Side hustle

After hesitating for a moment, Chen Beiwu decided to pretend he knew nothing. As usual, he finished dinner and headed upstairs.

"Shouldn't we tell Beiwu?" Chen Dong murmured.

"There's no need. It'll only give one more person something to worry about." Huang Xiaoling shook her head. "Besides, this is a crucial time in Chen Beiwu's cultivation. He can't be disturbed."

At that, she looked at Chen Dong and couldn't help asking, "Can't you just take my advice and quit your job making bricks at the factory?"

At her words, Chen Dong's brow furrowed despite himself, his voice heavy. "You said I couldn't touch the Cultivation Loan because it would drag Beiwu down. Fine, I listened to you and didn't borrow.

"Now you're trying to stop me from earning money at work, too. Are you saying you want me to just watch you die?"

Huang Xiaoling fell silent.

After a long while, she finally replied, "All right, stop talking about it. Keep being stubborn for now. When we're both gone, I'll have Beiwu bury us close together, so we can sleep side by side. Then, in the middle of the night, whenever I feel like it, I'll eat your offerings."

Chen Dong: "..."

Meanwhile, Chen Beiwu changed his original plan, grabbed his filming equipment, and headed straight out.

The Pan River, also known as the Pearl River, was named for flowing past Pearl Island.

Unlike the tributaries of Still Abyss West Lake, the Pearl River allowed fishing. It was a perfect spot for the locals of Far Sky County, so there was no need to run off to the wilderness. Chen Beiwu usually livestreamed his fishing at the Pearl River.

After getting ready, Chen Beiwu opened his livestream.

[Shit, I waited three days for the streamer to come online. Could you put in a little more effort?!]

[You're expecting too much. The streamer's a student. We're lucky he hasn't stopped streaming altogether.]

[Checking in. Keep it up, streamer.]

Chen Beiwu had long grown used to the comments floating across his phone screen.

There was nothing shameful about making money.

Social media was very profitable these days. Even though his popularity wasn't high and his stream only had a little over ten thousand viewers, the Spirit Stones he earned from livestreaming each month still far surpassed what he made from his side job reporting illegal fishing.

Thanks to his livestreams, the Spirit Stones Chen Beiwu earned in a year were enough not only to pay the tuition at Shouhe No. 2 Middle School, but also to cover his mother's annual medical expenses.

"Good evening, fellow Daoists. This is Heavenly Origin Fishing Fortune. Tonight, I'm going to try fishing with a pole and see if I can land a big haul." After delivering his usual opening line, Chen Beiwu aimed the camera at the Pearl River, black as ink beneath the moonlight.

[A big haul? You'll be lucky if you don't catch a corpse. Looks like the streamer's still half asleep.]

[I'll bet a pack of spicy strips this guy won't catch a single fish tonight.]

[I'll bet two packs.]

[Count me in. I'm betting ten packs of spicy strips.]

Chen Beiwu was perfectly calm about the viewers' reactions.

Not catching fish was exactly the point!

Chen Beiwu had livestreamed fishing over a hundred times by now. Besides fish, he had caught almost everything.

For example, magical artifacts, pills, corpses, Jade Slips, iron boxes, pocket watches, stones, shoes, weeds, condoms, clams, snakes, and so on.

At first, not catching fish had been an accident. But later, when he realized this kind of livestream drew viewers and earned Spirit Stones, Chen Beiwu deliberately started catching all sorts of miscellaneous things-anything but fish.

Over time, the viewers in his livestream had started calling him "Fish Runner."

As the name suggested, even fish ran away when they saw him.

[The Future Imperial Censor of the Law Enforcement Bureau gifted the streamer one membership card-followed]

As soon as the gift notification appeared, the livestream's popularity shot up.

[Well, shit, the streamer's been noticed by the Law Enforcement Bureau!]

[Whoa, is that really the Law Enforcement Bureau?]

[Bro, believe me. You might need to question it in other livestreams, but it's perfectly normal for Law Enforcement Bureau people to show up in Heavenly Origin's stream.]

[Everyone, you've gotta believe in the supernatural. This guy catches everything except fish. He's even caught three corpses. Scared the hell out of me.]

[So the streamer's a corpse fisher. No wonder the Law Enforcement Bureau noticed him.]

[No, the streamer's gotta be a treasure fisher. He's caught at least five discarded magical artifacts.]

Seeing those comments, Chen Beiwu felt a little helpless.

What a mess!

It wasn't that he was trying to put on a show and grab attention. It was just that the evil cultivators in Fallen Dragon Prefecture had no sense of honor and no professionalism at all. They couldn't even cover their tracks. After killing people and stealing their treasures, they simply tossed the bodies into the Pan River. By a stroke of luck, Chen Beiwu had fished them up.

"Ahem. I'm a professional fishing streamer. Everyone in the livestream, don't make things up." As he tried to quiet the comments, Chen Beiwu cast out his hook.

[???]

[Laughing so hard. You can't catch a single fish in a year, and you still have the nerve to call yourself a professional angler?]

[Streamer, could you share your secret fishing spots with us? We'll make sure to avoid them.]

After posting her comment, Xu Ziqing smiled and reclined on the soft couch woven from Cloud Silkworm Silk. She tapped the phone screen with her bare foot to enlarge the image, then watched her classmate's performance with curiosity.

Ten minutes passed.

Aside from catching some weeds, Chen Beiwu hadn't caught anything.

"That's ridiculous. How can that blockhead not catch even one fish?" Xu Ziqing couldn't help laughing.

Bored, Xu Lingling gazed at the lotus-shaped dome of the room and wondered, "Do you think this could be a script Chen Beiwu made up?"

"It's not a script." Xu Ziqing shook her head. "If that blockhead hadn't found the corpses, those criminals wouldn't have been caught."

Just then, she seemed to notice something. She quickly sat bolt upright, startling Xu Lingling.

"What's wrong?"

"Shh! Don't talk. Look closely."

Xu Ziqing shook her index finger and stared intently at the iron box caught on the hook on the screen.

The surface of the iron box was covered in rust. At its edge, a small piece of a serrated leaf peeked out, dotted with sparse red hairs.

[Holy shit, streamer, something's up!]

"What's up? Isn't that just some beat-up iron box?"

[The iron box isn't worth anything. The Bloodface Vine is!]

[Huh? You mean the streamer caught a Second-Tier Spirit Medicine?!]

In an instant, a dense mass of question marks covered half the screen.

"What Bloodface Vine? This is obviously red algae from the riverbed." Chen Beiwu deliberately shut the iron box so the spirit medicine inside wouldn't show any more detail.

[??? Streamer, I'll pay you five hundred Spirit Stones. Will you sell me that 'red algae' you mentioned?]

[Sell it to me, streamer! I'll pay eight hundred Spirit Stones!]

[Streamer, I'll pay two thousand Spirit Stones. If you're selling, pretend I didn't say anything. (Funny)]

Some of the viewers believed Chen Beiwu had caught the Second-Tier Spirit Medicine, Bloodface Vine, while others thought someone was deliberately making a joke to stir things up.

"Lingling, did you get a good look?" Xu Ziqing asked without turning her head.

"I did. It should be Bloodface Vine," Xu Lingling replied hesitantly.

Though she had only caught a brief glimpse through the screen, as a Middle-Grade First-Tier Alchemist, being familiar with a myriad of herbs was a basic skill. She could tell at a glance that what was inside the iron box wasn't red algae, but the leaves and branches of Bloodface Vine.

Come on, how could ordinary river weeds have such a hazy glow of Spirit Power? It was obvious at a glance that it was the real deal.

Grandpa was right. Chen Beiwu does have a bit of good fortune on his side, Xu Ziqing thought to herself.