Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“Book number: 1688888. I have to say, this number is really easy to remember. The last digit is 8? What a coincidence. It’s in our team!” Wen Song quickly opened the page for “Battle Through the Heavens” and scanned through the data. “View: 105. Member Views: 68. Recommendations: 87. Word Count: 9268. Bookmarks: 51. The data looks fine. It’s pretty good for a new novel.”
Wen Song then opened the text and started reading.
“Hm? I like the beginning.” Wen Song nodded as he carried on. “A talented young man is suddenly down and out. This is to pave the way for what will happen later on. The protagonist is somewhat suppressed by the ridicule from the surrounding characters, which gives the readers a sense of eager anticipation. Hm, it’s his clansmen who suppress him first, and then Xiao Meier, and then there’s a twist when Xiao Xuner enters. This is a major highlight of the story, and creates strong expectations of the protagonist… I’m betting that the author has to be an experienced writer who only just registered, or is a talented rookie.”
After reading the subsequent scenes, Wen Song made a decision right away. “I’ll observe for two more days. If there aren’t any problems with the updates, this author has to stay. I don’t care if he’s an experienced writer or a talented new author. The entry point is really good, the overall atmosphere is there, and he has a very appealing writing style. If he can keep up this quality, this novel will explode!”
Wen Song had been an editor on the Fengyun website for six years. While the number of novels he had read might not be as many as ten thousand, it was definitely over a few thousand.
He had indeed never seen a novel entry point like in “Battle Through the Heavens” before.
So, he decided in a second: As long as the novel could maintain stable updates, he would offer the author a contract!
He sent the author, Flying Bean, a message through the system. “Hello, your work is being followed by the editors. Please keep up the good work.”
…
At “The Domestic Agent” film set, Wang Hao sat in front of the computer and continued promoting his novel.
He actually knew that it wasn’t helpful to promote his novel this way. Most people wouldn’t even click on it when they noticed it only had 9000 words — he understood this, when not one single person expressed curiosity after he sent out the promo messages.
There was nothing he could do. He was a total rookie, so he had no regular readers. Besides, even the best novel needed a certain word count as a foundation. Right now, his novel had less than 10,000 words. Hence, regardless of how impressive it was, how many readers would really be interested in it?
“Let’s see how many bookmarks there are.” Wang Hao skillfully opened and refreshed the author management page. Bookmarks: 53.
Two more, haha!
“Huh? There’s news? Are they offering me a contract?” Wang Hao quickly opened the message. He had a look, then sighed. “They’re just following the novel…” However, he abruptly got excited again. “Hehe, that’s also great! At least there’s news. This is a good thing, hehe.”
I’ll keep promoting it!
…
After Heaven Xiao created a new novel on the website, he sent Wen Song a message.
Heaven Xiao: “Wen Song, it’s ready. Title: Fight Through the Heavens. Book number: 1689034. F*ck, this number can’t compare at all!”
Wen Song: “It’s ok, the book number is just for identification. Don’t get discouraged. I’ll let you pass the review right away.”
Heaven Xiao: “Okay.”
The novel soon passed the review. Heaven Xiao then started to send promo messages to all of his reader groups. “Brothers, I’ve released the new novel. Please help me as soon as possible! Bookmark it, recommend it, and send rewards. Don’t miss out on anything!” He attached a link at the end of the message.
The readers in the groups responded one after another as they all began to bookmark and recommend the novel.
Once he sent the message to the main group, a number of them immediately discovered that the title wasn’t the one they had expected.
Smiling Angel: “Master Xiao, what happened to the title? The newbie didn’t sell it to you?”
Heaven Xiao: “Just drop it. I offered to give him 10,000 yuan but he still rejected me. F*ck, I even broke my keyboard for this!”
Smiling Angel: “F*ck, what a disgrace! He refused to sell it, not even for 10,000 yuan! He thinks his novel is made of gold?! How much can a newbie lose out on if he changes the title?”
Heaven Xiao: “Yeah, damn it. The editor said that changing the title without the author’s agreement will cause conflict. So, there’s nothing I can do. F*ck.”
Smiling Angel: “A good title and book number are wasted, just like that. What a f*cking shame!”
Heaven Xiao: “There’s nothing I can do. He just got a great deal. Ha…”
Smiling Angel: “Don’t be mad, Master Xiao. Leave him be. He’ll regret it in the future. I’ll go to Longshan to promote your new novel.”
Heaven Xiao: “Alright, go on. I’ll continue writing.”
…
The Longshan Forum was peaceful as usual. Many authors and readers were chatting, mostly about who got how many more subscriptions, which novel was nice, or which author was going to become a guru.
Soon, a netizen called Smiling Angel posted something that attracted everyone’s attention.
“To celebrate the release of Master Heaven Xiao’s new novel, ‘Fight Through the Heavens,’ we’re giving out free coins!”
Once the post was published, many netizens gathered to join in on the fun. The body of the post was as followed —
“It takes three years to grind a sword. It’s been three years since Master Heaven Xiao’s last novel, ‘The Perfect Swordsman.’ This year, Master Heaven Xiao has vowed to rise to the top and become the supreme guru. His new novel ‘Fight Through the Heavens’ has exploded on the scene! Today, we’re giving out 58 free coins each to 1000 people!
“Here’s the link. Netizens who receive the coins, please do me a favor and bookmark and recommend the novel Thank you so much!”
Netizens on Longshan Forum never ignored posts that gave out free coins, especially when it had to do with a guru’s new novel. They would definitely be willing to support him. Thus, after Smiling Angel posted the post, there were already more than thirty replies in just a few minutes. “Support!” “How can I waste a chance to get free coins?” “The title sounds nice. I’ll check it out!”
Of course, people couldn’t just take the free coins for nothing, and Heaven Xiao was a guru. So, quite a lot of the onlookers just opened the link and read the content. If they liked it, they would bookmark and recommend it.
This wasn’t troublesome to do, but the problem was that someone searched for the keywords “Through the Heavens” on the Internet and discovered that something wasn’t right…
“What’s this ‘Battle Through the Heavens’ at the top? Author: Flying Bean?” The curious netizen had a look at the page. “F*ck, this book number is unbelievable! This author is a newbie, right? I’ve never heard of him. The last update was at 9am today. It’s a new novel; let’s check it out. I hope it isn’t too terrible, otherwise such a good number would be wasted!”