The next morning, when Xu Ye got to the factory, he found two courier vans parked at the warehouse door.
Qin Zhiwei and Shen Mengmeng were hauling packed goods out to them without a break.
Normally the courier van didn’t come until mid-morning, and there was usually only one.
Xu Ye went over, curious. “What’s going on?”
Shen Mengmeng answered immediately. “We had a spike around eleven last night. Pingping says we sold more than three thousand orders in a little over two hours. I got here before dawn to pack.”
“Good work, good work.”
At that Xu Ye ran straight up to the second floor. Passing the Taobao team’s office he heard Pei Youwei’s voice inside, and he pushed the door open and walked in without knocking.
“Xu Ye, you’re just in time. We had another spike last night — a real one this time.”
“The internet celebrities we’re working with all posted their videos yesterday. My guess is one of the videos made the rankings and pulled in a big wave of traffic.”
Xu Ye went on, smiling, “This wave of traffic could last a while, so there’s going to be a lot for you all to do. Keep at it. I’ll have finance add a bonus for you this month.”
“Thank you, Director Xu.”
“Long live Director Xu.”
In a very good mood, Xu Ye went back to his office, opened his computer and logged into Bilibili. Sure enough, the uploader with the screen name Little Cute Bunny had posted a swimwear dance video at seven the previous evening, and it had made the rankings — third place, in fact.
Xu Ye couldn’t help marveling. There really are a lot of dirty old men in this world.
Pei Youwei had never expected that using internet celebrities to move product would work this well. Watching her own brand’s Taobao sales climb higher and higher put a spring in her step. She came back to the office and stood beaming at Xu Ye without saying a word.
Xu Ye raised his head and gave her a flat look. “What are you leering at me like that for?”
Pei Youwei wasn’t offended. Still beaming, she said, “Xu Ye, I’ve realized you’re an absolute money tree these days.”
“All right. Let’s talk business.”
“Business? What business?”
“Sales are up now, so we need to press the advantage and keep pushing new product lines. And the new lines have to go high-end.”
“High-end?”
Xu Ye nodded. “Mm. Prices high, quality good. If we stay in the budget lane forever we’ll never build a brand. We can use the cheap lines to draw traffic and the expensive lines to push the brand. If we’re going to do this, we go for TOP1 in the lingerie industry.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Just get everything ready in advance. Right now we only have the two categories, lingerie and swimwear. Later on we’ll have to add underwear, sleepwear, even yoga pants, everything along those lines. When that happens the factory will definitely have to scale up, and we’ll need to separate the company from the factory — the factory handles production, the company handles operations… are you even listening to me?”
Pei Youwei blinked, came back to herself, and immediately waved a dismissive hand. “When the time comes I’ll do whatever you say. Scaling up isn’t hard anyway. The industrial park has a whole pile of factory buildings standing empty, and next to it there’s a technology park that was finished the year before last. I hear local companies that move in get a full year’s rent waived.”
“Mm. One step at a time.”
When he had said his piece, Xu Ye saw the green bubble in the bottom right corner of his screen jumping, and clicked it. Several messages had come in from Zhang Xinzhou…
Zhang Xinzhou: Taotao Film has put your interview video out.
Zhang Xinzhou: Just search Taotao Film on Weibo. It’s the latest one.
Zhang Xinzhou: Why are you so photogenic? A lot of the comments underneath are saying how handsome you are. I think you’re about to blow up.
Curious, Xu Ye opened Weibo on his phone, searched out the interview video, and started watching it from the beginning.
The video wasn’t long. A lot must have been cut — on Weibo it ran only a little over seven minutes.
But you had to admit it.
Either they had put a filter on the video or they had prettied it up some other way.
On camera Xu Ye really did look handsome.
He watched the first few minutes, then dragged the video to the end. At the close of the interview he had gone out of his way to put in a plug for his own company, and he wanted to know whether that part had been cut. It hadn’t. It was still there, right at the finish.
Only when he had watched it all did Xu Ye reply to Zhang Xinzhou. “You haven’t shared that video around, have you?”
Zhang Xinzhou: I already put it on Moments.
Xu Ye: Screw you.
……
Qin Zhiwei didn’t get a breather until noon.
He ate his takeout with his phone in his hand, chatting with Shen Xinyi for a while. Once the food was gone she went off for a nap, and with nothing to do he started scrolling Moments.
A few screens down he came to a Weibo link Zhang Xinzhou had reposted that morning, with a line of text above it: “An interview with the mystery investor behind Monkey King: Hero Is Back.”
Qin Zhiwei glanced at it and opened it immediately.
The video came up.
The host and Xu Ye were in the same shot. Seeing him there on the little screen, Qin Zhiwei was completely stunned.
Christ, my buddy’s on TV?
He watched the whole video with his jaw on the floor.
Throughout the interview Xu Ye came across as extraordinarily composed. You couldn’t see a trace of nerves on him. If it were me, Qin Zhiwei thought, I’d probably be stuttering.
Qin Zhiwei found a way to download the video. Seeing those idiots in the high school group still bragging, he didn’t think twice — he posted it straight into the group and then left the chat.
A moment ago the high school group had been talking nonstop.
The instant Qin Zhiwei posted the video the group went utterly silent, as though somebody had switched on the mute function.
A full ten minutes went by.
Only then, tentatively, did somebody post a message in the group. “Xu Ye’s this badass now?”
“Is that Xu Ye?”
“Yeah, that’s definitely him.”
“God, he’s an investor now?”
“Christ!”
“Xu Ye’s on TV?”
“Oh my god.”
“……”
……
Gu Mengyao was furious.
She couldn’t understand why her boyfriend Chu Wenchao had lost his temper so badly last night for no reason at all, when he was normally so gentle with her.
She regretted even more what she had said yesterday, in the heat of the moment, about breaking up.
She was afraid Chu Wenchao really would break up with her.
She did not want her friends finding out she had been dumped not long into the relationship.
Just as Gu Mengyao was wavering over whether to back down to Chu Wenchao, Liu Qian suddenly sent her a video.
Gu Mengyao had been finding Liu Qian annoying, but the moment she opened the video her eyes filled with disbelief.
This—!
How is this possible!
Gu Mengyao’s hand went to her mouth without thinking. She stared at the face in the video, familiar and unfamiliar at once, and a sense of defeat she had never felt before welled up inside her.
She had always assumed she was doing better than Xu Ye.
It had never occurred to her that Xu Ye would become someone she had to look up to.
And yet.
A little over a year ago.
He had been nothing but a simp hanging around her, someone kept on the back burner and nothing more.
(End of Chapter 264)