Chapter 130: Chapter 84: Asking Out Fang Youqing
"That would be me."
"Bro, you’re the real deal!"
The owner’s eyes lit up. "That song was absolutely incredible. It sounded amazing."
"It’s nothing special, really. Just a little bit awesome, that’s all."
"The way you bullshit is on par with how I was back in my day." The owner chuckled, a bit slyly. "You go ahead and drink. I just made a fresh batch of breadsticks, I’ll bring some over for you in a bit."
"Don’t go just yet," Chen Yuan called out to the owner. "I didn’t just come to show my support today. There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about."
"Business is this bad, huh? You want to advertise?"
"Advertise? How’d you end up in that line of work?" the owner asked, surprised.
"I’m with the External Relations Department at the Science and Technology university. You should know what we do."
"Come on, man, don’t mess with me. Look at the state my shop is in. Where would I find the money to sponsor you?"
The shop owner handed the corn snake he was holding to Chen Yuan. "How about I give you this in exchange for a banner?"
"It’s not like I can stew this thing with pork ribs. It’s useless to me," Chen Yuan said.
"I have two proposals for you. Take a moment to consider them. If you’re not interested in either, I’ll leave right now and won’t waste any more of your time. If you are, we can talk."
"No need to be so formal. Just tell me."
Chen Yuan pulled up the External Relations Department’s social media account.
"This is the account we run. We currently have 10,832 followers, all of them targeted followers from around University City. Our rate is 1,000 yuan per video. If you don’t think that’s a good deal, there’s a second option. We’ll film for you for free. If there are no results, we don’t get paid. If it works, you pay us 2,000."
The owner’s interest was piqued. He’d dealt with local influencers before—people with just a few thousand followers asking for a few thousand yuan just for a filming fee. Looking at Chen Yuan’s offer, the value for the money was incredibly high.
"You didn’t just buy a bunch of bot followers, did you?"
"Look at the view counts on my videos. Even if they were actual reanimated corpses, they couldn’t generate that many likes."
"I’ll take the second option. If it really works, I’m willing to spend the extra 1,000 yuan."
"Since you agree, I’ll go draft the contract."
"Wow, so formal. There’s even a contract."
"Business is business, right?"
"Alright, let’s do it. Is there anything you need me to do?"
"Nope, we’ll handle everything. But... you did say something about giving me that corn snake."
"Get outta here. This little guy cost me over 800 yuan. I’d rather buy you coffee than give him to you."
"Thanks. And speaking of which, we haven’t paid for these coffees yet. Wait for our director to contact you!"
"Damn it."
The deal was done, and he’d even scored two free cups of coffee. Chen Yuan was in high spirits.
"That was a pretty good move. The only risk is that you might end up doing all that work for nothing."
"If it really doesn’t work, it just proves this approach is a dead end, and we won’t have to waste our time on it again. Besides, college students are free labor. We don’t lose anything."
"You’ve got a point. Our trial-and-error costs are just so high."
After discussing the video shoot, the two of them grabbed a meal and then headed back for their afternoon classes.
Just before class let out, he got a message from Fang Youning.
Fang Youning: "My sister wanted me to ask if there’s anything you’d like to eat."
Chen Yuan: "Oh, I won’t eat over there."
Fang Youning: "I don’t think that’s an option. Knowing my sister, there’s no way she’d let you leave hungry."
’Yeah, knowing Fang Youqing’s personality, she would definitely do something like that,’ Chen Yuan thought.
Chen Yuan: "Then whatever’s fine. I’m not picky."
Fang Youning: "Okay, got it."
When the bell rang, signaling the end of class, Chen Yuan asked Liu Shiyu to take his books back for him and headed to the metro station.
’I’m meeting Fang Youqing alone today. I wonder if it will trigger a task.’