320: Chapter 320 Interview Begins

Shin-chan popped up a reminder on the screen, scheduling next week's interview on the calendar and marking it with a blue tag.

Zhao Yang glanced at it, closed the calendar interface, and continued with his research work. However, he hadn't been working long before his phone screen lit up again.

It was a message from Director Lin: "Dr. Zhao, regarding next week's livestream, we've planned an interactive segment on our end and wanted to give you a heads-up in advance."

"What kind of segment?"

"We plan to post a call for questions in advance, allowing netizens to leave questions in your Weibo comment section. The Host will ask you the questions with the highest likes and hottest discussions face-to-face during the livestream. This will build hype beforehand and give the audience a sense of participation. What do you think of this plan?"

"It's fine," Zhao Yang replied briefly. He had no objections to these operational tactics; he was content to let professionals handle professional matters.

That evening, the official Weibo account posted a major announcement: Next Wednesday at 10:00 AM, the Weibo Livestream Room will Host an exclusive interview with Professor Zhao Yang!

Taiwan Novel Network is ultra-smooth and worry-free.

In addition to the time and platform information, the main text specifically added a note: As long as you follow Professor Zhao's Weibo, leave a question under his pinned post, and repost it, the questions with the most likes and discussions will have a chance to be asked personally by the Host to Professor Zhao on the day of the livestream.

Less than half an hour after this announcement was posted, the comment section completely exploded.

Weibo's servers were instantly flooded with traffic, and the comment section of Zhao Yang's pinned post refreshed at a frantic pace visible to the naked eye. At first, it was fairly normal, with people asking "How many hours does God Zhao sleep every day?", "When will the spark stimulant price drop?", and "How is the chip factory construction going?". Later on, the tone began to stray, and all sorts of weird and wonderful questions started popping up.

"God Zhao, can you start a math livestream course? The kind that goes from elementary school Math Olympiad to Goldbachs Conjecture—I'd listen to it on my knees."

"I suggest God Zhao livestreams his next marathon so we can see how you overtake people while calculating your pace."

"How did you hack into their servers when you caught the spies? Can you teach me a couple of simple tricks? I've been feeling like my roommate is stealing my shampoo lately and want to check his chat logs."

"God Zhao, can you write a book on time management? If the title is 'My Day Has Forty-Eight Hours,' I'll definitely buy it."

"Excuse me, do you consider yourself a genius? If not, how do you manage to do math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, computer science, chips, aerospace, catching spies, and running marathons all at the same time? If yes, what do you think is the biggest difference between a genius and an ordinary person?"

In just a few days, Zhao Yang's Weibo followers surged from twelve million to over fifteen million. Backend data showed that many newly registered Users followed Zhao Yang immediately after downloading Weibo and headed straight to the comment section to start causing a stir.

The Weibo operations team was dumbfounded. They had worked in the internet industry for many years and seen various cases of traffic spikes, but this was the first time they had seen growth of this magnitude driven almost entirely by spontaneous User interaction.

Director Lin sent a message in the internal group: "Attention all departments, on the day of next week's livestream, expand server capacity in advance and enable all backup CDNs. Dr. Zhao's traffic is no joke; anyone who drops the ball will be working overtime."

Zhao Yang occasionally opened his phone to look at his Weibo comment section. Some questions were serious, some were ridiculous, and a few people had even compiled all his recent research results into a doggerel poem with a staggering number of likes.

He flipped through a few pages and saw a repeatedly mentioned question: "God Zhao, did you actually use spark stimulant for your marathon?" Thousands of replies followed, with both sides arguing incessantly. He scrolled down further and saw a question asking if he had ever been in love; the likes for it actually ranked in the top ten. Zhao Yang's expression became a bit strange after reading it, and he flipped his phone face-down on the desk to continue looking at the animal experiment data pushed by Shin-chan.

On Wednesday morning, Zhao Yang arrived at Weibo's Yanjing headquarters in a car driven by Wang Hai.

Security had already been set up at the entrance of the Weibo headquarters building, and several employees wearing ID badges were waiting at the door. As soon as Zhao Yang got out of the car, he was led into the VIP passage on the side of the building, avoiding the crowds that might have gathered at the main entrance. The elevator went up to the livestream floor, where many people stood in the hallway—Weibo employees, invited media reporters, and several people from other departments who had come to watch the excitement.

As Zhao Yang walked through them, many people took out their phones to take pictures, but no one stepped forward to block him.

The lighting in the studio had already been adjusted. The Host was a senior tech reporter invited by Weibo, surnamed Shen. In his forties and wearing black-rimmed glasses, he had been doing interviews in the tech circle for over a decade. His style leaned towards being gentle, not interrupting, and his questions weren't too tricky.

Zhao Yang sat down on the sofa, staff helped him clip on his microphone, and Host Shen flipped through a stack of question cards beside him, confirming the upcoming process with Zhao Yang.

"Dr. Zhao, most of today's questions were collected from your Weibo comment section. We will ask about ten of them in order of popularity. The time will be controlled within one hour. If there's a bullet chat interaction segment in the middle, I'll randomly pick a few bullet chats to ask you. What do you think of this pace?"

A hint of admiration occasionally flashed in Shen Yiran's eyes as she looked at Zhao Yang.

Clearly, she was also a fan of Zhao Yang.

"No problem," Zhao Yang said.

The livestream started on time. Host Shen gave a brief opening, introduced today's basic process, and then the screen switched to a panoramic shot as bullet chats began to flood the screen frantically. Host Shen first chose a top-liked question to start.

"Dr. Zhao, this question is one of the most liked in the comment section. Netizens are very concerned about one issue: you previously took first place domestically in a marathon, and later some people questioned whether you used spark stimulant. Today, in front of so many viewers in the livestream room, can you respond directly?"

"I haven't used it."

Zhao Yang said calmly.

"At the time of the marathon, the spark stimulant was still in the preclinical research stage. Even animal toxicology experiments hadn't been completed yet, so there was no finished product to use at all. My marathon results came from long-term systematic training and scientific pace planning; it had nothing to do with drugs."

"Then will you participate in a marathon again next time?"

"It depends on the time. If I happen to be free, I don't rule out running another one."

Zhao Yang thought for a moment and replied.

This mainly depended on whether the system would give him a similar task again. Without a task, Zhao Yang didn't have much interest in marathons.

The bullet chat instantly exploded. Someone posted "Break two hours directly next time," another posted "I suggest God Zhao runs the Boston Marathon to show the world what an academic runner is," and someone else posted "When he finished that last marathon, I was still preparing for the College Entrance Examination; if he runs again, I'm afraid I'll already have children."