Novel Bin Chapter 55 - On the Way
Chapter 55: On the Way
Since there was already a designated reward for a smile appeal, Meng Fan tried to cooperate and cracked open a smile during his next photo, in case the system had a glitch and canceled the reward because he never smiled throughout the whole process.
In any case, smile appeal also sounded like a metaphysical attribute, but it couldn’t hurt to have a more appealing laugh when in a relationship, right?
Because of the previous ‘tradition’ plus Meng Fan’s expression that anticipated a photo after each drawing, the pretty girls were all happy to take a picture with him after they’d received their caricatures. Besides, their faces were so small in these photos; as when taking photos with other obsessive individuals, they had to fight and hide around to achieve a small face. Now, they could stick their face forward all they wanted, and still, have a small face in the resulting photo.
No matter how they took it, they would always look good!
Asides from the lipstick girl who was defeated by the confident aunty, everyone who received a caricature had taken a selfie with Meng Fan. An hour later, he had accumulated 27 drawings and 26 selfies, including the 10 from before.
Excluding the time it took to take the photos, it had taken him an hour to draw 17 caricatures. His speed was terrifying.
Even the fickle netizens who knew of Meng Fan’s deadly drawing speed had sent out an array of 666s and gifts when Meng Fan stood up to leave for a while, reaching an all-time peak for gifts.
“Yo yo yo, that’s incredible!”
“Hahaha the pretty girl just sat down and I didn’t even finish analyzing her measurements when he finished drawing!”
“If you followed this speed, Meng Boss could easily draw two hundred in a day!”
“Give Meng boss a pen, and he’ll draw all of Song Cheng.”
“Give a bottle of vinegar to a person from Jin Province, and he will mix everything.”
“Give a pancake to a Jinmen person, and he will roll out your future.”
Strangely, the quotes began to line up in the channel…
“Give the Northeasterner a pot, and they will make all of humanity into a casserole.”
“Give the people of Shaan Xi a bun, and they will sandwich the world.”
“Give the people of Zhe Jiang a can of sugar, and they will turn the entire galaxy sweet and sour.”
“Give a Shan Cheng person a hotpot, and they will boil the entire universe.”
“Give a Yun Zhen person a handful of fungus, and they will create a fantasy world.”
“Give a GuangDong person a crock pot, and they will marinate an entire HuJian.”
“Give a SuZhou person a roll of test papers, and they will add quotations to all of the above.”
“One of these is not like the rest!”
“Hahaha I’m dying from laughter, you’re all too goddamn talented!”
“I think it’s quite alright.”
“I’m shaking in the presence of your masters.”
“Badass.”
“Hahahaha look now, Meng host is being fed again!”
An average looking girl with an above-average smile who had received her drawing within five minutes returned to Meng Fan with a cup of grass jelly, sweetly coaxing him to eat slowly.
“Thank you.”
Meng Fan received it and hesitated for a moment before scarfing it down in two bites.
Maybe it was because of the ice cola the confident aunty had given, but this pretty girl had also found a way to express her gratitude. Every three or so customers would buy him something. This was becoming some sort of a small scale feeding ground.
The most important thing is that this kind of thing had many kinds, but not much weight. In this weather, if he left it out even for a while, they would surely go bad.
Taking into consideration Meng Fan’s character, watching food go bad was the equivalent of seeing someone die and not helping.
Might as well eat it.
He couldn’t forsake everyone’s kindness.
What’s gonna happen if he ate it all? It was only a matter of ten kilometers, if not twenty.
The road to weight loss couldn’t be completed in a few days, sometimes it was okay to let go a little… right? Wasn’t there a saying that had been very accurate? Perseverance is like a rubber band if you kept it stretched it will snap, so it was necessary to occasionally loosen it.
Meng Fan wholeheartedly agreed with this statement, but he couldn’t remember which legendary figure had said it.
After eating the grass jelly, Meng Fan looked at the time. It was almost 4:00 pm. He took a look at the people still in line, seeing about twenty or so.
Meng Fan’s drawing speed still wasn’t able to keep up with the number of people joining the line. At this rate, he would never finish.
“Uhm, everyone.”
Meng Fan thought about it and stood up to the spectators as well as the people in the queue. “It’s almost four, so it will probably take me until dark to finish caricatures for those currently in line. So please, if you’re not here already, don’t line up. Sorry about that.”
The crowd did not object to this.
Meng Fan flipped the “poster” over and wrote a sentence not accepting more customers. He thought about it again. In order to avoid those who had secretly snuck in and won’t admit it, he made a number system that he could tear down as a marker.
“Hey, handsome.”
Meng Fan waved at the Shi Zhan youth who had been enjoying himself unusually in the stream channel. “Can you help me distribute these numbers?”
“Of course.”
The Shi Zhan youth distributed the numbers quickly, around twenty-three slips and returned the rest to Meng Fan.
Meng Fan smiled at him. “You still want to watch?”
The Shi Zhan youth nodded. There wasn’t another performance that was this exciting, allowing him to interact with the netizens on stream but reported to the stream in real-time from the host’s location.
“Then I’ll draw one for you in a bit?”
“Really? Hehehe!”
Seeing Meng Fan nod, the Shi Zhan youth broke into a grin and stuck his face in front of the stream assistant. “I’m so jealous of those who didn’t come!”
Uniform characters spammed the live comments on the stream. “Get Lost!”
Although Meng Fan’s stream today wasn’t during his regular hours or during the golden hour—it had been irregularly long, with unique content. There was an adequate amount of online viewers that was steadily increasing. After Meng Fan finished the last drawing, the one for the Shi Zhan youth, his online viewers had reached 30,000. A new record!
As for total viewers, he had reached a whopping 82,000!
As time progressed, coupled with Meng Fan’s increased ‘validation’, the number of total viewers had far exceeded the ones online.
Also, the live audience had contributed a lot of experience.
Song Cheng is one of the most popular theme parks in Hua Xia, the highest single-day tourist count reaching 140,000. Despite tourist season still being months away, there was still a steady 20,000 visitors daily.
The cultural plaza was frequented by tourists as well, even if they were just passing by. At least half of the tourists who had passed through were able to see Meng Fan.
As long as they saw him, it counted for +1 views. If you had glanced at him; turned to look at something else, then turn back, then it would be two.
This calculation was similar to the algorithm of the webstream. Each time you entered the channel, it counted as one total view.
Adding the 82,000, his [Famous Streamer] progress had reached 235,000/1,000,000.
Based on these figures, Meng Fan had made the correct choice by moving his streaming platform outdoors.
Besides, he could also collect the points for [Group Photo Guru] while he was at it. Currently, he had already accumulated 50 photos.
With +1 charm and +1 smile appeal, Meng Fan was confident he could try smiling more in the future. Maybe he could smile his way into a relationship!
Logging out, Meng Fan faked the action of putting his stream assistant in his bag. He picked up his phone and thought for a moment. Opening the camera, he directed it towards a few girls standing to the side who were holding their caricatures and asked them for a group photo. They willingly complied.
Snap.
Meng Fan took a picture, and looked at the progress bar in his ‘mind’, confirming that multi-person photos would still only count as +1 experience.
It also established the fact that he only needed one unfamiliar face in each portrait for his progress to grow, so his progress wouldn’t freeze when encountering the same face.
After packing up, the Shu Zhan youth helped him return the stools to the site manager.
“Where are you going?” The Shi Zhan youth asked Meng Fan, starting a conversation. They walked to the gates of Song Cheng together. The Shi Zhan youth said, “I drove here, I’ll give you a ride.”
Meng Fan pointed to the bus station and said, “I won’t trouble you, I’ll just take the bus.”
“No worries, it’s on the way for me regardless wherever you go.”
He didn’t care for Meng Fan’s response as he began running towards the parking lot.
Meng Fan could only wait for him.
Not long after, a two-seater smart car pulled up next to him. The window rolled down revealing the Shi Zhan youths’ vibrant smile, inviting Meng Fan onto the bus.
“Uhm, maybe I should just take the bus.”