Chapter 9: Surge Of Popularity

[Don't thank me. Those gifts aren't for you. They're for your brother.] [Get your brother out here!] [I want cultivation. I want alchemy! My whole youth is depending on your brother!] The regulars who had followed the livestream kept spamming the chat.  Newcomers who'd just wandered in looked utterly bewildered. [No way. Cultivation? Are you still living in a dream?] [Can someone explain what's going on?] [Go watch last night's replay. It says it all.] [Besides the replay, there's today's recording. Join the fan group and I'll show you. You'll see him move sixty-feet in a second!] Melissa felt a prickle of panic.  Her brother, missing for fifteen years, did seem strange.  But whatever he was, he wasn't an immortal. [Hahaha, just admit it. Your brother's an immortal. No way you can hide that.] Seeing the regular fans in the livestream hyping Caspian like crazy made Melissa tense.  If the wrong people took notice and accused her of pushing superstition, she could be in real trouble. She forced a smile and spoke into the mic.  "Okay, we've streamed long enough today. I'm wrapping up here. Same time tomorrow. See you then! And thank you for the gifts tonight, love you!" [Don't you dare end the stream!] [End the stream and we're gone!] Melissa saw those live comments, but she let them roll past.  If she kept it up like this, her channel might get suspended.  Pushing superstition stuff is no small risk. After she signed off, she checked her follower count.  One glance, and her jaw dropped.  The previous day, she had fifty thousand followers.  Currently, she had two hundred thousand.  She had gained a hundred and fifty thousand followers overnight.  Was her brother's cultivation hype really that strong? That night, while tallying up the gifts she had received, a message popped up from the platform. Since the stream went viral, they offered her a better contract with improved benefits.  From a tiny streamer barely getting by on base pay, she had become a regular streamer with a stable income.  She was still miles away from top tier streamer, but she had a feeling her livestream channel would only take off from here. After she finished negotiating perks and signing terms, several major streamer networks contacted her.  Melissa had started with no network at all. Small ones were a rip-off, and the big ones hadn't wanted her.  Now, thanks to one night's stream, the ones that used to look down on her were lining up to befriend her. Melissa ignored them. Instead, she opened her fan group.  The 4,000-member fan group she had set up last night had filled up again in a single night.  Inside were clip after clip of Caspian, plus a flood of funny video edits.  Even that shabby little cauldron had spawned its own funny video. Answering her fans' requests, Melissa had the admins and her best friend open several more 4,000-member fan groups. The next morning, her phone rang and woke her. It was Selina Rhodes. "Melissa, you're famous! No, scratch that. Your brother is famous!" "What's blowing up?" Melissa had stayed up way too late, first over the contract, then wrangling fan group admin duties, and finally crawled into bed at five in the morning.  She was groggy and had no idea what Selina was saying. On the other end, Selina's voice shook with excitement.  "Melissa, open your phone. Check what's trending on Facebook and TikTok!" Melissa yawned, grabbed her phone, and opened TikTok.  The very first video recommended was last night's clip of her brother, Caspian, moving sixty-five feet in a single second. Melissa stared. How was she supposed to explain this? She opened the comment section, and found people arguing in the comments. "This is obviously edited. A scam!" "Scam? I was in Melissa's stream last night. I saw it with my own eyes. It's real." "Those so-called eyewitnesses are just the streamer's plants. They want to funnel us into her stream and then fleece us. Don't fall for it!" "I agree with above. Classic way to fleece fans!" "I was in the stream too. If you don't believe it, come back tonight and see for yourselves!" The comments were a mess, every kind of opinion under the sun.  Melissa grimaced.  Video after video was clipped from last night's stream.  The top one was the moment Caspian stepped out of the bedroom, sitting at two million likes.  The number of likes was huge on TikTok, especially with zero promotion. "Melissa, with this kind of buzz, aren't you on par with top-tier streamers?"  Selina's excitement kept pulsing through the speaker. Melissa checked the TikTok trending page.  #ImmortalCultivator was number one. Inside were clips of Caspian, some edited into funny videos. "Melissa, your channel should only get busier now, right?" "Yeah, it's pretty busy." Ever since her brother came home, the channel had been lively.  The previous day, the hype had spiked into the stratosphere.  Melissa, who had always been a small-time streamer, felt a little lost. She took a screenshot of the trending page and posted it in the fan group.  "Suddenly going viral. I'm at a loss. Do the new fans even like my skill-focused streams?" "Please, stop being narcissistic, okay!" "Melissa, I don't want to say this, but as an old fan I should remind you. You're a normal gaming streamer, the kind people watch while eating. Have some self-awareness." "You know who we're here to see. It's not you." Melissa typed, "Then I'm out?" She pouted and let out a huff.  "If I leave, you won't just miss my brother. You'll miss me too!" "Don't! We don't mind if you leave. We just want your brother." Faced with such ruthless fans, Melissa could only sigh, feeling like she had taken a critical hit. Selina, the admin of Melissa's main group, saw the comments and had to step in with a few words, then pulled Melissa into a private chat. "Melissa, the buzz hasn't died down at all since morning." "I know..." Melissa watched her notifications flicker nonstop, unsure what to do.  Just then, she saw a red notification badge on Messenger.  This was her private Messenger. Very few people had that contact.  Typically, only the executives at the streaming platform knew her contact.