2003: The Opening Sniper Against the Financial Tycoon

"What are you doing? This is wasting my internet fee!"

Xie Feiji glanced at Qin Hanyang several times during the game.

The latter was busy typing on the keyboard as if he were writing an essay, preoccupied with grinding monsters and engaging in PvP in the game, and had no time to pay attention.

He did know about Tianya Forum, but he wasn't a heavy user of it. He took the opportunity to recommend it to Qin Hanyang.

"Hey, I heard that a great writer on this forum recently wrote a ghost story about tomb raiding. I saw it in a magazine my dad bought. You can check it out if you're bored."

"Really? Then I'll look for it later."

Qin Hanyang smiled, surprised that it had already been reprinted and published in some magazines so quickly.

But that's normal.

These days, many print media outlets source their content for free from online forums in order to save time and effort.

Just as I was wondering when the payment for the article I was contacted about last time would arrive, Xie Feiji next to me exclaimed in surprise!

"Holy crap, we won!"

"What's all this fuss about? What did you win?" Qin Hanyang asked curiously.

Xie Feiji explained, "This website launched a voting campaign, claiming that Americans are mocking us for not being able to afford coffee, so they specially opened a Starbucks in our Forbidden City. As long as everyone keeps clicking on their website to vote every day and forwarding the link, our country's top leaders will see it and kick the store out... I forwarded it to you a couple of days ago, but you didn't reply."

Qin Hanyang looked on in astonishment and said, "Huh? You actually believe that?"

"Is it fake? I just received a message saying that I don't need to vote anymore, it's already successful."

Qin Hanyang was both amused and exasperated upon hearing this.

These days, personal websites will come up with all sorts of underhanded tricks to get clicks.

Some even use borderline content to attract users.

This fake vote is no different from the later QQ Space posts about Ma's daughter's birthday and He Jiong being angered to tears by Koreans.

Early internet users like Xie Feiji were completely led by the nose.

However, this approach, disguised as "patriotism," actually helped to promote the "coffee incident," and the two were somewhat complementary.

After listening to Qin Hanyang's explanation, Xie Feiji came to his senses.

"So it has absolutely nothing to do with this website?"

"Otherwise what?"

Qin Hanyang gave him another heads-up, "You have to use your brain when you go online. You have to learn to distinguish between true and false information. There's too much fake news and fake information these days."

Upon hearing this, Xie Feiji echoed, "Exactly! A few days ago, I saw a post about the Four Heavenly Kings crashing their plane while they were on their way to the mainland for a concert. Lots of people were talking about it, but thankfully I didn't believe it."

Following that, due to the environment of the internet cafe, Qin Hanyang didn't have much free time to continue updating "The Grave Robbers' Chronicles".

I only wrote half of it before running away.

This time, the "coffee incident" went viral, and the popularity of "The Lost Tomb" on forums has made it a hot topic.

His ID, "Pirate King Luffy," is recognized wherever he goes, and he has become famous overnight, showing a tendency to become a darling of the forum.

Qin Hanyang also took this opportunity to get to know many experts and shamelessly added their contact information.

One of them is called "Chan Zhong Shuo Chan". Last year, he wrote an article called "Teach You How to Trade Stocks" and became a recognized stock god on Tianya.

Some people have dug up some of his successful trading records, and coupled with his frequent successful teaching, he has attracted the admiration of many stock market netizens, and has been popular in forums and blogs for a long time.

There are rumors that the TV series "The Way of Heaven" starring Wang Zhiwen is an adaptation of his own story, a typical "overpowered protagonist" drama.

Qin Hanyang had long admired this man.

To his surprise, the person quickly replied to his private message and accepted his friend request.

"Hello, should I call you Zen Master or Teacher Li?"

It was revealed that Chan Zhongshuochan's real name was Li Biao, and he did not deny it after the revelation, which led to Qin Hanyang's question.

"Call me whatever you want, but you'd better hurry up and update your tomb raiding posts."

"Boss, you like watching this kind of thing too?" Qin Hanyang was speechless.

The reply from the other side was: "Although it's made up, it's quite interesting."

The other party bluntly exposed him, but Qin Hanyang wasn't angry at all.

Hmm... people like this need to be more clear-headed; they just treat these supernatural stories as entertainment.

Many novice netizens, besides being afraid, can really be intimidated by some mysterious and esoteric things!

Qin Hanyang's addition of him was not simply to worship this former stock market guru from the forum.

He then got down to business:

"Zen Master, in a while, I have a business deal I'd like to discuss with you."

"What kind of business?"

"It's not convenient to say now, but you'll find out later."

"Okay, go update it now."

That's all for today. I'll update again in a couple of days.

"Then give me a spoiler: is Lao Yang a friend or an enemy?"

"None of them...they're dead."

Even though the spoilers are out, this "Chan Zhong Shuo Chan" student still doesn't know how the story is going.

He wanted to ask more questions, but Qin Hanyang had already run away.

Next, in addition to this "stock market guru," Qin Hanyang also added contact information with some well-known writers on forums.

Including the author of "It's becoming increasingly difficult for children from poor families to achieve success."

It has to be said that this group of people are all masters of storytelling and adept at manipulating emotions. They can easily outmaneuver novice netizens like Xie Feiji with just a few words.

These kinds of netizens... are the largest user base on the internet today!

And it's increasing exponentially year by year!

Although I don't have much contact with these penholders at the moment, it's always good to get to know them and have a way to contact them.

What's really strange is that one of the writers, who called himself "Emperor Yongle," was actually an editor at a publishing house.

This person is not only urging for more updates.

They even invited him to make it into a physical book and publish it!

"You can make the original post longer, keep it under 500,000 words and turn it into a full-length novel. We can go through a revenue-sharing contract. As long as it sells well, making 200,000 to 300,000 yuan is no problem."

"never mind."

Qin Hanyang shook his head; he didn't have that much time to meticulously refine the book.

As for long novels, that's out of the question.

"Alright, I apologize for my intrusion, Brother Luffy."

"It's alright, we can work together again sometime."

This person was quite polite; seeing that Qin Hanyang had no interest in this matter, he didn't say anything more.

The others were also very friendly.

The main reason is that Qin Hanyang himself is quite mysterious.

The fact that a single post could get an official like a CCTV host involved, and even successfully bring down an international coffee brand, makes it hard not to wonder if his actions were premeditated.

It was precisely this uncertainty that made these people dare not underestimate Qin Hanyang.

Qin Hanyang stayed at the internet cafe until 4 p.m. before receiving a call from Wang Pengfei.

"Back in Chengdu, Yangyang."

......