CHAPTER 99: CHAPTER 99: WHY AREN’T THE FANS SPEAKING UP?

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, there’s someone scamming live in the chat room!"

Others also wanted to leave comments warning An Yan not to be fooled, only to find that they couldn’t post anything.

Seeing that An Yan hadn’t responded for a while, the other side spoke again:

"You’re an emotional blogger, why are you so unsympathetic?"

"Ha, I’m really going crazy!"

"You’ve taken so much money from us ordinary people, and you don’t want to cough up a single cent!"

"Can you take a good look at yourself? Have you been paying your taxes on time all these years? Have you done any charity? Do you understand the principle of ’from the people, for the people’? You’ve earned so much. What’s wrong with giving a little back to society?"

"I’m nearly starving to death, and you won’t even give me ten thousand yuan!"

Ha, now they’re resorting to guilt-tripping.

An Yan stared at the continuously rising number of viewers in her livestream and suddenly realized that this was actually an opportunity to gain more followers.

So she continued to stay silent!

After a while, the other party got angry:

"I’ll really report you! Think about it, once your account gets banned, you’ll have to start over with a new one! Creating a new account means you’ll have to buy new followers! Buying followers costs money too, right?"

Buying followers?

An Yan suddenly understood why this person dared to extort her in the livestream. They thought her followers were all fake.

Wait a minute!

Why weren’t her fans saying anything?

Surely, among so many people, there had to be at least one passionate soul, right?

Upon checking her settings panel, An Yan discovered that she had accidentally muted all her followers.

No wonder other livestreams were full of a constant barrage of comments, while hers was as clean as if it had just been scrubbed!

What an ironic twist of fate! It had actually made this extortionist think they’d found an easy mark!

After figuring out the reason, An Yan finally said:

"Don’t be rash. I, I, I just started this account and haven’t begun making money yet. Can you give me a discount?"

When they heard her stutter, the other party thought they had truly scared her and said firmly:

"No discount. Ten thousand is the minimum. Transfer the money to me quickly!"

An Yan fell silent again.

The fans in the livestream who wanted to warn her not to be fooled found they were unable to post their messages.

They became anxious.

Some called their friends to join the spectacle, while others reported her to the cyber police or informed the platform about the situation...

And just like that, her follower count rose!

Soon, the platform privately messaged her, cautioning her to be careful not to be scammed.

But An Yan ignored these warnings.

After some back-and-forth bargaining, she finally agreed to send the scammer five thousand yuan!

Netizens: "..."

They wanted to save her, but they were helpless! How infuriating!

Before long, the scammer sent over their account details through a private message.

When An Yan saw the name, she burst into laughter.

Lin Yueru!

It had been such a long time since she’d even thought of this person! To think she’d actually stooped to scamming.

On stream, An Yan began to make a call:

"Axiao, can I borrow five thousand..."

Before she could finish, the other person hung up.

An Yan muttered, as if to herself:

"Maybe her signal was bad! She’s actually my best friend! She didn’t hang up on me on purpose!"

As she spoke, her voice grew quieter.

Soon, she dialed another number.

"Ali, I’ve run into a bit of trouble. Could you return the five thousand yuan you borrowed from me..."

Before she could finish, An Yan’s expression changed again, and her eyes seemed to redden.

"She probably has a bad signal too, right? Last time I lent her money, she said she’d pay me back within a week, but now it’s been half a year! And she has such a good job; she definitely isn’t short of those five thousand yuan!"

After saying this, she seemed afraid the scammer wouldn’t believe her, so she even looked up at the camera and said:

"Don’t worry, I still have friends! I will definitely be able to gather the five thousand yuan!"

The netizens: "..."

Watching someone being deceived right before your eyes, this kind of feeling indeed brought about such mixed feelings!

On the screen, An Yan dialed another number:

"Brother Wang, could you lend me five thousand..."

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP...

In the livestream, An Yan made six or seven phone calls in a row, but without exception, she was hung up on every time.

On the other side of the internet, Lin Yueru watched her beg pitifully for others’ help!

Yes, seeing someone more miserable than her made her feel extremely gratified!

As for the viewers, while watching this scene, they couldn’t help but find their eyes tearing up one after another!

Everyone’s mind drifted to the toughest times of their own lives.

This streamer doesn’t seem too sharp.

A well-known verified influencer who heard the commotion did not hesitate to screenshot this livestream and posted it on their Weibo, captioning it:

"Watching her being scammed without being able to help her. After thinking it over, the only thing I could do was to ask my fans and friends for help. The more people who witness this, the heavier the sentence for the extortionist will be."

As a result, a large number of netizens were drawn over.

Lin Yueru stayed in An Yan’s livestream, confidently waiting for this emotional blogger to transfer her the money.

Ever since she was driven out of the Lin Family by Lin Shiping, she had started to harbor crooked thoughts!

Today was her first attempt!

So far, she felt that everything was still under her control.

The streamer’s account was newly registered.

The so-called fans were probably just fake followers she’d bought.

In the livestream, the number of fans kept jumping up, but no one commented.

The person who sold her these followers must be using these numbers to trick this streamer!

She would just wait.

But the money never came. Instead, the police did:

"Lin Yueru, you are suspected of fraud..."

When Lin Yueru was taken away, An Yan uploaded both her police report and the live footage of Lin Yueru’s arrest to the livestream.

Then she apologized to the viewers:

"Sorry, I’m new to livestreaming and wasn’t familiar with the interface. I accidentally hit the mute all button!"

"The part about borrowing money just now was a method I discussed with the police to stall the scammer after reporting the crime."

"I wasn’t fooled. Nor did I lose any money. Thank you all for your concern!"

"Lastly, I am an emotional counselor, skilled at solving various emotional problems. If any of you are having trouble with relationship issues and want someone to talk to, you can come to me! It’s completely free!!"

"Thank you all for your support today!"

After saying that, An Yan finally unmuted the chat.

The chat in the livestream instantly exploded with comments:

[That scared me! I thought the streamer was really scammed.]

[We were so naive. The streamer is a proper psychological counselor; how could that scammer possibly trick her?]

[But, this strategy was really brilliant. Feels like it should be on a legal education show.]

[I’ve been here from the beginning of the stream. This streamer definitely knows her stuff, you know, that kind of feeling where she completely puts herself in your shoes.]

[Right, right, I was here from the start too. That phrase, ’Endure a moment of rage and you grit your teeth; take a step back and you’ll feel even more wronged,’ resonated deeply with me.]

[...]

Thanks to Lin Yueru’s stunt, An Yan’s followers surged past one hundred thousand!

The livestream was bustling, and An Yan cherry-picked questions from the viewers and answered a few.

At this moment, someone else requested to connect.