The turmoil caused by the fall of the Southern Territory and the defection of Number 81 had turned into a calm surface just a week later.
However, while the officials could suppress the news, they could not quell the undercurrents among the residents of the greenhouse.
Everything that happened in the capital museum of the greenhouse became an unspeakable secret, yet many had witnessed the spaceship soaring into the sky. Countless discussions and doubts surged beneath the seemingly calm surface, with the two most debated questions being:
Question One: Why did General Xiu defect, and why did he take Number 81 and others with him? Was it a moral failure or a distortion of human nature behind this?
On this issue, people from different stances provided various answers.
Wen Hu raised dozens of questions based on this, ultimately leaving only one significant conclusion. The most upvoted response detailed the intricate relationships between the two, so thoroughly that even the parties involved showed expressions of “I didn’t know it could be interpreted this way,” and it resulted in a lengthy conspiracy theory essay of tens of thousands of words, enlightening many confused rationalists.
Meanwhile, Wen Bo, while cursing the two, saw a wave of flattering comments emerge, leading to the creation of numerous fanfiction… In addition, there were those who sought to redeem the two, with classic remarks like “Number 81 is just an innocent child, do you know how hard he works?” and “Ah, that child, the General, only did this because he was lonely.”
As for Wen Liwen Li… Sorry, as one of the few pure streams among many websites, they continued to produce bizarre videos.
Compared to the myriad opinions on the first question, the second question clearly lacked answers and drew even more attention from others. That question was: What did this group do after ascending to the heavens?
“They must have become deformed due to radiation,” concluded Su Li’s roommate. “What a pity, that Eva was quite beautiful.”
“They will come back sooner or later,” another person said. “I really don’t know what kind of suffering they are enduring up there. May the Lord bless them, Amen.”
Some believed they had died from radiation, while others thought they had entered a survival game due to lack of food and clothing, preparing to shoot a new movie. There were even those who believed they had been captured by the great Old Ones and had thus gone mad, turning into crazed baboons that only knew how to send razor blades through the mail… In short, among the many speculations, none were positive.
Until a video spread across the internet like a virus.
The video was a livestream. In it, a girl with silver hair and green eyes, sporting two silver braids and wearing a dark red qipao, worked in the fields. She wore a straw hat, walking through the wheat fields to pick crops or making wild fruit into jam. Her movements were clean and pleasing, her smile light and carefree, drawing people in with her tranquility and serenity.
The link to the livestream stubbornly remained active, and due to special internet technology, it could not be banned by the greenhouse authorities. Soon, the girl who called herself Yi Zi Qi attracted millions of viewers.
Her face and features were so familiar, yet the smile on her face made it hard to connect her with the past Eva.
“How is this possible?!” people questioned. “They should be suffering up there!”
However, one video after another quickly shattered these thoughts. Countless people, driven by a nitpicking mentality, rushed into the livestream, only to be captivated by the girl’s unique charm and ultimately chose to stay. The residents of the greenhouse, feeling restless and confused about their lives, gradually found themselves genuinely yearning for her simple and beautiful pastoral life, and they couldn’t help but linger more and more in her livestream.
“Her life looks so wonderful… Is there such a beautiful life above the greenhouse?” countless hearts pondered. “And is what we are living now truly the life we long for?”
The long-standing, underlying impression of potential criminals being dirty and malicious began to crumble, and many started to question everything they had witnessed in the past.
The greenhouse authorities quickly noticed this phenomenon. After numerous failed attempts to ban Eva’s livestream, they hired a large number of internet trolls to post the following comments on major forums and social media:
“Expose the truth of Eva’s livestream! Is the beautiful life just staged?”
“How much can a person change before and after plastic surgery? Tear off Eva’s Painted Skin!”
“Hidden rules, buying trending topics, hiring trolls, raising little ghosts… 818 Eva’s means of rising to fame!”
Amidst the strong tide, the attention on the livestream surged to its peak. However, Eva, at the center of the storm, showed no reaction. She continued her life of planting beans at the foot of the southern mountain, seemingly oblivious to the insults in the livestream, just trying her best to be herself.
As the saying goes, the extreme darkness must turn to light; amidst the online backlash, different voices began to emerge.
“Waaah, our sister has worked so hard, why do you have to hate her?”
“I don’t care, I’m a fan of my sister’s beauty.”
“A free livestream for you to watch, and you still complain so much? Sister is hardworking and beautiful, go for it!”
Public opinion gradually fermented, and the situation began to improve. Just then, however, Eva’s livestream, which had been unwavering through storms, suddenly went silent one day.
In its place was a black screen and the voice of a young man.
“…Hello.”
It was a lazy, relaxed voice, with just the right amount of huskiness, yet at that moment, it tugged at the heartstrings of all the viewers.
“This voice sounds so familiar…” they thought.
“Where have I heard this voice before?” a YouTuber from W Station sat in front of his computer, racking his brain.
The day before, as a YouTuber with nearly a million followers, he had just completed his bizarre masterpiece—“Number 81 Teaches You to Sing Bad Guy.”
The video had garnered hundreds of thousands of views within a day of being uploaded. After sleeping all day due to exhaustion from late-night editing, the YouTuber stretched his spine, tired from the long hours, while eating takeout and watching his new pastoral goddess Eva’s livestream.
But to his surprise, the goddess was not in the livestream. Disappointed and about to exit, he paused when he heard that voice.
‘What on earth is this…’ he thought.
Then, he heard two coughs.
“Good afternoon,” the voice said. “Recently, there have been rampant rumors about our artist, and as the president of Jian Jian Entertainment and Eva’s sole manager, I need to clarify some things.”
…Jian Jian Entertainment? Manager? Clarification?
Before the YouTuber could show his shock, the face of the young man appearing on the screen had already blown his mind.
My, my…
My goodness!!!
“…In summary, all of the above are false accusations. If there are any more unfounded blackening actions, I will crawl through the internet to your house and smash your head with a lawyer’s letter,” the handsome young man recited coldly while pinching the speech draft with two fingers. “Besides…”
Why, why…
Why is there a car here—no, it’s Number 81!!
At this moment, countless people showed expressions of near collapse.
Number 81, as expected, was the top traffic in the greenhouse; the number of viewers in the livestream surged dramatically. Yet he didn’t even lift an eyelid, still reading the speech draft: “Besides, I will also pursue those who spread false rumors about me online.”
“My relationship with General Xiu is purely platonic. I reserve the right to pursue and complain about any authors who produce pornographic literature about me and him, especially that kind under General Xiu… what the hell is this? May we work together to build a clean online environment.” After saying this, he glanced at the camera, “That’s all.”
Everyone: …
“Oh, oh, I forgot one thing,” he continued, “Starting today, besides Eva, Jian Jian Media will launch the remaining 100 artists and livestream their lives. To save the nearly bankrupt ground economy, these 101 contestants will undergo tasks, training, and assessments, ultimately selecting 11 from the first tier to debut as the idol group Lovelin. The ‘lin’ in Lovelin stands for Lin Huai, and the group will be abbreviated as LL.”
“And the 11 contestants from the second tier will debut as the idol group SS, with the full name being Sweet Shu…” He flipped to the other side of the script, “This concludes Jian Jian Entertainment’s first press conference; I have nothing more to say, I’m hanging up.”
Then, beyond the black screen, they heard Number 81’s voice: “What kind of nonsense did you write in the script?”
Everyone: …
