Chapter 426: Chapter 239: Becoming a Top Influencer! A Comedian’s Request for Advice

Chen Jincheng shook his head and said, "Let’s not respond for now. However, spread the word about this. Hype it up. The more people who know, the better."

In his previous life, he only knew that Kuaishou had poached people from Tiao Yin after integrating Acfun. They had even headhunted many of Tiao Yin’s MCNs. He just hadn’t expected Kuaishou to start making contact this early.

There was no benefit in responding to Kuaishou right now. However, publicizing the matter did have its advantages. At the very least, it would make Tiao Yin pay more attention to him.

After all, the two platforms were still at war. The fact that Kuaishou wanted to poach him proved they valued him highly. ’So, Tiao Yin, are you going to value me or not?’

Under these circumstances, having resources allocated to him would be the best way to win him over.

"Understood. Kuaishou is definitely on the back foot compared to Tiao Yin right now, so there’s no need to engage with them. But spreading the news will indeed make Tiao Yin value us more," Sister Hong agreed.

But she obviously couldn’t predict Kuaishou’s future moves. She certainly didn’t know that when Tiao Yin eventually found itself in a difficult situation, the fact that Kuaishou had long wanted to poach him would become extremely important to the platform.

After reporting the matter, Sister Hong left to inform the people from Second-Life Star that Xue Qian was treating them to dinner that evening.

The sky quickly darkened.

When Chen Jincheng received Xue Qian’s call, he was already leading his people out of the hotel. The other party had indeed arranged for vehicles—a bus, just like before, but this one was a high-end tour bus.

"Lao Cheng, have your company’s people take the bus. You can ride with me," Xue Qian said with a welcoming smile.

Chen Jincheng nodded. He had Sister Hong lead the Second-Life Star team onto the bus while he followed Xue Qian to the same sports car he had seen him in at the airport.

Besides the driver, Zhu Zhen was also in the car.

"Mr. Chen," Zhu Zhen greeted with a smile as he got in.

Chen Jincheng returned the smile and greeted him back.

"Let’s go!" Once Xue Qian saw that everyone from Second-Life Star was on the bus, he instructed the driver to head to his Shangshangqian Hot Pot Restaurant in Sanya.

...

The Shangshangqian Hot Pot Restaurant in Sanya had just recently opened. However, thanks to Xue Qian’s fame, it had already attracted a large number of customers.

Coming to Shanya this time, Xue Qian actually intended to do a bit of promotion. His personally visiting the hot pot restaurant was naturally the best form of advertising. As for inviting Chen Jincheng and his company, that was also part of the plan.

Chen Jincheng was very famous on Tiao Yin, and the people from his company were all influencers.

Chen Jincheng had guessed as much when he heard they were going to a hot pot restaurant. He didn’t mind, though. After all, he was planning to pull Xue Qian into the Hanfu Travel Day event later and wanted to leverage his fame as well.

That evening, Shangshangqian was bustling with activity. News had broken in the afternoon that Xue Qian had arrived at the restaurant, and rumors spread that he would be back to eat hot pot that night. This prompted many well-informed people to rush over and book tables.

After all, it was a chance to get up close with a major celebrity, and his fans were especially excited.

Moreover, many people had already confirmed that Xue Qian had reserved the entire second floor of the hot pot restaurant to entertain some special guests.

So, when Xue Qian appeared at the entrance with Chen Jincheng, they instantly captured everyone’s attention.

"It really is Old Xue!"

"Good thing I booked a table, or I would’ve missed this."

"Holy crap, that looks like Chen Jincheng!"

"It really is him! Old Xue said they’d hang out in Shanya!"

"So they both really came."

"Haha, I’m so lucky today! My favorite male celebrity is Qianqian, and as for male influencers, Chen Jincheng’s handsome looks are totally my type."

"..."

In an instant, the entire hot pot restaurant erupted with excitement. Nearly everyone pulled out their phones and started filming the two of them.

A moment later, the people from Second-Life Star arrived. The sight of Zhang Ao’ai, Yinyin, and the others sent the crowd into another filming frenzy. For them, booking this one meal was a huge win—they got to see Xue Qian and all these influencers from Second-Life Star.

Some people tried to go up to them for a greeting or a photo but were stopped by the security guards Xue Qian had arranged in advance.

Xue Qian led Chen Jincheng and the others to the second floor. After getting them all seated, he had the staff start bringing out the food.

Meanwhile, videos of Chen Jincheng and Xue Qian together were already spreading through countless social circles, and many people had uploaded them to Tiao Yin.

Although most of these customers were ordinary people whose Tiao Yin accounts didn’t have much traffic, Tiao Yin’s special recognition algorithm still pushed a significant amount of traffic to the videos since they featured both Xue Qian and Chen Jincheng.

Additionally, Zhang Ao’ai already had a video of a "jealous girlfriend" going viral today, so her appearance naturally drew a lot of traffic as well.

So, while Chen Jincheng and Xue Qian were eating hot pot, many people on Tiao Yin learned that the major celebrity Xue Qian and the top influencer Chen Jincheng were actually hanging out together.

In 2018, this was truly big news.

At that time, celebrities and influencers were worlds apart.

But soon, something surprising happened: Chen Jincheng and Xue Qian’s names appeared on Tiao Yin’s trending list, and their popularity wasn’t low either.

This stunned everyone. ’Are you kidding me? They made the trending list just for hanging out together?’

’This doesn’t make any sense.’

"This works too? Lao Cheng, what’s with this trending list?" Xue Qian asked Chen Jincheng, a look of utter astonishment on his face when he heard the news from Zhu Zhen.

After all, the man knew Tiao Yin far better than he did.

Chen Jincheng smiled and said, "Tiao Yin wants to blur the line between influencers and celebrities. A top influencer and a major celebrity hanging out together—isn’t that the perfect gimmick?"

"So, for the next two or three days, anyone who films videos related to us can piggyback off our fame and get a ton of traffic."

In the other world, Tiao Yin had done this kind of thing a lot. Scenes of celebrities and influencers appearing together would get a massive traffic boost. This included clips of people like Lin Gou and Chen Chichi hanging out with influencers, which all received huge exposure.

That even included Xue Qian himself releasing songs with influencers, all orchestrated by Tiao Yin.

But in this world, at this point in time, he and Xue Qian were basically serving themselves up on a silver platter. Tiao Yin didn’t need to orchestrate anything; they just had to provide the traffic.

Xue Qian wasn’t stupid; he roughly understood what Chen Jincheng meant. ’As expected, he’s a true professional. He figured out the reason right away.’

In fact, he had also come to realize the promotional benefits of a short-video platform like Tiao Yin. Many celebrities had already joined the platform.

He had a friend who joined Tiao Yin and already had 40 million fans.

So, he had been planning to do the same. He had already applied for an account and gotten it verified as a "Big V," but he just hadn’t found the right direction. The dozen or so videos he had posted received underwhelming attention.

How should he put it? His fame was no less than his friend’s. That friend had gotten huge from a few variety shows, and so had he. But now that friend had 40 million fans, while the stats on his own dozen videos looked pretty pathetic.

The key issue was that he’d been hit hard by that incident last year, which had made things awkward. There was nothing he could do about it.

And now, sitting across from him was the man everyone called the best video creator on Tiao Yin.

So, he seized the opportunity and said, "Lao Cheng, the traffic on short-video platforms like Tiao Yin and Kuaishou is getting bigger and bigger. It seems like Tiao Yin is also trying to attract celebrities to join. A friend of mine says Tiao Yin’s promotional power will surpass Weibo’s in the future."

"So, I’ve joined Tiao Yin too, but I’ve only made a dozen or so videos, and the stats are pretty underwhelming."

Chen Jincheng was taken aback when he heard this. He recalled that in the other world, Xue Qian hadn’t joined Tiao Yin until 2019, because his first video was posted that year.

It seemed that he had actually made videos before then, but they had been deleted or hidden from view.

It wasn’t until 2019 that he finally had his breakthrough, taking a comedic route. Of his first seven videos, three featured him cross-dressing as a woman, and two had him playing a eunuch from the Eastern Depot. Every single video got millions of likes.

That’s right, cross-dressing wasn’t Luo Xiaozhu’s specialty alone. Xue Qian in drag looked much better than Luo Xiaozhu.

At this point, Xue Qian got straight to the point. "Lao Cheng, I still haven’t found the right direction for Tiao Yin. Can you give me some advice?"

Hearing this, Chen Jincheng smiled and said, "Old Xue, you already have a ready-made path. You’re a witty comedian. Why can’t your videos be witty too?"

Xue Qian pressed, "Can you be more specific? There’s still a difference between videos and written jokes."

Chen Jincheng replied subconsciously, "Cross-dressing, playing a eunuch."

Xue Qian: "???"

Beside them, Zhu Zhen was just about to eat a piece of vegetable. When he heard this, the vegetable froze at his lips.

’What on earth did Chen Jincheng just say?’

Seeing Xue Qian’s reaction, Chen Jincheng realized he’d spoken too soon. Just because his counterpart in the other world had made those kinds of videos didn’t mean this version of him would accept the idea.

He was just about to say he was kidding when, to his surprise, Xue Qian suddenly said with great interest, "Lao Cheng, can you tell me more about the cross-dressing? It sounds like fun."

"???" Now it was Chen Jincheng’s turn to be confused. Looking at Xue Qian’s excited expression, he felt that something was a little off about him...