After she uploaded the video, it was approved almost instantly. Gu Ning waited a moment before eagerly refreshing her creator dashboard.
Uh... Views: 2
And both of those views were from her.
After refreshing several times without seeing the view count increase, Gu Ning told herself not to be so impatient. 'Everyone's at work right now. It's a low-traffic period, so it's normal that no one's watching.'
Seeing the empty title field, Gu Ning smacked her forehead. 'Right, I'm a new account.' Without a title and tags, very few Beastmen would ever stumble across the video.
With that, she wrote a new title, "Are we watching the same sunset?" and added the "Beast Female" tag.
Once that was done, Gu Ning closed the dashboard for now and went to tidy up the bedroom.
She wanted to film videos in different settings later, so she needed to decorate properly. The bedroom would have to be put to good use.
When Cook saw Gu Ning moving things out of the bedroom, he immediately went over to help.
"I can get it. Your leg hasn't healed yet, you need to rest it," Gu Ning said, pushing him aside.
Cook didn't listen, stubbornly grabbing an item and dragging it out.
Gu Ning knew he could be a bit stubborn. The fact that he was obediently staying home to recover was already a miracle, so she let him be, only reminding him to rest if he felt any discomfort.
She also hoped he would recover quickly; it would take some of the pressure off her.
Cook was quite strong and quickly helped her empty the bedroom.
Gu Ning looked around the empty bedroom, wiping the sweat from her brow as she considered how to decorate it.
Just then, a knock at the door shattered her thoughts.
The sound of knocking sent a jolt of panic through Gu Ning. Her heart began to pound. Standing in the bedroom doorway, she peered toward the entryway.
'Who is it? Is the landlord here for the rent again?'
Cook caught the scent of a Beastman outside. A frustrated grumble rumbled in his throat as he dragged his injured leg to the door and let out a low, warning growl.
The knocking paused for a moment, then resumed.
"Open the door," a deep, male Beastman's voice called from outside.
'That voice sounds a little familiar,' Gu Ning thought.
Cook's warning growl grew fiercer.
The pounding on the door grew heavier. "Open the door," the Beastman outside repeated.
"Cook," Gu Ning whispered, "don't open the door."
Cook had been about to charge out, but he held himself back at Gu Ning's words.
'We've lived here for a while, and the only person who's knocked on our door was the landlord, and that was just twice. This isn't his voice.'
「Outside the door.」
Wanai knocked for a long while, but the Mixed Breed inside didn't open the door.
'This Mixed Breed has such a good temper?'
Usually, a Dwarf hybrid would have lost its patience and charged out to fight him by now.
He'd already asked the landlord; there was indeed a Dwarf hybrid living in this building. As it happened, they lived right across the hall from him.
Here in the industrial district, few Beastmen would rent to a Mixed Breed, especially a volatile Dwarf hybrid. The landlord said this particular one was paying triple the rent, which was the only reason he agreed to it.
Wanai pressed his ear to the door, listening intently. He and this Mixed Breed were separated by a single door, and the soundproofing wasn't great. He could hear the Mixed Breed's panting and the continuous, irritable, low growl it was emitting.
But besides the sounds of this Mixed Breed, Wanai heard something else—another, fainter sound of breathing.
Wanai's eyes narrowed slightly. 'There are two Beastmen in there.'
However, he could only smell one of them—the foul stench of the Dog Clan.
Wanai reached into his jacket pocket, his fingers brushing against something in a sealed plastic bag. He turned and went to find the landlord again.
Cook stood guard at the door until the Beastman outside was long gone. Only then did he return to Gu Ning's side, nudging her with his head to soothe her.
Gu Ning breathed a sigh of relief when the knocking didn't resume.
She continued to sort through their belongings, her mind uneasy. After a few minutes, several message notifications popped up on her terminal.
Seeing the familiar paw print icon, Gu Ning sank to the floor and opened the messages.
The first was a friend request.
Gu Ning paused. She opened the request and saw a gray wolf avatar. The wolf had a serious expression and resolute eyes.
Gu Ning ignored the request for now and clicked on the next message. It was another friend request. This time, the avatar was a Beastman's selfie, posed as formally as an ID photo. Judging by the shape of his ears, he had to be from the Dog Clan or the Wolf Clan.
She didn't accept the friend request and moved on to the next few messages. They were all friend requests, and all the avatars were from the Wolf Clan and Dog Clan.
When she got to the last new notification, Gu Ning saw it was a private message:
"Hello, may I ask if you are a young lady of the Dog Clan?"
The sender's tone was very polite, and they followed up with a long self-introduction.
Before Gu Ning could finish reading, more message notifications started popping up nonstop.
Seeing all the notifications, Gu Ning stared at her screen for a few seconds before it dawned on her. She went to her account dashboard and clicked on the ten-second video she had posted.
By now, there were already quite a few comments under the video:
"Oh my god, look what I stumbled upon during my training break?!!!"
"A new video from a Beast Female!"
"Is this a real Beast Female?!"
"That silhouette! She must be an incredibly cute little Beast Female!"
"Is that a Beast Female from our Dog Clan?!"
"Hey, buddy upstairs, get your dog eyes checked. She's obviously a Beast Female from our Wolf Clan."
"Exactly! The little Beast Female's ears are wolf ears!"
"(Vicious dog baring teeth) You're the ones who need your eyes checked! Based on her ears, the little Beast Female is clearly from the Dog Clan!"
"(Fierce wolf roaring) Wolf Clan! Wolf Clan! Wolf Clan! Get lost, you puppies!"
"You pieces of dog shit! You wolf pups can't even get your tails up in front of a Beast Female. You have the nerve to argue with the Dog Clan?"
As usual, the Wolf Clan and Dog Clan were at each other's throats in the comments, arguing heatedly over which clan the little Beast Female belonged to.
"What's all the arguing for? Can we just appreciate the video?"
"It's always the Dog Clan that starts the biggest fights. Even if the little Beast Female is one of yours, she'd still be annoyed by a bunch of dogs like you."
"Please don't ignore the Wolf Clan, thank you."
"They're all dogs. What's the difference?"
The flame war began to spread to other clans.
"The video's a little blurry. The little Beast Female isn't necessarily from the Dog Clan."
"Blurry? It's called soft-focus, you philistine. Don't you know art when you see it? Dear Beast Female, your video is beautiful."
"Exactly! It's an aesthetic! A dreamy, soft-focus aesthetic! Don't listen to the haters, Miss Beast Female! You did a great job!"
"Oh, my dear Beast Female, we are watching the same sunset. How lucky I am. I would be even luckier if I could watch it with you."
"The commenter above is dreaming of eating shit."
"Miss Beast Female, the sunset you filmed is beautiful, but you are even more beautiful."
"She might not have filmed this herself, right? Maybe it was her guardian?"
"Can someone please answer my question? Is this a real-life Beast Female? Or is it a new 3D model made by some master animator?"
"@upstairs, I don't think she's real. Feels more like a movie teaser from some corporation, right? They don't even show her face. They're just waiting for a big reveal to rake in the cash. I know this playbook."
"Damn it! I fell for the bait. But fine, take my money! Just please don't make it a limited edition this time (slams table)."
"I think she's real, but the account is brand new. Why is her region listed as the No Man's Land? Shouldn't it be the Central Green Area?"
"Hey, would you dogs stop biting each other for a second? Didn't any of you notice the character for 'meow' in the little Beast Female's username? What kind of Dog Clan member would have 'meow' in their name...?"
"Yeah, and her avatar is a cat. That's weird."
"'Meow'?! Could she be one of us from the Cat Clan? (cat peeks out)"
"Don't you guys try to get in on this! The little Beast Female belongs to the Dog Clan! Scram, scram, scram!"
"Please base your judgment on the video. Our Wolf Clan's little Beast Female can use whatever avatar she wants."
The comment section was a battlefield of endless debate, and donations were flooding in nonstop.
Donation icons in the shape of various Beast Coins scrolled across the video, with bone-shaped icons being the most common.
Beastmen's donations were as simple and direct as their avatars; the gift icons resembled the patterns on actual Beast Coins.
As Gu Ning scrolled through the comments, she glimpsed the constantly updating gift leaderboard in the sidebar. Her fingers trembled slightly.