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Chapter 216, Episode 0213: [China's Celebrity List and Online Victim Search]

After class on "History of Chinese Civilization," Chen Guiliang pushed his bicycle alongside Professor Xu Lai, who had just finished lecturing on Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism.

“I have already read the manuscript of ‘Those Things About the Ming Dynasty’ that you sent me,” Professor Xu Lai said.

Chen Guiliang asked, "Are there any mistakes?"

Professor Xu Lai commented: "There's nothing seriously wrong. You must have read 'The Cases of Ming Confucian Scholars' and also my 'The Realm of Being and Non-being: The Spirit of Wang Yangming's Philosophy.' You've basically explained the ideological changes during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Ming, in conjunction with the social changes."

"It's good that there are no major problems," Chen Guiliang said with a smile.

Professor Xu Lai was somewhat dissatisfied: "But it's written too superficially, only scratching the surface each time. It could have gone a little deeper. You used a lot of space to write about the gossip surrounding Zhu Houzhao, Wang Yangming, and others. Why not use some space to explore Neo-Confucianism and the philosophy of mind more deeply?"

Chen Guiliang said with a smile, "No one would read that. Most readers prefer gossip; discussing academic ideas would deter them."

"Well, that makes sense, it's the popular science book you wrote," Professor Xu Lai said.

Chen Guiliang's version of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" is expected to be a total of 9 volumes.

The first volume ends with the disappearance of Emperor Jianwen.

The second volume ends with the Tumu Crisis.

The third volume ends with the death of the Hongzhi Emperor.

Especially starting with Zhu Qizhen, Chen Guiliang's writings are vastly different from the version by Dangnian Mingyue.

He neither glorified Zhu Qizhen, nor excessively belittled Zhu Jianshen, nor excessively praised Zhu Youcheng. He wrote a lot of gossip about Consort Wan, but he didn't vilify her to death; he also wrote about the love between Zhu Youcheng and Empress Zhang, but he also wrote about the messes the couple made.

Why did Chen Guiliang take more than a year to finish writing the fourth volume?
Because I have to write about Zhu Houzhao, as well as Li Dongyang, Yang Tinghe, Liu Jin, Wang Yangming, Tang Bohu, Prince Ning… and the dramatic social and intellectual changes of the time. The entire Ming Dynasty was undergoing a period of political, economic, intellectual, and cultural transformation; it's incredibly difficult to write about!

The fifth volume is about the Jiajing reign, which makes it even more difficult to write well.

Chen Guiliang rode his bicycle to the library, copied some content from the "Ming Shilu" (Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty), and then pushed his bicycle to a nearby canteen for a meal.

Back in his dormitory, Chen Guiliang organized his materials and checked his emails on his computer.

He didn't go to the company this morning. His secretary compiled some information and sent it directly to Chen Guiliang's email.

All of this information pertains to competitors.

Ruolin.com has completely abandoned mass social networking and transformed into a business website, no longer competing with Kaixin.com (Hainei.com).

Zhanzuo.com is still barely surviving, but recently there have been rumors of it seeking Series B funding.

The real competitor remains Cyworld, which is controlled by South Korean capital and has over 120 million registered users. Just this month, Cyworld (China) launched its mobile version, Cyworld Messenger, whose "Cyworld Messenger" function is very similar to Weibo.

The real big news is that Sina Blog launched photo album, friend, and follower features yesterday!

Chen Guiliang attempted to develop Kaixin.com's logs into a blog format. Sina Blog also drew inspiration from Kaixin.com, adding various social features.

Both directions went to belong to yes.

The current blogosphere is dominated by three major players, with market shares of: BlogChina 46%, Sina Blog 33%, and Sohu Blog 18%. Others account for 3%.

Chen Guiliang opened all three blogs and took a closer look.

Only Sina Blog is making rapid improvements. BlogChina and Sohu Blog currently do not allow adding friends or following bloggers.

The door was suddenly opened, and roommates Li Heng and Tong Zhihong rushed in.

Li Heng sat down and began to write.

"What are you writing?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Tong Zhihong, who was turning on his computer, said, "This kid has become an active applicant for Party membership and is writing his ideological report in advance."

Li Heng chuckled and said, "I applied last semester, I didn't expect to be an activist this semester."

Chen Guiliang sighed, realizing he was not qualified.

Because I failed my course!

Familiar game music played from the speaker next to him; Tong Zhihong had already entered Stormwind City.

Sigh, my roommate has become obsessed with World of Warcraft and hasn't been playing Three Kingdoms Kill much lately.

Chen Guiliang's phone vibrated. He picked it up and saw that it was a text message from Professor Wang: "I have finished reading your fourth manuscript. There are no historical errors. A few minor issues can be ignored."

Chen Guiliang quickly replied, "Thank you, Professor Wang."

Professor Wang offered to help write a preface.

"I couldn't ask for more," Chen Guiliang said.

Only after confirming that the manuscript was in order did Chen Guiliang send an email to Li Xunhuan.

After finishing these tasks, Chen Guiliang heard a flurry of typing beside him. Tong Zhihong, however, wasn't playing the game; he was chatting with his in-game friends the whole time.

Soon, Tong Zhihong switched out of the game and went to the Mop forum to look for posts.

"Ah!"

As he watched, Tong Zhihong slammed his fist on the table, indignantly exclaiming, "That Copperbeard is utterly despicable; he's a complete scumbag!"

Chen Guiliang said, "Tongxu didn't do anything bad, did he? He just killed his son-in-law."

Li Heng, who was writing his self-criticism report, asked curiously, "What's wrong?"

Tong Zhihong pointed at the Mop post and said, "There's a guild leader named Tongxu who slept with the wives of his own guild members. And that woman, she's married but does nothing but play games all day long, and she even seduced her own husband, the guild leader. She's practically a modern-day version of Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian!"

Li Heng's thoughts suddenly went haywire, and he excitedly ran to read the posts and gossip.

Chen Guiliang's memory was finally awakened: doxing!
The Tongxu Gate incident brought the term "human flesh search" to the internet for the first time.

Twenty years later, this phenomenon will escalate to "unboxing." The "adulterer" will be cyberbullied to the point of being unable to take care of himself and will become one of Baidu's Top Ten Influential Figures in 2006.

Then, the "victim" admitted that he had made up the story...

Chen Guiliang climbed back into his bed for a nap, and Li Heng immediately borrowed his computer to read posts, joining Tong Zhihong in hurling insults at the "adulterer."

Seeing their indignant expressions, Chen Guiliang couldn't help but ask, "Is it possible that this post is fake?"

Tong Zhihong said, "The QQ chat history has been posted."

“Chat logs can also be faked,” Chen Guiliang said.

Tong Zhihong and Li Heng stopped hurling insults and, after some serious consideration, began to carefully examine the original post, and then investigated whether the chat logs showed signs of being photoshopped.

After a long silence, Tong Zhihong said, "Let's wait and see what happens next. We really can't act impulsively."

Li Heng temporarily put the matter aside and went to browse the news. Soon he exclaimed, "Senior Brother Chen, you're on the Forbes China Celebrity List!"

Tong Zhihong asked, "How many?"

Li Heng said, "Senior Brother Chen is 87th. A total of four writers made the list: Guo Jingming is 64th, Han Han is 79th, and Yu Hua is 96th."

"How were they arranged?" Tong Zhihong leaned over to study it together.

This list is a comprehensive ranking based on occupational income, television exposure, newspaper exposure, online search, and magazine covers.

The company shares held by Chen Guiliang were not included in the statistics at all; only his royalties were roughly calculated.

Tong Zhihong said, "This ranking is unreasonable. So many models are on the list, but I don't recognize any of them. Can this be called a Chinese celebrity list?"

"I guess it's because models appear on the covers of fashion magazines more often," Li Heng speculated.

After discussing it for a while, the two went about their respective tasks.

After finishing the report and playing Warcraft, I took out my books to preview the afternoon's lessons.

Li Heng is now a somewhat well-known prank streamer on Tudou.com, but he never shows his face. This is because he's also a class leader, has joined the student council, and plans to join the Communist Party, and receives scholarships every year.

According to Li Heng's plans, he may enter politics in the future.

Chen Guiliang was dozing off during his afternoon nap when he felt the door open. He opened his eyes and found that Jiang Jun had returned.

Since he started dating, this guy has been spending less and less time in the dorm.

Chen Guiliang got up with a yawn, went downstairs for a stroll, and then rode his bicycle to the company.

Halfway there, my cell phone rang.

Li Xunhuan called: "Boss Chen, you've finally submitted your manuscript! You said you'd submit two volumes by the end of last year, and you've only given me one now?"

"The fifth volume is already being written," Chen Guiliang said.

Li Xunhuan said, "How about publishing it during the summer vacation? We can also hold a book signing then."

“Okay, you can arrange it,” Chen Guiliang said. “As for the publicity strategy, just keep an eye on the news. ByteDance will raise funds again this year, and it will raise a huge amount of money.”

Li Xunhuan laughed heartily, "I'll start promoting it the moment you get the venture capital. It'll definitely be a bestseller, and it'll even boost the sales of the first three volumes!"

"Okay, I'm hanging up now."

"Don't rush, I'll be back in Beijing in a couple of days, then we can go out for a meal together."

"Call me when the time comes."

"I brought a few buddies with me, you guys can get to know them. They're all celebrities, you can get them to register accounts on Kaixin001."

"That's great. Who's coming?"

"Ning Caishen, Xing Yusen, and a few others. Those two guys are really awesome now; the TV dramas they write get really high ratings."

"..."

The TV series "My Own Swordsman" is currently airing and Ning Caishen is very popular right now.

Xing Yusen participated in the writing of TV series, including "The Idle Ma Dajie", "A Family in Northeast China", and "Home with Kids".

Bringing them into Kaixin001 might attract many other screenwriters as well.

For the next few days, Chen Guiliang waited for news every day.

The valuation of Bailian Technology by venture capital firms is still undetermined. This is mainly due to different valuation methods, resulting in significant discrepancies in the valuation figures.

Moreover, "The Emperor's Reign" continues to be promoted.

With more and more wealthy players joining, the game's daily revenue is exploding!
On Thursday, investment managers from several major institutions met and decided that they could no longer delay.

Invest as early as possible.

Rumors are circulating in the US that Facebook's Series B funding round is nearing completion, with a post-money valuation likely exceeding $5 million.

The more successful Facebook becomes, the higher ByteDance's valuation will be, attracting countless venture capital firms.

On Friday, Li Xunhuan arrived in Beijing and called Chen Guiliang: "Mr. Chen, let's go out for dinner tonight!"

"Send me your address via text message."

"OK."

Just after hanging up the phone, Chen Guiliang received another call from Zhang Suyang: "Mr. Chen, several venture capital firms will be coming to Beijing next week to officially begin negotiations for Series B financing."

(End of this chapter)