Chapter 128 - 121: Started Trending
Chapter 128: Chapter 121: Started Trending
Gao Yuan scrolled through his notifications and found a missed video call from his mom. He hadn’t answered because he was in the shower, so she had sent him a message instead.
"Son, I saw you on TikTok!"
The message included a screenshot of Gao Yuan singing "Lovely Woman."
But it was already very late, so Gao Yuan didn’t reply to his mom, planning to get back to her tomorrow.
Besides the message from his mom, there were also messages from former colleagues. The Yuanfang Company group chat, in particular, was about to explode.
Employees were @’ing him one after another to congratulate him.
They felt a shared sense of honor that their own boss was able to perform on the same stage as a superstar king like Jay Chou.
Gao Yuan scrolled through the group chat history and saw that the TikTok livestream team had actually gone to the office late at night to start a broadcast!
’Isn’t this work ethic a little *too* enthusiastic?’
Gao Yuan couldn’t just let this go unnoticed. He immediately sent a large red envelope in the company group chat, making sure everyone could grab one hundred yuan.
Then he opened TikTok again and entered the GY Brand livestream channel.
He was so shocked his jaw almost dropped. The livestream’s background had been changed to a video of him singing with Old Xue, and the host was selling products with "Hollow Heart" playing as the background music.
The livestream was really buzzing at this hour. There were several thousand people online at the same time. The channel had even put up a sticker that read: GY Brand Founder Performs on Stage with Jay Chou!
Even though it was a sales livestream, the topic of conversation was all about Jay Chou’s concert.
However, that didn’t stop orders from rolling in. In the short time he’d been watching, he had already seen many people place orders.
Gao Yuan felt a bit awkward. He hadn’t expected to be exposed by his own employees before the paparazzi even got to him.
’They really know how to ride the hype train and cash in on the traffic!’
’This operations manager is pretty good. I’ll reward him with a big chicken leg tomorrow!’
Gao Yuan watched for a while longer before leaving the livestream. If his employees wanted to work, he’d let them work.
’Stopping them now would just crush their enthusiasm!’
He had just closed TikTok when his WeChat chimed again.
He switched back to the WeChat interface and saw it was a message from Xiao Xiao.
"You sang well."
Looking at the message, Gao Yuan didn’t reply immediately.
He couldn’t quite figure out why Xiao Xiao would say that. ’Did she go to the concert too?’
’If Xiao Xiao saw me at the concert, does that mean she also saw Lin Wanyu and Li Mengqing?’
’If so, why would she still message me at a time like this?’
Gao Yuan thought for a moment before replying, "Aren’t my massage skills amazing?"
After sending the reply, Gao Yuan put his phone on silent, burrowed into his quilt, and fell asleep with his arms around Lin Wanyu and Li Mengqing.
「No.1 Courtyard, 26th Floor.」
Lying in her bed, Xiao Xiao smiled faintly as she read Gao Yuan’s reply.
’What a textbook scumbag.’
’He has two girlfriends already and still dares to flirt with me.’
The shot of Gao Yuan holding the hands of two women had only flashed across the big screen for an instant, but she had seen it.
However, Gao Yuan’s heartfelt confession in that song had left a rather good impression on Xiao Xiao.
’At the very least, Gao Yuan owns up to his actions. He’s quite open and straightforward in what he does.’
One could only say that a woman’s thought process is truly a peculiar thing.
She had somehow interpreted a scumbag like Gao Yuan as being responsible and dependable.
"Come by and get a membership card when you have time."
Xiao Xiao sent her reply to Gao Yuan, then put her phone down to rest.
Meanwhile, Jay Chou’s concert was still going on.
Although the subsequent songs and guest performers were all very satisfying to the fans, the show never quite reached the level he had imagined.
How to put it? It just felt like the atmosphere hadn’t been pushed to its absolute peak. It was always missing that little something, but it just couldn’t get there.
Even after the concert ended, on his way back to the hotel to rest, Jay Chou was still wondering whether or not he should invite Gao Yuan to be a guest performer at the Shanghai concert.
「Online.」
Even before Jay Chou’s concert was over, it had already caused a huge sensation online.
There were two main topics.
The first topic: Mysterious Guest Performer Appears at Jay Chou’s Hang City Concert
It was mainly about Gao Yuan’s appearance at the concert. This was a golden opportunity to ride the traffic wave, and a host of internet influencers stayed up all night writing copy and shooting videos.
This also led everyone who saw the videos to speculate about Gao Yuan’s identity.
They were curious how an ordinary e-commerce professional could sing a song like that.
Before long, the reveal of Gao Yuan’s identity appeared in the comment sections: Founder of GY Brand.
This comment was bought by Ma Yiming, GY’s TikTok operations manager, who had hired a water army. Almost every short video involving Gao Yuan had a similar comment below it.
The second topic: "Hollow Heart" is a hit again.
This time it was a bit more straightforward. It was unclear if Jay Chou’s team was behind it, but before the concert even ended, a high-quality audio-only version of the song had appeared online.
After being edited and auto-tuned, the song was even more stunning, and everyone who heard it was completely captivated.
Almost everyone who listened to the song felt that this was a man with a story; you couldn’t sing with that much emotion unless your heart had been completely broken by love.
Regardless, Gao Yuan had gone viral, and the song "Hollow Heart" had blown up with him.
As a result, ticket prices for Jay Chou’s upcoming concert in Shanghai also skyrocketed.
「Two hours later, at Century Center.」
In the offices of Yuanfang Company, Ma Yiming sat in front of his computer, his expression changing as he watched the livestream data.
The main reason was that a flood of new people had poured into the livestream. They started spamming comments the moment they arrived, and these passersby almost instantly diluted the account tags he had previously established.
Even the host was a little stunned!
’How did so many people show up?’
The number of concurrent viewers in the livestream was approaching one hundred thousand!
Not a single person who came in was listening to her introduce the face masks; they were all commenting about Gao Yuan attending the concert.
"Gao Yuan’s ’Hollow Heart’ is the best version I’ve ever heard!"
"Where’s your boss? Get him over here to sing!"
Even though these people were just spamming the chat, orders were still popping up in the backend from time to time.
This left Ma Yiming and the host feeling both pained and overjoyed. They were making money while lying down!
’It feels so good to just lie flat and win.’
Watching the comments in the livestream, Ma Yiming went to the hallway for a smoke. He wanted to call Gao Yuan. If Gao Yuan came to the livestream and sang again right now, he was confident he could push the channel’s popularity even higher.
But he looked at the time—it was almost eleven o’clock—and ultimately decided not to call.
’If I interrupt the boss’s... *good life*, I’ll probably get myself killed.’
"Ignore the comment section. Just keep looping the product introduction!"
Returning to the livestream room, Ma Yiming gave the instruction to the host, then went back to his workstation, logged into the TikTok Shop backend, and opened up the Qianchuan advertising platform.
With a flurry of activity, he added a series of trending keywords like "GY Flagship Store," "GY Brand Founder," and "Gao Yuan," directing all that traffic toward the livestream.
At the same time, he enabled automatic returns and refunds in the shop’s settings.
Although these people were buying products, it was mostly impulse shopping, and they were very likely to request returns and refunds. Enabling this feature would prevent it from significantly affecting the shop’s rating.
He had just checked, and over three thousand orders had already been placed in this short period.
Just then, two more pieces of bombshell news broke online.
Originally, the discussion about Gao Yuan was concentrated on TikTok; other platforms didn’t have such intense debates.
But then both Jay Chou and Old Xue posted on Weibo, and they even @’d each other.
Jay Chou: The Hang City concert was a great success. A huge thanks to our mysterious guest performer today. His vocals and stage presence were both incredible. I personally loved his covers of "Lovely Woman" and "Hollow Heart." See you at the Shanghai concert.
He even attached an edited video of the performance below the post.
One could imagine Jay Chou’s status in the music industry. After he sent out this Weibo post, almost every musician and major influencer took notice.
Many people watched the video and were blown away by Gao Yuan’s singing, but they realized they had no idea who this person was.
One by one, they started asking in their social circles, "Who is Gao Yuan?"
Old Xue’s Weibo post, on the other hand, was even more direct.
Old Xue: It’s a shame I forgot to get his contact info at the concert. Everyone, please help me @ tonight’s mysterious guest. I want to formally invite him to be a special guest at my New Year’s Eve concert!
He also posted the video of Gao Yuan’s performance below his message.
Old Xue couldn’t care less how many girlfriends Gao Yuan had. He had his own dark history and was famous in an infamous sort of way.
He only cared that Gao Yuan’s singing was good, explosive enough, and could resonate with one’s very soul.
He had been right there next to Gao Yuan as he sang, so the impact on him was far more profound than it was for others.
And as a seasoned singer himself, he could clearly perceive how skilled Gao Yuan was. The transition from low notes to high notes, then instantly into a powerful, gritty tone—to handle all that so perfectly was not something just any singer could do.
The Weibo posts from these two titans of the music industry completely blew Gao Yuan up on the platform.
Not long after they posted, someone commented below that Gao Yuan was the head of the GY brand.
However, a photo also appeared showing Gao Yuan holding the hands of two girls at the same time. You could only say there were a lot of nosy people in the world. These people had nothing better to do than meddle in other people’s business.
Luckily, the people managing Jay Chou’s and Old Xue’s Weibo accounts saw these comments and deleted them immediately, giving netizens no time to react.
But, a small number of voices still appeared online discussing the matter.
Some people went so far as to slap the "scumbag" label right on Gao Yuan.
Of course, most people were more interested in Gao Yuan’s singing. It wasn’t like he was married and having an affair; he just had an extra girlfriend while dating.
He was infinitely better than those guys who kept a bunch of backup options.
With the boost from Jay Chou’s and Old Xue’s Weibo posts, the name "Gao Yuan" began to gain serious traction on the platform.
In just a few short hours, "Who is Gao Yuan" appeared in the top ten of Weibo’s trending topics.
And those who knew Gao Yuan was the founder of the GY brand proactively searched for it, discovering that it sold skincare products.
Many of the women among them chose to place an order to try it out.
This was especially true for Jay Chou’s and Old Xue’s fans. In their eyes, since Gao Yuan would be participating in their idols’ concerts, he was a friend of the fans.
It was only right to show some support.
At Century Center, Ma Yiming’s eyes were red as he watched the continuously rising number of online viewers.
At that moment, Wang Hao, the head of the Tmall store, and Li Mingyu, the head of the JD.com store, also arrived at the office.
They couldn’t help it. The ceaseless flow of orders on their phones made it impossible for either of them to sleep.
Even the three hosts from the GY Flagship Store’s TikTok department showed up.
The main issue was that one host broadcasting for so long was simply unsustainable.
If she kept going, her voice would be ruined by tomorrow.