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Chapter 164 0161 [The Super Girl Phenomenon] (Bonus chapter for Alliance Leader Ruxuan)
Friday, January 6th.

ByteDance's recruitment has ended, but most of the new employees haven't started work yet—the new office space needs to be aired out for a few days after renovations.

A small number of outstanding interviewees, if not hired by ByteDance, will be asked if they would be willing to go to Game Science.

Because Youke is also expanding its scale.

Last month, Youke recruited a group of programmers to develop card and board games such as Dou Dizhu and Mahjong.

Last year, QQ Games allowed users to add game friends and supported inviting others to battle. Around the same time Chen Guiliang signed the financing agreement, QQ Games also launched the Happy Beans system.

In the realm of card and board games, Youke will likely find it difficult to compete with QQ.

Both companies were incredibly busy, leaving Chen Guiliang with some free time. He would only visit the company once a day to get a general understanding of its operations and offer guidance on specific projects.

The company is full of young people, so we should give them more opportunities to develop their skills.

The company is still small, so even if we make a mistake, we can correct it quickly.

"Chen Guiliang, do you have an exam tonight?" Jiang Junlai asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "It will be available tomorrow night."

Jiang Junlai said, "Let's go watch TV in the cafeteria together."

"There's a computer in the dorm, why are you watching TV?" Chen Guiliang didn't understand.

"Super Girl."

Jiang Junlai was the first to leave the dormitory and shouted from the corridor: "Anyone who wants to watch Super Girl, let's go to the cafeteria together!"

"Wait for me!"

Several people responded instantly.

Last year's "Super Girl" didn't make much of a splash, but this year it's generating a huge buzz.

Chen Guiliang has already asked Xie Yang to plan an event. Once the Super Girl competition enters the national finals, the school's online community will take the opportunity to hold a prediction contest for each round of advancement.

"Wait a minute, I'll go too."

Chen Guiliang locked the dormitory door and chased after them. He had been forced to work hard before, but now he wanted to enjoy his university life.

When the group arrived at the cafeteria, the first few rows near the TV were already full more than ten minutes in advance.

Today is the Chengdu singing competition, where 10 contestants advance to 7.

Chen Guiliang pulled Jiang Junlai along, rode their bicycles to the convenience store, bought a bunch of sunflower seeds, and handed them out to everyone they met: "Don't spit out the sunflower seed shells everywhere, take them to the trash can yourself."

"President Chen is so generous!"

"Mr. Chen, if you need any help from the company in the future, just call out from downstairs in the dormitory."

"Mr. Chen, please come and sit in the front."

"..."

Just then, someone in the back row shouted, "Mr. Chen, you have a lot of influence, tell them to switch to the sports channel!"

"Exactly, what's so interesting about singing? We want to watch ball games."

The students in the front row were unhappy: "We came here first to reserve our seats, so of course we get to decide. If you want to watch the sports channel, please come earlier next time."

The two sides argued for a while, but ultimately the situation remained unchanged.

In schools, whether it's the library or a large classroom, there's a default rule of "first come, first served".

Those who clamored to watch the ball game ultimately didn't leave; instead, they stayed to watch the Super Girl competition.

Chen Guiliang ate sunflower seeds while looking up at the TV.

To be honest, it's quite stress-relieving. At this moment, you don't have to think about anything, which allows you to relax your tense nerves.

Once he relaxed, Chen Guiliang started spewing foul language.

He stared at the screen and pointed out, "Where did they find this cameraman? Several girls were singing while standing in short skirts, and the camera was shooting from below, making the contestants look short and fat. Even He Jie's legs looked like elephant legs."

"And Zhang Li and the other two. Damn, is this the kind of afro that was popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan twenty years ago? Where did the stylist find this clever little devil? They're dressed so innocently, but their hairstyles are like those of delinquent girls. The style of their heads and bodies is completely out of place."

"..."

The students sitting around Chen Guiliang listened to his comments while watching the program, and the more they listened, the more they felt that he made sense.

What was supposed to be a fun and inspiring talent show turned into something quite funny because of Chen Guiliang's comments.

Then some people echoed:

"Yeah, this camera angle is so amateurish."

"I didn't realize it until Chen Guiliang pointed it out, and the more I look at it, the more I feel there's something wrong with the styling."

"Mr. Chen, why don't you go and give the production team some guidance?"

"..."

Finally, it was Li Yuchun's turn to appear, and this time Chen Guiliang didn't say anything.

The students in the back row couldn't hold back any longer: "Quickly switch to the sports channel! This woman is terribly ugly, and her singing is awful too!"

A girl in the front row suddenly stood up: "Who said Li Yuchun is ugly? Can't women have short hair?"

The argument between the two sides grew increasingly heated, especially among those in the back rows who had been holding back for quite some time and now joined the fray.

Suddenly, a cafeteria worker appeared, wielding a ladle: "If you make any more noise, you'll have to recite the Analects of Confucius!" The scene instantly quieted down, and everyone obediently watched TV.

Chen Guiliang asked Jiang Junlai curiously, "What's the story behind reciting the Analects?"

"I don't know," Jiang Junlai shook his head.

A guy next door said, "There's a joke circulating on BBS and Renren that people at Peking University can recite the Analects of Confucius when they get food in the cafeteria. I don't know how this lady knew that."

Chen Guiliang continued eating sunflower seeds, watching the show with an archaeological mindset, which made him even happier, and he stopped complaining about what was wrong with it.

……

In the blink of an eye, exam week is over.

Students gradually left the school, but about 15% of them stayed on campus for the summer vacation.

My senior classmate, Min Wenyu, has gone to Yunnan Province to teach in a rural area.

With the arrival of the national finals of "Super Girl", ByteDance, which has expanded to a scale of hundreds of people, has finally moved into its new office space.

Recently, there has been a surge of discussion about Super Girl on school websites and BBS.

A male student from the School of Economics even posted on the BBS and then on the school's intranet blog: "Analyzing Zhou Bichang's probability of winning the championship using game theory."

This article proposes using Nash equilibrium to calculate fan voting strategies, and many students have participated in the discussion.

Ultimately, everyone came to the academic conclusion that distributing flyers at Haidian Bridge to solicit votes was more efficient!
Many phone card vendors have also appeared, selling "0.5 discount Super Girl voting phone cards" downstairs in various dormitories, claiming that "recharge 50 yuan and get 1000 votes".

"Hahaha!"

Wu Meng told Bian Guanyue, who had come over to visit, about this: "There was a girl in our class who spent a month's allowance on a phone card because she wanted to vote for Li Yuchun. Turns out it was a pirated IP card!"

"Didn't she even try the card?" Bian Guanyue asked, puzzled.

Wu Meng said, "I tried it, and I could make calls from the phone booths on campus. But after I bought it, I found out that it could only be used to make calls on campus, and it was useless outside of school."

Chen Guiliang commented, "It's not bad. I don't have to worry about phone bills for the four years of university."

"She didn't do anything rash, did she?" Bian Guanyue asked with concern.

“She’s borrowing money everywhere. She’s not going home for summer vacation either; she’s looking for part-time jobs to earn living expenses,” Wu Meng said, then laughed again. “She also wrote a 10,000-word essay titled ‘On the Alienation of the Ivory Tower by Entertainment Capitalism.’ That post went viral, and even a philosophy professor commented on it.”

During the peak of the Super Girl craze, Peking University was full of hilarious antics.

A male student wrote to the university president for three consecutive weeks, suggesting that Peking University hold a "Super Scholar" selection competition. Contestants would have to recite "Critique of Pure Reason" in six languages, and Li Yuchun would be invited to serve as a judge.

The president of Peking University actually replied: "It has been forwarded to the Youth League Committee for appropriate handling."

There was also a law school master's student who, in his thesis "A Comparative Study of Chinese and Foreign Legal Systems," compared the Super Girl voting mechanism to the lottery system of the Athenian Assembly. The professor's comment: "I suggest you directly enroll in 'Lecture Room' (a popular Chinese talk show)."

The three chatted about interesting things as they walked from the campus to the south gate.

Chen Guiliang took them to buy milk tea, only to find that there was a queue at the milk tea shop.

He walked to the end of the line and said, "Dude, what's going on? It's a holiday and there's still a queue. I don't usually see this."

The student said, "Last night someone posted a message and uploaded photos, saying that Jane Zhang used to work at a milk tea shop near the south gate of Peking University. It was this milk tea shop where Jane Zhang used to make milk tea."

"Brilliant!"

Chen Guiliang thought these people were all crazy.

Near the southwest gate of Peking University, vendors were still selling unisex shirts and studded belts, shouting at the top of their lungs: "Wear this, and the Stone Boat on Weiming Lake will be your stage!"

Some people actually bought it and wore it, creating the same style as Li Yuchun.

Looking at those lunatics, Chen Guiliang took out his phone and called Xie Yang: "How's the Super Girl guessing contest going?"

Xie Yang said, "The user activity on Renren.com now is comparable to when they started making three-line poems. This show is so popular, it's unbelievable. I was just in contact with people from Youke.com, and I heard that in the Youke.com discussion forum, all the uncles and aunties are talking about Super Girl."

Chen Guiliang secretly regretted that he had missed the advertising bidding for Super Girl when he was not short of money.

Otherwise, advertising Renren.com and Three Kingdoms Kill on Super Girl would be an extremely profitable business.

Today, Renren.com has more than 300 million registered users.

The news that Chen Guiliang had become a billionaire was like a nationwide advertisement for Renren.com, attracting countless college students to register every day.

“I’ve already talked to Wu Meng, and we’ll be going back to Fushi County next week,” Bian Guanyue said. “I haven’t seen my grandparents for a year, and I want to go back and visit them.”

Chen Guiliang said, "I'm going to Shanghai and Hangzhou. After I finish my business, I'll go back to my hometown. I'll call you then."

"That's great!" Bian Guanyue exclaimed happily.

What was Chen Guiliang doing in Hangzhou?
Of course, it's about investing in Tao Chenggang's game company and seeing how his free-to-play game turns out.

After finishing my investment work, I'll take a trip to Shanghai.

Chen Guiliang still has to give face and attend the writers' forum organized by *Mengya* magazine this time. After all, he only became famous through the *Mengya* platform the previous year, and now that he's a millionaire, he's turning his back on us?
Even if I were to refuse, that would be a matter for later.

Incidentally, the China Writers Association and the Beijing Writers Association had originally agreed to invite Chen Guiliang to join. Perhaps because of his criticism of "Wolf Totem," the matter of him joining the Writers Association seems to have been selectively forgotten.

The day after Chen Guiliang received the huge investment, both writers' associations sent him invitations, asking him to fill out a membership application form and attach a personal photo.

It's... well, interesting.

Chen Guiliang did not refuse, but he was too busy to fill out the application form.

He has a temper too!
(End of this chapter)