Chapter 37: The Late-Night Storyteller

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: The Late-Night Storyteller

"Liam, thank you." Benjamin said thickly.

Liam shook his head: "All I did was give you a suggestion to act on, whether it succeeds comes down to your own effort. Beyond that it’s thanks to that top gifter as well. Because of his ten Battleships far more people know about you. You ought to thank him properly."

Benjamin sniffed: "Yes, yes, you’re right. I very nearly forgot, how rude of me."

Benjamin hurriedly opened the gift board, clicked the name wreathed in golden flame, sent a friend request. The other side accepted quickly. Benjamin sent a hello sticker along with a message:

"Thank you for supporting my channel. It’s because of you that my channel is as famous as it is now."

[If your channel had nothing special about it, I would never have sent you gifts. The videos you shoot really are outstanding.]

"I know my own standard, nowhere near as outstanding as you say. Still, I have to thank you for the encouragement. That gift was far too valuable, give me your bank ID and I’ll send it back to you."

On the other side of the screen, Daniel saw Benjamin wanting to return the gift, suddenly feeling a little put out. He puffed out his cheeks, typing with his lips pressed tight:

"No need to return it. I sent you the gift because I thought you deserved it!"

He paused, then messaged again: "Though if you do want to pay it back, that isn’t impossible. I won’t take money, but talk to me on a voice call, until I fall asleep."

[?]

Daniel went red, coughed lightly, then went on messaging: "I have insomnia, but after hearing your voice I found it very soothing. I’d like to borrow your voice to treat it."

On receiving Daniel’s message Benjamin’s face went blank. He rubbed the back of his neck in some confusion, not knowing how to answer. The other person’s display name was "White Narcissus", named after a flower just like Liam’s. Generally people who chose names like that were Omegas ninety percent of the time.

He was an Alpha, calling up somebody’s Omega to talk in the middle of the night, which however you put it sounded like harassment.

But the person had given him a gift of such value, then refused the money back, so he had no idea how to repay him.

Daniel had only meant to tease Benjamin a little, but seeing no reply from Benjamin for a long while, he felt somewhat disappointed. He typed:

"If it isn’t convenient that’s fine, I know the request was a bit much anyway."

[What would you like to hear?]

What?

Daniel went blank. It seemed that the very moment he sent his message, Benjamin on the other side had messaged back. He hadn’t expected him to actually agree. Surely Benjamin must have guessed he was an Omega? After all, what Alpha or Beta used a flower for a display name.

Daniel frowned slightly, pressing his lips together to message back: "You’ve agreed? Why? If somebody else asked you like this, would you agree to that too?"

Benjamin answered very decisively: [My brother says my channel only got famous because of you, so repaying you is only natural. It’s just a few words, it won’t cost me a scrap of flesh.]

He went on: [Of course if somebody else asked that I wouldn’t agree. You’re someone special.]

Daniel: "..."

Daniel buried his face in the pillow, the rims of his ears burning. The people who had tossed flirtatious words at him numbered if not a thousand then at least eight hundred, but none had ever embarrassed him enough to want to find a hole and crawl into it like this. The Alpha looked so honest, so how was he this good at sweet talk.

Benjamin, with no idea his innocent statement of fact had been taken for flirting, repeated his question once more:

"What topic would you like? I’ll warn you now, I’m not good at talking, I don’t know how to hold a conversation with people."

Daniel lifted his head to read the message, messaging back:

"Anything. Poetry, a book, a story, or simply things that happen in your life that you find interesting."

Benjamin thought for a moment, remembering there seemed to be a few books in his room on crop care and basic agricultural knowledge. He had no idea whether this big spender would like to hear them.

Looking at the clock, it was eight in the evening, still a long way off bedtime. He messaged White Narcissus:

"Then shall I call you at nine?"

[Fine.]

Benjamin closed his smart watch, then stood up, saying to his two siblings: "I’m going upstairs first, the two of you mind you go to bed early."

Isabella and Liam answered together, then went back to discussing setting up the crochet channel and the direction to develop it in. Neither of them had the faintest idea that without meaning to, their brother had just sold himself off.

Benjamin went back to his room, rummaged along the bookshelf, took down a book introducing the plant species currently in cultivation. Once he had skimmed the contents and found nothing wrong with them, he set the book on the bedside cabinet, took his clothes to go and shower.

When he finished showering it was only eight forty, still twenty minutes before the appointed time, so Benjamin sat on the bed, towelling his hair while reading the book through silently once, to be sure he wouldn’t stumble over it later.

At nine in the evening, Benjamin put in his smart earpiece, nervously pressing the call button for White Narcissus.

Daniel switched off the hair dryer, his hand trembling slightly at the sight of the incoming call, so that the dryer dropped onto the carpet. The nanny robot came forward at once, picking up the dryer to put it away. Daniel ordered the robot out, snatching up the smart earpiece from the bedside cabinet himself, quickly putting it in.

He pressed to answer, his fingertip trembling so much it slipped several times.

"Ah... hello..." The Alpha’s warm low voice sounded at the other end of the line, making Daniel’s ear tickle slightly. He let out a small "mm". The Alpha on the other side was plainly somewhat nervous, not speaking very clearly either:

"I’ll... I’ll start reading then?"

"Mm." Daniel answered quietly again, followed by the soft sound of his breathing. Naturally with only two "mm"s as faint as a mosquito’s whine, Benjamin couldn’t possibly recognize his voice.

And even if Daniel had spoken naturally, Benjamin would only have thought the voice sounded a little similar, never able to connect the person on the line with his idol. He cleared his throat twice to get started, then slowly began reading the first page.

"A hundred million years ago, the Lumina galaxy looked nothing at all like it does now. In that era, every planet in the galaxy was covered in a beautiful green. Plants of every kind flourished and spread, almost every inch of ground in the galaxy was green..."

Daniel listened in silence. At first the Alpha’s voice faltered a little, seemingly unused to reading aloud. Gradually, his reading steadied, the sound rising and falling like the murmur of the sea. Daniel listened for a while, his eyes closing slowly of their own accord.

Benjamin read on and on, only realizing when he came to himself that he had read through a third of the book. His throat was rather dry too. At the other end of the line there was nothing left but the Omega’s even breathing. Looking at the clock, it was already ten twenty. Benjamin called softly:

"White Narcissus?"

No answer came from the other side, so Benjamin knew the person there had fallen asleep. He closed the book, saying quietly: "Sleep well."

That said he ended the voice call, getting up to drink a cup of warm water to ease his throat. Just then the person responsible for his channel messaged, asking whether he wanted to attach a shopping cart.

Benjamin refused at once. For one thing the vegetables in the field had all been harvested, with none left to sell. For another he wanted to wait until the trial of restoring the soil with microbial compost, along with the new vegetable varieties, had been grown successfully, before trying out a cart to see how the public responded.

Liam said all these varieties could keep back seed or stems and tubers to use as stock, but restoration fluid was very costly, so selling cheap was impossible. And fresh vegetables were something ordinary people could hardly afford, since even the awful Sawtooth greens at seven hundred silver stars a kilogram, ordinary people only dared eat two or three times a month.

And the cost of food storage boxes, the fee for berthing the ship at the port, locker delivery fees, maintenance on the cargo ship,... added together was no small sum.

If they attached a cart and nobody bought, or buyers only trickled in for a kilogram or two, they’d end up losing money.

The platform didn’t press him, the staff member messaging again: [The gifts you’ve received today have passed fifty million silver stars, would you like to convert them to cash now?]

Benjamin went blank, opening the figures to look. It turned out that while he had been busy reading that Omega to sleep, people had been passing his videos around to watch. His follower count now stood at one million four hundred and fifty-eight thousand, his name having changed from ordinary black with a gold outline to orange-red.

Besides the ten Starry Sky Battleships from White Narcissus, he had received another three Starry Sky Battleships from three different people and small gifts from fans.

All told it came to fifty-three million silver stars, less the thirty percent platform maintenance fee, leaving him thirty-seven million one hundred thousand silver stars. That was more than the income from selling the Sawtooth greens after costs.

Benjamin stood by the window looking at the scene outside, dazed for a long while.

He kept feeling that today hadn’t quite been real. First he had met his idol in real life, then his family had struck a deal with the Masons. Next, he had become famous thanks to ten Starry Sky Battleships, then after that, the voice lulling a strange Omega to sleep.

Now the platform was telling him, he had received over thirty-seven million silver stars in the space of a few hours.

Benjamin was afraid it was only a dream of his, afraid that tomorrow he would wake to find nothing left...