Inside the Extreme Bar.
Seeing that everyone was ready, Chen Jincheng snapped his fingers at Jiang Xiaobai. She took the cue, immediately got to work at the DJ booth, and played the instrumental track for "Trajectory."
As the music began, Jiang Xiaobai's body started to sway slowly. It was as if she had an innate talent. The swing of her waist and the rise and fall of her body were incredibly rhythmic and eye-catching.
Lao Chen watched the camera feed. Even though the girl wasn't in the main shot, the moment she started dancing, she instinctively drew your attention.
Xiaohai and Xiaoliao stared at the camera filming Jiang Xiaobai, both instinctively swallowing hard.
As the girl swayed to the beat, her legs, her waist... it was impossible to look away.
Just then, Chen Jincheng's voice rang out, instantly captivating everyone:
"How can I hide my sorrow, in the place where I lost you!"
"The scent of your hair faded so fast, I can no longer keep up!"
As she listened, the look of surprise on Sister Hong's face deepened.
She realized that hearing this song live felt different. It had a moving quality that wasn't there during the livestream.
Listening to the song, she felt an indescribable, irrepressible sadness welling up inside her.
'Is this song's live emotional impact really this strong?'
The sadness was even more intense during the chorus. It was baffling; she didn't even know what was making her sad, but the feeling just washed over her.
It wasn't just her. Xiaohai, Xiaoliao, and Lao Chen all felt the same way.
Apparently, the "+100% Emotional Effect" attribute was active whenever Chen Jincheng sang at the Extreme Bar, regardless of the time.
The song ended quickly. As the music stopped, everyone snapped out of their melancholic daze and remembered to applaud their boss.
Sister Hong couldn't help but praise him. "Boss, it feels like I'm meeting you for the first time. This song is incredible, and its emotional pull is so powerful. Not even the live concerts of A-list stars can compare to this."
"Yeah, I completely agree. That one song made my eyes sting," Lao Chen immediately chimed in with a nod. He had filmed concerts for major pop stars with his team before.
Even those A-listers didn't have such a powerful emotional impact during their live performances.
Chen Jincheng knew it was all thanks to the "+100% Emotional Effect." He smiled and said, "Let's see how the video turned out!"
"Okay, video first!" Sister Hong nodded.
It was Jiang Xiaobai's first time being filmed, so she was very curious. After stepping down from the DJ booth, however, she felt self-conscious again in her form-fitting outfit. She quickly sidled up close to Chen Jincheng as they walked over to one of the smaller cameras.
This camera had been focused on Chen Jincheng. The shot looked great, but the 175cm-tall Jiang Xiaobai was just too eye-catching with her DJ-style dancing. Fortunately, Chen Jincheng was handsome enough that, combined with his singing, he managed not to be completely upstaged.
"This footage looks great, and more importantly, the sound recording for the vocals is excellent!" Lao Chen said, his face alight with pleasant surprise. He was very satisfied with the shoot.
'The boss and this girl are probably first-timers, yet it went so smoothly without a single mistake. There's clearly some real talent there.'
"Let's see the video from Xiaobai's main camera," Sister Hong said.
When they watched the footage focused on Jiang Xiaobai, the screen was filled with pure temptation. There was nothing to do but stare at her legs, her figure, her face, and appreciate her dancing.
"You guys probably all love watching videos like this, right?" Sister Hong asked with a smile, turning to Lao Chen, Xiaohai, and Xiaoliao.
The three men hastily shook their heads, but their expressions gave them away.
Sister Hong didn't forget to praise Jiang Xiaobai. "Xiaobai, you did a great job. The video is perfect."
"Thank you, Sister Hong," Jiang Xiaobai replied sweetly, then subconsciously glanced at Chen Jincheng. Seeing the finished product, she finally understood how much effort that scumbag Cheng had put into this for her. Watching the video, she was starting to fall in love with herself.
'So I can be this sexy and alluring.'
Chen Jincheng, however, frowned slightly as he watched Jiang Xiaobai's video. It was shot well, and she looked beautiful, but it was clearly missing something important.
It was missing that soul-stealing, ecstatic expression from the Jiang Xiaobai of his past life. To men, that expression was the most captivating part.
With that kind of ecstatic expression, her videos were like they had a buff cast on them.
Simply put, without that ecstatic expression, others could copy her seductive videos. But with it, it wasn't something people could just imitate. Any attempt would just be a clumsy, awkward copy.
He thought back to the expression on her face in the hotel room, when he had her legs slung over his shoulders. 'That's the look.'
But under the current circumstances, he couldn't very well tell her in front of everyone that her expression wasn't right and that she needed to look more ecstatic.
He would have to tell her in private and have her practice to find that feeling. In the future, without the effects of the Internet Celebrity Debut Card, she would need to rely on this killer move.
After watching the video again, Sister Hong said, "Okay, Boss. We'll edit the video now, then upload it to generate some heat. We'll also upload your song to the music platforms at the same time!"
Chen Jincheng replied, "Sister Hong, there's some empty space in the bar's office area. You can work here until the main office is renovated. From now on, recruiting artists, shooting videos, and things like that will probably happen here at the bar anyway."
"Okay!" Sister Hong nodded. No one wanted to run back and forth if they could help it.
Chen Jincheng had Wang Yuan arrange it, and a large office was cleared out specifically for Sister Hong and her crew.
Meanwhile, Sister Hong told Jiang Xiaobai to change her clothes. There was some paperwork to fill out, and she also needed a copy of Xiaobai's Tiao Yin account password to handle uploading the video and promoting it.
Time passed. As the sun began to set, the bar's employees started to arrive. Wang Yuan organized a meeting so the staff could get acquainted with their new boss, Chen Jincheng.
Afterward, back in the office, he introduced several managers and marketing personnel.
They had already found out last night that this internet-famous 'Ancestral Master' was the new boss, so no one was surprised.
However, the art director and planning director had already jumped ship to another bar, so new ones would have to be hired.
The finance person had also bolted long ago.
"Boss, this is our purchasing manager, Li Guanghong." As Wang Yuan gestured to a middle-aged man, Chen Jincheng's attention was piqued. He recognized him.
To be precise, the man was a distant relative on his father's side, from his grand-aunt's generation. He was actually a closer relative of Chen Jincheng's cousin-uncle, Zhu Guangqing.
The man was an honest fellow, which was likely why his cousin-uncle had put him in charge of purchasing. Zhu Guangqing wasn't the type to place a shrewd, greedy person in that position.
Name: Li Guanghong
Loyalty: 0-100
Status: Just wants to do his job honestly. Both of his children are in college, and he really doesn't want to lose his job. He wonders if he'll be implicated by Guangqing's dishonorable actions.
Chen Jincheng saw this type of Loyalty score again. He knew from Xiaobai's case that it represented a fluctuating state. The final number would depend on what he did next.
"Uncle, what that bastard Zhu Guangqing did has nothing to do with you. You can relax and just keep doing your job," Chen Jincheng said. He had decided to keep the man. For one, there was the family connection; even if it wasn't close, having a relative in charge of purchasing was better than a stranger.
Most importantly, the man was honest. By addressing him directly as "Uncle," he was making a gesture to win him over.
Li Guanghong's face lit up, and he immediately promised to do his best.
Chen Jincheng saw the man's Loyalty score jump straight to 90.
This proved he had made the right decision.
"Alright, if there's nothing else, you're all dismissed," Chen Jincheng said. After they left, he received a message from Sister Hong containing two edited videos and the complete audio file for "Trajectory."
Sister Hong: "They're edited. Take a look, and if they're fine, I'll upload them."
Chen Jincheng watched the videos. Seeing no issues, he told Sister Hong to go ahead and upload them.
On her end, after getting the green light, Sister Hong uploaded the two videos to Chen Jincheng's and Jiang Xiaobai's respective accounts.
Chen Jincheng's livestream from the lingerie shop had cut out abruptly, and his fans had been worried ever since. As soon as the new video was posted, they flooded in to watch it and were instantly captivated.
They had been curious about the clothes he'd bought at the lingerie shop, and now they got to see them. The outfit Xiaobai was wearing was simply divine. Cheng truly knew what his bros liked to see.
After watching Cheng's video, leaving a like and a comment, they immediately clicked over to Xiaobai's account. When they saw the video that focused on her, they felt themselves drooling. They wanted to lick the screen.
They were so jealous of Cheng. 'Xiaobai must really enjoy it when he goes down on her, right?'
It wasn't just the fans. Sister Hong had hyped up the "Ancestral Master + 'Trajectory'" combination into a minor trending topic, which drove even more traffic to the new video. Moreover, the clip was edited to the song's climax. The song was a banger, and the combination of a handsome guy singing while a beautiful woman danced seductively was undeniably appealing.
As a result, the views, likes, and comments kept climbing. Less than ten minutes after it was uploaded, the video broke through to the fifth-tier traffic pool.
It was breaking through the traffic tiers much faster than any of his previous videos.
The video, it was safe to say, was a success.
Meanwhile, Jiang Xiaobai's video was even more direct in its appeal—a full-frontal assault on the senses of every man watching. Her likes were also skyrocketing, and her video was breaking through traffic tiers at an unbelievable rate.
Chen Jincheng looked at the stats on her video, a wide smile spreading across his face.
The moment her video was uploaded, he received a notification from the game system:
[Heat-generating effect for the first video of the Jiang Xiaobai Internet Celebrity Debut Card has been activated!]
...
Meanwhile, after receiving a message from Sister Hong that the video was up, Jiang Xiaobai had been glued to her phone.
She had been on Tiao Yin for a long time, just casually filming things on her own. Her most-liked video ever had barely scraped past 500 likes. But after this video went up, she watched in disbelief as the likes broke a thousand in just a few moments. After that, every time she refreshed the page, the count jumped by hundreds.
It felt like she was dreaming. She'd never dared to even imagine something like this before.
It was just... the comments were making her blush:
"FUCK, this girl's got my head spinning!"
"The way she sways those hips turned my buddy into a drooling idiot!"
"When I get rich, I'm definitely getting my kid a stepmom with a body this good!"
"Sigh, I only lasted 5 seconds before I lost it for this girl!"
"..."
Jiang Xiaobai put down her phone and tried to calm her racing heart.
'Am I going viral?'
'And that scumbag Cheng... he's amazing!'
'Should I thank him?'
'But how should I thank him?'