540: Chapter 540 I don't understand

On the projector screen, the Dream Weaver's post on the Microblogging platform with the black background hung quietly.

Eight minutes.

Thirteen thousand comments.

The trending list that Hanyu had just suppressed had been torn open by this single post on the Microblogging platform.

The post didn't name anyone, nor did it include any hashtags.

The image attached was just a black void, with the Dream Weaver's white logo pressed into the bottom right corner.

But the words, "Heat is something that burns easily," had already been screenshotted and spread everywhere.

Someone asked in the comment section:

"Who is Dream Weaver pointing at?"

Others simply spammed:

"Real readers vote with their feet."

Some even posted screenshots of the new Kunpeng Award regulations.

"Market data accounts for thirty percent? What a coincidence, isn't that exactly what this post is talking about?"

What truly made Lin Wei's face change was the source of the traffic in the backend.

The proportion of Red Fruit users among the new traffic was skyrocketing.

Those readers who usually only followed updates, urged for more, and camped in the comment sections for new chapters were, for the first time, following the link to the Kunpeng Award page.

They first saw the popularity ranking.

Shen Jiangping's red line was still hanging at the top.

Leading the second place by forty-seven times.

The data for the thirty Qinglan Student was all pressed to the bottom, barely showing any fluctuation.

Then, they clicked open the comment section.

Rows of "Support Teacher Shen" scripts were as neat as if they had been copied and pasted.

The timestamps were similar.

The punctuation was similar.

Even the sentence structures of the praise were similar.

Looking back at the Dream Weaver's post.

Unified copy.

Unified time.

Unified punctuation.

A few seconds later, the template scripts were washed away by new questions.

"Good heavens, did Dream Weaver just flip the table?"

"Heat burns easily, hilarious, that's so savage."

"So, is the Kunpeng Award ranking a bit inflated?"

"When did Shen Jiangping become so popular? How come I didn't feel it at all?"

"I've read his 'Wasteland Lights', the quality is there, but not enough for hundreds of thousands of die-hard fans, right?"

"This move by Dream Weaver is fiercer than ten PR articles, the key is that his fans will actually click in to see."

"The main text hasn't even been released, where exactly did Shen Jiangping's popularity come from?"

The further Lin Wei scrolled, the tighter her fingertips became.

She had been in charge of PR for many years, and what she feared most was never criticism.

Criticism could be suppressed.

It could be diverted.

It could be diluted.

But this group of people pouring in now were spontaneously taking screenshots, comparing, and digging into the timeline.

They didn't argue by the rules of the literary circle.

They only looked at one thing.

Whether this data looked real.

Even more glaring was that the reservation numbers for the Qinglan Student had started to jump.

The main text had not yet been opened.

Several names that were originally buried at the bottom had already seen their first wave of growth.

Chen Mo stared at the backend, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"The source of the new traffic is rewriting the proportions."

His voice was tight.

"Search terms, external link jumps, and reservation entries have all been driven. We have controlled the rankings within the site, but once external real users come in, the model weights will be scattered."

Shen Jiangping sat on the other side of the long table, his eyes fixed on the screen.

His gaze landed on the words, "Heat is something that burns easily."

The coldness of the cup wall pressed against his palm.

He took a deep breath first.

He wanted to suppress the fire.

But the number of comments kept jumping.

The questioning kept rising.

He remembered what he had done over the past year.

After winning the Kunpeng Award, he ran to forums, wrote columns, and accepted interviews, repeatedly sticking the label "Representative of Youth Literature" onto himself.

To stand back at the center of the youth literary circle, he cooperated with Hanyu to release a long article.

He used the most beautiful words to kill Lin Que with kindness.

He endured the ridicule of insiders to push the Qinglan Project to the opposite side of public opinion.

He had been waiting for today.

The rules had changed.

The heat had risen.

The list had been suppressed.

As long as the preliminary review was passed, this group of Qinglan Student would have to enter the re-evaluation with ugly market data.

But now, a Dream Weaver who had fought his way out of a web novel platform had only posted one Microblogging platform post, and the advantage he had painstakingly cultivated began to waver.

The veins on the back of Shen Jiangping's hand tightened bit by bit.

The next second, he smashed the wine glass onto the table.

Bang!

The wine splashed, spilling onto the documents and blooming into a dark red stain.

The crystal glass rolled off the edge of the table and crashed into the thick carpet.

The conference room went silent instantly.

"A web novel author who relies on serialization to feed fans, what right does he have to bring that group of readers into the Kunpeng Award?"

Shen Jiangping's voice was incredibly deep.

"What qualifications does he have?"

Lin Wei didn't answer.

Chen Mo didn't answer either.

Chu Pengshu raised his head, looking at him, his eyes still calm.

Shen Jiangping stood up and paced back and forth in the conference room.

His leather shoes stepped on the carpet with a dull, heavy sound.

"He has the Red Fruit reader pool standing behind him."

Shen Jiangping's face was ugly.

"Those aren't just a few literary forum users, they are a group of real readers who follow updates every day, comment every day, and take the initiative to rush into the entrance."

He turned his head abruptly.

"Behind Red Fruit is the ByteDance Group, one of the largest traffic entrances in the country."

"What right does he have to let the voices of the update-tracking section touch the judging table of the traditional literary circle?"

"The key now."

Chu Pengshu finally spoke.

"Is not in qualifications, but in the results."

Shen Jiangping looked at him sharply.

Chu Pengshu took off his glasses and wiped them slowly with a glasses cloth.

"Dream Weaver's total fan count exceeds twenty million, with a very high proportion of active users. They won't just watch; they will leave effective clicks, effective dwell time, and effective comments."

He put his glasses back on, his gaze falling on the curve on the projection.

"Once the works are opened, they will flood into the voting channels in large numbers, and their reading, rating, and leaving comments will all become real behaviors."

"The heat ratio we designed will lose its predictability."

Chen Mo immediately followed up.

"What's even more troublesome is the reading taste."

He opened another set of user personas.

"Dream Weaver's core readers are accustomed to strong plots, strong feedback, and strong hooks. Once they enter the Kunpeng Award page, they are very likely not to rate according to the standards of the traditional literary circle."

Chu Pengshu tapped the document.

"These behaviors all have real accounts, real paths, and real dwell time records. It's very difficult for the platform to judge them as fake traffic."

Silence fell in the conference room.

The comment count on the projection kept jumping.

With every jump, Shen Jiangping's face worsened by a point.

Lin Wei's phone vibrated again.

She glanced at the caller, answered, and after listening for a few seconds, her face sank again.

After hanging up the phone, her voice was hoarse.

"The forum is exploding too."

"Someone has already started digging into Teacher Shen's heat curve."

Shen Jiangping stopped walking.

He stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to everyone.

Outside the window, the traffic in Beijing moved slowly.

The lights reflected on his exquisitely tailored suit, but couldn't suppress the stiffness of his shoulders and back.

A moment later, he turned around and looked at the head of the long table.

It was empty.

Everyone's gaze followed.

Shen Jiangping supported the table with both hands, his voice hoarse.

"Where is Mr. Zhao?"

"When will Mr. Zhao arrive?"

No one answered.

Just then, the door of the conference room was pushed open.

President Zhao walked in.

He was wearing a dark gray cashmere sweater, with a dark casual suit over it.

No tie.

His face still carried that gentle and calm smile.

President Zhao walked to the head of the table.

He first glanced at the wine stain on the table, then at the glass on the carpet.

He didn't speak.

Shen Jiangping's face stiffened, and he immediately bent down to pick up the glass and used a paper towel to press down on the red wine on the table.

President Zhao still didn't ask.

This silence was more embarrassing than a reprimand.

Finally, his gaze fell on the projection screen.

The Dream Weaver's post was still hanging in the center.

President Zhao watched for a few seconds, then looked up.

"Sit down, everyone."

His voice was very calm.

"Why are you standing?"

Shen Jiangping slowly sat back in his chair.

Lin Wei and Chen Mo also sat down.

Chu Pengshu sat in his original seat, only moving his documents half an inch to the side.

President Zhao didn't rush to talk about the Microblogging platform post.

He took a bottle of mineral water from the small refrigerator under the conference table, unscrewed it, and took a sip.

"There was a short meeting downstairs."

He said.

"It was delayed for a few minutes."

Then, he looked at Lin Wei.

"Tell me."

Lin Wei took a deep breath and reported the Dream Weaver's post, the change in heat, the backend sources, and the forum public opinion as quickly as possible.

President Zhao listened quietly.

His fingers rested on the water bottle, never interrupting.

When Lin Wei finished speaking, the conference room fell silent again.

President Zhao looked at the screen.

His gaze stopped at the words, "Heat is something that burns easily."

Then, he smiled.

The smile was very faint.

Gentle on the surface, but a cold and hard edge revealed in his eyes.

"Dream Weaver."

President Zhao gently read the name.

As if weighing a chess piece.

"Red Fruit has over 100 million monthly active users, with an average daily online time exceeding forty minutes."

"'ghost blows out the light' is currently the work with the highest number of readers and the most stable follow-up reading curve across all categories on Red Fruit."

"His fans weren't piled up by marketing."

"They were raised chapter by chapter, day by day."

President Zhao put down the water bottle and leaned back in his chair.

"A person like this has traffic and influence."

"If he wants to stir up trouble, he can certainly do it."

Lin Wei added in a low voice.

"I've read his Microblogging platform posts."

"Student competitions, social hot topics, literary serialization—he has spoken up about them all."

Chen Mo smiled bitterly.

"Someone who can write 'ghost blows out the light' certainly doesn't play by the rules. People online say he's the best at setting things on fire."

President Zhao glanced at him lightly.

Chen Mo immediately shut up.

"The position he chooses is always on the firing line of public emotion."

President Zhao said.

"He knows which words can turn bystanders into participants."

Shen Jiangping gritted his teeth.

"Mr. Zhao, what should we do now?"

"His fans have already flooded into the author popularity list and the reservation entrance. At this rate, by the day the works are opened, the data will be completely uncontrollable."

"Uncontrollable?"

President Zhao looked at him, the faint smile in his eyes still not dissipated.

"Why be afraid of it being uncontrollable?"

Shen Jiangping was stunned.

President Zhao tapped the table with his fingertips.

"It's only good if it's chaotic."

"Only when the water is muddy can the sieve of reading thresholds be put down."

Shen Jiangping didn't understand.

President Zhao didn't rush to explain either.

He turned to look at Chu Pengshu.

"Pengshu, continue with your analysis framework."

Chu Pengshu lowered his head and reopened the document.

President Zhao looked at Chen Mo again.

"Mr. Chen, among the matrix accounts, how many have been registered for more than three years, have real reading records, and have consumption traces?"

Chen Mo was taken aback, then answered immediately.

"About fifteen percent."

"This batch is long-term maintained accounts, with real reading records and consumption traces. Most of the rest are new accounts or low-activity accounts."

"Extract that fifteen percent."

President Zhao's tone was steady.

"Give them the entrance, but don't give them a conclusion."

"Pick accounts that usually prefer strong-plot reading, let them read it themselves, and write it themselves."

"If they feel it's boring, write that it's boring; if they feel it's scattered, write that it's scattered; if they can't get into it, write that they can't get into it."

"The more it looks like real feedback, the more useful it is."

Chen Mo's eyes widened suddenly.

"Mr. Zhao, in this way..."

"Director Lin."

President Zhao interrupted him.

Then, he looked at Lin Wei.

"Post one on the official account tomorrow."

"Hanyu supports the Kunpeng Award in expanding the connection between youth literature and real readers, and welcomes all compliant, independent, and traceable reading feedback, and also opposes any form of data manipulation."

"Do not name names."

"Do not respond to questions."

"Stand on the side of the rules."

Lin Wei opened her mouth, then finally nodded.

"Understood."

Finally, President Zhao looked at Shen Jiangping.

Shen Jiangping clenched his fists.

There was confusion, anxiety, and a trace of uncontrollable fear in his eyes.

President Zhao looked at him, his smile deepening.

"You tell me."

His voice lowered slightly.

"If the readers brought in by Dream Weaver himself leave the most common sentence under the Qinglan works— "

In the conference room, everyone raised their heads.

President Zhao said word by word.

"Can't understand."

He tapped the table lightly.

"At that time, whose hands will the knife fall into?"