106: Chapter 106 The Babies' Exclusive Guardian

Lin Chen thought about it for a moment, then shook his head: "No matter how I calculate it, it feels like working for someone else for free. It's a loss."

Yang Mi smiled, her fingers gently twisting her hair: "Actually, it's not entirely hopeless. If you have absolute confidence in your own show, you can try the weekly broadcast format."

Lin Chen only had a vague understanding of the ins and outs of the television industry.

In his past life, he was just an ordinary person, and in this life, he is a hands-off boss.

"Weekly broadcast format? How does that work?"

Yang Mi explained: "Simply put, it's filming while broadcasting. You air one or two episodes a week. If the audience response is enthusiastic and the ratings are high, the Film Crew continues filming."

"If the ratings flop, sorry, the show gets axed immediately. This model was originally created in the US, and later Korea adopted it too. However, it's rare in our country, and not many people dare to play it this way."

Lin Chen nodded thoughtfully.

Yang Mi continued: "This system is a guaranteed win for TV stations and sponsors; they never lose money. But for the producers, it's fatal. You pour a huge amount of money into setting up the crew and starting filming, but if the ratings fail and the show gets cut, your investment is completely wiped out. The risk is too high, so no one in the industry dares to be a guinea pig easily."

"Actually, in the end, if you really want to make big money and boost your status, you have to make movies. The television industry has a ceiling; no matter how much you earn, it's only that much. Movies are different; that's gambling with your life. Once the box office explodes, you can make hundreds of millions or even one or two billion in net profit in an instant."

"That's why if you look at the hierarchy of contempt in the industry now, movie makers always look down on TV show makers. There's no help for it; their pool is bigger, the water is deeper, and the money comes faster." Yang Mi leaned her head on Lin Chen's broad shoulder, her tone filled with a hint of longing.

Lin Chen turned to look at her: "Then why don't you make movies?"

Yang Mi sighed, looking pained: "You think I haven't? I invested in one two years ago, and it flopped so hard even its own mother wouldn't recognize it. I lost everything, even my shirt, and my heart ached so much I couldn't sleep for days."

"Heh." Lin Chen couldn't help but chuckle.

Yang Mi huffed and bumped Lin Chen with her smooth forehead, acting coquettishly: "Heartless! Your wife lost money and you don't feel bad, but you're sitting here laughing at me?"

Lin Chen reached out to wrap his arm around her slender waist, his fingers gently stroking the patch of smooth, fair skin exposed at the hem of her clothes.

Just as he was about to tease her, Dilraba came running over noisily, holding Lin Chen's new phone.

"My god! Honey, you haven't even set up Weibo?" Dilraba widened her iconic big eyes, looking as if she had discovered an alien.

Lin Chen raised an eyebrow: "Do I really need that thing?"

"In this day and age, you're the only one in the house who doesn't have it! No, I should say, of all the young people our age in China, you're probably the only one without Weibo."

Tong Liya, who had gone to the kitchen for an ice lolly, walked over while sucking on it and chimed in.

Yang Mi also sat up straight, perking up: "Dilraba, quick! Just use his phone to register one for him."

"Got it!" Dilraba snapped her fingers, her fingers moving swiftly on the screen to start the registration process.

Registering an account was very fast; it was done in less than five minutes.

The ID was simple and straightforward: "Lin Chen".

In the bio section, Dilraba rolled her eyes, smiled mischievously, and typed a few words: "The Exclusive Guardian of the Babies".

After finishing, the three women immediately took out their phones, logged into their main accounts, and collectively hit follow.

"Honey, come look, I'll teach you how to use it. See this button? It's for posting updates..."

Dilraba went around to the back of the sofa, wrapped her arms skillfully around Lin Chen's neck, pressed her full chest against his back, and leaned in to teach him step-by-step.

While she was teaching, Dilraba suddenly widened her eyes.

She discovered that Lin Chen's follower count was skyrocketing like it was on a rocket.

Right after registration, there were only a few dozen bot followers stuffed by the system.

But now, with every swipe to refresh, the number jumped by tens of thousands.

"What's going on? Did you buy bots?" Lin Chen turned his head to ask Dilraba.

Yang Mi, who was on the side, took a look and explained: "The Weibo official backend gave you a big V verification directly, and they even gave you site-wide pop-ups and splash screen recommendations. For ordinary people like us to get this yellow V verification, we have to submit a pile of materials and wait for manual review; it's very troublesome."

"But you are currently the most talked-about person on the entire internet, with insane traffic. Weibo is dying for you to stay, so of course they have to give you privileges. They aren't afraid of misidentifying you either. Who else could it be but the real you, being followed by our three main accounts and named 'Lin Chen'?"

The verification title that Weibo official filled in for Lin Chen was also quite clever.

The backend operations team was probably struggling, wondering what kind of deity this guy was.

They couldn't exactly write "The Ceiling of the Soft Rice Industry", right?

In the end, they could only vaguely give him the title of "Famous Internet Celebrity", which was fitting enough.

"Wow! Honey, look, followers broke two million! And it's still skyrocketing! Oh, Shishi and Nazar also came online to follow you. Tsk... Why is that little brat Song Zuer joining in the fun? And Huang Bo, Lei Jiayin... Huh? Why did Guo Degang also hit follow?"

Lin Chen's follower count was fissioning at an insane speed.

As his account was exposed, those celebrity friends he had met on shows also came online to follow and repost.

Lin Chen wasn't unfamiliar with this Weibo thing.

After all, in this era, it was a basic social media app that everyone had.

But across both his lives, he had never really been into these electronic products.

Back when WeChat first came out in his previous life, he didn't even know how to post pictures to his Moments.

In this life, he didn't even know where the door to Weibo opened.

However, watching the numbers jump wildly right now, he was intrigued.

He took the phone from Dilraba and casually clicked into the pages of his women.

Goodness, each one of them had tens of millions of followers.

Yang Mi was the most exaggerated, already breaking one hundred million.

Dilraba Dilmurat had over eighty million, and Tong Liya had slightly less, but still over sixty million.

Looking at old timers like Huang Bo and Lei Jiayin, although not as terrifying as these women, they were still in the tens of millions.

Female celebrities' pages were nothing more than various retouched selfies, airport paparazzi shots, mixed with some brand endorsements and new show promotions; they were all the same.

"Are the things scrolling below all scolding me or praising me?" Lin Chen pointed at the frantically refreshing message notifications on the screen and asked Yang Mi.

Yang Mi covered her mouth and chuckled: "It seems our Young Master Lin is incredibly popular. You haven't even posted a single punctuation mark yourself; just relying on the one registration update automatically generated by the system, there are already over a hundred thousand comments below."

Tong Liya added from the side while eating her ice lolly: "Weibo follower counts have a lot of water; many are bought bot followers. To really see if someone is popular, you have to look at the comment and repost volume; that's the real data from living people."

Lin Chen didn't listen to their data logic at all. He frowned while looking at one of the top comments, looking very puzzled: "Are these netizens sick? Why do they keep calling me 'Rebellious Son'?"

Lin Chen was indeed very confused.

He knew there was a large group of people online who spent every day cursing him.

After all, he had single-handedly swept up five top-tier national goddesses. Being called a "Soft Rice Eater", "Pretty Boy", or "Public Enemy of All Men Online"—he could understand all of that and couldn't be bothered to argue.

But this "Rebellious Son" nickname—where on earth did it pop out from?

The three women looked at each other, stunned for a second, then suddenly burst into laughter, laughing until they were doubled over.

For someone like Lin Chen, who feared nothing and was wildly arrogant, to suddenly show such a serious, confused expression—the contrast was just too strong and too funny.

"Mwah!" Dilraba couldn't help it; she cupped Lin Chen's face and gave him a hard kiss.

Tong Liya wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes while laughing and explained: "Did you forget? When we were camping while recording the show on the grasslands, I said that the audience is our bread and butter."

"And what did you retort with? You said that if you really had parents like that, you would strip your bones to return them to your father and cut your flesh to return it to your mother. The livestream chat exploded right then, and ever since then, netizens collectively gave you the title of 'Rebellious Son'."