[{"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-25":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},2348259,4589,"Chapter 25: Appearing Copycat Works","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-25",25,"\u003Cp>Two days later, Saturday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng went to the commercial street in the morning, wanting to understand the current market for custom-built computers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He entered three computer shops one after another.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After asking for the prices, he fell silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The prices far exceeded his expectations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A 15-inch monitor was priced at over 1,300, and he didn't even bother asking for the price of a 17-inch one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A mediocre motherboard cost over 1,000.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The CPU also cost over 1,000.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Memory cards, hard drives, sound cards, graphics cards, etc., each cost several hundred yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In addition, there were the computer case, optical drive, floppy drive, etc., all of which were priced much higher than he had estimated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A rough calculation showed that the total price of one computer was at least seven or eight thousand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If one wanted a better configuration, the price would go over ten thousand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And this was just for a custom-built machine; if it were a pre-built one, the price would be even higher.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the bus ride back, Cao Sheng looked at the scenery outside the window with a self-deprecating smile; in his original timeline, he bought his first computer in 2007.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That year, the Hasee laptop burst onto the scene, and the news said Hasee had brought down the inflated prices of laptops.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the time, he didn't feel much, because he had bought a Hasee laptop for just over four thousand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the time he bought that computer, he heard people say that custom-built machines were very cheap, and one could be built for around two thousand yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, when he wanted to buy a computer recently, he thought with a budget of 3,000, he could buy a custom-built machine just for typing, with low performance requirements, which should be about right.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, 3,000 yuan in this era was an amount many rural families couldn't even scrape together.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>3,000 yuan in '98 should be comparable to 30,000 in 2024.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just that he had underestimated how expensive computers were in this era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No wonder it cost 5 yuan an hour to go online at an internet cafe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He couldn't afford such an expensive computer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if he could afford it, he didn't think it was worth it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That boxy monitor, the pitifully small memory, a hard drive capacity of only a few gigabytes...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Today's best-configured computer was, in his eyes, an ancient configuration.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To spend seven or eight thousand, or even ten thousand yuan on such trashy hardware—let alone the fact that he didn't have that much money now, even if he did, he wouldn't buy it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because his memories from before his rebirth told him that computers were things that updated and replaced very quickly, changing completely year by year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The parameters of various components would keep rising, while the prices would keep falling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just like the internet cafe fees; they cost five yuan an hour now, but in a few years, they would be one yuan an hour, or seven or eight mao an hour if you bought a membership.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, at the end of the day, it was still because he had too little money right now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he already had hundreds of thousands or even more cash, he would probably still buy a computer for ten thousand just to make typing easier.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It must be said that this trip to ask about computer prices made him realize his poverty once again, and his motivation to earn money was a few notches higher than before.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Days passed one by one, May drew closer, the weather grew warmer, and the clothes people wore became thinner.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng's life didn't seem to have changed much.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every day was still waking up early to run on the track, then eating breakfast, attending classes... and in his spare time outside of studying, he was basically writing manuscripts in the adult education building.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Additionally, he would find time to go to an internet cafe every two days, mainly to update \"Days Living with a Flight Attendant.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On Fridays and weekends, he would stay overnight to convert his handwritten drafts into electronic manuscripts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During this period, there were two major changes in his life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, his diet had clearly improved quite a bit; at least there was meat in every meal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With some fat in his stomach, he finally wouldn't be growling with hunger before it was even time to eat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The second change was his work \"Days Living with a Flight Attendant,\" which was already finished but still being serialized on Rongshuxia.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Anyone who has written web novels knows that the most difficult part of accumulating popularity for any novel is the early stage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because the growth of data in the early stage is very slow (except for big-name authors).\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just like this book of his, \"Days Living with a Flight Attendant,\" when it was first posted on Rongshuxia, it only gained a few dozen reads a day and a handful of new book reviews.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as the number of readers grew and book reviews increased, the growth rate of all its data would get faster and faster.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like a snowball, rolling bigger and bigger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon it would be too big to fit in a pot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the beginning of this month, the book only had 80,000 readers; now at the end of the month, in about twenty days, he had only updated 12 chapters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the number of readers had actually grown to over 550,000.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It left the second-ranked work on Rongshuxia far behind; the other party didn't even have a fraction of his data.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It could be said that this book was already a hit, at least on Rongshuxia, and it was the undisputed biggest hit, bar none.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, this had to do with it being the longest work on Rongshuxia at the moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Currently, over ninety percent of other works on Rongshuxia were still short stories.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The remaining ten percent?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps influenced by his book \"Days Living with a Flight Attendant,\" some serialized novels had recently appeared on Rongshuxia one after another.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And among them, there was no lack of decent writing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, in this era where writing novels made absolutely no money and people were \"generating electricity with love,\" the average person wouldn't even consider writing this stuff.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those who actually tried writing were either confident in their own writing or were very idle people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What was interesting was—Cao Sheng had recently seen a few copycat works on Rongshuxia.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The style of the book titles was very similar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One was called \"Days Living with the School Beauty,\" one was called \"Days Living with a Female Bank Manager,\" and another was \"Days Living with My Cousin.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Don't say, although they were copycats, the reader numbers were actually quite good.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although they were far behind the data of Cao Sheng's book, compared to other works currently on Rongshuxia, the reader numbers for these three books were clearly much higher.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The most popular one was \"Days Living with a Female Bank Manager.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The number of readers for this book had already exceeded 30,000.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And the reason Cao Sheng noticed these three books was because readers were always mentioning them in his book review section recently.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The content of the reviews was roughly as follows:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"This book is still the best; the male lead in that 'Days Living with the School Beauty' is too sleazy, he has no masculine spirit at all! He's practically a hoodlum!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Author, can you update faster? In the time I waited for your update, I finished reading that 'Days Living with My Cousin' today. Although their writing isn't as good as yours, they update much faster than you, with a chapter every day! You should learn from them!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I suggest everyone go check out 'Days Living with a Female Bank Manager.' It's the same cohabitation theme, but that book is written so excitingly. Out of 8 chapters, 6 are sex scenes, though the female manager's moaning sounds a bit fake.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng could see a few reviews like this every time he checked the review section recently.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just that before he even had a chance to read \"Days Living with a Female Bank Manager,\" the book was banned by the site and could no longer be searched for on the platform.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the blink of an eye, time arrived at the beginning of May.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This evening, Cao Sheng returned from eating at the cafeteria and was changing his bed sheets and quilt cover in the dormitory. He was busy when a familiar voice suddenly came from the dormitory door: \"Cao Sheng!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng turned his head to look.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Yo, monitor, why are you here?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Monitor?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pang Yunhai and Guan Zhi in the same dormitory were quite surprised and spoke up to greet the visitor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes, the one who had just called Cao Sheng at the door was Geng Yong, the monitor of their class.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng was a bit surprised that the monitor had come to the dormitory to find him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He immediately smiled and climbed down from the upper bunk, \"A rare guest! Monitor! Come in and sit!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Geng Yong walked in with a smile, holding a thick kraft paper envelope. This envelope was much larger than a common one, and looking at its bulging appearance, it seemed to contain something quite thick.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Geng Yong walked up to Cao Sheng and handed over the envelope in his hand, \"Cao Sheng! I just went to the guard room and saw a registered letter for you in our class's mailbox. What's inside this? It's so thick! And it's quite heavy too!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng took the registered letter and felt the thickness of the envelope; he had already guessed in his heart that this should be the sample copies of the first volume of his new book.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A few days ago, he had received an email from Changqing Shu, in which Changqing Shu told him—the first volume of \"I Wish to Become an Immortal\" had already hit the market at the end of April, and the 5 sample copies promised to him had already been mailed, telling him to pay attention to receiving them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, although he hadn't opened this registered letter yet, he had already guessed that what was inside should be the sample copies of his new book.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, his heart was full of joy.\u003C\u002Fp>",1732,"2026-06-21T01:55:54.452Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","d379a26123373cb5bfb6af28876fc4d07ba0c2082e7216faad6f4bcefdf17386","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-26","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-24",338,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fdreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-cover.jpg"]