Chapter 34: One Must Learn to Mobilize the Power of the Masses

Back at his seat, Guo Shuai still wore a look of utter confusion.

"Hey, what exactly are you trying to do?" he asked. "Why throw money away on that kid?"

Chen Fan didn't answer the question, but instead stared at Guo Shuai. "How much money do you have on you?"

"Huh?" Guo Shuai reached into his pockets and fished out a wad of small change. "About 120 yuan."

"Give it to me first." Chen Fan grabbed it directly and stuffed it into his own pocket without counting. "Including what you lent me before, I'll pay you back ten thousand next time."

Guo Shuai shook his head. "You still haven't answered my question."

Chen Fan clicked on a webpage and pointed at the comments on the forum for him to see. "What does this mean? Is this a trick by our competitors?"

Chen Fan nodded. "Most likely."

"So what's your plan? Do you want to hire people to smear their website?"

Chen Fan shook his head. "It's more than that."

Chen Fan then explained his plan to Guo Shuai in detail. He knew he couldn't compete with them in a direct spending war for promotion. Since that was the case, he had to change his approach and think of other ways. If the opponent felt the need to hire people to smear his domain website despite already having the advantage, what did that signify?

Guo Shuai immediately said, "It means he's feeling guilty. He knows his website isn't as good as yours, so he's worried your site will become a threat in the future."

Chen Fan snapped his fingers. "Since they've already made their move, we don't need to be polite."

Guo Shuai scratched his head, still puzzled. "But... is it reliable to try and defeat them using a bunch of random netizens you just found? Don't end up losing everything in the process."

Chen Fan smiled. It seemed Guo Shuai had no idea about the power of "internet water armies." Chen Fan proceeded to explain to him what a water army was.

Guo Shuai listened, half-understanding. "Even if what you say is right, there's no need to give him that much money. Five cents a head? I think one cent would have been enough."

Chen Fan gave a wry smile. "We don't have time. And if you want to build a water army quickly, you have to invest heavily at the start. Trust me, as an internet café receptionist, he sees the most people every day. The price I set is definitely not high."

Seeing that Guo Shuai still didn't quite grasp it, Chen Fan continued to guide him. "Don't think of the people we're recruiting as temporary workers. By gathering everyone through QQ groups, think of them as teammates in your gaming guild. From now on, you can post bounties in the groups at any time and make them truly work for you. Trust me, in this era, if you possess an obedient water army, you can absolutely rule the internet."

Guo Shuai listened, still only partially grasping the concept. "Whatever, I'll listen to you. If you say we do it, we do it." That's what a good brother is—someone who will support you unconditionally even if they don't fully understand.

After that, Chen Fan dragged Guo Shuai to several other internet cafés. They used the same routine with the managers or receptionists and assigned each of them a QQ group. To avoid trouble, these QQ accounts were chosen from the new ones Chen Fan had registered earlier; no one knew they belonged to him. Furthermore, he gave each internet café a different QQ group. In one day, Chen Fan had distributed over twenty groups.

Guo Shuai accompanied him the whole way. Honestly, he still didn't understand what Chen Fan was trying to do, and he felt this method was too amateurish—he doubted it could recruit many people. If he were a receptionist, he could easily tell his classmates and friends to join, take the money, and then leave the group. What could Chen Fan do then? Of course, Guo Shuai didn't voice these concerns; he just silently followed Chen Fan from one place to another.

By dusk, Chen Fan had distributed 24 QQ groups. "That's enough. Let's see how things look tomorrow. If these internet café staff are effective, getting two hundred people together in three days should be just enough."

That was what Chen Fan thought, but he had completely underestimated the power of these managers and receptionists. For an entire day, the group-join requests for the 24 QQ groups never stopped. Some receptionists were clever; they played games and were already in many QQ groups, so they simply spammed advertisements in various gaming groups, promising everyone easy money if they joined. Some netizens joined out of pure curiosity.

The next day, when Chen Fan returned to the "White Birch Forest" internet café and logged in, he was stunned by the constantly flashing messages in his QQ groups. He had expected the 24 groups to total maybe one or two hundred people at most. Instead, in just one night, the largest group had already reached over two hundred members, and even the smallest had over eighty.

The receptionist at White Birch Forest walked over secretively. "See that? I pulled in over 150 people for you."

Chen Fan smiled. "Impressive, impressive." Seeing the other man looking like he had more to say, Chen Fan smiled and fished eighty yuan out of his pocket. "Here is eighty."

The young man's eyes lit up; he clearly hadn't expected Chen Fan to actually pay. He took the money excitedly and, before leaving, couldn't help but look at Chen Fan expectantly. "If I pull in more people later, is there still money to be made?"

Chen Fan smiled. "Of course. Until the end of this month, as long as you can bring people in, my word stands." The receptionist's eyes brightened. "Deal."

Once the receptionist left, Chen Fan used a speed that left Guo Shuai dazzled to set all the groups to "mute." Then, he sent a message to every group: "In half an hour, this group will release a paid bounty task. Before the task begins, please elect three group moderators."

After sending this, he lifted the mute. Instantly, a tidal wave of chat messages flooded in.

"What's going on?"
"Paid bounty task? What task? What money?"
"Isn't this a gaming group?"
"Is there really money to be made?"
"Group owner, explain yourself!"

Chen Fan watched their chatter silently. Sure enough, in order to get to the bottom of what the mysterious owner was up to, the netizens in each group actually elected three moderators. Chen Fan granted moderator status to the three people chosen in each group. He noticed that almost all the internet café staff had ended up becoming moderators.

Chen Fan didn't care who became a moderator. He directly invited them all into a single "Moderator Group." Then, Guo Shuai witnessed firsthand how Chen Fan operated the whole process.

Chen Fan first held a meeting with these dozens of moderators. He briefly explained the bounty task process. The task was actually very simple: post comments. As long as you could use the internet and type, you could easily participate. Chen Fan's requirements were simple: all comments should praise the domain website as much as possible. Fearing they wouldn't understand, Chen Fan even provided a dozen templates for them to copy if they couldn't think of anything to write.

Just as Guo Shuai felt bewildered and thought Chen Fan was playing a game, Chen Fan suddenly said to the moderators in the group: "Tell all members in your groups that as long as they work hard at commenting, everyone will make plenty of money. Every comment must be at least ten characters long. Each comment is worth five cents. No cap on earnings! Moderators get a pay bump—ten cents per comment. Alright, go back to your groups and explain it to your members. The task begins now."

Guo Shuai sat on the side, staring at Chen Fan, dumbfounded. "This... isn't this all a bit too much like a game?"

Chen Fan smiled, stretched, and patted Guo Shuai on the shoulder. "Young man, remember! You must learn to mobilize the power of the masses."