I Want to Be on the Headlines!

What are the mainstream online new media platforms nowadays?

When this question comes up, the first platforms that come to mind are Weibo, VX official accounts, Tencent, and Toutiao. Following those are blogs and various forums, Yidian Zixun, Sohu, Baidu self-media, and so on.

These are the social media platforms most commonly used by netizens, and their influence has gradually surpassed traditional media.

With the development of mobile phones and the popularization of 4G networks, mobile reading will completely become mainstream in the future.

Since Li Xian intends to "debut" in the center position, he naturally has to choose these online media platforms. Of course, the top choice is undoubtedly Weibo, which currently has the largest traffic.

Ever since he received the random mission, his sights have been set on Weibo's trending searches.

No platform allows for faster fame than trending searches. Nowadays, whether it's celebrities, company products, or even TV shows, movies, and variety shows, they all rely on trending searches to attract traffic.

Getting on the trending searches has become the norm. Every media company lists Weibo's trending searches as a key promotional strategy.

There's no choice. In today's society, traffic is king. Traffic is money.

Conversely, buying traffic costs money, and getting on the trending searches also costs money. Of the trending searches visible on the surface, not to mention more, sixty percent are bought.

Just right, I was worried about not having a place to spend money.

Buy, buy, buy, buy...

Today, Brother Xian is going to dominate the charts.

Zhang Cheng, sitting in front of the computer, was exceptionally excited. His long face, from his eyes to his chin, looked as if it had been boiled, flushed red.

For the past two days, Zhang Cheng felt like he was dreaming. He never expected that he, of all people, would reach the pinnacle of his life one day.

Before, he was just an unknown online troll, striking hard in the virtual world, following the crowd to earn easy money. But now, he was the mastermind holding a vast sum of money. The difference between these two feelings was so immense that "day and night" wasn't enough to describe it.

He lit a 1916 cigarette given by Brother Xian and took a sip of the "happy fat house water" Brother Xian gave him. Zhang Cheng, like a conductor, rapidly tapped on his keyboard.

"Old Evil Huang, get ready."

"No problem, boss."

The corners of Zhang Cheng's mouth curved slightly. Being called "boss" felt incredibly satisfying.

However, now was not the time to get carried away. He slowly suppressed his smile and typed to confirm: "I've given you a big order worth forty to fifty thousand RMB. You absolutely cannot mess this up. One thousand real trolls, not one less, and no duplicate comments."

"Don't worry, I guarantee it with my reputation. Just watch."

"Alright, let's get started exactly at one o'clock."

After confirming with the troll leader, "East Heretic," Zhang Cheng clicked on "West Poison's" chat window and typed: "Old Poison..."

"I'm here, boss. What do you need?"

"Get ready. At one in the afternoon, three hundred soft articles will be published simultaneously across the entire network. Fifty Million-follower Big Vs, each posting one every three minutes. No problem, right?"

"No problem, boss. As long as the money is there, I can get it done in minutes."

"The money will definitely not be short. Didn't I give you a deposit yesterday?"

"Boss, this is a major operation. Some of the Big Vs got wind of it and want to raise their prices."

"Damn... The market price for one soft article from a Million-follower Big V is 1000 RMB. I gave them 1500, and they still think it's too little?"

"Uh... I don't know who leaked the information, but they said you've prepared a million RMB, and then... these people got greedy."

Son of a bitch!

Zhang Cheng cursed, his expression turning a bit ugly. He clenched his fist and typed back: "Anyone who doesn't want to make this money can get lost. You find people now. I'll give two thousand per article."

"This... that might not be good."

"My boss has plenty of money, but he won't stand for this kind of attitude. If you don't want to do it, get lost. I'm telling you, I have the list right here. I'll definitely note down anyone who doesn't want to do it."

"Alright, you're the boss, you call the shots. I'll arrange it now."

"No matter how you arrange it, don't delay my business."

"Understood..."

After closing the chat window, Zhang Cheng took a deep breath and then slammed the table a few times.

Damn it, fuck...

Motherfucker...

I have people, and I still have to deal with you bunch of assholes? You're ungrateful.

After venting for a while, Zhang Cheng calmed down and informed Li Xian of the situation.

An extra few thousand or tens of thousands of RMB really wasn't much. Li Xian didn't care at all and even told him to do a good job.

Zhang Cheng returned to his computer desk and opened "North Beggar's" chat window on QQ.

"Old Beggar... Don't tell me you want to raise your prices too."

"How could I, boss? You're buying 24-hour trending searches for 650,000 RMB, which is already the highest price this year. If the market wasn't so tight recently, I would have definitely bargained it down to 500,000 for you."

"Stop beating around the bush. Just make sure I don't drop out of the top ten trending searches for 24 hours."

"Heh heh, not a problem at all. As long as the money is there, you can stay on for a week if you want."

"Let's start exactly at one o'clock, rush to first place, then at 4 PM, 8 PM, and tomorrow at 10 AM, we'll make another push."

"OK..."

With all instructions given, Zhang Cheng stood up and stretched. He then moved his shoulders and took out a calculator to start tallying the accounts.

"Brother Xian gave me a million. A thousand real water army members cost fifty thousand a day, and I paid a deposit of twenty thousand five...

A soft article costs 100 RMB, with a deposit of fifteen thousand. A big V costs 1500 RMB, so fifty of them would be how much? Oh... seventy-five thousand, and I paid a deposit of thirty-two thousand five...

A full day on the Weibo trending list costs 650,000 RMB. I paid a deposit of 200,000 RMB. Adding it all up... 272,500 RMB. I should have 727,500 RMB left in hand, plus the initial startup capital of over 40,000 RMB. Oh my god, this accounting is a bit difficult."

Zhang Cheng had never handled this much money before, so doing the accounts was indeed a bit challenging for him. Although Li Xian didn't care about minor discrepancies of ten or twenty thousand, he still needed to meticulously calculate every single transaction.

He knew very well that Brother Xian trusted him enough to hand over so much money. If he couldn't even manage the accounts properly, how could he have the nerve to help Brother Xian with future tasks?

About ten minutes passed. After using the calculator to verify the sums three or four times, he finally clarified all the accounts. He now had 716,500 RMB remaining. Besides the deposit used for Weibo, several tens of thousands were spent on deposits for other websites.

Zhang Cheng finalized today's accounts and then calculated the remaining payments due tomorrow. Overall, these two days of effort wouldn't cost a million RMB.

Of course, assuming no unexpected issues.

He rubbed his palms together, lit a 1916, and began to enjoy it. After a short rest, he picked up his phone and sent Li Xian a voice message.

The video call connected. Li Xian was on the other end, tinkering with his figurines.

The figurines he had previously ordered had all arrived. Li Xian, feeling a bit antsy, took out Rei Ayanami and started assembling her.

"Isn't my Rei Ayanami beautiful?" Li Xian said.

"Of course, seeing Brother Xian play with figurines makes me want to buy one too."

"Hehe. Once today's business is settled, I'll send you one. I just placed another order for over a hundred thousand RMB."

Hiss~~

Brother Xian buys these things like they're cabbage. Damn, you can't even eat them.

He definitely couldn't say that out loud. He chuckled and said, "Thank you, Brother Xian."

"By the way, how are the arrangements coming along? Don't mess this up. The money is not the issue; we can't afford to lose face."

"Brother, don't worry. It'll be on time at one o'clock, just you wait and see," Zhang Cheng said with a smile, though he still felt a bit uneasy. This was the first time he was leading something like this, and he was genuinely afraid of something going wrong.

Don't you dare play me. If you dare to fool me, I'll go all out.

Zhang Cheng hardened his resolve inwardly to bolster his courage, but his face remained smiling. "Brother Xian, this is our first time playing the trending list, and those jerks really took us for a ride."

Hearing this, Li Xian waved his hand dismissively and said, "As I said, the money is not the issue. The main thing is not to lose face."

After hanging up the video call, Li Xian glanced at the time. It was already twelve o'clock. He went to the bathroom for a quick shower.

He had been staying in the Presidential Suite for nearly a week. He hadn't developed many good habits, but he had grown fond of taking showers.

With the facilities available for showering and bathing, taking multiple showers in the summer was truly comfortable, especially for someone like him who tended to sweat a lot.

At 12:50, Li Xian, with an Iberian hot dog in his mouth and a bottle of sparkling Lafite in his hand, sat down in front of his computer.

He refreshed the Weibo trending list at one-minute intervals: 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 1 minute.

"Top ten on Weibo," Li Xian scanned the list and saw a trending topic related to himself in the last position.

Bilibili Viral Bilibili Video

This was the first installment. There was a second installment. It wasn't until the third installment that he was actually mentioned.

Clicking on this trending topic, Li Xian felt a bit embarrassed. There were only about sixty comments below this topic.

"What is this? Trending with only sixty comments?"

"Probably bought."

"Definitely. What's Bilibili?"

Looking at these comments, Li Xian felt a bit awkward. Damn, this is too fake.

Just as he was about to send a message to Zhang Cheng, the number of shares for this trending topic suddenly surged, and the comments visibly increased.

"Bilibili friends reporting for duty!"

"Wow. My Kidney Bro is awesome."

"Kidney Bro 66666, everyone boost this!"

"Brother Yao is awesome."

"666666"

"This is our Bilibili king of meme videos."

"Everyone hurry up and push it up."

200 comments. 300 comments. 500 comments. 1000 comments.

In the blink of an eye, the comments quickly surpassed a thousand, and at this rate, it would soon reach two thousand. The trending topic climbed three spots, reaching seventh place.

My zombie fans are really active.

Li Xian shook his head and smiled. Anyone could see it was a fan army, but perhaps only he knew that they were all fake fans.

The money wasn't spent in vain, whether the trending topic was real or fake, it made it to the top.

"Brother Xian, I'll get you to number one immediately. Hurry up and post on Weibo, then the next round begins," Zhang Cheng sent a voice message.

After Li Xian heard this, he prepared to edit his Weibo post. However, at this moment, a trending topic suddenly climbed into the top ten, catching his eye.

Wang Feng National Tour Concert June 21 Bincheng Stop

Well now.

"Heh. Brother Feng is trying to compete with me for the trending spot."