At noon, Pei Qian had lunch with He An at Mr. Li’s Mingfu Family Banquet.

The reason they didn’t go to Anonymous Restaurant was mainly because they hadn’t made a reservation and couldn’t get in.

However, every weekend Pei Qian reserved the largest private room at Anonymous Restaurant for entertaining guests, so he could invite He An for another meal then.

He An knew that Mr. Pei was busy with work, and he needed to go back and rest in the afternoon too, so they agreed to have dinner together at Anonymous Restaurant over the weekend before parting ways.

He An clearly still had strong curiosity about how exactly “Mission and Choice” became so successful, but seeing Mr. Pei’s confident manner and tight-lipped attitude, he knew there was no point in asking, so he suppressed his curiosity and continued waiting for the game’s release date.

After lunch, Pei Qian checked his watch – it wasn’t even 3 PM yet.

Since it was Friday afternoon, he still had time to arrange another department.

Tomorrow was the weekend, and except for a few departments like Headwind Logistics that needed shift rotations, all other departments would be off, so arrangements for other departments would have to wait until Monday.

“Which department should I arrange?

Hmm… Terminal Chinese Network is nearby, let’s deal with that first.”

Pei Qian originally wanted to visit Thriller Hostel, but since it was rather far from downtown, making the trip was a bit troublesome. Pei Qian didn’t want to be bothered and decided to go on Monday instead.

Today, he’d first handle Terminal Chinese Network.

Terminal Chinese Network was just upstairs from Tenda Games. Although Pei Qian normally needed only to take the elevator up two more floors to get there, he indeed hadn’t visited Terminal Chinese Network in a long time.

Because there really wasn’t much worth seeing.

Although Terminal Chinese Network made money too, it didn’t compare to other industries in terms of revenue, and it was very stable without sudden spikes in income.

Pei Qian had always felt that Terminal Chinese Network was stuck in a middle position – neither here nor there – a chicken rib situation that was “tasteless to eat but wasteful to discard.” So in the past few months, he had completely left it alone without any inquiries.

But after seeing Terminal Chinese Network’s revenue data steadily improving this morning, Pei Qian became alert again, feeling he couldn’t let it continue unchecked.

Perfect timing now, as he had freed up time to properly organize things.

Pei Qian arrived at Terminal Chinese Network and first scanned everyone’s work status.

Well, not bad – at least better than Tenda Games.

When he visited the Tenda Games department earlier, every one of them was intently staring at their screens, either rapidly typing on keyboards or frowning deep in thought, clearly fully focused on work.

But at Terminal Chinese Network, everyone’s work status was much more relaxed. Some were reading novels on their phones, others aimlessly browsing through various website statistics – overall, quite a leisurely atmosphere.

While no obvious signs of slacking off were visible, compared to Tenda Games department’s work ethic, this was clearly much better, which made Pei Qian feel very pleased.

The current Editor-in-Chief of Terminal Chinese Network, Zhu Xing’an, noticed Mr. Pei and hurried over to greet him: “Mr. Pei, what brings you here?”

Zhu Xing’an was somewhat surprised, as Mr. Pei hadn’t visited Terminal Chinese Network for a good year, nor had he provided any guidance.

Many colleagues thought Mr. Pei had forgotten about Terminal Chinese Network.

But now that Mr. Pei was here, it meant he hadn’t forgotten about Terminal Chinese Network!

This made Zhu Xing’an quite happy.

Pei Qian smiled: “It’s nothing, just passing by and thought I’d take a look. Where’s Ma Yiqun?”

Zhu Xing’an said: “In his office.”

Pei Qian nodded and went to Ma Yiqun’s office, knocking gently on the door.

Ma Yiqun was also very surprised to see Mr. Pei: “Mr. Pei, what brings you here? Please have a seat!”

Pei Qian sat down on the office sofa.

Ma Yiqun poured him tea: “Mr. Pei, you made a special trip here today – is there any work you need to assign?”

Pei Qian leisurely sipped his tea while saying: “I just realized it’s been a while since I came over, so I dropped by to take a look. How’s the website currently doing? Is that training class still running?”

Ma Yiqun answered honestly: “The website is currently in excellent condition, with steady revenue growth, especially in terms of author numbers.”

“The website has had several hit books, and the subscription numbers for these top titles keep steadily increasing. Plus, since we give authors a larger revenue share than other sites, we’re becoming increasingly popular with writers.”

“Moreover, our site never delays payments or deducts royalties without reason. All our data is open and transparent, which is another major advantage.”

“Many authors have come to test the waters on our site. Our reputation in the circle is getting better and better!”

“The web novel author training program is still running, with remarkable results. Now, registration isn’t voluntary anymore because everyone wants to attend, but there simply aren’t enough spots. We can only select from promising new authors, and in principle, those who attended a previous session can’t return for the next one.”

“Even so, authors are still flocking to it. Readers are constantly clamoring to send their favorite authors to the training camp to write seriously in isolation.”

“Whether it’s authors who write slowly, lack inspiration, or need better writing skills – after undergoing training at the program, they all show clear improvement! Once this atmosphere forms, combined with the mentor-mentee model, the training program cultivates batches of excellent authors for our site. Naturally, the novel content on the entire site becomes increasingly rich and exciting!”

As Pei Qian sipped his tea, he grew more dismayed the more he listened.

Judging by the sound of it, the situation was very dire!

Clearly, Terminal Chinese Network had entered a positive cycle: author incomes continuously increasing, writing enthusiasm fully stimulated, and writing skills improving with help from other authors. At the same time, as quality works proliferated, readers’ loyalty to the site was also growing.

If this continued, the consequences would be unthinkable!

Currently, while Terminal Chinese Network’s market share didn’t yet compare to major sites like Infinite Chinese Network, due to high revenue sharing and good benefits, it had already become one of the top three choices in authors’ minds.

Once the site grew larger, it would definitely continue developing steadily. As long as the person in charge wasn’t brain-dead or made idiotic decisions, it would be hard for the site to decline.

Pei Qian carefully observed Ma Yiqun and felt he was definitely not brain-dead.

In that case, Terminal Chinese Network’s continued growth was certainly a high probability event.

This couldn’t continue! Something had to be done!

Pei Qian was also a web novel reader, so he knew a thing or two about the web fiction circle.

After a moment’s thought, he quickly found a good entry point.

“Currently, our site mainly uses subscription revenue sharing, right?”

Ma Yiqun didn’t know why Mr. Pei asked this but nodded: “Yes, Mr. Pei. Since our site was established, you’ve always emphasized subscription revenue sharing as the main model, trying to avoid buyouts.”

Pei Qian thought about it – this did seem to be something he had decided.

When Terminal Chinese Network first launched, the entire site was in a state of obscurity.

Pei Qian worried that Ma Yiqun might use buyouts to pay high prices for top authors from other sites, bringing hype and traffic to Terminal Chinese Network, so he repeatedly stressed using subscription revenue sharing as the main model, avoiding buyouts.

With few readers, subscription sharing naturally couldn’t earn much money. Authors couldn’t make money writing here, so naturally they wouldn’t come.

But now, times had changed.

Now that Terminal Chinese Network had developed, subscription sharing was definitely a more motivating model for authors. The better the book, the higher the subscriptions, the more money earned, so authors would work hard to polish their plots and deliver better works to readers.

Pei Qian took a sip of tea and said: “This principle needs to change. From now on, we’ll do both revenue sharing and buyouts. But we’ll only buy out our own authors’ works!”

Ma Yiqun was stunned: “Only buy out our own authors’ works?”

Normally, if you were going to do buyouts, one important use would be poaching talent from other sites.

Because excellent authors from other sites weren’t sure if they could maintain their current income through subscriptions after switching platforms, worried about not adapting well, they’d be hesitant when being poached.

So using buyouts for recruitment was relatively easier.

As for our own authors’ works, signing buyouts actually didn’t make much sense.

Because buyouts weren’t unlimited high prices – the site also had to ensure it wouldn’t lose money.

The site would estimate how much an author could earn through subscription sharing, then offer a buyout price slightly higher than projected sharing royalties.

If the author’s content was worth less than expected subscriptions, the site would lose money; if the content was worth more than expected subscriptions, the author would lose out.

But for site authors, if someone earned handsomely from subscriptions and believed they could improve further, they definitely wouldn’t sign buyouts because it would kill their motivation. And for authors who didn’t earn much from subscriptions due to limited ability, signing buyouts wouldn’t motivate them to write harder – it would objectively encourage them to slack off.

So buyouts worked well for recruitment but could create lose-lose situations for both site and author when used internally.

That’s why Ma Yiqun was confused by Mr. Pei’s buyout strategy.

Pei Qian watched Ma Yiqun’s puzzled expression with a knowing smile.

Confused?

Good! That’s the point!

I’m trying to demoralize the authors!

Many authors knew that writing for buyouts could easily ruin a writer.

Because buyouts were usually calculated by word count, work quality didn’t really affect author income. As long as they followed the contract strictly, even if authors wrote garbage, the site had to pay by word count as long as there were no obvious contract violations.

For authors, if they wrote exceptionally well, exceeding the buyout rate’s value, their earnings remained the same – effectively losing out. So they lacked motivation to improve their work.

Of course, many sites added supplementary clauses to buyout contracts to avoid these issues, such as: editors could request revisions or early completion when performance was poor; when books reached certain popularity levels, authors could request converting buyouts to revenue sharing; or simply sign a “guaranteed revenue sharing” where subscriptions below a certain threshold counted as buyouts, while those above used revenue sharing.

But Pei Qian clearly had no intention of adopting such methods.