Chapter 329 The Madness of Crazy Mountains!
Chapter 329 The Madness of Crazy Mountains!
He smiled happily because he had nothing to fear. Brin's inner reaction was: Who asked Bournemouth to be a "friendly city" with Weymouth?
If the town hall has a bad eye, they will be beaten, and if they are beaten, they will stand at attention.
It seems that their friendly city of Betws-y-Coed is Aberystwyth. The two complement each other, the latter is the home of the famous Aberystwyth University, and the former is a tourist town.
[Chinese writer Gu Lu writes another Cthulhu series work "Mountains of Madness"! ]
Yesterday, the promotional news in the newspaper was also a rare advance notice of the update.
Readers all over the UK now know that this series is not called the Weymouth series, but the Cthulhu series.
It doesn't matter. Others called it the Cthulhu series. We British people call it the Weymouth series. Weymouth is in the UK after all. Even if I take a step back, I am not from Weymouth, so the bad things have nothing to do with me. Brin's thoughts can represent many people.
Today, the sky fell in Wales!
Look at the serials section on page 4 of the Daily Express.
"At the Mountains of Madness" reveals more information about the world of Cthulhu than the previous short stories combined.
It tells the story of a group of professors from the University of Michigan who went to Antarctica for scientific research, including a biology professor, a history professor, and the male protagonist, a geology professor.
After arriving at Antarctica, a dispute arose over a certain point of view, and the scientific expedition team split into two small teams.
One of the teams discovered a black mountain range taller than Mount Everest, and found more than a dozen tall, barrel-shaped "corpses" of unknown creatures.
The "corpse" is the same as the ancient one of the ancient race described in the "Book of the Dead" in the library of the University of Michigan.
[Barrel-shaped body with five ridges, six feet tall, three and a half feet in diameter in the middle, one foot in diameter at each end. Dark grey, elastic, extremely tough. Wings seven feet wide, the same colour, found folded, unfolding from the grooves between the ridges…]
The book uses seven or eight hundred words to describe the appearance.
So why the quotation marks? Because the Ancient Ones are still alive.
In order to find out the truth, the protagonist, a geology professor, climbed up the Black Mountains by plane. He had no idea what a shocking thing he was about to face...
It can be said that Brin originally liked the Cthulhu series and would read every issue. Even if he couldn't buy a newspaper, he would spend a little more money to buy the Daily Express.
What attracts Brin's attention at the moment is not the plot, but the listed settings: the Migo in the Himalayas, Tsathoggua in the Far North, the followers of the planet Betes, the Qiuqiu people, and so on.
The appearance of Betws is not a coincidence! In the murals that the protagonist discovered about the history of the Ancients, there is: "Another octopus-like land race soon arrived from the boundless universe and launched a sudden and terrible war against the Ancients. They may correspond to the legendary Cthulhu clan that existed before humans... Later, the land in the Pacific Ocean suddenly sank, taking away the terrifying stone city of R'lyeh and most of the cosmic octopuses. The Cthulhu clan living on land only exists in Betws in the small town of Bezcord. So the Ancients once again dominated the planet."
This is not just a matter of a few words. Imagine the fate of Weymouth, another gathering place for racial lurkers. The term "Weymouth look" has become a term used on the British Internet to insult people for being ugly.
If the evil Chinese write something similar, fuck it!
Aren't they even more miserable? Because the Deep Diver of Weymouth, although the upper body doesn't look like a human, the lower body is human! But the Star Family, that thing is a giant octopus.
Do you think Brin will explode?
To be precise, all the people of Bezcord exploded.
"My God, why did you drag us into this terrible world?"
"What does what's happening in England have to do with Wales? Although it's a very novel experience to have the name of my hometown appear in a novel, I don't want this experience to come from a horror thriller."
"The Bezcoed Gazette also did not report any news about Chinese writers. I cannot understand it."
"I don't want to know what the Star Folk are."
Wait, it even directly alarmed the executive officer of the town of Bezcoed.
The tourism industry is the main economic pillar of Betws-y-Coed and cannot tolerate any problems.
"It is impossible for a Chinese writer to indiscriminately attack without any reason. Have you found out what happened?" the executive asked the secretary.
After more than ten minutes of effort, the secretary found the answer. "It's still the stupid Weymouth man Kane. He has been active in the Sun again recently. The problem is with last Wednesday's Sun."
The Sun is a newspaper distributed throughout the UK, so Bezcoed could naturally buy it. After the secretary found the key information, he showed it to the executive.
Kane's praise is a "plague" in the eyes of the executive officers, and Kane himself is the "source of the plague."
The executive officer immediately issued an announcement.
General announcements can be posted on the town bulletin board, which is next to the town hall and the largest local bar, so most people can see it.
But this time is different!
It is not mainly released to residents, but to outsiders.
[Eddie Courtetto, the executive officer of Betws-Coed, lodged a serious protest to the town of Weymouth in Dorset, England. He asked the people of Weymouth not to compare the two towns without authorization.
……
We hope that Weymouth Town Hall can formally apologize within 3 days, otherwise we at Betws-y-Coed will take all possible means of protest.
—Town Executive Eddie Kotrito]
The omissions in the middle are to promote the town tourism, for example, the town is located on the east side of Snowdonia National Park, is an important mountaineering entrance and tourist destination. Another example is the town's Pell Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. It also did not forget to mention how charming the Fairy Gorge scenery behind the bridge is.
Of course, the main content is still the first and last two paragraphs, which warn Weymouth by real name.
The attitude is very aggressive and tough.
If you think about it, Betws-y-Coed is located in Wales, and everyone knows that the Welsh, Northern Irish and English don't get along.
It's Kane himself who is to blame. If he had cited a small town in England as an example, the town would have been angry and would have at most called out to Kane himself.
Who told him to mention a small Welsh town...
Kane had a good week, but it came to an abrupt end today.
He received two pieces of news, one was bad news and the other was even worse.
The bad news is that Gu Lu paused the serialization for a week and resumed it this week.
The worse news is that the Weymouth executive directly stated that Kane is not from Weymouth!
First of all, let me make it clear that there is no difference between the parallel world and the earth. The UK does not have a household registration system. According to the "settlement law", you are a person of the place where you work.
So what happened is that thousands of people in the village of Portsham voted and 90 percent agreed to strip Kane Vanzestone of his status.
The remaining 10% were more conservative and did not participate in the vote. After all, they proposed to remove the entire Vanzerstone family!
[The town of Weymouth welcomes everyone, except Kane Van Zellstone] This is the small print on the official website and the signboard entering the town.
Is it cruel? No!
The Weymouth executive was also angry and criticized him last time, "Please don't hurt your hometown." After a while of silence, he breathed a sigh of relief, but he turned around and had a big shit.
If Bournemouth just condemned, then Bezcoard was close to the output. What did the others in Weymouth do wrong? There is no reason to pay for one person's mistakes.
Snapped!
Kane got slapped.
But it wasn't his hot-tempered father, Quinn, who did it, but rather his mother, Mrs. Vanzelstone.
Mrs. Vanzelstone's eyes were red, and her hand was shaking as she pointed at the child.
"Your father asked you to apologize, but you refused. I didn't try to persuade you because you believed you were right. I supported you." Mrs. Vanzeston's voice choked with sobs. "Why did you continue to provoke that Chinese man?"
"Would you like to see our whole family expelled from Weymouth?" inquired Mrs. Vanzelstone.
Quinn was so emotional that he hugged his wife, worried that she would faint from anger.
"Mother, I..." Kane wanted to explain something.
"Stop talking. We don't want to see you right now." Quinn patted his wife's back gently.
As a result, Kane was kicked out of the house. Even though he paid for the rent of the house in London, Kane could not say anything.
Wandering around the streets in a daze, he never expected that the Chinese writer was so insidious.
If Gu Lu directly described Bezcoede as Weymouth, he would be attacked by the people of Bezcoede! Because the people of Bezcoede are innocent.
But in "At the Mountains of Madness", it was only mentioned in a few brief sentences, indicating that it could be continued or not, so the outlet for anger fell on him.
The phone rings——
The caller was Monroe, editor-in-chief of The Sun. Damn it! Kane didn't answer the call.
But then another call came in. Kane took a deep breath and answered the call.
The call was answered by a Cockney East End accent, "I'm so sorry for you, Mr. Kane. You're the first person to be voted out of your hometown. It's a shame."
What a joy it is to hear the voice of Monroe's regret.
Kane didn't say anything, and Monroe didn't care. He continued to talk about the call, "Mr. Kane, now is a very good opportunity. I think it is very important for you to publish an article immediately to express your opposition to the Chinese."
I will never believe the editor again! Kane was about to respond when he heard the other party say, "If you are not in the mood to write at the moment, then our newspaper can help you." The Sun is like a cement mixer, mixing his flesh and blood with cement to build a media building. Countless people must have suffered this situation before.
After a long silence, Kane said, "Mr. Monroe, that Chinese guy is not easy to mess with. Aren't you really afraid that he will target The Sun?"
I am dying of laughter. Who can criticize The Sun? A tree without bark is doomed to die. A person without shame is invincible.
Monroe wanted to laugh out loud and express his fearlessness, but when he thought of the tragic scene of the blood-stained man in front of him, he couldn't say anything and could only laugh dryly.
It doesn’t matter if The Sun takes a vulgar route, but what if Gu Lu turns his target to Murdoch Media Group, the parent company of The Sun?
Yes, after this incident, even the unscrupulous editor-in-chief of The Sun was afraid.
Gu Lu is talented and can use stories to attack people. The key is that he also likes to punish others collectively and is an expert at killing the chicken to scare the monkey!
The Cthulhu series has accumulated more and more readers, and its reputation is catching up with that of first-tier authors.
Perhaps because of different living habits, one may think that just posting a few short articles can have such an exaggerated effect, which is very exaggerated.
In fact, Europe and the United States have the habit of serializing in newspapers to gain popularity. It seems that Stephen King, who does not exist in the parallel world, went from being a student newspaper to serializing in Playboy. Conan Doyle, who also exists in the parallel world, went from being a failed writer whose "A Study in Scarlet" was rejected many times to becoming famous after serializing five short stories in the monthly magazine "Seaside Magazine"!
Compared to "The Gloom at Weymouth", "The Portsham Terror", "Dagon", "Weymouth Asylum" and "At the Mountains of Madness", there are exactly five articles!
Readers majoring in fine arts drew the appearances of the Deep Ones, the Ancient Ones, the Shoggoths, Dagon, and the Star-Family based on the descriptions in the book.
Gu Lu's serialized works did not have illustrations, so Internet readers drew different illustrations and even had disputes.
Unlike the anxious Bezcode people, pure readers have limited discussions on the plot: "Is Cthulhu the most powerful god in this series?" "Technology is too advanced, and the ancients were wiped out by the species they created, the Shoggoths." "The world view is too huge, when will the author publish a setting collection?" "The Crazy Mountains are too exciting, and I'm curious if the scientific expedition team hadn't locked up the sled dogs and Chinese dogs, could they have survived?" "The sled dogs are not good enough and will definitely not win, but the Chinese dogs should be able to delay time because they have bitten the Children of the Outer Gods to death." "Can you write more? Is the Daily Express not paying enough?"...
The plot being discussed is roughly about the scientific expedition vanguard team that excavated the huge body, and when faced with the barking of the Chinese hound, they thought it was because it was too cold and the dog was not used to it, so they built a fence on the spot to keep it locked up.
When the rear team arrived at the camp, the scene was in a mess. The bodies of the team members had been cut up, and the strongest muscles were missing. There were also salt grains found next to them...
A reader popped up and said, "It should be a question of inspiration. I forgot who said that Gu Lu's inspiration came from discrimination. Who can confirm it?"
That's what they say, but no one dares to put it into action.
Since Puffin Books spent B-level publicity resources, the publicity effect is quite good, at least the publicity is in line with the times.
Seeing this, the Internet immediately changed its propaganda to [Gu Lu, who wrote the Weymouth series, is about to release his new book Mr. Holmes! ]
But the effect was not good. "The Weymouth series is wonderful, but other works should not be hyped. I only recognize Gu Lu's horror and thriller works. He has the potential to become China's Edgar Allan Poe."
"It's almost time, it's almost time." Godie felt that his time to take the top position was coming. He would buy Mr. Holmes as soon as possible, and then hehe...
That’s right, Godet, the British mystery writer who blasted Gu Lu, also intensively searched the Internet for news about Gu Lu.
Regarding today's hot topic of discussion, Goddie is still worried, fortunately Warriors Kane is in front to take the blame.
"Mr. Kane Van Zestone, I will always remember you." Godie said with a smile on his face.
It's really abominable. Even if "Mr. Holmes" failed, Gu Lu could start over with the Cthulhu series. Godie suddenly felt a little jealous.
As the saying goes, the English version of The Little Prince did not cause much sensation in the UK, but the short story he wrote in response made Gu Lu a celebrity.
Currently, Gu Lu’s subject matter is very broad, including science fiction, fairy tales, mystery, horror, and light novels.
However, I have not yet become a master of short stories, and I haven’t even completed the first step of my small goal.
Still need to keep working hard!
"Did the confession succeed?"
Let me make it clear first, Gu Lu is definitely not a gossipy person, he is mainly concerned about the emotions of his classmates.
Li Guyuan was silent for a moment, "What confession? Nothing."
"Oh?" Gu Lu hugged Li Guyuan and said, "Tell me in detail."
"When I sent Yanzi home, she suddenly asked me what university she was going to apply to. I hadn't thought about it yet, but she said her goal was Zhejiang University, and then I understood." Li Guyuan's face was as red as if she had eaten a bitter melon, "There's no need to confess."
"…"So what did you understand? Gu Lu didn't understand at all.
As if seeing the confusion of Gu Lu, a single man, Li Guyuan explained, "Zhejiang University is one of the top ten universities in the country. This answer means 'I want to study hard and not pay attention to other things'."
No, is that what it means? Gu Lu looked at Tang Yuan and thought, you are overthinking it.
If He Yan really has a voice-over, is it possible that she wants to be admitted to the same university as you?
"Brother, don't be so pessimistic." Gu Lu comforted, "Let's think positively."
"This question may have other meanings, but the tone of Yan Zi's words at the time only gave this explanation," Li Guyuan said, "a polite refusal."
What else can he say? Gu Lu changed the subject and asked, "Has the music doll been approved?"
The manuscript was Gu Lu's "prediction" that music would become more and more rubbish because of big data push. Although Li Guyuan didn't believe it after listening to it, he felt that this idea was very interesting.
"I submitted it to Youth Digest and it was accepted." Li Guyuan's thoughts were slightly diverted.
"I told you there's nothing wrong with your writing skills!" Gu Lu was very happy.
"It's mainly because the subject is good," Li Guyuan said. "I feel like I write about things around me, so it's really hard to have wild and imaginative creativity."
"There is a director in Neon called Yasujiro Ozu," Gu Lu said. "He was a famous director in the middle of the last century, and Neon directors born in the 1980s and 1990s all admired him. Do you know what he shot?"
Li Guyuan watched the follow-up closely.
"He basically shoots family ethics films, which are all ordinary stories between fathers, daughters, wives and sons. He even doesn't change the camera when filming." Gu Lu said, "A writer who can write good stories about people around him is definitely a good writer."
"I haven't heard of it. I'll go watch his movies when I get back."
"That's not necessary. This rubbish once served in the QH Army." Gu Lu said, "I didn't know about this when I watched his movie. I was disgusted when I found out later."
"It's garbage," Li Guyuan asked, "Then why do you still mention this person?"
Originally, Gu Lu was going to talk about Li Ang, but there was no such person in the parallel world.
"I'm just using his work as an example," said Gu Lu.
“No matter how good the work of a rubbish person is, it is still rubbish,” Li Guyuan said. “The person and the work can be separated, but this heinous crime cannot be separated.”
"What you said makes sense..."
Gu Lu's thoughts turned to another thing. Through chatting, he thought about this and it involved cultural output.
Why did he know this director? Because every year, Sight & Sound, the UK's top film magazine, invites film critics from all over the world to select the ten best films in film history.
In 2012, Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story" ranked first. What monsters ranked behind it? 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a Half, Citizen Kane, The Godfather...
He was curious at the time, what kind of movie was so awesome.
"We need to go out to sea with greater force!" Gu Lu clenched his fist.
The school is very supportive of the work going overseas. If you don’t believe me, look at the library of No. 8 Middle School. There are actually two versions of The Little Prince, English and Japanese. In short, all the books published by Gu Lu are purchased. Even though no one borrows works in foreign languages.
"The professors are visiting the school together. Professors from Shanghai Jiaotong University are coming to communicate with the high school in Fog City. Isn't it a bit... a bit strange!" Vice Principal Lu pondered.
Principal Chang was personally overseeing the re-bidding of the school cafeteria, and all matters involving Gu Lu were handled by him.
Other leaders, such as Vice President Lu, or Vice President Lu, or Vice President Lu, are not allowed to appear in front of the talented writer.
So, the task of entertaining the professor from Shanghai Jiao Tong University fell on him.
"If he doesn't even allow me to have a sip of soup, sooner or later there will be problems with his position as principal." Vice Principal Lu thought to himself as he walked to the Party Propaganda Department office.
Before I even entered the door, I heard complaints from inside.
"The environment on Bilibili is too immature. There are no mature users, and no one watches the videos we post."
The publicity department of No. 1674 Middle School finally registered an account. How many fans does it have now? .
What kind of video did he post? How nice the playground grass is, how nice the teaching building is, how neat the students' reading voices are, etc. The reason why it has over a thousand views is that No. 8 Middle School is known as the best in the foggy city.
"We need to break through 50,000 followers this semester. The task assigned by Principal Chang is too difficult."
"How about asking for help?"
(End of this chapter)