I Found A Planet

The primary narrative of the three short videos revolved around a group of robots with the ability to clear away rubbish. They had been entrusted with the mission to “protect Earth’s environment,” and did battle with the rubbish littered all over Earth. Finally, they emerged victorious in a difficult and decisive battle. The story used the common tropes of “good triumphs over evil” and “singing the praises of heroes.” There was nothing novel about it.

But, Alice had taken half a month to finish rendering the three short videos, which had only 10 minutes of playtime in total. Even with her computing power of nearly a quintillion flops, she could only create 40 seconds of video content daily. As one could imagine, the visuals of the videos were extremely stunning and intricate.

Especially the broad, widespread and endless landfill of rubbish. The scene was disgusting, disappointing, and depressing. Faced with this kind of scenario, the “Wa-wah” robot stepped grandly into the spotlight as the savior of the world. With its countless other comrades, they would undertake the mission of “protecting the environment” in this world. But, this mission was unfortunately one that was most difficult to fulfill. It was even more difficult than “keeping the world’s peace.” As Wa-wah was in the process of clearing away the rubbish, the human race, acting as the villain of the story, was still creating rubbish at a dizzying speed. This caused Wa-wah to forever remain busy. Even so, it was unable to eliminate all the rubbish.

In the second video of the series, “Wa-wah Battles the Planet of Rubbish”, the army of robots managed to gain a short-term victory. But, the rubbish was always piling up.

Hence, in the third video, the style changed to one that was extremely tragic and tear-jerking. In order to eliminate the rubbish straight from its original source, the higher-up robots decided that they had to enter the homes of humans, thousands and millions of homes. They would be the humans’ companions and get rid of the rubbish around them. A cleaning robot named “Wa-wah: Model No. 1” accepted this mission. It had a doll head with two tiny antennas and talked with a dollish voice.

In the scene, the robots were facing an enormous human city. The commander of the robots said solemnly, “Wa-wah, eliminate the rubbish around the humans. I hereby entrust this mission of utmost importance to you!”

Wa-wah said with a salute, “I promise the mission will be completed!”

But, after it entered the humans’ home, it very quickly became too much for Wa-wah to take. There was too much rubbish. It was kept busy every day. As it could not rest, it felt extremely exhausted. As it possessed only a child’s mentality, it could only relieve its stress of a heavy workload by crying.

Wa-wah cried loudly. It complained, “I’m so tired, it’s so hard” and then it kept on working. However, it never said it regretted anything or wanted to give up, because this was a mission that it had to complete. Therefore, Wa-wah was a hero!

Hence, the third video ended with the scene of Wa-wah wailing as it worked. It was accompanied by sorrowful music. It was touching; it made one’s heart ache and cry.

…

In a worker’s dormitory, Li Xiao Lan was full of tears as she watched the short videos on her laptop. A tissue was clutched in her hands. “Boo hoo hoo, Wa-wah is too pitiful. How could such a difficult mission be entrusted to him? And those wicked humans, hmph! Why must you create so much rubbish and cause Wa-wah to become so exhausted? You are really too wicked! Boo hoo hoo, if I had ‘Wa-wah’ I would treat it well. I wouldn’t let it work so hard.”

However, as she looked down, she saw rubbish almost spilling out of the trash the trash basket. Beneath her feet were pumpkin seed shells and tissues. The floor was also covered with stains. Li Xiao Lan flushed with embarrassment and guilt. She immediately realized that she was one of those wicked humans as well.

“I can’t be so dirty anymore. I must clean it later… I want to watch this video again!” She clicked on the replay button with her mouse and watched it again for the eighth time.

Countless messages appeared on the video screen:

“Wa-wah is too pitiful!”

“We should create less rubbish!”

“I’m crying, I’ve never felt so touched!”

“The one to save us humans is actually a child who loves to cry.”

“The special effects are out of this world, I’m begging for the contact info of this video’s creator!”

“I’m saying this as a professional video producer – it costs at least $100,000 to produce one second of this short video. Each second uses precious funds!”

“This is actually a film on environmental protection. Everyone is responsible for protecting our environment!”

“If there really was a robot from this video available for sale, I’d definitely buy one!”

Li Xiao Lan nodded too. Although she lived in a single unit worker’s dormitory, with a small area that was easy to clean, she had decided to buy one of those “Wa-wah robots” shown in the Dou Yin video if they were available for sale online.

Sorrowful music could be heard. The video was playing the tear-jerking segment again. Li Xiao Lan picked up a tissue, and with an aching heart, started crying again. “Wa-wah is so pitiful.”

“Hey, Xiao Lan, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?” At that moment, her colleague Su Yun came home carrying a suitcase. They lived in the same dormitory and were also partners at work with a very good relationship between them. Su Yun felt puzzled as she looked at her roommate, who was crying her heart out. Spotting the rubbish-filled floor, she frowned. “I only returned home for a few days and you’ve turned the dorm into this state? You don’t even think about cleaning.”

Li Xiao Lan dragged her over and recommended the video. “Su Yun, hurry and watch this video. It’s so cute and so touching. I’ve cried so many times watching this again and again.”

Looking at the floor, Su Yun saw about 10 balled-up tissues. “You’re crying because of this video?”

Li Xiao Lan strongly urged, “Hmm, hurry and take a look, this video is really good!”

Su Yun was captivated by the adorable robot on the video screen. She nodded. “Ok.”

After some time, 10 more balled-up, tear-stained tissues were added to the floor. Su Yun asked curiously, “It’s really touching. Xiao Lan, where did you find this video?”

“The host on Dou Yin recommended it. Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of videos related to the ‘Wa-wah robot’ on Dou Yin. It’s so amusing. Then, I watched an ad by the host and followed the link on the ad which led me to B site, where I found these three videos.”

Su Yun shook her head. “Dou Yin?” She had never tried that app, as she thought it was too pretentious and full of trickery.

Li Xiao Lan put her cellphone in front of her and tapped on the Dou Yin app. She opened one of the 10-plus videos that she had added to her collection.

“Hahahha ~”

“Heheheh ~”

In a short time, the dorm was filled with the laughter of the two girls.

…

Xing Hai Technologies was located in Room 1805 on the 18th story of building No. 16. This building was in the D area, an area within the residences of the high income earners. This was the office of Xing Hai Technologies’ sales department. Putting a hand on the back of her chair, Chen Jin asked, “Manager Liang, how is it? What’s the current hits on the video ads that our company released on B site?”

“2.9 million!” Turning her face with its refined features, she said excitedly, “On the day the video ad was launched, everyone rushed to B site first. The video ads are also the top in terms of tokens and saves, attracting the attention of 100,000 people.” With worship in her beautiful eyes, she asked with curiosity, “Chief Chen, what special effects team created these videos? There are netizens who claim that it has even surpassed the standard of the animations produced by the Pixar company in America. It’s equal to the ‘Toy Story’ series, and many details are even better! Chief Chen, many netizens have sent us private messages, asking what the name is of the company that makes such videos, and requesting for collaborations on special effects techniques. There is even one that directly proposed a price of $100,000 per second for our help in producing special effects, and if that is not possible, could we provide a contact for the special effects company. There are many who want to work with us!”

Liang Ying’s eyes were gleaming. “Chief Chen, do you know what’s going on with that special effects company? With their technical standards, I think we can increase our scope of collaboration, maybe even invest in them and go into special effects production for movies. This is an industry with great potential!”

“Why are you asking so many questions?” Chen Jin frowned. “The current product of Xing Hai Technologies is the cleaning robot. Don’t ask unrelated questions. You can ignore those private messages from the netizens.” Actually, if Chen Jin was purely interested in profit, there were many options that he could choose. For example, culture and entertainment production. He could make some movies and some special effects animations, and so on. With her computing ability, Alice could easily produce a special effects animation movie in about three months. The movie could be transported to Earth and earn at least $1 billion in the box office.

In addition, there were thousands of music tracks, more than 1,800 movies, and tens of thousands of novels stored in Alice’s database. There were also other artistic productions stored within Alice. They were all part of Haierfa’s cultural legacy. Chen Jin could select a small portion of those cultural productions, let Alice do some adaptations, and then import them to Earth. He could easily earn tens of billions annually as a plagiarist.

But he did not do this! Firstly, the cultural and language environments of Haierfa were very different and they might not suit the people on Earth. In addition, there was a greater risk of exposure. It would be easy to become famous and face various suspicions. After all, Chen Jin was only an ordinary homebody. He did not have any natural talent for artistic production.

Moreover, it would be apparent that the movie would cost billions to produce on Earth. It was too sudden if one simply presented a finished special effects movie on his own, without any production process or announcement of details. He would not be able to withstand the suspicions and investigations.

Also, the cultural and entertainment field was a vanity fair. There would be a high degree of exposure. If he insisted on plagiarizing and being famous, without any literary flair or cultural knowledge to back himself, he could only face an embarrassing end.

Chen Jin only dared to show the short product publicity videos of the “Wa-wah robot” because they had a total playtime of less than 10 minutes. Short videos faced a review process that was not strict at all. B site would also not ask too many questions or inquire about the specific production methods. After all, there were hundreds of thousands of videos uploaded daily, could they actually check everything? They only reviewed the videos’ content.

As for the portion of netizens who took notice and inquired about the videos’ production, there was no need to acknowledge them. It would be enough to leave an impression of great technical strength and mystery.

“Oh, I understand.” Liang Ying shut her mouth in embarrassment. She dare not continue her questioning, and felt somewhat disappointed.

…

The second wave of publicity via short videos led to an enthusiastic response online.

The “Wa-wah robot” and its related terms quickly climbed to the top of the list of top searches in Baidu Hot Search. Messages or voice chats requesting for the purchase of the “Wa-wah robot” appeared on various forums and video screens. One could see the rise of its popularity.

After contacting the many professional review organizations and review uploaders on B site, the third wave of publicity that Chen Jin had been planning was about to begin!