After seeing Liang Qingfan off, Pei Qian continued to review the work reports submitted by various departments.

Since most projects were still in the development phase and not much could be discerned, Pei Qian just skimmed through them.

It wasn’t yet the critical moment before project completion and product release, so for Pei Qian, he could still slack off for at least another month or so.

Just then, Pei Qian came across a report and noticed a department he hadn’t paid attention to for some time.

The Useful APP, managed by Yu Ping’an.

“Hmm, truly a department with low profile but diligent, and one that genuinely helps ease my burdens!”

After reading the work report sent by Yu Ping’an, Pei Qian couldn’t help but sigh with such sentiment.

Since the establishment of Useful APP, Yu Ping’an had been diligently advancing the related work.

First, starting from Handong University, from the field of poetry and classical texts, gradually expanding to other universities nationwide and other professional fields.

Later, Useful APP also collaborated with Rabbit Tail Livestream, selecting young scholars with clear thinking and good speaking skills from these partnerships, recommending them to Rabbit Tail Livestream to teach courses to ordinary viewers, mainly popularizing some basic knowledge.

At the same time, these teaching contents would also be edited by dedicated personnel, subtitled, and preserved on Rabbit Tail Livestream as open courses for everyone to watch repeatedly.

From its creation until now, the form of Useful APP had basically been established, and the next task was to continuously fill it with content.

But this was not a job that could be completed overnight.

Although it was a knowledge-based website, the knowledge inside needed to be entered bit by bit by many scholars, and professionals from various fields also needed to be connected one by one by Yu Ping’an and his team.

In simple terms, it was a knowledge website, but completing it was a tremendous physical task.

To date, the initial field of ancient poetry had reached a relatively high degree of completion, and the materials and content related to those famous works could already fully meet the needs of most ordinary people.

As a website primarily targeting ordinary people, Useful APP didn’t need to be as profound as academic journals, at least not now.

So, to date, the completion rate of this field could be roughly written as 80%.

But this didn’t mean that the personnel in the related field had completed 80% of the work; it only meant that this section had basically achieved its initial goal.

However, besides these famous works, there were still a large number of less famous poems and articles. Even for the same article, with the advancement of academic research, its interpretation was constantly being added to, deleted from, and upgraded.

The related young scholars could continue to enrich the content afterward, or expand in a particular direction, and this work could easily be lifelong in nature.

In addition, Yu Ping’an was also expanding into other fields, although this expansion was somewhat disorderly.

This was not his fault, after all, the purpose of creating Useful APP was to “collect all useful knowledge and popularize it to ordinary people in a simple and easy-to-understand way.”

There were too many directions to choose from, and Yu Ping’an was somewhat at a loss. Most of his time now was spent building frameworks, advancing multiple fields simultaneously.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with the current state of Useful APP.

It didn’t have a very strong presence. Although the software had already officially launched and been operational, and Tenda Life APP and Rabbit Tail Livestream and other industries had introduced a large user base to it, the number of active users was still far from “booming.”

Although many students were using it, they were ultimately a minority group with very limited time and consumption capacity.

For others, even if Useful APP would be a very practical tool when they wanted to consult relevant information, such needs didn’t arise often.

For ordinary people, logging in two or three times a year was already quite good.

This was also consistent with Pei Qian’s initial estimate: Useful APP would be a grand and lengthy project, and in its early stages, it posed no threat.

Of course, the linkage between Useful APP and Rabbit Tail Livestream did create a certain amount of heat, but this heat was mainly directed toward Rabbit Tail Livestream, with little help to Useful APP.

Although it didn’t have high popularity, Useful APP had genuinely helped Pei Qian spend a lot of money.

Yu Ping’an very diligently spent all of the monthly funds to the last penny, and occasionally submitted reports requesting additional funds.

“Great, since that’s the case, let’s allocate more funds!”

“Yu Ping’an, with your capabilities, why did you work on Tenda Life APP back then? You should have been working on Useful APP from the start.”

“Hmm, deciding to have Yu Ping’an lead the development of Useful APP was absolutely the most correct decision I’ve ever made!”

“…Besides the funds, I should also respond to his question.”

In this report, Yu Ping’an not only introduced the current state of Useful APP but also raised a question.

Specifically, he hoped Mr. Pei could provide direction for their next steps.

What direction should Useful APP take next?

Because there were too many fields that could be developed, Yu Ping’an didn’t have choice paralysis, but he was still having difficulty making a choice.

Pei Qian gently stroked his chin, considering for a moment.

According to his thinking, he would certainly hope that Yu Ping’an would dabble a bit in all directions, doing a little bit in every field without excelling in any.

It’s like a forest—if one tree grows particularly tall and breaks a world record, it would quickly attract attention. But if all trees grow evenly, no one would notice that this forest is growing taller as a whole at an extremely fast pace.

This way, it would minimize the possibility of Useful APP becoming popular, delaying that time point as much as possible, and spending more money.

But he couldn’t express it too directly; that would seem very strange. He had to phrase it differently.

After carefully considering his wording, Pei Qian replied: “Don’t be confined to a single direction; observe more and appropriately chase some trending topics, but not the common trending topics on the internet.”

Although this statement seemed a bit vague, Pei Qian felt that he had expressed what he wanted to express, and whether Yu Ping’an could understand it would depend on his insight.

Don’t be confined to a single direction—this meant that Yu Ping’an could expand a bit more, dabbling in many fields, but none would be too prominent or attract unnecessary attention.

Observe more and chase some trending topics—this was actually hoping that Yu Ping’an wouldn’t dig too deep or dwell too long in one field, but would chase after a trending topic when he saw one, switch when there was a new trend, and have a superficial understanding of each field, which could further reduce the possibility of Useful APP’s success.

Of course, chasing trending topics inevitably brought up a problem: riding the wave of popularity.

So Pei Qian added an extra sentence, telling Yu Ping’an never to chase common internet trends, but rather to choose some smaller trends.

These smaller trends were numerous and diverse, quite fragmented, and wouldn’t attract much attention—an ideal choice in Pei Qian’s mind.

This way, even if Useful APP developed, it would mostly continue to deviate towards a niche platform, rather than suddenly becoming wildly popular.

It could be said to be multiple layers of insurance.

Pei Qian carefully reviewed his message once more, feeling that this hint was quite scientific and shouldn’t be misunderstood in any ridiculous way, so he clicked the [Send] button.

“Alright, today’s work is done. Time to go home!”

Pei Qian stretched, ready to treat himself to something good as a reward for his hard work.

…

Meanwhile, Yu Ping’an was deep in thought in front of his computer.

A person who originally didn’t have choice paralysis was almost being forced by work to develop it.

As Useful APP developed, there were more and more options to choose from.

Although Yu Ping’an had already started comprehensive knowledge building across various fields through university collaborations, there still needed to be a specialized direction like the previous focus on ancient poetry.

But Yu Ping’an had screened out at least a dozen fields that could serve as specialized directions, and how to choose was truly a headache.

So, he mentioned in the work report, hoping that Mr. Pei could provide some guidance.

Although Mr. Pei’s intervention would certainly solve the problem, Mr. Pei was busy after all and might not be able to spare the time.

Yu Ping’an didn’t have high hopes for this.

Just then, he received a new work email, and it was actually a reply from Mr. Pei!

“Indeed, no matter how uninvolved he may seem beforehand, when I most need guidance, Mr. Pei will always step in at the right time!”

Yu Ping’an was overjoyed and immediately opened it to check.

“Just two sentences, without directly saying which direction to choose…”

“This is indeed Mr. Pei’s consistent style, providing directional guidance without being too specific, allowing the person in charge freedom to perform.”

“More information still requires personal digging, which helps develop independent thinking ability and keep up with Mr. Pei’s thinking.”

Yu Ping’an began to earnestly ponder the deeper meaning behind Mr. Pei’s two sentences.

“Not being confined to a single direction certainly refers to the overall strategy of Useful APP. As a platform dedicated to providing professional knowledge across all fields, we definitely need to build the overall framework first, and then gradually improve it.”

“This coincides with what I’m currently doing, which is a kind of affirmation and support for my work.”

“So the key should be in the latter sentence.”

“Appropriately chase trending topics, but not the common trending topics on the internet.”

“What does this mean…”

Yu Ping’an frowned slightly, vaguely realizing that this should be the key to the issue.

After all, one of the key methods for interpreting Mr. Pei’s messages was: wherever there’s something unreasonable, there must be a deeper meaning.

On the surface, this seemed to be encouraging Yu Ping’an to chase those less famous trending topics.

But this didn’t make sense logically!

Because the act of chasing trends itself was for popularity. To chase popularity but not chase the biggest trends was like not being able to eat hot food even when you’re right next to it!

“Ahem, I shouldn’t think about Mr. Pei like this,” Yu Ping’an quickly stopped his dangerous train of thought.

So Mr. Pei definitely didn’t mean this, but had some other deeper meaning.

Yu Ping’an began to analyze seriously.