Chapter 43: No Problem at All (Please Vote for Recommendation)

"Old Tu, quickly get in touch with someone at Warner Brothers and check this out. These voting numbers seem a little suspicious," said Han Kai, who was responsible for monitoring data at the magazine office of Times Mystery. He had just noticed that "Detective Sherlock" was shooting up the rankings, a book they had already been keeping a close eye on. Seeing it gain several hundred votes in just a few minutes seemed a bit exaggerated.

However, for this fanfiction contest, Times Mystery Magazine only handled the preliminary selection, picking outstanding fan works to publish in their magazine. The subsequent voting phase was managed by the producers and distributors of the film "Detective Holmes"—the Hollywood giant, Warner Brothers.

Even though Han Kai had noticed the surge in data, he couldn't pull up the IP addresses of the voters from the backend; he could only hand it over to others to investigate.

Tu Lun was surprised. "This novel shouldn't be resorting to vote manipulation, right? A top scorer in the college entrance exam wouldn't need such tricks. Besides, all previous vote manipulators were immediately flagged and locked by Warner Brothers from the start."

"You can never really know someone. Are you sure he wouldn't do something like this?" Han Kai remained cautious, seeing that the contest was nearing its end, and he just hoped nothing major would go wrong.

"Alright, alright, I'll call them right away."

...

Mainland China, as the second largest box office market in the world after North America, still had untapped potential. Numerous Hollywood production companies had established branches in China, and frequent viewers of Hollywood films would recognize the golden-blue WB logo, affectionately nicknamed "Rotten Film Warner" by movie fans.

"Detective Holmes" had cast two famous Hollywood male stars, with a production budget of $100 million and a promotion budget of $25 million—a true summer blockbuster.

Any film with ambitions for box office success would never miss out on promoting in China. Director Guy Ritchie and the two male leads had come to China for publicity, and expectations for the movie's box office performance were generally optimistic.

In the Yanjing office, the technical department of Warner Brothers China was also busy. At this moment, a call from Times Mystery Magazine came through.

Tang Mingzhi was an unassuming member of the technical team, a top graduate from a prestigious university. Yet after working for so long, his passion had waned, and now his main responsibility was maintaining Warner Brothers' Chinese website and related movie pages.

"Hello? Is this Brother Tang?" Han Kai asked.

"Yes, it's me. Is there something you need?" Tang Mingzhi replied coolly, already sensing his workload was about to increase.

Han Kai said, "We released the July issue today. This is the last batch of shortlisted works for the Holmes fanfiction contest. But the data for one book seems abnormal, so we thought you could take a look at it."

"You're talking about 'Detective Sherlock,' right?"

"Yes, exactly. It gained several hundred votes in just a few minutes—I have no idea how that's possible."

Tang Mingzhi chuckled twice. "Its data is perfectly normal. We've also noticed the extraordinary speed, but considering its online popularity, I actually think it's a little slow."

"Detective Sherlock" was different from the other entries: its author was famous, the top scorer in Jiangdong Province's college entrance exam!

The exam results had only just been released a few days ago, and university admissions weren't out yet, so it was precisely when these top scorers frequently made headlines. While top scorers from other provinces were popping up, the one from Jiangdong had an almost transcendent aura—already famous for a perfect essay, special admissions, and being the top scorer. Now, he was stirring things up again.

What kind of fan fiction could a top scorer write? Would traces of that perfect essay's style and structure show up in this Holmes work?

The media, eager for a spectacle, reported widely on Zhang Chu's story. The piece, published only recently, quickly attracted many downloads and purchases!

"Your magazine must have seen a boost in sales too, right? There’s so much news online—you should be happy," Tang Mingzhi remarked.

Han Kai suddenly remembered the numbers mentioned in the last editorial meeting: both digital and print editions had sold tens of thousands of copies. So that's where the votes were coming from.

Tang Mingzhi explained, "Many of those news articles are generated by your magazine. Don't be too surprised. Our voting doesn't restrict participants to readers, meaning anyone can vote without buying your novel. The low threshold means the numbers might be a bit higher."

"I see. Sorry to bother you, Brother Tang. Goodbye."

Even the top ten works on the leaderboard hadn't caused such a stir online; Tang Mingzhi suddenly became curious about what kind of magic this book held to attract so many votes.

Due to copyright issues, the full text couldn't be posted online; by regulation, only about thirty percent could be quoted or reposted unless the author authorized it.

Of course, poems and short stories weren’t subject to such restrictions, and sometimes, their full texts would accidentally be published.

The Holmes contest website was the only place where the full, official version could be read for free. Since the author had submitted the work for the contest, it was understood that Warner Brothers could use these works for commercial purposes.

Publishing in the magazine required a separate fee. If you wanted to read the magazine, you had to pay. Each issue of Times Mystery contained not only contest entries but also three to five other articles.

Precisely because it could be read for free, hundreds of people could be drawn to vote within a few minutes. Tang Mingzhi was curious and clicked in to take a look.

He was instantly hooked!

...

Zhang Chu searched for his book title on his phone and was stunned to see the vote count had reached 4,103. The growth was astonishing!

There was a flood of comments, many from people who knew only Holmes and Watson, but not the original stories.

"I've never read any Holmes stories before. This is my first time, and it’s surprisingly good. But after searching, I found out it's just fan fiction! Are fan works this high quality nowadays?"

"One is a classic text, the other a modern novel—they're not really comparable. The writing is decent, the plot is excellent, and the reasoning is fascinating. If only it were adapted into a movie or TV series. Novels aren't as immediate."

"Such a great novel—why does it only have 3,200 votes? Everyone, vote!"

"Aside from the modern setting, Holmes’s spirit remains unchanged. I've read all the contest entries, and only 'Detective Sherlock' deserves five stars; the others, at best, four."

"Everything's great, but it's too short. Why is there only one story? Hurry up with the next one!"

"I'm a loyal Holmes reader, and Zhang Chu’s work is a modern adaptation of the original. Using a phone, my Holmes is just too cool!"

"The detective work has a few flaws, but the greatest feature is how modern technology is used to portray the detective. Looking forward to more from Zhang Chu."