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

Meanwhile, the headquarters of "Fanshu Novels," which focuses on free traffic.

Jiang Tiancheng, the vice president of operations, stood in front of a huge holographic data dashboard, watching the search index for the four words "The Old Man and the Sea" soar into the sky in an extremely abnormal parabolic arc.

"Zhao Hongbo has gone mad. In order to destroy a book, he's even willing to abandon all scrutiny of Cloud Atlas and open the entire spectrum to allow garbage copycat works to run."

Jiang Tiancheng sneered, but the greed of a businessman immediately took over: "However, since Yuntu has stirred up the waters, we sweet potatoes have no reason not to take advantage of this torrent of free traffic."

He turned to Chief Algorithm Architect Gao Yu: "Mr. Gao, how's that 'lower-level suffering' sub-model that we trained to counter 'To Live' doing?"

"It's fully matured, Mr. Jiang."

Gao Yu quickly brought up the operation interface. "As long as you enter keywords, the main brain can generate 10,000 outlines with emotional tags such as 'frustration, suffering, and repression' in one second."

"it is good."

Jiang Tiancheng issued the order: "Forcefully merge the 'Suffering Model' with our Curry's most popular 'Return of the God of War' and 'System Slap in the Face' models! Lock in the keywords 'old man,' 'ocean,' 'fishing,' and 'island'!"

"YunTu wants to engage in IP pollution, that's their strategy. Our Fanshu focuses on free content for lower-tier cities, what we want is clicks and GG fees! Before I leave work today, I want 10,000 more fanfictions with 'The Old Man and the Sea' in their titles to be added to Fanshu Novels' library. If Yu Huashi dares to start this, we'll drain his traffic dry!"

Gao Yu drew a line in the air with his finger and nodded excitedly: "Understood. Activate matrix generation immediately. The first batch of 'The Old Man and the Sea: The Return of the Dragon King' will be available within half an hour!"

……

On the other side, at the headquarters of "Fantasy World Media", which focuses on short dramas and virtual derivatives.

Senior Project Director Su Man held her coffee, watching the chaotic scene on the StarNet featuring "Sea King Granny" and "Cultivation Old Man," a mocking smile curving her red lips.

"President Su, this Yu Huashi is really too much trouble."

Deputy Manager Zhou Xun sighed helplessly, "He only threw out the title, not even a single word of the text! Our Huan Shi Media makes visual short dramas and holographic derivatives. Without the original plot, we don't even know where to start if we want to spend money to buy the rights for adaptation. We probably can't ride this wave of online frenzy."

"Zhou Xun, your thinking is still too rigid."

Su Man put down her coffee cup, her fox-like eyes gleaming with shrewdness, befitting a seasoned capital operator.

"Who told you that making a short drama necessarily requires his original script?"

Zhou Xun was stunned: "How can we film without a script?"

"In the market for short dramas set in lower-tier cities, the four wildly popular words 'The Old Man and the Sea' are themselves a script!"

Su Man swiftly activated the AI ​​film generation terminal of Fantasy World and issued instructions at lightning speed:

"Immediately notify the short drama production department to activate Level A response! No authorization from Yu Huashi is needed. Just have the AI ​​scrape the top-ranked fantasy web novels on StarNet today!"

Su Man's long, slender fingers tapped out a highly authoritative rhythm on the table:

"Turn that book, *The Old Man Who Suppresses the Sea: One Punch Kills the Great White Shark*, into an 80-episode vertical-screen action-packed drama! The first episode shows a disabled old man fishing in international waters and getting slapped by a tycoon's son. The second episode has the Dragon King of the East Sea leading 100,000 aquatic creatures to kneel beneath a cruise ship and call him 'Grandpa!' Each episode is one minute long, stopping at the climax of the old man's boasting and humiliation, which requires a paid subscription to unlock!"

"And that female-oriented novel, *The Old Woman and the Sea: Young Master Gu's Red Eyes and Hands on His Waist*, turn it into a holographic short drama! Find two of the most attractive virtual idols to act in it, make the old woman's character model look pitiful, and the domineering CEO look ruthless. Before dark today, I want the trailers for both short dramas on the splash screen of all the video apps on Xingwang!"

Su Man looked at the progress bar for generating the film and television content, which was already frantically calculating on the screen, and her smile revealed the coldness and arrogance unique to capital.

"So what if there's no main content? As long as the hype continues, Fantasy Media can still package it as an immersive fragrance and sell it to the entire Federation!"

……

A long, deathly silence fell over the study.

Chang Liren, the helmsman of the behemoth that is the Weiguang Platform, was unusually silent at this moment.

He looked at the young man in the wheelchair who remained calm throughout, and sighed deeply:

"Teacher Yu, what are you thinking right now?"

Yu Wen also fell silent.

He quietly watched the frenzied bandwagoning on the personal computer, and after a moment, he looked away and placed his hands naturally on the old mechanical keyboard covered in grease.

"Ignore it."

"Since they want to make a scene, let them make a scene. I'll finish writing this book in the next couple of days."

He paused, then added casually, "Anyway, there aren't many words."

What?

Chang Liren was slightly taken aback.

What does it mean to have few words?

The previous book, "To Live," was only 120,000 words long, which is already insufficient in today's online literature world where books often start at millions or tens of millions of words.

It was only through its terrifying writing style and emotional tension that it carved out a bloody path, but its word count is absolutely bizarre and outlier in the entire history of online literature in the Federation.

Chang Liren never expected that Yu Wen would actually say, "There aren't many words."

Suppressing his confusion, Chang Liren asked in surprise:

"How many words do you plan to write this time?"

Yu Wen raised his right hand and slowly extended five fingers in mid-air.

"Five hundred thousand?"

Chang Liren subconsciously guessed, and his heart, which had been in his throat, eased a little:

"Five hundred thousand words, although it's quite short for a long online novel these days, is much better than the length of 'To Live'! If it's this word count, with your quality, we at Weiguang will give it a strong push, and maybe we can really throw resources at it to go head-to-head with Yuntu's sea of ​​garbage..."

"No."

Yu Wen shook his head, interrupting him:

"It's about 50,000 words."

"What???"

50,000 words!

In this cyber age where AI can generate hundreds of thousands of words in a second, what is 50,000 words?

A long, brilliant opening? A slightly more detailed outline? Or a short biography?!

In all his years in the industry, in this vast sea of ​​online novels, even the most unsuccessful writer has more than 50,000 words of drafts uploaded on the first day!

Whether you call it "short and weak" to put it bluntly, or "short and concise" to put it nicely...

But it's still too short!

In the current desperate situation where millions of AI-generated garbage articles are bombarding the internet and a massive amount of content is urgently needed to counter public opinion, a mere 50,000 words—not even a fraction of what others have—can hardly shoulder the responsibility of a counterattack!

Faced with Chang Liren's surprised gaze, Yu Wen simply remained calm and pondered in his heart.

The original English text of Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" contains only about 27,000 words.

According to standard translation ratios, the entire text, when translated into fluent Chinese, would be about 40,000 to 50,000 words.

This is an extremely pure novella without any unnecessary embellishment.

"Teacher Yu, is this...is this going to work?"

Chang Liren rubbed his temples with a wry smile:

"Fifty thousand words... isn't that a bit too thin...?"

"President Chang, since they're all fixated on the phrase 'The Old Man and the Sea,' trying to strangle me by polluting the keyword..."

Yu Wen gently stroked the rough keycaps with his fingers, a sharp glint suddenly flashing in his eyes.

He looked at Chang Liren and suddenly smiled:

"Then I'll change my writing style and bypass their algorithmic barriers directly."

Chang Liren was somewhat taken aback: ? ? ?

A different writing style? What does that mean?

"This is a story about the West Coast. We'll keep the Chinese title, 'The Old Man and the Sea,' for now, so they can continue to use it and have their fun."

Yu Wen looked at the screen and said, word by word:

"I'll just write it directly—'The Old Man and the Sea'!"