Unboxing, Director!

Chapter 74 I have a friend named Lu Jiang!

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Yilu Jiang stayed at home for a day, did not go anywhere, and had a good rest.

On the morning of the second day of the Lunar New Year, Lu Jiang and his son drove to their grandfather's house to pay New Year's greetings.

Then, as expected, there was another onlooker at my grandfather's house, and the scale was several times larger than last year.

Lu Jiang was already famous when he came to pay New Year's greetings last year, a quasi-superstar.

But his fame is almost limited to the music industry.

For this reason, the fame mostly covers only young people.

But no matter what, Lu Jiang is still a star.

So after the New Year's greetings, this small village shocked the area within dozens of miles.

The surrounding villages soon knew that the Wang family had produced a star.

So based on this level of fame, even if Lu Jiang did nothing last year, there would definitely be a lot of people coming to watch the fun this year.

But this year Lu Jiang's fame has reached a new level, so now, it is said that people have come from the next town and even the next county.

It makes this small village as lively as a market.

Among those who come to see something new, young people are no longer the main force.

The proportion of middle-aged and elderly people is much larger than last year.

An old man from the next village, who was said to be a distant relative, smiled with his big front teeth showing when he saw Lu Jiang: "He really is exactly like on TV!"

Then a middle-aged woman said: "It's better than on TV!"

Then the little kid said: "Mom, he looks like the brother on TV last night."

Everyone was talking at once, looking at Lu Jiang with a mixture of freshness and excitement, while the relatives on my grandfather's side were filled with pride.

Lu Jiang responded to all of this with a polite smile.

Although this kind of scene is not very comfortable, it is like watching a monkey.

But at least it shows that Lu Jiang’s current popularity has indeed increased a lot, and the bonus of the Spring Festival Gala is very obvious.

Yes, after all, we are living in an era where television and print media are the main channels for disseminating information.

And many of them can only receive one or two channels.

So even if Lu Jiang has appeared on many satellite TV variety shows in the past year, it really cannot be compared with the Spring Festival Gala.

Currently, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has an average viewership of at least 40% in the north and an average viewership of 36% across the country. Moreover, the whole family watches it together, covering all age groups.

This kind of coverage is a huge help in increasing the national popularity of artists.

For this reason, before 2010 and even 2015, the Spring Festival Gala has always been one of the highest stages for Chinese singers and the best place for singers to increase their national popularity.

Even in the early 2000s, for all new generation singers, whether or not they had performed on the Spring Festival Gala was an important measure of fame.

Later, Jay Chou was known as half of the star, and his debut performance in the 04 Spring Festival Gala is still regarded as an important milestone in his acting career.

The same goes for movie actors. The film industry is becoming increasingly sluggish nowadays. If movie actors want to increase their popularity and national recognition, they often have to act in TV dramas to achieve their goals.

And it’s not enough to just act mediocrely, you have to keep acting and act in good dramas, preferably the kind that can be broadcast on CCTV.

So in this era, don’t think that Lu Jiang is already the king or the top brother.

To be honest, it is famous nationwide.

Now I am truly qualified.

When Lu Jiang was being treated like a monkey at his grandfather's house, a wave of discussion about Lu Jiang was also sweeping the Internet.

In Hangzhou, Wu Shuaishuai followed his parents to his grandfather's house to pay New Year's greetings.

Wu Shuaishuai is not very happy about New Year's greetings.

The reason is simple. His family lives in a rural area of ​​Shaoxing, dozens of kilometers away, which is considered far away for his mother, who lives in Hangzhou.

Although his grandparents were nice to him, the rest of his relatives couldn't help but feel superior to them.

For the adolescent Wu Shuaishuai, this feeling would be infinitely magnified, making him restless.

But there is no other way, I can't not come, otherwise I will be beaten.

When we arrived at the place, all the brothers and sisters from my second and third aunt's families were there as expected. They lived in the same building and were very close to us, but they were all staying in my grandfather's room and didn't come out.

Wu Shuaishuai didn't care. They couldn't play together anyway. They would just have a meal and leave. He could just bear with it and it would pass.

But as luck would have it, my second aunt started calling out, "Shuai Shuai, go to grandpa's room to play computer. Come on, Lele, your cousin is here!"

"Buying a computer?" Wu Shuaishuai's mother asked immediately.

This also directly hit the sore spot of my second aunt: "Yeah, I just bought it a few days ago. She said she needed it for study and insisted on buying it for me. It cost 8600. How could I dare to put such an expensive thing in her room? I can only put it here with Dad."

Computers are definitely a luxury in this era, and the cheapest desktop brand costs four or five thousand yuan.

The average salary of ordinary office workers in Hangzhou is less than 1500 yuan.

Many people have never even seen a computer, and those who have seen one don’t know where the power button is.

Therefore, the value of showing off wealth with more than 8,000 yuan is maximized.

Wu Shuaishuai's mother was envious but also regretful, so she didn't dare to ask any more questions.

Wu Shuaishuai's father was quite curious and encouraged Wu Shuaishuai to broaden his horizons.

Wu Shuaishuai himself didn't think there was anything strange about it.

He was envious, and he also wanted to have his own computer.

But he is not really a bumpkin.

I've been to the internet cafe several times, even though I've climbed over the wall a few times.
If his parents weren't there, he would definitely show off.

Without thinking too much, my little cousin was not very happy when she heard the order, but after all, it was about showing off the computer, so of course she had to complete it with quality and quantity.

Soon, Wu Shuaishuai came into the room.

At this time, a little cousin was playing Spider Solitaire.

That's it? Wu Shuaishuai's face was full of disgust.

Another little cousin present said directly: "It will be your turn next time, don't cut in line."

Wu Shuaishuai asked, "Isn't there an internet connection?"

"Of course I did."

My little cousin replied, but there was no further text.

Wu Shuaishuai asked again: "Why are you still playing single-player games when you have internet access? Can you play something else?"

"What is a single-player game?"

A group of little kids around thirteen or fourteen years old immediately widened their eyes.

Everyone is fashionable and comes from a good family, but they are young after all and don't know as much as the sixteen-year-old Wu Shuaishuai. When they see Wu Shuaishuai speaking "professional terms", everyone looks at him differently.

Seeing the curious eyes of the little ones, Wu Shuaishuai's mouth twisted into a crooked shape. "Single-player means not connected to the Internet and can only be played by one person, just like Subor, such as Red Alert, CS, and StarCraft. Online means online games, such as Stone Age. What, you haven't heard of it?"

A bunch of little guys shook their heads, and the bravest one asked directly: "What is Red Alert?"

The curve of Wu Shuaishuai's mouth became even wider. This is his comfort zone!
Then came the various introductions.

But unfortunately, just an introduction is useless. This kind of game needs to be downloaded or loaded from a CD. If you download it, with the current Internet speed, I'm afraid it may not be downloaded even after dinner.

What should I do if I can’t pretend anymore?
Wu Shuaishuai still has one last trump card.

"Then let's play QQ. Do you know QQ?"

The little brats continued to shake their heads.

“You can add friends and chat with people from all over the world.”

"That's boring." Chatting or something is not as interesting as playing games. The little kids immediately lost interest.

But Wu Shuaishuai smiled and said, "I can still chat with Lu Jiang!"

"Lu Jiang?"

My little cousin’s eyes suddenly widened.

Although she is only fourteen years old, she is already in the second grade of junior high school and has started to chase stars like her classmates.

Even the class song is "Running".

So she was not only familiar with Lu Jiang, but also liked him very much.

But of course she didn't believe what her cousin from the countryside said.

Can I chat with Lu Jiang?

Just bragging!
A bunch of little brats were also full of disbelief.

Wu Shuaishuai confidently said, "Don't believe it? If you don't believe it, just download QQ and I'll prove it to you!"

Everyone reached a consensus, and Wu Shuaishuai sat down in front of the computer smoothly.

Then the keyboard started clicking, surprising the little kids.

That was the situation during that period, even being able to type fluently was considered a sign of showing off.

So the way a group of city kids looked at Wu Shuaishuai suddenly changed, and they began to admire him.

But Wu Shuaishuai was not satisfied with this, he soon started downloading QQ.

In 2000, dial-up was the common method for Internet access in China, which had limited bandwidth.

普遍的上网带宽只有14K、28K，54K已经算是较快的网速了，而56K是理论上的最大值，实际上往往只能达到14.4K至54K之间。

Fortunately, the QQ version of this period was not large in size. The initial version was only 220k, and the current version is only a little over 1M. This also allowed QQ to complete the download relatively quickly under the snail-level network speed at the time.

After a few minutes, QQ was downloaded.

Wu Shuaishuai logged in skillfully. After a while, the friend list was displayed, and "Lu Jiang" was pinned to the top of the friend list.

The avatar is Lu Jiang’s, and there is also space. Currently, only he has it. After the version is upgraded in a few days, ordinary users will unlock this function.

When you click into the space, you will see some photos of Lu Jiang’s daily life, the main theme of which is reality.

Looking at the chat records again, they are also very real.

"Hello Shuai Shuai, I'm Lu Jiang, and I'm glad to be your friend."

"I'm going to be on the Spring Festival Gala today, remember to watch TV"

"Good morning, today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. Did you set off firecrackers?"

In this era when online fraud was not rampant, these naive little kids widened their eyes after seeing the chat records, and then directly regarded Wu Shuaishuai as a god.

The little cousin immediately started to act coquettishly and also wanted to register and add Lu Jiang as a friend.

Wu Shuaishuai was so happy.

This little city swan finally bowed its head in front of him.

Of course, now that the effect of showing off has been achieved, you have to stop while you are ahead.

After all, now as long as you register QQ, "Lu Jiang" will automatically request to add friends, and the chat is also mechanically replied.
So it cannot be concealed.

However, just as he was about to explain, a little cousin ran out and started yelling, "Cousin Wu Shuaishuai and Lu Jiang are friends!!!"

All the relatives were confused at first, then shocked. Even my grandfather asked, "Is that the Lu Jiang from this year's Spring Festival Gala?"

For a time, Wu Shuaishuai became an absolute star.

But Lu Jiang didn't know how Wu Shuaishuai finally explained it, how it ended, and how his parents double-teamed him to find out the details of his skipping classes and surfing the Internet after he returned home.

He only knew that at 4:30 p.m. on the second day of the Lunar New Year, Brother Xiao Ma sent him a message.

Lu Jiang’s friend-adding feature has only been online for a week.

The number of registered QQ users has exceeded 7.3 from 43.

In the original time and space, the number of registered QQ users did not reach 4 until April.

(End of this chapter)