The Great Battle of Games

Yue Si Wen Xue Wang (YSWXW1YSWXW – a web novel site like JJWXC (it’s a fictional site). Every mention of this name will be abbreviated to make it easier to read)’s annual “Admiring the Moon” event has started.

Although it’s called “Admiring the Moon”,  it’s actually called “Reading with Appreciation2 赏月 (admiring the moon) and 赏阅 (reading with appreciation) are read the same way (shǎng yuè), making it a play on words”. YSWXW always holds it with the purpose to promote interaction, over the course of two days of the web novel interaction event. Originally, YSWXW held this event as external promotion material for the company’s annual event, but with the rapid advancement of web literature in recent years, YSWXW grew gradually as well. Now, they’ve practically become the leader of original web novel sites within the country. As a result, the “Reading with Appreciation” event has also undergone a change, becoming a grand event within the web literature world. In these two days, all sorts of famous and less well-known legends under YSWXW will gather from all over the nation at the same place to take part in meetings, have meals, chat, play cards, play games, have live broadcasts, et cetera, except for modifying texts. The activities are beneficial to the authors’ body and mind and are beneficial to the progress of web literature. Although many readers who were addicted to reading wailed about the “Order To Stop Editing”, there were also fans who exclaimed: “If you want to know your favourite author’s true self, go admire the moon!” 

Speaking of the annual “Admiring the Moon” event, people have already gotten used to it. However, this year’s event in particular has drawn people’s attention. Apparently, YSWXW had, under considerably generous conditions, signed the super famous legend Twelve Leaves — he had long been considered a god within the web literature circle, with physical novels being published one after the other. That Twelve Leaves whose copyrights are sold at astronomical prices per book.

The Twelve Leaves, who is known as the the winner at life in both 2D and 3D, actually left his old publisher to go to YSWXW? It’s no wonder that the moment this news came out, there were people teasing that the theme for the event this time would be — “Admire the flowers, admire the moon, admire twelve leaves”.

The “Reading with Appreciation” event would be on the night of the second day.

Some of the big legends at YSWXW — Qin Hai who specialises in writing legal novels; Tian Gai, who is known for being imaginative and obsessed with science fiction; No.1 on the rankings for xuanhuan and xianxia genres, Sleepy Fox; YSWXW’s newly-signed super legend, Twelve Leaves who is skilled in writing material on deduction and case solving— gathered in the hotel room of the Wuxia-loving, whose fans nickname as “Little Master”, Zhao Zhao.

Zhao Zhao’s face was full of dismay: He had only gone downstairs to borrow a data cable from the front desk, but came back to find standing neatly in front of his room door four men in different postures!

Zhao Zhao: “… Is this F4?3 F4 – That group of 4 boys from Meteor Garden (a taiwanese drama adapted from a shoujo manga). Also a famous taiwanese boy band in the early 2000s.” 

The moment Zhao Zhao opened the door, “F4” crossed the room to sit around the side of the bed. The youngest, Tian Gai, completely did not care about the room owner’s exasperation, stating with a face of mystery, “I’ve thought of a game, do you want to play?”

Zhao Zhao was speechless. “Is this the reason why the few of you came running to my room in the middle of the night to act out ‘Meteor Garden’ instead of sleeping?”

Tian Gai squeezed his eyes. “This game is called ‘The Great Battle of Shameful PLAY’, doesn’t it sound super fun?”

Zhao Zhao stated indifferently, “Hearing the name makes me not want to play it.” He turned to look at the two people behind him. “Do you guys want to play?”

Qin Hai shrugged. “I’m free, so might as well.”

Sleepy Fox was busy sending messages on WeChat. “Tian Gai guaranteed that we would not be able to stop playing even if we wanted to, so I’ll believe him this time.”

Zhao Zhao laughed dryly. “Then what’s he here for?” Without hesitation, he pointed towards YSWXW’s newly signed author who gave off an aura of acting pretentious, Twelve Leaves.

Twelve Leaves was currently sitting on a chair, casually flipping through a magazine. Even though Zhao Zhao’s words were unkind, he was not angry. He only tilted his head and the corners of his lips tugged upwards.

All the writers at YSWXW knew that Zhao Zhao and Twelve Leaves were not on good terms, and this incident was a bit weird to speak about.

At that time, Twelve Leaves was still QHWXW’s4QHWXW – 启航文学网 (qi hang wen xue wang) is another web novel publishing site… top writer, and Zhao Zhao was still steadily at YSWXW immersed in his wuxia dream. The two did not know each other and each had their own turf. But one day, Zhao Zhao was being mentioned on Weibo, and the one that mentioned him was saying that he had plagiarised a story that the male protagonist had told in Twelve Leaves’ novel “Lies”. 

Logically speaking, one writes about suspense and layered deduction, while the other writes about Jianghu fighters that dress in fine clothes and ride on well-groomed horses, both were completely unrelated to each other. It just so happened that the details of this story were extremely special. After close comparison, the similarities were up to 95%. What was even more coincidental was that this story in Zhao Zhao’s novel was a story told by the male protagonist to the villain. 

A tossed stone stirs a thousand ripples. Since Twelve Leaves was a big legend, his fan count could not compare to Zhao Zhao’s. It hadn’t been long since he was mentioned on Weibo, but Zhao Zhao’s Weibo was already being attacked by Twelve Leaves fans, Zhao Zhao fans and even passer bys. Fans that turned into haters were still okay, but some intense haters even brought Zhao Zhao’s 18 generations of ancestors into question.

Since he was being accused of plagiarism for no reason, there was no way that Zhao Zhao could accept that. He would never have thought that this story would garner discourse of this degree. Fortunately, he had an early draft for this story, and at that point in time, he had discussed this with his editor through email. The timestamps on the emails indicate that this story has already been in the works before “Lies” came out. After Zhao Zhao’s careful deliberation, he privately messaged Twelve Leaves to explain the situation, asking if he would be willing to trust him and come out with a statement together to address the situation. In the end, Twelve Leaves didn’t respond for a long time, so Zhao Zhao could not wait any longer and posted the screenshots of the email.

Perhaps it was due to Zhao Zhao responding to the situation quick enough, his earnestness and the sufficient evidence so even though the public’s opinion had not completely turned around, it at least avoided letting the situation take a turn for the worse. At this moment, Twelve Leaves, who had been in hiding the whole time, finally regained his senses and posted on Weibo, expressing that he knew of the recent events and was grateful for his fans’ protection. However, at the same time, he felt that this was just a coincidence and never imagined that it would turn into such a huge misunderstanding, and said that he felt sorry towards Zhao Zhao, hoping that he would get a chance to meet and apologise in person.

To be honest, Twelve Leaves’ long Weibo post was rather sincere, yet Zhao Zhao felt full of anger when he saw it. 

The one who was being slandered was not him, and he had pretended to not see his pleading at-wit’s-end private message, yet now upon seeing that the public’s opinion had a bit of change, he suddenly jumped out to pretend to be a good person. Fake! Two-faced! Disgusting!

With this, Zhao Zhao and Twelve Leaves’ conflict was considered over. The writers at YSWXW who were close to him all knew about this, yet in the end? They actually betrayed him and brought the enemy before him! Thinking about it made him so angry!

Tian Gai clicked his tongue and wrapped his arm around Zhao Zhao’s shoulder. “Zhao-er… The great legend Ye was telling me at the entrance that he felt extremely sorry towards you for what happened previously, so I invited him over to play to make up for it…”

Zhao Zhao: “……”

Zhao Zhao took a glance at Twelve Leaves. Twelve Leaves closed the magazine and smiled.  “Shancai5 Shancai – the female protagonist of Meteor Garden. He’s referencing to when Zhao Zhao called the rest of them F4 (whose male lead is Shancai’s love interest), are you really not playing?

“If I don’t make you play until you collapse, then my surname is not Zhao!” Zhao Zhao retorted.

At this point, the five people in the room finally came to an agreement on whether they should play the game.

Tian Gai was extremely satisfied, beginning to explain the rules of the game. He fished out a few poker cards from his pocket and lined them out. “There are 5 cards — 3 Aces, 1 King and 1 Joker. We’ll take turns to pick cards, and whoever draws the King can order whoever draws the Joker to do something. As to what they should do…”

Speaking until here, he couldn’t help but laugh, “Hehe!” He laughed until everyone was staring at him before he took his time to spit out the words, “Read books!”

“Read books?”

“I got 10 books by asking Meng Meng and other female-oriented authors, so whoever draws the King will pick a book and say a page and paragraph number, while the one who draws the Joker needs to read out the specified part of not less than 3 lines. It’s alright to not want to read it, but you’ll need to drink a glass of beer!” Tian Gai pointed to the case of beer that the hotel employee brought up to the room, smiling. 

This game sounded alright, but Zhao Zhao’s eyelid could not help but twitch. His instincts told him that there was something weird going on. It was only until Tian Gai took the ten books out did Sleepy Fox scanned the names of the authors and collapsed. “… What sort of thing is this!”

A Pipe of Smoke, Curved Eyebrows, Sleeping Until Morning the Day After, Friday123, Love Eating Tangerines… These were all danmei authors! Although sometimes there would be male readers on the YSWXW forums taking on the challenge of reading danmei novels and would even write their reviews, whose posts seemed fascinating, but having them read out a paragraph in front of everyone right now was too cruel. Just thinking about it made him want to collapse. It really is the Great Battle of Shameful PLAY!

“Tian Gai, I think you should just change your name to Tian GAY.” Zhao Zhao couldn’t help but tease.

Tian Gai waved his finger. “It’s too late to quit now. First round, start!”

TL: No guarantees on a regular update schedule but hopefully I’ll be able to get them out regularly!

1YSWXW – a web novel site like JJWXC (it’s a fictional site). Every mention of this name will be abbreviated to make it easier to read2 赏月 (admiring the moon) and 赏阅 (reading with appreciation) are read the same way (shǎng yuè), making it a play on words3 F4 – That group of 4 boys from Meteor Garden (a taiwanese drama adapted from a shoujo manga). Also a famous taiwanese boy band in the early 2000s.4QHWXW – 启航文学网 (qi hang wen xue wang) is another web novel publishing site…5 Shancai – the female protagonist of Meteor Garden. He’s referencing to when Zhao Zhao called the rest of them F4 (whose male lead is Shancai’s love interest)