Chapter 35: Featured on the Front Page

"It's already past eight..." Bai Renzong muttered to himself, standing up to stretch his body. He had been sitting in front of the computer for eight hours straight, only getting up twice to use the bathroom, and now his joints felt stiff.

He exhaled deeply, clicked the button to upload his video, and finally relaxed. Now all that remained was to wait for the results.

But after more than seven hours without food, Bai Renzong was famished. He made his way to the living room, contemplating ordering some takeout.

As he came downstairs, he saw Han Jiayi bending over to change her shoes, a beautiful shadow forming at her neckline.

"Have you eaten dinner yet?" Han Jiayi glanced up at Bai Renzong and asked.

He shook his head. "I was just about to order something."

"So late and you still haven't eaten..." Han Jiayi frowned slightly. "Is there anything you want? I can make it for you."

"Well..." Bai Renzong thought for a moment, then replied, "How about some egg fried rice?"

Han Jiayi shot him a meaningful look. "Clever choice."

Egg fried rice may seem simple, but it really tests your basic culinary skills.

So the critic Bai wants to see how good I really am? Han Jiayi mused inwardly.

But in truth, Bai Renzong had no ulterior motive. He just thought egg fried rice would be quick to make.

About fifteen minutes later, Han Jiayi returned with a bowl of fried rice.

Eggs, sausage, scallions, shrimp, and green peas—red, yellow, white, and green—made for a lovely sight.

But by then Bai Renzong was so hungry he couldn't care less about appearances. He took the bowl and devoured the food ravenously.

Han Jiayi placed a jar of chopped chili peppers in front of him.

"Chopped chili with fried rice? Quite the taste—you really are a Michelin chef," Bai Renzong teased, then dug in again.

"You still have energy for jokes, even while starving..." Han Jiayi rolled her eyes, resting her cheek on her hand. "Finished editing your video?"

"Yeah, I was busy with it all the way until now," he replied.

Perhaps it was just because he was so hungry, but this truly felt like the most delicious egg fried rice he'd ever tasted. He ate in huge mouthfuls, barely pausing to speak, occasionally taking a bite of the chopped chili. The tangy, spicy flavor was the perfect match for the fried rice.

Han Jiayi watched him with a proud little smile. He’s enjoying it so much, and it’s just a bowl of egg fried rice...

For a chef, there was no greater satisfaction than this moment.

"Take your time eating, I’m going to take a shower," Han Jiayi said, running her fingers through her hair with a frown. "I smell like oil and smoke."

"Okay," Bai Renzong replied. "Thanks for your work."

For some reason, that simple phrase—"Thanks for your work"—suddenly touched Han Jiayi. She realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard those words. In society today, everyone’s efforts seemed to be taken for granted.

Han Jiayi went to shower, while Bai Renzong finished his meal, washed the dishes and the pan, and then took a shower himself. Over an hour passed in a flash. Only then did Bai Renzong return to his computer to check the video’s performance.

When he opened his computer, he was astonished to find that the video already had more than 300,000 views!

"Seriously?!" Bai Renzong immediately grabbed his phone to double-check.

The Critic’s app gave only 160,000 views from the sign-in and upload bonuses, with no extra heat from the final assessment yet, since it hadn’t come out, and there hadn’t been any major controversies to boost the numbers. How could the view count be so high? It was almost absurd—surpassing even the episode where he exposed the fraud at the Ge An Sushi restaurant!

Could it be... Bai Renzong muttered to himself, opening the homepage of D Station.

As expected, as soon as he entered the site, he saw his own video headlined on the front page: "Shocking! Food Vlogger Dominates the Wine Exhibition!"

Seeing his own video featured so prominently filled Bai Renzong with wild joy.

Getting on D Station’s front page happened in only two ways: one, by submitting your video number to the official forum and waiting for approval; the other, by releasing a video that the platform deemed valuable enough.

The process was fundamentally the same—one was self-recommendation, the other was being officially selected. But where your video appeared on the front page was still determined by its quality.

If the officials thought your video was good, it would be placed somewhere prominent.

Bai Renzong’s video was not only in the most eye-catching spot on the website’s homepage, but also in a prime position on the D Station app—so much so that it had racked up a huge number of hits in under an hour.

Clearly, the platform saw his video as highly valuable.

As for the audience comments, they were mixed.

Some suspected he had staged the whole thing with the event organizers, while others marveled at his extraordinary palate.

As for the fans he’d accumulated from previous videos...

The top comment read, "Shameless! How can you call yourself ‘Old Bai’ when you’re so young? Now I’m almost thirty and still calling you ‘Brother Bai’ every day. Change your name to ‘Little Bai’!," but finished with a dog-head emoji to signal the commenter was a fan.

This made Bai Renzong laugh and shake his head, but he quickly put it out of his mind.

Because quite a few people were questioning whether he’d faked the event with the organizers, he decided to upload the full, unedited wine tasting footage to his channel—to answer the doubts with facts.

The whole process had been filmed; his eyes were blindfolded during the pouring, and he’d had his back to the staff the entire time. There was simply no way to cheat.

Apart from the small group of skeptics, though, most of the viewers were full of admiration: “If you hadn’t told me, I’d have thought this was a movie! Even better than Bo Ran!” “That’s some impressive taste buds. Try it yourself—there’s no way to distinguish between wines of the same brand.” “If you don’t get certified as a senior sommelier, it’s a real waste!”

What really caught Bai Renzong’s eye was the top-highlighted comment from a user named "ZY Wines," marked with a blue verification badge—it was actually the official account of ZY Wines!

Their comment contained only two emojis: one of an ox, and one of a beer mug.

Netizens responded with plenty of jokes underneath, while ZY Wines explained in their replies that this was not a commercial collaboration, just a coincidence, and thanked Bai Renzong for the publicity.

Only then did Bai Renzong realize he should have blurred out the ZY Wines brand—a standard practice for content creators. Normally, creators wouldn’t give free advertising to any brand, so they’d blur out logos, signaling “ad space for rent.” It also helped avoid legal trouble if they inadvertently harmed a brand’s reputation in sensitive videos.

It was an unspoken rule in the industry.

Bai Renzong didn’t bother checking the rest of the comments. Overall, the video was clearly a huge success.

In just thirty minutes, the view count was already nearing 600,000. He was confident that within twenty-four hours, it would surpass five million! And five million views meant nearly twenty thousand in revenue—all from a single video in a single day!