Lu Ye had just finished watching Han Chi's new video when he received a message from Shen Qilan.
Someone at the Cloud Sound Workshop had asked again when they would be able to speak in front of an audience like he did.
"Right, why don't I give them a demonstration first and show them just how impressive a talent livestream can be?"
"Now, let's see who I should pick as the first talent streamer."
Lu Ye had only taught classes before. If he wanted people to spend a whole evening listening to music and watching dances, he naturally needed someone skilled in those arts.
The best solution was to choose one of the musicians or dancers at the Cloud Sound Workshop and have her be the streamer.
"Looks like I need to pay the Cloud Sound Workshop a visit."
His mind made up, he immediately got up and left the Chamber of Commerce.
When he arrived at the Cloud Sound Workshop that afternoon, the sights before him immediately made his face flush and his heart race.
Beneath the covered walkways and beside the windows were beautiful women everywhere, dressed in qipaos of different colors and patterns. Some were testing the lighting, while others practiced turning. The same garment looked beautiful in a different way on each of them.
As soon as they saw Lu Ye, they crowded around him.
"Young Master Lu is here!"
"Where's your workshop mistress?"
"So Young Master Lu came to see the workshop mistress? Haven't you missed us at all?"
"Exactly! Young Master Lu, do I look pretty in this outfit?"
Before Lu Ye could react, a fragrant breeze swept toward him. Before he could take it in, a woman's sharp voice rang out from a distance.
"What are you all crowding around here for? Have you finished practicing that piece from earlier? Get another note wrong, and don't blame me if I keep you off the stage!"
At that, the girls surrounding him immediately laughed and moved back a little.
Before long, Shen Qilan came up to Lu Ye, dressed in a black qipao, her bearing and appearance both exceptional.
"Young Master Lu, you finally remembered us. I sent you a private message yesterday. Why didn't you reply?"
"Ahem, I fell asleep. Anyway, I have something important to discuss with you."
"You can come to me for something less proper too."
Shen Qilan promptly gave him a flirtatious wink.
Lu Ye glanced at her and immediately felt that the hardest person to teach in this courtyard might not be one of those girls from earlier.
"All right, all right. Go call your musicians over. I have something important to arrange."
"Oh, you really don't know how to appreciate a woman's charms."
Shen Qilan turned and called them over.
Lu Ye swept a glance over them and said,
"Raise your hand if you have more than a hundred followers!"
At his words, everyone present raised a hand, leaving Lu Ye dumbfounded.
"Damn, are there that many old perverts? Sure enough, risqué content is king."
Even the pipa player who rarely spoke had her hand raised. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether people were there for the music or the person playing it.
After that thought, he continued,
"If you have more than two hundred followers, take a step forward."
The next moment, half the people present stepped forward.
"If you have more than four hundred followers, take another step forward."
This time, the number finally dropped, leaving only Liu Ruyan.
She was tall and slender, with a face that was both innocent and alluring. Standing there without a word, she was already eye-catching enough.
"Sure enough, the masses have sharp eyes. Everyone has the same taste in beauty."
After muttering to himself, Lu Ye pointed at Liu Ruyan.
"Tell me how many followers you have now."
"Four hundred and thirty-six," Liu Ruyan said proudly. "I got a few more just now, so it might be even higher."
When she gave the number, not only did the musicians all turn to look at her, but even Lu Ye gave her a surprised glance.
"More than four hundred followers! That many?"
In his previous life, a few hundred followers would have been nothing. Posting just about anything could get a person a few more, and there was no telling how many of them might be bought-and-paid-for fake followers.
But things were different now.
The retail shops had started selling phones one after another, and the number of registered users had only just passed nine hundred. She alone had attracted nearly half of them.
So far, no clever clogs had thought of buying extra phones to inflate their own follower count. Of course, Lu Ye believed it would happen sooner or later. After all, the people here had seen little of the world, but they weren't stupid.
The fact that Liu Ruyan had so many followers showed that the quality of her videos had to be good.
"Let me see."
With that, he took out his phone, opened Douyin, and typed in Liu Ruyan's name.
An account soon popped up. Sure enough, its follower count was two higher than the number she had just given: four hundred and thirty-eight.
She had posted more than ten videos, and almost every one had quite a few likes.
To find out why so many people had liked her videos, Lu Ye casually tapped on the one with the most likes.
Once he started watching, he couldn't pull himself away.
Not only did the video have perfectly matched background music, but it also had skillful editing, suitable lighting, and a carefully arranged setting.
In the video, Liu Ruyan stood before a half-open window, slowly raising a round fan to cover half her face.
On the next beat, the fan moved close to the camera. When it pulled away again, her clothes and hairstyle had changed, yet the movements flowed together so smoothly that there wasn't the slightest sign of a pause.
She then turned lightly, her hem swaying with her steps. A smile touched the corners of her eyes as her gaze fell directly on the camera.
Compared with everyone else's videos, hers was a dimensionality reduction strike.
After watching it, even Lu Ye, who had seen plenty of risqué videos in his previous life, couldn't help exclaiming,
"My heavens, an innate risqué-content holy body!"
With that, he quietly tapped the little red heart and added it to his liked videos.
Only after tapping it did he notice several pairs of eyes watching him.
Liu Ruyan even laughed out loud.
"Young Master Lu, you think it looks good too?"
"If it looks good, it looks good. It's not like I'm blind."
Lu Ye answered without a hint of embarrassment and put his phone away.
"Use this video of hers as a template later and have the others study it."
Shen Qilan agreed with a smile, then added, "Everyone else had gone to eat that day, but she was still standing by the window. She must have filmed that one turn I don't know how many times."
Lu Ye nodded and looked at Liu Ruyan again.
"I'm choosing you for the first stream."
Liu Ruyan's eyes lit up, though she soon grew a little nervous.
"I've never tried it before."
"Practice first. With a short video, you can start over if you make a mistake. A livestream won't give you time for another take."
He didn't start the livestream on the spot. First, he taught her how to face the front-facing camera and read the comments, then asked Shen Qilan to help choose a few pieces she knew best.
Liu Ruyan had performed onstage before. Once she understood, she was eager to try.
It was simply another way of letting people see her.
Before leaving, Lu Ye drew two clothing designs and handed them to Shen Qilan.
"Let Master He have a look first. There's no need to rush them for tonight. As long as they bring out her beauty, that'll do."
Shen Qilan looked at the designs, then at him.
"I'd say you're not just good at selling phones. You're very good at picking girls."
"Only because you have them here."
That one sentence made Shen Qilan smile again.
Lu Ye left the courtyard, and behind him, he could already hear Liu Ruyan counting beats.
That same day, phones shipped along the Seven Treasure Chamber of Commerce's trade route reached Nuoding City.
The shop's demonstration phone was placed on the brightest counter. As soon as the bone dragon video began to play, several people passing by on the street stopped in their tracks.
Xiao Wu had only gone out to buy a few things for the road.
She looked at it a couple of times at the counter, then a couple more. Finally, she put down her bag.
"You can really take this with you?"
The shop assistant couldn't help laughing.
"Of course you can take it if you buy it. Miss, surely you don't think two gold coins only lets you look at it here?"
Xiao Wu felt her money pouch.
One phone cost two gold coins, so three would cost six.
The money she had saved over the years hadn't blown in on the wind. But when she thought of those two big fellows in the forest, spending all day in the same old place and never seeing so much of the lively world outside, her hand had already reached into the pouch.
"I'll take three."
The assistant hurried off to fetch the boxes, while Xiao Wu stayed at the counter and learned how to turn a phone on, how to film, and how to post.
When her own face appeared in the camera, her eyes widened a little.
She turned it around, and the candy displayed on the counter was in there too.
She turned it again, and even the cat lying in the sun outside the door could fit inside.
This was much more interesting than taking back a bag of candy!
She gave her account a name that didn't reveal her real one, then carefully wrapped up the other two phones.
There were still two people's account names to think of, but she would have to wait for them to choose their own.
This was her last long vacation before graduating from Nuoding Academy, and there was still some time before she left to study elsewhere. She had told Tang San long ago that she was going home; this time, she was simply bringing an extra bag of gifts.
"It's a long journey. Don't forget your water flask," Tang San reminded her as he saw her off at the city gate.
"I know. Why do you nag even more than the teacher?"
Though Xiao Wu complained that he was nagging, she still took the flask and hung it up securely.
As for the three phones, she held them in her bag, packed even more securely than the food for the journey.
The trip would take more than ten days.
She had already begun to wonder what expression Er Ming would make when he saw the bone dragon inside.