Orange Berry took a sip of the iced Americano at hand, silently marveling, ‘Being able to recruit a max-level social butterfly like Cao Qian Ju into this project is truly a blessing in disguise.’
Chu Yong said she wanted to recruit completely fresh, ninety-nine percent new, never-debuted rookies.
It was already lucky to have picked up Hoshisuna.
There weren’t that many people with extensive industry experience who hadn’t debuted yet.
And from what she observed during the last live stream, Hoshisuna seemed to have some psychological issues—she suddenly snapped and froze in place after some threshold was triggered.
Even with industry experience, she probably couldn’t become the pillar, only a support for the team.
Considering long-term goals, they might need to find a way to resolve her psychological problems.
What a double-edged sword.
If it involved her mother’s issues, it might not be an easy fix.
What was the cause, and what was the effect?
Did her mother cause her unstable mental state, or did her mother already know about this state and thus forbid her from continuing in the industry?
As an outsider, she couldn’t sort it out.
Orange Berry shook her head and refocused on the screen, where the smiling brown-haired cat-eared girl was active.
Fortunately, Cao Qian Ju was emotionally stable and had excellent social intelligence.
Indeed, a “real-life social butterfly” who was good-looking and well-versed in interpersonal skills—she was the best choice to control the overall rhythm and live room atmosphere.
A good-looking social butterfly really was perfect for managing the live room’s vibe.
Singing and dancing could be trained later.
She didn’t even need to put in full effort.
In Orange Berry’s plan, she intended to have Orange Quiet Forest handle the main dance workload.
It wasn’t favoritism.
She had fully experienced Orange Quiet Forest’s stamina during tonight’s banquet—absolutely strong.
Recalling the smooth combo that sent a 220-pound old guy flying, Orange Berry still felt a lingering fear.
It was no coincidence that she had solo-performed that difficult song in one go the other day.
Otherwise… go find someone who could send a 220-pound uncle flying in two moves and then argue about Orange Quiet Forest’s stamina?
Orange Berry watched the harmonious live stream on the screen with relief as she rapidly built a future tactical board in her mind.
Still, the team leader should probably be given to Cao Qian Ju.
She felt like the most mature and human of the five girls.
Jingchuan Xuanxiang was acceptable, but she always seemed hard to read and a bit difficult to control.
The other three were out of consideration for various reasons.
Enough overthinking.
Let’s get through tonight first.
Just as Orange Berry thought tonight’s live stream would finish smoothly and had the members check the debut song for later—
click.
The main monitor on the control desk went pure black without warning.
The live stream… suddenly got cut?
Inside the soundproof booth, Cao Qian Ju, sitting before the microphone, had her smile instantly freeze.
She stared at the blackened monitor in front of her, completely stunned.
“What just happened?! Check the equipment!”
Orange Berry’s blood pressure spiked.
She ripped off her headphones and shouted at the technician behind her.
After a flurry of keyboard clacks, the operations staff turned around, sweating.
“Sister Mei… it doesn’t seem to be an issue with our equipment or streaming feed.”
“Then what, was it a ghost?”
“It’s—our live room seems to have been cut by the platform officials. The violation reason is…”
The technician swallowed hard and pointed at the prompt box in the backstage.
“Suspected sex content violation.”
“…”
Orange Berry was dumbfounded.
Cao Qian Ju in the recording booth, hearing this through the glass, was so shocked her jaw nearly hit the floor.
Sex content violation?!
What sex content?!
And!
Even if!
If they were going to ban an account for “sex content violation,” then that Orange Quiet Forest—who openly put both feet together like an ice cream sandwich in front of tens of thousands of people—should have been banned long ago.
Why was she still live and kicking?!
Now Cao Qian Ju was just chatting, and they banned her?!
Was the platform’s AI review missing a brain stem?!
“Let me see!”
Orange Berry leaned down to look at the backstage violation record.
Seeing the red system notification: “Live room temporarily banned for suspected vulgar and sexual content,”
She looked up at the face behind the glass, one that looked about to cry from grievance.
It really was that ridiculous reason.
Orange Berry covered her face in despair, feeling that her lifespan had shortened by at least ten years this week.
What was this? When a member wasn’t doing anything extreme, she sat backstage in fear of a ban.
When it was finally a proper member’s turn, and she had just relaxed, thinking she could enjoy her iced Americano, the platform inexplicably struck hard.
Why…
“Don’t panic, Qian Ju. Take a deep breath.”
Orange Berry began to comfort Cao Qian Ju.
“It’s not your fault. Your performance just now was perfect. It’s definitely the platform’s problem. Drink some water and rest. Leave the rest to me.”
After calming Cao Qian Ju down, Orange Berry turned and rushed out of the soundproof booth, immediately switching to a swift “war mode.”
“Operations team, contact customer service quickly.”
“But it’s late at night. Customer service will probably take a manual review process. There’s no time.”
The operations guy was sweating profusely.
“Then switch to a backup platform!”
After posting an announcement on the official account, Cao Qian Ju started a new live stream on another platform.
Five minutes later, Cao Qian Ju sat before the microphone, took a deep breath, and put her headphones back on.
The screen lit up again on the new platform.
However, in the middle of the night with scattered traffic, the sudden cross-platform transfer came at a painful cost.
The peak online viewer count in the top-right corner was cut in half, leaving less than half of the original.
A large number of casual viewers and uninformed audiences were lost in the chaos.
Seeing the pitiful numbers on the screen, Cao Qian Ju bit her lower lip.
But she pulled herself together and started interacting with the viewers.
If the stream had been cut earlier, it wouldn’t have been this bad.
It was almost time to end the stream.
No matter how hard she tried to manage, she couldn’t gain fans that quickly.
No choice.
Even with only half the audience, Cao Qian Ju forced herself to be upbeat and smile as she interacted with everyone.
It couldn’t be helped.
If the cut had happened a bit earlier, maybe she could have gradually rekindled the hype.
But now, with so little time left before the scheduled end of the stream, no amount of effort could get the follower count back to where it was.
But just as Cao Qian Ju was doing her best to calm the viewers—
In the control room, Orange Berry finally received feedback.
She hurried into the recording booth.
Because she had been rushing to switch platforms and was mentally frazzled, Orange Berry didn’t notice that the main microphone on the desk was still glowing green.
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