Mr. Pei patted his backside and left, leaving behind a confused Cui Geng, who could only aimlessly flip through comic books produced by Fei Huang Studio.

For Pei Qian, the current state of the entire “Inspiration Class” perfectly met his expectations—it was progressing according to script. He had even given special attention to Cui Geng, making this author most likely to cause problems tackle a genre with the lowest success rate. It was like having multiple insurance policies.

As long as he could verify through Cui Geng that this approach was viable, then afterward Pei Qian could consider adding more authors to the “Inspiration Class,” achieving a foundation-shaking effect on the development of Terminal Novel Network.

For Cui Geng, he was now plunged into deep confusion.

If it were up to Cui Geng, he would absolutely never choose this genre, because he neither excelled at it nor was particularly interested in it.

As an author whose understanding of American superheroes was merely limited to those few super IPs and who hadn’t delved deeply into the subject, Cui Geng couldn’t think of any reason why he could write superhero genre well.

But Mr. Pei said that not understanding superheroes was actually an advantage, and told him to read more materials and refine his work more—there would definitely be no problems.

Cui Geng thought left and right. Since it was Mr. Pei’s opinion, he still had to take it seriously.

Because when it came to creative work, Mr. Pei was the true master!

Whether it was Tenda’s games or films, they were all personally crafted by Mr. Pei, who controlled the general direction. And these had all been verified as very successful works.

Mr. Pei’s status in creative work was leagues above these online novel authors. Since Mr. Pei said Cui Geng was fine, then perhaps he really was fine.

“Could it be that I have some potential within myself that I don’t even know about?”

With this doubt in mind, Cui Geng decided to follow Mr. Pei’s instructions and first try working on Fei Huang Studio’s superhero IPs.

As an important component of Tenda Group’s IP portfolio, the “Inspiration Class” had naturally prepared a large quantity of Fei Huang Studio’s comics.

Cui Geng selected a few with relatively high sales volumes, returned to his seat, turned on the reading lamp, put on his headphones to play light music, then nestled into the single-person sofa to carefully read through them.

…

Afternoon.

Cui Geng set down the last comic book he had brought, rubbing his temples with a headache.

He had been reading from morning till afternoon, even thinking about these superhero plots during lunch, but the more he read, the more he felt it was hopeless.

The more he understood, the more he could feel the difficulty of this task!

Since they were all comics with relatively little text information, he read through them quickly. After Cui Geng had skimmed through several best-selling comics and understood the general plot outlines, his mind became even more muddled.

“The fact that Fei Huang Studio only occupies 5% of the American market share, being crushed by the top two comic companies, isn’t without reason.”

“Whether it’s the character designs of the superheroes or the story plots, there’s a huge gap compared to the level of the top two comic companies.”

“These stories are clearly not going to work!”

“Moreover, these characters and plots don’t quite suit domestic readers’ tastes. It’s like they failed to learn the advantages of the top two comic companies but preserved all their shortcomings.”

“Writing about these IP characters, aren’t I just asking for trouble…”

Cui Geng sank into deep melancholy.

Characters like Multiplex Hero, Inferno Duke, Alien Species, RoboCop, etc., were already the most famous IPs from Fei Huang Studio. While these IPs left some impression on people, they were already outdated.

And in Cui Geng’s view, these IPs either lacked story expandability or had settings that no longer matched current aesthetic standards—they weren’t really suitable for writing derivative plots.

These IPs, if simply used as game characters in GOG, would be completely fine; but if you wanted to write a sufficiently compelling story with them as protagonists, that would be incredibly difficult.

The other IPs were even worse—completely worthless.

Some even tried to copy superheroes from the top two comic companies, like a hero called “Captain World,” whose copycat origins were obvious at first glance. These were absolutely unusable.

Writing those would probably make people laugh until their teeth fell out.

In short, Cui Geng felt overwhelmed.

“Maybe I should just go through the motions?”

“Just pick an IP like Multiplex Hero or RoboCop and write some fan fiction.”

“Although these IPs are old and outdated, at least domestic readers have some impression of them. Making do should at least not be considered fraudulent, right?”

After hours of fruitless contemplation, Cui Geng subconsciously wanted to choose the easy way out.

But then Mr. Pei’s face suddenly flashed in his mind, immediately dispelling such thoughts.

“No, absolutely not!”

“How could I have such thoughts?”

“Mr. Pei gave me special attention, obviously placing extreme importance on what I write and having high expectations!”

“How could I have thoughts of just muddling through? That would break Mr. Pei’s heart!”

“Mr. Pei already said there’s no word count requirement, that good work takes time—if I give up so quickly and rashly start writing, wouldn’t that completely betray Mr. Pei’s expectations?”

“No, think harder!”

“I need to show the same energy as when Dong Wu and I analyzed the Tenda Spirit, carefully comprehend the deeper meaning behind Mr. Pei’s words, and find the one correct answer!”

“I should use Tenda’s internal interpretation methods to properly analyze Mr. Pei’s true intentions!”

Just as Cui Geng was about to give up, the Tenda Spirit reinvigorated him once again.

When Cui Geng worked with Wu Bin to analyze the Tenda Spirit and compile the Tenda Spirit handbook, he had deeply understood the “Standard Methods for Interpreting Mr. Pei’s Intentions.”

This was a complete methodology for understanding Mr. Pei’s true intentions, initiated by company veterans like Bao Xu, Huang Sibo, and Lin Wan, and continuously refined by heads of other departments.

More specifically, it meant deducing Mr. Pei’s actual intentions based on the content of his task instructions. This approach had proven consistently effective, creating many miracles across gaming departments, film departments, and physical business departments.

Now, Cui Geng decided to apply what he’d learned and use it for his own creative work!

“What’s the first step again? Oh right, find the most unusual point in Mr. Pei’s words, then start analyzing…”

Cui Geng struggled to recall this morning’s conversation with Mr. Pei.

Actually, Mr. Pei hadn’t said much, just things like “superhero genre can also be written for domestic readers,” “you don’t necessarily have to make domestic readers love these superheroes,” and “it’s okay to write these superheroes dying or being half-dead.”

“It seems like Mr. Pei is hinting that I shouldn’t use the traditional Western story framework for superhero stories, but should strive to tell them in ways domestic readers can accept…”

Cui Geng began searching for relevant information online.

Superhero movies were part of cultural export and had a significant market domestically. Though Cui Geng hadn’t paid special attention to them, he understood the basic concepts.

Though superheroes differed in abilities, personalities, and identities, most of them shared similar characteristics:

They possessed extraordinary powers, technical abilities, or were proficient with relevant equipment. Whether it was strength, wisdom, special abilities, or money power, all fell within this category.

They aspired to uphold justice, were responsible, chose to step forward in danger without expecting reward.

They represented Western moral values to some extent, generally avoiding killing but instead handing villains over to police and law.

They typically had secret identities to protect friends and family, while also having other identities besides being superheroes—like reporter, student, rich kid, etc.

They usually had signature costumes or props.

Generally speaking, superhero stories were basically tales of justice ultimately defeating evil: super villains wanted to do bad things, were discovered by superheroes, went through various twists and turns, then superheroes defeated the super villains and maintained world peace.

Of course, as superhero genre developed, stories showed increasing variety, even producing some morally ambiguous “anti-hero” characters.

But very few superhero stories deviated from the core of “justice defeats evil,” because without this core, audiences might not buy it.

In a sense, superhero comics or movies, like web novels, were a productible creative model. Though basic patterns repeated endlessly, detailed elements would have many innovations, and readers kept eating it up no matter how many times it repeated.

This was why Cui Geng felt stuck: precisely because this was a productible creative model deeply rooted in Western cultural background, as a Chinese person he naturally had cultural barriers. Writing according to standard procedures could never surpass superhero stories created by Westerners.

This wasn’t self-deprecation but clear recognition of reality.

Just like having a native Westerner write traditional Chinese martial arts stories—no matter how much preparation they did, what they wrote would definitely be “lacking the essence.”

Cui Geng frowned tightly: “That means stories I write wanting to sell to foreigners are probably impossible, I can only target domestic readers.”

“Mr. Pei did say exactly that.”

“But specifically how to sell to domestic readers?”

“Mr. Pei seems to have done lots of Western-themed content that was very popular with domestic audiences—how did Mr. Pei do it?”

Cui Geng couldn’t help thinking of the game “Struggle.”

Actually, “Struggle” was entirely Western story background, with characters and stories completely based on Western settings, yet domestic players loved it.

Cui Geng carefully recalled “Struggle’s” plot, suddenly his eyes lit up.

“I understand!”

“Mr. Pei’s creative secret is using a Chinese cultural perspective to observe Western stories, deconstructing them, tearing apart the beautiful veneer of Western cultural works, then letting their inner nature be completely exposed!”