I just want to sell products, but you're forcing me to perform talents.

Lunar New Year's Eve is a day for family reunion.

Besides setting off firecrackers and eating New Year's Eve dinner, the thing that ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty loved to do most was to gather around the TV and watch the Spring Festival Gala.

This new custom of staying up late on New Year's Eve, which has been a tradition for decades, is becoming less and less popular among young people due to factors such as increased awareness, higher standards of humor, visual fatigue, and higher psychological expectations.

So, people developed a different habit.

I turned on the TV and listened to the Spring Festival Gala.

Adults drink, play cards, and gossip.

Young people are glued to their phones, watching TikTok.

Kids, playing games together.

You can skip watching it, but you can't live without the background music of the Spring Festival Gala.

……

Lin Xiaoyu lay on her sofa, watching her older brother's two children playfully fighting in front of her, watching her parents busily making dumplings for the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, watching her older brother playing games online, casually echoing her sister-in-law's gossip, and listening to the approaching hourly chime on TV, feeling a little bored.

It's the same every year during Chinese New Year. The only thing to look forward to is when the firecrackers start on the hour.

The entire city resounded with the sounds of bells, firecrackers, fireworks, children's cheers and screams, and adults' hearty laughter at the same time. The overwhelming sense of happiness that made one's scalp tingle and one's whole body tremble was incomparable to any other moment.

Lin Xiaoyu has been a bit troubled by the scientific expedition lately. The expedition is only a few months away, and she studies desperately until two or three in the morning every day, but she still feels like she can't keep up.

Lin Xiaoyu only dared to rest for a while today, which is New Year's Eve. She plans to get up early tomorrow morning to continue doing her homework.

Lin Xiaoyu heard that some test takers were taking medicine, and she was interested in trying it, but she was afraid of any side effects.

The Tang Dynasty did not have the college entrance examination of other worlds, only the imperial examination.

Scientific expeditions are far more important to a student than the college entrance examination in another world. After all, half of the planet in this world was conquered by the emperors of the Tang Dynasty long ago. Although the technological development is similar to that of the other world, the economic prosperity of this world is far greater.

The more prosperous the economy, the more fixed the social classes become, because the channels for upward mobility are almost completely locked. For young people who want to start from scratch, the only proper way is to continuously take exams: get into university, graduate school, get a doctorate, and take the civil service exam.

For the older generation, making big money by becoming a live streamer is considered a crooked path. Although there are many people working in live streaming-related fields now, it is absolutely unacceptable for their own children to start becoming live streamers.

In the parents' view, being a live streamer is not a proper career path.

For young people, becoming a live streamer is a shortcut.

This is why when Ye Xian of Blue Star obtained the million-dollar liquor, his first thought was to monetize it through short videos.

Although Lin Xiaoyu rarely looks at her phone because of the upcoming scientific expedition, she is very obsessed with Kuaishou (a Chinese music streaming platform), but she has to restrain herself.

Fast audio takes too much time.

Several hours have passed before you know it!

That's enough to do several sets of practice papers.

Therefore, Lin Xiaoyu set a rule for herself: she could only watch Kuaiyin for one hour a week, and it had to be on the weekend during mealtimes, and the device would automatically turn off at that time.

Women need to be tough on themselves.

However, today is Lunar New Year's Eve, and Lin Xiaoyu has given herself half a day off, so Kuaishou is naturally the first choice to kill time at this time.

After replying to a few mass-sent New Year's greetings on her phone, Lin Xiaoyu turned on Kuaiyin (a Chinese instant messaging app).

A series of short videos sending Chinese New Year greetings...

Swipe away.

That's so fake.

Short videos of people traveling during the Chinese New Year...

Swipe away.

Hey.

You just wait.

Short videos showing off New Year's Eve dinners...

Stop rowing.

This family's New Year's Eve dinner was just another big feast of meat and fish, nothing special. I'm skipping it.

This family's New Year's Eve dinner was quite delicious, but it didn't look as good as my dad's.

Pre-cooked New Year's Eve dinner? That's great! When it's my turn to prepare New Year's Eve dinner, I can just buy the food and heat it up.

Pshaw, I'm not doing that. I'll just find a man who can cook, won't I? Otherwise, what's the point of having him?

Pshaw, I'm only 18, I'm not going to date a man, I'm going to be a single, unmarried person from now on.

Didn't you see that girl who advocates against marriage? She got tens of millions of likes.

This family's New Year's Eve dinner, huh?

"Hello everyone, I'm Ye Xian, a man on the verge of bankruptcy!"

"Besides owning a million-yuan bottle of liquor, I only have 1800 yuan left! I can't live on alcohol!"

"Today is Lunar New Year's Eve, so we can't eat anything too fancy. Let's just make something simple, after all, it's the New Year!"

The first-person perspective, horizontal screen, wasn't particularly novel, but those three short sentences captivated Lin Xiaoyu. She wanted to see how this man, who claimed to be on the verge of bankruptcy, would spend New Year's Eve.

There are many streamers on Kuaishou who play the victim, and many of them are fake. But this man's voice is very gentle, without any particularly intense emotional manipulation, unlike those accounts that play the victim.

False exaggeration, exaggerated falsehood.

"Battle song, rise!"

In the scene, the man walks towards the refrigerator, but at the same time, a sentence he utters almost makes Lin Xiaoyu burst out laughing.

"What? A war song? How ridiculous!"

As a light guitar tune began to play, the man opened the refrigerator and showed everyone his ingredients.

"Today I only have some eggs, instant noodles, and tomatoes left in my fridge, so I'll make you a stir-fried instant noodle dish that's a common item at barbecue stalls!"

Huh? We're having stir-fried instant noodles for New Year's Eve dinner?

Lin Xiaoyu was stunned. At first, she thought there would be a plot twist or something, but who knew it really was just fried instant noodles.

Is this man really going to go bankrupt?

Lin Xiaoyu casually swiped open the man's homepage, only to find that the streamer only had this one video; she didn't know if the other videos had been deleted or hidden.

The number of fans is only 31.

It's not even a fraction of his fans.

I'm just a high school student, and I still have over a hundred fans.

There are small shops, but I'm too lazy to look at them.

Swipe back to the video; to the tune of a light and cheerful intro, the man begins to boil water and cook noodles.

"Time that is merely a formality"

In your eyes, it has become infinite.

Youth is full of sleepless nights

In pursuit of more tomorrows

Waaaaah... Waaaaah... Waaaaah...

A gentle male voice sounded, and Lin Xiaoyu felt it was somewhat familiar, but she couldn't quite place where she had heard it before.

"I've never heard this song before! I haven't been online much in the last six months, did you release a new song?"

The short video is split-screen, with the man still cooking noodles on the right side of the screen, while the left side shows a starry night sky.

The night sky gradually expanded to cover the entire screen, and the scene of cooking noodles disappeared.

"Take me to experience nightlife."

Seven large white handwritten characters appeared in the night sky.

Small print below: Lyrics/Music/Singing by Ye Xian

The seven large characters gradually enlarged, creating a picture within a picture.

The cooking scene cuts to a scene of scrambling eggs.

"Like an endless street of lights"

Light shines in our hearts, regardless of who we are.

The night has already borne the weight of a sleepless heart.

Even the greatest sorrow has turned to ashes.

Waaaaah... Waaaaah... Waaaaah...

As another song began to play, Lin Xiaoyu suddenly realized, "This song... is it sung by this man?"

So far, the man has been filming himself cooking from a first-person perspective, with his two fair and slender hands appearing most frequently in the frame. This has fueled Lin Xiaoyu's desire to understand the man more deeply.

With such beautiful hands, this man must be very handsome, right?

However, this song seems to be quite nice too.

If you're not asleep yet

If I keep chasing

If being lucid is a sin

They took the vow with them in exchange for a promise never to return.

If you are everything

If I were absolutely

If being lucid is a sin

Let love spread and fulfill every night.

Waaaaah... Waaaaah... Waaaaah...

The stir-fried instant noodles in the video have been cooked, and the camera switches back to the night sky, where fireworks begin to bloom in the distance, illuminating the entire sky.

Whose voice is that?

Lin Xiaoyu was a little curious. If the singer was Ye Xian, then who was this female voice? Lin Xiaoyu was still wondering when she saw the camera switch back to the room, and the low moaning "woo woo woo... woo woo woo... woo woo woo..." became the background sound. Suddenly, a handsome face entered the frame.

"Brothers, the New Year's Eve dinner is ready, let's eat!"

……

Ps1: Today's Recap

Haizhou aged liquor inventory: 8397 bottles.

Ps2: "Take Me to Nightlife", Accusefive.

The first song released for the new book was originally a different one, because this one has a female voice and it wasn't really suitable to use it right away. But I felt that the cross-dressing man's voice change was a good trope, so I used it first.

Some might suggest using Zhang's "aloha heja he," but that song is too controversial, so we won't use it.

The songs selected for this book may be slightly different from those in the previous book; I hope you enjoy them.