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

"Wait...what the fuck?!"

A string of incredibly offensive profanities burst from Douglas's mouth.

Before the West Coast viewers in the live stream could react, he suddenly sat up straight, his hands braced on the table, his face almost pressed against the holographic screen.

"Are you kidding me?!"

"Agua mala? He actually used Agua mala?!"

Douglas stared at the lines of text, and after confirming that he hadn't misread them, he grabbed a handful of his hair in disbelief.

"Jesus!"

"Existing AI models only translate it as Jellyfish, and even when you consult a proper Spanish dictionary, it usually results in Medusa."

"But Agua mala is different!"

He pointed at the screen, his emotions clearly agitated.

"That's 'bad water'!"

"Only those who have truly spent their time in the waters off the coast of the Americas, drinking cheap rum with those old Latin American fishermen on the docks, would call this stuff Agua mala!"

Douglas spread his hands, momentarily at a loss for words to describe his shock.

"The key point is not just this word."

"He even captured the nuances of the old fisherman's insult about the jellyfish being a 'bitch' perfectly!"

"Those poisonous threads stick to the fishing line, and when you pull the line, they get on your palm and burn like fire—a pain only veteran sailors remember!"

At this point, Douglas glanced at the author's profile again.

Eastern Region.

Yu Huashi.

"How did he even know this fishermen's slang?"

The West Coast viewers in the live stream finally realized what was happening, and the chat exploded with comments.

[Holy shit! The anchor is right! My grandpa used to work at the docks, and those old fishermen never called jellyfish by their scientific name; they all called them Agua mala!]

Damn! I was just waiting for the old man from the East to use his true energy to shatter the jellyfish, but...

[What kind of hellish, obscure local slang is this? Don't tell me this was made up by an Asian person in a wheelchair!]

Did this guy hack into the encrypted channel of the coastal fisheries union?

The barrage of comments on the west coast is getting denser.

Some people gasped in shock, while others began to doubt whether Yu Huashi had ever actually lived on the West Coast.

The viewers from the Eastern region who were lurking in the live stream remained remarkably calm.

Occasionally, one or two comments would float by lightly.

Don't make a fuss, it's just basic stuff.

[Basic operations are not to be taken lightly.]

Douglas swallowed hard.

The playful, expectant expression that had been waiting to see him make a fool of himself had completely vanished.

He looked back at the Spanish slang on the screen, and his expression changed.

If the opening text only made him feel that this book was different from other works, then the sudden "Agua mala" was like a blow to the head, directly shattering his contempt as a local.

"OK..."

OK.

Douglas took a deep breath and sat up straight again.

"Guys, take back what you just said."

He stared at the artwork page, his tone becoming serious for the first time.

"We might really run into something powerful tonight."

He continued scrolling down.

Then, I became completely hooked.

An elderly man rowed out to sea alone.

Casting the hook, identifying ocean currents, and then enduring days of extreme pulling after the marlin takes the bait.

There was no exaggerated suffering in the text.

The only sensations were the rough hemp rope rubbing against the ship's side, the old man's stiff, curled fingers as his left hand cramped, and that flat, almost cold, statement:

"Eat it, it'll help with your cramps."

Douglas's breathing became heavy without him realizing it.

The pain of having to grip the fishing line tightly even after his skin had been softened by seawater seemed to pierce through the screen and directly into his nerves.

After the reading progress bar had been more than halfway through, the huge marlin was finally tied to the side of the boat, and the old man began to return to shore.

But then, the sharks came.

Douglas stared at the screen, his voice trembling slightly, and subconsciously read the sentence aloud along with the text:

"But man is not made for defeat... A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

(Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.)

"Oh my God..."

The moment he uttered those words, Douglas felt a chill run down his spine, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.

It felt as if an electric current was rushing up my spine and all the way to the top of my head.

If the harpoon is lost, tie the knife to the oar.

If the knife breaks, use a short stick.

When the short stick was gone, they removed the rudder and slammed it down on the shark again and again.

The West Coast viewers in the live stream all held their breath as they watched the battle.

What retirement diary?

What kind of cultural imitation?

All the mockery before the book was published vanished at this moment.

All they saw was an exhausted old man who, knowing he might lose everything, still didn't stop.

When Douglas read the final lines, describing the old man dragging an eighteen-foot-long skeleton of a white fish back to port, lying down wearily, and the boy seeing his scarred hands and bursting into tears, the live stream was completely silent.

No win.

They brought nothing back.

Douglas stared at the last sentence on the screen—

The old man was dreaming of lions.

His body, which had been leaning forward, slowly froze in place.

"Oh my God..."

Douglas took a deep breath and leaned back in his gaming chair.

He raised his hands to hold the back of his head, staring wide-eyed at the screen, as if he couldn't immediately process the ending he had just read.

"Holy shit..."

"Holy fucking shit!"

After a while.

Douglas finally snapped out of his daze, ripped off his headphones, and slammed them down on the table.

He suddenly stood up, paced back and forth in front of the camera, and then raised his hand to rub his face vigorously.

Shock, discomfort, and a kind of inexplicable excitement mixed together, making it impossible for him to calm down for a while.

"God damn it!"

"This is unbelievable!"

Douglas returned to the camera's view, his hands resting on the table.

His eyes were slightly red, and his voice was a little hoarse due to his emotional state.

"He just wrote about an old man going fishing."

"Then have him bring back an empty skeleton."

Douglas pointed at the screen, his emotions growing increasingly agitated.

"He lost; he didn't even bring back a piece of that fish."

"But right now, only one sentence is on my mind..."

"I lost, but I'm awesome!"

"Sharks could eat his fish, could destroy everything he fought so hard for, but they couldn't make him drop his weapon!"

Douglas stared at the screen, his voice suddenly dropping.

"When I finished reading, I couldn't help but think of my dad."

"He's spent half his life working at the docks, but it seems like he's never really won anything."

"But now that I think about it... who the hell dares to say he's not awesome?"

After these words were spoken, the book review sections and StarNet forums across the entire West Coast region exploded.

[ID Bridge Repairman]: WTF?! This couldn't possibly have been written by an Asian; he must be some old sailor reincarnated from the West Coast!

[ID Bankruptcy Programmer]: My company just declared bankruptcy last week, and I've been contemplating jumping into the sea these past few days. But then I finished reading this book… Fuck it! Even if I lose everything, I'll fight for it! Back to sending out resumes tomorrow!

[ID West Coast Reader]: Respect! This is not just a novel, it's practically a hymn of praise to all mankind!

……

The related live stream clips quickly began to spread on the West Coast.

The title is simple and direct:

Holy crap, this Touhou author knows our old tropes!

Many West Coast users clicked on the work out of curiosity and a desire to see what would happen.

Some people wanted to confirm whether Douglas's reaction was an overreaction.

Some people don't believe that an Eastern author could write about an old man from the West Coast so realistically.

Some people saw that their friends had only left the comment "This is our elderly" when they shared the post, and they couldn't help but click on the full text.

But after reading it, when they forwarded it, they wrote something that was no longer just "He knows our jokes".

The young people sent their artwork to their elders at home.

The dockworker moved into the colleagues' group chat.

A retired fisherman sent the message to an old friend he hadn't contacted in years.

Local baseball fans began to talk about their fathers and grandfathers.

Residents near the port also began to share their memories of those stubborn, unlucky old men who never stopped going out to sea.

Some people didn't provide any explanation.

Only two sentences were left behind.

Look at this old man.

He might be like you.

The work began to leave the literary community and spread to a wider audience on the West Coast.