336: Chapter 336 A Readership Across Social Classes

At 9:30 AM,

the heavy glass doors of Shanghai Century Book City slid open to both sides, accompanied by an electronic chime.

The square outside was already buzzing with the clamor of voices.

Unlike yesterday's one-sided frenzy, the crowd today quickly split into different streams upon entering.

An incredibly massive surge of people moved with a clear goal, bypassing the cordon in the center of the hall and heading straight for the red-carpeted booth of Fu Zhi Yao Competition on the right.

The composition of this crowd was just as incredibly complex as the one in Beijing.

They walked hurriedly, fearing that a single late step would mean missing out on that physical book with the cold grey cover.

Behind the signing desk, several creators of the same generation, including Zhang Hao, Liu Yu, and Tang He, sat in their respective positions.

Looking at the dense and diverse crowd of readers before them,

the anxiety and sense of loss they felt at yesterday's opening were gone, replaced by deep shock and awe.

Liu Yu pushed up his sliding glasses frame, his voice somewhat dry and hoarse, clearly having stayed up all night.

"Seeing Old Knife nearly crushed by machinery for that bit of money,

only to have to dust himself off and go to work the next day... I stood on the hotel balcony for half the night yesterday."

"Losing to writing like this, which strips reality down to the bone, isn't unfair at all."

Zhang Hao nodded vigorously.

He looked at his peer sitting in the center position, still calm and composed, and felt only a sigh of complete admiration in his heart.

Someone who could write a work that directly struck the pain points of the era was already on a completely different level from them.

Tang He sat at the very edge, her fingers instinctively stroking the copy of glass in front of her as she whispered to herself,

"Will that ten thousand yuan Old Knife risked his life to bring back really allow Candy to cross that wall..."

No one answered her.

Because the crowd in front had already surged to the stage.

At the very front of the line were several white-collar workers with dark circles under their eyes,

as well as several food delivery riders with bloodshot eyes, wearing yellow and blue uniforms.

They clutched change in their hands or had already opened their mobile payment screens, completing their purchases with extremely practiced movements.

This scene, which completely overturned the typical audience profile of a traditional literary book signing,

made several gossip media reporters—who had failed to grab a headline yesterday—sense an unusual atmosphere.

A male reporter with an Entertainment Weekly pass hanging from his chest wandered back and forth along the edge of the right-side exhibition area with his camera.

He looked at those low-level laborers dressed in plain clothes, some even with mud on their soles, his eyes filled with malicious speculation.

The male reporter scoffed and winked at his colleague, pointing at several worn-out work uniforms at the front of the line.

"The officials even dragged these manual laborers here to queue up this time; they're really putting on a show.

Come on, let's go chat with them and see if we can dig up some internal news."

His colleague hesitated for a moment.

"Surely not? This is an event organized by the Writers Association, and besides, that article is so popular online right now. Would they really need to fake it so blatantly?"

"You don't understand. What wouldn't people do for sales these days?"

The male reporter gave a cold laugh.

Having made up his mind, the male reporter approached the front of the line with his recording pen.

A delivery guy in a yellow uniform had just finished paying at the register.

Holding the copy of folding beijing in his hands, he was excitedly sharing it with a middle-aged man in old work clothes next to him.

"Brother, I read the introduction to this book online last night. This isn't just science fiction; this is the life we live every night running deliveries!"

The delivery guy pointed at the blurb about the Third Space on the cover, his eyes turning slightly red.

"The leftover night shared by fifty million people... this time-allocation system is exactly like our night-shift delivery schedule.

The main roads during the day don't belong to us. Only at midnight can we come out to earn that bit of hard-earned money."

The middle-aged man nodded repeatedly, his rough fingers stroking the pages.

"Isn't that the truth. My daughter back home is starting kindergarten this year. To scrape together that sponsorship fee, I've been pulling all-nighters at the construction site every day these past few months.

Seeing that character Old Knife in this book, I felt like it was writing about me."

Seeing this, the male reporter immediately thrust his recording pen forward, a look of hypocritical concern on his face.

"Hello, brothers. I'm a media reporter." His tone carried an obvious leading quality.

"Brother, I see you didn't even change out of your delivery uniform before rushing here to queue. You must be losing a lot of money not being able to take orders for half the day, right?

Spending the whole morning here, can the compensation for lost wages from the organizers cover your losses?

Just give me a hint, how much do they have to compensate you per day for it to be worth it?"

The delivery guy, who had been excited, saw his expression darken instantly upon hearing this.

He tucked the book he had just bought under his arm and looked at the reporter coldly.

"Wait a minute..."

"What do you mean by that? You're trying to say we were paid to be shills?"

"Shh, we're all workers here, it's not easy for anyone."

The male reporter lowered his voice, feigning consideration.

"Everyone is usually so tired from running orders, who would have the spare time to queue for a book signing that doesn't put food on the table?

The organizers really found the right people by hiring you guys,

but wasting a whole morning of work, the compensation they're paying you is decent, right?"

The delivery guy was completely infuriated by these arrogant words.

He held up the physical book in his hand to the reporter's face and fired back loudly.

"What's that? Delivery drivers aren't worthy of reading books?"

These words rang out powerfully, immediately triggering a strong reaction in the crowd.

Several young white-collar workers further back in the line stepped forward.

"You're the shill, right? Here specifically to cause trouble?"

A boy wearing a baseball cap blurted out.

"Mr. Reporter, why don't you finish reading this book before asking questions?" another girl snapped back with a cold sneer.

"Opening your mouth to say people were paid to be here is called slander."

Someone in the crowd even pointed their phone directly at the reporter.

"Come on, I'll record this and post it online. Let everyone judge for themselves."

The surrounding readers were indignant, speaking out one after another to condemn him.

The male reporter's face turned beet-red, and his hand holding the recording pen froze in mid-air, completely unsure of how to end the scene.

He had wanted to dig up some dirt, but he hadn't expected to crash headlong into the collective anger of the crowd.

Faced with the contemptuous gazes and the high-held smartphone cameras all around him,

the male reporter's mouth twitched twice. Finally, without a word, he put away his recording pen and squeezed through the gaps in the crowd to escape.

Behind the signing desk, Lin Que saw everything.

He didn't intervene, nor did he show any condescending pride because of the readers' defense.

When that delivery guy approached him with the book,

Lin Que took the physical book with both hands and uncapped his signing pen.

"Student Lin, don't mind those reporters. They don't understand at all."

The delivery guy wiped the sweat from his forehead, his tone filled with the most simple sincerity.

"What you wrote in your book, we can all understand it."

Lin Que looked at the dark-skinned laborer before him, whose eyes were exceptionally bright, and wrote a line of words on the title page.

"To: Dawn will eventually arrive; the long night will no longer be endless. Lin Que."

After writing, he handed the book back to the man and responded in a gentle yet firm tone.

"The answers are all in life. Thank you for being willing to open it."

This sentence carried through the noise of the scene to the back, triggering another round of warm applause.

The atmosphere was pushed to a climax by Lin Que's composure.

The independent cash register at the right-side booth began to run frantically, the beeping of printing receipts merging into a continuous sound that barely stopped.

Meanwhile, in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of the second-floor VIP passage,

Chairman Lu of the Shanghai Writers Association and Hu Yizhao, the Director of the Publicity Office, stood side by side, looking down at the near-manic buying scene in the first-floor hall.

Hu Yizhao was tightly clutching a real-time sales report just pulled from the system backend.

His fingers were trembling slightly.

"Chairman Lu."

"At this rate of sales, the stock we have in Shanghai... won't last past noon."

...