Chapter Nineteen: That Year, That Night, That Sea

"Not going to sleep?" Ye Piaoxue furrowed her elegant brows. Even while living in a spaceship where day and night blurred together, she maintained an exceptionally disciplined routine. Whenever Huang Yunshuo stayed up late, she was always displeased.

"Five hours of sleep," Ye Piaoxue declared, extending her snow-white palm.

"One hour," Huang Yunshuo replied, knowing there was no way around Ye Piaoxue, so he held up a single finger.

"No, five hours," Ye Piaoxue insisted stubbornly.

"Here we go again," Chu Jun sighed helplessly, covering his forehead and glancing at Zhao Shengsheng, who returned his look with a meaningful smile.

"I'm logging off, damn it!" Jin Xiong stormed angrily back to his room.

Huang Yunshuo held up two fingers. "Two hours, okay? That's my biggest compromise."

Seeing everyone's reactions, Ye Piaoxue's fair cheeks flushed slightly, and she said absent-mindedly, "Split the difference, two and a half hours. When I wake up, I'll check your online record; don't even think about fooling me."

"Alright, alright," Huang Yunshuo conceded, raising his hands in surrender. As expected, everyone on the ship would be up late tonight, since Ye Piaoxue wouldn't bother monitoring them. But she herself would surely get enough rest—after all, it was the first day of the Second World server launch, almost like the beginning of a second life for humanity.

Huang Yunshuo truly admired Ye Piaoxue's composure.

Ten minutes passed swiftly. Huang Yunshuo noticed everyone was excitedly staring at their photon tablets. His heart stirred—it seemed things had worked out.

He picked up his own tablet and scanned the screen. In the lower right corner, there were twenty-five treasure chests!

"Damn, even if it were just twenty-five jets, that's a thousand credits earned, livestreaming really brings in money fast," Huang Yunshuo exclaimed, reaching out to tap the treasure chests, only to find, unsurprisingly, they had all been snatched up—nothing left.

"Didn't manage to grab a single gift," he complained.

Looking at the barrage of messages in the livestream chat, Huang Yunshuo cursed inwardly—the speed was outrageous, dozens of lines per second. Not only was it impossible for the human eye to catch any specific information, you couldn't even distinguish the length of the messages.

"Stop, no more chat messages," Huang Yunshuo protested, dizzy from the scrolling text—how was he supposed to speak?

By now, anyone trying to grab meteor gifts had already joined, so all the messages were just regular chat.

"Idiot streamer, you're finally back?"

"Useless dog, always scheming for gifts."

"Some streamer earns a million a month by live-streaming AFK?"

Gradually, the chat slowed down. Apparently, the audience respected his request. The veterans were watching to see if he would really mail out coins and spray, while newcomers were curious about what this streamer did to receive so many gifts.

"Sixty-six thousand popularity? Damn," Huang Yunshuo muttered, feeling like he'd cursed a bit too much tonight, but his emotions really could only be expressed with those words.

Sixty-six thousand viewers—even if they were all here for the gifts, the numbers should drop rapidly afterward. Yet from the moment he picked up the tablet, over a minute had passed, and the count was still sixty-six thousand, showing no sign of decline.

"Sixty-seven thousand now," Huang Yunshuo felt a thrill. Was his stream about to explode in popularity?

He couldn't fathom how it worked.

"Forget it, who cares—getting gifts is what matters, not the viewer count," he thought, shaking his head and checking the gift leaderboard.

That Year, That Night, That Sea stood firmly at the top of the daily leaderboard.

52,560 Starcoins.

That meant four yachts in total, plus three more just now.

Second place, Clear Refreshing Wise One: 44,420 Starcoins, three yachts and one rocket.

Third place, Father: 30,000 Starcoins, probably one yacht, a few jets, and some other gifts.

Fourth to tenth place ranged between 13,140 and 20,000 Starcoins, one yacht each, plus jets and rockets, totaling over twenty-five jet treasure chests.

"Hot damn, that's beautiful," Huang Yunshuo grinned ear to ear. "Thank you all for your gifts, haha! The streamer will send out mails live, right now."

He got to work. The tricky part was matching avatars to names, but luckily the Reforged Era had an automatic avatar and criteria filter, or else facing the dense list of duplicate names would drive him mad.

[That Year, That Night, That Sea has been appointed as moderator.]

Being the daily leaderboard champion, sending over 5,000 credits' worth of gifts, and judging by the tone wanting to cooperate further with him, Huang Yunshuo appointed That Year, That Night, That Sea as moderator and ended the stream.

"Total stream duration: 39 minutes. Followers gained: 49,093. Gifts received worth: 235,530 Starcoins."

"Forty-nine thousand new followers—amazing, haha!"

Such a huge spike in followers left Huang Yunshuo feeling nothing but exhilaration.

All these viewers were potential big spenders—when the gifts start rolling, it'd be explosive. With tens of thousands following, he could already be considered a minor streamer on Starstream, though just at the lowest tier, but it was a good start.

"Received so many yachts, jets, and rockets, yet it wasn't as much as the last time I got meteor gifts. Seems the rich are impressive, but the masses are even more powerful!"

Huang Yunshuo was now truly looking forward to tomorrow's noon meteor lottery.

Thousands would participate at once—what kind of terrifying sight would that be?

People tend to follow the crowd. Seeing countless others send meteors, he'd probably join in too—it was all a scheme. Even those not seeking freebies would likely have their meteors coaxed out by Huang Yunshuo's confidence.

Back in his room, logging in, Huang Yunshuo made his way toward the level 2 Stone Turtle while searching for That Year, That Night, That Sea in his recent contacts and added her as a friend.

"Are you staying up all night tonight?" That Year, That Night, That Sea immediately sent a voice message. Huang Yunshuo's knees nearly buckled—a slightly cool but clear and pleasant female voice!

"A girl," he thought, his intuition telling him, based on her voice and name, she must be at least a 9 out of 10 in beauty.

"Yes," Huang Yunshuo replied simply.

"When's the earliest you can farm a batch of copper coins?" she asked.

"I use a helmet. I'll contact you three hours later before I log off to discuss the exact price," he answered.

"Alright," she said, hanging up briskly. Huang Yunshuo approached a patch of grass, but didn't rush in. Instead, he searched the edge vigilantly.

"Like ambushing? Gotcha," Huang Yunshuo smiled faintly, swinging his stick into the seemingly empty grass.

A "bang" sounded as the stick struck a turtle shell—minus twelve!

The Stone Turtle reacted swiftly, its head darting out to bite him, but missed.

Huang Yunshuo retreated, the turtle giving chase, leaving the grass in pursuit.

"Once it's out of the grass, it's much easier. Prepare to die!" Huang Yunshuo kept kiting and attacking. Though the Stone Turtle was quick to react, it was slow to move—eventually, he wore it down and defeated it.