Chapter 42: Deserving of First Place!
The clock struck midnight.
The votes were finalized. Zhang Ye’s story got first place.
Needless to say, members of the Mushroom fanclub and onlookers were shocked. Other long-time authors of fairy tales were dumbfounded. Even Zhang Ye did not immediately come to believe it. He only had one thought; that it was impossible. When did this bro gain so many die hard fans?
He knew his own worth. Indeed, he had written a few poems and created a supernatural novel. But he was not that great; he still had some ways to go. Compared to Andy Lau‘s works, if anyone saw them, their first reaction would be, “‘Oh, this is a Heavenly King‘s movie”, “Oh, this is an Andy Lau song”. There were also works produced by others which were very famous, too. However, if you were to ask who the author was, a lot of them would not remember. Zhang Ye was in a similar situation. Even when many people had seen those works of his, they would only remember the title of the work. Only a small number of people knew his name as the author!
Then how did this huge fan support come about?
With the blink of an eye, they had annihilated the Mushroom fanclub who had declared war? And it was destroying them to the point of them being unable to respond?
This essay competition was their cultural domain! That was the fanclub of one of the top children’s fairy tale authors! However, why did it now seem that this battle was in Zhang Ye’s territory instead?
This should not be, there must be a reason!
Looking at the comments……
Checking Weibo……
Soon, Zhang Ye found the reason. The majority of the voters could not be considered his fans; at least 80% were not. Most of them had not even heard of “Ghost Blows Out the Light”, nor read Zhang Ye’s poems. The common point was that they had participated in or witnessed the “CurseGate” scandal from a few days ago. Still, there were some of Zhang Ye’s hardcore fans among them; for example, the one who gathered all the support, “ZhangYeNumber1Fan”. The others were internet trolls who participated because they had nothing else to do. When there was some excitement gathered over here, all of them had quickly gathered around to mess things up. These were people who were not afraid of anything, as they were bored out of their wits. Coupled with the fact that “CurseGate” was only a few days ago and Zhang Ye had an astounding victory then, the internet trolls were in awe. Therefore, many of them had crazily voted after being alerted by some of Zhang Ye’s hardcore fans. It was similar to his world’s “Helping Wang Feng hit the headlines”*, creating issues for the sake of creating it!
After achieving victory, the trolls went about boasting of their victory!
“First place!”
“Good one, bros!”
“Haha! Everyone was f**king awesome!”
“10,000 votes, 10,000! Can we not be so crazy!?”
“Where’s the people from Mushroom fanclub? Where? Weren’t you clamoring to scare us? Why does it look like all of you are scared instead?”
“Know how many fans Great God Zhang has now? Dare to look down on us?”
“You should be well aware, Mushroom fanclub, that you are too naive!”
“Claiming that Teacher Zhang Ye manipulated the votes? Yet you people kept on manipulating? That’s funny! Does Teacher Zhang Ye even need to manipulate? Do we need to manipulate? We just voted once each! We do not need to manipulate any votes to destroy you! With our friends, we share good meat and wine, towards our enemies, we will take them on anytime and are never careless! Today, we will gift every one of you the famous phrase of Teacher Zhang Ye — I bought a watch last year!”
“This is a memorable battle! Let us record down this historic moment! Let’s follow Teacher Zhang Ye again to create another miracle!”
“So fun! So exciting!”
“Is Teacher Zhang Ye still around?”
“We have captured the enemy’s walls. We have sounded the trumpets of victory. Teacher Zhang, please say a few words to us bros!”
Zhang Ye did not know whether to laugh or to cry. He did not expect that so many people would come and help him. In his heart, he was also very touched. He immediately left a message on the “Little Bunnies Be Good” comments section. Everyone had been so supportive towards him, so he had to leave a message, “Thank you everyone for your help. My comrades, you have worked hard!”
The replies were very orderly!
“To serve the people!”
“To serve the people +1!”
“To serve the people +723!”
A thread that had over 800 replies, all of which were the same!
What was this battle formation? What was this momentum? A lot of neutrals watching felt their adrenaline rushing. A troll army like that was enough to rule the world….. *Cough* Except that this army was too not up to par. At the end of it all, the onlookers still had no idea who Zhang Ye was; how did he have such a large troll army helping out?
ZhangYeNumber1Fan dispersed the crowds, “Mission accomplished! Troll army pull back! Thank you for the help, bros!”
They gathered quickly, and they also dispersed quickly. This group of trolls were like a nest of wasps, attacking whoever they disliked. They came and went as they wished!
Seeing the dispersal of the troll army, the Mushroom fanclub members reappeared. They went to the website’s report section to complain about Zhang Ye’s fairy tale.
Mushroom Gang Warrior: “Reported! “Little Bunnies Be Good” vote manipulation!”
Mushroom Gang 77: “More than forty thousands votes in four hours! Impossible! The manipulation is too obvious!”
QWYUE33: “In my opinion, it looks manipulated, too. The others only had tens of thousands of votes in seven days. Furthermore, they were professional authors. He’s only a radio host who writes ghost stories. How could he have written such a good fairy tale? And to have so many people vote for him? It’s not realistic!”
Suddenly, Little Red Mushroom’s account message also appeared in the reporting section. She had taken it upon herself, obviously unhappy with the result of second place. Because this essay competition only had one winner; second and third place did not matter. There would be no prize money, nor any trophies. Only the first placed essay would be selected by the Beijing Education Ministry to be promoted to kindergartens and primary schools; second place would receive nothing!
Little Red Mushroom posted “Did anyone check the authenticity of the votes? I believe many of the authors in the professional circle will not accept this result. The votes for “Little Bunnies Be Good” seem to be abnormal!”
Once the top author of children’s books spoke, several professional authors who took part in the essay competition followed up with their replies regarding Zhang Ye’s votes’ authenticity!
“Did the technical team go off duty?”
“Such obvious vote manipulation, yet nobody realizes it?”
“Are there still fair rules and a transparent system?”
A website staff member replied, “The technical team is handling the complaint. Please wait; if there are manipulated votes, they will be invalidated!”
After about 10 minutes, the results were out!
Essay Competition 1st Place: “Little Bunnies Be Good”.
Author: Zhang Ye.
Total Votes: 45,871!
Zhang Ye’s total votes remain unchanged; it was exactly the same as when voting closed. Rather, it was second place Little Red Mushroom’s story whose votes dropped from 37,212 to 35,399! Around 2,000 votes were invalidated!
After the results were released, there was silence!
There really was no fake votes! This story really defied logic! It really managed to gain more than 40,000 votes in four hours?
Everyone was surprised, but no one questioned the authenticity of Zhang Ye’s votes. Even without the troll army’s support near the end, subtracting the votes manipulated by Little Red Mushroom’s fans, Zhang Ye would have still obtained first place. There were no qualms about that!
Of course, one could not say that, as well. If the troll army did not push Zhang Ye to the top and, as second place, Zhang Ye’s report of Little Red Mushroom manipulating votes might not even be heeded by the website.
The cute troll army had given Zhang Ye a huge favor!
Zhang Ye was moved for a while, before he suddenly recalled what really mattered. He immediately added another sentence to his story’s introduction, “This version of the story is a silent text edition. It is not the full ‘Little Bunnies Be Good’ version. Tomorrow, at noon on Beijing Radio Station’s Literature Channel’s ‘Old and Young Story Club’, the complete audio version will be promptly broadcast for everyone. The song in the story will be presented to everyone then; please listen to it.”
“There’s really a song? I thought it was just text!”
“I’ve remembered the time. I will definitely listen to it punctually!”
“Haha. I was waiting for the song. I will tell my colleagues, too.”
“I’m still feeling pissed. Some people just don’t like to see people in a better off state? If you are inferior to others, you are inferior to others. To claim others were manipulating votes? Who set the rule that only professionals can write a good story? Who set the rule that a ghost story’s author cannot write a good children’s fairy tale? I suggest that those so-called Teachers who had reported Teacher Zhang Ye should look at “Little Bunnies Be Good” with a patient and learning attitude. Don’t use the perspective and moral of looking at a stranger’s work. Teacher Zhang’s fairy tale completely beat all of you. He deserves it fully! My child is now beside me, pestering me to memorize “Little Bunnies Be Good” and narrate it to her daily! The children have already given their answer!”
“The previous poster said it well!”
“Hai, whenever a newcomer makes new waves, his legitimacy will always be questioned!”
“I can’t watch this any further. It was already quite irritating when the Mushroom fan club first started screaming and declaring war. Were they thinking of using their numbers to bully others? Ha! In the end, their faces got smacked terribly! Zhang Ye? This Teacher is interesting. I have already fan-ed his Weibo. I really like his fairy tale.”
“Handshake!”
“I like Zhang Ye’s story! Passer-by transforming into a fan!”
Zhang Ye’s popularity had a small amount of growth. Even more people got to know his story and him as a person through this incident!
*Wang Feng – a celebrity whose news was often overshadowed by other celebrities’ news that happened at the same time.