Chapter 166: A Blazing Story

Jiang Zheng's live stream was a tremendous success, and the story he told quickly went viral across the internet.

Many people edited his broadcast replays into short video clips, with the story from the final half-hour in particular spreading far and wide.

All of this happened in the span of a single night—such is the astonishing propagation speed of the internet.

Once the story gained traction, netizens began to deeply investigate the real-life figures behind it.

It did not take long for the protagonist of the narrative to be unearthed.

In truth, the directional clues in Jiang Zheng's story were glaringly obvious; while he refrained from naming names, he had practically spelled it out.

Pinpointing Jiang Xianyue came as no surprise.

The overlap between Jiang Zheng's fan base and Jiang Xianyue's was not particularly large, given that their content differed vastly and their target audiences resided in separate spheres.

Yet, Jiang Zheng's tale brought Jiang Xianyue a fresh wave of followers.

In fact, many of Jiang Xianyue's original fans excitedly proclaimed that the depicted character was the very embodiment of the talented woman they adored.

By the afternoon of the following day, Jiang Xianyue lacked the mood to film a guzheng video, so she decided to visit the music room once more to strum the instrument and vent the melancholy weighing upon her heart.

Just then, an operations manager from her studio suddenly called her.

"Boss Jiang, please check your account."

Hearing this, Jiang Xianyue asked with a hint of bewilderment, "What's wrong?"

"Just log in and see for yourself," the manager replied, a palpable note of excitement in their voice.

Still puzzled, Jiang Xianyue wondered what could possibly warrant such a mysterious tone.

Harboring her doubts, she logged into her account and was astonished to discover that her follower count had actually increased.

At her level, growing one's subscriber base is an arduous and sluggish process; after all, the user pool is finite, and the demographic for short videos only stretches so far.

She had already converted virtually all potential viewers of her content genre into loyal followers, which inherently slowed her growth to a crawl.

Compounding this, the relentless barrage of smear campaigns against her over the past few days had not only stunted her growth but caused her follower count to dwindle.

Spreading rumors is forever easier than debunking them. Zhangnian understood Jiang Xianyue all too well, making the fabricated scandals exceedingly difficult to clear up.

Consequently, Jiang Xianyue's follower numbers had been in a continuous freefall, and having posted no new content in days, her popularity had slumped into a trough.

Yet now, her following was growing—and by no small margin.

Jiang Xianyue furrowed her brow slightly. This development was entirely anomalous. What on earth could have triggered such a turn of events?

She pondered the question deeply.

It did not take long for Jiang Xianyue to find the answer within her direct messages.

She had neglected her inbox for quite some time; because of Zhangnian, those messages had been flooded with a torrent of malicious abuse.

Opening her inbox once again today, she bypassed the venomous remarks and stumbled upon the explanation for her sudden surge in popularity.

To her utter astonishment, the catalyst behind her growing follower count was actually a video!

Curiosity piqued, Jiang Xianyue wondered what sort of video could possibly cause her audience to expand instead of shrink.

Following the digital trail provided within her DMs, she located the video responsible for her resurgence.

As she watched, a strange expression settled across her face.

The video simply featured a live streamer narrating a story—and in all fairness, his storytelling was mesmerizing. She could readily perceive that the narrative had been modeled after her own life.

Yet, Jiang Xianyue experienced a conflicting sensation.

The experiences recounted in the story did not align with her actual life; aside from a few public knowledge points, everything else diverged.

However, the psychological profiling and character design of the protagonist bore an uncanny resemblance to her.

The contradiction lay right there: while the plot events differed, the personality construction mirrored her reality down to the smallest detail.

Generally speaking, anyone capable of crafting a character so true to her real-life persona had to be someone intimately acquainted with her.

Among her acquaintances, those who knew about her short-form video endeavors would possess a fair grasp of her background, whereas those unfamiliar with her history would have no inkling that she even made short videos.

Thus, this person had to be someone who knew her well, was aware of her video-making pursuits, yet remained largely ignorant of her past history.

This person... Jiang Xianyue instantly narrowed down the suspects in her mind.

She had conversed with Jiang Zheng about these very matters just yesterday, and today a narrated story appeared—one where Jiang Zheng fit her deductive criteria to absolute perfection.

It was him.

Jiang Xianyue murmured silently to herself.

She proceeded to track down and listen to the entire half-hour sequence of narrative videos, experiencing a wondrous sensation as the tale unfolded.

Upon finishing the broadcast, she habitually gravitated toward the comment section.

It was only after reading through the comments that Jiang Xianyue realized he was actually a prominent live streamer.

Suddenly, Jiang Xianyue found herself intrigued by the content of this major streamer's broadcasts; she developed a desire to understand him better.

Reviewing his past streams, she discovered how he had practically single-handedly challenged the entire circle of professional League of Legends players over the past few days, thoroughly trouncing them until no professional dared to accept his challenge matches.

She also watched some of Jiang Zheng's chat-style stream archives. When Jiang Zheng articulated his insights and understandings of philosophy, literature, and history, Jiang Xianyue became even more convinced that the man broadcasting was indeed Jiang Zheng.

After studying together in the library, the two of them had frequently engaged in deep discussions on these very subjects.

Consequently, Jiang Xianyue possessed a profound understanding of Jiang Zheng's perspectives on these matters.

The smile at the corners of Jiang Xianyue's lips grew increasingly distinct and radiant.

……………………

The streaming platform's management never anticipated that Jiang Zheng's narrated story would explode in popularity to such an extent, crossing over and trending on entirely separate platforms.

This success only cemented the platform's resolve to retain Jiang Zheng at all costs.

Director Lin Yu was currently engaged in a fierce debate with upper management, pushing to raise the terms of Jiang Zheng's exclusive contract.

The executives felt a lingering reluctance. This was no longer the era of a few years ago when boundless venture capital backed operations and the name of the game was simply burning cash.

Back then, profitability was irrelevant; as long as one could draw in massive crowds of users, any price was deemed worth paying.

Exorbitant, astronomical signing bonuses were a phenomenon of those bygone years, and such headlines had practically vanished from the modern landscape.

Platforms now needed to turn a profit; loss-making ventures were no longer entertained.

Yet Director Lin argued that the value Jiang Zheng could generate vastly outweighed the costs.

At a glance, the platform might seem to suffer a heavy loss by granting such generous terms; viewed from a long-term perspective, however, the platform stood to reap the greatest rewards.

Many people could already perceive Jiang Zheng's current worth. If the company failed to offer commensurate compensation, Jiang Zheng would likely defect to a rival competitor.

It was vital to remember that Jiang Zheng had not yet signed a formal contract with the platform. His previous agreements pertained solely to this half-month trial period of live streaming.

The platform held zero leverage over him; he could leave whenever he pleased, and no one could stop him.

………………

The protagonist of countless online discussions was currently writing furiously away at his desk in the dormitory.

He had never imagined that yesterday's improvised storytelling would spark such a wildfire, prompting him to rush the completion of tonight's plotline.

The hotter his narrated stories burned, the greater the dividends for him.

Yesterday had been a spur-of-the-moment venture, with mere rough outlines flashing through his mind. By Jiang Zheng's standards, the pacing and plotting had still felt somewhat crude.

Today, he was determined to refine the subsequent chapters into something far more polished and exquisite.