Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 200 The Mastermind (First Update, Please Give Me a Monthly Ticket)
"Does Zhang Chao really dare to do this?" In a private room of a hotel in Yanjing, a middle-aged man with a duck voice, a square face, round eyes, and an M-shaped bald forehead uttered these words after answering the phone, putting down the phone.

There were two other people at the table. One of them, a fat man wearing black-framed glasses, asked curiously, "Zhang Chao? Is he the famous young writer in the past two years?"

The duck-voiced man said disdainfully, "What young writer? There's a lot of trickery going on here. I'm sure he's fake! This is just an appetizer."

The fat man with glasses asked, "How can you be sure that he is fake?"

The duck-voiced man folded his hands over his chest and said proudly, "When I fight fakes, I always rely on evidence and logic. How can I act rashly without absolute certainty?
But Zhang Chao is quite courageous. He even dared to let the TV station broadcast his defense live."

The bespectacled fat man complimented, "That's right, that's right. Teacher Fang is a 'fake fighter'. Those international experts and professors are always accurate, let alone a small writer."

Another short, neckless man at the table said, "There is nothing in this world that Teacher Fang dare not expose. Teacher Fang just posted an article on his website, and immediately someone rushed to verify Zhang Chao's results.

If Teacher Fang goes a little deeper, Zhang Chao's disguise will soon be exposed."

The bespectacled fat man agreed, and turned to "Teacher Fang" and said: "Lawyer Peng said it very well. - Our 'Niu Blog' is going to be officially launched in July. The positioning of 'Niu Blog' is a kind of stubbornness and unyielding.

Teacher Fang's courage and insight are both very much needed on Niu Blog. That's why I asked you to meet with me through Lawyer Peng, hoping that Teacher Fang can open an account on Niu Blog and update his articles..."

"Teacher Fang" nodded modestly and said, "It's not impossible to open an account... but if you want to run your 'Awesome Blog', I alone won't be enough, right?"

The fat man with glasses said: "The operation mode of our 'Niu Blog' is different from other blog platforms. Other platforms are open for registration and posting, but if you want to register for our 'Niu Blog', you must write a self-recommendation letter to me. Only after I review it can you officially open an account and post.

——Of course, if you are invited by me personally like Teacher Fang, you don’t need to use this. I will reserve the domain name of your frequently used ID, so you can come anytime you want.

Of course, it would be best if we just launched it, after all, everything is difficult at the beginning..."

Seeing a hint of approval on "Teacher Fang's" face, the bespectacled fat man was delighted and continued to introduce: "In addition to you, I will also invite Han Han, Cai Jing, Tu Moto... to post articles on our 'Niu Blog'. You can use any wording you want."

When "Teacher Fang" heard those names, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly, and he was obviously quite disdainful, but he also knew that these people had their own traffic, and if "Niu Blog" wanted to succeed, it would not work without these people to attract fans.

So he agreed and said in his piercing duck voice: "Okay, I'll open the Niu Blog account. Let me know one week in advance when your platform goes online."

"Lawyer Peng" smiled and said, "Lao Luo, with Teacher Fang joining you, your blog platform will have no worries about traffic."

The fat man with glasses, who was called "Lao Luo", said repeatedly: "That's for sure. Let's have a drink together and wish Mr. Fang's anti-counterfeiting business will prosper and bring a bright future to China; and we also wish our 'Niu Blog' can be successfully launched in July!"

The three of them drank the wine in their glasses!

Lao Luo was obviously very happy and called the waiter: "Add another dish!"

The waiter handed over the menu. Lao Luo searched for a long time and pointed to the "home-style braised ribs" on the menu and said, "Let's have this. There are three of us, so a medium portion of ribs will be fine."

The menu of this restaurant thoughtfully displays the different portions of dishes with pictures of different sizes, which is very intuitive. The waiter said: "Hello, sir, this is a large portion. We have medium, large and extra large portions."

Lao Luo was a little angry, and pointed to the diagram in the middle and said, "I don't care, I want this middle portion!"

The waiter insisted, "Excuse me, sir, this is the large portion." Then he pointed to the smallest diagram and said, "This is the medium portion. Medium, large, extra large..."

Lao Luo slammed the menu on the table and stared at the waiter; the waiter still had a professional smile on his face.

Soon, there was a "pa pa" sound in the box, and someone was anxiously trying to dissuade him: "Teacher Luo, don't do this, Teacher Luo..."

In the evening, "Teacher Fang" returned to his small apartment. His room was very simple, and the furniture was half-worn, but the bookshelves on the wall and the full collection of books still showed his erudition and diligence.

"Teacher Fang" first went to the bathroom to wash his face and sober up, then came to the study, sat in front of the computer, and began to browse and search for various news and information.

At first, Zhang Chao, a "fellow countryman" in a broad sense, was not in his sight. The targets of "Teacher Fang"'s anti-counterfeiting are mainly concentrated in the fields of scientific research and pseudoscience. Although he claims to be proficient in the field of literature and was once a "poet", after all, there are too many things that are based on his own free will, which are not objective and difficult to disprove.

Zhang Chao first attracted his attention during the college entrance examination two years ago. Zhang Chao's essay on Lu Xun, which received full marks, was reprinted by many newspapers. "Teacher Fang", who considered himself to be the contemporary connoisseur and inheritor of the great master, was quite impressed after reading it.

But he soon became dissatisfied with the praise for Zhang Chao in the newspapers, especially the article "Lu Xun's Connoisseur Born in the 1980s - A Glimpse of Lu Xun Academy's Advanced Research Class", which called Zhang Chao "the contemporary successor to Lu Xun's spirit", which made him feel uncomfortable.

Mr. Da is Mr. Fang's lifelong idol. He feels that his own fight against counterfeits is the best representation of Mr. Da's critical spirit and truth-seeking spirit today.

Although he would not publicly call himself the "contemporary Lu Xun", he would never allow anyone he looked down upon to tarnish this title.

However, considering that Zhang Chao was still a fledgling "youngster", and his later creative direction gradually turned to novels, and he rarely wrote essays criticizing current social ills, the term "contemporary spiritual successor of Lu Xun" was gradually no longer mentioned, so he was let off for the time being.

However, Zhang Chao's various behaviors since the beginning of this year have made "Teacher Fang" unable to tolerate it any longer, especially the verbal battle with the Chinese literary criticism circle. The war lasted for several months, spreading from China to abroad and then from abroad back to China. Zhang Chao's posture of standing at the forefront of the struggle is quite similar to the style of the great masters fighting against Liang Shiqiu, Chen Xiying, Hu Shi and others.

This stimulated him again. Moreover, voices came from the other side of the ocean saying "We need to teach Zhang Chao, that cunning boy, a lesson"...

All these prompted him to include Zhang Chao in his anti-counterfeiting campaign. Last week, he wrote his first article targeting Zhang Chao on the "New Mangyuan" website, which he controls.

The Mystery of Zhang Chao: Writer? Student? Businessman? Or Fraudster?

Although the number of readers was not large, Zhang Chao's reputation accumulated through years of "precise anti-counterfeiting" soon made the relevant departments sense the crisis and gave them a "warning".

Unfortunately, Zhang Chao seemed to be completely unaware of this and did not write an article to fight back, which made "Teacher Fang" a little disappointed...

(I will try to update more today to make up for what I owed. I hope everyone will vote for me.)
(End of this chapter)