Reborn as a female internet celebrity in a county town

Chapter 105 Wanting to Improve Is the Biggest Mistake

Lin Lang's reason for returning to his hometown was that he had helpers there.

Don't be fooled by the fact that his relatives may not seem like much; if you just expand on the relatives of his relatives, you'll find an extremely large group.

I don't expect the other party to do me a huge favor. As long as I really need something, I'm sure they'll help me set up a connection or something.

Even if you can't get close to the county head or the county party committee, you can still get close to some lower-level leaders.

It's hard for outsiders to have such connections; sometimes it just doesn't work, but he's a local.

So when the other party arrived, Lin Lang took out some data from his side and chatted with them. First, they talked about where they were from, even if he didn't have any relatives there, he still had classmates.

My high school classmates basically covered the entire county.

The county-level system makes these things unavoidable. Generally, if there's anything going on, people will proactively inquire, and if you have connections, you'll quickly make a phone call...

Anyway, they've already hinted at it. If they don't do it, they won't be held responsible if something goes wrong later. It'll also give them an explanation to their relatives and friends.

"I've been quite busy lately. I need to go to the city to discuss some new business, and I won't be back for at least three or four days."

Lin Lang was definitely thinking of minimizing the problem, since Big Fish Media needed time.

In big cities, a company the size of Big Fish Media would hardly be taken seriously, and even if it were dozens of times larger, people might still not care.

But at that level, being ignored is more terrifying than anything else.

Lin Lang's demand was to be taken seriously and have a legitimate status, but not to be coveted by others.

There's nowhere else but my hometown.

He spent more than ten years in Shanghai and worked for many startups. He survived the most difficult early stages and finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Immediately, large companies came to him asking to invest, and some even asked for absolute control.

Don't agree?
They'll simply copy your product exactly, and with their sheer size, they'll deliver a devastating blow, leaving you no way to survive.

You can go to court, but small companies simply can't afford to drag it out.

A lawsuit can last for three, five, or even ten years.

This isn't just a domestic phenomenon; global capital markets are like this.

Ten years ago, there were still some examples of grassroots success stories, but now... there's no such thing as grassroots rise anymore.

The grassroots figures promoted online are basically people who have persevered for decades and managed to earn a position in a large corporation.

Or he's just a high-level employee, only worded differently.

Media companies are similar. The main problem is that it's generally difficult for media companies to grow big. Reaching a scale of tens or hundreds of millions is already the ceiling. In big cities, almost no one would be envious of this level. It also means that even if you reach the ceiling in the self-media industry, it's still useless; you're just a high-level employee.

If you're really unlucky and someone sets their sights on you, there's absolutely nothing you can do.

They either have to give up a large portion of their profits, or they have to wait for others to make their move.

There are many ways to do this, such as directly arranging for someone to contact the company's online influencers, promising to sign a certain number of contracts, covering the breach of contract penalties, etc., to get them to switch companies.

A normal person simply cannot resist this temptation.

After breaking ties with their original companies, they have plenty of ways to breach contracts. They don't care about the fate of those online celebrities; if they get sued, they get sued; if their accounts are banned, they get banned. Their goal is to destroy the media companies that don't provide them with income.

Being noticed by others is one thing, but once it really comes to that, Lin Lang certainly wouldn't be content to just be a wealthy man with a bit of money. After all, nobody wants to be treated as a grain of sand in this era even when they have money.

At least be a sand dune, able to withstand some of the winds of time.

It would be extremely difficult to create sand dunes in those places.

He Qiang didn't do anything wrong. He also wanted to be a little sand dune, but he was skinned alive.

In a big city, there probably wouldn't even be any bones left.

Because he really doesn't have much value anymore; he was just a product of the times, riding the wave of opportunity and reaping the benefits.

His only mistake was perhaps wanting to improve too much, but the path to improvement is not meant for ordinary people.

Just like Lei Jun, even when he became the cash king of Beijing and was at the height of his fame in China, he still publicly said that his idol was the president of the Taishan Club, who had a bad reputation.

Respecting the elderly and caring for the young? That's impossible; the main reason is that he needs to rely on the other party in too many ways.

To make progress, one must not be ashamed.

Lin Lang also wants to improve, but his valuable time is only about ten years. He certainly doesn't want to be exploited by others in big cities. If he doesn't meet his expectations within ten years, he will become a discarded person after ten years, just like He Qiang, without any value.

If Yan Li is willing to come and say a few words to Shen Xingnan, it will save him a lot of energy, which can then be transformed into greater value.

On the other end of the phone, Yan Li suddenly laughed and said, "Judging from your words, it sounds like you're welcoming me over. You weren't welcoming me before. Do you want me to do you a favor?"

"if not?"

"Hey, hey, hey, is this how you ask for a favor? Say a few nice words and let me hear it..."

“I’ve already returned to my hometown county. Why would I need to curry favor with anyone? Even if you go back and tell Shen Xingnan, they won’t change their minds when it comes to real interests. They’ll just use a different tactic.”

"Oh...yes..."

"So, come or not, it's up to you. If you don't come, fine. I'll just go back and host a few tables. What's the big deal?"

……

Yan Li was having a pretty easy time chatting with Lin Lang.

As we talked, we began to empathize with each other.

Actually, her father never wanted her to start her own business, especially a fund company, thinking she was just fooling around and wasting her time.

He prefers to join a large organization and then gradually climb the ranks.

Because of the rarity of its appearance, it can achieve compatibility at several levels.

Even if she isn't particularly outstanding, it doesn't matter.

Lin Lang is now resisting through compromise.

She herself was also seeking opportunities for resistance through compromise.

Although we started from different places and had different environments, we were doing the same thing.

Indeed, going back to Shen Xingnan, his uncle, and saying that Lin Lang was his classmate wouldn't be very effective; at most, it would just make things less direct and wouldn't solve the problem at its root.

However, she wasn't without other options.

Solving the problem at its root wasn't too difficult for her, after all, it was just a small county town.

Moreover... she still considers the six degrees of separation theory she mentioned earlier to be conservative.

She felt that she only needed two relationships at most.

Her family's ancestral home is also in Xinyang City, but it's in the county next to Tianshui County.

Whether you contact your eldest uncle or your second uncle, you'll definitely be able to get in touch with people in Tianshui County...

"Uncle, it's me, Lili. I'm planning to go to Tianshui County. Do you have any old classmates or friends there who you could ask me to pass on a message?"

“If you don’t have any, then I’ll have to ask my second uncle. He must have some comrades over there…”

...Shen An'an's fan base suddenly started to grow.

It started with a few hundred yuan a day, and recently it's been one or two thousand yuan a day...

After she entered Yongkang Biotechnology today, the number of video views began to rise steadily, with the number of views for a single video quickly exceeding 100,000, and by evening, it had already reached more than 200,000 views.

As for the new followers, there were over six thousand.

For Shen An'an, the good news is that she seems to have become popular.

The bad news is, she's out of money again.

I really don't have any money left.

If she hadn't actually made money with Bitcoin, she would have suspected that Lin Lang had set her up.

Because she was supervising construction in Lin Lang's hometown during the day, she was quite bored, so she replied to some normal private messages.

Then, those guys started harassing her.

They kept asking her to recommend stocks for them, or they would directly send her their holdings and ask for her opinion.

She has no opinion whatsoever.

One of them, named Gu Yusheng, even came over to ask her if Tianshui Duck Industry was worth buying.

Worth buying my ass!
She stayed at Ziyun Mountain for a few days and heard her father talk about Tianshui Duck Industry, saying that Tianshui Duck Industry was about to go bankrupt.

Garbage company!

She didn't know about other companies, but Tianshui Duck Industry was definitely one of them.

However, after seeing Wang Wei post his stock holdings and offer a million-yuan consultation fee if she could comment on each stock, she had some reservations…

So she sent the screenshot to Lin Lang and asked, "Can this be done?"

Lin Lang quickly replied, "You can't do it. You're not qualified. Recommending stocks is illegal."

"Oh, that damn bastard, he actually tried to make me break the law, I'm blocking him right now!"

Lin Lang: "..."

He had already seen the screenshots; good heavens, the other party had a whopping 600 million in holdings.

Moreover, the total funds exceeded one billion.

It seems Shen An'an had no idea that this guy was a wealthy tycoon.

Even after deducting the margin trading limit, he still has more cash on hand than anyone else in Tianshui County.

He quickly said, "Don't worry, they're all your fans. Actually, there's no clear definition of recommending stocks. You can't just talk about stocks with friends and call it recommending stocks, can you?"

"But you just said no."

"I saw the screenshot clearly at that time."

"Didn't you see the money on it? You must think they're rich..."

"No, that's not true. I just feel that since they sincerely want to be your fan and don't really want to harm you, there's no need to be so petty..."

"Oh... so if I run out of money in the future... will you look down on me?"

"Disdain? You're my biggest creditor, how could I dare to disdain you?"

"So that means you'll look down on me if you don't owe me money anymore?"

"????"

"Lin Lang, if I ever ask you for money, you can dislike me however you want, really."

……

On Thursday, Tianshui duck stocks continued to fall, and Lin Lang began to build a small position at this time.

He spent five or six hours editing videos at the company, including those from Bing Ning, Yun Yiyi, and Yuan Dahua.

They also rewrote the video scripts for Li Wanqing and Shen An'an.

Because Shen An'an was still immersed in the feeling of losing money, her overall cooperation was quite good. Today, she released a video mainly to express her grievances. Following the script written by Lin Lang, she said that she felt the market was bad this year, and blue-chip stocks were performing poorly, which is why she bought some small-cap stocks. She believes that large-cap stocks definitely won't recover, and next year will be even worse…

Li Wanqing's situation was much simpler; the script Lin Lang provided for her was mostly based on the content shown in the video.

The main purpose is to criticize the bizarre behavior of primary school students nowadays.

Early Friday morning, Lin Lang went to the entrance of Xinglan No. 1 Courtyard to pick up Mi Xiaofan and told her to bring some of her clothes.

His new outfits have arrived, and he'll go to the city to shoot a more impactful and visually appealing video for Mi Xiaofan.

After getting into the car, Mi Xiaofan immediately took out a sandwich from her handbag and asked, "Boss, would you like something to eat?"

"I've already eaten, you eat by yourself. Fasten your seatbelt, let's go..."

"All right."

……

Lin Lang hasn't informed He Qiang yet. He plans to film a video of Mi Xiaofan today. If there's still time after filming, he'll invite He Qiang to dinner. If not, he'll wait until Friday.

At the same time, Yan Li was also driving from Shanghai to Tianshui County.

She didn't want to drive, after all, Shanghai is a full 800 kilometers away from Tianshui County.

Just find someone to transport the car there, and then you can fly to Jiangcheng yourself.

The tow truck was a bit slower, so after thinking about it, she decided to drive herself, since there was still a lot of stuff in the car.

After driving more than 100 kilometers, her phone rang.

He glanced at the number; it belonged to his father.

Seeing a service area a few kilometers ahead, she drove in and then dialed back.

"Dad, I was driving just now, is there something you need?"

A somewhat angry voice came from the other end of the phone: "What do you want with your uncle? And why do you need resources from Tianshui County? What have you been doing over there?"

"I... a friend of mine got into some trouble..."

"What kind of friend is worth doing this to? And who taught you to misuse political resources? I haven't even used them myself. What exactly are you trying to do?"

The tone on the other end of the phone was very unpleasant.

Yan Li seemed to have expected this, so she could only remain silent and let her father vent his emotions.

"The path I planned for you is one you absolutely do not want to follow. You want to go solo? Fine! I won't provide you with any more help from now on. Let me tell you clearly, your fund company will not succeed! You lack all three: team, funding, and connections! I know you have hundreds of thousands of followers online, but online followers are the cheapest, and they are also the least determined group, especially when money is involved."

I know what you're thinking—wanting to use your influence to save a huge amount on fund operating costs… You're overthinking it. Even if you have a million or ten million followers, you won't attract much funding.”

(End of this chapter)