Chapter 151 She Has Cut Off All Earthly Desires

This time, the three girls—Song Ling, Song Xiaoyan, and Liu Zhu—were watching their useless older brother’s livestream together in the same room.

Unlike last time, they truly felt as though their brother was talking to them, and that tonight he would make all of them his. The feeling was sweet.

He was kind. He was gentle. He knew full well that touching them was forbidden, yet he touched that forbidden boundary anyway because he liked them.

They were beside themselves with excitement, distracted and giddy, bouncing around until Liu Xiaozhen outside could take no more. She pounded on the door, ordering them to quiet down.

Liu Xiaozhen had been rather cross these past few days.

It was bad enough that her son had done far worse in the college entrance exams than Song Mei’s son.

But now her daughter, her husband’s niece, and her own niece were all acting like lunatics, each one wishing she could marry Zhang Wuyong.

Get a grip, you three! The law doesn’t allow it, does it?

Wait—Liu Zhu could actually marry that boy, Wuyong.

But if something like that really happened, Liu Xiaozhen felt sure she would lose her mind.

Ever since Zhang Wuyong had scored over six hundred and thirty on the college entrance exams, Liu Xiaozhen felt that everything around her had gone topsy-turvy.

She used to compare Song Mei’s son with her own boy, who had gotten into No. 1 High School.

Now people were constantly comparing Song Mei’s son with hers.

She was one hundred percent certain they were doing it on purpose.

But there was nothing she could do.

While she still thought Zhang Wuyong was a hopeless student and a troublemaker, he had already become a top student who had surpassed her son.

While she was still struggling to understand how that boy could have scored so well on the exams, he was already livestreaming and making a fortune, captivating her daughter and her nieces along the way.

Seeing Song Mei’s son start to make something of himself made her even angrier than seeing her own son amount to nothing.

……

Liao Xiumei was lying in bed, watching the livestream too.

But unlike last time, her eyes were now clear and serene.

Her heart had attained Buddhahood. She was free of attachments, worries, and cares.

In that moment, she thought of many things.

In the end, this boy did not belong to her.

He had a place of his own, and he and the girl who treasured him were both good children—good students of hers. She could only wish them well. She had to.

She had wondered whether perhaps she ought to find a real boyfriend, too.

But…

She knew she would never be able to find one now.

Because from then on, she would compare every man she met to him.

He would have to be as handsome as him.

His bearing would have to be as perfect as his.

In one particular respect, he would have to be as enduring and effective as the man she had encountered in her dreams.

Even his name would have to be like his: the Great Way is simple, the highest good is like water. It might seem a little strange, but somehow it contained the truths of the universe.

Yes, she would never meet another man so perfect.

Perhaps becoming a nun would be a fine choice.

Even if she did not take vows, she could spend the rest of her life studying Buddhist teachings and contemplating her Buddha-nature.

She would choose a path that kept her away from him.

In the life that lay ahead, she would surely attain Buddhahood.

At that moment, the room was filled with the scent of passion spent.

Beneath the bed lay all manner of disordered, unsightly things.

Yet the woman on the bed had become a sage, empty of the four elements, knowing that form is emptiness.

……

Although this time the livestream of “Zhang Wuqi, Demon Cult Leader” was clearly far more popular than the last, with both the tips and the chatter vastly exceeding those of the previous broadcast, Yao Xueqin still felt something subtle was missing.

The Demon Cult Leader from the last livestream, with his domineering air and overwhelming, lofty presence, had been even more captivating.

It had seemed that with one show of temper, he might seize her and lock her away—then torment and abuse her, making her his alone.

Yao Xueqin did not understand why she had such strange thoughts.

She actually wanted him to drag her into his dungeon and keep her there for the rest of her life.

No matter how he bullied her, abused her, or tormented her, if at the very end he could stroke her head and tell her he liked her, she would be able to leave everything behind without a single regret.

These past few days, her parents had also been taking every opportunity to offer her veiled advice.

After all, the boy already had a girlfriend.

The Yao family had always been fairly open-minded and gentle in their parenting, but even her parents were beginning to find this hard to watch.

Love was an emotion no one could control.

The moment he encouraged her with that sunny, handsome smile, her heart had already been filled.

She curled up in the dark depths of the dungeon, waiting for the moment he would bring the light and reach out to her.

She did not want to deliberately break anyone up, nor would she ever do the things she used to do—things that now seemed wrong whenever she thought of them.

But she still wanted to stay near him and wait, slowly.

……

Sister Lian truly was a big-shot. Her strategy had clearly worked.

Granted, getting Zhang Wuyong to treat the girls watching his livestream as mysterious creatures with “the dual nature of little sisters and lovers” had not exactly succeeded.

He seemed more like a boy humoring his younger cousins.

But Sister Lian thought it didn’t matter.

Handsome was handsome, full stop.

His good looks, combined with the lines she had commissioned, were more than enough to leave the girls watching his livestream completely smitten.

Might the tips this time even break three hundred thousand?

Sister Lian couldn’t help marveling. Find the right star-like leading man, and making money really did become that easy.

Huo Hong had deliberately brought her in from the big city to oversee the partnership with Zhang Wuyong. He had been right to do so.

Sister Lian had to admit that Huo Hong had an excellent eye.

He had managed to discover a gem like this in such a small city.

The audiences and the buzz were different.

The livestreams featuring those “fake schoolgirls” had very few viewers, and the tips were just as meager. They relied on the occasional big spender blazing past like a shooting star to make a huge donation.

In Zhang Wuqi the Demon Cult Leader’s livestream, on the other hand, small tips came in constantly. The occasional donation of over ten thousand usually came from a fan group somewhere pooling their money, making the screen flare with color.

Suddenly, the livestream burst into a dazzling display of seven-colored light.

It was as if fireworks were crackling and exploding all across the sky.

Sister Lian jumped.

This was the site’s maximum limit for a single tip: one hundred thousand.

Sister Lian was more than a little dumbfounded. It was mainly a matter of the different fan base.

That kind of maximum-limit donation was usually found in the livestreams of slick, powdered pretty boys who attracted wealthy women.

Sister Lian checked again.

The tip really was one hundred thousand yuan.

It came from… “Glow of Extinguished Hope”!