A writer has arrived in the Chinese entertainment industry.

Phoenix Society arranged this offline interview at the newly opened Pioneer Bookstore on the first basement floor of Jinling Museum. After Su Liu arrived at Jinling Station by high-speed rail, he walked to the exit and saw a handsome man holding a huge sign made of brightly colored cardstock.

It reads: Su Liu, internationally renowned author and god of mystery!

The words "God of Deduction" were even bolded, as if they were accompanied by their own light and sound effects.

Su Liu shuddered. What was the Phoenix Society up to? Even the Japanese only dared to call Su Liu a demigod in their propaganda, but they went and directly put him on the throne of a god.

Could this be some kind of "bad idea" from Dook Culture? The thought flashed through Su Liu's mind. These people love exaggerated marketing; they're actually capable of doing something like this.

Su Liu quickly looked around, trying to see if any photographers were hiding nearby taking pictures.

"This is really bad," he thought. He might end up like Ou Hao, one of only two people in mainland China to be considered "gods." Years later, marketing accounts might feature headlines like "Mainland China's Two Gods: Who's More Embarrassed?"

He walked over with his head down, feeling incredibly embarrassed. In that instant, it seemed as if everyone around him was casting inquiring glances, as if everyone wanted to know who the god was.

"Oh, Teacher Su, you're here." The man holding the sign spotted Su Liu and immediately came over to greet her.

Su Liu kept her head down, and when he got close, she shoved the sign in his hand down.

He growled in a low voice, "This is outrageous! You guys have gone too far!"

Upon hearing this, the man waved his hand and said with a smile, "No exaggeration, no exaggeration. You deserve it."

Damn it, does he think he's being modest? Su Liu quickly urged him, "Let's go."

"Okay, the car is over there, please come with me."

When we arrived at the Jinling Museum, Editor-in-Chief Liu from Phoenix Press was already waiting at the entrance.

He saw Su Liu get out of the car with a gloomy expression, and couldn't help but walk up to him curiously, patting him on the shoulder and asking in a loud voice, "Hey, Su, what's wrong?"

"That genius of deduction is at the train station entrance! My God! Tell me honestly, did you guys also install hidden cameras?"

Editor-in-Chief Liu patted Su Liu on the shoulder and laughed heartily, "That was done by DuKe, I don't know anything about it."

"I knew it! Those people! Just you wait, they're going to get me into trouble this time. Who knows how many people will be cursing me then."

"What are you afraid of, young man? Which writer doesn't get criticized? Come on, come on, everything's ready inside, the readers are waiting for you."

Editor-in-Chief Liu led Su Liu into the Jinling Museum. The two went to the underground Republic of China section, where the newly opened Vanguard Bookstore was located on this Republic of China-style street.

To host this interview, the bookstore specially moved the central display stand and sofas, clearing out a large area where six rows of chairs formed a semi-circle around the interview area for the guests and host.

The store was already filled with fans who had traveled from all over the country. One of them saw Su Liu enter and suddenly stood up and shouted, "Perverted Liu!"

The readers around him were startled and all looked towards Su Liu. What started as a single voice gradually transformed into a chorus of shouts from the entire audience: "Pervert Liu!"

Thanks to the incredibly explosive and bizarre design in Su Liu's debut work, "Elephant Head Labyrinth," the name "pervert" has been firmly attached to him since his debut. Moreover, "pervert style" sounds like a certain genre, echoing Su Liu's name, which is also a clever double entendre.

Later, Su Liu wrote "normal" novels such as "The Mystery of the Gymnasium" and "13.67", and many fans of "Elephant Head" accused him of betraying the revolution.

Amidst the chorus of "perverted flow," Su Liu was caught between laughter and tears, and sat down on a single sofa in the interview area with Editor-in-Chief Liu.

"It seems our teacher Su has already felt the enthusiasm of her book fans!"

The speaker is today's host, a young lady named Wu Wei.

"I really felt it," Su Liu said helplessly. "I'll just take it as your love for me."

As soon as he finished speaking, a burst of laughter erupted from the audience.

"I think many people here have been following Professor Su's work since his first book. I would like to ask Editor Liu, what were your feelings when you first saw 'The Elephant Head Labyrinth'?"

Editor-in-Chief Liu carefully considered his words before slowly saying, "I actually rarely read mystery or detective novels. It was Mr. Hua from DuKe Culture who strongly recommended it back then. While reading the manuscript, I was both surprised and delighted. I was surprised that such an outrageous work could actually appear in mainland China. As for the delight, you'll see from the subsequent sales figures that you'll know what I was delighted about."

"Was Teacher Su still young at that time?"

"I'm still not that old."

"Back then..." Editor-in-Chief Liu pondered, glancing at Su Liu, "I think it was the second year of junior high, right?"

"Yes." Su Liu nodded.

"I'm actually very curious, and I believe many of you book lovers here share this question: how did a junior high school student create such a bold and avant-garde novel as 'The Elephant Head Labyrinth'?"

Su Liu has answered this question countless times. In almost every interview over the years, he has been asked this question. At first, he would rack his brains to come up with a reasonable creative outline, but later he found that no one really cares how you wrote it.

People admire geniuses, but there's no reason why geniuses exist.

So he kept using the same formulaic rhetoric to brush it off, saying he loved reading mystery novels since he was a child, and that one day he suddenly had a flash of inspiration. In short, he said this so many times that even he started to believe it himself.

The interview is still ongoing...

"Then I noticed that there is a section about functions in the work 'The Elephant Head Labyrinth,' where the restorer identifies the survivors and calculates the distance of the sound, and even draws a function graph. I'd like to ask, are you also good at math? Because actually, many novelists are not very good at math."

"Oh... actually, I couldn't do anything about math either. My original plan was to just gloss over this part and not write out the mathematical formulas. But later, a netizen helped me solve this problem."

"Online friend?"

"Yes, it's a top student I met online."

Next, we talked about "The Mystery of the Stadium," how I wrote a novel with a purely island nation background, and how I came up with the idea of ​​setting the story of "13.67" in Hong Kong.

Su Liu was very skilled at it, casually rambling on and on, and then exchanging a few jokes with Editor-in-Chief Liu. Soon, the interview came to an end.

Just when Su Liu thought he could finish smoothly, the subsequent Q&A session with readers dealt him a heavy blow right from the start.

The question was asked by a woman with short hair, wearing black-rimmed glasses, and with a shiny, oily appearance.

She stood up, took the microphone, and her first words were extremely aggressive.

"Su Liu, hello. I still have a question about 'The Elephant Head Labyrinth'."

She didn't even want to call Su Liu "Teacher".

"I noticed that in the book 'The Elephant Head,' the deaths of the wife and two daughters were extremely tragic, even to the point of being completely tortured to death. I would like to ask if this was a deliberate choice you made when writing this book?"

Su Liu sensed something was amiss and asked, "A deliberate choice? What do you mean?"

"I want to ask, did you intentionally choose to torture and kill women in your novels to attract readers with such grotesque plots? As a writer, do your works express any of your own beliefs?"

Now that he understood, Su Liu couldn't help but feel puzzled. Wasn't it only 2013? Was "rural feminism" already emerging? How could someone like this read their own book? I'm not that well-known in mainland China, am I?

In any case, you should answer this kind of question carefully.

"I understand," Su Liu chuckled softly, "You want to ask me if I'm a pervert."

"Hahaha." Another burst of laughter erupted from the audience.

After the laughter subsided, Su Liu spoke calmly, "Actually, many readers have already answered this question for me. Since the publication of 'Elephant Head,' the most common criticism I've received is that the writing is too poor. Many people say that although the plot is well-designed, it lacks emotional resonance and realistic significance, and even the character development is very weak."

"You asked me if I intentionally chose women. I would say that mystery writers are in an extremely rational state when they write a book. All the characters in 'The Elephant Head' exist around the final trick. They are like... NPCs in a game, or screws in a machine. So in my eyes at the time, these characters had no gender, and might not even be human. They were just necessary tools to realize that trick."

The woman seemed unsatisfied and pressed on, "But we all say that writing is a form of expression. Don't you unconsciously project your own ideas into your work during the writing process?"

"We've always had this concept that literature should convey moral principles." Su Liu nodded slightly, his tone still calm. "It seems that writers must bear some social responsibility and have some lofty ideals. But in this respect, I'm afraid I've disappointed many people. I didn't want to change the world; novels can't change the world. If you like my work, I'm happy, but I'm also sorry, I'm not a particularly 'high-class' person."

Having said that, he didn't answer any further. After a few more readers asked some mundane questions, the host announced the end of the offline interview.

"So, Mr. Su's new game, 'Killer Mayhem,' will be officially released tomorrow," Wu Wei said cheerfully. "There will be a small autograph session here later. If you want Mr. Su's autograph, you can line up now. And that concludes our interview."

After the interview, Su Liu wanted to stay for a book signing, but Editor-in-Chief Liu left first and told Su Liu that he had already booked a restaurant and they could have dinner together after the signing.

Inside the bookstore, the line for book signings snaked and twisted. Su Liu sat down at a table, flashing a professional smile at each of the title pages handed to him.

Suddenly, a girl wearing a baseball cap walked up to her. Su Liu took the book from her and subconsciously looked up at her.

"What a beautiful girl," he thought in surprise, then bent down to sign the document and handed it to her.

The girl took the signed book and left without saying a word, not even a "hello".

Time slipped by slowly amidst the rustling of pens across paper, the quiet encouragement from readers, and their questions. The book signing didn't end until nearly 5 p.m.

Su Liu walked out of the museum just as it was closing time, with the young man who had driven him there from the train station beside him.

"Teacher Su, I'll go get the car. Please wait here for me."

This man's surname is Xu. He is clearly older than Su Liu, but people insist on calling him Little Xu.

After he left, a figure suddenly approached from the side and behind. Su Liu caught a glimpse of a baseball cap pulled low, exuding an aura of "I'm suspicious." He thought he had encountered an assassin and instinctively leaned to the side.

At that moment, a clear yet low female voice softly rang out.

"Rei Ayanami is the best in the world."

Su Liu's body stiffened abruptly, as if nailed to the spot by those words. He stared blankly at the pure and beautiful face under the brim of the hat, his mouth opening and closing several times, but he couldn't utter a word.

"You...you...you are..."

The girl took a step back, a suppressed smile playing on her lips. Her voice was clear and calm, soft yet refined, possessing both girlish liveliness and a touch of warm gravitas.

"Let me introduce myself again, my great writer. My name is Chen Duling."

"You..." Su Liu's face was filled with shock, "You're actually a woman!"