Chapter 568: Livestream, Videos, and Design Competition
At Myriad Laws University, in Ye Xingli’s laboratory, Zhang Yu accepted his senior sister’s invitation to participate in her livestream.
Initially reluctant, Zhang Yu was persuaded by Ye Xingli, who argued, “Cultivating the Immortal Dao requires earning money. Whether you’re selling goods, trading in finance, or investing, having a large following is always beneficial.”
“Building your fan base and reputation early will greatly aid your future Immortal Dao journey.”
Fu Ji chimed in, “Zhang Yu, she’s right. Your strength is growing rapidly, and you’ve even reached the top 50 in the school, yet you have hardly any followers. Your reputation doesn’t match your power at all.”
“If you start building your fan base now, you’ll at least have a reserve fund for the Ten Greats League.”
Reluctantly, Zhang Yu agreed to spend a few hours in the laboratory participating in Ye Xingli’s livestream.
The primary purpose of the livestream was to promote Ye Xingli’s Chaos Soil Eater.
Ye Xingli had already completed the Refining process for the device. A level 10 Chaos Soil Eater now sat on the laboratory table, ready for her to demonstrate its capabilities.
While introducing the product, Ye Xingli made sure to keep her long, star-like legs prominently displayed in the livestream, explaining that this was to attract Lower College and Junior College students.
“This is my Junior Brother Zhang Yu, an artifact refinement student at Myriad Laws University, ranked 44th in the entire school.”
“Many of the ideas for the Chaos Soil Eater came from him.”
Zhang Yu glanced at the chat comments and saw a flood of messages praising, envying, and admiring his ranking.
Although Ye Xingli’s audience consisted mostly of Lower College and Junior College students, this very fact made them particularly revere the academic overachievers from the Ten Great Universities.
But soon, someone commented: “This Zhang Yu practices dual cultivation.”
“He participated in the Yin Artifact Experiment.”
As more fans searched the Spirit Realm and discovered Zhang Yu’s involvement in the Yin Artifact Experiment and his rapid progress through dual cultivation, the livestream chat erupted with comments:
“Please, let Ye Xingli leave safely after the stream ends!”
“No! No dual cultivation!”
“Look at Ye Xingli’s knees…”
“Which academic overachiever from the Ten Greats lacks dual cultivation resources? You don’t think I’d cut off a path to improvement by refusing to cultivate with a partner, do you?”
Ye Xingli watched the scene unfold, a wave of annoyance washing over her. “A bunch of pathetic Lower College and Junior College students — why are they even concerned about this?”
“Typical Junior College students, agonizing over this for hours. If you’re not in Junior College, who is?”
Despite her irritation, Ye Xingli glanced at the text appearing on her Poverty Simulator and smiled slightly. “Everyone, please don’t misunderstand. Zhang Yu and I have a purely senior sister-junior brother relationship.”
“As for myself, I’m focused on artifact refinement techniques and have no interest in dual cultivation.”
After a moment’s thought, she added, “My final exam score was high enough to get into any of the Ten Great Universities. The admissions director from Joyful Union University even personally contacted me, offering me my choice of any major at their institution.”
“But for me, artifact refinement represents a far broader horizon.”
Though her explanation caused some initial uproar in the comments, the commotion gradually subsided.
Watching the remaining comments — requests for dual cultivation videos, speculation about how much wear and tear her Bionics would endure tonight, and other such remarks — Ye Xingli maintained her smile, but inwardly she seethed with irritation.
“As if my refined Bionics are so easily damaged!”
Her Bionic Eye twitched slightly as she swiftly banned and muted several fans who were posting inappropriate comments.
After the livestream ended, Ye Xingli reviewed the day’s orders for the Chaos Soil Eater and felt a surge of satisfaction. “102 units sold? And without any promotion today? Not bad at all.”
“Looks like it’s time to consider expanding our marketing efforts.”
Meanwhile, Zhang Yu noticed a slight increase in followers on his social media account after the livestream.
Though he had created the account long ago, Zhang Yu had barely maintained it, and most of his followers were students from the Civil Engineering and Artifact Refinement Departments at Myriad Laws University.
Originally, he had around eight hundred followers; now he was approaching a thousand.
“This growth is so slow,” Zhang Yu muttered, glancing at Ye Xingli’s sales figures with a hint of envy.
“Live-streaming sales really bring in the money fast.”
But Zhang Yu knew he didn’t have the time or energy for that. He also lacked Ye Xingli’s established fanbase, and starting from scratch would take an unknown amount of time to reach her current level.
“Maybe I should just sell the extra design blueprints to my senior sister?”
Zhang Yu recalled the designs he had prepared for the Design Competition. Besides the Wind God Half-Bionic Working Boots, there were also the Artificial Feces Generator, University Student Skin, Automatic Ad-Watching Machine, Hemorrhoid Cultivator, and University Student Simulator.
These blueprints were just gathering dust in his hands. Selling them would be ideal.
Most companies wouldn’t be interested in these designs unless they targeted the junior college student market.
Ye Xingli, however, was precisely targeting that market.
Zhang Yu proposed the idea and sent the design blueprints to Ye Xingli for review.
At first, Ye Xingli didn’t pay much attention to the sheer volume of blueprints. But as she examined them, her eyes lit up slightly. “I didn’t realize you’d designed so many products recently!” she exclaimed. “They all seem quite interesting.”
“I’ll need to discuss this with the company before making a decision. I’ll let you know.”
Zhang Yu knew that since Ye Xingli had been selected for the school team and received special cultivation from Myriad Laws University, the university had acquired shares in her company. This investment had led to various livestreaming initiatives and talent development programs.
Shortly after, True Person Ink Fiend received a message from Ye Xingli.
As a teacher at Myriad Laws University, True Person Ink Fiend primarily managed the university’s investments. He held positions in numerous student-run companies, overseeing their financial operations.
Though he lacked expertise in artifact refinement, he possessed deep knowledge of livestreaming, marketing, finance, and accounting. When he saw Ye Xingli’s message, he frowned slightly.
“A senior student’s design work?”
“Is Ye Xingli trying to help her junior brother?”
After some consideration, True Person Ink Fiend offered Zhang Yu 10 Spirit Coins for the entire set of designs.
In his view, this was a fair price for a senior student’s design work.
Ye Xingli: “Zhang Yu’s designs are exceptional. This price is far too low; he won’t sell them.”
These designs weren’t outdated relics from the Great Library; Ye Xingli believed Zhang Yu’s blueprints could be put into production with minimal modifications. Moreover, they were for commercial use, making her almost embarrassed to offer him a mere 10 Spirit Coins.
True Person Ink Fiend: “How much do you think he wants?”
Ye Xingli: “These designs clearly integrate technologies from several mature products, with numerous cost-cutting features. It’s obvious he understands the market well.”
Ye Xingli: “I estimate he’d want at least 50 Spirit Coins for the entire set.”
True Person Ink Fiend: “Then let’s hold off for now. Our livestream is focused on the Chaos Soil Eater, and we don’t have time to contact other production lines.”
Ye Xingli: “Zhang Yu’s designs aren’t selling well only because he lacks recognition. If we buy his blueprints today, we’ll profit even if we just license them out later.”
Ye Xingli: “These products are genuinely excellent…”
True Person Ink Fiend: “The company’s funds are limited. I can’t risk the school’s money on speculative ventures.”
Observing Ye Xingli’s unwavering persistence, True Person Ink Fiend even began to suspect she might be colluding with his Junior Brother to siphon funds from the company.
Ye Xingli looked at Zhang Yu beside her, her expression apologetic. “The company still needs to discuss the details. I’ll urge them to finalize the agreement quickly and ensure you receive a satisfactory price.”
Zhang Yu replied calmly, “It’s fine. I’m not in a hurry.”
After the livestream ended, Zi Yunzhen and Su Yunni prepared the materials, and Zhang Yu began refining the second Great Sky Sacred Law Flying Sword.
Shortly after Zhang Yu resumed his work, he received another video through his Bionic Eye.
“It’s Shui Haiyu from Mountain and Sea Vocational University again.”
Recalling Shui Haiyu’s previous claim about finding evidence against the Dual Rest Cult, Zhang Yu curiously opened the video.
The video, sped up repeatedly, showed Shui Haiyu’s various attempts at tracking, investigating, and searching.
But ultimately, he was caught by members of the Dual Cultivation Society and was about to be forced to take Dual Rest leave and join the Dual Rest Cult.
Shui Haiyu roared, “Forcing people to take Dual Rest is no different from forcing them to die! Your incomes are plummeting, and jobs are becoming harder to find. Are you really going to let yourselves sink this low?”
The cult leader replied, “Once everyone joins the Dual Rest Cult, once everyone insists on Dual Rest, it will spread throughout the world…”
Shui Haiyu retorted angrily, “Then the entire school will be ruined! How can we compete with other schools and companies?”
The cult leader shouted, “Then let the whole world join the Dual Rest Cult!”
Shui Haiyu was both shocked and furious. “You’re insane!”
At this critical moment, Shui Haiyu crushed the poison capsule in his stomach, choosing suicide.
The video spun wildly, capturing the cult members’ panicked cries.
“No!”
“We can’t let him escape into the Spirit Realm!”
“His soul has been taken!”
Watching the abruptly cut-off video, Zhang Yu sighed inwardly.
“Has he become a Soul Cultivator?”
“If he’s a Soul Cultivator now, he must have reported everything to the Righteous Gods, right?”
Zhang Yu checked Shui Haiyu’s profile picture and found it grayed out.
“Offline? Is it because he’s out of funds and his account is temporarily frozen?”
“Or is he being interrogated by the Righteous Gods and temporarily blocked?”
Uncertain, Zhang Yu simply forwarded the video to Zhang Pianpian, hoping his sister might be interested in handling this Demonic Cult matter.
As for himself, he lacked the means to intervene in such affairs.
Several days later.
“Student Zhang Yu, congratulations on officially being selected as one of the top ten finalists in this year’s Design Competition.”
“To further determine the specific rankings of the top ten, we invite you to participate in a provisional test.”
“Upon arrival at the venue, you will have six hours to complete a design blueprint according to the given prompt…”
Zhang Yu wasn’t surprised by the invitation from the Design Competition. After all, True Monarch Magnetic Pole had already warned him to prepare for the test after receiving news from True Monarch String Tone.
He knew that fifteen candidates had been nominated for the top ten spots, and this test would eliminate five of them.
However, Zhang Yu had made virtually no preparations. His accumulated knowledge resided entirely within his mind. The test would assess his deep-seated expertise, so what was there to fear?
Without hesitation, Zhang Yu boarded a flying boat and set off for the test venue.