Chapter 1 - Admire the Reading
The Yuesi Literature Network’s annual “Admiring the Moon” event had begun.
It was called “Admiring the Moon”, but in reality it was called “Admiring the Reading*”. This was a two-day online literary exchange meeting organized by the Yuesi Literature Network with the aim of synthesizing and exchanging literary ideas. This event was initially a product packaged by Yuesi for their annual conference to be used as an external promotion tool. However, over the years, with the rapid development of online literature, Yuesi had gradually grown, becoming the leader of original literature websites in China, and as a result, the “Admiring Reading” event had become a prestigious event in the world. of online literature. In these two days, the great and small authors under the aegis of Yuesi had gathered from all parts of the country to participate in meetings, lunches, chats, card games, games and live broadcasts, a series of charitable activities for the body and mind of authors and for the development of online literature, in addition to writing. Although many readers addicted to absorbing texts complained about the ‘suspension of updates by decree’, some book lovers exclaimed: “Do you want to know who the great author you really like is? Go and admire the moon!”
(*赏月, to admire the moon, and 赏阅, to admire reading, are read the same, “shǎng yuè”, making it a play on words.)
Speaking of which, every year there was the “Moon Admiring” event, which had become quite common by now. But this year the event was particularly interesting, it was said that Yuesi had secured very favorable conditions to sign a contract with the super author Twelve Leaves. In the world of online literature he had already been deified, his books in physical form had been sold countless times, and the copyrights had been sold at very high prices.
Has the so-called “winner of life*” in both the two- and three-dimensional world, Twelve Leaves, left his old employer to join Yuesi?It was no surprise that once this news came out, someone joked about the theme of the event: “Admiring the flowers, admiring the moon, admiring Twelve Leaves.”
(* It’s a way of referring to someone who has everything in life.)
It was the evening of the second day of the “Admiring Reading” event.
Some of Yuesi’s great authors – Qin Hai, specializing in novels about the world of offices; Tian Gai, known for his creativity and passion for science fiction; Sleepy Fox, number one in fantasy and martial arts novels, and Twelve Leaves, the new super author expert in crime and detective novels, had gathered in the hotel room of Zhao Zhao, known among martial arts readers as “Little Prince”.
Zhao Zhao seemed disconsolate: he had just gone down to the reception to ask for a data cable and, upon his return, he found four men with different poses in front of the room door!
“…The F4s, huh?”
As soon as Zhao Zhao opened the door, the “F4” came in and sat on the edge of the bed. Tian Gai, the youngest of the group, paid no attention to the host’s discomfort and said mysteriously: “I thought of a game, do you want to play?!”
Zhao Zhao was perplexed: “So you came to my room in the middle of the night to perform “Meteor Garden”?”
Tian Gai narrowed his eyes: “This game is called ‘Battle of Awkward Games’, doesn’t it already sound funny as soon as you hear the name?”
Zhao Zhao replied coldly: “As soon as I hear the name, I have no desire to play.” He turned to the two behind him: “Do you want to play?”
Qin Hai just shook his head: “It’s better to do something than stand still.”
Sleepy Fox was too busy texting on WeChat: “Tian Gai said we will have a lot of fun, I believe him.”
Zhao Zhao laughed ironically: “So, what does he have in mind?” He pointed without hesitation to Twelve Leaves, Yuesi’s new signatory with an air of superiority.
At that moment, Twelve Leaves was sitting in a chair, casually flipping through a magazine. Faced with Zhao Zhao’s coldness, he didn’t get angry at all, but tilted his head, with a smile on the sides of his mouth.
All the authors of Yuesi knew that Zhao Zhao and Twelve Leaves didn’t get along, but this story was a little strange.
At that time, Twelve Leaves was considered an absolute star of literary navigation, while Zhao Zhao was quiet in his obsession with martial arts. The two had never met, and each had their own space. But one day, someone had accused Zhao Zhao on Weibo, saying that he had copied a story told by the villain to the male protagonist in the novel “Lies” by Twelve Leaves.
In theory, a writer who wrote gripping mysteries with layers of clues, and one who wrote about heroes and adventures in the depths of the world of knights-errant, seemed to have little in common. Yet, strangely, this story had such peculiar details that, when carefully compared, they achieved a 95% similarity. Even more extraordinary was the fact that this story, in Zhao Zhao’s novel, was told by the male protagonist to the villain.
It was like a thrown stone that causes a thousand waves. Twelve Leaves, as a great author, had a number of fans that could not be compared to that of Zhao Zhao. As soon as the post on Weibo was published, Zhao Zhao’s profile was stormed by Twelve fans, Zhao fans or simple spectators. The transformation of fans into haters was only the beginning: there were also those who insulted not only Zhao Zhao, but also his ancestors up to the eighth generation.
Zhao Zhao couldn’t accept being accused of plagiarism without reason, but he didn’t expect that story to reach that point. The only good thing was that he had already outlined the story at the time and had discussed it in detail with the editor via email. The dates of the emails showed that the story had already taken shape before “Lies”. After thinking about it, Zhao Zhao sent a private message to Twelve Leaves to explain the situation and asked him if he believed him enough to make a statement together to explain everything. But Twelve Leaves hadn’t responded. Zhao Zhao couldn’t wait any longer, so he released a screenshot of the email.
Perhaps because Zhao Zhao had been quick enough in his response, his tone was sincere, and the evidence was convincing enough, although public opinion was not completely reversed, he had ultimately prevented the matter from developing in a more serious direction. At this time, Twelve Leaves, who had been hiding for a long time, seemed to have finally come to his senses. He had posted on Weibo, saying that he was aware of some of the recent events and thanked his fans for protecting him, but at the same time he thought it was all just a coincidence. He really didn’t expect such a big misunderstanding. He also said that he felt sorry for Zhao Zhao and hoped to have the opportunity to meet him and apologize in person.
To be honest, Twelve Leaves’ words on Weibo were quite sincere, but Zhao Zhao was angry after reading them.
It wasn’t him who was slandered, he had pretended nothing had happened when he sent him a private message asking for help, and now that public opinion had reversed, he had stepped forward and pretended to be a good person: False ! Hypocritical! Disgusted!
At this point, the feud between Zhao Zhao and Twelve Leaves had begun. All the Yuesi writers that Zhao Zhao had a good relationship with knew that in the end they would actually betray him, bringing his enemy before his eyes! He got angry just thinking about it!
Tian Gai clicked his tongue and put his arm around Zhao Zhao’s shoulders: “Zhao’er… Master Leaves just told me at the door that he feels really sorry for you for what happened last time, so l ‘I invited you to play a game to make up for it…’
Zhao Zhao was silent, looked askance at Twelve Leaves, who closed the magazine, and said with a smile: “Shancai*, are you really not going to play?”
(*She is the protagonist of Meteor Garden.)
“…If I don’t play with you today, my last name is not Zhao!”
At this point, the five people in the room finally reached an agreement about participating in the game.
Tian Gai was extremely satisfied and began to explain the rules of the game. He took some playing cards out of his pocket and arranged them in a row: “There are 5 cards here: three aces, a large joker and a small joker. You take turns drawing cards, and the person who draws the large joker can give an order to the person who took the small joker. As for what order it is...”
At this point he couldn’t help but laugh: “Hehe.”
He laughed so hard that everyone stared at him. Only then did Tian Gai slowly utter one word: “Read!”
“Light?”
“I asked Mengmeng and the female authors to prepare 10 books. The person who draws the large wild card will select a book at random and say a page number and paragraph. The person who draws the small joker will have to read at least the designated part of 3 lines. If you don’t want to read it, you can just have a glass of beer!” Tian Gai pointed to the box of beer just delivered by the hotel staff, and raised the corner of his mouth.
This game still seemed harmless enough, but Zhao Zhao’s eyelids couldn’t help but twitch, and his intuition told him that there must be something strange. When Tian Gai took out the 10 books, Sleepy Fox took a look at the names of the authors and started yelling, “...What the hell are these names?!”
Yisuo Yan, Meimao Wan Wan, Shui Dao Houtian Zaoshang, Friday123, Ai Chi Juzi*… they were all authors of yaoi novels! Although there were occasionally male readers who tried their hand at Danmei novels and wrote their thoughts on the Yuesi forum after reading them, and these posts were very interesting to read, asking them to read one of the paragraphs in public was a bit much . The very thought made him anxious. It was truly a battle of humiliation!
(*Funfact, their names translated into English are: “Smoking a cigarette, Arched eyebrows, Sleeping until the morning of the day after tomorrow, Friday123, Loving to eat oranges.)
Even though there were occasionally male readers on the Yuesi forum who tried their hand at yaoi novels and wrote funny reviews of them, having them read publicly was a bit much. just thinking about it made me anxious, it was truly a battle of humiliation!
“Tian Gai, I think you should change your name to GAY.” Zhao Zhao couldn’t help but complain.
Tian Gai shook his finger: “It’s too late to retreat now, the first game begins!”
