Chapter 9: Livestream

Incredible Journey’s lineup wasn’t strong enough to attract sponsors. During the planning stage, finding advertisers had been especially difficult.

Director Zhang had spent more than half a year running himself ragged. He’d swallowed plenty of liquor and smiled so much his face nearly froze, only to win the favor of a single sponsor.

The sponsor had bundled in a newcomer, too.

The investment wasn’t much, but at least the show would have a presenting sponsor when it aired.

With the budget so tight, Director Zhang had spent all night thinking things over before deciding they should film and broadcast at the same time.

He’d let himself hope: Maybe one of the episodes will catch on while we’re airing it.

If just one episode went viral, the next few wouldn’t have trouble finding sponsors. They wouldn’t have to pinch pennies at every turn, and all the fun ideas they’d had to leave on the page could finally make it onto the show.

But Incredible Journey had six episodes in all, and four had already aired. It hadn’t gone viral. It hadn’t even made a ripple.

Director Zhang knew he’d put everything he had into the show. They’d gone over every segment in meeting after meeting, trying to get the best possible result from their limited budget.

But they weren’t selling nostalgia, the guests weren’t famous, and the promotion was inadequate…

Their hard work hadn’t even been given a chance to be seen.

Hiring Zhu Sheng, an ordinary person with no connection to showbiz, for so much money was definitely a bit of a desperate move.

Switching from recorded episodes to a livestream had put the three guests under pressure, too. With the cameras live, they were all a little stiff.

There were no second takes or editing on a livestream. All three were worried they’d say or do the wrong thing, and they scrutinized every word and movement.

Their overall performance was even worse than it had been in the first four episodes.

The viewers could tell the three guests were nervous.

[Mr. Xiao looks nervous as hell.]

[Sister Momo’s even struggling to walk. She nearly tripped over her words answering Mr. Xiao.]

[Don’t be nervous, everyone! We’re all on the same side here!]

[I had to check twice when I came in. Is this really the livestream for a celebrity variety show? Why are there so few viewers?]

[Could the production team at least promote the show properly? This has less buzz than the little dance streamer next door. It’s kind of sad.]

[I knew our little Journey was unpopular, but I didn’t know it was this unpopular… It’s Saturday, for crying out loud!]

[Friends, send a few free gifts! Gifts, likes, and shares all boost the livestream!]

[The guests aren’t used to the cameras. They’re so stiff. They’re doing worse than they did in the prerecorded episodes.]

[This livestream’s kind of boring. They’ve just been hiking, and the guests aren’t saying anything funny. I’m getting sleepy.]

[Same… I’ll wait for the edited version.]

The fans were being relatively polite. Some of the random viewers who’d wandered in had no such restraint.

[I saw the title and clicked out of curiosity. I still don’t know what they’re doing.]

[Are all three of these supposed to be celebrities? I’ve never heard of them. How obscure can you get?]

[The scripted acting is so obvious. The young guy talks like he’s in a stage play. It sounds so fake.]

[There’s a reason this show isn’t popular. It’s just boring.]

[This variety show missed on fame, looks, and entertainment value. It can’t even manage one out of three.]

[The description says this livestream will last all day? What a waste of manpower and electricity.]

Even with random viewers poking fun at them, the comment stream remained thin. The farther the guests climbed, the tighter Director Zhang’s chest grew.

Whether the show could come back from the dead depended on whether the audience liked Zhu Sheng.

During rehearsal, the staff had told Zhu Sheng the guests would reach his checkpoint by nine thirty at the latest. He was supposed to be there and ready to go by nine.

He pulled out his new phone and checked the time.

09:56.

The phone Xuan Kong had bought him was the latest model. Even though the Crown Prince could remember anything he saw, there was no way he could master a phone in a short time.

More importantly, the Crown Prince had never learned Hanyu Pinyin, and he couldn’t recognize quite a few simplified characters.

He couldn’t use the nine-key keyboard or the full keyboard.

Typing out a message was a challenge.

When Xuan Shi found out Zhu Sheng didn’t know Pinyin, his eyes had nearly popped out of his head.

Wait, you’re a bodhisattva and you’re illiterate?

I learned Pinyin in elementary school!

There was no helping it. Xuan Kong changed Zhu Sheng’s input method to traditional Chinese characters and taught him how to write characters by hand.

By now, Zhu Sheng had learned a few basic functions on his phone:

Checking the time, adjusting the media volume, and making and answering calls.

As for WeChat, QQ, Weibo, and other social media apps, their features were too complicated. Zhu Sheng didn’t need them anyway, so Xuan Kong hadn’t bothered teaching him.

The time on the screen had long passed the time they’d agreed on. Zhu Sheng’s brows drew together.

Immortal Lord Wuyang was punctual by nature and disliked it when people broke their word.

Cheng Shuyu had been watching the activity below the mountain. He’d stood ramrod straight the whole time, hoping to make a good impression. His back was aching, but the guests still hadn’t arrived.

He cursed under his breath. Then he looked over at Zhu Sheng, whose expression remained calm, swallowed the profanity on his tongue, and forced himself to look pleasant.

“Oh! I see the crew!”

A woman’s excited voice carried up from below. The guests had finally arrived.

Cheng Shuyu’s spirits lifted. He stopped rubbing his sore back and put on a warm smile.

He glanced up casually and saw a large group of people winding their way up the mountain path.

Of course, an adventure show needed a main task. The production team had prepared three question cards, one for each guest.

Each card had six different questions. Their job that day was to figure out the right answer to all six by using clues from the NPCs and a little deduction.

The eighteen questions covered all sorts of things. Half concerned Sangshan, and half concerned the city.

Zhu Sheng and Cheng Shuyu’s job was to make things difficult for the guests, give them clues, and take them to the next checkpoint.

Xiao Ming wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“After climbing for so long, it’s nice to finally see another person.”

The little-known singer bent over, hands on her knees, and looked up the endless mountain trail with a wince.

“Today’s episode is going to be as much exercise as I got all of last year.”

The person in charge of the livestream camera received an order from Director Zhang and began to turn the camera naturally toward Zhu Sheng.

Director Zhang’s voice growled through the Bluetooth earpiece.

“Get him! Zhu Sheng, now! Tilt the camera up a little—hold that angle. Good. A little closer!”

Zhu Sheng was looking at the three guests, who were already panting even though the task had barely started. He hadn’t even had a chance to deliver his opening line before someone carrying a heavy camera hurried over and pointed it straight at him.

Zhu Sheng: “?”

The cameraman followed Director Zhang’s instructions to the letter. He was practically shoving the lens into Zhu Sheng’s face. The high-definition camera picked out every one of his eyelashes.

The moment Zhu Sheng appeared in the livestream, Director Zhang and the rest of the crew fixed their eyes on the desolate comments section.

The few comments that had been trickling in stopped for two seconds.

Then a flood of exclamation marks filled the screen.

[Holy crap! Is that NPC’s face for real?!!!]

[That sudden beauty attack woke me right up!]

[I was at death’s door, then sat bolt upright. I can work with this handsome guy!]

[That mouth looks so soft. I bet he’s great to kiss.]

[I had a whole string of filthy comments ready, but the platform censored them until all I could say was “Oh my god.”]

[Wait, is Incredible Journey about meeting handsome guys along the way?!]

[Look closely. That handsome NPC seems familiar. Have I seen him somewhere before?]

[Don’t pretend, sis. We’ve all seen a handsome guy somewhere before. (Doge with a flower in his mouth)]

[What do you mean “handsome guy”? I’m going straight to: Hi~ hubby.]

[My tears are running down my mouth.]

[…]

Just as Director Zhang had expected, the audience came to life as soon as Zhu Sheng appeared. The comments flew by so fast they nearly covered his face.

There wasn’t enough time for the viewer count to change yet, but engagement had soared, and so had the livestream’s popularity.

Nobody had connected Zhu Sheng to the anonymous hero who’d been trending for flying.

Director Zhang’s eyes lit up. He immediately spoke into his earpiece.

“Keep filming him! The audience likes him. Get more footage of Zhu Sheng!”

People these days really did care about looks!

The cameraman got the message. He practically wanted to circle Zhu Sheng and capture him from all 360 degrees, so Director Zhang’s thirty-five thousand yuan would be money well spent.

As the camera crept closer and closer, Zhu Sheng raised his eyes and met the cameraman’s gaze through the lens for two seconds. He said evenly, “You’re too close.”

Then he took a step to the side.

Cheng Shuyu, who’d been left out, seized the opening and stepped forward. He stood in front of Zhu Sheng without quite blocking him and smiled as he launched into the script.

“Welcome to beautiful Sangshan, teachers. Next…”

The camera swept over Cheng Shuyu for a few seconds, then immediately followed Zhu Sheng. It didn’t let him disappear from the frame.

A second cameraman had even appeared, filming Zhu Sheng from another angle to make sure they had enough footage of him for the final cut.

Cheng Shuyu’s brow twitched. His smile turned strained.

Zhu Sheng: “…?”

The camera faithfully caught the confusion on his face.

[Give the cameraman a bonus! I like looking at handsome guys.]

[He looked at me! I’m dead, sob.]

[How many people were lurking in the livestream until that face brought them out?]

[That camera movement—it’s practically growing out of his face. Director Zhang really knows what draws an audience, hahaha.]

[The cameraman gets it.]

[Why does the handsome guy look so cold? He doesn’t even smile.]

[I always thought I wasn’t a sucker for pretty faces, until I saw this guy. Mwah, mwah, mwah.]

[The other NPC is handsome too, but standing them side by side… yikes, that’s rough.]

[The guy next to him: If I’d known he was coming, I wouldn’t have bothered.]

[That face is unreal. I can’t stop taking screenshots.]

The three guests knew Director Zhang had something else planned that day, so they’d been prepared. Even so, the moment they saw Zhu Sheng in person, they all stared.

The singer and the male newcomer in particular couldn’t stop sneaking looks at his face.

The singer murmured, “How does someone even get a face like that?”

The newcomer was jealous. “Yeah…”

If he’d had those looks, would he have needed his dad to pay his way into this obscure variety show? He’d have torn through the entertainment industry.

Immortal Lord Wuyang had only ever torn through demon-beast hordes.

He played his NPC role dutifully, his expression cool as he followed the script and gave the guests a hard time.

He watched them pinch their noses and spin around like elephants.

Zhu Sheng: “…”

He didn’t really understand what the point of this segment was.

Xi Chengu watched the tablet in his hands, his thin lips pressed into a straight line.

When Zhu Sheng appeared on screen, Xi Chengu had turned off the livestream comments so he could make a recording. When he turned them back on, he found that whenever the camera showed Zhu Sheng, the whole screen filled with viewers saying things like “Wifey, cuddle me!” and “Hubby, kiss me and let me lick you!”

Even if they were joking, the comments grated on him.

Xi Chengu lowered his eyes to the remarkably pretty face on the screen. His fingers tapped the tablet a few times, and a thought he’d suppressed for a long time surged up again.

Perhaps he ought to listen to the old monk.