6: Chapter 6 Records a Wonderful Life

One week later.

Magic City University, girls' dormitory.

11:00 PM.

On the upper bunk by the window, a girl with a round face was wearing headphones and scrolling through her phone. She had the quilt pulled over her head, but occasionally, irrepressible laughter leaked out from under it.

"Pfft."

"Hahahaha."

"Damn, Zhang Wen, why are you laughing in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

The girl on the lower bunk opposite woke up and turned over impatiently.

A messy head of hair poked out from under the quilt, and a smile that hadn't yet faded still hung on her round face.

"Sorry, sorry, I'll be quieter."

Zhang Wen apologized in a low voice, but her eyes never left the phone screen.

"What on earth are you watching? You've been laughing for almost an hour."

The girl opposite was also piqued by curiosity and simply sat up.

"Douyin, an app. It's full of fun videos, it's so interesting."

Zhang Wen simply unplugged her headphones and turned the phone screen toward the other side.

On the screen was a funny video of a kitten slipping.

"Pfft."

The girl opposite couldn't help it either.

"Let me see too."

Zhang Wen handed the phone down from the upper bunk. The girl opposite took it and subconsciously swiped up with her finger.

The next video.

A girl without makeup was sitting on the edge of the bed yawning, with dark circles under her eyes, but the next second, she took out a lighter, clicked it, and instantly transformed into a supermodel-like look.

From the lighter igniting to the transformation being complete, it took one second.

The girl opposite's mouth opened into an 'O' shape, and she was stunned.

"Holy crap? Is this the same person?"

Her exclamation woke up the other two people in the dormitory.

"What on earth are you two doing?"

"Come look at this! It's incredible!"

In less than half a minute, three girls were squeezed onto one bed, crowding around a tiny phone screen.

"How did she do that? How did she change clothes?"

"It must be editing, just cut at the point where she turned around."

"I know it's editing, but the contrast between the before and after is too huge. Look, when she was yawning, she was just an ordinary person. After the transformation, her whole aura is completely different."

"Yeah, after she finished transforming, there was even a light in her eyes. It's like she's a different person."

Zhang Wen took the phone back and swiped up again.

The next few videos were also transformations.

"Swipe another one, swipe another one!"

Zhang Wen swiped again.

What popped up on the screen wasn't a video, but an invitation page.

"Douyin Creator Invitation: Record a wonderful life, let your talent be seen by the world."

Below was a line of small text.

"Based on video views and interaction data, creators can receive cash incentives. The settlement cycle is quarterly."

Zhang Wen read this line aloud and then pursed her lips.

"Quarterly settlement? You only get money once every three months, and you have to make a viral video first. That's too unreliable."

"Exactly. What if you film something and no one watches it? You won't get a single penny."

"Forget it, let's just watch for fun."

"Besides, who knows when this little app will disappear? Why waste the effort? I think it's just tricking us into filming videos for it."

The three girls quickly lost interest in the creator invitation and turned back to scrolling through videos.

Zhang Wen opened another video of a husky destroying the house, and the girls laughed until they were bending over.

No one noticed that on the lower bunk by the door, a girl was lying with her eyes open, quietly listening to their discussion.

Her name was Su Xiaomo, and she had come from a nationally impoverished county in the neighboring province after passing the entrance exams.

The dormitory's air conditioning fees, hot water fees, and internet fees—every single item had to be carefully calculated for her.

Her phone was the cheapest thousand-yuan model she had bought while working at an electronics factory during the summer after graduating from high school. She had used it for three years, and even though the screen had two cracks, she couldn't bear to replace it.

She rarely hung out with the other three people in the dormitory.

It wasn't that they ostracized her.

It was that she ostracized herself.

When others discussed which brand of foundation was good, which newly opened restaurant was delicious, or whether they should go shopping together on the weekend, she could never join the conversation.

Her weekends were always spent working part-time: handing out flyers, tutoring, or standing in a milk tea shop all day, earning twenty yuan an hour.

This money was for food, for books, and to send medical expenses to her sick mother back home.

Su Xiaomo turned over and quietly pulled out the phone from under her pillow.

The two cracks on the screen lit up, and the light made her squint.

She opened the app store and searched for "Douyin".

Download.

Install.

Register.

The Douyin logo flashed by, and the first video started playing automatically. It was a little girl dancing on a ridge in a field, dancing crookedly, but smiling very happily.

Su Xiaomo was stunned for a moment.

She thought Douyin was all about those glamorous transformation videos; she hadn't expected to see this kind.

She swiped down.

An old man was chopping wood in the courtyard. With one swing of the axe, the wood split open, and the old man didn't even look up, just waved his hand to shoo away chickens.

Swipe again.

An auntie wearing an apron was tossing a wok in the kitchen. The vegetables in the pan flipped in a beautiful arc, and the auntie gave a thumbs up to the camera, grinning.

These videos were shot very roughly, the picture shaky, the audio recorded by the phone itself, and there was messy background noise.

But Su Xiaomo was mesmerized.

Because the people filming these videos were the same kind of people as her.

She continued to swipe down and scrolled to that creator invitation again.

"Based on video views and interaction data, creators can receive cash incentives."

She read this line again.

Video views.

Interaction data.

Cash incentives.

These three words swirled around in her mind.

Su Xiaomo quietly glanced at the opposite bed; her roommates were still laughing and scrolling through videos around Zhang Wen's phone.

She reopened that transformation video from earlier, the scene where the lighter ignited and the transformation happened in a second. She watched it back and forth five times.

When the fifth time ended, she pressed pause and stared at the frozen frame.

It didn't seem that hard.

It was just finding a contrast with a big difference—the messier the before, the better; the more refined the after, the better.

She knew how to apply makeup.

Back home, she had learned makeup from her cousin for over half a year. She had originally intended to work as a makeup assistant at a studio in the county town after learning, but she didn't go because she got into university.

Her makeup skills weren't top-tier among makeup artists, but they were definitely enough for an ordinary person.

But.

Su Xiaomo opened the suitcase at the end of her bed and searched through it twice.

Over and over, there were only a few pieces of clothing: a white hoodie, a black hoodie, dark blue jeans, light blue jeans, a pair of canvas shoes, and a pair of sneakers—all bought from the school's second-hand group.

Not even a single skirt.

She thought for a moment, turned over and got out of bed, walked to the lower bunk opposite, and tapped Zhang Wen, who was scrolling on her phone.

"Zhang Wen, can you... lend me a skirt? One that looks a bit nicer."

Zhang Wen looked up, moved her eyes away from the phone screen, and sized up Su Xiaomo.

"Are you going out?"

"No, I... I want to film a video."

"Film a video?"

Another roommate poked her head over from the side.

"You don't want to film those transformation videos on Douyin, do you?"

Su Xiaomo nodded.

The room was quiet for a second.

Then all three girls burst out laughing.

"No, Xiaomo, I'm not trying to discourage you, but look at the kind of people who film these videos."

Zhang Wen held the phone up to her and swiped to a trending transformation video.

"Look at this. Their looks, their figure, their clothes—which of these do you have?"

The other roommate chimed in from the side.

"Exactly, exactly. Xiaomo, you'd better be realistic. Just stick to your tutoring and handing out flyers. Don't have any daydream about being an influencer."

Su Xiaomo stood there.

Those words were like fine, dense needles, pricking into her skin one by one. It didn't hurt, but it was uncomfortable.

"Never mind, I won't borrow the clothes."

She turned and walked back to her bed.

Zhang Wen pursed her lips. "Are you mad?"

"No."

Su Xiaomo's voice was very calm.

She got on her bed and pulled the curtain shut.

But she didn't give up.

The next afternoon, Su Xiaomo went to the neighboring dormitory and found a girl she had met during a public elective course in her freshman year. She borrowed a black dress and a pair of high heels that hadn't been worn many times.

Then she went alone to the barbershop at the back gate of the school and used the money she had saved from tutoring to get a temporary perm.

Evening.

She took advantage of the time her roommates went to the cafeteria to eat and set up her phone alone in the dormitory.

The phone was that thousand-yuan model with two cracks on the screen.

The thing she used to stabilize the phone was built from three books and two delivery boxes.

Su Xiaomo stood in front of the camera wearing the borrowed slippers.

She took a deep breath and pressed the record button.