Chapter 4: Preparing the Outline, Searching Online

That evening, before going to sleep, Cao Sheng had been working on the outline for his new book.

Even after getting into bed and before falling asleep, the only thing on his mind was the outline for his new book.

He had written many books before, but never before starting a new one had he put such serious effort into the outline, because this new book was different.

First, this was the first book he had written after being reborn; he wanted to write it well, aiming to become famous with a single work.

Second, he felt that web novels likely did not exist yet in the current era; his book was very likely to be the first web novel in this timeline. If it truly became the first web novel, it might be studied repeatedly for many years to come, so he hoped to do his utmost to make the quality of this book better, and even better.

Third, this was his first time writing a Typical work of pure love. He did not plan to write a long novel of two or three million words, but intended to finish it within a few hundred thousand words. With such a short length, the plot could not be written loosely, or the entire book would appear empty and meaningless. Furthermore, because the length was not long, the structure of the full text had to be tight. As a pure love novel targeting the literary market, the overall plot also needed to follow a proper progression of introduction, development, climax, and resolution; it could not be written as a power fantasy that was gratifying from start to finish.

Such a progression of introduction, development, climax, and resolution in the plot needed to be designed in advance. If he improvised only while writing the main text, it was very likely that the structure of the article would become unbalanced. For example: if the gratifying portion was too long, it would filter out the literary readers; then, when writing the heartbreaking plot, readers accustomed to the gratifying plot beforehand would be unable to accept it. This structural imbalance would please neither side.

It would drive away the literary readers and disgust the readers who liked power fantasies.

To make the plot of this book a little better, Cao Sheng had decided that night, as he was falling asleep, that he would work only on the outline until before the New Year.

The main text would not begin until after the New Year.

Preparing the outline for a few extra days would certainly be beneficial and never harmful.

Moreover, it was only seven or eight days away from the New Year. After the New Year, he would definitely visit relatives and pay New Year greetings to elders, just as he did in previous years.

During the New Year greetings, he would inevitably have to speak and interact with many people, and eating and drinking were also unavoidable; this would certainly distract his mind.

Therefore, if he wrote a few chapters of the new book's main text before the New Year, and then continued writing the main text after experiencing a few days of New Year greetings, it was inevitable that there would be inconsistencies in his state of mind and condition. The quality and style of the main text might show discrepancies between the beginning and the end.

He had experienced this before.

Every New Year affected his writing state.

The content written before and after the New Year always showed differences in quality and style.

Since he was not in a hurry to write the main text, the next morning, after breakfast, he said hello to his parents and set off for the county town.

He decided to find an internet cafe in the county town to search online and check whether "The First Intimate Contact" had been published yet.

This matter was very important to him.

It determined whether he truly had the opportunity to become the progenitor of web novels.

It was not that he was particularly vain; rather, he was very clear about how great the difference in treatment was between being first and second in this world.

Many people remember the name of the first web novel, but how many people remember the names of the second or third web novels?

However, in this era, transportation in their area was inconvenient. There were no asphalt roads or concrete roads, only gravel roads. There were no buses to the county town, only diesel-powered tricycles. They ran only a few times a day, and the departure times were irregular. Such tricycles would only start driving once the passengers on board were almost full, or if they truly could not wait for any new passengers.

Cao Sheng did not want to take such a vehicle, because sometimes he would have to wait one or two hours, or even longer, just to get one.

He went to the county town by bicycle.

The gravel road was very uneven.

The shock absorption of the bicycle was very poor.

By the time he reached the county town, he was sweating profusely, and his buttocks were aching from the vibration. This was also somewhat related to the aging of the seat on his family's bicycle.

The aged seat, every time it vibrated, would make the springs inside the seat press against his tailbone, causing pain.

Upon arriving in the county town, he rode his bicycle down several streets before finding an internet cafe.

This was mainly because internet cafes were still not very common in their county town during this era.

Before, when he was in high school, he had not even heard of such a thing as an internet cafe in the county town.

After locking his bicycle, Cao Sheng walked into the internet cafe and started up a computer.

The scale of this internet cafe was not large; it had only twenty or thirty computers. They were all old-style computers with square monitors, the configurations were not high, and the internet speed was frustrating.

Regarding this, Cao Sheng had been mentally prepared and was not picky.

After turning on the computer, he searched online for "The First Intimate Contact." To his delight, nothing was found.

As a precaution, he searched again for the author "Pizi Cai."

This time, there were search results; he found more than one Pizi Cai.

But none of the Pizi Cais had any connection to the book "The First Intimate Contact."

Naturally, this result made Cao Sheng extremely delighted.

He felt as if he could already see the laurel wreath of "Progenitor of Web Novels" placed upon his head, from which point he would ascend to the peak of life. Publishing, film and television adaptations, and everything else would be available. After becoming a renowned new writer known across the entire internet, beautiful, wealthy, and virtuous women would start winking at him and writing love letters.

Hmm, writing love letters was still very popular in this era.

However, he did not dare to indulge in such daydreams for too long, because the current internet fees were quite expensive. The small internet cafe he had found charged five yuan per hour.

The cost of one hour equaled his food expenses for an entire day.

And money was what he lacked most right now.

He had very little pocket money, only the few dozen yuan of living expenses he had saved during his last semester at university.

Therefore, he did not stay in this internet cafe for more than one hour before getting up and leaving.

In this less-than-one-hour period, he searched for several novel websites he remembered from his memory.

He did not search for Qidian, because he knew Qidian was founded after the year 2000.

He vaguely remembered it was founded in 2002.

But...

What surprised him was: none of the several novel websites he searched for yielded any results.

It seemed they had not been founded yet.

Finally, he searched for the website "Rongshu Xia" (Under the Banyan Tree).

This time, he did find it.

This gathering place for literary enthusiasts in his impression was something he originally did not want to consider. He always felt he was not literary enough and that he did not fit in with this website.

But there was no choice; the several websites he wanted to find currently had no trace.

Even this Rongshu Xia, according to the information Cao Sheng found in his search, was founded on December 25, 1997.

In other words, it happened at the end of last month.

Because today is January 20, 1998, on the lunar calendar it still falls within 1997.

By the calendar, this banyan tree spot hasn't even been around for a full month yet.

If it weren't for the fact that he really had no money, and didn't know how to build a website himself, given the current situation, he'd have wanted to just set up his own novel website and be done with it.

Fortunately, he still had his wits about him.

He knew that a novel website was not something he was qualified to play with.

Even if he could rely on his foreknowledge advantage to build his own novel website early, in a few years' time his site would still be crushed by other novel websites.

Because whether it was funding or technology, he had no advantage whatsoever.

—Better honestly write my novel!

As he walked out of the internet café, he said this to himself in his heart.

……

Over the next few days, all the way until Piao Chuxi Eve, he was preparing the outline for his new book.

This was the most earnest, and also the most detailed, outline he had ever written in his career.

As the outline grew more and more detailed, and the number of plot adjustments grew more and more frequent, his confidence in this new book grew stronger and stronger in his heart.