Lin Wansheng took a deep breath, finally putting the system’s earlier meddling completely out of his mind.
Only two words remained in his head, the two words Wang Tiancheng had repeatedly drilled into him.
“Stereotype” and “insult.”
Then, behind the curtain, he paused for half a second.
Feeling his heart pounding wildly.
He resolutely pushed the curtain aside.
And walked onto the stage, lit snow-bright by the spotlight.
The noisy voices below, the glaring lights, and dozens of appraising gazes came at him all at once.
But strangely, he did not panic.
He even had enough composure left to complain inwardly.
“Brother Yu’s setup is way too sloppy. Shouldn’t the curtain automatically open the moment he says ‘welcome’?”
He walked to the center of the stage, picked up the microphone, and waved at the dark mass of people below.
“What a great audience. Welcome, everyone, to Jimmy’s talk show.”
A scattered round of polite applause sounded from the audience.
“Okay.” Lin Wansheng adjusted the height of the microphone and leaned forward slightly.
“All right, fifty percent of tonight’s show is going to be about tariffs.”
He deliberately paused, watching confusion and impatience appear on the faces of the audience.
Then he grinned and pointed at himself. “Because I am made in China.”
“If you want to come see my talk show in the future, ticket prices are going up three hundred percent~”
“Pfft—” A white girl in the front row was the first to laugh.
Immediately after, laughter began spreading through the venue.
Lin Wansheng spread his hands and put on a helpless expression. “I just want you all to understand the premise. I know, in the past, none of you liked buying things made in China.”
He imitated a picky customer, pinching his nose and shaking his head with a look of disgust.
“Everybody would be like, ugh, made in China? I don’t want this junk.”
His vivid performance made the laughter below grow denser.
Then he changed tack, straightened up, and his expression became serious yet exaggerated. “But now, but now! We can’t afford those made-in-China things anymore!”
He emphasized the word “is,” drawing a burst of laughter from the whole room.
“That is the good stuff. That is luxury.”
Like a TV shopping host, he waved his arms with passionate energy.
“Imagine,” he said, walking to the edge of the stage and looking down at the audience.
“When you see someone walk past you wearing a jacket that’s ‘Made in China’...”
He took a step back, covered his mouth with both hands, and widened his eyes.
Then, in an exaggerated tone filled with jealousy, he said,
“You all will be like, Oh my God! That’s made in China?! This guy must be rich rich!”
“Is he a millionaire?” he added, even covering his mouth dramatically.
The audience burst into full-on laughter, with applause and whistles rising and falling.
Lin Wansheng pressed the advantage, raising his arm high like a prophet making a proclamation. “Temu will be the new Gucci!”
“Bro,” he said, raising his brows at a Black guy in the audience who was laughing the hardest.
“You really believe a little tariff is enough to scare Chinese people?”
He wagged his finger, looking mysterious. “No, no, no.”
“Chinese people don’t need our stuff.”
He cleared his throat, imitating a sobbing tone as he paced the stage.
“Can you imagine it? On the streets of some city in China, someone crying like this?”
“Ohhh nooo, we can’t afford American pickup trucks anymore.
“Ohhh nooo, how sad~
“No Ford F-150 for me~”
His performance had the audience doubling over with laughter.
“No!” Lin Wansheng abruptly dropped the crying voice and said decisively.
“They don’t care at all! They have their own BYD, the kind of electric car that can dance onstage!”
He paused, then delivered the killing blow to the audience in an extremely disdainful tone.
“They don’t want our shitty Cybertruck. That thing looks exactly like a trash can!”
“Boom—!” Thunderous laughter and applause erupted throughout the venue.
The atmosphere had been completely ignited.
In the side wing backstage, several Chinese performers who had just finished warming up the crowd looked at one another, their faces full of disbelief.
They all knew very well that this guy onstage named Jimmy was someone Wang Tiancheng had randomly dragged in an hour ago as emergency backup.
They had agreed he would just go up, bow, and come back down.
But now, with the way he was speaking so freely and controlling the entire room, how did he look like a novice at all?
Wang Tiancheng’s mouth was hanging open, and he even forgot to drink the beer in his hand.
Meanwhile, in a booth on the second floor of the bar, Li Mingyu, who had originally been leaning back on the sofa, had unknowingly sat up straight.
He watched the stage with interest, the corner of his mouth curling into a playful smile.
In a low voice, he said to the subordinate beside him, “This time, Xiao Cheng really found me someone interesting.”
And below the stage, sitting in an inconspicuous corner, Li Shuyao
had long since gone from her initial worry to eyes full of surprise and brilliance.
She cupped her chin in both hands and looked at Lin Wansheng beneath the spotlight.
That figure seemed to be shining.
—
By this point, Lin Wansheng had completely found his rhythm.
He could clearly feel that the “verbal charisma” granted by the system was taking effect.
Every gaze in the audience was locked firmly onto him, listening attentively to every word he said.
Since that was the case, it was time to begin the real “insult.”
So he coughed lightly twice, signaling for everyone to quiet down.
“All right, we won’t keep talking about slightly heavy topics.”
He took the microphone off the stand, held it in his hand, and walked down one step, drawing closer to the audience.
“Let’s have a conversation.”
His gaze swept across the crowd and finally stopped on a blond white girl in her early twenties. She had been laughing especially happily.
“Miss,” he said, smiling as he pointed at her, “forgive me for saying this, but you look a lot like a barista.”
When the girl heard that, she was stunned at first, then burst into exaggerated laughter, laughing so hard she rocked back and forth.
Although Lin Wansheng did not understand what was funny about that sentence,
he still waited with great poise until she finished laughing before handing the microphone over.
“Yes,” the girl finally said after catching her breath. “I work at Starbucks.”
“Oh my, what a coincidence.” Lin Wansheng put on an expression that said, “What are the odds?”
He turned to the entire audience and said, “Today, I ran into a barista at Starbucks.”
He imitated that barista girl, twisting his body coyly and speaking in a syrupy tone.
“She was like, ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know how to pronounce your name.’”
Lin Wansheng spread his hands, looking innocent.
“I was stunned on the spot. I was afraid you Americans wouldn’t be able to pronounce my Chinese name,
so I specifically gave myself a name as simple as Jimmy.
You tell me, what’s so hard about that?”
He leaned closer to the microphone and lowered his voice, imitating the girl.
“Then I heard her say, ‘Can I just call you John?’”
Another burst of laughter came from the audience.
Lin Wansheng suddenly raised his volume and roared at the air, “When I heard that, I was thinking,
Wait a second, b***h! You people force me to pronounce weird words like cappuccino.
And now you’re telling me you can’t pronounce Jimmy Lin?”
He paused, then returned to a helpless tone. “She could only keep saying, ‘I really don’t know how to pronounce your surname. Are you from China?’”
“I looked at her and couldn’t be bothered to keep talking.”
“Then she came out with this,” Lin Wansheng said, imitating that self-righteous tone.
“You Chinese people come to America, and you steal our jobs!”
“That, I couldn’t hold back on.” Lin Wansheng cleared his throat and pinched his voice,
imitating a classic white woman’s tone. “So I just said, ‘Honey~’”
“Where exactly is this confidence coming from?” He winked at the barista girl.
“You make minimum wage.”
“We worked so hard to come to America, but it wasn’t to steal jobs like yours.”
He withdrew his smile and, expressionless, spoke into the microphone in an unquestionable tone of command, delivering the final line:
“Now, make me a cappuccino!”
“Hahahahahaha!” The entire audience went completely wild. Laughter, applause, and stomping nearly lifted the roof.