Ma Yiqun laughed heartily, as if he had heard a very amusing joke: “What kind of person do you think Mr. Pei is?”
“Mr. Pei is broad-minded and has a long-term vision. Headwind Logistics is still suffering huge losses, but has Mr. Pei ever said a negative word? He still has complete trust in the leadership there!”
“For such a trivial matter, how could Mr. Pei possibly nitpick? You’re underestimating him.”
Cui Geng thought about it and realized it did seem that way.
Mr. Pei was so magnanimous, how could he possibly give him a hard time over a book? That was impossible.
“Alright, CEO Ma, I’ll change it right away!”
“Luckily, I don’t have too many chapters stockpiled yet, and the content doesn’t need major changes, so I should be able to revise it quickly,” Cui Geng said with high spirits.
Ma Yiqun was very satisfied with Cui Geng’s attitude. It looked like Cui Geng was truly serious about writing this time.
“Here’s what I’m thinking: if you can maintain five chapter updates daily during the New Year holiday, I’ll talk to Zhu Xing’an about getting your book on the recommendation list early!”
“You write faster, and we’ll push the recommendations faster. Let’s aim to produce a hit in the urban novel channel!”
Cui Geng was flattered: “Great, no problem! I won’t go anywhere for a few days during the New Year. I’ll just stay home and write!”
…
After receiving Ma Yiqun’s suggestions, Cui Geng was even more motivated.
Being strongly promoted by the website’s top management, could there be any better promotional resources?
Now, all Cui Geng needed to do was write as much as possible while ensuring quality, updating 10,000 characters daily, so that those readers who liked to wait until a book was fully published before reading could start following earlier.
Right now, Cui Geng’s creative desire was at its peak. Before the Spring Festival, he had collected a lot of material at Tenda Games, which could be used in his book with just a little processing.
All he needed to consider was how to write them in a more dramatically conflicting way.
Cui Geng hugged his laptop and typed frantically.
“Even if my family’s house gets demolished ten more times, nothing can stop me from writing this story completely and perfectly!”
…
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Cui Geng revised and straightened out both the five published chapters and his remaining drafts before continuing with the plot.
He was surprised to find that writing according to Ma Yiqun’s suggestions was indeed effective!
Previously when he was writing, he always felt like something was missing, making writing feel constrained.
After writing a section of the plot, he always felt it wasn’t perfect and wanted to go back and make changes.
But how exactly should he change it? He couldn’t articulate it clearly.
So, although Cui Geng wrote quite quickly at that time, he always felt uneasy.
But now it was different. After Ma Yiqun’s guidance, Cui Geng discovered that he could intersperse many interesting transition plots about the protagonist into the original storyline, making the writing more smooth.
And after finishing and reading through it, he felt very satisfied. That feeling of always wanting to revise something was gone!
Cui Geng instantly felt his creative thoughts flowing like a spring. Hugging his laptop, he entered a state of complete immersion where he forgot himself and the outside world.
As Cui Geng updated more and more chapters, the comments below the book began to change.
“Hmm? Has the beginning been revised?”
“The previous beginning was already good, but this one seems even more interesting!”
“I was planning to never read the pigeon spirit’s books again, but unconsciously I’ve read up to the latest chapter. Damn!”
“Well, complaints aside, I have to admit the pigeon spirit’s books are still good! This beginning is written engagingly enough that I’m afraid I’m falling into another trap!”
“I just want to ask if you can write to two million characters this time!! Actually, never mind, I won’t expect it. Just write as much as you can…”
“I suddenly realized that urban fiction can be this good, too!”
“Strange, I thought changing from fantasy to urban would lose a lot of readers, but I noticed those familiar old IDs are still here? You all were clamoring about never reading the pigeon spirit’s books again, but now you’ve ‘changed your tune’…”
“This book is indeed very interesting, humorous, and witty, and this writing style is very clever. Using a small coincidence to change the world, and it has a subtle warmth to it that’s especially nice!”
“After getting tired of fantasy and immortal cultivation novels where conflicts instantly lead to killing entire families, it’s nice to change flavors occasionally. Here’s my vote, but if you dare abandon this book halfway again, I’ll send razor blades to your home!”
“Is updating five chapters a day during the new book period okay? Aren’t you afraid of not getting recommendations?”
“Still worried about no recommendations? The recommendations for this new book are already excessively good. It feels like the website is intentionally promoting this book!”
“It’s indeed quite interesting. I’m going to share it with my friends to read!”
…
…
February 4, the second day of the Lunar New Year.
Afternoon.
Cold wind howled past as Pei Qian stood at the entrance of an internet café not far from home, opening his coat to fan himself, trying to disperse the cigarette smell from his body as quickly as possible.
“Ah, I should have opened a Slackin’ Internet Café near my home earlier…”
Pei Qian shivered in the cold wind, and a melancholic thought couldn’t help but appear in his mind.
During the New Year period, there weren’t really many good entertainment activities.
Today was the second day of the Lunar New Year. Pei Qian had met up with a few childhood friends and classmates, hanging out for the day.
Considering the limited activities available in the small county town, everyone first went to the cinema to watch a movie, then after lunch, went to an internet café for some gaming.
After watching the movie, Pei Qian’s mood was a bit complicated.
Of course, the main feeling was still relief!
Previously, he had planned to release “Beautiful Tomorrow” during the Spring Festival, thinking that since Spring Festival was a time for family reunions, such a movie would definitely be criticized harshly, and the box office would flop.
Moreover, with the Spring Festival season crowded with blockbusters, “Beautiful Tomorrow” would surely be overshadowed.
But after watching the most hyped movie of the Spring Festival season today, Pei Qian had only one feeling: What nonsense is this!
He completely forgot which movies were released during the 2011 Spring Festival, but looking at the few films currently showing, not a single one was decent.
After leaving the cinema, he checked on his phone and only then discovered that the “Spring Festival season” of this era wasn’t really considered a good release period at all…
None of the currently showing films had ratings above 7 on ticket-selling websites, and the expected box office was less than 200 million yuan, which was truly eye-opening for Pei Qian.
Thinking back carefully, he realized that the “hot Spring Festival season” in his memory only became popular after Stephen Chow’s “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” in 2013…
This world had undergone some changes, and the films were completely different from Pei Qian’s memories, so while the concept of the “Spring Festival season” existed, there weren’t really any good films.
Thinking about this, Pei Qian felt a strange sense of trepidation.
Perhaps “Beautiful Tomorrow” released during the Spring Festival might actually not lose money!
It wasn’t that Pei Qian lacked confidence in his own film, but mainly that the few Spring Festival films were truly too terrible—they made his film look good by comparison.
Pei Qian felt that “Beautiful Tomorrow” not being released during the Spring Festival might be a good thing.
Hopefully, when his film was released, there would be one or two blockbusters to compete with it…
As for the afternoon gaming session.
There weren’t many good internet cafés in the county town. Even choosing the best one, smoking was still allowed, which suffocated Pei Qian.
He could only say that he hadn’t thought that far ahead initially, only setting up a Headwind Station near his parents’ home for their convenience in receiving packages, while completely overlooking the possibility of a Slackin’ Internet Café.
“I’ll have to tell Zhang Yuan later to open a Slackin’ Internet Café in this area. Whether it makes or loses money, at least by next Spring Festival I’ll have somewhere to go online…”
“Wait, that’s not right, Zhang Yuan has already been eliminated by my first-place elimination system.”
“I’ll talk to the new head of Slackin’ Internet Café after the New Year, then…”
Pei Qian dispersed the cigarette smell outside before saying goodbye to his childhood friends and high school classmates, then headed back.
Walking on the road, Pei Qian thought about his gaming experience at the internet café today.
When his childhood friends and high school classmates were deciding which game to play, they hesitated between IOI and GOG.
Clearly, as two recently emerged competitive games, both IOI and GOG had strong influence among the player base.
But after deliberating for a while, they still chose IOI, which made Pei Qian very gratified.
Indeed, the masses have a discerning eye; IOI was still superior!
However, after truly immersing himself in the game, Pei Qian discovered that IOI was quite different from LOL. The heroes had basically no similarities, and the operations were more complicated.
Moreover, currently playing IOI in China requires using a VPN to connect to foreign servers, so latency issues were quite serious.
Of course, this didn’t affect its current popularity.
Not just in Slackin’ Internet Café, but in many other internet cafés’ game lists, both IOI and GOG were regularly featured.
Internet café owners were very good at observing trends. Whatever games were popular among customers would immediately be arranged into the internet café’s game list.
And IOI had just updated a new version today, since the United States doesn’t celebrate Spring Festival.
When he was almost home, his phone rang.
Pei Qian thought it was his mother calling him home for dinner, but when he took out his phone in the cold wind, it turned out to be Li Yada calling.
“Hmm? Why call me now?”
“New Year greetings?”
“But didn’t she already send a text message on New Year’s Eve?”
Pei Qian answered the phone with confusion.
Li Yada’s slightly anxious voice came from the other end: “Mr. Pei! I noticed that IOI seems to have updated a new version. Did you notice it?”
Pei Qian: “Oh, I know. What about it?”
Li Yada was stunned, seemingly not expecting Mr. Pei to be so calm, even with a hint of… delight?
“Mr. Pei, after this version update, GOG’s competitiveness compared to IOI has greatly decreased! Finger Company doesn’t celebrate Spring Festival!”
“Although the ten-day Spring Festival holiday seems insignificant, our game is already far behind IOI. If we delay further, the situation will only get worse, and we might never catch up!”
“Could I apply to return to work early? I know overtime isn’t right, but the situation is urgent…”
Pei Qian frowned.
Return to work early???
How dare you!