328: Chapter 328 Boss! Give me three hundred copies—<Yu Xi is not open for business today> Sponsored Bonus Edition

Magic City.

Century Book City.

The indicator lights at the checkout counters all glowed green in unison.

The crowd that had been standing in front of the red carpet on the right, listening to the speech, was now completely overwhelmed by the allure of limited-edition postcards, abandoning their exploration of the literary core.

"Hurry, hurry! Only the first five thousand get the special paper postcards!"

"Don't push me, I was here first!"

Hundreds of people swiveled around and scrambled back toward the New Tide booth on the left.

Although the men in overalls in the front row were moved by Lin Que's words, they dutifully returned to the long queue, bearing the heavy responsibility of the money their coworkers had pooled together.

In just one minute, the signing area for Fu Zhi Yao Competition on the right became empty once again.

Those nine tables covered in dark red velvet appeared even more desolate than before the start, contrasted against the boisterous noise from the opposite side.

A programmer in black-rimmed glasses shook his head repeatedly as he looked at the long checkout line on the left, which had already folded back four or five times and stretched all the way to the restroom door.

He turned to look at the youth in the baseball cap beside him.

"This line will take at least two hours; my legs are going to snap from standing."

The youth in the baseball cap pointed toward the lonely booth on the right.

"The setting that high schooler talked about earlier sounded pretty interesting. Since we're just idling anyway, why not head over and buy two copies to pass the time?"

He glanced at the long checkout line exclusive to New Tide on the left, then jerked his chin toward the independent register brought by the Writers Association on the right.

"The two sides are checking out separately anyway. There isn't even a queue over there. How great would it be to just buy them and go sit in the rest area?"

The two of them hit it off immediately and walked to Lin Que's signing table.

Without having to wait in line, they each bought a copy of folding beijing and headed straight for the rest area by the hall's windows to sit down.

The programmer tore off the plastic wrap from the cover, and the ink fragrance of the paper wafted toward him.

He had originally only intended to flip through a few pages to see just how capable this seventeen-year-old grand champion, whom the officials had praised to the heavens, actually was.

But after reading just two pages, he could no longer look away.

The text on the pages wasn't piled with flowery language; instead, it used an extremely cold, plain style of description.

First Space: five million people, occupying the vastest land and a full twenty-four hours of sunlight.

Second Space: twenty-five million middle-class citizens, sharing the dozen or so hours from the next morning until night.

Third Space: fifty million low-level laborers, who could only scavenge for survival resources in the landfill like rats during the few hours from 10 PM to the next morning.

The programmer's breathing became rapid.

He stared intently at the line "fifty million low-level people sharing the leftover night," his fingers unconsciously gripping the pages tightly.

How was this science fiction? This was clearly writing about himself!

Every morning at 6 AM, he squeezed into a subway car like a tin of sardines, and only at 10 PM did he drag his exhausted body back to his rented room.

No matter how brilliant the sunlight in Magic City was, he could only catch a fleeting glimpse of it through the glass curtain walls of the office buildings.

He was deprived of even the right to look at the sun.

The plot continued to advance.

Old Knife, a low-level waste worker, in order to scrape together the ten-thousand-yuan kindergarten sponsorship fee for his foundling daughter Candy,

decided to take a risk and smuggle himself into First Space to deliver a letter.

The writing was extremely restrained, yet it portrayed the suffocating feeling of being driven to a dead end by life with profound depth.

Old Knife crawled into the foul-smelling trash chute, enduring the extreme fear of potentially being crushed into pulp by steel gears during the space inversion, all for that meager reward.

The programmer felt as if a lump of sodden cotton was stuck in his throat; his eyes reddened, and his vision became completely blurred.

A girl waiting in the queue nearby tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, the line moved. Aren't you going to join the queue?"

The programmer didn't even look up, completely blocking out external sounds as he continued to stare intently at the pages, afraid of missing any of Old Knife's actions.

The youth in the baseball cap sitting opposite him had an even more intense reaction.

He finished the first three chapters in one go, slammed the book onto the coffee table, and blurted out a curse.

"Holy crap! This is written so perfectly!"

He hurriedly fumbled for his phone,

opened several hundred-person WeChat reading groups he usually used for chatting, and his fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard.

"Brothers! Stop lining up for Ordinary World! Everyone, go buy this book, folding beijing!"

"This book is incredible. It's not some youth pain literature at all; it's writing about the lives of us workers! Anyone who doesn't read it will regret it!"

After the message was sent, the group fell silent for two seconds before instantly exploding.

"What the hell? A book that makes a picky guy like you swear? What's it called?"

"folding beijing? Sounds like a travel guide. Is it really that divine?"

"Stop talking nonsense. Which publisher? Is there an online link? I'm acting as a sardine on the subway right now and desperately need a book like this to keep me going!"

Seeing the screen fill with inquiries,

the youth in the baseball cap raised his eyebrows smugly and took a photo of the physical book's cover, tossing it into the group.

Unlike the undercurrents surging in the rest area, the signing table on the right remained chillingly deserted.

Zhang Hao looked at the neatly arranged physical books in front of him—not a single one had been moved—and bit his lower lip hard.

His straight back hunched slightly, and beads of sweat slid down his cheeks from his forehead.

Two young girls passing by looked over,

their voices tinged with a bit of pity, which happened to reach the ears of those behind the signing table.

"Actually, that boy named Lin Que spoke quite well earlier. The setting sounded really cool."

"It's a pity. These students just happened to clash with the debut of Teacher Jian Shen's new book."

"Against a top-tier great like that, who could possibly steal any traffic?"

These words struck the hearts of the teenagers without mercy.

Liu Yu pushed up the rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose, the gaze behind the lenses dim and lifeless. He placed his hands on his knees, his knuckles turning white from the grip.

"This is reality," Liu Yu's voice was very dry.

"The market only cares about fame and traffic. Our passion from earlier can't even make a splash against ten-million-level promotion."

Tang He sat at the very edge, her hands tightly interlaced, her palms covered in sweat.

She didn't dare look at the grand scene opposite her and could only stare intently at the copies of glass on her table.

Lin Que, sitting in the center position, didn't even lift an eyelid.

He picked up the mineral water bottle on the table, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip, looking quite relaxed.

He knew all too well the lethality folding beijing had in his previous life.

This kind of realist science fiction that directly hit social pain points didn't need to rely on shouting to sell.

As long as the first batch of readers opened it, the nuclear explosion of word-of-mouth would only be a matter of time.

He now needed to do was wait,

wait for that spark to ignite the market.

Just as the clamor in the hall continued to ferment,

two boys suddenly squeezed through the heavy glass doors of Century Book City.

The "Autumn Tiger" of early September in Magic City was fierce, and the temperature was as muggy as a steamer.

A somewhat chubby boy wearing a large black short-sleeved shirt was drenched in sweat,

a large patch of his chest soaked through, the fabric clinging tightly to his body.

The other boy was thin and wore glasses,

dressed in a simple white T-shirt and knee-length shorts, clutching a phone tightly in his hand.

As soon as the two of them entered, they were startled by the terrifying line on the left.

But they didn't even spare it a second glance. Their eyes quickly scanned the hall and immediately locked onto the somewhat deserted red carpet booth on the right.

The chubby boy's eyes lit up, and he swung his arms as he charged toward the right.

He ran extremely fast, his sneakers making sharp screeching sounds against the smooth marble floor.

The thin boy followed closely behind. The two of them, panting heavily, crossed the empty red carpet and rushed straight to Lin Que's signing table.

The chubby boy leaned both hands on the edge of the table, gasping for breath.

He haphazardly wiped the sweat from his face and pulled a familiar pink-covered notebook from his jeans pocket,

slamming it heavily onto the table in front of Lin Que with a heroic air of someone ready to die for a cause.

Lin Que looked at the familiar pink notebook, his eyebrows arching upward.

This was the very notebook that a certain fellow had been secretly doodling in under his desk back in the Grade 12 Class 3 classroom of Jiangcheng No. 1 High School a few days ago.

Lin Que's fingers holding the water bottle paused slightly, and the nonchalant smile in his eyes completely softened.

The chubby boy swallowed hard, chuckled, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Boss! Give me three hundred copies of folding beijing!"

...