As the group of submitters settled into their seats, a female secretary in an OL uniform entered the room and collected their submitted manuscripts one by one, placing them on a row of tables at the front.
About five minutes later, four elderly men shuffled into the room. Three of them had sparse hair on their heads, and one was even wearing a hat. It was the height of summer, and Wang Shu wondered if the master, wearing a hat in such hot weather, would get heat rash.
When the elders entered, the submitters in the room rose to greet them. After the four masters took their seats, the submitters also sat down again.
The next part of the session was for the masters to review the manuscripts. The four of them picked up the submissions from the table and began to read them carefully. Some manuscripts, after only a page or two, caused one master to frown deeply and shake his head with a displeased expression.
"Li Jiansheng! Is Li Jiansheng here?" the master called out without looking up.
A man in his thirties next to Wang Shu stood up and walked towards the master.
"You want to fly before you can even walk? Go back and solidify your fundamental skills before you try to write novels! The first sentence is a grammatical error, and the punctuation is wrong too!" The master, seeing Li Jiansheng approaching, threw the manuscript he was holding, which landed in front of Li Jiansheng.
Everyone was startled by the master's attitude, and even Wang Shu was a bit bewildered. He hadn't expected these masters to have such tempers, throwing works at people for punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes. The young man named Li Jiansheng quickly picked up his manuscript, apologized profusely, and left dejectedly.
The literary masters at the judging panel were accustomed to such situations. Their actions were intended to spur these authors on and help them grow quickly.
However, in the next moment, when one of the masters, the one wearing a hat, turned to a manuscript titled "To Live," his eyes lit up. He read the first few thousand characters of the manuscript very carefully and found himself wanting more. The book had managed to create a remarkably vivid character of "Fu Gui" within just a few thousand words. Furthermore, it depicted that era with great specificity. Their generation had lived through that period. Although they were young then, seeing the book, they couldn't help but marvel at the authenticity of its portrayal of that time.
"Old Yu, take a look at this manuscript!" the master wearing the hat even nudged another master beside him.
The master called "Old Yu" frowned slightly, took the manuscript, and began to read it closely.
"This work has some merit. This author should be around our age," Master Yu speculated.
"Who is Wang Shu?"
Before Wang Shu could fully process what was happening, he heard his name being called. He looked closely and saw that it was the master with the hat beside the earlier master who was calling him. Wang Shu quickly got up and walked forward.
Seeing Wang Shu stand up, the submitters in the room were eager to watch the unfolding drama. After all, downstairs, this young man had been exceedingly arrogant. They were eager to see him get reprimanded by these masters. They all looked up at Wang Shu. The elder who had argued with Wang Shu earlier wore a playful smile. He knew the temperaments of these four literary giants well; they were merciless when criticizing an author. Li Jiansheng, the young man who had just been berated, had already won numerous literary awards and was considered a promising talent, yet he had been thoroughly scolded. This "Wang Shu," a writer of web novels, undoubtedly lacked the literary pedigree of Li Jiansheng. Therefore, he was certain that Wang Shu would be taught a lesson by these big names.
On the judging panel, when the two masters saw that Wang Shu was just a young fellow, they were slightly taken aback. They had expected the author of this book to be an old man of similar age to themselves. They never imagined it would be someone so young.
"You are Wang Shu?" Master Yu, the one named Yu, asked Wang Shu with a hint of confusion when he approached the two masters.
"I am!" Wang Shu nodded in response.
"This, you wrote it?" Master Yu pointed to the manuscript on the table and asked again for confirmation.
"I wrote it!" Wang Shu nodded again.
"Unbelievable, simply unbelievable! At such a young age, you can write a work of this caliber!" Master Yu exclaimed after confirming with Wang Shu. As a professional in the literary field, although he hadn't finished reading the book, he could already sense that it was an excellent literary work.
"What's going on? Shouldn't he be receiving a torrent of criticism?" The elder, upon hearing Master Yu's words, widened his eyes in shock and muttered to himself. According to his prediction, Wang Shu should have been lambasted by these masters by now. The other people in the room who were waiting to see Wang Shu embarrassed were now utterly bewildered by the turn of events. Many of them were frequent submitters and were used to the masters' usual critiques of authors. However, this was the first time they had witnessed such an attitude from the masters.
"What did this kid write? It even impressed the masters?"
"No wonder he was so arrogant just now; he actually had the talent to back it up!"
"I've never seen these masters so astonished. Who exactly is this Wang Shu?"
In the room, many authors began to whisper among themselves, as Wang Shu's impact was immense.
"Thank you for your appreciation, teachers. I've thought about this work for a long time and poured a lot of effort into creating it!" Wang Shu said sincerely to the two masters before him.
"We can see that your writing is very sincere. I believe it can definitely be a main recommendation for this issue!" the master wearing the hat said, nodding his head. He had high hopes for Wang Shu's "To Live." Even though he had only read a few thousand words, he could already discern the masterly spirit within those few words. He even felt that, in time, this young man could achieve something significant in China's literary world.
"Wow! Main recommendation for this issue, that's terrifying!"
"Damn, I remember that the main recommended works from Longwen Pavilion are basically blockbusters. Many famous authors can hardly get this opportunity!"
"What incredible luck did this kid have to be recommended as the main push for this issue!"
When the submitters heard the words of the two masters on the judging panel, they were once again shocked. The so-called main recommended works of Longwen Pavilion were like a huge advertising space. Any work that received this recommendation would be displayed in the most prominent positions in offline bookstores, and there would even be a dedicated poster area for it. While this might not seem like much in a single bookstore, Longwen Pavilion Publishing House had tens of thousands of partner bookstores offline. If a bookstore received a hundred customers a day, that would be over a million visitors per day. With such high foot traffic, this strong promotion would naturally boost book sales. More importantly, Longwen Pavilion only selected one book for this main recommendation each week. Many well-known authors had been vying for this opportunity. However, this recommendation was typically chosen by the four master editors of Longwen Pavilion Publishing House, so even if many authors had bestsellers, they might not get this recommendation spot.
"Alright, Mr. Wang Shu, your book has passed the submission review. You can now follow the secretary to the copyright department to sign the publishing contract!" The two masters, having resolved their doubts, said to Wang Shu.
Wang Shu then followed the female secretary in the OL uniform to the copyright department. Wang Shu glanced at the publishing contract, which stipulated a royalty split of ten percent. This surprised Wang Shu, as ordinary authors were unlikely to receive such a high royalty rate. New authors typically received a royalty split of seven to eight percent. Seeing Wang Shu's puzzled expression, the secretary smiled and explained, "Teacher Yu just instructed me to give you a contract for a senior author!"
"Do your contracts also have different levels?" Wang Shu asked curiously.
"Yes, our company's contracts correspond to four author levels: ordinary author contract with a 7% split, excellent author contract with an 8.5% split, senior author contract with a 10% split, and master author contract with a 14% split," the secretary patiently explained.
Hearing the explanation, Wang Shu couldn't help but sigh. He hadn't expected this publishing house to be like some online novel platforms, dividing authors into different levels corresponding to different contract splits. He was even more surprised that he, a complete novice, could immediately receive a senior author contract. In the publishing industry, a ten percent royalty was quite substantial. After all, the publishing house was responsible for printing, distribution, and various costs, while the author only provided the text.