Chapter 55 The Trending Search Crashed

The sixteenth day of the first lunar month.

The long-tail traffic generated by the grand finale live broadcast of the "Hundred Butterflies Rising with the Clouds" streamer competition, which had been built at a massive cost by Poijien, had not yet faded before it was completely crushed by a brand-new trending topic.

The search rankings crashed.

Anyone familiar with the entertainment industry knows that such a situation typically only occurs when a top-tier celebrity officially announces their marriage—a rare occurrence that has happened only a handful of times in history.

This time, the commotion was once again about a marriage announcement, except it was not a celebrity making the declaration, but a professional paparazzi.

"#Popular Actress and Manager Secretly Married and Had a Child#"

The hashtag exploded repeatedly.

No sooner had the first application crashed than the battlefield shifted to the second; when social media went down, the short-video platforms followed suit.

The popular actress Ai Lian had always maintained the image of a pure and innocent sweetheart in front of the camera. Having starred in countless historical and modern romance dramas, she consistently evoked dreamy fantasies among viewers.

The CP fans of her previous drama and those of her current one would frequently clash, and the heroine’s hardcore fans would even go so far as to raid the male lead’s super-topic forum after the promotional period ended, striving to completely sever any association between the two.

Yet today, this very same "self-respecting and untainted" popular actress was exposed through a series of videos revealing that she had long been married to her manager, Zhou Yifan, and that the two even shared a child.

And these exact words had been spoken by the individuals involved themselves.

...

"Zhou Yifan! I am your wife! With your detached attitude like none of this concerns you, do you even care about me at all?!"

"This is not home, mind your influence."

"Mind my influence? Have you ever minded your influence?! When you were flirting everywhere among that group of little vixens, did you ever think about minding your influence? Did you ever consider me and our son?!"

"You're drunk."

"You hide everywhere, dodge everywhere, and pretend to be innocent everywhere! How many times have you even come home in the last two years? Does your son even recognize you as his father? Zhou Yifan, do you have any conscience left?!"

"Your and my marriage was nothing more than a transaction. Without this child, would you have ever become an A-list actress? All these years, you've had enough, and I'm tired too. I don't have the time to accompany you making a scene in public; if the paparazzi find out, neither of us will have a good end."

...

The raw audio and original video were set in a dimly lit corridor. The faces of both individuals were clear and unobstructed; trying to pretend it was a case of mistaken identity was completely out of the question.

...

With this trending topic breaking out, the Hundred Butterflies Rising with the Clouds competition was instantly cast to the back of the netizens' minds. Who doesn't love a blockbuster piece of gossip? Within a mere hour, trending searches flooded the internet, directly crashing the mainstream websites.

It even swept clean Poijien's own trending list.

Poijien's artist management department was extremely displeased with this sudden obstacle, but the operations department certainly didn't see it that way.

What traffic isn't traffic?

As long as users' eyes remain fixed on their application, does it really matter what they are looking at?

"My advertisers are going to kill me, Sister!" Michael's head was spinning. "It's only been fermenting for a single day, and I originally promised them that they would stay off the trending list drop for a full three days."

Selina didn't care at all. "How much do the advertisers pay you? Do you have any idea how much the person who bought this trending topic spent?"

Michael was left speechless.

That was true; only a fool refuses easy money. Since the client eagerly came knocking on Poijien's operations team, there was no reason to turn down the business.

"It's so annoying. Couldn't they have exposed this two days later? Just two days! Once the hype here died down, that side could have followed up immediately without missing a beat."

"It doesn't disrupt anything now, my brother." Selina pushed her laptop toward Michael. "The software's PCU (Peak Concurrent Users) is still climbing. The leading platforms have already crashed, and all the gossip-mongers are flooding over to us. It's a god-given opportunity!"

Tonight, Poijien's PCU was even higher than during yesterday's live broadcast!

Yesterday, however, they had been burning money to drive up the engagement for the sake of broadcast performance, whereas today, they were collecting money while watching the spectacle!

"What do advertisers want? Isn't it just exposure? Just weave your brand names back into the mix; what difference does the topic make?

As for that top-tier sponsorship title, just give it an advertising trending spot right in the middle of those exposure leaks. I refuse to believe no one will click through out of curiosity."

Michael was speechless, but she had a point. Although he disdained stooping to such tactics and Poijien usually relied on genuine substance for its advertisers, the exposure today was undeniably real.

He had come to find Selina naturally out of dissatisfaction with the operations department for forcibly altering the data and having the technical team rebuild Poijien's trending list. Yet deep down, he also understood that with a topic of this magnitude, even without taking this money, it probably couldn't be easily suppressed.

"Fine, I'll go make the arrangements, at least to get the volume the advertisers are owed up to standard. What about your end? How are you setting things up?"

Selina smiled. "Needless to say, it was arranged from the very first moment. The sharp-tongued commentators from all tracks have been deployed. What a fantastic opportunity! A popular actress with not a shred of interest entanglement with us, and a star manager who happens to belong to our rival.

For such people to produce such a blockbuster scandal—I'd smile in my sleep. If we don't pour fuel on the fire right now, how could we face President Wang?"

Michael deeply agreed. "Sometimes a person really has to believe in fortune. Just two days ago, I was having dinner with the people from Yellow Lantern, and they were still hoping to make a final struggle for a desperate counterattack!

Now that this earth-shattering gossip has broken out, the celebrity manager has taken a heavy blow, and Yellow Lantern has lost all hope of turning things around. Now they are the ones proactively reaching out to us, eager to strike a deal before they completely fall apart."

"Timing and fate. Yellow Lantern managed to recover some vitality by borrowing the rise of short dramas, but they also ended up bound hand and foot by the entanglements of the entertainment industry.

That recovery in vitality failed to flow back into their platform and only nourished the MCNs. To Yellow Lantern, the platform business is now nothing more than a burden, so they might as well wash their hands of it completely and hand it over to us."

Who could have predicted that when the massive scandal broke, the first to look for them for traffic pushing wouldn't be Ai Lian's primary rival, but rather Zhou Yifan's rival.

"It's also quite miraculous. How did a mere manager end up crossing swords with a massive corporation like Grand Prosperity Sunshine? What happened? Did his managed artists fail to secure top billing, leading to a falling out?"

Michael had considered many possibilities. "I'm afraid it's not that simple. Artist affairs are strictly handled company-to-company, which is light-years away from a mere manager.

Perhaps it's some personal grievance with someone? While this trending search seems targeted at Ai Lian, the spearhead of the attack doesn't quite look like it."

Having spent years in the industry, he possessed a certain sharpness. If the true intent were to attack Ai Lian, what should have been released were leaks of her wild, carefree, and reckless behavior, rather than her currently coming across like a resentful wife weeping and accusing her man.

In the drama unfolding before their eyes, the one who deserved to be cursed was obviously the male protagonist involved.

"Well, whatever. What does it have to do with us? As long as there is traffic—no matter whose toes we step on—Poijien will keep pushing forward. That is our foundation."

Selina possessed no misplaced sense of morality; let alone the manager of a rival company, even if Michael himself were trending right now, she would ruthlessly piggyback on the hype.

"Hmph!"

Michael rolled his eyes at her dramatically.

"You heartless thing, you've forgotten the days when I used to pull you along. I better never fall into your hands—your heart is truly pitch-black, woman."

Selina smiled charmingly. "Nonsense! My heart is glowing red, filled entirely with the color of RMB."

"Go play by yourself then!" Michael laughed and scolded. "My buddy from Yellow Lantern is calling me. Whether he's here to discuss an acquisition or a whitewash, both are good things. My emotional investment in him last time wasn't wasted.

Performance metrics, oh performance metrics! Don't hold back—please smash them down on me heavily!"