044 Benefiting from Widespread Popularity

As long as he could stay away from Su Mengyao's mother, Su Jianping, that sycophant, could do whatever he liked. After all, Li didn't have to pay a single cent. Now, with the new courier station, Su Mengyao had moved out, and the world felt lighter.

"Yaoyao, so you don't have to cook for your mom anymore, right?"

"My dad makes the meals and delivers them to her."

"..."

"Brother Jie, doesn't it make you angry just hearing about it?"

"A little," Li Jie admitted. He honestly couldn't understand the logic of these sycophants.

Seriously, with Su Jianping's current circumstances, couldn't he find someone younger to fawn over? Was he perfectly PUA'd by his ex-wife Gan Xingmei?

"I suspect my dad was adopted by Grandpa. Grandpa's so clever, but my dad... sigh..." Su Mengyao sighed, resting her head on Li Jie's chest, utterly helpless. "Now he cooks for four people every day, and he can barely keep up with his own mini-mart."

"Four people?"

"My dad himself, my mom, my aunt, and a helper aunt hired for the courier station. Four people."

"What? The helper was hired by your mom for the courier station, right?"

"Yeah."

"And your dad still prepares a meal for the employee?!"

"Yes."

Li Jie felt his blood pressure rise. With sycophants like Su Jianping, it truly defied all reason.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to deal with him. If he did, he’d be tempted to unleash a "Masked Gourd Hero’s flying kick."

These days, Li Jie was busy on business trips. For nearby TV stations, he brought Su Mengyao along—turning work into a bit of local tourism.

If it weren’t for the upcoming school sports meet on the seventeenth, Li Jie would have planned a trip to Qin Postal County TV Station.

With the promotion for "Fairy Ape" ramping up, "White Dog God Ao" was gaining popularity. On niche cultural video sites, new "remix" works popped up constantly.

Li didn’t even need to watch; the outrageous style alone marked them as products of the "Ten-Year Anti-Fan" group.

Since the first, now it was the sixteenth—half a month of non-stop productions, all remixes.

The power of three thousand super crystallized anti-fans rivaled a sandstorm.

"Li Jie Played a Dog" kept trending on the website’s hot search; even many videos that weren’t remixes often used "Boundless Sky" or "Only Mama Is Good" as background music.

Open any such video, and as the music starts, a child’s voice-over asks, "Mama, what is that?"

Mama replies, "Sweetheart, that’s a beast..."

Then the image freezes on Li Jie’s portrayal of "White Dog God Ao."

He’d played dead for half a month to no avail, constantly being tagged, with notifications more frequent than the dog system, not to mention “Houlang” Weibo, where every time he logged in, he was greeted by “Doggy~~.”

Or it was “dog head/emojis.”

On the Masked Gourd Hero’s Weibo account, three thousand super crystallized anti-fans flooded the comments: "You played a dog [funny/emojis]."

"You played a dog [funny/emojis]. +1"

"You played a dog [funny/emojis]. +2"

...

Li Jie wouldn’t comment, so they kept spamming and tagging him in groups, though they never bombarded him with private messages.

As a result, "Masked Gourd Hero Played a Dog" actually made it into the top twenty on Weibo’s hot searches. Though it didn’t stay long, the fan count for "Masked Gourd Hero" soared.

An average of ten thousand per day—by the sixteenth, the total reached 168,000.

Now, when Chen Pi took on jobs, Li Jie was Li Jie, "Red Power" was "Red Power"—two separate things.

The latter didn’t need Li Jie to show up; Chen Pi found a bodybuilder at a gym, put him in the suit, struck a few poses, and pocketed five thousand.

For places like "Sanjiang Plaza" in Zhuque District, after Ding Wei did an event there, "Sanjiang Plaza" actively negotiated with "Creative Ability" about first-floor and basement exhibition slots.

Half the usual rent, appearance fees for Masked Gourd Hero extra.

Once Chen Pi signed the contract, Li Jie approached a fitness-loving senior he’d met at the start of term, asking if he’d like to moonlight. When the senior heard he’d get five hundred just for flexing in a suit, he agreed immediately.

After all, travel and meals were covered.

With each job, Li transformed into Boss Li, earning a 4,500 yuan margin.

That’s why, once you tap into the anime crowd, the money flows easily.

If you’re an actor for a TV drama, you always need to be there in person, no matter the makeup.

Not like suit actors—you can have as many as you want...

This delighted Chen Pi, who roamed all the gyms in Canglong District, scouting for suitable candidates to sign as professional suit fillers.

But the results were disappointing—Li Jie’s school find was better.

So for now, the senior held the fort, while Chen Pi ran commercial gigs and recruited platform account operators for Li Jie.

With "Li Jie Played a Dog" trending, the spread of "Masked Gourd Hero: Red Power" surged, and on veteran video platforms, the show finally broke into the weekly new drama popularity chart.

It barely scraped the bottom of the list, but for a tokusatsu show to make it at all was a rare feat.

By now, tokusatsu fans among the "Ten-Year Anti-Fan" group, after intense internal struggle, found their love for tokusatsu outweighed their urge to roast Crab Bro.

"Guys, do me a favor—‘Gourd Hero’ made the weekly new drama chart, can you watch and like it a bit?"

"What the hell? You’re aiding and abetting, you know?!"

"Accomplice!"

"Partner in crime!"

"555555... I don’t want to, guys, but it’s so rare for a tokusatsu show to hit this kind of popularity. This is the weekly new drama chart—we might never get this chance again. 55555... I don’t want to betray you, but I really have no choice..."

A viewer searched mainstream video sites—sure enough, tokusatsu shows had never made the weekly new drama chart; only Japanese kaiju tokusatsu films had made the list, but that was on their release week.

So, indeed, no tokusatsu series had ever entered the weekly new drama chart; mainstream charts rarely featured children’s shows.

This time, thanks to half a month of remixes, the hype spread across the web. In group chats, the "Red Power" flying kick meme appeared, captioned: "With a thunderous boom, I make my dazzling entrance."

Even in chat app emoji searches, hot keywords now included "Red Power," "Gourd Hero," "Red Suit Guy," "Suit Guy With a Gourd Emblem," and so on.

That’s how subcultures spread—once they break through, the effect multiplies.

It’s not the first time niche sites have stormed mainstream ones; this time, Li Jie finally savored the sweetness.

For a proper electric pole, you need a thick stream—that’s what gives it presence!

"Damn... Just thinking about Crab Bro lurking and secretly enjoying, I feel like ants are crawling all over me!"

"But for the sake of the brotherhood, I’m willing to like Crab Bro’s posts against my conscience!"

"Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that Crab Bro played a dog."

"Hahahahahaha..."

"@Understanding Forever, Crab Bro, stop pretending—you’re definitely lurking..."

"'Red Power' is really cool!"

"But he played a dog!"

"Hahahahahaha..."

Li Jie originally wanted to pop in and banter with that tokusatsu fan, but halfway through typing, the barrage of comments on the screen made him close the group in a second.

These "rebels" were only fit to be electric poles.