Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 169 The Third Counterattack

The main content of the article "Don't Let "Yellow, Violent and Black Magazines" Occupy the Spiritual World of Young People" is a culmination of the previous articles, but it creatively drags the magazine "Youth" into the water.

[Zhang Chao is no longer satisfied with using his own works to influence the worldview of young people. The Youth Magazine he founded and served as the chief editor is a "demand for ideological pyramid selling" that he has devoted all his efforts to build..."]

[We can see that the author of "Youth" has lost his independent creative thinking and is mass-producing Y films to numb the minds of teenagers every month...]

[We call on young authors who have not yet joined Zhang Chao in corruption to jointly resist this unhealthy trend; we also call on the authors of the Youth School who have not yet gone astray to turn to the light as soon as possible.]

[The tide has become a 'black tide'. Parents across the country are requested to be vigilant against this 'black tide' polluting your children and work together to build a 'breakwater' to protect the mental health of young people. ]

【Only by resisting the 'Kuroshio' can we welcome blue skies! 】

The style of the whole article is about 70% similar to Zhang Chao's own, especially the last slogan, which captures the essence of Zhang's manifesto! So after reading it, Zhang Chao was numb.

Where did Bai Ye and his team find these talents?
But these are not the most fatal - the "killer move" of this article is that it quotes all the contents involving sex and violence from "Better Days", "Dwelling Narrowness", "Vanishing Lover", and "Youth" magazine one by one in the text, and indicates the page and line number of the quotation, which can be said to be well-reasoned.

Why is this move so cruel?
Because people who have not read the complete works can easily be misled by these out-of-context quotes and believe that Zhang Chao is indeed promoting pornography and violence. The number of such people is definitely far greater than the number of readers who have read his works.

Zhang Chao is well aware that in the era of self-media more than a decade later, many writers and works will die inexplicably because of this move.

In his previous life, he had encountered such an incident - he recommended "The Grass House" and "Bronze Sunflower" as introductory reading materials to a parent whose child had just entered the second grade of elementary school. The friend said indignantly: "The video on a certain audio platform said that Cao Wenxuan's books are 'toxic teaching materials' and will lead children astray."

Zhang Chao flipped through the two books again himself, but couldn't figure out where the "toxic point" was, so he gave the books to the parents and asked them to find out where the toxic point was.

The parents’ answer was: “How can I have the time? I don’t have the time.”

Today's article does something similar, but the current Internet population is at least an order of magnitude smaller than that of a decade or so, and the communication efficiency and incitement are even more incomparable.

If it were an era where Tik Tok and Weibo monopolized the public opinion field, either critics like Bai Ye would have been beaten to death by Zhang Chao the day before yesterday, or Zhang Chao would have entered the countdown to the collapse of his personal image from today.

In 2006, both sides still had room to fight back.

The author of this article is not Bai Ye or any other active writer or critic, but an ordinary online name - "Qin Xin Jian Dan".

Moreover, this blog was just registered yesterday, and this is the first and only article. In just a few hours, the number of readers has exceeded 10, and the number of reposts should be quite large.

Xinlang Weibo seems to have given some traffic support. Although Zhang Chao is a traffic generator they value, "defeating Zhang Chao" seems to bring more traffic?

"New Sprout" magazine was obviously also paying attention to this incident. Zhao Changtian made a special call to Zhang Chao in the afternoon to ask about the ins and outs of the matter. When he heard others talk about it before, he thought it was just another "ordinary" conflict between Zhang Chao and the literary master La Kela. He didn't expect it to have such a strong impact.

After Zhang Chao finished explaining, he asked very seriously: "Will it affect the independent release of Youth?"

Zhao Changtian was silent for a while on the other end of the phone before he said, "It's impossible to say that there is no impact at all. Bai Ye is a little younger than me, but he has a solid professional foundation and is also motivated. He has a wide network of contacts in the cultural circle of Yanjing.

Although we in Shanghai have always been independent and don’t share the same aspirations with them, our cultural center is in Yanjing after all. I don’t know if the leaders will change their minds if we put some pressure on them.”

After finishing speaking, before Zhang Chao could speak, Zhao Changtian said, "I will retire next year. Promoting the independent publication of Youth is the last major thing I will do as the editor-in-chief of New Sprouts.

I have also seen the development of Youth over the past year. You have opened a path for so many children who are willing to pursue pure literature, not only allowing them to be seen, but also allowing them to make a living. This is actually what I have always wanted to do - although it has not been very successful.

Zhang Chao, I promise you that I will use all my strength to ensure that "Youth" will not be ruined! "

After hanging up the phone, Zhao Changtian's firm promise was still ringing in my ears. Although this old man who is about to retire was once involved in the "New Concept Writing Competition" for a while, his love and help for young writers has always been well-known.

But waiting for others to protect him was not Zhang Chao's style. Now there were only two options before him:

The first way is the simplest. You have to kneel down to the literary critics represented by Bai Ye. You don't even have to kneel openly. Just show your weakness and then ask Wang Meng, Tie Ning, Yu Hua, Cao Wenxuan and others to mediate. The other party will surely stop when they see the good results.

If they cooperate well, both parties can even have a happy ending that everyone is happy with.

But even if someone put a gun to Zhang Chao's head, he would not take this road.

The second way, as in the past, is to continue to tear each other apart by writing articles on the blog, and even mobilize Ma Boyong, Shuang Xuetao and others to join in, until the winner is decided.

If Zhang Chao is determined to mobilize his fans, he is confident that he can destroy the blogs of Bai Ye and others within a week and let them see what "first-generation cyber violence" is.

But in this way, Zhang Chao has really become a "black tide". It is not difficult to use literature to tease fans' emotions and make them rush to destroy the opponent. The difficult thing is that after playing this game once, the fans will be quickly purified and crystallized, and in turn will hold the idol hostage.

Fans are always more fanatical than idols imagine.

So Zhang Chao decided to take the third path - Bai Ye and Xinlang.com had already sent a huge amount of traffic to his door, wouldn't it be a waste if he didn't take it?
He called the editors-in-chief of Chunfeng Publishing House (Dwelling Narrowness), Huacheng Publishing House (Better Days), and Changjiang Publishing House (The Vanishing Lover) in succession and arranged a conference call.

After the time arrived, Zhang Chao sat in the office of the editor-in-chief of "New Sprout" magazine, with Zhao Changtian next to him, and answered the calls with the other three parties.

Zhang Chao asked a question: "I want to publish a special edition of three long novels. I have a week to prepare. Can I meet readers next week?"

Several editors paused for a moment, then said, "As long as the content has not changed and does not need to be reviewed again, and the binding design is not complicated, there should be no problem."

Zhang Chao said: "The sooner the better. Next, let me tell you about our thinking this time..."

Zhang Chao talked nonstop for more than ten minutes, and then he realized that there was no movement on the phone. He thought the line was disconnected, so he asked, "Why aren't you talking?"

After a while, Xiao Jianguo from Huacheng Society said, "Zhang Chao, what's wrong with your head..."

After the meeting, Zhang Chao realized that Zhao Changtian was staring at him blankly. After a while, he shook his head and said, "I was ready to give up my job as editor-in-chief to help you prevent this incident. I didn't expect..."

Zhang Chao smiled but said nothing.

The next day, the front page of Xinlang Blog was filled with the latest article from “Midnight Tide”—

No More Self-Defense

After briefly and objectively describing what happened recently, Zhang Chao stated that he would no longer defend himself against the recent controversy. However, he also announced two things:

First of all, "Dwelling Narrowness", "Young Like You" and "Vanishing Lover" will be released in limited edition next week, with a limit of 100 copies of each. They are only available in large bookstores or well-known bookstores in large and medium-sized cities, and in principle, no more than 2 copies of each book can be sold in each city.

What’s more shocking is the price, which is 488 yuan per copy.

The second thing is to collect the "pornographic", "violent" and "black" descriptions in the three novels "Snail House", "Young Like You" and "Vanished Lover" from the whole society. After confirmation, the first discoverer will be rewarded with 3000 yuan for each description.

The discoverer can take a screenshot of the relevant content and post it on the Xinlang Blog, and the publishing time of the blog will be the basis.

As for the more than 30 blog entries found in the blog titled "Don't let pornographic, violent and black publications occupy the spiritual world of young people", Zhang Chao personally awarded the author a prize of 10 yuan, of course on the premise that the author has to prove his or her identity to the official Xinlang.

(End of this chapter)