December 13th, Thursday.
Pei Qian sat on his couch with tousled hair, clutching a laptop and concentrating intensely, seemingly researching something.
Anyone who didn’t know better would think: Mr. Pei is working so hard!
Getting up early in the morning and starting to work without even washing up.
However, Pei Qian had only one thought in his mind: “What’s going on with the Suffering Journey? Can you self-media people please align your statements and give me a correct answer?”
Yesterday, the Suffering Journey had been hotly discussed across the internet, trending on various websites. Various self-media personalities eager for attention had quickly jumped on the bandwagon, making it difficult for Pei Qian to avoid seeing discussions about it.
This situation might continue for several more days, as content creators were still editing videos and waiting for approval!
Trusting the netizens, Pei Qian had read through many of their discussions and self-media analysis articles, hoping to find the truth behind why the Suffering Journey was fully booked.
But the more he read, the more frustrated he became.
These netizens were unreliable!
Either they made fierce-sounding analyses that couldn’t withstand scrutiny, or they gave up on analysis altogether and simply heaped praise on Mr. Pei.
They said things like this was another of Mr. Pei’s brilliant strategies, another revolution in the travel business model, and that the Suffering Journey had a promising future.
Pei Qian was fuming inside.
He felt conflicted.
On one hand, he was hoping for someone like Qiao Laoshi to step forward and analyze the true reason for the Suffering Journey’s success, like how he analyzed games. This would help Pei Qian fully understand the situation. Although it would likely be a misinterpretation of his original intention, it would at least explain why the market had responded this way.
On the other hand, he was a bit worried—what if such an explanation emerged and many netizens agreed with it, making the Suffering Journey even more popular?
After a long while, Pei Qian put the laptop aside and gave up in resignation.
“Forget it, I’m completely wasting my time…”
Self-media personalities had proposed many shocking viewpoints to attract attention, but these couldn’t withstand scrutiny and had no reference value for Pei Qian.
He still couldn’t understand why the Suffering Journey had become popular.
He would have to set it aside for now.
Pei Qian calmed himself and turned his attention to another matter.
Today, the promotional campaign for “The Successor” would be in full swing!
Huang Sibo had already finalized the specific cooperation plan with AiLiDao, and today the comprehensive warm-up promotion would begin. Not only would Tenda be promoting it, but AiLiDao would also provide substantial promotional resources.
This Sunday at 8 PM, the first three episodes of “The Successor” would be released together, followed by two episodes per week, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday evenings.
The final two episodes would be released together, so by Sunday, January 13th, the entire series would be complete.
Pei Qian had wanted to schedule the premiere for Saturday evening, as it would coincide with the final matches of GOG and ioi, and could steal a lot of attention.
But AiLiDao definitely wouldn’t want to compete for attention, since they had also provided many promotional resources for “The Successor” on their website.
Naturally, Pei Qian didn’t say much and went with the time set by AiLiDao.
After all, “The Successor” would fail on its own merits. No matter when it was released, the result wouldn’t be too different.
On the AiLiDao website, the trailer for “The Successor” had already been released, and various promotional materials had been posted. The drama section featured a large scrolling recommendation and a pinned listing recommendation for “The Successor.”
In the promotional materials, phrases like “New Work from Fei Huang Studio” were particularly eye-catching.
In short, all the appropriate fanfare had been provided.
Pei Qian clicked on the trailer to take a look. Since it was released by the official Fei Huang Studio account and had AiLiDao’s algorithmic recommendation, the trailer had already garnered many comments and bullet screen reactions despite being out for only a short time.
“The Successor is finally going online! The second copyright adaptation work from Terminus Chinese Network, looking forward to it!”
“Original novel fan here. The series looks quite faithful to the source material. Thumbs up!”
“Is this a superhero movie? I don’t see any superheroes at all.”
“Just to mention quietly, that handsome blond guy who got scared to the point of wetting himself is the protagonist.”
“He’s the protagonist? Then why aren’t there any fight scenes in this trailer? In the first half, he gets terribly abused, and in the second half, he’s just secretly plotting… This…”
“I have a feeling this show might be quite disappointing. It’s too alternative and bizarre, not to my taste…”
“As a fan of the original novel, I can say it’s normal if it’s not to your taste. This subject matter is intentionally off-beat and niche. The author, ‘Pigeon Spirit’, deliberately portrays the protagonist negatively. If you actually come to like this protagonist, that would be the real problem.”
“Original novel fans, please don’t spoil! Let viewers who haven’t read the original enjoy the plot from the beginning.”
At a glance, the comments section of the trailer had all kinds of opinions. Far from forming a consensus, there weren’t even two clearly opposed viewpoints.
The audience had at least several different attitudes.
On one hand, Meng Chang had deliberately created a mysterious promotional strategy that prevented new viewers from discerning the essence of the film from the promotional content. On the other hand, those who might have spoiled the plot showed restraint.
Many who hadn’t read the original novel would have a variety of interpretations upon seeing the title and trailer.
And those who had read the original novel didn’t spoil or explain too much in the comments, as that would have been quite tasteless.
Some original novel fans wanted to explain, but doing so would inevitably involve spoilers, so they held back.
Moreover, “The Successor” wasn’t one of those wildly popular works on Terminus Chinese Network—at best, it was a niche gem. There weren’t enough original novel fans online to form a significant presence.
Original novel fans and new viewers had formed two different attitudes, and among new viewers, there were many variations: those who came for the superhero theme, those who liked alternative stories, and those who were simply fans of Fei Huang Studio…
In short, although the promotional campaign was quite grand, the buzz wasn’t particularly strong.
For explosive buzz, there are typically two scenarios: either it’s universally praised with most people becoming enthusiastic promoters, or it’s divisive with strong opinions on both sides, leading to heated arguments.
The current situation with “The Successor” didn’t fit either scenario.
Seeing this, Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction, temporarily putting aside the matter of the Suffering Journey.
It seemed that Meng Chang’s initial promotional strategy had succeeded.
Once “The Successor” was released and many viewers felt deceived and started criticizing it, things would be even more stable!
…
…
December 15th, Saturday.
Europe, ioi Global Finals venue.
“Mr. Zhao, over here!”
Eric smiled broadly, accurately finding Zhao Xuming in the surging crowd.
The two gave each other a high five, representing their victorious meeting.
Since the GOG Global Invitational began, Eric had been overseeing operations in Europe, while Zhao Xuming had been responsible for domestic offline events, broadcasts, and other matters in China.
Now that the competition was finally nearing its end, with GOG advancing vigorously and ioi seemingly in decline, the two could naturally relax a bit.
Last weekend, after the semi-finals, two domestic teams from GOG had made it through, although the process was slightly difficult, the result was good.
Since it was now an internal competition, the GOG side didn’t have to worry—whichever team won would be fine.
Moreover, from the current situation, GOG had already captured all the attention with its new spectating feature. Its popularity in China could be said to completely overwhelm ioi, and its global buzz also surpassed ioi. They could already pop the champagne in advance.
Eric and Zhao Xuming had already booked tickets for the ioi finals, perfect for watching the ultimate showdown.
This match clearly had more suspense.
Of course, no one could guarantee whether the FV team would win, but this was just a local battle. With the entire war nearly settled, even if the FV team lost, it wouldn’t significantly impact GOG’s comprehensive victory.
Of course, winning would still be better.
Zhao Xuming checked the time. The match wouldn’t start for a while, but they had to enter the venue now.
Unfortunately, Eric and Zhao Xuming had bought tickets separately, so their seats weren’t together. They could only find their respective places and sit down.
Zhao Xuming had just sat down when he heard someone say with slight surprise: “Mr. Zhao?”
Looking up, he found it was his former colleague from the Longyu Group, Jin Yong.
“Oh, you’re here too?”
Zhao Xuming realized as soon as he asked that the question was a bit odd, and he smiled.
Jin Yong had taken over his position and was now the person in charge of ioi’s domestic server. What was strange about him appearing at the ioi World Finals?
If anything, it was Zhao Xuming the “traitor” whose presence was questionable!
Jin Yong nodded: “Yes, I’m sitting over there, about a dozen seats away.”
He didn’t say much else, as Zhao Xuming was his former boss, and the friendship remained.
Since the seat next to Zhao Xuming was empty, Jin Yong temporarily sat down to chat with him.
“Mr. Zhao, that spectating feature you guys created is really formidable. It caught us completely off guard!”
“We had meetings to discuss it for hours, but we really couldn’t come up with any countermeasures. The little bit of buzz we had finally generated was quietly eaten up by you all.”
“Was this idea yours, or Eric’s?”
“Or… was it Mr. Pei’s?”
Jin Yong had always been very curious about this and could finally ask.
Why was it that when Eric and Zhao Xuming were at ioi, they were always on the defensive, getting beaten by Tenda to the point of confusion, but once they went to GOG, they suddenly seemed to have an epiphany, coming up with all kinds of clever ideas?
Were the two of you actually acting all along?
Playing happily on my side, but striking hard when on the opposite side?
Although Jin Yong instinctively felt that he shouldn’t suspect his former superior like this, the current situation made it very hard not to be suspicious.
Zhao Xuming smiled: “Neither.”
“It was the idea of the former head of the Tenda Games Department, who was transferred to Tutu Livestream.”