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

When the shuttle's announcement sounded, the company employees realized they had already read to the end.

Unable to endure it any longer, the candidate eventually announced his withdrawal from the race, writing at the end of his withdrawal statement:

[Your loyal friend, once a respectable man, is now a perjurer, thief, corpse thief, alcoholic, corrupt official, and fraudster—Mark Twain.]

The company employee stared at the signature for a while, initially finding it absurd and laughable, but gradually a strange sense of familiarity arose in his heart.

A person who believes he has a clean record suddenly acquires six different identities in a short period of time simply because he participated in an election.

The newspapers claimed to have witnesses and testimonies, and interpreted his silence as tacit agreement.

Even if he wanted to respond, new accusations would immediately overshadow the old ones.

He originally thought that in the ancient times without brain-computer networks, holographic live streaming, or real-time public opinion analysis, the media would at least be slower and more cautious.

After reading it, I realized that people two hundred years ago were no less adept at creating public opinion than people are now.

The only difference is that back then we used paper, now we use algorithms.

He exited the article and double-checked the author's name.

Yu Huashi.

"Lately, it seems like this guy has been constantly pressured to prove himself, hasn't he?"

Similar questions began to appear in scattered comments.

A user of Weiguang happened to see a screenshot of a repost of "Running for Governor".

After recognizing Yu Huashi's name, he followed the link to find "Central City Observer" and read it from beginning to end.

On his second reading, he no longer focused on the absurd charges, but on the way they appeared.

Thirty-four witnesses, dubious affidavits, ever-growing newspaper headlines, and that phrase "a rather suspicious silence"...

The more he read it, the more familiar it seemed.

The recent controversy surrounding Yu Huashi has gradually expanded from the initial questioning of his open letter to allegations of exploiting the deceased, using suffering for marketing purposes, platform manipulation, profiting from his status in the Xiacheng District, and even labeling his supporters as members of a fan circle.

He forwarded the link to "Running for Governor" to a readership.

As soon as the link appeared, people started clicking on it one after another.

Most of the readers in the group have read "The Little Prince" and are familiar with Yu Huashi's appearance on "Central City Observer".

What truly surprised them was the subject matter of this new work.

More than two hundred years ago, on the West Coast, a gubernatorial election took place.

This is unlike any of Yu Huashi's previous works.

Some people were completely confused by the unfamiliar names and political parties at the beginning.

However, out of trust in Yu Huashi, the vast majority of people patiently read on.

A dozen minutes later, the group chat started to fill up with messages.

The first thing to be posted was the original English sentence and its corresponding translation, which a reader found by looking up the historical context of the article:

【「SIGNIFICANT.—Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively silent about the Cochin China perjury.」】

("It is noteworthy that Mr. Mark Twain maintained a rather suspicious silence in the face of the perjury case in Cochinchina.")

The person who posted the screenshot also attached the title of a recent popular article.

The same point emphasizes that Yu Huashi has been slow to respond to the questions raised.

The two paragraphs were placed side by side, and someone in the group quickly understood their meaning.

Before reading it, I was puzzled as to why he suddenly wrote about an election campaign on the West Coast more than two hundred years ago.

Some things, even after two hundred years, can still be used with a different set of tools.

More and more people are rereading the novel.

Upon first reading, they found the accusations laughably absurd;

Upon reading it again, my attention gradually shifted to the way newspapers fabricated charges.

At the same time, recent reports about Yu Huashi have been brought up again.

Initially, the questions revolved around the open letter, but later they expanded to include conclusions such as exploiting the deceased, marketing suffering, platform manipulation, and inciting fans.

Some still believe that some of the specific doubts require a direct response from Yu Huashi.

But some people have begun to ask: Why did a controversy that has not yet been investigated turn into a trial of a person's motives and character so quickly?

Soon, the screenshots from the group chat were forwarded to other discussion forums.

Some believe that Yu Huashi is using the past to satirize the present, while others think that readers are simply influenced by recent events, which is why they are trying to apply a story from more than two hundred years ago to reality.

More people began to notice another thing:

Reasonable questions can be discussed, but are those recent articles that are uniform and escalate layer by layer questioning the boundaries, or have they already sentenced Yu Huashi to a crime?

More and more readers of Yu Huashi followed the link to "Midtown Observer," and the originally flat reading curve of "Running for Governor" finally showed a significant upward trend.

This is where things really get interesting.

After understanding the underlying allusion, the anger in the comments section gradually subsided.

Those press releases that used to infuriate people now seem particularly comical when placed alongside old newspapers from the novel.

Goodness, they already knew this trick more than two hundred years ago in the era of print media?

[My friends in Bengbu, I thought the old print media was so high-end, but it turns out those people are the originators of today's clickbait headlines and online marketing trolls!]

[They start with nothing but empty words, fabricating all the charges; even today's marketing accounts would be kowtowing in admiration!]

As a result, a large number of readers began to enthusiastically imitate the plot of the novel in the comments section, playing with the "shocking headlines" and "clickbait" memes that were once the most disliked in the Internet age.

[Shocking! Nine children of different races publicly acknowledged each other as their fathers; the private lives of prominent candidates were shockingly decadent!]

Men were speechless, women wept: the shocking truth behind the Montana cabin burglary is...

[In the dead of night, he actually did this to an old widow... Click the link to see the depraved life of a perjurer!]

[This is terrifying! You're not a true West Coast resident if you don't share this! Even Mr. John 't' Hoffman was horrified after reading it!]

[A gubernatorial candidate did this to a poor widow; thirty-four witnesses were speechless after witnessing it!]

[Everyone, find the real-life counterpart! The independence party in the novel who fixates on a non-existent event and demands an explanation from the candidate is just a bunch of cyber clowns. I won't say who they're alluding to (doge).]