Thursday, January 31st.

Pei Qian was still in his office, racking his brains for his graduation thesis.

During this period, he had re-read some of the key works on Terminal Chinese Web, including the original novel “The Successor,” as well as many game proposals and movie scripts from before.

After going through them all, how should he put it… it wasn’t completely unhelpful, but he still hadn’t found the most suitable direction.

Pei Qian’s biggest feeling was: Were these things really created under my inspiration?

Why do I feel so unfamiliar when reading them…

This feeling was a bit like finding your elementary school exercise book many years after graduation and reading the compositions inside.

It felt like a long time ago, he should have been very familiar with these words, but now only a sense of unfamiliarity and confusion remained.

“Ah… I need a tiny bit of inspiration and help.”

“But this kind of thing is really hard to bring up!”

Pei Qian thought the best approach would be to ask Zhu Xiaocai or Cui Geng, but the problem was that this matter was a bit embarrassing and might damage his image, and he might not even get the results he wanted.

Because these people, each and every one of them, were all imagination monsters!

If Pei Qian were to ask them, they would inevitably think: Would Mr. Pei not understand these implications? He definitely would! Then why is Mr. Pei still asking…

Is Mr. Pei hinting at something? Is he suggesting that I should work harder and create better works?

Pei Qian had no doubt that this was exactly what they were capable of doing.

In other words, Pei Qian himself couldn’t predict what kind of answer he would get, or what uncontrollable consequences it might trigger.

“To get the most accurate answer possible, the best approach is not to go as Mr. Pei, but to understand from the perspective of an observer, to obtain relevant information indirectly.”

“Only by first making every effort to eliminate everyone’s tendency to overthink, and not letting the objective environment be affected by my intervention, can I ensure the authenticity of the answers as much as possible.”

“Right! Just like when I learned game design with Old Master He An.”

“Come to think of it… what I actually need is an online author learning class or inspiration class.”

“Besides, I don’t necessarily have to be there in person. Whether it’s a video or lecture notes, as long as I can indirectly learn this valuable information, that would be fine.”

“Oh, right, didn’t Terminal Chinese Web’s weekly report mention that Cui Geng recently gave a lecture at the inspiration class, which had some response online?”

Pei Qian quickly found the previous weekly report from Terminal Chinese Web on his computer and indeed discovered a piece of news: after the success of “The Successor,” Cui Geng gave a lecture at Terminal Chinese Web’s author inspiration class on “The Creative Direction of the Inspiration Class.”

At the time, Pei Qian hadn’t looked closely, only remembering that Cui Geng was talking nonsense on stage, saying things like “personally guided by Mr. Pei,” “based on the traditional cultural foundation and social phenomena of the Chinese people,” “creating works that match the preferences and tastes of young people”…

Someone had recorded a video and posted it online at the time, and most annoyingly, the video had quite a high number of views! Many authors were forwarding it!

Authors who hadn’t yet entered the inspiration class treated it as a stepping stone to get in; while those who were already in the inspiration class treated it as their creative direction for the class.

It was absurd!

Pei Qian was upset, but firstly, the video was only circulating within a small circle of authors and hadn’t generated that much heat, and Pei Qian had many more pressing matters to deal with; secondly, Pei Qian hadn’t yet determined the next development direction for the inspiration class and didn’t want to interfere rashly, so he just let it be.

But now…

Pei Qian suddenly felt that he might be able to draw some inspiration from it.

“It feels very strange indeed, others have misinterpreted my meaning, and now I have to look at their misinterpretation to write my own thesis…”

“Damn, this is just too much! What even is this situation!”

Pei Qian felt that his behavior was utterly embarrassing, but there was no choice. For the sake of Professor Kong’s health, to ensure that Professor Kong wouldn’t be upset by his thesis, he had to do what needed to be done.

After finding the video, Pei Qian watched it thoroughly from beginning to end this time.

“Hmm… although looking at it from my personal perspective, it’s full of errors and completely mismatched, but if viewed from the perspective of an uninformed observer, it does make quite a bit of sense…”

“And if I really consider it from this angle, it seems I can dig out something and find a connection with professional knowledge.”

Pei Qian fell into deep thought.

Of course, Pei Qian couldn’t completely copy Cui Geng’s theory, that wouldn’t be appropriate.

Because this video could be found online, if Pei Qian copied it completely and someone exposed him, wouldn’t that be very embarrassing?

Of course, even if it were exposed, most people would probably think that this theory originally came from Mr. Pei, and Cui Geng was just passing it on after inheriting it in the inspiration class.

In other words, they would think Mr. Pei was copying himself, which wouldn’t count as plagiarism.

But Pei Qian couldn’t do that because he was a person with principles. For a thesis, one could refer to a general direction, but one needed to have one’s own unique insights and practical content, not just listen to others.

“Cui Geng’s statements are mainly based on the actual situation of the inspiration class, explaining the creative model of the inspiration class to other authors. In other words, it can also be seen as a large-scale experience sharing session for ‘The Successor,’ with some guidance only for novels.”

“And the content he delivered is relatively thin, just a ready-made direction, without mentioning what the general environment is like, what problems exist, and what is the necessity of solving these problems…”

“If I can try to put aside Cui Geng’s influence and dig deeper in this direction, I might get something.”

“Hmm… in that case, the title of the thesis could be ‘Creation and Dissemination Theory of Literary Works in the New Era.’ Hmm… no, the term ‘New Era’ is too broad, more accurately, it should be ‘Internet Era.'”

“And the category of literary works is also too broad, encompassing serious literature as well, it should be called ‘Popular Literary Works.'”

“So the title should be, ‘Creation and Dissemination Theory of Popular Literary Works in the Internet Era’?”

“Let’s tentatively use this title, if it doesn’t seem appropriate while writing, I can change it.”

“It can include the difficulties faced in the dissemination of traditional literary works in the context of the Internet era, the necessity of solving this problem, as well as the necessary factors and historical mission for the dissemination of popular literary works in the Internet era…”

Pei Qian briefly sorted out his thoughts along this direction and found that there was indeed a lot of content that could be written, more than enough to support an undergraduate’s graduation thesis.

However, there were two problems.

The first problem was that this topic was a bit too broad.

For theses, each level has its scope and fields that it can cover.

For an undergraduate, one should be realistic and preferably choose a very small field as an entry point. The desire to write about something too big would not be supported by either ability or thesis length.

Later, when pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree, one could gradually expand the scope of the thesis.

This is common sense.

For this thesis, although it was limited by the two defining terms “Internet Era” and “Popular,” this scope was still very broad. It included general popcorn blockbusters, online novels, animations and comics, online short videos, etc., all of which could fall within this scope.

Trying to write a thesis targeting such a broad scope seemed a bit presumptuous and overconfident.

The second problem was that Pei Qian could only reluctantly write in this direction, and the level of the thesis would be completely unpredictable.

He certainly wished he had the level that everyone imagined Mr. Pei to have, but he didn’t!

Even previous works like “Beautiful Tomorrow” and “Struggle” were created by guesswork, requiring him to reinterpret himself.

Although these two serious problems existed, Pei Qian thought about it and decided he had to go with this choice.

Because he really couldn’t think of a better direction, and both of these shortcomings could be overcome.

It didn’t matter if what he wrote was unpredictable; he would just write first and then see. After all, someone would review it for him later, and he could gradually make revisions.

As for the topic being too broad, that shouldn’t be a problem either.

Although undergraduates were not qualified to write such broad topics, the passing requirements for undergraduate theses were also low!

Others might get rejected for writing on such a topic, but Pei Qian was still Pei Qian after all, and he believed that the professors at the defense would be lenient for the sake of the school and Professor Kong.

In any case, this was the most feasible direction Pei Qian could find for now.

After briefly organizing his thoughts, Pei Qian decided to write a little in this direction and first create a general framework.

Shortly after saving the document, there was a knock on the door of the office.

Pei Qian looked up and saw that Meng Chang had arrived.

It was the end of the month again, and Meng Chang had come to discuss his commission.

Pei Qian found the commission data for this month on his laptop and handed it over.

“Not bad, keep up the good work.”

In the middle of the month, they had just changed the commission model, giving Meng Chang a kind of “resurrection armor.”

The promotion for “The Successor” in the first half of the month had naturally been a complete failure, but the promotion for “Ghost General 2” in the second half of the month seemed to be working quite well.

“Ghost General 2” was about to be officially released, and Meng Chang had invested a large amount of funds in promotion, but no matter how much money was spent, the game’s popularity remained lukewarm.

It had to be said, this was a good sign!

Although Pei Qian couldn’t quite understand how Meng Chang’s promotional strategy for “Ghost General 2” was specifically operated, it was clear that Meng Chang had already deeply grasped the art of war, making it impossible for anyone to guess his true intentions through his deceptive tactics.

Pei Qian couldn’t figure it out either, but he believed that Meng Chang was on the same side as him.

Even with full commission, the promotional plan for the second half of the month would only amount to 100,000 yuan, and this time Meng Chang earned 70,000 from “Ghost General 2,” which wasn’t a lot, but it wasn’t too little either.

Compared to the previous model of “one-time death, the whole month GG,” this was already quite merciful.

Meng Chang just glanced at it and handed the laptop back.

He now didn’t care at all about how much commission he had earned. Coming to check the commission amount was just a formality; more importantly, he couldn’t miss this opportunity for Mr. Pei to give him direct instructions and pass on Pei’s promotional method.