JOS Chapter 121

Deception

All three had seen quite a bit of the world, but seeing her in this state still filled them with an indescribable sense of melancholy.

After the internet’s proliferation and the industry’s promotion, she had been completely corrupted.

What should have been a society of distribution according to labor had now produced a group of opportunistic individuals who achieved easy success and were widely publicized. Facing unfair social distribution and developing psychological imbalance was not entirely unexpected.

Money truly moved people’s hearts, especially a group of young people who hadn’t really experienced society or life.

“I don’t know what gave you this misunderstanding, but what you’re doing can’t be called working hard at all. You’ve just been blinded by the dazzling lifestyle, thinking you could also dream unrealistically. People’s hearts are never satisfied – you haven’t even stood up yet, but you’re already thinking about soaring. How many people could have such luck? Are you certain you’re one of them?” Chu Xuanliang said. “Those who are truly working hard and being down-to-earth are the parents you look down upon. Money is money, attitude is attitude, and opportunity is opportunity. Don’t take this world too much for granted.”

Miumiu gasped heavily and said, “Stop talking to yourself here. What do you understand? Did you create the rules? Whatever you say becomes your logic. You’re a Taoist priest – why are you meddling with me? Aren’t you people supposed to be free of desires? I’m not! Get out! I don’t want your help!”

Chu Xuanliang sneered coldly, “Oh, you don’t want my help? That’s fine, saves me the trouble.”

Xie Zhilan grabbed Miumiu’s ear and pulled it back. Miumiu cried out in pain. She raised her palm to strike but couldn’t bear to let it fall. She kicked her leg instead and scolded, “You don’t want whose help? You’re usually reckless enough, but look at what you just did! Look at what you’ve become now – don’t you find it terrifying?”

Xie Lanzhi stopped him, crying and pleading, “Great master, great master, please save her! She’s just immature, but her heart isn’t bad! Tell me, can she still be saved? Whatever money you need, we can manage if we have it. Eating raw dog meat like this… can she still be considered human?”

Miumiu cried with a streaked face, “How am I not human?”

Xie Lanzhi’s temper was rarely so firm as she shouted directly, “You shut up!”

Chu Xuanliang said, “To be honest, even if you want me to help now, it won’t be easy.”

Xie Zhilan’s husband smoked a cigarette forcefully nearby, threw it on the ground, and stamped out the butt, saying, “I don’t know what your industry rates are or if you can be flexible, but the way she is now, she’s eating dog meat, but who knows if the dog had any diseases? Tomorrow she might eat rat meat or cat meat – what then? Even if she doesn’t get eaten to death, she’ll be poisoned to death.”

Miumiu finally stopped making noise. Just thinking about it casually made her feel terrified.

Xie Zhilan went to shake Yama and Jiang Feng, probably thinking they would be softhearted, “Little brother, please ask your brother. And you, classmate, please help! I’ll make her apologize to you!”

Jiang Feng said, “Now it’s not a matter of money or people – she made a contract with a hungry ghost herself. The other party didn’t actively harm anyone, so if we intervene randomly, we’d be breaking the rules.”

Everyone felt dizzy hearing this.

“Are you crazy? You must be crazy!” Xie Zhilan trembled all over, gripping hard with her hands and scolding, “Why don’t you just go die? Coming back to harm me instead – can money buy you a life?! How can this child be so clueless? I raised you this big, and you went and raised a ghost?”

Miumiu covered her ears and wailed, “I didn’t! I’ve never even seen a ghost! I’m scared too.”

Chu Xuanliang sighed, “Maybe it wasn’t your initiative, but the current situation is that you two are already difficult to separate. I told you before that your condition wasn’t good.”

Miumiu said, “But I really didn’t! How could I have such courage?”

Xie Lanzhi said, “Could it be that she was ignorant and said something that made the ghost misunderstand? I heard from old people that in inappropriate places…”

“No, if that were the case, you wouldn’t have this kind of manifestation,” Chu Xuanliang interrupted directly. “Given your current condition, I’m more inclined to believe you were used and harmed by someone. Think carefully – what exactly happened after you left home?”

Miumiu sniffled and began recalling previous events. But her mind really wasn’t sharp, and now with emotional effects, she couldn’t concentrate. The flashing images were all fragmented, and she couldn’t sort out any useful information. She immediately felt like crying from frustration.

Jiang Feng went to the nearby bathroom, casually grabbed a towel, wet it, and handed it to Miumiu, saying, “First wash your face. Don’t be nervous.”

The blood on Miumiu’s face had dried, and her skin seemed pulled tight by something. She held the warm towel and wiped once, then looked at the red color left on it and couldn’t help crying again.

She really hoped she could remember this lesson well.

Seeing her pitiful appearance, Chu Xuanliang said helplessly, “Alright, we’re not in a rush right now. We can sit down and verify things properly. You slowly recall and explain, just ensure it’s truthful. We’ll find the answer.”

Jiang Feng said, “Others should disperse first. Find her a quieter place to stay and calm down.”

The Xie couple politely sent away the neighbors and then closed the main door, exhaustedly going to the kitchen to make a late-night snack.

Miumiu led them to her room on the third floor to tell them what had happened.

She was dirty and disheveled, first sitting cross-legged on the ground. Her opening statement was a declaration. “At the beginning, we actually made money. And quite a lot.”

****

Miumiu had left with a female classmate.

The other girl’s family was very wealthy – both parents were overseas Chinese merchants, but they were rather stingy, and she felt she didn’t have enough money to spend. She had a boyfriend who understood filming and video processing. The two of them saw that Miumiu was beautiful and convinced her to form a team to become internet celebrities together. Miumiu listened to the big promises they painted and readily agreed, taking all the cash from home and running directly to H Province.

Initially, they didn’t know what kind of videos they should make. When they started entering the field, the live streaming industry competition was already very fierce.

They tried gaming commentary and attracted a few fans with their looks. But because her skills weren’t good, she knew nothing about games, and had no humorous commentary, she only attracted a few.

Later they began focusing on film and TV commentary, which was even worse – she couldn’t deliver any punchlines at all and didn’t even make a splash.

Then they started attacking food-related videos. But the platform had all kinds of limitless food streamers, and they were simply amazed and acknowledged their inadequacy, giving up halfway through.

The simplest with the best development prospects was eating broadcasts. They finally set their sights on this area. But to become famous quickly in eating broadcasts, you could only be a competitive eater.

The accompanying girl said Miumiu had a big appetite and could try first. Starting small, creating a gimmick about challenges – eating as much as possible, and it was fine if she couldn’t finish. If she succeeded, she could take sixty percent of the profits. Miumiu somehow agreed.

Miumiu tucked the loose hair by her ear and said, “I just thought, well, I can’t eat much anyway, but if they clicked in to watch, maybe they’d be conquered by my looks?”

The three looked at her current indescribable appearance and fell silent.

“The first time, because we had no money, we ate scallion pancakes that cost fifty cents each,” Miumiu said. “I could only manage five at the time, but they bought fifty.”

Their eating broadcast career thus began.

Jiang Feng asked, “So the first time was still normal. When exactly did things start going wrong?”

Miumiu was confused herself. “I don’t know. I kept improving and surpassing myself. I thought I was always normal.”

Jiang Feng wanted to speak but stopped, finally conquered by her intelligence, raising his hand to support his forehead.

“It’s impossible – a normal person’s stomach can’t stretch that large in a short time,” Chu Xuanliang said. “When did you start feeling frequently hungry, able to eat often, and able to eat so much?”

Miumiu really couldn’t remember. She also knew she was simple-minded and said quietly, “Gradually, I suppose? I didn’t pay special attention. I started doing eating broadcasts, then I had to train…”

Miumiu raised her head slightly and said, “Oh, it might have been that! At the beginning, my training had no effect – my stomach always felt painfully stretched. Once they took me to participate in a competitive eating contest. That time I was also painfully stretched, but I ate especially much. Like, I could normally eat three bowls, but that time I ate six bowls. After eating, I threw up and didn’t eat for a day. After this competition, I continued training and it became very effective. Yes, it should have been that time!”

Jiang Feng asked, “Later you became famous?”

Miumiu replied, “Yes. I participated in various competitions, and because I was thin and pretty, the marketing was quite good. Every day our live streaming tips could exceed ten thousand, and later we had advertisers – various incomes combined could make over a hundred thousand a month. I had hundreds of thousands of fans then!”

Jiang Feng said, “Mm. And then?”

Miumiu’s mouth twitched, and she said disappointedly, “There was one live stream… Induced vomiting becomes a habit – after eating, even without inducing vomiting, the stomach can’t digest and can only vomit it out. That live stream, they had prepared way too much food for me. I ate until there was just a little left and couldn’t help vomiting in front of the camera. They said I was a rabbit. Because of the vomiting incident, I lost many active fans and my account was banned. I decided to rest for a while and stop doing it.”

Yama asked, “You should have made quite a bit of money before – you didn’t use it all, did you?”

Miumiu replied, “The money was all with my classmate’s boyfriend. He was a college student and seemed to know everything.”

Hearing this, Chu Xuanliang was between tears and laughter, not knowing how to comment. “You also know college students are good? Then why didn’t you study hard originally?”

“I couldn’t keep up with studying! Besides, didn’t he end up doing the same work as me?”

“Where is he then?”

“Later he suddenly disappeared. I don’t know what happened. We lived in the same rental house, and the next day when I woke up, I found he was gone. Even his girlfriend didn’t know. His things were all there, not packed up. We stayed there waiting, waited for about two months.” Miumiu still spoke through gritted teeth. “We had no money and couldn’t pay rent. I thought we’d definitely been scammed, but there was no way around it – without him, we didn’t know what to do. I felt very unwell physically, so I came back first.”

Chu Xuanliang shook his head. “See, even doing the same work, the profits earned are different. Now he has one hundred percent, and you have negative infinity. Your physical health can’t be bought back with money.”

Miumiu said, “I had no idea he would scam people! Character and education aren’t related, are they?”

“But intelligence is,” Jiang Feng said. “You really didn’t feel that you had… problems at all?”

Miumiu fell silent.

Downstairs, Xie Zhilan brought up sweet soup, placing bowl after bowl in front of them. There was no portion for Miumiu.

Miumiu was actually very hungry now, staring with straight eyes, but she didn’t dare say it out loud. Every time she closed her eyes, she would recall the dog she had bitten to death, unable to believe she had become such a pervert.

Miumiu asked, “I’ve told you everything. Can you help me now?”

Chu Xuanliang replied, “From what we can see, they should have done something to you. But you haven’t mentioned the most crucial part. Before participating in that competition, do you remember if anything special happened?”

“I have no impression. I was constantly feeling painfully stretched and nearly going crazy, just lying in bed playing on my phone, not paying attention to other things.” Miumiu looked at their expressions and said self-consciously, “Fine, I’m really stupid, I know.”

Chu Xuanliang’s feelings were complicated.

A woman who could be this cruel to herself… he needed to apologize for previously saying she was opportunistic.

What shortcut was this? This was clearly an “S” curve.