Chapter 87: The Love-Brain Female Lead Awakens 30

Her dormmates all knew what she was doing, and every one of them enthusiastically came to help.

Yin Xiaoxin said, “We might not be good for much else, but we can definitely stand off camera and hype things up for you.”

Shang Xiliu said, “If you need free human props as models, we can appear on camera too. Good thing everyone in our dorm is pretty easy on the eyes, hahaha. We can each wear a different style of outfit for display. That way, all the girls passing by will know that even though these accessories are mainly made from embroidery pieces, they’re actually super versatile!”

Everyone chimed in one after another, offering Sang Ruo suggestions, and they genuinely wanted to help.

A lot of their ideas were highly practical, so Sang Ruo boldly adopted them.

The early promotion worked. On the first day of the main product livestream, just five minutes after going live, the stream already had several hundred viewers.

Because they had already confirmed the product listing order and item numbers in advance, staff members were coordinating with Sang Ruo remotely during the livestream, handling the backend and customer service.

Sang Ruo’s livestream was only responsible for showcasing the products.

As an opening-stream bonus, she first put up three styles of earrings for 9.9 yuan.

Even at only 9.9, there was still profit to be made.

The embroidery pieces were originally going to be discarded anyway, so they didn’t count toward the cost. After deducting silver needle materials, shared craftsmanship costs, transportation, and promotional expenses, each pair still earned several yuan.

And the finished products really were beautiful. After all, the embroidery pieces had been painstakingly hand-embroidered by actual embroiderers.

They were delicate enough that Sang Ruo herself would wear them.

As a streamer, how could she possibly tell viewers that the embroidery pieces were repurposed waste? So from the audience’s perspective, this 9.9 price was a genuine loss leader¹, and not buying meant missing out.

And Sang Ruo had emphasized beforehand that every embroidery pattern was different, which gave it the fun of opening a blind box.

Within just a few minutes, the stock that had originally been meant to last as the night’s special offer sold out completely. There had been nearly two thousand pairs across the three styles.

They had no choice but to have the warehouse prepare more stock.

The audience would probably think she was pulling some kind of sales trick, but it was true.

With the bonus items getting things off to a great start, the formal products that came afterward sold much more smoothly.

There were two ways the formal items were sold.

One was to follow Sang Ruo’s pace as the host and auction them one by one, since every embroidery pattern and color was different.

Of course, there weren’t that many overall styles. Each style had its own link, so if someone didn’t want to wait, they could place an order directly by style and buy an embroidery blind box.

Sang Ruo started streaming at eight. She hadn’t originally planned to stream for very long, and ending around ten would have been just right. It would also have made it easier for Yin Xiaoxin and the others to get back to the dorm.

But even though the livestream peaked at only around a thousand viewers, the interaction and response were incredibly lively.

The order notification sounds kept ringing nonstop.

Yi Chen’an arrived around ten and brought them stewed pear soup and barbecue for a late-night snack.

Sang Ruo had no time to eat at all, while the others took turns grabbing a few bites.

She didn’t even have time to go to the bathroom.

That one stream went on all the way until twelve-thirty.

In fact, there were still three to four hundred viewers in the livestream at that point.

But Sang Ruo’s throat was practically on fire.

After announcing the next day’s streaming time, she ended the broadcast right away.

It wasn’t just Sang Ruo. Her other dormmates were exhausted too.

But the sales were extremely encouraging. That night’s gross sales were a little over sixty thousand yuan. At this rate, as long as she could maintain this level of revenue, it wouldn’t take many days for her to earn back all the initial investment from this period and also find a new outlet for future discarded embroidery pieces.

She was especially happy.

By then, the dorm had long since been locked, so there was no way they could get back.

Yi Chen’an suggested booking two rooms for them at a nearby hotel.

Yin Xiaoxin said, “Why waste money on that? I think that bed in there is pretty wide. The four of us can sleep on it no problem.”

The bed in the master bedroom was two meters wide and 2.2 meters long, which was also one of the reasons Yi Chen’an had chosen this place.

But four people sleeping on it…

Sang Ruo felt like she’d never seen such a thing before. “How do four people sleep on one bed?”

Yin Xiaoxin replied as if it were obvious, “Sleep sideways. There’ll still be plenty of room.”

The girls had a place to sleep now. As for Yi Chen’an…

Sang Ruo could only blink at him.

Yi Chen’an let out a breath. “I’ll go back and sleep at my place. There’s milk and cake in the fridge. You can have them for breakfast tomorrow.”

Her dormmates had long heard of Yi Chen’an, but this was their first time seeing him in person, so naturally they had plenty of private things to say.

Sang Ruo got teased quite a bit too, but everyone unanimously agreed that someone on Yi Chen’an’s level was far beyond even what Zhou Yan could dream of matching.

Sang Ruo said speechlessly, “He’s not some commodity. What do you mean ‘on that level’?”

But she was pretty pleased with herself too. “Anyway, he’s ridiculously good to me. I must’ve had shit in my eyes before to somehow fall for Zhou Yan.”

Shang Xiliu said, “I heard Zhou Yan and Chi Qing are in the middle of a breakup.”

Even Yin Xiaoxin didn’t know about that.

Shang Xiliu looked surprised. “You guys didn’t know?” She excitedly shared the gossip. “At the start of this semester, a junior girl came to our department. No one knows what kind of family background she has, but when she came to register, several school leaders and our department heads accompanied her together. It was a huge scene. So everyone paid a lot of attention to her, and even the slightest bit of news about her got noticed.”

Yin Xiaoxin said, “What does that have to do with Zhou Yan and Chi Qing breaking up?”

“It’s not that they already broke up. They’re fighting over breaking up,” Shang Xiliu said. “Isn’t Zhou Yan in the student union? That junior girl joined too. She’s pretty, and lots of guys have been trying to get close to her, but for some reason Zhou Yan caught her eye. I heard they eat together a lot, and Zhou Yan helps her organize assignments and takes her along for social practice activities and stuff. Anyway, it’s pretty ambiguous. But I figure the junior girl is innocent. She was probably fooled by that scumbag Zhou Yan.”

“You guys have no idea. After this got back to Chi Qing, Zhou Yan got caught red-handed and still refused to admit it. The situation right now is that Chi Qing wants to break up, but Zhou Yan doesn’t. He even said he’s close to that junior girl because he wants to find a better internship placement. That’s just what I’ve heard from others, so I don’t know if it’s true. But then Zhou Yan kept showing up everywhere with the junior girl anyway. Bottom line, he’s sticking close to both sides, all clingy and unclear with both.”

When she received another update about Zhou Yan, Sang Ruo didn’t feel the slightest ripple of emotion. She was fully capable of being a qualified bystander munching on gossip. “And then?”

Shang Xiliu said, “There’s no ‘then’ for now. Anyway, the three of them are looking a little dramatic at the moment, and it’s all still a tangled mess. We’re waiting for the next development too.”

Yin Xiaoxin clicked her tongue.

Sang Ruo also felt that uncomfortable sense of not getting to the juicy part of the gossip.

Sang Ruo’s grand mission to save discarded Embroidery pieces continued steadily.

Now that she’d already confirmed her earlier idea was workable, she kept contacting accessory designers to produce more design drafts, and had even more Embroidery pieces sent to the factory for processing.

Whenever she didn’t have classes during the day, she was basically over at the rental working, handling all kinds of coordination, communication, and data analysis, as well as studying user feedback.

At night, she continued livestreaming.

Depending on her schedule, she would stream for two to four hours, while other hosts covered the remaining time slots, including daytime.

Whenever Sang Ruo was streaming, her dorm roommates would come help out.

Although when they came, her roommates all insisted they were just helping and didn’t want money.

She told them that if they were still willing to come, she’d pay them market rate.

For this kind of work, the daily pay was usually three hundred to five hundred, and Sang Ruo calculated all of theirs at five hundred. They got to have fun and make a little extra spending money too. Everyone was pretty happy.

She didn’t stream especially late every time, so most of the time they still went back to the dorm to rest.

On the day of Beginning of Winter, she had no classes in the afternoon.

Yi Chen’an said he was treating the dorm crew to lamb.

So they started early that day, and at nine o’clock Sang Ruo ended her stream and went off to have fun.

The owner of the lamb restaurant highly recommended the shop’s mellow fruit wines.

The alcohol content wasn’t high, so the girls sampled several different flavors.

Yi Chen’an didn’t drink. He was responsible for taking the roommates back to school first, then bringing his own little drunkard home.

To avoid the hassle, they went straight to sleep at the rental.

After becoming an adult, Sang Ruo had drunk with Old Sang before, and she considered her alcohol tolerance fairly decent.

It was only low-proof fruit wine. She felt she wasn’t drunk at all.

But apparently Yi Chen’an didn’t see it that way.

The way he looked at her was like he was looking at an unreasonable Little Moron.

Sang Ruo wasn’t having that, so she started fooling around with him.

And fooling around turned into ending up on the bed.

Maybe because she’d been drinking, Sang Ruo was especially excited, and the two of them got a little wild.

She had no idea what time it ended anyway, the moment she was free, Sang Ruo fell into a deep sleep.

She slept like the dead. She woke up once in the middle and thought she heard the door outside making noise, then Yi Chen’an got out of bed and went out.

He’d probably ordered takeout.

She felt around for her phone to check the time, only to discover it had run out of battery and shut off.

So she tossed it aside, rolled over, and went back to sleep. It was Saturday anyway.

She mumbled, “Don’t wake me up to eat.”

She had no idea whether he heard her or not.

She only felt like she’d slept through another full round.

Then Yi Chen’an came to wake her.

“Guaiguai, get up.”

“I’m still sleepy. Let me sleep a little longer.” She didn’t even open her eyes. “Don’t you have any idea yourself? Last night you…”

Her complaining was cut off when he reached out and covered her mouth.

Yi Chen’an said by her ear, “Hurry and get up. Your dad is here.”

For a moment, Sang Ruo didn’t react. She kept her eyes closed for quite a while, then suddenly opened them.

“You don’t have to make this kind of joke just to get me out of bed.”

“He really came. He’s waiting in the living room. You sent him the address here before. He came by this morning and couldn’t get through on your phone, so he was going to come over here, take a look, and wait a bit, and then…”

!!!!

Yi Chen’an’s expression didn’t look like a joke at all.

Every trace of sleepiness left Sang Ruo.

“So… he caught you?” Sang Ruo asked shakily.

Yi Chen’an said, “He has the passcode for this place. The moment the door opened, I woke up. I thought a thief had broken in, so I went straight out.” After thinking about it, he added, “In pajama pants, no shirt.”

So the current situation was that her dad had come to her place first thing in the morning and run straight into a shirtless Yi Chen’an?

Sang Ruo’s scalp went numb. She had no idea, in that scene, who had been more traumatized.

Was it still possible for her to hide and pretend she wasn’t here?

Apparently not very realistic…

Yi Chen’an said, “What are you looking for?”

Sang Ruo only felt like her head was going duang duang² right now.

“I’m thinking about the possibility of escaping through the window.”

Yi Chen’an laughed out loud.

“You’re actually still able to laugh!”

Sang Ruo hit him.

Then he patted her on the head.

Yi Chen’an said, “It’s fine. I’ve already talked with your dad. He won’t scold you. Get up and get yourself ready. It’s almost noon, we’ll take your dad out to eat with us.”

Sang Ruo pressed, “What did you two talk about?”

Yi Chen’an didn’t explain in detail, and just touched her face again.

“Don’t worry. If anyone’s getting hit, it’ll be me.”

After saying that, he closed the door and went out.

Sang Ruo dragged her feet and slowly got herself cleaned up.

Yi Chen’an and Old Sang were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa.

Old Sang’s face was dark.

Yi Chen’an smiled at her, but she didn’t dare look too much.

“Dad…”

Old Sang let out a long breath.

His expression was a little twisted.

Translator’s Notes