OFR – Chapter 45 popular among friends.

Mo Hai thought this whole thing was hilarious, so he took a screenshot and posted it in his Moments.

[New Year’s Big Event: The Fall of Taobao’s Little Honey!]

As a seasoned Taobao shop owner, Mo Hai knew exactly what kind of headline would draw traffic.

In this post, he uploaded the screenshot and added a few mocking comments about Taobao’s “Little Honey” customer service and the shop owner of Rare Treasures Heaven.

Since Mo Hai was in e-commerce, most of his WeChat friends were also Taobao sellers, micro-business owners, and old customers. Naturally, they were very interested in gossip from the e-commerce circle.

So, after his post went live, in just over an hour, it was forwarded over a thousand times, with more than thirty thousand views.

In no time, the story went viral in Moments, spawning countless versions:

• [Tens of Thousands Shocked! On the eve of New Year’s sales, Taobao’s Little Honey caught doing unspeakable things with a shop owner!]
• [What Taobao’s Little Honey and the shop owner don’t want you to know: moral collapse or human corruption?]
• [The shady deal between Taobao’s Little Honey and the shop owner!]
• [Taobao’s Little Honey reduced to the shop owner’s XX toy!]
• [Completely ruined! The tragic fate of Taobao’s Little Honey!]
• [One of the hottest viral posts this New Year’s holiday!]

E-commerce folks were actually very busy during New Year’s promotions, but this was too funny not to share. Within the circle, everyone loved this kind of juicy mishap.

Besides, mistakes in Taobao’s recommendation system were extremely rare, so the post had everyone laughing.

Even a number of e-commerce and micro-business public accounts picked it up and pushed it to their readers.

Thanks to the collective likes and reposts, the post exploded — basically flooding WeChat feeds.

With such hype, many customers were lured into checking out the bizarre Rare Treasures Heaven store on Taobao. Most were just curious, but a small fraction happened to be flower lovers.

By 2 p.m., the sky had clouded over again. Though it didn’t snow much in the south, gray winter days were common.

After lunch, Mu Bai returned to his new apartment.

The “Inkwood Residence” had a wonderful environment — quiet and secluded, without the city noise.

He dropped onto the sofa in the living room, turned on the TV, and searched for a drama to watch.

“Hm? I heard this one’s a classic.”

Scrolling through the digital channels, he picked a drama he’d heard of but never seen.

During this time, he thought about logging into Taobao, but figured his shop had only been up for less than two hours — unlikely to have traffic yet. Better to check tomorrow.

If his flowers still didn’t sell by then, he’d do what he did last time and rent ad space. Only this time, he’d buy a slot on the Nanjing Flower & Plant Trading Forum instead.

As Mu Bai pondered shop promotion while watching TV, his QQ pinged.

“Ding-ding.”

Picking up his phone, he saw the message.

Qian Yiwen: “Cold Mu, what are you up to?”

He typed back: “Just ate, about to watch some TV. You?”

She replied almost instantly: “We just finished class and are heading back to the dorms to write. But I was worried you might miss me, so I hopped on QQ to check — though I guess I was overthinking. (sad emoji)”

As an online novelist, Qian Yiwen typed quickly. Before Mu Bai could reply, another message popped up:

“By the way, I’ll be writing until tonight, so I can’t chat. But tomorrow’s New Year’s Day, do you have time? Our school’s on holiday. I could come meet you — and finally see what my aloof Mu looks like in real life.”

“Meet in real life?”

Mu Bai was caught off guard.

It wasn’t that he was afraid to meet her, but the more real-world contact he had, the greater the risk of his magical space being exposed.

Still, after hesitating for over a minute, he gave her a positive reply.

After all, they’d only met once in real life, and she didn’t know who he really was. A casual meal tomorrow posed no risk.

Once he confirmed, they chatted briefly before she logged off to write, and Mu Bai leaned back into the sofa, continuing his drama.

While watching, he mulled over his future.

As he sold rarer plants and animals, more eyes would inevitably turn toward him. Avoiding all real-world connections wasn’t a long-term solution.

Eventually, he decided that once his funds were stronger, he’d buy a private farm and fishery.

That way, he’d have a plausible cover for the rare species — the identity of a farm owner could shield the existence of the virtual tycoon system.

Time passed as episodes of Nirvana in Fire rolled on.

By 7 p.m., he ordered KFC delivery and kept watching TV.

By 7:30, night had fallen.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, the lights of a modest apartment flickered on.

At his desk, Mo Hai stretched, fatigue written on his face.

With his shop featured on Taobao’s homepage, there had been too many inquiries about money turtles. His one hired customer service rep couldn’t handle it, so he had personally spent the whole afternoon pretending to be a service girl.

Now, finally, things had calmed down.

“Time for some Nescafé before dinner.”

He got up to boil water, but suddenly thought of the post he’d made at noon.

“Oh right, let’s see how many likes and views that New Year’s gag racked up. Must be a lot.”

Thinking about it brought a smile to his tired face. He opened WeChat to check.

But when he saw the numbers, his smile froze into shock. Then he blurted out: “Holy crap! I knew it would blow up!”

The post now had over a hundred thousand shares, millions of views and likes, and more than ten thousand comments.

• “Wow, the flower trade invading the aquatic animal industry!”
• “That shop owner and Little Honey are definitely in on something shady.”
• “Damn, I checked the prices at Rare Treasures Heaven — outrageous!”
• “Really? I’m going to look too.”
• “Insane — over two million for a quasi-rare! No wonder it’s Rare Treasures Heaven!”
• “A small online shop has quasi-rare stock? Gotta see this!”
• “I browsed it — lots of good stuff. I’m planning to snipe one at midnight tomorrow.”

At that moment, Mu Bai had no idea that his Taobao shop was blowing up — all because of a single viral post.

In fact, the hype was even more explosive than when he had auctioned off the dragon fish days earlier!

Even Mo Hai hadn’t expected it. He had just wanted to amuse his circle, but instead had given Rare Treasures Heaven the equivalent of a front-page Taobao banner ad.