Chapter 6: Ah Qing, You...

“Come—”

Seated on the plastic bench in front of the Youth Palace, Yu Xueqing unwrapped the packaging and placed the freshly ordered seafood feast on the plastic table.

Of course, before starting dinner, Yu Xueqing didn’t forget to set her little fox on the table, letting it complement the dishes and create a visually appealing spread.

After taking photos of the fox and sending them to her dorm sisters, she pushed two small bowls of cooled white porridge toward An Sheng.

Then, she peeled the meat from a crab claw and placed it atop An Sheng’s porridge, signaling for him to eat quickly.

“Ying ying ying—”

Looking at the thick crab meat in front of him, An Sheng couldn’t help but think how much better life was in the modern world. If this were ancient times, the fox wouldn’t even be allowed at the table; it’d probably be squatting in a boiling pot.

Of course, before truly eating, An Sheng remained alert.

He didn’t eat the food first but instead sniffed repeatedly around the unfamiliar plastic bowl, emitting curious whimpering sounds.

Favors create obligations; since Qing treated him to a feast, An Sheng naturally had to give his all, performing the green tea fox act he’d learned on the note platform.

“My foster mother above, I have wandered for months; if you don’t abandon me, I vow to assist you in achieving great accomplishments!”

“Pfft—”

The moment he took a bite of pickled vegetables with porridge, Yu Xueqing saw her fox hopping around the bowl with a wary expression, casting defensive, spell-casting leaps.

Yu Xueqing spat out her mouthful of porridge, completely forgetting her manners, and quickly grabbed her phone to record the fox’s adorable spellcasting antics.

“Hahaha… eat up! It’s all delicious!”

She laughed heartily, wiping porridge from her lips, then held down the hopping fox as if demonstrating, picking up crab meat and chewing it herself.

An Sheng put on a puzzled face, licked the crab meat, clicked his tongue, and once he realized it wouldn’t poison him, he buried his head and devoured it with gusto.

He made happy little whimpering sounds as he ate.

He was genuinely enjoying himself now.

The Typhoon Shelter fried crab dish, in many business restaurants in his previous life, had mostly replaced minced golden garlic with breadcrumbs and garlic powder for a prettier presentation.

Breadcrumbs might look better, but the real flavor came from neighborhood family shops.

They didn’t care about labor costs—they peeled, selected by hand, and fried the golden garlic minced generously.

Oh, the seafood stalls at Qiangji? When I have the chance to take human form and strike it rich, I’ll be their regular customer every day. Don’t let them go bankrupt!

.............

After dinner, Yu Xueqing tidied up the plastic packaging on the table and effortlessly lifted the white, small gas cylinder-like fox weighing twelve jin with one hand.

Though Yu Xueqing showed no signs of physical training, never underestimate the extra points from the college entrance exam and the green sports health enhancement sprint classes.

After some cozy bonding with her fox, she carried it home with a relaxed expression.

An Sheng looked at Yu Xueqing with a strange expression.

During their post-meal interaction, he had gleaned an important piece of information from her conversations with her father and other friends.

Qing hadn’t taken a criminal path.

But she had become a cyber tea seller!

Her phone was from her father because recently, business at the tea house was sluggish. Seeing that live-streaming sales on the Note platform were booming, her father had dived headfirst into it.

The result was obvious: tea wasn’t very popular among young people.

Besides, the streamer was too greasy. After three months of live-streaming, aside from daily quarrels and insults with a few other equally greasy middle-aged tea sellers, accumulated sales were less than five thousand yuan.

And due to the constant bickering, his blood pressure rose, forcing him to take a break.

Helpless, Yu Xueqing’s father saw his daughter was on summer vacation and asked her to help out with the live-streaming business during the break, entrusting the operation to her.

It was now mid-July, the height of summer.

Yu Xueqing’s school had summer vacation from June 28 until September 8.

Since their precious daughter was pretty, they had her work two months over the summer.

Besides a monthly living allowance of two thousand yuan, the summer job paid Yu Xueqing an additional three thousand yuan as hardship pay for fighting the online battles in place of her father.

“2024 live-streaming sales… no one caught the hype at all,” An Sheng muttered to himself.

He had never worked in live-stream e-commerce in his previous life and didn’t know the industry well, but based on the once-popular streamers he’d seen, they had long been cultivating followers in short videos, with live-streaming sales merely a resource monetization tool for big influencers.

If Qing hoped to make money selling tea online, she might as well try to be a cyber arhat.

The cyber bodhisattvas dared to scrape the edges; An Sheng dared too.

They wouldn’t dare, but he would, which was one of the perks of being a fox.

You can’t say a fox wagging its tail is vulgar or lewd, right?

Still, An Sheng was afraid of freeloading off Qing and dared not appear in her live-stream room.

In future, he’d have to be more careful during her streams.

An Sheng was no mere bit of gossip for Qing but a proper northern red fox with official capital city registration.

Back home, Yu Xueqing placed An Sheng inside and made several trips, bringing various live-streaming stands and lighting equipment from the back seat into the house.

Sitting on a cushion, she held the fox and curiously scanned the QR codes on the devices with her phone.

An Sheng and Yu Xueqing kept exclaiming in amazement.

One fill light cost three thousand yuan.

One unknown light was priced at nine hundred thirty.

Clearly, Yu Xueqing’s father was just a poor student with expensive stationery.

“Ying ying ying—”

An Sheng raised his head, sighed looking at Yu Xueqing’s profile.

“Qing, do you think your mother knows about this? Maybe you should do the right thing and cut ties! Counting the live-stream phone and everything else, they’ve invested sixty thousand yuan, spent three months, and made back only a few thousand—not even enough for medical expenses.

Who knows, when your mother eliminates your father, you could hang these items on Xianyu (a secondhand marketplace) to recover some money and walk away unscathed.”

‘Master~ are these things off-limits for me?’

In Yu Xueqing’s ears, An Sheng’s devilish whisper urging her to sever ties, after machine translation, came out as a sarcastic phrase.

“Better not to touch these things recklessly.”

Yu Xueqing’s expression was one of stunned disbelief as she stroked the fox’s head, marveling both at her father’s generosity and lamenting his fate of still riding the bus despite such lavish spending.

She sighed and began tidying up the living room.

She had no experience with live-stream sales; she had only planned to have some fun.

But knowing her father lost so much money that his underwear had transparent wear, her mood grew somewhat heavy.

After finishing the living room, Yu Xueqing picked up the fox lying on the sofa and prepared to clean it in the bathroom.

Since it had been out today, the fox needed a wash.