Starting from a Bar to Sign Internet Celebrities

Chapter 370 - 218: Impossible? Actually Faking the Data

"But their numbers are really strong," his assistant said with a frown.

Master Yu gritted his teeth. "Buy a million likes. Widen the gap immediately."

"Buy numbers? It’ll be really embarrassing if we get caught," a member of his team said worriedly.

Master Yu immediately retorted, "I’m a star of my caliber. No one will say anything if I take the top spot, and no one will be suspicious. Tiao Yin won’t disrespect me by specifically checking my numbers."

That was true.

Tiao Yin was currently trying to attract celebrities to open accounts on their platform, so of course they wouldn’t check their boss’s data over something so trivial.

The assistant immediately started making calls. When it came to buying numbers, the entertainment industry had plenty of tricks up its sleeve.

You could say that a lot of the data in the entertainment industry was never completely real anyway. They were just buying some likes, and it was easy to find people to do it.

So, before long, Master Yu saw the likes on his music video for "Symptom" begin to climb at an even faster rate.

By the time their late-night snack was over, the assistant reported, "Boss, at this rate of growth, you’ll have an extra million likes out of thin air. The other side shouldn’t be able to catch up."

"Good!" Master Yu finally relaxed upon hearing this. After they finished, he went straight back to rest.

He’d had a bit too much champagne, and he was starting to feel it.

...

[You have expended 1 Constitution Point through exercise. Your constitution has increased!]

After Chen Jincheng expended another Constitution Point, Wang Qiqi, who was still staring at the music chart on her phone, looked up in surprise. "Boss, it looks like people are piling on to join the fun."

"Just saw that this girl’s video might beat Master Yu, so I’m dropping a like to join the fun."

"Haha, this ’Crescent Bay’ sounds way better than his ritual. Dropping a like to show support!"

"Haha, isn’t this way better than his ritual?"

"..."

Chen Jincheng wasn’t surprised by this.

Netizens could pile on to like Master Yu’s video, pushing his live ritual to the top so more people could see him make a fool of himself. Now that they saw a video that could push his ritual down, they didn’t mind contributing a like to "Crescent Bay" either.

Just then, Wang Qiqi suddenly spoke up again. "Boss, something’s not right. The rate of likes for Master Yu’s video has suddenly gotten extremely fast."

Puzzled, Chen Jincheng took the phone. He saw the growth rate of his opponent’s numbers, and his brow furrowed as he noticed something was off.

The growth in likes was irregular!

’That meant there was a problem.’

He immediately called Xiaohai and asked him to monitor Master Yu’s data.

Xiaohai was already home, but his boss had given an order. He had no choice but to immediately open the data monitoring software on his laptop, connecting a web crawler to Master Yu’s Tiao Yin video.

He quickly discovered that the growth in his opponent’s data was indeed off. After a period of rapid increase, the growth trend slowed down, and only then did the numbers start to look normal again.

He immediately called his boss back.

Chen Jincheng answered on the first ring. Xiaohai reported, "Boss, the growth in their numbers is definitely off. According to the monitoring, if you subtract the data from the normal growth trend, they gained at least a million likes in a very short period."

"If there was no promotional push, they most likely bought them. But if Tiao Yin was doing a promotional push, it wouldn’t have been for such a short time."

"In other words, they bought the likes!" Chen Jincheng understood.

’I can’t believe a famous star like him would pull a stunt like this,’ he thought. ’But then again, it’s all for fame and fortune. Why wouldn’t a star pull this kind of stunt?’

"Boss, in that case, can we still surpass their numbers?" Wang Qiqi asked worriedly, now that she knew they had cheated.

Of course, Chen Jincheng had a plan.

For example, they could buy likes, so he could buy them too.

But that could easily turn into a botting war. If they bought too many, it would be more likely to blow up in their faces and become obvious.

There were too many savvy people online.

The key was Tiao Yin. If the platform suddenly decided to check the data and do a mass purge of fake numbers, a sudden, massive drop in likes would be a huge loss of face.

The most typical example was during the era when the authorities issued documents to clean up the internet and crack down on violations. Almost no influencer was spared. Imagine having over 20 million followers one night and just over 3 million the next. How embarrassing would that be?

"Don’t worry. Aren’t there people piling on just to see Master Yu get humiliated? There must be a lot of them. We can guide them over here," Chen Jincheng said with a smile, simultaneously making a call to Yijin.

The easiest way to attract all the netizens who wanted to see Master Yu humiliated was to have Yijin and those "slicing accounts" take action. All they had to do was have their massive army of slicing accounts post about how Master Yu was suspected of buying numbers to get the top spot.

A lot of netizens had a contrarian attitude toward Master Yu. Even if there was nothing in it for them, many of them enjoyed seeing him embarrassed.

Once the call connected, he explained the task to Yijin.

Yijin had been thoroughly bought by that Panamera long ago. Even though it was the middle of the night, he acted quickly. Before long, videos about Master Yu buying numbers started to spread, complete with the monitoring data Xiaohai had sent over.

Anyone who wasn’t an idiot could see that Master Yu’s numbers during that period were abnormal.

Not long after, Wang Qiqi’s surprised voice rang out again. "Boss, it worked! A lot of people have been drawn over. Look at these comments."

"Hey girl, I specifically unliked Master Yu’s video to come like yours. I originally just wanted more people to see him make a fool of himself."

"Haha, girl, I unliked his video too!"

"Contributing a like just to see Master Yu get humiliated."

"..."

Chen Jincheng wasn’t surprised by this situation either. It just meant Yijin’s operation was effective.