Chapter 57: My First Endorsement Ever【Happy New Year!】

Page 1/3

The situation wouldn’t collapse for the time being. On the contrary, the lingering excitement began to turn exceedingly favorable toward Fang Xinghe. The renowned educator Mr. Pan, in a commentary published by the Xiamen Daily, transformed all opposition into immense anticipation.

“One Han Han doesn’t prove much; he’s a genius. Even if he squanders his talents and neglects his studies, failing many subjects, his intuitive writing still surpasses 99% of his peers, a level capable of leading to success.

“One Fang Xinghe also doesn’t prove much; he’s an even greater genius. After half a year of hard work, he topped the exams and casually authored articles that stirred the literary world. He can succeed not only through literature—I believe he can succeed in anything he does.

“Using these two geniuses to judge our education’s correctness is problematic and quite absurd.

“In today’s restless society, the media bears much responsibility.

“If we must use these two youths to decide right or wrong, then let’s give them more time to see who will reach higher and farther.

“Many old friends and I eagerly await what they will ultimately bring us.”

The media then quieted, no longer chasing sensational stories about them, merely adding them to a priority watch list for a lengthy and gentle observation and comparison.

Fang Xinghe thought he could finally settle down to work on his big novel, so he took some time to carefully organize his attributes.

[Attribute Panel]

Appearance Attributes: Looks 99, Physique 79 (expandable)

Physical Attributes: Strength 79, Speed 80, Endurance 80, Agility 79, Flexibility 79

Hidden Attributes: Coordination 81, Perception 79, Recovery 79, Immunity 79, Health 79

Artistic Attributes: Writing 80 (expandable), Acting 37 (expandable), Directing 8 (expandable)

There were four major updates:

First, writing improved slightly automatically; focus and perseverance increased his output ceiling.

Second, after his “统子” (a term perhaps denoting an upgrade or system component) was upgraded, four new expandable items appeared in the attribute panel.

Third, upon expanding physique, a simple adjustable list appeared.

Height: 176 cm (still growing), customizable, lockable, locked means no further changes allowed.

Weight: 64 kg (still growing), customizable, lockable, modifiable.

Posture: …

Fang Xinghe pondered for a while and found this feature was insignificant in daily life but extremely useful in acting.

It allowed manual adjustment of weight and shape, and locking the current state.

Meaning, under normal conditions, Fang Xinghe was a human with a perfect physique score of 99; once locked, no matter how much he ate, he wouldn’t gain weight, nor would his figure distort through exercise.

But if necessary, he could unlock and quickly lose or gain weight to meet different role demands.

And it was not troublesome at all; it only required starlight points.

Now it was clear that the Starlord System was purely an entertainment assistance system; new features were designed for acting. Except for fixed height, all posture aspects could be fine-tuned.

“Not bad, buddy. You’re getting closer to Best Actor,” Fang Xinghe smiled optimistically, then turned his attention to artistic attributes.

Expanding the artistic attributes made him shudder.

How could there be so many subdivided attributes?

Fang Xinghe glanced briefly at acting and directing lists but focused all his attention on [Writing].

Those two fields weren’t urgent; he wouldn’t need them for at least two or three years.

Writing 80: Rhetoric 81, Style 79, Structure 75

Just three simple subdivisions.

There was no mention of imagery, literary quality, innovation, ideology, or humanistic core—just clear technical skills.

Pure output ability was a scientific matter: the level of technique and method was transparent.

The literary brilliance of “Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River” always ranks in the top two; some later critics say Cao Zhi was overly showy, but that doesn’t diminish its greatness.

But the output content was uncertain, non-rational, and difficult to quantify.

Extremely speaking, “Battle Through the Heavens,” though low in literary merit, influenced an entire generation of youth. Did it have value?

For Generation Z, how did it compare to Jin Yong’s wuxia?

Fang Xinghe didn’t want to delve deeper; he had no intention of copying others, just maintained respect.

Tracing upward from “Battle Through the Heavens,” countless works lacked literary polish but contained immense emotional power.

For example, “The Three-Body Problem” was never praised for prose.

Liu Cixin’s writing fluctuated greatly, generally ranging from 60 to 85; his rhetoric often lacked refinement, his prose rarely carried the fluidity typical of Chinese literary aesthetics. But its structure was top-tier, world-class.

Thus, science and engineering authors could excel by focusing on structure, their strength, with prose secondary, leveraging content to overtake others.

For Fang Xinghe, it was the same.

His writing attributes closely aligned with his profession and experience.

Strong rhetoric, weak structure, emotion-driven.

Whether writing marketing copy or high-end praise articles, guiding emotion by lowering textual resistance and increasing fluency was paramount.

Shklovsky mentioned: art’s means is to “make the familiar strange,” to introduce resistance in form, expanding perception difficulties and time.

Thus, orthodox writers’ “literary language” often processes words into artistically alien and distorted forms to raise the comprehension threshold, forcing readers to focus and think hard, achieving a stronger aesthetic effect.

Conversely, “automated language” or “popular language” forms the core of marketing copy and web fiction.

This is the kind of writing we know all too well, incapable of eliciting extra attention.

For example: “In an instant, Han Han froze, face confused, unable to believe Fang Xinghe was so terrifying!”

A single line, smooth and fluent, with imagery intact; readers see “confused” and instantly imagine the expression, “so terrifying” is a highly condensed popular phrase.

This is automated language with zero reading threshold.

Readers can skim dozens of lines per glance without thinking, emotions naturally arise, attention fully on the plot, thus enjoying the story itself.

Now, if the event “Han Han was greatly shocked by Fang Xinghe” was written with more resistant, higher-threshold language, what effect would it have?

“In a fleeting moment just over one-thousandth of a second, Han Han’s thoughts were forcibly frozen midway up the mountain. No one restricted his actions or thinking; it was he who refused to move forward—one half-step beyond would confront Fang Xinghe’s terrifying pressure, which would ignite restless, ominous flames of anger, burning away his faith. But it was already too late; his retinas reflected chaotic waves, dragging down the dark sky and Fang Xinghe’s fierce face, compressing his pride into twisted lines. Han Han’s nose tingled; dazed, he thought: ‘So fire can feel hot after all...’”

Page 2/3

Such writing, when used for certain goals, was neither clear nor conducive to dissemination.

Some readers might praise it for its flavor, but high-threshold writing in a low-patience society was inevitably a burden.

So Fang Xinghe didn’t find it impossible but unnecessary.

Web novels, short videos, and short dramas all follow the same logic, centering on strong emotion while minimizing other distractions.

Fang Xinghe refused to crudely label this as “audience aesthetic decline.” These were meant for relaxation and should fulfill that purpose; those seeking study or deep thought would naturally find profound content.

But this reality provided clear creative guidance:

What is my goal?

Who is my target audience?

How do I use my tools and skills?

Hence, he never failed; every public article served its intended purpose.

Not just in writing; his future filmmaking would likely follow similar principles:

Be somewhat ahead, but lower barriers;

Serve the masses, but with refined details;

Lead with goals, but uphold aesthetics.

With this clarity, he quickly determined the direction for revising his novel’s second draft—strengthen structure rather than rhetoric.

Checking his starlight panel, he had enough points, so Fang Xinghe added 1 point to [Structure 75].

Starlight decreased by 330,000.

His “统子” father explained: since [Writing] splits into three parts, adding points to a single sub-attribute consumes one-third the total.

“Hey, that’s good!” Fang Xinghe was very happy. Spending only 1.32 million starlight raised structure to 79.

One more point upgrade to 80 cost 3.33 million starlight.

Adding 1 point to the main [Writing] attribute required 10 million, but his rhetoric and style were currently sufficient, so no need to waste starlight.

Strictly speaking, this book was a semi-autobiographical critical youth novel from a realist macro perspective; it demanded little rhetoric or style but a bit more structure; most important was the story’s core.

Thus, he spent 7.98 million starlight to push writing to its current peak and stopped.

[Writing 80: Rhetoric 81, Style 80, Structure 80]

If revisions revealed needs later, he could temporarily add points to maximize starlight efficiency.

He wasn’t stingy—it was genuinely tight!

[Starlight Panel]

[Followers: 8.8 million]

Level 1 Casual Fans: 8,246,300

Level 2 Core Fans: 525,100

Level 3 Devoted Fans: 30,250

Level 4 Fanatics: 878

Level 5 Faithful: 0

[Starlight Points: 12.88 million]

[Star Glory: 4]

Good news: PK victory achieved.

Bad news: Starlight growth stalled...

After such intense exposure, all available starlight was basically drained. Even praise from Yi Da Jie barely boosted it. However, his first appearance in the People’s Daily added 1 Star Glory point.

This stuff was harder than expected... no, actually, starlight is just difficult.

Those 8 million casual fans seemed fake. When he tried to squeeze starlight from them, only 8 million points surfaced.

Without effort, they probably wouldn’t even know what he did; average extraction per person was less than 1 point.

Even though Fang Xinghe knew casual fans were useless for big matters, he was still troubled.

So he solemnly reminded himself:

Never be complacent because of casual fans. Core fans start to matter; devoted fans form the solid base. Above that, no demands—just opportunities and luck.

The start was excellent, beyond expectations. So he must make every step ahead even better to honor such a beginning.

Brushing away impatience, he focused on the second draft.

But just after a few quiet days, new trouble appeared again.

“No time!” Fang Xinghe was about to hang up when he paused, “Wait, who is this? What do you want?”

Liu Dashan stifled a laugh and repeated, “That, Jeanswest, the young people’s clothing brand—they want you for an endorsement.”

Jeanswest? Was it as good as Baleno?

Fang Xinghe thought for a moment, the name was somewhat familiar but vague.

Whatever, let’s see.

If the pay was good enough, Jeanswest wasn’t out of the question.

He wasn’t at the stage to care about commercial image yet; right now, letting fans spend money on him was the priority.

“What made them think of me? How much do they offer? What’s the deal?”

“Deal?” Liu Dashan was confused, with obvious hesitation, “I don’t know that either. Maybe you should negotiate directly with them?”

Fang Xinghe slapped his forehead—damn, spoke too fast.

These days, endorsements hardly come with perks.

Probably just shoot a couple of photo sets to post on walls, maybe a few events.

Page 3/3

That was fine—easy and worry-free.

“Alright, bring them here. I can’t go out.”

Fang Xinghe bossed his future manager like a loyal servant, but Liu Dashan was delighted, cheerfully agreeing, “Okay, I’ll bring them this afternoon and find you a lawyer.”

“Fine, hang up. Damn, some idiot just smashed my window again!”

Fang Xinghe, fuming, pushed open the window and saw a thick envelope wedged in the windowsill gap. Looking back at the glass, it was intact—a lucky day.

Yesterday, some idiot woman smashed a window pane—if you want to give me a gift, do it properly! She wrote a love letter, wrapped a bunch of rings, earrings, studs, necklaces, then casually threw them at the window. Training in the Tang Sect?

Damn near gave him a heart attack.

Opening it, the necklace was iron, rings copper, earrings silver—almost enough to open a hardware store.

Not that he disliked it; the problem was, what was this about?

Shaking his head, Fang Xinghe opened today’s envelope and skimmed it.

Inside was a distinctly dated love letter—Z-generation kids had never seen such a thing at school.

The content was chaotic: the previous sentence was a reserved wish to be friends; the next was fiery and bold, willing to do anything for him, then boasting about family background, talents studied, books read, hobbies, and so on.

Finally, it included photos and two 100-yuan bills.

First glance: the person was pretty.

Second glance: well-developed.

Third glance: bored, no interest.

He pocketed the 200 yuan, tidied the rest, and tossed it into a drawer—already full.

This was Fang Xinghe’s recent treatment. Two days ago, a wealthy woman from the provincial capital came looking for him—mid-to-late twenties, full of charm, graceful, driving a Lexus or something, inquiring all along the way, then parked at his door and coquettishly knocked.

Unfortunately, just another flashy dud; a couple of quick crotch grabs scared her off.

Now, his bodyguards, extra security, and crotch-guarding gatekeepers lived at his place to protect the rising young star, but this didn’t solve the fundamental problem...

Well, freedom to go out was basically unsolvable.

Fang Xinghe wasn’t particularly uncomfortable; in his previous life, he’d been bedridden for years until the end. Now, giving up over a decade of free travel in exchange for a hundred-plus years of health, happiness, and wild living was a great deal.

Besides, it wasn’t too bad. Once he moved into the new house, things should calm down—Liu Dashan was working on it. The place was huge, with a vegetable garden in back, a big courtyard in front, surrounded by low houses, no tall buildings.

Later, he’d raise the courtyard walls; no matter how much he practiced martial arts or studied, no one could spy on him.

If you have the guts, try throwing stuff again.

First climb over a 2.5-meter wall, then lob something 20 meters away to break my window—what girl could do that? I’d give you a red rod and promote you to “Sister Fourteen.”

Hehe!

Thinking of his fangirls tearing their hair out at the walls made Fang Xinghe smile.

“Come on, Extra and Crotch-Guard, help me with some beast training.”

Calling them, the two immediately put down their handheld consoles and ran over, picking up sticks and silently readying.

This training was the emotional foundation used by actor Feng Yuanzheng for his role as An Jiahe.

Essentially, through the assistant’s threatening shouts and intermittent whipping, the actor’s sense of crisis and antagonism was fully activated, while the actor’s own movement practice focused on awakening the primal beast within.

Eventually, naked animal instincts were roused, emotions and corresponding physical sensations deeply felt, until forming a controllable instinct that could be summoned at will—portraying a feral child was no problem.

Cool, right?

Damn, all self-inflicted!

That afternoon, when Liu Dashan brought the Jeanswest manager, Fang Xinghe looked like he’d just been pulled from the water, panting and trembling slightly.

“Fang, what happened to you?”

The manager, a woman in her forties, whether sincere or to show sincerity, asked with genuine concern.

“Nothing, just training some stuff.”

“Martial arts?”

The manager was very interested, eyes lighting up at the sight of the decorative sword on the wall and the 4-meter staff under the eaves.

“Something like that,” he replied briefly, not wanting to elaborate.

“You really work hard...” she admired, curiosity flickering, “But you shouldn’t need to fight anymore, right? Why still push yourself so hard?”

Fang Xinghe calmly pushed his medium-length hair back, revealing a smooth, full forehead and a face streaked with sweat.

Then he turned to look at the poster on the wall.

Everyone looked with him; it was a poster of a martial arts hero, Jet Li, delivering a fierce high kick.

“I’m probably a bit more handsome than him, but looks alone aren’t enough.”

Fang Xinghe spoke softly, as if to himself.

“I want to be the strongest and brightest among my peers, the most unforgettable symbol in their memories. Whenever people mention me, they either admire or envy. So now, working hard is just right...”

The manager was stunned, then her eyes gleamed with wild joy.

The lawyer was also stunned, then thoughtfully looked at the poster.

Liu Dashan also froze, then nodded with satisfaction, secretly howling inside—

“Right, right, that’s the vibe!”

No need to continue negotiating this deal.

If I were that woman, I’d write you a check now, you sign the words, fill in the numbers, name any price!

*********

Thanks to the new member “Hey, don’t mess around, my back’s bad.” I’ll take the next couple of days off for Lunar New Year; updates resume on the 1st.

Page 3/3