Chapter 921 ·A Despicable Merchant

"Boss... I can't accept this."

Li Yang was emotional: "I, Li Yang, am worth nothing. Meeting you as my boss is already like hitting the jackpot..."

Chen Fan raised his hand to interrupt Li Yang's words.

"Let me speak first."

"Because you're now the security manager of the branch company, I technically shouldn't involve you, as this matter is too dangerous, and I don't have complete confidence."

"But I really don't have enough reliable people around me, so I could only think of you."

"I'm grateful that you can take this job. So, this apartment is a personal gift from me to you."

Li Yang's eyes turned red with emotion as he said, "Boss, don't worry. I will definitely handle this matter for you."

"Even if I'm discovered, I absolutely won't reveal any information about you."

"What's there to fear about some official's kid with connections? If he dares to cause trouble again, worst case scenario, Old Feng and I will secretly take care of him."

Li Yang was grateful to Chen Fan from the bottom of his heart.

Before, he was just a private investigator, doing work that couldn't see the light of day.

Many times he had to face people's furious retaliation, so Li Yang always hid in the darkness, living a life neither here nor there.

His fate began to change when he met Chen Fan.

After helping Chen Fan complete several tasks, not only did Chen Fan not abandon him, but promoted him to the position of security manager at the branch company.

For Li Yang, this was a good life he never dared to imagine before.

Li Yang remembered Chen Fan's kindness.

He had always wanted to find an opportunity to repay Chen Fan.

In Li Yang's view, this was the best chance to repay his boss.

Chen Fan extinguished his cigarette and stood up, patting Li Yang's shoulder.

"After this task is done, find a good day to get married and live a good life from now on."

...

《Idol Boys》 first episode officially aired.

That day's ratings reached number one in its time slot.

Firstly, because Wen Wan joined the promotional warm-up, and secondly, during this time, the 《Idol Boys》 audition livestreams had been available to watch on Feifan Video, already accumulating a certain number of fans.

The most direct impact of the first episode's success was that advertisers and sponsors successively came knocking, beginning to negotiate cooperation.

Feifan Media sold the TV rights to Mango TV in a buyout format.

So even if advertisers came later, Feifan Media wouldn't get a share.

But Feifan Media still had the Feifan Video platform, retaining the online broadcasting rights. So they could still earn from online advertising sponsorship fees.

Some analysts said that just from the first episode's advertising sponsorship and Mango TV's buyout rights fee, Feifan Media had already recovered the production costs for the first episode, and there was no shortage of money for future recordings.

Moreover, Feifan Video really knew how to create excitement.

On the day the show launched, Feifan Video's webpage started promoting advertising activities, allowing voting for favorite contestants.

Each contestant's headshot was arranged according to audience voting preference.

If you liked your contestant, you could recharge 1 yuan on Feifan Video to get 10 votes.

The more votes a contestant received, the higher their ranking.

Furthermore, the company announced that any contestant who received the most votes in the current period would get performance time for one song at the end of the next episode.

Well, this drove the fans completely crazy.

Especially the female fans.

To let their beloved brothers have solo song time in the next episode, they began frantically recharging and voting.

"What's just 1 yuan? I must let brother sing in the next episode."

"Your vote and my vote, brother debuts tomorrow..."

"If you don't vote and I don't vote, when will brother rise..."

"Why is number 3 ahead of my brother? Sisters, unite, let's vote our brother up."

"My brother is so handsome, and sings so well, are you all blind? Why aren't you voting for number 7?"

"..."

In just one day, Feifan Video's website was flooded with users, and the number of registered users was skyrocketing.

At the website's backend, the newly connected payment gateway with Wealth Pay crashed due to too many recharging users.

Feifan Media company and Feifan Video company received numerous complaint calls, all without exception complaining about inability to recharge.

Faced with this phenomenon, the company executives could only laugh helplessly while feeling full of admiration for group CEO Chen Fan.

In early March, Chen Fan had instructed during a company meeting to set up Wealth Pay recharge cooperation with Feifan Video.

At that time, many Feifan Video management members didn't understand the intention, after all, Feifan Video's current profit model was very simple, just advertising revenue.

Today they realized that the boss had planned this move long ago.

In just one day, Feifan Video's backend recharge fees exceeded 1 million yuan.

Remember, this was accumulated one yuan at a time.

When this news was announced, all employees at Feifan Media and Feifan Video were shocked.

Are fans this terrifying now?

It's just voting, how can they be so crazy?

Not only were company employees shocked, but the outside world was also in an uproar when they heard this news.

Everyone was stunned.

So variety shows could be done this way.

Let viewers recharge to vote and rank their favorite contestants.

Voting wasn't rare, after all, previous 《Super Girl》 had voting before.

But back then it was SMS voting.

Viewers couldn't see rankings or data, completely lacking participation feeling.

Feifan Video's move was essentially the same as SMS voting.

But Feifan Media played it more extreme.

Voting once per episode, and the viewers' favorite first-place contestant could sing solo in the next episode.

Most importantly, all voting on Feifan Video was visualized.

Watching their favorite contestant's ranking rise step by step, watching the vote numbers constantly refresh.

That tension, excitement, and sense of participation, for the star-chasing crowd in 2006, was simply a dimensional reduction strike.

Seeing their favorite contestant's ranking drop, viewers who originally didn't want to recharge for voting also began gritting their teeth and recharging.

Thinking "it's just 1 yuan, not much anyway."

This was just the first day of the show airing, and voting turnover alone exceeded a million.

This... business could be done this way?

Many people suddenly understood, feeling that in terms of making money, Chen Fan seemed to always be one version ahead of everyone.

This guy always brought everyone something new.

Some business owners even began secretly studying Chen Fan's business thinking and ideas.

Finally, they had to conclude: impossible to study. This was innate.

Chen Fan truly deserved to be called a despicable merchant.