Chapter 96: This Is What I Deserve

Huang Qingya pursed her lips, her eyes dancing with light as she cast him a sidelong glance. She raised a hand to push up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose, then rose with a smile and sat on his lap. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she looked into his eyes from close range and said softly, "Happy New Year! Is this okay?"

Cao Sheng held her waist and asked with a smile, "What was it you said you came here for today?"

Huang Qingya: "To help you clean, though it seems I don't need to now."

As she spoke, her gaze swept left and right, seeing that the apartment was quite clean.

Cao Sheng: "Who says? You don't need to clean the house, but I haven't showered today. Why don't you wash me clean? That can count as you helping me clean. One shouldn't forget their original intention!"

Huang Qingya felt like laughing; she bit her lip and looked at him.

Seeing her like this, Cao Sheng scooped her up and walked toward the bathroom.

"You're getting more and more shameless. And you call yourself an up-and-coming writer! You're dragging down the average quality of writers..."

From inside the bathroom came Huang Qingya's soft rebuke.

Outside, snowflakes were drifting down in abundance.

Wei Dongming, who had just left after drinking with Cao Sheng, looked up at the falling snow as he walked. Under the pitch-black night sky, the snowflakes drifted down in thick clusters; when they passed through the light of the streetlamps, every single flake seemed clearly visible.

This scene made him feel a sense of loneliness and desolation.

Then, being careless, he stepped on something and fell to the ground with a thud, splashing water everywhere.

At the same time.

In Cao Sheng's bathtub, water was also splashing everywhere.

The difference was—Wei Dongming was full of gloom, while Cao Sheng was having a great time.

So it is said, the joys and sorrows of people are not connected.

Late at night.

Huang Qingya lay against Cao Sheng's chest, as if eavesdropping on the secrets in his heart, but she said, "This New Year, I wrote the beginning of a novel. I'll bring it over next time I come; can you take a look for me?"

Her words reminded Cao Sheng of her status—a secretary at the Writers' Association.

Working at the Writers' Association, her writing skills should be decent, so it wasn't strange that she could write the beginning of a novel.

"Sure, bring it next time."

A few days later.

When Huang Qingya came again, she brought the novel opening she had mentioned.

It was a stack of manuscript paper written with a fountain pen.

Her handwriting was beautiful, looking neat and tidy, yet it carried a natural, free-spirited flair—much prettier than the manuscript Cao Sheng had written back then.

As for his manuscript, his roommates and teachers had all given up on the idea of trying to understand the content of his work through his handwriting.

It was so scrawled that few words could be easily recognized.

However...

The content of the novel Huang Qingya wrote left Cao Sheng more and more speechless the more he read.

The literary pretension was too strong.

The title was *The Little Woman in the Sword-Wielding Sect*.

The opening was also the plot of the Sword-Wielding Sect opening its mountain gates to select new disciples.

But it was written from the perspective of a beautiful deacon within the Sword-Wielding Sect.

The opening featured this beautiful deacon sitting behind the window of a wooden building, reading a book while intentionally or unintentionally keeping an eye on the new disciple selection in the plaza below.

Huang Qingya described the white clouds in the sky, the layered mountain peaks in her field of vision, and the roars of exotic beasts that occasionally drifted from deep within the mountains; she even wrote about a flock of small birds darting between heaven and earth.

Then, based on this scenery, she extended it to the beautiful deacon's mood and memories...

Cao Sheng flipped over a page of letter paper; the content was the beautiful deacon's memories. He flipped over two, three, four pages, and it was still the beautiful deacon's memories.

In the memories, it detailed how the beautiful deacon had struggled step by step from a new disciple to become a deacon.

Interspersed within were two men who had romantic entanglements with this beautiful deacon.

"Is this a romance novel you're writing?"

Cao Sheng, leaning against the window reading the manuscript, turned to ask Huang Qingya, who was sitting at his computer surfing the web.

Huang Qingya looked over. "Is that not allowed? As a woman, must I also write that kind of fighting and killing Xianxia cultivation like you?"

Cao Sheng: "That makes sense. But since you're writing romance, why use the background of a Xianxia world?"

Huang Qingya smiled. "Xianxia is popular right now! You made Xianxia popular, yet you ask me why I'm using a Xianxia background?"

Cao Sheng chuckled. "Fair point. However, I don't really understand the style of romance novels, so my opinion might not be accurate."

Huang Qingya: "It's fine, just tell me how you feel. Do you think writing it this way is attractive?"

Attractive my foot!

Cao Sheng wanted to roll his eyes.

He was used to fast-paced web novels; even the slow-paced ones weren't as slow as this opening Huang Qingya had written.

Before his rebirth, the concept of the "Golden Three Chapters" had spread among web novel writers, and later, some even proposed that readers must be hooked within the first three hundred words.

This was all to grab the reader's attention as quickly as possible.

The competition was so fierce that it left little room for slow-paced works to survive.

Like Huang Qingya's opening of several thousand words, all dedicated to the female lead's memories—in his eyes, this was a sure way to fail.

Moreover, although Huang Qingya's handwriting was beautiful, her writing style didn't make him feel amazed.

With a dragging pace and a writing style that wasn't stunning enough, how could readers be interested in continuing?

Cao Sheng wanted to say: You write very well, don't write anymore in the future.

But Huang Qingya was his woman after all, so he couldn't bring himself to say such hurtful words.

Therefore, he pondered for a few seconds and said with a smile, "You write quite well. However, as you just said, I made Xianxia cultivation popular, so I personally feel that if you use the skin of Xianxia cultivation to write romance, many readers might find it very uncomfortable. This isn't your problem! It's the problem of the readers and me. Do you understand what I mean?"

Huang Qingya frowned as she looked at him.

After thinking for a while, she asked, "Do you mean I shouldn't use the skin of Xianxia cultivation to write this story?"

This was the conclusion Cao Sheng hoped she would reach.

So, hearing her ask this, Cao Sheng smiled and nodded. "Yes! But my opinion might not necessarily be correct. After all, it's a work! It still needs to be tested by the readers; perhaps many readers will like it, who knows."

After a pause, he decided to speak a few truths.

He looked down at the manuscript in his hand and said, "However, if I were to write this kind of love story, in the opening part, I wouldn't write so many flashback scenes. I would describe the scenery in the beautiful deacon's view in a few words, and then, write about her gaze unintentionally catching a certain youth participating in the selection in the plaza below. It is just this unintentional glance that makes her originally cold and indifferent eyes flicker, as if recalling some past events.

But the flicker in her eyes quickly disappears, and she continues to read her book, yet she frowns frequently, seemingly unable to focus on the content anymore. After a few times like this, she sighs softly, puts down the book in her hand, and calls her maid's name. After the maid appears, she instructs the maid to check the identity of the youth below, and just as the maid is about to leave to investigate, she calls the maid back, seemingly hesitating, and asks the maid to tell the deacon in charge of the assessment to ensure that the youth below can successfully join the Sword-Wielding Sect."

Cao Sheng squinted his eyes, speaking while thinking. After finishing, he looked up and saw that Huang Qingya had already come to his side. One of her hands was silently touching his chest, and her beautiful eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses were staring at him without blinking.

"What are you doing?"

Cao Sheng asked.

Huang Qingya made a sound, then took the initiative to lean in and kiss him on the lips.

Cao Sheng was stunned, a thought flashing through his mind: I helped her come up with so much of the plot; this treatment is what I deserve.