Generation Z Artists

Chapter 113: The Sword of Culture, the Refraction of the Sun and the Moon

Signing books is not necessary for ordinary writers.

But Fang Xinghe is different. No writer in the world has a higher value of "offline display" than him.

Expanding to the entire entertainment industry, this is still the case.

Nowadays, any celebrity who appears on camera will look “charming and with smooth skin”, but that’s because they put on makeup and the camera cannot capture the details, making the celebrities with makeup look like they are not wearing any makeup. So as long as the face shape is OK, everyone looks good.

Uncle Jiao is a typical example. His skin is a little bad in real life, but he is a top beauty on the screen.

Female celebrities are even harder hit. The princess played mahjong all night and went straight to work. She still looked as pretty as a rose in the photos, but in fact she looked quite haggard at the scene.

Except for realistic films, filters have remained essentially the same over the past thirty years.

But for Fang Xinghe, he is at full power of 120% when he is offline, and the last time he talked to Ji Shi, he could only reach 80% at most. The difference is huge.

So under the strong appeal of President Jin and the careful evaluation of Wang Charlie, Brother Fang decided to do something big.

Start the first book signing event in life.

One person can only get one autograph, and the book signing range is limited to three books: "Better Days", the genuine "Cang Yexue", and the inaugural issue of "The Strongest Voice of the Post-80s". The "Mr. Fashion" is excluded.

As soon as the news came out, Fang fans were furious.

The first signing session is scheduled for April 4, which is not only the day the new book is released, but also Fang Xinghe’s birthday.

The location is at CC City People’s Shopping Mall.

So, one day in advance, planes flying to CC from all over the country were packed with sister fans and mother fans who wanted to celebrate Xiao Fang's birthday.

The bottom-level composition of Fang fans is not very healthy, but the top-level composition of Fang fans has both base number and quality, and is completely concentrated in cities, which are the richest and most leisurely groups at this time.

The signing started at 9 o'clock and the mall opened at 8 o'clock, but before 7 o'clock, a huge crowd of people had already formed outside.

The crowds of people were so densely packed together that it was impossible to form a formation.

There was not enough open space in front of the mall, and the fans who arrived late spread all the way to the main road, not only completely filling up the sidewalk, but even squeezing many people into the motor vehicle lane.

The city originally dispatched a group of police forces to maintain order, but it was a drop in the bucket, so they had to urgently call in two squadrons of traffic police and a group of civilian police to seal the sidewalks.

The passers-by were speechless and pulled a man next to them to ask: "Oh my god, what is this? Why is there so many people blocking the way?"

"Fang Xinghe is starting a book signing!"

"Who?"

"That kid writer fell off the couch with his butt!"

"Oh! That Wudang True Story... No wonder... Hey, brother, are you also his fan?"

"Shit, I'm not!"

"Then what are you doing here, squeezing together?"

"Don't mention it, my wife is! She is too busy at work to take a leave..."

The men nearby instantly looked at him with empathy—Brother, me too.

In the still-incomplete team, only about 30% are girls.

But that's normal. Today is a weekday and middle school girls have to go to school. Only a small number of them will skip classes to get autographs, so girlish fans only account for 30%... Well, don't be too specific, this proportion is actually quite scary now.

Fortunately, today is not a holiday, otherwise it is hard to imagine how many little girls would come.

They gathered in groups of three or five, chattering and unrestrainedly venting the youthful energy fully stimulated by "Master Fang Xinghe".

As for the other 70%, sisters and mothers, that is, young female fans and middle-aged female fans, the ratio is 20%+20% respectively, which is quite balanced.

The last 30% are male fans, and their composition is particularly strange.

It is hard to imagine why these bad teenagers with long dyed yellow hair and chewing gum buy books. Do they really read them?
There were also junior and senior high school students wearing school uniforms, and children from top prestigious schools such as No. 11 High School and its Affiliated Middle School even skipped school to come here.

As well as many middle-aged uncles and grandfathers of unknown origin.

People from Northeast China are very outgoing and it is easy for uncles and grandpas to chat with each other.

They asked each other, "Man, who are you here for?"

Most of them are queuing for their families, mostly children and granddaughters, but there are also daughters-in-law, and even quite a few scalpers.

"wipe!"

Several big guys who were lining up near the front of the mall entrance were boasting loudly.

"Do you know how much a signed book by Fang Xinghe can sell for?"

"How much, brother?"

"If it's the genuine "Cang Ye Xue", a rich woman offered 10 last time!"

"Fuck!"

"Oh my goodness!"

"Is this true? No way? You are not bragging?"

"Why not? My buddy who works at Jishi told me personally that many people in his company have been asked if they want to sell their books, and more than three have been sold. Of course, the price may not be that expensive, but it is definitely not cheap."

"No, what's the point?"

"Because there are not many! There are only a few dozen autographed copies of Cangyexue, and they are not circulated on the market at all. You can calculate it yourself. How many copies can Times Literature get, how many can Jishi TV get, and how many copies do the writers who wrote the prefaces have. But how many fans does Fang Xinghe have now?"

"How many?"

"If your eyes are useless, just dig them out. If you had looked back, you wouldn't have asked such a stupid question. Aren't there thousands of people behind you?"

“That’s only a few thousand!”

"Are you arguing with me? There are several thousand people on site alone. If you count the people who couldn't come, CC must be at least tens of thousands. There are so many provinces and cities in the country, how many two or three million are there?"

"Then it should be."

"Now even a fool knows that the signature of the seller Xinghe can make money. Look at the reporters who went in early. Who doesn't have two books in his hands?"

"Are you all looking for Fang Xinghe's autograph?"

"Of course! Those reporters don't want red envelopes, they just want autographs. I heard that in big cities, Fang Xinghe's autographs are sold for tens of thousands, and signing a book is even more expensive."

"Fuck, no wonder you didn't even play cards. You dragged me here so early in the morning. Brother, you are so loyal!"

"Of course. If you spend 20 yuan to buy a book and wait in line for an autograph, you can sell it for thousands of yuan. If you can't wait in line, you can take it home and let your children read it, right?"

"It's true, but who can we sell it to? We don't have any channels."

"Look behind you."

"Ok?"

"Did you see those women who were dressed very stylishly?"

"I saw it, what?"

"You idiot! Those are all Fang fans from big cities. If we can really get a spot, we can just sell it to them and get a good price right away!"

"A big city? That's impossible. Didn't Fang Xinghe announce that he would move to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen? Why are they here to join in the fun?"

"Stupid! You're just an impatient fan! Keep an eye on them, they're willing to pay any amount of money."

Similar conversations have been happening again and again, and it seems that all the scalpers in the entire provincial capital have set their sights on Fang Xinghe.

But this is normal. Scalping has been around for a long time, but business is not easy to do now because of the limited market size of the entire entertainment industry. There are too few stars with truly high commercial value. There are only three or five in the mainland, and none of them are active in the Northeast.

Therefore, Fang Xinghe can be said to be the only one in the north.

Moreover, he has potential but no channels to release it. Even though Levi's is selling well, it can only fill the casual clothing market for young people and cannot bring out Fang Xinghe's commercial value at all. Therefore, buying his books, preferably signed books, has become the only way for fans to release their consumption enthusiasm.

This situation was later called the post-explosion vacuum period.

It means that after a new traffic star becomes popular, the business cannot keep up with his status temporarily, resulting in fans’ pent-up enthusiasm for consumption but no suitable products to buy.

Both Hedi after Canglan Jue and Chengyi after Lianhua Tower experienced a period of vacuum.

Therefore, the capital at that time liked to place bets in advance, which is called buying stocks in the jargon. They would give a short-term contract with sufficient sincerity to the upcoming hot star or hot drama, and bet on the commercial returns after the big hit.

In fact, there are also merchants buying stocks on Fang Xinghe's side. Although the times are different, businessmen with vision are always trying to get bargains - to use Lu Buwei's analogy, that is called making the most of rare goods.

Unfortunately, Fang Xinghe is particularly unwilling to consume his teenage image. Now that he is not short of money, he hopes to create an extremely popular phenomenon for each of his products.

The only business that Wang Charlie was discussing was the Hu Jian Company, which had been officially renamed Xtep.

In fact, the third version of the shoes was already very beautiful, but he still rejected it and asked the other party to make further changes.

He was so serious because he was going to impact the summer market this year and launch a big satellite. At the same time, it was because he never gave fans a chance to vent their emotions that the signing event today was so grand.

Jishi brought in three cameras. One was placed on the roof of the next building to capture the bustling scene in the mall from above. One was placed on a news vehicle to capture the grand spectacle of people gathering. The last one went deep into the crowd to conduct interviews.

Li Hong is the host of today's outdoor photo shoot.

She saw the city mobilizing so many police forces and also saw the enthusiasm on the faces of fans, and she felt very proud and honored.

However, when she saw so many young children in school uniforms crowded in the line, she became deeply worried.

There are too many kids skipping school...

If such footage is broadcast, what kind of criticism and attacks will Xinghe face?

Although he himself does not care about the noise from the media at all, the general public will definitely have a negative view of this, which will easily lead to further resentment from the other party, which is not a good thing after all.

How to do?
She thought about it for a long time but still couldn't come up with a solution, so she had to complete her interview task first.

Li Hong and the cameraman struggled to squeeze through the crowd, interviewing people in line one after another, and tried their best to avoid students.

The result is unavoidable.

It wasn't that she couldn't control the situation, but that some media from other places specifically looked for junior high school students to interview.

Li Hong knew without even looking what kind of questions they would use to elicit what kind of answers.

Jilin TV has big scissors and is willing to protect Fang Xinghe, but not all satellite TV stations have the same good intentions. How can we entertain without breaking entertainment news?

Li Hong was extremely anxious, but there was nothing she could do.

Then, just as she was interviewing one of the elderly people who was almost 70 years old, an unexpected accident brought a huge turn for the chaos of the day.

"Uncle, we are reporters from Jishi. Can we interview you?"

"Oh, ok, why not? Ask."

"Uncle, do you know what's going on in there?"

"I know, I know, it's selling books, Xiao Fang, Fang Xinghe!"

"Oh, you're definitely not buying this for yourself? Can you tell me who you're buying it for?"

“Why can’t I buy it myself?”

The old man frowned with displeasure, and Li Hong and the people around him were all confused: No, you are looking at Fang Xinghe too?
“I just want to see it myself!”

"what?!"

After Li Hong was stunned for a moment, she quickly felt excited - it was as if she had caught some interesting news!
"Then could you please tell me the reason? How did you know Fang Xinghe? And why are you interested in his new book? Don't worry, we will go through them one by one."

"I was reading a newspaper a few days ago and saw an article by Xiao Fang. It was so well written!"

The old man became even more excited. The sparse beard on his chin trembled violently, and his wrinkled face suddenly showed even deeper waves.

"If our generation is destined not to drive tanks across that appendix from the 38th parallel again... this is really well written! I am so excited that young people have not forgotten that war!"

Li Hong's eyes widened, a guess came to her mind, and she hurriedly asked: "Uncle, are you the original..."

"Yes!" The old man nodded, a hint of pride on his face, "I really went there! But I didn't drive a tank, I went there in a captured American troop carrier!"

There was light in the old man's eyes when he said this.

"Wow……"

There was a low exclamation of surprise all around, and everyone looked at this plain-looking, plainly dressed old man with reverence.

With just a little guidance, Li Hong aroused the old man's stronger desire to talk.

"You liked that article?"

"I like it!" the old man said firmly, "You talk about the cultural war very well!"

The old man carefully took out a photo frame from his coat pocket, with a page of paper sealed in the middle.

The cameraman zoomed in and soon saw clearly what it was...it was a flyer.

"That time..."

The old man spoke with a nostalgic tone about the past when blood and fire were intertwined, and ice and anger were condensed.

"Xiao Meizi often played psychological warfare with us. If a bomber rumbled past in the sky, and what it dropped was not a bomb, it was probably dropping leaflets to persuade us to surrender.

Sometimes, an M16 propaganda bomb would be fired and the battlefield would soon be covered with papers.

We love this stuff..."

"Why, old man?"

A young man nearby couldn't help but interrupt, but the old man glanced at him and said confidently, "Xiao Meizi's paper is good, it won't prick your butt at all when you use it to relieve yourself!"

"Hahahaha!"

A burst of laughter quickly broke out all around, and the atmosphere was extremely cheerful.

Li Hong suppressed her laughter and changed the subject back on track: "What do flyers usually say?"

“Write about all kinds of things.”

The old man spoke clearly and gave examples one by one.

"For example, the most common one is a letter of commitment written in various languages: If you surrender, you will receive humanitarian treatment and be well fed and well cared for in the prisoner camp.

There are also some small stories, describing how well Meiko's army eats, how powerful their weapons are, how an atomic bomb can destroy a mountain, and how comfortable the lives of the captured comrades are. Anyway, it's a lot of bullshit.

The most vicious thing is that when traditional festivals are approaching, the flyers are all about Mid-Autumn Festival reunion, going home for the New Year and so on. There was a little soldier in our company, I cannot mention his name, anyway, he was only 17 years old at the time. On New Year's Eve, he held a flyer and wiped his tears. We all knew that the child missed home.

The political commissar held a meeting with everyone, asking them to be wary of the US's deceptive traps and not to let the enemy's psychological warfare break down their fighting will.

The young soldier jumped up and said anxiously: "I am not crying because I miss home! I feel guilty for not being able to drive them away earlier and let my comrades go home for the New Year!"
Everyone laughed together, and the political commissar praised: "Good job! The enemy's planes and artillery can't knock us down, and the psychological warfare and cultural warfare can't do anything to our iron will! They are the donkeys of Guizhou, there is nothing we can do!"

In reality, people around me couldn't help but laugh.

The old man has clear ideas and interesting words. With just a few words, he brings the images of the clever little soldier who is stubborn and the political commissar who is methodical and down-to-earth to life.

A little girl who had skipped school nearby was so fascinated by the story that she couldn't help asking, "What happened next? When did you go home for the holidays?"

"Later..."

The old man's voice suddenly became low, and the muscles around his lips began to tremble one after another.

"Later, only seven people returned from our company. The company commander fell, the political commissar fell, and the young soldier also fell... He fell beside me, and I took out a relic from his arms - here, it was this leaflet. He violated discipline and secretly hid one, which was not allowed, but all of us pretended not to see it.

At the age of 17, he was only that big at that time...

He once told me his true feelings in private. He said, Uncle, I actually envy the life over there where they can eat rice and canned meat every day. How can people live so well?

He added, "But don't worry, uncle, I will never be a traitor! I am looking forward to defeating them quickly, and then returning home in triumph, using our own hands to build our own motherland and hometown, so that my parents and little sister can have a life of rice every day!"
He was really good. The American devils’ machine gun tore through his shoulder diagonally. He fired the last shot while coughing up blood..."

There was a solemn silence all around.

The camera slid from the old man's face to the faces around him, showing shock, grief, sorrow, and confusion... The quiet remembrance and the hustle and bustle of the surrounding traffic separated the two worlds.

Sister Hong's eyes were red, and she nodded emotionally: "Old hero, I understand why you like Fang Xinghe."

There were no tears in the old man's cloudy eyes, but there was suddenly a murderous intent in his sonorous voice.

“I love his summary!

Our political commissar often warned us to be vigilant against the ideological invasion of the United States. At that time, I didn’t understand what ideology was, and I still don’t understand it now, but I know that they have never given up or given up!
If you can’t win the war, buy off the traitors and the traitors. If you can’t win with knives and guns, start a cultural war!
These days, I read the newspaper every day. I don’t recognize many words, and sometimes I can’t understand them, but I find that the voices advocating that everything about the United States is good are getting louder and louder... It’s outrageous! Too many people, too outrageous!

No matter how good the West is, it is not your home. On the contrary, they are thinking about your home!
In the past, we needed political commissars to protect the troops’ thoughts from wavering. Now we need more Xiao Fangs to protect the people’s thoughts from wavering.

I have been a soldier for half my life, and worked hard for half my life, so I haven't saved much, but I still want to come and see him and bring him something...

So I took out this flyer and wanted to give it to Xiao Fang in person. I wanted to tell him that your explanation of the cultural war was very good and correct. We don’t need kids like you to fight the war, but we need you to protect the cultural front. We illiterate soldiers are old and can’t keep up with the times, but we are relieved to have you in the new era!"

After a moment of silence, there was soon a burst of excited applause and cheers.

Some emotions do not need to be exaggerated. As long as they are expressed in the most plain and simple language, they can touch the soft spot in our hearts that is rooted in our blood.

The sword that Fang Xinghe slashed at culture was still emitting sword light, reflecting the sun and moon shining in the east, making them shine brightly.

Sister Hong didn't delay at all, and without even saying a word, she immediately helped the old man to the inner field and walked into the backstage.

Fang Xinghe was making final preparations in the lounge when he saw a group of reporters carrying cameras and escorting a simple old man. He was completely stunned.

This is...what trouble have I gotten myself into again? !

***************
Thanks to the new alliance [Shengye Qingcheng]. I’m sorry I just saw it.

(End of this chapter)