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

Chang Liren's deep eyes looked somewhat solemn at this moment.

"The Old Man and the Sea"?

Seeing Yu Wen type out this string of crisp and neat English characters, Chang Liren opened his mouth, but for a moment he didn't know how to respond.

But Yu Wen, in his wheelchair, had already seen his gaze pierce through the light screen in front of him, drifting towards the turbulent old era in his memory.

He recalled a great comeback that could be described as an epic in the world he once lived in.

The Soviet revolution followed the classic route of "encircling the countryside from the cities," first concentrating its main forces to capture the core cities and seize power, and then using these as a base to take over the vast rural areas.

However, when this successful experience, which was regarded as the gold standard by the Comintern, was brought to China, it almost led the revolution to a dead end because it was not adapted to local conditions.

It wasn't until that instructor standing in Shaoshan Chongli, with his astonishing strategic vision, tore apart the dogma and changed the strategy to "encircling the cities from the countryside."

First, avoid their sharp edge and accumulate strength in the vast world, let the sparks become a prairie fire, and then launch a counterattack against the central city with overwhelming force, ultimately leading the people to seize the entire world!

The current situation is remarkably similar.

On this main battlefield, major capital players like Yuntu, Fanshu, and Huanshi are fiercely competing and dumping electronic waste around the four Chinese characters of "The Old Man and the Sea."

They used their massive computing power and resources to completely lock down the search ranking in the Chinese context.

If Yu Wen were to release a Chinese version now, it would be tantamount to walking into a meat grinder that capital had set up in advance.

Since the main battlefield is full of swill, why should he fight these people to the death in the country?

On the West Coast across the ocean, the technology and business systems are just as developed as here, but the cultural background and language environment are completely different!

The capital group behind Cloud Atlas is currently focusing on the Chinese market and dumping its resources like crazy. Their IP pollution algorithm hasn't even touched the realm of English terms yet.

In Yu Wen's strategic vision, isn't that unpolluted English-language ecosystem a ready-made "cyber countryside" for carrying out a dimensional reduction attack?

Moreover, The Old Man and the Sea is a story born in that language family.

Cuban fishing villages, the warm currents of the Gulf of Mexico, the proud marlin...

Only by writing in pure English can its most authentic literary tension be unleashed, and it also perfectly matches the cultural resonance on the West Coast!

"Teacher Yu..."

Chang Liren swallowed hard, his voice tinged with uncertainty:

"Are you serious? You're going to write the original version directly in English? And then... skip the domestic recommendation slots and release it first on the West Coast section?!"

"That's right."

Yu Wen nodded seriously.

Chang Liren looked at him, his lips moved, but the deep worry in his heart just wouldn't dissipate.

Is this... really going to work?

The Eastern Region and the West Coast Region are two completely different and vast divisions.

The two regions are separated by more than just an ocean.

The cultural background, language logic, social customs, and even the dopamine triggers of readers on both sides are completely different!

The books people there read from childhood, the stories they hear, and the way they see the world are completely different from what we see here.

Let alone a writer from the Eastern region, even bilingual scholars who travel back and forth between the two countries all year round would be doing well if they could write a novel in English for people on the West Coast.

To write well, to write something that the readers there truly accept... Chang Liren has been in this industry for so long, and he has never seen anyone succeed in doing so.

Even if Yu Wen is a god who appears out of nowhere in the Chinese context, can he really write well when he is given a string of completely unfamiliar English characters?

If it were anyone else in the online literature world, Chang Liren would probably have already started to dissuade him by now.

But when he looked at the young man in the wheelchair, the doubts and analyses that were on the tip of his tongue were suppressed in his heart.

After all, Yu Wen's performance in the live broadcast room last night was truly amazing.

It's no longer something that can be simply summarized as "good writing" or "being good at evoking emotions".

Faced with such a profound and composed young man, Chang Liren suddenly felt that it was utterly ridiculous to judge him by rigid business common sense and online literature rules.

No one knows how many moving stories or what magnificent thoughts are hidden in the mind and heart of this twenty-year-old!

Since he dares to overturn the chessboard and open up a second battlefield, then let's go crazy with him.

Chang Liren took a deep breath, setting aside all the business rules and regulations, and finally spoke in a deep voice:

"Since we're going to go to the West Coast, let Carter come and take charge of the coordination and operations here! Carter is from there, and he knows the culture and marketing channels better than anyone else. He can save us a lot of trouble."

"Carter?"

Yu Wen pictured the West Coast regional director sitting on the living room sofa earlier that day, with short chestnut hair and grey-blue eyes.

That pure person who flew across the ocean overnight for "To Live," truly treating the book as a book.

When the two shook hands and reached an agreement in the afternoon, Yu Wen was still thinking about putting "The Old Man and the Sea" on hold for now, waiting for Carter to help "To Live" pave a way on the West Coast.

But who could have imagined that the shameless praise and destruction by capital would turn the domestic Chinese-language environment into a mess, forcing him to overturn the chessboard in advance and use the original English version to penetrate deep behind enemy lines?

Carter, who has an intimate understanding of the West Coast's linguistic ecology and whose very being resonates with West Coast culture, is undoubtedly the perfect swordsman in this "rural encirclement of the cities" strategy.

Yu Wen immediately nodded in agreement:

"Okay, let him take over. He just talked to me this afternoon, and he's definitely someone who understands literature and the market there. But don't rush to give him more responsibility. Let him focus on finishing the English translation of 'To Live' and arranging the release and promotion on the West Coast. I'll write it in the next couple of days, which will also take some time."

"Okay, I'll personally arrange the holographic channel and data isolation. No one will bother you for the next two days."

"Contact me anytime if you need anything. I'll be waiting for your message!" Chang Liren said solemnly.

"Beep—"

The electronic prompt sounded again, and the light particles were stripped away and dissipated like a tide in an instant.

The spacious and sophisticated modern reception room and sofa vanished without a trace, and the study returned to its original silence.

Yu Wen slowly withdrew his gaze, lowered his head again, and placed his hands steadily on the battered old mechanical keyboard in front of him.

West Coast, Marlin, Gulf Stream.