Chapter 29 Thank you, Mr. Ruan, for the 300 million.
"Hello everyone in the live stream, I'm Yu Yu. We're currently more than three million away from the previous person. Are there any fans here who can help me climb up? I really want to see you all."
Yu Yu solemnly held the microphone, and all the lights in the room focused on him alone.
The bright light made his eyes appear watery, as if he were about to cry at any moment.
"Thank you [Little Fish Loves Night Snacks] for the carnival! Thank you [Want to Be a Sister-in-Law] for the Yinxi No. 1 gift, and thank you very much [Han's Dictionary Has No Words] for the boss."
With only ten seconds left in the two-minute campaign period, Ruan Zihan cast over four million votes for Yu Yu in this round, just surpassing Momo, who is currently in eleventh place.
"Ten, nine, eight..." the director shouted excitedly as the countdown began.
However, before Ruan Zihan could relax for long, Momo's activity value suddenly surged within a few seconds, even showing a tendency to surpass Yu Yu's again.
His heart clenched again.
If he can't beat Momo this round, then all his efforts over the past week will have been in vain.
Ruan Zihan began frantically operating on the computer. He had never been so fast before. He didn't even bother to carefully calculate the difference in votes; he just nervously selected the quantity and clicked "gift".
Perhaps to make the audience feel more involved, the special effects of the gifts on the stage in the final round of the competition were made more exaggerated, and a cool live effect was created for each large gift.
After sending off more than a dozen carnivals, the lush green venue seemed to be showered with a silvery rain of fireworks.
The entire stadium erupted in gasps, and the director's voice of gratitude was hoarse from shouting.
Ruan Zihan felt a strange mix of emotions. He breathed a sigh of relief, yet his heart felt like it was being violently gripped.
He pushed Yu Yu to ninth place in this round, thinking he could take a short break, but in the two minutes that Momo campaigned for votes, the votes for the other companies were rising rapidly.
As Momo's segment was nearing its end, Yu Yu dropped to eleventh place again, and it looked like he would have to go on stage again to campaign for votes.
While keeping an eye on the real-time rankings and calculating the activity value, Ruan Zihan quickly operated the vote-buying function, trying his best to keep Yu Yu in the top ten.
However, as the three male anchors who ranked at the bottom were eliminated one after another, the remaining viewers went crazy and started voting, quickly pushing the advancement threshold higher and higher.
There are now only nine people left on the field. Every fan is doing their best to mobilize. In order to prevent Yu Yu from falling to last place, Ruan Zihan can almost hear his own heartbeat. He mechanically goes through the repetitive process of exchanging gifts and selecting people to bet on, regardless of everything.
[Insufficient user balance, wish to top up?]
He had just sent Yu Yu to the eighth position when a gray-red pop-up window suddenly appeared on his computer. Ruan Zihan was stunned for a moment, suspecting that there was a bug in the system.
Before entering the competition, didn't he have over ten million in his account? How come the balance is already insufficient before the elimination round is even halfway through?
As Ruan Zihan scrolled through the gift redemption records from the past twenty minutes, his heart sank.
He never expected that he would unknowingly invest more than ten million yuan in such a short period of time, and that so much money was only enough to send Yu Yu into the top eight.
He's now just two spots away from the top six. If he can raise enough money in a short time, there's still a chance for things to turn around.
It takes at least three hours for the proceeds from selling stocks to be settled and credited to his account. Even for regular bank loans, he has to go to the counter to organize and submit materials. With limited time, he can only download various microloan apps one after another.
At this point, there was no time to worry about anything else. Ruan Zihan quickly took off his mask and sunglasses, opened the loan app, and checked his face against the camera.
The girl next to her glanced sideways and discovered that a big star was sitting next to her. She was pleasantly surprised that the boss of Xinghan also liked watching group broadcasts. She was about to say hello and ask for a photo when she noticed that the star's eyes were red, he was muttering something, and his face had a kind of obsessive madness.
The girl hesitantly lowered her hand, which she had just raised, and observed the other person's actions for a while. Her eyes inadvertently caught sight of the loan app on the other person's personal computer screen, and she was startled.
She quietly moved a little further away and secretly turned on the camera function on her device.
On stage, a girl wearing a dark blue beaded dress was excitedly campaigning for votes. Starting from eleventh place on the real-time rankings, she has now successfully entered the top nine. Tonight, Momo sent off three male streamers in succession during the vote-soliciting segment.
Her team's tactics were very well planned. While others were campaigning for votes, they would usually remain firmly in second to last place and hold their ground. Just when it seemed like the other side was about to overtake them, they would suddenly surge forward in the last ten seconds and push the last-place streamer who was campaigning for votes directly into elimination.
As Momo successfully defended her position on the leaderboard once again, the entire stadium erupted in deafening screams.
This story of a struggling streamer's rise to fame resonated with many people, and even those who hadn't given Momo any gifts in the earlier rounds cast a lot of random votes for her.
The stadium roof lit up in scattered lights, as someone had sent Momo a gift worth 100,000 yuan.
Everyone around him looked up at the ceiling in shock, but Ruan Zihan had no time to appreciate the messy special effects. He frantically siphoned more than two million yuan from the microloan platform and then invested all the money he had made in Yu Yu's name.
Another streamer was quickly eliminated from the competition. Yu Yu is now in eighth place, only a few hundred thousand points behind Mo Mo, who is in first place.
An hour after the broadcast began, Yu Yu stood on the stage again to campaign for votes, his voice slightly choked:
"Could you guys who like me please help me? Could you give me some more votes? I really want to be in the top six..."
The gap between Yu Yu and Mo Mo was getting smaller and smaller. Ruan Zihan had just felt at ease for a moment when he saw the lowest vote count for this round displayed on the right side of the screen.
The rules for the final round of the competition were too complicated. He had forgotten that for each person eliminated, he had to raise 50,000 activity points during the campaigning phase. The starting amount for raising points was 500,000. Now that four people had already left the stage, it meant that he needed to raise at least 700,000 points to pass the microphone in this round.
The money in the microloan app was invested before Yu Yu went on stage, so it can't be counted as part of the vote-soliciting process. In other words, he now needs to find a way to get another 600,000 to 700,000 yuan.
Ruan Zihan's fingers clicked frantically on the personal terminal, sending a message to everyone he was close to:
[My brother's in trouble, can you lend me 500,000? I'll pay you back tonight.]
Chi Yingying replied the fastest: [??? What happened to you? You can't even come up with 500,000?]
Realizing something, she sent a series of smiling emojis:
[Are you still dreaming about getting that streamer into the top six? Do I need someone to piss on you and wake you up?]
Chi Yingying's words stung him, but Ruan Zihan was too preoccupied to retort.
With only fifty seconds left of the two-minute campaign time, Yu Yu on stage not only had a sobbing voice, but also began to wipe away tears with trembling fingers. His handsome face was scrunched up in grievance, and he kept casting expectant glances toward his seat.
He has already invested more than 30 million yuan in total, how can he fail when he is just one step away from success?
He was just a hair's breadth away from sending Yu Yu into the top six, just two places away.
As long as he gets accurate information about Juyu's new short drama, he can beat them to a fight and create a similar replica.
At that time, he will not only be able to recover hundreds of millions of yuan instantly, but also nail Juyu to the pillar of shame for plagiarism, so that the man will never be able to make a comeback.
[Didn't you just borrow over five million from me at the casino last month? Can you pay me back some now? I'm really in a hurry.]
Perhaps seeing that he had sent seven or eight messages in a row, Chi Yingying finally reluctantly transferred 410,500 yuan:
[You know I don't have any savings, this is all I have. I even transferred the money I won this morning to you.]
[Yingying, can you borrow 500,000 yuan from a microloan app and give it to me? I'll sell my stocks tonight and pay you back in full.]
Chi Yingying: [Do you know what you're saying? Are you crazy???]
[I didn't gamble away my brain, don't treat me like an idiot, okay?]
Her nagging kept popping up in the chat interface, but now there were only ten seconds left in the vote-soliciting segment, and he had to hurry up and transfer the money he had just received to Yu Yu.
As long as the casual fans contribute a little more, Yu Yu won't be eliminated...
In the final two seconds, Ruan Zihan's eyes were bloodshot as he looked up at the large screen in the stadium—
The total activity value for this round of Yuyu was finally fixed at 690,020.
I'm just 8,000 yuan short of advancing.
Eight thousand is usually just the price of a meal, but now he's stuck here.
Ruan Zihan couldn't hear Yu Yu's farewell speech. He only felt that all the sounds in the room seemed to be pulled infinitely far away, and his brain felt numb as if it had been soaked in ice.
They were so close, how could they fall to eighth place...?
The people on the campaign stage had changed twice. Ruan Zihan couldn't remember how long he had been in this state. When he came to his senses again, he was drenched in cold sweat.
The girl next to him had a rather intriguing expression, and she waved her arm, adorned with a luxury bracelet, in front of him.
"Are you alright? Do you need me to call for help?"
Ruan Zihan didn't say a word.
The time on the personal computer was clearly showing 10 p.m. He hadn't taken any hallucinogens for over three hours, but he felt almost no craving throughout the entire process, only an eagerness to get tickets.
At this point, his more than 30 million yuan had completely gone down the drain.
He had a vague feeling that he had been tricked, but the voting details for each round of the Juyu Group broadcast were published, and he couldn't find any trace of human intervention in them.
He wanted to find an outlet for his frustration, but found that he couldn't blame anyone but himself for not preparing enough cash in advance, for not remembering the competition rules, and for not borrowing more money from someone before Yu Yu went on stage to campaign for votes.
His internal organs seemed to be clenched into a knot by an inexplicable giant hand; today's situation was all his own doing...
Ruan Zihan absentmindedly opened the message interface and found that the message he sent half an hour ago to borrow money had only received replies from two or three people, and most of them were polite refusals. The message from his assistant only made matters worse:
[Mr. Ruan, if possible, you can bring back the gifts and streamer materials prepared by Juyu!]
Those items that are currently being sold at very high prices on secondhand platforms, I can help list them on our company's shared anonymous account for reselling items tonight.
On stage, the vote-getting contest for the top six to top five was underway. Momo and Duan Jiancen were going back and forth, while Ruan Zihan seemed to have all his strength drained away. He quietly left the stadium early with a large bag of souvenirs.
In the nine years since his rebirth, every investment he made has been at the forefront of the industry, and no matter what he did, he was always successful.
He hadn't felt such pure frustration in a long time.
It was the rainy season on the main planet, and a torrential downpour was blowing outside the Federal Center Stadium.
To conceal his identity, he had no choice but to take the public monorail back. Ruan Zihan, his expression gloomy, opened an umbrella and stepped into the rain.
"His departure time was a little later than I expected." Fang Zhuo watched the surveillance video outside the venue on his personal computer, while the large screen on the other side of the backstage displayed various data from the competition live broadcast.
Jiang Yu added, "After Yu Yu was eliminated, he sat there for another half an hour before leaving."
Fang Zhuo gave a soft "hmm": "That makes sense. He might be having hallucinogenic withdrawal and can't walk."
Tonight, [Han's Dictionary Has No Word for Losing] invested over 15 million in the live stream, which, combined with the previous total, brought in over 300 million in system rebates.
Fang Zhuo did not manipulate the votes at all. He had even prepared a contingency plan with Deng Jiaqiang for what would happen if Ruan Zihan voted Yu Yu into the top six.
But he didn't expect that Ruan Zihan would fall short of advancing to the top seven by just 10,000. It could be said that the opponent was either poor or brainless, or neither.
Fang Zhuo turned his gaze to the main screen. The situation on the field was tense, and it had entered the competition for the top two positions.
Tao Mi, who came in second in the previous round, is now neck and neck with Jian Yujing, and the two have been campaigning for votes in five or six rounds.
Momo, who had made a remarkable comeback all the way, ended up in sixth place. Xiao Xiao, who already had a fan base, came in fifth. Duan Jiancen, who was on the same team as Zhou Zongyun, came in fourth. The host who was recruited from the red carpet event finally managed to get third place.
Inside the stadium, various special effects and gifts were continuously released, one moment a sky full of silver fireworks, the next a golden rain, and the comments section was filled with extraordinary excitement—
[So this is the first time this broadcast is on Xiaoxiong Live? Their platform's viewers are really strong; they managed to push Taomi to the point where she can arm-wrestle with Jian Yujing.]
[6. It seems Momo was also voted on and promoted by their platform... Who remembers that our Momo almost got eliminated in the first round, the legendary comeback queen Momo!]
[Could you please use that sun shower effect at other singers' concerts next time? It's so beautiful!!!]
[Uh...they might not be able to afford it. These kinds of special effects cost extra, and they look like they were specially designed by the art team.]
[I feel like Jing is going to win first place! Fang, please promise me the first place prize won't be discounted, okay? QAQ]
[The lounge and assistants should be fine, but I doubt we can get the giant screen in the Federal Center Plaza for a whole month. It's incredibly expensive there; even top-tier fans wouldn't dare book it for that long. Plus, the schedule is very tight; even getting a full week on screen would be a challenge...]
It's not that I don't believe in Fang Ge's management skills, but we still have to respect the objective laws.
[Jing fans are starting to brag again, taking out loans to boost their numbers. They've already falsely claimed first place before the vote-buying phase is even over. Should we Photoshop a trophy onto their image?]
[Ahhhh, the number of online viewers has surpassed 900,000! Let me take a screenshot!!]
The Star Federation consists of thousands of major and minor stars of varying sizes. Its population is more than ten times that of the Blue Star era. In particular, the entertainment industry is highly developed. It is not uncommon for top streamers or celebrities to have more than 200,000 viewers for their live streams. However, very few live streams can break the 500,000 online viewership mark throughout the year.
Juyu Group Broadcast's investment in advertising this time was almost ten times that of other live broadcasts of the same type, making it the only live broadcast room in the past three years to have a peak online audience of over 900,000 across all platforms.
As Tao Mi was eliminated in the final round with a deficit of over 100,000, a shower of red envelopes began to fall from the sky.
The amount in each red envelope was small enough not to cause a stampede, but the quantity covered the entire venue, and the initially rational shouts of the audience quickly turned into loud exclamations of surprise.
Jian Yujing changed into the black and red cape that belonged to the victor, raised the pure gold trophy high, and gripped the microphone tightly.
As the live stream ended, the system also started displaying various achievement records.
[Congratulations, host! You have achieved the milestone of 'Over 10 million discussions related to your artists'.]
[Congratulations, host! You have obtained the ultra-rare title 'Shield-Breaking Spear']
[You are the sharpest spear, you are the most astute businessman. This title is earned when you directly obtain over 300 million in rebates from your competitors.]
[This update unlocks 2 achievements and titles, and includes two unnamed blind boxes, which have been added to your inventory.]
[Blind Box Instructions: A ten-box draw will be unlocked when you have nine blind boxes. If the density of people within 100 meters of the host exceeds ten, the conditions for automatically opening blind boxes are not met. It is recommended that the host go to an isolated place to select blind boxes.]
This blind box system is quite intelligent. Fang Zhuo then clicked on his remaining lifespan interface.
With the earnings from tonight's final group broadcast, his account cash balance has now reached 5.4 billion, and the survival interface shows that he will be given a basic disease buff by the system in two days.
This time, he spent 600 million to extend his lifespan by two months, and the system immediately popped up a notification.
[Host's current remaining survival days: 102]
[Having survived more than the system's recommended healthy survival time of 40 days, the random disease condition does not apply.]
He has three months left to survive, which finally sounds like he has some leeway and won't always be hovering on the edge of being given a debuff by the system.
The live stream finally ended, and everyone backstage went crazy. The eliminated streamers didn't show any sadness on their faces—they not only gained an unexpectedly huge amount of money tonight, but they will also receive corresponding resources later.
The staff prepared a variety of delicious snacks and drinks backstage, and everyone ate and chatted loudly.
The only person crying backstage was Momo, and she was so excited because she had overtaken so many others in the competition that she cried.
Fang Zhuo beckoned Jiang Yu over: "Later, take everyone to Central City for a meal, pick a nice restaurant."
Jiang Yu nodded. He understood all too well what "good spot" meant; it implied that the budget should be maximized.
Fang Zhuo didn't linger backstage and planned to leave the stadium through the main passage to get back to the hotel as soon as possible to open the blind boxes.
It was already 1:30 a.m., and most of the audience outside the venue had already left. The corridor leading from backstage to the main passage was almost empty.
Just as he was about to cross the corridor, four or five burly men suddenly appeared from around the corner at the end. They were carrying iron bars and stun guns, and had crudely tattooed tattoos on their shoulders.
"Mr. Fang, please wait a moment."
Even though they didn't speak, Fang Zhuo immediately stopped in his tracks.
He stood about ten meters away from the group of people, turned his head to the side and chuckled softly.
With that kind of appearance and business skills, even among the most notorious shady dealers, he's the cheapest.
Perfect timing! After I got the bodyguard employee card tonight, the little superpower I bought with 40 points wouldn't be of any use.
Unexpectedly, Ruan Zihan was so thoughtful, specially sending him the opportunity to test the effects of the system's superpowers.
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