After spending half an hour, the big star Xie Xi finally understood the various procedures of Weibo lucky draws. He decided to embark on the path of using lucky draws to attract fans.
Xie Xi logged into his alternate account and posted a lucky draw Weibo: [Follow the blogger, repost, and comment on this Weibo. In five days, twenty-two people will be randomly drawn to share two hundred and fifty thousand, and nine additional autographed photos of Xie Xi will be given away.]
This Weibo post spread at an extremely fast speed. Reposts and comments surged, and the number of followers continued to increase.
Among them, there was a group of people who specifically kept an eye on lucky draws on Weibo, trying their luck no matter whose draw it was. There was also a group of Xie Xi's fans who saw it while searching his name in real-time. These fans made up the majority. Since they mingled with other fans, the news spread from one to ten, and ten to a hundred. Soon, the number of followers on this alternate account shot up.
[I don't care about the money; I mainly want Xi Xi's autograph at the end.]
[No way, you actually have nine of Baby Xi's autographs, blogger? Do you go to every event Baby Xi attends?]
[So jealous. How many autographs do you have to be willing to give away nine?]
[Tsk, Xie Xi's autograph is nothing. If you have the ability, blogger, give away Professor Ye's autograph, otherwise you are doing a disservice to your username.]
Xie Xi's alternate account was named: My Professor Ye.
With all the reposting, five days passed. After the draw was completed, Xie Xi's alternate account had grown from a few hundred followers to one hundred and fifty thousand.
Xie Xi was not very satisfied, because the blogger who led the shipping of You Feibai and Ye Qiusuo had a full seven hundred and fifty thousand followers. What was even more infuriating was that the blogger was an insider in those small circles, knowing the fanfic authors and fanart artists, and interacting with them frequently. Since she took the lead in shipping them, even though the movie was not yet available on streaming platforms, fanfiction and couple fanart were produced one after another. They even named the ship 'Bai Qiu Yi Sheng' (A Lifetime of Bai and Qiu).
Compared to the disorganized atmosphere of shipping the Xie-Ye CP, the Bai Qiu Yi Sheng CP was booming and extremely professional.
Because he was always looking at these things, Weibo's big data algorithms recommended related content all day long. As soon as he logged in, he could see people carrying the banner of 'Bai Qiu Yi Sheng' posting on Weibo. The big star Xie got a headache from the anger.
Not even three days had passed, and Xie Xi started another lucky draw: [Follow, repost, and comment on this Weibo. In two days, twenty-two people will be drawn to randomly share two hundred and fifty thousand yuan, and randomly receive nine albums autographed by Xie Xi.]
That wasn't all. Xie Xi posted another one and pinned it to the top: [Calling for Xie-Ye fanfiction, CP videos, and fanart. Three people will be selected from the submissions to equally share nine hundred and ninety thousand yuan.]
If the previous lucky draw Weibo could attract a lot of people to follow and comment, then this last one caused an absolute uproar.
Equally sharing nine hundred and ninety thousand meant three hundred and thirty thousand yuan for each person.
The three circles were all shaken. They never expected that there would be a day when they could make money by shipping a CP.
[What kind of peerlessly rich person is this, just for shipping a CP?]
[If I had known, I would have learned video editing back then, or learned to draw, or at least practiced writing, instead of just crying and squealing over the fanworks produced by the creators. Then I would have had a chance to make money today.]
[Draw, I'll draw it out today!]
[Everyone, I'm going to write fanfic now.]
[The blogger is so rich and so thoughtful. Is ninety-nine wishing Xie and Ye to be together for a long time?]
[So... does anyone know what twenty-two and twenty-five mean? I feel like it's a bit strange that the blogger used these numbers both times.]
[Love love and love me?]
[... I know now. Twenty-two is the number of strokes in Ye Qiusuo's name, and twenty-five is the number of strokes in Xie Xi's name.]
[Holy crap! I counted, and it's actually true. Is the blogger really that dedicated?]
[Love it, love it. Following the blogger immediately. As long as you ship Xie-Ye, we are good friends.]
[I don't care about the money, I mainly just want to make friends with the blogger.]
Facts proved that no matter how many followers one had, it couldn't beat being rich.
The number of followers on Xie Xi's account easily rose to a million, surpassing the blogger who shipped Bai Qiu Yi Sheng.
As for the three circles of fanfiction, fanart, and video editing, they also began to vigorously produce Xie-Ye CP content because of Xie Xi's Weibo post. It didn't matter if they actually liked the ship or not; they mainly wanted that three hundred thousand.
Of course, there were even more people who both liked the ship and wanted to be selected.
It was said that in order to be selected, some people specially went to the cinema to watch "Lake" several times. Others dug into Xie Xi's alternate account and found his previous comments talking about the actor and the professor.
Videos were hard to edit since there was only so much footage. If edited poorly, it was hard to stand out. But fanfiction and fanart were different; new content could be produced anytime and anywhere.
Ever since Xie Xi successfully started consuming Xie-Ye CP fanworks, there was something new every day without repeating. Whenever he saw something he liked, he would repost it with his alternate account. More and more people came to know about the Xie-Ye CP. The once-booming Bai Qiu Yi Sheng was no longer worth mentioning, turning into a true "Bai Qiu" (asking in vain).
Xie Xi could finally sleep peacefully with satisfaction.
……
"You donated three hundred thousand?" Ye Qiusuo asked, looking at her student.
She had been too busy recently. Not only did she have her own work, but she also had to go everywhere to find suitable people to take over the mess left by those four people. She had already found three, and was only short of one, which was also the most important and difficult project.
Having just returned to the university yesterday, several teachers looked at her and said her student was interesting.
This month, the college was looking for alumni to donate money to add some new experimental equipment. As a result, one of Ye Qiusuo's students suddenly showed up and donated three hundred thousand yuan.
Compared to the tens of millions needed for experimental equipment, the money was naturally not much, but for an ordinary student, it was a considerable sum.
If Lin Lu had donated it, Ye Qiusuo wouldn't have been surprised. His family background was better than ordinary people's. But the person who donated the money was Sun Jiajia.
Sun Jiajia's eyes darted around. She had kept thirty thousand, precisely because she didn't want people to associate it with the popular lucky draw on Weibo a while ago. Now that her mentor was standing in front of her asking, Sun Jiajia couldn't hold it in: "I... that money is from a lucky draw I won. I thought this way, Professor, you would be slightly less... angry."
Ye Qiusuo frowned at her student. "Money from a lucky draw is obtained through legitimate channels. You should keep it for yourself. Why would you donate it to make me not angry?"
Sun Jiajia: How on earth was she supposed to explain that she had written fanfiction about her mentor and Xi Xi on Weibo, and was ultimately selected by that blogger, winning three hundred and thirty thousand?
Sun Jiajia's writing could only be considered passable. As soon as the nine hundred and ninety thousand was announced, even professional writers showed up. The reason she stood out among the crowd was that she included a lot of details about Ye Qiusuo. After all, it was her own mentor. Xie Xi could easily immerse himself into the story as soon as he read it, so the first person he selected was her.
After a while, Sun Jiajia couldn't bear it anymore and voluntarily confessed.
Professor Ye: "..."
"I've helped you get that three hundred thousand refunded. Keep it for your own use." Ye Qiusuo had asked the teacher in charge of collecting the money to return Sun Jiajia's money yesterday, and filled the gap with her own money.
"Professor, how about we use that money specifically to buy materials for our lab?" Sun Jiajia felt uneasy using such a sudden windfall.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Alright."
……
After returning home, Ye Qiusuo thought for a moment. She took out her phone, opened Weibo, and found the blogger Sun Jiajia had mentioned today. She scrolled for a while and found the winning fanfiction among a few popular posts. It wasn't long, only a little over ten thousand words.
After reading it, Professor Ye had mixed feelings.
Flipping casually through the fan art again, Professor Ye stared at the two people embracing in the picture for a long time, feeling a strange complexity in her heart.
There was another popular picture depicting Xie Xi's most classic scene in "The Lake," but the person standing in front of him was replaced by Ye Qiusuo.
Professor Ye paused just as she was about to exit the page, and saved the picture.
It looked very much like him.
The next day, when Ye Qiusuo arrived at the university, she was pulled aside by Professor Li.
"Little Ye, I heard you're looking for someone recently."
Ye Qiusuo hadn't made a big fuss about it, but Professor Li had been in the circle for many years and had a wide network of contacts, so naturally, he had heard some news.
"Yes, do you have someone to recommend, Professor Li?"
Professor Li smiled, "I actually do. A student I used to tutor. He's very strong and should meet your requirements."
"A student?" Ye Qiusuo thought back but couldn't recall anyone Professor Li had taught at the university who fit her criteria.
Professor Li coughed, "When I was in grad school, I was his college entrance exam tutor. Even though so many years have passed, it's not an exaggeration to call him my student."
"He's not from our university?" Ye Qiusuo realized.
"Yu Zhengkang. He's currently a professor at Western University, and he's not very easy to talk to." Professor Li relayed all the information he had gathered to Ye Qiusuo. "I heard that due to internal problems with a previous project, he hasn't taken on any projects for several years and doesn't really want to. You can go and give it a try."
"Thank you, Professor Li." Ye Qiusuo noted this down. "I'll go check it out."
With the clue provided by Professor Li, Ye Qiusuo looked into Yu Zhengkang and found that he seemed tailor-made for the Celestial Sphere project. The only issue was that the last project he failed to complete—and swore never to touch again—was fundamentally similar to the Celestial Sphere.
Ye Qiusuo arranged a meeting with him. She rushed over, but after exchanging just a few words, his face darkened. He bluntly said it was impossible, leaving no room to continue the conversation.
"Professor Yu," Ye Qiusuo called out to stop him. "Is it because of people problems that you won't touch this field anymore?"
Yu Zhengkang snorted coldly, "I just don't want to."
The two parted on bad terms.
Ye Qiusuo didn't look for anyone else; she believed Professor Yu Zhengkang was the most suitable candidate.
Because of this, Ye Qiusuo went to ask Professor Li, wanting to know what had happened back then.
"I'm not clear on the specifics either." Professor Li shook his head and said after a while, "Since he rejected you, there's no hope. Find someone else as soon as possible; don't waste your time on him. This guy is incredibly stubborn. Back in his senior year of high school, his grades were a complete mess. Then he suddenly became interested in our field, hired a tutor to catch up, and wanted to get into our university. However, he ended up getting into Western University and has stayed there ever since."
"Professor Yu Zhengkang... there probably isn't a more suitable candidate than him." Ye Qiusuo felt a bit helpless. Initially, her focus had been on researchers who had excelled in recent years. Yu Zhengkang hadn't touched the related field for almost nine years, purely dedicating himself to teaching. Now that she knew about him, she naturally couldn't let it go.
"Anyway, I don't think you have a chance." Professor Li suddenly remembered some gossip. "I heard his wife is a big director in the entertainment industry, named Zheng something. She's much more cunning than Yu Zhengkang. Back then, very few of the people who had conflicts with Yu Zhengkang ended up well."
Ye Qiusuo listened casually and didn't take it to heart. She wanted to keep looking for other opportunities to get him to agree.
A few days later, this opportunity fell from the sky and landed right in front of Ye Qiusuo.
"A detective variety show?" Ye Qiusuo looked at the person who came and instinctively refused, "I don't have time."
She was indeed very short on money, but this kind of variety show wasn't like a trivia quiz show where she only needed to spare two or three hours a week; it required at least a full day.
"Money is not an issue," the other party said confidently, evidently having done their research before coming.
"I'm sorry, I..." Ye Qiusuo suddenly looked down at the business card the person had just handed her, which read: Zheng Longju.
Professor Li's words echoed in her ears.
