Chapter 58: Taking a Walk with the Big Brother

Your Brother Fang is a seasoned actor whose bones are thoroughly steeped in pure swagger.

Serving up such an intimidating display right off the bat left the entire Metersbonwe team scalp-tingling and dropping to their knees on the spot.

Whether someone is a total badass or an absolute fool ultimately comes down to the massive discrepancy between their age and their actions.

If a seventy-year-old grandma runs a full marathon or an eighty-year-old grandpa handles six women in a single night, it is bound to make headline news, leaving everyone utterly dumbfounded.

Little Fang's rigorous self-discipline followed the exact same logic.

Aspiring to be the greatest is nothing special; anyone can have ambitions, but only the sweat left behind can prove true depth.

And for an established idol writer like Fang Xinghe, who could easily make a living on his looks alone, the value of that sweat was multiplied tenfold.

The manager in charge, Auntie Yang, immediately lowered her cards right then and there: "Student Fang Xinghe, you are the spokesperson we've been looking for. No one could possibly be more suitable than you!"

By this point, Fang Xinghe was in no hurry whatsoever.

"I'm sorry, but I need to carefully understand your company first."

The Metersbonwe side was exceptionally enthusiastic, with an assistant pulling out a complete set of materials and launching into a thorough presentation.

As it turned out, Metersbonwe had been established quite a while ago. Originally an Australian clothing brand, it was acquired by Semir in 1990 to form a Hong Kong company, and entered the domestic market in 1993. Therefore, theoretically, it was both an international brand and a national enterprise.

Playing both sides and adapting as needed, weren't they?

When the brand first launched, it enjoyed a wave of popularity, but as the domestic clothing market developed, their high pricing and low cost-performance ratio gradually fell out of favor. This year, Metersbonwe decided to reflect deeply and undergo a strategic transformation.

According to Ms. Yang, the person in charge, Metersbonwe was preparing to lower prices, shift its positioning to become a fast-fashion brand loved by young people, expand its store network, and make a strong push into the northern market.

She was truly something else—making me want to cry, without hiding a single thing...

President Fang quickly realized his value to Metersbonwe: extremely precise positioning, an exceptionally fitting image, the highest popularity at the same price point, and the strongest youthful vibe at the same level of popularity.

Wasn't this the definition of a heaven-sent spokesperson?

That being the case, if he didn't swing the extortion bat with full force, how could he possibly repay Ms. Yang's kind intentions?

"How many years does your company plan to sign me for, and what about the endorsement fee?"

"Three years, 500,000 per year."

Without missing a beat, Fang Xinghe directly doubled the amount and rounded it up: "Two years, 1,000,000 per year."

Then, it seemed as though he caught a flash of appreciation deep within Ms. Yang's eyes?

To prove his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, Fang Xinghe silently opened his starlight panel. Sure enough, Ms. Yang was radiating a rich green glow—a Level 2 Die-Hard Fan!

"I'm sorry, Student Fang, your asking price is simply too high. Currently, Lu Yi's endorsement quote is only 60,0000 a year..."

While rejecting him, she turned to the marketing manager: "Manager Gao, please explain our advertising budget and standard practices to Student Fang. Oh, and make sure to highlight the advertising philosophy of 'Sincere, True, Metersbonwe'..."

Sincere and True?

Good grief, serving it up to me on a silver platter, aren't you?

Fang Xinghe didn't hear a word of what the manager was saying; he only noticed Ms. Yang bending her right index and middle fingers, casually tapping her knuckles against her thigh twice.

Get it!

"Lu Yi is worth 600,000?" Fang Xinghe frowned slightly, changing his tune with apparent displeasure: "My fame is at least ten times his, isn't it? This is simply insulting. Two years, 2,000,000 per year."

With a swish, Ms. Yang turned her head in astonishment, her eyes filled with shock.

*I meant you could add another 200,000, where on earth did you jump to with a single shout?!*

Uh... well, no big deal.

The willing buyer and willing seller could always reach an agreement in the end.

After a somewhat brief tug-of-war, once the opposing side raised it to 1.2 million, Fang Xinghe finally relented and closed the deal.

Two years, totaling 2.4 million, without any of those messy later-era clauses. He only needed to shoot one commercial and spring/summer new arrival posters each year to collect the check.

The first year's payment would be issued immediately upon signing the contract, with the second installment paid on the contract anniversary next year.

Money was genuinely valuable in this era, but for an endorsement partner like Fang Xinghe—who was an absolute match for a youth fast-fashion brand and completely one of a kind in the Sinosphere—there was simply no other choice.

If their company hadn't been too small to squeeze out any more budget, Fang Xinghe reckoned he could have pushed the price of his very first commercial even higher.

With the details basically settled, Ms. Yang became even more open, speaking frankly: "Actually, if it weren't for you bursting onto the scene, Student Fang, we hadn't originally planned on hiring a spokesperson. It wasn't a matter of money, but rather a feeling that none of the current stars quite fit our vibe."

Fang Xinghe chuckled inwardly—thank goodness he had intercepted Southern Metropolis Daily's undercover visit in time; otherwise, once the arson record was exposed, Metersbonwe definitely wouldn't have dared to approach him.

Forking out 50,000 to buy two months of time, only to turn around and earn 2.4 million—the unyielding gifts of fate were truly fascinating.

Pausing slightly, she added a meaningful reminder: "Before you turn of age, you have no substitutes domestically. Xie Miao used to be one, but nowadays he's a bit... well, changed. Shi Xiaolong is still young, and we don't know what his puberty will look like. So as long as the brand's temperament aligns, I believe many companies will be willing to shell out even more endorsement fees for you."

Fang Xinghe roughly understood her hint, but he didn't care.

His reply was as follows: "With your company's 2.4 million, I'll have absolutely no shortage of money. Therefore, there won't be another endorsement for the time being—your company will be my exclusive choice."

When these words were relayed back to the group's boss, President Li, he waved his hand grandly on the spot: "Add another 88,888 to his signing bonus! True or not, just hearing it sounds good!"

The contract was signed on August 12th, and the money arrived in his account on August 15th. By then, Fang Xinghe had already boarded a plane to Modu to shoot his very first commercial.

Though it was just an advertisement, he was finally stepping in front of the camera.

Regarding this, the future Best Actor harbored both trepidation and indescribable anticipation.

What does shooting a commercial actually feel like?

Just as many illusions as he had before going, that was precisely how much disappointment he felt once filming began.

It was far too simple.

The moment he stepped onto the set, the director exclaimed: "Holy crap!"

Filming started, and the director shouted: "Little Fang, give me a brighter smile... Holy crap!"

The next take: "Now, let's bring in a bit of wildness... Holy crap!"

If it had just been the director shouting "holy crap" by himself, that would have been fine. But in reality, the crew members were gasping in amazement right along with him, making Fang Xinghe's head buzz with noise.

Though he knew beforehand this probably wouldn't be a professional film crew, their level of absurdity was truly off the charts...

Yet the director spoke with absolute certainty: "Little Fang, based on my years of experience dominating the advertising industry, you are definitely a natural-born superstar! You look this handsome even with a discount on camera—who could possibly compare to you? It would be a crime against heaven if you didn't blow up!"

Fang Xinghe took it as mere flattery and remained unimpressed.

As a result, the director grew anxious: "I'm serious! I was one of the top ten commercial directors last year, I've even filmed Ge You!"

Oh, my apologies.

Lazily, Fang Xinghe surveyed the studio: "A top-ten director shoots stuff like this?"

This kid was truly infuriating.

The director jumped up with a flushed face: "Ahem! For a fast-fashion brand specializing in teenagers, what's the point of coming up with some profound, high-end plot? Just looking hard-core handsome is more than enough!"

Heh, you couldn't really pick holes in that logic.

And so, relying purely on his hard-core handsomeness, Fang Xinghe effortlessly finished shooting the commercial and print ads.

His total spoken line was just one sentence: Sincere, True, Metersbonwe!

"Little Fang, your timing and delivery are simply fantastic!"

The director continued lavishing praise, while Fang Xinghe smiled with reserved composure, only for the man to aggressively shove his business card into his hand despite his aloof aura.

"Take it, just take it! I handle quite a few commercial and music video gigs. Whenever there's another high-end project, I'll definitely come looking for you to play the lead!"

Taking it and looking at it, the card read: Tan Xiaogang, Beijing Film Academy Class of '93 Fine Arts Department. Oh, a senior alumnus!

He didn't say anything, standing quietly to the side as he listened to Ms. Yang and the director finalize their communication.

Ms. Yang: "Little Fang's voice is quite nice, should we add a couple more lines?"

Director: "Let's leave it at that. Sure, I have the ability to add lines, I even have the ability to turn this into a mini narrative film, but who would care about Metersbonwe by then?"

Ms. Yang: "Everyone would be watching him instead? Well, that wouldn't be the worst thing..."

Director: "Huh?"

Ms. Yang: "Ahem, what I mean is, isn't there a win-win solution?"

Director: "There is! Isn't this it right now? Adding more lines would overshadow the brand, and remaining entirely silent would overshadow the brand even more. Having a single line with the three words 'Metersbonwe' emphasized is plenty win-win."

Ms. Yang beamed with delight: "Anyway, as long as he puts on our Metersbonwe clothes, he'll steal the spotlight, right?"

The director shot her a sideways glance: "President Yang, your stance is severely compromised!"

Ms. Yang spread her hands with total indifference: "Putting commercials on satellite TV is a waste of money with limited promotional impact. What we're really counting on is the massive posters pasted up in our offline stores. How the commercial is filmed doesn't matter."

"Ah!" The director slapped his thigh hard. "You should've just said so earlier!"

He then turned to Fang Xinghe: "Little Fang, what sports are you good at? Let's shoot a set of athletic sequences, followed by a close-up of sweat beading on your forehead and trickling down to the bridge of your nose and chin. I guarantee it'll make all the female viewers parched with thirst!"

With his rudimentary composition skills, Fang Xinghe pondered this for a moment and instantly felt the spicy, slick genius of Director Tan.

You have to hand it to him—if shot well, this sequence would indeed be a lethal weapon.

Opening his panel for a quick glance, his coordination was 82, and among his basic martial arts skills, Tai Chi and Tan Tui were both at 75. After a brief thought, Fang Xinghe said, "Then let me run through an urban parkour sequence."

"???"

Both of them stared with bewildered expressions: "What is parkour?"

Eh?

This stuff didn't exist domestically yet?

Fang Xinghe grew excited as well. Originally intending to just breeze through the job, he suddenly found himself genuinely invested.

Thus, a mere few dozen seconds of footage took a full two days to shoot, blowing well past the budget.

"Holy crap!" The director slammed his storyboard down hard, spinning around in excitement. "It's gonna blow up, this is absolute blockbuster material!"

Looking over the raw footage, Ms. Yang decisively made the call: "If the edited result doesn't lose any impact, we're changing the plan—prime time on CCTV-1!"

"You'll definitely be satisfied with my editing, just wait and see!"

"Alright, sorry to trouble you."

Ms. Yang turned back to look at Fang Xinghe, her gaze burning with intensity.

"Little Fang, it looks like we'll need to add a press conference... Don't worry, we'll pay extra! Besides, if the broadcast reception is good, we'll throw more money next year to shoot an even more spectacular one. Are you confident?"

Next year?

Next year my skills won't be anything like they are right now...

"I'm still in my growth phase, so we'll see. If our cooperation remains pleasant, anything is possible."

President Fang lazily tossed out an ambiguous response, leaving Metersbonwe hanging on a string like a panting hound with its tongue lolling out...

With the filming schedule completely wrapped up, the young model Fang declined the high-end dinner proposed by the Metersbonwe team and took a trip to the Xinmin Evening News instead.

Since he was in Modu, Auntie Chen was someone he simply had to visit.

Taking a cab to Yan'an Road, *whoa*, the Xinmin building was gorgeous.

Wearing a duck-billed cap and a face mask, he walked up to the guard post, where Chen Danya had been waiting for him quite early.

"Little Fang!" Chen Danya was overjoyed, and her very first reaction was to raise her hand and compare heights with him. "Have you grown taller recently?"

"Yup, 1 centimeter."

With a smile in his eyes, Fang Xinghe raised his index finger: "I'm 1.76 meters now."

"Wonderful, wonderful! You're guaranteed to hit 1.80 meters before you're an adult!"

People in this era understood a "tall guy" to mean 1.80 meters, whereas back in Fang Xinghe's time, the standard for a tall guy was at least 1.88 meters.

He planned to blend in with the local customs and cap his growth at 1.84.

If the actress was short, he'd wear flat shoes; whenever he needed to share the frame with a male actor, he'd just slip in another 5 centimeters of height insoles.

Playing the ultimate card of scheming freedom.

Though realistically, he probably wouldn't even need height-increasing insoles; there didn't seem to be many male actors above 1.85 meters in this era anyway.

If it were actors like Chen Kun or Brother Xiaoming... let them stuff all the insoles they wanted!

Brother Fang simply wasn't intimidated.

"Come on, let's talk in my office."

Chen Danya led him upstairs, and along the way past the cubicles, she instructed a young girl to go buy some fruit.

Once they sat down in her office, her primary concern remained Fang Xinghe's psychological state.

"I'm totally fine. Getting cursed at by a couple of people really doesn't amount to much."

"You still need to be careful, though." She said cautiously, "You're famous now, your reputation is great, and you aren't walking the same path as them. They're bound to be plotting around the clock to smear you."

"Mm, I know."

It was a battle of stances, and Auntie Chen saw things very clearly.

Afterward, he asked out of curiosity, "Is Xinmin considered an official state media outlet now?"

Chen Danya replied truthfully: "Of course it is. We now belong to the Wenhui Xinmin United Press Group, with 16 overseas editions, the lowest cost-per-thousand, the highest media preference rate, and the highest electronic edition click-through rate. While I wouldn't dare promise to protect you completely, we certainly aren't afraid of the Southern Media Group."

"That's good then." Fang Xinghe joked, "When my new book hits the shelves, I'll have to trouble Auntie Chen to help promote it again."

"Definitely!"

She agreed with utmost promptness, then asked, "The manuscript hasn't even been finalized yet, and you've already picked a date?"

"Pretty much. Around a month after the New Concept competition results roll out."

"Great idea!"

Just as Chen Danya's excitement peaked for a single second, it suddenly turned into worry: "That piece of yours, *Youth*... young kids might not necessarily be able to stomach it..."

Mentioning this, Fang Xinghe felt a sharp pain at the back of his head, rarely letting slip a wry smile.

When he was sharpening his sword back then, even he hadn't imagined it would turn out like this!

Who could have known he would complete his KPI way ahead of schedule?

Damn it, I hadn't even drawn my sword yet, and the battle was already over...

According to his initial plan, he would probably have had to entangle himself with his good big brother all the way until the publication of the New Concept essay collection to achieve nationwide virality.

However, the unexpected turbulence of the era had provided an unimaginable stroke of good fortune. His ad-libbed interviews and essays were practically flawless, allowing him to firmly grasp the opportunity and progress step by step, naturally as water flows to a channel.

Originally, he had forged three swords for himself.

*Growing Up* was his safety net, aimed at winning over imaginative, romantic teenage girls.

*Youth* was meant for slaughter, targeting every young person under the age of 20, friend and foe alike, rushing in for a massive killing spree.

*Sex* was a declaration of war, telling the entire world: *I have arrived, and my wildness is unlike anything you've ever seen.*

As a result...

The three swords hadn't even been fully unsheathed when the initial vision of a single blade casting a cold light across nineteen provinces was already realized.

Well, not entirely—half of those swords had actually been swung, starting with the slaughter of the competition judges, which led to everything that followed.

Originally, this was a great thing. It filled his starlight points meter to the brim, upgrading his system and wildly boosting all his attributes without wasting a single second.

As a result, the sequence was now reversed: he was already famous with an established fan base, yet *Youth* was about to be published later down the line, which suddenly felt a bit untimely.

That article... how should he put it... it was originally written purely to stir up heat... it was a bit fierce...

Fine, actually, it was extremely fierce.

It was something custom-built to pry open emotions and incite anger. Just imagine, could it possibly be anything other than vicious?

Yet he was helpless against it; things had already reached this point, so he might as well let nature take its course.

In the end, it was he who had to comfort Auntie Chen: "It's fine. Things they can't stomach will only increase from here on out. Me writing to my heart's content is what matters most."

"You really are..."

Chen Danya sighed, then shifted the topic: "Forget it, let's not talk about that. Have you gone to see Qigang and Old Zhao?"

"Nah, don't plan to. Those two old fogies are far too annoying."

"Hahaha, you little rascal, you're number one when it comes to exasperating people!"

"Though, I'm actually quite keen to see someone else." Fang Xinghe curved the corners of his lips and arched an eyebrow at Chen Danya's puzzled expression. "I heard that middle schools in our Shanghai start the semester early. Since it's almost September, has Songjiang No. 2 High School started classes yet?"

Chen Danya was stunned for a moment, then quickly caught on, laughing so hard she leaned back and forth, almost shedding tears.

"You really are rotten to the core... Hold on, I'll call and check for you right now!"

The call went through, and as it turned out, Songjiang No. 2 High School had indeed started classes the day before.

"Looks like he's fated to be ambushed by me..." Fang Xinghe rose with a smiling expression, waving goodbye. "Well, you carry on with your busywork. I'm going to go check on my good big brother. Since he had the nerve to smear me in the newspapers, it's about time we settled accounts."

Chen Danya stuffed a bag of fruit that her assistant had bought into his hands, smiling as she instructed him: "Go on then, chat nicely, and don't go beating the kid up."

"Good idea. I'll gauge his attitude before I decide."

Fang Xinghe suddenly felt that if his good big brother's attitude displeased him, giving him a thorough thrashing might actually be rather fun?

Aren't a man's bonds forged through beating each other up anyway?

He was 16, and I was 14; he was a sports student, and I practiced martial arts. It was fair—immensely fair.

Before long, carrying a heart full of the spirit of *if you're not convinced, let's throw down*, Fang Xinghe happily planted himself right outside the front gates of No. 2 High.

It was 4:00 PM, still a bit early for dismissal, and the campus was peaceful.

The school gates were locked, and beside the side door was a guard booth, inside which a stern-looking elderly man was lowering his head to read a newspaper.

*Clang, clang, clang!*

Fang Xinghe gently tapped on the glass window. As the old man looked up, he pulled down his face mask just a fraction while raising the bag in his hand high into the air.

"Uncle, I'm a freshman starting high school here this year..."

The old man leisurely opened the window, speaking in standard Mandarin: "Which class?"

"Class 10."

Fang Xinghe offered an innocent smile, feeling that the introverted vibe of southern students was nailed to perfection by him—guaranteed 100% success.

However, the old man continued leisurely: "Class 10, last name Fang?"

"Right, right... Eh?" Fang Xinghe's eyes instantly widened. "How did you know?"

The old man spread the newspaper on his desk, tapped the color spread with his finger, and sighed while looking at him as if he were an absolute idiot: "I'm not blind, you know!"

Lowering his head to look, Fang Xinghe found himself caught between laughter and tears.

The Xinmin Evening News, education section—his face took up at least half a broadsheet page on the big color spread!

How utterly tragic. He had wanted to pull off a whim-driven undercover infiltration mission, only to walk right into the crosshairs...

"Haha!" Fang Xinghe gave a dry laugh, raising the bag of apples and oranges once more. "I'm good friends with Han Han, came specially to visit him. Can you let me in?"

"Go on, go on! You're the last person anyone would block... Enjoy the tour, and if you like it, feel free to transfer over!"

The old man waved his hand, the electric gate slowly sliding open a crack. Fang Xinghe hurriedly pulled out a few oranges and apples, shoved them into the window, and scurried off like a wisp of smoke.

Damn it, a poor start...

No big deal, though. The frustration he suffered at the hands of the gate guard would simply have to be repaid by the students of No. 2 High later!

***********

*Thanks to the 9th patron Slime and Dada Guai, scattering flower petals~~~*