Chapter 34: Tycoon Simulation 4
Yuan Jingjing opened her streaming app and wrote a sensational title: “Shocking! The First Green Plant Discovered in Green City!” Because her follower base was so small, almost no one tuned in when she first went live.
She set up her portable holographic camera, adjusting its parameters. The device then took flight like a little butterfly, camera rolling as it hovered in mid-air, recording from every angle.
It started with the shop’s interior, followed by Chu Yun’s cooking counter, tracking Chu Yun’s movements from the crisp, dripping green vegetables by the cutting board to the small wok. Chu Yun was highly dextrous, flipping the vegetables beautifully in her hands. Yuan Jingjing didn’t fully understand what Chu Yun was doing, so she didn’t comment too much, only asking Chu Yun a question or two from time to time.
The topic had built-in virality, and the viewer count gradually climbed from single digits into the hundreds, and then into the tens of thousands. However, most people didn’t believe it. Scientists had spent so many years searching and researching without finding a single green plant; how could a minor content creator with barely over a hundred thousand followers possess such a capability? They suspected this was another uploader trying to gain notoriety through controversy, yet the allure of the plants desperately drew them to click inside.
As a result, words like “Fraud,” “Fake,” and “The streamer is a fraud, hope her whole family dies” continuously floated across the live chat.
“It’s real! Everything I’m saying is absolutely true! I swear to God, these are real green plants!” Yuan Jingjing swore to the camera.
But her vow meant nothing to the mindless trolls on the internet. They felt Yuan Jingjing was deliberately tricking their emotions and making a joke out of such a serious matter, so their insults grew even harsher.
However, there were also rational netizens: “Tagging the platform’s content moderators. Please come check if this is photoshopped or edited. If it is, please permanently ban her. I despise people who have no sense of propriety and joke around casually like this the most.”
The platform’s moderation department quickly received this request. This kind of thing had happened before; although the state strictly banned the dissemination of mukbang videos, it still couldn’t control the minds of those who went mad trying to get famous.
After reading the request sent by the system, the moderation manager glanced at the creator’s meager follower count and curled his lip in disdain. He casually passed it to the subordinate beside him: “Xiao Zheng, ban it.” Every kind of lunatic wants to throw their hat in the ring. We’re already busy enough.
Yet, he didn’t receive a reply from Xiao Zheng for quite a while, and the youth’s breathing even seemed to grow heavier over there.
“Is it banned?” The manager frowned as he walked over to Xiao Zheng’s workstation, asking impatiently. However, when he saw the telemetry data displayed on the screen, he instantly began to stammer: “Oh my god! Oh my god! It’s actually a live broadcast!”
“Report to senior leadership immediately, and notify the technical department to prepare for server support. A massive viral event is going to occur today!”
The moment the manager uttered these words, the entire moderation department instantly erupted into a frenzy.
The viewers in the livestream also began to realize something was off. Logically speaking, the platform’s moderation department handled major matters prohibited by law very quickly, yet there was still no response after so many people tagged them.
The odds of them missing the reports were practically zero. Could this video actually be live, and the plants in the video were also real? They began to share the livestream link on their own platforms. Word spread from ten to a hundred, and from a hundred to a thousand; whether they believed it or not, everyone was dragged in. In an instant, millions of people flooded into the livestream, and Yuan Jingjing’s follower count skyrocketed, gaining nearly a million new followers right then and there.
By this time, Chu Yun had finished cooking the two dishes. She handed a pair of chopsticks to Yuan Jingjing, gave her a brief tutorial on how to use them, and then stepped out of the camera’s frame.
The mukbang was here! Previously, what was banned were the mukbang videos passed down from the ancients, but this was a freshly produced live broadcast, and the platform responsible for operations had tacitly allowed its existence. Netizens from all over who were passionate about mukbangs but suffered from a lack of resources instantly swarmed in.
When they first entered the livestream, they were also completely mystified. Isn’t this just an ancient mukbang video? Why are so many people claiming it’s real and asking where this place is? Are they insane? But gradually, the clever netizens began to catch on. Their hearts surged, and they joined the wave of excitement in the live chat.
Yuan Jingjing knew how to work an audience. She awkwardly held her chopsticks to clamp a piece of the vegetable, zooming in for a close-up shot of it to display it thoroughly before putting it in her mouth to chew slowly. Her blissful expression appeared in the broadcast, drawing even more donations.
Watching the donations explode like fireworks across her screen, Yuan Jingjing kept her composure on the outside, but her heart was blooming with joy. By now, there were nearly 20 million people in the livestream, and the trend was still climbing—a historic high!
“Streamer, tell us the address quick! I’ll donate ten Rockets to you.”
“Yeah, tell us quick! Is it close to the planet I’m on?”
A single Rocket cost 20,000 credits, and ten Rockets meant 200,000 credits. Money that she couldn’t even earn in a year could be made back in a few minutes today. As expected, traffic was absolute king; she had definitely made the right move by coming here.
The first Carnival donation had already dropped, and the audience was urging her to give the address. Yuan Jingjing took her time. She had just opened her mouth, but before she could utter the first syllable, the livestream went black with a sharp clack, followed by a pop-up alert: The server has crashed, please re-enter.
Yuan Jingjing tried several times, but the prompts kept indicating connection failures. Later on, even the prompts vanished, and the screen went completely black. Yuan Jingjing was utterly dumbfounded, her heart bleeding as she couldn’t help but curse: Holy shit, her Rockets!
Meanwhile, the technical department far away was working under urgent pressure from leadership, but since over half the global population had squeezed in, it couldn’t be repaired in a short time.
While Yuan Jingjing was sighing and groaning over here, Chu Yun was radiant with smiles. She didn’t care about anyone else; her goal had been achieved regardless. The news had been put out, and they would find their way here sooner or later.
Yuan Jingjing hadn’t managed to state the location before the server crashed, making it impossible for viewers to even send direct messages through the backend. But this didn’t pose a challenge to the platform’s technicians; the backend staff knew exactly where the livestream’s coordinates were with a quick check, and they began to notify their friends and family.
Consequently, the first wave of diners swarmed over within an hour—about a hundred people—and the small shop was instantly packed to the rafters.
Chu Yun’s little shop only had a few sets of tables and chairs, which couldn’t accommodate so many customers at all, so a long queue began to form outside, extending from the semi-basement all the way onto the street level. Yu Wenhao stopped looking for a job and was pulled by Chu Yun to organize the order, while Xu Dongdong also emerged from his studio to help, having already painted several finished pieces.
The noise outside the restaurant was deafening as they discussed excitedly. The customers whose turn arrived began to take photos and check in, posting on their personal social media accounts to show off their superiority, devouring their food ravenously afterward. The customers who hadn’t made it inside craned their necks expectantly from the outside, occasionally asking Yu Wenhao: “Hello, is there enough food? Will it reach us?”
Yu Wenhao replied, “It should be enough, right?” He knew Chu Yun’s farm produced things very quickly, but ever since he participated in other instance tasks, he could no longer enter her Happy Farm.
Takeout was still unavailable. Normal restaurants didn’t exist in this world, and takeout containers had correspondingly vanished into thin air.
Chu Yun and Xu Dongdong stir-fried together, so their speed was reasonably fast, but it couldn’t withstand the horde of famished people outside the door. From the moment they took their first customer, the three moved continuously without a pause, working until 5:00 PM without even eating a meal before finally sending off the last guest.
By this time, the two baskets of green vegetables displayed outside were completely exhausted. Chu Yun didn’t continue, seizing the opportunity to quickly shut the main door and hang up the “Closed” sign. The remaining vegetables needed to be kept to bridge the gap before the next batch matured.
Having received many customers today, Chu Yun’s personal balance had already reached 55,000 credits. Her QR code payment method had still drawn inquiries from many people, but there was nothing she could do about it; the configuration provided to them by the system was just that low-end.
To make receiving payments easier, Yu Wenhao printed out a few payment codes and pasted them on the restaurant’s walls and sliding doors. This novel experience left the people coming in to eat dumbfounded once again.
After exchanging a word with her two teammates, Chu Yun hurriedly entered Happy Farm. By now, the employees in the farm had concluded their tasks and departed upon reaching their designated hour. Chu Yun completed a patrol loop, and after ensuring everything on the farm was normal, she exited.
As players, they didn’t have access to the social media platforms of this world, so they had no idea how massive a sensation this plant incident had triggered. The streaming platform was repaired that evening. Yuan Jingjing had a recording backup of her stream, and after editing and reposting it, she reaped another sizable wave of followers.
The hundred or so diners who had followed close on Yuan Jingjing’s heels didn’t back down either, as high-definition, 360-degree photos of the delicacies appeared on social media platforms one after another. Whenever a thread was posted, netizens would immediately flood it with envious comments.
If only one person had seen it, it might be fake, but when a second person claimed to have seen it too, it was highly probable to be real. Furthermore, this was evidence brought forward by no less than 100 people, presented all at once.
Every generation of netizens possessed the instincts of Sherlock Holmes. The people who knew the news refused to disclose the restaurant’s address to the death, but based on the minute details in the photos, the crowd still managed to unearth a trail of clues.
Chu Yun, who was currently fast asleep, had no idea her shop had been completely exposed. What awaited her would be another tough battle.
Day 3 in Green City.
At 6:00 AM, Chu Yun, who hadn’t woken up on time due to exhaustion, was roused by the commotion outside the door. She had spent the night sleeping on a straw mat on the restaurant floor, so she woke to look straight into several pairs of eyes outside the semi-transparent sliding door. The eyes outside were practically pressed against the glass. They had likely seen Chu Yun lying on the floor resting, and they flashed awkward yet polite smiles.
Chu Yun grimaced. Is there no privacy left? She’s a girl, a girl, okay?! These people were truly going all out for the sake of food.
She didn’t have a hobby of being watched while sleeping by a massive crowd. Moving rapidly, she straightened herself out, set up two large, full baskets of green vegetables, and unlocked the sliding doors. Fortunately, they had been locked from the inside, otherwise these people truly might have broken straight in.
“Hello, excuse me, are you the owner of this shop?” It was the thick-skinned youth who had just been caught red-handed peeping at Chu Yun sleeping.
“Yes, what’s wrong?” Chu Yun turned back to the restaurant to wash the vegetables.
“Wow!” The youth followed close behind Chu Yun’s heels, letting out a high-decibel shout when he saw those large baskets of green vegetables. “Can we order now?”
“Sure, take a seat first. The food will be ready in a moment.” Who would turn away lovely money?
She had thought the youth who woke up at six to wait for a table was crazy enough, but it turned out there were plenty of crazy people. Before Chu Yun could even finish washing the vegetables, another two waves of people arrived, leaving the small restaurant completely packed. Yu Wenhao and Xu Dongdong next door caught wind of the situation and came over early to help.
The three swallowed a few gulps of plain white mantou during gaps in washing vegetables to line their stomachs, and the day’s frantic rush began.
By 2:00 PM, the green vegetables were on the verge of hitting rock bottom, yet the queue outside the door was still growing.
Left with no choice, Chu Yun could only tell everyone to head back: “Apologies, everyone! We’re stopping at this brother here, so the people behind can head back first. Today’s food is sold out, please come back tomorrow!”
The brother who had narrowly escaped the cut-off let out an excited “Oh yeah!” and happily took a step forward, maintaining a clear distance from the beautiful young lady behind him. The beautiful lady looked fit to burst with rage; he had just been hitting on her with sweet words, yet he turned his back and refused to acknowledge her in the blink of an eye.
“Huh? How is it gone so quickly?”
“It’s only just past noon, can’t you sell a bit more?”
“Exactly! I lined up all afternoon and starved to death, only to not get a spot.”
“Boss, where did you source the goods from? Share the info!”
Chu Yun maintained her smile and pretended not to hear, quickly shutting the door after serving the final customer to block out the chattering, complaining crowd outside.
Running a business was truly difficult. When business was poor, it was mentally draining; when business was too good, it was physically exhausting.
They ate a hasty lunch inside the restaurant and waited patiently for another half hour before the customers outside finally dispersed completely.
Chu Yun had just opened the door to let some air in when a few familiar customers arrived—it was the little boy and his mother. The little boy was still exceptionally excited upon seeing Chu Yun, waving his hand vigorously from afar.
The young woman beside him watched the tiny figure before her with a smile, looking a picture of quiet grace.
Her son had been exceptionally mature since he learned to speak, not resembling a child of this age bracket at all. This was the third time she had seen such a vivid expression on his face. The first was when he came home to tell her he had discovered plants, the second was yesterday when he came to eat with his grandfather and mother, and the third was today.
As the future successor of the corporation, the little boy had many lessons to learn in the morning. He had completed his tasks ahead of schedule just to come over with his mother, yet he had still arrived a step too late.
