Chapter 215: Embrace

After returning from the airport, Li Luo and Ying Chanxi played games all afternoon; after dinner, Ying Chanxi went next door to do her competition-class homework.

One has to admit that even though she hoped to spend a bit more time with Li Luo before traveling abroad, Ying Chanxi still made an effort to maintain her habit of continuous study.

In terms of attitude toward learning, that alone was enough for Li Luo to learn from for a long time.

However, Li Luo wasn't bad either; after finishing dinner, he helped his mother wash the dishes, then returned to his room to continue typing.

Probably because the words he wrote were becoming more valuable these days, Li Luo was now full of enthusiasm for typing.

The massive traffic from last month, after being digested for a month, had completely transformed into nourishment for "I Really Am Not a Star," which it absorbed and digested.

Now that the average subscription had surged to 18,000, February still maintained good growth.

Not only did the daily bestseller ranking stay in the top three of the urban category, but after the February monthly votes were refreshed, the monthly vote ranking also stabilized in the top ten of the overall list.

For Li Luo, a pure newcomer, this was already an extraordinary achievement.

Moreover, it was unknown whether it was due to "The Rings" before.

Now, every time Li Luo wrote about the protagonist plagiarizing a certain song, readers would spontaneously run to the comment sections of apps like QQ Music for that song to collectively organize team-building activities.

Most comments were like, "The novel-exclusive background music is here," "Listening while reading, hahaha," "Why is it all fellow travelers?" and "Laughing to death, another song played by Li Gou."

However, the songs Li Luo plagiarized were all classic good songs, so these comments from readers didn't stir up any waves.

According to Li Luo's estimate, if he could maintain the current growth rate, even if the speed dropped slightly later, this month's average subscription should be able to break through the 20,000 level.

Thinking this, time smoothly arrived at the morning of the 3rd.

Qidian's royalty income was released.

Just like on the 3rd of every month before, since Li Luo already had an expectation for his main site income, he wasn't particularly eager and clicked on the backend royalty page very calmly.

But the next second, his expression froze, he blinked his eyes, and suspected he had seen it wrong.

Total royalties — 375,687.35.

Huh?

Huh?!

Li Luo's head instantly rushed toward the computer screen; thinking he was seeing things, he hurriedly clicked to open the royalty details.

Among them, the income from the Qidian main site was 157,669.83, that is, over 150,000, which was consistent with his data performance from last month.

After all, the average subscription suddenly jumped from over 8,000 to 18,000; at the beginning of January, he updated 100,000 words in one breath, and calculating the whole month, the update word count was 300,000, equivalent to updating 10,000 words a day for a month.

Having 150,000 in royalties was considered a normal level.

But...

What the hell is 210,000 in channel income?!

Although Li Luo had once heard of Qidian's glorious channel income in the past, since he hadn't experienced such somewhat ethereal things in his previous life, he hadn't held much hope.

At most, it would be on par with the main site income, right?

What the hell is it being tens of thousands higher than the main site income?

Li Luo was immersed in a state of shocked confusion.

And in Changning City, Qianzhou, upon seeing the royalty data on the backend, almost howled like a wolf in the office.

Especially since his data here was more comprehensive; it wasn't just the royalty data for "Rekindle," but also the sales data of his book across various channels, the growth situation of various rankings, and so on.

One could say the situation was extremely favorable!

【Qianzhou】: Did you see the royalties? You exploded! You completely exploded!

【Qianzhou】: For other books on channels, they usually go on a few channel websites first; if the effect is good, they will gradually appear on other channels.

【Qianzhou】: But because you applied for an exclusive interview activity with Yuan Wanqing, Wen Yue internally also wanted to try out the effect, so this time you directly appeared on all of Qidian's internal channel distribution websites.

【Qianzhou】: More than ten major distribution channels all exploded!

【Qianzhou】: You have to know that channel settlements are first split fifty-fifty by them; once it reaches Qidian's hands, it is then split fifty-fifty with the author.

【Qianzhou】: So your 210,000 in channel royalties, converted into sales data, is equivalent to bringing over 800,000 in sales to the website in just one month!

【Qianzhou】: Plus the main site sales, it's definitely a million-level blockbuster book!

【Qianzhou】: Books like this, only a few are produced in a year!

【Qianzhou】: Rekindle! Brother Ran! You will definitely be a Great God next year! I said it!

Looking at the barrage of messages popping up on QQ, Li Luo's originally somewhat shocked mood gradually returned to calm.

Seeing his own editor more excited than himself, Li Luo couldn't help but feel a mix of laughter and tears.

But thinking about it, it made sense.

Qianzhou had only just become a new editor last year; his original goal was simply to work hard to achieve results, meet the targets specified by the company, stay in the company smoothly, and not be eliminated by the bottom-ranking system.

But who could have thought that among the first batch of premium books cultivated by this brother, a freak like "I Really Am Not a Star" would emerge.

Such sales data was truly a bit outrageous.

But under the cooperation of the exclusive interview with Yuan Wanqing, it wasn't an impossible thing to happen.

After all, although Qidian's main site conducted the exclusive interview joint reading activity, and Yuan Wanqing also reposted the link to the relevant activity on Weibo,

the number of people who could actually be driven to Qidian's official version to spend money reading was, after all, a minority.

Most of the others would mostly be driven to various pirated websites.

However, in reality, in this era, not everyone knew how to use the internet for searching.

In the years of 2014 and 2015, many people were just starting to get in touch with the internet, and smartphones were just beginning to become popular.

Under such circumstances, quite a few people would also be driven to the various channel websites of the Wen Yue Group.

Some people who had never encountered piracy, after reading the first 200,000+ words of free content, would suddenly face charges; with their hearts itching from reading, they couldn't help but pay.

These readers couldn't distinguish between piracy, official versions, channel sales, and so on; if it was good, they read it; looking at just one chapter cost only a dime or two, it seemed not to cost much money, so they read on in a muddled way.

Don't look at how "I Really Am Not a Star" had very high royalties in January; in reality, the number of readers across the entire network who truly paid to read this book was probably around 100,000.

Among these, only about 20,000 to 30,000 were full-subscription readers.

And the vast majority of veteran netizens active on major Tieba forums and Weibo, the free readers of pirated versions, number at least several times that figure.

Li Luo's current book has already surpassed three hundred thousand total favorites on the main Qidian website.

But the number of readers who purchased the full subscription is actually less than twenty thousand.

Not to mention many readers never even downloaded the Qidian app, searching directly on pirated sites instead.

The number of people in that group is even more impossible to calculate.

【Chong Ran】: Brother, don't get too excited.

【Chong Ran】: Anyway, thank you for your care. Next time we meet, I'll treat you to a good meal.

【Qianzhou】: Good, good, good!

【Qianzhou】: Thanks to you, my salary and performance bonus have increased quite a bit, plus there's a bonus too, hehe.

After chatting with Qianzhou for a couple of sentences and confirming the time and place for the meeting on the 6th, Li Luo stretched his arms and began thinking about how to share this good news with his parents.

But tonight is definitely not appropriate.

By three in the afternoon, Li Luo stopped typing on the keyboard, stood up, and walked to the door of the next room to knock.

Ying Chanxi ran over to open the door.

Li Luo glanced toward the kitchen and indeed saw that Ying Zhicheng had returned and was busy inside.

"You're here?" Ying Chanxi winked at Li Luo and pulled him into the living room.

Ying Zhicheng in the kitchen heard the commotion in the living room and couldn't help but glance over.

When he saw Li Luo, his expression shifted slightly; not knowing what he was thinking, his face looked rather strange.

"Sit anywhere," Ying Zhicheng said toward the living room. "You and Xixi play for a while first; tonight, our two families will have a proper meal together. Tomorrow morning, Xixi and I will go traveling abroad."

"Hello, Uncle Ying," Li Luo greeted politely.

Ying Chanxi beside him looked at her father, and seeing him continue preparing dishes, she quietly leaned close to Li Luo's ear and said, "Go help my dad."

"Oh." Li Luo nodded, and just as he was about to stand up after sitting on the sofa, he was pushed back down.

But immediately, Ying Chanxi pushed him back down again.

"Don't rush; I haven't finished yet," Ying Chanxi said. "If you go over directly and say you want to help, my dad will definitely refuse."

"He's too proud; if he sees that you cooked the dishes for him, he definitely won't be able to save face."

"So, watch me in a moment."

Li Luo nodded to indicate OK, then began watching Ying Chanxi's performance.

He saw Ying Chanxi stand up, walk to the kitchen door, and say to Ying Zhicheng, "Dad."

"What is it?"

"Teacher Sun asked us to join a voice chat in the QQ group to explain the questions released this morning," Ying Chanxi said.

"It might take an hour or two. I'll have Li Luo watch TV in the living room for a while."

"You two shouldn't go into the study and disturb me, okay?"

"Oh." Upon hearing it was for a class, Ying Zhicheng immediately nodded. "I understand, go ahead."

So.

Not long after Ying Chanxi walked into the study, Li Luo walked to the kitchen door, coughed twice, and asked Ying Zhicheng:

"Uncle Ying, need any help?"

"Oh?" Ying Zhicheng looked at this great writer with a half-smile on his face, but thinking of the young man's cooking skills, he glanced toward the study, then nodded. "Alright, come help me with the prep work."

Li Luo felt Ying Zhicheng's gaze on him was somewhat strange, but didn't think much of it. After entering the kitchen, he quickly took charge of everything, and in just an hour or two, prepared a table full of rich dishes.

Ying Zhicheng, watching from the side, recalled the situation regarding the lyricist and composer of "Chong Ran" that his secretary had reported to him a while back, and his expression immediately became quite complex.

This young man has been hiding quite deep.