Seeing Bravery with a Fork

July 6, early morning.

The marketing article that Cheng Yun had asked Yu Dian to write the morning before yesterday was already finished, and to Cheng Yun's surprise, she had written it extremely well. Not only had she incorporated all the key points he mentioned, but her writing skill was also far stronger than he had imagined!

This advertorial was called How Long Has It Been Since You Last Had a Proper Rest?. The name was ordinary, but it was very suitable for promotion. The entire piece did not mention the four words Anju Hotel once, focusing only on the relationship between people's sleep quality, physical health, and mental state, while thoughtfully guiding people on what kind of hotel they should choose when staying away from home in order to get a better rest... Of course, every point listed in the article perfectly matched the conditions of Anju Hotel.

Cheng Yun felt that with a little bit of promotion, this advertorial could even become a viral post on QQ Zone or WeChat Moments. The seasoned techniques reflected in it made him feel that this girl probably used to do part-time work related to this kind of advertorial when she was poor before.

Hmm, maybe she's doing this kind of work right now, tapping away on her laptop every day...

Cheng Yun shook his head, uploaded this article to the hotel's official WeChat Moments, pushed it on the official public account, and incidentally took a look at the follower count—

Well, there were precisely five!

Yu Dian, himself, Cheng Yan, and two others who were presumably two of those junior female schoolmates.

This won't do either, and the early-stage growth of a WeChat account is too slow. Although the official WeChat can shoulder a portion of the publicity and fan-attraction tasks, it still requires long-term accumulation and the regular release of attractive things to keep the follower count growing continuously, Cheng Yun thought, then opened the Baidu Tieba forums for Jinguan City and Yizhou University, preparing to post something that wouldn't easily get deleted.

None of his accounts were new ones. Although their levels weren't high either—belonging to the type that only browsed a few times—this still provided him with quite a bit of convenience: posting advertisements wasn't so easy to get deleted.

He already had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, having done quite a bit of it during his university days—

As long as he paid attention to his phrasing and avoided some sensitive words, it wouldn't easily be automatically deleted. But he had to be careful not to make it look like spam advertising.

Suddenly, Cheng Yun paused. "Hmm?"

He actually saw a post about Anju Hotel inside the Yizhou University Tieba, and it was even posted by a level-fourteen ancient flood-dragon account!

Cheng Yun looked closely. The reply count for this post was quite high, and it had been bumped pretty near the top, presumably due to the immense appeal of the ancient flood-dragon. As for why the forum moderator hadn't deleted the post yet, Cheng Yun felt that part of the reason lay in "the flood-dragon's face."

The posting account was named "Ci Ci Er San", carrying a pink female icon.

The post title was also quite catchy—

Shock! What on earth caused a dorm full of tough girls to defy the wind and rain, and team up to rent a room?

The poster was already very obvious.

Cheng Yun was left between laughter and tears, not expecting those few girls to actually pull off this wave of publicity for him! Yet he couldn't figure out whether the female's motive for posting was to help him promote, to farm post count, or purely for mischief.

Clicking it open, the content inside was roughly as follows: due to the air conditioning in a certain dormitory breaking down while the malevolent school administration stubbornly refused to send anyone to fix it, this group of pitiful girls had no choice but to brave the risk of getting caught by inspections, teaming up to go outside, rent a room, and study. As a result, they unexpectedly discovered a great place for endurance studying and couple dating, and even caused the six of them to go a second time after being unable to resist their first visit...

This wave of publicity was already quite obvious by this point, but still no forum moderators stepped forward to delete her post. Instead, Cheng Yun saw several accounts with junior moderator tags replying underneath.

Having finished reading a full hundred floors of bullshitting, mischief, and casual chat replies, he couldn't help shaking his head, indicating that he could no longer keep up with the thought processes of this younger generation.

At around past ten, Zhou Jiaxing came by once more.

He represented the criminal police detachment to deliver a silk banner inscribed with Gallantry and Righteousness. He didn't say whether it was meant for Heroine Yin or Cheng Yun, but Cheng Yun had good self-awareness.

After exchanging a couple of polite remarks, he left right after delivering it.

The matter regarding that Black man was not publicly reported, and even the public opinion sparked by the female student who hanged herself at Yida stopped at the gates of the Yida campus. When Cheng Yun was browsing Tieba, he casually glanced at it. The matter was still quite hot on the forum, but it seemed most people believed she committed suicide because of pregnancy and abandonment, and at the same time, this matter was also suppressed by the Yida school administration to protect its reputation.

Yet it was clearly not the Yida school administration pulling strings behind this.

Cheng Yun had indeed asked a couple of questions when Zhou Jiaxing came, but Zhou Jiaxing hadn't answered either, and he didn't know what had become of that Black man.

As noon approached, Yu Dian, who had been holed up in her room doing goodness knows what, came down from upstairs.

"Just in time, I just posted the stuff you wrote onto WeChat and the public account this morning. Did you check it out? The layout and matching pictures are all alright, right?" Cheng Yun smiled.

"I looked." Yu Dian nodded bashfully. "The pictures matched quite well, and the layout was good too, it's just..."

"Just what?"

"It's just that most people nowadays look at things using their mobile phones, so the line spacing and paragraph spacing could be a bit more distinct. That way, looking at it on a mobile phone screen isn't quite as tiring." Yu Dian said with a red face, immediately waving her hand right after finishing. "I was just casually saying it. Actually, not setting it is fine too."

"Then I'll modify it!" Cheng Yun said hastily.

"Mm."

"Did you write advertorials before?"

"Before... I wrote them." Yu Dian said hesitatingly. "Back in university when there was no source of living expenses, I would join all sorts of groups to find part-time work. Writing advertorials counted as the highest-paying and most relaxed kind; after a few pieces, a month's living expenses would be covered... Ah, I don't mean it like that. I stopped doing that part-time job a very, very long time ago. This time I was just idle with nothing to do, writing casually, so..."

Watching her inexplicable panic, like a small animal newly arrived in a new environment and full of nervous anxiety, Cheng Yun couldn't help smiling. "No wonder you wrote it so well! First-class level!"

* "No, no, it's Boss Cheng, you planned it well. You told me everything that needed to be written, so if I still couldn't write it well, it would be very... poor."

"Then thanks all the same."

"You're welcome."

"I might still have to trouble you in the future!"

"It doesn't matter... I'm pretty idle anyway."

Not long after, Heroine Yin, who had stayed up all night watching television yet stubbornly refused to admit it, also came down. She rubbed her sore eyes while letting out a yawn. The thing called dark circles seemed incapable of appearing on a creature like her, but her eyes were indeed red.

"Eh, you haven't had lunch yet?" She blankly looked at Cheng Yun, blinked twice, and turned to walk back upstairs. "Then I'll come down later."

"Stop right there!" Cheng Yun called out in a deep voice.

"Hm? Station Master, what is it?" Heroine Yin turned her head, looking at him dazedly.

"There's a banner here, sent by the criminal investigation detachment just now. It's for you." Cheng Yun picked up the silk banner on the table, looking at Heroine Yin as he said, "Look at you, the television isn't going to run away. Pay attention to your eyesight."

"Those government runners actually sent me a banner? What kind of banner?" Heroine Yin came back down the stairs, doubtfully taking the banner and sizing up the four large characters on it—

"Gallantry... fork... righteousness..." Thanks to Old Mage's awesome prowess, she was already able to recognize Chinese characters. Yet recognizing the characters did not mean she could understand the meaning of these four words, so she was still very doubtful, looking over the banner back and forth and muttering, "What do these few words mean? What is called 'gallantry fork righteousness'? Hey, I'm telling you, this bunch of runners aren't cursing me by making a detour, are they?!"

"Fork your sister!" Cheng Yun couldn't help cursing out loud. "I told you watching TV hurts your eyes! And you still wouldn't believe it!"

"Doesn't this just mean gallantry fork righteousness?!" Heroine Yin, having suffered an unjustified scolding, felt somewhat aggrieved.

"That..." Yu Dian gently reminded from the side, "Gallantry and righteousness."

"Oh! Gallantry and righteousness! No wonder I felt it sounded wrong when I read it!" Heroine Yin came to a sudden realization, instantly able to understand the meaning of these four words, and then grew somewhat dazed.

"Gallantry and righteousness..." Heroine Yin murmured, suddenly grinning broadly.

She herself was a martial artist of the pugilistic world—to put it nicely, she stood in opposition to those government runners and the court's running dogs. To put it harshly, in the eyes of the authorities or high society, they were just a bunch of martial brutes who only knew how to hack and slash. Those who mixed well were respectfully called Grandmasters and held a resounding title, while those with influence at least had some position as a sect master or gang leader to sit on. As for lower-tier pugilists, they were completely a bunch of drifters, nine out of ten being unstable elements of society.

The authorities looked down on them, ordinary common folk didn't dare have much contact with them, and orthodox sects merely had relatively more rules. The ones who cared most about reputation were the escort agencies, yet that couldn't be counted as any prominent trade either... In short, they had no social status.

It was all just a show for the surface!

Heroine Yin truly never imagined that she had just casually made a move, and it actually caused that bunch of government runners, whose status didn't seem low, to purposely send a silk banner of praise and gratitude over!

The first time in her life.

How rare, how curious.

Right as Heroine Yin was carefully examining the two vertical columns of small characters on the left and right sides of the four characters Gallantry and Righteousness, Cheng Yan popped out with a sentence from who knows where: "What? They only sent a silk banner, no prize money or anything?"

"Eh?" Heroine Yin was stunned for a moment, staring fixedly at Cheng Yan. "There's prize money too?"

"Generally speaking, there is, but it's very little—just a token gesture," Cheng Yan said indifferently. "At most it's just a few hundred yuan."

"It's fine, it's fine, I won't think it's too little... What!? A few hundred yuan!" Heroine Yin froze, swallowing hard. How many bowls of beef noodles was that? She could eat for half a month!

She immediately spun around to face Cheng Yun, rubbing her hands together while hesitatingly saying, "Um, Station Master, my prize money... did you forget it..."

"No." Cheng Yun shook his head. "There isn't any to begin with."

"Ah?" Heroine Yin's expression stiffened.

"There really isn't."

"Didn't they say there was prize money?"

"Maybe the criminal police detachment is different from the police substation?"

"This bunch of damned runners must have embezzled my prize money! Next time let me catch sight of them..." Heroine Yin immediately clenched her fists, a biting killing intent emanating from her entire body.

"Alright, stop right there. Who cares about those few hundred yuan nowadays? Maybe their criminal police detachment never set up a gallantry fund in the first place," Cheng Yun rolled his eyes and said. "How about this? To compensate you, I'll stew beef for you at noon today!"

"Alright then." Heroine Yin said dejectedly.

Though thinking about it, having beef to eat seemed pretty good too!