[{"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-39":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},2348273,4589,"Chapter 39: The Envelope Containing the Sample Book Was Torn","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-39",39,"\u003Cp>Cheng Ying’s words drew the gaze of everyone in the classroom, their expressions varying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some watched the scene with interest; some remained expressionless, the corners of their mouths slightly downturned; others showed envy, and so on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cheng Ying’s request was completely outside of Cao Sheng’s expectations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, Cao Sheng’s expression was very surprised.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What is it like to have your own teacher ask to see your draft? He was experiencing it now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a bit gratifying, but also a bit awkward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A few days ago, Song Chao, who slept in the bunk below him, asked to see his draft. Given that Song Chao and he had a good relationship, he took out a draft. Song Chao couldn't understand his overly messy manuscript. At the time, several other roommates in the dormitory, out of curiosity, also crowded around, but they couldn't understand it either; they couldn't recognize most of the characters on his draft.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Recently, other classmates in their class had also asked him for the draft, all saying they wanted to broaden their horizons and see how the novel he was writing turned out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had brushed them all off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every time, he would have his roommates prove that his manuscript was too messy for anyone to understand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He hadn't expected that today, the English teacher, Cheng Ying, would actually make such a request.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Refusing directly would certainly make her lose face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the blink of an eye, Cao Sheng made a decision and smiled: \"Sure! But my drafts are all in the dormitory. If you really want to see them, Teacher, after class, you can come to the dormitory with me, or I can go to the dormitory to get a draft and bring it to you. It’s just that my drafts are all handwritten and very messy; you might not be able to make them out.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was certain that Cheng Ying wouldn't be able to read his manuscript either, so he said this on purpose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In fact, he had long since converted the entire text of the book *Living with a Flight Attendant* into an electronic document and saved it in his email.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he were truly willing to let her see the draft, he could have easily asked if she had an email address or a floppy disk, and then sent her a copy or copied one for her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he did that, his drafts would be at risk of being leaked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If she forwarded it to other teachers, and those teachers forwarded it further, who knew where it would end up?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If it spread all over the internet, it would inevitably affect the serialization of his book on Banyan Tree. If readers had already read the full text elsewhere, who would come to Banyan Tree to read it again?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, domestic piracy was already very serious. In order to ensure better sales for the book, the publishing house had long ago requested that the final 20 chapters of the book not be serialized online for the time being.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They had to wait until the physical book had been on sale for a period of time before those final 20 chapters could be posted online.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, he could not truly let anyone see his subsequent drafts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if Cheng Ying was his English teacher, it wouldn't do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, he wouldn't voice these thoughts in his heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His answer just now, however, made Cheng Ying very satisfied. The smile on her face deepened significantly. She raised her hand and patted Cao Sheng on the shoulder, praising: \"Not bad! Since you don't have any classes this afternoon after this one, I'll just go to your dormitory with you! That way you won't have to go back to get the draft and then run all the way back here again.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cao Sheng nodded, \"Alright, Teacher!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the surface, he gave Cheng Ying plenty of face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just that...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After class, when Cheng Ying followed the few people from their dormitory, chatting and laughing, to their room, and took the draft Cao Sheng handed her, the smile on her face shifted to the faces of Cao Sheng and his roommates. Cheng Ying looked at the draft in her hands, her expression turning to one of shock. Her slightly open mouth forgot to close. After a long while, she looked up at Cao Sheng in a daze, \"Is this too messy? This draft makes me suddenly doubt whether I even know how to read. Written in this god-awful way, can you even recognize it yourself?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pang Yunhai and the others tried hard to hold back their laughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They had all seen this draft before and had all felt much the same way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as everyone knows, when a group of people tries to hold back laughter, someone will eventually fail. Sure enough, Guan Zhi was the first to lose it, his shoulders shaking with laughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pang Yunhai and the others were already struggling to hold it in, and with Guan Zhi laughing like that, sounds of laughter erupted like a leaking tire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cheng Ying turned to look at them, speechless, and suddenly, she laughed too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the laughter finally subsided, Cao Sheng smiled and explained: \"Teacher, when I wrote these drafts, I never thought anyone would want to see them, so I just wrote as fast as I could, and it ended up like this. I'm sorry! I've disappointed you.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cheng Ying looked at him, then looked down at the draft in her hand, suddenly let out a laugh, and with a look of emotion, handed the draft back to Cao Sheng.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Forget it. Since your draft is like this, I won't look at it. You should keep it safe! If you can become a great writer in the future, although this manuscript might be unreadable, it will surely be worth a lot of money, so don't lose it.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before she had even finished speaking, Pang Yunhai and the others chimed in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Cao Sheng could see that their expressions and tone were very casual; they were all just teasing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And rightly so; in their eyes, he, Cao Sheng, had only written a romance novel, and romance novels were never considered high art.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if his book was going to be published, no one would think he could become some great writer in the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He, Cao Sheng, thought the same himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his eyes, only people on the level of Lu Xun or Mao Dun could be called great writers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Cao Sheng still believed that his manuscript would have a certain collection value in the future because it was the manuscript of the first web novel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first one always has a bit of commemorative significance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After this day, no one in Cao Sheng’s class asked to see his drafts again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The messiness of his manuscript also gradually spread throughout the class.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Time came to the end of June.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The weather became hotter, and the atmosphere in the school gradually became tense. Fewer and fewer people skipped classes or evening self-study sessions. Many students who were usually slackers also became uncharacteristically serious. The atmosphere of study in the school grew stronger because the final exams were approaching.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even Cao Sheng, who had long since lost interest in his accounting courses, had recently paused his writing during evening self-study to start seriously reviewing the courses for this semester.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because he didn't want to fail his final exams.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he didn't work hard to review now and strive to pass all his courses in one go, if he really failed, he would have to spend time in the next semester working hard to review just to have a chance at passing the make-up exams.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And it was during this tense period that one evening, their class monitor, Geng Yong, habitually turned into the mailroom next to the school guard room as he passed by.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This mailroom was right next to the guard room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Inside the mailroom was a wall of mailboxes, each corresponding to a class in the school.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Mail sent to their school would be placed in the mailbox of the class the recipient belonged to.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The key to Cao Sheng’s class mailbox was usually kept by the class monitor, Geng Yong, and the class's mail was also collected by Geng Yong and brought back to the classroom to be distributed to the recipients.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was one of Geng Yong’s daily tasks as class monitor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Today, as usual, he used the key to open his class's mailbox, reached in to take out all the letters, and then locked the mailbox again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just as he was about to leave with the letters, he suddenly noticed that the envelope of the thickest registered letter had a hole the size of a thumb in it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He subconsciously looked at the recipient’s name on the registered letter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Cao Sheng?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The recipient’s name on the envelope surprised Geng Yong a little.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But it also jogged his memory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He remembered that he had once before picked up such a thick registered letter for Cao Sheng. He also remembered asking Cao Sheng what was inside such a thick registered letter, and Cao Sheng had said it was a few books a friend had helped him buy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Was it books a friend helped buy again this time?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Geng Yong’s curious gaze turned to the hole in the corner of the envelope, and sure enough, he saw that it contained books. Looking at the clean, neat paper, they were clearly new books.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What kind of books were they? Cao Sheng’s writing ability was so strong; could these books be about writing?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Geng Yong’s curiosity was piqued.\u003C\u002Fp>",1611,"2026-06-21T01:55:54.452Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","25eb5ff7eed2882767204d240867befbfa08ce3da1f9ba94ced4e506f78ec9be","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-40","dreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-chapter-38",338,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fdreaming-back-to-1997-i-became-the-forefather-of-cover.jpg"]