Chapter 549

Chapter 549: I am a Writer-Night of Revival (2)

Translator: Lonelytree

The familiar stage, the familiar set. The lighting operator unleashed more than enough effects to daze an elephant to start the premier of this show. In the darkened corner of the contestant’s area, the seven contestants of this return special including Feng bujue had taken their seats. The cameraman at camera 1 moved the camera at a certain rhythm to create a barely discernible sense of mobility.

With an order of the director through the ear mic, the live DJ played a background music with heavy tempo. The next second, the host showed up. Oscar was still that Oscar, today he wore a casual grey western suit and a pair of dark jeans. He had an ear mic in his left ear and a mic attached to his lips. Similar to all the previous episodes, he was not disturbed by the nightclub-like music but stopped heavily and securely to the centre of the stage. The spotlights focused on the host. Oscar looked into the camera and used his booming voice to read out the intro, “Welcome to... I am Writer! I am your host, Oscar!” Then he followed it up with a bow.

The lights then moved to shower over the viewers’ seat. Under the four cameras responsible for the audience seat started to move, when the moment the audience clapped and cheered, the cameras panned over This kind of opening the workers had repeated multiple times, they could do it in their sleep. Unless Oscar accidentally slipped on stage or it would done in one take.

“My friends in the studio, before the television and on the internet...” After the BGM of the intro, Oscar continued, “Today is a very special day.” He paused for a few seconds before slightly turning his body about, “Today, on the stage of I am Writer, we have gathered seven contestants... that we are very familiar with.” Here it was where the host’s professionalism shone through, his every little pause and movement were deliberate. When he spoke, Oscar had naturally walked back several steps to arrive at the spot in front of the contestants’ area.

“Ever since the first broadcast of I am Writer, we have together experienced 20 such nights.” Oscar continued, “During this period, our show has welcomed in total 26 writers, each with their unique style and personality.” He took a deep breath. “But in the end... there will only be 7 writers... who will get onto the final stage.” At this point, he raised his arm high at 45 degrees to point at the big screen. On top of the big screen 6 writers’ pictures showed up. Every one of their appearance and expression had been photoshopped to look like mafia member and their pennames were placed underneath their pictures. And next to the six pictures there was an empty frame and the empty frame had just a black shadow with a big question mark imprinted on it.

“Our fourth contestant is Rose Saw.” This was a ‘personality-first writer’, she was famous for her extremely gothic writing style and appearance. Honestly... her work was not that popular and they had a very small reading base. But luckily she had a rich father who knew some people from the publication world... Just like that her strange writing was printed and sold, somehow getting some response from the public... Some critiqued her for pining without cause, some said she was misanthropic for no reason and others (mostly young teenagers) viewed her as their spiritual teacher. But regardless of the reason... be it criticism or praise, in today’s society where bad publicity was good publicity, her writing had carved out a niche of her own in the industry.

“Our fifth contestant is General Fei.” This was a young man about 27 or 28, his face was overly powdered with small eyes, slanted bangs and fashionably dressed, on appearance, he looked like a Korean boyband artist. He could be considered a senior in the industry, he had good-selling sales in both modern and xuanhuan genres, but he had not really gotten his big break. His rather simplistic writing ability and overused plot kept getting critiqued on, comments like ‘bad grammar, tons of fillers and increasingly lack of creativity’ was something he woke up to every day.

Oscar walked as he made his introduction before finally... he came to the last two seats. The arrangement of the seat for this round was based on the popularity online ranking, those with higher popularity would be arranged at the further back so Feng Bujue today was contestant number six. Honestly Feng Bujue really did not expect Brother “Soda” who was on the same episode as he was when he first came would have the least popularity among the seven of them. Even though it was already good enough to squeeze into top 7 from 20 eliminated writers, but this feeling was being the last... mustn’t have felt that good.

“Our sixth contestant is...” When Oscar came to Brother Jue’s seat, he even had a temporary eye contact with him, “Bujue.”

Two seconds later, Oscar turned and continued to the next. “and our last contestant... Contestant Number seven is Fire in the Night.” Earlier when he announced each contestant’s penname, there would be applause and cheers from the audience and the volume was accumulative so when it was Fire in the Night’s turn, it had reached the boiling point. Fire in the Night was a man about 30, he looked very unassuming but he was a God in the webnovel world who came to his rise this year with a masterpiece in the modern genre, no one was even close to rivalling his popularity this year. The popularity of his work even overshadowed the works of the other first writers like Xuan Tian Zhong and Vegetable Fruit.

“Alright, according to normal rules...” After the audience quieted down, Oscar returned to the centre of the stage with a smile, “... Now will be time to name this episode but...” His tone changed, “This episode is rather unique because we already have a name.” he raised his name to the big monitor and indeed the monitor already showed the title ‘Night of Revival’.

“Therefore, we will skip the naming part this episode.” Oscar gave the camera a mysterious look, “And...” After he said this word, he gave a very long pause before adding, “...the change to this episode will involve more than this small segment, on this night of revival, we will see completely brand new rules!”

At this moment, DJ gave several sound effects and the light flickered to create tension.

“Ha ha... there is no need for everyone to worry.” Oscar chuckled. “How about this... since our contestants this time are all our old friends already, for the start of this episode, we will have them greet the audience and give us their thoughts on their return to the stage.”