My Web Novel System - Chapter 32

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Among the four judges present, Sherry voted for “Candle in the Tomb”, Sakazaka Rion voted for “The Lost Tomb”, Jeffrey voted for “Ghosthand”, and Lilith, who was supposed to decide the final result, voted for “Carrie” out of the desire to support a newcomer.

The current situation was that each of the four works received one vote from the expert judges.

In other words, the one with the highest score in the reader selection would be the winner of this Fall Cup.

The results of the vote counting were announced.

“The final vote for ‘Candle in the Tomb is 193,783 votes! Congratulations to the author! The final vote for ‘The Lost Tomb’ is 193,783 votes!”

When Hades announced the two figures, the audience was in disbelief.

These two works even had the same number of votes from the readers!

“This is too much of a coincidence!”

Even Hades was in disbelief. This was an automatic vote counter, so he wondered if there was something wrong with the machine.

It was not just him. The other judges and the audience were also puzzled. There was an uproar in the audience. Fans of both sides were criticizing each other on social media because “The Lost Tomb” fans distracted their parents with difficult math problems while fans of “Candle in the Tomb” cut their children’s internet connection.

They were all dumbfounded when they heard the results.

“This is too much of a coincidence! I have to say that we have never encountered such a problem in all the years the Fall Cup has been held!”

It was indeed as Hades said.

Even the organizing committee of the competition was a little confused as they did not have any rules for this.

This Fall Cup was held just like other previous Fall Cups, which were never this dramatic.

The organizing committee started to work out a solution. In the meantime, Hades had to bite the bullet and continue to host the show.

After all, it was live on Iowa TV and the internet.

It was impossible to stay as awkward as they were now and neglect the audience.

“Everyone, please calm down! The organizing committee of the competition is currently in the midst of some emergency planning. I believe that they will definitely come up with a proper solution. Before that, we just need to remain patient. Actually, all the judges have expressed their views just now, but I haven’t said my piece yet. These two works chose Chinese burial culture as the topic and used tomb-robbers as the main characters. The authors of these books participated in the same Fall Cup and even obtained the exact same number of votes in the final selection. This feels like fate! There were even rumors online that the two works were actually written by the same author. I’d like to say that it’s extremely unlikely that ‘Candle in the Tomb’ and ‘The Lost Tomb’ were written by the same author.”

“Why do you say that?”

“First of all, the writing style of the two works is completely different. One is experienced and worldly, while the other is amiable. Secondly, the focus of these two works is completely different. One is about exploration, while the other is actually about character growth. Lastly, it’s the technical difficulty. You should know that the Fall Cup Creative Writing Competition is held in the form of a workshop. In other words, all authors need to create their works on-site within a limited amount of time. Think about it. In just two short weeks, the author would have to come up with two stories with similar themes but with completely different focuses. They would have to complete two books totaling about 200,000 words. This is just amazing talent and efficiency! If there really is such a genius in the world…I’m willing to be his student! In my opinion, these works each have their own pros and cons, so I can’t make a judgment.”

Hades talked for a long time, but in the end, all he said was nonsense.

He could not come up with a conclusion from his analysis.

Thus, it was impossible to determine the final winner of the competition.

However, his analysis had indeed attracted many people’s attention and diverted everyone’s focus from the tie to other places.

It had also given the organizing committee enough time to find a solution that everyone was satisfied with.

At this moment, a young man came up from behind and whispered a few words into Hades’ ear.

Hades nodded repeatedly. “Alright.”

Then, Hades turned to the audience and said, “The result of the discussion by the organizing committee just now was that since the reader and expert votes for the two works are the same, it means that the quality of the works is about the same. Or, at the very least, they each have their own strengths. Behind such excellent works are excellent authors who have completed such ingenious stories. Therefore, the organizing committee has decided to continue as scheduled and reveal the true identity of both anonymous authors. Please welcome the author of ‘Candle in the Tomb’ and the author of ‘The Lost Tomb’ to the front of the stage to share their creative perspective and the process of completing this work. In the end, we will give the two authors a score based on that and a winner will be decided!”