As expected by Hu Qian, soon the follower count of this Weibo account broke through ten thousand, and her statement received over thirty thousand likes.
Furthermore, when the trending topic "Guardian of the Campus Beauty Scholar" reached the top spot, her Weibo followers surged past the hundred thousand mark.
It's worth noting that within less than half a year of the app's launch, reaching a hundred thousand followers was something typically achieved by third-tier influencers on Weibo.
Watching her follower count steadily increase, Hu Qian dared not open her private messages or the Weibo posts that mentioned her.
Her fingernails dug slightly into her palm as she watched the follower count climb, tears gradually welling up in her eyes.
Her roommates, seeing her cry, rushed to comfort her, as they too had seen from Weibo that Hu Qian was a victim, a naive girl who had been deceived by her father.
Hu Qian buried her head in her roommate's embrace and cried bitterly, soaking the fluffy chest of her roommate's pajamas to a deeper shade than the surrounding fabric.
Just as Hu Qian had managed to compose herself, her phone rang.
It was Du Yongfu.
Looking at his name, Hu Qian's eyes darkened.
She didn't even dare to answer the call. Du Yongfu was already the most eligible bachelor she could find. In fact, Du Yongfu had hinted at wanting to go on a trip to a hotel, but the memory of that night made her refuse.
And now...
Closing her eyes, Hu Qian answered the phone.
"Hello?"
"Let's break up, Qianqian. My mom saw your photos in my space, and she knows you are Hu Qian."
Hu Qian felt her throat grow dry.
"Okay."
It was her first real boyfriend, so it was a lie to say she wasn't emotionally invested. Hu Qian had even imagined marrying Du Yongfu, having a little girl, and going hiking in the park during the holidays.
One's choices always involve trade-offs. Hu Qian chose to become an internet celebrity, giving up Du Yongfu, or rather, men like Du Yongfu who were suitable for marriage.
---
Liu Chen was currently communicating with Yu Bing.
"New products will be launched tomorrow. When they are listed, do not post any promotional material."
Yu Bing: Boss, if we launch now, just one Weibo post from you can generate high attention, right?
Liu Chen: People prefer to receive willingly, rather than be compelled to give.
After sending this message, Yu Bing remained silent for a long time.
Finally, Yu Bing replied: Understood, boss.
Since Yu Bing understood, Liu Chen didn't interfere further. With the dividends from "League of Legends" and "Penguin Farm" arriving again, coupled with the rent income from properties in various locations for the new year, and the one hundred million borrowed from Elder Chen lying in his bank account.
And the tens of millions remaining after paying for land purchase and subsequent renovations.
The lottery tickets had also accumulated to three thousand again. Liu Chen lay on his bed, looking at the ten limited-range lottery tickets in his system space.
His fingers tapped unconsciously on the bedside. After a moment of hesitation, Liu Chen ultimately used only five tickets.
Such precious lottery tickets required careful consideration. Liu Chen finally decided on the scope for the draw:
"Fix the range to meat-based, room-temperature snack food recipes."
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the system did not appear with a spinning wheel as expected. Instead, the system's voice sounded again.
"Host, the requested range is too broad. Please specify again."
Liu Chen raised his eyebrows, turned over, and lay on his side, looking at the moonlight on the floor. He thought again:
"Fix the range to room-temperature snack food recipes."
This time, the system's voice did not sound. Instead, according to Liu Chen's wish, a lottery spinning wheel appeared.
The color of this spinning wheel was the same as the packaging of Liu Chen's Meimei Sausage, a peach pink.
"Start drawing."
The spinning wheel began to rotate rapidly, and soon, the pointer stopped.
'Received a recipe for Delicious Original Flavor Potato Chips (Excellent)'
'Received a recipe for Pure Milk Candy (Excellent)'
'Received a recipe for Milk Chocolate (Excellent)'
'Received a recipe for Strawberry Milk (Excellent)'
'Received a recipe for Soda Crackers (Excellent)'
All five recipes were drawn at once. After finishing, Liu Chen prepared to sleep.
Tonight, Senior Si Yu wanted to sleep alone, so Liu Chen was sleeping in his mother's bedroom. In fact, this was the first time he had slept in his mother's bedroom since the house was renovated.
Lying under the cool quilt, he surveyed his mother's bedroom by moonlight, and Liu Chen couldn't help but smile.
It was because Liu Chen remembered what his mother had said when they lived in a small room in an urban village in his past life:
"If I earn a lot of money in the future and buy a house, I want our rooms to be like this..."
The room before him matched his mother's words from her past life exactly.
After smiling, Liu Chen pulled the cool quilt up to his chest, then placed his hands at his sides, rested his head on the pillow, closed his eyes, and softly said:
"Goodnight, Mom. We will both be better off."
On the evening of February 3, 2010, Weibo's servers crashed due to an excessive number of newly registered users, causing a ten-minute outage.
That night, Weibo's headquarters summoned programmers to work overtime, leased servers for the transition, and the entire first floor of Weibo was brightly lit throughout the night.
After this incident, Weibo's internal staff jokingly referred to Liu Chen as "Card Sister."
The traffic he generated personally was enough to bring down the servers.
By the time Liu Chen woke up, it was already noon the next day. The warm winter sun pierced through the velvet floral curtains custom-made by Liu Fang, momentarily dazzling Liu Chen's eyes.
Realizing he was awake, Liu Chen did not delay. He quickly got up, washed his face in the bathroom, and then walked out of the bedroom. He saw five people working on laptops in the dining room, with Jiang Di sitting beside them, studying for his teacher qualification exam.
"Chenchen, you're awake!"
The first person to notice Liu Chen's appearance was Jiang Di. He put down his teaching qualification books, greeted Liu Chen, and walked into the kitchen to bring out a bowl of hot soy milk and a plate of xiaolongbao.
"Eat first. For lunch, should we have something simple, or is there anything you'd like to eat?"
As Liu Chen sat down at the head of the table, Jiang Di picked up a pen, ready to write down Liu Chen's food preferences in a notebook.
Liu Chen glanced at the nearly full eight-person table and didn't want to trouble his cousin Jiang Di further. He thought for a moment and said,
"There are many people today. Let's go for hot pot at noon. I still have a card from my godmother."
Jiang Di was a little surprised, as he remembered Liu Chen didn't like eating out much. However, he nodded, "Sure, sure!"
The remaining people were even more delighted. They had eaten their cousin's cooking yesterday and his breakfast this morning. Eating any more would make them feel too embarrassed.
Before leaving, Liu Chen glanced at his Taobao shop. At noon, the new pork jerky product was officially launched.