Chapter 8: Publication

At 11:00 PM, the lights in the teaching building were turned off.

Cao Sheng, having written another two chapters of his manuscript tonight, packed his things, left the teaching building, and walked toward the school gate at a leisurely pace.

The reason he was in no hurry was that he estimated the overnight sessions at the internet cafes hadn't started yet; going too early would be useless.

Emerging from the school gate, one could immediately see some snack stalls set up on the sidewalk not far away, where some young men and women were already eating.

Feeling a bit hungry, Cao Sheng walked over and ordered a bowl of spicy hot pot.

It was quite cold in the middle of the night during this season; eating something hot like spicy hot pot could make his stomach feel more comfortable and warm his body up.

Eating piping hot spicy hot pot in the cold night wind had a unique appeal.

Once full, he walked along the wall on the west side of the school, remembering that there were a few internet cafes in that direction.

However, this was outside the school, and Huizhou was not a large city; the streetlights at night were very dim, and some were even broken.

Those who were timid might not dare to walk this road alone at night.

Cao Sheng didn't care.

He didn't know if it was because domestic public security was so good, or if he just naturally carried an air of "poor but tough," but in his original timeline, he had lived to be 40 and walked these night roads many times without ever encountering a single bad person.

Occasionally, when he met strangers on the road in the middle of the night, they would usually keep their distance with a wary look.

……

A moment later, Cao Sheng arrived at a small internet cafe called Starry Sky.

This internet cafe was a converted self-built house, with a dozen computers in each room; the owner was an older youth wearing glasses, with an honest-looking face.

In his original timeline, whenever Cao Sheng came out to go online, he would come to this internet cafe, and he had a good impression of the owner, which was why he came here tonight.

After a brief exchange with the owner and paying the 15-yuan overnight fee, the owner turned on a computer for him, and Cao Sheng’s overnight session began.

Cao Sheng noticed that most people in the internet cafe were playing games.

He had no interest in games and didn't know much about them, only recognizing *Red Alert* and *Age of Empires*.

He also saw people watching movies or TV shows on their computers, and others browsing forums or listening to music.

No one was chatting on QQ.

Because in this day and age, there was no QQ yet.

Cao Sheng opened a document on his computer, flipped open the manuscript he had brought, and by the light of the computer screen, read a sentence from his draft and touch-typed it onto the keyboard.

It was very awkward.

Firstly, for the manuscript written on draft paper, he had to lean in close to see what was written by the light of the computer screen.

Since it was already the overnight session, the owner had turned off most of the lights in the cafe; at this hour, even if the owner were willing to turn them on, the other overnight customers would protest.

Therefore, Cao Sheng did not suggest turning on the lights to the owner.

Secondly, the keyboard in this internet cafe was very difficult to use.

Before he transmigrated, because he was a full-time writer, the keyboards he used were all carefully selected.

Although they weren't expensive—he only bought ones that cost about a hundred yuan each time he replaced them—what era was that? The quality of keyboards around 2020 was far better than what was used in internet cafes now.

Moreover, the keyboards he bought were short-travel, capacitive keyboards that were very suitable for typing.

The effort required to type was about the same as that of a laptop keyboard.

But now?

The key travel of the keyboard in front of him was so long that if he typed with the force he was used to, no characters would appear at all. To get characters to appear, he had to strike the keys hard; after typing just a few hundred words, Cao Sheng felt his fingertips going numb.

He was very unaccustomed to it!

But he knew he had to get used to it, because the computer hardware level of this era was limited; even if he changed to another internet cafe, the keyboards would be much the same.

Only when he earned enough money to buy a laptop would the typing experience be more comfortable.

Time flowed slowly.

In the internet cafe, some people were still playing games; some were quietly watching movies or TV shows; some got up to buy instant noodles from the owner, filling the cafe with the smell of instant noodles, and of course, the smell of cigarettes.

It seemed that from the moment internet cafes were born, they carried the smell of smoke.

Wearing headphones and listening to music on loop to block out the outside world, Cao Sheng continued to input the manuscript from his draft paper into the computer document bit by bit.

He had gradually adapted to the keyboard in front of him.

It was just that his typing speed was still not as fast as before he transmigrated.

Before he transmigrated, he could type about 2,500 to 3,000 words per hour.

But tonight, he didn't need to use his brain to think of the plot; he was just transcribing from his draft into the computer, and he could barely manage to input about 2,000 words per hour.

Every time he input 2,000 words, he would take a short break.

By the time the sky outside the window was turning light, he had uploaded 10,000 words to the computer.

To prevent the manuscript uploaded to the computer from being lost due to a sudden crash of the internet cafe computer, he saved a copy to his email account every 2,000 words.

Yes, there were already email accounts now.

He had specifically registered an email account tonight.

Before registering the account, when he searched for email services, he discovered that the first domestic email service had only launched in November of last year.

It had only been a month or so since then.

If the point in time he had transmigrated to had been any earlier, there would have been no email to use.

At this moment, having uploaded 10,000 words, Cao Sheng felt his whole body relax.

He didn't plan to continue uploading the manuscript today.

He was tired.

After sitting in his seat and resting for a while, and drinking two sips of plain water that had long since gone cold, he logged into the website "Under the Banyan Tree."

He silently registered an author account and browsed the site for a while; this literary website, which was still very primitive, currently only featured short stories.

There were short essays, poems, and diary-style mood shares.

The only thing missing was medium-to-long-length stories.

At least, he hadn't found any.

Zhongyuan Yidianhui...

Cao Sheng glanced at the pen name he had just registered, smiled silently, and began to publish his new book, *Living with a Flight Attendant*.

He didn't know if this book of his would have a chance to be published in the future.

If there was no chance for publication, then publishing this book now meant he wouldn't earn a single cent; it was completely a labor of love.

This was also the main reason he only planned to write this book to be twenty or thirty thousand words long.

It was a labor of love, after all! The amount of "electricity" generated was naturally limited.

If it weren't to seize the title of "Progenitor of Web Novels," he wouldn't have written this book at all, let alone published it online right now.

In order to make the serialization of this short work last longer, Cao Sheng didn't publish much today; apart from the book title and synopsis, he only published the first chapter.

Furthermore, he didn't plan to update every day.

He had already decided to update at most one chapter every three days.

If the situation required it, he could even update one chapter every week.

In any case, *The First Intimate Contact* hadn't been published yet, so his *Living with a Flight Attendant* was highly likely to be the first web novel; with no competitors, there was no need to get caught up in a race for update speed with others.

Most importantly—he wanted to give this book a longer time to spread.

If he updated too quickly, the book might finish its serialization before its fame had even spread.

And a work that doesn't become popular during its serialization is very hard for people to remember or discuss with others.