Chapter 782: Did Sister Feel Guilty?

"Sister is really sneaky."

Just as Ying Chanxi was secretly hugging Li Luo in the bathroom, Yan Zhusheng's voice came from the bathroom door.

Ying Chanxi, leaning against Li Luo's chest, turned her head toward the door and saw Yan Zhusheng half-hidden behind it, only half her face visible as she stared at them—she immediately gave an exasperated look.

"What sneaky? What are you doing standing outside spying?" Ying Chanxi snapped. "I just woke up and found Li Luo gone, so I came to the bathroom to look for him."

"And then you hugged?" Yan Zhusheng tilted her head. "If I hadn't shown up, would you two have kissed next? Then taken off Li Luo's pajama pants and…"

"Shut up! Don't you dare finish that sentence!" Ying Chanxi, growing more embarrassed and furious, rushed over to Yan Zhusheng and slapped her hand over her mouth.

Yan Zhusheng spun away, dodging Ying Chanxi's chase while shouting loudly: "Sister's guilty! You were thinking exactly what I was just now, weren't you? Otherwise why the panic?"

Ying Chanxi was both flustered and furious at being called out, but her little brat was far too nimble—dashing around the large living room, weaving between the desk and sofa—and Ying Chanxi couldn't catch her for the life of her.

Finally, Li Luo stepped out of the bathroom and separated the two girls, sighing: "Zhusheng, go brush your teeth. Chanxi, rest a bit."

Yan Zhusheng obediently went to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth; Ying Chanxi huffed in dissatisfaction, but since Li Luo had spoken, she quietly went to change clothes, choosing not to feud with her little brat.

Not long after, all three changed into clean clothes, went downstairs for a light morning run, then returned to the hotel for breakfast.

Near nine o'clock, everyone gathered in the hotel's ground-floor lobby, where they met the Douyin team.

"This is the head of the Douyin team and currently Douyin's Head of Operations, Director Miao Yifeng," Ying Chanxi said, pulling Li Luo forward to introduce him.

A man in his thirties or forties, wearing rimless glasses, smiled at Li Luo and extended his hand: "You must be Teacher Chongran? I've heard so much about you."

"Director Miao, nice to meet you," Li Luo shook his hand and exchanged brief pleasantries. "I'm glad we've reached a cooperation with Douyin."

"Not at all," Miao Yifeng chuckled. "It's our honor that you chose to join Douyin—and I'm certain you'll one day feel this decision was absolutely right."

"We chose to partner with you because we believe in Douyin's future potential," Li Luo replied with a smile.

After exchanging a few more compliments, Miao Yifeng got to the point and addressed Li Luo and Yuan Wanqing: "Director Zhang has asked me to take you to headquarters first; she'll personally receive you in the company meeting room around ten."

"No problem."

Under Miao Yifeng's lead, Yuan Wanqing's studio team and Chongran Culture's group followed behind him, walking just a few steps across the street to ByteDance's headquarters building.

This was Li Luo's first time ever visiting a corporate headquarters like this—in his two lifetimes. The interior was truly impressive.

Ying Chanxi, walking beside him, stared around curiously, eager to learn, staying close behind Miao Yifeng and asking many questions.

It was clear she intended to absorb as much as possible from this big company, looking for ideas applicable to Chongran Culture.

In contrast, Yan Zhusheng had no such curiosity—she stayed glued to Li Luo's side the entire time, silent, following him wherever he went.

For Li Luo, no matter how grand ByteDance's headquarters was, it meant little to him.

In his past life, he made Short Dramas under Douyin's umbrella; now, reborn, he'd become someone Douyin was actively courting and paying to join.

When he first returned to this life, he'd even fantasized about replicating Douyin's success to reach the pinnacle.

Later, he'd secretly regretted not acting on it.

But now, after touring Douyin's headquarters with Miao Yifeng, that longing vanished quickly.

He could only think: thank goodness he hadn't actually tried—otherwise, he'd have been burning money with no return.

"This headquarters was moved into this year. Douyin's expansion has been too fierce—we hired many new staff this year, and the old office couldn't hold them all."

Miao Yifeng explained up front.

"Our company's organizational structure differs from ordinary firms—we operate with a large middle platform and small front-end teams."

"For example, the tech middle platform integrates the company's entire algorithm and big data framework—any app developed by any project team can instantly connect to the company's algorithms and receive technical support."

"Douyin follows the same principle, though 99% of the apps built under this system have died—Douyin is one of the rare few that survived and surged ahead."

At this point, Li Luo understood: this was truly not something an ordinary person could replicate.

The cost of trial and error was too high.

Their core asset was actually the entire tech middle platform architecture—keyly, their accumulated expertise in algorithms and big data.

Without this, simply building a Douyin-style app was utterly useless.

In fact, Tencent's Weishi launched even earlier; Douyin wasn't even among the first short-video platforms.

To emerge victorious from that sea of apps was far from simple—or easily replicable.

"When Director Zhang first led our small team to develop Douyin, the initial crew was only seven or eight people," Miao Yifeng chuckled. "Only after successful cold-start did we expand."

"Now it's grown to hundreds."

"This entire floor is now exclusively used by the Douyin team."

Miao Yifeng was a founding member, having followed Director Zhang Nan—his status rose with Douyin's success, riding its momentum to a completely new level.

After showing Li Luo's group around the headquarters building, he led them into the conference room.

Soon after they sat down, a short-haired woman, sharp and efficient, walked in with a powerful presence and greeted them with a confident smile.

After some small talk, Li Luo looked at Zhang Nan seated at the head of the table and felt a deep sense of reflection.

In his past life, he'd made Short Dramas, lost a huge sum to Xu Youyu, and poured massive ad spend into Douyin.

Of the 800,000 yuan invested, at least half went into traffic promotion.

Too bad the Short Drama market was already a blood-red sea back then—he barely recovered a fraction of his investment, completely wasting his money.

"Our internal team takes your onboarding very seriously,"

Zhang Nan, seated at the head, had her assistant open the PPT and began her presentation.

"The contract terms have already been aligned with you by Miao Yifeng—this afternoon is just a formality."

"This morning is the real agenda. Please take a look."

"This is our team's detailed marketing plan for your onboarding on Douyin."

As head of the Douyin project, Zhang Nan taking time to personally explain this marketing strategy was a significant gesture of respect.

Clearly, Douyin placed great importance on Yuan Wanqing's onboarding.

Earlier, Miao Yifeng's team had already detailed the marketing plan to Yuan Wanqing's studio; now Zhang Nan went further, openly sharing some behind-the-scenes insights.

Although Douyin's short videos rely on big data recommendations, once Yuan Wanqing joins, she won't just depend on algorithmic pushes—there will be additional manual intervention for precise traffic targeting.

All topics and tags surrounding Yuan Wanqing will receive a certain amount of traffic support.

The most important among them is Yuan Wanqing's new song, "Displaced Space-Time."

Originally, Zhang Nan had no intention of meeting Yuan Wanqing—she could have left everything to Miao Yifeng.

After all, although Yuan Wanqing's status is high, it's only within the entertainment circle.

Douyin hasn't failed to collaborate with other stars this year—Yuan Wanqing isn't the first, nor the last.

But Douyin's current public branding is music short videos; every song with sufficient reach becomes Douyin's booster.

So after listening to "Displaced Space-Time," Zhang Nan decided to meet Yuan Wanqing's team.

This wasn't because she had any special expertise or deep study in music.

On the contrary, she was utterly ordinary in musical appreciation.

But as the head of a wildly popular product, Zhang Nan's sharp instincts allowed her to clearly sense that the chorus of this song was extremely catchy.

Especially when the line "I've breathed the evening breeze you've breathed" came out, Zhang Nan knew it was settled.

In its early promotion, Douyin limited video length to under fifteen seconds—a design not meant for so-called highbrow music.

It only needed to be catchy enough, breakout enough, to instantly immerse viewers—that was sufficient.

More crucially, after learning about Yuan Wanqing and Chongran, Zhang Nan became even more interested in this songwriter named Chongran.

After conducting an investigation, Zhang Nan discovered that this songwriter named Chongran, though publicly claimed to be Yuan Wanqing's exclusive lyricist-composer, had been selling songs externally all along.

However, among fans' evaluations, the quality of these externally released songs seemed to fluctuate greatly.

Many were mere pop trash.

But after further investigation, Zhang Nan and the Douyin team unexpectedly found that many of Chongran's past pop-trash songs had gone viral on Douyin.

This was quite astonishing.

Li Luo hadn't expected that Director Zhang's interest in him surpassed her interest in Yuan Wanqing.

Although Zhang Nan cared more about Li Luo in her heart, she revealed nothing of it during this meeting.

She thoroughly shared the internally developed marketing plan and coordinated with Yuan Wanqing's side.

Both parties finalized the general cooperation intent, raised objections on certain details, communicated back and forth, and time passed quickly.

By noon twelve, the meeting finally ended.

Everyone rose and left the conference room; under Zhang Nan and Miao Yifeng's guidance, they went to the internal employee cafeteria of Yuan Yuan Group for lunch.

At two in the afternoon, everyone arrived at the conference hall prepared at the adjacent hotel and formally signed the cooperation agreement.

Yuan Wanqing signed an entry agreement with Douyin at a high price of 23 million yuan.

Yan Zhusheng, Li Luo, and Ruan Lin were signed by Douyin at prices of 4 million, 3 million, and 8 million yuan respectively.

In addition, 600,000 yuan was allocated to pay for the copyright fees for the debut and subsequent legal covers of "Displaced Space-Time" on Douyin.

Altogether, Douyin's signing amounted to a staggering nearly 40 million yuan.

Yuan Wanqing's studio is still affiliated with Huayue Film and Television, so part of this money must be shared with Huayue Film and Television.

Li Luo felt a pang of regret—he would have pocketed that share next year.

Meanwhile, Yan Zhusheng and Ruan Lin each received 2 million and 4 million yuan into Chongran Culture.

But there was no need to be precise with Yan Zhusheng—they were family; the real profit came from Ruan Lin's 4 million.

"Sister, look."

After signing the contract, Yan Zhusheng took her copy and leaned over to Ying Chanxi, poking her slender waist and showing her the glaringly printed 4 million yuan on the contract.

"What's so interesting?" Ying Chanxi looked at her annoying little sister with a puzzled expression.

"I made money for Li Luo," Yan Zhusheng said. "Two million of this is entirely what I earned for him."

"Didn't I negotiate that price?" Ying Chanxi's face darkened. "And didn't you already brag about this to me once before? Aren't you childish?"

"Last time was just an intent confirmation; this time the contract is signed," Yan Zhusheng said seriously. "It's different."

"But signing the contract doesn't mean the money's in the account," Ying Chanxi said, exasperated. "Only 20% is paid after initial account verification."

"The remaining payments are released quarterly, after each video is published as stipulated in the contract, over the course of a year."

"So every time money arrives, you're going to come bother me again?"

Hearing this, Yan Zhusheng realized it made sense and nodded in agreement: "That's not bad—but I never check my bank account. If the money arrives, you'll have to remind me."

"I'd be insane to remind you," Ying Chanxi rolled her eyes. "I'll just confiscate it all."

"Fine," Yan Zhusheng nodded. "Then I'll have earned Li Luo 4 million—double what I did before."

Ying Chanxi clenched her teeth: "... I'll embezzle it all—every last cent into my own wallet!"

"Sister's so bad," Yan Zhusheng said, pulling Li Luo over and tattling: "Li Luo, my sister says she's going to steal all my 2 million. Fire her right away."

Ying Chanxi: "..."

Li Luo: "..."