330: Chapter 330 Gemini Matrix

Hu Yizhao, standing on the outskirts of the red carpet,

watched the dust-covered standalone cash register on the right finally start printing receipts and let out a long breath.

He reached out to tug his tie, his tense back finally relaxing.

This signing event, which could have been a one-sided execution of the Writers Association, was actually revitalized by a seventeen-year-old youth.

Chairman Lu stood not far away, hands behind his back.

He stroked his chin, his gaze passing through the crowd and landing on the youth behind the signing desk who was writing furiously.

The breakthrough aura this young man showed in a desperate situation made him admire him more and more.

He didn't complain about the environment or beg for mercy; instead, with a few words that hit the pain points, he forcibly snatched the first batch of readers from a ten-million-level promotional storm.

Lin Que sat at the signing desk, the black sign pen in his hand almost never stopping.

He finished signing several books in front of him and looked up.

The long queue at the checkout on the left side of the hall still seemed endless, but a wonderful chemical reaction had already occurred.

More and more readers who had just finished checking out from the left cash register did not walk straight to the door.

Holding the earthy-yellow "ordinary world", they followed the crowd or were attracted by the speech just now and walked straight to the red carpet booth on the right.

This was precisely the core part of the Epic Hedging Plan.

Using the "Jian Shen" persona's massive traffic pool and converting it into exposure for the main body "Lin Que".

As long as readers came to the scene and heard the setting of "folding beijing",

these two works would no longer be in a simple competitive relationship but would form a wonderful complementarity.

Writing about the heavy yellow earth with the left hand and the cruel folding city with the right hand, the two fires finally collided completely today.

As the signing continued, more and more readers who bought "folding beijing" were in no hurry to leave the bookstore.

They followed the example of the youth in the baseball cap and found a seat in the lounge area by the window of the hall.

The lounge area was soon full.

Later readers simply walked to the load-bearing pillars or leaned against the glass curtain wall and sat on the floor.

They tore open the transparent plastic wrap of the books and lowered their heads to open the first page.

The noisy clamor in the hall seemed to be isolated by an invisible barrier in these corners.

The rustling sound of pages turning gathered together, forming a highly infectious reading atmosphere.

The extremely restrained sketch-style technique in the text,

laid the luxury of the First Space and the dilapidation of the Third Space bare before the readers.

No preaching, only the most authentic struggle for survival.

Ten minutes passed. One after another, suppressed exclamations came from the lounge area.

"Damn, this is so daring!

Fifty million people can only share a few hours of night; this imagination is insane!"

A boy in a plaid shirt slapped his thigh and shouted.

A young girl with a backpack next to him had red eyes. She took out a tissue from her bag and wiped the corners of her eyes, her voice thick with nasality:

"The plot where Old Knife risks his life for his child made me want to cry.

When he crawled into that trash chute, I felt my heart tighten."

"This book is written about the lives of all of us workers!"

Real reading feedback was like an invisible contagion, rapidly spreading through the lounge area and every corner.

Those ordinary people who were weighed down by the burdens of life found the most precise emotional resonance in this book.

These exclamations and discussions inevitably reached the long queue on the left waiting to check out "ordinary world".

Those readers who originally only intended to buy Jian Shen's work were piqued with great curiosity by these sounds.

A fat man in the middle of the queue poked his head out, looked at the red-eyed readers on the right, and couldn't help but nudge his companion in front with his elbow.

"Man, hold my spot, I'm going to check out the right side.

That high schooler's book seems to have something; I see several people crying."

The companion nodded and stood on tiptoe to look to the right:

"Bring one for me too! Anyway, this line will take another half hour; buying a copy of that 'Folding' book to pass the time is good."

This phenomenon soon triggered a chain reaction in the queue.

People kept leaving the long queue on the left and jogging to the booth on the right,

taking out change or scanning codes with their phones to decisively buy a copy of "folding beijing".

The cash register on the right began to run continuously, and the beeping of printing receipts merged into one.

As time went by, an extremely absurd yet incredibly harmonious scene appeared in the first-floor hall of Century Book City.

Almost all readers walking toward the exit held two books in their hands.

Their left arms tucked that earthy-yellow "ordinary world", symbolizing the weight and suffering of the yellow earth,

while their right hands gripped that cold-grey "folding beijing", representing urban coldness and class barriers.

These two realist masterpieces with vastly different styles and backgrounds actually converged in the hands of the same person.

One was the work of a ten-million-level literary giant, and the other was the literary debut of a seventeen-year-old high schooler.

Today at the Magic City Century Book City, they achieved a win-win in an incredible way.

Zhang Hao, Liu Yu, and the other seven contestants sitting next to Lin Que watched the stack of physical books in front of Lin Que, which was originally piled high, decrease rapidly at a visible speed.

Xiao Liu, the Writers Association clerk, was already sweating profusely as he made his third trip to the warehouse.

The restocking speed of the cart could hardly keep up with the sales speed.

Zhang Hao rubbed his face hard, the sympathy in his eyes having long since turned into deep respect.

He looked at those red-eyed readers coming to Lin Que for an autograph and knew very well,

that Lin Que didn't rely on official handouts or sympathy points but won the market with the solid quality of his writing.

Tang He sat on the far edge, watching Lin Que calmly write personalized messages for every reader, her fingers lightly stroking her copy of "glass".

She knew that the gap between her and this peer could no longer be measured by rankings.

Lin Que had already jumped out of the framework of student essays and truly stepped into the ranks of writers.

The official media and self-media reporters on the scene were all sharp-nosed experts.

They quickly sensed the drastic change in the atmosphere on-site.

Several cameras immediately turned their lenses, accurately capturing the images of readers with "ordinary world" in their left hand and "folding beijing" in their right.

A female reporter holding a Provincial Station microphone quickly walked to the lounge area and stopped a young white-collar worker who had just closed the book and was still wiping tears.

"Hello, I'm a reporter from Magic City Satellite TV.

May I ask how you feel after reading this 'folding beijing' in your hand? What moved you so much?"

The white-collar worker sniffled and held the cold-grey physical book up to the camera.

"This is a book that can break a person; it writes the hardships of us low-level workers too thoroughly.

I strongly suggest everyone struggling in the city go read it."

The reporters quickly recorded these first-hand real feedbacks.

They knew that today's front-page headline not only had a title but even the core explosive content was delivered to their door.

Brief reports with on-site photos and reader interviews,

were quickly sent back to the backends of major newspapers and news websites via the internet.

Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers away at Xinchao Publishing House.

Editor-in-Chief Wang De'an stood before a huge monitoring screen, hands propped on the edge of the console,

his eyes fixed on the red carpet booth on the right side of the first floor, which he had originally regarded as cannon fodder.

On the screen, the flow of people gathering in front of the "folding beijing" booth became more and more dense.

Those readers who originally belonged to "ordinary world" were continuously diverting to the right.

A small queue over ten meters long even formed in front of that cash register.

Wang De'an felt his perception was completely overturned.

He knew too well how many resources Xinchao Publishing House had invested for today's debut.

A ten-million-level promotional budget, full-channel screen-dominating promotion, plus the terrifying appeal that came with the name Jian Shen.

In the center of such a storm, any work in the same period should have been crushed into powder.

But now, a high schooler's work with no promotional foundation, which only relied on the official's forced placement on the first floor,

actually managed to tear off a piece of meat in this storm!

"How on earth did this kid do it?"

Wang De'an muttered to himself.

He recalled the on-site report sent by his subordinates just now; that youth named Lin Que had used only a few sentences on stage to successfully leverage the readers' desire to buy.

Coupled with the extremely solid text quality, it directly triggered a word-of-mouth explosion on-site.

This precise control of market sentiment, this terrifying potential to turn the tables in a desperate situation,

Wang De'an turned his gaze again to the young figure bowing his head to sign on the screen.

A crazy and bold idea grew like weeds in his mind—

since this youth has such terrifying market appeal,

if he could be poached to New Tide at any cost to join forces with "Jian Shen",

forming an invincible "Gemini" of the old and new generations in the Chinese Literary World...

By then, who else in the entire publishing industry could stop New Tide's footsteps?!

Thinking of this, Wang De'an clenched his fists in excitement.

...