Chapter 301: Like A Demonic Sword

The recent yearning and excitement were shattered in an instant, leaving no trace behind. The stark contrast between expectations and reality made Chu Ge’s blood nearly boil, and his face turned red.

Similar things have been heard many times, even textbooks haven’t escaped it. Publishing houses can arbitrarily change the original text, like changing “外婆桥” (grandmother’s bridge) to “姥姥桥” (old woman’s bridge). There are countless cases of web novel authors whose work has been tampered with, as if the publishing house couldn’t establish its cultural status without making deletions and revisions.

Chu Ge’s case is particularly extreme, with hardly a single sentence remaining from the original text. Everything has been modified – changing words here and there, adjusting punctuation, and even deleting some sentences.

Usually, hearing a few criticisms is manageable, but when it happens to you, it’s infuriating. All that echoes in your mind is, “Why do they have the audacity to alter my work?”

Posting on the internet, enduring edits during the review process is already infuriating, but you can begrudgingly accept it because it’s related to risk, and there’s no way around it.

But what about sentences unrelated to risk? Adjusting the sentence structure, changing vocabulary – does that make you more cultured?

Have you ever thought about how this is an insult to the original author, at the very least, a lack of respect?

If you’re so cultured, publish your own book, right?

Moreover, some sentences are not superfluous; they might be essential for humor or even foreshadowing. They might seem redundant at first glance but should not be casually deleted.

Even if you want to make changes, you should at least ask the original author, seek their consent, and then it’s all good. After all, even in screenwriting industry, they know to respect the original source, right?

Chu Ge initially wanted to buy a copy to take back, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He pulled out his phone and took pictures of a couple of pages before leaving the bookstore, visibly fuming. It looked like he was planning to post a chapter or a tweet to vent his frustrations.

Qiu Wuji helplessly went to the adjacent printing store to retrieve the manuscript and artwork, then hurriedly followed Chu Ge. She didn’t know whether she should offer some advice or how to handle the situation. After all, there were no magical swords to use in this situation; it was entirely useless.

So, it’s better to be in the world of martial arts novels, where, for example, if the Old Master Kuzhai dared to tamper with her work, his head would be chopped off!

“Don’t rush, first try to communicate…” Setting the artwork aside, Qiu Wuji turned to see that Chu Ge was already sitting in front of the document, furiously typing away, so that’s all she could advise.

Chu Ge said, “This is not a matter of communication. There have been many similar precedents. The printing process didn’t start just a few days ago, and back then, I hadn’t visited the book world. No one ever discussed it with me… It’s plain arrogance.”

“Yeah. Calm down…”

“Qiuqiu, you know me; I’m a bit of a recluse and lie down for most things. I only get angry once or twice, you know what infuriates me the most about this?”

Qiu Wuji said, “Lack of respect?”

“That’s just one aspect. What’s truly terrifying is that, although I didn’t personally make these changes, it’s my authorized publication. Will it affect the world within the book?”

Qiu Wuji froze for a moment, instantly breaking into a cold sweat, feeling a chill run down her spine.

“Thankfully, it’s just alterations to language. ‘Literature,’ you see, and it hasn’t changed the plot. Perhaps it won’t have an impact, but I don’t dare to gamble,” Chu Ge took a deep breath and said in a serious tone. “Our situation is different from other authors… What others care about, we might not. What others can endure, we might not. And altering the content is the most sensitive issue for us. Under no circumstances can I allow this situation to escalate further, even if it means stopping the publication entirely!”

As he spoke, he had already posted his Weibo rant, with a simple title: “Please Publish Your Own Book.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Then, he attached the two pages he had photographed and compared them to his original text, tagged the publishing house, and wrote only one sentence in the entire post: “Thought it was my book, but when I opened it, it turned out to be someone else’s. No wonder it’s called ‘the original.’… Either publish and print according to the original text or stop the publication entirely, that’s it.”

After posting on Weibo, Chu Ge didn’t continue to check. Getting angry wouldn’t help, so he focused on his own work instead.

The young couple copied the recently scanned manuscript and artwork to the computer and were sorting them out, meanwhile Weibo was already exploding.

In the group chat, people shared Chu Ge’s Weibo post. “Prepare for battle,” and “Ready for dawn,” were the collective reactions.

“Damn, what kind of changes are these?”

“These old zombies are just like this, arrogant.”

“Is that it? The changes don’t even make it better than the original text. I feel the original text flowed better.”

“Indeed, they can make their own book if they’re so capable. In reality, they’re just cherry-picking sentences, and they’re not even that great.”

“No, why are you all discussing it here? What good does it do? Shouldn’t we help out?”

“What can we do about this? We can only repost and contribute a little.”

“…Never mind, it seems we don’t need you all; go check Weibo, it’s truly terrifying.”

Everyone opened Weibo and was left dumbfounded.

In just an hour, Chu Ge’s original post had been reposted thousands of times, and if you looked under the publishing house’s Weibo where Chu Ge tagged them, there were already tens of thousands of derogatory comments, and they kept increasing.

“Holy cow, are the fans of ‘Early Autumn Love’ this terrifying?”

“I remember most of them don’t even read the book, otherwise with hundreds of thousands of followers, Brother Chu would’ve been a sensation long ago. Why is he still floating around the top ten?”

“They don’t read books, but they play Weibo.”

Because this Weibo account was dedicated to posting CP (couple pairing) content and was primarily followed by CP fans, many of them didn’t actually read books. However, the works were the foundation. CP fans recommended based on “This author writes great stories” or “The female lead is a talented artist,” and then they started shipping the couple. The recognition of “Our idol is so talented” was the foundation that kept everyone together. Whether or not they personally read the works was not important.

But now, someone had bullied their beloved idol’s work, and these fans were much more powerful than the average readers!

While readers were discussing the changes in the comments, the publishing house’s Weibo had been bombarded.

The publishing house was dumbfounded. They had just printed the books, and due to a lack of coordination with the website, their promotional efforts hadn’t started yet. They had no idea what was happening when they found their Weibo account in shambles. Some even called the publishing house to vent their anger, threatening to report copyright infringement.

Wait, it sounded like someone might have actually reported it to the relevant authorities…

What was all this! If it’s a copyright infringement, go to court; what’s the point of reporting? Why are you so adept at this? How many times have you done this before?

In any case, it seemed like a big problem.

The publishing house urgently called the website, and the website seemed a bit bewildered as well. Similar incidents have occurred before, even with more renowned authors, but none of them escalated as outrageously as Chu Ge’s. Who are these people, anyway?

However, the website had no intention of taking the blame for the publishing house. This kind of situation had occurred a few times, and the website had its own grievances. They responded coolly, “We’ve provided you with the author’s contact information a long time ago; we asked you to communicate more. Have you not added them to your contacts at all?”

The publishing house indeed hadn’t added the author on QQ.

In their traditional mindset, web novels weren’t considered high-quality literature. They chose to publish them because they saw a market and the potential to make money, not because they believed the work had intrinsic value. So in their eyes, nearly every sentence wasn’t literary, and every sentence should be revised… why would they proactively reach out to the author?

After several similar incidents, even if they reluctantly printed the books according to the original text, they couldn’t help their inherent arrogance.

But this time, they somehow stirred up the fans…

Chu Ge swore he never anticipated this turn of events. Initially, he had opened a Weibo account upon the suggestion of Zhang Qiren, thinking that it would be a waste not to utilize such a fanbase. And posting on Weibo to engage in online battles was a common practice, wasn’t it? But never in his wildest dreams did he expect to become the head of a fanbase.

However, he had to admit that the fans’ combat strength was truly impressive.

When Chu Ge received a QQ request from the publishing house’s editor, he hadn’t even finished organizing his manuscript. This remarkable efficiency, as if he were in a dream!

He couldn’t help but turn to Qiu Wuji and ask, “What’s going on? The QQ request says it’s ‘to apologize to Teacher Chu.’ Did you put your flying sword at their throats or something?”

Qiu Wuji, staring blankly at the commotion on Weibo, managed to mutter, “This is like a demonic sword—it can hurt both others and yourself. It shouldn’t be used lightly…”