KC | Chapter 55

Chen Xi was able to take down Pinsheng quickly, 80% of it came from luck. Event execution was a hard need for Pinsheng, this deal only needed to be negotiated more or less before it could be signed.

And Lin Yiran, through Chen Xi’s account, judged Shen Yuesheng’s true intentions. Chen Xi catered to his preference and successfully raised the price to win the project.

But this still was not enough.

Shen Yuesheng was extremely deep and scheming, he did not easily express his real needs. The starting point of cooperation that Chen Xi thought of, if the needs were not matched well, could very easily become Pinsheng’s ending.

If they wanted to cooperate with Pinsheng long term and stably, they had to bring out something that other ad companies did not have. If there was no strategy, this “thing” would most likely end up becoming Chen Xi himself.

Lin Yiran borrowed the Nine-Colored Deer bracelet from Zhang Shu in the government affairs department. This bracelet was issued by the provincial culture and tourism bureau to some “culture and tourism ambassadors,” and there were only 2 in Yucheng, the other one was with Shen Pin.

What mattered was not how valuable the thing was, but its meaning. To wear something the client recognized, that was not easy to get on the market, and that could prove identity, only then did it have meaning.

Lin Yiran stuffed the half-finished product in the car trunk into the empty refrigerator, went to the wardrobe to dig out two sets of sportswear with similar styles, put on the Nine-Colored Deer bracelet, bought a vanilla latte, and headed straight for Huiling Mountain.

Most people in charge of culture and tourism scenic spots were profit-minded. Thanks to this bracelet, he was able to successfully borrow a sound system from the scenic spot. While borrowing the sound system, Lin Yiran chatted a few words with Director Jiang of the scenic spot and learned that Shen Yuesheng was a frequent visitor there.

Shen Yuesheng usually ran to this no-star scenic spot for culture and tourism resources.

That matched up.

At present, many private non-enterprise education institutions used social media to build KOLs and drive traffic to the school, while also building the brand. For example, a certain beauty, hairdressing, and makeup school created a male-in-female-clothing KOL, fitting the persona, and became wildly popular for a time; a certain art school matched the “art exam” topic and created funny teacher-student duet singing, becoming a hit all over the internet… Shen Yuesheng wanted to shape Pinsheng’s KOL, and his focus was not on the “person” but on the “culture and tourism IP.”

Seeing the first ones eat the crab and taste the fresh meat, many schools sharpened their heads and all wanted to explode overnight, devoting themselves to building their own KOLs. Little did they know that the current short video platforms had more creators than users, and the probability of standing out among countless KOLs was not much higher than winning the lottery. Shen Yuesheng, using a capitalist way of thinking to peek at the future development trend of schools binding KOLs, decisively gave it up.

If Pinsheng wanted to stand at the top among many vocational schools, it could only rely on differentiated marketing. And the necessary means to achieve differentiated marketing was to create a memory point different from other schools, either go “buy a lottery ticket,” and build a KOL exclusive to itself, or connect resources that other schools did not have, use cross-industry collaboration to build an IP, for example, “study tours and culture and tourism.”

The Shen and Gu families had been friends for three generations, and in Yucheng each had their own world in politics and business. Shen Yuesheng and Gu Zheng had grown up together since childhood, and being a little closer would not raise suspicion from others. After college, the two of them operated separately, Gu Zheng gave Shen Yuesheng resources, and Shen Yuesheng helped Gu Zheng launder money. They were both doing shady business, and it was not mutual benefit, only that they were colluding in wrongdoing.

Shen Yuesheng had always used Gu Zheng’s resources with peace of mind. At the beginning of this year, he formulated a plan to build the “study tours and culture and tourism” IP. He originally wanted to continue launching study tour activities at the end of the year, but last month there was a “crackdown on pornography and vice,” and their hidden relationship was exposed. Gu Zheng’s father did not allow him to keep in contact with Shen Yuesheng, and this resource was cut off.

So, Lin Yiran had accidentally not guessed wrong. Shen Yuesheng really did urgently need culture and tourism resources now.

–

Shen Yuesheng’s surface demand was event planning, his actual demand was full-case planning, and his fundamental demand was building a culture and tourism IP.

In the story “the old lady buying plums” that Zhang Guangming told, Chen Xi was the clerk of the second store, and could only combine the old lady’s needs to explain the benefits of his own plums being expensive, compared with the advantages of other “plums”; while Lin Yiran was the clerk of the third store, who figured out that the old lady’s fundamental need was to buy for her unborn grandson, and, combined with that need, introduced fruits such as “peaches, apples, strawberries,” and got the old lady’s entire budget.

Lin Yiran wanted to pry open all of Pinsheng’s budget.

After knowing the client’s needs, only when the KA catered to his preference could the contract be promoted.

The most common way to cater to the client’s preference was role-playing. Chen Xi using this method to sign Gulin, by playing a renovation owner, a player, and a newly graduated college student, was exactly using this method. The advantages were: zero investment, quick to get started; the downside was: easy to be exposed.

This method not only tested the “actor’s” skill, but also tested the client’s intelligence. Most clients who could become key clients had very high attainments in their own industry or a specific field, and as long as their brains were not missing a tendon, they would definitely conduct a background check after the salesperson left. If Chen Xi, when meeting Wang Yaohua, played the chairman of the Yucheng Renovation Association, even if this identity was much more useful than the renovation owner, an identity that could not stand up to scrutiny was deceit to the client, and the untrustworthy seller would probably be directly eliminated.

For safety’s sake, KAs often, like Lin Yiran, would ask around in many directions, find the client’s hidden hard need, exhaust all their personal connections to connect resources, and create value that other competitors could not provide for the client. The advantages were: uniquely effective and unbeatable; the downside was: the specific resources the client needed were not easy to connect.

Most resources that most KAs could not connect to did not mean Lin Yiran could not connect to them.

The reason Lin Yiran was able to pry open the Kitchen God City, where countless competitors surrounded the star of the show, was because he had related political and culture-tourism resources, not because he worked KAs so hard, but because of his dad, his biological dad who owed him 10 million yuan and had not paid it back for a year.

Old Lin had been traversing the official circles for four or five years, knew a few friends in the government affairs system, and would visit them during holidays. He always took Lin Yiran with him when visiting. Lin Yiran got along well with a few uncles in private, but when there was a third person present outside, they acted like they did not know each other when they met. Trees tall in the system attract the wind, and one had to know how to avoid suspicion.

In recent years, Lin Yiran’s frequency of interacting with those uncles had been even more diligent than his interactions with his own father. The “obedient filial son” in the eyes of outsiders was all an act. In order to win over relationships and connections, he could even act out family affection, so what else could he not act out?

A rotten person corrupt to the core wore a hypocritical skin all day long, and if that skin came off, there would definitely be blood everywhere.

So, Lin Yiran did not take off the skin.

–

There was less than half an hour left before the performance started, and the three of them did not exchange much pleasantries. Guan Chao directed the marketing department to do the stage setup, and Chen Xi went to the back area to help with the work.

Chen Xi had not eaten at noon, and after doing some manual labor for a while, he was hungry enough that his chest was practically sticking to his back.

He did not know when Lin Yiran had come over. He had been fiddling with his phone on the side the whole time, occasionally shouting a couple of lines, “Hurry up and work, continue, keep it up!”

Chen Xi: …

A 35-year-old old man was just like the troublemaking kid from elementary school who specifically pulled girls’ braids, childish and boring.

A two-faced, smooth-talking scumbag, mature and steady in front of people, childish and wicked behind their backs.

The two sets of sportswear had similar styles, but worn on the two of them, they gave completely different effects. Lin Yiran was a typical inverted-triangle clothes rack, wearing a suit made him a business elite, wearing sportswear made him an elegant gentleman. Chen Xi was also a clothes rack, just a clothes rack with only hooks. The sportswear was loose-fitting, several sizes too big, and on top of that Chen Xi himself was thin to begin with, so the clothes were completely hanging on him, like he was wrapped in a sack.

The neckline of the sportswear was a bit wide, revealing a half section of prominent collarbone. Chen Xi had been working just now and had not noticed it. Now, seeing Lin Yiran staring at his neck, he deliberately tilted his neck, and the neckline opened even wider.

Lin Yiran put down his phone and said with amusement, “What, trying to seduce me? This place isn’t even as good as the coffee shop, there are more people here.” The little thing was getting bolder and bolder.

Chen Xi took advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention on either side, held Lin Yiran’s hand and dragged him behind the shelf for the display setup, pressed him against the shelf, and, with great momentum, copied what he had done before at the fish restaurant, his knee wedged between the other’s legs.

Lin Yiran laughed as he stroked the face that was hot to the touch, and praised, “You learned fast, you’ve got some promise.”

The model of moral standards puffed out his cheeks to cheer himself up, wanting to say: There’s no one here, Brother Lin can do something a little too much. What actually came out was: “Thank you, Brother Lin.”

“Didn’t you already thank me just now.” Lin Yiran’s hand moved from his cheek to his chest and then to the waistband of his pants, his ten fingers lightly hooked and then released, loosely resting at Chen Xi’s waist.

The sportswear caved in a large area, his waist was so thin.

The side of his waist felt very itchy, and Chen Xi, face red, lifted his leg to touch Lin Yiran.

Lin Yiran kept smiling, wanting to see what kind of tricks he could come up with. His arm wrapped around his waist, and without making the next move, he said carelessly, “So fierce, what do you want to do, I’m getting a little scared.”

Chen Xi punched him: “What are you pretending to be proper for.”

Heh, this little rabbit brat.

Lin Yiran licked his lips, and in the low, husky voice was suspended a layer of bubbles, like the cloud particles rolled up on the horizon after the rain stopped: “So thirsty.”

The little white rabbit thought the old beast was being seduced by him until he was hungry and thirsty, and felt secretly pleased in his heart.

(*^▽^*) At last I turned the tables once!

The hand at his waist applied a little force, and in those deep eyes it seemed as if peach blossoms were blazing. Lin Yiran flicked him on the forehead and said lightly, “What are you thinking about? Your Brother Lin came here at noon without eating, has been hungry for three hours and hasn’t even had a sip of water, I’m really thirsty.”

Chen Xi obediently withdrew his claws and stopped setting fires. He took the half cup of vanilla latte he had drunk from the lower shelf of the rack and handed it to him: “I don’t have water either, just drink this.”

Last time you didn’t drink my coffee, this time you should drink it, right.

Lin Yiran chuckled, took the coffee with both hands stacked together, his five fingers gripping below the cup lid, fingertips lightly touching the rim of the cup, the outer corners of his eyes slightly raised, elegant beneath the light tease.

He licked his lips, the beautiful shape of his lips curving to the mouth of the coffee cup, his fingers pinching the cup opening into a crescent moon.

His thin lips lightly pressed, his gaze ambiguously sliding from Chen Xi’s Adam’s apple to his chest, the tip of his tongue ran across the cup mouth, and he sucked hard.

Fucking hell, coffee could actually be sucked!

–

The model of moral standards used practice to prove the truth: please do not play rogue with a rogue.

Chen Xi suddenly thought of the mirror from the previous night, not a single part of his body was good, and instinctively covered his chest, feeling as if the one being sucked was himself.

Sharp teeth bit open the cup mouth, coffee splashed onto the rim of the cup, the tip of the tongue licked bit by bit, those deep eyes seemed as if they wanted to suck Chen Xi in, eat him clean, and swallow him into the belly.

I wanted you to drink, I didn’t want you to bite it.

Lin Yiran licked the cup mouth, leaned closer to Chen Xi, and asked in a low voice, “You just said you’d thank me, how are you going to thank me?”

Chen Xi retreated a little, then moved forward a little, looking like he wanted to keep away but could not bear to, his left foot tapping the toes of his right foot inward, awkwardly saying, “You decide.”

Lin Yiran smiled until his eight neat white teeth were showing, once again pressed close to Chen Xi, and his low voice blew against his ear: “Anything I want is fine?”

The smooth-talking scumbag did not play that old-fashioned, cheesy “wall slam” routine. The real owner would feel greasy, and others could not see it anyway. He wanted to leave some substantive things behind, so that the real owner would have a rabbit heart racing wildly, and others would not dare covet him.

Chen Xi nodded with a red face.

Lin Yiran rubbed Chen Xi’s head, his thin lips moistened with water, smiling with restlessness and eye-catching charm, brushing past the clean side of his face, and once again bewitching him: “Don’t move, be good.”

The tips of Chen Xi’s ears immediately turned completely red, his little rabbit heart racing wildly. Immediately after, a stinging pain came from his neck, sharp teeth tore the skin open, and the thin flesh in the hollow of his neck was fiercely sucked.

In just a moment, his neck and shoulders were stained with red marks. Chen Xi was impatient with pain and wanted to run, but the powerful arms tightly encircled him, and he could not get away. Only now did he finally understand why Lin Yiran had just told him to “don’t move.”

Lin Yiran, this thousand-year-old old demon, had a bewitching aura all over his body, hooking Chen Xi to unconsciously absorb it. After absorbing too much poison into his internal organs, he could not quit, so he could only endure it.

He willingly walked into his trap, knowing it was dangerous yet gladly accepting it.

–

These days Chen Xi always had the illusion that he was playing a “virtual romance game,” until this moment, when the intangible call turned into actual touch, and only then did he personally feel the joy of a secret crush coming true.

The little white rabbit was pressed against the chest by the old beast, getting strawberry marks on him, his arms flailed twice but could not break free, and then he stopped moving.

Outside the backstage waiting area, staff occasionally walked past, and their shadows were cast on the wall facing Chen Xi.

Outside the shelf there was the noisy bustle of a market. Shame and unease eroded the mentally split patient. Chen Xi instinctively took on a self-protective form, retreated backward, and wanted to hide.

Lin Yiran let go of Chen Xi. After eating him clean, he licked his lips, pulled his head to the side, and admired his own “masterpiece.”

“Scared?” Lin Yiran hooked a finger and scratched the tip of Chen Xi’s nose.

Chen Xi shook his head very slightly. He knew that Lin Yiran had stopped, leaving him space to refuse, that he was respecting him.

A secret admirer was very easy to satisfy after receiving a response, and the bottom of his heart was warm.

Chen Xi took the initiative to rest his arm on Lin Yiran’s shoulder and said softly, “Not scared.”