I have few friends, but many childhood sweethearts.

Chapter 143. Advertising Endorsement
As the new semester and school year began, Xu Qingfan and Xia Xiaoxiao waited for the school bus at the gate of the compound with their new schoolbags on their backs.

"We need to buy new school uniforms, your pants are almost too short to cover your ankles!" Xu Qingfan said, pointing to Xia Xiaoxiao's pant legs.

Xia Xiaoxiao looked down and said, "Come with me to buy it after school!"

"We'll talk after school. The bus is here, get in!"

The two sat in their reserved back window seats, and soon after, Xiao Ruanwen and Wu Lingyu also got into the car.

"Happy new semester!" Xu Qingfan reached out and gave the two of them a high five.

"Have a good time, everyone!" Xiao Ruanwen generously extended her right hand and clapped it on his palm.

Seeing this, Wu Lingyu reached out and gently touched Xu Qingfan's palm, saying, "Happiness."

Warm sunlight streamed through the windows, and the four little ones sat in a row inside the car, sharing their breakfasts.

"Holy crap~ Brother Fan, look! It's you, it's you!" Xiao Ruanwen suddenly shouted, pointing at the school gate as the school bus was about to enter the Experimental Primary School.

The group looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a huge banner, more than ten meters long, hanging above the entrance of the Experimental Primary School. The banner, with red background and yellow lettering, read: "Warmly celebrate our student Xu Qingfan winning the first prize in the 03 Hope Cup Mathematical Olympiad."

"Brother Fan, you're amazing!" Xiao Ruanwen praised, giving him a thumbs up.

Although they didn't win an award themselves, Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu still sincerely congratulated Xu Qingfan, saying, "Congratulations!"

"You must have some too, maybe the second prize wasn't posted." Seeing the envious look in their eyes, Xu Qingfan comforted them.

"Ok!"

Monday, below the flagpole.

"Next, please welcome Xu Qingfan, the winner of the first prize in the Hope Cup National Competition, from Class 16 of Grade 2, to speak!" The principal left with a smile, not forgetting to lower the microphone for Xu Qingfan before leaving.

"Hello everyone, I'm Xu Qingfan. I believe many of you are familiar with me, since I read my self-criticism here last year." Xu Qingfan's self-deprecating remark drew laughter from the teachers and students below the stage.

After the laughter subsided a bit, he continued, "I have been studying and living at Experimental Primary School for more than two years and have made many new classmates and friends. In my opinion, it is an inclusive and loving school. The students here are kind and friendly."

In the past two years, I have lost my school card three times, but each time a kind classmate returned it to my class in less than a day, and not a single penny of the money in the card was missing. I am impressed by the noble character of my classmates and I am willing to become such a person!
When I first came to first grade, many students didn't clean up their tables after eating in the cafeteria. But soon I was influenced by my classmates, and the tables in the cafeteria were always clean even without the cleaning staff. That's the power of role models.

I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to stand here today and say so much to you all. Academic performance does not determine a person's character. I hope that every student in Experimental Primary School can become a kind, loving, optimistic and cheerful person, respect and love every classmate around them in daily life, and say no to school bullying.

What do you all think?

"Bravo!" Thousands of teachers and students shouted in unison, their voices echoing throughout the square.

At that moment, Xu Qingfan felt as if he had turned into light.

"Brother Qingfan, you were so cool just now!" Lin Wanning said, hugging Xu Qingfan's arm after returning to the classroom.

“When am I not handsome? You tell me, right?” Xu Qingfan reached out and flicked the little girl’s forehead.

"Hee hee~"

"Brother, you're so handsome!"

Xia Xiaoxiao rested her chin on her hand, looking at the interaction between the three people in front of her with a sense of frustration.

In this math Olympiad, she and Wu Lingyu both won the national second prize, but Xia Xiaoxiao's score was higher. Just two more points would have been enough to win the first prize, which is why she seemed frustrated.

[I must get the same score as Xu Qingfan next time!] Xia Xiaoxiao vowed in her heart.

Winning a first prize in the National Mathematical Olympiad in elementary school is almost equivalent to producing a promising student for Tsinghua or Peking University in high school.

These past few days, Xu Qingfan has been busy cooperating with Licheng TV's interviews and taking photos with education bureau leaders, keeping him incredibly busy while still making a lot of money.

The Experimental Primary School and the Education Bureau each awarded him a scholarship of 10,000 yuan. Countless tutoring institutions in the community wanted to hire him as their spokesperson, but Xu Qingfan refused them all.

Although not many people watched Licheng TV, those close to Xu Qingfan were very proud when they learned that he had appeared on television.

The happiest people were his maternal grandparents. The whole village saw their grandson being interviewed on TV, and the shame that had weighed on them for decades was washed away in one day.

So what if he's good at studying? My grandson can do that too!
Although studying is of little use to him in this life, Xu Qingfan is still very grateful that he was able to participate in this math Olympiad because it allows his grandparents to hold their heads high in Chuxi Village.

The bell rang for class, and the Chinese teacher walked to the podium. "Students, turn to page five of your Chinese textbooks. Today we will learn two ancient poems. Ready, get ready to read!"

"Grass, Bai Juyi, the grass on the plain grows lush and green, withers and flourishes year after year, but wildfires cannot burn it all, the spring breeze brings it back to life!" Sparse reading voices rang out in the classroom.

Xu Qingfan turned to the next page, where the illustration showed a child with two pigtails chasing a butterfly in a vegetable garden. "Children run quickly to chase yellow butterflies, which fly into the rapeseed flowers and disappear without a trace," he recited to himself.

Xu Qingfan was momentarily dazed, suddenly recalling an ordinary afternoon many years ago.
He bit his school uniform collar with his teeth, and a breeze blew through the open window, ruffling his bangs.

Xu Qingfan stared blankly out the window, just like that peaceful afternoon more than ten years ago, when he was also an eight-year-old child.

Time passed so slowly, yet so quickly.
Six months have passed in the blink of an eye.

"Brother Qingfan, do you think this drawing is okay?" At Lin Wanning's home, the little girl showed Xu Qingfan the drawing she had just finished.

Zhang Yiyi also looked at him with expectant eyes.

"Not bad, not bad!" Xu Qingfan nodded after reading it. "Ah~ it's finally done!" Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi leaned back comfortably on the back of their chairs and stretched in unison.

The hilarious daily anti-fraud comic strip that I planned to make before the Lunar New Year was only finished today. It was originally supposed to be finished in early May, but Xu Qingfan suddenly had a whim to advertise duck neck shops in the comic strip, so many of the original drafts had to be redrawn.

For example, one scam occurred on a bus. The scammer opened a bottle of Coca-Cola that had been tampered with, with the words "30,000 yuan" written on the cap. The scammer pretended that he thought the prize redemption location was too far away and wanted to resell it for a low price of 20,000 yuan. Then, together with an accomplice, he tricked an honest person into falling for the scam.

Xu Qingfan had a brilliant idea and changed the bus stop to the front of the Haowei Duck Neck shop. In the end, the scam was successfully exposed by the kind, beautiful and righteous shop manager, Sister Xiaoqing. To thank the shop manager, the honest man wanted to buy Haowei Duck Neck, and then another soft advertisement was broadcast: "Wow~ you can buy such a big pile for only five yuan, wow~ it's so delicious!"

Xu Qingfan and his team's second book, "Hilarious Daily Life," has sold nearly four million copies to date, with almost 1.5 million copies being consumed by Hong Kong citizens. He thinks this wave of advertising might have a miraculous effect.

To gain experience, Zhong Wenqing initially opened only three duck neck shops. It took more than four months from site selection and decoration to the official opening. Now, the three duck neck shops have been operating stably for more than a month. After deducting the cost of ingredients, labor, water and electricity, and rent, each duck neck shop can generate an average profit of nearly 4,000 yuan per month.

The trial-and-error phase is over; now it's time for large-scale copying and pasting.

In addition to Haowei Duck Neck Food Co., Ltd., they also established a subsidiary. The money for buying and decorating the shops went through the subsidiary. After the shops were decorated, they sublet them to duck neck shops at market prices, which allowed them to legally avoid taxes.

With Zhang Chunxue's help with all the troublesome procedures for starting a business, and her fifth daughter having already spoken on the matter, who would dare to try to take advantage of them? Plus, duck necks are delicious, and with the right marketing, it would be hard not to become a hit.

Of course, all of this is inseparable from Zhong Wenqing's efforts. In just six months, she lost more than ten pounds. However, since she originally weighed 130 pounds, she looked even better after losing weight.

The three of them brought the drawing to Zhang Yi's house and handed it to Zhang Chunxue, thus completing their mission.

"You little rascal!" Zhang Chunxue burst into laughter at the blatant product placement in the comic.

"Hehe~ By the way, Auntie, isn't the duck neck shop going to advertise? I think we can get the cast and crew of the TV series 'Foreign Daughter-in-Law, Local Son-in-Law' to be our spokespeople!" Xu Qingfan said with a grin.

"Hmm? Is this a new TV series?" Zhang Chunxue rarely has time to watch TV, and Zhang Yiyi even less so, because she has hearing problems and can only watch movies by reading subtitles. The little girl prefers reading books to watching TV.

"Auntie Ningning knows, the worst thing is having to make delicious soup every day, ah, make delicious soup oh oh oh~" Lin Wanning raised her hand and started singing.

Zhang Chunxue felt the name sounded familiar, but she couldn't recall where she had heard it before.

"Auntie, I'll show you on my computer!" He turned Zhang Chunxue's laptop around and typed 'foreign wife, local husband' into the browser.

Soon after, Baidu Qianke (a Chinese search engine) information about the TV series appeared on the screen.

"Oh, this is it. I think I've seen it a few times, but I never knew its name. Okay, Auntie will have someone contact their production team later," Zhang Chunxue said with a smile after reading the introduction.

This TV series, along with the 72 Tenants that followed a few years later, had a considerable influence in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions for more than a decade. It was better to have them as spokespeople than to have some celebrities who were constantly involved in tax evasion and property collapses.

Seeing that Zhang Chunxue agreed, Xu Qingfan continued, "Auntie, I have another candidate, an athlete named Liu Xiang. I think he will definitely win the gold medal at this year's Olympics. Can we sign him as an endorser in advance?"

"How do you know they can win the championship? How do you know everything?" Zhang Chunxue found it amusing and couldn't help but pinch Xu Qingfan's cheek.

“Because he’s really super fast,” Xu Qingfan said, searching for Liu Xiang’s information on the computer. “Auntie, look, he ran 13.12 seconds at the IAAF Grand Prix in Switzerland in 2002 and broke the Asian record for the men’s 110-meter hurdles. Auntie, look at his records from 2003. Isn’t he getting faster each time? I think he might break the world record at this Olympics!” Xu Qingfan analyzed logically.

Although Xu Qingfan's analysis wasn't entirely without merit, it was pure nonsense. If it were that easy to predict, the spinach business would have gone bankrupt and run away long ago.

But Zhang Chunxue was still happy to listen to him. She said, "Liu Xiang's endorsement fee is probably between 300,000 and 400,000 yuan now. If your sister Xiaoqing has no objection, Auntie will help you make the contact."

Zhang Chunxue, being in this industry, could easily estimate Liu Xiang's current market value. If he could break the world record at this year's Olympics as Xu Qingfan predicted, his endorsement fee would easily exceed ten million.

Xu Qingfan only spoke to Zhang Chunxue because he felt he couldn't convince her, after all, the crossover between duck neck and sports was too big!

He remembers clearly that Liu Xiang's rise to prominence began this year, when he won the Asian Classic Games in August with a time of 12.91 seconds, equaling the world record set by British athlete Colin Jackson.

Until 08, when he withdrew from a competition at home due to injury and was ridiculed by the entire internet, those four years were the peak of his commercial value. If he could take advantage of this opportunity now and spend a few hundred thousand to sign a few years' worth of endorsement contracts, he would be set for life.

"Auntie, please talk to Sister Qingqing for me. I'll pay for it if he doesn't win!" Xu Qingfan said, clinging to Zhang Chunxue's arm.

"What nonsense are you talking about!" Zhang Chunxue lightly slapped the back of his head.

"Auntie~"

"Mom~"

Xu Qingfan gave the two a wink, and Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi joined in as well.

"Alright, alright, Auntie's scared of you all." Zhang Chunxue shook her head with amusement. "Auntie will pay, but Xiao Fan, you have a new idea every day. You'll spend all the gold and silver in the world."

Since it was only a few hundred thousand yuan, Zhang Chunxue didn't take it too seriously. Such behavior of betting on athletes before the Olympics is common in the industry. She just considered it a small venture capital investment.

"There's only one mother in the world who is good~" Xu Qingfan led the singing of the children's song, and Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi joined in with his rhythm.

"A child with a mother is like a treasure."

Zhang Chunxue was amused by the three children and laughed heartily. While feeling happy, she couldn't help but wish that such a wonderful time could slow down.

The endorsement deal for "Foreign Daughter-in-Law, Local Husband" went exceptionally smoothly, with Zhang Chunxue's advertising company signing a two-year contract for 300,000 yuan.

It was almost July by the time Liu Xiang's endorsement contract was finalized. Zhang Chunxue sent her employees to Rome to find Liu Xiang, who was preparing to participate in a competition at the time. She presented him with a pre-prepared advertisement poster for Delicious Duck Neck and ultimately bought the commercial rights to use Liu Xiang's photo with the poster for four years at a bargain price of 100,000 yuan per year.

The good wind carries me to the blue clouds with its power.

Riding the wave of Liu Xiang's sudden rise to fame after years of hard work and obscurity, Haowei Duck Neck was destined to open branches in every corner of the port city in 2004.

(End of this chapter)