Chapter 52 - You're all grown up now.
After his exhibition, Jian Rong was pondering how to ask Xiao Bai about the "set time" when, out of the corner of his eyes, he glimpsed a slender hand picking up the stocking that he had thrown offhandedly onto the ground.
Lu Boyuan had just finished talking with Ding-ge, and his sleeves were casually rolled up to his elbows. His hand, which usually gripped a black mouse, was currently holding a singular white stocking with pink trim, appearing very out of place.
Jian Rong's first instinct was to move his foot off of the coffee table.
"...what are you two doing?" Ding-ge followed Lu Boyuan in. "Comparing foot hair? Kudos to you both for even coming up with something like that, can't you compare something better?"
A phone ringtone sounded. Lu Boyuan put the stocking down across the sofa armrest before he answered the call and walked outside.
Ding-ge quickly called out to him. "Where are you going?"
Lu Boyuan answered, "Express delivery."
Only once the front door closed did Jian Rong shift over to the other side of the couch and snatch up the stocking. He lifted his foot and started to slip the stocking back on.
"What are you doing?" Ding-ge stopped him, startled. "You want to put it on again?"
The other three people looked over as well. Jian Rong froze in his stocking-wearing posture for a few seconds before he also took off the remaining stocking. "No."
Ding-ge unlocked his phone and checked it. "The results of today's stream were pretty good. Number one in both heat points and popularity, and you shot straight up to number five on this week's platform-wide gift list."
"Only number five?" Yuan Qian looked up from his phone. "He must've received almost a million yuan in terms of gifts today, right? That only got him to the top five?"
There was nowhere to put the stockings, so Jian Rong decided to just stuff it into the pockets of his jacket.
Hearing that comment, he swiftly looked up. "A million?"
"To be exact, it's 1.17 million." Ding-ge breezily calculated it. "Not including the free gifts, and taking out the platform's cut and the taxes, there should be about five to six hundred thousand yuan remaining. The money is trivial, the key thing is the amount of attention you received. You gained more fans in one day than some other people do in an entire month... see, you didn't lose out by crossdressing this time, did you?"
Seeing Jian Rong's astonished expression, Yuan Qian said, amused, "What's with that 'I've never experienced this before' look, you were a big streamer before."
It was true that Jian Rong could be considered a big streamer.
But though there were many viewers in the LoL category, few were actually willing to smash gifts. If the monthly gift rankings weren't full of outdoor streamers, then it would be taken over by beauty streamers; the only LoL streamers who received a lot of gifts were the female ones. Before, Jian Rong always had to rely on his base salary and his allotted cut from free gifts in order to make a living.
Xiao Bai picked up an orange from the table. "Forget it, haven't you guys seen his streaming style? It only attracts trolls, not gifts."
The front door opened and Lu Boyuan came back, a package wedged under one arm while he carried a cake box in his other hand.
Ding-ge looked behind him and lifted an eyebrow. "Hm? It was delivered? How come the delivery person didn't call me?"
Jian Rong turned his head around too and blinked blankly when he saw the cake that Lu Boyuan was carrying in his left hand.
