Time slowly entered March 2004. On March 1st, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" successfully concluded its finale. As Zhao Ling'er passed away, countless viewers were moved to tears. Many began leaving messages on Facebook, demanding a sequel to "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and a resurrection of Zhao Ling'er.
However, this seemed impossible, as the television series was based on the game's plot. The game had already progressed to "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3," released half a year prior, another classic installment in the series.
Of course, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" had no bearing on Zhao Ling'er's fate, as it depicted events hundreds of years before the first generation. Although Li Xiaoyao appeared through time travel, he had no plot relevance to Zhao Ling'er.
The only game with narrative continuity was "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 2." While it directly followed the events of the first generation, Zhao Ling'er was undeniably dead in the sequel. The protagonist was Li Yiru, the daughter of Zhao Ling'er and Li Xiaoyao... No, she wasn't the main protagonist, but the second female lead.
Yet, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 2" had already been disowned by many fans of the series. Similarly, all installments after "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" were also rejected. In the eyes of the fans, only "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1," "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3," and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" were considered worthy of the name "The Legend of Sword and Fairy"; the rest were deemed trash and not recognized.
When Boss Huang acquired the entire "Legend of Sword and Fairy" IP, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" was already halfway through production. Boss Huang did not interfere with this version, which had been well-received in his previous life, and allowed the team to continue its development.
After "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" was completed, the team immediately began preparations for "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4."
The primary reason for the complete collapse of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" after "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" in the previous life was the demise of the original development team. A check on Baidu Baike would reveal that although both "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 5" were developed by Softstar Technology, the two companies were associated with different city suffixes: Shanghai and Beijing.
It is unreasonable for a company to deliberately add city names as suffixes in its Baidu Baike entry. This situation arose because, despite still being named Softstar Technology, the entire team had been completely replaced.
Although Yao Zhuangxian, the father of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy," became the producer, which was the biggest selling point for "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 5," it became the worst installment in the eyes of many fans.
It was rumored that after "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" was completed, all the core creative staff left within a month. Yao Zhuangxian had to take over reluctantly. At that time, his entire focus was on two online games, as online games were more profitable.
After Boss Huang acquired Softstar, Yao Zhuangxian initially stayed on, but only to conclude some work. Three months later, he left to start his own business with a substantial amount of capital. Softstar Beijing was directly dissolved, while Softstar Shanghai became the legitimate and sole Softstar company. Its负责人 naturally gained control of the entire "Legend of Sword and Fairy" series and a significant amount of financial support from Boss Huang, leading to high morale. "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" immediately entered the development phase.
There was no need to wait until 2007, as in the original timeline. It was estimated that "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" would be released by 2005 at the latest. Subsequently, new installments of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" would be released at a pace of one every two to three years, and television series adaptations would also be continuously produced, exhausting the IP's value to the fullest.
This might sound somewhat bleak, but Boss Huang would provide ample funding and strive to ensure a superior living environment and salary for the development team, thereby maintaining the team's stability. Situations like "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 5," "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 6," and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 7," where the team was completely replaced after each installment, would basically not occur.
In addition to traditional role-playing games, Softstar also established a separate online game development team and a board game team. Furthermore, an animated series with an entirely new storyline for "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" was also in production.
This has drifted a bit. To put it simply, Boss Huang's intention was to turn the "Legend of Sword and Fairy" series into a complete cash cow.
However, it is worth noting that according to Boss Huang's requirements, the future main narrative focus of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" would shift from the emotional relationships between men and women to the welfare of all living beings, the struggles between the six realms, the creation of various complex characters, and a grand narrative within a super world.
This could be seen from the development of the game industry in later life. Romance was becoming increasingly less appealing to gamers. Players would prefer open-world games with detailed branching storylines, explosive details, and visually appealing female characters.
Games that focused primarily on romance or the emotional relationships between men and women would generally experience explosive sales initially, then gradually disappear.
Frankly, instead of designing a poignant love story for a game, it would be better to focus on how to make the female characters' thighs look more fleshed out and how to make stockings appear more textured, thereby attracting the preferences of "Lsp."
As the economy develops and life becomes more enriched, love will have less room to survive.
Ahem, back to the topic.
To be fair, these player requests did have some effect. The day after the finale of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy," the official Facebook account of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" posted an image. This image showed a female figure trapped in a cocoon-like enclosure, sealed tightly.
Anyone with a discerning eye could recognize that Zhao Ling'er was the one sealed within the cocoon.
"What's going on? Sister Ling'er isn't dead yet?" Loyal fans of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" were ecstatic. They began flooding the official account with comments, asking for clarification on the image's meaning and whether there would be any follow-up plot that could resurrect Zhao Ling'er.
Simultaneously, users soon discovered that this image was not just a static picture, but a moving one. At the bottom of the image, a thin line was visible, alongside a constantly ticking number.
Initially, it was 0%, but after an hour, the number had increased to 0.0523%. Some users also swore in the comments that after zooming in and calculating, the thin line had lengthened considerably, suggesting it might be a crack.
Meanwhile, the third-generation passerby, who had produced over 20 episodes of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" videos consecutively, had now become a super influencer on Facebook with four million followers.
He posted a message stating that after research and calculation, he found that 0.0523% corresponded exactly to the 5230 shares of the official dynamic post.
In other words, this progress was determined by the number of shares on the official dynamic post. If this post received 100,000 shares, the progress would reach 1%.
Therefore, if the dynamic post received 10 million shares, the number would become 100%.
He also discovered that the thin line was likely a crack, and this crack would spread across the entire cocoon as the number increased. It was possible that once the number reached 100%, the cocoon would break open, and Zhao Ling'er, trapped inside, could be resurrected!
This speculation sent all the fans of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" into a frenzy.
The timing of this event was perfect, occurring just the day after the finale and Zhao Ling'er's death. Furthermore, the "Legend of Sword and Fairy" filmed in this world was far superior to the one in the other world in terms of visuals, plot, character design, combat, special effects, and emotional rendering. Many were genuinely moved to tears by Zhao Ling'er's death. At this moment, the audience was at their emotional low and desperately seeking an outlet.
Now, to suddenly hear that there was a way to revive Zhao Ling'er, and all they had to do was share, was exhilarating.
However, the target of 10 million shares appeared quite challenging, as Facebook's then-announced total user base was only 30 million. This meant that one-third of Facebook users would need to share, which was almost an impossible task.
Indeed, if this event had been delayed by five days, or even just two days, the audience's emotions would have gradually subsided, and their desire to revive Zhao Ling'er would not have been as intense or proactive.
But on the second day, their fighting spirit was at its peak.
As a result, within just five minutes, the progress bar had advanced to 1%, with over 100,000 shares.
Concurrently, these actively sharing users began aggressively inviting friends or even asking for their Facebook accounts to share.
An hour later, the progress reached 12%, and the total number of followers for the official Facebook account of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" was less than 1.2 million.
After one day, the progress reached 46%, with 4.6 million shares shocking the entire internet.
However, over the next two days, momentum seemed to falter. In two days, the progress only reached 71%, and the rate of increase in shares slowed down. Some began to declare that this was the extent of the "Legend of Sword and Fairy" fandom and that it was impossible to push further, meaning Zhao Ling'er could not be saved.
This made the fans of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" anxious. Although they had calmed down somewhat and their obsession with Zhao Ling'er's revival was not as fervent, if the event had been launched at this very moment, they might have just shared it themselves and stopped.
But the problem was that they had already put in two days of effort, roping in everyone they knew with an account. If it failed now, wouldn't all their efforts be in vain?
Therefore, these individuals immediately turned their attention to their friends and relatives who had not yet registered for Facebook accounts, and even their employees.
It was reported that on the following day, a rich second-generation heir from Dongguan directly ordered all his employees to fill out a registration form, submit their Facebook registration information, and then mobilized dozens of staff members to register Facebook accounts day and night. He registered Facebook accounts for all 4,000 of his workers and then mass-shared, single-handedly advancing the progress by 0.04%, earning him the reputation of a god.
Unfortunately, his father, upon hearing the news, reportedly beat him half to death.
There was also a programmer who voluntarily uploaded and shared a script—a program for automatically registering Facebook accounts. It could quickly register Facebook accounts with various information and then share them with a single click.
This programmer might have initially genuinely wanted to save Zhao Ling'er. Later, he realized the script had a large market and was used by many. Thus, he quit his job and turned the script into professional software specifically for managing various data services on Facebook. The first generation of data workers was thus born.
Although these were isolated cases, there were many who mobilized friends without accounts to register, or even used their parents' registration information to create accounts.
As a result, after another three days, meaning five days after the finale of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy," to the tears of countless people, the 100% progress was finally achieved. Then, to everyone's surprise, the original image was replaced by a video. When users curiously clicked on the video, they found it was an animated clip.