260 Good Friends Should Stay Together

August 9th, Wednesday…

In the afternoon…

Pei Qian took two sips of cola after finishing the employee packed lunch delivered by Fish-Catching Take-Out. He felt very satisfied and lay motionless on the executive office chair for a while.

The Fish-Catching Take-Out was one of Pei Qian's most satisfying services. Not only could it settle the meals of all employees perfectly, but it was also losing money steadily. It showed no signs of possible profits.

The only problem was that its development depended on that of the Fish-Catching Internet Cafes. It could only cater to the regions around the Fish-Catching Internet Cafes and thus could not expand in scale at a similar speed as the Upwind Courier stations.

However, Pei Qian was not anxious about that. As long as the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe 2.0 plan could commence quickly, the market for the Fish-Catching Take-Out would expand further; and the loss it suffered would also increase rapidly naturally.

After eating and drinking to his heart's content, Pei Qian closed the Repent and be Saved window on his computer.

He had suffered yet another tormenting morning, but he could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Pei Qian was already very familiar with the 'Pudu' weapon. If he could persevere for around a week and clear the ending segments of the six realms of rebirth and existence, he could then consider himself as achieving a huge success.

Not only would he be free and did not have to open the game and suffer ever again, but that also meant that the game had finally reached the system's requirements and could successfully be released.

When the sales of the game flopped and it caused the company to suffer a huge loss, the happy times could finally begin for Pei Qian!

Whenever he thought about that, Pei Qian could not stop a smile from creeping up his face.

He opened Aili Island and planned to watch a few random funny short videos while letting the food he had eaten digest.

First, he ignored the 99+ private messages that were urging him to upload another video.

Being a famous UP Master on a website like Aili Island was pretty troublesome. Every time he opened the web page, there would be tons of messages. Most of those were private messages that urged him to upload more videos.

Boss Pei had so much work to do every day. How could he find time to upload new videos daily?

Currently, Hardcore Reviews had been destroying digital products for the past dozens of videos. Even Pei Qian was a little bored of making the series.

However, the viewers were not tired of that at all. Every time a new digital product was released, they would urge him to upload a video regarding that new product. They wanted Pei Qian to continue destroying this and that and were not tired of watching those videos at all.

Furthermore, everyone had been having increasingly inflated expectations. Initially, the viewers were only asking him to destroy cell phones that cost around three to five thousand yuan, and yet they were now eyeing laptops and headphones that cost more than ten thousand yuan.

If not for the money he earned from Aili Island's incentive plan, Pei Qian would have quit long ago!

Pei Qian planned to destroy a new digital product every now and then once he saw a new release to maintain his popularity on the platform. That was especially so for the free products that Shenhua sent to him.

Anyways, when this cycle ended, the hundreds of thousands that he had lost would be enough for him to spend. There was no longer a need for him to upload those videos so painstakingly anymore.

After that, Pei Qian watched Fei Huang Workspace's new video—the fourth episode of A Day in a Great Inventor's Life—at the electronics area of the website.

Fei Huang Workspace had been very consistent in their uploads. Although the video was evidently much longer than Boss Pei's Daily Life, they still managed to upload a new episode weekly. That was considered relatively more hardworking as compared to other UP Masters in Aili Island.

After all, many UP Masters were part-time content creators while Fei Huang Workspace was a company that could work on the videos on a full-time basis. They had the manpower and money; thus, they could produce their videos even faster and upload them more frequently.

Pei Qian did not click on the video. The main reason was that he was afraid his heart could not handle it.

If the video series really managed to receive sponsored partnerships from some international huge brands someday, that was similar to the end of the world to Boss Pei. He could picture himself having to eat an immediate-release aspirin tablet before clicking into every episode.

Moreover, Pei Qian did not have a good solution to stop them. Therefore, the only thing he could do was to bury his head into the sand and pretend as though he did not see anything.

Pei Qian looked at the updates section of the website to see if there were any new videos by the funny UP Masters that he had subscribed to.

Finally, Pei Qian looked at his favorite otoMAD area where video creators would parody or remix videos and audio clips that have been edited and re-arranged mainly for comical effect.

OtoMAD was the path to progress for the human population.

However, Pei Qian noticed something different when he opened the otoMAD area this time.

There was a newcomer in the otoMAD all-stars!

He scanned through the titles of the recently uploaded otoMAD videos. It was clear to see who the new lucky fellow was.

Pei Qian clicked on a few random videos and found the songs to be quite nice.

Moreover, the views for these videos were also pretty high. It should almost be confirmed that Zhang Zuting was officially a member of the otoMAD all-stars team.

The only uncertain thing was if there would be a video that exceeded three million views and sent him directly into the annual hall of fame for the otoMAD section.

Pei Qian was smiling happily. All of a sudden, he stopped smiling.

He opened the platform statistics for Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version and took a closer look.

After closer inspection, Pei Qian heaved a sigh of relief.

Huff…

Fortunately, there were no drastic changes to the statistics.

Although the statistics took a turn for the better, it was still far from the numbers needed to recover the production cost.

That was within Pei Qian's expectations. After all, they had been placing so many advertisements. The quality of the game was pretty good, and the game had an incredible reputation among advanced players. It would be impossible for the statistics of the game to remain unchanged after such a long time.

Pei Qian was content as long as the increase in the statistics was sufficiently slow.

Evidently, the advertisements and mini-client acted as two huge filters that sieved a large group of players. The number of players who truly downloaded and played the game was less than two- or three-tenths of the total number of people who clicked into the advertisements.

Therefore, Pei Qian was currently still at ease. Even if the otoMAD video went viral, there was still nothing he had to worry about currently.

Maybe I'm overthinking.

Zhang Jiahui's otoMAD videos were also very popular then. Almost everyone heard about that. However, how many B-site viewers would try out the game that Zhang Jiahui advertised for just because of an otoMAD video?

There were definitely some who did that, but I'm sure that's not the majority.

After he released the psychological burden he had, Pei Qian clicked on the search results for the keyword 'Zha Zhuti' with interest and started viewing the relevant videos.

There were huge numbers of otoMAD videos. Other than the videos produced by marketing accounts that tried to ride the wave of popularity, there were also some interview recordings of Zhang Zuting.

Zhang Zuting did not spend his time lazing around. Although he was less popular than before, he had earned several supporting roles in many movies.

In one of the interview recordings, the interviewer asked for his opinions about his nickname 'Zha Zhuti' which meant fried pig trotter.

In the video, Zhang Zuting appeared reluctant and helpless.

"Everyone in the country is laughing at me now.

"They are imitating how I speak. Hello, eberyone! I am Zha Zhuti. If you're my brother, come nibble at me…

"Many of my fans asked me this question. Why was I so awkward in the commercial when I won the best actor in the Film Award?

"Actually, I treated my performance bery seriously that day. During the first take, I was so passionate and devoted to my performance. However, the business partner wanted me to be more languid and casual. They wanted me to be less serious so I can appear more approachable to the viewers.

"After that, I just said my lines very casually. Never did I expect that take would be used.

"I have emphasized and suggested that we should find a dubbing actor. I do not really speak good Mandarin Chinese. (Many Hong Kongers speak Cantonese, which is a Chinese dialect, instead of Mandarin Chinese.) However, they did not do so in the end and just used my original recording. I do not really understand what happened either.

"When the advertisement became viral, I suggested that we should replace some shots, and yet the business partner declined the offer. That's how things turned out dis way.

"Actually, I am also still very unsure why tings turned out dis way either."

The interview was laughing at his accent. "Have you ever thought about terminating the partnership with the other party?"

Zhang Zuting shook his head reluctantly. "No. Other than this advertisement, I had enjoyed working with the business partner. They were great.

"Since everyone likes to call me Zha Zhuti, just go ahead with it as long as that makes everyone happy. If everyone thinks that the nickname was more approachable and fun, you can just call me that. I'm fine with that."

The interviewer asked, "So, the advertisement did not actually cause such a huge burden to you, is that so?"

Zhang Zuting did not know how to answer that question instantly. He thought for a while before replying, "Burden… not really. The most troubling thing for me was that my friends are laughing at me for that, including Ah Jian, Ah Xiong, and Jiaqiang.

"Every time we went out to eat together, they would bring up this issue. That's just really annoying."

…

As Pei Qian closed the video, he felt a little apologetic.

Haiz. Although that commercial helped Old Zhang gain some popularity, it also embarrassed him in front of his friends. Pei Qian was a little apologetic to him.

If that's the case, Pei Qian felt that he was Old Zhang's friend; and he must help him with the problem.

Pei Qian looked up those friends that Zhang Zuting mentioned.

He discovered that birds of a feather did flock together. Those friends of his were all celebrity has-beens, too.

Zhang Zuting was at least a best-actor winner. His friends mostly acted as supporting roles. They were now worse off than him and could not even secure a supporting role nowadays, much less a commercial.

Some even had to perform at property-launching ceremonies.

The person living the most miserably was not stuck in a contract dispute with his current management company because he could not secure roles in any shows. He was having trouble making ends meet and had to depend on Zhang Zuting and other friends for his day-to-day expenses.

Of course, although some of Zhang Zuting's friends were better off than the rest, they were very close to one another. They definitely did not mean it when they mocked Zhang Zuting because of the commercial. Those were all jokes among the group of friends.

When Pei Qian looked up the current plight of those people, he started to tear up.

Life was tough.

As a kind-hearted person, Pei Qian decided to offer them a helping hand.

Pei Qian randomly selected four of them who were closer to Zhang Zuting and handed the name list to Lin Wan. Those whom he selected were the ones who were named by Zhang Zuting in the video.

"I'll give you another two million yuan. Get those four to shoot a commercial for the Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version and play the commercials simultaneously."

Those four were celebrity has-beens; thus, the prices to invite them were not very high. The cost of a two-year endorsement for the game should be around five hundred thousand yuan for each of them.

Good friends should stick together.

In that case, Zhang Zuting would not be mocked by them anymore; and the financial situation of those friends of his would turn for the better.

Killing two birds with one stone. Splendid!

Pei Qian could not help but reflect on how benevolent he was.