Cui Geng skimmed through it briefly. This agreement mainly stipulated some rights and obligations for this study class.

For the website, they needed to provide authors with a basic salary, social insurance and housing fund, a working environment, accommodation, meals, and other conveniences. Not only were there explicit provisions regarding the basic salary and social insurance amounts, but there were also clear specifications about the standards for accommodation and meals.

In addition, there would be about 10 hours, or two afternoons per week, dedicated to organizing some group activities.

As for the authors, the only clause they needed to comply with was to fully obey the website’s daily routine arrangements. Otherwise, the website could unconditionally terminate the agreement and withdraw all previously promised benefits.

Below were the detailed process arrangements for the study class.

One point that Cui Geng was particularly concerned about was that the schedule specified a clear work routine for all authors. They needed to be at their workstations from 9 AM to 6 PM every day, with a one-hour lunch and rest period in between.

Cui Geng was satisfied with all other aspects, except for this working time, which made him slightly hesitant.

As a “pigeon spirit” whose effective working time was only two to three hours per day, he was now required to work at his station for eight hours daily.

This might be somewhat challenging.

He was worried that if he couldn’t complete his work targets, and the website directly canceled all benefits, wouldn’t that be quite embarrassing?

Cui Geng raised his concern: “Manager Ma, this clause means I just need to work for a full eight hours each day, right? Are there any other requirements, like having to write at least 4,000 characters?”

Ma Yiqun shook his head: “There’s no word count requirement.”

“Writing is a creative activity, and every author may experience writer’s block or times when they can’t write, so we don’t have rigid requirements for word count.”

Cui Geng heaved a sigh of relief.

Without word count requirements, things were much easier!

Anyway, he could just browse the internet, slack off, do whatever, and the eight hours would quickly pass.

They provided meals and accommodation, regularly allowed everyone to tour and relax in Jingzhou, and he could hang out with other authors, boasting and idling. The only cost was changing the location where he surfed the internet.

Perhaps the computers they provided would even have better specs than his home computer.

In short, it was a very good deal.

Cui Geng flipped through it and didn’t find any traps in the agreement, so he confidently signed his name.

“Alright, I’ll arrange for someone to take you to your accommodation shortly.”

“To provide everyone with a leisurely, quiet environment, we’ve arranged for everyone to stay at a hotel in the suburban area. The workplace is just a five-minute walk from the hotel.”

“Don’t worry, although it’s in the suburbs, the living conditions and other aspects will not be inferior.”

Ma Yiqun put away the agreement.

Cui Geng nodded: “No problem.”

After all, they were all rough guys who didn’t have such high requirements for living conditions. If the accommodation was a bit out of the way, so be it. Most authors were homebodies anyway and didn’t like going out, so it wasn’t an issue.

…

…

January 14th, Friday.

At 8:30 AM, the phone alarm went off, waking Cui Geng up.

He instinctively turned off the alarm and continued sleeping.

“Brother Cui, it’s about time to get up. You told me to wake you up in the morning,” a voice beside him said.

Cui Geng suddenly realized something, opened his eyes, flipped over, and sat up.

He wasn’t at home now, but in a hotel!

Yesterday, he had already checked into the hotel arranged by the website along with some other authors.

The hotel environment was nice. Although it was in the suburbs, it should be considered a relatively good three-star hotel. The rooms were spacious, clean, and tidy, with all necessary amenities.

It was a double room, and Cui Geng’s roommate was a new author over a year younger than him, who respectfully addressed him as “Brother Cui” and was quite respectful to him.

“I’ll be ready right away!”

Cui Geng got out of bed, quickly brushed his teeth, and washed his face. Five minutes later, he was fully dressed and ready.

The two had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the nearby workplace.

By yesterday afternoon and evening, all the authors for the study class had arrived one after another, with no one missing.

They were all authors from the Terminus Chinese Website, most had heard of each other, and they exchanged pleasantries.

Zhu Xing’an had also arrived and took everyone to their regular writing workplace.

The workplace prepared by the website was in a nearby office building. They had properly rented a spacious room with neat rows of workstations.

Mechanical keyboards, large display monitors, and spacious desks with fountain pens and notepads, probably convenient for some authors to organize their thoughts.

Besides this, there was also a long conference table in the room, with a snack area nearby that had various snacks and a capsule coffee machine.

In short, these conditions, compared to ordinary companies, were already quite luxurious.

Zhu Xing’an watched as everyone found their seats.

“Alright, it’s about time. Everyone can relax at their workstations, have a cup of coffee, and start brainstorming.”

“My workstation is in this position near the door. If anyone has any questions during your writing process, you can come directly to me.”

“Also, there will be a ten-minute break every hour. When the bell rings, everyone should stand up to move around and look out the window to relieve fatigue.”

Cui Geng deliberately chose a workstation in the corner, farthest from Zhu Xing’an.

This formed a perfect blind spot, preventing Zhu Xing’an from observing what he was doing.

In short, as long as he slacked off for eight hours and spent two or three hours writing something in between, he could get by.

Cui Geng pressed the computer’s power button and gently tapped the keyboard, producing a crisp “click-click” sound, which was very pleasant to the ear.

The quality of the monitor was also good, with high resolution, and it seemed to be set to blue light filter mode, making it look very soft. Compared to general monitors, it would be less harmful to the eyes.

The desk height was standard, and the heights of the chair and monitor could be adjusted freely.

The ergonomic chair was very comfortable to sit in, with the backrest perfectly conforming to the curve of the back. The armrests were roughly level with the desktop. With elbows bent at ninety degrees, forearms could rest on the armrests, palms on the keyboard’s palm rest, making typing very comfortable and effortless.

As for the mouse, headphones, and other accessories, although they weren’t closely related to writing, they were all excellent components, better than what Cui Geng used at home.

The computer’s configuration was unclear, but it had a cool logo that seemed to be the letters “ROF.”

Since it was a desktop computer, it should have a decent dedicated graphics card, right? It should be able to handle major games.

Even if it couldn’t play games, watching dramas on this large screen would be wonderful!

“Click-clack…”

The room was already filled with crisp typing sounds.

Soon, these typing sounds rapidly spread, becoming an ocean of mechanical keyboard frenzy.

If only one person in a quiet room used a mechanical keyboard, especially a blue-switch mechanical keyboard, it would be like smoking indoors—others wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work.

But if everyone in the entire room was intensely typing on mechanical keyboards, it would be like a group of smokers gathering to smoke together. There would be no issue of disturbing each other; instead, it would create a unique atmosphere, making everyone enjoy it.

However, for Cui Geng, who only wanted to slack off, this kind of sound was a bit troubling.

“Damn, it hasn’t even been a minute since I sat down, and inspiration has already come to them? Are they even human?”

“Never mind, looking on the bright side, with the cover of so many keyboard typing sounds, my slacking off won’t be discovered.”

“These are over-ear headphones; the sound isolation should be pretty good.”

“Anyway, let me first check the computer’s configuration…”

“What the hell???”

The computer’s configuration was good, booting up quickly.

Cui Geng sat in the innermost position and had gone to get snacks and coffee before turning on his computer, so he booted up a bit later than the others.

After booting up, Cui Geng originally planned to check the computer’s configuration and internet speed, then decide which game to download, or simply watch a drama.

But as soon as the computer booted up, before he could even move the mouse, he saw the writing software automatically open, display in full screen, and enter a locked state.

Cui Geng: “???”

He felt dizzy and instinctively pressed Alt+F4, with no response.

Then he pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete, still no response!

This type of writing software all had similar “lockdown” functions. Once activated, before completing a certain word count or until the countdown ended, the computer couldn’t do anything else, only write!

And the setting on this computer was even more extreme: it automatically opened the writing software after booting up, and after shutting down and restarting, it would still automatically open. There was no target word count or time limit, meaning that unless a technician came, there was no way to cancel the lockdown state!

Of course, such websites generally left a search engine interface for authors to look up information, but that was limited to just research—even playing videos wasn’t possible.

Cui Geng seemed to understand why some authors could enter the writing state so quickly.

They couldn’t do anything else but write!

Cui Geng was about to spit blood. Such a large screen, such a high-performance computer, yet it could only be used for writing—this was too wasteful!

After a few attempts, he gave up, because he knew that any methods he could think of, the writing software programmers would have thought of them too and would have blocked all possible loopholes.

Once in lockdown, there was no point in thinking about any workarounds.

All around were the sounds of mechanical keyboards clicking and typing, but Cui Geng felt like a prisoner who had just been sentenced to life imprisonment, his heart growing cold.

Cui Geng’s mind raced, contemplating his current predicament.

Suddenly, he had a good idea.

“Editor-in-Chief! I have a plot segment that requires me to watch a clip from a certain movie! What should I do?”

Cui Geng couldn’t help feeling smug inside. What a legitimate reason!

As a web novel author, one often needed to draw material from movies and games, which was reasonable, right?

For many scenes, one needed to write while watching movie scenes; for other content, one needed to personally play certain games to achieve the desired effect.

But this computer could only search for the most basic information, which couldn’t meet these needs at all.

Therefore, making such a request now was also reasonable, right? It was also considering other authors, right?

Cui Geng didn’t have excessive demands; he would be satisfied just being able to watch videos on his computer, to watch a drama or a movie!

Zhu Xing’an pushed his glasses, seemingly prepared for this. He pointed to an empty computer next to him: “For those who need reference materials, you can use this computer.”

Cui Geng: “…”