Deep Sea City, New High Technology Park B3 Building, 15th Floor, Whale Technology Headquarters

Whale Technology LLC was founded in 2007 as a localized network technology company which mainly dealt with internet games, videos, animations, etc. Whale TV began operating in June 2012, becoming part of the first wave of live broadcasting platforms in the country.

The market for live broadcasting was in its initial stages and was growing quickly. With the vigorous support of Whale Technology, Whale TV grew extremely fast, especially by broadcasting the three hottest games: CKG, Heroic City and Star Lord. They quickly occupied more than 70% of the market share and developed several outstanding anchors.

However, as live broadcasting became more widespread, major figures set their eyes on this huge chunk of meat. Thus, Whale TV received intense competition. With many of their popular anchors poached away, their popularity began to decline.

Even in such situation, the higher-ups of Whale TV stubbornly focused on gaming broadcasts while neglecting segments related to entertainment and lifestyle. This caused their market share to drop continuously and others to jokingly call them Salty Whale TV.

Naturally, Whale TV was not willing to be treated as salted fish. The higher-ups made the difficult decision to change the incompetent employees and expended great efforts to scramble for resources against StarryLive and Sky Live. Finally, with great difficulty, they barely stopped their decline.

As the revenue of Whale TV was more than 65% of the total revenue of Whale Technology, their office was on the same floor as the headquarters, with hundreds of staff members.

Although it was almost afternoon, dozens of employees in the operations department were still busy in front of their computers. No one stood up to stretch or get a drink. The atmosphere was very intense and organized.

Suddenly, a female in a white professional attire jumped up in her seat. She seemed ecstatic as she raised her tightly clenched fists and waved them around.

A young colleague sitting beside her noticed and curiously asked, “Sister Shanshan, did you encounter something good??”

The office lady named Shanshan happily replied, “I managed to poach a new anchor with a lot of potential!”

¹

As her voice was loud and clear, more colleagues around her heard the news. They began having a lively discussion while inquiring about it.

“Congratulations, Shanshan!”

“Where did you poach him from? What’s his name?”

“Does he really have the potential to become popular? Nowadays there are numerous newcomers injected with water. Don’t just look at the surface numbers!”

²

“What genre is it? Gaming? Singing? Lifestyle?”

“Shanshan treat us!”

Shanshan smiled and replied, “there’s no problem with treating. Let me report to the manager first and I shall inform you all after officially signing the contract!”

She ran quickly to the innermost location of the operations department.

This was the location of Whale TV’s operations manager, Wu Hongming. When Shanshan rushed in like a tornado, this Super Boss was still engrossed in the reports in his hands.

“Boss!”

How could Wu Hongming not put down the documents when Shanshan excitedly called him? He helplessly pinched his brows and reproached her solemnly, “Wu Shanshan, how old are you? Why are you still like an impatient child!”

Both his and Wu Shanshan’s surname were Wu – they were relatives. Due to the fact that they were relatives, Wu Hongming’s expectations towards Wu Shanshan were even more strict to avoid others from gossiping about favoritism.

It has been three years since Wu Shanshan had graduated from university but she had only came to Whale TV recently. Her bubbly personality caused Wu Hongshan to often have headaches, so he scolded her frequently.

However it basically had no effect. Moreover, Wu Shanshan’s relations with her colleagues were good.

Faced with her own uncle’s berating, Wu Shanshan stuck out her tongue and docilely spoke, “Boss, I managed to poach an anchor with great potential and he wants to talk about the contract now!”

Although they were relatives, personal and work affairs should be separated distinctly. Therefore, within the company, there was no difference between her and her colleagues’ way of addressing Wu Hongming. They all called him “Boss”.

Not only was Wu Hongming one of the founder of Whale TV, he was also a senior figure in Whale Technology.

“You shouted it so loudly a few moments ago. I am not deaf!” this veteran said snappily. “Is it reliable this time? It had better not be like the incident last time…”

Having Wu Hongming mentioning her previous embarrassment, Wu Shanshan’s face couldn’t help but turn red.

Previously, she had also poached a new anchor but had misjudged. The other party belonged to the type that used money to raise his followers. Luckily the problem surfaced when Wu Hongming did a thorough investigation, preventing the company from suffering losses.

As a renowned live broadcasting platform, even though Whale TV was experiencing immense pressure in its operations, they were prudent in the aspect of poaching. Their style was one that prefer to let go than accept shoddy options.

Wu Shanshan then tried to explain, “Boss, this anchor is really good. He had been banned by StarryLive due to contract issues. If it weren’t due to me being in his fan circle, I’m afraid that we wouldn’t even be able to poach him!”

“StarryLive? Problems with contract?”

Wu Hongming’s brows furrowed like a 川 word and spoke, “let me take a look at his information.”

It was a good thing to be able to poach from their old competitor, StarryLive. However, the precondition was that the person must be reliable. Wu Hongming wouldn’t want him, regardless of how talented he is, if it was an unruly or greedy junior that lacks foresight.

Wu Shanshan hurriedly replied, “I have already stored it in the folder. You will see it when you open the file.”

Wu Hongshan nodded and visited the shared folder within Wu Shanshan’s computer through the Local Area Network. This was an authority that only he had as an administrator, others weren’t able to do so.

Wu Shanshan had been paying attention to Lu Chen for a while, therefore, her preparations on him were ample. She had included information about Lu Chen’s live broadcast viewers count, popularity statistics, Starry Fans, QQ group, the total amount of donations, etc..

Most importantly, there were two recordings of the live broadcasts!

Initially when Wu Hongming saw the basic information of Lu Chen, he once again began frowning.

It was because Lu Chen’s information was inadequate. It had only been three days since he had started live broadcasting yet his followers had rapidly increased. It was too easy to falsify such statistics, therefore it couldn’t be treated genuinely.

From his popularity statistics, donations amount, Starry Fans, and other information, Wu Hongming was unable to identify how much potential Lu Chen had.

Such a new anchor would be banned by StarryLive based on a contract issue?

He suspected his own niece for being muddle-headed once again!

Preparing to scold her, Wu Hongshan opened a clip of the live broadcast video.

“…I shall present another of my original song. The title is You Who Sat Next to Me. I hope that everyone will like it.”

Lu Chen’s voice instantly broadcasted from the computer speakers.

Original song?

Wu Hongming’s eyes instantly shone with interest and increased the volume of the speakers.

“Tomorrow would you remember the diary you wrote yesterday,”

“Tomorrow would you still think of the you who liked to cry.”

“The teachers had all forgotten…”

As the melody of You Who Sat Next to Me coupled with Lu Chen’s clear voice came through the high quality speakers, it brought a trace of sentimental feelings and caused the entire operations department to quiet down.

The mouse clicking sounds disappeared. The typing sounds vanished. It was as if the voice had contained magical powers that caused listeners to be unconsciously attracted, listen to the song attentively, and be drawn into the river of time.

The operations department staff were all quite young and their memories of junior high, senior high and university were still distinct. Therefore, they naturally resonated with the song even if it was their first time listening.

As they listened to the song, those beautiful memories that were worth reminiscing surfaced within their hearts and made them forget about their work.

The song ended, but the office was still silent.

Wu Hongming closed the video.

Wu Shanshan was anxious. “Boss, there is still more! Continue to watch them!”

“Just this song is enough!”

Wu Hongming tightly furrowed brows relaxed and he questioned, “are you sure this… erm, this is Lu Fei’s original composition? Also, what is the specific clause within the contract that caused him to fall out with them and get banned?

An original work was not necessarily enough to let Wu Hongming make a decision. However, Lu Chen not only performed at a high standard, his outer appearance was also extraordinary. His literary talent, his innate gifts, and his aptitude truly had the potential to become popular!

He dared to say that StarryLive had missed a new up and coming star!

1. The “shan” in her name is the “shan” in the username “shan hu yu”, which was translated to Coral Fish.

2. Injected with water is just saying that many newcomers paid money to recruit fan followers to raise their numbers.