Chapter 11: The True Rival

Yellow Lantern MCN Agency.

It was the middle of the night, yet the lights were blazing. Unlike PoJian, while Yellow Lantern had also been established as an MCN department by its parent software company, it had since become largely independent, firmly establishing itself in the entertainment industry by riding the wave of live-stream commerce.

Operating independently, the MCN agency had managed to cultivate a few minor celebrities. At the dawn of the vertical short-drama era, Yellow Lantern surged ahead, seizing the early opportunity when big stars were still unwilling to lower themselves to the medium, and launched a fleet of short-drama heartthrobs and queens. From the moment they opened their eyes until they closed them, it was all about "cute" flirtations and dramatic slapping scenes, and they were red-hot.

Although the Yellow Lantern software app had gradually been left behind by PoJian, even if PoJian grew arrogant enough to harbor thoughts of acquiring the entire company, it would never be able to touch the MCN branch.

"Is Lin’s group still streaming?"

A young, beautiful girl kicked off her high heels with a look of numbness, her bare feet pressing against the freezing winter floor, a weariness she could no longer hide lurking in her eyes.

Beside her, a group member of similar age sighed. "Performance metrics aren't met, so we have to pad the hours."

Ten small hearts, worth one yuan, were enough to force these unknown streamer groups to perform a dance. This was Yellow Lantern’s latest "star-making myth"—the group-streaming model. It was said that some amateur streamers received over ten thousand in tips in a single night, and some bottom-tier, nameless nobodies became famous throughout the entertainment industry with a simple dance, even being mimicked by A-list stars.

Wanyi gritted her teeth. "Damn this company. For a bottom-feeding group like us, the performance quotas in our contracts are impossible to meet given the platform's current daily active users. If we don't meet them, we're forced to log 400 hours of live streaming a month. It’s enough to work a person to death!"

Every day started with dancing, stiff smiles, mechanical heart-hand gestures, and scripted lines so familiar they haunted her dreams. Day after day, they were dragged from the "dream of becoming a star" into a cycle of waist-twisting and chest-shaking, edge-of-the-envelope content.

Weiwei’s head was still buzzing, her ears filled with ten thousand sweet "Thank you, big brother" echoes. "Be content! I heard the short-drama side has to work 17 hours a day; there's no mercy if you drop dead from exhaustion."

"The short-drama people get paid well! They make 20,000 a day! Besides, they’re at least filming a drama, appearing on screen, and having fanatical fans."

"That 20,000 is for the leads! The extras serving tea and water still only get 150."

The girls sighed in unison once again.

Yellow Lantern MCN Agency had a big name and many artists, but this came with extreme polarization. The top-tier stars could carry a leading role in the real entertainment industry, while at the bottom of the pyramid were countless underlings like them, scraping by on a base salary of 3,800, wasting their lives away day after day.

They had all been dazzled during their college years by titles like "Campus Beauty" or "Department Belle." During some etiquette or modeling gig, they were "discovered" by so-called talent scouts.

Taking advantage of their naivety, they were showered with grand promises: "zero experience needed," "paid training," "stop streaming whenever you have class," "room and board included after graduation," and "you can make ten thousand a month just by dancing." They were told stories of predecessors who became overnight sensations with net worths in the millions.

It seemed as if signing the contract was the golden path to becoming a star followed by the masses. Which girl wouldn't be tempted?

With a "let's give it a try" attitude, they went to the company to test the waters. They had a week of intensive training—regular schedules, healthy diets, and thirteen dances learned to perfection. Each was only a dozen seconds long, nothing difficult—just simple hand gestures or leg kicks. Then came the live group-streaming test. With the company's active traffic promotion, the data was quite impressive.

Weiwei still remembered her first group stream. Following a long-established team, she wasn't even in the center position, yet a "big brother" singled her out, saying her eyes were captivating, and threw 1,000 yuan in virtual fireworks at her.

1,000 yuan might not sound like much, but even after the split, it was a fortune compared to the 110 yuan a day for street promotions, 150 for an etiquette event, 500 for a week-long car show, or the 12 yuan an hour she made working part-time at a coffee shop.

Weiwei was ecstatic at the time, bowing frantically and putting even more effort into the "alluring" moves she thought she was performing. Thinking back to the soul-crushing jobs she had applied for at job fairs, she signed with Yellow Lantern without hesitation, becoming a sponsored trainee, waiting for the day she would become an award-winning actress.

It was only much later that she accidentally learned that the "big brother" was actually a plant hired by the company. Every newcomer’s first group stream had such a "big brother" who would "discerningly" pick them out and send them high-value tips.

It was the bait that locked them into this streaming path.

"How many assignments have you written today?"

Dandan checked her streamer backend, counting the private messages one by one. Their work didn't end in the live room; there was a crucial part after they went off-air.

Yellow Lantern required them to send personalized private messages to every fan who had gifted them, expressing genuine emotion and offering "emotional value."

Every reply had to be screenshotted and sent to the group. If they didn't reach 50 messages, they were docked 50 yuan for every one missing. If a high-level fan replied, they had no right to end the conversation; they had to keep chatting with the client until they could find a way to end the topic tactfully.

If the company discovered that they had let a fan lose interest, they faced a penalty of up to 1,000 yuan and a three-day suspension from streaming.

What did they do during a suspension?

Rest?

Don't be ridiculous. They had to spend 24 hours a day apologizing to fans, reflecting deeply, and then work twice as hard upon returning to catch up on the missed performance metrics.

Weiwei was truly exhausted.

The initial excitement and drive had long since vanished. With poor traffic flow for early morning streams, the platform would no longer waste extra resources on them.

What awaited them was the squandering of their youth, day after day, in exhausting streams with fewer than ten viewers and endless, grueling PK battles for rankings.

Weiwei grew increasingly irritable and anxious. Every day she felt dizzy and her limbs felt heavy, yet she still had to maintain a fake, vibrant energy on camera, acting cute and begging for "hugs."

Want to break the contract?

The management contract was written in black and white. Every resource the company had spent on them over this long period had to be repaid tenfold. With their meager monthly salaries, how could they ever afford the hundreds of thousands in breach-of-contract penalties?

You say you didn't look at the penalty clause when signing? Weiwei had looked, but she didn't understand the complex algorithms or how high the final figure could be. She only remembered the agent telling her that as long as she didn't violate the contract, there would naturally be no penalty.

Oh, and one more thing: "Of course! Some stars that the company works so hard to cultivate want to break their contracts once they hit it big. They rely on their fanbases to stir up trouble online and pressure the company—that’s when the penalty fees get very high."