Chapter 140: Fame Brings Trouble (1)

While Yang Xiaofan was still grappling with the headache of his sudden fame, Zhao Liufang’s advertisements were already blanketing the country. News surrounding Yang Xiaofan grew even more feverish. Headlines blared things like, "The Brother-in-Law signs with the entertainment industry, guaranteed 2 billion a year," "Brother-in-Law’s acting is superb; film debut set to contend for Best Actor," and "Brother-in-Law is about to lead the next era." The list went on and on. Even the song Yang Xiaofan had sold to Zhao Liufang remained firmly fixed on the trending charts. Practically the entire top ten on the Baidu trending list was dominated by keywords like "Yang Xiaofan" and "Brother-in-Law." As for Weibo, the countless topics discussing him were beyond enumeration. It is no exaggeration to say that Yang Xiaofan’s current popularity and heat were more terrifying than that of the biggest A-list superstars. If he were to post a single status, it would likely cause the entire network to crash.

This terrifying influx of traffic left Yang Xiaofan speechless, to the point where he didn't even dare to step outside. Had the hotel not provided such robust security, he wouldn't have even dared to leave his room. Even so, he remained confined to the hotel, venturing only into the high-end areas on the upper floors. For a normal person, how was this any different from being in prison? The only silver lining was that because his fame had reached such heights, the value of his paintings continued to climb. Taking advantage of this, Gu Hao reduced the number of auctions to just two paintings per day, with the unit price surging to around 40 million. Although the total turnover had decreased, it allowed for a steady stream of income while constantly inflating the value of his work—a different, albeit indirect, way of making money.

However, at this juncture, some discordant voices began to emerge online, which Yang Xiaofan noticed while browsing the news and comments in his hotel room. For example: "Is Yang Xiaofan really that incredible? I think you’re all just blindly hyping him up." Or, "Yang Xiaofan is just an internet celebrity manufactured by capital; in reality, he’s not worth mentioning." More extreme comments were nothing but sour grapes and jealousy, claiming that his acting skills were AI-generated. Yang Xiaofan could tolerate these to some extent; after all, they were baseless, mindless attacks, and he couldn't possibly argue with every one of them.

But one comment made him deeply uncomfortable. It read: "Yang Xiaofan’s songwriting sounds just like old songs; it’s plagiarism, not original work at all." Below it, many trolls chimed in: "I knew it, he’s trash. How could anyone do so much? Painting, chess, singing, medicine—even if he started learning from the womb, he couldn't master all this." "Plagiarizing dog, I hope your parents and wife die, I hope your whole family dies!"

When he saw this, Yang Xiaofan completely lost his cool. He immediately registered an account and replied, cursing: "You dog, who are you insulting? Who is a plagiarist? Who is wishing death on my family? If you have the guts, stand up and let’s fight one-on-one! Go to hell!"

This comment instantly drew massive attention. After all, Yang Xiaofan was currently so viral that he had become uncontrollable. His traffic was so overwhelmingly powerful that a single sentence from him was enough to turn the entire internet upside down.

"Holy crap! The Brother-in-Law has appeared!"

"Brother-in-Law is savage! That’s how you should deal with these jealous freaks. We support you!"

However, many trolls took this opportunity to smear him even harder. "Hmph! Showing your true colors, huh? Look at that—this is the quality of an idol! Not much to him, is there?"

"The fox has shown its tail. How can someone like this be an entertainer? With such low moral character, won't he just be a negative influence on everyone?"

Yang Xiaofan couldn't care less about his reputation. He never wanted to be a star in the first place, and these people were insulting his family. He retorted again: "Are you teaching your father how to act? You call me a plagiarist and curse my family, but you think I shouldn't curse back? A bunch of keyboard warriors, playing the double standard? Still acting arrogant here? Your father—that’s me, Yang Xiaofan—won't coddle you!"

This effectively detonated the internet, immediately rocketing to the top of the trending list, which naturally drew even more people to the page. There were his die-hard fans, trolls, and bystanders just there for the spectacle. In just a few minutes, the post garnered over 100,000 comments! The count continued to climb rapidly, surging at a rate of twenty to thirty thousand per minute, peaking at over sixty thousand per minute. And this was just under one post because Yang Xiaofan was involved. Other newly created threads—some analyzing him, some smearing him, others defending him—were also blowing up.

Daily active users on Weibo were skyrocketing. At the Weibo technical PR building, over a hundred technicians were breaking into a cold sweat. The sudden, violent surge of data caused temporary instability in the servers. They had to constantly maintain the data just to keep the servers from crashing. Even so, faced with the increasing traffic, they were struggling to hold on. In the CEO's office, the technical director was drenched in sweat. "President, give the order! Ban that kid’s account! If we don't, and he keeps cursing like this, our servers won't last much longer before they crash completely."

But the Weibo president merely frowned, refusing the request. "Don't be rash. For us, traffic is everything. This kid has driven our daily activity through the roof. If we ban him now and he gets angry and stops using our app, wouldn't we be losing out big time?"

"Then ban the others. At least that would reduce some of the pressure."

"Ban them? How? You ban one, and they’ll just register new accounts. Besides, without these people arguing with Yang Xiaofan, how would our daily active user count increase?"

The Weibo president was no fool; this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Weibo had never seen such high traffic before. By tomorrow, it might even become the app with the highest number of concurrent online users. He wasn't about to let that go.