After the message was sent, there was no reply. Gu Xun should be busy.

Qi Cong hesitated for a moment before he typed a few more words to send to him.

Qi Cong: Good luck with your work.

After doing this, he exited his Wechat, reined in all his emotions, and opened Weibo– Zhao Zhenxun said in the morning that Wu Heng issued a statement which made him feel concerned all day.

The statement was easy to find. It was on the hot search list. Qi Cong opened it, swept it at a glance, and then frowned coldly.

Wu Heng’s statement was not long, only a few hundred words and the content could be summarized into four points.

1. He apologized for not telling the readers that the title of “Chivalrous Bones” and the name of the protagonist was taken from other people’s work.
2. He denied plagiarism or continuing to write from the other people’s beginning work, borrowing plots, or borrowing anything established by others.
3. He accused the new author of posting a lie, saying that the time of his acquaintance with the newcomer was earlier than the time of their post and that he and this newcomer didn’t get to know each other from this forum at all. He also very confidently welcomed the author of the post to give evidence that he and this newcomer knew each other from this forum.
4. He poured dirty water, saying that he didn’t continue to write from the beginning novel of the newcomer, but that the newcomer, after chatting with him, secretly used his plot behind his back to improve the beginning of a novel he sent. Coincidentally, later, in order to find the other person who he lost contact with, he used the title of the new author (according to him, the new author said it hasn’t been published yet) and the name of the main character. Under various kinds of messy mistakes, he created a situation where he couldn’t explain it clearly.

At the bottom of the statement, Wu Heng also posted several chat records and a record of the release time and the historical revision time of beginning chapters of “Chivalrous Bones” written by ‘Murmuring Water’ in the old site of JiangWan.com.

There were a total of five chat notes. The two persons shown in the chat records was someone with the ID of ‘Gouache’ and Wu Heng. The earliest chat record showed the time of four years ago.

In the first record, ‘Gouache’ says that he is a fan of Wu Heng, and hoped that Wu Heng would not mind his rash behavior of adding him through a group of novel readers. Wu Heng’s attitude was very good and he replied it was all right and also thanked the reader for their love.

The time of the second record is a few months after the last one, in which ‘Gouache’ said that he also wanted to write a novel and asked Wu Heng for advice and patient guidance.

The chat time of the third record was pushed back a few months after, when Wu Heng sent a screenshot of a document entitled “Chivalrous Bones” Plot Analysis to ‘Gouache’.

The chat time of the fourth and fifth sheets were the latest. Wu Heng asked ‘Gouache’ if he had posted it, and if he needed help with recommending it. ‘Gouache’ replies that he hasn’t posted it and was too busy in his real life, and would never touch writing again.

The last of the screenshot was from the old jiangwan.com website, clearly showing that not long after the third message was sent, Murmuring Water’s version of “Chivalrous Bone” had been revised fully at least once.

Maybe the air conditioner in the car was too cold which made goosebumps rise uncontrollably on Qi Cong’s arms.

Even after knowing him for nearly a year, Qi Cong never knew that Wu Heng had such a cunning side. He also never knew that while he was chatting with Wu Heng about “Chivalrous Bones,” Wu Heng also used “Chivalrous Bones” to talk with someone else.

It was someone else. The ‘Gouache’ in these five chat records with Wu Heng was not him, he had never even heard of this person. The only thing he was familiar with in this screenshot was the document Wu Heng sent to ‘Gouache’ in the third screenshot.

He remembered the process by which this document was made.

At that time, he just figured out the complete outline of “Chivalrous Bones”, and found that there were several small settings at the beginning of the first version that needed to be changed. Because there was a lot of discussion with Wu Heng during that time, he told Wu Heng about this small change. Wu Heng was very interested, and said he wanted to see the complete outline, so he sent it to him. A day later, Wu Heng sent an analysis of the complete outline and made several suggestions.

That analysis was the one Wu Heng sent to ‘Gouache’ in the record.

What makes Qi Cong feel even more terrible is that in terms of time, Wu Heng seemed to have sent the analysis to ‘Gouache’ first, and only a few hours later sent this document to him.

What was Wu Heng thinking? Why would he do that?

Qi Cong looked again at the screenshot of the old website of JiangWan.com

JiangWan.com would automatically record the initial post time of each novel and the time of each chapter revision. This data could be seen by all through the interference of the page. The modification shown in the screenshot, which was used by Wu Heng to fight back, was the revision of the small settings he changed after talking with Wu Heng.

As a whole, the statement was written brilliantly.

The complete chat record, the unchangeable article revision time, and the analysis of the plot of “Chivalrous Bone” sent out from Wu Heng’s side. All of these combined will make anyone who does not know the truth believe Wu Heng words.

Wu Heng should have taken advantage of the fact that no one can get evidence that they got to know each other on the forum, and because his social accounts have been canceled, he dared to tell such a big lie. After all, the post he made in the first place had only existed for less than ten minutes, it is already a miracle that someone could see and remember the content of the post. It was almost impossible for someone to take and save the screenshot of this post.

Qi Cong’s heart went completely cold.

Back then, he really thought of Wu Heng as a friend, and he was grateful to him for his guidance and help. Before he read this statement, he still had some belief in Wu Heng, but now….

He clicked on the comment section under the statement and read it.

Several bloggers and people who were certified as actors, directors, and screenwriters appeared in the comments section to express their support for Wu Heng. Wu Heng fans were so excited that they rushed to express their gratitude under the comments of these people.

In addition to expressing support, there were also many people who scolded ‘Murmuring Water’ for “stealing” Wu Heng’s ideas…and Gu Xun.　

Qi Cong eyes fixed on two hot comments, the seventh and eighth.

Waterbaby: It reversed aaaahhhhh! I knew Wu Heng wouldn’t plagiarize. Waterbaby was so aggrieved oooooh. Although I know that Gu Xun was also misled by his friends to spread rumors like that, I still feel that Gu Xun should apologize to ‘Water Without a Trace’. It felt irresponsible for him to say things about Wu Heng in public without proof that it was true.

Spring Wind Drunk: I was a passer-by fan of Gu Xun before, and this incident has made me turn my back on Gu Xun. As a public figure, I think he should be more careful with his words. And I think, as he is a double gold Movie Emperor, picking a fight with the novel circle is…kinda low.

Public opinion has become completely biased towards Wu Heng.

After all, Gu Xun splashed some water in this incident.

Qi Cong looked into the topic of “Water Without a Trace, Clarification” on the hot search.

In this topic, the comment area was not so harmonious. There were many people spraying dirt as well as some of Gu Xun’s black fans taking advantage of this opportunity to jump inside to insult Gu Xun, saying that Gu Xun will be forced to take back his words.

Qi Cong looked at a few comments and then couldn’t go on. He put down his phone and looked out at the night outside the car window, trying to calm down.

It was all right, when his hard drive and notes arrive tomorrow, he will determine the contents of the hard drive and the notes before sending them out. People won’t say things like this about Gu Xun then. Gu Xun didn’t do anything wrong. It was because he was too trusting that Gu Xun was implicated. It was because of him that Gu Xun–.

He suddenly bowed his head and took out his mobile phone again, left Weibo and opened his browser. He found the old site of JiangWan.com, logged in under his pen name and entered the background management page to click on his novel to publish a new chapter. He quickly input the content he wanted and paused for two seconds before pressing the publish button hard.

The prompt of ‘Successful Chapter Published’ popped up. After three years, the fourth chapter of “Chivalrous Bones” finally appeared.

There was only one sentence in it.

[To Water Without a Trace I am Murmuring Water. Tomorrow night, Weibo confrontation, do you dare?]

Almost as soon as the chapter was released, comments on the new chapter skyrocketed. Qi Cong didn’t want to read the comments so he was about to put away his phone and stop caring about these things and wait for tomorrow’s package arrival when his mobile phone vibrated.

A new Wechat message showed in the prompt bar.

Gu Xun: Are you finished?

As soon as Qi Cong stopped putting his phone away, he looked at the familiar cat profile picture, and the hard feeling in his heart suddenly disappeared. He clicked on the message and typed back with both hands.

Qi Cong: I’m done.

Qi Cong: I’m sorry for troubling you.

Qi Cong: I will deal with these things.

It took a while for Gu Xun to reply.

Gu Xun: Have you browsed Weibo?

Gu Xun: Are you angry?

Gu Xun: Then go and read it again. Remember to go to my Weibo first to look. Don’t look at the other mess.

Gu Xun: Don’t worry. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t mention you.

This kind of gentle tone was exactly the same as in his memory, as if the two of them have not been separated for three years, nor have they experienced deception or injury.

Qi Cong was a little distracted, and after reflecting on the meaning of Gu Xun words, he didn’t want to reply to Gu Xun’s message. He quickly clicked on Weibo and searched for Gu Xun’s name.

A large number of pirated accounts appeared, and Qi Cong was stunned again. Then he realized that  Gu Xun’s Weibo account was ‘Looking Back on the Flowers’ and not Gu Xun’s real name, so he was busy searching again.

When typing the word “Cong”, the word “Gao” automatically appears in the input box. Qi Cong lifts his thumbs up to the edge of the phone and selects the word “Cong” after “Gao”.

This time the searched account was finally right. Qi Cong opened Gu Xun’s homepage and the most recent Weibo post appeared on the screen.

“Looking Back on the Flowers”:

Looking Back on the Flowers V: I don’t think it’s a very low thing to speak up for justice. @SouthernTian

The post was accompanied by three images and a link underneath.

Qi Cong clicked first to open the picture.

The first image was a screenshot of the homepage of a pirated novels website, and in the center of the screenshot was the website’s novel works library with “Chivalrous Bones” by Murmuring Water circled in red.

In the second picture, it was still the pirate website, but the content of the page becomes the article information of “Chivalrous Bones”. The information showed that the three chapters of “Chivalrous Bone” were updated in mid-2016, only one day later than the time Qi Cong published “Chivalrous Bones” on JiangWan.com

This meant that when Qi Cong just published “Chivalrous Bones” on JiangWan.com, the pirate website had stolen it at the same time, and it was never updated since.

The third picture was still of the pirate website, but the page content became the content of the first chapter of Chivalrous Bones, and then in the center of the page, a line of bold red letters read like this: “I heard that after chatting with Wu Heng, ‘Murmuring Water’ secretly took Wu Heng’s plot structure behind Wu Heng’s back to improve his own novel? Let’s see, did ‘Murmuring Water’ really change the content of the chapter?

The tone of this Weibo was totally different from the gentle and affectionate WeChat, appearing to be domineering and powerful.

Qi Cong looked at these pictures repeatedly.

These…. Where did Gu Xun find it? He only released three chapters of this small cold novel, but there was a theft at the same time?

Even with this information, could it still be done like this? Using the pirated text of “Chivalrous Bones” on the Internet to prove that Wu Heng was lying?

Qi Cong looked toward the last link, reaching his finger to click on it.

The pages of the pirated novel website jumped out.

Qi Cong: “…”

As a Screenwriting Major, Qi Cong has strong feelings about copyright rules. But right now…his mood was somewhat complicated. What was even more complicated for him was that he couldn’t understand the real character of Gu Xun.

Gu Xun, who was fierce and domineering when they met again and had an unpredictable attitude during their first conversation. Gu Xun, who was rational and easy to communicate with when they were talking in the car, who was gentle and friendly in WeChat, and now in Weibo he was domineering and powerful. Each Gu Xun was different. Which one was the real Gu Xun?

 

Edited by: Antiope1

 

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