Fighting words

About Fang's accusation, Han said: "Fang said I must have falsely claimed some stories were mine while they were actually written by someone else, but he can't prove it.

"He also pointed fingers at my friends and some media organizations who criticized him for being unfair, saying that he will fix them one by one. Obviously, he has shown actual malice."

Fang replied: "My accusation is based on my analysis of his early works and some contradictory explanations about these works made by him and his father. This is justified freedom of speech and freedom of academic discussion.

"You can disagree with my conclusion and analysis, but you can't say I intended to make a false charge against him."

Fang's doubts

Fang said he was not the least interested in the dispute when Mai Tian accused Han of having others write on his behalf, but was later dragged into the fight.

"I had never read Han Han's works before. In my opinion, he's just another star in the entertainment industry. I didn't have the patience to read Mai Tian's articles either," Fang said, "until Han swore about his credibility, attacked Mai in his blog, and offered 20 million yuan to whoever can prove Mai's accusation is correct. Only an exasperated person in desperation would act this way."

Looking through Mai's articles, Fang found that part of Mai's reasoning was indeed reasonable.

For example, Fang said, Han claimed that he wrote and published a dozen essays and pieces of fiction in one month when he was still a junior school student. Before that, he had not written anything, nor did he write afterward until he entered the essay contest when he was in senior high school.

Such descriptions sounded suspicious to Fang, who questioned Han's ability to write so many high-quality articles, above average for a writer at his age, in such a short time without showing any earlier sign of his talent. He said it is more likely that Han had someone else write for him and that he copied their stories in his own handwriting. Fang also said he thinks the life experience and social background shown in Han's early stories did not match his age.