Chapter 58: Setting the Tone on Renri 【Happy New Year's Eve!】

What a coincidence—Little Dragon thought exactly the same thing.

How to deal with that loser next is up to us bros to decide!

After getting back, he called together all his closest buddies—guys and girls—and held a mobilization meeting.

At the meeting, Director Long laid out three simple points—

"Everyone knows the situation with Fang Shao. That uncle of his is a real piece of work—fuck, eating out his own nephew's whole family line. Plenty of folks in our Nong'an have wanted to go after him for ages, just never found the chance.

Now that Fang Shao's handed us something this big, I only have three demands—

Get him!

Get his wife!

Get his son!

Get his whole family!"

Tiger Girl #1 curled her lip: "Fucking idiot, that's clearly four points!"

After cursing, she raised her fist and shouted again: "Right—get his whole family!"

Having successfully fired up everyone's work enthusiasm, Director Long was very pleased. He raised his hand and pressed down—clearly copying our Brother Fang's move—but for some reason, hardly anyone gave a damn.

In the end he had to raise his voice: "Getting him isn't the point—solving the problem for Fang Shao is! Brothers and sisters, Fang Shao's meaning is: no hands, but make sure they stop running their mouths to reporters outside. Any ideas?"

"Tail his whole family!"

"Beat up his son!"

"Dump a bucket of shit on his front door!"

"Fuck, why you gotta be so disgusting? You go dig the shit then!"

"Fuck, don't even dream about it—we won't even get a turn to dump shit. His neighbors already dumped it several times."

Director Long and Tiger Girl both froze: "When was that? The masses are really that fired up?"

"Right after Fang Shao did that interview with Beijing Youth Daily."

Red-Hawk Fauxhawk rolled his eyes, racking his memory hard: "Didn't the second piece of that interview mention that Fang Shao has no guardian? It didn't spell out exactly how disgusting Wang Deli is, but everyone in our county knows—the very next day, someone dumped a load of shit on Wang Deli's front door…"

"Damn!"

Director Long was so frustrated he kept slapping his own thigh.

"That bastard evolved resistance ahead of time!"

"Pfft!"

That little quip of his made several people at the meeting burst out laughing on the spot.

"So what do we do?"

"Forget all that bullshit—just bring a barbecue grill, go to his yard and throw a bonfire party. Drink ourselves silly at night, sleep in his rooms during the day. Let's see if he dares call the cops to kick us out!"

"Calling the cops definitely won't work!"

A short Miss sprang up: "My uncle's at the Station Front Precinct—they can't stand Wang Deli!"

That part was true. Ever since Fang Xinghe got famous, Wang Deli's dirty laundry became known to everyone, and now the whole county looks down on him.

Why had Fang Xinghe been famous for so long, yet that whole family still hadn't made a move?

Fear was one part; another was they had enough on their plate already.

"If the cops in their big hats try to kick us out, we'll just climb onto his neighbor's roof and hang over the wall!"

"Right, right—his neighbors definitely hate him to death. They almost got roasted along with Fang Shao, so they'll be happy to help us!"

A bunch of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old guys and girls huddled together whispering, and dirty tricks kept pouring out one after another.

Even Fang Xinghe, who'd sent them on this errand, hadn't expected that once people's enthusiasm was fired up, it could truly unleash boundless imagination and execution power.

And so, with Fang Shao completely in the dark, Wang Deli's whole family was about to have a very bad time.

……

Wang Yali and Zhao Chunhua and the others were worried sick.

But after two days of anxious waiting, nothing happened. Southern Metropolis didn't even publish the piece—they swallowed it back.

"How did you do it?"

Wang Yali couldn't keep it bottled up and just asked straight out.

The street-smart young man replied casually: "What could I do? Maybe their conscience kicked in."

Feelings are feelings, but things that shouldn't be broadcast are best kept to yourself—don't go running your mouth everywhere.

Wang Yali knew the moment she heard it that she wouldn't get an answer, so she kept a close eye on what was happening out there.

The result…

Only Southern Daily ran a half-hearted hit piece titled "Fang Xinghe Ignores Family Ties."

Southern Metropolis didn't think much of that material, so they passed it off to a brother outlet…

A hit piece that can't even hit where it hurts—clearly disgusted to death by Fang Xinghe but unable to take him down, so they just gnash their teeth and run their mouths for relief.

The two with dark circles under their eyes had elevated slacking off into an art form.

They wandered aimlessly around the small county town, with zero interest in doing interviews, but the moment some other newspaper sent people, the two of them would definitely sidle up.

Relying on Southern Metropolis' reputation, they buddied up with the newly arrived reporters, calling each other brothers and forming little cliques under the noble banner of mutual help and sharing news.

Blackie and Duoyu couldn't keep tailing them anymore, so they came back to ask the boss. Fang Xinghe smiled and waved it off: "Don't bother with those two—they're not up to anything shady."

Keeping them company for two days, that much was enough to show the gesture—were they really supposed to go knock on someone's door and introduce themselves?

The money had been paid, no need.

Of course, it was also because when they met last night, the white glow on them had grown steadier and richer.

A high fan level doesn't necessarily mean someone is a good person, but odds are they won't play dirty against Fang Xinghe without some major interests at stake.

In that case, let them do as they please.

Getting back to Baldy and Dark Circles, normally no one would willingly share insider information with the two of them.

But since they couldn't get an interview with the man himself, and the students of No. 3 Middle School would talk about small matters but clammed up on big ones, everyone had come for nothing and could only commiserate with each other.

"Sigh, there's really nothing of value to dig up here, feels just like sittin' in jail…"

Dark Circles' one line instantly struck a chord with everyone.

"Ain't that the truth!"

"The petty stuff that can be dug up, everyone already knows; the stuff that can't be dug up is all locked inside those kids' heads. Dealing with them is really annoying, annoying as hell!"

"Mainly because Fang Xinghe won't give interviews, this kid is really weird… that's what they say in Northeastern dialect, right?"

"A madman and a loner, I'd say—" Baldy suddenly sighed dramatically, "no matter how long we wait here, nothing'll come of it. He's just not the kind of person who can be changed by outside forces."

"What about his uncle?"

"We went, useless." Dark Circles brazenly lied without batting an eye, "When Fang Xinghe's mother got sick, his uncle was terrified of being dragged in, so he cut off contact on his own. Now he claims to know nothing, can only keep droning on about some petty childhood nonsense to cheat us out of our interview fees."

"Damn, another wasted trip."

A young reporter, as expected, got riled up: "Fuck it, I'm not sticking around!"

Baldy immediately chimed in: "We're planning to pull out too. Even People's Daily got turned away, waiting longer is just wasting time."

"That's the way it is, let's go, head back together?"

"Sounds good, we can chat and play some cards on the way."

"Deal, let's get outta here!"

And so, egged on by Dark Circles and Baldy, the scattered reporters who'd trickled in gathered up and headed back in a noisy group.

The whole way they bragged and shot the breeze, smoked and played cards, having a grand old time.

Good lord, the huge matter of someone torching his house—clearly some rumors had already leaked out—but after Fang Xinghe's maneuvering, there was nothing but dead silence afterward!

This outcome, in the minds of Wang Yali and the others, was even more outrageous than that semifinal essay, and that was only because they didn't know the full story; if they got wind of the details… wouldn't a few of them go mad?

With this, the Hard-to-Defend faction basically went up in smoke.

Going after Fang Xinghe personally? They couldn't.

If they kept spouting nonsense like "exam-oriented education can't produce top talent," they wouldn't even need Fang Xinghe to come back; readers would slap them silly on their own.

Although the Hard-to-Defend faction had tirelessly been chipping at the wall for decades, they were sharp at reading the room; they rarely went in hard, mostly stabbing in the back and fanning the flames from the shadows.

Since there was no opening now, they could only lie low and wait for the next opportunity.

So, a few key byline columnists suddenly vanished from the print media.

Meanwhile, the literati, educators, and social commentators who'd been helping wave the flag and shout, or who genuinely opposed the enrollment expansion policy, were still enthusiastically blasting Fang Xinghe.

That's normal too—in this day and age, everything has a delay, the criticism cycle is naturally long, and it wouldn't be strange for this toxic trend to keep blowing for another two months.

Just then, People's Daily, which had still been waiting for Fang Xinghe's interview approval, finally managed to put out a piece and grabbed a seat at this hot table.

People's Daily's statement could almost be called "together with Comrade Xiao Fang," completely altering the course of history from the previous life.

Who's riding on whose coattails, let's not get into that now—either way, the effect was immediate.

Many public intellectuals who'd been racking their brains the day before writing denunciations of Fang Xinghe woke up the next morning to find the sky had fallen.

Song Zude, holed up back in his hometown, had just bitten into a youtiao and hadn't even taken his first bite when he saw the headline article on page three of People's Daily; his head instantly started buzzing.

"On the Topic of Education Through Fang Xinghe's Two New Essays"

The title was extraordinarily ordinary—ordinary to the point of being unworthy of that slot.

What kind of media outlet is People's Daily?

No need to explain, every Chinese person knows.

People's Daily only has four pages in total, and today it happened that the front-page headline carried the name of one big shot, the second-page headline carried the name of another big shot, and the fourth-page headline carried the name of the American president.

Then, the three characters "Fang Xinghe" sat gorgeously sandwiched between those three pages…

Tell me, is that scary or not?

At any rate, Song Zude was so startled he gave a full-body shiver; the youtiao in his mouth trembled and trembled, as if the damn thing had grown onto his face.

But at this moment he couldn't be bothered with appearances—his heart was full of grievance—little bastard, what virtue or ability do you have? How do you deserve to be in that position? Which stinking xx wrote this piece?

Grumbling, he looked further down: the author, Yi Ning.

Song Zude went silent for quite a while, an inexplicable pain stabbing at his throat.

Objectively and fairly speaking, Teacher Yi Ning's literary achievements aren't all that high, but she's mild-mannered and reserved, meticulous and patient, so after this term's Writers' Association chairman Mr. Ba Jin fell seriously ill and was bedridden, she had in fact already been temporarily handling the chairman's duties.

Now, anyone in literary circles knows that the next term will most likely see Big Sister Yi take the chair.

So, if you asked Song Zude to curse out Fang Xinghe, he'd dare to curse as dirty as you wanted; but if you asked him to publicly go against Teacher Yi… don't kid around, bro's a poet.

Heaving a heavy sigh, Zude clung to the last one-in-ten-thousand shred of hope and read the article carefully.

Generally speaking, the article was still Teacher Yi's usual style—plenty of praise for Fang Xinghe, with a few remarks seizing the chance to criticize the recent impetuous chaos in the world of public opinion; the wording wasn't harsh, and she didn't name anyone.

In other words, the attack power wasn't quite enough, but the symbolic significance was extremely strong.

Yet this alone was enough to make the likes of Song Zude miserable—Chang Ping, Cheng Yizhong, Xiao Chuan, Yan Lieshan… every dumb dog chasing after Fang Xinghe barking collectively lost their composure; they didn't touch a bite of breakfast, and nearly chewed up the newspaper instead.

Teacher Yi had a passage that went like this—

"'Small-town test-taker'—a Fang Xinghe-style summary bursting with childlike charm and wonderful imagination.

Fang Xinghe is especially good at summarizing—not me flattering him, this is universally acknowledged.

Fudan's Chen Sihe praised his writing style as bursting with vitality; I'd say it's the kid himself who's bursting with vitality. Small-town test-taker—hey, how full of life!

Back when we were doing the New Concept competition, a few senior editors didn't trust him, felt this kid might be too eccentric. I trusted him; I said this kid is very honest, not what you imagine.

Now look again—how sincere and faithful is he to himself?

I was born in a small town; I'm unwilling to grow old and rot here. I want to go out and see—the city, the mountains, the rivers, the vast unknown world… I want to go, so I speak it truthfully, and work hard for it.

This is a tremendous, sun-facing power. Is this not good? This is wonderful!

Young people draw encouragement from this, learn to be honest, learn to open their eyes and observe the world, learn that if you want something you fight for it—how much usable talent will our future gain because of this?

What's most rare is that he doesn't feel inferior, and the ideas he conveys are full of high-spirited fighting will.

So what if he was born in a small town?

I can still win awards, come first in exams, and write beautiful articles.

Actually, we all come from the vast countryside; a humbler background was never worth feeling inferior over—just work hard to break free of the predicament before your eyes. Just as Fang Xinghe wrote: smash this fate to pieces; the wild one is a young man.

Looking at his three pieces of public articles, wildness and refusal to lose are carved into his bones — how wonderful, we especially need more children like this.

Of course, this doesn't mean he lacks wisdom — he has it, and every one of our judges saw it crystal clear.

In another article, "The Added Value of Reading," the way he puts "added value" is especially good.

The economic principle embedded in the term itself is one aspect; more importantly, when Fang Xinghe elaborated using the term "added value," the act itself powerfully proved just how enormous the added value that learning has brought to his own intellect truly is.

Without studying, without reading, he could never have produced such a profound exposition.

The way he puts "empowerment" is even better — I've never seen this term in any book, so for this I specially consulted a Tsinghua economics professor, and he hadn't heard of it either.

He was especially shocked, and could not stop praising it.

So this is the crystallization of Fang Xinghe's personal wisdom, the practice of unifying knowledge and action in the thought of "reading empowerment"; in learning he shows a greater honesty, nothing like the shallowness many mock him with.

The word "shallowness" is a grave slander against him.

On the contrary, his thinking is profoundly deep; he leads by example, showing all the public how to stack value upon oneself.

Cleverness and good looks are his innate qualities; on that foundation, he practices martial arts year after year to barbarize his physique; loves learning to civilize his spirit; persists in thinking to settle his wisdom; writes tirelessly to enrich his literary grace.

Fang Xinghe has stacked much added value upon himself, so not only do my children like him — I too am full of expectation, respect, and reverence for him.

In the affairs of the world, knowing is not easy, and doing is harder still.

That Fang Xinghe could win first prize in the inaugural New Concept Composition Competition, come first in the Jilin Province middle-school entrance exam, and become today's youth idol — the share of innate endowment is very, very small; without paying grueling, extraordinary effort, an orphan would absolutely never grow so strong.

He is a worthy object of study for all of us — not only middle-school students, adults too should take Fang Xinghe as their standard, actively fight against the unfairness of fate, know yet refuse to yield, turn from hating everything into loving everything, from despising everything into respecting everything, and ultimately find the light at the bottom of the heart."

Teacher Yi Ning's little essay, the final paragraph, blends four pieces of Fang Xinghe's works.

"Fighting fate" comes from the interview transcript, "know yet refuse to yield" from the semifinal essay, "hate and love" from "Small-Town Test-Taker," and "the light at the bottom of the heart" from "Added Value."

Blended with heaven-sent naturalness, as if these lines were born as one.

Not only does it look uplifting, it's also brimming with positive energy.

Of course, the core reason is that our Fang Shao's foundation is just solid~~~

In short, an article bursting with righteous spirit published in a newspaper brimming with righteous spirit—truly, they complement each other perfectly, and it earned him another huge wave of reputation.

Once this piece came out, the literary world swiftly shifted.

Today's Writers' Association is naturally far worse than twenty years ago, but compared to twenty years from now, its influence is still considerable.

So when Teacher Yi Ning suddenly showed her stance of strongly backing Fang Xinghe, and with People's Daily's endorsement, a portion of the literati who depend on the Writers' Association for their livelihood immediately folded their flags, shrinking back to watch which way the wind blew.

If this were any other time, whether they shrank back or not wouldn't matter, because Yan Lieshan, Xiong Muyun, Cheng Cheng Yizhong and that main force could really hold the line — they don't care about this kind of pressure.

But now this lot have themselves shrunk back first, leaving only the puppets holding the front, so the chain reaction this brings is catastrophic.

The new editorial directly pulled out the last vertebra of the Gongzhi Sect, finally shattering their arrogant momentum.

Once this lot turned cowardly, fearful, and soft, the enormous offline voices of Fang Xinghe's supporters began launching the final general assault on these outrageous remarks.

Then, sweeping all before them, irresistible as a splitting bamboo, they soon swept the field clean as a calm sea and a clear river.

Just how many people got scolded because of this? Impossible to count!

Among them, the most wretched one, yet again, is Song Zude... poor unlucky bastard; it has already developed to the point where little girls are writing letters straight to the newspaper office, cursing him as a purebred beast.

He definitely deserves it, but the point isn't him — it's the way this great debate ended.

It began with a thunderous roar and ended in a skyful of cursing; the affirmative side unloaded a furious barrage on the clowns, vented their emotions, and suddenly stopped caring about the debate.

And the Gongzhi Sect's extinguishing also left the topic with nowhere left to stand.

So, after reaching its peak, the热度 plummeted cliff-style, and quickly returned entirely to calm.

No more experts of every stripe could be seen in the papers debating whether reading is useful.

This outcome, no one had been able to predict.

Except for Fang Xinghe.

He was the only one with the ability to control the board and extend this overwhelming popularity further.

Publish another new article, name names and curse someone, tacitly let Southern Metropolis take his dirt, proactively accept an interview... there were too many ways.

But he decided — it ends here.

Criticism, debate, reflection, comparison, and ultimately building trust regarding exam-oriented education is not something that can be accomplished in a single simple campaign.

Any overly optimistic idea is frivolous.

In the future, the dregs will surely rise again, until we live out our second spring and offense and defense completely swap places.

"But that kind of grand narrative starting from a historical perspective shouldn't be initiated by me, and even less should the final summary be done by me. My task is already complete."

Fang Xinghe remains clear-headed, remains rational, remains steadfast.

He doesn't really know how many young children in his previous life, because of such a trivial matter, chose to drop out and work between '99 and '05; nor does he know how long after those children stepped into the world with high spirits that those turned into resentment, hatred and regret… he has no relevant data.

He only occasionally sees this kind of remark in various groups: if only back then… how wonderful it would have been.

Looking back, half a lifetime wasted.

But this isn't looking back, only reviewing—nothing can be changed.

And as the only person who clearly sees the historical ending, Fang Xinghe, at the peak of popularity, chose to withdraw, shut his mouth, and conceal his skill and name.

"I have already changed this stretch of historical process to an enormous extent, and saved quite a few dropout little idiots."

"I have fulfilled my responsibility; it's time to retreat bravely from the torrent."

"Success doesn't have to be mine, but success must include me — this kind of state is the most comfortable…"

Proactively contracting, letting what should fall silent fall silent — that is a kind of wisdom.

What is it that should fall silent?

Wrong, imprecise, and more harmful than beneficial heat.

The subtleties within it are hard to fully describe, existing only in Fang Xinghe's heart.

Yet, even though his movements had been so decisive and swift, he still failed to dodge the ensuing "backlash."

Public opinion suddenly slapped a whole set of labels onto him: loves learning, upright, ambitious, a future pillar of the nation.

The tone set by Renri was the main cause, but the more unexpected and important change was the sudden defection of the Nanfang faction.

Yan Lieshan publicly reversed his stance in the new issue of Southern Zhou—

"We've argued back and forth for quite a while, criticized and cursed; now I truly have a bit of admiration for Fang Xinghe.

How much exactly?

Measure it with a ruler, and it's already over half.

At his age, with his talents, to persist in learning and remain faithful to his own thoughts and convictions is indeed too difficult.

After putting myself in his shoes, I shamefully realized I couldn't do it.

As a media person with conscience and sufficient fairness and objectivity, one is one, two is two; bad things must be scolded, good things must be praised..."

The article didn't mention education in a single word, focusing entirely on praising Fang Xinghe personally, shaping him into a "non-transferable" leader-type genius writer, with thought, height, and persistence; though temporarily immature, his future will surely be brilliant.

The Nanfang faction's high command collectively shifted direction, lavishing praise on him, thereby forming a broad public consensus.

Most adults won't carefully learn about Little Fang; upon seeing him wave flags and charge forward for the sake of reading, they feel goodwill while simultaneously defaulting him to the "New Youth, New Hope" tone set by multiple sides.

In the short term, this is a good thing, capable of greatly reducing the difficulty of gaining fans.

—In just a few days, the basically stagnant floating fans increased by over one million.

However, putting aside the fact that these are mostly useless middle-aged floating fans, the real trouble lies in: once time is stretched out, and the future Fang Xinghe acts in ways that don't fit their stereotypes, then the public opinion counterattack...

"Even more exciting!"

Fang Xinghe licked his lips, a mischievous, evil smile full of expectation and restlessness revealing itself at the corner of his mouth.

Having a clear conscience toward the era, he now only wants to focus on his own fate.

For a water army, the worst thing is lacking a rhythm.

Repeatedly washing fans and abusing fans, the worst thing is lacking a legitimate reason.

Pulling off black-red stunts, the worst thing is aiming high but achieving little, unable to control the intensity.

However, once all conditions are fully met, then the chaos, turmoil, black tide, cyberbullying, or even being pointed at by a thousand and spat upon by ten thousand that ordinary people fear is, for Fang Xinghe, merely an extreme challenge unrelated to life and death.

Praising to kill?

You can praise, but can you kill?

Some firmly believe this, while others are secretly setting up the battlefield, brewing a counterattack.

Chen Chun is distant; next year will be bright. Brothers and sisters, Happy New Year's Eve, and great luck with the snake!