Chapter 83: Forced Transformation at Rongshuxia

In mid-November, the second and third volumes of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* were released simultaneously in the mainland market, drawing tens of thousands of fans to snap them up. The book's popularity expanded further, driving the sales of the first volume to exceed 400,000 copies.

The individual sales of the second and third volumes continued to soar, catching the attention of many mainland publishing houses.

Huacheng Publishing House, Tianjin Publishing House, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, Daxiang Publishing House, and many others contacted Cao Sheng through various means, wanting to commission him for new work.

All were politely declined by Cao Sheng on the grounds that the remaining length of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* was still quite long and he had no time to start a new book for the time being.

In mid-December, the fourth and fifth volumes of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* were released simultaneously in the mainland.

Sales hit new highs.

Sales of the first volume exceeded 700,000 copies.

Sales of the second and third volumes also broke through 500,000 copies each.

The momentum of the fourth and fifth volumes was even fiercer than in November.

In just two short months.

*I Desire to Become an Immortal* had no equal in the mainland publishing market.

Its popularity on the internet also continued to climb.

Its fame had already surpassed Cao Sheng's previous work, *Days of Living with a Stewardess*.

However, the recent sales of *Days of Living with a Stewardess* were also rising, seemingly driven by the hot-selling *I Desire to Become an Immortal*.

The serialization speed of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* on Rongshuxia had accelerated starting in November, becoming one chapter per day.

Just by updating one chapter a day, the fans were already pleasantly surprised, and the review section became much more harmonious.

Critical reviews decreased significantly, while posts of encouragement and support grew substantially.

Then, other authors suffered.

For any work that couldn't manage a daily update, readers in the review section would always use the update frequency of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* as an example to provoke the author.

Things like: "The quality isn't as good as *I Desire to Become an Immortal*, and the update speed isn't either. No wonder you're a failure!"

"Updating one chapter a week? Author, are you writing with your feet? Why don't you go see what the speed is like for *I Desire to Become an Immortal*?"

"Updating one chapter every three days? Author-kun! You need to work harder! Even a donkey on a production team wouldn't dare to be as lazy as you!"

"Author! Learn from *I Desire to Become an Immortal*! With updates this slow, no wonder your popularity can't rise and no publisher is interested in you."

And so on.

It angered other authors so much that some simply chose to abandon their works.

Some personally entered the fray to argue with readers.

Others gritted their teeth and tried hard to persist with daily updates.

But books that insisted on daily updates didn't necessarily see positive results; some works saw their quality plummet due to the forced daily schedule, and their popularity actually continued to decline.

Only a few authors could maintain the quality of their work while persisting with daily updates, allowing their popularity to continue rising.

And as the sales and popularity of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* continued to soar, the number of Xianxia and cultivation works on Rongshuxia also increased.

Many authors who previously wrote short pieces began switching to long-form writing.

When Rongshuxia announced a new batch of published works in mid-December, the new Xianxia and cultivation books on the site saw a surge.

Because this time, Rongshuxia announced the publication information for seven Xianxia and cultivation works in one go.

Such as: Jin Hezai's *Dark Cultivation*, Annie Baby's *Legendary Cultivation Couple*, Li Xunhuan's *Beneath the Immortal Sky*, Xing Yusen's *Descendant of the Rogue Cultivator*, Cai Jun's *Ten Great Unsolved Cases of the Cultivation World*, and so on.

After seeing the sales of Cao Sheng's *I Desire to Become an Immortal*, the mainland publishing market, having failed to secure a manuscript from Cao Sheng, turned its gaze to other similar works on Rongshuxia.

Then, the most popular books among these works entered the sights of these publishers and received opportunities for publication.

These authors were following Cao Sheng's trend.

These publishers were following the trend set by Changjiang Literature and Art.

Both sides hit it off immediately.

This made other authors so envious their eyes turned red.

Anyone with a bit of confidence in their writing wanted to try their hand at writing a Xianxia or cultivation novel to taste the experience of being published.

In this day and age, there were too few channels to monetize culture.

Previously, the threshold for domestic publication was also a bit too high for most literature enthusiasts.

Unless one was a famous author, it was very difficult for a written work to find a chance to be published.

But without being published, one could never become a famous author.

And in this day and age, the status of a literary figure with published works was very high.

The dream of many literature enthusiasts was to have their own works printed in lead type and published.

But previously, it was too difficult for domestic works to get published.

For most literature enthusiasts, it was already quite rare to be able to publish one or two small articles in newspapers or magazines.

Writing a novel and having it published as a book?

This was something most people didn't even dare to imagine.

Therefore, when everyone saw Jin Hezai, Annie Baby, and others successfully publish novels by following the trend of *I Desire to Become an Immortal* by Zhongyuan Yidianhui, the atmosphere at Rongshuxia changed.

The number of people writing poetry, prose, and short stories decreased rapidly.

Authors writing Xianxia and cultivation novels sprang up like bamboo shoots after a rain, with dozens or hundreds appearing every day.

Under these circumstances, the Rongshuxia editorial department held several meetings.

The topics of these meetings were all: Should Rongshuxia transform? Should the site change its main focus to Xianxia and cultivation? Or to long-form novels?

That night.

Rongshuxia's station master, Zhu Weilian, locked himself in his office, mindlessly browsing the Rongshuxia webpage, his brows slightly furrowed, unable to relax.

Rongshuxia was both his entrepreneurial project and the vessel for his literary dreams.

As an American-born Chinese, he saw the development prospects of the internet in America and believed that starting a literary website in the mainland had potential.

So he returned to start Rongshuxia.

At first, Rongshuxia attracted many literature enthusiasts just as he had expected, and there were also some magazines and publishers interested in cooperating with Rongshuxia.

This allowed him to see a way for Rongshuxia to be profitable.

As long as it could be profitable, Rongshuxia could continue to develop and walk on the path of sustainable growth.

But now...

*I Desire to Become an Immortal* by Zhongyuan Yidianhui had led his life's work—Rongshuxia—astray.

Rongshuxia was a literary website.

But literature was not just long-form novels.

And long-form novels were not just limited to the Xianxia and cultivation genre.

But what about now?

Poetry, prose, diaries, and short stories—hardly anyone was publishing them anymore; most authors were writing long-form novels, and most of those were writing Xianxia and cultivation.

Could such a Rongshuxia still be considered a literary website?

He had attended the editorial department meetings over the past few days.

He knew everyone's thoughts.

They were nothing more than two options: either keep the site's style unchanged, or transform the site to focus primarily on long-form serialized novels.

But he knew clearly in his heart that most of the authors on Rongshuxia only had the ability to write short stories; the quality of the long-form novels written by these people could not reach the standard for publication.

If it really transformed into a site focused on long-form serialized novels, the number of works that could actually be published would be very small, and Rongshuxia's profitability might drop significantly.

Unless...

They could raise capital.

Use other people's money to burn, use other people's money to provide nutrition for Rongshuxia, and as time went on, the number of authors on Rongshuxia capable of writing good long-form novels would naturally increase.

By then, Rongshuxia would be able to restore its profitability, and perhaps even have stronger profitability.

Financing...

Could they raise capital?

What could they use to secure financing?

The five characters "Zhongyuan Yidianhui" flashed through his mind.

Zhongyuan Yidianhui was now the most famous and highest-selling bestseller author in the country, and this author was currently on their Rongshuxia.

If Rongshuxia could be tied together with Zhongyuan Yidianhui, they should be able to raise capital, right?

The problem was—how could they tie themselves to Zhongyuan Yidianhui? Zhongyuan Yidianhui was currently only a resident author on Rongshuxia; although there was cooperation, there was no binding relationship between the two, and Zhongyuan Yidianhui could leave Rongshuxia at any time.