The next evening, Xiao Can unexpectedly saw He Xingzhou in the news.
A well-known old artist was holding an exhibition in another city, and many celebrities were invited to attend the opening ceremony. He Xingzhou was one of them.
The reporters interviewed him specifically.
He Xingzhou behaved very gracefully in front of the camera, saying that he and the old gentleman were old friends, and the other party’s works were the source of his inspiration. He felt honored to receive the invitation and sincerely recommended everyone to come and experience the beauty of art firsthand.
He gestured towards the old man, who was short and frail with wrinkles all over his face, leaning on a cane, and said, “Mr. Zhong can be said to be the muse of my musical journey.”
The old man smiled at the camera, a hint of embarrassment on his deeply lined face.
He Xingzhou was someone who would never put on airs or speak insincerely in front of the camera, so those words were undoubtedly sincere.
No wonder he had to leave yesterday; it turned out he had promised to attend to support his “old friend.”
Xiao Can was curious, so he searched online for the old man’s works. Most of them were abstract art, which seemed impressive but were difficult to understand.
So He Xingzhou liked these kinds of things.
Suddenly, Xiao Can remembered that there were similar decorative paintings hanging on the walls of He Xingzhou’s living room. He wondered if they were painted by this Mr. Zhong.
Although he had seen them many times, he had never paid much attention to those paintings.
Xiao Can suddenly felt a sense of loss.
He and He Xingzhou were actually a classic example of incompatible communication. They would argue about anything, completely incompatible, with different tastes and aesthetics.
What He Xingzhou appreciated, he couldn’t understand at all.
No wonder He Xingzhou criticized his videos as boring; they didn’t have any spiritual resonance.
Thinking like this, it was normal that He Xingzhou couldn’t develop more feelings for him.
Feeling annoyed, Xiao Can closed the search page.
He Xingzhou’s visit was indeed untimely. He had just left, and Xiao Can’s workload had suddenly dropped, leaving him with a day off.
It was boring lying in the hotel.
Taking advantage of his free time, Xiao Can took a long nap and then used his laptop to edit a daily Vlog of his filming routine.
The long-awaited update was warmly welcomed.
His fans had long heard the news of him joining the crew and had been eagerly awaiting his updates, not even seeing a formal photo yet, and they were already anxious.
When the video was released, everyone was excited. But after a while, many people noticed something was off.
Comments started flooding in, with people shouting, “What kind of styling is this?” “Fire the stylist!” “Is the whole crew crazy?” “Baby, if you’ve been kidnapped, blink twice.”
Although it couldn’t be considered positive feedback, Xiao Can felt a strange sense of joy. He hoped everyone would criticize more, and it would be even better if the director and producers saw it, then felt embarrassed.
After finishing the update, Xiao Can felt relieved. With nothing else to do, he simply opened Mu Nianwen’s live streaming channel.
Mu Nianwen’s live stream was also popular on Baitao. As a big anchor, he was a hard worker, taking at most one or two days off a month, usually being consistent, even streaming from the hospital if he was sick.
As he put it, most viewers just casually watched, used to listening to him talk at this time every day. If he took a break, they would naturally find something else to fill their time, maybe even finding something more appealing and not come back.
At eight thirty in the evening, it was Mu Nianwen’s fixed broadcast time.
Xiao Can opened his channel, and sure enough, he was streaming.
Mu Nianwen was a good-looking anchor in the gaming category. His skills weren’t top-notch, but he was good at creating program effects, and he had an open personality, occasionally singing and dancing.
At the moment, he seemed to be playing a popular horror game, with a dark screen and a mysterious atmosphere.
In the bottom left corner of the screen, Mu Nianwen looked serious, his body tense.
Beside him, his real-time heart rate index was displayed. At this moment, although Mu Nianwen appeared calm, his heart was beating at ninety-eight beats per minute.
“I’m not scared, I’m just focused,” Mu Nianwen said, swallowing, “I’ve figured out the nature of this game, it’s definitely going to jump out at you from these corridors, so be mentally prepared, it’s not scary at all.”
Xiao Can loved this kind of segment.
Silently, he opened the tipping interface and chose the most generous Super Rocket, confirming the payment.
“Ding ding!”
A sudden system sound effect made Mu Nianwen jump in place, excitedly bouncing in his seat. In his excitement, he accidentally hit a nearby shelf, causing a lot of clutter to fall.
His heart rate instantly soared to a hundred and forty-two.
He took a couple of deep breaths in place, then patted his chest and said, “I saw the rocket, so I’m performing a launch for everyone. Did everyone see it clearly? If not, I can do it again.”
His face pale, Mu Nianwen returned to the screen and, after checking the system’s push notification, smiled, “Thank you XC Xiao Can Can Can Can Can for the Super Rocket, you are very generous! Wish you good health and a prosperous career!”
Xiao Can was using his big account on Baitao, so many of his viewers knew him. For a while, the comments were lively, with people shouting, “Looks like we’ve become part of their show.” Some enthusiastic old viewers even helped explain to new viewers, saying, “They’re roommates, living together, and they get along well.” The atmosphere was lively, and many people sent gifts.
As Mu Nianwen thanked his viewers and tidied up his desktop, he paused unnaturally in the middle of the action, then suddenly sped up his movements.
His live stream had tens of thousands of viewers, and someone immediately noticed something was wrong and started sending barrage messages.
“Is that thing what I think it is?”
“I saw it too, it looks like a condom!”
These few messages were repeatedly sent by viewers who were eager for chaos, gradually attracting attention, with barrage messages like “What the heck?” “Is it true?” “Seriously?”
After all, Mu Nianwen was an old anchor, and he quickly calmed down. He reached out and took something from outside the frame, then boldly displayed it in front of the camera: “No, you guys must have never seen it before, it’s gloves from the takeout! To save time, I can only order takeout every day, it’s really pitiful!”
The real-time image captured by the camera only occupied a small corner of the screen, so it was difficult to see the small package clearly.
After putting down what he was holding, Mu Nianwen sighed and said, “To be honest, I’ve never understood why they have to use such low-class packaging. It’s too vulgar, I really don’t like it.”
After complaining for a bit, he looked down at his phone.
There was a message from Xiao Can just sent to him.
“What’s going on! What’s going on!!”
Unlike those easily fooled viewers, Xiao Can understood Mu Nianwen too well.
This person always ate in the living room, leaving all the extra utensils piled up on the table, messy and never taken back to his room, which Xiao Can always had to clean up.
The square thing just now undoubtedly was the kind of thing the audience had guessed.
Mu Nianwen’s romantic experience was slightly richer than Xiao Can’s, having had a two-month relationship shortly after his first separation.
He was young and naive at the time, emotionally rich, and loved desperately. When he found out he was being cheated on, he was heartbroken. After a few months of confusion, he bumped into his ex on the street, suddenly feeling that the other person looked a bit ugly. In that instant, he had an epiphany and closed his heart to love.
In front of Xiao Can, he always portrayed himself as a sage who saw through everything, relying on his meager emotional experience to play the role of a wise mentor.
Xiao Can also always assumed that great mentors didn’t need love.
Compared to establishing a stable relationship with someone, Mu Nianwen was obviously more keen on digging into the wallets of those Alpha viewers watching his livestreams.
However, Xiao Can thought to himself, even he, who was as dense as a tree, had recently blossomed. It was completely normal for Mu Nianwen, a youthful and beautiful Omega, to have some movements.
The problem was, how could he not tell him about it?!
This was indeed a bit too much.
Mu Nianwen put down his phone, cleared his throat, and continued to operate the mouse, seeming calm, but his heartbeat remained above one hundred and twenty.
Xiao Can messaged again.
“I command you to call me immediately after the broadcast!”
Mu Nianwen glanced at it, smiled awkwardly at the camera, and said, “Are XC Xiao Can’s viewers still here? Thank you again for the super rocket; love you~”
Two and a half hours later, Mu Nianwen, who had been off the air for less than a minute, honestly reported.
“Listen to me, it’s not what you think. I didn’t date anyone, let alone sleep with anyone,” Mu Nianwen said quickly, “It’s all a misunderstanding!”
Xiao Can was curious. “Go on.”
“Last week, I invited the top ten diamond VIPs from the livestream room to dinner.” Mu Nianwen said.
The so-called diamond VIPs referred to the top ten in the reward leaderboard in the livestream room within thirty days.
Xiao Can was very supportive of his friends and always showered them with large gifts whenever he went to see them. At the moment, his real-time ranking was only around thirty. Those who could consistently rank in the top ten in Mu Nianwen’s livestream room were all wealthy and generous spenders.
In this line of work, one couldn’t be too casual, nor could one be too arrogant.
For viewers willing to spend money, one must take care of them with care. Mu Nianwen didn’t want to get too close privately and stir up trouble. To avoid suspicion, dinners were always with at least three people.
Mu Nianwen had complained to Xiao Can before that one time he went out of town to treat the VIPs to dinner, but there were six people at the table, five of them were Alpha, and they were all competing and showing off, taking turns to act tough, speaking ambiguously, and he was exhausted in the middle of the dinner.
It was almost a fight to the death when it came to paying the bill; it scared Mu Nianwen so much that he said afterwards that making money was too difficult. Since then, every time he interacted with Alpha VIPs offline, he jokingly referred to it as “crossing the calamity.”
“Is something wrong?” Xiao Can asked worriedly.
“Do you remember that guy called ‘Cute Tractor’?” Mu Nianwen said.
Xiao Can remembered. This guy with the peculiar name had been on Mu Nianwen’s leaderboard for more than ten months. He was silent and generous, sending gifts whenever Mu Nianwen begged for them, but he didn’t say a word otherwise.
Mu Nianwen had actively chatted with him privately, but it was like talking to a brick wall.
“I saw his account location in our city that day, so I casually asked him if he wanted to come out for dinner, and he actually replied and agreed,” Mu Nianwen said, “I invited a few friends to go together. He was quite polite in person and said he had prepared a gift for me.”
“At the time, he gave me a nicely wrapped box and said it was a small, worthless item. Since I also prepared a gift for him, I accepted it,” Mu Nianwen said awkwardly, “When I opened it later, there was a watch, a necklace, a pair of headphones, a box of chocolate puffs, and…”
“A condom?”
“Yes,” Mu Nianwen said.
Xiao Can frowned, “Isn’t this sexual harassment?!”
“I was dumbfounded. He looked very elegant and polite in person. He even messaged me at night asking if I liked it. I didn’t know how to reply,” Mu Nianwen said awkwardly.
Mu Nianwen had experienced this kind of harassment more than once. An Alpha willing to spend a lot of money for an Omega always had some ulterior motives.
Handle it delicately, don’t give any actual benefits, and they’ll leave sooner or later.
It seemed that Mu Nianwen was about to lose his big supporter on the leaderboard.
“It’s okay, out with the old, in with the new,” Xiao Can comforted him, “We don’t need a creepy Alpha.”
Mu Nianwen made a sound of agreement.
“You’d better throw away that thing quickly,” Xiao Can said, “Leaving it around is disgusting.”
Mu Nianwen made another sound of agreement.
Xiao Can sensed something was off, “You’re not trying to keep him… that…?”
“No, I didn’t reply to him!” Mu Nianwen said, “After that, he still sent me gifts for the next few days, as if nothing had happened.”
“Well, isn’t that good?” Xiao Can said, “No matter whose hands it came from, money always smells good.”
“The problem is…” Mu Nianwen hesitated.
Xiao Can became nervous, “what?”
“…actually, he’s quite handsome,” Mu Nianwen said.
“Huh?”
Xiao Can was shocked.
In an instant of realization, he suddenly understood that when Mu Nianwen heard him talk about He Xingzhou before, he might have had this kind of unpleasant feeling too.
