pjbooks Chapter 81 [It has nothing to do with me]
Chapter 81 [It has nothing to do with me]
Chapter 81 [It has nothing to do with me]
In the past, Liu Zhuohao would always bring up "business orders" and "project proposals" when they made the call. Now that the other party had taken the initiative, he naturally wouldn't hesitate and went along with it, his tone perfectly timed: "I was just about to tell you about this—"
"I've also received the message from the platform regarding the proposal. They said they're just waiting for you, Mr. Chen, to finalize the timeline."
"Mr. Chen, when would be a convenient time? I'd like to arrange for the person in charge of business at the platform to sit down and talk things over. We can exchange ideas and see how to negotiate this deal in a way that satisfies all three parties."
"I've been waiting for you to say that!" Chen Youyin's voice immediately rose, sounding impatient. "We've already started getting a lot of things moving! We're looking at venues, and we're also looking for staff—Boss Liu, let me tell you, if this really works out, if it grows big, if it becomes strong—"
He paused, his tone becoming unusually serious: "At that time, you, Boss Liu, will be a shareholder of our 'Chen's'!"
"We'll set a sales target, Mr. Liu. You'll sell a certain amount for us, and once we reach that target, we'll give you shares directly!"
That's completely unfounded.
Chen Youyin's family owns two processing plants with a relatively complete production chain, possibly located in the local wholesale market.
The butcher stall and restaurant were quite famous, and now Chen's has also set up shop there.
Oh, not only that, he's even planning to give himself a share of the shares.
This person truly took what they said back then to heart.
"You've already been on our local TV station, so you should be considered a figure on that website now, right?" Chen Youyin said on the phone again. "If you say something on the platform, maybe they can give you some exposure and help you sell more goods."
"Exposure?" Liu Zhuohao smiled helplessly, casually tossing out a message, "Maybe—it's already been given out?"
"You've already given it to me?" Chen Youyin was clearly taken aback, not quite following up. "What do you mean?"
Liu Zhuohao quickly weighed the options in his mind.
He could directly send links and screenshots to his cousin and the female reporter because they were both relatively young and had a similar understanding of the internet.
But Mr. Chen is in his forties and his son is already in his second year of high school. Although businessmen are well-informed, their level of understanding may be completely different.
He tentatively asked, "Boss Chen, do you know anything about Weibo?"
"Weibo? Of course I know that!" Chen Youyin answered quickly. "I occasionally check the news too."
It's quite fashionable.
"Hmm," Liu Zhuohao responded, stating a fact in his tone, "I'm currently on Weibo's trending topics list, not very high, probably around forty."
Chen Youyin remained silent on the other end of the phone.
For several seconds, the only sounds coming through the receiver were a faint electrical hum and his seemingly quiet breathing.
"—Oh, I see." He finally spoke, trying to sound excited. "That's pretty impressive."
But this excitement felt a bit dry and forced.
It's more like a reaction out of social politeness when hearing something unfamiliar.
In his mind, perhaps appearing on a local news channel would be more impactful than ranking on Weibo.
"Let's arrange a meeting and discuss it in detail then."
Liu Zhuohao exchanged a few more polite words and hung up the phone. Since the other person didn't understand, he didn't insist on explaining how funny the joke was.
He then shared the message with the site administrator, but his words no longer implied that he was on the same side as the platform.
Rather, it was a situation where they were in cahoots with Boss Chen, and that they were already prepared and hoped to meet as soon as possible.
Since the two openly acknowledged each other's agreement on "commercialization" during their chat, the site administrator's replies have remained concise and direct, conveying a sense of efficiency and decisiveness in advancing matters: "Received. We'll confirm the time and arrange for a colleague from the business department to go and discuss it."
Unlike before, when there was still unresolved controversy surrounding the whistleblower report, there was no longer any reservation or delay.
Once things were on track, the platform's business machine quickly got running.
Liu Zhuohao leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.
Accepting this business deal meant that he now had his first stable online monetization channel.
"Once the sales figures are up and running, I'll have a solid report card, plus the official endorsement from Bilibili—well, then the number of food-related business orders coming my way should increase." He thought to himself.
After all, when it comes to selling products, you can't always rely on just one method.
At that time, there may be food orders from other places, or local orders from our own area.
However, the probability of local orders is probably higher.
After all, the concepts of live-streaming e-commerce and data-driven product selection were far from being fully formed, lacking the detailed data analysis and precise exposure matching mechanisms found on later short video platforms.
It's difficult for businesses from other regions to understand the specific sales potential of such a newly emerging blogger on Bilibili.
In business, he couldn't loudly proclaim everywhere, "I helped so-and-so sell so much merchandise and make so much money, you should all come to me."
Therefore, a more realistic approach is to rely on the word-of-mouth spread of the "Chen Kee" success story in the local area to attract other local businesses that are observing or interested to take the initiative to contact them.
But this is ultimately just a plan based on the current situation, and there are still many variables.
The phone, which was on the table, didn't ring again until lunchtime.
It wasn't a text message, but an invitation to a WeChat voice call from that female reporter from the People's Livelihood Channel.
As soon as the call connected, the other party's excited voice almost burst through the receiver: "Boss Liu! You're that famous on that little website?!" The female reporter's voice was filled with incredulous joy. "That's Weibo's trending topics list! Many obscure celebrities can't even get on it, and you actually made it?!"
"That's not how it works. Don't compare the popularity of celebrities in the entertainment industry with social news."
Liu Zhuohao picked up the phone, and under the curious gazes of Huang Weixiong and the others, he got up from the dinner table and walked out into the quiet corridor. "If we could divide these into separate lists, one would be an entertainment list and the other a social list, and they would be different."
"That's still amazing, you know!" the female reporter exclaimed excitedly. "That's a national ranking! Not just some local TV news report!"
Clearly, she understands the influence of Weibo and has a clear understanding of what it means to be on the trending topics list.
Therefore, for her, going on Weibo is far more important than going on local news or social issues forums.
"You're absolutely the first celebrity I know from our area to trend on Weibo!"
The female reporter was still talking, rambling on and on.
Liu Zhuohao didn't disturb her, but just listened silently to her expressing her excited emotions.
It's strange, like a golden phoenix suddenly flying out of a mountain valley?
No, no, no, although this place is small, it can't be considered a remote mountain valley.
But thinking about it carefully, this won't just be the case now, it will be the same in the future.
In this small city, very few individuals can make it onto the trending topics list; only major natural disasters can garner attention and make the list.
But that's only part of it.
Even in the event of a natural disaster, sometimes we can't rush to the scene and often have to rely on local rescue efforts.
"Speaking of which, when was there a flood here?"
When Liu Zhuohao thought about this problem, he couldn't help but think of the floods.
In his memory, there would be several major floods in the next few years, causing some impact.
Not just here, but in other places as well.
When he experienced it and watched the news, Liu Zhuohao had a deep impression of it. Now, looking back and thinking about it, apart from the pneumonia, he can't remember anything else.
"Actually, in recent years, there seem to be some examples of people starting out as internet celebrities and then transitioning into actors, singers, or even hosts—" the female reporter was still dreaming on the other end of the phone.
Actually, compared to these one...
Liu Zhuohao timely interrupted her increasingly distant thoughts and brought the topic back on track, "I shared this news with you because I had other considerations."
"Hmm? Go ahead." The female reporter's voice calmed down a bit.
"I'd like to ask if our local TV station, or some relevant government or media departments, also have official accounts on Weibo?" Liu Zhuohao asked, his tone becoming serious. "We can take advantage of the fact that this matter is still popular and have the relevant official accounts post something, comment on it, or repost and follow up."
"In this way, we can leverage the popularity of the event to increase the number of followers on our official accounts and enhance their influence. Secondly, the addition of official voices can further raise the social attention and discussion surrounding this matter, making the handling process more efficient."
"This is a win-win situation."
The female reporter paused for a moment on the other end of the phone.
"That makes sense," she said, the excitement in her voice fading as it returned to professional caution. "I can give this idea feedback to our leaders and see what the government Weibo and media accounts that cooperate with our station think."
Although she showed great enthusiasm and interest in Liu Zhuohao trending on social media, she immediately became cautious and restrained when it came to using public resources and making decisions at the departmental level. She only agreed to "give feedback and see" and did not show much intention to actively promote the matter.
Liu Zhuohao didn't press the matter, and replied in a relaxed tone, "Okay, I was just mentioning it casually, just ask around for me."
After hanging up the phone, he turned back to continue eating the bowl of rice that had already gone cold.
He wasn't just mentioning it casually; he was trying to establish a connection with local media.
In any case, if I can make it onto their news, and be one of the few with a lot of buzz, it will definitely improve their impression of me.
Although media outlets and journalists are platforms and professions that need to be fair and impartial.
But that's just what they say; in reality, they're often quite subjective.
If you can make a good first impression, then if you appear in local news or news from other regions later, they might be able to present a more positive image of you when they follow up and report on you.
This is very important.
Just like when you search for "Liu Zhuohao" on Baidu, the first results that pop up are "unscrupulous merchants buying goods at low prices and selling them at high prices," and the next result is "discovering the essence of business and analyzing the classic profit model of commodity price difference."
They clearly mean the same thing, but the former is meant to be more explicit and direct.
The latter, however, repackaged the concept using a popular science approach similar to "business principles," turning a bad thing into a good one.
Cultivating good relationships with the media ensures that they will report positive news about you truthfully, and they can also embellish negative news about you.
"Is that Mr. Liu from the TV show over there? Let's go try some."
"Why are there so many people? Didn't they say they had no business after being reported?"
"That was a few days ago! Now it's become popular again, otherwise what's the point of being on TV?"
"Did you all come here because of people's livelihood?"
"Not entirely. I'd heard about this stall before, but I was hesitant and didn't dare to try it."
The night market streets were bustling with noise once again.
The firelight illuminated the throng of people. Although the queue didn't stretch all the way to the end of the sidewalk like it did during the previous event, it was still a noticeably long and winding line.
Liu Zhuohao stood behind the iron plate, his hands moving as steady as a rock, and he was not surprised by this scene.
He anticipated that the endorsement from local news would generate a strong buzz, but he didn't expect the whole process to happen so quickly, with a response almost immediately following the news about people's livelihoods.
In his previous life, Liu Zhuohao was also reported for his business dealings.
Of course, his approach wasn't that radical, but it still managed to get the other party to clarify things.
It will take at least several months to recover from the lost customer traffic.
Many of our former repeat customers were unaware that this matter had already been clarified.
"I asked our boss's cousin before, and he's a proper lawyer," Li Zekai's voice was particularly loud amidst the noise. He served steaks to customers while speaking animatedly, "He said that to pursue accountability and compensation for this kind of malicious accusation, we need a damage assessment," he said, "and we need a real data comparison report!"
A regular customer nearby jokingly asked, "So, given the current situation, can the damage still be assessed? I see the boss's business is back on track, isn't it?"
"Well, it's hard to say!"
Li Zekai sighed dramatically, but there was a hint of smugness on his face. "It was only quiet for a few days, so it's really hard to make a comparison with this data."
"But don't underestimate these past few days. We use high-quality ingredients for our steaks, and the cost is there. If we keep setting up a stall here every day and there's no business, just think about the rent, labor, and spoilage—the losses are...tsk tsk."
Liu Zhuohao listened, but didn't stop flipping the steak in his hands, nor did he stop him.
Now that there are enough people, Huang Weixiong has become quite skilled at grilling steaks, Cheng Bing and Yang Boran are getting better at running around, and Li Zekai is also adaptable. Gradually, he has lost the reserved and sassy attitude he had when he first arrived and has started to be able to talk a little and mingle with the customers.
Four people can easily manage one stall.
"Boss."
Taking advantage of the moment he turned to get the oil, Huang Weixiong leaned closer and asked in a low voice, "Is it okay for Ah Kai to say this to the customer? Won't it cause trouble?"
He was referring to Li Ka-shing using "damage assessment" and "accountability" as topics of conversation.
Liu Zhuohao glanced at the group of guests not far away who were discussing Li Zekai's words, his gaze calm: "Anyway, the damage assessment is probably not going to happen, let him do what he wants, he's probably just trying to scare those people—"
Before he could finish speaking, a person suddenly stepped out from the edge of his line of sight!
Among the guests sitting around a folding table, listening to Li Zekai boast, an old man with gray hair and wearing a gray cloth shirt suddenly stood up.
His face was deathly pale, his expression one of undisguised panic, and his movements were even somewhat unsteady. He pushed aside the people around him and rushed straight toward the food cart.
"Boss Liu! Boss Liu! This has nothing to do with me!"
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