Part 2
Qi En was a bit afraid to listen.
He covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.
But the penetrating power of the cat’s voice was too strong; he heard it all anyway.
Qi En murmured, “How could I be a risqué streamer…”
[In the entertainment industry, New Canaan implements a rating system. There are three levels in total. Levels one to three are graded by pornographic degree from high to low. Level three is the Clean Zone.]
[You, however, are dishonest. Because you wanted more traffic, you engaged in risqué behavior and sexual innuendo within the Clean Zone, and thus you became popular rapidly.]
[You should be unbanned by now. Do you want to start streaming again?]
“No, no way!”
The “dishonest” Qi En shook his head frantically.
[Alright then. The money you earned from streaming just now is enough to spend for a few days. You can slack off a bit.]
[But remember to ask for leave from your ‘Baobaos’.]
Qi En returned to the computer and sat down.
The little cat jumped onto Qi En’s lap and lay there.
The cat was very light, but since it had just started up, its body was very cold, making him shiver.
He hugged the cat off his lap, stood up again, and tugged at the small skirt that exposed half his butt cheeks with the slightest movement.
Even though no one could see his outfit at home, he still felt flushed with shame.
He walked quickly to the wardrobe, attempting to find a normal piece of clothing.
“What… is this?”
Qi En hurriedly threw the clothes in his hand back in.
Was there not a single thing he could wear outside?
The little cat paced over to Qi En and jumped onto the wardrobe: [You rarely go out, so the clothes you wear outside are just those two or three sets, worn over and over.]
Qi En found them.
They were kept separate from the streaming clothes, piled in a small drawer.
Outerwear solved, now for the underwear.
Qi En found a relatively intact piece of pure cotton fabric among the pile of lace, thin straps, and translucent materials.
Qi En quickly changed his clothes.
His fair body was soon covered up tightly, exposing only his slender and well-proportioned limbs.
His heart was still thumping; he could even get shy looking at his own body.
Qi En glanced at the wardrobe and then withdrew his gaze. “Why do I only have these kinds of clothes…”
[Because you have a habit of being naked at home.]
The little cat answered helpfully.
But Qi En wasn’t going to thank the little cat for that answer.
“You’re wrong, I don’t have that habit. That’s not good,” Qi En said seriously.
[What’s not good about it? That’s a personal fetish. It doesn’t harm society, and no one else knows.]
Qi En couldn’t quite maintain his seriousness. “That must have been me in the past… I don’t like it now!”
[You like it.]
“I don’t like it.”
[You like it.]
Stupid AI cat.
Qi En stopped arguing with it.
“Little Cat.”
“Besides streaming, what do I usually do?”
[You film erotic videos.]
Ugh.
[You also take erotic photos.]
Hiss.
“Have those photos been released?”
[No.]
Before Qi En could sigh in relief—
[You sent them to the ‘Baobaos’ in your livestream.]
“Can I get those photos back?” He bit his lower lip tightly.
A blush uncontrollably spread across his cheeks, and his hands subconsciously clasped together.
[You didn’t sign with an agency, so you need to maintain your ‘Baobaos’ personally. Sending photos is one of the ways to maintain them.]
“Then if I don’t be a streamer anymore, I won’t have to do these things, right?”
[Not recommended. This is your only source of income. You can choose not to do it full-time, just part-time.]
So, maintaining feelings with the “Baobaos” was still necessary.
“Besides sending photos, how else can I maintain feelings with them? Chatting?”
[That is work, not discussing feelings,] the robotic cat corrected.
Doing something as intimate as looking at photos, yet it doesn’t count as discussing feelings?
Qi En only half-understood.
[You have to send them sexy photos according to their requests. A set has four or five photos, and selling one set earns you eight hundred credits.]
[Sometimes you have to customize photos according to their needs. You can also choose not to accept their custom requests.]
[The key is, no nipple slips or exposing private parts. If you get reported or discovered by the platform, the police will take you away.]
Indeed, being a risqué streamer was a high-risk profession.
Qi En felt he wasn’t really suited for this. He didn’t know why he chose this industry in the beginning; it would be better to do some honest, simple work.
Qi En operated the computer unskillfully and opened his social media account.
He scrolled through the content he had published—
Black silk stockings, white silk stockings, red silk stockings, “missing bottom” look, cute bunny outfit, seductive maid outfit, high-cut swimsuit, low-waisted hot pants, hot tube top, super sexy three-point bikini…
After only a few seconds, he scrambled to exit the page, almost flinging the mouse away.
“What is all this…!”
“Even though it’s blurred and censored with cloud stickers, it’s still so lewd.”
“Wuu, the police are definitely going to arrest me. Is it too late to delete the videos now?”
The cat picked up the bunny mouse in its mouth, jumped onto the table, and put it back on the mousepad.
At this moment, the cursor moved to the message icon in the top right corner.
A row of unread messages popped up under the icon instantly. They were all uniformity notices about “Creation Guidelines,” and to the left of the text were small thumbnails of videos.
Curious, Qi En clicked in to take a look. It turned out they were all dance videos banned by the platform.
No, those couldn’t be considered dancing at all.
Pure edge-ball content.
[By the way, these videos that can’t be published, you resell to people who need them.]
“Then I should hurry and ask for the videos and photos I sent before back, right?”
[Then you’d have to refund the money. They definitely saved them already, unless they are willing to delete them.]
[Besides, you are poor. Where would you get the money to refund them?]
“But didn’t you say I make a lot from one stream…”
Qi En remembered something else.
He owed a lot of money.
Because he had taken out online loans totaling twenty million.
Twenty million was the penalty fee he owed after terminating his contract with a scam company.
In order to leave quickly, Qi En had borrowed money to pay it off in one go.
This twenty million, plus the interest on the online loans, meant he had to repay a total of twenty-five million.
And the interest would keep growing. If his earnings couldn’t keep up, just paying the interest would take a long time.
Qi En felt depressed.
“Only full-time streamers make more, right? Then if I stream part-time, what should I do for my other job?”
“If only there was a job that paid even more than streaming.”
“Although streaming makes a lot of money, showing one’s body to others is wrong.”
“Although being praised feels good too… but it’s still wrong…”
“Twenty-five million is too much… How many times do I have to show myself to others…”
As he spoke, he tugged his shirt hem down.
This action was becoming a habit.
Because he was always worried that his clothes would suddenly disappear, or that he would accidentally wear his streaming clothes outside.
Qi En suddenly thought, “I received so many gifts just now, did I make a lot of money? How much can I pay back?”
[The platform takes a 60% cut of the tips.]
Qi En counted on his fingers—
A Carnival is three thousand, a Party Popper is five hundred, and there were many one-hundred-dollar Rockets…
His math was very poor; he couldn’t calculate it.
But luckily there was the cat.
The cat said: [You earned six thousand from the stream just now.]
Qi En lowered his hands in disappointment.
Only six thousand. That wasn’t even enough for the interest.
The viewers sending him gifts were poor too.
In short, he was now heavily in debt, a little pauper.
Qi En decided to find a different path—
“Is there a job with higher wages than a streamer?”
[Yes.]
The cat connected to the internet and sent a link to the computer.
Then, a black and white minimalist webpage popped up.
The background image on the homepage featured two men shown from the waist up, standing one behind the other in a staggered formation.
The person in the back wore a suit and white gloves, making a gesture as if wiping something; the person in front didn’t have their face shown, highlighting a close-up of a hand unbuttoning a suit jacket.
On the homepage were six eye-catching large characters:
Private Security Consulting.
Above the title was a line logo shaped like a dagger.
Qi En looked at the webpage, then looked at the little cat.
“Security?”
“Are you asking me to become a security guard?”
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