Chapter 101

Edited by: kapekopicoffee

So, a few hours later, Chinese netizens once again discovered that the verified user’s painting style analysis Weibo post with ten thousand forwards had been forwarded by a certified artist from the big shot’s company.

@A Thousand and a Hundred Ears: “…I went inside the company and inquired about it. It’s true.”

This Weibo post was immediately spotted by the most discerning netizens. They urgently followed up with fancy questions.

So the blogger posted another Weibo post with a bit more explanation.

“There’s no insider information. That is to say that this project was sent directly to the boss’s desk not long ago. He took it very seriously, stopping the rest of the projects at hand and bringing the whole team to work on it day and night. Apparently, the roaring in the office never stopped during the project.”

With the successive affirmation of that certified artist from the same company, the once-sceptical netizens directly defected and worshipped under the verified user’s Weibo post, with all sorts of fancy flattery for their sharp eyes appearing one after the other.

But, coincidentally, Terminal’s refutation statement was released at the same time, stating that it wasn’t an officially authorised work, but just a fanwork made by an enthusiastic netizen. It also clarified that Terminal had been granted the right to use this work, and attached a private message communication with “One hundred thousand reasons to cheat Krypton”.

The statement was met with an uproar.

The evidence on the verified user’s side was hard, but the evidence on Terminal’s side was even harder.

The people who’d already believed in the Oscar-winning big shot’s involvement in the project couldn’t help but waver again.

An Oscar-winning big shot couldn’t be involved in a project like this, no matter how they looked at it, right?

All of a sudden, there were all kinds of things to say, and because there were all kinds of things to say, it made the discussion of this matter even more boisterous.

So the good netizens began to leave the domestic field.

The video had subtitles but no sound. They dubbed the video in English, then marked it with a variant logo that was very similar to that of the company that the big shot was in. After they did all that, they posted the video to YouTube to secretly observe foreign netizens’ reactions.

The foreign netizens didn’t disappoint!

They saw the video and were equally shocked.

“Wow! Star Wars!”

“I’m going to go on Twitter and ask when the official film will be released.”

“Is this a game or a movie? It feels like a promotional video for a 3A masterpiece. If it’s a game, I’ll buy it as soon as it’s released.”

The video attracted many foreign netizens’ views and comments as soon as it was released. Its ranking on YouTube was climbing steadily, soon becoming hot and attracting a lot of attention. It was also at this time that the good netizens suddenly discovered that the fake met the real. The big shot had noticed their video and directly claimed it!

The big shot directly tweeted:

“Woooo, I just finished the original design half a month ago, and now it’s finished? How did this happen? This is incredible!”

Their previous speculation was actually true.

What kind of new year’s magic reality was this?

The good netizens were on their knees.

They also found that after the big shot had directly claimed the project, many netizens who had seen the video came to the big shot’s Twitter to ask what the project was and when the finished product would be available.

The big shot spoke the whole truth, making it clear that he only took on the original design and wasn’t responsible for the rest of the work, so he didn’t know when the finished product would come out. But, seeing the released video effects, he was also very much looking forward to the launch of this work. And he told the netizens that the original work was a Chinese novel called Nine Crossings .

Terminal had an overseas literature site.

The foreign netizens who got this exact answer made their way to the Terminal site, and found the original book, Nine Crossings .

They were very curious about what the original work was like to be able to have a derivative work of this quality.

They read it for a while, and it was like opening the door to a new world.

—Chinese novels are actually pretty good!

The traffic on the Terminal overseas website exploded at this moment!

When the daily maintenance programmers saw the abnormal data in the backend, they instinctively felt that they had been attacked by hackers. They didn’t work shifts or take breaks, each of them waiting in front of their computers. They only breathed a sigh of relief, collapsing on their desks, when all the checking found that it was really just the number of visits that had surged several times last night.

Damn, almost scared to death…

It was like a drama series with the twists and turns of public opinion, and new points of view appearing all the time.

The onlookers were watching while catching up on the drama, having a lot of fun discussing.

At that moment, the previously authorised Nine Crossings comic saw that this was the right time and went online. As expected, it smoothly got on the hot search, and the click rate in the first two days alone made the rights holder grin from ear to ear.

All aspects of information from all over the country and abroad were sent to Terminal headquarters.

The top management of the headquarters looked at each other. In any case, they didn’t expect that things would ferment to this extent in a short time.

In the silence, someone from the copyright department sent more news, all about Li Shuoxing and Nine Crossings .

“The game publisher who had negotiated for the rights of Great Dispute before has come back again and is willing to add ten million more to buy the game rights.”

“Domestic animation and film giants have come to inquire about the rights of Nine Crossings , and they’re willing to pay good prices.”

“It’s not only domestically. I received a letter from a Japanese animation company that was also inquiring about the animation rights of Nine Crossings .”

When they saw the first two pieces of news, the top management was still steady.

Although the partners who approached them were very powerful, they were also very powerful, and Nine Crossings was also very powerful. They weren’t weak against anyone.

But the third piece of news made everyone take a breath of cold air.

Oh my god.

How did we fish up a Japanese production company?

We were saying before that Nine Crossings was the masterpiece of the year. Now let’s look at it again, is it the masterpiece of the year?

It’s already becoming an international masterpiece in the blink of an eye!

The top management of Terminal suddenly had great ambition. “We will set up a special rights group for Nine Crossings from now on, which will be responsible for Caramel Ximu’s rights promotion. We will do our best to make this book, this masterpiece, a success within the next two to three years! This may be the stepping stone to get us out of the country and into the world!”

After this direction was determined, Night Tour, who had been in charge of Li Shuoxing’s rights work and had smooth communications and a good relationship with Li Shuoxing, was named as this special rights group’s head.

After the group was established, the first thing that had to be done was, of course, to strike while the iron was hot and promote Nine Crossings out to a wider platform, so that more groups outside of the internet would know about this novel!

Just as the rights group had almost finished their publicity plan, and was waiting for the terms to be agreed on so they could promote it step by step, another piece of news came from abroad.

Recently, a drug addiction treatment centre abroad has successfully rehabilitated drug addicts through Chinese fantasy novels, and has introduced the popular novel Nine Crossings as one of their recommended reading materials. The novel immediately received unanimous praise from recovering addicts the moment it was introduced. The once-empty reading area is now overcrowded, and the wall is filled with thank-you notes written by readers:

“Thank you to Nine Crossings , it changed me!”

“God, I can’t go a day without Nine Crossings !”

“The purchaser’s finally done a good thing. I hope he can do more good things: hurry up and buy back the following plots of Nine Crossings !”

The news of this “New Addiction Treatment Abroad, Web Novel Nine Crossings Becomes Good Medicine” came back to China and became another strong contender for the Sand Sculpture News of the Year. At this moment, the internet’s enthusiasm wasn’t the only thing that was ignited.

It made it to the social section of the newspaper, making Nine Crossings and Li Shuoxing the focus of the masses, bathing in the marvels of the people. It smoothly climbed to first place on Weibo hot search and Baidu hot search. It also incidentally brought Terminal up, so that Terminal could timely experience the joy of a new record number of daily visits to the website.

For a while, Night Tour let out a deep lament. “Eunuch can always live out the brilliance and flame from angles we can’t imagine… He really is an extraordinary man.”

Identical laments occurred in the Terminal Food Group.

The list of candidates for the Sand Sculpture News of the Year was sent to the group. Of the eighteen Sand Sculpture news stories so far, Li Shuoxing had two, having a presence in one-ninth of them and simply leading the top.

Calm Egg: “I really feel now that Eunuch isn’t of the same world as us.”

Interfinger Storm agreed. “No matter how much people like Eunuch are hidden, they will eventually stand in the limelight.”

Soren asked the question that everyone wanted to know: “Does Eunuch now know that he’s not only a subway million brother and a foreign web rehab friend, but also the ‘mysterious man’ that Terminal authors have been talking about?”

This was a fictional character that the people in the group had created to save Li Shuoxing’s reputation after the subway million brother incident came out. They didn’t expect things to go this far. This fictional character had somehow become a legendary mysterious man of Terminal. Everyone, from the editorial staff to the ordinary readers, had heard about it.

Deer Over Fragrant Grass faintly said, “Eunuch and I talked about that last time. He was very gossipy, and very curious about that guy mining in Africa, who had written a book in the female channel and married a female channel author. The wife hooked up with his twin brother. The two brothers fought for property in their daily house fights. Who was the double cuckold author. He also said he’d like to get to know this mysterious person… so, he doesn’t know.”

The group was silent for a moment.

Suddenly, someone opened anonymity.

Anonymous: “Numb to all flea bites ¹ 蚤子多了不痒 is a variant of the Chinese idiom 虱多不痒 [shī duō bù yǎng] which may mean that one does not worry when they owe a lot of money. There is a pile of difficulties that they don’t think they can solve for a while anyway, so they don’t worry about it. . How about a kind person go and tell Eunuch that the mysterious man is actually him?”

The next row agreed anonymously.

After agreeing, another anonymous person asked, “Eunuch hasn’t showed up for a long time. What’s he doing now?”

Li Shuoxing really wasn’t doing anything.

Amid all the boiling hot discussion, he was paying extra attention to the female readers of Nine Crossings in addition to writing.

Because he suddenly realised that, under the tide of high-level bragging and sand sculpture laughing all over the internet, they were the only ones who shouted a slogan that went straight to Li Shuoxing’s heart, directed at Cunxing and Su Mingqian:

“What a lovely couple!”

The author has something to say:

A little explanation of your doubts:

1. About why the painting style is similar:

The original art was outsourced by Ask with the laboratory’s name and found the big shot, so the painting style is the same. The netizens didn’t make a mistake. Most of Li Shuoxing’s ten million was spent here.

2. About why Ask doesn’t charge money:

The laboratory doesn’t allow it, and Li Shuoxing is the exception.

***

PS: As an additional note, foreigners reading Qidian web novels to rehabilitate drug addiction is real news.

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蚤子多了不痒 is a variant of the Chinese idiom 虱多不痒 [shī duō bù yǎng] which may mean that one does not worry when they owe a lot of money. There is a pile of difficulties that they don’t think they can solve for a while anyway, so they don’t worry about it.