[UNEDITED] Chapter 10
StarryLive — a broadcasting app that allows users to broadcast themselves live.
StarCredits — StarryLive in-game currency
Leaving from Jingming district's east gate and crossing the road, following the pedestrian walkway heading south by 50 meters, then turning right at Willow Lane and at the end of the street is an eatery managed by Master Chen.
Master Chen originated from Huaiyang. He isn't a master or professional chef but he is still able to cook up a good Huaiyang cuisine. After retiring a few years back, in order to take care of his children and grandchildren, he and his wife came to the capital to settle down.
It is difficult to stay in the capital due to the high daily expenses. Therefore, Master Chen rented an old shop at Willow Lane and opened an eatery by relying on his skills and conscience to solicit business and to earn some living expenses.
A small eatery deeply hidden down the old street, with 5 to 6 wooden tables and dozens of chairs. The eatery was already filled with customers when Lu Chen and Li Feiyu arrived. They weren’t able to find any empty chairs at all — apparently, the business is very good!
Fortunately, Li Feiyu is a frequent customer and by trying to act cute towards Master Chen's wife and calling her "Auntie~ Auntie~" with a sweetened voice, along with some honeyed words, he had finally managed to get last minute seats added outside the eatery.
It was a student writing table and two plastic stools, nothing too fancy.
However regardless if its Li Feiyu or Lu Chen, both of them were satisfied.
Master Chen's eatery was really a prime example of being cheap and a lot of frequent customers would arrive earlier to chop seats. If it wasn't due to Li Feiyu's honeyed mouth, how would they be even able to have seats added!
Lions Head meatball, Santao duck, Sweet and Sour Mandarin fish, boiled shredded dry bean curd plus two Crab meat buns. They were all local cuisine of Huaiyang, coupled with 4 YanDou beer, it allowed Lu Chen who has not eaten vegetates for quite some time to cry while eating.
After clearing half of the table and 3 bottles of beer, Li Feiyu who is full then started utilising his chatterbox abilities.
Li Feiyu has been involved with online broadcasting for over a month or so now. He had even specially purchased a good quality microphone and HD camera, hoping to show off his skills and what not, while earning some additional money to spend.
Initially, he broadcasted in FishTV, and went on the route of a gamer. The most popular web games in FishTV was — CKG, Heroic and StarLord. However, his skills were terrible and after playing for half a month, his viewers were basically non-existent and he even made a loss as he had to pay for his electricity bills.
He then switched over to StarryLive half a month ago, but did not continue with the gaming route and instead broadcasted himself making jokes and puns while singing and making funny faces. Surprisingly he managed to gain some popularity and earned a total of 0.3T StarCredits.
0.3T is equivalent to 30000 StarCredits which is worth around $300. However due to the terms of StarryLive, for users like Li Feiyu whom did not sign a contract with them, they can only receive 50% of the money.
After working hard for two weeks to recoup his losses, he felt that he had rather go out and move bricks for a day to earn money!
Mentioning about his heart-wrenching broadcasting career experience, coupled with Brother Fei's tough childhood, Lu Chen unconsciously felt sympathy for Li Feiyu.
"Xiao Lu, did you know?"
Downing a can beer and said, "Our company's Xiao Mei, earned an income of 20 thousand near 30 thousand on StarryLive last month. Compared to the salary here at 4S, she earned 5-6 times more than her monthly salary and she won't even be coming to work next month onwards!
Lu Chen had actually known Xiao Mei, the receptionist at the 4S shop Li Feiyu is working at. With features like having big eyes, sharp nose, small face, slim figure, long slim legs, and most importantly she is only of 20 and single! She is considered the company's beauty and has a lot of suiters and secret admirers!
The reason why Lu Chen knew that much was not because he personally knew the other party, but instead due to Li Feiyu repeatedly mentioning about it N times.
Yes, this bloke here is undisputedly one of the members of Xiao Mei's secret admirers’ group!
"Is she very talented?” Lu Chen curiously asked.
Li Feiyu explained: “She doesn’t know how to sing nor dance. The things she usually broadcast would be, doing makeup, eating, acting cute and chatting with the fans…”
Lu Chen was stumped — it works this way?
“It really is feasible!”
Li Feiyu then excitedly said: "Not only acting cute and chatting, there are people who even broadcast themselves sleeping, watching TV, cooking, writing novels on StarryLive! Anything you can think of, it's do-able there!"
“Xiao Lu, with your talent and abilities, you will definitely have a future in StarryLive!"
In all seriousness, he said: ” Currently in StarryLive, the monthly income of the seven most popular broadcasters are worth at least tens of thousands, and rumour has it, based on the sign on fees of the most popular broadcaster Yan Manni, it has reached up to a shocking amount of 5 million yuan and she also took up several advertisement gigs. Her frequent viewers in StarryLive amounts up to 2 million. Can you imagine how much credits she receives?
Lu Chen nodded, seemly agreeing with what Li Feiyu had said. With Lu Chen just casually loaning the account, he had received quite a number of StarCredits from the viewers.
Just the thought of having 2 million plus Starry Fans, it certainly is scary!
Li Feiyu bitterly laughed, "It is impossible for me to be able to have such popularity. However, It’s different for you. Not only do you sing well, you have a handsome face and you can even compose your own songs. You definitely have the potential to be popular in the StarryLive!"
“Just based on the three songs you sang earlier, I saw a number of credits you receive amounted up to 2.8T, if converted to cash you can instantly get up to $1400. Don’t you think it's more worthwhile compared to you working at KFC or doing a part-time job at the bar?”
To be honest, Lu Chen was tempted!
His family had an enormous amount of debt and just relying on doing part-time jobs and even including the effort of his family members, it would probably be impossible to clear the debt.
As what others say, although he had a treasure chest, to convert this chest to something worthwhile was not a simple thing to do. For example, the stringent contract that was offered to him by Su Qingmei, one must know that for an insignificant and no-name person like him, to be able to gain popularity, it’s not feasible by just having talent!
However, if he were to showcase his performance using platforms like StarryLive, it is without a doubt the most efficient money-making solution!
Li Feiyu then continued, “Xiao Lu, I don’t intend to play around anymore, I shall just gift you my StarryLive account! You can just change the personal particulars, and take my broadcasting equipment since I have no use for it anymore.”
Lu Chen was surprised and hurriedly declined: “How can I take all these…. ”
"And, why can’t you?”
Li Feiyu looked at him and said: “This is called efficiently recycling what can be used! I don’t make a loss too as the existing credits inside that account belongs to me anyway and I wouldn’t be able to get much from the sale of that equipment too!”
Although Li Feiyu said that, Lu Chen himself knew that those equipment was worth at least a few thousand dollars even if it were to be sold at a discount.
“Brother Li…”
“If we are brothers then stop declining!”
Li Feiyu waved his hands and spoke in a commanding tone: “Then it shall be decided this way! If you really want to repay me, just let me assist you as a runner or assistant in the future when you become a popular celebrity!”
Lu Chen didn't know to laugh or to cry, "Brother Li, I think you are drunk!"
"Choy! How can I be drunk with just two bottles? If you were to add a zero behind then I might be drunk. Alright with the nonsense, we shall go back immediately and change the account information. Bill, please! "
After footing the bill, he then dragged Lu Chen to the rental room that he is staying in.
Reaching home, Li Feiyu immediately switched on his computer and logged into his account.
He cashed out all 3T worth of credits in his account and started changing the account information.
Starry Live broadcasting platform allows the user to make amendments such as the broadcasting name, password, phone number and payment information etc. Thus, him helping to change the account to Lu Chen's is quite convenient.
However, there are rarely users that would casually change their broadcasting name as it would affect their popularity and they would have to send messages to inform their Starry Fans, which is quite troublesome.
Although it was Lu Chen's first time using this broadcasting platform, with him taking over Li Feiyu's account, he still managed to keep the followers he gained in the morning.
"Xiao Lu, change your broadcasting name first!"
Li Feiyu rubbed his hands and reminded him, "You must definitely choose an overwhelming username so that you can overwhelm the whole stage!"
Lu Chen then laughed and used the keyboard to input his own name "Lu Chen". A pop up immediately came out.
*Username has been used!*
Lu Chen then typed in "Xiao Lu", and the result was still the same!
Li Feiyu smiling replied: "The good names have already been used by other people. Initially, I had wanted to register as Xiao Fei Ge but is used by someone else…"
After pondering for a moment, Lu Chen then keyed in "Lu Fei".
What surprised him was that the name was still available!
Without further thoughts, he then pressed enter and successfully changed his username!