Starting from a Bar to Sign Internet Celebrities

Chapter 333 - 205: How Could This Be

Several cars pulled into the plaza’s parking lot. Two of them were emblazoned with the logo of the Coastal City Publicity Association.

Fu Zhan got out of a sedan, along with Director Wu and Wei Weiwei.

The other two cars carried other members of the Publicity Association, as well as photographers and other personnel.

They had come today, of course, because of the terrifying flood of people pouring into Coastal City.

A crowd of this magnitude, which could directly boost Coastal City’s daily GDP, was undoubtedly the best promotional material for their Publicity Association.

The group had just left the parking lot when they were stunned by the densely packed scene before them.

"Just as expected, Radiant Square has become the final gathering point for this flood of people. Quick, get pictures of this." Although Fu Zhan already knew the influx of people into Coastal City was massive, seeing the incredible scene with his own eyes still left him in shock.

"Vice President Fu, you truly have great foresight, preparing to bring a team here to film in advance," Director Wu said, offering a bit of flattery.

Still, the scene before them was indeed the best kind of publicity. It could even promote Radiant Square and turn it into one of the city’s landmarks.

The more such landmarks a city had, the better it was for the local publicity association’s promotional efforts.

With an excited look on her face, Wei Weiwei was already directing the crew to start filming.

After all, she was one of the lead planners for this project. The success unfolding before her gave her a great sense of accomplishment. Crucially, she already knew that the people pouring into Coastal City were genuinely impacting its GDP, causing it to rise.

While Radiant Square was swarming with people, on another side of town, Night Market Street was also entering its own primetime, bustling with crowds.

Su Ya was an office worker who rented a place nearby, right next to Night Market Street. As a result, she and her best friend often came to the street to hang out, grab some snacks, and buy useful little trinkets.

But when they arrived at Night Market Street today, Su Ya and her best friend were dumbfounded.

Many of the street vendors were gone.

In particular, the fish ball stand they loved most wasn’t there.

"What’s going on?" her best friend asked, confused.

"I have no idea," Su Ya said, shaking her head.

Just then, a nearby conversation caught their attention. "It seems like all those vendors moved over to Radiant Square. I heard that super-popular Street Vendor Girl from the internet is set up over there."

These words immediately piqued Su Ya and her friend’s interest.

They had, of course, seen the news videos about the Street Vendor Girl—they had even scrolled past them several times today. As for the online debate about dowries and gold-digging, they were the type to be rather bewildered by it all.

They didn’t have boyfriends at the moment, and they were capable enough on their own, so they’d never thought about relying on a man or being gold-diggers.

However, they were still very curious about this kind of internet celebrity, so they immediately headed for Radiant Square, planning to join the crowd and see what all the fuss was about.

Back at Night Market Street, many others were in the same situation. After learning what was happening, they too began heading toward Radiant Square.

But when they got to Radiant Square, they were dumbfounded again. There were so many people they couldn’t even get into the vendor area.

"How can there be this many people?" Su Ya exclaimed, her face a mask of astonishment.

"Since we can’t get into the vendor area, why don’t we just browse the mall for a bit?" her best friend suggested.

"Okay!" Su Ya nodded. They’d already come all this way; it would be a shame to leave without doing anything. A little shopping sounded good.

With that, they headed into the mall.

Many other people had the same idea, especially those who had come for Zhu Ling. When they found they couldn’t squeeze into the vendor area, they flooded into the mall instead. Most figured that since they were already there, they might as well do a little shopping.

Naturally, the first to become aware of this were Radiant Square’s Zhang Tao and Lin Jian, who had been staying on-site to monitor the situation.

An excited Zhang Tao reported to Lin Jian, "Chairman Lin, nighttime sales in the mall are excellent! I had someone run the numbers. Overall sales for every store are up, and they’re already several times higher than the same period in the past. If this keeps up, we’ll completely crush Xinghe Plaza in just a few days!"

"Excellent." Lin Jian’s face lit up with excitement upon hearing the news. He didn’t forget to give orders: "Post the news on the plaza’s official website. Give all our tenants a shot in the arm. At the same time, put out a bid to attract more entertainment and lifestyle businesses. I believe that once our reputation is established, the plaza will be able to maintain a high level of popularity even after this initial buzz fades."

"Yes, Chairman Lin." Zhang Tao nodded and immediately instructed someone to post the news on the official website.

In contrast to the lively atmosphere at Radiant Square, things at Xinghe Plaza were not going so well.

Zhao Yuan sat in his office, his face grim as he scrolled through his phone. Almost every few videos, he would inevitably come across one related to Zhu Ling.

The videos showed a sea of people, a massive, surging crowd.

He couldn’t even imagine a plaza could become so explosively popular.

Crucially, every single one of these videos featured the Radiant Square logo, which was tantamount to free advertising for them.

Seeing his grim expression, his assistant reported cautiously, "President Zhao, during the same time period, our mall’s overall sales have dropped by a staggering 30%. Moreover, foot traffic has also fallen by a significant margin compared to usual."

"Damn it!" Zhao Yuan swore. He was truly filled with regret.

By now, he had naturally investigated the matter. He’d pieced together the clues and learned that the Street Vendor Girl plan at Radiant Square was the work of that Chen Jincheng, and that the Coastal City Publicity Association had connected with him beforehand.

But that only made it sting more.

Because he remembered something: the plan Chen Jincheng had contacted him about back then was likely this very one.

But he had missed out on it because he’d taken a liking to Chen Jincheng’s secretary, the internet celebrity Ximeng, and had tried to get him to bring her to a dinner meeting.

Honestly, at that moment, he really wanted to slap himself. To think he’d missed the chance to directly defeat several of his brothers over something so trivial.

If the Street Vendor Girl plan had been at Xinghe Plaza, the results would be unimaginable now.

The assistant glanced at a message he had just received and quickly added, "President Zhao, given the current situation, we have to find a way to contain Radiant Square. According to the latest report, their mall’s sales have increased several-fold during the same period. That already far surpasses us at Xinghe Plaza."

"If they get a few more days of this exposure, we’ll be in a terrible position. The key problem is that the Coastal City Publicity Association is clearly backing Radiant Square. With official involvement, it’s not easy for us to pull any tricks. We could easily end up shooting ourselves in the foot."

Hearing this, Zhao Yuan’s expression darkened even more. "No need to worry. Xinghe Plaza has a foundation that Radiant Square can’t compare to. Today’s results are just because this incident has a lot of heat. But the hype should have peaked by now. I refuse to believe it can continue tomorrow."

But despite what he said, for the rest of the evening, he kept a close watch on the Street Vendor Girl’s popularity on Tiao Yin.

Her popularity was already number one on the trending list, with a heat value that left the second-place topic in the dust.

As long as the Street Vendor Girl’s heat value started to drop, then even with one day of massive exposure, Radiant Square would only be catching up. Xinghe Plaza could easily strike back with its own promotional events. As for them having the Street Vendor Girl, well, Xinghe Plaza could just hire other internet celebrities.

Of course, that was all premised on the Street Vendor Girl’s popularity fading. If it stayed this high for another two days, Xinghe Plaza really wouldn’t be able to handle it.

But logically, that should be impossible. The hype was already white-hot across the entire Tiao Yin platform; it should have reached its peak. Afterward, it was bound to start a steady decline.

So, for the time that followed, Zhao Yuan kept his eyes glued to the Street Vendor Girl’s heat value.

But it seemed he had been mistaken. Even with her popularity already so high, the heat value was still slowly increasing.

When the late-night primetime hours arrived, the heat value suddenly did something strange—it skyrocketed again by a huge margin. The second-place topic, which was already left in the dust, was now even further behind.

It seemed the event was blowing up all over again.

Evidently, this was because the people who had flooded into Coastal City were all filming videos of Zhu Ling and uploading them to the internet. This accumulation of content, combined with the Little Sweet Heat Card, had once again broken through the traffic pool.

Seeing the change in the heat value, Zhao Yuan’s eyes went wide.

’Are you kidding me?’

’The event’s hype is already this high, and it can still blow up a second time?’

"You’ve got to be kidding me?"

This incomprehensible explosion of popularity gave him a very bad feeling.