Chapter 10: Final Exams

As the days passed, not only did Xu Heng's typing speed get faster and faster, but the popularity of his novel also rose with the tide.

A well-known book reviewer named Zheji on Longkong, a famous web novel forum, posted a thread praising him, saying that in the years since they had started reading web novels, they had never seen such a genius; while maintaining a massive daily update of thirty thousand words, the quality of the novel remained excellent, and the entire text was free of "plot holes" or "illogical tropes," packed with satisfying moments, and highly recommended.

With this person's strong recommendation, the popularity of Xu Heng's novel climbed another level, and in the second week after signing the contract, it was featured on the Qidian homepage banner; by this time, his novel already had nearly three hundred thousand words and thirty thousand followers.

Although thirty thousand followers were not quite enough for a homepage banner, given that this book had only been updating for ten days and all the followers had come from word-of-mouth without even being on a recommendation list, the potential was truly immense, so it was not unexpected for the editor-in-chief to treat it specially.

Chu He told him that the recommendation and the official launch would happen together, and Xu Heng himself had no requirements for the follower count before the launch; urban novels were judged by the additional subscriptions after five hundred thousand or one million words, and since this was unpredictable, the earlier the launch, the better.

And so, the first novel of his life officially launched on the eleventh day, breaking the record for the fastest launch on Qidian, and then set a terrifying record of over ten thousand first-time subscriptions on the day of the launch.

A 1:3 follower-to-subscription ratio!

At this, not only were the readers shocked, but the Qidian editorial department was also shocked.

One must know that even for *Infinite Terror* by Z-da, the first-time subscriptions were only seven thousand; Xu Heng had only been writing for ten days since his debut and had already pulled half a length ahead of Z-da—it was simply terrifying!

The result of over ten thousand first-time subscriptions was the highest even in the urban novel category, surpassing the cancelled *Peerless Young Master*.

Upon receiving these results, the Qidian operations department worked through the night to create a celebratory banner for the website homepage; as long as one clicked onto the Qidian webpage, they could see a large red cover advertisement featuring the title of Xu Heng's novel and his pen name.

【New Urban God, Over Ten Thousand First-Time Subscriptions】

【Participate in the sharing event to draw Qidian reading coins】

Seeing this large cover recommendation advertisement, the editor who had previously advised Chu Chenghe to switch categories mocked himself endlessly.

It was fortunate that he hadn't said to Chu Chenghe's face that this novel wouldn't work, otherwise, it would now be a classic case of being slapped in the face in an urban novel.

At the same time, he couldn't help but sigh that Chu Chenghe was too lucky, having been pulled back from the edge of the cliff by the sudden emergence of Zhi Chi Su Pi Cui Kao Chang (Xu Heng's pen name).

Of course, this was just what he assumed; he had no idea that Chu Chenghe had to read over a hundred unsigned novels every day, sometimes reading nearly a million words a day through "quantum reading," spending far more energy and time than other editors.

Someone once said that opportunities are only reserved for those who are prepared.

Chu Chenghe had prepared so much, so it was only natural that he should seize this most critical opportunity.

As for the matter of resigning, it also fizzled out.

Society is just that realistic; as long as you have results and can bring benefits to the company, you are the leader's favorite, and if anyone says they want to fire you, the leader will be the first to disagree.

Xu Heng had no idea that his novel had saved the job of a nearly-unemployed editor; he had been quite busy lately.

First of all, with the explosive popularity of the novel, the negative effects brought by the high heat were also very obvious.

That was that the number of people flaming him had increased.

Not everyone in the world has immunity to being flamed, especially in web novels; there is almost no one who doesn't get flamed.

Some cursed his book as being obscure and filthy, with content like doing those kinds of things with one's teacher or one's foster sister, which was simply an insult to decency.

Some said he had hired a studio to write it for him, and that the novel's content wasn't completed by him alone, otherwise how could he write thirty thousand words a day?

In any case, there were all sorts of strange reasons for conspiracy theories and for flaming him.

Xu Heng's way of dealing with such things was also very simple: he created a novel group, found two book friends who had tipped over a thousand yuan to promote to administrators, and then let them help manage his novel's review section; anyone who was just flaming would have their comments deleted and be permanently banned.

One has to admit that the "full-course meal" package is extremely useful even ten years later.

After deleting some malicious troublemakers, the performance of Xu Heng's novel stabilized at around ten thousand subscriptions and was steadily improving; based on subscriptions and tips, he should be able to get one hundred thousand yuan next month.

That much money was enough to put into the stock market as a base fund.

Secondly, with the end of June approaching, all college students had to face a common problem—the final exams.

There is no one who isn't afraid of hearing the four words "final exams," let alone college students.

Although there were good students in college who studied just as hard, they were only a minority.

Most people, having just come from the arduous and unbearable high school years, found it hard to summon the same diligent spirit for studying once they had experienced the relaxed and leisurely days of college.

The situation at Jinling University, a "Double First-Class" institution, was much better, but during the final exam period, staying up late to review still became the norm; after all, no one wanted to fail a course.

This even included Xu Heng's three roommates, who were now spending all day clutching their major textbooks and burrowing into the library.

And Xu Heng was in an awkward position; as a middle-aged man in his thirties or forties, he could manage to work hard to make money, but asking him to read college textbooks...

Plus, the knowledge for a major in the School of Liberal Arts basically relied on memorization and accumulation; sometimes one had to memorize two or three books at once, and for something like *Modern Chinese* which was three or four hundred pages long, how could he possibly memorize it?

Finally, after a desperate struggle...

He failed his exams.

He failed three major courses.

The top prize of the School of Liberal Arts!

The only one he didn't fail was the one where he had used a cheat sheet, which barely allowed him to scrape a passing grade.

On the day the results came out, the counselor called him to the office to urgently carry out an ideological education activity.

The counselor for the four classes of Chinese Language and Literature was the same young man, looking less than thirty years old, with two moles at the corner of his mouth, one big and one small, and surnamed Yang; he liked to lose his temper at them at the drop of a hat, and in private, they jokingly called him the "Blue-Faced Beast."

It was said he was a graduate student who hadn't long finished at Jingda, a bit arrogant, and liked to stand on the moral high ground to criticize students using their studies and grades; he wasn't very popular among the students.

"Xu Heng, oh Xu Heng, you're usually quite honest, and I've been quite satisfied with your attitude toward learning, so why are you giving me such a surprise just as the semester is ending? Now the whole School of Liberal Arts knows that our Chinese department has a genius who failed three subjects; one more and you'd be a negative example for the whole school to be notified about."

Counselor Yang frowned, picked up a printed grade report, and threw it in front of Xu Heng.

"What's going on? Is there a problem with your thinking? You're a college student, do I still need to notify your parents?"

"Cough~ There's a reason for this."

"Then explain it properly."

Xu Heng was just about to make up a reason, like entrepreneurial planning or spending time on extracurricular comprehensive practice and not having time to review, and so on.

At this moment, the office door was suddenly opened, and a girl with a single ponytail walked in holding two forms.

"Counselor, the summer vacation arrangement forms for the students of Class Three are all filled out."

Xu Heng looked up, met Fan Xi's sly smile, and then saw her playfully wink at him.