Tang Yao and Jiang Shiyan might have been joking around, but she had promised Zhang Zhilan to do her best, so she took this matter to heart. The next day, she arrived at the bank early. After finishing her tasks, she made several phone calls to inquire about social security matters on Zhang Zhilan’s behalf.
By the time she was done with everything, it was almost noon. As Tang Yao left her office, her colleagues were enthusiastically discussing the branch’s annual awards. There were five spots available for their department. Gan Yiming, who held the highest position, and Fan Linlang, known for her diligence, were naturally the top contenders.
Seeing Tang Yao emerge, Fan Linlang asked, “Sister Yao, want to throw your hat in the ring? We still have some spots left.”
“Oh no, no,” Tang Yao waved her hand. “I’ve only been here for such a short time. Even if I were offered a spot, I wouldn’t dare accept it. By the way, are you all having lunch?” Tang Yao changed the subject. “If not, let’s order together. You’ve all been working hard with the overtime lately.”
Fan Linlang, now more familiar with Tang Yao, joked, “Are you treating us as the department or as Deputy Director Tang? Should we order expensive dishes or even pricier ones?”
“Me, me, me!” Tang Yao raised her hand like a schoolchild, causing her colleagues to burst into laughter.
The food arrived quickly, and Tang Yao joined everyone for the meal.
One female colleague was scrolling through Weibo while sipping her soup. Suddenly, she spat out a mouthful onto the table and scrambled for napkins. “Deputy Tang, you’re trending! You’ve gone viral,” she spluttered between coughs.
“Huh?” Tang Yao looked bewildered. “I’m trending?”
Fan Linlang quickly pulled up the page and handed her phone to Tang Yao, who was left speechless.
The cause was simple: The famous Jiang, with his eight-digit follower count, had reposted Tang Yao’s Weibo from the previous night. Comments and likes quickly surpassed ten thousand.
Marketing accounts under Yixiu Media, following their boss’s activity, clicked on this “This Yao” blogger with 488 followers and 108 fans, instantly sensing a potential viral story.
“This Yao” followed a diverse range of accounts – personal friends, celebrities, beauty bloggers… much like most Weibo users.
However, her followers were noteworthy. The first was Jiang Shiyan, the second was Zhou Jingyu, a famous teacher who dominated the college entrance exam guidebook rankings, the third was Tang Chong, a verified chief engineer of China Railway, the fourth was Feng Weiran of TAXI, then Jiang Yanan, followed by some of China’s top analysts and VC bigwigs like Zhou Mo, then Cheng Siran…
Tang Yao’s Weibo content wasn’t extensive, mainly consisting of thoughts she didn’t want to share on WeChat moments.
The most influential marketing account pieced together the clues and threw out labels like “scholarly family,” “female Ph.D.,” and “youngest deputy director of Hui Shang Bank,” which spread like wildfire.
When Tang Yao was looking at Fan Linlang’s phone, her follower count was just over five thousand.
By the time she frantically found her phone, it had already grown to ten thousand.
Tang Yao usually maintained good relationships with her colleagues. They teased, “Can we take sneaky photos of you to submit, like with celebrities?”
While setting all her Weibo posts to friends-only, Tang Yao replied, “Don’t do that, the celebrities would cry.”
Fan Linlang consoled her, “Deputy Tang, you should be confident about your looks at least. No need to be modest.”
“It’s about presence,” Tang Yao weakly protested. “When celebrities are photographed candidly, it’s one stunning face among millions. If I were photographed candidly, it’d be one bush of curly hair among millions.” She imitated a hairstylist, “Hey, want to try Tony’s style?”
Her colleagues roared with laughter.
The more gossip-hungry ones probed Tang Yao about the truthfulness of the marketing accounts’ content.
Tang Yao sidestepped the main issues and shared some amusing anecdotes instead. For instance, how middle school kids wouldn’t play with her once they found out who her mother was. Or how she got a new dad every year because her skin would tan differently in various places – sometimes she looked Asian, sometimes African, sometimes like a caveman…
Everyone was in stitches, and any feelings of envy nipped in the bud.
After chatting with everyone for a while, Tang Yao returned to her office and immediately video-called Jiang Shiyan.
She felt that her angry expression would be more direct and impactful in person.
Jiang Shiyan was eating when he suddenly saw a certain someone’s puffed-up face, nearly stuffing carrot strips up his nose.
Tang Yao smiled, “Is your brain under construction recently? Being an idiot can be fatal, you know.”
“I’m glad you’re still alive,” Jiang Shiyan knew why she was calling. He wiped his mouth and said, “I honestly didn’t know I still had that kind of influence. After all, I haven’t posted on Weibo for nearly half a year. I didn’t expect it to trend naturally…”
“You’re so slick at passing the buck, were you a shot putter in your past life?” Tang Yao was so angry she laughed. “Do you know how irresponsible it is to casually change someone’s life trajectory? Do you know that the second I found out I’d gone viral, I almost started planning to quit my job and travel around taking photos to earn millions…”
Jiang Shiyan: “The big internet celebrity family welcomes you.”
Tang Yao took a deep breath: “Either delete the Weibo post or do something about it. I don’t want to see myself trending anymore.”
Jiang Shiyan clicked his tongue: “Aunt Zhou would get a headache from that grammatically incorrect sentence…” Seeing Tang Yao’s darkening face, Jiang Shiyan coughed lightly, “…Brother Yao, I was wrong.”
Tang Yao didn’t say a word.
Jiang Shiyan caved: “Brother Yao, I’ll arrange it right away. Please forgive me. I didn’t think it through at the time. I only found out when my assistant just told me.”
Tang Yao stared at him calmly.
If it weren’t for the employees outside occasionally glancing in, Jiang Shiyan would have gotten on his knees for Tang Yao: “Really, really, I’ll take care of it in ten minutes. I’ll make sure you’re completely forgotten. Please don’t look at me with that genuinely angry expression. When you look like that, I get scared… Just tell me if you want the moon or the stars.”
Tang Yao couldn’t help but snort, then immediately composed herself and ended the video call without another word.
Jiang Shiyan immediately instructed his team to push down the trending topic with other news. Only after confirming Tang Yao was no longer trending did he finally relax, finish wiping his mouth, and stand up to leave.
His assistant, who had witnessed the whole thing, followed him and whispered, “The marketing accounts asked me about it, but I hadn’t heard you mention her much, so I thought she was just an ordinary friend.”
“She’s not,” Jiang Shiyan shook his head.
The assistant breathed a sigh of relief: “That’s good…”
Jiang Shiyan stopped and looked back, seeming to let out a chuckle: “She’s my ancestor.”
The assistant: “…”
Although Tang Yao only trended for less than two hours, a production team used screenshots of her Weibo as a starting point, expanding to Zhang Zhilan, and after extensive investigation, submitted a theme about martyrs’ families on the last day of the topic selection meeting, titled “Hidden Gem.”
The documentary at the beginning of the year was Yixiu Media’s heavyweight project, and the topic selection meeting lasted for nearly a month, with all parties taking it very seriously.
The investors carefully considered and rejected this topic, but Jiang Shiyan gave it the green light.
The investors wanted to change it, but Jiang Shiyan wouldn’t allow it.
Both sides were very firm in their attitudes, and what followed were rounds of evaluation meetings and discussions, second rounds of evaluation meetings and discussions…
After several days of back and forth, both parties’ patience finally reached its limit.
At 10 PM on Friday, in the top-floor conference room of Yixiu Media, the lights were bright, and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Although Yixiu Media hadn’t been established for long, its number of hit productions and topic coverage were far ahead in the entire industry.
The investors had made a fortune from Yixiu’s documentary projects in the first two years, so naturally, they wanted to continue in the third year. Their tone softened a bit: “Mr. Jiang, perhaps we didn’t express ourselves clearly. We’re not saying this topic isn’t intriguing, but it indeed deviates from the direction indicated by our big data. We can collaborate on this topic in future projects, but using it for the year-opening documentary… still needs consideration.”
The investor glanced cautiously at Jiang Shiyan and repeated their reasons: “Firstly, the profession and persona of the martyr’s family member lack highlights. A celebrity livestreaming and a supermarket cashier livestreaming are on two different levels. Secondly, ‘martyr’s family’ implies that the martyr’s sacrifice has already occurred, and the audience might not be able to experience the heroism and sense of mission from the documentary.”
After speaking, they looked at Jiang Shiyan.
Previously, Jiang Shiyan would listen to their data reports, but now, he didn’t even bat an eyelid.
“If you think it won’t work, just withdraw your investment outright. Since you’ve stated that you’re unwilling to withdraw, what you’re offering is merely a suggestion,” he raised his finger, tapping the mahogany table one beat at a time, “I’m the one making the decision.”
The investors looked troubled: “We certainly trust Mr. Jiang’s judgment, but this topic is pushing it. We also don’t want something that could be a benchmark to end up as a total loss.”
What makes a benchmark? Something convincing is a benchmark.
Did Tang Yao cry that day? She did.
Did she feel upset? She did.
Did she laugh? She did…
So there was absolutely no problem with this topic.
Jiang Shiyan usually loved to joke around and seemed easy to get along with, but when he truly reined in his playfulness and sat in the main seat playing with a lighter, none of the ten people present dared to make a sound.
After a long while.
Investor: “Mr. Jiang…”
“‘Hidden Gem’ won’t be changed, and I don’t want to have any more meaningless meetings like this. I’ll give you half a day to consider whether to withdraw your investment,” Jiang Shiyan stood up and said to his assistant, “Work a bit harder over the weekend, either sign the contract or hold a bidding meeting. I want to see a complete and finalized plan before work starts on Monday.”
He walked to the door, “Oh, right,” remembering something, Jiang Shiyan turned his head and addressed the room, “When Yixiu was restructured, quite a few people said I would fail. How long did they predict it would take again?” Jiang Shiyan tilted his head to ask his assistant.
The assistant answered softly: “Six months.”
Jiang Shiyan let out a particularly contemptuous “Oh”: “Six months.”
Then, he walked out.
The assistant cleared his throat and emphasized once more to the investors in a low voice: “Six months.”
Then followed Jiang Shiyan without looking back.
The investors naturally withdrew their funds, and Yixiu Media found a new backer almost seamlessly.
On Saturday afternoon, Tang Yao met with Jiang Yanan for dessert. It was only when she overheard girls at a nearby table chatting that she realized Jiang Shiyan had been busy with this topic recently, and the one he had settled on was “Hidden Gem,” which she had once been tangentially involved with.
Tang Yao and Jiang Yanan had ordered a durian mille-crepe cake, but they only ate half of it.
Tang Yao called over the waiter to pack it up and said to Jiang Yanan, “Don’t waste it. You can take it back for Vegetable to eat.”
“Vegetables don’t eat leftovers,” Jiang Yanan said. “Sister Yao, you can take it to my brother on your way. He’s working overtime at the company.”
Tang Yao thought about it and realized that by detouring through three blocks, four intersections, and eight traffic lights, it could indeed be considered “on the way.” She nodded, “Alright, that works for me. It’s quite convenient.”
With a face full of coquettish frankness.
Jiang Yanan hid her smile and casually handed the food box to her.