As long as you donate money, the platform will give your account a separate medal on your homepage? And also hand out general traffic coupons?

For people who mess around online, that's damn good stuff.

Normally if you want to apply for some "outdoor talent" verified account or whatever, there are a million rigid requirements, multiple assessment dimensions, and the success rate isn't high. Now you donate some money and you can get a personalized medal. This kind of limited-edition charity donation medal is very useful for streamers to build their personal persona.

And besides the limited-edition medal, they also give general traffic coupons.

What are traffic coupons? They're tools used to boost your livestream room and short content, basically equivalent to paid-traffic virtual currency.

Even though they didn't say how many coupons you get, a platform that big shouldn't be that stingy.

Round it up with a simple estimate, and it's basically spending some money to donate, while getting a medal to build your persona and exchanging for traffic coupons. However you calculate it, it's a sure-win deal.

Among the people who choose to be online streamers, how many of them are actually dumb? Most of them aren't. For this kind of thing, they just think about it a bit and can immediately make a decision.

Donate! Gotta donate!

The result was, almost all the streamers invited to the carnival contacted the group admins in the back-end to register. Even those who didn't win any prize money all paid out of their own pockets to make a charity donation.

For a while, the staff in charge of group management had their phone back-end ringing nonstop, various donation statistics popping up one after another.

After busying around for a bit, they finally finished counting everyone.

On-site they pulled up a spreadsheet, from donor name to donation amount, densely filling an entire A4 page.

The finalized spreadsheet was handed to the hosts. YOYO and Xiao Wei took turns reading; once a name was called, that person went on stage to donate. The number representing the donation amount was put in a red envelope and slipped into the acrylic donation box. Very ceremonial.

The whole charity donation session lasted for more than half an hour. Reporters and media down below were taking pictures nonstop, and Zhang Yang's side also arranged their own people to shoot videos. The award ceremony that should've wrapped up in forty minutes dragged on for a full hour and a half before finally coming to an end.

Once the donation ceremony ended, the fishing carnival event still wasn't completely over. There was a bonfire party at night, with roast lamb, fine wine, and all kinds of activities on offer.

As for Zhang Yang, he dragged Old Zhao along and took all the media folks he'd invited to the most luxurious five-star hotel in the city, treating them to a feast with great food and drink. Right before everyone left, each person got a generous red envelope.

At nine-thirty in the evening, Zhang Yang, who had just broken up the party in the city, took a car back to the fishing base.

Because the competition was now completely wrapped up, the bonfire party was even wilder than last night. Everywhere you looked, streamers were clustered in small groups drinking against each other, and all kinds of mic hogs went on stage to show off their talents. It was clearly almost ten o'clock, yet the party was a complete free-for-all, the atmosphere insanely hyped.

The bonfire party lasted until after eleven at night before people started leaving. Zhang Yang and the staff stayed till everyone was properly settled, then did a quick cleanup, cleared the venue, locked up, and went home.

To prepare for the two-day fishing carnival, Zhang Yang and his team had actually spent nearly a month getting ready. Now that it was finally wrapped up and the outcome exceeded expectations, Zhang Yang could finally sleep soundly.

Dragging his exhausted body and a full load of alcohol, Zhang Yang went home, took a quick shower, and crashed straight into bed.

The next day, the effects of Zhang Yang's treating and red-envelope offensive started to show.

In mainstream traditional media, quite a few TV stations and newspapers of all sizes all ran stories through their own channels about the Kuaishou Fishing Carnival and the big streamers' charity donations.

As the champion, Zhang Yang's name was mentioned a whole bunch of times.

On the platform side, related short videos were boosted to a very high level of heat, with views blasting past ten million.

For a while, it drew widespread attention both inside and outside the circle.

Zhang Yang did spend a lot of money, but he was also the biggest beneficiary of this carnival.

In just two days, several accounts under Zhang Yang Company gained more than two hundred thousand followers on the high end, and even the ones that didn't do as well grew by seventy to eighty thousand. If you calculate based on current market rates for targeted commercial followers, this wave of new followers had already broken even or even surpassed the whole series of previous investments.

The fishing carnival they hosted was a complete success, but Zhang Yang did not let his guard down completely. The next day, he asked Old Zhao to have some friends dig into the background of that guy named Li Jun.

For someone to jump out and stir trouble at such a crucial moment like the award ceremony, Zhang Yang couldn't tell if the guy was just naturally like that, or if someone was behind him pulling the strings.

If it was just his natural temperament, that was easier. If he didn't know any better, you couldn't really blame him. Zhang Yang wouldn't hold a grudge; just talk it out and clear things up, and next time they meet they can still be friends.

But if Li Jun's usual nature wasn't the type to pull a stunt like that, then Zhang Yang had to be more careful. If someone was prodding him from behind, they definitely weren't coming in peace.

After waiting a few more days, all the information gathered from various sources finally reached Zhang Yang's ears.

The result wasn't great.

According to comments from people who knew Li Jun, in real life Li Jun was very rational, with very strong self-control, and a bit selfish at his core.

He wasn't exactly a team player, but not a lone wolf either. He knew a bunch of anglers in the circle, but he wouldn't get super tight with any of them.

With that kind of personality, how could he possibly make a big scene on-site to question the rules just because he wasn't satisfied with the competition format? It didn't fit his usual way of doing things.

But after the final picture emerged, they still didn't find any useful information afterward.

No one knew who, if anyone, had put Li Jun up to speaking out. Even those who had chimed in and egged things on were just people Li Jun had talked to in advance to help out a bit and stir the pot.

The investigation hit a dead end at this point. Since Zhang Yang couldn't get the result he wanted, he could only shelve it for now.

After the carnival, the brothers on Zhang Yang's team took two days off to rest, and by Monday morning the members of the competitive squad showed up on time at the club's training base.

Zhang Yang arrived at the training ground right on the dot. According to the team's routine, after every proper competition there'd be a post-match debrief.

This time was no exception. Today Zhang Yang's job was to take everyone through a post-match review one by one, and do a new round of analysis on the fish conditions in their own reservoir.

"You've had two days off, all rested up?" Zhang Yang walked over with a smile and asked casually.

"Pretty good, I'm recovered!" Meng Fan said.

"I'm rested too! Full of energy now!" Han Mocheng said.

Zhang Yang nodded, looking at Liu Zi and Xiaobao. "What about you two? Xiaobao, didn't I tell you to write an observer's summary? Did you write it?"

Xiaobao scratched his head, a bit embarrassed. "I did, but it's not three thousand words!" As he finished, Xiaobao pulled a wrinkled page torn from a notebook out of his pants pocket.

Zhang Yang took it and skimmed a few lines. One sheet of paper, at most four or five hundred words. Basically no analysis of fish conditions at all—just a few lines repeated over and over. Clearly this kid hadn't learned much from watching the last match.

"This is all you wrote? Is it because you didn't get to sign up for the competition this time and you're feeling some type of way?" Zhang Yang asked in a calm tone.

"No, it's not that! I honestly don't know how to write. Back in school I was the guy who turned in blank papers for three-hundred-word essays!" Xiaobao said dejectedly, not daring to meet Zhang Yang's eyes.

"Alright, not writing is fine too. I'll first walk everyone through a tactical breakdown of this match. After the review, you add two thousand extra casting reps in training by yourself."

"Okay…" Xiaobao agreed through gritted teeth.

Zhang Yang took a stack of printed A4 pages from under his arm and handed one to each of them.

"This is a practical fish-condition analysis I put together in my spare time. Different phases, their states, and corresponding response strategies are all in there. Take a look first. Once you're done, we'll discuss. Ten minutes—make it count!"