[{"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-3":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},2348237,4589,"Chapter 3: The Days of Living with a Flight Attendant","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-3",3,"\u003Cp>That evening, not long after dinner, Cao Sheng went into his bedroom.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he entered the bedroom, he was holding a glass of plain water and a handful of peanut brittle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The peanut brittle was made by his father today.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He closed the door and sat down at his desk.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He dug out a piece of draft paper from his high school days that hadn't been used up, found half a pencil, and while sharpening it with a penknife, he pondered in his heart how to write the opening of his new book.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the day, he had already decided what his new book would be about.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before he transmigrated, he had been a full-time writer for many years; starting a new book was not difficult for him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What was difficult was writing a work that could become a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’s just like making money—is making money difficult for an adult?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course it isn't!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You can make money by picking up scrap on the side of the road to sell.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What’s difficult is making a lot of it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Writing a novel is the same; for someone like him who has written many novels, starting a new one is effortless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The difficulty has always been achieving success.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And now it is the end of 1997; perhaps no one on the internet has written a web novel yet. In this era, what kind of novel could become a hit?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some might think that any novel written in this era would be a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first, Cao Sheng thought so too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after thinking about it carefully today, he felt it probably wasn't that simple.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Why is no one writing novels on the internet in this era?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He suspected that before *The First Intimate Contact* became a hit in his original timeline, some novels might have already appeared on the internet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps those novels didn't become hits, and it wasn't until *The First Intimate Contact* took off that most people who liked surfing the internet noticed web novels, leading many to mistakenly believe *The First Intimate Contact* was the first one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wasn't sure if that was the truth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he felt it was very likely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And why was *The First Intimate Contact* able to become a hit?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He believed there might be two reasons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, the book must have been published on a website where young netizens gathered in large numbers; only with a sufficiently large potential readership is there a foundation for it to become a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Secondly, it should have to do with the book's title and its overall quality.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The title looks a bit \"racy.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Young people are generally interested in such things; if the title hadn't been so ambiguous and exuded a \"racy\" vibe, it probably would have been hard to become a hit in such a short time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides the title, the content of the book was actually very proper, telling a very pure love story, which allowed readers attracted by the title to be moved by the story within.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, because the content wasn't actually racy, those who read the book could recommend it to their friends, or even relatives and elders, without any psychological burden.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In an era where the internet is not yet developed, a work that cannot be spread by word of mouth is very hard to truly become a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Quite coincidentally, *The First Intimate Contact* could be spread by word of mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, there must be a reason why this book was able to become a hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thinking about it carefully, in this era, not just any story can be sought after online.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng summarized a few key elements:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, the title must be ambiguous to catch the eyes of young people; second, the content must not be truly racy—it must be pure love, so that readers won't feel embarrassed to recommend it to others even if they like it themselves; third, the quality of the story must be solid, with enough highlights to move the majority of the \"literary youth\" of this era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Literary youth...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Literary youth seems to be a product of this era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And literary youth have certain requirements for the quality of the writing; it cannot be too plain, and even less can it be like some web novels from his original timeline where there are N typos in every chapter, as that would make the literary youth look down on it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the elements summarized, Cao Sheng felt that these requirements were still quite difficult for him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because in his original timeline, he started writing web novels in 2006.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, the popular style was to have many beautiful women and many suggestive plot points; some authors even wrote straight-up erotica, and readers generally liked this kind of sleazy style.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For many years after, he couldn't shake this influence when writing; his books always had many beautiful women, and he always wanted to write content that would make people's blood boil.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, he was good at writing in a sleazy direction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Writing in a pure love direction, on the other hand, was a huge challenge for him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’s like asking a veteran driver who frequently visits massage parlors and nightclubs to talk about platonic love—the expertise is completely mismatched.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What a veteran driver is good at is \"undressing,\" the kind that takes off pants upon meeting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If you ask him to talk about Platonic spiritual love, isn't that forcing him to do the impossible?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Cao Sheng still wanted to try.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The title of \"Progenitor of Web Novels\" was simply too tempting for him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, he used to read a lot, and during the day, he remembered another pure love novel he had read—*Living with a Flight Attendant*.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his memory, this novel had also been a hit on the domestic internet, and was later adapted into a TV series, which seemed to have decent ratings as well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was hailed as the most popular pure love work after *The First Intimate Contact*.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Comparing the title, style, and quality, this book was almost identical to *The First Intimate Contact*, and it was hard to say which was better.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example: in terms of the title, both books exuded a \"racy\" vibe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example: in terms of style, the content of both was very proper and not racy at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And in terms of quality, both books had once made literary youth flock to them and be unable to put them down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although Cao Sheng had never lived with a flight attendant, he decided to write *Living with a Flight Attendant*.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Who says you can't write such a book if you haven't lived with a flight attendant?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Did those who wrote *Swallowing the Heavens*, *Tearing the Heavens*, *Flying to the Heavens*, and *Covering the Heavens* really do such things to the heavens?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Compared to those authors who couldn't get along with the heavens, he, Cao Sheng, was only writing a work about living with a flight attendant, which was already quite small-minded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’s just that he had long since forgotten the specific content of *Living with a Flight Attendant*.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He only vaguely remembered that the male lead seemed a bit roguish, a bit lazy, and seemed to be a shut-in, while the female lead's name seemed to be Ran Jing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A story about a shut-in living with a flight attendant?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng, having sharpened his pencil, pondered for a while before he began to write, constructing the outline for the book.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First was the process of how the two met.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Logically speaking, a flight attendant and a shut-in have no intersection in their lives, so how did they meet? He had to provide a reasonable arrangement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng thought for a while and suddenly remembered that in the original work, the two seemed to have met at a bar? When they met, was Ran Jing in a state of heartbreak?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This made him frown a little.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because he was used to writing \"satisfaction-oriented\" novels, he really couldn't accept the female lead in his own writing being in a state of having just been dumped by another man the moment she appeared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He believed his previous readers would also find it hard to accept such a female lead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What are \"satisfaction-oriented\" novels like?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The female lead must not only be \"original,\" but you also can't write that she has loved other men.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, readers who like \"satisfaction-oriented\" novels generally hate \"literary youth\" plots.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And a female lead being imperfect, having loved others, and having been deeply hurt by other men seems to be what \"literary youth\" authors like to write most, and what \"literary youth\" readers like to read.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If you want to live a good life, must you wear a green hat?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This style of writing made Cao Sheng a bit unable to put pen to paper.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, it was as if two little people were fighting in his mind—the little person named \"Rationality\" reminded him: the current readership is mostly literary youth, you have to cater to their tastes. The little person named \"Sensibility\" said to him: Can you fall in love with a woman who has just been heartbroken? You can't even accept it yourself, yet you want the male lead in your book to fall in love with her sincerely? Can you write such a story? Aren't you being too cruel to the male lead in your book?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Damn it!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After struggling for a long time, a curse word burst from Cao Sheng's mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He really couldn't accept the female lead in his book having just been heartbroken, so he steeled his heart and bit the bullet to write down the setting for the female lead: Ran Jing's lover had just died in a car accident.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was the limit of what he could accept.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He could accept the female lead in his book being a widow, but he couldn't accept her being divorced or having broken up.\u003C\u002Fp>",1660,"2026-06-21T01:55:54.452Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","481e5e82d35314b302c15525fdccb546b0e7eabeea9c608e8fa60e453b0dc78e","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-4","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-2",338,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fdreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-cover.jpg"]