Chapter 44: To Be a Salted Fish?

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: To Be a Salted Fish?

Lin Wanyu was woken by a sharp pain early in the morning. When the pain became unbearable, the first person she thought of was Gao Yuan.

It couldn’t be helped.

Gao Yuan’s "treatment" yesterday had been genuinely effective, and on top of that, Lin Wanyu’s heart was now completely set on him.

Her inner girlishness had been completely awakened, which happened to be exactly the kind of thing Gao Yuan was a sucker for.

Without a second thought,

Gao Yuan washed up, changed his clothes, and rushed to the address Lin Wanyu had given him.

And it was on this trip that he finally found out where Lin Wanyu’s parents lived.

It turned out to be in Hang City’s Jiangnanli, a place known as the city’s number one luxury residence.

The entire compound was filled with detached Chinese-style courtyard homes. White walls, black tiles, grand residences with large courtyards, each with its own private entrance. Every step revealed a new view, and the price per square meter had reached a staggering 250,000.

This was the kind of place where the real big shots lived.

All Gao Yuan knew about Lin Wanyu’s family was that their assets exceeded a billion. What they did specifically, or just how ridiculously wealthy they were, he had no idea. But being able to live in one of these Chinese-style courtyard homes spoke volumes.

When he arrived at the entrance to the residential complex, Gao Yuan waited for a bit and saw Lin Wanyu walking out without a car.

This was a little awkward. He didn’t have a car either, so the two of them would have to take a taxi back.

Fortunately, Gao Yuan was thick-skinned. Without batting an eye, he hailed a ride-share, and the two of them got in, heading for No.1 Courtyard.

After getting in the car,

the ride-share driver even scoffed at them, "This is my first time picking up an order from Jiangnanli."

It was only because Lin Wanyu wasn’t feeling well today that she just rolled her eyes at the driver. On any other day, she would have definitely clapped back with a few choice words.

In the car, Gao Yuan started to ponder something: it was about time he considered getting a car for himself.

Not having one was just too inconvenient. He couldn’t rely on Lin Wanyu forever, could he?

Lin Wanyu, meanwhile, was reminded of the first time they met. She instinctively rested her head on Gao Yuan’s lap again, and Gao Yuan once again draped his jacket over her.

The only difference was that last time she had a bit too much to drink, and this time, her stomach hurt.

But that’s not what the driver was thinking!

’In broad daylight, these two are actually... in my car...’

Back at home,

Lin Wanyu had a bowl of brown sugar and egg soup for breakfast and lay on the sofa watching TV with a moxibustion pot on her lower abdomen.

Gao Yuan, on the other hand, opened his TikTok account again. It had been nearly a full day, and he wanted to see how yesterday’s short video was performing.

One look, and Gao Yuan was completely stunned.

His followers had grown from breaking a thousand at three in the morning to over five thousand, and the growth rate was now even faster.

He had just cleared the 99+ follow notifications, and in the blink of an eye, it was back to 99+ again.

It wasn’t until he checked a message from TikTok’s official account that he understood: his video had been pushed to the number three spot on the "Pain! Why Do I Have to Be a Woman!" trending topic list.

In other words, anyone who clicked on this topic would see his video right away.

No wonder the traffic was so explosive!

At this rate, he estimated his account could break ten thousand followers in the next week alone.

Don’t look down on ten thousand followers.

It’s easy to see major influencers with millions or even tens of millions of followers and think ten thousand is nothing.

It’s actually a lot!

Besides, at this stage, gaining ten thousand followers is incredibly difficult.

And when Gao Yuan opened the comment section, he discovered it was surprisingly lively.

An argument had broken out under the most-liked comment.

The first comment read: "If I had a girlfriend like that, I’d do this much too. My current girlfriend doesn’t deserve it!"

Even Gao Yuan felt that comment was a bit harsh.

And sure enough,

a huge number of women had left all sorts of replies below it. They were insulting him without using a single curse word, and it was enough to make Gao Yuan’s scalp tingle.

He kept scrolling.

Gao Yuan saw some comments from single women posting their pictures to find a partner. They shared their glamour shots and asked if Mr. Gao would let them come over to his place for a free meal.

Below them, a horde of male compatriots started posting pictures of their own home-cooked meals, declaring that they could do it too.

He clicked on the photos those girls posted. They were genuinely beautiful, and their figures made him want to press the girl in the picture against a table.

’Why on a table?’

’Uh... maybe it’s because I’m sitting at the dining table right now. Or maybe that height is just right...’

Gao Yuan skimmed through the comments for a while and smiled.

All these comments, whether they were arguments or people posting pictures to find a partner, were good for his short video.

You needed topics, controversy, and highlights to generate and attract traffic.

That’s what would make this video blow up even more.

Gao Yuan couldn’t help but sigh in admiration. ’These adorable netizens, I freaking love you guys.’

"What’s wrong?"

Hearing Gao Yuan’s voice, Lin Wanyu immediately asked from the sofa.

Gao Yuan walked over to the sofa with his phone and showed her the stats on his TikTok account.

"Wow, you’re amazing!"

"Quick, share it with Qingqing! She’s been really invested in this!"

With that, Lin Wanyu took Gao Yuan’s phone, screenshotted the stats, and posted it in the Utopia group chat.

Lin Wanyu’s action didn’t startle Gao Yuan in the slightest. He had already cleared his chat history with Meiting and Xiaoyan.

Even if she went through his chats one by one, she wouldn’t find anything.

’When you’re a scumbag,’

’you have to be a proper one. This is just standard procedure.’

The moment the message was sent to the group, a congratulatory message came in from Li Mengqing. She was also thrilled that Gao Yuan’s video had made it to TikTok’s trending page.

After starting work today, she had been wondering how she could help Gao Yuan go even further on his internet journey.

She had talked to many friends about it, and the conclusion was always the same.

To build a successful account on the internet, you have to create a personal IP.

This so-called personal IP meant building a relevant persona around a single person, creating vertical content, and, at the same time, it absolutely had to be altruistic.

In the past, you only needed to do the first two things well to gain a large following and become a major influencer. But at this stage, content has been done to death.

Innovating is harder than reaching for the sky, so you have to create something altruistic and use benefits to attract an audience.

Her friends also analyzed the growth trajectories of phenomenal TikTok giants like Old Luo, Eastern Zhenxuan, and Brother Xiaoyang for her.

After analyzing it all, Li Mengqing knew that at this stage, it would be incredibly difficult for Gao Yuan to build a career for himself online.

Not only did he have to build hype and craft his own brand, but he also had to provide value to others, all while making sure his content was highly entertaining.

The requirements were just too demanding.

You could say that in the past, the times created the hero. But now, to create a hero, you need money!

Gao Yuan had no idea Li Mengqing was doing so much for him behind the scenes. If he knew, he would definitely wait for Lin Wanyu to get better and then get drunk with the two of them again.

"@Two, have you thought about the future development of this account?"

This question sent Gao Yuan into deep thought.

Initially, he had only created this account to complete a system task, get experience points to level up, and increase his daily rebate amount.

But Li Mengqing’s question was clearly asking if he had any intention of monetizing his internet presence.

He was currently unemployed, and the system wouldn’t let him be a wage earner anymore.

There wasn’t much he could do right now. One option was this short video account—build up the traffic, then make money by slipping some ads into the videos. But that would seriously damage his persona.

A big shot relying on ad revenue? He’d be killing his own brand right there.

The second option was to sell products, but with his persona, that didn’t seem very feasible either.

’Am I really supposed to just live off the system?’