Partners?

On Riverside Avenue, a silver-white car merged into the stream of traffic.

The alternating patches of light and shadow cast by the streetlights fell away behind them.

Zhou Yun hadn't heard his answer. She felt she couldn't figure Tang Zhi Chu out, either. A card kept covered was like Schrödinger's cat: the closer you got, the less you could see.

Zhou Yun let out a quiet sigh and asked, "Are you optimistic about DY?"

After a long moment without an answer, Zhou Yun turned to look. Tang Zhi Chu was gazing out the window.

His hair had grown a little long. The car window, lowered halfway, came up to the bridge of his nose, and the city's neon lights cast fleeting streaks of color across his face.

Zhou Yun quickly looked away. It suddenly occurred to her: how long had it been since there'd been a man in the passenger seat beside her?

"I asked you a question!" Zhou Yun spoke up again.

Tang Zhi Chu came back to himself. "I've eaten."

Zhou Yun's face darkened, then she burst out laughing.

That was pretty much how their first conversation had gone.

"Are you optimistic about DY?"

Tang Zhi Chu sat up straight. "It's paid content. Want to hear it?"

"If you say it, I'll listen."

"Absolutely."

"Why?"

Tang Zhi Chu gathered his thoughts, then said, "Right now, the short-video field is split three ways. But you can see how they differ by looking at their cultural identities. KS was the first to make short videos. Once it gained some traction, capital got involved and took a shortcut, poaching a bunch of livestreamers from the north to cross-promote their audiences. The numbers looked good, but that also defined KS's cultural tone—and today's young people are pretty averse to it."

"What about Weixun? Its advantages are resources and capital. A new market suddenly opens up—of course it has to give it a try. So what does it do? It indiscriminately reposts videos, then funnels in huge amounts of traffic. It never manages to create a distinctive culture around that traffic."

"And DY? It's basically an improved version of KS. From the start, it used smart algorithms to beat the competition by an entire generation. That was a genuine innovation in internet technology. With KS already out there, DY could avoid its pitfalls in terms of positioning, starting with young people in first- and second-tier cities and gradually expanding to all age groups. But for now, everyone's hit a bottleneck."

Zhou Yun nodded slowly, then asked, "That's true, but lots of people have all three apps on their phones now. Smart algorithms really are a technological innovation, but Weixun and KS are both learning from DY. Why are you so optimistic about DY?"

Zhou Yun was optimistic about DY, too, but she felt she wasn't as certain as Tang Zhi Chu.

The two worlds still had their differences, and there hadn't been a pandemic to spur things on.

Weixun had a huge influx of traffic from Penguin behind it, while KS had a vast lower-tier market. For capital, technological innovation wasn't the key.

Now that they'd hit a bottleneck, both Weixun and KS were learning from DY. That brought the question of traffic monopolization into play.

So in this world, the platform most favored by capital wasn't KS or DY. It was, unexpectedly, Weixun's short-video platform, whose traffic seemed scattered rather than concentrated.

A cultural atmosphere was actually easier to build than traffic. Capital could just wave its hand and poach the biggest traffic magnets. Given time, the atmosphere would follow.

The interesting part was that, although the market was split three ways, Weixun really did want to poach the top traffic magnets from DY and KS.

But one move could set everything else in motion. If Weixun dared to make a move, it would most likely trigger a strategic partnership between KS and DY, reinforcing the existing three-way balance instead.

Tang Zhi Chu smiled mysteriously, then pointed upward.

Zhou Yun was puzzled. She didn't understand.

Tang Zhi Chu offered no further explanation. He only said, "You asked, and I gave you my answer. That's all."

Zhou Yun started thinking over what Tang Zhi Chu had said, then tried to guess what he'd meant by pointing up. Did he have some inside information?

Or had DY already found a way to break through its bottleneck?

After thinking it over for a long time without figuring it out, Zhou Yun shook her head and gave up. Then she asked, "How about we go into business together?"

"Go into business together?"

"Yeah. Let's work on DY together."

Tang Zhi Chu looked at Zhou Yun as if to ask, Why should I go into business with you?

Zhou Yun puffed out her chest and said confidently, "I looked into Brother Jun's company. He has one influencer with five million followers and four with over a million. But right now, he's in a lawsuit with the five-million-follower influencer, who wants to leave his company. If that influencer walks, the value of Brother Jun's company will take a huge hit. That's a crucial opening. My idea is simple: acquire Brother Jun's company and run it more professionally on DY."

"Also, don't underestimate Brother Jun's company. That influencer with five million followers was built up by them."

Tang Zhi Chu nodded with a smile, thinking, So this was what Zhou Yun had really wanted to talk about ever since she asked whether he was optimistic about DY.

Zhou Yun wouldn't have brought up Huang Ze Jun's company in front of him unless she was confident she could acquire it. It was like she'd just laid another card on the table.

He had to admit, there was a reason a young woman like Zhou Yun had made it this far.

"What are you smiling at? I'm not trying to manipulate you. This is a sincere offer. Facing the Magic Sound Cup champion, I had to show you something, right? Don't worry. I can handle acquiring Brother Jun's influencer company without you putting in money or effort. I can take care of all of it. I'm interested in you."

Tang Zhi Chu shook his head. "Well, thank you."

Zhou Yun pouted. That was it? He was turning her down just like that?

"Can't you take it easy? You're in the prime of your life, and all you think about is work and scheming. The most important thing in life is enjoying the present." Tang Zhi Chu folded his arms. When he finished, he looked out the window again.

Zhou Yun curled her lip, grumbling to herself, You think you're so high and mighty!

You have no idea how much it takes to keep a household running!

In the villa, Huang Ze Jun and Yang Jia Xing sat side by side in the second-floor hallway, each with a bottle of beer in front of him and some food nearby.

Huang Ze Jun was distracted. There hadn't been any more messages from Jiang Lan, either.

On top of his career troubles, it left Huang Ze Jun feeling defeated.

Huang Ze Jun gazed into the distance, then suddenly asked, "What did you mean by what you said last time?"

Yang Jia Xing put down his phone and looked at Huang Ze Jun. It suddenly struck him that Huang Ze Jun seemed to have aged a lot.

"Last time? What did I say?"

"By the lake. You asked me what mattered most to a girl."

Yang Jia Xing thought for a moment, then patted Huang Ze Jun on the shoulder. "Brother Jun, try to let it go."

Huang Ze Jun picked up his beer and raised it toward Yang Jia Xing. Yang Jia Xing picked up his own bottle, and they clinked them together.

After taking a swig, Huang Ze Jun spoke again. "Honestly, I brought this on myself. If only I'd started out..."

Yeah. If he'd focused only on Jiang Lan from the beginning, maybe things would have turned out much better.

Chen Si Yang? She was in the entertainment industry. At most, she could only ever have been a dream.

Had Huang Ze Jun really had no ulterior motives from the start? He had. He ran an influencer company, and if he'd actually won Chen Si Yang over, it could have helped his career, too.

Now that he'd hit a setback, he was reflecting on his mistakes. He could only blame his own greed.

Yang Jia Xing suddenly thought of Zhou Yun. If he'd shown interest only in Zhou Yun from the beginning, would things have turned out differently?