Chapter 5: The Godly Tycoon Persona

Hearing Li Xiao’s promise, the local Yangcheng viewers in the livestream chat immediately got excited.

"Alright, alright, alright! So that’s how we’re playing! I love it!"

"I’m a Yangcheng local, so one of those 20 spots has to be mine!"

"This is interesting! Too bad I’m not from Yangcheng."

"Is the streamer trying to challenge a professional with his hobby?"

"This competition isn’t rigorous enough. If you want to compare quality, how can you not have a control group?

Since the streamer says this restaurant’s food is bad, I suggest he also get a takeout order of their wonton jook-sing noodles!

That way, we can directly compare which one is better!"

"The guy above has a great suggestion!"

"I bet the guy above is a Yangcheng local. He’s probably just trying to score an extra free bowl of wonton noodles!"

...

The discussion about the challenge quickly drew in more viewers from the same city.

The Douyin livestream feature has a function that lets you watch videos and streams from your city. The closer you are, the higher the chance of it appearing on your feed.

When these new local viewers heard about a future giveaway, they didn’t leave right away. Instead, they stuck around to see what was happening.

After all, watching drama unfold and getting free stuff are two joys practically encoded in everyone’s DNA.

As the discussion continued, the number of viewers in the stream steadily climbed to 130.

Li Xiao finished the two bowls of wonton noodles in front of him while casually chatting with his audience.

Looking at the chat, besides some obvious trolling, Li Xiao also noticed some pretty good suggestions.

"This guy makes a great point. No problem. When the time comes, I’ll order takeout from here as well, so my fans can compare!"

"Also, to ensure the giveaway is fair, I’ll add an official Douyin system lottery option to my next video."

"All of my followers from Yangcheng can enter the giveaway."

"Since it uses the system’s built-in lottery feature, the results can be seen directly from the official backend, so there’s no way for me to fake it."

Seeing that the number of viewers had stabilized between 140 and 150, Li Xiao nodded in satisfaction.

He was quite pleased with these results for his first-ever livestream.

Although he hadn’t received any donations from viewers during this stream—and had in fact spent nearly 1,000 yuan to attract traffic—what might seem like a foolish net loss to an outsider was, in his eyes, a very worthwhile investment.

If you want an account to grow quickly, aside from just happening to be in the right place at the right time and inexplicably becoming the "pig in the whirlwind" that takes flight, the only other method is through the power of money.

As long as he continued to create decent quality content and kept investing in promotion, the number of viewers should break four digits soon.

After chatting with his viewers for a little while longer, Li Xiao finally ended the stream.

He walked out of the restaurant but wasn’t in a hurry to catch a cab back to his school dorm.

Since he had made a promise in front of so many people on the stream, he had to follow through.

His school dorm obviously didn’t have the right facilities.

His was a four-person room without even a kitchen. Trying to make wontons and jook-sing noodles there was basically a fool’s errand.

Recalling a memory, a smile immediately appeared on Li Xiao’s face.

To make things convenient for Li Xiao while he was studying in Yangcheng, Father Li had bought him a small, fully-furnished high-rise apartment near Zhongshan University before the semester started.

The small unit wasn’t very big, only a little over 40 square meters.

But despite its small size, it had everything one could need.

A bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and balcony—it had all the necessary amenities.

However, because Li Xiao got along quite well with his roommates, he mostly stayed in the dorm except on weekends.

The apartment was in a complex near Zhongshan University called Dragon Bay. You could tell it was a rather high-end community from the 4.5 yuan per square meter management fee.

Not only were there supporting schools and supermarkets nearby, but it was also less than a five-minute walk to the subway station, making life extremely convenient.

Li Xiao took a look around the apartment. All the daily necessities were there.

However, the kitchen only had the most basic tools. Making a simple meal wasn’t a problem, but trying to cook something more complicated would be a bit of a hassle.

Consulting the recipes in his mind, Li Xiao quickly jotted down a list of things he needed to buy on his phone.

Eighty percent of the students at Zhongshan University were from Guangdong Province, so every Saturday and Sunday, large groups of students would take shuttle buses home.

If nothing unexpected had happened, the dorm should be empty by now.

After quickly washing up, Li Xiao put on his pajamas and sat down in front of his computer.

He opened his video editing software and re-edited the two videos that had been taken down for violations, pixelating all the sensitive parts and changing the captions.

After submitting them for review, Li Xiao didn’t pay them any more mind.

This kind of review required a manual check, which would take a long time. He might not know the result until tomorrow.

Then, he quickly browsed the food-related livestreams and videos on various online platforms.

The easiest way to build up an account quickly is to just copy someone else, directly lifting their strategy and making a 1:1 replica of their account.

While it might not make you a huge hit, it’s an easy way to make a living.

However, Li Xiao had no intention of going down that road.

He wasn’t short on money now, and he certainly wouldn’t be in the future.

He had no plans to ruin his own reputation by plagiarizing someone else’s style just to earn a few measly bucks.

Right now, he wanted to find a style that didn’t exist in the market yet.

Three hours later, he wrote two words on a blank sheet of paper.

Tycoon Style

In this world, it seemed no food blogger with a similar style had appeared yet.

Of course, this so-called "Tycoon Style" didn’t mean he would only go to exorbitantly priced restaurants to eat high-end dishes that ordinary people might never encounter in their lifetime.

Rather, it referred to his own persona, which would be that of a wealthy tycoon who wasn’t short on cash.

With the system’s support, he didn’t need donations from his audience at all. He could live very comfortably just on the rewards given by the system.

He wouldn’t need to take ads, sell merchandise, or get endorsements.

While other streamers were using all sorts of tricks to try and squeeze money out of their fans,

he would already be giving money and perks to his own audience.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt this path was perfect for him.

He pulled up the replay of today’s livestream, marked some key moments, and then quickly finished editing.

The video wasn’t long; after speeding it up to 1.2x, it was only 40 seconds.

In this fast-paced, disposable-content era, a long video wasn’t actually a good thing.

Because many people simply didn’t have the patience to watch a video to the end.

If you couldn’t achieve a high enough completion rate, it would negatively affect the video’s metrics.