All-rounder Artist

In the blog’s short story rankings for May, “The Fall of the Dondon Bridge” remained in the same spot after being overtaken by the second place, without any further decline —

Yet, it did not manage to regain its top spot either.

After all, this work was forcibly ranked second by many hardcore mystery enthusiasts who felt disgusted after reading “The Fall of Dondon Bridge”.

If it were not for the group of readers who forcefully granted the second place with votes, Lin Yuan would have easily nabbed the champion of the month.

Many thought, this must be the final outcome.

Old rascal Chu Kuang paid the price for his manipulative behaviour towards his readers.

However, as May was about to come to an end, an unexpected event occurred that left many taken aback.

“The Fall of Dondon Bridge”, which was comfortably sitting in second place, suddenly saw a surge in votes.

Faintly, there seemed to be momentum for it to return to the top!

The reason was simple.

Suddenly, a group of people appeared online with reviews that contrasted starkly with those who were averse to “The Fall of Dondon Bridge”:

“This novel is Chu Kuang’s reflection and play on narrative trickery.”

“This is practically a forward-thinking form of anti-mystery!”

“Ranking second is the biggest misunderstanding people have of ‘The Fall of Dondon Bridge’!”

The internet does not lack bandwagon riders.

When many people criticized “The Fall of Dondon Bridge” for treating boredom as fun, some rode the trend and cursed it.

When many people started to praise “The Fall of Dondon Bridge” for author’s groundbreaking thinking, labeling it as the author’s game and reflection, again people jumped onto the bandwagon to praise it.

Then the two trends started feud.

At this moment, Chu Kuang’s fame played a significant role.

Readers supporting Chu Kuang voiced their anguish:

“Put your brains to work for a moment, would a brilliant writer like Chu Kuang simply treat boredom as fun and write a narrative trickery to disgust readers?”

Of course not!

Many subconsciously thought this way.

And then people started analysing Chu Kuang’s true intentions.

Why does Chu Kuang satirize many famous detective novelists in “The Fall of Dondon Bridge”?

Why in the end, does he say the murderer was an ape?

Why does he write himself as both the reader and the victim?

Why…

As these questions arose, netizens who were exceptionally proficient in reading comprehension flexed their skills and an array of answers emerged.

“Chu Kuang satirizing detective novelists is perhaps to say that ultimately, detective novelists are just armchair strategists, no detective novelist can truly become a detective in real life, they can only write in a hypothetical scenario, so in the novel they also do not know who the murderer is, at a total loss, implying that they would not be able to identify the murderer when faced with a homicide in real life.”

“The murderer being an ape is the most ingenious part, many times detective novels fall into the situation of not being well liked by readers if they’re not thrilling, not knowing that in real life, a simple identification of the murderer is in fact the best news for the victim.”

“Chu Kuang writes himself as the victim, perhaps because he feels there are too many narrative trickery paths that are easy to go to extremes, becoming this pure word game, and being the creator of narrative trickery, he has the responsibility.”

“This is also why Chu Kuang writes himself as the reader, he feels as depressed as countless readers who have read ‘The Fall of Dondon Bridge’ because he also believes that such narrative trickery is pointless, true narrative trickery should provide valuable information to the readers, not pure textual misdirection.”

“The young man in the novel represents Chu Kuang who is obsessed with narrative trickery, it’s a confrontation with his current self!”

“Wow, after hearing the analysis, I realized that there is so much metaphor in this work, it’s worthy of being Chu Kuang’s work. Many people have misunderstood this novel, Chu Kuang is not such a superficial person!”

“Think carefully, Chu Kuang is just casually expressing some of his personal understanding of mystery through jokes.”

“…”

The more people thought about it, the more logical it seemed.

So Chu Kuang had been labouring over this all along!

The realm of a great artist, ordinary people can’t grasp it in a short time. Once they do, the wind really shifts towards “The Fall of Dondon Bridge”.

The result is, “The Fall of Dondon Bridge” returns to the top.

With this novel returning to first place, the novel in second naturally returns to its previous spot as well.

The author in second place experienced a roller coaster ride from the bottom to the top and back to the bottom, feeling a lump in his throat that remained unsaid:

“Are you playing with me?”

He felt like he had been played.

However, his feelings clearly don’t matter.

With various interpretations appearing online, fans began to rush to Chu Kuang’s tribe asking which was Chu Kuang’s true intention.

Not to mention the netizens.

Jin Mu is also somewhat perplexed and couldn’t help but ask Lin Yuan privately:

“Boss, what are your real intentions, why are there two Chu Kuangs in the book? Could it be that the other Chu Kuang is really hinting at your other side? Are you writing this way because of Xian Yu? Or does the boss feel lonely and hope that someone like him appears in the world?”

Lin Yuan: “…”

When the lonely ones choose not to speak, it’s not that they have nothing to say, but that there’s no one to tell.

And loneliness is when you have something to say, but no one is willing to listen; when someone is willing to listen, you suddenly have no words.

Alright, speaking in layman’s terms.

At this moment Lin Yuan’s thought process is: “I’m happy to reclaim this first place, but everyone seems to have misunderstood me.”

Just as Lu Xun said that he has two trees in front of his house, one is a jujube tree, and the other is also a jujube tree.

Lin Yuan did not foresee himself becoming those two jujube trees, receiving the same treatment.

People in this world are highly adept at interpretation.

No wonder his scores were always low during exams, even when confronting his own published songs.

What he lacked, was probably this line of associative thinking that the netizens possessed.

The system’s background information had once mentioned something interesting:

After Ang Lee finished filming “Life of Pi”, countless reporters questioned him on what those metaphors in the movie really signify.

Ang Lee did not answer any of them.

This was a wise move, and a practice worth learning.

So Lin Yuan has also decided not to explain.

If the misunderstanding is still quite pleasant, then let everyone continue to misunderstand.

He can’t seriously tell everyone, right? That I wrote this detective story simply because the system was on sale and I just wanted to be a rascal then.

Lin Yuan even doubted that if he explained it this way, no one would believe it.

Well.

On the last day of May, Lin Yuan tearfully received the prize money for first place.

He initially thought that the battle of mystery would end here.

But as June approached, Leng Guang’s latest mystery novel was suddenly released!

At the same time.

Leng Guang’s tribe tagged Chu Kuang, attaching three words that marked the official start of this literary duel:

“Advise me.”