Back on stage, Lu Chen sang two more songs.
He did not sing "The You of the Same Desk" and "Cinderella" again, but instead chose two other love songs he excelled at, which won him plenty of applause and tips. After stepping off the stage, he stopped to chat for a bit with a few tables of familiar guests.
"Xiao Lu, those first two songs you sang were amazing!"
An old regular praised, "And they're so well-written—you've got real talent! If I ran a record company, I'd sign you for sure!"
Another guest at the same table laughed, "Good original music is so rare nowadays. Just listen to those idol boy-toys and pop groups—all they do is cover songs from Europe, America, Japan, and Korea, as if they were all pressed out of the exact same mold."
"Right? The truly great songs are still from the eighties and nineties."
"Heh, if you call yourself nostalgic, other people will just say you're outdated!"
"You can't really say that, everyone has different tastes..."
Lu Chen mostly listened, chiming in with a few words here and there. The atmosphere inside Forget-Me-Not Bar was always pleasant; the relationship between guests and singers was warm and easygoing. Sitting together and chatting felt just like hanging out with friends, completely free of pressure.
Seeing that it was already past ten o'clock, he stood up to say goodbye, and the guests didn't try to make him stay.
The bars in Houhai all operated at night, with their prime hours running from eleven in the evening to two in the morning. However, that time slot belonged to the contracted singers, and since Lu Chen no longer needed to pull double duty as a waiter, there was no reason for him to stick around.
At the bar's finance desk, he collected his performance fee.
Resident singers' salaries and tips were paid out in cash on the spot. Lu Chen had sung a total of five songs that evening; at thirty yuan per song, that came to one hundred and fifty yuan. As for the lion's share—the tips—his seventy percent cut brought him 2,150 yuan.
Twenty-three hundred yuan was the total amount Lu Chen had earned tonight.
If he could pull in that kind of income every day, making a hundred thousand a month wouldn't be just a dream, but that was completely impossible.
That was because Forget-Me-Not Bar didn't really get those obscenely wealthy second-generation tycoons; the customers tipped quite sensibly. The only reason Lu Chen had managed over two thousand in tips tonight and last night was the miraculous, reborn transformation in his guitar-playing and singing, combined with the novelty and emotional impact of two original songs.
Impulse spending couldn't last forever, so under normal circumstances, he would top out at around ten thousand plus per month. If he wanted to earn more than that, he would have to hustle and go sing at other bars.
Purely in terms of income, being a bar singer wasn't bad at all as long as you had a stable gig. At the very least, making a living in a place as astronomically expensive as Beijing was not a problem.
The catch was that very few people could last long in this line of work. Most came harboring dreams of hitting the big time and becoming famous, and when those shattered, they could only retreat in disgrace or sink into complete obscurity.
Lu Chen had dreams, too, and his dreams were big.
He left the bar, deposited his money at the ATM on the pedestrian street, and then hurried over to the nearby subway station.
When he got back to his rented basement room, it was right at eleven o'clock.
That was considered a pretty fast trip, made possible only by the sparse crowds in the late-night subway. During the day, the trains were packed so tightly you could practically be squeezed to death, making such a smooth commute impossible.
Li Feiyu wasn't home; the final night of the weekend was his designated happy hour.
And so, tonight's premier live stream rested entirely on Lu Chen's own shoulders.
The microphone and camera had already been swapped back over. He turned on the computer, logged into the internet, entered his account name and password on the Starlight Show homepage, and quickly entered Lu Fei's Live Stream Room.
Although Lu Chen's computer was quite old, running the streaming platform was still no problem at all, and his clear image immediately appeared on the screen.
"Hello! Hello!"
Lu Chen tested the mic with a couple of calls to check if the equipment was running smoothly.
To his surprise, five or six chat lines popped up on the screen instantly.
"Yangtze River, Yangtze River, this is the Yellow River!"
"We hear you, we hear you! Boss, you're finally online, we've been waiting ages!"
"Cue the falling flower petals in celebration!"
"Wife, come quick and look at the handsome hunk!"
"..."
Only then did Lu Chen notice that the viewer count displayed at the top of the broadcaster interface was actually 427. That meant more than four hundred people were waiting for him to start, which explained why the chat comments were scrolling by so fast.
Even though he had posted a notice earlier setting his debut broadcast time for eleven o'clock, he hadn't expected so many viewers to show up and support him. He felt a wave of excitement mingled with a touch of emotion.
"I'm so sorry,"
Lu Chen said hurriedly, "I just got back from work, miscalculated the time, and kept you all waiting. Sorry, sorry!"
The moment his voice fell, the chat comments surged dramatically.
"The streamer has to work on Sunday nights, too? What kind of heartless company is that!"
"Seriously, let's all call the labor inspection bureau and file a complaint!"
"And working until eleven, that's just going too far!"
"My heart aches for this handsome guy!"
"..."
Lu Chen didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and quickly explained, "I sing at a bar in Houhai—I'm a bar singer, I suppose. My working hours are at night, which is why I'm late."
"Houhai? I go there all the time! Which bar? I don't think I've ever seen the streamer there!"
"Oh, so he's a bar singer. No wonder he sings so well!"
"Stop wasting time chatting, hurry up and let the streamer start singing! My ears are itching like crazy!"
"Itching so bad? Go find a cotton swab and dig around, that'll hit the spot."
"Hahaha."
Watching the lively barrage of comments, Lu Chen felt a great sense of joy. The nervousness of his first independent broadcast vanished without a trace, and before he knew it, his mood relaxed.
The atmosphere of an online live stream was completely different from a bar, but once you got used to it, it felt really great.
The online viewer count was climbing rapidly, shooting up from the initial 427 to 725, with welcoming comments scrolling endlessly.
That was something completely unimaginable during a bar performance—this was the true charm of the internet!
"Huh? I feel like the streamer changed rooms or something. This isn't Brother Fei's original room, is it?"
"He just changed the room name, making a fuss over nothing!"
"Facepalm, I'm talking about the streamer's current home. Didn't any of you notice?"
"Yeah, really! Where is the streamer living? The conditions are so crappy!"
"Must be a basement. I used to rent one just like it."
"My heart aches for the streamer!"
"..."
The topic of discussion among the viewers suddenly derailed straight into the room where Lu Chen lived.
It was an old residential compound decades old, and a basement conversion at that; naturally, such a tiny space didn't offer any decent conditions.
Even though Li Feiyu and Lu Chen were neighbors, Li Feiyu had paid out of his own pocket to completely remodel his room, making it look infinitely better and far less crude than Lu Chen's.
System notification: Happy888 (Silver I) gifts the streamer 100 Starlight!
System notification: Superman With Underpants On The Outside (Iron II) gifts the streamer 100 Starlight!
System notification: Abyss Dragon Knight (Bronze V) gifts the streamer 100 Starlight!
System notification: Crystal Jelly (Bronze II) gifts the streamer 100 Starlight!
...
System notification: Prophet Li Bai (Gold III) gifts the streamer 1 Starry Sky Warship!
Another Starry Sky Warship, and it was from this very same Prophet Li Bai!
Before Lu Chen had even started singing, tips came pouring in from the viewers, and Prophet Li Bai had once again rewarded him with the massive tip of a Starry Sky Warship.
A single Starry Sky Warship wasn't just worth a thousand yuan; it was also a chance to gain exposure across the entire streaming platform.
A wave of warmth welled up in Lu Chen's heart. Clearly, these viewers had noticed the poor conditions of his rented room and were using tips as a way to show their support and comfort him.
At that moment, the online popularity count broke through a thousand in the blink of an eye, growing at a ferocious speed!
Lu Chen instinctively checked his Starlight fan count.
5,279!
What was going on?
Lu Chen could hardly believe his eyes. He remembered that at noon today, this broadcaster account only had 2,722 Starlight fans—how had it doubled by the evening?
Lu Chen was still new to Starlight Show. Although he had crammed a lot of common sense from Li Feiyu, he was still a beginner after all and didn't understand many of the inner workings of the platform, so he couldn't figure out where the surge came from.
If he couldn't figure it out, he wouldn't dwell on it. In any case, it wasn't a bad thing—it was a great thing!
"Thank you, Prophet Li Bai, for the Starry Sky Warship."
He spoke into the microphone, "And thank you all so much for your support. First, I'll sing that original song I wrote myself, called 'The You of the Same Desk'. I believe many of you have already heard it, and I hope our new friends will like it."
Pausing for just a moment, Lu Chen continued, "Tonight, I'll also be sharing another original song with everyone!"
Without looking at the scrolling barrage anymore, he hugged his guitar and began to sing "The You of the Same Desk".
"Great to listen to!"
"Moving!"
"Makes me want to cry!"
...
The charm of this classic piece was universally irresistible. Whether inside Forget-Me-Not Bar or on Starlight Show, whether it was listeners who had already heard it or those who had just entered the live stream room, everyone was deeply touched.
Most importantly, after multiple performances on the guitar, Lu Chen had gained an even tighter grasp of the emotions contained within the song. Coupled with his unique vocal styling, it was more than enough to captivate these live-streaming viewers, whose standards weren't overly demanding to begin with.
Once he finished singing "The You of the Same Desk," praise poured in like a tide, and glowing specks of Starlight tips flooded the entire screen!
Striking while the iron was hot, Lu Chen followed up by singing five songs in a row. They were all contemporary pop classics he excelled at; while they didn't cause quite the same sensation as "The You of the Same Desk," they kept the atmosphere in the live stream room running at a high pitch.
In the intervals between songs, Lu Chen also interacted with a growing number of viewers, answering quite a few questions.
Li Feiyu had told him that the interactive segment of a live stream was crucial. Relying purely on singing made it hard to stir up the audience's emotions; chatting with everyone or telling a few jokes served a double purpose—it narrowed the distance between them while giving his own vocal cords a proper rest.
Online streaming chased the fan economy; only with popularity could one make money, and the number of fans a streamer possessed dictated their status on the streaming platform—truly a winner-takes-all game!
Lu Chen still lacked experience in this regard, but as long as he was willing to shed his pride and engage with these enthusiastic viewers, it wasn't hard at all. Though a tiny handful of people seemed to be intentionally stirring up trouble, the vast majority were wonderful.
Time slipped quietly away amidst such interactive exchanges and musical performances. It was already midnight, one o'clock in the morning.