Chapter 9: Stirring Up the Waves of an Era

"Chenghe, reviewing manuscripts again?"

On an office floor in Modu, a man in his forties carried two cups of coffee back to his seat, handed one to the woman on his right, placed one on his own desk, and then leaned over to look at the computer screen of the young man on his left.

The screen was filled with bold text, clearly a novel.

They were all editors at the Qidian website, and reviewing novels for signing was their daily work, but since it hadn't been long since they started work, most editors would take a short break to chat and talk about which author under their wing had produced another hit.

Chu Chenghe was the only one who started working the moment he arrived at the company.

No other reason, he was just a rookie editor.

Veteran editors would have one or two, or even a dozen, authors under them capable of achieving good results; they could do their daily work and take their time with manuscript reviews without worry.

But a rookie editor had nothing, so naturally, he approached his work with twelve times the attitude and spirit.

If one was steady and willing to work hard, winning by volume, then in a year or two, a rookie editor would become a veteran editor.

But it was a pity; as far as the man knew, Chu Chenghe was likely going to resign.

He had worked in the editorial department for half a year without bringing out a single hit, and he had signed a whole bunch of authors who abandoned their books, wasting quite a few signing slots.

Several editors-in-chief felt he lacked the talent for editorial judgment and were preparing to dismiss him.

Logically, an editor who was about to leave would just slack off every day, so how could anyone still be working as seriously as he was?

Many people in the editorial department said that Chu Chenghe was a weirdo.

Today, Chu Chenghe was again the first to start working, and the man curiously glanced at the novel he was reviewing, titled something like Rebirth of the Ultimate Male God; just hearing the name, it sounded like a trend-chasing work of Ultimate Young Master.

He shook his head; such books were hard to achieve results with now, after all, with the original masterpiece already there, if your writing wasn't slightly better, you would be passed over by readers.

"Chenghe, why don't you try reviewing Infinite Flow?" he advised.

Infinite Terror had only been out for a few months, yet it had become one of the hottest web novels of the year.

Moreover, it had pioneered a brand-new genre—Infinite Flow.

Subsequently, this emerging genre spawned a large number of works, and their results weren't bad either, very similar to the development pattern of last year's Fo Ben Shi Dao.

One had to know that Fo Ben Shi Dao was a single book that saved the Xianxia category of web literature; one could imagine how exaggerated that was.

The man felt that rather than staying in the sluggish urban literature area, it would be better to jump out and sign a few rookie Infinite Flow novels; perhaps one of them would be a big hit, and then, with a hit author under his wing, he might still have a chance to stay in his position.

Regarding this suggestion, Chu Chenghe politely declined.

"I think this urban novel has a lot of potential; the writing is very delicate, and the character images aren't formulaic."

"It's useless, the market for urban novels is too small, it can't compare to Infinite novels; in the future, Infinite might become a major category comparable to Fantasy, if you don't switch now, you won't have a chance."

"Sorry, Team Leader, I still want to try."

Hearing this, the man smiled dismissively; what potential could a novel with only twenty thousand words have? Even their standard for signing was based on the first thirty thousand words.

Over the past few years, how many novels claiming to have great potential had been abandoned after a few tens of thousands of words?

It could only be said that Chu Chenghe was still too young and too naive, thinking of the web literature industry, which hadn't been rising for long, too simply.

Web literature mainly required picking the right market.

Infinite novels were currently in the spotlight, so scanning more batches of new Infinite novels would definitely produce hits; as for urban novels, those things were nothing more than school beauties, medical gods, or soldier kings; nothing new could be written there.

In the end, Chu Chenghe still signed this urban novel.

As an editor about to leave, he could currently sign at most five novels a week, less than half that of a normal editor.

It was precisely because of this that wasting slots didn't affect him much; interested colleagues looked at the name of the work he signed, felt it was a trend-chasing work with no features, and couldn't be bothered to look closer.

How many people fantasized that they could become a big god after signing? In reality, that was unrealistic; among signed authors, bottom-tier authors without even a single subscription were everywhere.

As the saying goes, being able to sign already beats ninety-five percent of authors, and authors who can write a hit are less than one in a thousand among signed authors, which is enough to witness the cruelty of the web literature world.

……

Just as Xu Heng expected, just past 8:30 in the morning, his author dashboard received a signing notification.

The editor who took a liking to his book was named Chu He.

He hadn't heard this editor's name in his past life; perhaps he was poached by other websites after the novel website rose to prominence later.

Xu Heng didn't think too much and added the other party's Penguin account.

He hadn't prepared his wording yet when the other party sent a message first.

Editor Chu He: Hello, is this Zhi Chi Su Pi Cui Kao Chang?

Zhi Chi Su Pi Cui Kao Chang: Yes...

Editor Chu He: May I ask if you have an outline for the rest of this book? Could you let me see it?

Xu Heng replied that he had one, and then sent his ten-thousand-word outline to the other party.

A few minutes later, the website's signing notification arrived; this era wasn't like later generations where everything was electronic signing, it still used paper contracts, requiring you to wait for the Qidian contract to be mailed to you, then you fill it out and mail it back.

This process was very troublesome, and at the earliest, it would only be completed by this Friday.

However, since the editor had already taken a liking to it, the signing contract and such just needed to go through the motions.

After settling the contract, Chu He asked him a few more questions about the plot direction and character settings of his novel; it was clear that the editor Chu He seemed to think very highly of his novel, and even at the end, Chu He kept urging him to write well, saying it would definitely become a hit before long, as if he were afraid he would abandon the book.

Xu Heng scratched his cheek.

Did he look like the kind of author who would abandon a book?

Over the next few days, he proved his strength with his typing speed, updating nearly thirty thousand words daily for four or five consecutive days, pushing himself directly onto the weekly update leaderboard.

Some authors who focused on the update leaderboard saw a new book with a name they hadn't seen before suddenly appear on the list and curiously clicked in to take a look.

They didn't know until they looked, and they were shocked when they did.

This big brother updated two hundred thousand words in a week!

Some were dumbfounded and exclaimed "Holy crap" on the spot.

What kind of concept was this? Two hundred thousand words a week, approximately equal to a daily update volume of nearly thirty thousand words, while the most awesome big shots on their update leaderboard only insisted on fifteen thousand words a day.

Was he just typing random gibberish?

Upholding an attitude of scientific skepticism, some others carefully flipped through Xu Heng's novel and discovered that the content wasn't gibberish or punctuation marks, but a normal novel.

Oh, it's also a bit abnormal.

The novel he's writing is just too good, isn't it?

The satisfying points in Xu Heng's urban novels are still quite ahead of their time today; many authors, after clicking in, find themselves unable to sleep, suddenly enlightened, and feeling as though their writing level has reached a new realm.

Not to mention those readers.

It's just like a certain Immortal Venerable writing a heavenly book, where a Mortal can benefit immensely just by taking a slight glance at it.

Many people have a premonition that a new Platinum author in the web novel world is rising!