10 PM.

In a nicely decorated room, Yang Fan sat in front of his computer, fingers flying across the keyboard.

The bruised and swollen face he had earlier was now back to normal; after school in the afternoon, he'd gone to the hospital for treatment, which cost 20,000 New Coins.

This was how advanced modern technology was—unless it was a broken bone or missing limb, everything could be fixed up quickly.

Outside the door, faint footsteps could be heard.

Knock knock knock.

The sound of knocking came.

"Yang Fan, I heard you got beaten up by Ji Yu today, how's that feel?"

That was Second Brother's voice—seemingly concerned, but his tone was obviously full of schadenfreude.

"Xiaofan, even if you don't have martial arts talent, you still have to study hard. Don't think I don't know what kind of nonsense you're getting up to at school!" That was Third Brother, still using the same scolding tone.

"Open the door. I'm telling you, Dad knows about this too. Don't you know our family is working with Yunhai Group now? Don't go provoking Ji Yu again."

Listening to the sounds outside the door, Yang Fan remained silent, a look of sadness on his face.

He'd been beaten up, and not a single family member asked him why or showed any concern. All he got was mockery and sarcasm.

"One day, I'll make you all shut your mouths."

Yang Fan silently made his vow.

He turned off the light and ignored the voices outside the door, because he had an important task tonight.

...

Martial Artist Forum—as the name suggests, it's a forum about martial artists.

Martial artists can communicate freely on the forum.

Martial Artist Forum is one of the top three forums in Huaxia, with over 300 million registered members and over a million posts of all kinds published every day.

Aside from the homepage's Greater China Region, the Martial Artist Forum is divided into twelve sections, separated by the Twelve Base Cities.

Right now, in Jiang City's section of the Martial Artist Forum, a thread titled "High Schooler Beats Up Martial Artist" was getting clicked and replied to like crazy.

The title was super exaggerated—just those seven words: High Schooler Beats Up Martial Artist.

Anyone who saw the title for the first time couldn't help but want to roast it.

Why not just call it High Schooler Beats Up Grandmaster while you're at it?

But users only complained for a few seconds—on Martial Artist Forum, outrageous click-bait titles are everywhere, and if your post isn't even a little bit wild, no one will bother clicking, and it'll get buried in the sea of threads.

A lot of users were used to it, but most found these kinds of posts irritating, so most wouldn't even click—it was straight to "report and block."

But this time, when they saw the five photos under the post, there was zero hesitation—they all clicked in.

Pics or it didn't happen!

The first photo showed a teen standing on a ring, with the background of a Martial Arts Dojo.

That unique interior design and layout weren't unfamiliar to many users—they recognized Thunder Martial Arts Dojo at first glance. On the ring, a boy in a white shirt stood alone in the center, waving his right index finger in disdain at the crowd below. It was a gif.

The second photo was a bunch of close-ups from the crowd—angry, contemptuous, even someone cursing out loud. The resolution was ultra HD.

The third photo was a close-up of the boy's white shirt, front and back, respectively: "High Schooler Beats Up Martial Artist" and "Looking for Ad Space."

The fourth photo was from the big screen—showing the record: High Schooler Beats Up Martial Artist, 9 wins, 9 fights, 0 losses.

The fifth picture was the teen's face looking cold and disdainful, mouth moving; subtitles below: "I'll be back tomorrow night. I'll challenge a First Grade Martial Artist directly."

And under the five photos, there was a short edited video clip.

Just like that, a totally ordinary low-level member's post, no promo, no bots, and in less than two hours, it had over 4.61 million clicks, 1.89 million replies, and 140,000 reposts.

And those numbers were still skyrocketing.

No doubt about it—the post went viral!

On the Jiang City Martial Artist Forum daily ranking, "High Schooler Beats Up Martial Artist" was No. 17, super close to 16th, just a little bit more and it would explode up the ranks.

"That fast?"

In his room, Yang Fan kept refreshing the background, checking his follower count and forum points.

His V0 account shot up to V5; only 460 points to go before hitting V6, and his followers went from single digits to over 150,000.

No matter how high your member level or follower count, the forum doesn't reward you, but a Martial Artist Forum account is worth real money.

As long as your forum account has real, active followers, you can run ads and sell products—hello, fan economy.

A real, active V5 account could sell for 100,000, and even then, it's basically unobtainable.

Besides the money, the fact that so many people cared about and commented on his post was a huge sense of achievement.

Yang Fan kept scrolling through the comments.

Floor 989: "Holy shit, isn't this thread name asking to get beaten to death?"

Floor 990: "This kid's hella cocky, but I kind of like it."

Floor 991: "Those fighting skills are insane! What year is this high schooler in, have they refined a Demon Spirit yet?"

Floor 992: "First time seeing someone advertise like this. Society's too complicated—I don't wanna grow up."

Floor 993: "Classic wolf in sheep's clothing. The audience must wanna murder him."

Floor 994: "With stamina like that, does he need a girlfriend?"

Floor 995: "I got big milkers, click my avatar 6666"

Floor 996: "Anyone got this hottie's contact? Will pay big!!!"

Floor 997: "Jiang City's been wild lately. Yesterday, Ye Qiu burst out on Awakening Day, and now this high schooler's lighting it up."

Floor 998: "High schoolers are this strong nowadays? Earth is terrifying; I'm moving back to Mars."

Floor 999: "Even a Ninth Rank Body Cultivator got stomped. Which high school is this kid from in Jiang City?"

Floor 1000: "Can someone ask how much endorsement costs? I wanna endorse myself!"

Going through the comments, if Yang Fan saw something funny, he'd even drop a reply himself. When users saw the thread owner replying, they spammed compliments nonstop like they'd been encouraged.

"Already No. 11?"

Seeing the comments, Yang Fan quickly clicked his mouse and discovered the thread was already ranked 11th for the day.

Just one step away from the daily top ten.

The daily top ten all get featured on the homepage. Just imagine how explosive the traffic will get then.

Making it into the daily top ten—no exaggeration, that's bragging rights for a lifetime.

These days, nobody gives a crap about celeb gossip. The top ten are all about Glory Players or big club news—Glory League and team headlines.

No. 1 on the daily board: "Thunder Team's head coach replaced."

No. 2: "Double Blade Yun Tianqi possibly transferring."

Ye Qiu was No. 1 yesterday—today he dropped to third, which shows how much of a big deal it is to crack the top ten.

"Let's go let's go let's go!"

"Let's go let's go let's go let's go!"

"Let's go let's go let's go let's go let's go!"

The comments were absolutely flooded with "let's go!" Yang Fan watched with his own eyes as his post broke into the top ten and got featured on the homepage. Not long after hitting the homepage, he shot up to No. 9.

The effect of the forum homepage was wild. Over a million people noticed this brazen thread, so even more clicked out of curiosity, making the clicks and replies climb even faster.

Yang Fan's account had jumped to V7 now, followers busted through 1.45 million, and his mailbox was just nonstop alerts.

Yang Fan clicked in and saw almost all the messages were people asking for Lin Feng's contact info, or where to watch the fights. Tons of folks wanted to see it live.

Even a bunch of Martial Arts Dojos and club-verified accounts left messages, asking what grade Lin Feng was in, whether he attended Awakening Day, and what Demon Spirit he refined.

They all wanted the full scoop.

Clearly, Lin Feng had caught the attention of the clubs.

Lin Feng's combat talent, way beyond his peers, was rare to the point of unique. As long as he had Soul Cultivator talent—even if it was mediocre—they'd sign him up for focused development.

Lots of folks were interested in Lin Feng's ad, but first they needed to know his details and strength for real.

Yang Fan didn't reply to any of those. Right now, the heat wasn't high enough.

"Someone's already figured it out?"

Scrolling through his post, Yang Fan quickly realized someone in the comments had already posted Lin Feng's info, with tens of thousands of likes.

Yang Fan thought the post's hype would die down once people found out Lin Feng hadn't refined a Demon Spirit, but instead, tons of people started sharing Ya Ge's pics in the comments to gossip, so the fever only burned hotter—he could even smell a push toward No. 6 in the rankings.

Meanwhile, in Lin Feng's class chat group, it was going wild—nonstop photo sharing.

"Is this Lin Feng? Since when did he go to the dojo?"

"Holy shit, I just checked Martial Artist Forum—it's exploding."

"Jiang City section is up to seventh now. I almost pissed myself."

"Even with top combat talent, it's useless if you can't become a Demon Spirit Master."

"Still beats you. You're not even worthy to tie Lin Feng's shoelaces."

The class chat was buzzing. Tons of people @Lin Feng, but got no reply. Then they started @Gao Hai, but nothing there either. Quite a few wanted to @Ya Ge, but none had the guts.

In her dark room, Ya Ge hid under her blanket, silently watching her classmates' chat without chiming in.

After a long while, when the chat finally went silent, she put her phone away, the room went dark, Ya Ge slowly closed her eyes, leaving behind only a sigh.

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