From Wage Slave to Tycoon

Elder Xiao glanced at Su Chen’s prim and proper posture, a hint of a smile flashing in his eyes. "You’ve got a sharp eye for business, kid. A casual investment of yours has turned into a real hotcake."

To be praised by Master Xiao made Su Chen incredibly smug. He waved his hand with feigned nonchalance. "Oh, you know. Nothing special. Only the third best in the world!"

"Hmph! Give you an inch and you take a mile!"

"You have no idea how many people had their eyes on Byte. If that kid from the Yin family hadn’t been on the ball and given me a call, do you think this would have been resolved so quickly?"

Hearing this, Su Chen grew even more confused. ’Could it be? Is there something about Byte that I don’t know? Is *that* what those people are after, and not its market value?’

Seemingly sensing Su Chen’s confusion, Elder Xiao took a sip of tea, wetting his throat before continuing, "What kind of company do you think Byte is?"

"Uh... Isn’t it just a regular short-video platform?" Su Chen paused for a moment before adding, "Though it could become a unicorn in its field in the future!"

Upon hearing this, Elder Jiang rolled his eyes. But then he remembered the background check they’d run and relaxed. It was perfectly normal for a hands-off boss like him to be out of the loop.

"You only know how to throw money at things, kid. You don’t even know what your own company has become."

Elder Xiao then gave Su Chen a brief overview. It would have been one thing if he’d stayed quiet, but as the numbers started coming out of the old man’s mouth, Su Chen was left completely stunned. He had never imagined Byte’s expansion would be so rapid.

Douyin’s active user base had reached 250 million. That meant at least one in every six people had downloaded the Douyin app. It was a terrifying figure.

Su Chen was no fool, and he quickly made the connection to other matters. As a real-time short-video platform, Douyin’s main draw was its "shoot-what-you-see" nature. Anything a user encountered could be posted online.

That meant the Douyin app was no longer a purely entertainment-focused, short-video platform.

Countless people could learn about all sorts of things through Douyin, but there was no way of knowing if what they were seeing was true.

People only care about their initial gut reaction. Regardless of whether something is true or false, right or wrong, they will let the video guide their emotional response.

This allowed people with ulterior motives to post their own narratives on the platform—cherry-picking facts, focusing on the trivial, and slowly guiding an uninformed public to fundamentally change their perception of events.

It was just like with e-commerce a few years ago. As long as you crafted a good public persona, you could quickly attract a large following. Then you could start reaping them like fields of chives, one harvest after another. The key was that the "chives" themselves had no idea what they were and were even happy to be part of it.

They’d be called "dear family" over and over, and they’d actually feel honored by it.

In the past, people got their news from television, from reports on websites, and from various online forums. The ability to acquire information was comparatively limited.

But now, with the emergence of the Douyin short-video platform, it meant Douyin was poised to become the next great epicenter of public opinion.

If it wasn’t managed properly and malicious actors were given an opportunity to exploit it, then no one would be able to tell what was true and what was false, which would in turn stir up unnecessary trouble.

Su Chen now understood the gravity of the situation, and his face fell. "So, Byte is a hot potato now!"

He turned to look at Elder Xiao, only to find the old man sipping his tea, looking as serene and unconcerned as ever.

"Sir, what do you think we should do? How about I just sell all my shares to you?" Su Chen didn’t want to get tangled up in this mess. After all, it wasn’t like he was short on cash. All he could think about now was how to get rid of this hot potato.

Elder Xiao mercilessly shot down Su Chen’s idea.

"You’d better hold on to those shares yourself. And don’t worry, from now on, no one will be getting any funny ideas about Byte."

"Going forward, various government departments will also be setting up official presences on the Douyin platform, one after another. You just keep running things the way you have been."

Master Xiao didn’t elaborate, and Su Chen figured there were surely other considerations he wasn’t privy to. He didn’t want to know, either. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.

’The more you know, the greater the pressure. This is a classic case of looking for trouble.’

Su Chen shot a plaintive look at Master Xiao. "Sir, if things are just going to stay the same, why did you have to bring all this up? Aren’t you just torturing me?"

A knowing smile crossed Elder Xiao’s face. "I’m just giving you a heads-up. Didn’t want you going and selling your shares to some foreign conglomerate."

"You know as well as I do that our country’s rapid development over the past decade has drawn the attention of certain other nations. They’re trying to restrict our growth in every area, from our economy to our technology."

"They’ve tried everything they can think of to hold us back, but we only grow stronger under pressure. So now, they’ve shifted their strategy from external containment to stirring up trouble from within."

"I called you here today because I hope you’ll hold firm to your principles and not be swayed by money."

Su Chen fell silent. Of course, he understood what the old man was saying, but... ’Is he looking down on me? What’s all this about holding firm to my principles?’

A sudden impulse washed over Su Chen. He really wanted to stand up and shout at Master Xiao, ’I have no interest in money! My principles are welded shut with solid steel!’