"Mr. Zhou, why does it seem like your seating posture is a bit awkward?"
After getting in the car, Jiang Qingkui, sitting in the backseat with Zhou Wang, asked curiously.
"Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten used to sitting in a Phantom these past few days. Damn, I used to think the A8L was pretty comfortable..."
Zhou Wang shook his head with a smile.
Of course, he was joking. After all, the A8 isn’t exactly a low-end car. It’s just that once you’ve experienced something better, it’s hard to go back.
He even found that after riding a Rolls-Royce every day in Hang City and experiencing that comfort and convenience, he had lost interest in driving a supercar himself.
No wonder everyone ends up leaving their sports cars in the garage to gather dust.
After all, from a daily commute perspective, supercars don’t really have much advantage...
Jiang Qingkui smiled faintly, then pulled out her phone to deal with some missed messages.
A moment later, Jiang Qingkui looked up and asked Zhou Wang, "Mr. Zhou, Lin Ran is ready. What do you think..."
"Ready?"
Zhou Wang took a deep breath. Ever since the Wuyou Night, his mood had been rather calm, but at this moment, he felt a bit unsettled.
"Then let her send it."
"Okay."
Jiang Qingkui nodded and replied to Lin Ran.
After waiting a minute, Zhou Wang pulled out his phone, logged into his Douyin account, and saw that his newly verified account had its first video posted, though it was still in the "under review" status.
Soon, the video passed the machine review and showed "Successfully Published."
Zhou Wang gripped his phone, waiting silently.
Although Douyin’s official algorithm details were never disclosed, according to everyone’s estimation, any newly posted personal video would first enter an initial traffic pool of about 500 people. If the completion rate, likes, comments, and other interactions met the standards, it would advance to a traffic pool of about 5,000 people, and so on...
Generally speaking, a new account’s first video would receive some traffic support, so the initial video was crucial.
Of course, one could directly buy traffic, which was Lin Ran’s suggestion, but Zhou Wang refused.
He wanted to see what kind of data his first video would achieve without any promotional boost.
...
Ming City Yalong Real Estate Group Building, Marketing Department.
Sun Yi, who had been promoted to deputy manager of the marketing department, looked at the dimming horizon outside her window, finally realizing it was past quitting time. She saved her work on her computer, stretched, and leaned back in her office chair but didn’t rush to leave.
It’s too congested at this hour, and there’s nothing to do at home anyway, better to take it easy here...
She took a sip of the now-cold milk tea on her desk and picked up her phone, instinctively tapping open Douyin to start scrolling.
Her speed of watching videos was incredibly quick, usually just glancing at each short video before swiping away, unless something in the beginning instantly grabbed her attention, making her pause for a closer look.
After finishing a video titled "10 Positions That Make a Boyfriend Most Comfortable," Sun Yi slid to the next video. When she saw the data on the right with 0 likes and 0 comments, she hesitated and swiped down.
This kind of video obviously belonged to individuals, generally lacking content, just padding in the sea of videos. Naturally, Sun Yi wasn’t interested.
Just as she swiped past, Sun Yi froze, then swiped back.
The main reason was the account name, surprisingly just "Zhou Wang."
Yes, simply those two words with nothing else.
Before Sun Yi could wonder which Zhou Wang this was, her attention was captured by the content of the video.
At the start of the video, a boy holding a basketball was about to jump and shoot after catching a pass but was interrupted by a phone ringing nearby.
The reason for Sun Yi’s shock was that this boy was indeed Zhou Wang, the Zhou Wang she knew!
Just with makeup, the boy holding the basketball looked more youthful, like a college student.
The boy answered the phone, and on the other end came a woman’s tearful voice:
"My son, your father got scammed and now owes hundreds of thousands. Our house is being sold, what will we do..."
The boy stood there dumbfounded for a second, with the basketball slipping from his hand. The next moment, accompanied by a seamless transition, the boy changed clothes and was handing out flyers in a corridor, constantly calling out to passing people:
"Hey, would you like some information about pet funerals? Come to me if you need!"
Flyer after flyer was handed out, only to be discarded on the ground. The boy kept picking up the flyers, constantly smiling until they, after another video transition, turned into a pile of various debt collection notices.
The boy, his face far more haggard, stared at the thick stack of bills in his hand and silently lowered his head.
The surroundings turned dark, leaving only the boy standing under a spotlight. Fragmented sounds echoed from all directions:
"Entrepreneurship? Anyone can start a business!"
"Not studying properly, just messing around..."
"Isn’t that our Cai University’s Chen Guanxi? Why does he look so down?"
"Shhh, be careful, he just got punished for fighting, what if he hits you too!"
These voices gradually converged into noisy clamor. Meanwhile, Zhou Wang’s attire kept switching, from a yellow delivery uniform to a black vest and more...
Until a moment came when sweat-drenched Zhou Wang suddenly lifted his head, and in a scene shift, he was sitting in an empty classroom.
It seemed like all he experienced was a dream. Zhou Wang, looking around aimlessly, eventually calmed down, picking up a book on the desk.
With the camera’s focus, the book title read "Growth," and when the boy opened the cover, there was a line:
"May Zhou Wang’s future ride the winds and waves and shine every day!"
The boy drifted into thought as he read, and then the video background music started with a whistle singing... Sun Yi recognized it as the chorus of "Times of Friendship."
The boy in the video recognized it too. He began tapping his fingers softly on the desk, humming along, and without realizing it, his clothes shifted to a graduation gown.
At one moment, as a smile spread across the boy’s face, the fingers resting on the desk paused. The next second, as those fingers were captured in close-up, symphonic music surged, with his fingers pressing into a piano.
"Let go of wrongs, reminisce the past, the tough times always shared some joy..."
The singing that ignited the whole scene erupted. Amidst countless screams, Zhou Wang, dressed elegantly, sat on the main stage of the Hang City Olympic Sports Center, playing the piano while passionately singing a duet with Zhang Shihao.
When the song ended, Zhou Wang stepped to the front of the stage.
"Hello everyone, I’m the new supervisor of Wuyou Media... My name is Zhou Wang."
With Zhou Wang’s smile, the video froze, then faded into darkness, where a row of typewritten captions appeared:
"If destiny is the world’s worst screenwriter, then strive to be the best actor in your life."
"I am Zhou Wang, thank you for following."
Dumbfounded, Sun Yi watched the video several times on repeat.
The production quality was extremely high, using numerous special effects, but what truly moved Sun Yi was how the short over-a-minute video vividly depicted Zhou Wang’s past experiences.
So, he had such a challenging journey...
Inexplicably, Sun Yi felt a slight discomfort, even her vision became blurry.
After a while, as her emotions stabilized, Sun Yi finally remembered to like the video, then hurriedly collected and saved it, following up by clicking on the account’s personal page.
She hadn’t noticed earlier, but now she saw the account’s profile picture was indeed of Zhou Wang, though not the current him, but a youthful version of Zhou Wang.
It seemed like it was taken when he was around eighteen or nineteen, with a silly peace sign and an incredibly bright smile full of youthful vigor, so different from the Zhou Wang she knew.
Below Zhou Wang’s name was a yellow check mark, and beside it, the simple three-word authentication:
"Investor."