Honkai Impact 3rd: Join Anti-Entropy at the start and dominate the entertainment industry.

"Lin Yi" took the lead and began to promote their event extensively, focusing on the anonymous publication of works by forty well-known short story authors. This gimmick was quite impressive and attracted many readers.

Now, their ads are visible as soon as you open any major software application, making them widely known.

Not to be outdone, The Reader also began to promote Yang Yagang, emphasizing his high-level status.

Yang Yagang has a large fan base; almost all short story readers have read his works.

The magazine "Reader" used Yang Yagang for publicity, which also reveals its own ulterior motives.

Despite having many authors on the "Lin Yi" side, Yang Yagang absolutely crushes them in terms of talent. No matter how many authors there are, it doesn't matter as long as the other side doesn't have a better work than Yang Yagang.

This is the legendary "one man can hold the pass against ten thousand"!

During this period, Bai Qianqu's novel "The Necklace" was also successfully submitted to "Lin Yi" and is just waiting for the official release.

Many short story readers are already eagerly awaiting the release; for them, this is a reading feast. No matter how the two magazines compete, the readers will ultimately benefit.

Of course, in addition to readers, many industry professionals are also paying attention to the competition between the two magazines.

After all, it's rare to see so many top writers competing against each other. Even if they are just observing, they can absorb a lot of experience and knowledge.

This will be of great help to their future creative work.

Amidst much anticipation, the day for the script events of the two magazines soon arrived.

Lin Yi magazine directly released an event announcement, automatically omitting a long string of irrelevant information; the most important part was just this one paragraph—

Each user of Linyi has three chances to vote. Users can vote at the end of the article after reading for five minutes, with a maximum of three votes per entry. The final ranking will be based on the number of votes. To ensure fairness and add fun, we have hidden the author's name for each entry and included an author guessing game. Users can choose the author's name they think is most likely at the beginning of each entry. After the final name is revealed, users who guess correctly will receive a chance to win a mystery prize, with the grand prize being the latest Apple iPhone 200 Pro Max!

Lin Yi had promoted this before, but when people saw the announcement, they still thought it was a crazy move.

This move directly removes the so-called fan filter, so having a lot of fans is useless.

Even if fans want to vote for their idols, they should at least know which works their idols have done.

Furthermore, because the authors have all signed confidentiality agreements, no one can reveal the names of their works.

Now fans can only carefully read the works to make a judgment, but no one can say for sure. The participants in the competition are all veterans, and their styles are quite complex, with no obvious characteristics.

"This event was quite interesting."

"Yes, Lin Yi clearly did a screening when choosing who to invite. The styles of these forty authors are all rather vague, and many of them even have very similar writing styles."

"This is what Lin Yi wanted to see, isn't it? This is what makes it interesting, and we can make our own guesses."

"I didn't feel anything at first, but now I'm starting to get interested."

"Holy crap, the prize is the latest iPhone! I have no choice but to participate."

As the event began, people flocked to the event page and immediately started reading the forty short stories.

The works are not very long. Everyone is an expert, so the word count is kept to around 5,000 words. This word count is the most suitable for participating in the competition.

Because "Lin Yi" gives the voting power of the works to the readers, meaning that the readers are all judges, everyone feels a great sense of responsibility and enjoys the feeling of being a judge.

Everyone read and voted very carefully and cautiously, after all, their vote could very well determine the final ranking of the works.

Forty works shouldn't take too long to read. Some people finish reading them in half a day, while others take about two days.

In addition, the quality of these works is quite good, and everyone enjoys watching them.

As time went on, more and more people noticed the work "The Necklace".

Many people originally just wanted to come and take a casual look, but after they finished watching the ending, they all fell silent, and some were even stunned on the spot, petrified by the impact of the ending.

This is quite normal, after all, "The Necklace" was written by the French writer Guy de Maupassant, who is hailed as the "King of Short Stories" in modern literature and is considered one of the "Three Great Masters of Short Stories" along with Anton Chekhov of Russia and O. Henry of the United States. He is the writer with the largest number of short stories and the highest achievement in the history of French literature.

Maupassant's works are characterized by their sharp style, adept at capturing and discovering significant moments in the mundane details of life, reflecting reality and depicting human nature through small details; furthermore, his novels are ingeniously conceived and structured, with unique character dialogue and story endings that leave a lasting impression. "The Necklace" is one of his representative works, and arguably his masterpiece.

As Zola said of Maupassant: "His works can make people laugh, can make people cry, but always make people think deeply."

Although the cultural development of this world is slow, the average level of art appreciation is higher than that of the original world, so readers cannot fail to see the brilliance of "The Necklace".

Although people don't know the author's name, it doesn't stop them from commenting on the novel.

"I really love this work! I was totally surprised by the ending!"

"This woman is so vain! If she hadn't insisted on borrowing that necklace, none of this would have happened! A family was ruined just like that!"

"You can't say that. Although the female lead is indeed a bit vain, she also has her shining qualities. Her perseverance and integrity in paying off her debts over ten years of hardship are admirable. It's pitiful that someone from the lower class toiled for half their life for a fake necklace!"

Chapter 324 The Poor Couple

"This is the discrepancy between dreams and reality. Therefore, no matter when or what environment one is in, one must organically integrate oneself with the environment and reality. One should neither overestimate nor underestimate oneself. How to be a person and how to do things should be judged by one's own heart. Only when one's heart is balanced will one's actions and expressions be balanced, open, and frank. Therefore, doing things with heart and being a person with heart is the most core principle of life."

At this moment, in a luxurious hillside villa in Liyue, a young man with short blue hair is sitting in front of a computer with a cup of coffee in his hand.

He was staring intently at the computer screen in front of him, his amber eyes gleaming with excitement.

His name is Xingqiu, and he is the second young master of the Feiyun Merchant Guild, the largest merchant guild in Liyue.

A true second-generation rich kid.

He also had another identity: the renowned "Pillow Jade" gentleman in literary circles.

The best-selling martial arts novel "Chen Qiu Picks Up the Sword" is his work.

After hearing that Qian Jian had also participated in the "Lin Yi" event, Xing Qiu had been paying close attention to it. As soon as the event started, he immediately clicked into the event page and began reading quickly.

Xingqiu was very familiar with Qianjian.

The original "Wolf" later became "The Gift of the Magi".

He had read them more than once, and even wrote a review for each one, which received a lot of likes.

In Xingqiu's eyes, Qianjian is definitely a gifted author, whose novels always bring him unimaginable surprises.

The other party is also participating this time, so maybe they can produce another good piece that I can appreciate.

For Xingqiu, he can go without food, but if he can't see good works, he feels like ants are crawling all over his body.

It's really uncomfortable.

Xingqiu's reading speed varies, and when he comes across a good part, he will stop and savor it.

Soon, he finally saw the article "The Necklace".

I've read over a dozen stories before, and while they were all good, Xingqiu didn't find them particularly special.

He felt that none of those dozen or so articles were written by Qian Jian, although he had no evidence, it was just a vague feeling.

After reading the work titled "Necklace," Xingqiu hoped it would bring him a pleasant surprise.

He took a sip of coffee and continued reading intently.

The story of "The Necklace" is actually very simple, with the plot unfolding around the "necklace".

The story's protagonist is named Mathilde, and she feels she is the most unfortunate person in the world.

With her beautiful face and graceful figure, she should have been on equal footing with the noblest people, living in the most luxurious mansions and enjoying the adulation of others.

But the reality was that she was born into an ordinary family, so poor that she couldn't even afford a dress that matched her beauty. Her husband was just an ordinary civil servant whose income was only enough to buy an ordinary house and hire the cheapest maid.

The beauty of her fantasy, contrasted sharply with the harshness of reality, filled Mathilde with resentment and made her constantly melancholy.

Seeing this, Xingqiu seemed to be deep in thought.

From this opening introduction, it's clear that the theme of this story is about material things, focusing on the female protagonist's obsession with them.

This method of using material things to satirize characters is common, but it is also one of the most effective.

After all, sometimes this can more directly reflect a person's character.

Xingqiu continued reading:

To please Mathilde, her husband went to great lengths to obtain an invitation to a high-end cocktail party.

Mathilde borrowed a magnificent and dazzling pearl necklace, which made her shine and become the focus of the ball.

Unfortunately, every celebration must come to an end, and when the time comes, she has to take off her fine clothes and become Cinderella again.

Just as Mathilde arrived home and was about to admire her beauty one last time, she suddenly discovered that her necklace was missing!

The couple searched every inch of the place they had passed, but still found nothing.

Xingqiu remembered the name of this story—The Necklace.

It seems that the key item in the story has now been identified: the necklace that the female protagonist borrowed from her friend.

She actually lost someone's priceless necklace!

This is no small matter, and what's worse, she simply can't afford to pay for it!

Xingqiu's heart began to race; he was very curious about what the female lead would do next.

Do they simply act like scoundrels and refuse to pay, or do they just buy a fake one to compensate the other party?

This also aligns with the image the female lead previously projected: materialistic and greedy.

To Xingqiu's surprise, the female lead actually decided to buy a new one to compensate the other party!

This is how it is written in the novel:

They had no choice but to sell their house, dismiss the maid, and sign numerous high-interest loan agreements, finally scraping together enough money to buy the same necklace and compensate their friend.

This night of glory cost Mathilde her future.

Her life was completely ruined by this necklace.

After losing the necklace, the debt repayment was endless.

A huge gloom hung over the Mathilde couple, filling their hearts with despair.

But faced with this unexpected blow, the couple did not choose to run away.

After that, they went through the most difficult days in order to pay off their debts.

To earn a little more money, her husband had to copy accounts for others late into the night, leaving Mathilde to take on all the housework alone.

The greasy grime of the kitchen wore down her delicate nails; the heavy work bent her slender waist.

She began haggling with the vendors at the market, haggling over every penny, and was frequently verbally abused by them. Mathilde, who longed for the happiness of paradise, instead fell into an abyss of suffering.

Mathilde no longer had time to dream of wealth and luxury; her only thought was how to pay off her debts. She cast aside all thoughts of face and dignity.

Mathilde, who once dreamed of being in the clouds, now stands firmly in the mud, making peace with reality.

The extreme poverty lasted for ten years, and Mathilde was ravaged by hardship into a rough, old, and ordinary woman.