Chapter 287
Penguin Tower in Shencheng, WeChat Business Department President's Office.
Heavy blackout curtains blocked the glaring sunlight outside the window.
On the large desk, various data reports were piled up in a scattered mess.
Liang Dong's eyes were glued to the computer screen. The high-definition photo of the data-free SIM card made his temples throb.
His proud chain of schemes had actually become a joke in the face of naked profit.
He grabbed the phone on the desk and dialed Brother Hei's number.
As soon as the call connected, the noisy sound of calling numbers in a business hall rushed over, mixed with the quarrels of middle-aged women fighting over queue tickets.
He could even clearly hear a Unicom salesperson pitching the MicroChat data-free plan in a sweet voice.
Liang Dong gritted his back teeth. "Brother Hei, isn't this a bit unethical? Where is your professional morality?!"
Brother Hei on the other end of the phone didn't feel guilty at all; instead, he confidently raised his voice.
"President Liang, a wise man submits to circumstances.
"You have no idea, the queue outside this business hall stretches all the way to the curb.
"This MicroChat data-free card can save the brothers hundreds in data fees a month. With hundreds of people in our studio, that's solid, real money."
Brother Hei paused on the other end, and a louder sales pitch came from the background.
"As the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.
"We are also considering the long-term development of the studio.
"The little bit of troll-army fee Penguin gave isn't even enough to pay our internet bills.
"If you are really sincere, multiply the budget by ten, otherwise the brothers won't even have the motivation to post.
"My brothers here are almost done queuing. Cards are registered, do not disturb!"
With that, only a busy tone remained in the earpiece.
Listening to the busy tone on his phone, Liang Dong was so angry that his fingertips trembled.
He raised his arm and swept the newly replaced coffee cup off the desk onto the floor again.
The sound of shattering porcelain echoed in the spacious office, and brown coffee stains quickly spread across the carpet.
He couldn't accept that the elite troll army he had hired at great expense had actually defected on the battlefield.
Just such a newly founded, hillbilly company, and both he and Su Wan, two elite returnees, couldn't take it down?
Is this MicroChat toxic?!
Liang Dong's eyes unconsciously turned red, and then he roared at his assistant shrinking in the corner:
"Immediately contact the backup troll studio for me. No matter how much it costs, I want smear articles about MicroChat stealing data plastered all over the internet!!!"
"Y-yes, sir."
The assistant swallowed hard and frantically opened his computer to contact the next agency.
As soon as the backup troll army heard it was an urgent big order from Penguin, they immediately demanded an exorbitant price.
And to complete the task, the assistant could only grit his teeth and agree to the other party's outrageous quote.
Ten minutes later, thousands of shoddily produced smear articles quickly flooded major message boards and forums.
The assistant looked at those dry press releases on the screen, carefully observing Liang Dong's livid face, wondering if he should speak his mind.
Now that MicroChat's momentum was already established, sending out these articles was just like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
The result was obvious. Less than five minutes after the smear articles were posted, they vanished without a trace into the internet-wide carnival of people showing off their data-free SIM cards.
Under the few sporadic hate posts still holding on, the comments were uniformly ruthless mockery from netizens.
"Did the original poster's village just get internet? You're posting this kind of stuff?"
"I'm replying with my newly registered data-free card. I can use as much data as I want without feeling bad at all. What are you yapping about?"
"Is this Penguin's troll army? They only know how to play dirty tricks. If you have the guts, do a network-wide data-free plan and fight head-on."
A few others directly posted screenshots of their bills from last month to fight back.
The screenshots clearly showed the minuscule deduction records after using MicroChat.
Liang Dong stared at the steadily rising curve of MicroChat's daily active users data in the backend, only feeling a wave of dizziness.
Clutching his faintly aching chest, he slumped into his leather chair, panting heavily.
At this moment, he finally experienced the overwhelming sense of powerlessness that Su Wan had felt when she faced MicroChat earlier.
Qinglin City, GR Company President's Office.
Sunlight streamed through the bright floor-to-ceiling windows, spilling onto the wood-colored desk.
Li Sinan held a tablet, laughing so hard she was trembling and could barely stand straight.
She reported the bizarre operation of Penguin's troll army defecting and running to queue up for SIM cards to Gu Ran in full detail.
Having just finished eating with his sister and returned to his dorm, Gu Ran leaned back in his chair, overjoyed after hearing this.
Then he opened his computer, logged directly into GR Technology's official Weibo, and drafted a post.
The title of the post had huge characters: The competitor is a **!
"I heard the troll army our friendly competitor hired with heavy cash are all queuing up to register for our data-free cards? Thanks to our friendly competitor for generously gifting us performance metrics. GR Company reminds everyone once again to look for Unicom business halls. Register early and enjoy early."
After posting this text, he still felt it wasn't enough. He rummaged through his gallery for a long time and specifically attached an animated sticker saying "Thank you, Boss."
The little character in the sticker had its butt in the air, kowtowing and bowing vigorously.
Far away in Shencheng, the moment Liang Dong refreshed his feed, he saw this official Weibo post that stabbed right into his heart. Seeing that punchable sticker, his vision went black with anger.
The public opinion war that Penguin had carefully prepared for declared bankruptcy before it even started.
After posting on Weibo, Gu Ran grinned and took out his phone, sending a sticker of a puppy poking its head out to the aloof girl to test the waters.
At this time, Ye Zhenzhen was sitting at her desk, flipping through a thick textbook.
Hearing the vibration, she immediately picked up her phone.
Looking at the sticker on the screen, a smile subconsciously rippled on her lips.
Zhao Xiaoxiao beside her leaned over to take a look, and immediately stretched her tone in a sarcastic manner.
"Oh my, this sour stench of love is about to suffocate people.
"Our iceberg goddess has now completely molded into his shape."
Chen Jing covered her mouth and chuckled on the side, blinking at the girl whose ears were burning.
"Ahhh, Xiaoxiao, stop your nonsense!"
"Who molded into his shape!"
With that said, the two tangled together, tickling each other.
On the other side, seeing that Ye Zhenzhen hadn't replied, Gu Ran directly pressed the voice message button.
"Doctor Ye, going to the library to read?"
The phone vibrated again. The girl in the female dorm hurriedly dropped her roommate, trotted back to the desk, and picked up her phone.
Listening to the boy's voice in the message, a trace of sweetness welled up in her heart, though her words remained unforgiving.
She cleared her throat, held down the voice button, and replied.
"Her Highness is in a good mood today, so I'll reluctantly accompany you to study."
After sending the voice message, she placed her phone face down on the desk, stood up, walked to the wardrobe, and began picking out clothes to wear out.
Knowing that the girl still had to change clothes, Gu Ran arrived at the library early to save seats.
Even though it was break time, the library was still packed to the brim, as expected of the top university in the province.
He wandered around for a few laps before finally spotting a pair of empty adjacent seats.
But the moment he sat down, the chair next to him was pulled out, and an unexpected figure took the seat...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
