Chapter 3: His mortal enemy, Lord Xiashan.
The short video app popped up a splash screen ad, counting down 3, 2, 1 seconds. After what seemed like an eternity, the familiar little red dot finally appeared in the background.
The specific quantity was not displayed, only a string of ambiguous "...".
Shu Qing's hands trembled as she switched to the backstage area. For a moment, she almost jumped up from her chair.
There were four digits of unread messages in the background, and in less than an afternoon, her new video had already climbed to the top of the pet section's rankings.
With nearly 100,000 views and over 5,000 likes, her follower count tripled, and the comments and bullet screen messages were buzzing. Shu Qing swiped down, but couldn't scroll to the bottom; the page kept popping up in real time.
“Shhhh”
"Big data, remember this! I want to see this!"
"Holy crap... hands that look exactly like the modeled ones, snakes that look exactly like the modeled ones!"
"Snake: Aren't I fierce? What are these people screaming about?"
"Beauty and the snake prprpr"
"So clever, is it a little monster?"
"I don't know whether to envy the hand or the snake."
"Holy crap, it's a real snake!"
The most popular comment, which received a lot of likes, was, "Click here to jump to 5s! Wait, why is my screen dirty? [doge.jpg]"
Shu Qing didn't even need to skip ahead; she instantly understood—at 5 seconds, she added a red danger warning effect. With this effect, the little snake pounced on her hand like lightning, and in a close-up shot at 0.75x speed, it menacingly flicked its tongue and bit her fingertip.
Beauty and danger are a perfect match, no less than love and death. In an instant, a flood of comments swept across the screen.
The warning sounds and lights, the coiling and biting, the girl's hand, the cold-blooded animal—all these elements combine to create a certain intangible chemical reaction. The little white snake's intimidation takes a different turn, giving rise to a dangerous sense of intimacy and a narrative quality.
Shu Qing didn't even show her face, only her hands appeared on camera, but the effect was far better than any "frontal shot," eliciting a chorus of howls.
This isn't the end; the data is still jumping up, and there are still donations in the backend...
All her previous pet videos combined didn't even get as many tips as this one!
“Baby,” Shu Qing murmured, “you really seem to be able to help me earn money to support the family.”
While it can't compare to the wildly popular fluffy pet, its stats are still quite impressive; in the reptile category, it would definitely be a top contender.
Why bother with outsourcing orders? I'll just shoot another video tomorrow to capitalize on this unexpected surge of traffic. Then, getting involved in events and advertising will be a piece of cake!
Shu Qing hummed a little tune, took a screenshot of the grand scene backstage, and lightly opened the industry group that she had blocked.
It may feel good to fight back with sharp teeth, but the real way is to slap someone in the face with facts. Pictures don't lie!
The message to slap her in the face was only half-finished when a sudden, loud banging on the door erupted like thunder. The housekeeper shouted from outside, "Shuqing! Open the door!"
Shu Qing's previously smug heart suddenly sank—judging from the noise, she felt that the housekeeper wasn't bringing anyone to fix her electrical circuits.
Her first reaction was to pat the little snake's head to comfort it, and then she called out loudly, "Coming..."
—Thump!
With a sound like an earthquake, Shu Qing stood frozen in shock at the doorway, less than two meters away from the door that had been forcefully kicked open.
Outside the door, there was not only the apartment manager, but also two burly men in security uniforms, who looked to be no less than 80 kilograms, clearly indicating that they were up to no good.
Shu Qing: "..."
Telling her to "move out tomorrow" is blatant disregard for the contract. If she had recorded the conversation, she could have sued, and yet they actually came to clear her out?
She subconsciously took a step to the side, blocking her little white snake, and a dark cell phone camera was quietly revealed from her drooping sleeve.
"Oh, the equipment is quite professional." The butler spotted the photography equipment behind Shu Qing and sneered, "You have money to buy equipment, but no money to compensate? You can sell this camera to make up for it, so hurry up and pay up! Or you can move out right now."
Two burly men, well-trained, stepped into the room together.
Not to be outdone, the little white snake climbed up Shu Qing's back and onto her shoulder, hissing fiercely.
Shu Qing sighed inwardly: Ancestor, please don't step forward...
She raised her left hand to protect the small snake, while subtly turning her right hand to quietly point the phone camera at the two burly men's faces. She said, "Even if you want me to move out, you should give me two weeks' notice. It's clearly stated in the contract. Don't you have any sense of reason?"
"That's on the condition that you pay for it!" the housekeeper roared. "If you don't pay, how can we fix the circuit? This power outage affects the entire 7th floor, and all the residents have complained!"
Shu Qing's palms were sweaty, but she quickly grasped the key word "complaint" in her mind—the compensation the housekeeper was asking her for was obviously inflated, and when she refused to pay, he threatened to "not repair the circuit."
However, the circuit affected the entire floor. It is estimated that other residents on the 7th floor complained to the headquarters, which in turn put pressure on the property manager. The property manager could no longer delay, which led to this incident.
They weren't there to clear the place out of the way; they were there to squeeze money out of her.
Quite coincidentally, she also happened to be planning a big "complaint".
At this moment, two burly men approached her photography equipment. Shu Qing pulled out her phone from her sleeve and focused the lens on the "Jiajia Chain Apartment" logo on the housekeeper's uniform.
She shouted, "You dare touch it? I'm live-streaming. Do you want the audience to see how your Jiajia Apartments treats its residents?"
Her video was still in its promotional period, and this was when the traffic was at its peak. From the moment they broke down the door until now, in just a few minutes, a considerable number of people had gathered in the live stream room.
Seeing this scene, no one dared to leave, and the barrage of comments exploded, instantly filling the entire screen.
"The police have been notified!"
"Never accept Jiajia"
"I took screenshots; I'll remember these faces."
Shu Qing flipped her phone over and waved the screen in front of the housekeeper to show him the number of comments.
The housekeeper's face turned green; he hadn't expected her to have such a move. Without thinking, he yelled, "Smash her phone!"
...They overestimated their intelligence; aren't they afraid of making things worse!
The stench of sweat hit her face instantly as three large men pounced on her, closing in on her step by step.
The studio apartment was only about 50 square meters in total, and you could see all the way from the door to the windows across the street. There wasn't even any cover. Three people blocked the doorway, and since she lived on the 7th floor, she had nowhere to hide and nowhere to escape.
For a moment, Shu Qing's mind went blank, and she thought: I'm doomed.
"You want to smash my phone in public? Even if you do, it won't do any good, so many people have already seen it!" She shrank into the corner, defenseless, and subconsciously closed her eyes. The only weapon she had was her mouth, which she hadn't surrendered to yet, and she tried to put up a last-ditch resistance.
She said, "If you dare to smash things, this matter will be filed as a case and prosecuted. If you dare to touch me, it will be a criminal case!"
"At least it's just a conflict right now, and it can be resolved through mediation. Do you want to escalate things to the point where you have to go to court and end up in jail?"
There was no sound.
In her worst-case scenario, there would probably be pushing and shoving, and pain; in her rational scenario, there should be communication and responses.
But nothing happened—there was no physical conflict, no verbal communication; the three people opposite seemed to have suddenly disappeared from this space.
Shu Qing thought to herself: Was she really intimidated by her "bullet screen protection" technique?
She immediately opened her eyes, and then slowly blinked.
what happened……?
Her view, which had been filled with three large men, suddenly cleared. She looked down and found incredulously that they were all prostrate at her feet, with the butler's head almost touching her slippers.
The three people prostrated themselves, their faces obscured, only their backs were laid out before her, forming a menacing triangle.
What kind of performance art is this?
Even if you're worried about making a scene, there's no need for such an elaborate gesture...
She immediately checked the live stream screen. The viewers on the other end of the internet had witnessed the whole thing and understood it much better than Shu Qing; they were already caught up in a cyber frenzy.
Fireworks exploded, cruise ships sailed by, rockets flew everywhere, and cell phone screens, which had just survived the violence, were almost shattered by this barrage of gifts.
The barrage of comments was like a row of tanks in a military parade, rolling over with earth-shattering force.
The words were so overlapping that they were indistinguishable, but Shu Qing managed to extract the most frequently used word from them—"demon".
"What a powerful snake demon!"
"I knew it! It really is a little monster!"
"Holy crap, is this also a snake demon illusion?"
"@SupernaturalBioManagementBureau There's a new little snake demon here!"
"Holy crap, this is the first time I've ever seen a little monster that can control three adult men."
Shu Qing stiffly squatted down, meeting the butler's face. The butler's face was filled with the terror of seeing a ghost, but he didn't react to her movements at all. His pupils were covered with a layer of pure white frost, and they kept twitching and twitching on their own, like the eyes of a walking corpse in a comic book.
Although it's unclear exactly what happened, this clearly doesn't fall within the scope of conventional human science...
The little snake demon lazily perched on Shu Qing's shoulder, yawned, and casually glanced at the three people below.
Two or three hours ago, he had already felt his demonic power recovering. It was as if invisible drops of rain were condensing into streams in the air, flowing through his body, and finally merging into his empty demon core.
Unfortunately, it was ultimately too little, not even enough to match the upheaval caused when this demonic body broke free of its shell, so they had to resort to such low-level tricks as illusions.
That's enough, thankfully. Let them be torn apart by snakes in their illusions; hopefully, they'll be brave enough, or they'll die of fright too soon.
"You," Shu Qing swallowed hard, lowering her voice to ask, "Are you really a little monster?"
...That sounds like a familiar phrase.
Long, long ago, she said the exact same thing. Back then, he was a very weak little monster, not much better off than he is now, covered in wounds and blood, huddled in the boundless darkness.
There was no light around, no sense of time or day. Even the eyes of these naturally gifted creatures were helpless in the darkness, able only to discern blurry outlines.
At that time, she was just a little girl, and she was imprisoned with him.
The little girl's dirty face was indistinguishable from the surrounding shadows, yet she had a pair of bright, sparkling eyes that pierced through the deep gloom. The iron cage separated them into two spaces, and she stretched out her arm from one end, groping for his broken snake scales, and said with pity, "You really are a little monster."
Spanning millennia and generations, two pairs of bright eyes gradually merged, and indistinct words overlapped with the sounds around them.
Even though she has no cultivation and no memories... she is still the Xiashan-kun he knew in the past.
His mortal enemy, Lord Kasumi.
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