538: Chapter 538 Let them lose on the battlefield they chose.

Xu Changge's voice was very low, yet it held not the slightest hint of probing.

Lin Que glanced at him but did not deny it.

Chen Jiahao and Dan Yi also crowded over.

"What trump card?"

Chen Jiahao's eyes lit up.

Lin Que shook his head.

"Huanyu's matrix can indeed boost popularity in a short time."

"Accounts can be farmed in batches, votes can be dumped in concentration, and boosting popularity overnight is very easy."

"But to forge authentic reading, dwell time, subscription curves, and spontaneous dissemination, the costs will multiply exponentially."

"Traces cannot be hidden."

He paused.

"Real readers won't stay in front of the charts every day to control comments for anyone."

"They will only do one thing."

"Finish reading a chapter, click the next one."

"Once those silent majorities start moving—reading to the end, catching up on updates, forwarding—no matrix can suppress them."

Dan Yi was stunned for a moment.

"You mean..."

"Just let them build up their momentum first."

Lin Que's expression didn't change.

"They want to see the market."

"Then let them see enough of it."

Chen Jiahao paused for two seconds, then suddenly slapped the table:

"I get it! They're using paid trolls to scare people, and you, Master Que, are preparing to drown them back with real readers?"

Xu Changge sat up straight, his fingertips pointing at the rule announcement.

"The forwarding chain, Shen Jiangping's long post, Huanyu accounts, plus this new rule."

His gaze sank.

"The chessboard is complete."

Huanyu wanted to drag the rules into a chaotic market, but Lin Que refused to hide.

Xu Changge stared at the announcement, his eyes darkening:

"From the moment that batch of accounts surfaced, what you were waiting for was them personally writing the market into the rules."

Lin Que looked at his phone screen, not directly answering that sentence.

"They wrote the data into the rules, thinking it was a loophole they opened for themselves."

Lin Que put away his phone.

"But once the loophole is open, anyone can enter."

Watching Lin Que's steady demeanor, the anger in Chen Jiahao's heart gradually subsided.

"Fine."

He slapped his thigh.

"Master Que, you said wait and see, so we'll wait and see."

"Anyway, this past month, we've truly sweated out these manuscripts in the mud, in the fumes, and in the cold wind."

"Works will always be read."

Lin Que said.

"Algorithms can block the charts for a while, but they can't block the readers' reactions after finishing."

Lin Que said.

Dan Yi looked at the red line far in the lead on the list, then looked at Lin Que.

He remembered that day at Beihai Park.

Lin Que stood in the middle of that crowd, a twenty-eight-character "autumn poem" turning the entire poetry world's tradition of autumn melancholy upside down.

At that time, he also didn't understand how Lin Que was going to break it.

Later, he understood.

"I trust you."

Dan Yi said those three words simply.

Lin Que turned to look at him and nodded.

In the Program group chat, messages were still rolling in one after another.

Lin Que typed a few lines in the dialog box.

"They pay for data because they are afraid of real things being placed on the table."

"Since the rules have changed, we will send our works to more readers' eyes."

After sending it out, the group was quiet for a few seconds.

Tang He replied with one word.

"Good."

Then Chen Jiahao popped up in the group.

"Everyone, do what you need to do, stop staring at that broken list!"

Dan Yi also sent a message.

"Stay steady."

The restlessness in the group, ready to rush out for a confrontation, was gradually suppressed by these few words.

They might not know what other cards Lin Que held.

But they had seen how that "autumn poem" at Beihai had suppressed the entire scene, and they had seen how the turmoil in Muchuan Town had reversed and been reined in.

So this time, no one in the group clamored to rush out.

Xu Changge watched the changes in the group and glanced at Lin Que again.

"What do you intend to do?"

Lin Que closed his phone and stood up.

"Let them lose on the battlefield of their own choosing."

Lin Que didn't explain further; he shouldered his bag and walked out the door.

Xu Changge watched his retreating figure.

These past few days, forums, rules, matrices, and "killing with praise" had piled up layer by layer.

Yet Lin Que's steps remained very steady.

So steady that it made people suspect that the chessboard Huanyu had set up had never accounted for him from the very beginning.

Lin Que walked out of the dormitory building; the early morning in the capital carried the chill of late autumn.

He looked up at the sky.

A patch of dark clouds in the distance pressed lower and lower.

The traffic outside the school gate was blocked into a long line, and the hot list on his phone was still jumping upward.

The person behind Huanyu had moved the battlefield into the market.

Lin Que looked at those dark clouds, his eyes becoming calm instead.

"Moved well."

They had finally moved the chessboard to the place he feared the least.

Huanyu thought that by controlling the platform, authors, and traffic, they equaled control of the market.

But they had forgotten one thing.

The mass reading market in this world was waiting for a batch of stories that could truly make people stay up all night to follow them.

And in the Red Fruit backend, there were real subscription, comment, update-urging, and read-to-completion curves every day.

Those data points were quiet, but heavy enough.

Lin Que hailed a taxi and gave the studio's address.

The car drove into the traffic.

He leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and mentally laid out the next few steps he needed to take.

The Jian Shen line could not be moved.

Jian Shen was too closely tied to traditional literature; if he entered the fray, the waters of the Kunpeng Award would be stirred even murkier.

Lin Que's own identity also had to be firmly pressed before the judging table, letting only "qin opera" speak for itself.

But the Dream Weaver was different.

The Dream Weaver didn't need to stand up for Lin Que.

He only needed to prove one thing.

The real market was hidden in every spontaneous click, subscription, and comment.

And these were happening every day in the Red Fruit backend.

...

Twenty minutes later, the car stopped downstairs from the studio.

Lin Que swiped open the security door; the indicator light on the encrypted server in the room was still on.

He put down his bag, sat at the desk, and turned on the computer.

Two monitors lit up simultaneously.

He first opened the Red Fruit backend.

The subscription curve for "ghost blows out the light" was climbing steadily, and the comment section was still fiercely discussing it even at two or three in the morning.

Subsequently, he switched to the Kunpeng hot list.

Shen Jiangping's red line was glaringly high, but the comment section was as uniform as if it had been copied and pasted.

Lin Que watched for ten seconds, then opened the Microblogging platform.

Ten minutes later.

The Dream Weaver, with a solid black avatar, posted a new message on the Microblogging platform.

[Dream Weaver:]

[Heard that a certain Kunpeng Youth Literature Award has added a mass reading feedback index.]

[Quite good, literature has finally remembered the readers; congratulations.]

[Since you want to look at the market, I have a small suggestion: don't just look at popularity; popularity is something that easily burns the hands.]

[Real readers are actually very simple.]

[They don't argue, they don't bomb the charts. They are as quiet as a phone screen still lit at two in the morning.]

[I respect mass reading very much, and I also respect the market.]

[The premise is that the ones standing in the market are real people, holding their own judgments in their hands, rather than a lively formation with unified text, unified time, and unified punctuation.]

[So, since someone said they want to return the power of judgment to the readers, then truly return it.]

[Don't be angry for the readers, don't vote for the readers, don't arrange likes and dislikes for the readers.]

[Read whichever piece you like, and comment after finishing. Give it points if you think it's good, close it if you think it's bad. Don't control comments, don't rush the charts, don't be led by anyone.]

[By the way, a reminder: real reading data has breath; fake popularity only has formations.]

[Everyone is welcome to rate rationally.]

[It's the market, after all; let's all look at it together.]