Chapter 33: The Effect of Public Opinion

Curious, Li Xiao opened the profile of the user who had paid to boost his video.

It didn’t take long for him to figure out why.

The account only had three videos.

He clicked on one at random and recognized the main person in the video.

No, that wasn’t quite right. To be precise, he had just seen the man yesterday. It was the owner of Celestial Treasure Restaurant, the one with the red megaphone.

He shook his head, resigned, and didn’t look into it any further.

After all, it was only 2,000 yuan. ’Besides, the money didn’t go into my pocket; it went straight to Douyin.’

He glanced at his Douyin stats.

Account: Brother Li on Food

Followers: 11,240

Likes: 28,700

’Nice. I’ve broken 10,000 followers easily.’

He stroked his chin.

’Now that I’ve broken 10,000 followers, maybe I should take this chance to do a little giveaway for my audience.’

However, his train of thought was soon interrupted by a notification on his phone.

He opened WeChat to find several more food bloggers had sent him videos for review.

He quickly watched the videos, and once he confirmed there were no issues, he promptly paid the remaining balance to each of them.

Then, he went to the pages of the food bloggers who had already posted their restaurant review videos.

Li Xiao found their latest review videos and casually spent 100 yuan to boost each one.

Although these bloggers had some followers of their own, most didn’t have a huge audience. To make the story spread quickly, paying to drive traffic was essential.

He glanced over and saw his three dorm mates were already getting ready for the day. He stopped lazing around and quickly climbed out of bed.

Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Wonton Noodles.

Deng Dongyu looked at the handful of customers in the shop, his expression grim.

He looked up at the wall clock again. It was already 11:50 AM.

It wasn’t quite noon yet, but this was prime lunchtime. On any other day...

...even if there wasn’t a line outside, the shop would have been completely full by now.

If there was a torrential downpour or a typhoon, a slow day like this would be normal.

But today, the sky was clear. There was no rain, not even a breeze. How could this be happening?

What felt even more wrong was the silence from the delivery app. The order alerts, which usually rang nonstop, hadn’t made a sound all day.

He had already double- and triple-checked that the delivery apps were online. Otherwise, he would have assumed he’d forgotten to turn them on.

Even Huang Shuying, who usually spent her time binge-watching Korean dramas, looked up from her phone. It was just too quiet in the shop today.

She put down her phone and nudged her husband with her elbow, asking quizzically,

"Old Deng, why is business so bad today?"

Deng Dongyu shook his head in frustration.

"You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"

"Damn it, what the hell is going on?"

He glanced at the empty dining area, too restless to stay inside. Grabbing a cigarette, he headed for the door.

Just as he reached the doorway, two students in school uniforms walked past.

The shorter one said,

"Jiayu, how about wonton noodles today? This place looks like it’s been around forever, so it should be decent."

The taller one shook his head.

"We can get wonton noodles, but not from here."

The shorter one asked, curious,

"Why not? This place is always pretty packed when we walk by."

The taller one shook his head again.

"I saw a bunch of vloggers yesterday saying the noodles here aren’t authentic. They use day-old noodles, and I heard the owner has a really bad attitude."

"I think there’s another place that sells bamboo-risen wonton noodles just up ahead. Let’s go check that one out instead."

Deng Dongyu’s expression soured as he watched the two walk away.

Forgetting about his cigarette, he quickly pulled out his phone and opened Douyin.

He typed in the name of his shop, and a list of related videos instantly appeared.

He clicked on the videos one by one, his expression growing uglier with each one he watched.

"The flavor is mediocre at best, but what’s really shameless is how they have two noodle-making machines on display in the kitchen when the noodles clearly aren’t made fresh on-site. It’s just blatant false advertising, isn’t it?"

...

"The wontons are actually pretty good, but the noodles are terrible. The alkaline taste is way too strong. They call them bamboo-risen noodles, but you can’t taste any egg at all. They’re just plain old alkaline noodles!"

...

"The broth is awful. It’s so cloudy! It tastes like it was made from a bouillon cube."

...

"Everyone, the hygiene here is a joke. The tables and floor are covered in grease. I almost slipped and fell a minute ago."

...

"I really can’t recommend this Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Wonton Noodles to you guys. There are just way too many problems..."

...

As he watched, he immediately recognized several of the vloggers. They were the same ones who had come to review his shop just yesterday.

After watching the videos, he finally understood why his foot traffic and delivery orders were so low.

The reason was simple: after watching so many vlogs, even he, the owner, was starting to wonder if there was really something wrong with his shop.

Needless to say what a regular person would think after stumbling upon these videos.

But he quickly came to his senses. Something about all of this was fishy.

Normally, his shop would never get this many food vloggers.

What he couldn’t wrap his head around was that, without exception, they all gave terrible reviews.

Even when the review wasn’t a total slam, they still nitpicked all sorts of faults with his shop.

He furiously reported the videos, citing the reason as "slander and copyright infringement."

Just as he was reporting the videos, someone walked past him.

The person was holding a phone, talking animatedly to it.

Normally, he wouldn’t have given a second glance to someone like that; there were plenty of them around.

But after the horde of food vloggers from yesterday and having just watched all those negative reviews...

Seeing this person, his nerves instantly tensed. It was obviously another vlogger here to do a review.

His mind raced. Taking a deep breath, he strode over to the vlogger who was filming with his phone.

He glanced at the man’s screen, and seeing that he wasn’t live-streaming, he quickly said,

"Excuse me, young man. Could I have a word with you?"

The man, who had been focused on filming, was so startled by the voice behind him that he nearly dropped his phone.

The vlogger shot Deng Dongyu an annoyed look.

"What’s your problem, mister?! Whispering in my ear like that? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

Knowing he was the one asking for a favor, Deng Dongyu quickly forced a smile.

"Sorry, sorry, my apologies. You’re a vlogger, right?"

The man nodded.

"Yeah, I’m a vlogger. What’s up? You need something?"