Entertainment: Starting from joining Kugou Video

Chapter 163: Fulfilling the Bet with Alibaba Executives

Even more impressive are the statistics on masterpieces on the Shuqi platform:

TOP1: The Strongest Son-in-Law in the City

Total readership: 48 billion; Daily readership: 1600 million; Author's monthly income: 314 million yuan (for three consecutive months)

Copyright Sold: Film and television adaptation rights have been signed with Tanglou Entertainment Company for 800 million. TOP 2: "The Return of the God of War Discovers His Daughter Lives in a Doghouse"

总阅读量：37亿日均阅读量：1200万作者月收入：287万元特色：开创「战神+萌娃」流派，衍生短视频话题播放量破20亿TOP3：《开局签到荒古圣体》

Total readership: 29 billion; Daily readership: 9.5 million; Author's monthly income: 254 million yuan. Note: Author "Tiancan Tudou No. 2" publicly admitted: "Returning to Shuqi was the most correct decision in my career."

These figures are circulating wildly within the industry.

Experts who once mocked the free model as a "dumping ground" have fallen silent.

A new trending post has appeared on Zhihu: "How would you evaluate Shuqi Novels' remarkable turnaround over Yuewen Group within six months?"

The most upvoted answer came from an anonymous investment analyst: "This isn't a simple business model innovation; it's an ecosystem war. Tanglou uses free novels as a hook to capture the hundreds of millions of daily users within the Alibaba ecosystem. Then, it uses that traffic to feed back into content, uses that content to build IP, and uses that IP to lay the groundwork for the future. What they're really looking at isn't the small amount of revenue from online novels; they're looking at the future copyright strategy and the content ecosystem."

"Before this, the largest IP library in the industry was Tencent's China Literature Group. Now, Tanglou, with a completely different model, has directly subverted the industry, thus building Shuqi Novels, a content library that is enough to rival China Literature Group."

"Based on the current development, it is very likely that in the next few years, the monthly active users of Shuqi Novels will far exceed those of Yuewen Group. Meanwhile, Yuewen Group will continue to weaken, and its monthly active users will continue to decline."

"Paid reading will definitely not die, but it will gradually decline. Although there are still top-quality works, the overall environment is no longer viable. On the other hand, more and more industry giants are switching to Shuqi Novels."

"With this ebb and flow, the future of Shuqi Novels is limitless in the future."

The huge success of Shuqi Novels also allowed Tang Lou to finally win the bet he had made earlier.

After completing the layout of the free novels, Tanglou will begin to plan its own Red Fruit Short Drama series.

Based on past experience, the development of Red Fruit Short Drama can be described as legendary.

In its earliest days, Hongguo Short Drama was incubated within the Tomato Novel platform.

Initially, they adopted a paid model, but it was met with a lukewarm reception. They then decisively switched to a free-to-watch + earn coins model, and their monthly active users skyrocketed from 32 to 2000 million.

In the following years, it experienced explosive growth, with monthly active users soaring from 36 million in January to 140 million in November 2014.

By this time, Hongguo's short drama market position had approached that of long video platforms. After 2015, its monthly active users reached 2.45 million, and its daily usage time far exceeded that of conventional video platforms.

By 2026, it had reached an even more astonishing level, with daily active users exceeding 100 million and monthly active users approaching 300 million!

The success of Hongguo Short Drama is, of course, inseparable from the overall ecosystem and channel traffic.

Fortunately, Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group possesses all these conditions. After the success of Youku Video, Alibaba Literature, and others, Tanglou has now established sufficient prestige and status within Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group.

With the strong support of senior executive Shen Yan, Tanglou is absolutely able to mobilize the resources of the entire Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group, which is why Tanglou dares to launch its own Red Fruit Short Drama plan at this time.

If Tang Lou were to start his own business, relying entirely on his own small plot of land, even if he produced a short drama called "Red Fruit," it would be quickly imitated and surpassed, or his business would collapse halfway through.

Only within a large ecosystem like Alibaba's Digital Media and Entertainment Group can Tanglou have the opportunity to replicate the success of its predecessor, Hongguo Short Drama.

The copyright library of Shuqi Novels, the traffic of Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group, and massive financial investment are all indispensable.

With the plan in place, Tanglou began its formal setup: Candy Short Drama.

Tanglou will develop this app within the Alibaba ecosystem, starting with incubation on the Shuqi Novels platform. For this project, Tanglou will establish a brand new company, and he will invest in and develop it together with the Shuqi Novels company.

Of course, the tenement building owner will definitely hold a stake in this project and become the largest shareholder.

In the future, Candy Short Drama will also be a trump card in Tanglou's hands.

After Tang Lou had prepared all the plans, the Alibaba Entertainment leadership team took action, rewarding Tang Lou for his achievements during this period and reassigning his future role.

Xixi Industrial Park, Hangzhou.

Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group Leadership Meeting.

Seven people sat around an oval conference table, looking at data reports projected on a screen, their expressions complex.

Shen Yan was the first to speak: "Shuqi Novels has surpassed 2000 million daily active users and 1.2 million monthly active users, surpassing Yuewen to become number one in the industry. It's been exactly seven months since Tanglou made that pledge."

He paused, then added, "Moreover, it's profitable. The net profit for October alone was 32 million."

A collective gasp filled the conference room.

"I remember," a vice president said with difficulty, "six months ago, we said the free model couldn't be profitable."

"Tang Lou has done it." Shen Yan looked at Yu Yongfu. "Chairman, as agreed, Tang Lou has exceeded its target. I propose that Tang Lou be formally appointed as the president of Alibaba Literature, fully responsible for Shuqi Novels, UC Browser, and the future short drama business."

Yu Yongfu was silent for a moment, then asked, "Tang Lou, what are your own thoughts?"

Tang Lou stood up, not looking at the PPT, but instead pulling up another document.

"Distinguished leaders, the success of the free novel is just the first step." He opened the file, "This is our short drama project's feasibility report."

Several sets of data appear on the screen:

As of now, Douyin's daily active users have exceeded 2 million, and Kuaishou's daily active users have exceeded 1.5 million. The average daily usage time of short video users is 87 minutes. "Therefore, I plan to develop a brand new APP called Candy Short Drama, which is specifically used to operate and develop short drama projects."

"The short dramas I'm referring to are different from the short dramas we usually think of; they are short videos specifically designed for fragmented time."

"A short episode is only two to three minutes long, and a whole series can be watched in a few hours."

Tang Lou directly proposed the format of the Red Fruit Short Drama from his previous life.

"This is my prediction for the short drama market: it will reach 500 billion yuan in 2020 and exceed 1000 billion yuan in 2022."

"Short dramas are the biggest content trend in the next three years," Tang Lou said clearly. "And we have a massive library of novel copyrights, enough for us to create a brand new short drama ecosystem."

Tanglou completely adopted the content strategy of Hongguo Short Drama from its previous life: massive supply and high-quality upgrades.

During the initial phase, an aggressive minimum guarantee plus revenue sharing strategy was adopted to quickly attract small and medium-sized production companies and accumulate a massive content library in a short period of time.