Lost in thought,
Lin Feng opened his chat with Lin Xiaoman.
Lin Xiaoman’s live streaming career had recently reached a new peak.
Lin Xiaoman was already a fairly well-known beauty and fashion vlogger on the platform.
Even though Lin Xiaoman had never spoken about her specific family situation,
the fact that a family member had gifted enough to become the top supporter led most of the platform’s viewers to assume Lin Xiaoman was a rich kid.
Lin Xiaoman neither confirmed nor denied it.
She just focused on steadily developing her career.
A couple of days ago, a New Year’s outfit video Lin Xiaoman released on the platform unexpectedly blew up.
It was all because someone had posted a screenshot of her side profile, with no makeup on, from that video.
It ended up going viral.
That side profile picture was even hailed by newcomers as having "god-tier looks for a non-celebrity."
This brought Lin Xiaoman a ton of traffic.
Even though Lin Xiaoman hadn’t uploaded any new videos lately, the view counts on her older ones had grown significantly.
For the past two days, Lin Xiaoman had been negotiating her contract for the new year with the platform.
So, she only knew that her follower count had increased by several hundred thousand.
She wasn’t yet clear on just how much attention everyone was paying to her appearance.
The platform, however, had noticed the situation, and they wanted to renew their contract with Lin Xiaoman.
But Lin Xiaoman had other ideas.
"Bro, you’re messaging me so late. What’s up?"
Not long after Lin Feng sent the message, Lin Xiaoman, who found texting a hassle, just called him directly.
Lately, Lin Xiaoman had been stressing out over her contract issues with the platform.
Calling Lin Feng back this time, she also wanted to ask for his opinion.
"Here’s the thing. I’m calling to give you a heads-up about something so you can be prepared."
Lin Feng said casually over the phone.
Her brother’s mysterious tone only piqued Lin Xiaoman’s curiosity.
"I’m bringing your sister-in-law home for the New Year. You’d better be a good host."
After Lin Feng finished speaking, Lin Xiaoman froze for a moment, then exclaimed with delight in her voice,
"You’re already meeting the parents! That was fast!"
"Does that mean my sister-in-law will give me a red envelope for the New Year?"
Lin Feng hadn’t expected Lin Xiaoman’s focus to be so peculiar. He laughed and chided,
"I’m going to tell Ruoxi that the first thing you thought of was money, you little rascal!"
Lin Xiaoman laughed it off. "I was just kidding! By the way, when exactly are you two coming back?"
Lin Feng thought for a moment. Du Hai and Tian Xiaowu were keeping an eye on the land development in Cyan Mountain Town.
He and Su Ruoxi didn’t need to stay there anymore.
The project wouldn’t be finished until the end of the year anyway.
One of the reasons Lin Feng had come to Cyan Mountain Town in the first place was to find the person his system had pointed him toward.
Now that he had found Zhao Zhengye,
and successfully brought him into the core team,
there was no longer any point in staying in Cyan Mountain Town.
Su Ruoxi’s matters were also more or less resolved.
The remaining tasks didn’t require his personal, daily supervision.
So, Lin Feng thought for a moment and said, "It should be in the next day or two. We’ll be back very soon."
Hearing this, Lin Xiaoman’s voice was clearly filled with joy. "That’s great!"
Lin Feng teased, "Why so happy? Don’t tell me you actually missed your big brother?"
On the other end of the line, Lin Xiaoman silently rolled her eyes. "Bro, please get some self-awareness, alright? I’m obviously happy because my sister-in-law is about to arrive."
"You can’t go shopping with me, but my sister-in-law can!"
"You two are teaming up, and it’s a little too obvious. But with you like this, at least I won’t have to worry about Ruoxi not having a good time."
Lin Feng said with a smile.
"You’ve already forgotten your little sister now that you have a sister-in-law!"
"But bro, I have something I need to ask you."
Now that the matter of Su Ruoxi was settled, Lin Xiaoman’s tone grew a bit more serious.
Lin Feng rarely saw Lin Xiaoman act so serious.
’Looks like my little sister has run into some trouble.’
"Go ahead. What is it?"
Lin Xiaoman told Lin Feng about her recent disputes with the platform.
"I can’t accept their current demands, and besides, I’ve been unhappy with this platform for a long time now!"
Lin Xiaoman had started out by uploading videos and streaming on this particular platform.
Most of her fans were on it.
If they hadn’t been so unreasonable, Lin Xiaoman wouldn’t have considered switching platforms so readily.
Lin Feng knew that Lin Xiaoman had held grievances against the platform for a while.
However, because they had been relatively fair with some of the contract terms,
Lin Xiaoman hadn’t jumped ship to another platform yet.
"What happened with the platform?"
Lin Feng’s expression turned cold.
Speaking of this, Lin Xiaoman’s heart was filled with resentment.
"Don’t platforms usually have a revenue split for gifts?"
"My previous contract with the platform was an 80-20 split."
"So, when those gifts are converted into income, I should be getting eighty percent of it."
"But every time the money was deposited into my account, the amount was always a little short. The platform’s response was that some ’other fees’ had been deducted."
Lin Xiaoman got angry just talking about it.
At first, Lin Xiaoman just assumed they were legitimate platform fees.
But later, after she gained some fame in the beauty and fashion category, she mentioned the issue while interacting with creators from other sections.
Through these conversations, Lin Xiaoman quickly discovered that some of the smaller streamers didn’t have this problem.
But streamers like her, who were influential and had a large fan base on the platform, were the ones who frequently ran into this sort of thing.
Even if the contracts they signed with the platform were for an 80-20 or 70-30 split,
what they actually received would always be about ten percent less, with the platform using all sorts of excuses to make deductions.
"And what I found really scummy is that the creators they choose to skim from are mostly ones whose fanbases are concentrated on their platform."
"That way, even if some money is skimmed off the top, most of the creators will still renew their contracts."
"It’s already become an unwritten rule of the platform, and most people have just accepted it!"
"Bro, is there something wrong with this platform’s management? Are they nuts?"
Lin Xiaoman grew more agitated as she spoke. It was clear that after discovering this, any goodwill she had for the platform had vanished instantly.
Lin Feng sneered.
"It’s not that they’re nuts. They’re very clever."
"Deducting ten percent of the revenue pushes right up against your bottom line, but it’s just low enough to make you feel like it’s *only* ten percent."
"Just like you said, most creators, for the sake of the remaining fifty or sixty percent of their income, will choose to accept this unwritten rule."
"If they tried to take any more, some creators probably wouldn’t stand for it."
As an outsider, Lin Feng saw the situation much more clearly than Lin Xiaoman.
"Tell me about it. In private, a lot of creators are unhappy, but they just put up with it."
"They even tried to convince me to put up with it, but you know my personality, Bro. I definitely can’t stand for it."
Lin Xiaoman said with a sigh.
"Don’t worry about this for now. Pause your updates for a while. I’ll handle the rest."
Since Lin Feng was heading back anyway, he figured he might as well solve this problem for Lin Xiaoman while he was at it.
Every platform had its own unwritten rules.
It was just that some were more subtle about it, while others were more egregious.
This was a problem Lin Xiaoman would have to face no matter which platform she moved to in the future.
’In other words, Lin Xiaoman couldn’t solve this just by jumping ship.’
This was why, even though Lin Feng generally let Lin Xiaoman find her own way, he decided to step in this time.
Although Lin Xiaoman wasn’t clear on most of what Lin Feng was up to these days,
she had complete trust in her big brother.
"Alright, I’ll listen to you. Perfect, this gives me a good excuse to take a break!"
Lin Xiaoman glanced at the time and said, "It’s getting pretty late. You should get some rest, Bro. Just let me know in advance when you’re coming back. I’ll come pick up my sister-in-law!"

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