novel bin Chapter 23 Fried Knife Fish
Chapter 23 Fried Knife Fish
With the iterative upgrading of technology and the development of the digital economy, online accounts, game equipment, virtual currencies, and so on have become new forms of social currency. In the old days, marriages involved the division of monetary funds; now, when a couple's marriage ends, the division extends beyond just real estate and savings to include various intangible assets. The wealth embodied in these intangible assets is gradually becoming a new battleground for marital breakdown in the digital age. Especially since the pandemic, the proliferation of self-media accounts has led to a surge in divorce rates. Yu Xingge once had the opportunity to read a professional article that offered a very sharp analysis of this new trend.
What is your account name? How many followers do you have?
"Fried ribbonfish, over three million, I guess."
Yu Xingge paused in her typing. She opened a webpage and began searching for the valuation of accounts with over three million followers. The results showed that the valuation range for Douyin accounts with 300 million followers was quite broad, typically between 20 and 300 million yuan. If the followers were highly active, the account was in a popular niche, and had stable monetization capabilities, the value could be close to the upper limit; conversely, if there were inactive followers or risks of violations, the valuation could be lower than the lower limit.
"I need to confirm the value of your account. Approximately how much income do you generate per month from maintaining this account?"
Han Chichi said, "Sometimes it's 50,000, sometimes it's over 100,000."
Yu Xingge noted: "When was the account created? Who usually manages it? Is it all done by you alone?"
"Actually, I registered the account a long time ago, back in college." Han Chichi pursed her lips habitually. "But I didn't have many followers back then, only a few thousand. After graduation and getting married, as you know, because of the pandemic, everyone was at home with nothing to do, and it was also a good time to take advantage of the trend. I usually like to cook some delicious food at home. I found that people liked watching it, so I've kept it up until now. I haven't worked since getting married, and I rely entirely on this video account to earn some income by taking on some gigs and receiving tips during live streams."
"He doesn't care about this, and our money has always been separate. So, Attorney Yu, if we get divorced, will this account still belong to me?"
Yu Xingge moved the computer aside: "Ms. Han, the Douyin account you mentioned is actually virtual property, and in the current trend, more and more courts are recognizing it as divisible property. However, divorce involves many issues, and I need to review your marital situation before I can give you a more accurate answer. Now I have some questions for you, and I hope you will answer them truthfully."
Han nodded slowly.
Why did you get divorced?
She gave a wry smile. Since joining the law firm, although she had felt a little awkward, Han Chichi had always given the impression of being quite confident. But this smile was full of unspeakable self-mockery: "Because I discovered that my husband, Liang Zan, is gay."
She picked up her water glass and took a sip: "Attorney Yu, since you asked, I won't hide it from you. Let me tell you the whole story."
"When I married him, I had already graduated from university for six years. Because my undergraduate degree was in hotel management, I was still working as a lobby manager at a hotel when I was thirty. Although my income was stable, I had bought my own house in the city with my parents' help and my own efforts. But I didn't have a boyfriend, and my mother was nagging me to go on blind dates every day. Liang Zan was introduced to me by a relative from my mother's hometown. He was a wedding planner and a fairly well-known wedding emcee in his hometown. He had just moved to Dongjiang City to work hard. We were about the same age and both single. I am of average appearance and figure, but I have a stable job and a good temper. He is good-looking and has a good figure, but his income changes every day with the market, and he just makes ends meet. After we met on a blind date, we dated for less than a month before we started talking about marriage."
Han Chichi blushed slightly: "But he doesn't want to sleep."
Don't want to sleep?
Yu Xingge tried hard to keep a straight face and asked calmly, "Is it that you don't want to have sex?"
"Yes." Han Chichi nodded, and Yu Xingge's expression slowly made her feel more at ease. "Well, I wasn't that enthusiastic about that kind of thing. But both sets of parents were pressuring us to have a child. He's an only child, and I have a younger brother. Both families wanted to have the next generation as soon as possible. At first, I thought it was because I wasn't pretty enough, so I desperately tried to lose weight. At my thinnest, I weighed less than 100 pounds. But it was no use at all. It's not that he's not interested in you; he simply doesn't want any physical contact with you."
"I had been running the account for a while and had some money. So I hired a private investigator to investigate and see where the problem lay. At first, I thought he was having an affair. But then the private investigator gave me a stack of photos of him and Ringo, which disgusted me to death."
"Who is Ringo?"
Han Chichi snorted coldly: "He claims to be my best friend, someone I grew up with. He's also a guy, and the key point is that Lin Qing is also married and has children. Anyway, once this investigation comes out, I definitely can't continue living with him. We've confronted each other, and he has no objection to divorce. He only asks for a division of property. After we got married, I was the one who managed all the household income and expenses, and we usually live in the house I bought before the marriage. I don't know exactly how much he earns; I guess he just cares about his own spending. After all, he goes to hotels eight out of ten days a year, and I don't think he's very focused on his work."
Yu Xingge asked, "Do you have any other large sums of money?"
Han Chichi shook her head: "He didn't have any money when we got married, and he didn't buy a house. After we got married, he sold his old Accord and bought an Audi. I paid the down payment of 200,000 yuan, the car sold for 100,000 yuan, and he paid off the remaining loan of less than 100,000 yuan."
"Have you discussed the divorce?" Yu Xingge asked.
She nodded and sighed, "Yes, he didn't have any objections to the divorce. So there's no disagreement on that. Sometimes I really don't understand why people get married. They can live a good life on their own, but they insist on finding someone to support them, even if they don't want to, the world pushes them along." She asked Yu Xingge, "Attorney Yu, do you believe that if I get divorced, no matter the reason, my mother will definitely make me find someone else? Do you think a woman can't live alone without a man?"
Since she entered the profession and handled these three cases, every woman in her marriage has ended up suffering a crushing defeat. Yu Xingge still can't answer this question; perhaps she'll have to wait for the next case?
"Ms. Han," Yu Xingge said softly, "social media accounts are a common type of virtual property in divorce cases. The prerequisite for division is that the property is considered marital property and must meet the condition of being 'acquired during the marriage.'"
"Let's discuss this in two scenarios. First, if the account belongs entirely to you, and if you registered, operated, and profited from the virtual property before marriage, then in the event of a divorce, the property and its profits belong to you as your premarital personal property and are not subject to division. Without a doubt, the account still belongs entirely to you. Second, in the case of joint operation by spouses, there are two scenarios. If the virtual property was registered, operated, and profited from during the marriage, the value of the property and its profits belong to the joint property of the spouses. If you registered the virtual property before marriage, but during the marriage, the joint operation by both parties caused the property to appreciate in value, then the profits earned after the marriage belong to the joint property of the spouses." Obviously, your situation doesn't fit that description. The third scenario is where the virtual property was registered and acquired before marriage, but the profits were generated after marriage. In this case, I believe the increased value of the account would be considered marital property and subject to division. Of course, current laws and judicial interpretations don't explicitly define 'virtual property' as a type of marital property. Article 1062 of the Civil Code defines the scope and types of marital property, including wages, bonuses, remuneration for services, income from production, business operations, investments, and intellectual property rights, among other explicitly listed properties. It also includes a catch-all clause that broadly defines it as "other property that should be jointly owned."
She said, "At the same time, based on the fact of the marriage, as the party at fault, he should of course receive less or no property in the divorce."