aircannonsinc Chapter 392 Visiting the Chengdu Branch
Chapter 392 Visiting the Chengdu Branch
After the song was released, its online play count skyrocketed.
When Lu Ran posted the simplified version of the video of "Chengdu" on TUTU, it was already past 11 p.m.
He originally thought that if he sent it at this time, he wouldn't get a response until the next morning.
As soon as I clicked the publish button and refreshed the page, the number of views jumped from zero to several thousand.
Refresh the page again, and it shows tens of thousands.
Refreshed again, over 100,000.
Lu Ran stared at the constantly fluctuating numbers and couldn't help but say, "Don't these people ever sleep?"
Shen Yuege leaned over to take a look and laughed: "Don't you even know what time it is? It's past eleven, peak time for young people to be on their phones. People are in class or at work during the day, they don't have time to deal with you."
Lu Ran thought about it and realized that it made sense; he usually spent the most time browsing TUTU at night while lying in bed.
The comment section was flooded with comments as soon as the video was posted.
"It's here! The full version is finally here!"
"The sound quality is so much better than what passersby filmed. Mr. Lu, did you secretly learn how to record?"
"After listening to this, I felt like the air from Chengdu had drifted over here, even though I'm in Northeast China."
"Anyone want to organize a group trip to Chengdu for Chinese New Year? I'm signing up!"
"+1"
"+2"
"+10086"
Lu Ran scrolled down a few pages and found that the comments section had turned into a large-scale Chengdu tourism registration site.
Some people are discussing which hot pot restaurant in Chengdu is good, some are asking if Kuanzhai Alley is worth visiting, and some are even posting screenshots of airfares from Shanghai to Chengdu, asking if the price is expensive.
Even more outrageous, someone tagged the official account of Chengdu Culture and Tourism in the comments section, with the caption: "Aren't you going to come out and thank President Lu?"
The official account of Chengdu Culture and Tourism actually replied, sending a prayer-like emoji and saying, "We are already in contact. Thank you, Mr. Lu, for writing a song for Chengdu."
Lu Ran paused for a moment after seeing the reply, then turned to Shen Yuege and said, "Look, even people from the Chengdu Culture and Tourism Bureau are using TUTU. It's already past eleven o'clock."
"That's just dedication. Do you think everyone's like you, wanting to leave work as soon as it's time?"
"When have I ever wanted to leave work on time? You saw me working overtime."
"You're working overtime to write code, not to make money for the company. Writing code and making money are two different things."
Lu Ran was speechless at her logic, so she simply stopped talking and continued scrolling through the comments section.
One comment has been pushed to the top and has already received over 50,000 likes.
"I'm from Chengdu, but I work in Shanghai. I can only go home once a year for Chinese New Year. When I heard this song, tears welled up in my eyes immediately. It's not because the song is so good, but because of the things the lyrics describe—Yulin Road, the little bars—places I passed by every day when I was a child. I never thought those places were anything special, but after listening to you sing, I suddenly wanted to go back."
This comment truly captures the feelings of many people who are away from home.
In fact, every time Lu Ran or Shen Yuege releases a song, there are many very touching comments below.
As the song's producer, Lu Ran has a deep understanding of this.
Some things don't need to be liked; just leave them there.
Shen Yuege also saw this comment, remained silent for a moment, and then said, "Your song might really change some things."
"A song can't change anything. But a song plus a homesick person makes a difference."
Shen Yuege glanced at him but didn't say anything more.
The two of them scrolled through the comments for a while and found that someone had already started a topic on TUTU called "Going to Chengdu for Chinese New Year".
The number of participants is not large, but the growth rate is very fast, with dozens of new posts appearing every time the page is refreshed.
Some people are asking if it's cold in Chengdu during the Spring Festival, some are asking if hotels are easy to book during the Spring Festival, and some are asking if the Giant Panda Base will be open during the Spring Festival.
The questions were varied and numerous, but the core message was the same—I want to go.
As Shen Yuege scrolled through her phone, she suddenly asked, "Do you really think these people would move to a city just because of a song?"
"Yes, it will," Lu Ran said. "Back then, some people went to Tibet because of the song 'Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.' The impact of a good song on a place is more effective than spending tens of millions of dollars on music. Because songs have emotion, music doesn't. If you cry while listening to a song, you'll want to go and see that place. If you laugh while watching a music video, you'll just change the channel."
Shen Yuege thought about it and felt that what he said made sense.
The next morning, when Lu Ran woke up, he found that his phone was burning hot from all the messages.
In the work group, Zhou Mingzhe posted a series of data screenshots with the caption: "President Lu, take a look at this."
Lu Ran opened the screenshot and saw that it was a data statistics report from the TUTU backend.
The video "Chengdu" has garnered over 20 million views in less than ten hours since its release.
There were over 80,000 comments and over 100,000 reposts.
This is just data from TUTU's platform.
The combined number of views from reposts on Weibo, Kuaishou, Douyin, and Bilibili is impossible to count.
The most outrageous thing is that someone couldn't find this song on the music platform, so they simply made a cover version and uploaded it, and it actually got over a million plays.
After reviewing the data, Lu Ran replied to Zhou Mingzhe: "I saw it. Not bad."
Zhou Mingzhe replied instantly: "Not bad??? You call this not bad???"
Lu Ran sent a "What else?" emoji.
Zhou Mingzhe sent a string of ellipses, then said, "Do you know how many people online are asking, 'When will Lu Ran release the studio version of "Chengdu"?' Your TUTU private messages are probably exploding by now, right?"
Lu Ran glanced at his private messages and saw that they had indeed exploded. There were 9,999 unread messages, and the red number almost triggered his trypophobia.
He didn't open it; he simply exited the app.
He'd been through this too many times; he was used to it.
Shen Yuege woke up at this moment, groggily pulled her phone out from under her pillow, glanced at it, and then jumped out of bed.
"Twenty million views? That was just posted last night, wasn't it?"
"Yes. It was sent around 11 p.m. last night."
"Posted at 11:00 AM, and in less than ten hours, it's already reached 20 million views?" Shen Yuege's voice trembled slightly. "Your numbers are higher than the total views of some songs released by our studio."
"That means I'm better than your studio."
"Stop giving me that crap. I didn't sing any of the songs in our studio. The ones I sang have pretty high play counts, okay?"
Lu Ran smiled, didn't reply, and got up to wash up.
After the two finished breakfast, Lu Ran drove Shen Yuege to the Chengdu branch of Tutu Technology.
The branch office is located in an office building in Chengdu High-tech Zone.
The office building isn't very tall, only about ten stories. Its exterior is a very ordinary glass curtain wall building, which can't compare to the standalone office buildings like those in Shanghai's headquarters, but it's already considered quite good in this area of the High-tech Zone.
Lu Ran parked the RV in the parking lot below the office building, and the two of them took the elevator up to the twelfth floor.
The entire twelfth floor belongs to TuTu Technology.
Stepping out of the elevator, there's a white wall with the logo of Rabbit Technology hanging on it. It's a simple line drawing of a rabbit with its ears standing straight up, looking a bit silly.
This was designed by Xiao Yang. When Lu Ran first saw the logo, he wanted to suggest changing it, but everyone in the company said it looked good, so he was too embarrassed to say anything.
Now that I've seen it so many times, I actually find it quite pleasing to the eye.
Shen Yuege stood in front of the logo for a few seconds and said, "This rabbit looks familiar."
Does it look like you?
"Like you, my foot! How do I resemble a rabbit?"
"You look quite like that when you eat carrots."
Shen Yuege kicked him, but Lu Ran dodged it and took out his keys to open the company door.
When the door opened, the scene inside stunned both of them.
It's not chaos, it's emptiness.
The entire office area was completely empty. The floor was laid, the ceiling was installed, and the lights were set up, but there wasn't a single table, chair, or computer.
Sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the empty floor and making the entire space bright and airy, but it felt lifeless.
Shen Yuege walked in, her high heels clicking on the floor, making a hollow, echoing sound.
"This place is so empty!" she said, turning around. "There's not even a place to sit."
"The renovation just finished, and the furniture hasn't arrived yet." Lu Ran followed behind her. "Brother Zhou said the furniture is on its way and will arrive next week. Once the tables, chairs, and computers are all set up, it'll be almost like the one in Shanghai."
"What about the employees? Didn't you say you hired more than sixty people in Chengdu?"
"Yes. But they're currently in training in Shanghai. They won't be back until around the Lunar New Year."
Shen Yuege walked to the French windows and looked out.
Outside the window is the street scene of the High-tech Zone. The roads are wide and there are not many cars. In the distance, you can see several buildings under construction, and the booms of tower cranes are slowly turning.
"This is a good location," she said. "It has good lighting and a wide view. You can see very far from here."
"Of course. The place Brother Zhou chooses can't be bad."
Shen Yuege then took another walk around the company, looking at the meeting rooms, the tea room, and the restrooms, examining each one very carefully.
She pushed open the door to an office in the corner. It was brighter inside than outside because two walls were made of glass windows.
"Whose office is this?" she asked.
"It's mine. But I don't come here often; it's mainly for the head of the Chengdu branch. It hasn't been decided yet who it will be, but it's most likely to be Brother Zhou."
Shen Yuege stood in that office and glanced out the window again, this time looking in a different direction.
"Can you see the mountains from over there?"
Lu Ran walked over and took a look. In the distance, there was indeed a continuous mountain range, blurry and indistinct, as if shrouded in a thin mist.
"It should be Longquan Mountain," he said. "There's that mountain east of Chengdu. It's not high, but it's quite long."
Shen Yuege nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
The two stayed in the company for a while longer. Lu Ran took a few photos with his phone and sent them to the work group.
"Chengdu branch has passed inspection."
Zhou Mingzhe replied instantly: "The furniture will arrive next week. Keep an eye on it for me. Take some photos during installation and send them to me."
"OK."
Xiao Yang posted a panda emoji with the caption: "The Chengdu branch is huge! Bigger than the Shanghai headquarters?"
Zhou Mingzhe replied, "The Shanghai headquarters isn't small either, but the Chengdu location is indeed larger because the rent is cheaper."
Old Wang sent a message: "President Lu, when are you coming back? The code for Infinite Firepower is finished. Do you want to take a look beforehand?"
Lu Ran replied, "I'll be back in a few days. You can test it first, and let me know if you encounter any problems."
Old Wang sent a "Received" emoji.
After leaving the company, the two had lunch at a noodle shop downstairs.
The noodle shop is small, with a dozen or so tables. A handwritten menu is posted on the wall, offering Dan Dan noodles, Yibin Ranmian (a type of noodle), beef noodles, and fatty intestine noodles, all at ridiculously cheap prices.
Lu Ran ordered a bowl of dan dan noodles, and Shen Yuege ordered a bowl of beef noodles.
When the noodles were served, Lu Ran could tell from the spicy aroma that this bowl of noodles was something special.
He picked up a piece with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth. It was so spicy that he gasped for breath, but he didn't stop and ate it one bite after another.
"Don't you not like spicy food?" Shen Yuege asked, looking at his sweaty face.
"Not being able to eat something doesn't mean you don't want to eat it. The more you can't eat something, the more you want to eat it—that's human nature."
Shen Yuege shook her head and lowered her head to eat her noodles.
Her beef noodle soup base was red, with a layer of red oil floating on top. It looked even spicier than Lu Ran's dan dan noodles, but she ate it without changing her expression or even breaking a sweat.
"Who taught you to eat spicy food?" Lu Ran asked.
"It's innate. It's a stereotype that people from Shanghai can't eat spicy food; I can eat a lot."
"You're an exception. You're one in ten thousand in Shanghai."
"That means I'm one in a million."
Lu Ran smiled and continued eating his noodles.
After finishing their meal, the two of them didn't rush to leave, but instead took a stroll around the High-tech Zone.
The streets here are wide and well-landscaped, with many ginkgo trees planted on both sides of the road.
The ginkgo leaves have mostly fallen this season, leaving a layer of golden leaves on the ground that rustles underfoot.
Shen Yuege walked forward, stepping on fallen leaves, then suddenly turned around and said, "If the Chengdu branch develops well in the future, do you think we can stay in Chengdu for a longer period of time?"
"Stay as long as you want. You're the boss, you call the shots."
"Then I won't leave before the Chinese New Year; I'll stay in Chengdu."
"Okay. Then I won't leave either, I'll stay with you."
It just so happens that Brother Zhou also asked Lu Ran to help with the furniture arrangement, and Lu Ran and Lu Ran also happened to be in Chengdu for a few days.
As expected, plans can't keep up with changes. The original plan to travel around the Dragon Kingdom has now fallen through halfway.
Shen Yuege glanced at him, a smirk playing on her lips: "Don't you need to go back and keep an eye on your Infinite Power?"
"Old Wang can keep an eye on things. I won't be able to help much when I go back; at most, I'll just sit next to them and watch them work."
"If you just sit there and watch, aren't they nervous while they work?"
"I'm nervous. So I'm not going, so they can focus on their work."
Shen Yuege was amused by his logic, shook her head, and continued walking forward.
The two walked for more than half an hour in the High-tech Zone, their legs getting a little sore, before returning to the RV.
Lu Ran started the car and drove towards the city center.
As he drove, he thought to himself, "This trip was worth it."
He wrote "Lady Shexiang" for Guizhou Province and "Chengdu" for Sichuan Province, which boosted tourism to Wumeng Mountain and promoted Chengdu.
Although they are all things done casually, sometimes things done casually are more effective than things done intentionally.
What he didn't know was that the influence of these two songs was far greater than he imagined.
...