More and more people began to realize just how influential the person behind this had to be—the person who had enabled Chen Siyao to livestream from another world.
The viewer count passed one hundred million.
Trending charts on every major platform across the internet began shaking up in unison.
Number one on Doule: "Chen Siyao livestreams from another world."
Number one on Weibo: "Possible first human entry into an alternate dimension."
Clips from the livestream took over every recommendation on the homepages of short-video platforms.
This May Day holiday was destined to be unlike anything anyone had expected.
Chen Siyao waved at the camera and headed deeper into the forest.
The Recording Crystal followed beside her, rotating silently.
Something was moving deep in the bushes.
She stopped.
The camera held still.
The scrolling comments went quiet for three-tenths of a second—then erupted at ten times their previous density.
"What is that???"
"Something's moving back there!!!"
"Don't go in!!!"
Chen Siyao didn't back away.
She stared at the rustling bushes and slowly crouched down.
Through a gap in the foliage, a pair of round, golden eyes watched her quietly.
Those golden eyes didn't move.
Chen Siyao held her breath, remaining in a crouch with her knees pressed into the blue grass. The Recording Crystal hovered above her right shoulder, its lens trained on the gap in the bushes.
She could see it clearly now.
It was a... creature she had no idea what to call.
Its head was round, with pointed ears standing on either side, each tipped with a tuft of silvery-white fluff. Its face resembled a fox's, but its nose was short and its mouth small, its features crowded together into a naturally plaintive expression.
Its body was about the size of an adult house cat's, but its tail