Stunning Results!

There was a moment when Fei Zhiyuan even wondered if Dream Builder had planted a mole inside Konjac Games. But he quickly brushed the thought aside.

Planting moles in rival companies was not something a newcomer like Dream Builder could pull off.

Besides, prior to this month, Dream Builder had no conflicts with Konjac whatsoever, nor did they have any reason to do such a thing.

--When the Frost Snow Project first underwent public testing, hiring internet trolls to stir up drama was merely an industry veteran's greeting to a newcomer; in Fei Zhiyuan's eyes, it hardly counted as a conflict.

So in the end, Fei Zhiyuan had to accept that this was simply a coincidence.

Dream Builder was just handling their marketing when they happened to slap him across the face in passing.

He looked up at the tightly closed meeting room door, imagining the expressions on his subordinates' faces now that the meeting had just adjourned, and felt zero desire to go back out there.

This wasn't just a matter of poor judgment and humiliating social death.

Nor was it even a question of how many new users this explosion in popularity could bring to the Frost Snow Project.

The truly critical question was—

Who had come up with a promotional strategy that was so wildly imaginative, counterintuitive, and yet miraculously effective? Was it Dream Builder's previous marketing team?

Or had their marketing team also undergone a major reinforcement?

Fei Zhiyuan tapped his index finger against the tabletop, pondering inwardly: Should I plant a few moles at Dream Builder too? Or maybe bribe a few people over there first?

While Fei Zhiyuan was hiding in the meeting room brewing up malicious schemes, Dream Builder's Operations Department was in a state of jubilation, singing the boss's praises to the high heavens.

This "reverse marketing" trick had naturally been arranged by Xu Meng.

At the beginning of the month, he had Song Zhicheng contact virtual streamers, providing them with identical scripts and source materials to produce their own videos.

For these virtual streamers, this money was simply too easy to make.

The videos were ridiculously simple to produce—all they had to do was overlay their virtual avatars onto the ready-made video material, read through the script once, and they were done!

The rest was just delivering the files on time and collecting the final payment.

Easy and breezy.

Of course, since virtual streamers needed to maintain their personas, not all of them were willing to take on game advertisements heavily tinged with suggestive content, especially ones with scripts this blatant.

But that was something only major streamers had to worry about.

Bottom-tier small-time VTubers in this circle had it even worse than bottom-tier minor models—

Streaming furiously for twelve hours a day, gaining three followers, making fifteen bucks, and dealing with twenty-three bucks in refunds.

Par for the course.

Things would slowly start to improve after they scraped together a hundred thousand followers or so, but their situation remained extremely unstable.

At the root of it all, the industry was simply too cutthroat.

The sheer number of virtual streamers was astronomical, and there weren't enough otaku fans to go around.

Thus, Xu Meng wasn't worried in the least about failing to find cooperative streamers.

--And reality proved him right. Song Zhicheng had his subordinates compile a list of virtual streamers whose follower counts fell between 100,000 and 800,000, and then reached out to them one by one.

If they were willing to cooperate, commercial orders were dispatched immediately.

If not, they simply skipped them and moved on to the next.

Their efficiency was through the roof, and they easily pushed out twenty commercial orders—considering that these virtual streamers' follower bases had a certain degree of overlap, and Dream Builder wasn't exactly flush with cash, they didn't seek out any more.

Moreover, there was a little trick to it: among these twenty commercial orders, only five streamers had follower counts exceeding 500,000, with the rest all sitting below 500,000.

Yet the final impact achieved differed very little.

--Once the circle was successfully broken, the main force of dissemination was no longer the fans of these virtual streamers, but rather the vast masses of onlookers and netizens looking for excitement.

For Dream Builder, however, this drastically reduced costs.

Now, even netizens who had never watched the trailer or previously knew nothing about the Frost Snow Project were aware that the Frost Snow Project was updating tomorrow, its core selling points were ultra-sultry and exquisite characters, and it offered a twenty-draw bonus upon launch.

After completing the task assigned by his boss—publishing a user-acquisition and reward-distribution event on the Dream Jin App—Song Zhicheng exercised his subjective initiative, striking while the iron was hot to publish promotional posts for Dream Jin on P Station and Weiguang as well.

An insider replied in the comment section: Dream Jin is full of high-definition, uncropped images without a single trace of white mist added—absolute perfection!

Then, with shameless audacity, he pretended it was just a random passerby's comment, liked it, and pinned it to the top.

Beneath the trending topics of Frost Snow Project, rejection of statements, and Zhu Meng Dairy, they also successively published promotional copy that varied in wording yet all pointed directly toward the Dream Jin App.

Through this multi-pronged approach, the Dream Jin App also hitched a ride on this explosive wave of popularity, and its user registration numbers skyrocketed straight upward!

Many netizens found that chatting about the Frost Snow Project on P Station came with heavy restrictions on posting images, and that posts were constantly getting blocked and failing to go through. As a result, they called upon their friends to migrate battlefields and flocked over to Dream Jin to speak their minds freely.

Consequently, the growth in user registrations quickly translated into a growth in post volume.

This community was finally coming to life, little by little.

By the time it neared the end of the workday, Dream Jin's registered users had multiplied sixfold, reaching a staggering 1.8 million! And the post volume for that single day surpassed the combined total of the four months since Dream Jin's launch!

Meanwhile, the promotional efforts of the day had also yielded dazzling results—

The trailer peaked at No. 3 on Weiguang's trending searches and No. 8 on P Station's weekly popularity chart.

Client downloads for the Frost Snow Project increased by 1.7 million! Total daily microtransactions hit 6.8 million! The results were nothing short of brilliant!

When these figures were announced in Dream Builder's work chat group, silence hung over the group for quite a while.

Shortly after, the entire office was drowned out by excited cheers.

After waiting a moment to let everyone celebrate, Xu Meng stood among the crowd, raised his hands high, and clapped forcefully to draw everyone's attention.

"Alright, alright! It's still a bit too early to celebrate!"

" Pack up your things. No one is working overtime today—head home early, get some rest, and save up your energy."

"Tomorrow will be the truly decisive day!"

"I need all of you to be fully prepared!"

As the various metrics of the Frost Snow Project surged violently upward, Xu Meng's prestige within the company skyrocketed along with them.

At these words, without a second word, everyone began saving their files, shutting down their computers, and packing their belongings.

Right at that moment, however, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted out, "The boss is awesome!"

The next instant, the slogan erupted simultaneously from all directions, accompanied by the sound of applause.

Xu Meng couldn't quite handle the sudden praise. "All right, all right, pack up and get out of here!"

With that, he turned on his heel and bolted.

A series of chuckles immediately rang out behind him.

Dream Builder had knocked off for the day, but some people were stuck working overtime.

At the Game Observer editorial department, Fire Knife was still sitting at his workstation, hammering away at his keyboard.

He had been writing and deleting for an entire day.

Since Game Observer had missed the mark on its very first prediction, it definitely needed to do something to salvage its reputation.

Before the Frost Snow Project completed its overhaul and the prophecy proved utterly wrong, publishing a new report to make up for it was undoubtedly the most effective corrective measure.

Yet Fire Knife was struggling immensely with this draft.

It was mainly because the Frost Snow Project was getting saucy so blatantly and flagrantly! Game Observer was, after all, a respectable media outlet and had to consider its social impact.

If they were to sing the praises of the Frost Snow Project's sauciness purely from the perspective of revenue and popularity, it wouldn't look too good for Game Observer's reputation.

Yet if they were to launch a blanket criticism from the standpoint of social impact and positive energy, Fire Knife couldn't bring himself to do it either.

--Furthermore, doing so would betray his identity as a gamer, and even more so, it would betray the gamers who supported Game Observer.

At the same time, not writing it wasn't an option.

The Frost Snow Project was updating tomorrow, which meant he not only had to write it today, but he also had to publish it immediately after finishing to state their position.

Fire Knife was so stressed he pulled furiously at his hair.

Just as he was agonizing over it, his phone suddenly buzzed with a vibration.

He answered it to find his daughter at home growing impatient: "Daddy, when are you coming back?"

Fire Knife blinked.

"I'll be right back!"

He closed the document—which contained fewer than fifty words—logged into his Weiguang account, grabbed his keyboard, and rattled off a flurry of keystrokes.

Send! Shut down and clock out!

And so Xu Meng, who had already returned home, received a jubilant direct message from his little assistant, Chen Mengling—

"Boss, boss! Game Observer has caved!"

Seeking monthly passes, follow-ups, bookmarks, and recommendations! Thanks to Mason2nd for the 1500-point reward! Thanks to Signature for the 1500-point reward! Thanks to Yiyan Xiaosi for the 198-point reward!