Chapter 48: Battle In and Outside the Industry
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The netizen then opened the reading page for “Battle Through the Heavens.”

“The Fallen Genius? Interesting title…” The netizen smiled and began to read the text. Of course, as the best fantasy novel, the reputation of “Battle Through the Heavens” was well deserved. Very soon, the netizen was completely drawn in by the novel!

“F*ck, this novel is pretty good!” The netizen read all three released chapters and clearly couldn’t get enough of it. “Why aren’t there more chapters… But this is indeed an incredible novel. Let me recommend it to the others.”

Thinking this, he immediately entered Longshan Forum and put up a post.

“My dearest friends, I accidentally discovered a good novel!”

He then talked about how he discovered the novel. “When I saw Master Heaven Xiao’s new novel today, I went to have a look out of curiosity. Unexpectedly, I found an impressive novel by accident. Here’s the title and the link…”

As soon as his post was published, several curious netizens clicked on the link and quickly commented, “It’s really a good novel. Not bad!” “I’ve read it. The beginning is intriguing.”

More people would easily be drawn into a post when it had comments. When more people joined a discussion, however, there would certainly be some opposing views —

“‘Battle Through the Heavens?’ Master Heaven Xiao’s new novel is called ‘Fight Through the Heavens.’ Is the title plagiarized?”

“‘Battle Through the Heavens’ and ‘Fight Through the Heavens.’ I like this modification!”

“I find the title quite nice. Let me join the crowd too and write a novel called ‘Play Through the Heavens!'”

“It has to be ‘Days Through the Heavens!'”

In a moment, there were all sorts of comments below. Some people were making sarcastic remarks, and some were joking around.

The netizen who had posted was totally lost for words right now. “Can you all just open your eyes? Look at the release date. It’s published earlier than Heaven Xiao’s novel! How could it have plagiarized?”

As netizens, they could always argue about anything. Even if they didn’t, they would make something up. So, in an instant, there were also responses. “Why can’t it have plagiarized? Maybe the newbie accidentally found out what Heaven Xiao’s title was going to be and stole it!” “Right, otherwise, why would the two titles seem so similar? And why were the two novels published almost at the same time?” “The newbie’s really doing anything for success.”

Soon, the netizens on Longshan Forum were divided into two camps and got into an intense discussion.

“Hehe, Master Xiao.” Smiling Angel looked at the chaotic debate on the forum and gloated. “People have started arguing about it on Longshan Forum. It’s time to make use of public opinion to attack the newbie. Have you unfriended him on QQ?”

Heaven Xiao: “Not yet, why?”

Smiling Angel: “Just block and unfriend him, then he won’t be able to find your contact and make a copy of the conversation record. We can tell people that he somehow discovered your title and stole it. You couldn’t do anything, and had to postpone the release of your novel for two days. That’s why the two titles look so similar.”

Heaven Xiao: “F*ck, what a good idea. Let’s do that!”

He immediately opened QQ, blocked Wang Hao’s account and unfriended him, then checked the QQ folder. The conversation record is gone! Hahahaha, you newbie! You messed with me, so now I’ll make you suffer!

Heaven Xiao: “Alright, unfriended. Bring him down!”

Smiling Angel: “Okay, no problem!”

…

On Longshan Forum.

Smiling Angel watched the two sides fight for a while, then put up another post.

“Battle In and Outside the Industry: the complete story about some novel having a similar title as that of Master Heaven Xiao’s new novel.

“My dear netizens, I was busy with something else just now. When I came back, everybody seemed to be talking about a novel called ‘Battle Through the Heavens.’ Since you’ve all found out, I’d like to tell you how the incident started, and what happened after that.

“Master Heaven Xiao had been struggling with the title of his new novel for a long time. He had a few ideas, but none of them were good enough. I believe Master Xiao’s fans know about this. The day before yesterday, he finally came up with a pretty nice title, which was ‘Battle Through the Heavens.’ He told everyone in the group and asked us for our opinions. All of us liked it. The next day, when Master Xiao contacted the editor and was about to set up a new novel and mail the contract, he discovered that the title ‘Battle Through the Heavens’ had been registered by someone else!

“In fact, it isn’t a big deal that the title got stolen. What’s more despicable is that the person didn’t just steal the title, he also uploaded content! You should know that editors can take back a title if the novel doesn’t have any content, but it’s impossible once content is uploaded, since it might cause conflict. So, Master Xiao reluctantly changed his title to ‘Fight Through the Heavens.’

“All the brothers in the group were furious. They wanted to look for the mole, but got nothing. Master Xiao was so kind. He didn’t say much. He told us to just forget about it and that the title ‘Fight Through the Heavens’ is also pretty great.

“But this person needs to have some boundaries, right? Our Master Xiao can bear his arrogance, but I can’t. As a reader, I can’t do much to help. I just want to tell everyone the truth so that you won’t be fooled. I believe all of you can see it clearly for yourselves. That’s all I want to say. The truth will prevail in the end. I’m sure you can judge what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Once Smiling Angel posted, Longshan Forum completely exploded!

“F*ck, can there really be such a shameless person in the world?”

“This is unbelievable! He truly doesn’t have any boundaries. How can he think of such a disgraceful idea? I’m in awe!”

“Doing such a shameful thing for the sake of his own career, f*ck!”

“We have to boycott all the novels by this author from now on. Don’t read them no matter how good they are! Not to mention, he dared steal a title from a guru — his novel will certainly be a failure!”

“Where’s the trust between people?”

The post was filled with righteous indignation. After all, half of the netizens were writers on Longshan Forum, and whoever heard this would be bent out of shape. So, when Smiling Angel uploaded this post, everybody instantly started to condemn the author.

Obviously, since Longshan was a discussion base for novel readers, things that happened on it wouldn’t just be confined to the forum. Twenty minutes later, some netizens started to comment in the book review section of “Battle Through the Heavens!”

“Everybody listen up, this author is actually so shameless. He stole the guru’s title to make himself stick out. We have to boycott him!”

“The author has such a bad character and doesn’t have any boundaries. He’s so eager for success that he did something so disgraceful. This kind of author must be kicked out of the web novel industry!”

“Netizens from Longshan, we must do this. One condemnation per day!”

“Brothers, let’s go. Tell everyone what’s going on. If anyone deletes my post, I’ll post it again! If anyone blocks me, I’ll post it with another account!”

“Right, right. We can’t let the author get away with stealing titles!”

In just ten minutes, the book review section of “Battle Through the Heavens” was flooded with more than twenty condemnation posts!