Chapter 69: 《Divine Grave》

Huizhou Teachers College.

The freshmen of the freshman year had begun their military training. Bursts of slogans drifted into the ears of Cao Sheng in the classroom. Sitting by the window, Cao Sheng would occasionally glance at the freshmen on the playground wearing grass-green camouflage uniforms, unable to help but feel a sense of emotion at how time flies.

In his memory, his own university military training felt like it had only happened a few years ago, but in reality, more than twenty years had already passed.

Before his rebirth, ever since he turned 30, he often wondered who had pressed the time-acceleration button? Otherwise, why was he 40 in the blink of an eye?

He remembered that for a time, a saying was popular online: "You grow old before you've ever been wild."

This sentence resonated with him deeply.

He always thought about working hard on his career and making money first, thinking that once he achieved financial freedom, he would properly enjoy life and travel everywhere.

But his finances were never able to be free.

His savings would rise a little, and housing prices would rise even more; his savings would rise a little more, and the cost of living would start to skyrocket; his savings would rise a little more, and even the bride price for marriage would start doubling and rolling upward.

By the time he finally had a house, a car, and savings, and could afford to marry a wife, the children of his peers were already in middle school; for those who married early, their daughters were already starting to date.

When everyone ate and drank together, they actually started talking about health preservation and retirement.

At that time, he wanted to say: What are you all talking about? I haven't even gotten married yet!

Cao Sheng had no interest in his accounting major courses and would always zone out during class; he had no interest in listening to what the teacher was saying on the podium at all.

Because in this life, he would rather die than be an accountant again.

However, just zoning out like this and constantly looking out the window at the freshmen's military training was also quite boring.

He didn't want to waste time like that.

He took out the draft paper from under his textbook and pondered his next new book.

Although he had no plans to start a new book in the near future—*I Wish to Become an Immortal* could still be written for at least another year or two—there was no rush to start a new one.

But since he was idle anyway, he wanted to take advantage of the fact that *I Wish to Become an Immortal* could still be serialized for a long time to prepare the subject matter and outline for his next book.

What should he write for the next book?

He had already written *I Wish to Become an Immortal* for the Xianxia cultivation genre. For the next book, he wanted to switch to a different subject, walk the paths of those pioneers from his original timeline, and let them try to open up other subjects. If he could get those pioneers to open up new subjects, that could also be considered a contribution by him, Cao, to the web novel industry.

Squinting at the blank draft paper in front of him, various subjects flashed through Cao Sheng's mind.

There were online games, post-apocalyptic wastelands, spiritual energy recovery, the Three Kingdoms period of the Han Dynasty in historical literature, military novels set in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China that he could definitely write now, as well as sci-fi mecha...

And so on.

He even thought of *Card Apprentice* by Fang Xiang.

He also thought of the martial arts novel by Shenji—*Dragon Snake Romance*.

And that masterpiece that won the monthly ticket championship eight times in a row, *Yang God*.

Many of these subjects required a lot of research to be written well.

He really wanted to write Shenji's *Dragon Snake Romance*. He used to love this kind of martial arts novel and would often find it blood-boiling. If this kind of book were written well, it would definitely accumulate a group of die-hard fans.

But...

Reason told him: He should write the subjects that appeared earlier first.

*Dragon Snake Romance* probably didn't appear until the early 2000s, so there was no need to rush to write it.

As for other subjects, some appeared very quickly at the beginning of the rise of web novels.

For example: fantasy, xuanhuan, and online games.

If he didn't seize the time to act on these subjects, they would soon be created by others.

For example, fantasy magic; influenced by *Harry Potter* and other magical works, the fantasy magic subject appeared rapidly at the birth of web novels.

In the first few years when web novels were born, they loved to borrow from everywhere.

The fantasy magic genre borrowed from Western magic stories, while xuanhuan and mecha borrowed from Marvel, Hollywood, and Japanese manga and movies.

Martial arts and wandering hero stories borrowed from Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts novels, manga, and movies.

Superpowers mainly borrowed from Marvel comics.

And so on.

Cao Sheng had never written fantasy magic stories before, nor did he have any interest in writing them.

Xuanhuan, on the other hand...

It was inclusive enough and had enough room for development, so he wanted to give it a try.

Then, some book titles flashed through his mind.

Such as *Battle Through the Heavens*, *Soul Land*, *Holy Ruins*, *Perfect World*, *Magic Law*, *Fated to Fight*, *Beast Blood Boiling*, and so on.

These were all big hits in his memory.

Any one of them, if taken out, could make him both famous and wealthy, earning him a fortune.

But...

He couldn't take them out.

He was not the original author of these books, and even if he were the original author, writing them again would certainly result in something different.

He could only borrow the subject matter and story ideas, and then, relying on his own writing skills, produce a work that looked somewhat similar but was actually quite different.

He pondered for a long time and wrote two characters on the draft paper in front of him: *Shen Mu* (Divine Grave).

This was a work by Chendong from his original timeline.

It could be considered Chendong's deified work.

And this author, Chendong, was different from most authors.

His "flowering period" was exceptionally long.

Other great masters could generally only be popular for a few years; those who could be popular for more than a decade were already rare, but Chendong could be popular for more than twenty years.

From his early work *Immortal and Indestructible*, he started to become slightly popular, and then he just kept being popular.

*Divine Grave*, *World of Immortals*, *Perfect World*, *Shrouding the Heavens*, *Holy Ruins*, and so on.

Over more than twenty years, the web novel circle had changed drastically, and many great masters who were once extremely popular had faded into obscurity, yet he remained as popular as ever.

It was just absurd.

This time, Cao Sheng wanted to borrow the title and creative concept of this deified work of his.

*Divine Grave*...

The story of an ordinary young man who walked out of a divine grave.

This title, combined with the synopsis, could make people's imaginations run wild and arouse a sense of anticipation.

They would look forward to whether this person had found any particularly powerful divine techniques, immortal pills, or magical treasures in the divine grave before walking out? Or perhaps something else.

With this title and synopsis, it could attract countless readers.

To use the industry jargon from before Cao Sheng's rebirth, this was called: "traffic-attracting."

Whether a book's title and synopsis could attract traffic often determined the future and life or death of a book.

A traffic-attracting book could see its popularity skyrocket with just a random recommendation slot; conversely, if you were given the best recommendation slot, because your book didn't attract traffic, you wouldn't be able to increase your data much.

It was just that he could no longer remember the specific content of the book *Divine Grave*.

It had really been too long.

That was the second book Chendong wrote after entering the industry. Cao Sheng read it in the early 2000s, a web novel he read nearly twenty years ago; how could he remember the specific plot?

He could only rely on his own imagination to construct the outline of this book.

For example: Which gods were buried in this divine grave? What divine techniques or unique skills did these gods leave behind? Or perhaps divine weapons and magical treasures?

And...

What kind of name should the male protagonist have? How should his past experiences be set up?

And what kind of world would he face after walking out of the divine grave?

There were too many things that needed him to set up.

When the bell rang for the end of the morning class, Cao Sheng hadn't written many settings on the draft notebook in front of him.

He had only written down the information of two Emperors.

They were: the Antarctic Longevity Emperor and the Arctic True Martial Emperor.

In his setting, these two Emperors had already fallen.