Chapter 59: The First Endorsement in Life [Happy New Year!]

The sky won't collapse for now.

On the contrary, the lingering afterglow of the carnival began to become extremely favorable to Fang Xinghe.

The commentary made by the true famous educator Mr. Pan in the Xiamen Daily completely transformed all opposition into huge expectations.

"One Han Han proves nothing; he is a genius. Even if he makes no effort to advance, squanders his talent, and fails multiple subjects, he still writes better than 99% of his peers relying solely on intuition, a level high enough to succeed on its own.

One Fang Xinghe proves nothing either; he is even more of a genius. He studied hard for half a year to become the top scholar, and casually wrote an article that shocked the literary world. He can succeed not only through literature; I believe he can succeed at whatever he does.

Is it not ridiculous for you to judge whether our education is correct by using two geniuses?

The impetuousness of today's society bears a heavy responsibility on the media.

If one must use these two children to determine right from wrong, then why not give them some more time and see who goes higher and further.

Many old friends and I are very much looking forward to what they will bring us in the end."

The media lowered their flags and ceased chasing them to stir up heat; they merely added both to a key attention list, beginning a long and gentle observation and comparison.

Fang Xinghe thought he could finally settle down and finish the long novel, so he spent a specific amount of time meticulously sorting out his attributes.

【Attribute Panel】

Appearance Attributes: Looks 99, Body 79 (Expand)

Physique Attributes: Strength 79, Speed 80, Stamina 80, Agility 79, Flexibility 79

Hidden Attributes: Coordination 81, Perception 79, Recovery 79, Immunity 79, Health 79

Artistic Attributes: Writing 80 (Expand), Acting 37 (Expand), Directing 8 (Expand)

There are four major matters in total—

First, Writing automatically increased a bit; focus and persistence raised his output ceiling.

Second, after the System upgraded, four expandable items appeared in the attribute panel.

Third, after expanding the Body attribute, a very simple adjustable list appeared.

Height: 176 centimeters (growing), customizable, lockable; once locked, it cannot be modified again.

Weight: 64 kilograms (growing), customizable, lockable, modifiable.

Posture:...

Fang Xinghe pondered carefully for a while and found this thing not very significant in daily life, but super useful in acting.

It can manually adjust fatness or thinness, and can also lock the current state.

The meaning is that, in his normal state, Fang Xinghe is a perfect-form human with a Body score of 99; due to the lock, no matter how much he eats he won't get fat, and no matter how he messes with his body, it won't change shape.

But if necessary, he can cancel the lock, then quickly lose or gain weight to meet different character requirements.

And it is not troublesome at all; it can be achieved using Starlight Points.

Now it is truly clear that the 【Star God System】 is a pure entertainment assistance system; the new functions are entirely prepared for acting. Except that height becomes fixed and immovable once set, posture and other things can all be fine-tuned.

"That's great; I'm getting closer and closer to Best Actor, buddy."

Fang Xinghe smiled optimistically, then turned his attention to the Artistic Attributes.

After expanding the Artistic Attributes, it made one's scalp tingle.

How could there be so many sub-attributes?

Fang Xinghe only briefly scanned the Acting and Directing lists, then focused all his attention on 【Writing】.

Those two things are not urgent; they won't be needed until at least two or three years later.

Writing 80: Rhetoric 81, Flow 79, Structure 75

Three simple sub-attributes.

There are no stream-of-consciousness indicators like imagery, literariness, originality, thoughtfulness, or humanistic core; the three sub-attributes displayed are all clear techniques.

Pure output ability is a very scientific thing; where the skill lies and how the method is applied are immediately obvious.

The literary talent of "Ode to the River Goddess" can never fall out of the top two no matter how it is ranked; it stands there. Some later critics say Cao Zhi showed off his skills too much, but that does not affect its greatness at all.

But output content is uncertain, irrational, and difficult to quantify.

To put it extremely, the stark-white "Battle Through the Heavens" influenced an entire generation of teenagers with its content; does it have value or not?

For Generation Z, how does it compare to Jin Yong's martial arts novels in terms of superiority or inferiority?

Fang Xinghe was unwilling to think too deeply; he wasn't planning to plagiarize anyone, so he would just maintain respect.

Tracing back from "Battle Through the Heavens," works with mediocre literary talent but containing huge emotional power are countless.

For example, "The Three-Body Problem"; its awesomeness has never been about the writing style.

The textual level presented by Big Liu across all his works fluctuates greatly, generally between 60 and 85; the texture of the rhetoric is often insufficient, and the flow rarely has that free-flowing, expressive feel based on Chinese language intuition, but the structure of "The Three-Body Problem" can be described as top-tier, world-class top-tier.

So science and engineering majors can write novels to an extremely powerful degree because structure is their strength, text is secondary, and they overtake on a curve using content.

For Fang Xinghe, it is the same.

His Writing attribute is closely related to his profession and experience.

Strong rhetoric, weak structure, heavy on emotion.

Whether writing marketing copy or high-end custom praise pieces and manifestos, the most important point in guiding emotion is always to reduce the resistance of the text and increase smoothness.

Shklovsky mentioned: The means of art is to make things strange, to make form resistant, in order to expand the difficulty and time of perception.

Therefore, the "literary language" of orthodox writers usually processes text into a strange, distorted appearance with artistic texture, thereby raising the threshold of understanding, forcibly making readers must increase their attention and strive to think, thus obtaining a stronger aesthetic effect.

The language opposite to this is called "automated language," or also "popular language," which is precisely the core of marketing copy and web novel writing.

This thing is those text usage methods we are extremely familiar with, which can no longer trigger extra attention.

Take an example: "In an instant, Han Han was stunned, his face full of confusion, his heart simply unable to believe that Fang Xinghe was actually so terrifying!"

One line of text, read and done; it is particularly smooth and fluent, not lacking in visual sense; when readers see the two characters "confused," they can directly imagine the facial details, and "so terrifying" is also a highly summarized new catchphrase.

This is automated language with absolutely no reading threshold.

Readers can completely skim ten lines at a glance without thinking; the required emotions naturally float into their minds, attention is entirely focused on the plot, thereby fully experiencing the fun of the story itself.

So, if the event "Han Han was profoundly shaken by Fang Xinghe" were written with more resistant language, what effect would it have?

"In a time wave just slightly longer than a thousandth of a second, Han Han's thoughts were forcibly frozen halfway up the mountain—no one had restricted his movement or thought, he simply refused to move forward any further—even half a step ahead would force him to confront the terrifying pressure brought by Fang Xinghe, and the resulting array of problems would ignite into restless, ominous flames of anger, burning away his convictions. But it was already too late; his retinas reflected chaotic waveforms, pulling down the dark sky and Fang Xinghe's grim, snarling face together, his pride crushed into twisted lines. His nose tingled with acidity, and in a daze he thought: So even fire can feel the burn…"

Such language is neither clear nor conducive to dissemination when performing certain specific tasks.

A small fraction of readers might praise it for having more rhythm, but high-threshold language in a low-patience social environment is destined to become a bone with no meat.

So Fang Xinghe isn't incapable—he simply doesn't need to.

Web novels, short videos, and short dramas all operate on the same logic: centering on intense emotion while minimizing all other distractions.

Fang Xinghe refuses to crudely label this phenomenon as "audience aesthetic degradation"—it's meant to be relaxing, so it ought to function as relaxation; those who wish to learn or think will naturally seek out deeper content.

But the underlying logic of this phenomenon does provide him with an extremely clear guiding principle—that is—

What is my goal?

Who is my target audience?

How do I use the tools and abilities I possess?

Thus, he never misses—he ensures every published piece fulfills its intended purpose.

Not just in writing—his future approach to filmmaking will likely follow the same pattern.

Be slightly ahead, but lower the threshold;

Serve the masses, but refine the details;

Prioritize the goal, but uphold aesthetics.

With this, he quickly figured out the direction for revising the second draft of his long-form work—strengthen the structure, not the rhetoric.

He glanced at the Starlight Panel's Starlight value—it was sufficient—so Fang Xinghe added 1 point to 【Structure 75】.

Starlight decreased by 3.3 million.

Tong Zi's explanation was: since 【Writing】 is subdivided into three categories, the cost to raise a single attribute is one-third of the total.

"Hey, this is good!"

Fang Xinghe was especially delighted—he spent only 1.32 million Starlight to raise Structure to 79 points.

One more point—Structure became 80, costing 3.33 million Starlight.

If he raised the overall 【Writing】 attribute, one point would cost 10 million—but in reality, his rhetoric and prose were already sufficient; there was no need to waste Starlight for now.

Strictly speaking, this book is a semi-autobiographical, realism-based, macroscopic critical work on youthful anguish, requiring little from rhetoric or prose, only slightly higher demands on structure, with the story's core being most important.

So he spent only 7.98 million Starlight to raise Writing to its current maximum and left it alone.

【Writing 80: Rhetoric 81, Prose 80, Structure 80】

If he discovers a need during revision, he can add points temporarily, maximizing Starlight savings.

It's not that he's stingy—he's damn poor!

【Starlight Panel】

【Fans: 8.8M】

Level 1: Floating Fans: 8,246,300

Level 2: Core Fans: 525,100

Level 3: Devoted Fans: 30,250

Level 4: Fanatics: 878

Level 5: Believers: 0

【Starlight: 12.88M】

【Star Radiance: 4】

Good news: Won the PK.

Bad news: Starlight isn't rising much…

After such high-density exposure, nearly all available Starlight has been fully absorbed—even though Sister Yi published a glowing review, it barely boosted his Starlight; yet, due to his first appearance in the People's Daily, he gained one more Star Radiance.

This thing is truly harder than expected… Never mind, that's not the right way to put it—Starlight is hard to get too.

Those 8 million floating fans are as fake as they come—squeezed hard, they spit out 8 million Starlight.

If you don't squeeze them, they won't even know what you've done—they won't give you even one point per person.

Even though Fang Xinghe long knew floating fans were useless for major events, he was still deeply frustrated.

So he solemnly reminded himself—

Never be complacent because of floating fans; core fans are where usefulness begins, devoted fans form the largest foundation, and beyond that, don't force it—let opportunity and luck decide.

His start was spectacular, exceeding expectations, so he must make every next step even more splendid, to not waste such a strong beginning.

Brushing aside his inner restlessness, he focused on the second draft.

But just as he'd settled down for two days, new trouble knocked again.

"No time!"

Fang Xinghe was about to hang up when he paused: "Wait—who? What do they want?"

Liu Dashan suppressed his laughter and repeated: "Uh, Zhenweis—yeah, that brand that sells clothes for young people—they want you to be their spokesperson."

What brand is Zhenweis? Is it better than Banilu?

Fang Xinghe thought for a moment—it sounded familiar, but barely.

Whatever, let's take a look.

If the pay is high enough, even Banilu isn't out of the question.

He hasn't reached the stage where he needs to consider commercial image; right now, getting fans to spend money on him is the biggest priority.

"Why did they think of me? How much are they offering? What's the deal?"

"Deal?"

Liu Dashan was stumped by the question, his tone carrying obvious guilt: "I don't understand this either. How about you talk to them directly?"

Fang Xinghe slapped his forehead; damn, his mouth had moved too fast.

What kind of treatment do endorsements even have these days?

At best, it's just shooting two photo sets and sticking them on a wall; there might not even be a few events.

That's actually quite good; saves worry.

"Alright then, bring them over to find me. I can't go out the door."

Fang Xinghe ordered the future principal around like a loyal servant, but Liu Dashan was delighted, cheerfully agreeing: "Done. I'll bring them over this afternoon and find you a lawyer on the way."

"Alright, hanging up. Damn, some idiot is smashing my window glass again!"

Fang Xinghe, furious, pushed open the window and saw a very thick envelope wedged in the window sill's gap; turning back to inspect the glass carefully, he noted it was fine, not shattered; today was an auspicious day.

Yesterday, a window pane had been smashed by an idiot woman—you want to give me a gift, then give it properly; after writing a love letter, she wrapped up a pile of rings, earrings, studs, and necklaces, then just threw them at the window with a flick of her hand; did she come from the Tang Sect?

Damn, her heart condition almost scared her into a heart attack.

Then little Fang opened it and saw, well, the necklace was iron, the rings were copper, and the studs were silver; it was almost enough to open a hardware store.

It wasn't that he was disdainful; the problem was, what kind of thing was this?

Shaking his head, Fang Xinghe opened today's envelope and glanced at it briefly.

The main content was a love letter full of period flavor; anyway, the Z-generation hadn't seen this thing when they were in school.

The content was all over the place; the previous sentence was a particularly reserved desire to make friends, the next became fiery and bold that she would do anything for him, then she listed her family background and reported her measurements.

—My father is so-and-so in the county, I have learned such and such talents, read such and such books, have such and such hobbies, and so on and so forth, blah blah blah.

Finally, she attached a photo and two hundred-yuan bills.

First glance: the person is quite pretty.

Second glance: damn, her development is actually quite good.

Third glance: bored, meaningless.

He stuffed the 200 yuan into his pocket, neatly reorganized the rest, and threw it into the drawer—it was full again.

This was Fang Xinghe's recent treatment; the day before yesterday, even a wealthy woman from the provincial capital came down to find him; she was twenty-six or twenty-seven, full of charm, swaying gracefully, driving a Lexus or some such thing, asking around all the way, finally parking her car at little Fang's door, and starting to knock on the door in a coquettish voice.

Unfortunately, she was also a donkey's dung ball with a shiny exterior; a couple of pulls on the pants and she was scared away.

Now, the Left and Right Guardians, the extra bodyguards, and the pants-pulling door gods all live in his house, escorting the newly promoted fresh meat, but this cannot solve the fundamental problem...

Well, in fact, the issue of freedom to go out is basically unsolvable.

Fang Xinghe wasn't particularly unaccustomed to it; in his past life, he lay in bed for several years and endured until the very end; now, trading over ten years of freedom of movement for over a hundred years of future health, happiness, and wildness to the extreme, it's a super deal, okay.

Moreover, the situation hasn't reached a particularly terrible degree; as long as they move into the new house, it should be quieter—Liu Dashan is working on his new home, reportedly with huge space, a vegetable plot in the back and a large courtyard in the front, no high-rise buildings around, only single-story houses.

After that, just build the courtyard walls a bit higher; no matter how they practice martial arts or study, no one will be able to spy anymore.

If you have the ability, throw them again?

First climb the 2.5-meter wall, then throw things at my window glass from 20 meters away; which Miss can do that, and I'll give you a red stick and promote you to Sister Fourteen.

Hehe!

Thinking of that group of dream girls frantically pulling their hair at the wall, Fang Xinghe couldn't help but feel happy.

"Come on, extra pants-puller, help me with beastly training."

At his call, the two immediately put down their handheld consoles, ran over eagerly, picked up their sticks, and silently charged up.

This training regimen was one of the emotional foundations used by Teacher Feng Yuanzheng to play An Jiahe.

Basically, through the assistant's demonstrative roaring and intermittent whipping, it fully activates the actor's sense of crisis and confrontational nature, while the actor's own action training focuses on activating the part of the inner mind that is primal beastliness.

In the end, the naked animality is awakened; carefully experience that emotion and the corresponding bodily sensations until it forms a controllable instinct that can be awakened at any time; even playing a wolf child would be no problem.

Is Master Ge awesome?

Damn, it was exchanged through self-torture!

When Liu Dashan brought the True Vesta representative over in the afternoon, Fang Xinghe looked as if he had just been fished out of water, sitting there panting heavily, his whole body trembling slightly.

"Fang student, what is wrong with you?"

The True Vesta representative was a middle-aged woman in her forties; whether out of sincerity or to demonstrate sincerity, she spoke with great concern.

"Nothing, just practicing some things."

"Practicing martial arts?"

The representative was particularly interested; looking at the craft sword hanging on the wall and the four-meter-long pole under the eaves, her eyes revealed genuine and unfeigned amazement.

"Something like that." He simply brushed it off, not wanting to chat much.

"You are really too hardworking..." The representative's eyes were full of appreciation and also curiosity, "But you shouldn't need to fight anymore, right? Why are you still trying so hard?"

Fang Xinghe remained expressionless, raised his hand to push his semi-long hair back, revealing a smooth, full forehead and a complete face covered in sweat marks.

Then, he turned his head to look at the poster on the wall.

Everyone looked in the same direction; it was a poster of "Fist of Legend," with Li Lianjie kicking his right leg high, very fierce.

"I am probably a bit more handsome than him, but how is being handsome enough?"

Fang Xinghe spoke softly, as if talking to himself.

"I want to be the strongest and most dazzling one among my contemporaries, becoming the most indelible symbol in their memories; when everyone mentions me, they must either admire or envy me. So, striving now is the right time..."

The representative was stunned, then a flash of wild joy passed through her eyes.

The lawyer was stunned, then looked at the poster thoughtfully.

Liu Dashan was also stunned, then nodded gratefully, but in his heart he was screaming wildly—

Yes, yes, this flavor is just right!

Does this business even need to continue being discussed?

If I were that woman, I would hand you a check right now; I'll sign the name, you fill in the number; whatever amount you say is the amount!

Thanks to the new alliance "Hey, stop it, stop it, my waist is bad." Let me celebrate the New Year for these two days; I'll unleash a burst of updates on the 1st.