"Go on, keep eating," Chen Jingxian said, feigning calmness.
"Don’t take what my mom said just now seriously. She’s so desperate to have a grandchild, she’s become obsessed."
"Really? I thought she made a lot of sense," Lin Jiang said with a straight face.
"If we put in a little effort now, next year is definitely possible."
Chen Jingxian’s face turned even redder.
"You’re talking nonsense again."
"I’m not. I really mean it. With a figure like yours, you could probably give her that grandchild."
"I’ll hit you! You’re just trying to say I have a big butt, aren’t you."
"Isn’t that a good thing? Some people would kill for that."
"Ugh, just eat! No more talking about it."
"Okay. You should eat less, though."
"Hmm?"
Chen Jingxian looked up at Lin Jiang.
"Street food is unhealthy. It can cause infertility."
It took Chen Jingxian a moment to react.
"I’m gonna hit you!"
RING RING RING—
RING RING RING—
Early the next morning, while still in a sleepy daze, Lin Jiang was jolted awake by his phone.
It was a call from Qin Yangyang.
"Hello," Lin Jiang mumbled, still half-asleep.
"I gained two more pounds!!!"
"You worked out in sweatpants again yesterday, didn’t you?"
"Yeah..."
"I already told you, working out in sweatpants doesn’t work, but you wouldn’t believe me."
Lin Jiang rolled over. "If you don’t believe me, just keep it up. You’ll be on the fast track to 130."
"So it’ll work if I exercise in a swimsuit? Should I try it today?"
"Wrong. Completely wrong. It only works if I’m there to supervise."
"You just want to perv on me."
"How could you call it perving? It’s research and communication in an unexplored field."
"I don’t care. You’re coming over tonight. We’re working out together. I can’t get any fatter, this is terrifying."
"Fine."
After hanging up, Lin Jiang decided not to go back to sleep.
He washed up, and breakfast was already made.
After breakfast, since it was the weekend, Chen Jingxian drove Lin Jiang home before heading off to handle her own affairs.
He dropped by the shop to take a look. By a little after nine, the place was already eighty percent full. Business was booming.
After a quick look around, Lin Jiang called Qiu Yunong.
"Brother Jiang."
"Are you at the office?"
"I am. Do you need something, Brother Jiang?"
"Yeah, I need to talk to you about something. Wait for me at the office."
"Okay."
After hanging up, Lin Jiang drove to Qiu Yunong’s company.
When he pulled up downstairs, Qiu Yunong was already there waiting for him.
She was wearing jeans and a women’s blouse, the hem tucked into her pants, with a pair of small gray boots on her feet. Her whole outfit was simple and sharp.
"Brother Jiang, you rushed all the way over here. Is something important going on?"
"Not exactly urgent, but let’s talk upstairs. This isn’t the place."
"Okay."
They entered the building and went up to the 17th floor together.
The office wasn’t huge, a little under 200 square meters, with about twenty-some people.
Once inside, Qiu Yunong clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.
"Alright, everyone, could you please pause what you’re working on for a moment."
All the employees looked over, their gazes landing on Lin Jiang.
"Let me make an introduction. This is our company’s investor, Mr. Lin Jiang."
Everyone applauded in welcome, and Lin Jiang smiled and waved back, acknowledging them.
Qiu Yunong had someone brew a pot of tea and then led Lin Jiang into her office.
The office was about twenty-odd square meters and was kept reasonably neat and clean.
Several documents were spread out on her desk, apparently waiting to be processed.
Soon, Qiu Yunong’s assistant brought in the tea, closing the door on her way out.
"Brother Jiang, what’s wrong? You came all the way here in person. You’re not here for a surprise inspection, are you?" Qiu Yunong teased.
"Not at all. I mainly had some new ideas about the company that I wanted to discuss with you."
"Go ahead."
"I have two points. First, the product’s main feature is niche-based social networking. I think we should downplay that distinction, blur the lines a bit, and not create such strong barriers."
Qiu Yunong nodded, jotting down what Lin Jiang said.
"Another point is cultivating our own top content creators. The method is simple: just throw money at it."
"We’ve thought about that as well and are actively planning for it. We should be launching a campaign like that soon."
"Right now, how many followers does our top creator have? You should be able to look up the data, right?"
"Our creator with the most followers is named Bubble. She has 68,000 followers and is a fitness blogger," Qiu Yunong said.
"Her approach is pretty much what you described—working out in either a swimsuit or yoga pants, which has attracted a lot of attention."
’Just as I thought. The top creator doesn’t even have 100,000 followers.’
"Let’s put up some real cash. The first creator to surpass 100,000 followers gets a 100,000 cash prize. Second place gets 50,000, and third place gets 20,000."
After a pause, Lin Jiang continued,
"Then set up similar rewards for the 500,000 and 1,000,000 follower milestones. Get started on this now, don’t delay for a second. I want to see this campaign go live by tomorrow."
Qiu Yunong wrote down everything Lin Jiang said.
’Even though she didn’t know why Lin Jiang was in such a hurry, the moneybags had spoken. All she had to do was follow his orders. Besides, his ideas would have a positive impact on the product’s development anyway.’
"On top of that, we need content rewards. That includes high-quality content and copy. Give them real cash prizes too. We need to attract people by any means possible."
"Then, find some professionals to write expert posts to guide people in various niches. For example, how to work out correctly, how to draw properly, singing techniques, playing an Instrument, and so on... You get what I mean?"
"I get it."
"But remember, don’t go for the big shots in the industry. Go for university students. They’re cheap, effective, have a relatively complete knowledge base, and can help promote the app within their peer group."
Lin Jiang looked at Qiu Yunong with a grin. "Just imagine: a pretty upperclassman in yoga pants, teaching art enthusiasts how to draw. What kind of scene would that be?"
"Brother Jiang, stop, don’t say another word. I can already picture it," Qiu Yunong said, getting a little excited.
"And then while painting, she ’accidentally’ gets paint on herself, and the paint just happens to be milky white."
Lin Jiang: ???
’I just dangled a little bait, and you’re already taking the hook, line, and sinker, huh?’
’You’ve really mastered the art of creative extrapolation.’
"And it’s not just about the upperclassman!"
Qiu Yunong grew more and more excited as she spoke.
"A five-foot-seven innocent high school girl, a five-foot-eleven chiseled college guy, a petite and adorkable loli, a voluptuous housewife, a scruffy but roguish hunk bursting with sex appeal... Holy shit!"
Qiu Yunong let out a curse. "I can’t even imagine how explosive the results would be if we got these people to teach."
This...
’They say when women get lecherous, they leave men in the dust.’ Lin Jiang felt there was nothing wrong with that saying at all.
’Turns out, I’m the fucking innocent young boy here.’
"Oh, right, Brother Jiang, we discussed something else in our meeting yesterday: whether or not we should enable the e-commerce streaming feature for our creators."
Qiu Yunong said,
"We’re pretty much split into two camps right now. Some are for it, some are against it."
"The argument for it is that if creators have an income, they can dedicate themselves more to their work, and it would also attract other creators to the platform."
"The other side feels that the product’s user base is too small. We haven’t reached critical mass, nor have we built up user loyalty. If we jump into selling products and cashing in on them like this, it could easily alienate people and lead to user loss. We argued about it for a long time yesterday but couldn’t reach a conclusion."
Lin Jiang found the debate interesting. Both sides seemed to have valid points.
"I’m not in favor of e-commerce streaming right now. My reasons are similar to theirs: the user foundation isn’t stable yet, so let’s not do it for now."
Lin Jiang thought for a moment and said,
"As for their income, we can use contracts. Find those undiscovered talents with potential. They’re cheap and effective."
"Understood."
"One more thing. I suggest we hold offline events in major first and second-tier cities. Under the banner of shared hobbies, we can host different meetups. The format would be a professional teacher leading, assisted by our creators. We’d gather everyone together. Ostensibly, it’s a hobby exchange, but it’s really about socializing and meeting new people. Get my drift?"
Qiu Yunong’s eyes lit up.
"But I think they’ll end up ’exchanging’ all the way to a hotel. What should we do then?"
"Light some incense."
"Light some incense?"
"To pray for them. That their significant others don’t find out."

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