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

Almost simultaneously with Midtown Observer making headlines, the original English version of Running for Governor also appeared in the West Coast section of Welsh Light.

There was no editor's note or additional explanation.

The article has only one simple time stamp at the top:

[Background: Approximately two hundred years ago.]

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the gubernatorial election in Redwood State had entered its final stage.

There are ten days left until the official vote.

Lieutenant Governor Adam Walker and State Representative Marian Grant have consistently been neck and neck in the polls.

The former, backed by traditional conglomerates and large technology companies, holds an absolute advantage in local media.

The latter focuses on reform and anti-monopoly, has a large number of young supporters, and enjoys a very high profile on StarNet.

As for Elias Reid, the independent candidate who ranked third, his approval rating was less than 10 percent.

Apart from a few small towns in northern Redwood State, few people believed he really had a chance of being elected.

That evening, Redwood State will hold its final statewide public debate.

As Walker and Grant's campaign teams made their final preparations for the debate, no one noticed that a novel from over two hundred years ago had quietly entered the West Coast's information flow.

After "Running for Governor" was launched, the first people to receive the notification were still Yu Huashi's readers on the West Coast.

Since the publication of "The Old Man and the Sea", Yu Huashi, a name originally belonging to the Eastern region, has rapidly accumulated an astonishing number of readers on the West Coast.

The unfamiliar and vast sea, and the image of the old man being dragged into the darkness time and time again, yet still gripping the fishing line tightly, made many West Coast readers realize for the first time that a writer from the far East could so accurately depict the ocean, the port, and the fishermen they knew.

Even now, "The Old Man and the Sea" remains the most discussed novel in the West Coast section of the Welsh Light community, bar none.

Schools in coastal cities have included it in their reading lists, old fishermen are debating the knots and ocean currents used by the old man in the comments section, and even some people who never read Eastern works have started following Yu Huashi's account because of it.

After that novel, Yu Huashi had accumulated almost as many readers on the West Coast as he had in the Eastern region.

Therefore, when the new work notification appeared on their personal devices, a large number of readers clicked on it almost without hesitation.

They originally thought that Yu Huashi would bring another work similar to "The Old Man and the Sea" this time.

But what catches the eye is a title that couldn't be more straightforward.

"Running for Governor".

Running for governor.

Many people were taken aback when they saw the title.

Unlike readers in the Eastern region, West Coast residents are no strangers to governors, political parties, campaign rallies, and local newspapers.

Even though the New York State depicted in the novel has long since disappeared, many traces of that political system are still scattered throughout the states and districts of the West Coast.

Moreover, at this time, Redwood State was in the most intense stage of the gubernatorial election.

Many readers continued reading with some curiosity, and soon discovered that this Yu Huashi was completely different from the silent and restrained Yu Huashi in "The Old Man and the Sea".

In the novel, a candidate has just announced his candidacy when he is accused by a newspaper of perjury in Cochinchina.

The thirty-four witnesses testified irrefutably.

Before the candidate could even figure out what had happened, his silence was already interpreted as a sign of guilt.

Later on, he was labeled a thief, a corpse thief, a drunkard, and an embezzler—one absurd title after another was bestowed upon him.

Readers who had read "The Old Man and the Sea" quickly burst into laughter in the comments section.

[I was prepared to accompany another old man on a sea voyage, but Yu Huashi turned around and stuffed a bunch of politicians into the newspaper.]

"The Old Man and the Sea" taught me that man can be destroyed but not defeated; this story teaches me that man hasn't been defeated yet, but the newspapers have already destroyed him.

I always thought Yu Huashi could only write characters who made people cry, but it turns out he can also write characters who make you want to curse at the same time.

Technology has rendered paper obsolete, but it hasn't eliminated the craft of editing and storytelling.

Is this really a historical novel? Why does it feel like it was just written today?

These comments quickly spread among Yu Huashi's readers.

Some people posted the "Thirty-Four Witnesses" section in a literature discussion forum, some posted the phrase "a rather suspicious silence" in the comments section of local news articles, and others forwarded the entire novel to a Redwood state election discussion group.

Initially, the voters in Redwood State simply treated it as a satirical novel that happened to coincide with election season.

But as they read, they couldn't help but recall those familiar campaign news stories from recent months.

Anonymous witnesses, insiders, those who refuse to comment, insiders, and one title after another are printed before the candidates' names.

Soon, supporters of the two candidates met in the comments section of "Running for Governor".