Local?

Half an hour later, Xu Lin finished his meal. His parents didn't make him do the dishes, so he quickly retreated to his room.

Sitting in front of his computer, his head was still buzzing. After polishing off three or four bottles of beer, his old man just kept getting more and more worked up as he talked! Fortunately, his mom had intervened, or else the old man would have gone on a full drunken rampage right then and there.

Still, his dad's speech had almost shaken his resolve, because what the old man said actually made a lot of sense.

However, he had already taken the first step. How could he possibly back down so easily now?

He was going all the way forward, even if what lay ahead of him was a damn abyss! At the very least, it would be an abyss populated by a beautiful girl!

Taking a deep breath, he returned to work mode. He still hadn't made the opening sequence. Once that was done, there was the background music, and he still needed to record vocals.

Wait, if he recorded vocals at this hour, wouldn't he disturb the neighbors? Should he just randomly find a nice, soothing piece of light music instead? Right, there was also Chu Qingchan.

Xu Lin immediately sent a message to Chu Qingchan. Her bedroom had been specially soundproofed precisely so she could record music and sing at home.

During her usual practice sessions, she accumulated quite a few demo tracks, some of which he had even listened to before. He could easily borrow one to use as background music.

After waiting half a minute, a WeChat video call came in. He answered it, and Chu Qingchan's pretty face appeared on the screen.

Her hair was disheveled and draped over her shoulders, still slightly damp—she must have just taken a shower.

"Is something the matter? Do you want my demo tracks?"

"Did you just get home?"

"Half an hour ago. Ji Yun and Chu Fengyi are making dinner outside. Have you eaten?"

"I have. I was originally going to call you guys over for dinner, but since those two seemed a bit tired from work today, I decided not to bother you."

"We can't keep intruding on your uncle and aunt every single day anyway." As Chu Qingchan spoke, another head peeked out from beside her.

"Chu Fengyi, what are you doing?"

"Just making sure you aren't cheating, let's see if the person on the other side is really Xu Lin." Chu Fengyi sat down with an air of solemn righteousness, her ears perking up.

"Chu Fengyi, you've joined the alliance too. As the first rule of the alliance, do you have any shared intelligence to contribute?" Chu Qingchan glanced back at her younger sister.

"I travel for business a lot, I don't know anything. Whatever I know, you guys know too. Like that Bai Senior Sister, or that Teacher Su, other than that I really don't know a thing."

"Didn't you claim to have the greatest intelligence network in the world?"

"I am a law-abiding citizen, how could I possibly be involved in illegal intelligence operations? That was just to scare Xu Lin for fun."

Hearing Chu Fengyi's words from his side of the screen, Xu Lin couldn't help but feel that while this girl wasn't as fierce as she used to be, she had become a lot more slick. It seemed she had truly inherited her husband's mantle.

"Let's put that aside for a moment. Chu Fengyi, are you and Xu Lin hiding something from me? For instance, why your relationship suddenly got so good—I feel there's definitely more to this."

"I'm going out to help with dinner now! Ji Yun might not be able to handle everything by herself! Farewell."

With that, she threw open the bedroom door and bolted outside. Chu Qingchan clenched her little fists in triumph—she had defeated her uncute sister once again!

"You look quite pleased."

"How can you tell?" She glanced into the mirror, realizing she hadn't let any expression show.

"Your eyes lit up quite a bit, though." Xu Lin could actually tell that she had instantly transitioned from a state of fatigue to full alertness.

"Perhaps this is just a way for us sisters to cultivate our bond~"

Actually, ever since they were little, long before their relationship had grown distant, they were just good sisters who spent their entire day bickering and playing around.

As they grew older and various things piled up, the two of them had indeed drifted apart quite a bit. Lately, however, because of Xu Lin, the time they spent together had increased significantly.

"Oh right, I almost forgot your actual business. What do you need a demo track for? Haven't you heard them all already?"

"I shot a short food video today and originally planned to sing for the background music. But I'm afraid of disturbing the neighbors, so I wanted to borrow a track from you."

"Sure. Do you want to use an original song?"

"Didn't you say you have a competition and a single release next year? Don't leak anything just yet. Just send me a mixed cut of that song by Teacher Guan that you sang the other day."

"Alright, I'll send it over to you. It's past 8 PM now, you should get some rest early too."

"By the way, did Ji Yun talk to you about Bai Xiaoxiao?"

"Yeah. I didn't expect you to bring this up with me yourself." Chu Qingchan looked at him with a hint of playfulness.

"Like I said, I'm an honest man. What is, is; what isn't, isn't."

Of course, aside from the matter with Qin Yunhe, his fake-couple relationship with Teacher Su wasn't entirely impossible to disclose either.

"Hmph, I hope you maintain this honest attitude in the future."

"Of course. But your alliance already has three members now. What are you going to do if even more people join later?"

Xu Lin was probing subtly to lay some groundwork, and naturally, to test the waters regarding Chu Qingchan's stance.

"Xu Lin, are you plotting something bad in that head of yours? Don't worry, our alliance is very strict. Anyway, you can only pick one—after all, that's what the law dictates."

"As such a law-abiding little citizen, how could I possibly have wild thoughts! I'm off to work. Get some rest early too, signing off."

With that, he hung up the video call. Chu Qingchan curled her lips in a pout, suddenly realizing who Chu Fengyi had learned her slipperiness from recently—both of these people were absolute slippery characters!

Yet they were both people she liked, sigh~ I suppose she would just have to live life one day at a time.

Still, the alliance had its own reason for existing. Having more people around wasn't a big deal; as long as they were reeled in, they had to obey the organization's rules.

As the founder of the organization, no matter what, she was still the big boss.

Besides, most importantly, which girl would ever want to share her husband with someone else?

Though as far as she was concerned, sharing him with younger sister Ji Yun was just barely tolerable, she truly couldn't accept anyone else—not even Chu Fengyi.

On Xu Lin's end, after hanging up the video call, he waited for Chu Qingchan's background music to arrive while tinkering with the opening sequence. A few minutes later, he was ready to pull his hair out.

It was so hard! Even a simple opening sequence was impossibly hard! It was far too blunt; to put it vulgarly, it made things terribly awkward.

"Sigh... this won't do, I need to ask a professional."

So he opened QQ and found the fan named Xing Mimi.

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'Good evening, sorry to bother you again.'

Not even two seconds later, the other person replied promptly: 'I'm here. Did the author-kun finally buy your equipment?'

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'Not yet bought the shooting camera, taking it one step at a time.'

Xing Mimi: 'Using your phone at the beginning is fine too, I started with my phone as well. Which video blogger has a huge starting capital right from the start, anyway?'

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'Yeah, I've temporarily bought some recording equipment and a lapel mic, and tried filming a short food video.'

Xing Mimi: 'Is there a problem with the editing? I can help, though I'm not exactly super skilled either.'

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'I managed to scrape by with the editing, but it's the opening. Actually, do I even need to make one?'

Xing Mimi: 'Actually, you've fallen into a misconception.'

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'Eh?'

Xing Mimi: 'If you go watch those major video bloggers, their openings are actually quite casual, they don't do specialized introductions or anything.'

Xu Lin recalled that before his rebirth, he loved watching food videos late at night. It did indeed seem like they always cut straight to the point, and if there was an introduction, it was just a routine greeting.

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'True.'

Xing Mimi: 'Then you should do the same—just transition into it smoothly without bothering with any dry, stiff intros. Are you showing your real face?'

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'No, just my arms, making croquettes.'

Xing Mimi: 'Pretty Japanese style then. You can just start right into it accompanied by that soothing music.'

'Then add some subtitles, or a voiceover, say hello, and dive right in!'

Hearing the other person put it that way, things suddenly cleared up a lot for him. He really had fallen into a novice's misconception.

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'Thanks.'

Xing Mimi: 'No need to thank me, if you want to thank me, drop a bonus chapter update.'

Xu the Twelfth Lord: 'Haha, depends on the mood, slacking off is bliss.'

Xing Mimi: 'Dog head emoji~'

Xu Lin closed the chat window and prepared to re-edit his video. As he looked at the other person's avatar, he narrowed his eyes.

"Is this the Jiulong Reliquary Pagoda?"

The Jiulong Reliquary Pagoda was one of the few tourist attractions in their local Linshui. Though the locals' attitude toward it was pretty much the same as the locals' attitude toward that mundane Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

How did this person have this photo? Could they really be a local by such a coincidence?!