-32- Plagiarism

The importance of HEC to the Waikiki studio is self-evident; it's no exaggeration to call it a do-or-die battle. Zhao Jinghuan, whose heart was in China, couldn't attend the event, but she wanted to know every minute of what was happening. So, even though she was busy working with her colleagues at Wanda Plaza during the day, she would send a few messages every ten minutes or so to Ji Anya, who was "out there" in her place, asking about the progress of the show. "Have the tickets started flowing in?" "How's the crowd today? How many people are lining up outside?" "How many blind boxes do we have?" "Try to hide as many as possible under the counter. Don't store them all in the warehouse. If crowds get too big and we run out of stock, that'll be a problem. With so many options, players won't necessarily wait for us to pick them up from the warehouse." At first, Ji Anya's "live broadcast system" worked reasonably well. While not always instantaneous, she'd at least send a few messages every hour or a photo or two of the action. But after 2 p.m., Ji Anya vanished from Zhao Jinghuan's radar, remaining silent until the end of the HEC show. Fortunately, the last message Zhao Jinghuan sent before going silent was, "There's a long line ahead. I'm drawing sugar figurines and sparks are coming out." Zhao Jinghuan could tentatively consider the show a success. The uneasy feeling she felt deep down wasn't due to the HEC, more than a dozen kilometers away, but to Hu Mingyuan, the bombastic speaker on stage. At five o'clock that evening, on the first-floor patio of Wanda Plaza, the host invited Hu Mingyuan to the stage for an interview, asking him to discuss his design philosophy. Hu Mingyuan spoke eloquently, and every time he felt he'd hit upon a golden phrase, he'd glance down at the audience with that smile that might seem okay to others, but Zhao Jinghuan found truly unpleasant. She didn't know if it was her imagination, but she felt like he was trying to make eye contact with her across the crowd. His roving gaze gave her goosebumps. Seeing all the company employees holding up their phones to record the event, she followed suit, holding her phone high, trying to avoid Hu Mingyuan's gaze by looking at it. As she held it up, she suddenly remembered what Sister Zou had said that morning. While it wasn't 100% accurate, the underlying principle was the same: "They're recording here to please the boss, so what am I doing?" At this thought, Zhao Jinghuan put down her phone and turned to leave. She found a quiet rest area on the first floor and sat down. Ji Anya had last...

The importance of HEC to the Waikiki studio is self-evident; it's a do-or-die battle. Zhao Jinghuan, whose heart was in China, couldn't attend the event, but she wanted to know every minute of what was happening. So, even though she was busy working with her colleagues at Wanda Plaza during the day, she would send a few messages every ten minutes or so to Ji Anya, who was "out there" in her place, asking about the show.

"Have the Euro Tickets started entering the market?"

"How's the crowds like today? How many people are queuing outside?"

"How many blind boxes have we prepared?"

"Try to hide as many items under the counter as possible, and don't store them all in the warehouse. If there's a large flow of people and we run out of stock, that'll be troublesome. With so many options, players won't necessarily wait for us to go to the warehouse to pick them up."

At first, Ji Anya's "real-time broadcast system" worked quite well. Although she didn't reply immediately, she would at least send a few words every hour, or return one or two pictures of the scene. But after two o'clock in the afternoon, Ji Anya seemed to have disappeared from Zhao Jinghuan's radar, and she didn't say another word until the end of the HEC exhibition that day.

Fortunately, the last message Zhao Jinghuan sent before she fell silent was, "There's a long line ahead. I'm about to get sparks from my sugar figurines." Zhao Jinghuan could tentatively consider today's exhibition a success. And the uneasy feeling she felt deep down wasn't due to the HEC, more than a dozen kilometers away, but to Hu Mingyuan, the bombastic speaker on stage. At five o'clock that evening, on the stage in the first-floor atrium of Wanda Plaza, the host invited Hu Mingyuan onto the stage for an interview, asking him to explain Mr. Hu's design philosophy.

Hu Mingyuan spoke eloquently, and every time he felt that he had said something "golden", he would look down at the stage with that smile that might seem okay to others, but seemed really uncomfortable to Zhao Jinghuan.

Zhao Jinghuan didn't know if it was her illusion, but she always felt that he was trying to make eye contact with her across the crowd. She was given goose bumps by Hu Mingyuan's wandering gaze. Seeing that all the employees in the company raised their mobile phones to record the video, she followed suit, holding up her phone high, trying to avoid Hu Mingyuan's gaze by looking at it.

As she was holding it up, she suddenly remembered what Sister Zou said in the morning. Although it was not 100% consistent, the principle was the same - "They are recording the video here to please the boss, what am I doing?" Thinking of this, Zhao Jinghuan put down her phone and turned to leave.

She found a quiet rest area on the first floor and sat down. Ji Anya had last replied to her message around 1:30 p.m., nearly five hours ago. And judging by the time, today's exhibition should be nearing its end. Zhao Jinghuan pulled out her phone to call Ji Anya, but no one answered.

She started to worry again, thinking that maybe things weren't going well today, and the people in Waikiki were discussing countermeasures, so they didn't have time to answer my call?

So she sent another WeChat message to Ji Anya: "How are you today?"

Just as the message was sent, Zhao Jinghuan saw a pair of leather shoes stop in front of her. She looked up and saw that it was Hu Mingyuan.

"Why did you come here to slack off? I was still on stage being interviewed when I saw you sneak away. Do you know how much of an impact this had on me?"

Zhao Jinghuan looked up at him, too lazy to even get up.

Hu Mingyuan asked her what she meant by not speaking: "Yiyi just told me that she asked you to sort out our inventory, but you refused."

Zhao Jinghuan nodded and said, "Yes, I refused. After all, my work has been done."

Hu Mingyuan asked her, "What do you mean by finished? After finishing this task, there are other tasks. If you feel that the tasks are not sufficient, I will ask the team leader to assign tasks for you personally."

Zhao Jinghuan shook her head: "You don't understand what I mean. I want to say that I have completed all the work for Mr. Hu Zi in the next year." As she was speaking, the cell phone in her hand suddenly rang. Hu Mingyuan was still saying something, but Zhao Jinghuan had no intention of listening: the message on the phone scared her.

Ji Anya said, "There was a fight. Someone said you guys plagiarized. It was quite a big fight."

Then came a video: several angry gamers rushed into the Little Freckles booth, shouting. Lu Kai pulled Zou Jie and Dorasi behind him, while Tomato and Evening Breeze rushed to the front, trying to stop the crowd from jumping into the booth. People pushed and shoved, and the Christmas tree behind Lu Kai, which was hung with blind boxes, collapsed with a loud bang.

…………

Zhao Jinghuan left Hu Mingyuan, ran out of Wanda, and took a taxi to the HEC exhibition venue. On the way, she called Ji Anya and asked her about her current situation. Ji Anya said that the matter was rather complicated and it was difficult to explain it clearly in a few words over the phone.

"Where are you going? I'll tell you when we meet."

More than ten minutes later, Zhao Jinghuan arrived at the HEC site. After getting off the car, she and Ji Anya who came out to pick her up entered the venue, which had long been closed to the public, through the back door. On the way, Ji Anya updated Zhao Jinghuan on the current situation.

She said a customer, waiting in line to buy Freckles, searched the company's name and discovered someone online had accused the Waikiki designer of plagiarism. The customer, a young woman who probably felt she had a strong sense of justice, saw the post and doused Lu Kai with a bottle of Coke.

When the security personnel went to stop her, she kept shouting that Waikiki was plagiarizing. Many players in the queue probably searched online at that time. Then, a few people ran to the booth and asked Lu Kai and others to explain the plagiarism.

Lu Kai and his friends seemed to have no idea what was going on, let alone an explanation. Later, someone in the crowd started to make a fuss, and things got out of control. The crowd shouting plagiarism even rushed in to smash the place and knocked down the "blind box tree" in Waikiki.

"When the organizers saw the commotion, they shut down our booth. Ms. Zou is currently out communicating with the organizers, and we don't know how this matter will be handled in the end."

Zhao Jinghuan's heart ached. They'd finally secured a spot in the HEC, only to have something like this happen. She followed Ji Anya into the second-floor lounge. Lu Kai, Fanqie, Wanfeng, and Dorasi were sitting there, all with furrowed brows.

After Zhao Jinghuan entered the room, Lu Kai was the first to stand up. Seeing Zhao Jinghuan's worried face, he comforted her and said, "Why did you come here specially? They are all small problems. Don't worry too much. We can handle them..." He said it somewhat reluctantly.

Tomato suddenly uttered a sarcastic remark, "Yeah, don't you have your own job? Why are you here?" Everyone in the room looked at him, and he realized his snarky remarks were completely unfounded. Tomato awkwardly slapped his face and apologized again, "I'm sorry, Jinghuan... I was in a bad mood and just ranted. Just treat it as a fart."

As they were talking, Sister Zou came back from outside. She was a little surprised to see Zhao Jinghuan, but she nodded at Zhao Jinghuan and then got down to business.

"The exhibition wants us to withdraw."

The people in the room were horrified, and Tomato even stood up and cursed: "Why? Just posting a message can get me kicked out? Then tomorrow I'll post one by one, and according to the list, I'll accuse each one of them of plagiarism, and they won't live!"

Sister Zou calmly watched him finish his yelling and cursing before saying, "I talked to them a bit, and they finally said that if we can explain the plagiarism issue tonight, and if we have very solid evidence to prove that the post accusing us of plagiarism is a lie, they'd be willing to issue a statement on our official website. After all, it might even be worth the wasted attention."

Zhao Jinghuan couldn't help but ask, "What evidence did the people who accused us of plagiarism provide? Does it look very similar to our design?"

Lu Kai nodded helplessly. "That post provided a comparison picture. They're practically identical. I should have used more complex elements earlier. My design is still too simple. Simple things are prone to colliding."

Zhao Jinghuan was a little confused. "Is the design of Little Freckles considered simple? We used so many elements, how did they manage to be exactly the same? Which one is it exactly like?"

"Ah, it's not Freckles." Lu Kai said, "You've seen it too. It's the 'backflip' figurine I designed before."

Zhao Jinghuan was stunned for a moment.

Author's Note

Yaunai

author

05-24

It's the end of the stage, readers, don't forget to vote for me. Just like the last stage, I'm currently in ninth place, but my subsequent works have clearly started to gain momentum in the past few days. While a lot of this comes down to computing power, I still hope to hold on! Thank you all!