Chapter 62: Chapter 62: A New Unit of Measurement
"Gu Bai, is this what live streaming rewards are?"
Zhang Yumeng asked Gu Bai while furiously tapping on Gu Bai’s phone screen.
She usually just reads sweet romance novels on her phone. After all, if you can’t get love in real life, reading novels to numb yourself should work, right?
She hardly even watches short videos, let alone live streams; she’s never seen one before, so she doesn’t really understand these things.
Gu Bai picked up a grape from the table, popped it into his mouth, and replied unclearly, "Yeah, just keep tapping until you get a ’balance insufficient’ prompt."
Zhang Yumeng nodded.
Seeing Lu Wei frantically thanking on the phone screen, she couldn’t help but ask again.
"This person must be thanking you, right? How much does it cost for you to send one?"
"One Fish Fin is 1 yuan, you can do the math yourself."
Gu Bai leisurely crossed his legs and watched short videos on Zhang Yumeng’s phone.
In my previous life, I heard about someone who became a sensation on Douyu—a Divine Rich who crazily sent gifts worth 190 million, spending 17 hours just on gifts. With my 10 million, I should spend a bit of time too, right?
Even though I don’t really believe there’s a Divine Rich who would spend 190 million, the time should be right.
Luckily, I wisely let Zhang Yumeng do the tapping, otherwise, tapping the screen for an hour might break my finger.
When Zhang Yumeng saw that one Super Fire deducted 2,000 Fish Fins from the account and that Gu Bai’s account balance still had over 6 million Fish Fins, she was so shocked she nearly dropped the phone.
"Is one of these gifts really 2,000 yuan?"
"Yep."
"Including what I just sent, aren’t you going to spend 10 million on gifts?"
Gu Bai leaned back on the sofa, shaking his foot, "Yeah, so what?"
"What you just said makes me a bit scared to keep sending..."
"I told you to keep sending, what’s there to be scared of?"
"I heard from Shi Jingjing before that in their idol fan circles, people often spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands buying gifts for their idols. I didn’t believe it at the time, but now I do. For someone like you who spends 10 million on live streams, spending tens of thousands on idols is nothing...
In the end, it’s just poverty limiting my imagination."
Upon hearing this, Gu Bai chuckled, tossed the phone aside, leaned over next to Zhang Yumeng, and rested his chin on her shoulder.
"Do you think those who randomly spend tens of millions on idols, or spend hundreds of thousands to support them, are real?"
"If not, what then?"
"Of course, there are such people, but they’re definitely the minority. This time, I spent 10 million on Lu Wei to boost my own fame, and Lu Wei is now pretty much one of my streamers, so consider it an advance on his salary. As for those who genuinely spend hundreds of millions, they’re either really wealthy or just foolish."
Zhang Yumeng seemed to understand Gu Bai’s point.
"You consider him your streamer, has your company started doing business with streamers now?"
She knew Gu Bai had a media company.
Gu Bai shook his head.
"No, we’re starting a new guild, but it’s still in the planning phase and will launch in a few days."
"Aren’t you afraid he’ll back out after you spend so much in advance on gifts for him?"
Zhang Yumeng looked at Gu Bai incredulously. Even though she knew Gu Bai had money, spending money like that—10 million all at once—really trusted people’s goodwill?
From what she knew of Gu Bai, he seemed like a very rational person, and this didn’t seem like something he would do.
Seeing Zhang Yumeng’s slightly open mouth, Gu Bai couldn’t resist pinching her cheeks.
"Back out? Of course, he could, and I can’t get the money back, but as long as he’s not foolish, he won’t back out."
"?"
"No matter how big he plays it, he still needs to make a living as a streamer. Don’t think 10 million is a lot, but from Lu Wei’s perspective, it’s not a large amount; he earns far more than that annually. There’s no need to ruin his reputation over such a sum.
Besides, he wouldn’t dare to; I’m not boasting, but if he dares to mess with me, I can easily make him disappear."
Gu Bai’s words weren’t empty talk. Based on the timeline, the 29-kill Chicken Dinner event should be coming up soon. If Lu Wei really dared to double-cross me, I could just spend a little more money to speed up his downfall.
Even taking a step back, if the 29-kill Chicken Dinner event doesn’t happen due to the butterfly effect of my rebirth, I can still spend money to dig up a lot of his dirt. Any public figure has some skeletons in their closet, right?
Some might argue, then why are those people still jumping around so joyfully? Didn’t they see their houses collapse?
Even if there’s dirt, it takes a lot of resources to bring someone down, but luckily, the last thing Gu Bai lacks is money. Now, the Level 1 System is only 10% Confidence Value away from upgrading. I believe the Level 2 System won’t let me down either.
So basically, his money grows on trees. Even if he spends it on Lu Wei without blinking, he won’t feel a thing burning it away.
After more than half an hour of this, Lu Wei’s livestream had over 4000 Super Fires, and Zhang Yumeng was starting to run out of steam, so Gu Bai took his phone back and continued sending gifts.
"When you’re short on words, just say ’damn’ and it works everywhere. How much has been spent already? Must be over 8 million by now, right?"
"People used to say Divine Rich’s money isn’t real money. I didn’t believe it, and now I do. Over 8 million... I couldn’t save that in a lifetime, and they just spent it like this..."
With Gu Bai’s barrage of thousands of Super Fires, Lu Wei’s livestream heat had already hit a billion views, nearly reaching two billion.
Almost half the traffic on the Douyu Platform flooded into Lu Wei’s livestream.
When Gu Bai reached the 2 million mark, the Douyu backend team had long reinforced the servers for Lu Wei’s stream, or they would have crashed.
It was only when the 5000th Super Fire went out that the crazy streak finally stopped, and Gu Bai shook his slightly sore hand.
"That should be enough, let’s stop here."
As soon as Gu Bai’s message appeared, the chat erupted in follow-up comments.
"Spending 10 million and calling it enough."
"From now on, Douyu should set a new measurement unit, calling 10 million one ’enough.’"
Lu Wei, with a slightly hoarse voice, said, "President Gu, you’ve really got my heart racing. I never thought I’d witness such a scene in my lifetime on stream."
Lu Wei wasn’t pretending at all.
Even though he knew Gu Bai planned to send 10 million, the actual experience was completely different from his imagination. 5000 Super Fires alone, not counting other gifts, Douyu might not see this many Super Fires in a whole quarter.
Just then, a golden shimmering message floated up in the stream.
"This is Principal Wang: ’Whoa, Old Gu, having some fun, huh? Just spent 10 million like it was nothing.’
"Principal, when did you show up?"
"Been here a while, watched you send Super Fires for ten minutes, didn’t dare speak a word."
After all, Panda is a major player in the streaming world, and with such a big event happening on Douyu, other platforms couldn’t ignore it. People at Principal Wang’s side informed him immediately, and with nothing else to do, he came to take a look.
Principal Wang, knowing the inside story about Gu Bai spending this 10 million, wasn’t particularly moved. To ordinary people, such a lavish spree might leave a deep impression, but to him, it was nothing.
"Originally, I was just bored watching a stream casually sending some gifts. Didn’t expect to run into Douyu’s local kingpin. If I don’t spend a bit, I’ll get mocked every time I show up in a stream from now on."
As for Eggshell, his main account left the stream and logged off when Gu Bai was halfway through.
Only his secondary account stayed in Lu Wei’s stream.
Seeing Gu Bai chatting casually with Principal Wang in the comments, and the recent 5000 Super Fires, even a fool would know Gu Bai is not an easy character.
Not to mention in real life whether he could afford to mess with Gu Bai; even on Douyu, he didn’t even have the qualifications to cross paths with Gu Bai.
His Douyu account only had tens of thousands of Fish Fins, and even combined with the cash in his account, it’s less than 2 million. How could he compete with Gu Bai?
Though he still had a few properties, he wasn’t foolish enough to sell them for face. Besides, even if he had that thought, could houses be sold just like that?
He had already made up his mind to delete the old account, let Douyu transfer the Fish Fins to the secondary account, and start stirring things up again.
Give up streaming?
No way! Only in the stream could he find the true meaning of life. There’s no way he’d give up streaming in this lifetime. At most, he’d keep a lower profile and avoid provoking anyone he couldn’t afford to mess with.
Since Gu Bai had finished spending, Principal Wang saw no reason to stick around.
"You keep playing; I’ll head back to Shanghai in a couple of days. Let’s get together then."
"OK."
And with that, Principal Wang exited the stream.
Meanwhile, the chat was bombarded with comments telling Eggshell to come face the music, demanding apologies from Feng Mogu.
Taking a look at the chat, Gu Bai laughed. He spent this 10 million partly because of Eggshell, but it wasn’t really about him. If he had to spend 10 million just to spite someone like that, it wasn’t worth it. So what if Eggshell ran? Was he really going to mock him with a few words? Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter, but it would be meaningless and, frankly, beneath him.
And as for demanding an apology from Feng Mogu, that was even more bewildering. He had no particular feelings toward this face-changing broadcaster—no particular liking or dislike. What had she done to warrant an apology?
After sending all those Super Fires, the livestream, though lively, was now dull in Gu Bai’s eyes.
"I’m off now, let’s have a meal in a few days."
Seeing Gu Bai’s comment, Lu Wei knew exactly what it meant, that he shouldn’t forget his promise, and quickly patted his chest: "President Gu, you invite me for a meal, I’ll definitely be there, unless I’ve been in an accident!"
Seeing Lu Wei’s response, Gu Bai also left the stream.