Chapter 29: Continuous Good News

Time entered June.

The book Cao Sheng was worried about, *Living with a Flight Attendant*, saw its popularity on Rongshuxia rise higher and higher as more chapters were updated.

The growth rate of various metrics was increasing.

The number of new book reviews added daily was also doubling.

This was because the recently serialized plot involved the male lead, Ding Yang, trying every possible method—like a peacock spreading its tail—to showcase his various merits in front of the female lead, Ran Jing, only to frequently make a fool of himself.

And what about the female lead, Ran Jing?

The recent plot presented her beauty, gentleness, virtue, and tolerance.

Having lost her lover, she was sorrowful inside and felt nothing for Ding Yang’s pursuit, yet she was able to tolerate the impact Ding Yang had on her life.

These plot points were quite taxing for Cao Sheng to write because he wanted to achieve a hilarious effect, and writing such a plot required careful construction; otherwise, if it failed to make the readers laugh, the plot would seem very awkward.

It was precisely these plot points that had the readers hooked lately.

More and more readers liked Ran Jing.

The number of readers who found the male lead, Ding Yang, amusing and interesting was also growing day by day.

By mid-June, the book’s readership exceeded 1 million, setting a new record for Rongshuxia.

Rongshuxia, which hadn't been established long, specifically put up a banner on the website's homepage to announce this happy news.

This undoubtedly further boosted the book’s fame.

Consequently, more long-form serialized novels began to appear on Rongshuxia.

For Cao Sheng, the good news this month was not just the skyrocketing popularity of *Living with a Flight Attendant*.

What made him happiest was the good news from Xinchang Publishing House.

On a Friday night in mid-June, he came to the internet cafe for an overnight session again.

After turning on the computer and logging into his email, he received a message from Changqing Shu.

The content was as follows:

"Cao Sheng, I have some good news to inform you of. The sales of the first and second volumes of your work, *I Wish to Become an Immortal*, have been very good since their release, and reader feedback is also excellent. Therefore, the President has specially approved that you may shorten the observation period for this work by one month. That is to say, starting this month, *I Wish to Become an Immortal* does not have to be limited to one volume per month. If you have manuscripts on hand, you are welcome to publish two or three volumes this month. Furthermore, your royalties for this month will not be withheld; as soon as you send the manuscripts for the volumes, we can quickly transfer the royalties for those volumes into your bank account.

Please contact me as soon as you see this letter, because if you want to publish one or two extra volumes this month, we need to act quickly; otherwise, our time for proofreading, typesetting, and printing might be very tight.

Looking forward to your reply.

—Changqing Shu, Xinchang Publishing House"

Seeing such an email, Cao Sheng was naturally happy.

The royalties for the second volume he published in May had been held as a deposit and not paid out to him.

In other words, although he had published two volumes of this book, he had actually only received the royalties for one.

Originally, he thought he would only receive royalties for one volume in June as well.

After all, Changqing Shu had told him before—according to the rules, for a new author and a new book, only one volume could be published per month for the first three months, as the publisher needed to observe the market's reaction.

After three months, if the response was good, they would allow an increase in the number of volumes published per month; conversely, the publisher had the right to demand the work be concluded immediately at any time.

These were all terms written in the contract.

And now, the publisher had taken the initiative to shorten the observation period by a month, allowing him to publish one or two extra volumes per month ahead of schedule.

What did this mean?

Cao Sheng’s judgment was: the response after the release of the first two volumes of this book was very good.

At the very least, in terms of sales, it must have pleasantly surprised Xinchang Publishing House.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have received special approval from the President, who was eager to speed up the publication of this book.

While Cao Sheng was happy, the thought of raising his royalty rate also popped up.

—Since my book is selling well, shouldn't I bring up the matter of a royalty increase with the publisher now?

He was somewhat tempted to bring it up.

But his reason stopped him.

A voice inside him was telling him: Now is not the right time; wait a little longer! It should be best to bring it up when the book's sales are even higher and the plot is getting better and better. Moreover, sales probably haven't reached their peak yet, so even if he asked for a raise now, it wouldn't be much. He couldn't just keep asking for raises every little while, could he? Asking for a royalty increase multiple times during the publication of a single book would probably annoy the publisher, right?

Wait! Wait a little longer!

In any case, *I Wish to Become an Immortal* is a Xianxia cultivation novel; this genre is easily written into a super-long work of four or five million words, so there is no need to rush for a royalty increase now.

Having thought it through, his heart settled.

Smiling slightly, he opened the draft notebook he brought tonight, opened the electronic document, and began to convert his handwritten manuscript into an electronic one bit by bit.

By dawn, there were over 12,000 words of manuscript in his email.

Adding the existing drafts in his email, he put together two volumes of manuscript and sent them to Changqing Shu.

Sending these two volumes meant he would have 8,000 yuan in royalties for this month.

Added to what remained from his first volume's royalties, his savings would exceed 10,000.

In '98, most families in the country probably didn't have savings exceeding 10,000, and he, Cao Sheng, had this much money while still a student.

This was a small achievement.

The next day, Saturday night.

Cao Sheng came to the internet cafe for an overnight session again, continuing to convert his remaining drafts into electronic text.

Monday, noon.

After lunch, he took the time to come to the internet cafe again; today was the day he was supposed to update *Living with a Flight Attendant*.

After the computer successfully started, he first logged into the Rongshuxia author backend, and just as he was about to log into his email to pull up the draft, he suddenly caught sight of a new message in the Rongshuxia author backend.

Did Rongshuxia send me another internal message?

Did they arrange another recommendation slot for my book?

With some anticipation, Cao Sheng clicked on this internal message.

Only to see the content of the message: "Respected author Zhongyuan Yidianhui, hello. First of all, congratulations on your work *Living with a Flight Attendant* becoming the first book on this site to break one million in readership. This is your achievement and also the glory of Rongshuxia. For this reason, we held a meeting and unanimously decided to strongly recommend your work to many domestic publishers, hoping to help you get this work published in the country. But before that, we need to obtain your publishing agency authorization. If you are willing, please send us your address, and we will send a specialist to come and discuss the publishing agency contract with you. Looking forward to your cooperation! —Rongshuxia"

After reading this internal message, Cao Sheng’s expression was very surprised.

He didn't expect Rongshuxia to have this idea.

They actually wanted to help him publish this book?

He hadn't even counted on this book being published in the short term.

He had always thought about writing this book just for the love of it.

And now?

Rongshuxia wants to "generate electricity" for me?

Strongly recommend to many domestic publishers? The many domestic publishers they mentioned, do they mean here on the mainland?

It’s not easy to publish simplified Chinese books on the mainland these days!