Chapter 144 The lollipop poked the back of my throat, barf

"Yesterday, a severely mentally ill patient escaped from our hospital.
The patient's surname is Ye, his given name is Chen, and he is twenty-three years old. He was wearing our hospital uniform when he fled.
If any kind-hearted person sees this individual, please contact us immediately!"

In the newspaper of Jiangcheng, a brief notice caught Bai Qingming's attention.

Just locked up, and he managed to break out this quickly. This pathetic simping dog really has some talent.

Right at that moment.

Ding...

[Popularity has reached one hundred million. Obtained special item reward: The Truth-telling Lie Detector.]
[System upgraded, exchange function unlocked.]

The system notification arrived once again.

A while ago, when Bai Qingming was live streaming, a rare-character song he sang gained him countless foreign fans.
Combined with his consistent efforts in live streaming recently, his domestic and international followers had finally reached a total of one hundred million.

He had just heard something about a system upgrade unlocking a new function, though he had no idea what it was.

With a mental prompt from Bai Qingming, a system panel visible only to him appeared before his eyes.

After looking around, Bai Qingming found an option for the mall.

Opening it, he was met with a dazzling array of redeemable items.

Taking a quick glance, Bai Qingming was dumbfounded.

Buffs that could enhance human conditions?
Pills capable of bringing the dead back to life?
Even cultivation techniques that only existed in novels?

To put it in a nutshell:
If you can think of it, there is nothing here that cannot be redeemed.

The only prerequisite was that the host had a sufficient number of exchange points.
And exchange points were only issued after being evaluated by the system at the end of each live stream.

Bai Qingming's current points stood at 0.

That was somewhat absurd.

Even so, Bai Qingming still felt that life was becoming increasingly full of promise.

However, he quickly calmed down.

There was primarily one reason.
The more powerful the aforementioned items were, the more exchange points they required.

Take that pile of buffs designed to enhance human attributes, for instance. Just a "True Man Buff"—which allowed a man to last twenty seconds longer in bed—cost a whopping ten thousand exchange points.

Extremely expensive.
And utterly useless.

Yet not everything was pricey; there were cheaper options too.
For instance, if Bai Qingming wanted to write a novel, the mall would automatically filter out popular novels from another world, with the most expensive ones costing only a hundred exchange points.
Movie scripts and similar materials had the same price tag; once redeemed, they were generated instantly, saving a great deal of trouble.

Having gained a general understanding, Bai Qingming closed the system interface.

Returning to his bedroom, a machine roughly the size of a smart speaker sat on the desk in front of his computer.

Unsurprisingly, this was the so-called truth-telling lie detector.

Yet how was this thing supposed to be used?

Bai Qingming pondered for a moment and decided to run a test first.

"I am not handsome!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, the lie detector was triggered.

"You are lying!"

Immediately following that, the lie detector spoke once more.

"It really is accurate!"

Bai Qingming thought to himself.

Yet that was not the end of it. The lie detector continued to broadcast:

"Mandatory measures activated. Any falsehoods will be exposed by this lie detector."

Upon hearing this statement, Bai Qingming was somewhat baffled, having no idea what it implied.

Meanwhile.

The weather in Jiangcheng had originally been clear skies with not a single cloud in sight.

Yet just as the lie detector gave its response, a bolt of out-of-season thunder inexplicably struck from the daytime sky.

Boom.

A sudden clap of thunder out of a clear sky startled everyone in Jiangcheng.

Bai Qingming understood in an instant.

An old saying went that telling lies would get you struck by lightning.
This bolt of thunder was exposing his falsehood.

If he were to claim he wasn't handsome again, the next bolt of thunder would likely land right on his head.

Realizing the formidable power of this lie detector, Bai Qingming instantly perked up.

He had been fretting over having no entertaining content for his recent live streams, and now here it was.

Without further ado.

Bai Qingming turned on his computer and started the live stream.

"Brothers, time for some fun!"

As soon as they saw Bai Qingming go live, the viewers instantly grew immensely excited.

Popularity surged rapidly, and within a few minutes, over ten million viewers had flooded into the stream.

"Brothers, let's try something fresh today."
"See this gadget? It's an ultra-precise lie detector, and no one can tell a falsehood in front of it."
"If any of you feel that your friend or significant other has lied to you, connect with me here, and I can help you verify it."
"The test results are guaranteed to be genuine and valid, absolutely no fabrication. Everyone is welcome to queue up for a connection."

Spending two minutes, Bai Qingming outlined today's live-streaming content.

As soon as these words were uttered, the viewers instantly grew intrigued.

"Don't kid me, streamer, isn't this just a smart speaker? I've got an identical one at home."
"A lie detector? Did I drink too much fake alcohol to come test it here?"
"Isn't this the exact same nature as Googling your symptoms on Baidu? Look up an illness on Baidu and you start with a terminal disease."

Clearly, nobody believed that this lie detector was actually useful.

Bai Qingming did not bother to argue much, preparing to let the facts speak for themselves.

Glancing at the lie detector, after the male viewer had finished speaking earlier, the device had shown no reaction at all.
If he guessed correctly, this thing likely required the subject to personally speak the words to be tested.

"Can you bring your girlfriend over to answer a question face-to-face? Or a phone call works too."
"No problem, let me give her a call."

The male viewer on the other end was connecting with Bai Qingming via computer. After speaking, he took out his phone to call his girlfriend, conveniently turning on speakerphone.

Soon, the call connected, though the voice coming from the other end sounded rather peculiar.

"Muffled... Hello, darling, *slurp*—"

The girl's pronunciation was somewhat slurred, sounding rather abnormal.

"What are you doing?"
The guy asked in such a manner.

"Nothing much... *muah*— I'm just hanging out by myself... mhm, eating a lollipop, *gag*!"

Mid-sentence, the girl started retching on the other end of the phone.

"Darling, what's wrong?"
The guy asked immediately with concern.

"I'm fine, the lollipop just poked the back of my throat, *gag*!"