Chapter 23: I, Hu Hansan, Am Back again
System: Rong! I think you’ll get reported for clickbait titles sooner or later.
“That’s impossible!” Rong Ziyin declared with righteous indignation and absolute confidence. He firmly believed he wasn’t the type to deliberately use sensationalist titles to attract attention like some scam artist.
After all, his writing not only mirrored reality but was also drawn from personal experience.
Rong Ziyin typed at lightning speed. Since most of the content was based on true events, he only needed a brief mental outline. Within an hour or so, the draft was mostly complete.
System: So what should we do now?
Rong Ziyin: It’s only eight o’clock. Let’s earn some money first, then head home to sleep!
The system sensed unease. Sure enough, it watched Rong Ziyin click “Invite to Answer” and begin his wide-net question-brushing spree.
The kicker? The category he chose was the same as last time—emotions.
Yes, a straight guy answering relationship questions. Before Rong Ziyin even started, the system was already cringing for the OP about to receive his answers.
Zhihu: My girlfriend’s best friend suddenly called me, saying she’s stuck in a desolate area with only factories and no Didi available. She wants me to drive and pick her up. What should I do?
Rong Ziyin: Thanks for the invite. Call her a Huolala.貨拉拉” (Huòlālā) is known in English as Lalamove, an on-demand delivery and logistics company operating across Asia and other regions, providing fast, app-based services for various vehicle types to move goods. The name itself combines Chinese characters meaning “haul goods” (拉貨). If one truck isn’t enough, call ten.
Zhihu: A girl I just met but hit it off with invited me to a movie tonight and asked me to bring my ID. What does that mean?
Rong Ziyin: Thanks for the invite. All-night internet cafes require overnight stays.
Zhihu: Why can’t I control myself when I see beautiful women?
Rong Ziyin: Thanks for the invite. Chemical castration offers a permanent solution.
Zhihu: What’s your take on cheating?
Rong Ziyin: Thanks for the invite. It’s utterly counter to economic principles. You can barely afford one wife and one kid, let alone more. Also, I suggest OP find a partner first. For single folks, cheating is like Schrödinger’s cat.
[Schrödinger’s cat: We often use Schrödinger’s thought experiment to explain the concept of superposition. The experiment states that a hypothetical cat is locked in a box with some radioactive substance controlling a vial of poison. When the substance decays, it triggers a Geiger counter that causes the poison to be released, thereby killing the cat.
Since the box is locked — and we on the outside don’t know whether or not the radioactive substance has decayed and released the poison — we can’t tell if the cat is dead or alive. So, until we open the box to know for sure, the cat is both dead and alive. Mathematically speaking, there’s a 50 percent chance the cat is dead and a 50 percent chance the cat is alive.]
Generally, posts in Zhihu’s relationship section fall into a few types. One is the late-night drunk rambling.
Authenticity aside, most posts reveal a tone of sorrow, romantic disappointment, and a need for emotional solace.
Another type openly posts photos to flirt and hook up, with young men and women in the comments section radiating passion and brimming with innuendo. However, such posts rarely make it to Rong Ziyin’s homepage.
Beyond the small handful of genuine requests for help, there are those who post purely to stir up trouble.
Like the one asking if they can control themselves around beautiful women, or the two discussing infidelity—clearly here just to provoke arguments.
Right now, these two guys posted their threads and were sitting tight, waiting for someone to take the bait. They planned to have a good old flame war, venting their frustrations from real life. And maybe fantasize a bit about the thrill of being the center of attention.
But they never imagined that Rong Ziyin would respond to just one post and completely shut them down.
“Brilliant! Hahahaha, that’s so awesome!”
“I can’t take it anymore. Chemical castration. Holy crap, OP, you should go for it! No more desires after that.”
“Schrödinger’s cheating is just insane. And you know what? This guy asking the question probably can’t even cheat—he posted looking for a girlfriend just the other day!”
“Trash trolling WSN, get lost!”
The two didn’t get any benefits; instead, they were labeled as creepy guys by the commenters below and mocked by many.
After all, people today have a strong sense of morality. Celebrities who cheat are still nailed to the pillar of shame. Such blatant violations of values will always be despised.
But the internet is the internet—plenty of keyboard warriors spewed venom. Had Rong Ziyin not nailed down the narrative with his righteous first-floor post, this thread would’ve devolved into a mudslinging fest.
Alas, in the straight male universe, everything’s black and white. The two OP’s, who’d meticulously planned their war cry, were instantly reduced to cannon fodder.
“Damn it, this first poster is nuts!” Both of them lost their cool, lashing out at Rong Ziyin with curses, completely forgetting they’d asked the question with the intent to start a fight. But having been bombarded with criticism, they dared not openly retaliate, resorting instead to silent curses in their hearts.
[Netizen Liu Sanpao’s Rage Level: 990] [Netizen Zhang Chao’s Rage Level: 330]
Meanwhile, those who couldn’t help but applaud Rong Ziyin’s response provided him with a significant boost in excitement points. Even those who’d been hurt by creepy men or cheating scumbags flooded him with waves of agreement points.
Rong Ziyin’s posting speed was astonishingly fast. He didn’t seek viral fame, only quantity. After swiftly claiming the top comment, he immediately moved on, never looking back. No matter how many replies followed, he never returned to respond.
Soon, Rong Ziyin’s ID appeared under countless thread starters during that time period.
Gradually, people started noticing how familiar this first-floor username looked.
Some nosy folks pondered for a moment before suddenly snapping, “Holy shit! Isn’t this the same OP who ghosted his last thread and claimed he went off to hunt wild boars?”
The moment this question hit, everyone else who’d clicked through to see Rong Ziyin’s thread started getting worked up too.
“Damn it, this bastard dares log back into Zhihu?”
“Finished catching wild boars? Heard you lost everything down there—is the reconstruction done?”
“Trash! I’ll call you out every single time!”
Resentment surged like a tidal wave, the system notifications flooding Rong Ziyin’s mind like bullet screens.
System: …Rong! Should you switch to a secondary account? I feel like your main one is about to get shut down. Look, they still remember you!
Just as the system’s warning faded, Rong Ziyin’s Zhihu account welcomed a second wave of sightseers. The comments section was instantly bombarded with criticism.
Rong Ziyin thought for a moment, clicked into the previous post, and swiftly scrolled to the very bottom. At the very last comment, he wrote a single line: “For the ending, check out ‘After My Ruin, the Village’s Big Geese Still Stuck by My Side.'”
So this was to drive traffic to a new post? Rong Ziyin’s move was so bold, even the system was stunned.
System: …You’re going to get beaten to death!
Rong Ziyin, calm and composed: I won’t. If I die, who’s going to write the updates?
System: Why do I feel like you’re becoming less and less human?
Rong Ziyin smiled without responding, but he stopped answering questions and prepared to pack up and go home.
As for the post itself, Rong Ziyin felt it had reached a point where excessive attention was unnecessary. As long as they clicked to view the new post, they’d naturally be sending him money.
Sure enough, just as Rong Ziyin had planned, his latest post quickly went viral.
Just like his previous post that used a bait-and-switch tactic, Rong Ziyin’s style was always uniquely distinctive. His clean, crisp narrative style cut straight to the heart of the matter, effortlessly drawing readers into the story. This time, however, the focus was more on the sights and sounds of the village.
The sea god’s pig, the bully-fearing duck, and the uninvited turtle that dared to touch his master.
“Holy crap! Is being a vet this entertaining?”
“What kind of magical village is this? I want to raise ducks too, dammit!”
“Hahahaha, this is killing me! The village hottie’s real name is Iron Pillar? Does that mean his surname is Murong?”
Everyone was engrossed in the story. But just as they reached the most thrilling part, a familiar plot twist struck again.
Picking up where we left off: The rich kid still wouldn’t let up on the top student. But now he’d developed baldness and lost face at school—a bit of divine retribution that felt satisfyingly sweet. Yet the top student found himself on the defensive. While he’d barely scraped together enough funds to publish his paper, the rich kid was now suspected of academic plagiarism and attempting to leverage connections to crush him once more.
This was the decisive battle! If the paper got published, the top student could leave the village immediately and return to academia.
But at this critical moment, Rong Ziyin’s thread froze again, leaving no further updates.
“So what the hell happened?”
Netizens following the thread were all frantic, scratching their heads and waiting anxiously for the next installment.
Yet, a full four or five hours passed, and Rong Ziyin still hadn’t updated.
Then, one night and another day passed. They still hadn’t received an update from Rong Ziyin. So this fucking thread was abandoned again?
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! I’m gonna kill this fucking Zhihu host!”
The resentment levels provided by netizens skyrocketed instantly, easily breaking through the 350,000 mark within three days. It looked poised to surge toward 400,000.
Meanwhile, Rong Ziyin’s mind was far removed from Zhihu. Something major seemed to have happened back at school.
The class group chat was flashing nonstop, and someone kept tagging Rong Ziyin.
He hurriedly opened QQ to check and discovered there was a problem with their previous paper.
An anonymous tipster reported to the editor that a thesis submitted by the veterinary department at the Agricultural University was suspected of ghostwriting.
Why do this at such a critical moment? Who could it be?
Rong Ziyin frowned, sensing something was off.
Just then, his phone rang—it was his advisor.
“Professor, I already know!” Rong Ziyin explained his situation first.
His advisor sighed helplessly on the other end. “Ah, I was calling to tell you about this very thing. Just giving you a heads-up—be prepared.”
His advisor genuinely felt sorry for Rong Ziyin.
After Rong Ziyin and the rich kid’s paper passed the university review, it had been sent to the editors of the core journal. But unexpectedly, days passed, and before their paper even entered the peer review process, it was rejected outright.
The reason was that anonymous report. The core journal was extremely sensitive to the term “academic fraud.” After a meeting to discuss it, they decided to tighten the submission requirements.
Undergraduates wishing to submit now had to publish three or more papers in provincial-level internal journals or higher-tier publications during their university years to qualify.
This abrupt threshold effectively shut out a large group of people. Rong Ziyin and the Rich Kid were among them, but they weren’t the only ones.
With only three months left until the submission deadline, publishing three provincial-level journal articles within that timeframe seemed like an impossible dream.
On the Agricultural University campus forum, one student who had painstakingly gotten their paper accepted only to have it rejected outright completely broke down.
“I don’t know who in the Veterinary Medicine Department started this trouble, but I’ll say it plainly! I’ll remember you for the rest of my life!”
Four years! An entire undergraduate career poured into this project. They’d pinned their hopes on this breakthrough to enter academia, to secure a stepping stone for landing a top advisor. And now, it all came crashing down.
With their careers derailed, these true academic elites’ mental states instantly shattered.
Students from every department converged on the university forum, all in an uproar.
Some opportunists even spread rumors, claiming the academic fraud was none other than Rong Ziyin.
One anonymous comment cut straight to the heart: “If Rong Ziyin truly had genuine talent, why was his direct admission revoked?”
Instantly, the crowd seized upon this like a hammer, directing all their fire at Rong Ziyin.
“Trash! Disgrace to the Agricultural University.”
“We demand the administration expel this garbage immediately. Scum like him has no place in academia!”
Insults flew thick and fast. Yet in the Veterinary Medicine Department, many believed Rong Ziyin bore no responsibility for this affair.
Everyone knew his revoked admission was purely the result of a calculated revenge plot. Besides, Rong Ziyin had to work part-time just to support himself and pay tuition while studying. He was so broke he’d practically beg to write papers for money—where would he get funds to buy one? It sounded like a joke.
But the Veterinary Department was small, and now the campus gossipmongers had pinned all the blame squarely on Rong Ziyin. By the time they tried to clarify, it was too late—they got dragged into the backlash too.
Even the fact that Rong Ziyin had originally secured the recommendation was dug up and singled out for suspicion of foul play.
People were shouting at him from afar, demanding he explain how he’d gotten the recommendation in the first place.
“Damn it, what kind of idiots are these!” The system was furious, but Rong Ziyin didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Instead, he was organizing the system data in his mind.
He was categorizing who exactly in the school was feeding him anger points and which department they belonged to.
The system was completely baffled and cautiously asked, “Host, why aren’t you angry at all?”
Rong Ziyin calmly countered, “Why get angry? Don’t you think this is a golden opportunity to make money?”
System: ???
Next, he watched Rong Ziyin open his phone, log into the school forum with practiced ease, and reply under his real name to the person who had just shouted at him across the room.
Rong Ziyin: Some people will never understand why I got recommended admission. Of course, it’s because
Rong Ziyin then typed several rows of spaces, meaning the rest of the content would only be visible on mobile if users clicked to view the full reply.
But upon opening the details, the message read:
“Of course it’s because you’re all too weak!”
“In academic research, weakness is the original sin.”
Note about Hu Hansan: no character named Hu hanSan at all;
Hu Hansan is the villainous landlord bully in the classic Chinese film The Shining Red Star, portrayed by actor Liu Jiang. He is renowned for his iconic line, “I, Hu Hansan, am back!” symbolizing the return of villains (or old forces). This phrase is now commonly used to describe the resurgence of evil forces or as self-deprecating humor. In the film, he represents reactionary forces, persecuting the protagonist Pan Dongzi’s family before ultimately being defeated.
About the Film Character Hu Hansan
Origin: 1974 film The Shining Red Star.
Character Profile: A tyrannical landlord in Liuxi Town. After the Red Army withdrew, he led a returning militia to suppress the populace, imposing a reign of terror.
Signature Line: “I, Hu Hansan, am back!” This iconic line reflects the social tensions and historical context of the era.
Real-world Significance: This character epitomizes the notion that “bad guys live long,” with his repeated “resurrections” mirroring the complexities of society at the time.
Portrayed by: Renowned actor Liu Jiang.
Derived Internet Culture
The phrase “I, Hu Hansan, am back!” has become an internet meme, often used to describe the reappearance of villains or old forces.
It can carry negative connotations, denoting the restoration of evil powers, or be used for self-deprecating humor or comedic effect.
Another Historical Figure
Historically, there was also a real military figure named Hu Hansan (1884-1966), a native of Anhui Province. He studied in Japan, participated in the Xinhai Revolution, later served in the Nationalist Government, maintained close ties with Li Jishen, and ultimately lived out his twilight years peacefully. However, when people mention “Hu Hansan” today, they almost invariably refer to the villainous character from the film.