97: Chu Yilan's sense of shame exploded

The first thing Shen Lian did was take a shower.

He felt like he had been too close to Jin Lei, and the scent he picked up smelled fishy and foul.

He came out feeling refreshed, his hair half-damp. Picking up his phone, he saw a message from Hu Kailan: [Shen Lian, I've been thinking. When you have time, start a livestream and interact with your fans a bit. With such good momentum right now, we can't just stay quiet.]

There was no time like the present.

Shen Lian sat down at the table. Remembering that the Original Host had a livestreaming account on a certain platform from when he first debuted, he logged in and started it immediately.

After that, he posted a link to the Social Media Platform and got up to pour some water.

Shen Lian thought there wouldn't be many people. The room was warm, and he was dressed casually in a white T-shirt and brown mid-length shorts. With a "thud," he placed his glass on the table and sat down lazily.

A wave of exclamation marks flooded the real-time comment section on the right.

Shen Lian squinted at it, then leaned in, refusing to believe his eyes. "Wait..." he whispered. Why were there so many people?!

The number of online viewers had already surpassed 300,000 and was still growing rapidly.

Shen Lian quickly adjusted his posture.

[Too late! We've already screen-recorded it!]

[So handsome! I'm dazed by his looks, friends. No beauty filters, no nothing. He even took a shower just for me.]

Shen Lian chuckled. "You can even tell I just showered?"

The bullet chat was a solid wall of "YES!!!"

"Hmm? Why start the livestream only now? I've been busy. I just finished a cameo for Chang Qing's movie."

"Hey, hey, hey, stop shipping crack pairs. Chang Qing and I are just ordinary friends."

"The one who just sent five thousand yuan worth of gifts..." Shen Lian picked them out from the crowd based on their flashy colored suffix after spending money, then gave them moderator status. "Kick all the anti-fans. They're an eyesore."

Gifts started flooding the screen even more vigorously.

"Why give her moderator status and not you guys? Look at her ID, 'Cute Bunny.' She's the moderator of my super topic plaza, a major Fan Site Manager."

The person weakly typed on the screen: [Actually, I'm a male fan [shy]]

Shen Lian was taken aback, then nodded. "That works too."

The person's speed in banning anti-fans was top-tier. They also called over seven or eight familiar die-hard fans. Once they were given moderator status, the order and atmosphere of the livestream room were immediately brought under control.

Seeing this, Shen Lian thought to himself, *My fans' execution and cohesion are actually quite impressive.*

Shen Lian used his phone for the livestream, so he logged into his chat software on Chu Yilan's tablet.

Hu Kailan sent a bunch of exclamation marks, clearly on the verge of a total breakdown. [My dear ancestor! My brother! Why didn't you tell me? With such great traffic, I could have at least found you an advertisement!]

Shen Lian: [...Next time for sure.]

It had been a long time since he needed to use livestreams to retain fans. In the past, he would just chat with them when he had a spare moment and would even turn off the gifting functions.

The door was pushed open. Startled, Shen Lian quickly flipped his phone face down on the table and mouthed something to Chu Yilan.

Chu Yilan understood and whispered, "Go ahead with what you're doing."

By the time Shen Lian set his phone back up, the frantically moving bullet chat almost blinded him!

[Even though it was a very low voice, it was so magnetic.]

[As expected, a man's handsomeness comes from a woman's imagination.]

[Shen Lian, you're hiding someone in your house!]

"You call that hiding?" Shen Lian chuckled. "A friend."

*Boyfriend,* he added in his head.

In the living room outside, Chu Yilan opened the livestream.

He looked at the string of people in the VIP seats and frowned slightly.

CEO Chu started by taking the top spot on the leaderboard with a shower of gifts.

"Cute Bunny" refused to be outdone, but when it came to financial power, CEO Chu didn't back down. He sent ten-thousand-yuan rockets as if he had bought the entire platform.

Finally, "Cute Bunny" quieted down. Looking at his own golden avatar at the top of the leaderboard, Chu Yilan arched an eyebrow and typed: [Can you give me moderator status?]

[No, you can't.] Someone @-ed Chu Yilan. Seeing how he spent money like water, they figured he wasn't an anti-fan and explained patiently: [Moderators are all veteran fans of Baby Lian.]

Chu Yilan forced himself to ignore the words "Baby Lian" and sent a screenshot to Sun Binghe.

Special Assistant Sun was online twenty-four hours a day: [Boss, change your ID to "Loves Lian Says."]

Aunt Fen came out of the kitchen and saw that the Master's expression seemed to twitch for a moment.

Chu Yilan bit the bullet and changed it.

The next second, "Cute Bunny" personally promoted him to moderator.

Although they couldn't compete in terms of money, "Cute Bunny" could recognize veteran fans with outstanding contributions at a glance. Even though "Loves Lian Says" didn't communicate much with them or join any groups, they never missed a day of checking in, and they bought Shen Lian's merchandise in bulk. One could say they were very pure.

Nonsense. Special Assistant Sun had applied the same seriousness he gave his work; how could it not be pure?

On this end, Chu Yilan's sense of shame exploded.

He endured it and endured it, but finally couldn't help but message Sun Binghe: [Can I ask, with your aesthetic sense, how you came up with such an ID?]

Sun Binghe replied solemnly: [Boss, it's a fitting image. Is there a problem?]

Chu Yilan: "..."

Chu Yilan truly hadn't looked closely at his account ID. After all, once he handed it over to Sun Binghe to manage, the man posted photos and videos very clearly and promptly. Indeed, having a reliable right-hand man would make one lazy.

At the same time, Sun Binghe put away his phone, standing in the night wind in a black trench coat.

"Is it handled?" Yang Bin stepped forward, watching as two men were hauled away.

Sun Binghe: "We should be able to pry some information out of them by tomorrow."

"You piece of..." Yang Bin didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You're not afraid at all, are you?"

"What is there to fear?" Sun Binghe said indifferently. It was just being followed and threatened with a few words and items. If Sun Binghe were that easily broken, he wouldn't have worked by Chu Yilan's side all these years.

Yang Bin: "Forget it. For the next few days, move into my place first."

"No need."

"What if I take half your workload?"

Sun Binghe: "Let's go right now!"

If anyone else had said that, Sun Binghe would have surely mocked them: "With your level, you want to share my workload? Can you even understand it?" But Yang Bin was different; he was the one who had trained him.

Facing the cold wind, Yang Bin stepped forward and gently rubbed Sun Binghe's head.

It was like returning to five years ago, when he first met the man.

Sun Binghe: "Get lost!"

An attack from anyone else meant nothing to Chu Yilan, but if either Yang Bin or Sun Binghe were to betray him, he would surely suffer a heavy blow.

But that possibility would never exist.

Chu Yilan was the benefactor for both of them.

At seventeen, Chu Yilan's features still held a hint of youthfulness, but his eyes looked as though they had weathered ten thousand dangers. Looking weary, he stood among a crowd of grim-faced Bodyguards in black and asked the penniless Yang Bin, "Will you follow me from now on?"

Yang Bin didn't understand much else, but when he met Chu Yilan's gaze, a strong sense of wanting to follow him arose.

At that time, his parents had both passed away due to an issue with construction site equipment. As a poor family, they couldn't get justice. It was Chu Yilan who helped him settle everything and forced a resolution. Yang Bin saw the benefits of power and was grateful for everything Chu Yilan had done.

Later, when they encountered Sun Binghe, he mimicked Chu Yilan's tone and asked, "Will you follow us from now on?"

Sun Binghe gazed at Yang Bin and, after a long while, nodded gently.

As the years passed, they were special assistants in name, but in reality, they were Chu Yilan's brothers, and each other's brothers.