Chapter 26

The first day, Old Fang read Fang Xinghe's essay in class...

Ah, ptooey, that was a nightmare, forget it and start over.

The first day, *Sprout* sold 100,000 copies.

The second day, because of the spread of word of mouth, middle school students scrambled to buy it, selling 200,000 copies.

The third day, it was nearly sold out.

The fourth day, the first batch of 100,000 additional copies was also sold out in seconds, and newsstands across the country were urging for goods.

At this time, Fang Xinghe's fan count soared to 2 million, Starlight Points 18.2 million; it was clear that the first batch of core fans had been born, and even die-hard fans had appeared.

Just two photos, one essay, and some praise from writers; the era, it's really wonderful.

The new humans of Generation Z felt very happy and a bit in love with 1999.

However, not all the news that followed was good.

After a few days of explosive sales, and because of the enthusiastic response among middle school students, the public opinion circle finally reacted and began to emerge with praise and criticism.

Uh, there was more criticism.

The Han Han of the previous issue didn't suffer much criticism, the reason being simple—not enough topicality.

At this time, Young Master Han hadn't exposed any obvious bad deeds; looking at the text alone, it was the kind of rebellion that was "worth cultivating," not worth specifically targeting.

Even if there was a little controversy, it was only concentrated on the level of "is the make-up exam reasonable" and "the competition system is a bit chaotic," mentioned shallowly, and mostly still praising his talent.

Everyone who has received 50 cents knows that when there is a lack of controversy, one-sided praise is very boring and cannot stir up heat.

So in the previous life, Han Han triggered a social discussion only after failing 7 subjects.

Right now, he has to catch a ride on Brother Fang's picture.

Fang Xinghe now has strong topicality.

In the essay, he described himself as a school bully, often fighting, inciting revenge, and bluntly saying he wanted to be famous and make money...

Every single item was too worth writing about.

And this article itself also touched the sensitive nerves of many parents and teachers. Li Qigang reported the good news but not the bad; in fact, parents really called the *Sprout* magazine office to angrily question: "How can you publish such an article?!"

The fifth day, *Yangzi Evening News* fired the first shot, writing a criticism: "Grandstanding? How can an essay be written like this!"

The general idea was still the old-fashioned set; middle school essays should praise truth, goodness, and beauty, should not encourage students to confront parents and teachers, and even more should not promote hooligan-style fake toughness. A pure campus is everyone's responsibility.

Fang Xinghe felt it was ridiculous, but the era's atmosphere was like this; the old-school authoritarian ideology was greater than heaven, no way.

The sixth day, *Shangqing Daily* published an article to refute: "Since it's called New Concept, why can't essays be written freely?"

The seventh day, the six major sects besieged Shangqing.

A reporter from *Southern Metropolis Daily* didn't know where he learned that many parents had called *Sprout*, so he specifically found some students and parents to interview and published an in-depth report.

No one knew if his interviewees were really that one-sided; anyway, everything published was criticism.

"Recently, a New Concept essay has become popular on middle school campuses, causing an extremely strong response. I went with excitement, thinking I could see the youthful style under the concept of 'new thinking, new feelings, new writing style,' but what I saw was another *Young and Dangerous* style carnival..."

Under his pen, the interviewees were full of foul language, crudely shouting "Fang Xinghe is too cool," "Really fucking awesome," worshiping Fang Xinghe like they worshiped *Young and Dangerous*, stupid and mindless, blindly manic.

After "careful investigation," he found that the boys who worshiped Fang Xinghe mostly had poor grades, didn't study, and loved to cause trouble.

And the girls who liked Fang Xinghe blindly looked at faces and had a tendency to puppy love.

In addition, some "good children" were negatively affected quite strongly.

The parents who were interviewed felt a big headache.

Parent A complained: "Since reading that shitty article, my child has been more and more disobedient in the past few days, always arguing with me, yelling at me at the slightest dissatisfaction. Look at what kind of atmosphere this is?"

Parent B was emotionally agitated: "What kind of person is that author? Was he born without a mother to educate him?"

The reporter said: I hurriedly reminded the other party to let her be tactful, feeling that she couldn't directly attack the author because classmate Fang Xinghe was indeed an orphan.

That mother hurriedly apologized: "Oh, oh, sorry, I didn't mean it... but, teenagers are rebellious by nature, and he's writing randomly to add fuel to the fire. In the essay, he actually treats fighting well as an honor? I don't think he's a good student or a good role model."

Parent C was unhappy but rational and objective.

"In places where economic development is slow, social atmosphere is bound to be rough; boys fighting may indeed be very common. I think we don't need to make a fuss, we should look at it objectively. The article itself actually provides an alternative vision, calling on us to reflect on whether there is indeed such a lack of education. Of course, we all know that the developed regions in the south are definitely much more civilized, but we must also take it as a warning..."

In short, the whole report was almost pointing at Fang Xinghe's nose and scolding him, but the reporter didn't scold him; the reporter was fair, it was all the parents scolding.

As for whether parents really said that... unfounded.

Fang Xinghe curled his lips in disdain, sneering at his peers of this era.

Just this?

But because the circulation of *Southern Metropolis Daily* was very large, this report really caused him a strong negative impact.

A direct manifestation was that the sales speed of the May issue of *Sprout* slowed down all of a sudden.

It wasn't that the students had opinions about him, but the price of 4.8 yuan was not cheap, and ordinary students couldn't afford it; if they wanted it, they had to beg their families to buy it.

However, with the media siege, New Concept, Fang Xinghe, and *Sprout* all became famous, and many parents were unwilling to pay this money.

Li Qigang was so angry that he paged him 8 times a day, but he was too lazy to return even once.

Fang Xinghe didn't care about such things at all; if you want to stand out, what are you afraid of being scolded for?

And he had seen plenty of internet trolls who turned black into white; what was this compared to that?

In fact, any media's objective criticism, subjective smearing, or even speculative slander did not really hit Fang Xinghe's Achilles' heel.

Yes, his reputation among the newspaper audience was indeed very bad, and middle-aged parents generally didn't like him.

But the problem is... what's the use of the favor of the middle-aged group?

President Fang didn't want that stuff from the beginning.

There is a very objective and realistic code of conduct in the fan circle of later generations: the least worth pleasing is middle-aged people; don't waste time on them.

Middle-aged people's values are set and extremely difficult to change, and then things are busy and life is busy; data cannot be done, endorsements cannot be bought, only a very small number of rich women have value, but they don't need to be pleased; if they like you, they will naturally like you.

So just be beautiful alone and keep respect.

As for Fang Xinghe, he didn't even want to give respect.

The middle-aged people now are from the 50s and 60s, with rigid and old-fashioned thoughts, even less valuable than the internet middle-aged people of later generations.

Fang Xinghe is in the developmental stage, and striving for teenagers is the key; the Starlight Points produced by a hundred middle-aged people are not as good as one little girl, so why bother?

Let them scold him for a few words when they have nothing to do, just treat it as abusing fans, how good.

As for the so-called passerby popularity and national popularity... isn't that just a slight favor that hasn't reached the level of fans?

Professionals all know that whether national popularity is useful depends on what route you want to take.

Anyway, Fang Xinghe doesn't need it now, and when he needs it, the fans will have grown up and become the backbone of society, and national popularity will naturally come up.

Liu Yifei's super high national popularity came this way.

She didn't film a drama for more than ten years in the middle, had a flop movie every year, and was still a top stream when she returned and gained weight, because her screen image when she was young was too classic, and no matter how many internet trolls smeared her, they couldn't erase it.

When that batch of young viewers from the early years mastered the right to speak, her white moonlight image naturally froze, and she didn't need to do anything deliberately.

So some things need to be tireless, and some things don't need to be forced.

Fang Xinghe smiled and buried himself in the sea of questions again, but the development of things became more and more fantasy.