adjutant Carlos answered them all together: “That’s why the word I used was ‘similar.’ During a previous state visit, I received a divine-level guide from the White Tower. I know what they’re like. Their abilities are useless on us.”

Only then did everyone scatter like birds and beasts, continuing to squat in Lin Zhao’s livestream room, or quietly sending private communications to close friends and family, recommending that they come squat for a while too.

Only His Highness Reinhardt raised an eyebrow, standing before his friend’s desk with his arms crossed, half-smiling and not smiling.

“Shitty Boss Will Drop Dead Sooner or Later?”

The calm adjutant pushed up his rimless glasses and produced the excuse he had thought of at the extreme limit, his movement extremely slick.

“Are you a shitty boss?”

Reinhardt fell silent.

“Then you won’t drop dead.”

A perfect hand of PU-A manipulation.

The prince indicated that he did not buy it. “When I return, I’ll tell your partner that with our Yasa biological technology, no one has needed to wear glasses for a long time. It was only because you discovered that both of his ex-boyfriends wore glasses, and that he thought such people had a highly intellectual aura, that you followed suit and customized many pairs. Then, after strict daily cross-comparisons, you selected the one he liked most.”

“…I’ll go investigate what ‘Did Lin Salted Fish Work Hard Today?’ likes right now.”

While the number of viewers on StarNet quietly skyrocketed, Kaman was contributing the largest amount of views to Lin Zhao.

The number of viewers there was the highest and also the most stable. From beginning to end, there had almost been no change in the number of people.

Although Lin Zhao had not activated the mainframe’s precise traffic push, that only meant his livestream would not appear before the important figures in Kaman who were willing and able to spend large sums of money. His livestream would still randomly appear anywhere in Kaman that had electronic equipment capable of projecting images. In fact, the coverage range this time was much larger than before.

Some people were surprised about who he was and how he had appeared. Others recognized at a glance that the things piled up in the picture were the mysterious canned goods that had recently swept through Kaman. People gathered in twos and threes and discussed passionately, listening to those who had eaten them describe the taste vividly.

“I only had the fortune to eat one bite when I went to Gear Town to visit my elderly aunt. It was something called mango pomelo sago flavor. Do you know mango pomelo sago? It was yellow like the sun, full of solid real fruit flesh, and there were other white chewy bits inside too. I don’t know what they were called, just that taste, tsk, there’s no way to describe it.”

Along with the storyteller swallowing a mouthful of saliva, the other listeners cursed this lucky groundhog in their hearts while also being unable to stop themselves from salivating along with him.

They simply could not imagine how happy they would be if they were people of Gear Town.

And at this very moment, the people of Gear Town had to responsibly say: You cannot even imagine our happiness.

At first, when they lined up to go to the town’s only clinic to receive canned goods, everyone still felt that this was an occasional one-time event. Each person ate ravenously, afraid that after finishing this bite, there would not be another.

As for Dr. Madeline’s behavior of diluting them into soup, their understanding at the time was also that this was the only way to let more people taste this wonderful flavor.

Never had they expected that the rule announced back then—“those in critical condition receive one small bowl a day; children receive it twice a day, and the amount distributed each day will gradually increase”—would really be carried out all the way until now.

There were no orders changing overnight, no supply that failed to keep up afterward, only the old town mayor and mercenary Gray, who kept their word.

After confirming that everyone’s stomach and intestines had adapted enough to handle a full can, they really began distributing whole cans to everyone on schedule every day.

Of course, these cans were not free. They needed to help Gray with work, and every person did so gladly and enthusiastically, working in full swing for fear of losing this generous treatment.

This was something they in the past had never dared to imagine: as long as I do some work within my ability, I can eat my fill. Could such a worthwhile deal really exist in this world?

It was so generous that for a while, people suspected they had actually died long ago and collectively arrived in heaven. Probably only in paradise could they eat things like canned goods and compressed biscuits.

It was only when canned goods and instant-heating foods could be eaten every day that everyone began to believe this was all real. They were still alive. They were living a godlike life they had never dared to imagine before.

And as Gray and Cunningham sold the remaining initial batch of canned goods to major settlements like New Hope, places that could afford to pay, new supplies had already arrived in Gear Town, with categories richer than before.

Although currently, there was not much of each item: “But Gray said that even bigger orders are waiting for us afterward. It just needs a process. Everyone doesn’t need to worry, and there’s no need to be anxious.”

These words had very little persuasive power in Kaman, where people valued immediate payment and delivery.

Until this day, when everyone saw box after box of real goods on a giant screen in town that had been broken for who knew how many years. They were being packed with overtime work, ready to depart.

Little Copper Bean, who was helping Nurse Grandma make simple oil lamps out of empty cans, excitedly pointed at the milk on the screen and said, “I know this. It’s milk. Sister Cunningham let me drink one sip before. It tastes so much, so much better than water. It not only quenches thirst, but also fills the stomach. Most importantly, that smooth texture, oh my god.”

He wished he could write a little essay on the taste of milk.

“It tastes even better when made into milk porridge,” the elderly nurse said with a smile, stroking his dry, yellowed hair.

“Wow—”

The group of children helping nearby could not help making sounds of yearning in unison.

In the past, if someone had painted such a pie for them, they would not have paid attention at all. They would only have felt that the person’s brain was probably broken. But now, they subconsciously wanted to believe that in the near future, they would all drink the legendary milk porridge.

After all, the guarantors were Uncle Gray, who always kept his word, and the omnipotent savior brother.

Everyone began chattering noisily about what they liked to eat. One said they still wanted to eat the fruit hard candy they had only eaten once; last time, they had swallowed too quickly and had not tasted much flavor. Another said he still preferred eating biscuits, crisp, savory, and fragrant, with every crunch full of the taste of wheat.

In the end, everyone happily reached an agreement on one thing: they still liked eating meat more.

As they chatted, one of the children sincerely sighed, “The person who can work together with Savior Brother is really amazing. If I were placed in such a pile of food, I couldn’t guarantee how much self-control I’d have.”

The other children nodded one after another, expressing that it was very hard not to agree. The other person had not been tempted at all. It was truly unbelievable.

Only one little girl, who had previously been sick and barely rescued from the hands of death, quietly said to her good friend, “I want to help Savior Brother work. I definitely wouldn’t secretly eat. There are only two of them. They look so tired.”

And at that moment, the very tired-looking “Savior Lin” received a special reminder from System 1114, which had deliberately called him.

—“Congratulations, host. You have received a sincere blessing from a child.”

This was not a livestream gift, but a special gratitude system. It was not easy to trigger, and there were no mission rewards. It was simply a free system achievement.

But it was like a silk banner at a hospital. Could one say it could be exchanged for anything? It was just a piece of cloth with words written on it. But when medical workers received that piece of cloth, they would still be very happy.

And now, Lin Zhao had received one too.

A blessing that, strictly speaking, had no practical use, but came from the bottom of the heart.

The frail little girl with two little horn braids sat in the sunlight at the clinic entrance. That day was rare good weather with low radiation. Like a little bean sprout, she devoutly raised her head and looked toward the already yellowing statue in the central square of town.

She asked for nothing and wanted nothing.

She simply hoped that the savior brother who was working hard to pack their future would not have to be so tired.

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