Chapter 71: Savings Soar, A Visit from the Writers Association

Two days later, Cao Sheng received an email notification from Wang Jing at Under the Banyan Tree—Huacheng Publishing House had deposited the advance royalties for the second printing of 200,000 copies into his account, asking him to check it.

Checking royalties was something Cao Sheng enjoyed; that afternoon, when he went to school for class, he stopped by an on-campus ATM to check.

Before buying the house, he had over 80,000 in his account.

But after buying the house and a computer, his account balance dropped by over 24,000; adding in the furniture, bedding, pots, pans, and other items purchased after moving in, he only had about 50,000 left.

Actually, if one counted the 50,000 he had given his parents earlier, the money he earned in the first half of this year was quite substantial.

It was just that for a poor person who suddenly becomes rich, it is hard to save money.

Unless, after becoming rich, one chooses not to improve their life.

But if you become rich and don't improve your life, what is the point of being rich?

Fortunately, his account balance had risen again today.

It had risen to over 110,000.

The advance royalties from Huacheng Publishing House this time were 60,000.

Looking at the numbers in his account, Cao Sheng thought: My savings have finally crossed 100,000.

A few days later, he received another email from Xinchang Publishing House, also notifying him that royalties had arrived and asking him to check.

So, the next morning when he went to school, he went to the ATM to check again.

There was another 14,000 in the account.

Of that, 4,000 was the royalty for the ninth volume of *I Wish to Become an Immortal*, and the other 10,000 was for the first volume of *I Wish to Become an Immortal 2*, which was effectively the tenth volume of *I Wish to Become an Immortal*.

The total in his account became over 130,000.

Thinking that he had earned an extra 6,000 by using the manuscript for the tenth volume, and that he would get an extra 6,000 for every volume from now on, a smile couldn't help but appear on his lips.

This much money gave him thoughts of investing.

He understood that keeping money in the bank couldn't beat inflation; it should be invested to make more money.

But he didn't have the energy for that right now.

Nor did he want to distract himself with investments.

He decided to focus on writing his novel well first and earning more royalties; once he had more capital and time during the holidays, he would consider where to invest it.

He felt the simplest and safest approach was to invest in real estate.

Because the soaring housing prices in his original timeline had left too deep an impression on him.

Many people who sold their houses to invest in businesses struggled for over a decade, only to find that the money they earned wasn't enough to buy back the houses they had sold.

He had also thought about investing in a novel website and using his own novels to attract popularity, but after careful consideration, he felt this wasn't a very good choice.

For one, managing a website would inevitably take up a lot of his time and energy; if he handed it all over to others to manage, who knew when the management might take most of the staff and authors to start their own venture, leaving him having done all the work for someone else's benefit.

For another, while his current money was a significant sum for one person to live on, it would likely be exhausted quickly if used to start a website—rent, servers, utilities, staff salaries, and so on. He didn't want the royalties he had worked so hard to earn to end up paying rent and supporting employees.

Thirdly...

He really liked a line from *Covering the Rain and Turning the Clouds*, a line describing the protagonist Lang Fanyun—because one can reach the extreme of emotion, one can reach the extreme of the sword.

Because he liked this line and the life philosophy it contained, he, Cao Sheng, had always liked to be single-minded in his work, firmly believing that only by focusing on one thing could one possibly take it to the extreme.

Except for that accounting job.

In his original timeline, ever since he started writing full-time, he never distracted himself with other things.

He never engaged in writing two or three books at once.

Even if he wrote a flop, he would persist until he had gained some insight and felt confident he could write a better-performing work before choosing to finish it and start a new book.

He knew his approach was quite foolish.

He had also heard of authors who frequently cut their books short, only to eventually write a profitable work and earn much more than him.

But he remained the same.

He always persisted on the path he had chosen.

Was there any benefit to doing this?

Sometimes, he would waver and want to learn from those smart people—as long as a new book didn't perform well, he would cut it immediately and quickly start a new one; perhaps after enough cuts, he would hit a trend and make a fortune.

But he never did that.

Because every time he looked back, he always found that the authors who were his contemporaries were becoming fewer and fewer; those smart people, after cutting and cutting, would eventually disappear without a trace.

And while he, Cao Sheng, was still an old flop, he could occasionally write one or two books with decent results; after more than a decade in the industry, countless authors had been eliminated, yet he was still able to make a living.

Now, he had been reborn.

He still wanted to put his main energy into writing.

He knew the prospects of this industry.

Authors earning millions, tens of millions, or even over a hundred million a year would appear in the future.

As long as he, Cao Sheng, became one of them, he would never lack money to spend in this life.

So, what was the need to rack his brains to run some website?

He had imagined: if he started a website and published his works there, he would become a competitor to other similar websites and would be suppressed and squeezed out by all of them together.

Conversely, he would become the target that all novel websites wanted to win over and curry favor with.

Perhaps, if there was an opportunity in the future, he would consider buying shares in Under the Banyan Tree or sites like Qidian, but only buying shares.

Later on, if there were opportunities, he would also buy shares in companies like Alibaba and Tencent.

And when the bull market he remembered arrived, he would take the opportunity to multiply his assets several times over.

Would he ever lack money to spend in this life?

Compared to racking his brains to make money, he preferred to continue improving himself in the field of web literature, where he had worked hard for many years, and then compete with the heroes of the world.

Days passed one by one.

In his spare time every day, Cao Sheng basically spent it writing *I Wish to Become an Immortal*, while in class, he basically spent it constructing the outline for *Divine Grave*.

This *Divine Grave* of his and the *Divine Grave* from his original timeline only shared the same title and a similar synopsis.

As for the content, because he really couldn't remember how the original was written, he could only rely on his own ability to write the outline.

This was not something that could be completed in a single day.

During this period, two things happened.

One was that one evening on his way to the cafeteria after class, he was called over by his first love from his original timeline, Chen Shuyun, who then handed him a love letter with a blushing face.

The other was at noon on the day the freshmen's military training was about to end, when two fellow townsmen blocked Cao Sheng outside his classroom door.

Cao Sheng had a slight impression of these two fellow townsmen.

One was the senior student who had guided him through the registration process and taken him to his dormitory when he first arrived at Huizhou Teachers College.

The other was a student union cadre whom Cao Sheng had seen once at a fellow townsmen gathering shortly after enrollment and had encountered a few times on campus since.

And their purpose for coming to find Cao Sheng this time was very simple—to invite Cao Sheng to this year's fellow townsmen gathering.

But Cao Sheng remembered that in his original timeline, he had only been invited to attend a fellow townsmen gathering once, just that first time he entered university.

How come in this current timeline, they wanted to invite me to attend again?

Is it because I'm famous now?

Is it that realistic?

He politely declined, but the two fellow townsmen were very persistent; they kept following him, continuously trying to persuade him, and even followed him into the school cafeteria, still not giving up.

It wasn't until Cao Sheng's counselor, Lu Xiangwei, and the class monitor, Geng Yong, appeared with a charming young woman that Cao Sheng was finally rescued. This charming woman wore gold-rimmed glasses and had a face like a silver platter; the moment she appeared, she caught Cao Sheng's attention.

Because this woman made him think of a honey peach.

As everyone knows, experienced men generally like this type of woman, and he, Cao Sheng, was no exception.

Lu Xiangwei spoke with a smile: "Cao Sheng! Let me introduce you. This is Officer Huang from our city's Writers Association. She came specifically to invite you to join our city's Writers Association. You must not be negligent!"