The circle was exceptionally lively today.
They had won the first stage of the competition. While it wasn’t a major victory, everyone celebrated as if it were the New Year, happily sharing bits of their daily lives in the circle.
Activity here was in the tens of millions per minute, and only the silliest, most hilarious posts could fight for a spot.
After the stream ended, she had even taught a recipe for tomato and tofu soup. It wasn’t too difficult, and soone in the circle was already live-streaming their own attempt.
The young woman who made guides, the one Juju had given a shout-out to, was also featured in one of the circle’s top trending posts.
While a cheerful atmosphere reigned here, elsewhere, the staff of the rescue center were gathered for another eting.
Jiang Qiuqiu had done a face reveal on her stream today. With clear, extended video footage of her face, they had confird that she was the one who had donated to the rescue center.
But what good did confirming her identity do? They were still faced with nurous difficulties.
Jiang Qiuqiu was a huge strear—so huge that the barrage comnts from their small group were a drop in the ocean, completely invisible to her.
Their private ssages went unanswered. Even sending them daily, or even one every minute, yielded no response.
They learned that Jiang Qiuqiu occasionally browsed the circle, so they tried to post there too. But the speed at which new threads appeared...
Their posts would sink to the bottom of the page less than two seconds after being published.
Forget Jiang Qiuqiu seeing it—they couldn’t even find their own posts unless they went to their profile pages.
Contacting custor service at the Federation Live Broadcast Company... The response was always the sa two words: "Awaiting reply."
They had watched Jiang Qiuqiu’s second PK round today and had managed to snag a virtual dish. It tasted just as it should. After eating, Little Qing felt the exhaustion from days of research suddenly begin to fade, which only strengthened her conviction that Jiang Qiuqiu was no ordinary person.
It made her even more determined.
There was just one problem...
They couldn’t contact her.
The seven or eight of them were frantically tapping away at their terminals. Suddenly, one of them shot to his feet. "I think I found a way!"
The mont he spoke, everyone crowded around him, clamoring, "What is it? What’s the plan?"
"This!" He held up the post from the tofu shop owner, his expression full of excitent. "I know this shop owner! I have his terminal ID. Jiang Jiujiu has bought stuff from his shop before, so he should be able to send her a private ssage! We can ask for his help!!"
"Really?"
"Then do it, quickly!"
A flicker of hope, once extinguished, ignited anew in their hearts!
The man quickly searched for and found the tofu shop owner’s terminal ID. He composed a ssage, but just as he was about to send it, the others stopped him. They spent a long ti painstakingly polishing and revising the text before it was finally sent.
They couldn’t just co out and say they suspected Jiang Qiuqiu’s cooking could slow the progression of gene defects, so they had to invent another reason.
"Little Qing, why don’t we just tell him the truth—"
"We can’t." Little Qing shook her head. "For one, it hasn’t even been confird. And even if it were true, we can’t be the ones to let that news get out."
"If she agrees to co, she’ll be saving us. She’d be our savior."
"If word of this gets out carelessly..."
Little Qing was young, but she wasn’t a fool. "It would cause her a lot of trouble."
"Mm-hmm."
Light-years away, the tofu shop owner leisurely made his way ho after checking on his workshop at the factory. Only then did he open his terminal—
’Besides my usual contacts, soone actually sent a ssage?’
’Oh, look at that. It’s an old comrade from ages and ages ago.’
’Why the sudden ssage?’ he wondered as he tapped the ssage open.
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