[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of":3,"chapter-dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-14":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Dreaming Back to 1997: I Became the Forefather of Web Novels",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2348248,4589,"Chapter 14: Featured Spot? A Sign of a Hit","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-14",14,"\u003Cp>However, when Cao Sheng came to the playground for his morning run the next day, he never saw Tan Lei’s figure; she did not appear even after he finished his one-kilometer run for the day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On his way back to the dormitory, Cao Sheng couldn't help but chuckle when he thought of how Tan Lei had nodded vigorously yesterday, indicating she would come for a morning run again today.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had long known that Tan Lei had a bit of a crush on him during their university days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Coming to run with him yesterday was likely her way of trying to get close to him on purpose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But perhaps for her, running a kilometer every morning was too painful, so even though she said she would come today, she didn't show up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps after she went back yesterday, the more she thought about it, the more she felt that running a kilometer every day just to get close to him wasn't worth it!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or maybe she did think about getting up to run with him this morning, but her spirit was willing while her flesh was weak; she lay in bed with her eyes open, thinking about getting up immediately, yet her body remained completely motionless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All of these were possibilities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just like in his original timeline, he would occasionally have the thought of exercising early in the morning, but almost every time it stopped at the thought stage, with his body always resisting the action.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He felt that, in the end, it was because his own charm wasn't enough to make Tan Lei overcome her inner laziness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this, Cao Sheng smiled self-deprecatingly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>……\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the days that followed, he still came to the playground for a morning run whenever he didn't spend the night at the internet cafe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the blink of an eye, more than half a month passed, and Tan Lei never came to run with him again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And during this half-month, he finally finished writing \"Living with a Flight Attendant.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wasn't sure exactly how many words the full text had.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because most of the manuscript still existed only in his draft notebook and hadn't been fully uploaded to the internet, and it was difficult to calculate the exact word count for the drafts on paper.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He only knew that this story was written in 82 chapters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Each chapter was about five or six pages long, and he estimated each chapter to be around three thousand words.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, he estimated the total word count to be over two hundred thousand, likely less than three hundred thousand words.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This length was within his plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the night he finished the full text, he brought a portion of the manuscript and went to the internet cafe for an overnight session again, intending to upload about ten thousand more words to his email tonight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Afterward, he planned to rest for two or three days before starting to write the main text of \"I Wish to Become an Immortal.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was almost 12 o'clock when he arrived at the Starry Sky Internet Cafe tonight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After paying the overnight fee and opening a terminal, he subconsciously logged into Banyan Tree first, wanting to check the current data for his book, \"Living with a Flight Attendant.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This book had been published on Banyan Tree for over a month, updating one chapter every three days on average, and it was currently serialized up to the 11th chapter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he came for an overnight session two days ago, he saw that the book’s readership had already exceeded 2,500, with over 600 comments.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the time, his feelings were complex.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He felt gratified and a sense of accomplishment because of the 600-plus comments, feeling that his book had touched the readers' hearts and sparked their desire to comment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He also felt disappointed because, after more than a month of serialization, there were still only 2,500-plus readers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Could a readership of 2,500-plus be considered a hit?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his estimation, this number of readers was far too small! It wasn't even a fraction of any of his works from before he transmigrated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He began to doubt whether this book of his could ever become a hit online.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps, after Pizi Cai’s \"First Intimate Contact\" became a hit online, most netizens would still, like in the original timeline, consider \"First Intimate Contact\" to be the first web novel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They would have no idea that there was once a \"Living with a Flight Attendant\" published earlier than \"First Intimate Contact.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just like a girl he had dated before; he was clearly her first boyfriend, but after they broke up, she never acknowledged him as her first love, simply because very few people knew they had dated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However……\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tonight, when Cao Sheng logged into the Banyan Tree author backend, he suddenly discovered that he had received a site message.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What was going on?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Filled with some curiosity, he clicked on the message.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Respected Zhongyuan Yidianhui, hello! In view of the fact that your work 'Living with a Flight Attendant' is highly acclaimed, this site has decided to feature it prominently. We hope you will continue to create. Wishing you a pleasant mood and a fountain of inspiration! — Banyan Tree\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After reading this site message, Cao Sheng was stunned for a moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Three words popped into his mind: Featured spot?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the original timeline, he was a contracted author at Qidian Chinese Network, and every time he started a new book, he could get a featured spot after signing the contract.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every time he was assigned a featured spot, he would receive a notification message in his author backend.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Logically speaking, he should have been used to such notifications and shouldn't have felt strange.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But this was the beginning of 1998!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How many months had it been since Banyan Tree was founded? Had it even been two months?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, he hadn't signed any contract with Banyan Tree; he could only be considered a resident writer, and it was impossible to get any royalties from this site.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was purely writing for the love of it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under these circumstances, for Banyan Tree to actually arrange a featured spot for him was completely beyond his expectations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he knew this was definitely a good thing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The promotional effect of having a featured spot versus not having one was absolutely worlds apart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He suddenly saw hope for his book to become a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this day and age, there was no ready-made web novel reader base, and Banyan Tree, having been founded not long ago, didn't have many readers either.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But, Banyan Tree was, after all, the first Chinese literature website, naturally attracting all Chinese literature enthusiasts who knew how to use the internet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, there were too few things for people who went online in this day and age to do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Aside from playing games, watching movies or TV shows, or listening to songs, there weren't many forums to browse online.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There wasn't even chat software.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his memory, many people who went online in this era wandered around everywhere, searching for websites and forums they were interested in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the first literature website in the country, although Banyan Tree's daily traffic wasn't very high, it was still possible to make a novel a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, his \"Living with a Flight Attendant\" was the first web novel; it had absolutely no competitors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng suddenly remembered something, squinted, and carefully looked at the date the site message was sent, discovering it was sent at 4 o'clock the day before yesterday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That is to say—Banyan Tree very likely arranged a featured spot for his book on the afternoon of the day before yesterday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thinking of this possibility, Cao Sheng hurriedly clicked on his book's page to check the current number of readers, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the readership had surged to 9,766.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The number of comments had also increased significantly, rising from the previous 600-plus to 2,332.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At a glance, he saw several comments like these.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Which big shot wrote this? The site actually gave him such a prominent recommendation? Does anyone know which big shot wrote this?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Is this a memorial to your own love story? Has the author already broken up with Ran Jing? Is Ran Jing a pseudonym?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Author! The site has given you such promotion, yet you still write so slowly? Where is Chapter 12? Calculating the time, it should have been published today, right?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Author, if Ran Jing is her real name, I suggest you change it! Even if she broke up with you, you still have to protect her privacy! You can't just expose her to the internet because you know how to write articles; that is very immoral of you!\"\u003C\u002Fp>",1462,"2026-06-21T01:55:54.452Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","bbc434b13834c152e63046938aa3f6d690847082907ed606facc5c24f128c5ca","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-15","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-13",338,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fdreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-cover.jpg"]