Chapter 50: The Old Man Who Lost His Horse

Liu Zhuo's usual job was to dig up clients in need of all sorts—rank-boosting, internet trolls, all fell within his line of business. Just last week, he had helped a scandal-ridden actress clean up her reputation, and this week, he casually took on a small task for a familiar friend.

In his eyes, this kind of operation didn't even count as a minor hustle. Compared to the explosive news and stunts of celebrities in the entertainment industry, this little Sherlock Holmes writing contest was scarcely worth mentioning.

"If it weren’t for the sake of friendship, I wouldn’t have bothered to take this fifty-thousand-yuan job," Liu Zhuo muttered as he quickly assigned the task to his team.

Business was tough these days—so-called online PR companies had sprung up like mushrooms after the rain, and competition for every kind of service was fierce.

...

Zhang Chu was struggling with the second story of "Detective Sherlock," a piece adapted from "The Adventure of the Dancing Men." He hadn’t followed Conan Doyle’s writing order, but drew instead from the BBC television version.

He named his new story "The Blind Banker." Sherlock receives an email from a classmate and, short on cash, takes Watson with him to a bank, where, at midnight the night before, someone had broken into the office preserved in memory of the former bank chairman. In less than a minute, the intruder painted a symbol in yellow paint.

The symbol happened to run across the portrait of the bank chairman, right over his eyes—thus, "The Blind Banker."

This story featured a Chinese woman working at the museum and elements of antique smuggling, details meant to resonate with Chinese readers.

Though he had the television series as a reference, Zhang Chu’s writing pace was still far from brisk.

His method was clumsy—using his own words and vocabulary to describe the scenes, laying out the main structure, and then revising multiple times to create the atmosphere of suspense.

"Writing a detective novel is truly troublesome. I’ll have to switch genres for my next book," Zhang Chu thought as he saved the five thousand words he’d just written. He stepped to the window of his bedroom to stretch; those five thousand words might be devoured by readers in minutes, but it had taken him hours to write.

Without the system’s help, he probably wouldn’t have finished even in a few days.

He’d written straight through from afternoon to sunset. Writers really did just sit all day; Zhang Chu suddenly worried he might end up with hemorrhoids from sitting so long—a serious concern!

He opened his door and walked into the living room. At that moment, Chu Lan was busy in the kitchen, apron tied around her waist. "I was about to call you for dinner—it’s almost ready," she said.

Zhang Chu leaned back and flopped onto the sofa. With practiced ease, he pulled out his phone and checked his ranking in the writing contest.

What he saw, however, puzzled him. While his votes were soaring, a rush of negative reviews had appeared out of nowhere—he hadn’t seen so many before.

At that moment, "Holmes’ Last Will" still held first place with 1.31 million votes. "Detective Sherlock" was still fifth, but had already climbed to 780,000 votes, about to overtake the third and fourth spots, which each had 800,000!

"Writing a mystery like this, the pace is too fast—there’s no suspenseful atmosphere at all."

"I agree, the deduction scenes fly by like machine-gun fire from Sherlock!"

"You’re too naïve. Zhang Chu’s a science illiterate with poor logic. If he doesn’t speed things up, his plot holes will be exposed!"

"Sherlock and Watson living together happened way too fast—seriously eye-burning."

"It’s clearly just friendship, but he writes it like there’s something more. Totally ruins the source material!"

"The crime methods are not explained at all—starts strong, ends weak."

"All flash, no substance. I don’t get why this is so popular."

"Feels inconsistent, the cases are too weak, clues mentioned over and over are never resolved."

"A bit childish, I can’t find any highlights."

"This is the work of a national exam champion? Doesn’t seem that impressive—maybe he’s overrated."

Waves of criticism were flooding the comments section of "Detective Sherlock," nearly monopolizing it. Even on social media, posts related to Zhang Chu and his story were swamped with these negative reviews.

Frowning, Zhang Chu realized he was being targeted. Ordinary readers didn’t have the time or energy to spread bad reviews everywhere—this was obviously the work of paid trolls.

"Maybe I blocked someone’s path? Which competitor did this?"

He scanned the rankings. Anyone above him was a suspect, but that was less important than deciding how to respond.

The others had hired troll armies, maybe even mobilized friends and family. He was alone—no money, no team. All he had was the system!

Just as he was about to activate it, he refreshed the rankings and discovered "Detective Sherlock" was still surging ahead, undeterred by the flood of criticism—in fact, it seemed to be growing stronger.

...

"Liu Zhuo, what’s going on? Didn’t you set the trolls in motion? Why is that book now third on the ranking?"

Xu Fei hammered furiously at his keyboard, demanding answers. He’d maxed out his credit cards to scrape together fifty thousand yuan, and now it seemed to have been for nothing.

"Detective Sherlock" had just reached 820,000 votes, overtaking the previous third and fourth places and creeping ever closer to Xu Fei’s own book.

With fifty thousand yuan gone up in smoke, Xu Fei was on the verge of coughing up blood.

At Blue Whale Online PR, Liu Zhuo was equally furious. "We spread the negative comments everywhere, just like you asked. Look at the comments, social media, the mystery forums, the message boards—they’re everywhere. And of the 200,000 votes you bought, 140,000 have already been delivered. The last 60,000 will be in place by tomorrow morning."

"Then what’s going on? Why is this happening?!" Xu Fei felt as if he’d lost both the chicken and the eggs. At this rate, his top spot was truly in jeopardy.

"It’s the flaws you gave us for the negative comments. One of them isn’t a flaw at all—it’s actually a highlight!" Liu Zhuo hadn’t expected to lose the battle on this point; he’d simply passed the comments to his team without checking.

Xu Fei hurriedly scanned the recent reviews. His face turned pale as he realized what had happened.

He’d completely forgotten about the formidable group on the internet—"fujoshi"—and had unwittingly advertised Zhang Chu’s novel to them.

They hadn’t even known there was such a story in the Holmes contest—until the trolls’ negative reviews drew their attention!

"Watson tentatively asks, 'Do you have a boyfriend?' Sherlock’s expression softens: 'I’ve already given myself to my work.' This novel is so shippable!"

"There’s nothing wrong with what the negative reviews are saying—if anything, it’s adorable, and the fan service is overflowing. I’m in!"

"The friendship between Watson and Holmes is hinted at so many times."

"I’m dead, I love this pairing!"

"I’m dying here—why did I only just discover this? Can’t wait for more!"

"Am I the only one seeing the subtext between Watson and Holmes?"

"Me too! This is really good—those negative reviews must be from paid trolls!"

These days, the "fujoshi" community was growing ever larger. Xu Fei hadn’t realized that the very points he criticized in "Detective Sherlock" were exactly what attracted this audience. Like warriors on a crusade, these women began to promote and vote for the novel in droves.

Some even excerpted passages and posted them on social media, rallying friends and followers to join the cause.