Chapter 598: Submit Manuscript or Stockpile Grain?

April 15, Saturday morning.

Zhu Yufei and Zhang Guohuang still got up at six-thirty as usual.

The two goofballs got up in their dorm, washing up in the bathroom with one hand while using the other to cover their asses, preventing each other from pulling the thousand-year kill.

After putting on their uniforms, they sprinted out of the dorm and quickly arrived at the cafeteria for breakfast.

While eating, Zhu Yufei quietly pulled out his phone, using his jacket as a cloak to slightly shield it, munching on a meat zongzi while reading a novel.

"What are you looking at?" Zhang Guohuang leaned over to take a peek.

"What are you looking at?" Zhu Yufei glared at him, telling him to back off. "You're making me stand out—don't let a passing teacher spot you."

"You're still reading the monitor's Bible, huh?" Zhang Guohuang yawned. "I haven't looked at it in ages—it's getting watered down, boring. It's already heading toward six million words, and the female lead still hasn't been pushed at all."

"Is there a possibility," Zhu Yufei said with a detective-like wise expression, adjusting nonexistent reflective glasses, "that she's not being pushed in real life either?"

"So he's just writing his autobiography?" Zhang Guohuang said, dumbfounded. "Then why are you so obsessed with it?"

"It's pirated anyway, free to read—plus, the monitor's career arc with bossing people around and humiliating rivals is still pretty satisfying," Zhu Yufei said. "Besides, there's something new lately."

"What?"

"The drama 'Little Joy' that filmed us—should be coming out soon, probably in July."

"How do you know?"

"It's written in the book," Zhu Yufei chuckled. "Our divine god's ancestral cross-promotion technique—this is the monitor's exclusive secret. Other entertainment novelists can't even learn it."

"He's going to write about the main character filming 'Little Joy'?!" Zhang Guohuang exclaimed.

"Not going to write—it's already written," Zhu Yufei nodded. "And Li Yang and Shen Dongdong are starring as the childhood friends, male and female leads."

"Aren't you worried 'Little Joy' won't blow up?" Zhang Guohuang rubbed his chin, concerned. "Copying songs was one thing—each song's content is small, so even if one song is mediocre, it won't hurt much."

"But a TV drama? Even if it's a hit, it's still hard to pull off."

"Especially since 'Little Joy' isn't a traditional urban drama—I remember it's about the college entrance exam, right?"

Zhu Yufei nodded, then shook his head: "I think the college entrance exam theme is great—definitely high热度. Besides, we've read 'Little Joy' ourselves—it's genuinely well-written."

As they talked, they finished breakfast. Zhu Yufei put away his phone and stood up with Zhang Guohuang to head to class.

On the way, Zhu Yufei continued: "I think the monitor isn't just setting up 'Little Joy.'"

"In recent chapters, it mentions that Mo Qinghan's national concert tour will include performances of new songs from 'Little Joy.'"

"So at Yuan Wanqing's concert, Yan Zhusheng will probably show up and sing a new song too."

"Oh, by the way, there's one more thing."

"More?" Zhang Guohuang was surprised. "What else could there be?"

"There's another thing I'm not entirely sure about," Zhu Yufei scratched his head. "The main character, Li Yang, seems to be planning to write an Online Novel."

"In recent plotlines, Li Yang's company acquired an Online Novel website—sort of expanding a side storyline—to build up the company's IP adaptation library."

"But there are two other websites on the market that are also quite strong—some basic groundwork has been laid there."

"Then Li Yang apparently plans to personally write a blockbuster to drive traffic to the site, and he even mentioned developing some new feature—I don't really get it."

Zhang Guohuang listened, bewildered. When they reached the classroom, he looked at Li Luo, already seated: "Why don't you just ask the monitor directly?"

"Good idea." Zhu Yufei nodded and strode over to Li Luo's back, curiously asking, "Monitor."

Li Luo paused mid-motion—still tying Ying Chanxi's ponytail—and turned to look at Zhu Yufei.

Zhu Yufei's face twitched as he got hit square in the face with dog food, but he still asked: "I've noticed your updates say Li Yang's going to write a new book—is this another text plagiarism?"

"This?" Li Luo smiled, turned back to finish tying Ying Chanxi's hair, then said slowly, "Did you go read the pirated version again? If you'd checked Qidian's today's splash screen, you wouldn't be asking me this."

Zhu Yufei froze, as if guessing something, his face twisting into disbelief.

He retreated to his seat, glanced left and right. Seeing morning self-study was still over ten minutes away, he patted Zhang Guohuang's shoulder and whispered: "Watch out for me."

"What are you up to now?"

"The monitor just released a new book."

"Huh?"

While Zhang Guohuang was still stunned, Zhu Yufei quickly pulled out his phone, hid it under the desk, and quietly opened the Qidian app.

The next second, the screen loaded the app's splash page.

A dark-toned promotional poster greeted him.

In dark gold characters, swirling dramatically across the top, were five large characters: Night Watch of Great Qian.

In the lower right corner, vertically labeled, was the author's pen name: Chongran.

Since the splash page lasted only three seconds, Zhu Yufei didn't have time to examine it closely.

So he exited the app and reopened it, trying to take a screenshot.

But when he re-entered, the splash page had changed to a different promotional image.

This one was brighter, with the same five characters written across it: Chapter Comments Are Coming~

Zhu Yufei had been waiting for the splash page to appear so he could immediately tap into the details page—but没想到 the ad had switched, and he'd clicked right in.

But he hadn't clicked wrong.

Because once inside the "Chapter Comments Event" page, the top-ranked book cover was unmistakably Night Watch of Great Qian.

Curious, Zhu Yufei glanced briefly at this "Chapter Comments" thing, then suddenly understood.

He immediately tapped into Night Watch of Great Qian's page, clicked "Read Chapter," eager to see what Li Luo had written.

More than ten minutes passed.

He had carefully read the first three chapters—about eight thousand words total.

He was fully immersed; when he reached the end of chapter three, he instinctively tapped to turn the page—only to find nothing more.

At that moment, Zhang Guohuang quietly tapped Zhu Yufei's desk, giving the warning signal.

Zhu Yufei snapped back to reality and hastily shoved his phone into his desk drawer to hide it.

The next second, the bell for morning self-study rang out.

Kong Jun walked in from outside and began assigning tasks for morning self-study.

But he only stayed in the classroom for a few minutes before leaving again, saying he'd return a few minutes before morning self-study ended to arrange dictation.

So after Teacher Kong left, Zhang Guohuang and Zhu Yufei immediately began whispering to each other.

"What were you just looking at? The class monitor's new book?"

"Yeah, called 'Night Watch of Great Qian'—kind of a bold name," Zhu Yufei said, still savoring it, "Too bad it's only three chapters; I shouldn't have read it."

"How's the content?"

"The beginning felt pretty interesting."

"Later during self-study, lend me your phone and let me take a look."

"Sure."

After they made the arrangement, they returned to their morning self-study.

When morning self-study ended and the first period of Saturday morning self-study began, English teacher Ding Xiang came to supervise.

Zhang Guohuang, seated in the back row, leaned against Zhu Yufei's lookout and read through the opening of Li Luo's new book.

"Holy shit, this is actually good," Zhang Guohuang whispered after finishing. "It's different from his urban novels."

"Give it back once you're done," Zhu Yufei whispered. "I haven't tried the new feature yet."

"What new feature?"

"The Chapter Comments—it's like the danmu on video sites," Zhu Yufei said, glancing at Teacher Ding, who was explaining a problem to a student, then burying his head back in his phone.

Zhang Guohuang leaned over, watching as Zhu Yufei opened the Chapter Comments page for Chapter One, and was instantly surprised.

"You can write comments directly inside the book?"

"More than that," Zhu Yufei said. "You can comment on every single line."

"Can you do that in other books too?"

"Only the latest few new titles have the test feature enabled," Zhu Yufei said. "Maybe they'll roll it out fully later—it's pretty interesting."

The two whispered to each other, were caught twice by Ding Xiang and scolded, then settled down.

But as soon as the first self-study period ended, news of Li Luo's new book spread quickly through the class.

And while this news was spreading in the class, it was already fully circulating throughout the Online Novel community.

……

After school at noon, Li Luo and the other two returned to Bihai Lanting.

Xu Youyu, who was typing in his bedroom, heard the noise and hurriedly called Li Luo inside.

"Hey, I found Chapter Comments kind of interesting," Xu Youyu said as Li Luo entered, lying on the bed with his two pale legs propped up. "I think this feature will really help your new book's performance."

"You think I waited for this feature to launch for no reason?" Li Luo smiled, sat on the edge of Xu Youyu's bed, and stretched.

"But some comments in your comment section aren't good," Xu Youyu warned. "Aren't you going to explain?"

"Explain what?" Li Luo shook his head.

As soon as 'Night Watch of Great Qian' was released this morning, many of his longtime readers found out immediately.

Some readers suspected whether this guy had given up on his old book and was abandoning it?

After all, this wasn't the first time it had happened in the Online Novel community.

So some loyal fans of his old book posted doubts and condemnations in the new book's comment section.

Especially readers who only liked urban novels and entertainment-themed stories—when they saw Li Luo's new dual-release wasn't even set in an urban world, they felt betrayed and angrily accused him of being irresponsible to his readers.

Then they deliberately nitpicked, claiming his new book had problems everywhere, that the tone was all wrong.

In short: finish your old book properly first.

"I expected this before I launched," Li Luo said, shaking his head. "As long as the old book keeps updating normally, these voices will fade naturally—the key is whether the new book's quality is solid."

"Your quality isn't solid?" Xu Youyu grinned, placing his pale legs on Li Luo's lap, holding his phone. "I think this opening is amazing."

Li Luo smiled, thinking that blending in several hit-design elements naturally gave it some substance.

The main plot framework of 'Night Watch of Great Qian' borrowed from 'Da Feng,' opening with a life-or-death crisis to introduce the protagonist's environment and background, and preliminarily establishing characters and relationships.

The moment the protagonist is reincarnated, his entire family is thrown into prison.

Relying on his past-life criminal investigation skills and the golden finger awakened in his mind after reincarnation, plus case files provided by his fiancée's outside contacts, he barely clears his family's wrongful conviction.

With the family's injustice resolved, the golden finger triggers feedback—the protagonist realizes that after resolving others' wrongful cases, it absorbs grievance qi and converts it into righteous qi.

Righteous qi aids cultivation, nourishes the soul, and has the special effect of repelling demons and evil spirits.

With this as the opening, the plot unfolds slowly; by Chapter Three, a brief daily transition is inserted—the protagonist resumes his former official post, and the first volume officially begins.

Here, Li Luo imitated the tax silver case from 'Da Feng,' made slight modifications, and added a golden finger mechanism similar to 'Great King, Spare Me.'

Paired with the clichéd fiancée trope, it forms a complete ancient fantasy framework blending court intrigue and martial world drama.

"So how much draft do you have left?" Xu Youyu asked curiously.

"Only about thirty thousand characters," Li Luo recalled briefly. "Can't stockpile too much during the new book phase—might still tweak the plot later, need some room for revisions."

"Thirty thousand characters," Xu Youyu licked his lips. "That's not too little, Chongran~ hmm~"

"What are you hmm-ing for?"

"Don't you understand what I mean?"

Li Luo smiled, tossed Xu Youyu's pale legs aside, then pressed himself on top: "I don't get it, Youyu—what exactly are you suggesting?"

"What are you doing?" Xu Youyu's face flushed red; he pushed Li Luo's shoulders with both hands, pouting. "I'm just your fan—I only wanted to peek at your draft. Chongran, what are you trying to do?"

Wow.

Li Luo was momentarily stunned—he had to admit, Youyu's immersion speed was unmatched.

"You want to see the draft… or something else?" Li Luo raised an eyebrow, gently guiding Xu Youyu's hand downward.

"You, you can't do this…" Xu Youyu looked like a startled little rabbit, his face flushed with panic, cheeks burning red. "I just liked reading your books—I never thought you'd be like this in real life, wu-wu… mmm!"

I don't know if he read the backup chapters.

At least the grain deposit was paid.

(End of Chapter)