The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

Chapter 169 Aesthetic Tyranny!

Sanlitun, Taikoo Li.

The wind in Beijing in winter is like a knife, stinging your face.

But the air here doesn't smell cold; it only smells of money and hormones mixed together.

"Click."

The sound of a camera shutter.

The sound was crisp and rapid, like a pistol with a silencer.

"Hey beautiful, wait a minute!"

A young man in a black down jacket stopped a long-legged girl who had just come out of Uniqlo.

The girl took a half step back warily, thinking it was someone selling gym memberships or trying to sell her hair.

But instead of handing out flyers, the young man handed over a stack of red banknotes.

Brand new.

On the gray and white winter streets, that splash of red was so striking it made one's heart race.

"We are talent scouts for Micro Light Video."

The young man spoke very quickly, and the white breath he exhaled instantly dissipated.

"All you have to do is smile at the camera for fifteen seconds, and this 500 yuan is yours. If you're willing to sign a contract, we guarantee you this amount for every video you make in the future."

He held up five fingers.

The girl was stunned: "Five thousand?"

"fifty thousand."

The young man slapped a contract with a gold-embossed logo onto a banknote.

"With the full package of traffic support, you'll be the most popular girl in Beijing next month."

Similar scenes are playing out in every corner of Sanlitun.

The ground promotion team of Weiguang was like a pack of hungry wolves, frantically "hunting" in this trendiest landmark in China.

Their prey has only one criterion: good looks.

Whether you're a white-collar worker who just broke up with your boyfriend, a college student who skipped class, or even an older woman who just came to buy groceries but has a sophisticated look, you're welcome to join us.

As long as you're good-looking, you can get paid and sign a contract on the spot.

This is not called ground promotion.

This is called "human trafficking".

They are selling "beauty" and harvesting "eyeballs".

……

The top floor of the Weiguang Building.

Lin Che stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city.

Although he couldn't see the hustle and bustle of Sanlitun, he could feel the restlessness.

That's the sound of capital burning.

"Boss, the first batch of 'seeds' has been planted."

Shen Nan walked over with a tablet computer, the screen displaying a densely packed list of signed contracts.

"In three days, we signed 800 good-looking ordinary people, 200 models, and 50 rich second-generation heirs from sports car clubs."

"And..." Shen Nan paused, his expression somewhat strange, "Wasn't the script we gave them a bit too... pretentious?"

Lin Che took the tablet and casually opened a few sample images.

The video contains no mundane family matters or everyday life stories.

It was all a carefully crafted lie.

A model living in a basement in Beijing, sitting in a rented Ferrari in front of the camera, applies lipstick in front of the rearview mirror, with deep jazz music playing in the background.

A college student who had just finished eating instant noodles changed into a borrowed trendy brand outfit and, with a heavily edited filter, walked down the street as if he were at Fashion Week.

"Pack?"

Lin Che smiled.

He threw the tablet on the table.

"That's right."

"Why is Kuaishou called 'rustic'? Because it's too real. They bring the crude things like rural dry toilets, pig blood from slaughtering, and eating raw scallions to the dinner table without reservation."

"That was real life, but it was a life of despair."

Lin Che walked to the liquor cabinet and poured two glasses of whiskey.

The ice cubes hit the side of the glass, making a clinking sound.

What I want to do is "create dreams".

"I want users to see nothing but handsome men and beautiful women, luxury cars and watches, and poetry and distant places when they open Weiguang."

"This is a form of class segregation."

Lin Che handed the wine glass to Shen Nan.

"When a worker on a Foxconn assembly line tightens screws, he opens his phone late at night and sees people on the screen living the life he has always dreamed of."

Will he be jealous? No, he'll be obsessed.

"He will have the illusion that as long as he scrolls through this screen, he becomes a part of that world."

This is cruel.

But that's human nature.

People hate poverty, even if it's real.

People yearn for wealth and status, even if it's just an act.

Weiguang Video is like a giant kaleidoscope with beauty filters.

In this kaleidoscope, there is no present hardship, only "beauty" carefully selected by algorithms.

……

8 PM.

The internal beta version of the Weiguang Video APP has been officially launched.

There was no large-scale promotion; only a few thousand signed online influencers posted a QR code on their WeChat Moments.

"Shh, there's a circle here that only good-looking people can get into."

This kind of copywriting with strong exclusivity instantly ignited the curiosity of young people.

The server's traffic curve started to climb.

A university dormitory.

Li Qiang, a junior in college, lay listlessly on his bed. He was a long-time user of Kuaishou and usually enjoyed watching his fellow users' mukbang videos.

He saw the post on his goddess Zhang Mo's WeChat Moments.

"A faint light? What the heck?"

Curious, he scanned the QR code, downloaded, and installed the app.

The icon is a minimalist white "W" against a black background, exuding a cool and sophisticated feel.

Click to open.

No GG, no registration.

full screen.

In that instant, Li Qiang felt as if his eyes had been washed clean.

On the screen is a girl in a JK uniform, turning around and smiling under a cherry blossom tree.

The music played precisely the second she turned around.

The image was so clear that even the individual strands of hair seemed to glow.

Li Qiang subconsciously glanced at his messy dormitory and the empty instant noodle container on the table.

A strong sense of contrast struck him.

He went up the slide.

Next up is a group of rich kids driving Lamborghinis and causing a ruckus in the streets.

The roar of the engine, transmitted through the headphones, was exhilarating.

Slide again.

It was a handsome guy performing magic tricks; his fingers were so nimble they seemed to possess magic.

Li Qiang was dumbfounded.

There's no shouting here, no double-tap 666, and no freaks who make themselves look ugly just to grab attention.

This place is all about "trendy", "cool", and "beautiful".

He felt that everything he had watched before was utter garbage.

A strange sense of superiority arose spontaneously.

"Holy crap, this software is pretty good."

Li Qiang couldn't resist sharing the link in the dormitory group chat.

"Look, the girls here are so high quality, a million times better than those on Kuaishou!"

……

Back-end monitoring room.

The data is fluctuating.

Retention rate: 78%.

Average usage time per person: 45 minutes.

This is terrifying data. For a newly launched product in its cold start phase, this is nothing short of a miracle.

"It's done."

Wang Jian stared at the screen and breathed a sigh of relief.

"With filters and content isolation, we have successfully established a 'high-end' community tone. Now users have formed a stereotype: Kuaishou is rural, and Weiguang is urban."

Lin Che sat on a chair in the corner, fiddling with the lighter in his hand.

Don't get too excited yet.

He looked at the calendar on the wall.

A date was circled in red above.

Lunar New Year's eve.

35 days left.

"The current users are just the natural traffic brought by those tens of thousands of 'seeds.' For the Internet, this number of people is like a drop of water thrown into the desert."

"We need a tsunami."

Shen Nan was somewhat worried: "Boss, now all the major channels are controlled by giants, especially Tencent. WeChat is blocking external links more and more strictly. If we want to achieve viral growth through WeChat during the Spring Festival, it will probably be very difficult. The links will be blocked instantly as soon as they are sent out."

"link?"

Lin Che clicked open the lighter.

Blue flames flickered in the darkness.

"Who said we were going to post a link?"

He stood up and walked to the whiteboard.

A line of text was written on the whiteboard: Virus and Vector.

"Shen Nan, what do you think is the fastest way for a virus to spread?"

"Air? Droplets?"

"No."

Lin Che blew out the flames.

"It attaches to food, making people eat it willingly."

"WeChat can block links and domains, but it cannot block video files in a user's phone's photo album."