Gourmet: The God-Level Culinary Tycoon

First off, "Brother Pang Loves Food" had most likely bought a significant number of fake followers.

The reason was simple. The account had posted over 500 videos but only had 60,000 likes, which meant each video averaged just over 100 likes.

However, as Li Xiao scrolled down and looked at the video data on the account’s main page, he realized just how naive his initial assessment had been.

Damn. The three pinned videos alone had nearly 40,000 likes combined.

That meant all of the guy’s other videos only accounted for a little over 20,000 likes in total.

Over 500 videos for 20,000 likes... that meant an average of less than 40 likes per video.

As he continued to scroll, Li Xiao glanced over the data for the other videos.

Unbelievable. Most of the videos further down only had a dozen or so likes. The comments were similarly sparse, with most having only about ten, and some as few as a handful.

He randomly clicked on the profiles of a few commenters. They were all basically shell accounts with no followers, no one they followed, and no posts of their own.

The corner of Li Xiao’s mouth twitched. ’This guy has 120,000 followers, but at least 100,000 of them have to be fake.’

The other account, "Sister Yue Takes You to Eat Cantonese Cuisine," also had obvious problems.

Namely, her like count was ridiculously high.

videos and nearly 660,000 likes.

That meant an average of over 1,500 likes per video.

Of course, getting 1,500 likes on a single video wasn’t that hard; even many ordinary people could manage that.

But to average 1,500 likes across more than 400 videos would mean her content quality was exceptionally good.

However, if her content quality was that good, she would have surely amassed a huge following. After 400+ videos, there was no way her follower count would be just a little over 100,000.

Therefore, "Sister Yue Takes You to Eat Cantonese Cuisine" had most likely bought a good number of likes for every video.

Even without opening her videos, Li Xiao could see her production quality was clearly a cut above the last guy’s.

Furthermore, her comment sections had plenty of real people, with thirty to forty comments under each video.

’Looks like this vlogger is a bit more reasonable. She bought likes, but probably not too many.’

After getting a general sense of the two accounts, he finally clicked on their most recently posted videos.

Brother Pang Loves Food:

"Ma’am, you must live around here, right? What do you think of Yun Ji’s bamboo-rising noodles?"

Woman A gave a thumbs-up:

"Great! Absolutely great! How could they stay in business for over twenty years if it wasn’t good?"

Brother Pang Loves Food:

"Sir, do you think these bamboo-rising noodles are authentic?"

Man A held up his empty bowl to the camera:

"I started eating here when I was a teenager, and I’m still eating here now that I’m in my forties!"

"Of course it’s authentic! It’s tasted exactly the same for over twenty years! It hasn’t changed one bit!"

...

Brother Pang Loves Food:

"I just randomly interviewed a few customers, and they all think it’s delicious and authentic!"

"Honestly, if a fan hadn’t told me about some minor influencer bad-mouthing this place, I never would’ve known Yangcheng had such delicious wonton noodles!"

"I just downed three large bowls in one go, and I’m about to get two more to go for a midnight snack!"

"These wonton noodles are just that good. I haven’t had such authentic, traditional bamboo-rising wonton noodles in ages!"

"Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so please, don’t go to that minor influencer’s stream and leave any nasty comments!"

After watching the video, Li Xiao didn’t feel much of anything.

After all, for Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Wonton Noodles to be in business for over twenty years and still be so popular, it meant that plenty of people must enjoy the taste of their food.

Since they were interviewing customers who were already eating there, it was perfectly normal for them to give positive reviews.

The creator had obviously boosted this video, as its stats were significantly better than their others.

He was curious, though. How did other viewers find his account based on this video?

He opened the comment section, but there were no links to his profile.

After all, the video’s view count and engagement weren’t particularly high. The platform wouldn’t create a special link feature for a video at this level.

However, he soon found some interesting comments in the comment section.

Brother Wei is Awesome: [Looks like Brother Pang saw my recommendation. That @Brother Li Talks Food is a real piece of work, just spouting nonsense.]

Arowana: [Brother Pang is talking about this streamer, right? @Brother Li Talks Food]

...

There were several more comments like this. It was obvious the vlogger had deliberately used sock puppet accounts to "leak" Li Xiao’s account info in the comments.

’No wonder their die-hard fans were able to find my account so easily. So that’s the trick they played.’

He wasn’t too bothered by such petty tricks.

However, when he opened the latest video from "Sister Yue Takes You to Eat Cantonese Cuisine," he immediately noticed something was off.

Their video scripts were remarkably similar.

In fact, two of the customers who had just appeared in Brother Pang’s video also showed up in Sister Yue’s.

At this point, if Li Xiao still couldn’t see it was all scripted, he’d have to be incredibly slow on the uptake.

The situation was obvious now. Both Brother Pang and Sister Yue were shills hired by the owner of Yun Ji. The videos they posted were meant to be a response and a counter-attack to the video he had posted yesterday.

Faced with this counter-attack, Li Xiao wasn’t the least bit flustered. He was even a little grateful for the traffic these people were sending his way.

Honestly, he had estimated that the video he posted yesterday would max out at 50,000 views, at best.

But now, the view count had shot up to 400,000, several times more than he had anticipated.

The constant arguments and debates between the two sides were generating a huge amount of buzz for him.

Even though most of that buzz seemed to be coming from haters.

Of the 1,000-plus people who had entered his giveaway, it was impossible to know how many genuinely wanted a taste and how many were just waiting to see him fail.

But as the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

A crisis is made of two parts: danger and opportunity. As long as he handled it correctly, a seemingly world-ending disaster could be turned into the opportunity of a lifetime.

His gaze fell upon the ingredients he had just bought.

With these fresh ingredients, the recipe from the System, and the cooking experience that had been instilled directly into his mind...

He was absolutely confident he could easily transform this one-sided barrage of criticism into the powerful momentum his account needed to take off.

He sent a private message to each of the 20 giveaway winners and successfully got their addresses.

He had already contacted 20 delivery drivers the day before, paying 200 yuan to book them for a one-hour delivery window.

As soon as he was done cooking, he could have the drivers start their deliveries immediately.