I just want to sell products, but you're forcing me to perform talents.

Chapter 300 Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth and Five Ghosts Delivering Blessings

The first Late Night Singing Contest attracted a total of 367 million participants. After the competition started on the 21st, the number of contestants who received more than 1,000 likes in the first round reached an astonishing 850,000.

Less than 20,000 contestants remained after the second round of votes exceeded 10,000.

Getting over a thousand likes is easy, but getting over ten thousand is incredibly difficult.

Tens of thousands of likes mean at least 20 page views.

Regular accounts simply cannot achieve such high traffic volumes.

This is the nature of Kuaiyin (a Chinese short video platform); without the ability to buy likes, boost traffic, or cheat, it's difficult for it to gain wider popularity.

Even with the official support from Kuaishou (a popular Chinese short video platform), it is extremely difficult to achieve over 10,000 likes in this competition.

The requirement for the third round of the competition is to get over 3 likes.

Such data sets very high requirements for the players, and there are not many who can remain.

Unless you sing exceptionally well, have a unique style, or have fans helping you climb the charts, it will be very difficult to achieve over 3 likes.

Even artists from MCN agencies and entertainment companies would find it difficult to achieve this if they didn't find ways to buy data.

Ye Xian had no choice but to accept the invitation. There were too many people signing up, including many singing streamers and MCN artists, which created many uncontrollable factors in the competition. This was the only way to ensure a relatively fair outcome.

However, Ye Xian was not worried about people saying it was unfair. This competition wasn't just held for one session. If he couldn't break through this session, he would definitely have a chance in the next session or the one after that.

That's the good thing about Kuaishou: if you sing well and do well, the accumulation of fans is a huge asset.

After Ye Xian explained to everyone in the live stream why the competition was structured this way and why the conditions were so stringent, everyone expressed their understanding.

……

[Cute Little Chubby: Time flies! Three weeks have passed in the blink of an eye! The preliminary rounds are almost over. I wonder if that male anchor with the South Indian accent will make it past the third round. I gave him a thumbs up in all three rounds!]

[The "Scumbag Harvester": And that effeminate streamer, his flamboyant rendition of "Gokuraku Jodo" was absolutely blinding. I can't believe no one has ever seen such a great performance.]

[Bai Si Bu De Qi Jie: Although I can see Xian Ge busy during his daily slow live streams, it feels more like watching a silent film. His three-day live streams are much more comfortable to watch. I hope the competition judging phase will be just as exciting.]

[A little patience leads to great charm: I love the fireside chats so much! The guests are different every day, and the topics discussed are always so insightful. I never want to leave Xian Ge's live stream room. Will you invite players to the live stream in the future?]

……

Ye Xian's live stream usually lasts only 3 hours, from 20:00 PM to 23:00 PM. Today, in order to wait for the results of the preliminary round, he specially extended it by 1 hour, which made many late-night snackers ecstatic.

Four hours may seem like a long time, but it actually passes quickly. After Ye Xian finished his routine performance of the new song, the fireside chat, and the storytelling of "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," two and a half hours had already passed.

"Okay, what I just told was the last story in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, 'Human/Demon.' After telling this story, it means that all the medium and long stories in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio have been told. The remaining short stories have all been put in this book, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio."

The physical copy of *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio* is now listed in my shopping cart. If you're interested, you can order it directly.

After two months, Ye Xian finally finished telling most of the stories in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

These long novels are too difficult.

Next time, I'll definitely choose a short story.

Ye Xian made a decision in secret.

[Working late into the night: It's over? That's it? I haven't had enough! Brother Xian's ghost stories are just so different from those fake ones.]

[I've heard that removing makeup is a form of murder: Good heavens, were there so-called sorcerers in ancient times? I thought it was a custom that only originated in Thailand and Vietnam in modern times.]

[Humanity knows no bounds: The transvestite tradition in Thailand and Vietnam has a history of several hundred years, but the story Brother Xian told is too powerful and too exciting. Is this something that can be told in a live stream? Won't he get banned?]

[Understanding: Brother Xian, we've finished this installment of *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*. What's the next story? Another ghost story? How about something different?]

……

When Ye Xian saw that there were people asking about the next story, he shook his head and laughed, "Let me rest. Two long stories in a row have almost drained me."

Everyone burst into laughter and immediately started sending small gifts, with everyone saying, "It's because you told such a good story!"

Ye Xian checked the backend and found that 3000 copies of "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" had been sold in a short time. He was very pleased: "I thought not many people would buy it. Seeing everyone's enthusiasm, I would like to say that everyone who places an order today will receive an extra Nie Xiaoqian character card in red."

This character card is an exclusive release for today only. After today, this red-clad version of the character card will be completely discontinued, so act fast!

As soon as Ye Xian finished speaking, the anime and book fans in the live stream immediately perked up.

[Old Phlegm Pickled Cabbage Noodles: Brother Xian, if you're going to give me character cards, I won't be sleepy anymore! I wasn't planning on buying them, but now that you've said that, I'll probably buy ten or eight.]

[Top Elementary School Student: Brother Xian is too cunning! Playing with character cards again? I haven't even collected all the character cards from *Dream of the Red Chamber* yet, and now you've released character cards from *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*. Are you going to release a "Drunken Strange Tales" wine right after?]

[Ru Lai Shen Zhang: Definitely! Knowing Brother Xian's personality, how could he only sell books to fleece people? I suspect this TV series is already in pre-production!]

[Chu Mo Wei Dao: Seriously, Brother Xian's approach is really different from others. What era are we living in? Still selling paper books? How many people would actually buy them? How about we release an e-book version? I couldn't resist and bought three copies!]

……

While people were cursing, they quickly placed orders, and in just 10 minutes, 3 copies of "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" were sold.

This sales speed surpasses that of many bestselling authors.

Many fans, especially those who bought the abridged version of "Dream of the Red Chamber," know that Ye Xian's writing skills are no joke.

Listening to a story and reading a physical book are two completely different experiences.

After reading the simplified version of "Dream of the Red Chamber", everyone realized how amazing Ye Xian's writing skills were, which made many people look forward to the complete version of "Dream of the Red Chamber".

Longtime fans know that the "Simplified Dream of the Red Chamber" was hastily created to cope with live-streaming storytelling and filming, and Ye Xian has kept the complete story hidden.

From a purely literary standpoint, both "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" are definitely worth buying. Furthermore, Ye Xian has created so many related products for these two books, which makes people even more motivated to buy them.

Even if they are being exploited, everyone is willing to be exploited, rather than it being simply the behavior of fans.

……

Seeing that everyone was in high spirits, Ye Xian pulled out two bottles of wine from under his feet.

"Also, as you all guessed, the custom-made wine based on Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio has been made, and I've named it 'Drunkard'."

Ye Xian opened the packaging of the Drunken Spirits liquor.

Two bottles of wine, one black and one red.

A narrow-necked old-fashioned wine bottle.

There are five black imps on the red jar and five red imps on the black jar.

Ye Xian pointed to the bottle and introduced it to everyone: "The Drunken Ghost comes in two types of packaging: red jar and black jar. The five red ghosts painted on the bottle symbolize 'Five Ghosts Bringing Wealth,' and the five black ghosts symbolize 'Five Ghosts Bringing Blessings.'"

Both of these jars of wine are 500ml each, 52% ABV grain liquor, and their quality is far superior to Ye Xiaobai and Zui Honglou, so the price is a bit higher, at 258 yuan per bottle.

If you have a favorite late-night snack, you can place your order now!

……

P.S.: Today's Recap

Haizhou aged liquor inventory: 5228 bottles

(End of this chapter)