Chapter 5: Livestream Showdown

Words : 2725 Updated : Oct 17th, 2025

Lewis Casson stood at the door and knocked. After nearly two minutes, the door finally swung open. Emmy Saiger glared at him, her tone sharp. "Why are you knocking? Ever think about getting a key made?" "Did you ever give me one, beautiful?" A blush flickered across her face. She stepped aside to let him in. "Come on. I'm about to go live. Sit tight and don't make a sound." "Whoa. So I get to see you stream up close." Emmy shot him a sideways look, then shut the door. They moved into the living room. She started on her makeup-foundation, colored contacts, false lashes. Lewis watched, amused. With every careful touch, she sharpened into something so dangerously lovely he couldn't help but grin. The girl was a heartbreaker. Satisfied, Emmy rose and fixed him with a fierce stare. "What are you looking at? I'm warning you again. I'm streaming. Not a peep out of you. If you mess this up, you're dead." Lewis shrugged, pulled out a cigarette, lit up, and took a slow drag. Emmy huffed under her breath, sat at the table, and opened the streaming app on her phone. She went live. In no time, she sang a few songs, then, by popular demand, started a sultry dance to the beat. Her waist swayed, her hips rolled-the kind of movement that could make a man forget himself. Lewis, eyes gleaming, murmured with a wolfish smile, "That waist, those curves. If I hugged you from behind and we moved together… heh, just imagine how good that'd feel." The voice was low, but Emmy still caught it. If she hadn't been working, she would've marched over and kicked him just to vent. As it was, she pressed down her anger and kept dancing. The music cut off. Emmy blew a kiss in thanks and settled back into her chair. She scanned the comments pouring across the screen and chatted with her supporters. "Thanks to God of Wealth for the 'Goddess Descends' gift." "Thank you, Eager Pleaser, for the 108 kisses." … A little later, a pretty streamer with the stage name Little White Rabbit invited her to co-stream and play a game. They'd played together before, so Emmy accepted. "Peerless Charm, hi." "Hi, Little White Rabbit." "Let's play Muacks like before-five-minute rounds. We'll convert all gifts to Muacks; whoever ends up with fewer Muacks takes the punishment, okay?" "Mm, okay." On this platform, one Muacks gift is worth 100 beans-about $1. All other gifts converted to their Muacks equivalent for the head-to-head tally. Emmy sang and called for gifts. Little White Rabbit, short-haired with two dimples when she smiled, was just as fired up, pulling hard for her side. After two minutes, Emmy led with 121 Muacks. Little White Rabbit trailed by 35. Time slipped away. At the final moment, a high-tier patron popped up on Little White Rabbit's side and blasted her with 300 Muacks in one shot. She took the win by a landslide. Emmy looked disappointed, but she rallied and thanked everyone who had gifted her. Little White Rabbit thought for a beat, then chose the punishment: Shaky Shaky. On a normal day, fine. But with Lewis, a certified lech, sitting nearby and eyeing her like a predator, Emmy felt mortified. Still, a loss was a loss. She cued a track and, cheeks burning, started shaking her chest, pale curves swaying in time. Lewis didn't know what the men on the other side of the screen looked like. He only knew he was transfixed. He swallowed twice, hard. "Shaky Shaky, you can play it like that? Learned something new today." Emmy shot him a look that said, Keep staring and I'll stitch your eyes shut. Maybe because she lost the first round, Emmy's fans were furious. Led by the top donor God of Wealth, they started a wild burst of gifting. In just over a minute, she had more than 5,000 Muacks. Little White Rabbit's backers surged to catch up. As in the first round, the split came at the end. That same patron sent her the platform's priciest gifts-each costs 8,888 beans, about $89 each-carrying her to another absolute victory. Emmy swallowed her rage and took the punishment. In no time, Little White Rabbit had painted Emmy's face until not one clean patch remained. She looked downright eerie. The chat exploded. Trolls piled in, sneering that Emmy was a fake-innocent gold-digger, kept by a rich man, once a call girl, with multiple abortions in her past. Even a fool would have understood-it was a setup against her. The bigger you got, the nastier the rumors, and this kind of thing had happened before. But never had it looked so blatant. There's no way Little White Rabbit didn't know. Watching Little White Rabbit's sugar-sweet smile made Emmy see red. She wanted to end the PK right then. But quitting meant looking afraid and would hurt her standing in the streaming world. So she put on a calm face, banned the worst trolls, and kept playing along. "Girl, you're too soft. Let me help." Lewis flashed a wicked grin, pulled out his phone, registered a new account, and broke it up and converted the $300,000 into beans. Then he started dropping the priciest $89 gifts, one after another, the screen filling with fireworks. "Ah!" Emmy gasped. She was stunned. She had prayed for a high-roller to swoop in, and he actually appeared. In under a minute he'd thrown tens of thousands of dollars at her. She'd seen rich, but she'd never seen this rich. Little White Rabbit was shaken. She had paid dearly to rally several patrons to suppress Emmy, hoping to ride the scandal to fame and grind Emmy under her heel. The sudden whale smashed her plan. She burned with hate, unwilling to back down, and DM'd those patrons for a counterattack, promising every benefit she could think of. News of the whale spread across the platform like wildfire. Viewers and streamers poured in, frantic to watch the priciest gifts fly by like money was nothing. Viewers were gobsmacked. Streamers, eyes blazing green with envy, started digging for information on this benefactor. In just five minutes, it shot up to nearly $100,000, and the spree showed no sign of stopping. Little White Rabbit's patrons were spooked. This wasn't a PK-it was financial suicide. Pride meant nothing now-they didn't dare keep fighting. Little White Rabbit's face went ashen. She realized she'd shot herself in the foot. She knew this moment would cement Emmy's rise in the streaming world, and jealousy and frustration clawed at her. Emmy sat slack-jawed, staring at the comment section as it blew up. God of Wealth: High-roller, my respect for you is like an endless tide. I kneel to you. Eager Pleaser: @God of Wealth, you bragged about dropping $50,000-$60,000 in a month and thought you were hot stuff. Next to this guy, does your flex even count anymore? Chang'e Yearns for the Moon: High-roller, let's be friends. I'll give you a whole brood of kids. Little Fairy: Hey big spender, I've never even had a boyfriend-can I shoot my shot? … When Lewis finished dropping $300,000 worth of gifts, he ignored all messages and left the stream. Looking at Emmy's adorable face, he thought, Silly girl, consider that $300,000 the rent I owe you. Emmy sat stunned for so long that only then did she come back to herself. The comments kept asking if she knew the high-roller in real life. She, thoroughly bewildered, answered no over and over. She wanted to DM a thank-you, but he had already gone offline. That shocked her all over again. My God. Drop $300,000 and disappear. Did he have to flex that hard? Did he have to be that cold? With all that drama, Little White Rabbit couldn't keep the co-stream going. Amid a flood of jeers, she slunk away and ended her stream. Emmy's mind churned with thoughts of the high-roller. She no longer had the heart to keep broadcasting, so she found a polite excuse and signed off. Lewis lit another cigarette and sauntered over. "Not bad, sweetheart. Less than an hour and you pulled in a few hundred grand. No wonder they say it's easy money for pretty girls. I learned something today." Emmy shot him a look. "How much I make is none of your business. Those hundreds of thousands look like a lot to you. To him, they might be nothing. You wouldn't understand the whale world." A flash of amusement lit Lewis's eyes. "What if I said I'm that high-roller?" Emmy laughed like she'd heard the biggest joke on earth. She clutched her belly. "You, a high-roller? Why not say you're the richest man alive?" "You seem awfully into him. If he showed up, would you simp?" Emmy understood perfectly and rolled her eyes. "He dropped that much on me in one go and backed me to the hilt. If simping is what it takes, I'll simp. So what?" "Remember you said that." Lewis let his gaze flick to Emmy's proud chest, then chuckled and headed to his room. "Nutcase. The whale world isn't something a loser like you can fathom." Emmy muttered it under her breath, mind spinning: Is he handsome? Does he have a girlfriend? Has he been watching me in secret? Did he jump in because he couldn't stand seeing me bullied? Lewis lay on the bed, playing on his phone for a while. Suddenly his smartwatch went, "Beep, beep, beep." He smiled to himself and pressed two buttons on the wall. A bloom of light appeared on the wall. In it, an old man with a head of white hair but lively eyes reclined on a beach lounger, sipping red wine with narrowed lids while two foreign beauties gave him a shoulder rub and a back massage. "Brat, how's the mission?" "Old man, you're out there frolicking with foreign bombshells and drag me here for grunt work. You sure you want to say that with a straight face?" "Haha. The more capable you are, the more you get piled on. Report. How's the mission?" Lewis lit a cigarette, drew deep, and spoke lazily. "I've already gotten into Elle Group. I'll meet the target tomorrow." "Kid, remember: protect the target at all costs. And use this chance to uncover what happened back then. A blood debt can only be paid in blood." A cold glint flickered in Lewis's eyes. "I know. Anyone who stands in my way dies."

Chapter 5: Livestream Showdown

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