Lu Zhixian stared at the email subject for three seconds.

"Confirmation of Official Recommendation Eligibility for 'to live'."

His first reaction wasn't excitement.

Was it a scam?

Was the scamming business so competitive these days?

Was even the Huawen Literary Award starting to be handed out wholesale?

He clicked open the email.

The body wasn't long.

The general idea was that 'to live' had obtained official recommendation eligibility for this year's Huawen Literary Award. The Review Committee Office had completed the work's information registration, and it would proceed to the preliminary review process according to regulations. The author was asked to confirm personal information and authorization materials.

There was contact information at the end of the email.

An office phone number.

An official website verification link.

And a string of very official-looking serial numbers.

Lu Zhixian finished the water in his cup and casually clicked the official website to check.

The serial number matched.

The contact person also matched.

He took a screenshot of the email and forwarded it to Old Zhao.

Three seconds later.

A phone call came through.

Lu Zhixian answered.

There was no sound on the other end.

Lu Zhixian glanced at the screen.

"Hello? Old Zhao? Did the literature award scare your signal away?"

Old Zhao finally spoke.

"Send me that email you just sent, one more time."

"I already sent it."

"No, I mean, send it again."

"Your phone isn't broken."

"I know my phone isn't broken."

"Then why are you asking me to send it again?"

"Because I suspect my brain is broken."

Lu Zhixian burst out laughing.

The sound of slippers hitting the floor came from Old Zhao's side.

It sounded like he was pacing back and forth in the living room.

"Lu Zhixian."

"Yeah."

"Do you know what award this is?"

The Huawen Literary Award."

"Do you know how much weight it carries?"

"Sounds like it carries quite a bit of weight."

Old Zhao took a deep breath.

"It's one of the highest-level awards for serious literature in the country."

"Oh."

"Oh?"

Old Zhao's voice rose significantly.

"In previous years, those who could make it onto the recommendation list were basically writers who had been writing for ten, twenty years. Many people write their whole lives and can't even get their foot in the door."

"That impressive?"

"It's not just impressive, it's ridiculous."

Old Zhao paused, then said: "You only released 'to live' last night."

"To be precise, it went online at 8:03."

"You even remember the time?"

"It's in the Tomato Novel backend."

"Is that the point?"

Old Zhao was almost laughed to anger by him.

"The point is, a novel that was just released for free on a web novel platform received confirmation for Huawen Literary Award recommendation eligibility the next morning. If this gets out, the literary circle will explode."

Lu Zhixian sat down on the sofa.

"So, do they provide meals?"

It went quiet on the other end of the phone.

For a full three seconds.

Old Zhao said: "Say that again?"

"I asked, does this award event provide meals?"

Old Zhao was choked up.

He felt that the times he was most emotionally stable in his life were when he wasn't answering Lu Zhixian's calls.

But he couldn't help but answer.

This was the tribulation in a manager's destiny.

After a few seconds, Old Zhao lowered his voice.

"Don't post on Weibo yet."

Lu Zhixian raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"It's too fast."

"What's fast?"

"'to live' just blew up, Song Yuanzhi just acknowledged it, and those people in the literary circle haven't recovered yet. If you post the Huawen Literary Award email now, they'll go crazy."

"Isn't that quite good?"

"What's good about it?"

"The sooner they go crazy, the sooner they can be treated."

Old Zhao: "..."

He rubbed the space between his eyebrows.

"My point is, we can first contact the Review Committee Office, confirm the process, and then make a more stable announcement."

"A more stable one?"

"Yes."

"For example?"

"For example, use more humble wording. Thank the reviewers for their attention, thank the readers for their support, say the work is still very immature, and that you will continue to work hard in the future."

After listening, Lu Zhixian was silent for a moment.

"Old Zhao."

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to listen to what you just said? Doesn't it sound like an award acceptance speech template?"

Old Zhao also fell silent.

It really did.

And it was the kind of template from ten years ago.

Lu Zhixian opened Weibo.

Old Zhao heard the sound of typing over the phone and immediately became alert.

"What are you doing?"

"Posting on Weibo."

"Wait a second!"

"Finished posting."

"You."

The second half of Old Zhao's sentence got stuck in his throat.

He opened Weibo.

Lu Zhixian's latest update had already popped up.

The screenshot was the email from the Huawen Literary Award Review Committee Office.

Lu Zhixian had censored his personal contact information, but everything else was clearly left visible.

"Received. I'll go take a look now."

Old Zhao looked at those few words.

His blood pressure performed a vertical takeoff on the spot.

"You really don't have a shred of PR burden."

Lu Zhixian leaned back on the sofa, his tone very relaxed.

"It's not like I'm going on a blind date."

"This is much bigger than a blind date!"

"Then all the more reason not to be nervous."

"Why?"

"Being nervous makes it look like I haven't seen the world."

Old Zhao didn't know how to refute for a moment.

Because Lu Zhixian indeed had seen the world.

The problem was, the 'world' he saw never quite looked like a normal person's 'world'.

Less than a minute after the Weibo post went out.

The comment section started refreshing.

??????

"Huawen Literary Award??? I just woke up, can someone explain to me what happened?"

"Weren't we still discussing whether he could write a novel yesterday? Today he's already aiming for awards?"

"Ridiculous, but somehow it seems reasonable when it comes to Lu Zhixian."

Fans were in a frenzy.

Bystanders were watching.

The literary circle was silent.

But the silence didn't last long.

Ten minutes later, new voices emerged.

"It's only been on Tomato Novel for a day and it already has recommendation eligibility? What about the process?"

"I admit 'to live' is well-written, but being well-written doesn't mean it can directly enter the award process, right?"

"Can a novel released for free on a web novel platform also be considered for a serious literature award? Once this door is opened, will it be whoever has the most traffic gets in from now on?"

Both sides quickly started arguing.

This time, the point of contention had changed.

No one dared to directly say 'to live' was a joke anymore.

Song Yuanzhi's two Weibo posts were still on the trending searches.

The reprint intention from 'Contemporary Literature' was also there.

The book had already been read by countless people.

Those who had cried were still handing each other tissues in the comment section.

To say the work was bad wouldn't hold water.

So the direction of attack turned to eligibility.

"On what basis?"

"Where's the process?"

"Is it because Lu Zhixian has high traffic?"

These three questions began to repeatedly flood the screen.

Topics also quickly appeared.

#ToLiveObtainsChineseLiteratureAwardRecommendationEligibility#

#CanWebNovelPlatformWorksParticipateInChineseLiteratureAward#

#ChineseLiteratureAwardProcess#

By 10:30 AM, the first topic broke into the top five of the trending searches.

The second one followed at ninth.

The third one was still climbing.

Lu Zhixian scrolled through his phone for a while, then got up to fry an egg in the kitchen.

The oil in the pan had just gotten hot when a message from Lin Shiya arrived.

"You're on the trending searches again."

Lu Zhixian replied: "I didn't move; the trending searches pounced on me themselves."

Lin Shiya: "If you post that sentence, the trending searches will pounce again."

Lu Zhixian: "Then I'll be more low-profile."

Lin Shiya: "There's a misunderstanding between you and being low-profile."

Lu Zhixian smiled and set his phone aside.

10:45.

Song Yuanzhi posted on Weibo.

This time, he didn't write a long discourse.

There were only three sentences.

"Whether 'to live' ultimately wins the award needs to be decided by the review procedure."

"But it obtaining recommendation eligibility is absolutely no problem."

"If even a work like this is not eligible to enter the discussion, then there is a problem with the discussion itself."

After this Weibo post went out, the comment section exploded again.

"Teacher Song stood up again!"

"Yesterday he said he'd read it word by word to find the joke, and today he's already starting to block the blades for it."

"This is called calling a spade a spade. He can criticize, but he can also acknowledge."

"Are those people in the literary circle embarrassed now?"

Very embarrassed.

Those who had posted yesterday to question Lu Zhixian's crossover were now being roasted as if on a fire.

They didn't dare to bash the work itself.

And they had no evidence regarding the award aspect.

They could only cling to the four words 'transparent process'.

The book critic 'Between the Lines' forwarded Song Yuanzhi's Weibo.

"Recommendation eligibility is understandable, but I still hope the Review Committee will explain the recommendation process. This isn't targeting any specific author, but any award needs openness and credibility."

This was said steadily.

It wasn't as sharp as yesterday.

Some in the comment section bought it.

Others didn't.

"That's not what you said yesterday."

"Translation: I admit it's good, but I still want to find an angle."

"Demanding process transparency is fine, but don't pretend you've always been objective."

"The literary circle's main theme today is being stubborn but not completely stiff."

Lu Zhixian came out with the fried egg and gave a like when he saw this comment.

It wasn't to support the other party.

He felt that half of that sentence made sense.

Awards should have rules.

If there are rules, bring them out.

There's nothing that can't be seen.

As it turned out, just as he clicked that like, netizens went crazy again.

12:00 PM.

The official account of the Huawen Literary Award Review Committee released an announcement.

The announcement was very short.

But every word was very firm.

"Explanation regarding the recommendation eligibility of the work 'to live' which has received online attention: Upon verification, the work 'to live' was jointly recommended by three recommendation reviewers of this session. The materials are complete, and the process conforms to this year's Huawen Literary Award work recommendation regulations."

The list of the three recommenders was attached below.

The first one, Song Yuanzhi.

The second one, Teacher Ye Minglan.

The third one, Senior Judge Qin Baichuan.

Netizens could still understand the first two names.

Song Yuanzhi had publicly posted a long review last night and stood up for it today; it wasn't strange.

Teacher Ye Minglan was the executive editor of 'Contemporary Literature' and had also posted a reprint intention in the early morning.

That also made sense.

But when the third name came out, a brief gap appeared in the comment section.

A few seconds later.

Someone typed a string of question marks.

"Wait a minute, Elder Qin? Hasn't he not recommended a newcomer's work for many years?"

"Holy crap, this name is even scarier than the recommendation eligibility itself."

"Who is Senior Judge Qin Baichuan? Requesting info."

Someone quickly provided the info.

Senior Judge Qin Baichuan, seventy-eight years old.

One of the lifelong reviewers for the Huawen Literary Award.

He won the Highest Literary Achievement Award twenty years ago.

His articles are in the textbooks.

He wrote about the countryside when he was young, later wrote about the eras, and in the last ten years, he has almost never publicly evaluated new works.

He has a well-known habit.

He doesn't recommend easily.

He doesn't praise people easily.

And he especially doesn't touch traffic figures.

The last time he jointly recommended a newcomer's work was thirteen years ago.

That newcomer later became a first-line writer in the country.

This piece of info was forwarded incredibly fast.

Those who were just flooding with 'process not transparent' suddenly got stuck.

Three reviewers jointly signed.

The process was compliant.

Official confirmation.

And Senior Judge Qin Baichuan was among them.

How could they still fight this?

Someone was still unwilling to give up.

"Did Elder Qin really read it? It's not just a name-only thing, right?"

As soon as this was posted, it was blasted back by the comment section.