I'm Really a Superstar

Presently.

Congratulatory calls were coming in one after another.

Zhang Ye had taken the top honors in the Qilu Literature Prize!

Further, the Qilu Literature Prize was the highest honor in the field of literature!

He had won this award in the most perfect way. It was a best of the best performance and the highest of the highest prizes he had won. It was flawless, and there was nothing else in the Chinese literary world that was a greater honor!

Elder Qian called. "Congratulations, Little Zhang!"

Zhang Ye laughed and said: "Elder Qian, how can you do this? If you already knew that my name was on the winner's list, why didn't you tell me earlier? I was cooped up for the entire day at my studio with my colleagues anxiously worrying for me. Everyone thought that I wouldn't have a chance of winning. In any case, how did I end up getting first place for this year's Qilu Literature Prize? Who voted for me?"

Elder Qian said: "I don't know, actually. The voting process is anonymous; we place our votes into sealed boxes which are then handed to a professional to take care of. Once the voting is done, it's out of our judging panel's hands. I, too, found out that you took first place when I heard the announcement over the radio."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me, it was the book that was good."

"Let me treat you to a meal someday."

"Haha, alright, I'll be waiting for it."

Following, a call from his mother arrived. She sounded very excited.

"Son, you're amazing!"

"Thanks, Mom."

"Your dad also sends his congratulations!"

"Alright, I'll continue to work hard."

Li Mei from Eastern Publishing Firm called as well.

"Brother Zhang, I'm calling to congratulate you on behalf of the publishing firm. The boss has asked me to convey his congratulations to you. And for me personally, I just want to say that you're really awesome!"

"Thank you."

"For the second edition's print run, we can add 'winner of the Qilu Literature Prize' to the cover. With this highest honor given to it, Fortress Besieged will fly even faster off the shelves!"

"Sure, I'll leave it to you all to plan."

"We've already started on it. Shall I send you the cover after we're done with the design?"

"There's no need, I trust you guys."

"Thank you, Brother Zhang!"

He received over a dozen calls!

Yao Jiancai, Zhang Xia, Dong Shanshan, Yu Yingyi, and many other close friends sent their congratulations!

The news was also reporting about it!

"Qilu Literature Prize winners' list announced!"

"Zhang Ye goes against all odds to take top honors!"

"Zhang Ye reaches summit by winning highest honor in literary field!"

"Yanhong Literary Prize suffers terrible face smacking!"

"The judging panel of the Yanhong Literary Prize expresses: No comment!"

"Fortress Besieged—a masterpiece on the topic of marriage!"

"Zhang Ye slaps the faces of the Yanhong Literary Prize committee: You want to ignore me today? Tomorrow you'll never measure up to my expectations!"

Congratulatory messages flooded Weibo!

"This is so impressive!"

"He really won it! And he even got first place!"

"Zhang Ye has ascended onto the altar!"

"He has taken yet another top honor! Zhang Ye's popularity is going to soar like crazy!"

"It's going to increase by a lot this time."

"Fortress Besieged is a well-deserved winner!"

"You're right. Even if Fortress Besieged won every domestic literary award there is, it wouldn't be an issue! Even if there are many people from the literary field who bear a grudge against Zhang Ye, this award must still be given to him! Alright, I won't say any more. I need to quickly get back to reading it again. I need to read it a few more times to grasp it fully!"

"So fast? I still haven't finished reading it!"

"I'll get back to reading it too! Congratulations to Lord Zhang!"

"Lord Zhang did not disappoint us!"

"The faces of Yanhong Literary Prize committee have probably turned green from anger!"

"Hahaha, those fools! When I think about that explanation the Yanhong Literary Prize committee gave, I can't help but laugh. They were saying that Zhang Ye did not have the qualifications to win the Yanhong Literary Prize and came up with all kinds of reason to justify it. But in the end? He won the Qilu Literature Prize and slapped them so hard their faces became swollen! The Qilu Literature Prize is much more prestigious than your Yanhong Literary Prize! If the most coveted literary award in the country recognizes Zhang Ye and even gave him top honors, how can you people say that he's unqualified to win the Yanhong Literary Prize? What a joke!"

"One of the headlines in the news put it really well! 'You want to ignore me today? Tomorrow you'll never measure up to my expectations!' Hahaha, that's so cool!"

"I need to give a Like to the Qilu Literature Prize committee. They must have resisted a great deal of pressure to award the prize to Zhang Ye! This should also be an official acknowledgment of Zhang Ye by the literary circle, right?"

"Who cares if they acknowledge him or not? All I care about is whether I can get my hands on a copy of Fortress Besieged tomorrow!"

"Me too! I've been listening to you people praising it to the high heavens, yet I haven't even laid eyes on it!"

"This is killing me! Damn it, I should just go queue up at midnight!"

"Does anyone still have the first edition of Fortress Besieged? I'll buy it for a high price!"

"My advice to everyone is to not buy it in a hurry. See whether you like it first, as literary fiction is not something that everyone can appreciate. You might not be able to understand it."

"Fuck, this is the highest voted book that won the Qilu Literature Prize! Even if I don't understand it, I still must read it!"

"The majority of people can't even buy this book anymore!"

The people were heatedly discussing this!

News about it was appearing everywhere!

Industry insiders were also starting to react to this news!

Some industry peers were lauding Fortress Besieged and marveling at it. A lot of plot and word analysis of Fortress Besieged also appeared. Of course, there was no lack of criticism either. Some authors who had always despised Zhang Ye joined forces to nitpick and find fault with the novel. This included two old judges on the Yanhong Literary Prize committee. However, no one took these people's words seriously. A lot of people did not even care about them. The Qilu Literature Prize had acknowledged Zhang Ye, so it was meaningless for this group of people to say anything!

Why did they give him the award?

There was no why!

The fact was that they had given it to him!

…

On that same night.

The Qilu Literature Prize money arrived. It was just 50,000 RMB, no more, no less.

The five Qilu Literature Prize winners were "showered" with attention without exception by the media reporters. Of them, Zhang Ye was the most heavily "showered" upon.

The reporters were clogging the entrance of the studio!

"Teacher Zhang!"

"Are you around?"

"We're reporters from the Morning Post!"

"We're reporters from Beijing Television!"

"Please accept our interview!"

The door was not open, but they could still be heard from inside the studio.

Ha Qiqi smiled and said, "Director Zhang, shall I go handle them?"

"Yes, I'll go and lie low." Zhang Ye was still on the line making calls. He spoke on the phone as he walked upstairs with a smile: "Teacher Su, thank you for your concern. Yes, the reporters are here."

The door opened and Little Wang ushered the reporters inside.

Ha Qiqi smiled. "Hi, everyone. Director Zhang still has some work to handle. I'm Zhang Ye's Studio's external communications manager, so you can all ask me questions if you have any."

The reporters immediately pushed their cameras and microphones to the front!

The Beijing Times reporter said, "Congratulations to Teacher Zhang for winning the highest domestic honor in literature!"

Ha Qiqi nodded. "Thank you."

A different reporter quickly asked, "Regarding the sales figures of Fortress Besieged, what kind of expectations did you all have?"

Ha Qiqi shook her head and said, "We really didn't have any expectations. We don't do estimates for such things, wanting to concentrate on completing whatever needs to be done, that's all. Director Zhang's own words for this book were to 'sell however much we can.' This is actually Director Zhang's first foray into writing this type of novel. It was an attempt at switching from genre fiction to literary fiction. So, to have gained the acknowledgment of the Qilu Literature Prize committee, that was something we hadn't expected at all."

A female reporter raised an audio recorder and asked, "We would like to know what the creative process for a literary novel is like. How long did it take for Teacher Zhang to conceptualize it? How many years did he take to produce it? Did he ever reach a bottleneck where he couldn't continue writing?"

The creative process?

How many years?

Ha Qiqi said, "The process was very arduous."

The female reporter asked curiously, "How arduous?"

Ha Qiqi cleared her throat and said, "It was particularly arduous."

Another television station's reporter followed up with, "So just how particularly arduous?"

Ha Qiqi said calmly with a straight face, "The process is not something that outsiders would understand, but just know that it was particularly arduous."

The corner of Little Wang's mouth twitched!

Wu Yi pretended to drink water and nearly even choked!

The studio's staff were all madly laughing on the inside!

Particularly arduous?

Particularly, my ass!

Arduous, my ass!

How was it arduous at all? When was there ever a bottleneck that made him unable to continue writing? Director Zhang just locked himself in his office and casually finished writing it in less than two days. He didn't even check for typos and sent it straight over to the publishing firm. If this was called arduous, what would it be like when it was not arduous?