Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 4: Sprout Magazine, Why Don’t You Apologize?
After the evening self-study, Zhang Chao winked at Chen Huan, who understood and went to the small garden behind the teaching building with Zhang Chao.

Seeing that there was no one around, Chen Huan excitedly slapped Zhang Chao on the shoulder and said, "Thanks to you, I didn't fall into that sinister boy's trap a few days ago. How could you be so calm, especially after that fall..."

Zhang Chao put his finger on his lips, signaling Chen Huan to be quiet, and said, "Let's not talk about the past. Now I need you to do me a favor."

Chen Huan said carelessly: "We are all brothers. Your business is my business."

"I heard that you have the key to the school's computer room?" Zhang Chao asked tentatively.

Chen Huan panicked and said, "How do you know? Who told you that? I, I didn't..."

Zhang Chao smiled secretly. Chen Huan had previously taken the opportunity of cleaning to secretly copy a key to the computer room, and often sneaked out of the dormitory in the dead of night to go to the computer room to surf the Internet and play games.

His roommates thought he went to another dormitory to play cards and never asked about it. Until one time he played too late and slept in the computer room until class, he was discovered. In the end he was given a serious warning. But that was in March.

Zhang Chao smiled without saying anything, which only made Chen Huan feel uneasy. He quickly said, "Yes, yes, yes. But don't tell anyone."

Zhang Chao said, "Lend me the key. I need it tonight."

Chen Huan did not hesitate this time. He took out the key and handed it to Zhang Chao, and reminded him, "The security guards usually patrol that floor once at 11 o'clock. Wait until they are done patrolling before sneaking in. Choose the machine in the last row near the door, so that there will be almost no reflection on the window."

Zhang Chao took the key: "Thank you."

"What if you get caught?"

"Don't worry, I won't get you into trouble."

"Then you better be careful." Zhang Chao always keeps his word, so Chen Huan felt relieved.

After the two of them finished discussing, they returned to the dormitory. They washed up, called the roll, and turned off the lights. After 11 o'clock, Zhang Chao climbed out of bed and muttered, "I can't sleep, I'm going for a walk." Then he walked out of the dormitory.

He bent down and slipped past the door of the dormitory manager's office where he was dozing off. Relying on his familiarity with the terrain, he walked through the school's gardens and green plants, quietly entered the side door of the teaching building, and tiptoed up to the sixth floor. The large classroom at the end was the computer room.

Zhang Chao took out the key given by Chen Huan, inserted it into the keyhole of the door, turned it gently, and with a "click", the door opened.

Following Chen Huan's reminder, he chose the computer in the corner by the door and turned it on. It was indeed the classic Windows XP system. Zhang Chao looked at the familiar wallpaper of green hills and blue sky with some emotion.

But no matter what system it is, as long as it can access the Internet, Zhang Chao opened Baidu and quickly found his target - Blog China.

BlogChina is the earliest blog platform in China, founded by Dongfang Xing. As the earliest personal media platform on the Internet, blogs have shown timeliness and fairness far exceeding traditional media in the 911/ incident in the United States and the subsequent desert war, and have gradually entered the stage of mainstream public opinion.

In 2004, the number of blogs in China reached 300 million, while the number of Internet users was 9000 million - that is, one in every 30 Internet users has a blog.

Unlike 2024 when anyone can pick up a mobile phone and become a self-media person or up-host, netizens who can now steadily update their blogs or continuously express their opinions on online platforms such as forums are almost all elites or quasi-elites.

From 2003 to 2004, China was at a critical juncture in Internet public opinion. The first generation of Internet celebrities came on the stage. Among them, a female columnist named Mu Zimei began to serialize her diary of playing poker with different men on her personal blog, which caused a sensation and became a bomb that detonated the influence of domestic blogs.

For Zhang Chao, who does not have the common plug-ins for rebirth, the best solution he can think of at the moment is to use the Internet, whose influence is beginning to grow exponentially, to help himself break out.

After quickly registering an account and opening the upload interface, Zhang Chao used Wangma Wubi to type the title of his first blog post in a somewhat unfamiliar way:

Is it a "new concept" or a "new examination"? ——New Sprout Magazine, please apologize to Chinese literature!

Yes, Zhang Chao’s method of participating in the “New Concept Essay Competition” is to launch the most violent criticism against it in public opinion.

The first and second New Concept Writing Competitions indeed won huge success with their brand-new and free writing concepts, and also produced star authors such as Guo Xiaosi and Han Han.

However, as the influence of the competition exploded, the number of submissions to New Concepts skyrocketed from the third session. High school students from all over the country quickly understood the competition's appeal from the articles published in the previously published New Concepts Essays Selection and New Sprout magazines, as well as the works of star authors, and began to write specifically for it.

What are Chinese students best at? Taking exams!

As long as we regard the "New Concept Essay Contest" as an exam and use the successful experiences of past authors and works as review materials, we can naturally mass-produce exam essays that suit their tastes.

This situation has become increasingly serious, leading to the popularity of Xiao Si's "bright sadness" and Han Han's acrimony, which has drowned out some truly good authors. Facts have also proved that after the first and second sessions, this competition has not produced any writing stars who can compare with Xiao Si and Han Han.

Ironically, Xiao Si and Han Han later moved away from the literary field and became businessmen, drivers, directors... but they didn't write well.

The "New Concept Composition Competition" has been held for more than 20 sessions and has produced hundreds of winners, but not one of them has become the backbone of domestic literature.

Most of them just used the competition as a springboard. In fact, if there hadn't been such a competition that was seen as a bit of a hasty move, many of these contestants would have been able to have a richer life. Who says there wouldn't have been great writers like Moyan and Yu Hua?

But now it is 2004, and the 40th New Concept Essay Competition is at its peak. The number of submissions has broken the record again, reaching , and more universities are participating, all wanting to get a piece of the action.

But Zhang Chao knew that this was the last gasp. As the saying goes, everything will turn into its opposite when it reaches its extreme. Many people have seen the shortcomings of the new concept essay and have also criticized it. But compared with the huge influence of the new concept, it seems insignificant.

In the original time and space, just after this session, the New Concept Essay Contest began to go downhill. Starting from the seventh session, universities no longer admitted the first prize winners without examination, but only gave preferential treatment of admission with reduced scores, which directly reduced the attractiveness of the competition by several levels. Many science-oriented students count on the less than one in a thousand chance of the New Concept Essay Contest to win the opportunity to go to a first-class university. How many points can be reduced for admission? At least you have to pass the key line. How many people who have the ability to pass the key line will be distracted to prepare for this competition?
So whether Zhang Chao wrote this article or not, the decline of the New Concept Essay Competition, a feast of youth literature, was inevitable. He just pushed it into the pit in advance.

As he continued writing, Zhang Chao's typing became smoother and smoother. He finished a 3000-word article in just over two hours. The last part of the article was heart-wrenching:
"When the 'new concept' has become a new kind of exam, the host of this feast has changed from young literary people who love literature and desire freedom to a group of sophisticated and greasy middle-aged and elderly people in the literary world. Their selection criteria have become another sickle to harvest dreams, leaving behind the speculators who are eager for shortcuts and bow their heads, and beheading the dreamers who have literary character and stand tall. The New Concept Essay Competition has become a huge murder scene. The one who died is the future of Chinese literature, while the murderer is still reveling.

"Sprout Magazine, why don't you apologize?"

After typing the last word, Zhang Chao breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that this article, from the title to the content, was actually a bit alarmist. But as someone who had been reborn from the traffic era to the present, he knew that if he wrote a lukewarm article, it would undoubtedly be forgotten by the public.

Only by pushing the viewpoint to the extreme can it attract attention. Of course, Zhang Chao also avoided evaluating any specific individual in his writing, but instead focused on the magazine and the competition.

After checking for typos again, Zhang Chao signed his name: Midnight Tide. Finally, he clicked send.

Looking at the articles presented on the simple... concise blog page, Zhang Chao thought about it again and felt that it was not enough. Although BlogChina is the first blog platform in China, its overall influence is not comparable to that of the later Xinlang Blog.

In order to quickly increase the influence of this article, Zhang Chao registered the most influential online literature forum "Big Banyan Tree", as well as platforms such as "Dongi Hutong" and "Tianya Forum", and posted the article under the online name "Midnight Tide".

After sending out the first round of messages, it was already two o'clock in the morning. Zhang Chao turned off the computer, slipped out of the computer room, and returned to the dormitory under the cover of darkness.

Unexpectedly, Chen Huan was also awake. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Zhang Chao return safely. The two nodded to each other, tacitly understanding each other, and went to sleep.

The next day, Zhang Chao was restless and anxious. He knew he was addicted to the Internet.

Normal adults in 2024 are connected to the online world almost all the time as long as they are awake. When they open their eyes in the morning, they check WeChat for new messages; when they close their eyes at night, they watch TikTok. In addition, there is no place that cannot be separated from the Internet, such as travel, shopping, three meals a day, entertainment...

But this was 2004, and most people didn’t know what the Internet was for. Cell phones were only used for making calls and sending text messages, and people wouldn’t take them out unless they were contacting someone.

Zhang Chao didn't know how his articles were doing, how many readers they had, how many people responded and posted comments... Of course, during this period, he ignored Chen Huan's hints to return the keys at least twenty times.

He finally made it until eleven o'clock, then found another opportunity. He sneaked out of the dormitory, went to the computer room, and couldn't wait to turn on the computer and open his blog.

Views: 251. No comments.

Zhang Chao felt that this number was insulting. He opened the Big Banyan Tree, Dongci Hutong and Tianya again, and was surprised to find that most of the posts had been pushed to the top of the page, and the comments were in full swing.

The first floor is as usual: "Sofa."

Then the content of the comments gradually returned to normal.

Some people agree: "The original poster's criticism is very sharp. The New Concept Essay Competition is really a case of a weasel laying waste to the rat, and each generation is worse than the previous one."

Some objected: "The author is just sensationalist and has no new ideas. Many talents are buried in the exam-oriented education. New ideas are the bastion of youth that all literary youth should defend."

Naturally, they split into two factions, arguing fiercely. There is no place for a neutral party on the Internet these days.

Of course, there are also those who just want to watch the show: "Peanuts, soda, beer, mineral water..."

Zhang Chao didn't expect that if the East doesn't shine, the West will shine, but this is normal. The forum is a highly interactive model. As long as the topic is interesting enough, even if the main post is of average quality or only has one sentence, it can ignite the flames of war.

Blogs are different. They emphasize the author's ability to express his or her views and accumulate readers. For a single article to become popular, it requires a certain amount of luck and certain resources.

He knew that the main reason was that the real influence of the New Concept Essay Contest had declined. Although there were still some university exemptions and hundreds of thousands of submissions, in terms of public opinion, it was actually not as good as the first and second sessions.

Who made Han Han and Xiao Si two trendsetters in those two sessions?
So this is actually the last chance to take advantage of the new concept and achieve fame.

Zhang Chao was not discouraged. He had checked last night and found out that the semi-finals of this year's New Concept Essay Competition would be held next week. By then, the magazine would definitely be a hot topic, and it would not be too late to publish his own article then.

Of course, he didn't come here tonight just to read the replies. The second article he prepared was also completed, and the title was still shocking -

Second question to "New Sprouts": How many blood-soaked steamed buns of literary youth will it take to feed you?

The content changes its perspective, questioning the motivation of New Sprout magazine to hold the New Concept Essay Competition from the perspective of the marginalization of pure literature and the low sales of literary magazines. It is just to boost sales, and after the competition became popular, it was quickly commercialized. In this process, the urge to create "Xiao Si-style" and "Han Han-style" stars always dominates the competition, because this can bring the greatest commercial benefits to the magazine.

And in this process, how many students with dreams have suffered setbacks, doubted life, and stayed away from literature?

The article was still more than 3000 words. After checking for typos, Zhang Chao published it on various platforms. But this time he was much calmer.

Do your best, listen to destiny.

Little did he know that after he slipped back to his dormitory and fell into a deep sleep, a storm sweeping across the literary and educational circles was brewing, and his two articles were the source of the storm.

(End of this chapter)