Chapter Forty-Three: The Top Trending Headline

For active accounts that completed the preliminary tasks, each comment paid fifty cents.

Do not underestimate this amount. While slacking off during boring classes, posting ten comments takes less than a few minutes, netting a quick five yuan. That adds up to 150 yuan a month, and 1,800 yuan a year—an appeal that, to college students, far outweighs the lectures.

Once the first batch of people tasted success, word spread quickly from one person to ten, from ten to a hundred, and from one university to another. Soon, Selina had gathered over a dozen 500-member chat groups in her hands, scattered across different cities.

Instead of secretly embezzling the company’s data-purchase funds using the resources in her hands, she proactively used them to heat up her designated traffic tracks.

Every person in the operations department had certain quotas, and each team was responsible for one or more tracks. Among all the tracks, Selina's squad held the highest number of commenting accounts.

It was precisely with these accounts that Selina achieved stellar performance, and she was swiftly promoted to the director of the operations department.

Today, their company, Pojian, holds hundreds of part-time chat groups across hundreds of universities nationwide, making them second to none in the army of internet trolls and commentators.

Such a massive troll army would give even top-tier software platforms and A-list celebrities pause for thought, and this immense reservoir of active accounts was controlled entirely by Selina alone.

While encouraging everyone to "speak freely," dozens of more reliable core groups began to receive targeted, directed instructions for their commentary bit by bit.

Inciting conflicts and starting flame wars, whitewashing or smearing, publishing positive or negative hit pieces—as long as the pay was high enough, they would do anything.

Besides, since it was on their own software platform, the technical department wouldn't report anything even if they spotted anomalies; and even if they did, President Wang would have their backs.

What was there to fear?

Just get it done.

The former members of Selina's squad were now the team leaders of the first, second, third, and fourth groups in Pojian's operations department. They were all confidants promoted firsthand by Selina, ensuring seamless execution without any barriers.

In a mere thirty minutes, while the crowd at the scene had not even dispersed, Pojian's hashtag "#DeliveryDriverSecurityGuardConflict#" had already surged to the top of the trending lists.

"Well done!"

Wang Tianxia felt genuinely elated.

Normally, social topics of this nature were extremely difficult to hype up. The property management and real estate conglomerates would rush to muzzle the news at the very first moment. Wielding various connections, networks, and the high moral ground, they would press down upon your head—fail to delete the video, and you were simply showing disrespect.

In this world, doing anything required moving in certain circles. When truly heavyweight figures stepped in to mediate, you simply dared not refuse to give them face.

Yet this time was different.

Less than half a minute after the incident occurred, before the real estate conglomerate's internal phones had even rung, the video's popularity had already spiked completely out of control, with various large marketing accounts diving into the fray one after another.

"Blue V" accounts, "Red V" accounts, local media, and news outlets had followed up with reports at the very first moment. By the time those attempting to suppress the news regained their senses, they found that live-action videos were ubiquitous across the entire sky and earth, making it impossible to trace who had started it in the first place.

The delivery driver track that Pojian had laid out in advance proved to be entirely worthwhile. A single cry at the scene brought a hundred responses, and dozens of delivery drivers had already gathered.

Sharing a common hatred for the enemy, everyone was eager to stand up for their brothers. Various chat groups had already mobilized everywhere, and it seemed as though everyone was paying attention to this matter.

"Selina has done an exceptional job. Hot topics like this don't need to wait for my response—strike at the very first instant. The entire operations department has moved with incredible speed, and everyone will get a performance bonus at the end of the month!"

Wang Tianxia stood at the entrance of the operations department hall, delivering an impassioned speech, and everyone's faces were wreathed in smiles.

Although not a single person in the room had eaten lunch, and all of them had been busy on the front lines—with quite a few who hadn't even found the time to use the restroom once until now—their hard work had been affirmed.

Though... some of them didn't quite understand what the point was of making such a grand and noisy fuss to hype up this matter.

It was merely a social incident. At the absolute worst, it was just a minor internal conflict between two people; no blows were struck, no insults were hurled, and a mass brawl was completely out of the question.

Though a crowd gathered around looking tense, it was actually no different from a group of people standing around watching others play chess.

The moment the situation showed the slightest tendency to spin out of control, the authorities stepped in, and the dispute was quickly and successfully resolved. The melon-eating onlookers remained unsatisfied, yet upon returning home, they couldn't even summon the thought to share it.

Only a bunch of nether-world monsters on the internet were left reveling through the night—delving deep into backgrounds, engaging in profound social reflections, making a massive, roaring spectacle of it all.

What did any of that have to do with Pojian?

No advertisers were going to invest because of an incident like this. Even with the event's popularity spreading across the entire internet, very few people remembered that Pojian's livestreamer was the one who originally spread the word.

Oh well, it didn't matter anyway.

Wasn't it enough that the boss was happy?

Wasn't it enough that the paycheck landed in their accounts?

Following the cheers of the operations department, Wang Tianxia turned around. Looking at the overseas email in his mobile inbox, he felt even more satisfied.

It was true that Pojian made its living off traffic.

However, monetizing traffic was not limited to advertisers alone.

"Oh right, where is our social-emotional streamer? What was her name—ah, right, Lin Ke. Call her to my office. Actually, never mind, just go tell her directly."

Hurrying his secretary off to the streamer office area, Wang Tianxia still had plenty of work to attend to.

Lin Ke was left bewildered as she pulled a bit of unexpected overtime.

It turned out to be the administrative department overstepping its bounds to hand her a temporary task. Lin Ke didn't even have time to put on makeup before she opened the software and recorded a short video.

"We are merely tiny particles ground down inside a millstone; why must ash and dust disdain one another?"

Just that short sentence, lasting no more than 5 seconds in total. As her voice trailed off, Lin Ke offered a faint, cold sneer, barely stretching the video to the minimum threshold of 8 seconds.

Without even fully understanding the meaning behind the sentence, Lin Ke posted the newly recorded video.

That instantly blew the lid off.

It had become customary for Lin Ke to use short videos to obliquely mock the trending hot topics of the day, and quite a few copywriters and scriptwriters were simply waiting right there for Lin Ke to update.

Sure enough, she didn't disappoint anyone. Scarcely five minutes after the trending search went up, Lin Ke's video was published right on schedule.

She didn't mean to refer to anyone in particular! Nor did she attach any hashtags; she was certainly not trying to latch onto the trending charts for clout.

Yet once these words were published, who could possibly fail to understand what Lin Ke was talking about?

Delivery drivers and security guards—truly acting as if they were masters themselves!

So what if it's a luxury residential complex security guard? Is that luxury estate yours? How much do you make a month that you think you can afford a single brick of a luxury mansion?

Slaving away so diligently to block people for your master—does your master toss you an extra bone? If you actually end up getting into a real fight with the delivery driver, will anyone pay your medical bills?

And delivery drivers are even worse!

Are you the one starving while waiting for food to eat? If they won't let you in, then don't go in—must you insist on door-to-door delivery? If the residential committee doesn't let you enter, wouldn't it be simpler to just leave the goods at their gate?

If they file a complaint against you, you should file one against them too! The time you waste fighting with the security guard here—will anyone compensate you for the overdue delivery fees?

People are always like this.

Unable to cross swords with the truly strong, they instead raise their blades against the even weaker.

It seems that by stopping someone who broke the rules and successfully delivering this meal, one can instantly elevate themselves, standing tall with the proud posture of a victor.