The End of the Universe Is Live-Streaming E-commerce – CH72

Chapter 72: The 72nd Day of Livestream Selling

Reinhardt had regained his memories.

Finally.

Although it also felt like he had already socially died about as thoroughly as one possibly could.

When Reinhardt contacted Carlos, his ever-sharp deputy thoughtfully prepared a whole series of edited video compilations for his superior. These included, but were not limited to, every lovestruck declaration made by His Highness the Prince, his sharp-tongued remarks, and his most embarrassing moments of confidently believing he was a cat.

With such a huge pair of cat ears on his head, Reinhardt had appeared from time to time in Lin Zhao’s livestream room, which had always had a decent number of viewers because it could provide remote mental soothing. Honestly, the result was predictable. Although 1114 had applied a certain degree of privacy shielding and had not really leaked Reinhardt’s voice, there existed a thing in this world called lip-reading experts.

It was not only celebrities and football stars who had to think of ways to cover their mouths when facing a camera. Princes did too.

Reinhardt’s life highlight reel of “never losing when it came to expressing himself” had gone viral on the Starnet for a while. Examples included, “You’re this rich, so why don’t you consider buying yourself a brain?*”, “Zhaozhao’s company chose to cooperate with you because it wanted to gain some losses?”, and “You don’t like humans? What a coincidence. I’m not human.”

Grand Duchess Elowen and Emperor Anderich were even relieved that, at least at that moment, Reinhardt had not added, “I’m a little kitty.”

Although he felt it was unnecessary, Deputy Carlos still pushed up his glasses and asked, “The newly appointed press officer from royal public relations asked whether you would like them to handle this for you.”

Reinhardt’s answer was exactly as Carlos had expected. He asked, very seriously and very confusedly, “Handle what?”

“To quote the press officer’s original words—” Deputy Carlos lowered his gaze, his voice slightly lower than usual, which was his habit when trying to appear calm. “Regarding some of your video clips currently circulating on the Starnet, as of now, related view counts have reached 870 trillion, with 320 trillion cross-galaxy reposts. The public’s impression of the Yasa royal family…”

“Get to the point.” Reinhardt expressionlessly interrupted him. He had always had little patience for this sort of thing.

“The point is that the public’s acceptance of your, uh, brand-new image varies. Approval ratings differ across star systems as well. The question is whether selective deletion is needed, and whether warnings should be issued to those who speak disrespectfully and insult the royal family and its members…”

Reinhardt said the same thing again. “Why?”

What do other people’s opinions have to do with me? Why should I delete proof that I love Lin Zhao?

Although Carlos very much wanted to complain, When did you fall in love with Lin Zhao? Why haven’t I heard you explicitly say it? Even though this was already so obvious that everyone knew it perfectly well. But as a qualified worker, Deputy Carlos finally only said, “Understood. I’ll inform them as soon as possible.”

“Ahem.” His Highness Reinhardt coughed.

Carlos immediately understood the dog-like nonsense his boss had yet to say. “I’ll also find a way to let Your Excellency Lin Zhao notice those videos in an unobtrusive manner.”

He understood Reinhardt’s mental activity all too well. When one did a good deed, one had to leave one’s name. When one’s heart was full of love, it could not be thrown at a wall for the wall to see. At the very least, he had to let Lin Zhao know: I like you, I love you, and I don’t mind expressing it to the whole universe.

Of course, that was on the premise that Lin Zhao liked him too and would not feel troubled by it.

“Thank you for your hard work.” Reinhardt also understood his first deputy very well. “When this watch mission is over, I’ll give you a long vacation. Paid. Triple salary.”

Deputy Carlos immediately put on a solemn face and said, “For you, I am duty-bound!” For the sake of money—cough, he meant, for the sake of paid leave—no, that was not right either. For the sake of their many years of friendship as classmates, of course he would support all of Reinhardt’s decisions. No more words needed. Brotherhood lived in the heart.

“Oh, right. One more thing.”

“Hm?” Deputy Carlos’s attitude had never been better.

“I have a shipload of things placed on Planet C-147 in the pending evolution zone. They’re being temporarily held by the leader of the now-destroyed Planet C-41128. Send someone to help me sign for them.”

Carlos: “…” I knew this damn boss’s money wouldn’t be that easy to earn! “Perhaps my hearing has deteriorated somewhat, so I’ll have to confirm with you again. You mean your things are in the pending evolution zone? In that strictly guarded pending evolution zone, where no one has entered except you?”

By now, everyone in the Alliance basically knew about Reinhardt’s accidental fall onto Blue Star. After all, Lin Zhao’s livestream room was truly popular. The reason the Alliance had not interfered was that similar incidents had happened before.

After confirming that Reinhardt had truly lost his memories—according to an Alliance official who wished to remain famous but unnamed, “If he looked like that on camera and still wasn’t amnesiac, then what was he?”—the Alliance followed its old tradition of non-interference. All things had their own laws, and fate always had its arrangements. More importantly, the Alliance could tell that Reinhardt’s strength was being suppressed.

Even before falling, the commander-in-chief of the watch fleet had not forgotten his mission. He had suppressed more than half of his power so as not to interfere with the evolution of the newborn civilization.

The Alliance was very relieved and deeply moved, but it still could not allow his family members to enter the pending evolution zone. They could only wait until everything ended.

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

Does Alliance law no longer exist? Although that thing was not much different from waste paper in the eyes of the five great star systems, but are we already so righteous that we no longer even avoid people?

“They are direct witnesses to the Pantheistic Divine Nation destroying another star system.”

Carlos: “!!!” Your amnesia was truly worth it. “You finally figured out what the Pantheistic Divine Nation is doing?”

Reinhardt nodded. Strictly speaking, before he lost his memories, he had already figured it out. He simply had not had time to leave the information behind before the “accident” of his mental power going out of control happened. Although he could not be one hundred percent certain that this too was the work of the Pantheistic Divine Nation, other than them, Reinhardt could not think of anyone else so unafraid of death.

“They are deliberately increasing the energy fields of pending evolution planets.”

This was something Carlos and the others had already known and discussed. They could even imagine how, after the truth came to light, the Pantheistic Divine Nation would perform tearfully in front of the Starnet cameras, and how they would defend themselves: Oh, merciful Lord, if helping the weak is a sin, then we are indeed guilty beyond redemption, but we truly could not control our desire to help those weak star systems in need…

Just imagining that scene was already enough to make one want to vomit.

“Belgi, that is, C-41128, is the exact ending the Pantheistic Divine Nation wanted.” Because the natives on the planet could not endure the excessive energy, evolution failed. Yet the original planet would instead be left with higher-quality and better stellar energy.

“Let’s see who received the mining permit after C-41128 was destroyed, and who was going to carry out humanitarian rescue. Oh, how utterly unsurprising. The Pantheistic Divine Nation.” Deputy Carlos was so angry he nearly laughed. “Are they raising pigs? Raise one batch, harvest one batch?”

The principle was actually very simple. The reason no one had really paid attention to it before was that everyone had walked into a misunderstanding. It was similar to immortal cultivation novels, where the whole world fought over cultivation resources, better heavenly treasures, and blessed lands with denser spiritual energy. The protagonist would only wish they could get more, and would never say that spiritual energy was bad.

It was the same in the universe. The major star systems were currently in the frenzy of energy plundering. Who would complain about getting too much energy?

Most people would subconsciously think that if evolution failed, it was because the civilization was not strong enough. If it was not strong enough, then it was because it did not have enough energy. But for relatively fragile newborn civilizations, it was not necessarily good for energy to keep increasing without restraint.

Too much was as bad as too little.

Reinhardt suspected that the previous Star A-8512, the star system with twin-core suns that had crystallized due to failed evolution, was also the work of the Pantheistic Divine Nation.

It was just that they had failed to seize that energy mining right from Yasa’s hands.

Looking at it now, different emerging civilizations had different outcomes when bearing excessive energy. It was just that these different forms had all been uniformly certified by investigators as the trials of evolution and had not attracted enough attention.

For example, crystallization. For example, the sound of Belgi’s sunset. And even more so…

Lin Zhao’s gene collapse.

Reinhardt crushed the cup in his hand. He would absolutely make the Pantheistic Divine Nation pay for the harm it had caused his beloved!

On the other end of the communication, Carlos’s eyes nearly rolled to the sky. So now he’s your beloved? Did Lin Zhao agree? Oh, no, wait. Does Lin Zhao even know?

To be fair…

Lin Zhao really did know.

At the very least, he knew his own feelings.

Although Lin Zhao was single by fate like Reinhardt, even if he had never eaten pork, had he never seen pigs run? Seeing the color of another person’s eyes in the flower that represented the base color of his soul—what did that mean? Surely it could not mean that he also really wanted a pair of violet eyes, right?

He was actually quite satisfied with his black hair and black eyes.

Cough. What he meant was, although he was a little slow when it came to feelings, or rather, did not have any particularly intense emotional ups and downs—after all, it was his first time being human and his first time encountering love—he still could clearly feel, when he realized he might like Reinhardt, that his heart did not reject the idea. Nor did he want to run away from it.

He would only think, So this is what liking someone feels like.

Behind every desire to share was the hidden sentence, “I like you.” Life was not endlessly exciting every single moment, but he simply had countless things he wanted to say to him. It was the feeling of becoming very happy whenever he thought of the other person, of being unable to help looking forward to him. Or even if they really said nothing at all, when they were in the same room, it did not feel awkward, nor did he feel the urge to immediately find a topic. They fit together so naturally, so comfortably, as if recognizing each other was simply the way things were meant to be.

Was this not exactly the kind of relationship he wanted? “You like me, I like you, and we happily stay together.”

Although Reinhardt had not yet said that he liked him, and Lin Zhao had not confirmed it with him either, when Lin Zhao realized this, he had no doubt at all that Lenny’s feelings for him were the same as his feelings for Lenny.

As for why he was so certain, Lin Zhao actually did not know either.

He only knew that he was sure. He liked him. And if he liked him, then he should confess.

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