ASMMIBV [16]

When everyone rushed over, Ding Yaxin was just being pulled up.

The medical team put Ding Yaxin on a stretcher and carried her all the way to the medical vehicle, completely ignoring Ding Yaxin’s shouting, “I’m fine, I can still record.”

Before Ding Yaxin could finish speaking, she was already taken away to the hospital by the medical vehicle.

The production team was extremely efficient. As soon as Ding Yaxin was taken away, the props team immediately took their positions. They carefully inspected the road conditions where Ding Yaxin had the accident and finally concluded: this pit was a test project for the game “Super Plumber”, where players were originally supposed to walk into the pit, and this particular game scene was quite large, with corresponding prompts around it.

In simple terms, Ding Yaxin fell into a pitfall, purely due to her own negligence in watching her step.

When all the guests were recording the happy ending, an additional line appeared on Ding Yaxin’s medical report:

Fracture, cast immobilization, complete rest, followed by reevaluation after one month.

Ding Yaxin felt disheartened with life, and then she received two messages in succession.

First message: Bank deposit reminder: 200,000. Note: Program appearance fee.

Second message: Bank deposit reminder: 20,000. Note: Have a pleasant wrap-up, rest assured and recuperate.

Finished? She’s been notified of the completion already? Ding Yaxin worked her heart out and exhausted herself throughout the entire program, only to be notified of its completion just like that?

Failed to replace the substitute guest?!

As Ding Yaxin felt hopeless, watching her life plunge into darkness with that 220,000 transfer, Cheng Youyou also stared at her bank card balance in disbelief.

The latest transfer information was clearly marked on the mobile banking app: 400,000.

Note: Keep up the good work in the next episode.

Then Liu Meng’s phone call came in: “The production team just contacted me. Because of your performance this time, they’ve decided to adjust your appearance fee at the last minute.”

Cheng Youyou didn’t care about such things; she even ignored the notes in the message.

All she wanted was to grasp one thing: she now had 400,000 yuan in her wallet to spend recklessly.

Buy buy buy, just keep on buying.

After ending the call with Liu Meng, Cheng Youyou immediately opened a certain online shopping app, selected all items in her cart, and placed the order with just one click.

Having money felt so great; the feeling of spending money without hesitation was so satisfying.

Cheng Youyou spent all the money, looking at the order on her phone. While the money was spent, she couldn’t shake off the feeling of emptiness.

The feeling of only buying things without seeing the actual items was truly surreal.

Cheng Youyou glanced at her bank account balance. Even though she had just made a payment with a single click, the bank reminder showed she had only spent a few tens of thousands.

Cheng Youyou made a decision; she couldn’t let herself sink like this. She wanted to go to the supermarket and truly experience the joy of shopping.

Without hesitation, Cheng Youyou arrived at a high-end, large supermarket.

This was the upscale supermarket she had never dared to enter in her previous life. Here, the fruits were all about freshness, the meat was all air-flown, the seafood was caught on the same day, and even the snacks came from all over the world.

However, when Cheng Youyou heard about the market positioning of this supermarket before, she had assumed it was a place she couldn’t afford. So, she had never stepped foot inside, not even once.

But now that she had money, she stood confidently in front of the shelves, dumbfounded.

She regretted it now because the pricing of the supermarket’s goods was nowhere near as high as she had imagined.

They were a bit pricier than average, but not unreasonable at all—prices that the general public could afford.

Cheng Youyou chose the largest and deepest shopping cart and dashed into the supermarket.

The supermarket was enormous, with shelves filled with a wide array of items. Cheng Youyou’s eyes wandered as she looked around.

Every snack looked delicious, and every fruit appeared fresh.

For Cheng Youyou, who once had to budget and scrimp, facing so many options triggered her decision paralysis once again.

But now, Cheng Youyou was different.

She grabbed one when she saw one, grabbed a pair when she saw two.

When Cheng Youyou couldn’t decide which one was tastier, or rather, couldn’t decide which one was better, she would just put both in her cart and buy them all.

The supermarket was too big, and there were too many things. If she couldn’t finish them all at once, she would buy them twice.

And if twice wasn’t enough, then she would buy them three times.

She wanted to immerse herself in the infinite joy of supermarket shopping with her limited life.

Cheng Youyou set herself a goal: every day, she would visit the supermarket and clear out one shelf.

On the fifth day of Cheng Youyou’s crazy shopping spree in the supermarket, she finally caught the attention of the supermarket management.

In the supermarket surveillance room, the manager zoomed in on the real-time footage of Cheng Youyou clearing the snack shelves.

Cheng Youyou pulled her shopping cart close to the shelves, leaving no gap between them. She turned, grabbed items, and tossed them into her cart.

Then she turned again, grabbed more items, and tossed them into the cart.

She finished sweeping the shelves in the middle row, then tiptoed to sweep the shelves in the upper row.

There was no pause throughout, as if she had undergone military training.

Cheng Youyou’s speed was so fast that the manager briefly suspected she had sped up. It wasn’t until he confirmed that this was real-time surveillance that he dispelled his earlier suspicion.

Supermarket staff: “Mr. Yu, it’s this person. She comes every day to clear out one shelf of our snacks. It’s already the fifth day, and the shelves she clears out are highly unpredictable. Her malicious behavior of clearing out shelves has seriously affected our supermarket’s purchasing plans.”

Mr. Yu zoomed in on the surveillance footage, looking at Cheng Youyou wearing a mask. “She looks familiar, like I’ve seen her somewhere.”

In the blink of an eye, Cheng Youyou disappeared from the surveillance video while Mr. Yu was distracted.

He urgently adjusted the controls, asking, “Where did she go?”

Mr. Yu quickly searched the surveillance station and finally found Cheng Youyou’s figure at the checkout counter.

At that moment, Cheng Youyou had just finished checking out. She had two shopping bags slung over her left shoulder and two over her right, all of them the largest size available at the supermarket.

Even in the surveillance footage, Cheng Youyou’s slender shoulders looked weighed down by the bags.

But still, it couldn’t stop her lively steps.

Through the screen, Mr. Yu could also feel her satisfaction after shopping.

Mr. Yu seemed to be thinking, “It shouldn’t be some malicious competition from the same industry, maybe… just an ordinary consumer with a strong desire to buy.”

But the staff member insisted, “Her irregular clearing of our shelves makes it impossible for us to carry out our restocking plans. She’s disrupting market order.”

So Mr. Yu fell into confusion once again.

He clearly saw the female customer in the surveillance footage paying, but…

Suddenly, there was an urgent knock on the door, followed by a breathless staff member rushing in.

“Mr. Yu, our supermarket is trending on hot search!”

Mr. Yu became nervous.

He’s just an ordinary entrepreneur with nothing special about him. Neither he nor his supermarket has ever trended on hot searches, not even once.

But based on past experiences of trending topics, Mr. Yu knew that when supermarkets trended, it usually wasn’t a good sign. It often led to issues regarding food quality and safety.

Trembling, Mr. Yu opened Weibo: …Huh?

#Encounter with Cheng Youyou at S Supermarket#

Hot search ranking 23rd.

Clicking into the hot search, the top one is a normal Weibo post by an ordinary netizen.

The text and pictures are still fresh and hot, posted just ten minutes ago.

In the photo, the girl in the black windbreaker wearing a mask had two bags slung over her left shoulder and two over her right, with the bags being the largest size, causing her shoulders to bend. However, even from her back, you could feel her happiness.

Mr. Yu was absolutely certain that the girl in the picture was the same as the one in the surveillance footage.

Mr. Yu withdrew the picture and looked closely at the text.

【First time being so close to a celebrity! Just now, I unexpectedly encountered Cheng Youyou, who has recently become very popular, at the supermarket. I didn’t dare to recognize her at all! Who would have thought that even fairies have to go grocery shopping! Fairies going to the supermarket is one thing, but she even cleared out the shelves, hilarious!!】

In the past, encountering Cheng Youyou like this would barely create any ripples.

But now, it’s different. Cheng Youyou’s popularity is skyrocketing.

This Weibo post quickly gained follow-ups from other netizens.

【Is it really Cheng Youyou? I saw a young girl clearing out the shelves the day before yesterday when I was shopping at the supermarket, but I didn’t dare to recognize her!】

【Clearing out the shelves? Looking at her outfit again, it makes sense. Well then, I’ve also seen Cheng Youyou.】

【This supermarket is near my home, I go there every day. So, you’re saying I’ve seen her several times, and she clears out a shelf every time.】

【She really went on a shopping spree. I have photos on my phone. I was curious that day, to tell the truth, it’s rare to see customers clearing out the shelves in a supermarket.】

With multiple confirmations, everyone verified that Cheng Youyou, who has recently gained a bit of popularity, did indeed appear at a supermarket.

And she did clear out the shelves.

【Is this a treasure trove supermarket? Cheng Youyou actually managed to clear the shelves?】

【So it’s S Supermarket, huh? I want to see what’s so attractive about it.】

【I just found out that S Supermarket has an online store. That’s great, I don’t have to wait until tomorrow!】

Mr. Yu was still reading the comments when his phone rang.

As soon as he answered, the voice on the other end of the line sounded urgent: “We have a problem, our online store just crashed.”

While S Supermarket had quite a reputation, it seemed that its fame was limited to offline presence only.

The supermarket had a wide range of high-quality products, but it had failed to keep up with the rapid development of the internet in earlier years. Even though they had opened an online store now, the online sales volume for S Supermarket remained minimal.

Every year, the operating costs of the online store exceeded the profits generated from it.

Just a moment ago, after S Supermarket trended, the head of the online operations department urgently called Mr. Yu.

The phone call conveyed only one message: their online store didn’t have enough bandwidth. A sudden influx of a large number of visitors caused the online store to crash.

Mr. Yu quickly contacted the shopping platform, and after increasing the online store’s bandwidth, he didn’t sit idle either.

He personally stepped in and joined the busy customer service team.

This was an unavoidable measure; the customer service team was simply understaffed.

Mr. Yu awkwardly took on the role of customer service. He opened the chat window, and eight out of ten inquiries were asking, “What did Cheng Youyou buy??”

“I want to buy the same things as Cheng Youyou.”

“The items you sell online are the same as what Cheng Youyou bought in the store, right?”

In the evening, Mr. Yu returned home with a tired body. As soon as he closed his eyes lying on the bed, three words would pop into his mind: Cheng Youyou.

He stubbornly climbed out of bed, fetched his phone, and did two things.

Firstly, he looked up Cheng Youyou on Baidu Baike¹ (Chinese encyclopedia).

Cheng Youyou had acted in a period drama. Coincidentally, he had watched it. This period drama wasn’t famous at all. If it weren’t for his seventy-year-old mother insisting on watching it, he wouldn’t have spared it a glance.

However, after watching just one episode, he became hooked. The TV drama had simple sets and the actors wore plain attire, but it couldn’t hide the brilliance of the storyline. Especially the female lead, Cheng Youyou, whose acting skills were so exquisite that his emotions were completely absorbed into the plot.

Mr. Yu wasn’t one to chase after celebrities, but he admired talented actors. This aligned with his philosophy of managing the supermarket: relentlessly pursuing quality.

Immediately, Mr. Yu’s fondness for Cheng Youyou multiplied.

Then, his second task was to check Cheng Youyou’s Weibo.

Cheng Youyou’s Weibo had less than 300,000 followers, but despite her relatively small following, Mr. Yu witnessed her significant purchasing power.

In fact, S Supermarket was not unprofitable. Due to its high-quality products and competitive prices, it had a significant market share in the local market. However, the revenue from its online store was negligible.

Who would have thought that the purchasing power of just one evening’s online sales was almost equivalent to the purchasing power of a physical supermarket for an entire week?

For the first time, Mr. Yu experienced the tremendous benefits brought by the internet.

His staff had repeatedly advised him to invest more in online promotion, but he had always refused.

Today, after tasting the sweetness of success, he decided to take a step forward.

Not just a simple step, Mr. Yu opted for a direct and bold move. He chose the hottest trend on the internet: live streaming e-commerce.

His staff were stunned. “Mr. Yu, even if we want to move forward, we don’t need to take such a big leap. Besides, there are already hosts doing live streaming e-commerce. We don’t have any hosts!”

Mr. Yu pointed at Cheng Youyou on the monitor and said, “Isn’t she perfect for this? She’s a celebrity with influence, and she’s also a genuine purchaser. Let’s go with her.”

What Mr. Yu didn’t mention was that he had also watched Cheng Youyou’s dramas and was secretly her loyal fan.