Chapter 309: Don't Touch Randomly!

The restroom here at Bihai Lanting is quite spacious.

This one in the hallway, once pushed open, has a mirror and sink directly facing you on the wall.

To the left by the window is the toilet.

Further left is the shower.

The key issue now is that the toilet is still a bit far from the restroom door.

If Li Luo simply reached in a hand, Ying Chanxi probably couldn't reach it.

Fortunately, Li Luo had his own solution; he fetched a clothesline pole from the balcony, hooked one end into the gap of the tissue box, then knocked on the restroom door: "I'm opening the door."

"Hmm..." Ying Chanxi inside the restroom blushed slightly, then watched as Li Luo opened the door a crack.

The next second, a pack of tissues was thrust straight at her on the clothesline pole, leaving Ying Chanxi stunned.

"You, you could have just opened the door and handed it to me."

"That would be so impolite."

Ying Chanxi took the tissues with a speechless expression.

After completing the task, Li Luo returned to the door of Yan Zhusheng's bedroom, knocked after opening it, and said to Yan Zhusheng inside: "Shall I cook for you now? We should be able to eat around noon."

"Oh." Yan Zhusheng climbed out of bed, put on her slippers, and trotted happily into the kitchen behind Li Luo. While Ying Chanxi was still in the bathroom, she took the apron off the wall and put it on herself. "Let me help."

Although having Ying Chanxi assist in the kitchen was still the most convenient and effective, since this meal was only for Yan Zhusheng, Li Luo didn't demand too much.

The two of them got busy in the kitchen.

Ying Chanxi finished using the toilet quickly, washed her hands, and came out. Hearing the commotion in the kitchen, she walked over to take a look.

"What are you two doing?"

"She hasn't eaten lunch yet, so I'm stir-frying two dishes for her."

"Didn't we buy groceries this weekend?" Ying Chanxi walked into the kitchen and asked with a suspicious look.

"She went to buy them this morning."

Hearing this, Ying Chanxi immediately glanced at Yan Zhusheng, who was seriously washing vegetables, saw the apron she was wearing, and pressed her lips together.

"Zhusheng, how about I help him assist?" Ying Chanxi stood behind Yan Zhusheng and asked tentatively.

"No need." Yan Zhusheng shook her head. "Xixi, you have class this afternoon, so don't trouble yourself."

"Hmm... actually, I wasn't very full at noon either. Li Luo, make a bit more?" Ying Chanxi added, "I want to eat too."

"That could work." Li Luo looked at the ingredients Yan Zhusheng had bought; making an extra dish of tomato and scrambled eggs was no problem.

The rice had just started cooking, so washing in a little more wouldn't hurt. "Are you sure you still want to eat?"

"Yes, I want to eat."

"Alright then." Li Luo smiled helplessly, washed a little less than half a bowl of rice more for her, then planned out a plate of tomato and scrambled eggs before continuing to prep and chop vegetables.

Just then, Ying Chanxi squeezed in between Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng, took the knife from Li Luo's hand, and said: "Let me help you; you just stir-fry."

"Don't get your clothes dirty."

"It's fine; I'll have to wash this school uniform anyway when I get back tonight."

Yan Zhusheng turned to look at Ying Chanxi chopping vegetables seriously, then turned back and continued washing vegetables seriously, though with slightly more force.

By around noon, three dishes were out of the wok and plated, and the rice was almost done.

The three of them sat at the dining table, and Li Luo watched the two girls eat.

At that moment, the sound of a key unlocking the door came from the entrance. Xu Youyu entered from outside with her schoolbag on her back. As soon as she stepped in, she smelled the fragrance, looked at the dishes on the table, and immediately sighed: "You should have said earlier that we'd be eating here at noon; if I had known, I would have come straight over."

"Can you even get up in the morning?" Li Luo asked with a soul-searching question.

"Uh..." Xu Youyu avoided Li Luo's gaze with a bit of guilt, chuckled awkwardly twice while scratching her face, "If you had told me earlier, I would have crawled over."

"Well, thanks for your support then."

"You're welcome." Xu Youyu changed into slippers, walked into the kitchen, took a small pudding from the fridge, then flopped onto the sofa, scrolling through her phone while sucking on the small pudding.

After finishing the meal, Ying Chanxi was the first to put on her schoolbag and leave for school.

Yan Zhusheng obediently cleared the table and went into the kitchen to wash the dishes.

Li Luo walked over to the sofa, sat down, leaned in a comfortable position, and took out his phone to scroll through it.

Seeing this, Xu Youyu immediately rolled over, put her two legs on Li Luo's thighs, lay comfortably on the sofa, and after finishing the small pudding, didn't throw it away but continued biting the remaining small wooden stick.

Li Luo rolled his eyes at her, patted her white legs, and said: "Are you not embarrassed?"

"Why should I be embarrassed?" Xu Youyu said with a grin. "It's already good that I'm not asking you to give me a massage."

"Actually, that could work too." Li Luo nodded. "Consider it using up the reward you won from the bet."

"You're dreaming." Xu Youyu chuckled. "Good steel must be used on the blade's edge; I can't waste it casually."

After saying this, Xu Youyu turned to glance at Yan Zhusheng still washing dishes in the kitchen, then asked quietly: "You haven't told me the details about the matter related to the Great God yesterday. Will the summer writer salon directly select Great Gods?"

"It's not a direct selection, but Great God reserves who are already set in stone can negotiate contracts with Qidian in advance." Li Luo pointed to himself. "Do you understand?"

"Tsk." Xu Youyu's pale, tender feet stepped a few times on his thigh. "Don't get too arrogant."

"I'm just stating the facts." Li Luo smiled. "And since you also received an invitation, it means you are also a Great God reserve this year, just not to my level yet."

"Huh?" Xu Youyu was stunned for a moment. "My editor didn't tell me this."

"Do you think ten-thousand subscriptions are like cabbages at Qidian?" Li Luo rolled his eyes. "Those who can reach ten-thousand subscriptions are basically recommended by editors, but since this is your first book, the word count isn't high, the channels aren't exploding, the copyright hasn't been sold, and you only have the subscription achievement of ten thousand, so the probability is very small."

"Your editor probably thought the chances were slim too, so they didn't tell you."

"To avoid you having greater hopes and greater disappointments, affecting your mindset."

After hearing him out, Xu Youyu was speechless: "You said a whole bunch, but in the end, there's still no chance, right? I thought I could be a Great God too."

"You will have it in the future." Li Luo pinched her soft calves. "Within three years, you will definitely become a Great God."

"So confident in me?" Xu Youyu raised her eyebrows and smiled, not minding Li Luo pinching her leg at all, as if it were natural.

"The ten-thousand subscription achievement is already a very good foundation." Li Luo said. "If you can write this book to over two million words and make another effort in the next book, it will basically be secured."

In 2015, achieving ten thousand subscriptions was still rare; Qidian had only two or three hundred titles reaching that mark.

If counting only those during their serialization period, it might be just a few dozen.

Among them, more than half were likely works by Platinum-level masters.

So if you hit ten thousand subscriptions, your competitiveness was already very strong.

Unfortunately, Literary Era was both an entertainment-themed novel—hard to sell rights for—and unpopular on distribution channels, lacking the strength of I Am Really Not a Star, and its average subscription was barely ten thousand, placing it among the lowest priority tier among all ten-thousand-subscription serials.

Thus, Literary Era was essentially a runner-up this year.

After all, selecting masters didn't rely on average subscriptions but on sales revenue, though generally the two were positively correlated.

For example, Li Luo, by now, had earned two to three million yuan in royalties from his book, proving that I Am Really Not a Star's total sales exceeded five million yuan.

And those five million yuan in sales were mostly earned over the past six months.

In other words, if extended to a full year, this was a guaranteed blockbuster with over ten million yuan in sales.

The only pity was that Li Luo's book rights were also hard to sell, but even just this subscription performance was enough to secure him a master title.

"Sigh…" Xu Youyu, hearing this, felt no confidence herself, "I'll do better with the next book… You make it sound so easy, but how can that be guaranteed?"

After finishing Literary Era, Xu Youyu felt she had temporarily exhausted her passion for entertainment-themed writing.

Asking her to immediately write another same-genre novel would be unbearable for her.

But if she switched genres for her next book, she doubted she could reach ten thousand subscriptions again, making a master contract unthinkable.

She didn't obsess over the master title, but simply thought that if she became a master, perhaps her parents would stop opposing her continuing to write online novels.

Otherwise, the only appealing thing was the 30-70 royalty split, letting her earn a bit more pocket money.

Yet after hitting ten thousand subscriptions, Xu Youyu earned about thirty to forty thousand yuan per month in royalties; by now, her savings had reached over three hundred thousand yuan.

Even if she spent lavishly on daily expenses, she couldn't possibly use it all.

"By the way, how much have you saved up?" Xu Youyu kicked Li Luo curiously, "Tell me?"

"I'm currently in debt," Li Luo chuckled.

"You're kidding me? Your royalty was 370,000 yuan in February—how could you be in debt?"

"This house still has a mortgage unpaid," Li Luo pointed to the floor, then added, "My family also bought three storefronts; I paid the down payment, half of it is still on loan, so overall I'm still in debt."

"Those are assets!" Xu Youyu rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth, "How much have you made from this book then?"

"Two million plus?"

"Damn!" Xu Youyu couldn't help complaining, "Your average subscription is only a bit over double mine—why is your royalty so much higher?"

"Your distribution channels suck, and your word count is lower," Li Luo shrugged. "My channel royalties are several times higher than the main site's."

"Why is my channel royalty only one-third of the main site's?" Xu Youyu protested. "That's way too big a gap."

"Your writing style and approach only appeal to Qidian readers," Li Luo cut straight to the point. "Face reality."

Xu Youyu's style leaned literary, with humor and banter, but all built upon a literary foundation.

Without basic literary taste, it was genuinely hard to appreciate.

This didn't mean her writing was especially literary—just that domestic online novel readers' literary literacy was limited.

Especially among readers on distribution sites, who came from all walks of life, the largest group still had low education and low literary literacy.

This wasn't looking down on them—it was just the reality.

When this group's income surpassed subsistence and they had some disposable income for entertainment, online novels, as a pastime, naturally became more down-to-earth as the audience market sank lower.

In short, the masses had money.

Xu Youyu grew up in a scholarly family, raised under Xu Rongsheng's literary influence, so she simply couldn't write the kind of simplistic online novels others produced.

Even if she forced herself to write them, she'd feel miserable—it would betray her original purpose in writing online novels.

"Sigh…" Xu Youyu sighed again, "When will I ever save enough to buy a house?"

"Why do you want to buy a house?"

"Of course I need my own space," Xu Youyu said matter-of-factly. "A space I can fully control, arrange however I like—just thinking about it sounds wonderful."

"Then work hard," Li Luo smiled, but then Xu Youyu added—

"Hey, when I turn eighteen, can I buy stocks?" Xu Youyu, holding over three hundred thousand yuan with no idea what to do with it, suddenly turned her thoughts to investing.

"No!" Li Luo immediately stopped her. "I advise you to be sensible—investing in stocks might earn you less than the interest from your fixed deposits."

"What if I follow your family's example and buy a storefront?" Xu Youyu pressed. "You bought three—did you make money?"

Hearing this, Li Luo saw potential and asked, "Can you convince your parents to buy one now? You're underage—you can't buy yourself."

"Can't I wait until next year?" Xu Youyu frowned. "I'll be eighteen by then."

"Next year won't work," Li Luo shook his head firmly.

Although Yuhang City's housing prices only slowed their rise after 2018, storefronts on Xijie had skyrocketed since the subway plan was confirmed in late 2015.

By 2016, prices had already reached twenty to thirty thousand yuan per square meter.

Later, after the opening of Tianjie in 2017, Xijie's storefront prices rose more slowly—still profitable, but hard-won.

"I definitely can't buy one now," Xu Youyu pouted. "If I ask my parents to help, how do I explain where all this money came from?"

"Just come clean."

"You want me dead, just say it," Xu Youyu huffed and kicked him.

"Why are you so eager to invest?"

"To make money," Xu Youyu waved her fists. "Once you have capital, you have to find ways to invest and manage it. Isn't that what they say? If you don't manage your money, your money won't manage you!"

"If you manage your money, your money leaves you?"

"Yes!"

"I meant 'leave' as in depart."

"Get lost! Are you cursing me?" Xu Youyu jumped up to grab Li Luo's collar, but he easily pinned her back onto the sofa.

"I advise you to calm down and stick to writing books—that's far more reliable."

Judging from Xu Youyu's trajectory in her previous life, if you only counted the money she earned from writing, the cumulative sales of her several million-word novels with millions of subscriptions each would have made her a millionaire many times over.

But this woman just loves tinkering with all sorts of investment and financial projects; no one knows how her brain is wired—every time she loses money, she slinks back to write a new novel.

This time around, I can't let her fall into this bad habit again.

"What are you doing?" Yan Zhusheng walked out of the kitchen after washing the dishes and saw Li Luo pinning Xu Youyu onto the sofa; he tilted his head and asked.

"Cough…" Li Luo quickly let go and sat back down, clearing his throat. "She just ambushed me—I subdued her."

"It's clearly you bullying me!" Xu Youyu whined. "Zhusheng, come help me—we'll beat him up together."

"Heh." Li Luo sneered. "You think Zhusheng is like you? She wouldn't…"

"Okay." Yan Zhusheng nodded and immediately walked over.

Seeing this, Xu Youyu grinned wickedly, leapt up from the sofa, and lunged at Li Luo.

"Hey! Wait—what are you two doing?! Stop! Don't touch me, damn it!"

…

In the evening, Li Luo and the other two left home together to go to school.

After arriving at Class Eight's classroom, during the first break of evening self-study, Hua Xiuxiu came over with two stacks of paper and handed them to Li Luo.

One was the subject selection consent form; the other was the notice for the summer class-travel activity.

Li Luo took the two documents and skimmed through the subject selection consent form.

Class Eight had forty students total: seventeen chose pure science, ten chose pure humanities.

Of the remaining thirteen, Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng selected Physics, History, and Geography.

The other eleven chose either Physics, Chemistry, and Geography, or History, Politics, and Chemistry.

Have to say, the combination of physics, history, and geography that Li Luo chose is truly a bizarre category.

【140】 Have to say, the combination of physics, history, and geography that Li Luo chose is truly a bizarre category.

【140】 To be fair, Li Luo's choice of Physics, History, and Geography was indeed an odd combination.

I wonder if the school will try to persuade him to change it?

Setting the subject selection consent form aside for now, Li Luo flipped through the summer class-travel notice.

Out of forty students, thirty-one had parents who agreed to participate in the activity.

This surprised Li Luo.

Among them, six students' parents chose to accompany them.

That meant the number of participants would be far higher than Li Luo had originally expected.

Fortunately, Li Guoru had already booked the entire countryside resort—otherwise, it was uncertain whether they could even fit so many people.

Li Luo didn't know that.

When he'd asked Hua Xiuxiu to draft the summer class-travel notice, he'd specifically instructed her to place the names of Teacher Kong and Teacher Ding at the bottom, and emphasize the phrase: "Led by Li Guohong and Lin Xiuhong, the two class monitors' parents."

He did this to take responsibility for the event himself, so Teacher Kong wouldn't feel too much pressure and refuse to come due to the hassle.

But that single phrase convinced many parents to agree, causing the turnout to exceed Li Luo's expectations.

After all, this was Li Luo, the class monitor of Class Eight!

At both parent-teacher meetings, all the parents had clearly heard from the homeroom teacher.

Li Luo was the only top student among all parallel classes who consistently ranked in the school's top forty!

And now this activity was being organized by Li Luo's own parents—of course their children should participate.

Any parent capable of raising a child as outstanding as Li Luo must be trustworthy.

Even the six parents who chose to accompany them weren't just worried about safety—many wanted to meet Li Luo's parents privately, to learn how to better educate their own children.

They didn't expect their kids to become as brilliant as Li Luo—just a little improvement in grades would be fine.

If Li Luo knew the real reason, he'd probably laugh and groan at the same time.

Especially when he saw Lu Jiahao's parent had also chosen to accompany them—he was genuinely surprised.

After reading both documents, Li Luo went to Kong Junxiang's office, submitted the subject selection consent form, and explained the details of the class-travel activity.

The following week marked the final week of the semester.

After school on Friday, July 3rd, Li Luo and the others would enter their first high school summer vacation.

During the final week at Fuyi High, Li Luo also wrote furiously, finishing over half his assignments.

But the teachers had prepared far too much work—he simply couldn't finish it all in a week.

This summer's homework was two or three times heavier than the winter break's, making even Li Luo, who possessed the Memory Palace, sigh in despair.

During that week, homeroom teachers across all classes—including Kong Junxiang—occasionally called students in for chats.

The topics were predictable: they asked students who hadn't chosen pure science or pure humanities whether they intended to change their subject selections.

Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng naturally refused outright; Kong Junxiang said nothing more.

But on Friday noon, after lunch, Li Luo happened to see Kong Junxiang on the way and went over to greet him, then asked: "Teacher Kong, how's the subject selection grouping going? Any results yet?"

"How fast do you expect?" Kong Junxiang chuckled. "It'll take at least a bit longer before results come out."

"What about the numbers for each subject combination? At least a rough estimate?" Li Luo pressed.

"Well," Kong Junxiang glanced at him, then looked around to confirm no one was nearby, before lowering his voice: "Pure science has over two hundred, just under three hundred."

"Pure humanities is close to two hundred."

"The rest are scattered: Physics-Chemistry-Geography has sixty to seventy, History-Politics-Chemistry has fifty to sixty, and the rest are your kind of niche combinations."

Li Luo nodded—he understood. The overall numbers matched closely with Class Eight's internal distribution.

In the end, only four classes would be newly formed under the reformed system; the majority would still be pure science and pure humanities.

"So should we change our subject selection?" Li Luo asked curiously.

"Not necessarily," Kong Junxiang glanced at him. "But Ying Chanxi from Class One chose the exact same subjects as you two—did you two make a secret pact?"

"Heh." Li Luo smiled, avoiding a direct answer.

Kong Junxiang let out a sigh, then shook his head with a bitter smile: "You should have told me earlier. Now it's truly a bit of a trouble."

"What do you mean?"

"I originally wanted to fight for the homeroom teacher position for the Physics-Chemistry-Geography track. Since you and Yan Zhusheng both chose Physics, History, and Geography, sharing two subjects, we could put you in the same class."

"That sounds great."

"But now there's also Ying Chanxi," Kong Junxiang said, rubbing his temples. "You three are the only ones in the whole school who chose Physics, History, and Geography, but Ying Chanxi is Teacher Sun's favorite from Class One. What if he comes and fights me for it?"

"Uh..." Li Luo fell silent upon hearing Kong Junxiang's words.

He thought it was some major issue, but it was just this?

For him, it made no real difference whether the homeroom teacher was Teacher Kong or Teacher Sun.

Hearing Kong Junxiang say that, he felt much more at ease.

"Then I wish you success, Teacher Kong," Li Luo nodded contentedly, waving cheerfully. "I hope to see you again in the second half of the year."

"Why do I feel you aren't the least bit reluctant to part with me?"

"How could you say that?" Li Luo said with a serious expression. "You are my favorite homeroom teacher. I'd love for you to be our homeroom teacher in the future too."

"At least you have some conscience..."