Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 172 Total collapse!

"Books are the golden house", "expensive books" are giving away 20 grams of gold! "

"Buy and you'll earn! Zhang Chao once again sets a precedent in the publishing industry!"

"The "sky-high-priced book" becomes a "welfare book", Zhang Chao once again uses a trick to deceive people! "

……

Within one day, from online platforms to newspapers and television, it was all news that the limited edition hardcover of Zhang Chao's novel would come with 20 grams of gold.

Reporters quickly found almost all the book fans who bought the limited edition and took photos of them holding the gold flakes with bright smiles on their faces. Each piece of gold has a separate number and Zhang Chao's signature engraved on it.

The collection value is maximized at once!

Of course, the vast majority of people did not buy the book, especially those “former book fans” who left the group and unfollowed the book before the limited edition was released, and they regretted it so much that their intestines turned green.

In less than 3 days, the black market price of the limited edition book + gold film has been hyped up to 1 yuan, and buying the book alone will cost 3000 yuan!
Xinlang Blog promptly posted another piece of news, pushing the public opinion atmosphere to its peak.

"The 10 yuan prize has been taken away, and the "heart of the piano and the courage of the sword" turned out to be a college teacher"

The entire text naturally kept its promise and did not mention the name "Feng Zheng", but Bai Ye and others naturally knew who this "college teacher" was.

Chang Lihua and others who participated in the operation of the "Qin Xin Jian Dan" account were immediately furious. Unable to get through to Feng Zheng, they kept asking Bai Ye:

"Teacher Bai, I also contributed to that article. It was my suggestion that the entire article imitate Zhang Chao's writing style, right? I still have the chat records here! I should also have a share of the 10 yuan, right?"

"Teacher Bai, I was the one who found and typed all the 30+ excerpts of pornography, violence and corruption in the article overnight. Even if I don't have any credit, I have worked hard, right? I should get a share of the 10 yuan, right?"

"Teacher Bai, the most important sentence in the article, 'Only by resisting the black tide can we welcome the blue sky!', was proposed by me, not Xiao Feng. I should also have a share of the 10 yuan, right?"

……

Bai Ye's brain was boiling, and he was totally unable to calm everyone down.

10 yuan was definitely not a small sum of money in 2006. Young university teachers like Feng Zheng only received to yuan a year, which was considered high among literary critics.

After all, the literary world is in a recession, and the market for literary criticism is shrinking even more. Most of the literary criticism magazines that flourished in the 80s have ceased publication, and those that are still alive rely almost entirely on grants, with the most subscriptions per issue being no more than to copies.

Not everyone is like Bai Ye, who has a title so long that it can't fit on a business card and who is often a guest of honor at various literary events.

Besides, Bai Ye’s promise was just a pie in the sky, but Zhang Chao’s 10 yuan had already been taken away by Feng Zheng!

Bai Ye could only patiently persuade everyone, saying that he would have a good talk with Feng Zheng and try to get him to take out the 10 yuan to share with everyone, and said in a noble and upright manner: "I don't want a cent, it's all yours."

But after hanging up the phone, Bai Ye began to worry. He wanted to find Feng Zheng's school leaders to put pressure on Feng Zheng, but he knew in his heart that this matter was too dirty, and the school leaders were also a big name in the academic world, so it was still unclear whether they would agree.

And if Feng Zheng dared to collect the money, he must have been prepared to fall out with everyone. If he pushed me too far and exposed the matter, the whole thing would not only be out of control, but would collapse completely!
Just when Bai Ye was feeling extremely confused, the three books, "Better Days", "Dwelling Narrowness" and "Your Name", experienced the biggest sales wave since the first printing.

Originally, this dispute was limited to the literary circle, and at most it had some influence that spilled over through the dissemination method of blogs.

However, as soon as the two news about the "golden book" and the "10 yuan prize being taken away" came out, the "Zhang Bai dispute" completely broke the circle and became the focus of attention of the whole society within a few days.

"Finding faults" with Zhang Chao's novels has aroused the enthusiasm of the whole nation and has spread to many people who do not read novels or even pay attention to literature.

Spend twenty or thirty yuan to buy a novel, find a place to "sex and violence", and you can earn 3000 yuan. Only a fool would not do such a good thing. Zhang Chao's father, who was far away in Changfu, also took out three novels, read them carefully, and secretly registered an account for Xinlang Blog... After all, the pocket money was too little...

Although most of the "pornographic, violent and black" content has been listed in "Qin Xin Jian Dan", there are definitely some that slip through the net, and with the human wave tactics of the broad masses of people, more than 30 "pornographic, violent and black" content have been found in the three novels one after another - but most of them are really far-fetched.

Even the scene in "Better Days" where Cheng Nian was soaked by the heavy rain was considered "pornographic description" - the "fault finders" seriously reasoned: clothes will stick to the body when wet; if it is white clothes, it will become transparent; especially since Cheng Nian is a girl...

Also, in "Gone Girl", when Nick and Amy were arguing, they used a swear word, which was also counted as "verbal violence."

But Zhang Chao didn't care about that. He accepted it all readily and gave out another bonus of more than 10 yuan.

The editors-in-chief of the three publishing houses, Chunfeng Publishing House, Huacheng Publishing House, and Changjiang Publishing House, were all laughing their heads off. The order calls from bookstores and book malls across the country never stopped, and the printing factories began to work overtime again.

Bai Ye didn't realize until he saw his daughter taking out a copy of "Dwelling Narrowness" from her bag and reading it with great interest during her break. "Something's wrong!"

The target audience of "Don't Let "Pornographic and Violent Publications" Occupy the Spiritual World of Young People" has never been Zhang Chao's readers, or more experienced literature lovers. The essence of this article is to mislead the public who have not read Zhang Chao's works by quoting out of context.

Once the masses are misled into becoming a “mob”, the enormous pressure of public opinion created will be enough to crush the vast majority of people!
But all this is based on the premise that no one has read Zhang Chao's books. Now Zhang Chao has created a hot topic and let these people start reading these three novels, and the misleading effect of taking out of context will naturally disappear.

What’s even more frightening is that the spectators who have read the books will certainly be outraged to find that in the three novels, which add up to more than 3 words, there are only more than 60 so-called “pornographic, violent and black” descriptions, totaling less than 70 words, which is less than 6000% of the total length, and this is even after taking the context into account.

Why did the spectators spend money to buy the book? Isn’t it because the book “Don’t Let “Pornographic and Violent Publications” Occupy the Spiritual World of Young People” misled people who had not read it to believe that Zhang Chao’s novels were all about this kind of description, so everyone rushed out to “dig for gold”.

As a result, the money was spent but the "gold" was not found. Who should we blame?

Soon, the message board of the blog named "Qin Xin Jian Dan" was flooded with comments such as "liar", "sensationalism", "rubbish article", "idiot", "don't let me know who you are"...

Correspondingly, there are more and more articles "vindicating" Zhang Chao:

"The Clouds Are Cleared: Zhang Chao Gets Out of "Misunderstanding""

"The "Black Tide" is not black after all. Who did Zhang Chao offend?"

"The literary world cannot tolerate rampant conspiracy!"

……

The spearhead was almost directly directed at Bai Ye and other literary critics. In particular, the writers who had previously participated in the "Contemporary Prose Development Seminar" had been suppressed for several weeks by Bai Ye, Jia Pingwa and others using personal connections, and now they finally erupted -

The Origin of the “Zhang Bai Dispute”: An Unforgettable Literary Discussion

"Transcript of the "Big Moves in Big Times" Conference"

"The literary world is not a flower garden, nor is it a sauce garden!"

……

What crushed Bai Ye was a public article by Chang Lihua, a former loyal follower:

"Who should win the 10 yuan grand prize? The dirty story behind the article!"

(End of this chapter)