Chapter 7: The Second Yu Da

To be fair, the platform Qidian has much higher requirements than other novel websites, especially in this era before things became so fast-food-like; Qidian's requirements for web novel authors are relatively high (compared to other sites).

It is a very unwise choice for a web novel novice to write a novel on Qidian; after all, Qidian's word count requirement for going live is around 300,000, and the recommendation mechanism is not exactly friendly to newcomers.

But Xu Heng is fast!

His typing speed is quite fast to begin with, and combined with a mature web novel creation model that is over a decade ahead of its time, he can churn out 30,000 words of relatively high quality in a very short time each day.

Others take one or two months to go live, but he does it in ten days!

Furthermore, the urban fiction he writes is not only voluminous and satisfying, but it also encompasses most of the "cool points" for urban fiction in the coming years.

At the very least, it is far more brilliant in plot design and character portrayal than the currently popular *Rebirth Pursuing Beauty*; it would be unreasonable if it didn't become a hit.

Xu Heng set the remaining 10,000 words to be published on a schedule, divided into five chapters in total, with one chapter released every hour to increase exposure.

After finishing his "work," he couldn't help but stretch, then leaned back against his chair in exhaustion.

Sheng Bo, the only roommate left in the dorm, was carrying his washbasin and preparing to go to the bathroom to get down to business when he saw the dense, bold-faced text on Xu Heng's computer screen. He leaned over curiously and asked, "Old Xu, are you writing your final term paper?"

"No, writing a novel."

"Holy crap! You can write novels? Like *Return of the Condor Heroes*?"

Sheng Bo's eyes widened at this; he had thought Xu Heng had found some serial writing job for an entertainment newspaper and was writing semi-physical articles there.

Web novels are not that explosive yet, and in the eyes of ordinary people, serials in physical newspapers and periodicals are more profitable than web novels.

Xu Heng smiled and shook his head: "I can't compare to Mr. Jin, just a web novel."

"Oh~ like *The Outstanding Servant*, right? That's also very impressive."

The other three brothers in the dorm were all loyal fans of Yu Yan during their university days. Although Sheng Bo didn't read web novels, he always heard them mention this name, so he knew a little about it.

"Just started writing. A novice on the road, not even sure if anyone will read it; I'm just writing for fun," Xu Heng joked.

He knew there was a 90 percent chance his novel wouldn't flop, but if an editor didn't take a liking to it, there was nothing he could do.

It seems like *Mortal* was written for hundreds of thousands of words before getting signed; this kind of thing is too normal in the web novel world.

"What's the name? I'll register an account to vote and tip you."

Sheng Bo put down his washbasin and trotted back to his seat to open the Qidian webpage.

It is quite rare for a close friend in the dorm to become a web novel author; it feels a bit novel and can also provide some entertainment for the dorm.

If Xu Heng becomes famous in the future, they can go out and say, "That famous web writer xxx is my friend." If Xu Heng flops, they can ruthlessly mock him and add some stories for after-dinner conversation.

Sheng Bo and Xu Heng have a good relationship, so even if he mocks him, it would at most be friendly banter, which is why Xu Heng didn't hide the name of his novel from him.

Sheng Bo searched for the name and found that it was indeed a new book just uploaded, with only five chapters and not yet signed.

Without a second thought, he registered an account and tipped a standard Alliance Master.

Xu Heng saw the notification in the author backend and was stunned for two seconds.

"Why are you tipping so much money? If I get signed, I can only get 500 yuan, and if I don't get signed, I won't even have that. Are you crazy?"

An Alliance Master is worth 1,000 yuan, which is still a significant sum in this era, and it can bring some traffic to a newcomer's book; after all, one Alliance Master comes with 66 Monthly Tickets.

A college student using 1,000 yuan to tip a web novel is indeed no different from being crazy.

Sheng Bo waved his hand and said jokingly: "It's only 1,000 yuan; just consider it my investment in your startup. Don't forget me if you make big money in the future."

He didn't even open Xu Heng's book to take a look before closing the webpage; he looked like he really didn't care about that 1,000 yuan.

"Don't be too moved either; wash your butt clean tonight, I'll be back soon!" Sheng Bo said in a Jiangnan dialect, carrying his washbasin as he left the dorm.

Xu Heng was left between laughter and tears. He turned back to look at the author backend; the Alliance Master tip had already garnered a dozen comments in just a few minutes.

Today is June 4th, and the Monthly Tickets were cleared less than two days ago. The 66 Monthly Tickets quickly pushed his book to the forefront of the new book list, firmly occupying the third position.

Many people, upon seeing this unfamiliar book title and seeing that it only had 10,000 words, were curious about which great master had started a new book, so they clicked in out of curiosity.

In fact, the 10,000-word opening of the novel was nothing special, merely following the three major laws of web novels.

Namely: character development, showing off and face-slapping, and anticipation.

However, Xu Heng executed all three to the fullest; the conflicts, contradictions, and subsequent developments were all eye-catching.

And the most critical thing is...

This guy's technique is too damn good!

For example, the male protagonist's parents are both dead, but he has a non-biological older sister who raised him. In his past life, the sister was an eighteenth-tier starlet in the entertainment industry who was later forced to jump to her death for refusing the "hidden rules" of industry bigwigs.

This is a very common plot design; all readers can guess that the next step after the protagonist is reborn is to help his sister become a big star and take down the villains who once harmed her.

But Xu Heng went the opposite way; he glossed over the painful memories and instead began to describe the lingering ambiguity between the two at night in detail.

Because the family was very poor, the two could only live in one room and on one bed in a rented apartment.

Then Xu Heng described certain things in a way that drew people in, firmly grasping the psychology of men.

Reality is already so painful, who wouldn't want to have a busty, gentle, and considerate sister in a fantasy world?

Quite a few adolescent boys were blushing and restless under their covers on the spot, moved to tears.

Xu Heng's novel saw a surge of hundreds of collections in a short time. This was still the result of him being a newcomer with no fame and the number of readers clicking in being relatively low, but it also showed from another perspective that his novel's click-to-collection ratio was extremely high.

A few senior users of Waiwai Bar even stayed up all night to post his novel on the most popular domestic forum today—Tieba—and boasted about his writing style in various ways, saying he might become the second Yu Yan.

Below, there were immediately disdainful replies: "LZSB (OP is a retard), what are you recommending a 10,000-word novel for! And comparing him to Yu Da, he might be abandoned (taijian) tomorrow."

Those who replied also agreed with the above opinion, saying not to recommend it until it reaches a million words; who knows if there are any landmines later? Last time, some idiot recommended a 500,000-word seedling, and just two days after finishing it, the author said he won the lottery and ran away. Really speechless.

Although most people wouldn't pay attention to a new book with a pitiful word count, some "newbie" fish that slipped through the net quietly sneaked into Xu Heng's novel under the recommendation post, and then they couldn't stop, excited and restless all night.

Xu Heng himself didn't continue to pay attention to this; after seeing the novel break 1,000 collections, he went to take a shower and sleep.

A novel with over 1,000 collections and an Alliance Master at only 10,000 or 20,000 words would definitely attract the attention of an editor; signing was basically a done deal. He didn't believe an editor could hold back after reading his novel.