I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

Let's go back to last night.

When Yu Wen, in a holographic live stream with two million viewers, basking in the glory of being the author of "To Live," boldly announced the title of his next book—"The Old Man and the Sea"—the entire online literature community of the Federation was thrown into an uproar late at night.

This is Yu Huashi, the author of "To Live".

In this era of "brainstorming" where titles often contain a dozen or twenty words, cramming in all sorts of elements like cheat codes, systems, and harems, the title of his next book is still a simple four-word phrase that seems completely out of place in typical StarNet novels—"The Old Man and the Sea."

The industry is extremely superstitious about data models.

Two-character titles (such as "To Live") are aloof masterpieces.

Four-character titles are the standard foundation of masterpieces; they are neither as cheap as long sentences nor as expansive as two-character titles.

Moreover, these are the words of the author of "To Live," so it's entirely possible that this will become another masterpiece worthy of being recorded in the history of federal literature.

In this wasteland world where fast food and instant traffic are prevalent, everyone has done the math. In this era of brainstorming, one book becoming popular doesn't necessarily mean a second one will be. But the terrifying popularity that "To Live" garnered is undeniable.

Even if "The Old Man and the Sea" cannot replicate a miracle, at the very least, with its established fanbase, it is absolutely impossible for it to flop.

So from last night to this morning, the entire federal news flashes and social media projections about online literature were dominated by the four words "The Old Man and the Sea".

The top trending topic changed from "Best Actress Scandal" to: within just ten minutes.

#The Old Man and the Sea, a new book by the author of "To Live"#

#Yu Huashi's new book "The Old Man and the Sea"#

Countless readers, whose hearts had just been broken and whose tears had dried up after being tormented by "To Live," were posting frantically on the forum with red eyes:

"Holy crap! A four-character divine name! I knew Old Thief Yu wasn't an ordinary person! In this era where wildly imaginative stories like 'Rebirth: I Became the Dragon King in the Cyber ​​Wasteland: Starting with 100,000 Death Squads' are commonplace, daring to come up with such a plain and unassuming name is absolutely a game-changer!"

"Brothers, let's analyze this! If 'To Live' is about peasants, then 'The Old Man and the Sea' must be about fishermen in the old days! In this class-divided world, a poor, lonely old man from the bottom of society faces the vast, unpredictable sea... This is definitely another tragic novel about the miserable struggle of the lower classes in the raging storms! I've already prepared my tissues!"

In fact, Yu Wen had no intention of revealing information about his new book before the broadcast ended last night.

However, millions of readers who had just finished crying were frantically spamming the comments section, begging for a preview of the new book.

These enthusiastic fans, focused solely on satisfying their own curiosity, clearly hadn't considered the consequences of prematurely revealing their hand in the online novel community.

Yu Wen's decision to ultimately choose this title also reflects his clear understanding of the timeless, masculine spirit and pure literary essence embodied in "The Old Man and the Sea."

He doesn't believe that in this world, fed by system algorithms and dopamine-fueled gratification, anyone can replicate or rewrite the core of "The Old Man and the Sea."

However, due to the gap in historical context, he ultimately failed to consider the deeper dangers of this world.

Yu Wen underestimated the bottom line of capital and bandwagon followers who have no moral compass...

It wasn't until seasoned, seasoned readers who had spent years navigating the online literature world pointed out the hidden dangers in their posts on the forum that the fervent fans were suddenly jolted awake:

"You bunch of people urging for updates are really asking questions! And that old scoundrel Yu is really too arrogant! He actually dared to leak the book title ahead of time? Although the Weiguang platform can use the highest level of security to lock the copyright of the four characters 'The Old Man and the Sea,' it can't stop those unscrupulous studios from changing the words! I bet that tomorrow morning, the StarNet will be full of copycat works about old men cultivating immortality in the sea!"

This old bookworm's prediction not only came true, but in the face of the traffic-driven industry in the cyber wasteland, it even seemed somewhat conservative.

Those low-level writers and AI ghostwriters who follow the times, are prone to following trends, and flock to wherever there is traffic have completely fallen into a frenzy.

"To Live" is a completed masterpiece; its core message is too profound to be easily copied.

But "The Old Man and the Sea" is still just an empty title.

According to the old rules of the online literature circle, authors keep the title of their books tightly under wraps before they are officially published, for fear that their peers will beat them to it.

Those studios are laughing privately now. This "Yu Huashi" has obviously been blinded by the overnight success of "To Live," becoming arrogant and conceited. He doesn't even understand the most basic common sense of securing a spot, and has revealed all his cards in advance.

Although Weiguang used the highest level of data lock overnight to secure the absolute copyright of the four characters "The Old Man and the Sea" under Yu Wen's name, it couldn't stop these bandwagoners from playing word games.

Overnight, a plethora of bizarre book titles sprang up like mushrooms after rain in the new book libraries of major platforms:

The Old Man and the Sea, The Old Man with the Sea, The Old Man with the Sea, The Old Man and the Sea, The Old Man and the Sea, The Old Man Connected to the Sea, The Old Man and the Sea, The Old Man Built the Sea, The Old Man and the Sea, The Old Man Accompanying the Sea, The Old Man Joining the Sea, The Old Man Leading the Sea, The Old Man Enveloping the Sea...

This group thoroughly looted every conjunction, preposition, and even phonetic loan character in Chinese that could connect two nouns.

Even worse, in order to attract attention, some people directly registered the names of Lao Tzu's sea, the old man and the sea, and the old man and the sea...

This frenzied trend of following the crowd has mainly been divided into three extremely fragmented groups, each with an increasingly absurd style.

The first wave consisted of those who claimed to have understood "To Live" and wanted to emulate its tragic core.

This group of serious writers and independent investors thought they had grasped the secret to Yu Huashi's wealth and tried to use his heavy, down-to-earth writing style to forcibly deconstruct the "sea" they had never seen before.

They felt that since "To Live" could achieve legendary status through the suffering of the lower classes, then "The Old Man and the Sea" had to depict despair even more intensely. As a result, all sorts of sensationalist and gratuitous depictions of industrial despair rained down on the StarNet:

"Lianhai the Elder: The Last Song of a Crimson Veteran": It tells the story of a disabled veteran in the Xiacheng District whose entire body is covered with second-hand parts salvaged from a scrap yard, and who spends his days picking up electronic waste from sewage outlets where heavy metals exceed the standards.

In the end, in order to give his grandson, who suffers from a genetic disease, a new life-saving energy heart, the veteran, without hesitation, threw himself into the sea in front of the steel breakwater of the deep-sea conglomerate, thus defrauding the conglomerate of a meager accidental death insurance policy.

"The Old Man and the Sea: The Last Night on the Shore of the Nuclear-Contaminated Sea": This story is about an elderly couple living in a low-income household under the isolation layer.

His wife, suffering from severe radiation poisoning in the downtown area, was on her deathbed, her body covered in sores. In the final moments of her life, the white-haired old man, blind in one eye, pushed his wife step by step into the cyber-era's sea of ​​highly acidic machinery using a scrap metal cart.

An eerie firefly glowed on the sea surface, and an old man held his wife tightly in the sea breeze. The entire piece was filled with long, sticky, and deliberately melodramatic passages of suffering, which were used to evoke intense emotions.

"Old Man by the Sea: The Silent Salvager": This book is the product of a freelance writer who shamelessly tried to imitate Fu Gui's plain language.

The author uses extremely dry, diary-like language throughout to describe an old man who dredges up electronic waste discharged from the city center every day.

In an attempt to rival "To Live," the author arranged for the old man's son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and even the neighbor who had borrowed flour from him to all die from radiation and plague in the 100,000-word novel, leaving only the old man alone, leading a mangled mechanical donkey, sitting on the cold breakwater and sighing at the desolate sea.

These writers huddled together for support in the forum, smugly declaring, "This is the purest Yu Huashi style! Truly hardcore tragic literature!"