After seeing off Qiao Laoshi, Pei Qian returned to Shenhua Luxury Apartments and first went to visit Terminal Chinese Web on the upper floor of the Tenda building.
Currently, Terminal Chinese Web’s operations had stabilized, with most staff in a state of self-entertainment.
Though the website’s traffic was slowly increasing, overall it remained pitifully low, with no signs of improvement in the near future.
On many web novel forums, Terminal Chinese Web’s reputation was poor. Most authors viewed it as a rather disappointing small website and strongly advised newcomers against grinding for full attendance bonuses here.
Only authors completely lacking ambition would choose Terminal Chinese Web as their first choice because of those meager full attendance bonuses.
So, the editors only had two things to do daily.
Review manuscripts or entertain themselves by writing their books.
Of course, some people, including Zhu Xing’an, were writing official storylines for “Return to Shore,” which was another form of self-entertainment.
However, because “Return to Shore’s” official novel was always featured on the homepage, it got creatively flamed by readers. If Zhu Xing’an didn’t have good psychological resilience and stress tolerance, he might have abandoned the series long ago.
The readers’ complaints were very simple: the plot was scattered and messy, lacking exciting moments, leaving people confused.
After all, rather than being a novel, it was more like a collection of game storyline designs, completely failing to meet most readers’ expectations for web novels.
Everyone had grown accustomed to this. Let them flame all they want—this storyline was designed to serve the game from the beginning.
Besides handling Terminal Chinese Web matters, Ma Yiqun was also working on the TPDb website, which was now starting to show results.
Seeing that Mr. Pei had arrived, Ma Yiqun quickly had someone pour water and personally reported their recent work progress.
Five minutes later…
Although Ma Yiqun had been trying his best to embellish Terminal Chinese Web’s achievements, Pei Qian still accurately understood the fact that this website remained extremely unsuccessful.
“Very good.”
“Terminal Chinese Web’s work has been effective, and the TPDb website is also well done.”
“Don’t be too eager for quick success. Just keep going as you are.”
Pei Qian was quite satisfied with this employee, Ma Yiqun.
Although Ma Yiqun had strong professional skills, under Mr. Pei’s reasonable utilization, those skills had completely failed to be put to good use. This had to be considered a great victory for Mr. Pei.
Since taking over Terminal Chinese Web, the site had continuously operated at a loss, with few readers and barely any reliable authors—all demonstrating Ma Yiqun’s outstanding work ability.
Pei Qian silently sighed with appreciation. This was truly one of the few talents among his employees that he could count on!
Seeing that Mr. Pei was in a good mood today, Ma Yiqun hesitated, unsure whether to bring up something he’d been considering.
After careful thought, he decided to speak up.
“Mr. Pei, regarding Terminal Chinese Web, I have an idea. Or rather, a suggestion.”
“Oh? Let’s hear it.” Pei Qian was slightly surprised but didn’t make a big deal of it.
Although Ma Yiqun had serious misconceptions about web novels, there was nothing wrong with his intelligence.
Having been CEO of Terminal Chinese Web for so long, he must have developed his views on the website’s development, which was perfectly normal.
Ma Yiqun said, “Mr. Pei, I’ve been thinking. Terminal Chinese Web’s biggest problem right now is that mid-tier authors can never increase their income.”
“Lower-tier authors have some income security because of the full attendance bonuses.”
“But once these lower-tier authors want to move upward into the mid-tier author ranks, hoping to make a living from manuscript fees or become full-time writers, it’s impossible.”
“Because our website currently has too few readers, it can’t generate enough subscriptions. Even if these authors write a good book, they’ll be limited by the website’s ceiling and find it difficult to truly become popular.”
Pei Qian nodded.
That’s right, this is a problem I figured out long ago.
The reason I’ve pretended not to know was just to watch the website burn through more money…
But now that Ma Yiqun had brought it up, Pei Qian couldn’t pretend anymore. He could only nod in a show of agreement.
After all, the intelligent and wise Mr. Pei couldn’t possibly not understand something so basic—that would be too fake.
Ma Yiqun continued, “So, I’ve thought of a way to improve this situation.”
“We should artificially increase the income of mid-tier authors, and even potential top-tier authors. If we don’t have enough subscribing readers right now, then we need to use our own money to make up the difference in income.”
“Suppose a fairly good book appears on our website, with quality equivalent to premium-level books on Infinite Chinese Web. Then we should pay out of pocket to supplement this author’s manuscript fees.”
“This way, some lower-tier authors won’t worry about being buried on our website and will have more motivation to improve.”
Pei Qian was silent for a moment, then asked, “That makes sense. But how do we judge whether a book has reached premium quality or not?”
Ma Yiqun replied, “On one hand, through the website’s data, such as what proportion of all paying readers are subscribers, along with various metrics including votes, clicks, and other data; on the other hand, through human evaluation.”
“This is something that I would need to do myself.”
This wasn’t an issue that Ma Yiqun had only discovered today.
But coming up with this solution and gathering the courage to suggest it wasn’t easy.
Even now, Ma Yiqun was still a bit nervous, afraid Mr. Pei might get angry.
Because he knew clearly that this suggestion was somewhat bold, as he was asking for extremely broad discretionary power.
If a premium author’s monthly manuscript fee was ten thousand yuan, while Terminal Chinese Web’s full attendance bonus was only a few hundred yuan, it meant the website would need to make up nearly the full ten thousand.
If ten or twenty authors reached a premium level, then the monthly supplement would reach one or two hundred thousand yuan, or even more.
All this money would be allocated at Ma Yiqun’s discretion.
Although website data would be considered, with so few readers on the site, wouldn’t it be simple to manipulate those numbers?
So ultimately, it would be Ma Yiqun himself deciding who gets the money.
Thinking the worst of people, he could easily arrange for relatives or friends to create pseudonyms, translate obscure books, and, through behind-the-scenes manipulation, pocket the manuscript fees himself.
So while Ma Yiqun had identified a genuine problem, his proposed solution wasn’t entirely appropriate.
It was an overly idealistic plan—if the executor had even a tiny bit of self-interest, it could seriously go off track or even backfire.
If management became involved in corruption and the authors found out, the website’s reputation would be completely ruined—a significant risk.
But Ma Yiqun couldn’t think of any other solution.
With so few readers, even if lower-tier authors wrote good books, they couldn’t earn decent manuscript fees. This had seriously discouraged lower-tier authors from writing enthusiastically—a problem that needed solving.
So, regardless of whether Mr. Pei accepted it or not, he had to push forward with his suggestion.
Pei Qian didn’t answer immediately, taking a moment to consider.
Let Ma Yiqun manage this money?
Well, that could be considered.
Pei Qian trusted Ma Yiqun, mainly because he trusted Ma Yiqun’s perspective on web novels.
Ma Yiqun’s web novels consistently failed one after another, clearly demonstrating his fundamentally flawed approach to web fiction. That being the case, the books he considered “premium quality” couldn’t possibly be much better.
In other words, even if he selected all these books, arranged them in featured positions, and paid premium rates for all their manuscript fees, it wouldn’t have much impact on Terminal Chinese Web.
Meanwhile, Terminal Chinese Web could incur an additional large expense!
For Pei Qian, who was desperate to spend money, this was practically a godsend!
After weighing the risks and benefits, Pei Qian immediately nodded: “Good, no problem.”
“Besides the full attendance bonuses for contracted authors, I’ll allocate you an extra two million yuan to use.”
Ma Yiqun was startled and quickly said, “Mr. Pei, two million is too much!”
Currently, there are very few authors on the site with the ability to reach premium quality. I think twenty thousand per month would be enough.”
Pei Qian waved his hand dismissively: “No matter!”
“There’s no harm in giving premium authors more money. We might as well ‘spend a fortune to buy a fine horse’ this time. Giving authors more money isn’t a bad thing.”
“Don’t be too stingy. Since we’ve decided to supplement these authors’ manuscript fees, we might as well give a bit more to strengthen their sense of belonging to Terminal Chinese Web.”
Pei Qian wasn’t worried about this at all.
After all, the books Ma Yiqun would select would just be a pile of garbage. Even if they gave these authors more money, so what?
If the books weren’t good, they wouldn’t attract readers, which meant all this money would essentially be poured down the drain—Pei Qian couldn’t be happier.
Besides, there was only one month left until the settlement. Pei Qian couldn’t wait to spend more money.
Two million seemed like too much to Ma Yiqun, but Pei Qian wished he could throw in even more.
Ma Yiqun was deeply moved.
Indeed, Mr. Pei was Mr. Pei—always so generous when doing things!
What a fine example of “spending a fortune to buy a fine horse”!
If they could provide more manuscript fees to those authors capable of writing premium-quality work, Terminal Chinese Web would have a stronger competitive edge compared to other small websites. Over time, it might even form a virtuous cycle!
What moved Ma Yiqun even more was Mr. Pei’s incredible trust in him!
These two million yuan were essentially being handed over to Ma Yiqun to use at his discretion.
What extraordinary trust!
Would an ordinary leader have such courage?
How could he not devote himself completely to Mr. Pei after this?
Ma Yiqun thumped his chest: “Don’t worry, Mr. Pei! I will do my absolute best to screen out a group of capable premium authors. I definitely won’t let this money go to waste!”
Pei Qian smiled on the surface while laughing coldly inside.
As long as you do your absolute best, this money will go to waste.
Isn’t that why you’re such a highly valued employee?