After more than half an hour, Pei Qian arrived at the location of the Inspiration Class at Terminus Chinese Website.
The “Study Class” and “Inspiration Class” were on different floors. Pei Qian first went to check the Study Class.
Initially, the Study Class had only one room, later expanding to three. Now, all three rooms were packed with people. From the doorway, one could hear the rhythmic sounds of mechanical keyboards rising and falling, like a cheerful ocean of crisp tapping sounds.
Most of the authors here were unfamiliar faces, but all had extremely focused expressions and looked quite excited, seemingly eager to transform the stories in their minds into words.
Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling a pang of heartache.
This Study Class had cultivated countless backbone authors for Terminus Chinese Website. Although this income was insignificant compared to Tenda’s current scale, the entire website’s library was continuously being enriched, and both the author and reader communities were constantly expanding.
Over time, the possibility of producing bestsellers would greatly increase.
Pei Qian didn’t disturb these authors but continued upstairs to the floor where the Inspiration Class was located.
This floor was much quieter. Pei Qian only heard one person typing, and even that was intermittent, clearly struggling to produce content.
The Inspiration Class consisted of three areas: the inspiration collection area, the work area, and the large audio-visual room. Both the inspiration collection area and work area had a long conference table, occasionally used for meetings or brainstorming.
In the inspiration collection area, each author had a single-person sofa, television, and game console. The entire space was dimly lit, with reading lamps beside each person’s sofa for reading novels, comics, watching movies, or playing games.
The large audio-visual room was completely soundproofed, equipped with theater-grade projectors and sound systems. Authors could request films on demand and reserve usage.
Initially, the Inspiration Class had only about a dozen people, but later expanded to a total of 25 people.
These 25 people were basically all top authors from Terminus Chinese Website from the previous period, the kind that ranked well in various categories.
Now, only about a dozen people were in the inspiration collection area. Some were playing games, some watching movies, and others reading books under reading lamps. Because everyone wore headphones, it was very quiet, with only occasional sounds of turning pages or pressing controller buttons.
There were two authors in the work area. One had both hands on the keyboard, typing a few characters only after a while, while the other rested his chin on one hand, staring blankly at the computer screen, lost in thought.
As for the other half of the authors, where were they?
Clearly, they were watching movies in the audio-visual room.
Although the entire audio-visual room was soundproofed to avoid affecting the inspiration collection area and work area, one could still faintly hear sounds from outside the audio-visual room door. A very intense war film seemed to be playing inside, with relentless gunfire.
Pei Qian was extremely gratified.
Look, just look!
Compared to the Study Class, the difference was crystal clear!
Those authors in the Study Class were all buried in their writing, whereas here in the Inspiration Class, everyone was seriously “collecting inspiration.” Only two people were in the work area, and both were daydreaming.
Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling a bit proud, after all, the Inspiration Class idea was his own creation, and the evidence proved its outstanding effectiveness.
Everyone was so focused that no one noticed Pei Qian’s arrival.
After all, the Inspiration Class had no restrictions—being late, leaving early, or even not showing up for two or three consecutive days was fine. Authors frequently moved around when looking for books on the shelves, finding game discs, or going to the bathroom, and everyone was already accustomed to it.
Pei Qian sat down somewhere in the work area. Both authors were concentrating on their own business and didn’t notice him.
After waiting for a while, the movie in the audio-visual room finished, and the authors came out one after another.
Several authors were quietly discussing the movie’s plot, but obviously without much enthusiasm, as they returned to their seats.
Pei Qian could see that these authors were now very confused, exactly the time when they needed his guidance.
Cui Geng was walking in behind the crowd and instinctively turned his head, just in time to see Mr. Pei sitting in the work area, smiling as he watched the authors.
“Mr. Pei?!”
Cui Geng’s exclamation caused others to turn their heads, and subsequently, expressions of shame appeared on the authors’ faces.
Oh no, caught red-handed by Mr. Pei!
When they first came to this Inspiration Class, most authors were in high spirits. Even though they were writing buyout contracts, with such good conditions, they certainly had to roll up their sleeves and create something remarkable.
But as they wrote, they found it somewhat difficult. The more good works they saw and the more inspiration they accumulated, the more they felt their own writing was garbage. Naturally, they wrote slower and with less enthusiasm.
Over time, they degenerated into the current extremely lazy state—of the eight working hours each day, seven were spent like searching for a needle in the sea: watching movies, reading novels, playing games to accumulate materials or construct plots. Having one hour for actual writing was already not bad.
If they had known Mr. Pei was coming, everyone would definitely have prepared seriously, presenting their best mental state.
After all, Mr. Pei had arranged such a great working environment and prepared such generous treatment, yet they had not only failed to write particularly brilliant works but also failed to maintain even the most basic creative enthusiasm. How could they face Mr. Pei’s goodwill!
Pei Qian smiled: “If everyone has time, could you put aside your current work and chat with me?”
Everyone quickly nodded.
Most of their time now was spent “collecting materials,” with very little time actually maintaining high concentration for creation. What “current work” did they have?
There was a long table nearby, and everyone quickly took their seats. Authors who couldn’t fit pulled chairs from the work area and gathered around.
Many authors were very nervous, feeling they had been caught by Mr. Pei.
Even if Mr. Pei wasn’t going to blame them harshly, he would definitely make some adjustments to the Inspiration Class format.
After all, maintaining this Inspiration Class burned quite a bit of money. Just the venue expenses and daily costs aside, the authors’ articles were all bought out at high prices, yet they only produced novels of such quality. This definitely couldn’t satisfy Mr. Pei.
Some authors were very ashamed, almost wanting to beat their chests and promise Mr. Pei that they would no longer be lazy and would create seriously from now on, even if it meant studying with a rope tied to a roof beam and an awl stuck in the thigh, or writing until foam came from their mouths, they would produce a classic work.
There were also some authors who had made up their minds to admit their mistake to Mr. Pei, voluntarily leave this Inspiration Class, and go back to writing their old routines. They weren’t cut out for this and didn’t want to waste Mr. Pei’s goodwill.
Pei Qian looked around at everyone and smiled: “The Inspiration Class has been operating for three to four months now, and I’ve seen all your efforts during this time.”
“I think the Inspiration Class is very successful and has completely met my expectations!”
Everyone was petrified.
Huh?
“Completely met expectations” really?
Don’t we ourselves have a clear idea of our current state? How does this count as “very successful”?
This made authors who wanted to sincerely repent and admit their mistakes all affected by a collective silence effect, not knowing how to respond for a moment.
Cui Geng weakly said: “To be honest, Mr. Pei, most authors in the Inspiration Class, including myself, aren’t creating smoothly… and our performance hasn’t reached expectations at all…”
Of all the authors here, Cui Geng was the most familiar with Mr. Pei, so naturally only he could speak such truths.
Pei Qian waved his hand: “Of course I know that.”
“But this is all normal!”
“You’re all in a transitional exploration stage, and some growing pains are quite normal. Stories of several million words and stories of a few hundred thousand words are written completely differently. You’re essentially starting from zero, how could you succeed immediately?”
“When you first started writing web novels, you weren’t successful with your first book, right? You needed at least an accumulation of several million words.”
“Creation in the Inspiration Class is the same. Without the Inspiration Class, you might never touch this genre in your lifetime, isn’t that right?”
“As for performance, honestly, being able to reach the top fifty in the entire network on a web novel website with such slow update word counts and content that isn’t popularly welcomed, doesn’t this highlight your formidable foundation?”
Mr. Pei’s words left the authors somewhat bewildered.
According to Mr. Pei’s meaning…
So what we’re writing is actually good?
It must be said that people are very easily influenced by external suggestions and guidance.
If a large number of people rushed to the comment section saying the book was terrible, the author would doubt themselves, many originally planned content would not be written, and they might even want to give up;
But if many people encouraged them, saying that although the book’s data wasn’t good but the content was particularly brilliant, the author would be greatly encouraged and might even more boldly try some new plot designs and ideas.
Although only Mr. Pei gave such high praise, while most traditional web novel readers didn’t favor these works, but that was Mr. Pei!
One compliment from Mr. Pei could at least offset criticism from ten thousand readers, right?
Thus, some confidence silently ignited in the authors’ hearts.
Many people developed the illusion that “maybe what I’m writing is actually decent.”
Pei Qian smiled slightly, seeing that his grand deception skills had improved.
Previously, he could only deceive one person at a time; now he could deceive a group of people, and the effect was not bad.
But he couldn’t be satisfied yet; he had to strike while the iron was hot.
Pei Qian paused slightly, allowing the authors’ emotions to settle a bit, then continued: “To consolidate the achievements of this stage of the Inspiration Class, and also to support and commend outstanding authors, I’ve decided to select the top three creations from this Inspiration Class for rewards!”
“For the book ‘Forever Fallen in Reincarnation,’ I will arrange for the gaming department to develop a major expansion for ‘Turn Back is the Shore,’ creating a story background based on the content of ‘Forever Fallen in Reincarnation.’ The author can participate in the entire production process and can propose modification suggestions for any details in the game.”
“Cui Geng’s ‘The Successor’ is a superhero theme. I will commission Fei Huang Studio to shoot a web series. Similarly, the author can participate throughout and offer their opinions.”
“And the last one.”
“The book ‘Agent Academy’ is a story set against the background of GOG, but it leans toward being relaxed, humorous, and has a bit of parody. I think an animation format would be more suitable.”
“So, I will have Fei Huang Studio additionally acquire an animation studio to animate ‘Agent Academy’ as the first work of this animation studio!”
“Moreover, the author can receive 15% of all revenues obtained after adaptation!”
All works from the Inspiration Class had already been paid buyout fees higher than market prices, so this profit-sharing was completely unnecessary. But Pei Qian definitely wouldn’t miss this opportunity to spend more money, so he gave a very generous profit-sharing ratio.
For the first two works, Pei Qian paid more attention, while the third was purely to make up the numbers.
This book, “Agent Academy,” was a work themed around GOG, but it didn’t describe the official story background of GOG. Rather, it leaned more toward a light novel feel, composed of many short stories, overall humorous, funny, and a bit nonsensical.
This work’s performance wasn’t as good as the previous two. After all, similar themes would seem out of place on a web novel website, and writing short stories brilliantly is actually harder than writing long ones. Many jokes that could be expressed through tone or actions lost much of their effect when written in text.
These authors’ works had already been proven to be commercially unsuccessful. If that was the case, they should be promoted even more!
Already unsuccessful, wouldn’t they be even more unsuccessful after being adapted into TV or animation?
How much money could a novel originally waste? Just a bit of buyout money. But if the novel was turned into a web series or animation, the cost would be much higher!
With so much cost burned in, and audiences not enjoying it, wouldn’t that be wonderful?
As for why make web series and animation…
Mainly because Fei Huang Studio was giving Pei Qian a bit of a headache.
They had filmed so many themes before: short videos, documentaries, and two movies…
All became popular.
If Fei Huang Studio did the filming, even the trash scripts written by Mr. Pei himself could become popular, showing that Zhu Xiaocai had the power to turn decay into miracles.
If these books were given to Fei Huang Studio to be made into movies, what if they took off again?
So, change the theme.
This time’s web series would be different from previous ones. Not a small-budget production, but a large-budget, big production. But not a movie that could be shown in theaters for box office returns—the possibility of losing money would naturally greatly increase.
As for animation, it was a field Tenda had never ventured into before.
Pei Qian could just spend money to buy an animation studio. Since the movie path was no longer viable, would the animation side be unaffected?
The ability to adapt these three works into visual media and animation would certainly greatly encourage and motivate other authors.
When other authors saw that even such poorly written works could be adapted into games, web series, and animations, they would certainly be clamoring to get into the Inspiration Class.
This way, the entire website’s top authors would all enter the Inspiration Class, this “large-scale slacker cultivation dish.” Over time, wouldn’t things improve?
Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself.
What a perfect plan!