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

Fantasy Media.

Several short dramas that had already completed their initial cuts have also had their releases temporarily slowed down.

In one of the trailers, an old man stands on the churning sea and summons a swarm of mechanical whales.

The special effects are still gorgeous, and the pacing is tight enough.

A few days ago, such a scene would have easily grabbed the audience's attention.

However, after the release of "The Old Man and the Sea," the project team re-examined the trailer and became somewhat hesitant.

It's not that this kind of pleasure has lost its market.

The old man in front of me completed the project and the finished film too quickly. Apart from his age and the sea, there is almost nothing that truly belongs to him.

After watching the trailer, one of the officials remained silent for a while.

"Don't rush in."

"If we release it now, viewers will easily compare the two sides."

Those authors who were among the first to follow this topic also found it truly challenging.

Some people believe that Yu Huashi's secret is to make his characters suffer enough, so he constantly adds death, separation and disaster.

Some people believe that the struggle will give the old man greater strength, enabling him to defeat all the sharks.

It wasn't until "The Old Man and the Sea" actually came out that they realized they had only grasped the surface.

The power of resistance lies not in the fact that the person in charge will necessarily win.

It is precisely because he lacks absolute power, and even though he has already foreseen the possibility of failure, that he still refuses to stop prematurely.

A copycat author stares at his work, which has already reached over three million words.

His protagonist has just completed his ninth mechanical evolution and is now able to control the entire surrounding sea area.

In the comments section, a reader left a message:

He's so strong, there's no way he could lose, so of course we're not worried about him.

The author stared at the comment for a long time without replying.

This does not mean that the theme of the strong is inherently problematic.

However, in constantly adding power to the protagonist, he forgot to simultaneously find a truly worthwhile price to pay for that power.

His protagonist is already able to manipulate the entire ocean.

Santiago, however, only had a fishing line that could break at any moment.

But at this moment, what readers truly can't let go of is the latter.

By this point, the efforts of several capital firms in the Eastern region to develop related keywords and follow-up projects had essentially failed.

However, some people in the meeting room still tried to find something comforting in the data.

"Yu Huashi had just finished writing 'To Live' not long ago."

A manager at Sweet Potato Novels, looking at the growth curve for the Eastern region, said in a low voice:

"His current reader base is so large that when a new book is released, many people will click on it just because of the author's name, without even looking at the subject matter first."

No one objected.

The outbreak in the Eastern Region was indeed driven by Yu Huashi's previous reputation.

Just then, the staff responsible for public opinion monitoring suddenly brought up the publicly available page of "The Old Man and the Sea".

"There's one more thing."

He zoomed in on the version information at the bottom of the page.

Weiguang Literature did not conduct any special promotion for the distribution area, but relevant information appeared on the public page after the work was launched.

The Chinese and English versions use the same work number.

The copyright registration dates for both versions are exactly the same.

The distribution area section is marked as the Eastern Region and the West Coast Region, respectively.

Upon seeing this, the monitoring departments of several companies immediately pulled up the West Coast's portfolio pages.

Compared to the steep upward curve in the East, the data in the English version is relatively flat at this point.

A person in charge of Sweet Potato Novels stared at the comparison pictures on both sides, and his expression softened slightly.

"The popularity in the Eastern region is not necessarily entirely due to this book itself."

The people around him looked at him.

He raised his hand and tapped Yu Huashi's author homepage.

The massive attention, reader subscriptions, and special reminders left by "To Live" are all there for all to see.

"Whatever Yu Huashi posts now, a large number of people in the Eastern Region will click on it immediately."

"Even if they don't know what the new book is about beforehand, they are willing to read it first."

"The West Coast doesn't have this foundation."

To local readers, Yu Huashi was simply an unfamiliar Eastern author.

Moreover, "The Old Man and the Sea" is about the familiar ocean, baseball, and fishermen's lives on the West Coast.

The locals won't naturally trust him just because of "To Live"; they'll only scrutinize the details more critically.

The other person in charge quickly understood what he meant.

"If the English version doesn't follow suit, it at least shows that the current surge in Oriental's popularity is mainly driven by Yu Huashi's original readership."

"right."

The man nodded.

"This way, we can still explain ourselves to our superiors."

"The problem with copycat projects isn't entirely the content; it's just that we don't have the author appeal that Yu Huashi has built up."

This explanation, of course, cannot change the fact that the Eastern Region has already failed.

But that was enough for them to absolve themselves of responsibility for the project's direction.

As long as "The Old Man and the Sea" cannot replicate its popularity in a market with no existing fan base and a more discerning cultural background, they can still attribute everything to the special phenomenon brought about by the reputation of Yu Huashi.

At least we have to admit that those copycat works that rely on mass-produced models have been completely outclassed by 50,000 words in terms of content.

The atmosphere in the meeting rooms relaxed slightly as a result.

Some have even begun to reconsider whether to wait until the initial buzz in the Eastern region has died down before resuming the launch of related projects.

Zhao Hongbo, however, did not participate.

He simply leaned back in his seat, staring at the temporarily flattened curve of the west coast.

Just then, the curve suddenly bends upward at its end.

Immediately afterwards, the cross-regional monitoring system sounded an urgent alarm.

[In the West Coast region, there has been an unusual increase in data related to "The Old Man and the Sea".]

The discussion in the meeting room came to an abrupt end.

Search volume for the work surged rapidly.

Abnormal fluctuations occurred in the external forwarding.

Several West Coast local communities also saw a surge in related content within a short period of time.

The staff member in charge of monitoring stared at the constantly refreshing page, their expression gradually changing.

"Mr. Zhao..."

Zhao Hongbo raised his eyes.

"explain."

The staff member swallowed hard.

"Over on the west coast..."