Page 14

"Yeah, yeah, Immortal Pretty Boy, if you want us to help you pick up trash, you have to give us something in return, right? One huge bag of trash for one photo—aren't you getting a massive bargain? I'm a popular blogger with millions of followers, after all. I'm so cute that even if there really were a River God, he'd like me."

As several people spoke and crowded around him again, a flash of icy blue passed through He Qinglan's deep-blue, nearly black eyes, followed by undisguised disgust and revulsion.

"You say that as if you don't depend on this world to survive."

The Immortal Pretty Boy stood there perfectly straight. There was not the slightest expression on his excessively beautiful face, yet he somehow gave off an aloof, untouchable air.

"The sky, the earth, the mountains, and the rivers are everything you rely on to live. You are the ones who damaged and polluted them, yet now, when you pick up some trash, you call it helping someone else."

"Shameless."

He Qinglan's cold eyes swept across all of them, including the people watching the livestreams. "Get farther away. Don't dirty my eyes."

The River God hated everything ugly, especially ugly souls.

From the moment He Qinglan uttered the word "shameless," the streamers holding their phones and the fans watching their broadcasts changed expression.

And his words, "Get farther away. Don't dirty my eyes," struck directly at countless people's raw nerves.

Not only did the two female streamers present turn black-faced, but the livestream chats of every streamer also began flooding with insults.

[Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! I've never seen anyone this pretentious and foul-mouthed. Who the hell does he think he is?!]

[Can't this guy speak like a human being?! Not helping him pick up trash makes us shameless?! And we're dirtying his eyes? How clean does he think he is?!]

[He's just a clown trying to grab attention! Maybe everything he's doing is scripted and planned just so he can go viral! I'd bet my head he's putting on a show! Maybe in a few days, he'll make some high-profile debut!]

[And he's even bringing up the River God? I'm dying. The Qinglan River has fucking dried up. If there really were a River God, he'd be dead too, wouldn't he?]

[Idiot ＆％￥￥＃＠!]

After speaking, He Qinglan turned and moved farther away from those streamers who had no sense of personal space. But his actions and his words only provoked the rebellious streak of those streamers who were used to being smug.

They were internet celebrities who made tens of thousands, even over a hundred thousand, a month! Their incomes were higher than those of many graduates from top universities! Everyone around them envied and flattered them because of their earnings and their huge followings. How long had it been since they had encountered someone so blunt, someone who refused to give them face?!

Thus, while the few streamers on the outskirts who were thinner-skinned and still had some principles quietly backed away, unwilling to get involved any further, the two women and one man closest to He Qinglan darkened their faces and moved toward him again.

The female streamer with heavy makeup and long curly hair even deliberately said:

"Little brother, how can you talk like that? You're being way too disrespectful, aren't you? We didn't create this trash, so whether we pick it up or not, you shouldn't blame us for it, okay?"

"And there's so much trash here. If it's just the few of us picking it up, who knows how long it'll take. You can't force other people just because you like picking up trash, right?"

"I can let the rest slide, but you need to apologize to me for what you just said. Uh!"

She was at the front of the group. Just as she was about to reach He Qinglan's side, she inexplicably felt her foot slip, as though she had stepped on something soft and slick. Her expression changed instantly.

She reflexively tightened her grip on her phone, but she still fell hard to the ground and banged her elbow.

Since the spot where He Qinglan was picking up trash was close to the river, the mud smeared across her face after her fall was even worse than that on the burly dark-skinned streamer earlier. Her entire face was practically coated in it. The phone clutched tightly in her hand also smashed twice into the mud before falling into the Qinglan River.

However, the curly-haired streamer's phone was in even worse shape than the burly male streamer's—its pretty pink screen shattered outright, and when it fell into the river, it even made a crackling electrical sound. It looked completely beyond saving.

The scene fell silent for a moment.

The other man and woman pursuing He Qinglan suddenly sensed that something was wrong. They instinctively stopped, but it was already too late.

The blond-haired male streamer and the sweet-looking short-haired female streamer stepped onto the excessively slippery mud almost at the same time. They each cried out and fell in different directions. The male streamer used all his strength to keep his face from hitting the ground, but both his hands sank deeply into the muck.

He had not thrown his phone away, but when he braced himself with his hands, the phone he had been clutching tightly was crushed beneath the weight of his falling body... and its screen shattered.

The sweet-looking short-haired streamer was probably the luckiest of the four who fell?

Although her phone also dropped straight into the river and was ruined, compared to the other three who had fallen face-first, she had at least landed on the back of her head and preserved the last shred of her dignity.

The four consecutive falls among the onlooking streamers silenced the entire trash-strewn riverbank.

Even the other streamers and passersby standing farther away stiffened at the bizarre chain of four falls, abruptly halting in place.

One streamer had even lifted a foot slightly off the ground and did not dare put it down, afraid that the moment he did, he would inexplicably slip and join the army of people falling and destroying their phones.

The livestream chats of the other streamers and passersby also went eerily blank for two seconds.

Two seconds later, they were filled with nothing but [Holy shit].

[If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have thought they were doing a pathetic fake fall.]

[This is freaking weird, isn't it?! One person falling could be explained as slipping, but four in a row? Did someone pour lubricant all over the ground, or cover it with watermelon rinds?!]

[...Maybe it was neither. Or maybe... it was the River God's curse? Didn't that Immortal Pretty Boy say the River God would get angry if they didn't pick up trash properly?]