Chapter 27: Explosive Influence

The newspaper debate has raged for days, and the participants growing more and more weighty.

Zhao Changtian, the editor-in-chief of Minya, grew utterly desperate due to declining sales and personally wrote an article to counterattack.

"Some people's minds are simply twisted beyond all bounds.

Either discuss the work itself, criticizing where 'Knowing but Not Obeying' falls short from the angles of literary quality, ideological depth, and artistic merit—is the theme not profound enough, the structure flawed, the grammar obscure, or the main idea failing to elevate accurately?

We all eat from the bowl of words; feel free to speak your mind!

Or you could dig up one of your own masterpieces, paste it in the paper, side by side with 'Knowing but Not Obeying,' and declare openly: 'The piece I wrote at 28 is twice as good as Fang Xinghe's article from when he was 14!'

Oh, realizing you can't compete, unable to argue literature, so you decide to smear the person's character instead?

The core theme of his work is struggling against fate, yet you take two paragraphs out of context to criticize Fang Xinghe for encouraging children to be reckless and violent; truly, you have no shame left!

What era is this, still playing the big-character poster game?

If you insist on criticizing from a moral standpoint, fine, let's talk about morality then—a kid getting into a fight, back in the height of the 1983 crackdown, would that even be enough to warrant execution?

What about your habit of kissing female students, how would that look in 1983?

Fang Xinghe writing 'A crow cannot see the black on a pig' was self-deprecation; even children understand self-deprecation, yet you dare shamelessly call the pig black, and if people nearby saw it, they would immediately spit: 'Pah! What a disgrace, so shameless!'"

Old Zhao does have some skills, but he is simply not good at this kind of thing; his insults don't hurt enough.

If this were Fang Xinghe, he would absolutely expose the name, workplace, and details of the kiss with the female student~~~

Don't laugh; readers love this stuff, and it will be the same in 2025.

Immediately following, under Chen Danya's push, the Xinmin Evening News reposted the comments from the New Concept Organizing Committee teachers on 'Knowing but Not Obeying,' fighting a well-coordinated battle.

To be honest, those praises looked incredibly satisfying.

Wang Meng: "Fang Xinghe is the most talented youth of this New Concept competition; looking broader, he might be the most talented youth of this generation. Reading 'Knowing but Not Obeying' makes me feel ashamed."

Chen Sihe: "Some people criticize Fang Xinghe's writing as rough; I disagree.

Fang Xinghe's writing is quite fashionable.

Missing childhood, brutal beatings from society, like a thirty-year-old wolf or a forty-year-old tiger, mini big brother, seeking existence on your father's back, don't panic when bitten, the King of Hell's comments, scattering your ashes...

Look, how imaginative and unconstrained?

I cannot say such writing is definitely good, but upon first reading, the sense of surprise Fang Xinghe brought me was stronger than any work by a contemporary writer, so I use four words to describe his style: vibrant.

As for my evaluation of Fang Xinghe himself, it is also four words.

He is the future."

Tie Ning: "Any little cunning appearing in a work can ruin a piece of writing, a novel, a poem... or even a person.

Yet Fang Xinghe displays a great honesty in 'Knowing but Not Obeying': loyalty to his anger, then simply venting it, launching a fierce attack on readers through the expression of emotion, soul, and thought.

I have never seen such aggressiveness and attacking power in any youth.

He makes me feel amazed, even shocked."

Yu Hua: "I have always particularly emphasized the importance of broad vision, wise viewpoints, and humorous language, but unfortunately, I fall far short in these areas, at least not as well as Fang Xinghe.

His several articles completely and absolutely achieved the three elements I pursue; I am especially jealous of his talent.

The emotional core when I wrote 'I Am as Timid as a Mouse' and the summary in his 'Knowing but Not Obeying' are two completely different sides of the same thing, but look, even his temperament is braver than mine.

So I will never attend events with him again; damn, he's so handsome and writes so well!"

Once the literary critiques were released, Fang Xinghe's fans were stimulated to howl.

Actually, they had already seen the relevant content in the May issue of Minya, but once moved to the newspaper, and with two sides clearly opposing each other, such a spectacle still made them feel especially honored.

Discussions became increasingly active and heated, the battle with opponents grew fiercer, and amidst it all, sharing joyfully with friends caused Fang Xinghe's Starlight Value to skyrocket.

This is the benefit of having topics; discussion equals heat, heat equals mental energy, and only pure mental energy generates large amounts of positive emotion.

Won, won completely.

Although the real-world result was a vast number of parents writing letters criticizing Fang Xinghe's article, this did not affect his satisfaction one bit.

But then again, what kind of brain circuit do parents of this era have?

An essay that is slightly intense causes a breakdown?

Then when my 'Youth' is published, will you all go crazy?

The result was that the teachers went crazy first.

On the eighth day, the Yangtze River Daily published a critical letter written by a Chinese teacher.

The reason: many students imitated Fang Xinghe's style to write essays, cursing this and that, all receiving low scores; if this continues, exams will become a problem, causing extremely bad influence, and so on.

Fang Xinghe was particularly dissatisfied with this; why don't you criticize them for imitating Han Han?

Is my big brother so faceless, unworthy of having a name?

Actually, he really wronged everyone on this matter, because even in his past life, students imitating Han Han to write essays were not many.

Han Han's writing style is the orthodox path, but very weak, then with a unique perspective and a radical core, plus a touch of emo teenager decadence, it is truly unimitable; imitating him is worse than directly imitating Qian Zhongshu.

On the contrary, Fang Xinghe's essays are easier to imitate; surpassing the era with extreme roguishness, looking extremely trendy and impactful, yet actually very simple to copy the structure.

The difficulty lies in the height of thinking, which is why imitations receive low scores.

However, writing essays randomly is not really a big deal; what truly makes schools uncomfortable is that those kids didn't just imitate the essays, but fully replicated Fang Xinghe.

In just a few days, the same hairstyle as Fang Xinghe appeared in junior and high schools across the country—sides shaved thin, top spiked forward; those who couldn't spike it just grabbed it up.

To be honest, compared to the current popular Guo Tianwang middle part, Chen Haonan's long hair, and Shanji's shaved head, the Chinese-style forward spike looks much better.

Some people found it strange: why did students only start imitating after the photos had been published for over a month?

Because whether a hairstyle is badass or not depends not only on looks, but more on the idol's influence.

So good-looking isn't the point; the point is that the rebellious image Fang Xinghe built with "Know Yet Disobey" made him truly a symbol of cool and trendy, finally sparking a new wave.

Watching red-haired brats suddenly popping up all over campus, every principal, dean, and homeroom teacher descended into a headache hell.

Can't stop them, simply can't stop them!

Anyone bold enough to strut like that definitely isn't a good student — not afraid of beatings, not afraid of scolding, and calling their parents might not even work.

So what do we do?

Criticize Fang Xinghe, of course — toss the pot out first and worry about the rest later.

Still, society's reaction wasn't especially intense. Good schools have strict management, so it's not a big problem in that regard; bad schools are the same with or without Fang Xinghe — if they don't dye their hair red, they'll dye it blond. You'll get used to it.

The attacks on his appearance quickly died down, without stirring up much of a ripple.

However, just as Sister Wang and Auntie Chen had breathed a huge sigh of relief for Fang Xinghe, something unexpected still happened.

Near the end of the month, an extremely dramatic incident brewed up in a certain county in Guangdong, completely setting public opinion ablaze.

The "Guang Daily" published a photograph.

In the photo, two groups of youths were squaring off for some unknown reason — on the left, a bunch with red and green Fang-style front spikes; on the right, a bunch with Chen Haonan heads and Shan Ji heads.

Did the two groups of brats actually end up fighting?

Don't know.

Anyway, they looked extremely agitated, their emotions running hot.

The headline the paper ran with was — "The Ultimate Clash Between the Fang-Faction Campus Big Brothers and the Old-Faction Street Thugs: What Has Happened to Our Children?"

The exact content of the report no longer mattered; the picture spoke for itself.

In any case, once the photo was published, the print media instantly erupted in crossfire, and the intensity of the bickering skyrocketed.

When Fang Xinghe saw it, he was pretty damn embarrassed too — he truly hadn't expected that a guy who just wrote essays could build such enormous influence among a crowd that never read essays at all.

Are the kids these days just too easily agitated?

But when he thought it over carefully, recalling the non-mainstream culture that lasted until around 2014, and the "spiritual bros" culture that lasted all the way to 2024, it didn't seem so hard to understand.

No matter the era, adolescents need some kind of spirit to guide them forward, shatter their confusion, and nourish their emotions — but our country's development is too fast, and family education and compulsory education can't keep up with the rapidly changing times. Isn't that just a recipe for emptiness?

And the turn of the century was an especially unusual period — ancient and modern, conservative and trendy, ruin and rebuilding… society spiraled upward through contradictions, surging and intense, stirring and soul-shaking.

Landing right on this critical juncture, Fang Xinghe was destined to become the most fashionable person in the eyes of the youth.

It's too early to talk about being a leader now.

Copying his outfits and looks right now — super badass.

Cursing him right now — hey, just right!

So he welcomed the biggest wave of criticism and even abuse yet, finally alarming the county — and at the same time, reporters from outside arrived in this quiet little town…