Chapter 808: Boss Li, She

Boss Li, she's bullying me," Li Luo, watching Yan Zhusheng stick her butt up toward him, slapped it hard: "Stop fooling around, let's get packed and go home."

"I'm not fooling around, I'm serious," Yan Zhusheng still lay face-down on the desk, turning her head to look at Li Luo. "Don't you like this?"

To say he didn't like it? That was impossible.

Yan Zhusheng stood tall with her long legs straight, her upper body bent forward over the desk, and as she turned her head to look at him, every line and tension of her body radiated allure.

Any normal man would find it nearly impossible to resist such a tempting sight.

But now was clearly not the right time.

Before Li Luo could respond again, the sound of a doorknob turning came from the livestream room's entrance.

After twisting it twice and finding it locked, the person outside immediately pounded on the door, followed by Ying Chanxi's puzzled voice: "Why did you lock the door? The livestream's over—why aren't you coming out yet?"

Li Luo shrugged and smiled at Yan Zhusheng, then walked straight to the door; as he passed her, he slapped her rounded buttocks once more: "Come on, let's go home."

"Oh," Yan Zhusheng stood up, disappointed, and obediently followed Li Luo toward the door.

When Li Luo opened the livestream room door, Ying Chanxi immediately stuck her head in, glancing left and right with suspicion; only after confirming Yan Zhusheng was behind him did her suspicion remain unshaken.

She guessed that after the livestream ended, Yan Zhusheng had once again sneaked off to do something naughty with Li Luo.

But given how little time had passed, it probably wasn't anything too extreme… Thinking this, Ying Chanxi instinctively glanced down at Li Luo's crotch, then quickly looked away and huffed: "Don't rush home—we need a quick debrief first."

Unfortunately, Ying Chanxi could never have imagined that Yan Zhusheng had dared to crawl under the desk during the livestream itself.

With no further thought, Ying Chanxi then gestured for the two to follow her to her office.

Inside sat an employee from the Business Department, who currently served as Ying Chanxi's assistant, handling her daily miscellaneous affairs.

Seeing Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng enter, the young assistant immediately stood up to greet them.

Ying Chanxi waved her hand to sit back down, then beckoned Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng over to the desk computer, saying: "Today's livestream went pretty well."

"Peak viewership hit eighty thousand, though most of the time it stayed around ten to twenty thousand."

"That's already impressive."

"But Douyin hasn't enabled tipping yet; once it does, I'm sure the livestream income won't be small."

"Sis really knows how to exploit people—already thinking about tipping income," Yan Zhusheng glanced at the livestream analytics on the screen and said, "Once tipping's enabled, you won't make me livestream every day for the company, will you?"

"Shut up," Ying Chanxi shot her a glare, then waved to the assistant beside her: "You can go now."

After the assistant left the office, Ying Chanxi glared at Yan Zhusheng and whispered: "Try not to call me 'sister' at work—don't let the staff know our relationship."

"Oh," Yan Zhusheng nodded obediently. "Then I'll call you Boss Ying."

"Fine… better than 'sister,'" Ying Chanxi reluctantly agreed, then mentally repeated the title a few times, growing increasingly satisfied. "Say it once for me."

"Boss Li," Yan Zhusheng ignored her, turned to Li Luo, and wrapped her arms around his. "She's bullying me—do something about her."

Li Luo chuckled helplessly; Ying Chanxi shot her a disgruntled glare, then rolled her eyes.

"Let's aim for one livestream per weekend," Ying Chanxi steered the conversation back on track. "Build a habit among fans—this will stabilize viewership."

"It's not that we're actually counting on tipping income, but treating this channel as a future platform for promotion and exposure."

"Let people get familiar with you early, so when you release an album or something, promotion will be easier."

"Anything Li Luo needs to promote can also be announced through you."

"This is our own first direct channel—no need to rely on outside platforms to reach fans and viewers."

Li Luo listened as Ying Chanxi laid out her analysis with precision, his expression filled with quiet satisfaction.

Yan Zhusheng didn't understand any of this, so she simply nodded obediently from time to time to show she was listening.

When she finished, Ying Chanxi crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes, and her tone suddenly turned chilly.

"Now that the main points are covered, let's talk about some minor details."

"During the livestream, someone suddenly claimed to be Li Luo's girlfriend."

"Was that segment approved during our afternoon meeting?"

Hearing this, Yan Zhusheng immediately grew nervous, avoiding Ying Chanxi's piercing gaze, sneaking behind Li Luo, and only peering out with her head.

"You said during the meeting that I could improvise a bit," Yan Zhusheng whispered in defense. "You didn't say I had to stick strictly to the script—and I did cover everything mentioned in the meeting."

"You call that 'improvising'?" Ying Chanxi snapped. "One misstep and rumors will spread—someone may have already edited and posted the video!"

"But it's all fake," Yan Zhusheng blinked, her mind struggling. "Wait, no—it's actually true… no, fans must know it's fake…"

"Cough… never mind," Li Luo intervened. "Just remember not to do that again. Yan Zhusheng's performance was good today, but you can't reuse the same trick."

"Mm," Yan Zhusheng nodded obediently. "Just this once."

"Hmph!" Ying Chanxi gave a half-satisfied grunt, letting her off the hook. "Alright then—let's go home."

…

Back at home, as they stepped into the elevator, Ying Chanxi clung to Li Luo's other arm and turned to him: "I saw how fun your livestream writing is—have you considered doing it?"

"Once we move to the villa, install a livestream setup in the study too."

"Then you can write while livestreaming."

"Not impossible," Li Luo glanced at her. "But aren't you afraid you'll film Yu Yu-jie too?"

"Oh right…" Ying Chanxi pouted. "Then just keep your desks farther apart."

"That might be difficult…" Li Luo chuckled. "Didn't she specifically order two long desks? One's for you and me."

"And the other one?" Yan Zhusheng asked from the other end.

"For you two," Li Luo said. "But since you rarely use computers, it'll be placed at the far end of the study."

"Then you each use one," Ying Chanxi huffed.

"Sis is so mean," Yan Zhusheng poked her head out. "Xuejie clearly wants to sit at the same desk as Li Luo—you're breaking them up."

"Shut up," Ying Chanxi snapped. "You're always undermining me, always going against me."

These two sisters bickered constantly; Li Luo was now used to it—even found a certain pleasure in their petty squabbles.

Back home, Li Luo resumed writing.

Ying Chanxi wandered around her home, beginning to inventory the furniture and luggage she would take to the villa.

When it was time to sleep that night, Ying Chanxi suggested, "Let's go back to the villa sometime when we're free, and see what things we need to bring over."

"Mm." Li Luo nodded in agreement. "Let's go next weekend. We still have two weeks—no rush."

"Most of the furniture is newly bought; we don't need to move anything from here."

"We'll just bring clothes and similar items from here—nothing else."

…

After entering December, everything—in daily life, academics, and career—progressed smoothly.

After the official start of filming, Li Luo would occasionally visit the set to oversee the shooting progress.

Director Wang Jun and Li Luo had already worked together many times; the female lead, Ruan Lin, was an old friend; and the male lead was also signed under Li Luo's Chongran Culture, so directing posed no major issues.

After about a week of fine-tuning, the entire crew operated under Wang Jun's command as smoothly as an extension of his own arm.

On the other side, Yuan Wanqing's arrival on Douyin sparked a real wave of online buzz.

The number of new users directly or indirectly drawn to Douyin by her was incalculable.

Li Luo had previously thought Douyin's spending of thirty to forty million was extravagant, but now it was clear the results were outstanding.

Yan Zhusheng and Li Luo also benefited slightly, their follower counts steadily surpassing four million.

Yuan Wanqing had long since surpassed twenty million followers and was climbing toward thirty million at a steady pace, likely to break that number before the year ended.

Aside from these two major developments, in the realm of Online Novels, both Li Luo's Da Gan Xunye Si and Xu Youyu's Gu Dao Changqing had entered their final stages, roughly three to four months away from completion.

Da Gan Xunye Si's average subscription count had been steadily rising, becoming one of Qidian's few super hits this year to successfully break out of its niche.

Since the day it began charging, it had never dropped from first place on the monthly vote and bestseller charts.

Judging by this trend, it would likely dominate the charts for a full year.

Meanwhile, on Xu Youyu's side, he had reached the most critical phase of the Grandmaster selection.

Editor Qianzhou had already submitted the early-sleeping president's nomination.

With his book's average subscription count climbing to around twenty-five thousand, and with Li Luo's prior goodwill toward other editors and his good relations with the chief and executive editors, Xu Youyu's Grandmaster selection was virtually assured.

They now only awaited the results to be announced at this year's annual meeting.

In addition,

The poverty aid funds donated by Li Luo through Chongran Culture to Qianjiang University had already assigned responsible faculty members for each stage.

Jian Chun, recommended by Xu Rongsheng, successfully became one of the three teachers holding final approval authority.

Zhao Rongjun's team, after completing the software design, had already coordinated with the Information Office faculty and was now conducting software testing—definitely to be completed before next semester.

Xu Yinghuan's Douyin account was thriving.

The self-media plans of Li Luo's two roommates were also developing better than Li Luo had expected.

After accepting Li Luo's advice, Cheng Xin truly settled down, focusing on current international hot news, organizing content, summarizing and analyzing it, then turning it into videos for release.

Unfortunately, Douyin still couldn't publish long videos, and his content often ran ten to twenty minutes, so upon Li Luo's recommendation, he uploaded them to Bilibili—and the response was quite good.

One of his videos coincided perfectly with a recent hot news topic, instantly surpassing one million views and gaining him tens of thousands of followers.

This gave Cheng Xin an early taste of success, and recently he had become even more immersed, spending nearly all his time outside class on video production.

As for Wen Zexuan, he was at a loss.

Li Luo's suggestion sounded practical, but filming a date and uploading it to Douyin required certain conditions.

The simplest one: you have to get the girl to agree first, right?

But if you're only doing it to grow an account and not genuinely dating, why would the girl agree to film with you? This left Wen Zexuan utterly stuck.

But Li Luo quickly gave him a new suggestion: don't think about filming the real date process for fans.

It would all be pre-arranged with the girl, then performed according to a rough script.

Otherwise, too many uncontrollable factors could easily backfire.

After being advised, Wen Zexuan had nearly given up—he still preferred chasing girls.

But when he saw Cheng Xin's Bilibili account thriving, he suddenly felt competitive again and began searching for potential collaborators.

To Li Luo's surprise, the collaborator Wen Zexuan finally chose was someone he knew.

It was Jiang Lai, the girl Wen Zexuan had once dated—the same university roommate of Ying Chanxi.

This shocked Li Luo greatly.

After learning more, he found out Jiang Lai had also been trying to run a Douyin account to become a beauty blogger, but her traffic was limited.

After hearing Wen Zexuan's idea, the two immediately agreed and decided to give it a try.

The first video's result was excellent, and their collaboration was officially established.

Seeing this, Li Luo had Ying Chanxi reach out to them, propose a solid contract, and offer access to advertising partner networks.

After negotiations and discussions, Chongran Culture's team grew even larger.

Meanwhile, time gradually approached Li Luo's birthday.

(End of Chapter)