Chapter 15: Rising Popularity, The Hat of a Broken Heart

The diverse book reviews in the comment section always make Cao Sheng smile, especially whenever he sees someone in the reviews believing the book is based on true events; his corners of the mouth can't help but turn upward.

He thinks the readers nowadays are truly adorable.

He does not plan to explain for now that this story is fictional.

Because for those reading this book, if they believe in their hearts that it is based on true events, their immersion will be strong, leading to a better reading experience.

Moreover, having people constantly discuss whether the book is based on true events will increase the book's popularity and make it easier to spread.

Therefore, not revealing for now that the book's content is fictional is beneficial for both him and the readers.

He even wants to never explain it.

After reading the reviews in the comment section for a while, Cao Sheng, now in a good mood, logged into his email, retrieved a chapter of stored drafts, and published it on Rongshuxia.

He was wondering whether to increase the update speed of this book?

For instance, change it to one update every two days? Or one update every day?

After all, the website has already assigned a recommendation spot for this book; it is unknown how many days this spot will last. While on the recommendation spot, increasing the update speed will definitely accelerate the growth of the book's popularity.

Once the recommendation spot ends, increasing the update speed will have a much weaker effect.

But if the update speed is increased, this book will finish its serialization very soon; with only 82 chapters in total, updating daily means it will be serialized to completion in about two months.

Given Rongshuxia's current number of readers, a two-month serialization period would likely struggle to accumulate many readers.

After thinking for quite a while, Cao Sheng decided to try updating one chapter every two days recently, to test the effect for a while with this schedule.

After all, this book is the first work he wrote after his rebirth; if possible, he definitely hopes more people will see this book.

Works written powered by love are only for the sake of popularity.

Moreover, if the popularity can rise high enough in the near future, he can also try to see if this book can be published in the near term.

Ultimately, he still hopes this book can earn him some manuscript fees to improve his life as soon as possible; limited by living expenses, he has been eating very plain food every day recently, and for him, enduring such a day for one more day is torture.

He wants to eat meat!

Very much.

After this day, Cao Sheng truly began updating one chapter every two days.

And the effect was indeed quite good.

The number of readers increased by several thousand every day, and the speed of growth was getting faster and faster.

The response in the comment section was also very good.

Such as: "The author has been too diligent recently, updating one chapter every two days, it's truly bliss!"

"Zhongyuan Yidianhui! Can you go even faster? Can you write one chapter every day? Can you?"

"Keep it up! Author, your recent performance is very good, you must keep it up!"

And so on.

Similar reviews, Cao Sheng could see some of them every time he recently came to the internet cafe to update chapters.

But he dared not increase the update speed again.

The stored drafts in hand were simply too limited.

In the blink of an eye, half a month passed, and the time arrived at early April.

"Days Living with a Flight Attendant" had serialized to chapter 20, and the number of readers had risen to over 80,000; the popularity grew so fast, largely due to Rongshuxia's strong promotion.

Rongshuxia differed greatly from the web novel websites in Cao Sheng's memory.

On Rongshuxia, although works were also recommended, there was a writer recommendation spot; this spot did not promote works, but rather promoted writers one by one.

Among them were not a few established traditional writers from the country.

And as "Days Living with a Flight Attendant" ascended to the recommendation spot, Cao Sheng's pen name "Zhongyuan Yidianhui" also became one of the strongly promoted writers.

The combined effect of the two types of recommendation spots made the popularity of this book grow very fast.

To put it this way! Perhaps because this book was Rongshuxia's first long-running serialized novel, recently, almost all readers who came to Rongshuxia had seen this book of his.

For the entire website, this book of his was in a league of its own; compared to other short works on the site, it was too special.

It was just...

For Cao Sheng, the online heat of this book was currently of no use whatsoever.

Perhaps it could be published in the future, but the hope of publication in the near term was not great.

So, recently, he had been rushing to write his new book, "I Wish to Become an Immortal."

In half a month, he had finally written about sixty to seventy thousand characters.

Actually, with his previous typing speed, in half a month, if he worked hard, he could have written over a hundred thousand characters.

But before, he was a full-time typist, and he typed directly on a computer; his typing speed on a computer was much faster than handwriting.

And now?

Except for weekends, he had classes during the day; relying solely on handwriting during the evening self-study every day, the speed simply could not pick up.

Writing sixty to seventy thousand characters in half a month was already the result of his great effort.

And with the beginning of these sixty to seventy thousand characters written, he felt much more relaxed in his heart.

Because these characters were enough to submit to the publishing house in Taiwan.

Once he converted all these stored drafts into electronic manuscripts, he could submit immediately; barring unexpected issues, there should be a great hope for this book to be published.

To submit as soon as possible and get the review results as soon as possible, for the next few days, he skipped morning classes for several consecutive days.

Because he went to the internet cafe for overnight stays for several consecutive days to upload the manuscripts.

After each overnight stay, he would sleep in the dormitory for a whole morning.

Perhaps because he had skipped too many classes these past few days! This morning, while he was sleeping soundly in the dormitory, he suddenly felt someone pushing his upper arm; Cao Sheng woke up groggily from deep sleep, and upon opening his eyes, he saw the old face of his counselor, Lu Xiangwei.

Cao Sheng was startled inside, his expression flickered slightly, but that was all — he didn't cry out, much less jolt upright in bed.

Because his mindset was still that of a forty-year-old, and he had long lost any reverence for his counsellor Lu Xiangwei.

Besides, in his memory Lu Xiangwei had a pretty good temper, and the students had privately given him the nickname "Ah Wei."

So even though Cao Sheng had been caught sleeping in bed by Lu Xiangwei for skipping class, he wasn't too alarmed; his expression quickly relaxed, and he raised a hand in a casual greeting: "Hello, teacher!"

Lu Xiangwei looked at him helplessly, pressed his lips together, and sighed: "Cao Sheng, I heard you haven't been going to morning classes the last few days, is that right? What's going on? Heartbroken?"

He paused, and without waiting for Cao Sheng to answer, went on: "Even if you are heartbroken, you still have to attend class! If you keep skipping like this, what era will you ever find a partner in? Wouldn't you say?"

Cao Sheng: "???"

At that moment, even though Cao Sheng knew Lu Xiangwei had a good temper, he was still taken aback by those words.

He thought: I skip class, sleep in the dorm, and you catch me — and instead of scolding me, you actually comfort me like this?

"Teacher, I'm not heartbroken."

Cao Sheng spoke up to deny it.

He didn't want people constantly putting labels on him.

Last time, because he'd gone to an internet café for an all-nighter and hadn't come back to the dorm, his roommates had slapped the label on him the next day that he'd gone to a hotel with a girl.

Today, again because he'd gone to an internet café for an all-nighter, his counsellor had slapped the label of heartbreak on him.

Good grief — he'd only pulled a few all-nighters at the internet café, yet in the eyes of his roommates and his counsellor, he had apparently already completed the whole arc from dating and hotel visits to a breakup.

It was as if a romance had been added to his love-life résumé.

That was the kind of experience he didn't want piling up out of thin air.

Only…

Faced with his denial, Lu Xiangwei gave a faint, amused smile; the look in his eyes gained a touch of sympathy, and he even reached out to pat Cao Sheng on the head, consoling him: "It won't help to deny it. I was your age once too. Someone skipping class for days on end and sleeping in the dorm — whatever the reason is, I've got a pretty good idea."

Cao Sheng stared at him in astonishment.

Lu Xiangwei: "Never mind this morning — get some proper rest, sort out your mood, and go to class properly this afternoon. If you keep skipping like this, when finals come you're going to fail several subjects for sure, and I won't be able to help you then."