Chapter 3: The Days of Living with a Stewardess

That evening, shortly after dinner, Cao Sheng entered his bedroom.

When he entered the bedroom, he held a cup of plain boiled water in one hand and a handful of peanut brittle in the other.

The peanut brittle was made by his father today.

He closed the door and sat down at the desk.

He dug out a notebook of draft paper unused since high school from the desk, found half a pencil, and while sharpening the pencil with a sharpener, he pondered in his mind how to start his new book.

During the day, he had already decided what to write in his new book.

Before crossing over, he had written full-time for many years; starting a new book was not difficult for him.

What was difficult was writing a work that could become popular.

Just like making money: is making money difficult for adults?

Of course not!

Go to the roadside, pick up some scrap, and sell it, and you can make money.

What is difficult is making a lot.

Writing novels is the same; for someone like him who has written many novels, starting a new book presents no difficulty at all.

What has always been difficult is achieving results.

And now it is the end of 1997; perhaps no one has written web novels on the internet yet. In this era, what kind of novel could become popular?

Some might think that in this era, writing any kind of novel at random would become popular.

At first, Cao Sheng thought so too.

But after thinking carefully today, he felt it was probably not that simple.

Why did no one write novels on the internet in this era?

He suspected that before the book "First Intimate Contact" became popular in the original timeline, some novels might have already appeared on the internet.

Perhaps those novels did not become popular until "First Intimate Contact" became popular, at which point most people who liked surfing the internet noticed web novels, and then many people thought "First Intimate Contact" was the first web novel.

He was not sure if the truth was so.

But he felt this was very likely.

And why was "First Intimate Contact" able to become popular?

He believed there might be two reasons.

First, the book should have been published on a website where young netizens gathered in large numbers; only with a sufficiently large potential readership could there be a foundation for becoming popular.

Second, it should be related to the book's title and the overall quality of the book.

The title looked a bit risqué.

And young people were generally interested in things of this nature; if the title had not been so ambiguous, exuding an air of "risqué," it would probably have been difficult to become popular in such a short time.

Besides the title, the content of the book was very serious, telling a very pure love story, which allowed those readers attracted by the title to be moved by the story within the book.

Furthermore, because the content of the book was not risqué, people who read it could recommend the book to their friends, or even relatives and elders, without any psychological burden.

In an era where the internet was not yet developed, a work that could not be passed from mouth to mouth was very difficult to truly become popular.

It was quite coincidental that "First Intimate Contact" could be passed from mouth to mouth.

Therefore, there must be a reason why this book could become popular.

Thinking carefully, in this era, not every story could be sought after by people online.

Cao Sheng summarized several elements:

First, the title must be ambiguous to attract the attention of young people; second, the content of the book must not be truly risqué; it must write pure love, so that readers, even if they like it very much in their hearts, do not feel embarrassed recommending it to others; third, the quality of the story must be solid, with enough highlights to move the majority of literary youth of this era.

Literary youth...

Literary youth seem to be mainly a product of this era.

And literary youth have certain requirements for the textual quality of a work; it cannot be written too plainly, and even less like some web novels in the original timeline where N typos appear in every chapter, which would make literary youth look down on it.

Having summarized these several elements, Cao Sheng felt that these requirements were still quite difficult for him.

Because in the original timeline, he started writing web novels in 2006.

And at that time, the popular writing style was to have many beauties in the book, many borderline plots, and some authors simply wrote little yellow stories directly; readers generally liked this kind of flirtatious writing style.

For many years afterwards, he could not shake off this influence in his writing; there were always many beauties in his books, and he always wanted to write content that would make Miao Xuefei's blood boil.

Therefore, letting him write in a flirtatious direction was his forte.

Letting him write in a pure love direction was, for him, a major challenge.

This was like asking an old driver who frequently visited hair salons and nightclubs to engage in spiritual love with someone; the specialties were completely mismatched.

The old driver was good at understanding people's clothes, the kind where you take off your pants as soon as you meet.

Asking him to talk about Platonic spiritual love, isn't that forcing the issue?

But, Cao Sheng still wanted to try.

Truly, the title "Progenitor of Web Novels" was too tempting for him.

Fortunately, his previous reading volume was huge; during the day, he remembered another pure love novel he had read before—"The Days of Living with a Stewardess."

In his memory, this novel had also been a hit on the domestic internet, and was later adapted into a TV drama, and the viewership ratings seemed quite good too.

It was hailed as the most popular pure love work after "First Intimate Contact."

Comparing the title, style, and quality, this book and "First Intimate Contact" were almost identical, impossible to distinguish in rank.

For example: in terms of title, the titles of both books exuded an air of "risqué."

For example: in terms of style, the content in both books was very serious, not risqué at all.

And in terms of book quality, both books had once made literary youth flock to them and be unable to put them down.

So...

Although Cao Sheng had never lived with a stewardess, he still decided to write "The Days of Living with a Stewardess."

Who says you can't write a book like this without having lived with a flight attendant?

Do those who wrote "Swallow Heaven," "Tear Heaven," "Fly Heaven," and "Shroud Heaven" really do such things to the sky?

Compared to those authors who pick fights with the sky, he, Cao Sheng, is already being petty just by writing a work about living with a flight attendant.

However, he had long forgotten most of the specific content of the book "Days Living with a Flight Attendant."

He only vaguely remembered that the male protagonist of this book seemed a bit roguish, a bit lazy, and seemed to be a shut-in, while the female protagonist's name seemed to be Ran Jing.

A story about a shut-in living with a flight attendant?

Cao Sheng, having sharpened his pencil, pondered for a while, then began to put pen to paper, constructing the outline of this book.

First was the process of the two meeting.

Logically, flight attendants and shut-ins have little overlap in their lives, so how did the two of them meet? A reasonable arrangement must be provided.

Cao Sheng thought for a moment, then suddenly remembered that in the original work, the two seemed to have met in a bar? When they met, was Ran Jing in a state of having just been dumped?

This made him frown slightly.

Because he was used to writing power fantasies, he simply could not accept the female protagonist under his pen being in a state of having just been dumped by another man upon her first appearance.

He believed his previous readers would also find it hard to accept such a female protagonist.

What is a power fantasy like?

The female protagonist must not only be original, but you cannot write that she has loved another man.

Therefore, readers who like to read power fantasies generally hate literary youth plots.

And the female protagonist's imperfection, having loved others, and being deeply hurt by another man, seems to be what literary youth authors love to write most, and what literary youth readers love to read most.

To make life bearable, must one wear a bit of green on their head?

This writing style made Cao Sheng find it hard to put pen to paper.

At this moment, it was as if two little figures were fighting in his mind—the figure named "Reason" reminded him: The current reader demographic is mostly literary youth; you must cater to their tastes. The figure named "Emotion" said to him: Can you fall in love with a woman who has just been dumped? You yourself cannot accept it; do you want the male protagonist under your pen to truly fall in love with her? Can you write such a story? Are you being too cruel to the male protagonist under your pen?

"Damn it!"

After struggling for a long time, Cao Sheng blurted out a curse.

He simply could not accept the female protagonist under his pen having just been dumped, so he made up his mind and wrote down the setting for the female protagonist: Ran Jing's lover had just died in a car accident.

This was the limit he could accept.

He could accept the female protagonist under his pen being widowed, but he could not accept her being divorced or broken up with.