Chapter 59 Return of the Missing Person

Linyang City Fire and Rescue Detachment.

The Detachment Leader’s Office.

"Leader! It’s all settled, I’ve secured the location!"

Qian Wei looked on in complete bewilderment as Wu Xianghua trotted in, all smiles. "What location?"

"The test site Academician Wei asked for, of course."

"Ah! Look at my memory."

Qian Wei gave his own forehead a hard slap.

It looked like a bad memory.

In truth, he just hadn't paid much attention to it.

Because the more he thought about it afterward, the more fishy it felt.

Wei Xiutian’s ideas were completely detached from reality.

Could he possibly be reliable?

So he simply stopped paying attention and handed the task over to Wu Xianghua to coordinate.

Wu Xianghua, however, took it very seriously, running all over the place until he secured a suitable venue.

"There’s an abandoned mine pit in Linyang Town. It’s huge, and the surroundings are very remote, perfectly matching Academician Wei’s requirements."

Qian Wei was listening with one ear and letting it out the other. "Alright, then go ahead and let Academician Wei know."

Just as they were speaking,

Knock, knock, knock!

A knock sounded at the door.

A young man holding a tablet walked into the office.

"Leader! Section Chief Wu is here too."

The young man stood at attention and saluted, looking energetic and sharp.

His name was Chen Zezé, an officer in the detachment's publicity section.

He was also the most spirited young fellow in the entire detachment, with a very slick tongue.

Therefore,

he had been entrusted with a heavy responsibility by Qian Wei: managing the fire detachment's short-video social media account.

"Xiao Chen, your recent work results have been rather mediocre."

Qian Wei took out his phone and pulled up the homepage of [Linyang Fire Control].

There were quite a few videos on the account.

However, the likes and engagement were average.

The follower count was also disappointing, sitting at a mere 12,000.

In the era of new media,

every administrative unit was jumping on the converged media bandwagon, desperately trying to gain followers.

Fire stations, traffic police detachments, public security bureaus, and culture and tourism departments all had their own accounts.

As units at the municipal level, they constantly crossed paths.

Although the follower count wasn't an official performance appraisal metric, it was still an intuitive indicator.

Besides, the fire department was arguably the unit that needed followers the most.

The more followers they had, the more widely they could popularize fire safety knowledge and nip dangers in the bud.

This could directly and effectively reduce the workload of the fire department's primary duties.

Hence, Qian Wei was far from satisfied with the current follower count.

"When I went to the city for a meeting a couple of days ago,"

"I heard that the traffic police detachment already has over 800,000 followers."

"We are all municipal-level units, so isn't the gap between us and the fire department just a bit too big?"

Chen Zezé hesitated, wanting to speak but holding back. "Yes... I will keep working hard."

He didn't dare talk back out loud, but inside, his mind was screaming curses.

Yes.

The traffic police detachment had a lot of followers.

But did those followers all come from legitimate, righteous avenues?

The captain simply wasn't immersed enough in internet culture to know how the traffic police grew their follower base.

Oh boy.

They literally went live streaming while catching elderly mobility scooters, even nabbing an old grandpa who drove his vehicle as if he were piloting a jet plane down the sidewalk.

Such bizarre social spectacles—aren't those absolute magnets for followers?

To be fair,

even after pulling off such a massive stunt, the traffic police only had a bit over 800,000 followers, which showed that their work was actually quite ordinary too.

Bottling up his grievances, Chen Zezé appealed to reason and emotion.

"I do realize that our follower growth rate is a bit slow, so I was thinking that besides shooting videos, we should also start live-streaming and doing co-hosted battles."

"Co-hosted battles?" Qian Wei was an old-school figure and didn't quite understand.

"It means starting a live stream and connecting with famous people online."

Wu Xianghua understood a little bit and chimed in, "What would be the specific content?"

"I can use a humorous and witty approach to popularize some fire safety knowledge for them."

"These people are famous and have massive follower bases."

"We might just be able to convert some of them over to our side."

Hearing this, Qian Wei more or less understood the idea.

The core of fire safety work lay in preemptive safety education.

The more followers they had, the broader the reach.

As for whose fans they originally were, it didn't really matter.

As long as the content of the publicity struck a chord with people, that was enough.

Qian Wei nodded in approval. "That works. I heard Jay Chou recently joined the platform. Why don't you try to co-host a stream with him, or simply invite him over to shoot a promotional video or something?"

Chen Zezé pointed at his own nose, wearing a look of utter incomprehension.

"Jay Chou?"

Qian Wei: "Yeah, that pop singer."

"Have him shoot a video for us?"

Qian Wei: "Right, let him help us promote things more, like how not to overload electrical circuits in the summer."

"Me?"

Qian Wei: "Mhm, you have full authority over it."

"..."

Chen Zezé walked out of the office in silence.

In all my years, I've never even managed to grab a single concert ticket.

Who do I think I am, asking the guy to co-do a live stream with me?

Captain, I have to ask: does your house not have a 5G connection?

At least browse short videos every now and then to get a grasp of the current landscape.

Just thinking about it gave him a headache.

Actually, being a live-streamer for the fire department wasn't that hard.

The hard part was that your boss was completely oblivious to internet culture.

Always thinking that gaining followers was a breeze and publicity could be done by anyone with hands.

At this thought, Chen Zezé's native language became speechlessness.

Fortunately,

the leader had at least approved his request to do co-hosted live streams.

To be fair,

if Jay Chou was out of reach,

what about others? Surely they'd do?

They were, after all, an official live-streaming channel.

Let's not even talk about those massive streamers with tens of millions of followers; ones with a million or even just a hundred thousand should be achievable.

As long as we get some followers, beggars can't be choosers, right?

Besides,

Linyang was also a land of abundant treasures and outstanding people.

If out-of-town internet celebrities were out of reach, surely there must be one or two locally popular influencers in Linyang with a following?

Being fellow townsmen, co-hosting with them shouldn't be too difficult.

Feeling exceptionally clever, Chen Zezé immediately returned to his office and pulled up a list of Linyang influencers.

Ranking number one was [Victory Auto Repair Shop] with 1.02 million followers.

......

......

Twelve noon.

Wei Xiutian launched a live stream for the first time in a long while.

Because he had been entirely focused on overcoming technical bottlenecks recently, he had been out of touch for a long time.

His backend private messages were practically exploding, with quite a few loyal fans threatening to mail razor blades to Wei Xiutian.

"The streamer has been busy as a bee lately, yet he carved out time amidst his hectic schedule to go live—consider this a treat for the fans."

???

The viewers in the live chat were dumbfounded.

[Azure Blue Awaits the Misty Rain LV.12]: "Have you ever seen any streamer who vanishes for a entire week?"

[Leo LV.33]: "The streamer has gotten arrogant. He hits a million followers and immediately starts slacking off, huh?"

[Iron Miser Blooming Big Flowers LV.22]: "If anyone has a free second, please go unfollow the streamer."

[Why Girls Wear Short Skirts LV.56]: "The streamer is finally back. I almost called the police."

You have to hand it to them; fan loyalty was actually quite high.

As soon as the broadcast started, there were nearly 50,000 concurrent viewers.

Wei Xiutian was deeply gratified and faced the numerous threats of unfollowing from the trolls with absolute composure.

"Feel free to unfollow if you want. We've got a bit too many people in this stream anyway. Once the viewer count drops a bit, I'll show you guys a brand new trick."

[Wanchai Pier Sleeping Dock LV.25]: "A new trick? What are we modifying this time?"

[Can't Sleep During the Day LV.33]: "Ten thousand blood-written petitions! I want to see the elderly mobility scooter airplane!"

[Reservoir Wanderer Fan Debiao LV.41]: "Streamer, streamer! I've already bought an elderly mobility scooter. When can I drive it over for you to modify?"

Wei Xiutian gave a light cough and immediately steered the direction of the conversation.

"We aren't fixing things today. Let's just relax and play around with some co-hosted live streams."