Chapter 47: Anti-Fraud Propaganda Veteran

With only eleven days remaining before the National Day holiday box office battle, *No More Bets* commenced its promotional campaign amidst the tight squeeze of three major blockbusters.

Jiang Wang still proved quite formidable. While sacrificing thirty percent of his revenue share, he nevertheless allocated over one hundred million RMB worth of promotional resources to *No More Bets*.

This tier of resources was typically reserved only for C-to-B grade films, equivalent to a projected total box office valuation between five hundred million and one billion RMB.

Of course, he also harbored the intention of venting his own frustrations, but purely from a factual standpoint, Jiang Wang’s decisive action and strength undoubtedly injected a powerful momentum into the film.

The information blockade, under the money-spraying offensive of Vance Pictures, finally cracked open a seam.

The promotional videos for *No More Bets* began to spread wildly across the internet.

Among them, the scene of Cheng Cheng praying to the gods amidst the strains of the song *Jingwei*, Wen Lian as a seductive dealer blowing a kiss, and Li Yang repeatedly getting beaten up, sparked countless bloggers and ordinary netizens into imitation.

The promotional angle chosen for *No More Bets* was also quite eccentric—essentially adopting whatever method would grab the most eyeballs.

First, the film’s promotional slogan was: "Drawn from tens of thousands of real-life cases; one more viewer means one less victim of fraud."

Second, it involved digging up all the old scandals and dirt on the various creators and airing them out under the sun once more.

For instance, how Wen Lian gradually lost public favor and was eventually left neglected from her status as the "Nation’s Daughter."

For instance, how Li Yang went from being the leading man of hit dramas to having his public persona collapse step-by-step, leaving him with no roles to play.

And then there was Cheng Cheng, who started with a god-tier opening hand only for it to collapse overnight.

Vance Pictures naturally knew that this promotional tactic was extremely vulgar and tacky, but they genuinely had no other moves left. If they did not adopt such an unorthodox approach, it would be difficult to catch up to the other three mega-productions.

Moreover, promotional campaigns were essentially competitions to see whose tactics were cheaper and who was better at assaulting the audience's eyeballs. If one were to actually adhere to some sort of "gentleman's agreement," it would be better to simply surrender outright.

However, Vance Pictures' approach still appeared slightly low-brow, even within the context of a race to the bottom for film promotions.

The good news was that this promotional method was indeed effective. *No More Bets* successfully stood out, letting people know that besides the other three major productions, there was yet another film in the National Day lineup.

The bad news was that *No More Bets* had turned into a laughingstock, generating a considerable volume of negative feedback.

"I reckon it should be 'one less viewer, one less person scammed' instead."

"This movie is truly repulsive, relying entirely on hype and negative news to draw attention. I feel as sick as if I'd eaten shit."

"Someone save my eyes! As a newcomer who has never directed a film before, does Cheng Cheng even know how to tell a story?"

"A rookie director with zero shooting experience, a movie obviously shot purely for a cash grab—this film has truly taken cash-grabbing to a new height!"

"I genuinely laughed looking at this creative team; they're all washed-up celebs hovering on the fringes of the entertainment industry. What qualifications do they have to make a movie? Do they really take audiences for simpletons, shoving shit straight down our throats in broad daylight?"

"Laughing to death, the moral character of everyone on this creative team has issues. It's practically a living chronicle of tainted artists."

"Character issues are even more exciting than the movie itself; audiences will probably only remember their scandals rather than the film's content."

"Does Vance Pictures think using such a team of washed-up celebs to grab attention is a good idea? Even though Vance's previous movies bombed, at least they hired major directors and cast stars like Ma Tiao and Zhou Yu as leads, showing some sincerity. Are they not even pretending anymore?"

"Not watching, absolutely not watching. Anyone who goes to the cinema to watch this piece of garbage is a moron."

Among these voices were some of Cheng Cheng’s haters, Wen Lian’s haters, Li Yang’s haters, as well as internet trolls instigated by competing parties.

Before the film had even been released, Wen Lian, Yan Gou'er, Li Yang, and the others felt their hearts turn to ash. At this rate, did this movie still have any hope? Were their chances to be buried once again?

No!

Director Cheng always has a way!

One week prior to the film's release, Cheng Cheng officially established a partnership with the Publicity Department of Fuhai City.

The Publicity Department of Fuhai City was extremely satisfied with the film. Not only did they become the honorary presenting studio of *No More Bets* as promised, but they also mobilized promotional resources within their official system to back *No More Bets* across various platforms.

Simultaneously, Cheng Cheng took on a mission assigned by the Fuhai City Publicity Department: anti-fraud publicity.

On the very day he accepted the mission, Cheng Cheng launched a livestream on Douyin, broadcasting fifteen hours a day and aggressively promoting anti-fraud knowledge.

Every time he connected with another streamer, he would ask if they had downloaded the National Anti-Fraud Center app.

If they hadn't, once he won the PK battle against them, Cheng Cheng would demand that the opposing streamer and the viewers in their livestream room download the National Anti-Fraud Center app. At the same time, he would assign them a task: when connecting with someone else next time, that streamer must also popularize anti-fraud knowledge to the next person.

Livestream rooms dedicated to anti-fraud publicity naturally attracted very few viewers because they were far too dry and boring.

But Cheng Cheng had tricks up his sleeve!

His livestreaming presence was simply off the charts!

Not only could he speak English, Japanese, and French, but he could also speak Cangshan dialect, and even perform mental arithmetic. He would let the audience in the livestream room casually throw out four- or five-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems, and he could calculate the answer the very instant he saw the numbers.

Beyond that, he possessed a photographic memory. He would pull out a book, have a viewer casually name a page number, flip to that page, memorize it in thirty seconds at most, and then begin reciting it word-for-word.

While reciting, he would turn the book around to face the camera for the audience to verify. Once he finished, the audience would discover that not a single character was wrong.

He could also perform magic tricks—the kind that left viewers completely baffled.

He was even capable of coding, and on the spot, he created an automated Weibo post-generator website. Users could set who the publisher was and what the content was; clicking generate would produce a corresponding Weibo post, and taking a screenshot would yield a hyper-realistic result. The audience in the livestream room had a blast playing with it.

Initially, those flooding into the livestream room were just there to gawk, and some even came in specifically to spew venom and hurl various abusive remarks. But as they watched, they were thoroughly hooked by the content of Cheng Cheng's broadcast.

Aside from the aforementioned talents, Cheng Cheng would also sing and dance in the livestream room. Even if someone deliberately tried to make a fool of him by requesting his "signature songs" and "signature dances," he showed no hesitation and performed them on the spot for everyone to see.

What left the deepest impression on the audience, however, was Cheng Cheng’s ultimate stunt.

At the time, a viewer in the livestream room typed: "No matter how hard you try, I'm still not going to watch your movie." Cheng Cheng didn't get angry; instead, he said he could perform an ultimate stunt that no one else in the world could replicate, and if he managed to conquer them, that viewer had to go watch his movie.

Before that viewer could even respond, other viewers eagerly chimed in, stating that if he genuinely performed an ultimate stunt that no one else could do, what harm was there in going to the cinema to watch his movie? It was only a matter of a few dozen RMB anyway.

Without another word, Cheng Cheng immediately boiled a kettle of water on the spot and poured it directly into his mouth.

At that moment, everyone in the livestream room was dumbfounded! Their jaws hit the floor! They found it utterly unbelievable!

Good grief! That was freshly boiled, steaming-hot 100-degree-Celsius water! Was that a temperature a human mouth could possibly withstand?!

After Cheng Cheng finished the performance, naturally, some people began to question him, suspecting the hot water wasn't real, since this genuinely exceeded ordinary human comprehension.

Without wasting breath, Cheng Cheng performed it for them a second time. First, he poured the hot water into his mouth, and immediately cracked a raw egg directly into it.

Finally, when he spat the water along with the egg out of his mouth, the audience discovered that the egg had already been cooked into delicate egg ribbons!

Good heavens!

Poaching an egg inside one's mouth—who had ever witnessed such a thing?!

No one doubted whether it was real anymore!

Because this was a live broadcast, not a pre-recorded video!

A video could achieve this effect through editing, but how could you pull this off in a live broadcast?

There was zero room for trickery!

After performing this ultimate stunt, Cheng Cheng proceeded to eat a live cactus on camera. When the netizens watched him swallow a cactus covered in thorns, chew it to a pulp, and produce audible crunching sounds, their scalps went numb.

Holy crap! Was this guy even human?

The viewers in the livestream room were completely conquered by him. Looking across the entire internet, even in the wild, untamed era when short videos first emerged, there had never been such a hardcore madman.

Countless people were drawn to Cheng Cheng's livestream room. At its peak, his broadcast surpassed thirty million concurrent online viewers, directly shattering the record for the highest concurrent viewership in Douyin livestreaming history.

On Weibo, trending topics such as "Anti-Fraud Publicity," "Cheng Cheng," "Poaching Egg Ribbons Inside the Mouth," "Eating Raw Cactus," and "The Most Desperate Film Promotion in History" surged onto the hot search list, with topic discussion volumes exceeding one hundred million.

On Douyin, Cheng Cheng's livestream room firmly claimed the number one spot on the charts.

Even more people poured into Cheng Cheng's livestream room, and he did not disappoint them.

No matter what request was made, he turned none of them down. As long as a viewer typed in the livestream room, "As long as you do X, Y, and Z, I'll go watch your movie," he didn't care whether they were tricking him or not—he simply executed the request without hesitation.

Want to see singing? He sang for you. Want to see him drink boiling water? He drank boiling water. Want to see him eat a cactus? He ate a cactus. Want to see him speak four languages? He spoke four languages. Want to see him go crazy? He dropped all pretenses and went completely feral right then and there!

By the end of the day, Cheng Cheng averaged eating five cacti and drinking boiling water six times.

In the end, the netizens even felt sorry for him, terrified that he might actually kill himself for the sake of the broadcast.

On the day with the longest broadcast duration, Cheng Cheng streamed continuously for twenty hours, consuming nothing other than cacti for food and nothing other than boiling water to drink during the entire session.

***

Beijing Film Academy, Women's Dormitory.

Yan Gou'er looked at Cheng Cheng in the livestream room—being led around by the nose like a clown by netizens—and felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her heart as tears welled up in her eyes.

*—Director Cheng always has a way.*

Those six words sounded simple, but behind them lay endless heartache and bitterness.

When everyone else was at their wits' end, when everyone thought hope had been shattered once again, it was Director Cheng who stepped forward, time and time again! He was like an unyielding boulder; no matter how the outside world chipped away at him or mocked him, he retained his own shape and texture.

Even standing at the very bottom of the valley, he never gave up.

***

Beijing, a certain rented apartment.

Wen Lian gently stroked the figure on the screen with her delicate hand, sighing softly:

*Director~*

*Is this the method you came up with?*

***

Drama Club.

Li Yang wiped away a tear and sent a message to Cheng Cheng:

"Director! Take me with you on the next livestream!"

...

***

Vance Pictures.

Jiang Wang let out a soft sigh and remarked: "He looks a bit like me back in the day."