Forced Me to Regress, Huh?

The Keep Coming studio covered over eighty square meters, but it housed only four desks and four computers.

At this moment, Cheng Zhu was sitting in front of his computer with a Mimi shrimp strip dangling from his mouth as he began uploading images.

Wang Anquan, sitting beside him, caught a glimpse of the pictures Brother Zhu had opened, and his small single-lidded eyes suddenly widened.

Holy crap! Shit! Shit! He was completely dumbfounded.

The art style was stunning, and it was in full color!

The drawn characters bore an uncanny resemblance to those in the photos, but the visual impact was on a whole other level.

It offered a different kind of aesthetic appeal. For someone like Wang Anquan, who watched anime, the images were utterly captivating!

“Brother Zhu, did you hire someone specifically to draw these?” Wang Anquan asked. “The art is insane!”

His amazed tone made the two male customer service agents across the room feel an itch of curiosity, wondering what their boss was working on.

However, since their relationship with Cheng Zhu was strictly professional, they didn’t dare to crowd around for a closer look.

“These drawings aren’t bad. This artist is very talented,” Cheng Zhu remarked, generous with his praise for Fox Talk.

Customer service agent Wang Haitao immediately chimed in, “Then it must be thanks to President Cheng’s expert guidance.”

Hearing this, Cheng Zhu glanced up at him.

—Here we go! Filthy adult office politics!

Wang Anquan listened without much reaction. After all, he shared the sentiment—his admiration for Brother Zhu was absolute.

Customer service agent Zhao Yong, on the other hand, scoffed inwardly. Damn bootlicker. I can’t believe you’re sucking up the boss like that. He’s so young, but you still have the cheek to call him that with such clumsy flattery!

Little did he know that Wang Haitao did this precisely because Cheng Zhu was young.

He had analyzed the situation and decided it was the boss’s first time starting a business. It was why he never called him boss but instead addressed him as President Cheng. He never missed any opportunity to flatter him, believing someone so young would be particularly receptive to praise. Just a little flattery would get him walking on air.

Zhao Yong was the typical office worker drone, content with only earning a stable salary. I’m doing my job well enough, so don’t expect me to go above and beyond.

Wang Haitao was a master of scheming and flattery. Having previously worked at an e-commerce company, he enormous the immense potential of Keep Coming and had his own ambitions tied to the venture.

Cheng Zhu glanced at him and said flatly, “Your flattery’s a bit stiff. Be more natural next time.”

“Got it!” Wang Haitao replied.

Zhao Yong nearly rolled his eyes out of his head. Shameless.

Meanwhile, Wang Anquan watched Cheng Zhu uploading the comic-style illustrations and asked curiously, “Brother Zhu, will this really work?”

Cheng Zhu didn’t answer directly. Instead, he gestured for Zhao Yong and Wang Haitao to come over for a look.

The two men had been itching with curiosity, eager to know what the boss was up to, so they trotted over.

Cheng Zhu asked, “What do you think? Look good?”

The three of them exchanged glances. Initially embarrassed, they soon broke out into identical knowing smiles—the kind only men could share. “Yes!”

Cheng Zhu thought a photo of the three of them, turned it into an emoji captioned with a mischievous ‘heh heh heh’, would perfectly capture their expressions.

It reminded him of a scene from iPartment, where Lu Ziqiao, Zhang Wei, and Zeng Xiaoxian shared conspiratorial grins before attending a lingerie show.

“Looking good is what matters,” he said to the three.

After uploading all the images, Cheng Zhu leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Who would have thought that after regressing, I’d become the pioneer for this art style!

He knew very well which types of images would go viral in certain circles.

Especially in the massive QQ groups, he had never seen one with over a hundred members that didn’t indulge in some spicy content!

This style might eventually grow old and lose its appeal.

But in 2014, it was revolutionary! It was a fresh twist, unlike anything anyone had seen before.

Forget it. I’ll just think of it as bringing benefits to the brothers! Cheng Zhu felt a surge of righteous pride.

People in the livestream e-commerce industry always called people family and talked about bringing benefits. In his past life, his own e-commerce company had been just as full of such empty rhetoric.

But in this life, he truly did have the brothers’ interests at heart!

* * *

In a small city near Guanyun County.

The owner of the Graceful Flagship Store, Li Mantang, sat in his office, waiting for his operations team to report on their work.

This year marked his tenth year in the adult products industry.

In the early years, he had focused on physical stores and sold everything, even male supplements.

Adult products offered high profits, but the customer traffic in physical stores was average.

Many people felt too embarrassed to enter such stores, but fortunately, the competition wasn’t fierce, as most people… also felt too damn embarrassed to open such stores.

Later, as e-commerce grew in China, he thought he’d give it a try, just to see if he could make a little extra money.

The result was that he made far more than just a little extra!

Li Mantang caught the wind and took off.

He went from being the wretched man selling adult products to the big boss of an e-commerce company.

He drove a BMW X5, lived in a large villa, and even occasionally took the camera into his own hands during shoots. After finishing, he would pay the model an extra overtime fee to keep her working.

Men, huh, when it came to work, they should work hard until their bodies were worn out.

And when it came to filming and photo shoots, it was all about using the right tools… if you know what I mean.

Since last year, the Graceful Flagship Store had firmly secured a spot in the top five of its category.

This year, it surged even higher to claim second place.

Not long ago, during a meeting with his operations teams, Li Mantang came across a store called Keep Coming, which seemed ripe for copying.

The team behind this store was very sharp and highly skilled.

He guessed it was likely an experienced e-commerce team, either new to the adult products industry or an established company making a fresh start.

Soon after, Li Mantang and his operations team began a series of moves. They copied everything they could, spent money bidding for keywords, and even tried to trip them up with a few tricks.

The amount of traffic a leading store in a category could get was staggering.

But holding onto the throne wasn’t easy. It required raising the barriers for others trying to climb up.

Therefore, many e-commerce businesses, once they reached the top, would lower prices or make other concessions to maintain their position.

This way, any competitors trying to climb up would have to consider their operational costs because profit margins had already shrunk. Could they afford to burn that much money?

The key was to raise the barriers.

In any case, both underhanded and overt strategies were necessary.

At this moment, the operations manager of the Graceful Flagship Store walked in and spoke with Li Mantang for a while.

Before long, their conversation shifted to Keep Coming.

“President Li, this store is definitely going to explode in sales soon. Their momentum is too strong, and their operations are impressive. There’s no stopping them,” the operations manager said.

“Let it explode. We’ll just grab a slice of the pie and suck some blood out of them,” Li Mantang replied.

Then he even made a request. “Their team is sharp, so your team should start coming up with some fresh gimmicks too. Lead the industry trends, you know?”

Operations manager: “…”

Since ancient times, workers had always faced this kind of treatment—bosses always made unrealistic demands.

Workers were like the fish minions in Journey to the West. The moment the Nine-Headed Beast appeared, he said, “Go get rid of Tang Sanzang and his disciples!”

Damn it, the salary is only 1,800, and you want me to risk my life?

Am I, some little monster, supposed to take down the Great Sage, the Equal of Heaven? The White Dragon Horse might kick me so hard that my fish roe flies out.

The operations manager didn’t think that his team had the ability to lead trends. They were getting older and couldn’t even keep up with the latest trends for lingerie models, let alone the entire industry. Their bodies and minds just couldn’t keep up!

At this moment, he picked up his phone and searched for Keep Coming.

The store had announced new products for today, so he wanted to discuss with Li Mantang to see if there were any designs they could copy.

But when he opened the store, he was stunned. What is this? What am I looking at?

You know, when editing photos, you should at least stay somewhat true to reality. You couldn’t make the body too unrealistic, or it would make people uncomfortable.

But the moment these comic-style images come at you, I’m not here to talk about reality!

I’ll grab attention however I can, lure people in however I want.

The waist-to-hip ratio, the voluptuous long legs, how out of this world!

“President Li! Look!” The operations manager quickly handed his phone over.

Li Mantang glanced at Keep Coming’s product photos, where the comic art and photos were actually spliced together.

“Hiss!” The middle-aged man gasped and said uncertainly, “Will this actually work?”