Chapter 1538

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Over the next week, Du Xiaojuan and Wang Dashan filmed videos of the courtyard renovation at home every day.

The two generated no small amount of friction in their communication, because Du Xiaojuan's requirements were too high, while Wang Dashan felt that good enough was good enough — after all, they weren't trying to become real internet celebrities; hadn't they agreed they only needed to familiarize themselves with the process?

As a result, Du Xiaojuan took things more and more seriously, becoming stricter and stricter; nothing Wang Dashan did was right, and a single shot would often take an entire day.

It tortured him to the point that he would rather go watch the kids than film videos anymore.

Yet Du Xiaojuan insisted on dragging him along to film, and even said Li Xiulan could watch the kids instead.

On this day, for a shot of planting flowers, Du Xiaojuan made Wang Dashan reshoot for the sixth time.

Wang Dashan could endure no longer:

"I'm not filming anymore — whoever wants to film can film!"

Wang Dashan threw in the towel and quit on the spot.

Du Xiaojuan hurriedly shouted:

"Wang Dashan, you get back here! A little difficulty and you're knocked down?"

"It's not difficulty that knocked me down — I strongly suspect you're deliberately punishing me!"

"How am I deliberately punishing you? I just want to film it better! Your lines just now were bad! Too stiff!"

"This is just how I am — I'm not a professional actor, how else do you want me to deliver lines?"

"Do it one more time!"

"I'm not doing it!"

"Come on, one more time!"

"Not doing it!"

"If you won't do it, then when I start my company later, don't come along for the ride — you just stay home and be a full-time stay-at-home dad!"

Wang Dashan turned and walked over, which counted as a compromise, yet not a complete compromise.

He wore a black face:

"I'll film one last take, but I won't say a single line! I'll shut my mouth — you dub it yourself in post!"

Then, wearing a black face and not speaking another word, he went and completed everything Du Xiaojuan told him to do.

After Du Xiaojuan finished filming, she looked at the result and was still unsatisfied.

But she couldn't bring herself to make Wang Dashan reshoot again.

Because she knew that if they reshot, Wang Dashan might just come to blows with her.

Moreover, it was nearly mealtime by then, so Du Xiaojuan had no choice but to compromise.

In a blink evening arrived; Du Xiaojuan had Wang Dashan put the kids to sleep, while she herself stayed in another room editing videos.

She edited a video with Wang Dashan's lines and posted it — still no traffic to speak of.

Not wanting to waste the footage, she then edited a video of Wang Dashan working with a black face the whole time, and did her own narration and dubbing.

"Hello everyone, today is another day of my husband helping transform our romantic courtyard — our happy days have more and more to look forward to..."

Du Xiaojuan paired a festive tone with the narration; by the time she finished it was nearly midnight, so she hurriedly uploaded it, then shut the computer and went to sleep.

The next day, upon waking, Wang Dashan came over with a face full of delight calling her to get up:

"Wife, wife, hurry up and get up!"

"What's wrong?"

"Did you know our video went viral?"

Du Xiaojuan was instantly stunned.

She immediately bounced out of bed.

Opening the computer backend, she discovered the playback volume had actually reached several million!

Comments and likes were all 99+.

Although this couldn't compare to those blockbusters with hundreds of millions of views, for Du Xiaojuan and Wang Dashan it already counted as a significant breakthrough!

Because the videos they'd filmed before had playback volumes of only a few thousand — breaking ten thousand was rare!

Yet this time it actually reached several million views!

Du Xiaojuan herself was dumbfounded!

Because the video that blew up was actually the one where Wang Dashan worked with a black face the whole time and didn't say a single line!

Glancing at the comments, Du Xiaojuan suddenly realized.

It turned out that Wang Dashan working with a black face the whole time, contrasted with her festive narration, created a striking contrast that instantly grabbed eyeballs — that was why this video exploded!

Du Xiaojuan's aptitude for insight was strong; she seized the key point at once!

"Contrast! Gimmick!"

Du Xiaojuan summed up the reason this video went viral.

Wang Dashan wore a face full of smug satisfaction:

"If you'd said so earlier, I wouldn't have needed to speak for the video to go viral — you just wouldn't believe me. Today filming, I'm not speaking! Just like yesterday's style! You handle the narration yourself afterward!"

But Du Xiaojuan said:

"You not speaking isn't the reason this video went viral."

"Then what is the reason?"

"This video went viral because your deadpan face the whole time and my cheerful narration created a strong contrast."

Wang Dashan didn't believe it, though.

Du Xiaojuan knew there was no point arguing with this stubborn man.

She could only demonstrate it to him the way he said.

So today she filmed a video of Wang Dashan working silently the whole time without speaking, but today Wang Dashan wasn't angry — on the contrary, he was somewhat happy, so he wore a smiling face the whole time, no longer wearing a black face, while Du Xiaojuan's dubbing remained cheerful and joyful.

The result was a video with nothing particularly distinctive, run-of-the-mill, with a playback volume of only around one hundred thousand, and that was only because of the traffic brought by the previous video.

Faced with this result, Wang Dashan was also depressed.

"What's going on? This isn't much different from what we filmed yesterday, so why is there no traffic? Douyin is deliberately throttling us, right!"

Du Xiaojuan retorted helplessly:

"Can you not think so darkly? We're just rookies who just started out, would this platform really target us?"

"Then what exactly is going on?"

Du Xiaojuan didn't tell Wang Dashan what was going on, but pondered for a long while, then suddenly asked:

"Did you bring your suit back?"

Wang Dashan was stunned:

"Why are you asking this?"

Du Xiaojuan just said:

"Never mind that, you just tell me if you brought your suit back!"

Wang Dashan was baffled:

"I didn't bring it, but in the cabinets back in our hometown, there seem to be two suits of mine still stored there, from when I worked as a real estate intermediary!"

Du Xiaojuan said with a smile:

"I've got an idea. Tomorrow you wear the suit to renovate the courtyard, guaranteed to go viral!"

Wang Dashan's face showed shock:

"Are you crazy? How can I move bricks wearing a suit?"

But Du Xiaojuan said:

"That's exactly the point — wearing a suit to move bricks! Only that way is there contrast!"

Du Xiaojuan's nose for trends could be described as extremely keen.

At that time short video was just starting out; videos of wearing suits to do farm work, to do hard labor — this kind of video hadn't really taken off yet, not like now where they're everywhere. In this early stage of short video's wild growth, she had already noticed this gimmick.

In the blink of an eye it was the next day. Du Xiaojuan had Wang Dashan put on the suit to move bricks and lay walls. The filmed result was pretty good, but she still wasn't satisfied. Then she specially went to another house to find a pile of cow dung, and had Wang Dashan wearing the suit go shovel cow dung!

Wang Dashan was very confused about this, but considering Du Xiaojuan had produced a hit video before, he ultimately reluctantly cooperated.

The result: this video, edited and posted, actually blew up that very night!

Countless likes, comments, and collections, as well as follower growth notifications, bombarded Du Xiaojuan's account backend!

Wang Dashan watched, jaw dropping in surprise:

"Holy crap! It went viral just like that?"

While Du Xiaojuan revealed a smile:

"I've figured it out. I know how to play short video now."