Restart life

Chapter 123-0120 [Xie Yang's Battle for Fame in the Company]

Xie Yang soon got a new job: to serve as the moderator of the "Three Kingdoms Kill" forum.

The Sanguosha forum was created not long ago, with fewer than 2000 registered users and only a few dozen daily active users.

He had just taken office when he went to study other online forums and took out a small notebook to record data.

The largest Baidu Tieba forum is Jay Chou's, with nearly 10 registered users.

Second is the Legend Bar, with over 8 registered users. Its activity level surpasses that of the Jay Chou Bar, as evidenced by the number of new posts and replies.

In addition to the popular celebrity forums, other forums with high activity include the Legend of Sword and Fairy forum and the Naruto forum.

Back in his dorm that evening, Xie Yang looked at his notebook and pondered promotional plans.

Seeing him hunched over, writing and drawing, Cai Yifei asked curiously, "What are you doing?"

Xie Yang said, "I'm thinking about how to expand the Three Kingdoms Kill forum and how to convert more people into Three Kingdoms Kill players."

"Damn, still working after work?" Cai Yifei said, continuing to play games with a cigarette in his mouth.

Ding Qiang was engrossed in a handwritten copy, occasionally tapping away on the keyboard.

Last month, Python 2.4 was released, further solidifying the stability of the Python 2.x series. Although it is still not a mainstream language, the Python community is growing, and more and more people are adopting it.

Ding Qiang knew his abilities were lacking, but luckily the company had two highly skilled employees. So, he worked hard during the day and took the opportunity to learn from them. After get off work, he would diligently study the notes he had taken during the day to improve himself little by little.

There's nothing I can do; he's just too stupid.

Both Cai Yifei and Ding Qiang sought guidance from experts, but Cai Yifei was able to master the skills quickly, while Ding Qiang had to repeatedly try to understand and practice.

After Xie Yang finished writing the proposal, he asked, "Who among you knows Photoshop?"

“Yes, what’s wrong?” Cai Yifei asked.

Xie Yang checked the time: "It's nothing. It's quite late, let's talk about it tomorrow."

The next day.

Chen Guiliang looked at Xie Yang's promotional plan and said, "This is a mess. You need to familiarize yourself with the writing format later. But the idea is good, so you can give it a try."

Chen Guiliang picked up his pen to supplement and improve the details of Xie Yang's plan.

"This change might be more effective. You could assign a programmer and a clerk to help out temporarily."

More than ten minutes later, the proposal, now filled with numerous revisions, was returned to Xie Yang's hands.

Xie Yang took a closer look and found that his original plan was fragmented, while Chen Guiliang's revised version was more systematic. Moreover, the operational steps were also well-organized, unlike Xie Yang's previous haphazard approach.

That afternoon, a post appeared on the "Three Kingdoms Kill" forum: When the rules of "Three Kingdoms Kill" invade the world of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy".

The introduction begins with a brief background description of two or three hundred words, roughly about how the world of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" was invaded by the rules of the Three Kingdoms Kill game.

Next, the hero cards of the main characters were displayed.

"Li Xiaoyao - Wandering the Jianghu with a sword. 4 health. Faction: Hero. [Sword Control] During your play phase, you may discard x cards to use a Kill card on a character. If this Kill card deals damage, you can draw a card. x increases your attack range. [Heroic Unity] Ruler Skill: You can have a Hero faction character use a Kill card for you."

"Zhao Ling'er - Descendant of Nuwa. 3 Health. Faction: Hero. [Five Elements Curse] During your turn, you can use any spade card in your hand as Lightning, and any heart card in your hand as a Peach. Once per turn. [Nuwa's Protection]: When you become the target of Kill or Duel, if your health is less than the attacker's, the opponent must discard one card for this effect to take effect."

In addition, there are Lin Yueru, Anu, the Drunken Sword Immortal, and the Moon Worship Cult Leader.

Xie Yang, accompanied by a clerk, began pretending to be a forum user and replying to posts.

Wow, the poster is so talented.

"I also like 'The Legend of Sword and Fairy'. I'm going to move this post to the 'The Legend of Sword and Fairy' forum."

"..."

This gameplay is quite novel, and more than twenty active users on the Three Kingdoms Kill forum quickly came to watch.

Furthermore, Xie Yang switched accounts, pretending to be a basketball fan, and designed text-only hero cards for Jordan, Kobe, Yao Ming, and others.

Inspired by this, netizens came up with various ideas to expand the hero cards to their favorite genres.

Even Lin Daiyu has created a hero card!
Of course, these are all text-only versions; there aren't many people who know how to use Photoshop these days.

After orchestrating a series of events in the Three Kingdoms Kill forum, Xie Yang then forwarded the post to the Legend of Sword and Fairy forum.

There are currently two forums for the Legend of Sword and Fairy series: one with the character "传" (chuán, meaning "transmission") and one without. The former has more members.

Both of these Legend of Sword and Fairy forums were created in early 2004.

At first, only game fans gathered, but with the upcoming TV series of "Chinese Paladin" about to premiere, a large number of stills have been released for promotion, and online forums have also become their promotional target.

Even before the TV series aired, it had already generated a lot of buzz, with a large number of Liu Yifei's fans flooding into the online forum.

Even the hero cards that Xie Yang had the programmers create used stills from the TV series "Chinese Paladin".

Wow, Brother Hu is so handsome!

"The fairy sister is so beautiful."

"What is the Three Kingdoms Kill game? How do you use these skills?"

"Sanguosha is a card game that's really fun. We Sanguosha forum members all love the Legend of Sword and Fairy series and the Fairy Sister. We welcome members of the Legend of Sword and Fairy forum to visit us."

"This looks interesting. I'll go check out the Three Kingdoms Kill forum."

"..."

The first twenty-odd replies were mostly handled by Xie Yang and his clerk.

Ding Qiang is in charge of Photoshop hero cards. He has Photoshopped several characters from the Legend of Sword and Fairy series and is currently Photoshopping characters from Tian Long Ba Bu.

Because of the popularity of "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" last year, the number of users on the Tianlongba forum is also very large.

It's just freeloading.

Xie Yang would go and piggyback on whichever forum was most popular.

"How's the effect?" Chen Guiliang came over and asked.

Xie Yang said, "In the half hour since I reposted this, the Three Kingdoms Kill forum has gained over 80 new members. Moreover, the forum's activity level has increased; many previously lurking members have come out and are now actively participating. I'm currently encouraging the new members to download the game." "Very good, continue. By the way, send me the photoshopped image," Chen Guiliang said, quite satisfied.

As Chen Guiliang updated his blog with "Those Things About the Ming Dynasty," and Li Xunhuan asked well-known writers to help promote his blog, Chen Guiliang's blog followers increased every day.

Chen Guiliang posted the photoshopped hero cards on his blog, saying, "The users of the Three Kingdoms Kill forum are really talented, it's hilarious! Everyone, take a look at Zhao Ling'er and Wang Yuyan, whose skills are more powerful?"

Immediately afterwards, Chen Guiliang switched accounts and personally went to various BBS and forums to post.

It also guides netizens to design their own hero cards.

After thinking about it, Chen Guiliang also started designing hero cards. For example, Tyson's skill was biting ears. He just wanted to make it as abstract as possible.

The era of internet parody has just begun; the term "parody" has already appeared, but it has not yet become a phenomenon.

Chen Guiliang wouldn't mind giving some guidance.

Most netizens, let alone playing Three Kingdoms Kill, don't even understand board games. Seeing those messy hero cards, they had no idea what was going on. Chen Guiliang had his employees explain in the comments.

The number of game users converted is secondary; the main goal is to let more netizens know and understand board games and the Three Kingdoms Kill game.

pioneering!

This took three whole days.

Xie Yang said, "The number of users on the Three Kingdoms Kill forum has exceeded 6000, and the daily active users are particularly high. However, it has gone a bit astray. Less than 40% of the posts discuss the game, and the rest are... very nonsensical."

"Just a prank?" Chen Guiliang said.

“Yes, it’s a prank,” Xie Yang said.

It seems that the Three Kingdoms Kill game in this timeline is evolving towards a more abstract direction.

Xie Yang said, "Among the new members, there are also some Photoshop experts. They don't Photoshop hero cards, they just randomly Photoshop all sorts of photos."

"Hey, that's one way too."

Chen Guiliang picked up a digital camera, called Xie Yang and female employee Gong Xiaozhen, and also spent money to hire a cleaning lady from the Science and Technology Park building.

Gong Xiaozhen stood by the roadside looking at her phone.

Xie Yang stood in front and made a peace sign.

The cleaning lady was sweeping the floor behind her.

An hour later, a new post appeared on the Three Kingdoms Kill forum: "This is the girl I like. I secretly took a picture with her. But that old lady is such a killjoy. Could someone in the forum please Photoshop her out?"

Within minutes, an "expert" posted a photo and replied: "Okay, your wish is granted. Please check it out."

This is purely a prank.

The "expert" photoshopped Gong Xiaozhen out, leaving only Xie Yang and the cleaning lady in the photo.

Such a photoshopped picture, if seen in this day and age, would be enough to make netizens burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha, I'm dying of laughter."

"The original poster and this girl are a good match."

"I wish you happiness."

"Damn, what kind of expert are you? You photoshopped the wrong person! I like that young girl."

"Is it possible that the expert did this on purpose?"

"I can't take it anymore, my stomach hurts from laughing so much, I'm going to repost this on Tianya Forum."

"..."

Under Chen Guiliang's deliberate guidance, the term "parody," which had already emerged but was not yet popular, became all the rage along with the constant emergence of photoshopped images.

At first, they were just playing pranks on each other.

Soon other netizens joined in, and all sorts of funny and ridiculous photos emerged.

Moreover, many Photoshop experts choose to post on the Three Kingdoms Kill forum.

This forum is becoming increasingly abstract.

However, the number of users surged rapidly, from less than 2000 when Xie Yang took over to more than 30000 users.

The posts also went from being pranks to having more complex content.

There was even a blurry photo that someone asked which Japanese teacher it belonged to—this was purely the work of netizens and had nothing to do with Chen Guiliang.

No matter how abstract or satirical the jokes are, there will always be a portion of the forum members who are turned into Three Kingdoms Kill players.

Furthermore, as the popularity of the Three Kingdoms Kill forum grows, more and more netizens are becoming aware of the Three Kingdoms Kill game. Even if they don't play it, they know it exists.

"Thanks, moderator! Good morning!"

"morning."

Now when Xie Yang comes to work, everyone greets him proactively.

Of course, there was a hint of sarcasm in the tone, mainly because the photoshopped picture was too abstract.

Xie Yang didn't mind the teasing; on the contrary, he quite enjoyed it.

He rose to fame in the company and has already proven his worth.

He even changed his focus, abandoning his arduous study of programming and instead dedicating himself to researching "Communication Studies." He even asked Chen Guiliang for help, borrowing relevant books from the Peking University Library.

The number of registered users of "Three Kingdoms Kill" exceeded 10,000 ahead of schedule due to this series of actions, and is even approaching 15,000.

And it went viral.

Chen Guiliang can finally enjoy Christmas in peace.

(End of this chapter)