Chapter 9: The Era of Traffic
Originally, the gang of lackeys assumed Ji Feng was going to lecture them on studying hard, but never in their wildest dreams did they expect...
Dou Ding looked at Ji Feng with absolute admiration:
"Brother Feng's train of thought is truly different from us bros."
Then, Dou Ding sighed a little:
"I get what Brother Feng means, too. Everyone else is studying, and it really is pointless for us to come to school every day and just slack off. My dad talked to me about it as well; a guy like me isn't going to get into any real university. Once I manage to scrape together a diploma, I might as well just go haul freight with him."
A distant, reminiscent look flickered in Ji Feng's eyes.
When the college entrance exams ended, it wasn't just unconfessed crushes or heartbreaking breakups between young couples that left people sighing with regret.
There was also the brotherhood shared among ordinary mates, and even among street punks.
The concept of brotherhood and loyalty was a tricky thing. Some people treasured it, while others scoffed at it. But most of the time, the bonds between brothers were deeply sincere.
"Don't rush yet, Douding. If you trust me, you can help me out with a few things during this period."
Hearing that Ji Feng had tasks for him, Dou Ding instantly straightened his posture:
"Come on, Brother Feng, you're being way too polite. Just say the word if there's anything you need. Tell me who we're going to take care of, and I, Douding, won't hesitate for a second."
"Yeah, Brother Feng! Our situations are pretty much the same as Brother Ding's. You talking to us like this makes it feel like you don't even see us as brothers—it feels weird. Just tell us who needs a beating, and the boys won't waste any breath."
Ji Feng: ......
Ji Feng nodded in a steady rhythm, the corners of his lips curving upward.
A simp with no drive to improve himself was indeed a pathetic sight, but being able to pull together a group of brothers like this meant you had to possess some genuine personal charisma.
In his past life, he hadn't seemed like a complete waste of space after all.
He really hadn't spent much money on these mates. Aside from the natural tendency of punks to flock together, the genuine emotional sincerity among them was entirely real.
He picked up his chopsticks and tapped each of them on the head.
One tap each, none of them heavy.
"Are you guys morons? Graduation is just a few months away. Several of you are already eighteen and are about to step out into society. Society operates under the rule of law! Running your mouths about beating people up all day—who are you planning to hit? If you pull another stunt, it won't be juvenile detention, it'll be a real holding cell. Do you have brains?"
Ji Feng was a bit fierce, a bit mean, and the chopstick taps on the head actually hurt a little, but Dou Ding and the others ate that exact treatment right up.
How could anyone be a boss without a shred of authority?
"Not beating people up? Then... what are you going to have us do, Brother Feng? We don't know how to do anything else."
Ji Feng didn't immediately spell out his ideas. Instead, acting very much like a boss, he picked up the takeout meals, skewers, and drinks his underlings had bought, and began to eat and drink.
Right now, he was the only one eating; Dou Ding and the others hadn't touched their chopsticks.
The surrounding students also deliberately kept a certain distance from Ji Feng, given his notorious reputation.
Except, of course, for Wunnuan, who was sitting right beside them, burying her face in her food.
Whether this girl was genuinely oblivious or what, she just ate her own food while they talked, refusing to budge an inch.
Ji Feng shoveled down a few bites of rice, cracked open a soda, and took a gulp:
"You all know how to use the internet, right? You chat away on QQ every day, and some of you even have girlfriends."
"Definitely, Brother. I can hang out in an internet cafe all day without any problem."
"Good. As long as you know how to surf the web, starting today, I have a very important task for you."
"Just name it, Brother Feng. We'll get done whatever you need."
"It's nothing difficult, and you don't need to go around fighting anyone. Everything can be handled entirely online. First of all, I want each of you to register a few QQ, WeChat, and Weibo accounts. Make them female profiles, around thirty years old—the kind of empathetic, wise older sister figures. Name them things like 'Caring Sister,' 'Heartwarming Quotes,' or 'Women's Weekly.' For the pictures, go search on Weibo, download and repost sets of photos from travel bloggers and chicken-soup bloggers. Then copy and paste their classic quotes and heartwarming life advice, and paste them under the posts of other bloggers in the same niche. You need to do this simultaneously across three platforms: Weibo, QQ Space, and WeChat Moments."
Hearing Ji Feng say this, the group of lackeys froze completely.
Their expressions could be summed up in four words: utterly bewildered.
"Wait, Brother Feng, what is the point of this? These things... completely have nothing to do with us."
"Making money."
"Doing this can make money? Honestly, it sounds even less reliable than hauling freight."
"It can," Ji Feng said with absolute certainty.
Hearing him speak with such conviction, the few underlings reined in their restlessness. Even Wunnuan, who had been gnawing on a chicken drumstick at the far end of the long table, paused mid-bite.
Everyone waited for Ji Feng's next words, eager to find out how on earth doing this could make money.
Ji Feng clasped his hands together, radiating the commanding aura of a top-tier executive from his past life—fully and vividly displayed at that moment:
"The year is 2012. The gradual popularization of smartphones and 3G networks is truly bringing the mobile internet into the era of traffic. Numerous online classes, prominent influencers, and bloggers are all hyping up the traffic era. They claim the internet in the traffic era is paved with gold, and that anyone with a brain and an idea can make money. And that's true—major corporations in this era are frantically scrambling for traffic, building their own barriers, moats, and walls. The internet right now is extremely chaotic, with capital in its infancy and a severe lack of regulation. Investors are tossing around huge sums of money to fund projects; money really is everywhere. But almost none of these people will actually tell you how to acquire traffic in the true sense of the word, let alone how to monetize that traffic. What I'm having you do is the fundamental method for acquiring genuine traffic. And we're going to create it out of nothing, capturing the highest quality female traffic."
"Out of nothing? The highest quality female traffic?"
"Yes. In this embryonic era of the 3G internet, building traffic accounts is the most foundational method for acquiring traffic. Traffic accounts can be roughly divided into three types: success-cultivation accounts, seductress accounts, and the mental-chicken-soup accounts I'm having you create. These three types of accounts attract completely different demographics. Success accounts attract people who are desperate to make money, and they primarily monetize by selling courses. Seductress accounts are very straightforward—the kind you guys look at all the time. They have many ways to monetize, such as tricking you into installing trojan horses on websites, luring you into online gambling, or selling you overpriced tea. They do it all."
Dou Ding instantly sat up straight, and the others quickly followed suit.
When Ji Feng talked about this kind of stuff, they certainly weren't sleepy anymore.
"Seductress accounts are that hardcore? Then why aren't we making seductress accounts? We could look at them ourselves along the way."
Ji Feng turned his head to glare at the person who had just spoken.
"Are you a total moron? Just tell me, which method of monetizing a seductress account isn't illegal?"
Chastised by Ji Feng's roar, the others silently lowered their heads.
Fair is fair—it was true. Seductress accounts were illegal. What a shame.
"The last type is chicken-soup accounts. Chicken-soup accounts mainly use all sorts of heartwarming quotes and emotional advice to attract women. Especially young mothers raising kids at home and housewives. They actually hold the most control over household finances. Their spending power is the strongest among all demographics—they buy things for their husbands, for their kids, for themselves, and for the household. The monetization efficiency of one of these is ten times that of a seductress account. What do you guys know?"
In Ji Feng's view, every single empathetic-fan account was practically identical to the live-stream e-commerce hosts of the short-video era. The nature of the beast was almost precisely the same. Content creation meant chicken-soup text, driving traffic and gathering fans through screen-flooding posts, and finally funneling them into chat groups to guide their consumption through focused connections.
It was just that the 'caring sisters' of this era didn't possess the massive deceptive power of later live-stream hosts.
Yet, this kind of completely unregulated guidance of consumer spending would continue to exist all the way until 2023.