Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 218 Boomerang

"How do you think Zhang Chao can prove himself? I heard from the school that all his articles and novels were typed out on a computer and he doesn't even have manuscripts." Lan Yong, Lan Ting's father, asked Lan Ting worriedly at No. 2 Shengli South Road, Changfu County.

The three of them, along with his uncle's family, were sitting in the living room watching Zhang Chao's live broadcast.

As the most famous person in Changfu County in recent years, Zhang Chao is still the focus of many people's attention even though he has been studying in Yanjing for more than two years. Apart from other things, Zhang Chao must be mentioned in the annual county work report on education and culture.

If this year's work is really unremarkable, then expand it into a paragraph and list all the books Zhang Chao published, articles published, and programs he participated in this year, which can be regarded as the work achievements of the county.

Therefore, as a county leader, Lan Yong is still very concerned about Zhang Chao. If Zhang Chao fails to explain clearly on the show and "loses the battle", then the county's work reports in recent years will become a joke.

Lan Ting asked back: "Why do you think that only the manuscript can prove it? Can't the manuscript be copied later?"

Lan Ting's uncle, Yin Ping, who teaches Chinese at Fuhai University, said, "He was writing a novel at school. Didn't many of his classmates see it?"

Lan Ting said, "Could it be that his father wrote it at home, asked him to memorize it, and then performed it for us in school?"

Yin Ping said: "Isn't this just being a hooligan?"

Lan Yong also asked curiously: "What are you saying? Are you still hoping that Zhang Chao will lose?"

Lan Ting smiled and said, "You all need to change your old ideas. Who said that only manuscripts can prove innocence? - Watch TV."

Everyone looked at the TV screen in the living room and saw Zhang Chao take out a palm-sized black card from his pocket and show it to the camera.

Yin Ping was stunned for a moment before he said, "This... isn't this a floppy disk? Everyone uses USB flash drives now, who still uses this thing?"

Zhang Chao said calmly on TV: "Some people may think that writers cannot prove themselves, especially when more and more works are done on computers. But in fact, it is quite the opposite. Sometimes computers can retain more traces of creation than manuscripts, especially in my early creations. The situation is quite special."

Then he turned the 3.5-inch disk in his hand towards the camera again, and said: "This is a 3.5-inch floppy disk, which I used to store the electronic manuscripts of my works in the early stage of creation. At that time, I didn't have my own computer and had to go to class, so I formed the habit of using fragmented time to write.

Sometimes I wrote on the computer in the school computer room, sometimes I wrote on the computer in the school radio station, and sometimes I wrote on the laptop borrowed from my classmates. Later, the school even allocated a computer to me - oh, for a while, I would go to my mother's workplace on weekends and write on her office computer.

Because I change the computers I use for writing too frequently, in order to avoid the problem of the old version being overwritten by the new version when copying and pasting articles and novels back and forth between these computers, in addition to a summary draft for each work, I will create a separate file every time I write a new chapter, and then rename it using the format of 'chapter name' plus 'writing time'.

Director, can you project the contents of my floppy disk onto the big screen?" Then he handed the floppy disk to the staff.

Soon, the contents of Zhang Chao's floppy disk were projected onto the big screen. All I saw was a pile of densely packed WORD documents, which would drive people with trypophobia crazy.

Zhang Chao continued, "Just right-click on the file and select Properties, and you can see three pieces of information about the document - creation time, modification time, and last access time. Mr. Fang, you are a pioneer of the Chinese Internet and have been using computers to create since the 90s. Am I right?"

Teacher Fang had never thought that Zhang Chao would have such a strange writing habit, but now he couldn't think of any rebuttal points for the time being, so he could only nod.

Zhang Chao continued, "Then can you please ask Mr. Fang to randomly point out a file and have the staff open it to see if the creation, modification, and access time of the file match the file name?"

Teacher Fang said with a sullen face: "Even if they match, it doesn't mean anything. Computer data can be falsified..."

Before he finished speaking, the audience booed. Obviously, Mr. Fang's stubborn attitude made everyone disdainful.

Zhang Chao ignored Mr. Fang's nonsense and said, "Then please ask the audience to randomly point out a document."

The audience immediately became enthusiastic. Finally, a girl grabbed the microphone and pointed to a document on the screen and said, "This is it - Young Like You 0100402271630."

Zhang Chao smiled and said, "This should be Chapter 10 of "Youth Like You", created at 2004:2 pm on February 27, 4. At that time, senior high school students usually finished classes after 5 pm. That day was either Friday or the weekend, so it was early, so I started writing at 4: pm."

The staff clicked on the properties of the work and found that it was consistent with what Zhang Chao said.

Zhang Chao continued, "Please open the document directly. Then, in the 'File' in the upper left corner, there is a 'Backup' option, which allows you to view the historical versions of this document. In front of different historical versions, you can see the 'Updater'. The software signatures of different computers are different, so the name of this 'Updater' is also different.

As you can see, there are two "updaters" for this chapter, which means I completed it on two different computers. Moreover, after I copied the contents of this document to the summary draft, I usually made some changes, sometimes to correct typos, sometimes to correct incorrect sentences, and sometimes to add or delete some sentences.

If you compare carefully, you can see the so-called "traces of creation". Teacher Fang, do you want to take the file to compare it?"

Teacher Fang didn't say anything this time. Lian Yue muttered, "Who knows if these are the computer experts you hired during this period..."

Zhang Chao immediately said, "Teacher Lianyue, speak out louder. What else do you want me to prove that I haven't done myself?"

Lian Yue was startled and said quickly: "Nothing, nothing."

Zhang Chao motioned to the staff to take a bag, and took out a rather thin laptop from it, showing it to the camera, and then said: "This is the laptop that a high school classmate of mine lent me. Many of my works were completed on it.

Later, I bought a laptop and returned it to her. But I forgot to delete the files on it when I returned it. I didn't expect that she kept it until today. I only found out about it after you questioned me. I also specially asked her to send it back this time.

In addition, I asked my alma mater, Fusan Middle School, and the computer assigned to me at that time is now on display in the school history museum. The system has not been reinstalled, and there should be some of my early works on it. Anyone who is interested can also go to Fuhai to verify it themselves. "

Zhang Chao looked around at the audience below the stage. All the eyes that were once skeptical were now full of trust. He then looked at the people sitting opposite him on the stage. Each of them looked pale and depressed.

Zhang Chao said to the camera: "With such a 'discontinuous' creative process and 'fragmented' versions of the work, do you think there is a dedicated 'ghostwriter' behind the scenes who completed it for me?"

Almost all the audience at the scene and in front of the TV whispered or silently said: "Impossible." Lan Yong stood up with a smile, patted his daughter on the shoulder, and said: "That laptop is yours, right? - Well, I have a lunch party to attend at noon, so I won't watch the rest. Zhang Chao is great! You are great too!"

Lan Ting blushed and murmured, "I didn't delete the file because I wanted to learn how Zhang Chao writes..."

On TV, Zhang Chao, who had completely seized the initiative on the field, turned around and said to Mr. Fang and others on the opposite side: "The reason why you unscrupulously fabricated the so-called 'ghostwriter' is probably because you thought that an electronic manuscript of a work cannot prove anything? It's just that you didn't expect that my early creative method was so weird.

Of course, you can still insist that I asked someone to forge these during this period. But don't get me wrong, I never want you to admit your mistakes, because I know that most of you don't believe that there is such a "ghostwriter", right?

I came here for my readers, and also for the elders, teachers and friends who were troubled by this incident - especially my father. In this farce, they are the ones who are hurt the most, not me. "

After he finished speaking, the audience burst into applause.

No one spoke up, Mr. Fang. After a long while, reporter Nan Feng finally spoke up: "...As a public figure, being questioned by the public is a form of public opinion supervision. In the United States, even if you are the president, you can't avoid being questioned.

You know, President Bush was said to be the president with the lowest IQ, but he didn't say anything back. This is the social atmosphere of democracy and freedom. When you say this, do you mean you don't want to be supervised and want to be an 'outlaw'? "

These words made everyone except Teacher Fang nod and hum in agreement.

At this time, the host Wang Lingling, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke up: "Then can we put an end to the issue of whether Zhang Chao's works were created by himself? Teacher Fang, Teacher Lianyue, and others...what do you think?"

Teacher Fang was the first to be called, and he had no choice but to respond: "I can only say that this temporarily answers some of my questions. If these documents are authentic, they do have some validity. But they cannot explain all the problems, such as the range of his creative themes..."

Zhang Chao suddenly interrupted his speech and asked the host Wang Lingling directly: "They were the ones who asked me questions before, and then I answered. I presented so much evidence and said so much, but Teacher Fang just brushed it off with a few words like 'part', 'certainly effective', and 'cannot explain all the problems'. Don't you think it's unfair?"

As he spoke, he turned his gaze to the audience below the stage.

The audience started to boo at once, shouting: "Unfair, unfair, unfair..."

Although Wang Lingling is experienced, she rarely encounters the situation where the audience is pushed out by the guests to make trouble. She checked the time and said, "It has been almost an hour since the live broadcast. The most important mystery of this program has been solved. Next..."

At this time, the director's anxious voice came from her headphones: "Are you crazy? Keep broadcasting, and Lecture Room will be postponed."

Wang Lingling immediately reacted and continued, "Next, we will enter the second half of this live broadcast, with Zhang Chao questioning Teacher Fang and others on the other side. The "Lecture Room" column originally scheduled to be broadcast at 12 noon on this channel will be postponed to after the live broadcast ends."

Zhang Chao smiled and said to Nan Feng, "Everyone has shown their faces on CCTV's live broadcast today, so they are considered public figures, right? It's not too much for me to ask a few questions, right?"

Teacher Fang was about to say something, but Nan Feng answered first: "Okay... ask!"

Teacher Fang was already vomiting blood in his heart. He now felt thoroughly how powerful these six stupid teammates were to him. On the surface, he seemed to be a leader sitting in the middle, but in fact, these seven people were trying to steal the limelight, being stupid, unhappy, and torn him to pieces.

But if he stood up and left at this moment, he would be seen as running away out of guilt, and the persona he had worked so hard to build would be completely destroyed. But in this situation, he couldn't be sure whether being a deserter would be more destructive, or sitting here and continuing to be tortured would be more destructive.

While he was still hesitating, Zhang Chao had already thrown out questions like a machine gun:

“I looked through Lian Yue’s previous blogs, and found that most of them were about news, politics, and people’s livelihood, and almost never about literature. But suddenly, when I was participating in the review of my graduation work and had no time to look after other things, he published an article questioning the ownership of my work, which was very unreasonable.

Can you prove that this article is entirely based on your own judgment and analysis, and there is no guidance from an expert behind it? "

"After Lian Yue, everyone, including those present today, published articles questioning me. But please look at the big screen - Director, please help me put up the pictures I gave you before - these are the times when these articles were published, almost all of them were between 12 noon and 2 pm on the second or third day, and between 6 pm and 9 pm, in these two time periods.

Some of you are in Yanjing, some in Fuhai, some in Shanghai, and some in Huacheng. Isn't this too much of a coincidence? Can you prove that you didn't discuss this in advance, or that there is also a master behind the scenes directing you?"

"And Professor Fang, although the article you wrote questioning my ghostwriting was published several days later than theirs, I checked and found that as early as May, you published an article on the Internet questioning my study situation at Yanda and Yanshi University, but I was too busy with the final exam to notice it.

Then can you prove that you are not the 'master' behind these people? "

"These are all questions I raised after making reasonable inferences based on objective facts. I hope you can prove that 'there is no expert' and 'I am not that expert'."

After the three questions were asked, Mr. Fang, Lian Yue and others' faces suddenly fell, but the audience burst into laughter.

The boomerang of the logical trap of "proving one's innocence" finally hit the person who threw it.

Teacher Fang knew that if he didn't take over the leadership forcefully, he would be completely defeated. He said to the host in a deep voice: "We questioned Zhang Chao, and he spent many days preparing evidence. Now he is questioning us, and we also need time to adjust our thinking.

Since you said 'second half', I would like to take a break for a few minutes, is that ok?"

Wang Lingling looked at Zhang Chao, who nodded and said, "Okay, you two should discuss it carefully. Otherwise, it would be a joke if you can't come to an agreement."

Wang Lingling said, "Since Zhang Chao has agreed, Teacher Fang, you can go to the backstage lounge first. Will we give you 10 minutes?"

Teacher Fang nodded and said, "That's enough. If you're worried about us colluding with each other, you can arrange different rooms."

Zhang Chao said indifferently: "It all depends on self-awareness. I don't mind."

(Two chapters in one)

(End of this chapter)