SMMW | Chapter 37

Song Hao had dressed neatly today. He was going to a job interview.

The job had been introduced by one of his buddies. It was for a lighting technician for a group-streaming company. The workday was eight hours, but it required shift rotation. The shifts were split into morning, afternoon, and evening. The hardest was the evening shift, from six in the evening to two in the morning, but Song Hao stayed up late often enough that he was used to it.

This group-streaming company had only just been set up. The boss was a rich second-generation returnee who had studied abroad. He looked a little unreliable, but the pay was high, five social insurances, regular days off, ten thousand a month plus commission. Most importantly, pay was settled weekly.

Song Hao thought he had misheard. “Weekly pay? You mean they pay once a week?”

“Yeah. They say that’s how it works abroad. We don’t really get it either. Anyway, if you just want something to tide you over, you can work here for a while first. The boss isn’t a bad guy, he’s just a little jumpy. Maybe he’s been overseas too long, his way of thinking is different from ours.”

“…Alright.”

Song Hao arrived at the company’s location. It was in a pretty prosperous district, and they had rented an entire floor. The moment he stepped out of the elevator, he saw the company logo, Xiangcai Interactive Entertainment.

The boss looked very young, like he had only graduated a couple of years ago. He was dressed fashionably too, like a model.

Since the new company had just been established, every position was short-handed, so the boss personally handled the interviews. The moment he saw Song Hao, he looked quite pleased and started greeting him before even looking at the résumé.

“You’re here to interview as a streamer, right?”

“Lighting technician.”

Only then did the boss flip through the résumé, but after only a couple of casual glances, he closed it again and insisted, “Actually, you could interview for streamer too.”

“I’m here to interview as a lighting technician.” Song Hao was already getting a little impatient. Was that sentence really so hard to understand?

“Holy shit, bro, with your face, why the hell would you be a lighting technician? Come be a streamer, stand center position, and I’ll give you a guaranteed base salary of twenty thousand a month.” The boss waved two fingers and tried his hardest to persuade him.

“…Not interested.” Song Hao already felt this guy was unreliable, and he was starting to want to leave.

But not only was the boss not discouraged, he got even more excited, shouting that this was exactly the flavor.

“Yes, yes, yes, this is it, exactly this feeling. That world-weary face. When you’re streaming, don’t smile at all. Just keep a straight face. The sourer your expression, the hotter you look.”

The boss even flipped open the résumé again and compared Song Hao to the blue-background ID photo on it. “Look, this one’s really just average. People would only think you look like you love smiling.

“But now that you’ve lost weight, the lines of your face are much sharper. And with this little bit of gloom, this little bit of sadness, this little bit of melancholy in your aura, it’s incredibly unique. You’re your own whole lane. Come do group streaming, you’ve got a future in it!”

Song Hao rolled his eyes.

The boss reacted like someone had stepped on his tail and started shrieking, “Don’t roll your eyes! Don’t go all abstract on me! What are you doing to your face, ahhhhh! Noble, understand? You need disdain. You need superiority. You need to look at people like you’re looking at ants.”

Song Hao did not want to deal with him. He yanked back his résumé and was about to leave. It had been color-printed, that cost five yuan.

The boss clutched onto his résumé and would not let go. He looked thin, but he was surprisingly strong. He pleaded bitterly, “Wait, wait, wait. Lighting technician is fine too, lighting technician, ten thousand!”

Ten thousand was a lot, it really was, so Song Hao held his breath and sat back down.

The boss pursed his lips and finally started reading the résumé seriously. After interviewing so many people, he at least had some experience by now. “Education, stage-lighting experience, years in the industry… there’s a three-month gap since your last job. What were you doing during those three months?”

“Playing games, streaming, and…” Song Hao paused there, but he still added, “dating.”

“Oho, freedom~”

Those things all sounded pretty unreliable, but the boss did not pick at any of it. Instead, he started gossiping. “Just casual chatting here, but would it be convenient for you to talk a little about your relationship status?”

“I got dumped.”

“Why! With a face like yours, you still got dumped??? Is there any justice left in the world!”

“Long-distance.”

After hearing the reason, the boss actually started sympathizing. “Long-distance, huh. Then there’s nothing much you can do. You probably did not get many chances to meet, right?”

Song Hao rarely had the chance to talk about his feelings, but at this moment he answered everything without holding back.

“We never met. It was all online.”

“You never met in person even once?”

“No.”

“Online relationship, huh. How long were you together?”

“Three months.”

Three months. The boss mulled it over to himself. So he had started dating right after quitting his job, then after getting dumped, he came looking for work again.

Full of regret, he asked, “Three months is still pretty long. You never met even once. Was he especially far away?”

“Especially far.”

“Abroad?”

“More or less.”

“Oh. Actually, plane tickets abroad these days are also…”

Song Hao cut him off. “There’s no chance anymore. He got sold.”

“Huh!? Human trafficking? Holy shit, that’s that bizarre? Call the police!”

“It’s no use. It was legal.”

“Huh??? Th-then then then how much was he sold for?”

“A million, I guess.”

The more the boss heard, the more confused he became. A person he had dated for three months, always online, never met in real life, overseas, and now legally… sold. Sold for a million.

After thinking for a full minute, the boss cautiously reminded him, “Could it maybe be one of those romance scams?”

“No! He was real!” Song Hao snapped back excitedly.

“Okay, okay, not a scam, don’t get worked up, I was just saying it casually.” The boss thought to himself that this person had already been scammed stupid. “How much money did you spend on him?”

“Less than three thousand.”

The boss relaxed. “Ohh, then that’s not too bad. You didn’t lose that much.” Then he even added worriedly, “You absolutely can’t take out online loans for it!”

Song Hao got a little angry. “What exactly do you take him for? He wasn’t a scammer. He even spent money on me, and more than I spent on him.”

“Alright, alright, I was just asking casually, just making conversation.”

The boss thought, a handsome guy with a brain that was maybe not that great, if he went on stream he would get lured away by some rich woman within a couple of days, impossible to keep. But then he looked at Song Hao’s face and could not bear to let go of him, so he made the decision on the spot. “It’s you. Lighting technician. Come to work tomorrow!”

The facts proved that the boss really did have a good eye.

Song Hao did work as a lighting technician, that much was true, and he did have the technical skills for it. But more important than that was, he drew traffic.

Originally they had already hired enough streamers, so they started broadcasting. At first the viewer count was low, but after some time passed, they gradually built up a bit of a fanbase. In short, they were neither cold nor hot.

Until one day, after long-term use, one of the light strips broke, and a quarter of the studio instantly went dark. There were not many viewers during the day to begin with, so the boss could not even be bothered to switch camera feeds. He simply told the streamers to take a break first while Song Hao went up with his tools to fix it.

And so, this was the scene that appeared on camera.

Song Hao, in a white T-shirt and jeans, wearing orange-rimmed safety goggles and a tool pouch at his waist, walked into frame carrying a ladder.

He set the ladder down in one corner of the streaming room, climbed up it in two quick motions, and sat at the top. He lowered his head and rummaged around in his tool pouch for a while, then twisted at this part of the broken strip, dismantled that part there. After reconnecting the wires, because he could not free up a hand, he bit the edge of the tape with his mouth, yanked out a section, and tore off one intact strip of tape with a hard pull of one hand.

Business opportunity!

The boss sprinted a hundred meters to the cameraman’s side and urged in a low voice, “Zoom in, zoom in, get him centered, hurry up!”

On camera, Song Hao had his head tilted back as he fixed the light strip. In front of the screen, the online viewer count doubled.

[So handsome ahhhhhhh]

[Which number is he? I’ve never seen him before!]

[You’ve got a hot guy like this and you didn’t bring him out, Boss, are you stupid]

[Holy shit holy shit holy shit, followed]

[I want all his information in five minutes!]

Five minutes later, Song Hao finished fixing it. Keeping his head tipped back had really been uncomfortable, so he rubbed his neck, slung the folding ladder over his shoulder, and made a dashing exit.

The streamers all went back to their places and resumed dancing to the beat of the music, but no one in the comments cared anymore. Everyone was asking who that guy from just now was, and what gift they needed to send to make him come back out.

Song Hao wiped away his sweat and walked over to the boss. “This light strip’s been used too long. It overheated and the wire broke. This brand’s quality isn’t good. Change brands next time you order supplies.”

The boss smiled. “No need. Can’t switch. This is the one.”

“?”

From then on, the failure rate of the stream room’s light strips shot upward like crazy. Song Hao had to go up and fix them almost twice every stream. Whenever he told the boss, the boss insisted that they would not switch, they were sticking with this brand.

In the end, Song Hao did not even have the temper to complain anymore. He wanted to pay out of pocket himself, but the boss would not allow it.

How could Song Hao know that fixing the light strip had already become the signature segment of that livestream room? The fans wanted exactly this bit of flavoring. After getting tired of a few exquisitely made-up men with half-bare chests and seductive dance moves, a little naturally plain side dish like Song Hao was just right~

In fact, a lot of people were there specifically for him. The comments were flooded directly with Lighting Bro, and the back-end was packed with private messages telling the boss to serve this man up already.

The boss was practically losing his mind with happiness. He had never expected Song Hao to have this kind of magical use. He changed his mind. Letting Song Hao stay in exactly this state was perfect. If people ate too much of the side dish, it would just become ordinary. The point was to keep them wanting more.

And because Song Hao’s popularity was so high, even a few of the proper and improper streamers alike started feeling a sense of crisis. They were actually getting outshone by a lighting technician?

As a result, the company’s competitive atmosphere became extremely intense. The streamers changed clothes, changed hairstyles, and kept coming up with new tricks every day. The livestream room became more and more popular.

Song Hao got commission. If more gifts were thrown during the shift he was on duty for, then his commission was higher. At first he had not been happy about fixing things every day, but since the pay was good enough, he endured it.

Other people in the industry all cursed the boss for being filthy, for playing dirty, but behind the scenes they all started copying him. One side had the cameraman “accidentally” show his face, that side had a control-room operator with an unbelievably sexy voice. Some were even more direct, calling up to poach people. They offered Song Hao a guaranteed base salary of thirty thousand a month to jump ship and become a streamer with them.

The boss had been pretty worried at first, but Song Hao was a homebody to begin with and did not like showing his face too much, so he rejected them all directly.

The boss was delighted, though he was also afraid Song Hao might still switch jobs, so he raised his base salary by another 5k.

Normal days off, weekly pay, high salary, a boss who did not make much trouble, there was not really anything left for Song Hao to be dissatisfied with. He worked there for over a month in one go.

Bzz bzz bzz

Another phone call came in, an unknown number again. Over the past month or so, Song Hao had no idea how many calls from headhunters he had blocked, but the harassment still kept coming nonstop. If this phone number had not been tied to too many apps, he would have wanted to change it already.

“Hello, who is this?”

In case it was actually something important, he could not just block it immediately, so Song Hao answered with impatience.

The other side did not speak.

Song Hao waited three seconds, and his patience ran out. “If you’re not going to talk, I’m hanging up.”

“Wait!” It was a young man’s voice, very quiet and very nervous. “Is… is this Song Hao…?”

“Yes, I’m Song Hao. Who are you?” Probably just a newly hired headhunter. Give him a bit of tolerance. Chat for a couple of lines before hanging up, help him pad his performance a little. Song Hao thought this kindly to himself.

“I… I’m…” The boy on the other side was trembling so badly his voice was practically on the verge of tears, but he still forced himself to continue, “I’m… Wen Qing.”