The Game of Life-Chapter 729 - 728: A Stir in Beiping
Chapter 729: Chapter 728: A Stir in Beiping
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Jiang Feng, a social media struggler who had forgotten his Weibo account, had no choice but to redownload Weibo. Upon opening Weibo and opting not to log in, he tapped on the trending topics and discovered that he himself was ranked first.
#JiangFengChickenTofuPudding#
The second, third, and fourth spots were occupied by some insignificant things, and the fifth was #MustVisitRestaurantRegardlessOfSavingUp#.
Jiang Feng was stunned.
In his 23 years of life, he had never imagined that he would top the Weibo trending chart one day.
However, upon further reflection, if Liu Qian could make it onto the Weibo trending topics just by overeating to the point of hospitalization, a matter as trivial as a fart, then his chicken tofu pudding’s rise to the top of Weibo trending wasn’t so…
No, it was utterly unexpected.
Jiang Feng clicked on the top trending Weibo post, which also had the highest number of likes, comments, and shares—it was a post by an art student.
Don’t ask how he knew the post was by an art student, it was written right there on the username.
This art student was the lucky one who dined at the Midsummer Feast yesterday. He took quite a few pictures while eating, and after going back, he probably asked his classmates to touch them up, which turned out rather nice-looking. Accompanying the photos was an ordinary if flattering piece of prose, raving about how delicious the Midsummer Feast was, how beautiful the chicken tofu pudding was, and how young, outstanding, and excellent the chef Jiang Feng was.
After a quick glance, Jiang Feng felt the praise was quite average, probably not even on par with Jiang Junlian’s essays written for her end-term exams.
That’s it?
Jiang Feng really felt bewildered now, such a trivial post had made it to the top of Weibo trending? He thought it had become ridiculously easy to rank first on Weibo’s trending list these days.
Continuing downwards, he saw that the second Weibo post carried more weight than the first in the trending list—it was by Xu Cheng.
Xu Cheng had written a lengthy post, detailing his evaluation of every dish at the Midsummer Feast and his overall impression of it, which was extremely high. Xu Cheng spent about half of the article describing the chicken tofu pudding and incidentally mentioned Jiang Feng. Judging by the diction and phrasing, the article must have been written by Xu Cheng working overtime, as it contained an abundance of parallel structures.
The Weibo post was published at 2 o’clock in the morning, which showed how hardworking boss Xu had been while working overtime.
If he had shown the same zeal for working overtime when writing articles for Taste, by now, Taste would have reverted to a monthly publication.
Xu Cheng’s Weibo post indeed seemed worthy of making it to trending, but it still didn’t seem like it should be the top of trending.
Jiang Feng didn’t have a deep understanding of Weibo; he belonged to the type who absolutely didn’t know how to use it. Whether something big had happened, like someone getting divorced, someone having an affair, someone engaging in group activities, he usually found out through QQ or WeChat group discussions or was outright told by Ji Yue face-to-face.
Not understanding, he decided not to bother and put down his phone. He then washed up, brushed his teeth, got dressed, and when he reached the dining room, he found Wu Minqi already eating while browsing her phone, her eyes filled with confusion.
Breakfast was still spicy dumplings as usual.
“Fengfeng, you’re trending on Weibo,” Wu Minqi told Jiang Feng as he came out, and she continued to look at her phone.
Jiang Feng sat down and first drank a couple of sips of soy milk, then glanced at Wu Minqi’s phone and realized she was reading Mr. Xu Cheng’s long post.
“I know. I just checked in the room a while ago, but I couldn’t figure out how I got to be number one on the trending list. Qiqi, did you understand it?” Jiang Feng asked.
Wu Minqi shook her head. “I’m not sure either, but I think Mr. Xu makes a lot of sense. He said that each bite of your chicken bean flower gives a brand new sensation to the tongue, and that’s exactly what I felt when I had it. Besides, he mentioned that the chicken bean flower seems to possess a kind of magical power with a special function, saying he now has a whole new appreciation and experience with many foods, but I don’t feel that way. Do you, Fengfeng?”
Wu Minqi evidently took Mr. Xu Cheng’s lengthy article seriously, nearly to the point of highlighting and memorizing key sections.
All Jiang Feng could do was chuckle dryly, “I… I don’t feel that way, either. Maybe Mr. Xu Cheng is just being hyperbolic for the sake of writing, after all, it’s an article! Wasn’t Wang Hao even more exaggerated in his writings? He talked about the taste of spring, the sensation of vitality, and who knows what the taste of spring and the sensation of vitality even are. It’s normal, very normal.”
“Is that so?” Wu Minqi bit her lip, feeling that Mr. Xu’s food critique wasn’t quite in the same vein as Wang Hao’s, but also thought there was some sense in what Jiang Feng said, so she didn’t probe further and kept reading.
Jiang Feng began to devour the spicy dumplings, planning to ask Ji Yue what on earth had happened on Weibo after he got to the store, as he had somehow become the top trending topic out of the blue.
“Hiss.” Jiang Feng sucked in a breath of cool air.
The spicy dumplings were unusually fiery this morning.
“Is it too spicy? Fengfeng, drink more soy milk, I specially added a bit more sugar to it today. I was reading Mr. Xu Cheng’s article while preparing the spicy dumplings this morning and accidentally overdid the seasoning,” Wu Minqi reminded him.
Jiang Feng guzzled down half a cup of soy milk so quickly that he almost cried, but thankfully he held it back.
“It’s… a bit spicy,” Jiang Feng said softly, eating the dumplings and drinking the soy milk in alternating sips, finding the combination unexpectedly flavorful in its own way.
Because both Jiang Feng and Wu Minqi had spent the morning on Weibo reading the long post that Mr. Xu had published the previous night, they were delayed and arrived at the store more than 20 minutes later than usual.
A lot of people had already arrived early, possibly because they saw the trending post on Weibo and came ahead of time to congratulate Jiang Feng.
Although he didn’t know why he had become a trending topic on Weibo, or how he’d ended up in first place, this particular trend wasn’t a bad thing. The words “Jiang Feng” and “chicken bean flower” topping the list essentially amounted to a strong, forceful advertisement for Taifeng Building.
Seeing this trend, the average citizen’s first reaction was to wonder who Jiang Feng was and what was chicken bean flower? Then, with a sense of curiosity, they’d click on it and see a series of press food photos, and realize that the Weibo post was actually an advertisement.
An advertisement for Taifeng Building.
Jiang Feng found it odd that such a hard-hitting ad wasn’t being criticized; not only did people spare him, but they didn’t bash Taifeng Building either?
After arriving at the store, it was only with the help of Ji Yue, the Weibo melon-eating expert, that Jiang Feng began to grasp how this bizarre trend came about.
It all started with the Weibo post from the art student that Jiang Feng had seen first.
After returning to school from eating the Grand Summer Banquet, the art student couldn’t calm down for a long time, thinking that they would probably only get to taste such a high-end and delicious feast once in their lifetime. Not sharing some photos and a post on Weibo to commemorate the experience would be a disservice to themselves, so they p-ed some photos, wrote some flowery praise, and posted it on Weibo that night.
Then, a certain foodie who also enjoyed the Midsummer Banquet, liked to surf the net before bed, and just happened to run a quite successful company, spotted this Weibo post.
The foodie was so pleased that he directly shared it on his own account with a simple comment saying delicious. After he shared it, his friends who were still awake saw it too. Some who had relished the Midsummer Banquet but had no place to brag about it, or whose writing skills weren’t up to par for crafting a good copy weren’t at work yet, thought such a move was clever and immediately retweeted it with a comment saying delicious too.
As more people shared it, even some who hadn’t tasted the feast joined in the fun and shared it as well.
Although these people might not have had many followers, when added together, they didn’t match up to Xu Cheng’s, but their verified Weibo statuses were impressive.
Some employees who secretly followed their boss’ Weibo and were still up surfing the web saw that the boss had shared something they didn’t even know about. They had no idea why the boss would share that particular Weibo post, but they figured that retweeting it was the right thing to do.
You share, I share, and just like that, the popularity soared.
It wasn’t until Xu Cheng’s detailed post came out that everyone suddenly understood. Oh, so that’s what it was, you guys had a feast, why didn’t you say so earlier? You made it seem so mysterious, I didn’t even know why I shared it.
Jiang Feng’s hot search ranking started climbing around 2 or 3 a.m. the night before, at which point Ji Gezi was bravely surfing the net and happened to witness this unfolding drama.
What puzzled Ji Gezi was that she had no idea why the hot search ranking for Jiang Feng shot up to number one when she woke up.
She said she didn’t really understand the hot searches these days – this one could make it to the top?
“Could it be some kind-hearted boss saw it on the hot search and helped me buy my way to number one?” Jiang Feng speculated boldly.
Ji Yue: ?
“Do you even know how much it costs to be number one on the hot search?”
“How much?” Jiang Feng genuinely didn’t know.
Ji Yue: …
I’ve never bought it or could afford it, so how would I know?
“It can’t be that some boss would be so idle, right? It just can’t be,” Ji Yue said with difficulty, “I think it’s very unlikely, way too exaggerated. Why would someone not buy it for themselves but help you instead? Impossible, impossible.”
Ji Yue thought it was impossible, but someone else thought it was possible.
For example, Xu Cheng.
He also felt that Jiang Feng’s ascent to the top of the hot search was a bit unusual and guessed who the culprit behind this abnormality might be.
Xu Cheng made a call to Han Guishan.
Han Guishan was having breakfast.
“Tell me the truth, did you spend money to push that hot search about Jiang Feng up there?” Xu Cheng was direct and to the point, no beating around the bush.
“Yeah,” Han Guishan admitted straightforwardly, pointing at the fried dough fritters on his plate, “Han Youxin, you’ve already had two pieces of fried dough, don’t eat anymore. Fried foods are bad for you.”
“I bought it, yeah. I got up at a little past 5 this morning and saw that Jiang Feng was on Weibo’s hot search list. The ranking looked too unpleasant to my eyes, 14th—that number’s just too unlucky. So, I had my assistant spend some money to boost it up. What’s the problem?”
Xu Cheng: …
“And then you just bought the top spot?” Xu Cheng’s voice was filled with disbelief, thinking back to how people always said he was capriciously losing money by running ‘Taste’, with losses increasing each year.
How was Han Guishan’s capricious spending compared to his? He ran ‘Taste’ for his own pleasure, but what was Han Guishan aiming for?
As a sort of philanthropy?
Jiang Feng probably still had no idea that someone had bought the top spot for him.
“Ah, the top spot?” Han Guishan was surprised, “I didn’t tell him to buy the top spot. I just asked him to lift it a bit so it wouldn’t look so unsightly. How did he end up buying the number one spot for me? That’s so high-profile; people are going to say the ranking was bought by Jiang Feng himself. Sigh, I gotta hang up, and I need to make a call and tell him to bring it down a notch. This number one spot is too conspicuous.”
Xu Cheng: ???
20 minutes later, Jiang Feng was surprised to find that his hot search ranking had dropped from number 1 to number 3.
Jiang Feng: …
Although it was normal for rankings to change, why did he feel like this drop was so deliberately done?
By noon, Jiang Feng’s hot search had fallen out of the top 10, and the heat slowly died down. Internet users are forgetful; such a peculiar hot search quickly faded from their memory as they moved on to chase and talk about new hot topics.
Beiping netizens were the exception.
It couldn’t be helped since Taifeng Building was in Beiping, and netizens from other areas, who couldn’t taste it, wouldn’t forget so quickly. But they could.
Every Beiping netizen fortunate enough to see this hot search on Weibo had the same questions.
Who is Jiang Feng?
What is Spicy Dumplings? Is it tasty?
Is Taifeng Building expensive?
Thanks to Han Guishan, Jiang Feng became known throughout Beiping in just one day.
