Chapter 524: Chapter 195: Little Fish’s Farewell Letter, Zhihu Officially Launches_3

Li Yuan nodded. "Yes, go ahead."

After hanging up with Lin Yuwei, Li Yuan took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure.

But no matter how he tried to calm himself, memories of his time with Jiang Zhiyu flooded his thoughts, consuming him completely.

He murmured to himself, his eyes filled with bewilderment, "Little Fish, will we ever have the chance to meet again?"

「At Modu Airport」

Jiang Zhiyu clutched her ticket and looked back at the city one last time, her eyes filled with reluctance.

Beside her stood a still-graceful, middle-aged woman, who watched her precious daughter with a sullen, helpless expression.

"Little Fish, you should forget the people and events in Modu. A new beginning awaits you in Beijing. You’ll find someone far better than him waiting for you there."

Jiang Zhiyu’s voice was hoarse, and her legs felt strange. Looking at her mother, she gently shook her head.

"Mom, you don’t need to persuade me. I’m grown up now; I can handle my own affairs."

"Also, I don’t want to see him suffer any form of retaliation or harm. If you do anything, I’ll kill myself and you can all watch!"

Her mother was taken aback. Her investigation had confirmed that Li Yuan was indeed talented and capable, but he was also an out-and-out scoundrel. What a shame. If her daughter wasn’t so stubborn, she would have taught that scoundrel a lesson.

She lovingly stroked her daughter’s head and promised solemnly, "Don’t worry, Little Fish. I’ve already warned that boy from the Qin family. He knows what’s at stake."

"The plane is about to take off; let’s go! Your father and grandfather are waiting for you in Beijing. When you get there, don’t talk too much about what happened here. Just act as if none of it ever happened, understand?"

"Mom, thank you! I understand," Jiang Zhiyu nodded.

She glanced back one last time at the towering skyscrapers. Her gaze seemed to penetrate the steel jungle, landing on a figure in a hotel room. In her mind’s eye, he waved at her, a faint smile touching the corners of his eyes.

"Mom, let’s go."

「In the hotel room」

Li Yuan checked the time: 8:55 PM. Only five minutes remained until the Zhihu website went live.

He decided to stay in his pajamas and turned on the hotel’s desktop computer, ready to check the new website’s registration status.

At 9:00 PM sharp, Li Yuan saw posts appearing one after another on the Daxia University campus Tieba.

[BREAKING: Zhihu is online! Help me with a "Kan Yi Dao" and you could win a grand prize of ten million!]

[Fam, I found a goldmine of a forum! Just get people to register for you and win incredible prizes! First come, first served, so don’t wait!]

[Want to know more about that girl with the high ponytail from the cafeteria? Come to Zhihu’s "Confession Wall" and profess your love to your goddess (or god)!]

[Here’s the most professional sports forum—NBA, UEFA Champions League, EPL, Ligue 1... Discuss your favorite teams and stars freely!]

[Zhihu has launched "Soaking Wet Topics"! Come share the stories happening around you!]

[Zhihu—Huaxia’s most professional forum. Come and share your stories!]

Li Yuan watched as the vast army of internet shills he had hired furiously spammed various popular Tieba and forums. All sorts of exaggerated claims were attributed to the Zhihu website.

Thousands of internet shills in major cities, all posting intensively at the same time to drive the conversation, combined with the ’Kan Yi Dao’ invite-a-friend model... this should bring some unexpected surprises, right? A flicker of nervousness ran through Li Yuan.

For the Zhihu website’s promotion, he had planned a marketing budget as high as five million yuan.

The prizes for the "Kan Yi Dao" feature alone totaled three million yuan.

For every 100 registration tasks completed, a user would earn a 200 yuan bonus. It was modeled after Pinduoduo, with a progress bar that was constantly being pushed forward.

In this era, 200 yuan was no small sum. Most university students only had monthly living expenses of five to six hundred yuan, making 200 yuan equivalent to almost half a month’s allowance.

Of course, there was a bug, just like with Pinduoduo: only new user registrations significantly advanced the progress bar, while invites to existing users contributed very little.

The prize money was real, but it wasn’t easy to win. Moreover, special lotteries with prizes like laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras, and MP4 players were included to maximize promotional enthusiasm.

He also employed internet shills at a rate of 100 yuan per person per day to flood popular forums and websites with high-intensity posts.

Li Yuan was confident that this two-pronged strategy would make the Zhihu website an overnight internet sensation.

In the history of the global internet, this was a uniquely novel approach.

Half an hour later, Lin Yuwei called to report on the real-time progress.

"Boss," Lin Yuwei said, her voice filled with excitement, "in the first half hour since going live, the Zhihu website has gained 75,435 registered users! And the number is still growing rapidly. At this rate, we could hit one to two million registrations by tonight."

The promotional strategy, combining "Kan Yi Dao" with an army of internet shills, had instantly set the internet ablaze. After all, Li Yuan was using real money as bait, putting cash directly into the hands of users.