All-rounder Artist

“What’s narrative trickery?”

Luo Wei, who just completed today’s task for “Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma,” seemingly caught parts of the conversation between Lin Yuan and Jin Mu.

She paused for a moment, then realized, “You were discussing Chu Kuang’s detective novels?”

For some reasons, Luo Wei has been paying a lot of attention to Chu Kuang.

Even if she doesn’t read detective novels, she knew that Chu Kuang had recently created a new type of mystery called “narrative trickery”.

“Yes.”

Jin Mu glanced at Lin Yuan with a smile. Discussing Chu Kuang under Luo Wei’s nose all the time was bound to get him into trouble with the boss sooner or later.

Luo Wei curiously asked, “I don’t quite get it, what does narrative trickery mean?”

Lin Yuan subconsciously wanted to show Luo Wei the comic he had just seen, but Jin Mu stopped him. The comic was a bit inappropriate.

Understanding the situation, Lin Yuan wrote a new dialogue on a piece of paper and handed it to Luo Wei.

Luo Wei read what Lin Yuan wrote:

[Little Bright, time to get up for school!]

[Mom, I don’t want to go to school anymore, never ever… ]

[Why?]

[I don’t want to attend classes anymore!]

[But you’re a teacher!]

Luo Wei chuckled, “Little Bright is actually a teacher. Isn’t this just a text game? Like a brain teaser. I love brain teasers…”

“Almost.”

Lin Yuan nodded. This is also the reason why orthodox mystery enthusiasts naturally resist narrative trickery. For this reason, Lin Yuan could fully understand why Leng Guang, a mystery writer online, resists narrative trickery so much.

The essence of this situation is just like Li Dan resisting puns.

“Is there more? It’s quite interesting.”

Luo Wei seemed to be interested in this so-called narrative trickery.

She represents another group—that is, the readers who enjoy the twists and turns brought by narrative trickery.

“Yes.”

Lin Yuan casually wrote another conversation.

He had just thought of it when he went to the bathroom.

[When I was young, my father always told me to shake after peeing. So every time after peeing, I would shake before leaving the toilet. I didn’t realize until later that only I shake after peeing, other girls use paper.]

Luo Wei giggled, then her face hardened, and she gave a light cough.

Did she just reveal something?

She hastily said, “It’s time to leave work, I’m off.”

Lin Yuan nodded.

Jin Mu raised his eyebrows, “So, is the boss’s new novel in this vein?”

Lin Yuan replied, “Yeah.”

Jin Mu said in a melancholy tone, “Readers are going to send you blades.”

Just reading these jokes made him feel like he was being tricked. What if they were expanded into a short detective story?

“Well, I am an old rascal.” Lin Yuan said indifferently.

Jin Mu chuckled. He rarely saw Lin Yuan showing such a mischievous side. He made it clear that he wanted to mess with the readers, and he even wrote several vulgar mini-stories about narrative trickery.

But it didn’t seem so bad.

Because as Lin Yuan’s agent, he sometimes felt that Lin Yuan was too rigid.

It was when he played mischiefs like this, he appeared to be a young man.

Thinking of this, Jin Mu stood up and said, “Then I’ll contact the blog first and register a blog account, and release the news while I’m at it.”

…

Releasing the news is a form of pre-publicity.

Ordinary authors don’t get this kind of privilege; There is always a review process, but the blog started a grand publicity as soon as they trust Chu Kuang’s capability, even before they got the story.

“Chu Kuang’s new short story is coming!”

To make the announcement more explosive, the blog emphasized:

“This will be Chu Kuang’s first attempt at a short detective story.”

When Lin Yuan saw the announcement, he hesitated just a little, and then refrained from making any corrections—

The “Dondon Bridge Collapse” he had customized with the system was quite long in length, close to the word count of a medium-length story.

However, short, medium, and long-length stories have no strict word count boundaries, so sometimes the definitions can be quite blurred.

I would also like to mention this.

The customization of “Dondon Bridge Collapse” only cost Lin Yuan a hundred thousand yuan.

The meaning of the system was to give a discount.

But Lin Yuan felt that the system was worried that readers would want to break his leg after reading “Dondon Bridge Collapse”.

The result.

Particularly, just one day before the blog released the news, the Tribe’s side exploded with activity!

“Chu Kuang’s new short story is going to be published on the blog?!”

“The blog is secretly poaching?!”

“Is Chu Kuang dissatisfied with our Tribe?”

“He actually betrayed the Tribe!”

“Saying he betrayed us might be too harsh. There was no contractual restriction in the first place. It’s Chu Kuang’s freedom to choose which platform he wants. The blog must have offered some incentives to get Chu Kuang. But it still feels frustrating…”

“…”

The Tribe’s editors were frustrated.

Han Jimei, the chief editor of the Tribe Literature, was also frustrated.

She didn’t expect the blog to be so adaptable.

Chu Kuang had helped the Tribe to beat the blog more than once.

But in return, the blog not only held no grudges but instead invited Chu Kuang over with an open heart!

This just goes to show that there’s no fool in capital.

The blog understood this too. If they treated Chu Kuang as an enemy, they would be pushing Chu Kuang further towards the Tribe.

Looks like, in the future, they have to put more effort into getting closer to Chu Kuang.

Compared to the frustration of the Tribe.

The readers didn’t care where Chu Kuang’s new work was published.

As long as Chu Kuang was willing to release new work, that was enough.

Therefore.

As soon as Blog’s promotion came out, it attracted many of Chu Kuang’s readers.

This includes some readers who liked Chu Kuang because of “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”.

“It’s rare that Chu Kuang, the old rascal, is willing to keep writing detective stories.”

“Normally, the old rascal rarely repeats the same genre.”

“Mystery lovers send their congratulations!”

“A pity that it’s a short story this time.”

“Short detective stories are also fine. As long as it’s a mystery, that’s enough!”

“If Chu Kuang, the old rascal, keeps writing narrative trickery, I’m sure I can predict the murderer first and slap him in the face!”

“Once you have seen narrative trickery, you can figure out the author’s tricks.”

“I beg Chu Kuang to keep writing narrative trickery. I will wash away the shame of being deceived by ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’!”

“Come on, old rascal, as a reader, it’s time for me to have a detective duel with you!”

“…”

With the appearance of some new pieces of narrative trickery online, readers are now very confident. They believe they have figured out the patterns of narrative trickery completely.

For this reason, the readers were all calling for Chu Kuang to continue writing narrative trickery-style mysteries. They were even more certain that they could predict the murderer in advance.

That’s right.

They all want to slap Chu Kuang in the face!

But isn’t it a coincidence? Chu Kuang’s new work is indeed a narrative trickery-style mystery.

However, the official news didn’t reveal this. Whether it was narrative trickery or not, the readers had to see for themselves.

Everything moved quickly on Lin Yuan’s side.

Three days rest, he had adjusted the background of “Dondon Bridge Collapse,” made some humorous settings, and published it on the blog.

That day was May 1st.

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